Page 2 of The Beachside Cafe 3
If she was, he didn’t notice or say anything. He took another swallow from his glass and said, “I was. I loved Granny. She was the best. She took care of me when my mom and dad were on business trips and vacations alone. We had the best times together. It was a shame when I lost her but the woman was, like, a hundred, so it was no surprise.”
Jaymee was taking a drink when he said that and almost choked, sitting forward and holding one hand under her mouth in case anything came out. She turned her head to look at him, her eyebrows raised.
He laughed softly. “You okay? She wasn’t really a hundred, Jaymee. I don’t know how old she was. She was old. Real old.”
Jaymee swallowed the rest of the drink in her mouth and let out a laugh of her own. “I don’t know why that struck me as so funny, Cam. I pictured you with a little, tiny, ancient woman drinking vodka cocktails. So funny!”
Cameron just shook his head, the loving look on his face warming Jaymee’s heart.
TWO
Jaymee held her purse on her lap, sitting on the very edge of the chair. She expected her lawyer, Noah Elliott, would call her into his office at any moment. He was almost always on time, rarely leaving his clients waiting outside for long.
When his secretary, Samantha, nodded at her, she stood up and went in Noah’s office, opening the door silently and stepping through. Every time she came in his office, she felt like she was walking into the lap of luxury. Noah was very successful and his office décor spoke that in volumes. Jaymee had never used his private bathroom but she was willing to bet there were gold handles on the sink, and the toilet, too.
She’d admired Noah’s work when friends got divorced over the years. He was tough but fair and wouldn’t let injustice stand. She’d personally seen him decimate an opposing witness on the stand who was trying to use the children as leverage, as pawns in a cruel game. He was a good man who just happened to be a lawyer.
She’d only been in Noah’s office a few times over the years, acting as a witness in a deposition for friends and small businesses she supported. In the last week, she’d been to see Noah three times. This was the third time. She’d decided to scan the wall of pictures, which she hadn’t had a chance to do before.
The left wall in Noah’s office was covered about three quarters of the way from the bottom to the top with pictures of Noah’s past accomplishments, celebrities and figures of notoriety he’d had the pleasure of meeting, and news clippings of big wins for him and his firm.
Cheyenne was an assistant at the firm and worked with the various lawyers, Noah’s colleagues. It was because of Jaymee’s admiration for Noah that Cheyenne had taken an interest in law to begin with. She’d heard Jaymee saying over the years that the industry needed a complete overhaul to get rid of corrupt, greedy ambulance chasers. Noah was one of the good ones and, without her mother’s knowledge, Cheyenne had taken up studying law before she was even out of high school.
Noah was seated behind his desk, his head down as he scanned the paper in front of him. He glanced up when she came in and watched her go to the wall.
“Good morning, Jaymee,” he said, his strong voice booming across the room. She turned her head and smiled at him.
“Good morning, Noah. How are you doing?”
“I never complain,” Noah replied with a smile. “You look stunning after your vacation. How are you feeling? Cameron doing good?”
Jaymee nodded, her eyes straying back to the pictures. She was very interested in seeing who Noah had shaken hands with in the past. That was often a reflection of what kind of values a person has. Certain celebrities and people of authority turn the stomach, while others lift up the spirits.
She was halfway down the wall when one of the pictures caught her eye. It wasn’t really the picture that caught her eye. It was the caption underneath.
E-Commerce Conference with Dylan Lianetti
There was a picture of Noah, shaking hands with another man, both of them facing the camera and smiling into it. Noah’s hand was up on Dylan’s back. They were dressed professionally and Jaymee didn’t detect friendship in the smile or the grip they had on each other’s hands.
It was the name that struck her. She was certain it was one of the names on the blackmail list.
Her heart raced briefly. She glanced back at Noah, who seemed to be busy finishing something up. He was probably grateful she was distracted by the pictures. She prayed he wasn’t involved in the situation. But she had to find out.
She tapped the picture with her fingers. “When was this?” she asked.
Noah looked up and focused on the picture, narrowing his eyes. “Uh… I guess about five years ago? Might have been more. We went to law school together. Drifted apart after, though. He went in a different direction than I did.”
Jaymee stared at the picture, taking in Dylan’s face closely. “What does that mean?”
Noah sat back, lifting his reading glasses till they were on top of his head, pushing his salt and pepper hair up. He squeezed his eyes shut, pinching the bridge of his nose with his thumb and fingers. “Oh, he started covering for big corporations that were screwing their employees, investors, shareholders, stuff like that. Basically, he became a mob lawyer. Not for the real mob, you understand, but clients like that. Dylan defends the kind of people who steal other people’s research for profit. I don’t like that kind of work and I don’t like the lawyers that defend them and their lawless acts.”
The IDL came to Jaymee’s mind. The Intersectional Dynamics Laboratories had come into the spotlight when Jaymee and Cameron found information about IDL on Doug’s laptop after he went missing. They were tied to the vial of poison Jaymee had found under the dresser the day Doug disappeared and a second vial found on two brothers who vandalized Jaymee’s café.
They had yet to put the pieces together but Jaymee felt they were progressing nicely. Everything seemed to be pointing to IDL. Doug worked there for years but had left the company roughly five years ago.
Jaymee turned away from the picture and moved to the chair on the other side of Noah’s desk. He sat forward, clasping his hands together. “Why the sudden interest? You know him?”
“I think he’s tied to Doug’s disappearance actually,” Jaymee replied bluntly.
