Page 3 of The Beachside Cafe 5
Cameron shook his head, pulling the cursor up to the video and clicking on it to pause it.
“Are you sure you want to watch this? It might be pretty gruesome.”
Jaymee didn’t want to see anything gruesome. But the woman who’d dropped off the drive didn’t look like she’d been tortured. Jaymee didn’t recall any bruises or cut marks. She looked frightened to death but that was about it.
“Pull the marker over and let’s see what happens without watching it. The video image should show above it.”
Cameron nodded. “I know what you mean.”
He pulled the video as she suggested and they saw someone else come on the screen. He was dressed from head to toe in white coveralls, something someone would wear in an experimental lab.
“Stop. Let’s see what he does.”
The two watched as the man in the outfit injected something into the terrified woman. It was her screams that made the video almost unbearable to watch. Jaymee winced from that alone.
The video of the woman in the chair lasted another thirty seconds or so before the screen changed to show the same woman in an office behind a desk. She was turned sideways so the desk was to her right on the screen and a counter holding a globe and a bunch of books was to her left.
She was leaning over as if she had to be very close to the screen. When she began speaking, Jaymee and Cameron knew why. “That was two weeks ago,” she whispered. “My name is Jennifer Bertram. I am being held in the International Dynamics Laboratories on the seventh floor. I’m not the only one here. They tricked me and a bunch of other people to come and be paid to go through medical trials. What they said wasn’t what they’re doing though. People have died.” The more the woman spoke, the faster her words came out, the more frantic she said them. “Someone has to help.”
She stopped abruptly and turned the recording device away from her, directing it toward the door. She was breathing hard. There was noise coming from the other side of the door but it passed. Jennifer let out a sigh of relief.
The recording device was grabbed and the room swiveled in front of Jaymee and Cameron as she moved it back to direct it toward her face. Jaymee assumed it was a laptop.
“I don’t know who to send this to and I don’t think this room has wifi. I snuck in here because I saw the laptop. They didn’t check me when I came in and I still had this flash drive. This is the same laptop they used in that experiment room.” Her voice started to tremble so that it was hard to decipher what she was saying. Her eyes were stressed as she stared at the camera. “Those injections, they’re doing something to us inside. The pain is… so…” She choked for a moment, got herself back under some control and continued, “Please, someone has to come save us. We’re on the seventh floor of the IDL building. Bring the cops. They’re taking some of us on a field trip tomorrow. I’ve discovered how to fight against the sedative they give us. I’m going to take this flash drive with me and take it to that café everyone is talking about. I put as many of their files on this drive as I could. I don’t even know if they will be relevant. But I put my whole file on here. Somebody has got to be able to figure it out.”
She got even closer to the screen and Jaymee could see the tears in the woman’s eyes. “If you come to IDL and ask for me, they’ll let me talk to you. We won’t have long before they will notify Dinklage or some of the other researchers that there are visitors on the premises. But there’s a lot more I can show you if you come here. Call this number.” She held up a number in front of the screen. “Between two and four this afternoon. That’s when we can get phone calls. Please, I’m begging you. Help us.”
THREE
Jaymee turned away from the laptop and stepped over to the counter where she’d left her bag. She rifled through it until her hand touched her cell phone.
“I’m calling the number,” she stated bluntly.
Cameron swiveled around in the chair to watch her through anxious blue eyes. “It’s 504-”
“I remember it,” Jaymee cut him off. She gazed at him with a blank look as she waited for the line to be picked up.
After several rings, the receiver was lifted on the other end. Jaymee could tell it was a landline and not a cell phone.
“Hello, special wards unit, who are you looking for?”
“Jennifer,” Jaymee responded without hesitation. “Is this Jennifer?”
“No, hold on just a moment please.”
Jaymee heard the sound of a hand covering the phone and a woman calling out Jennifer’s name. She called her twice and fell quiet. Seconds later, the phone was unmuffled.
“Hello, this is Jennifer.” The woman’s voice was as anxious as the look on Cameron’s face. “How can I help you?”
“I saw you at my office today,” Jaymee said, wanting to sound vague in case they were being listened to.
“Aunt Jaymee!” Jennifer said enthusiastically. “It’s so good of you to call me. I’ll still have to get back to you about taking a tour of the facility. I have to ask the people here if it’s okay but I think they’ll say yes, since you’ve come all the way from Virginia.”
An image of a US map floated through Jaymee’s mind as she tried to fathom coming all the way across the entire continent to see someone. “Yes, it was a very long trip,” Jaymee said, “and we would so love a tour. Can you arrange it?”
“I’m going to try. I think we can do it tomorrow, if you like. Maybe around two pm? You’ll need to go to the south entrance, though, that’s where I’ll be waiting for you. Can’t smoke inside the building, you know.”
“Yes, I understand. The south entrance at two. I’ll see you there.”
