Page 15 of The Beachside Cafe 4
The couple went in the front door and turned to go down the wide hallway to the very end where a set of double doors stood waiting for them.
Normally, Jaymee would be surprised to see the incredibly secure lab with one of the doors cracked open. But she knew Alex had most likely seen them coming in his CCTV cameras, which were everywhere on the property, covering every inch so no one could get in without someone being alerted. He had opened the door purposefully for them.
When they went in, Alex was seated at one of the computers, surprisingly still. Jaymee was used to seeing him up and running around. He swiveled around in the chair and smiled at them.
“Greetings, my friends!” he called out, throwing his arms out wide and meeting his fingers with his lip on one hand and then the other as if to toss them the biggest kiss ever. “Come on down and show me what you’ve got for me.”
“You know Coulter?” Jaymee asked as they went down the spiral metal stairs to the pit where Alex was sitting. “Daniel Coulter?”
Alex nodded, leaning back in his chair and reaching for a bottle of Coke sitting nearby. “Yep. Chief Financial Officer, IDL, been working there for a good fifteen years or more. The one that was skimming the money from the books. That who you’re talking about?” He took a big drink from his Coke bottle before replacing the screw-on lid.
“That’s the one,” Jaymee responded. “He’s dead.”
Alex raised his eyebrows slightly. “Oh? How’d that happen?”
“We’re not sure yet. But that successfully eliminates him from the suspect list, doesn’t it?”
“Unless he was always responsible and just had us fooled,” Jaymee put in.
Cameron chuckled. “Let’s not make this too complicated. So far this investigation of ours is pointing toward two people. We’d already decided to take Coulter off the list so there’s no reason to suddenly put him back on after he’s been killed.”
“True.”
“Let’s concentrate on Amanda and that Lianetti guy.” Cameron handed the flash drive and the vial wrapped in plastic to Alex, who took them with interested eyes.
“And what do we have here?” he asked, swiveling back to the counter and setting the vial down. He reached over and pushed the flash drive into the side of his laptop. While it loaded, he unwrapped the vial.
“I’m hoping this one has fingerprints or something,” Cameron said. “It’s empty.”
Alex stretched two latex gloves over his hands and picked up the vial, holding it up against the bright light above his head. He squinted through his glasses, scrunching up his nose as if that would help him concentrate. “Na, na, it’s never truly empty,” he said.
He shook the vial a little, lowering it.
“Do you think you can figure out what chemical was in it?” Jaymee asked.
“Likely,” Alex said with a nod. “Believe it or not, there really is still a little in there. All we need is a drop. It hasn’t been sitting there long enough to dry out.” He froze for a moment, his eyes drifting off, giving him a spacy look. “Unless it has. Did you just find it?”
Cameron nodded. “It was under the desk at Coulter’s. The desk he was sitting in when he died.”
“Okay, that’s interesting. This one could have been self-inflicted, you know. The others weren’t so obvious, were they?”
“I don’t think they were, no.” Jaymee was the one who answered his question.
Alex pushed himself out of his chair and crossed to the middle of the room, where a glass case held several pieces of equipment. He unlocked the glass and took out what he wanted, preparing to test the vial.
“We’ve decided it’s got to be Amanda and an accomplice that’s responsible for what we’re dealing with.”
“Just think, if they’d let Doug alone, they wouldn’t be in this mess,” Alex said, narrowing his eyes at Jaymee and tapping his temple. “You’re a dog with a bone, little lady. They messed with the wrong blackmailer’s wife.”
Jaymee laughed. “That sounds like the title of an intriguing book.”
“I do my best.” Alex pushed the vial upside down in a rounded slot in an even bigger circle. He closed the lid and pushed the button on the front. The machine made a soft beep and then began humming quietly.
“And guess who gave me my alibi today, considering I’d left Coulter less than a half hour before his death?” Jaymee asked.
Alex looked at her, returning to his desk and sitting down to look through the files on the flash drive. “I can’t imagine,” he responded.
“Amanda!” Jaymee had to laugh at the startled expression on Alex’s face. “You see, that’s why she’s now at the top of our list,” she continued. “She was acting so fake, so sad that her old friend was dead but Coulter just got through telling me he loved her but she’d never shown any interest after the initial get together. Hadn’t talked to her in ages, he said, and then she turns up asking for his help.”
