Page 8 of The Beachside Cafe 4
Cheyenne grinned, tipping the glass to take another sip. “Yes. You know, when you can’t call it day drinking anymore.”
This made them all laugh. Jaymee put one arm around her daughter’s shoulders and squeezed her in a warm side-hug. “You look good, dear. Tell me what you’re celebrating.”
“I got a promotion at work!”
Jaymee and Cameron showered the girl with praise, congratulating her.
“Let’s get a table,” Jaymee said in an excited voice. “I believe I also want a drink to help you celebrate. And it will help relax my nerves, too. Russo? Two more of these, please for me and Cameron.”
She raised her eyebrows to Cameron and he nodded.
“Are you stressed out, Mom?” Cheyenne asked. The entire group moved as if with one mind to a nearby table where they all took seats.
“We’ve just come from Brian O’Rourke’s,” Jaymee replied. “But let’s not talk about that right now. I want to hear about your promotion.”
Cheyenne paused before spouting out quickly, “I was responsible for the successful negotiations that ended up shining bright lights and big money on the law firm and they made me Executive Assistant Coordinator. It’s a completely different job. I’ll be basically supervising the lawyer’s assistants instead of assisting the lawyers myself. That’s the long and short of it. Now tell me… what happened with Brian O’Rourke? You’re talking about the city councilman, right? That Brian O’Rourke?”
Jaymee giggled at her daughter’s curiosity. “I’m glad to hear about your new position,” she said. “Maybe we can talk more about it later?”
Cheyenne grinned. “Okay. So spill. What happened?”
Jaymee was amused by the way both Cheyenne and Alex leaned in, their eyes intense. They would be drinking in every word she said.
Trying to sound as interesting as she could, she recounted their confrontation – Cameron’s confrontation – with O’Rourke.
“You should have seen it,” she said. “The way Cameron acted, you would have thought he was the president or something. He took charge. Told O’Rourke to stop doing the things he’s doing or else he would be exposed.”
Alex nodded. “I knew he was going to end up doing that,” he said. “As soon as we found out about that schedule conflict, I knew he was going over there.”
Jaymee raised her eyebrows, turning her head to Cameron. “Scheduling conflict?”
Cameron lifted his chin and snapped his fingers in the air. “That’s right! I didn’t finish what I was going to tell you earlier. It was his schedule that tipped us off. He was in places where there was no way he could possibly be hurting Doug or Russo. And his general attitude… it’s just not something he would do.”
“But isn’t that what they always say about, like, serial killers and it turns out later that the guy was actually responsible for it all? Like when neighbors say their serial killer neighbor was just another guy and no one would have known.”
Cameron nodded. “It’s true that no one knows everything about someone else, even if you’ve been married to them for forty years. People have their own lives and do things no one else is aware of. That’s human nature. We all have our secrets. But with O’Rourke, he just… he’s not going to make it worse. He just wanted to downplay the blackmail. He’s the kind of man who would just pay it and move on because he’s probably blackmailing someone himself.”
Jaymee nodded. “That’s what you were saying earlier.”
“I really don’t think O’Rourke’s got his hands in anything other than the wallets of his constituents.”
“Ugh,” Alex grumbled, shaking his head and taking a long drink from his martini. “No politics. I don’t have the stomach for it.”
“Is there any connection between him and Amanda Dinklage?” Cheyenne asked.
Jaymee looked closely at her, wondering just how much she knew about the case. Then again, if Cameron’s going to have Cheyenne following people around doing surveillance, she probably knew just as much as either of them did. Since Cameron was the one who’d done the research on O’Rourke, she looked at him, questioningly.
“I’d like to know that, too.”
“You already do.” Alex was the one who spoke while at the same time pulling out the tablet he kept in the backpack he carried around with him. They waited a moment while he turned it on and found what he wanted.
He enlarged the picture on the screen and turned it to Jaymee. She nodded. It was a picture of the councilman “up close and personal” with Amanda Dinklage.
“I could have told you that,” Alex said, turning the tablet so Cheyenne could see it.
“Well, she really gets around, doesn’t she?” Cheyenne asked in a cold voice.
“Yep,” Alex responded. “Look at this.” He swiped the tablet screen and a new pictured revealed itself.
