Page 9 of The Beachside Cafe 3
Alex moved the picture again and Jaymee sucked in her breath.
“He’s looking…” Alex said quietly, “at her.”
Jaymee clenched her teeth. “Amanda Dinklage.”
SIX
Armed with a list of addresses, Cameron and Jaymee set out to find Carmine Russo. He had also been in the picture of the IDL picnic. In fact, he had been standing right next to Amanda, a look of pure adoration on his face. It was obvious he worshipped her.
Cameron, Jaymee and Alex all agreed that the best way to capture a woman was to find the man who was weak for her. It was an outdated picture, seven years old by the timestamp. Things had likely changed for the entire staff of IDL in the last seven years.
When they were in the car, heading to speak to Carmine at his home address, Cameron glanced at her. “Can I ask you something?”
Jaymee nodded, pushing through her bag, looking for her chap stick. “Of course.”
“What kind of stuff was Doug doing at IDL? He was in stock and bonds, I thought. A successful day trader. Why would he be working in laboratories?”
Jaymee found her strawberry chap stick and applied it as she answered. “Before he went into trading and all that, he was a researcher. He started out at a university and switched around until he found IDL. He was in love with that job for the first five or six years. But something happened that changed his attitude. He no longer liked it and didn’t even want to go to work somedays. I thought it was a pain having him around all the time. Now Iknowit was a pain.”
Cameron chuckled. “So did he ever tell you what happened that soured it all?”
“No, he never did,” she responded. “But I kind of got the impression he’d been… maybe looked over for a promotion or something that someone else got that he felt like he deserved. He started whining about his colleagues. They didn’t like him or wouldn’t talk to him or were laughing at him behind his back.”
Cameron raised his eyebrows, glancing at her before returning his eyes to the street ahead. “Laughing at him? Sounds like he was struck with a bad case of paranoia. Was he on drugs? Smoking pot, maybe?”
Jaymee laughed. “What a question. Of course not.”
Cameron shook his head, grinning. “No, of course not. I’m just saying if he knew what was going on at that lab, if he was in on it or discovered something he shouldn’t discover, that might be what led to all this.”
“But what did he discover?” Jaymee asked. “I didn’t see anything on his computer other than the blackmail. He didn’t have some kind of conspiracy theory about IDL.”
Cameron shrugged. “I mean, if he worked there, it’s kind of hard to imagine he was too dense to know what they were developing.”
“If he knew that, why wouldn’t he blackmail the CEO when he left the job? Why go after the small fry?”
Again, Cameron shrugged. “I don’t know the answer,” he said. “But it’s something to keep in mind. It might have gotten him killed.”
“True. I think, though, that we should focus on one thing. Finding out who killed him while the detectives go after IDL as a whole.”
“That’s probably wise.” Cameron narrowed his eyes and sat forward against the steering wheel, peering out at the street, running his eyes up and down the sidewalks on either side of the street. “This really, really doesn’t look like a place a researcher at IDL would be staying.”
“It doesn’t look like a place where someone who is being blackmailed would stay either. There’s no money in this neighborhood.”
“Maybe this Carmine Russo is sitting on a fortune but doesn’t want to live somewhere that might be robbed. He’s doing a good job if he’s a rich man hiding out.”
“You’re right.”
They pulled up in front of an old apartment building that looked like it was one of the first buildings to ever grace the coast of California in Grand Bay. Two windows on the second floor were broken out. Graffiti was sprayed down one side of the building and a tremendously large mural of a black man and woman was painted on the other side. Despite the illegality of the art, Jaymee was impressed with the skill.
“Wasted talent,” she murmured as they walked up the stone path to the front deck. There were four steps leading up to it and the right side of the second step was cracked as if a tiny earthquake had rumbled just below it.
“Watch yourself,” Cameron said, steering her far away from the small crack. She gave him an amused look.
“I’ve been walking for a really long time now, Cam,” she said, affectionately.
He grinned and shook his head.
Jaymee scanned the mailboxes, three on each side of the door totaling six.
