Page 6 of The Beachside Cafe 5
“This feed is from the day Doug… disappeared. I thought it was something you might want to see.”
“Of course I want to see it!” Jaymee exclaimed. “I can’t believe this is… these cameras inside my house… are they everywhere?”
“Not anymore. The day after this happened, Dylan had them removed while you were out. You really have poor security in your house, Jaymee. You might want to get that checked out.”
Jaymee shook her head, unable to believe what she was seeing. She watched herself wander into the kitchen, her phone in her hand, holding a sandwich. She remembered it clearly as she was seeing it. She took a bite of her sandwich and, without taking her eyes from the phone, pulled open the refrigerator door and got out a single bottle of Coke. She closed the door with her foot and left the kitchen.
Such a mindless thing to do. But seeing it made Jaymee sick to her stomach. Her privacy had been violated for so long.
“How long were the cameras in my house?” she asked, breathlessly.
Jennifer shook her head. “I don’t know. Six months maybe? That’s not relevant anyway. This is the day you want to see. I’m sure of it. Here.” She turned to the keyboard and tapped several keys. She hit enter and swiveled in the chair to look at the screen.
Jaymee felt sick once again when she saw the video switch to her bedroom. It was placed somewhere near the floor but gave a complete view of the entire bedroom, even the bed. Fortunately, the camera was so low, she was sure any private activities would be mostly unseen by it.
Still, it gave her a feeling of unease. She crossed her arms over her chest and watched as Doug stumbled backward into the room, Amanda Dinklage hanging off him. He was laughing and joking with her. Her eyes were narrow and she staggered when she walked, indicating she was drunk.
Jaymee held herself together as she watched the two begin to undress, with Doug taking off his tie first. He excused himself from the room. Jaymee was stunned to see Amanda’s demeanor completely change. She wasn’t as drunk as she pretended to be, if she was drunk at all.
Amanda dashed to her bag, which she’d thrown to the side when they both came in the room. She rifled through it quickly and pulled out a vial with clear liquid in it. The vial looked very familiar to Jaymee, who frowned.
“Help yourself to the mini bar!” Doug’s voice came from off camera. Hearing his voice, despite what he was doing, made Jaymee’s hair stand on end.
“That’s just what I had planned!” Amanda called back, happily. The smile she’d put on to say the words disappeared and she sent the most hateful look in Doug’s direction Jaymee had ever seen. It almost made her giggle. But not because it was funny. Because it was ironic.
Amanda rushed with the vial to the mini-bar and poured them both drinks. She dumped the vial contents in one of the glasses. Just as she was finished, Doug came back into view, wearing only his boxers.
Amanda turned around and Jaymee thought her reaction was priceless. It was clear she had no intention of doing anything intimate with Doug. At least it was to Jaymee. Amanda handed the drugged drink to Doug with a smile.
FIVE
The fact that Amanda drugged Doug was the least shocking thing Jaymee saw on that video. She wished she could pull out her phone and direct it to the screen on a video call to Cameron.
After drinking the laced liquor, Doug fell down almost immediately. He didn’t even make it back to the bed to lay down in it. He fell over onto it with just his upper body, face first.
Amanda went quickly to where he was and looked over her shoulder at the door. “Come help me!” she said frantically. Jaymee’s eyes flicked to that side of the screen to see who was going to come in and help her. She expected Dylan Lianetti and was stunned to see who it actually was.
“Oh my God,” she murmured when Martin Granger hurried into the room. He didn’t look like the weak, mild-mannered person Jaymee and Cameron had met all those months ago. He appeared to be very strong.
“Help me clean this mess up. We’ve got to get him out of here before his wife gets home.”
“If she does, we’ll just have to take her, too.”
“Only if we have to,” Amanda said.
Jennifer put the video on pause and looked at Jaymee. “There’s a lot more of this coverage. But what they did after they cleaned up the place and took Doug out of there is unclear.”
“They took his car, that much we know,” Jaymee said. “When he first went missing, we didn’t expect that something had happened to him in the house and he’d been taken out. Not until I found that vial.”
Jennifer’s eyes opened wide. She stared at Jaymee. “You found one of the vials?” her voice sounded alarmed.
Jaymee nodded, still looking at the screen. “One of them, yes. We found others, too. At various crime scenes.”
Jennifer frowned. “Pretty careless of them, don’t you think?”
“I suppose,” Jaymee responded, “but no one ever said you had to be a genius to be a criminal. Tell me, why didn’t Amanda delete all of this? Why would she commit the crime on camera in the first place?”
“Dylan and Amanda are a thing sometimes,” Jennifer responded. “Emphasis on the sometimes. He doesn’t tell her half of his dealings. That’s why he took the cameras out after he saw this footage. He was trying to find something to hold over Doug’s head but he saw his sometimes girlfriend murder the man instead.”
