Page 10 of The Beachside Cafe 6
Their dinner was lively conversation. Cheyenne and Alex ganged up on Cameron, teasing him about a business deal he’d made that had garnered him a large sum of money.
“You know you don’t need any more money, Cam,” Alex said, lifting his drink and smiling at his friend over it. “You’ve got more than Gates and Bezos and Trump combined.”
“I do not have that much money,” Cameron stated firmly, giving Alex a narrow look. “I made great money on that transaction, yes. But I also worked for that goal for six months. So if you take the money I got paid at the end and calculate it back over the last six months and the work I did in that time, I got paid a decent wage but no better than a lot of other hard-working stiffs.”
Cheyenne tilted her head to the side and gazed at him. “Funny, I’ve never thought of you as a hard-working stiff. You do work hard, don’t get me wrong. But that’s just not something I’d say about you at all.”
“I’m sure he earned every single penny he got,” Jaymee said, poking her fork into her green beans and eating a few of them before continuing.
“I did. Unlike some people who made their money illegally. We won’t talk about that at the dinner table, though, will we?”
“So what do you think we should do, Cameron?” Cheyenne asked. “With the money?”
Cameron moved his eyes to Jaymee, who wouldn’t look up from her plate at him. She didn’t mind that Cheyenne had spilled the beans before she could inform Cameron of their decision. She also didn’t know if Alex had been informed about everything until Cameron spoke up.
“So you’re going to keep the money, are you? I think that’s a wise move.”
“I think so, too,” Alex put in. “You can do a lot more good with it when you have it in your hands to control. Whenever you give it to someone else, it ends up going to things they think are important. They might not carry your same interests.”
“I think the idea of giving Carmine some is good, too,” Cheyenne said. “What about you, Cameron?”
The man nodded, a positive look on his face. “Yes. Definitely give him some.” He turned his gaze to Jaymee. “How much did you think?”
“A million.” Jaymee’s blunt quick response turned their heads.
“Seems fair since they tried to hang the poor man,” Cheyenne said. Her comment brought the image of Carmine hanging by the neck swiftly to Jaymee’s mind. She and Cameron had rushed to cut the man down. He hadn’t broken his neck but he was badly beat up and deprived of the proper amount of oxygen for some time. Left with little to no after affects, he’d become a good friend to everyone in Jaymee’s small “family”.
“You know Amanda’s trial will be coming up soon, right?” Alex mentioned. “I read something about it in the paper today.”
“I’ve been keeping track of it online,” Cheyenne said. She shook her head. “You won’t believe the kind of stuff that’s coming out on social media. Her Instagram and other platforms pretty much just got rid of her. The locals here really decimated her.”
“It’s always hurtful and disappointing when someone in your own community is found to be a total scumbag,” Jaymee said.
Cheyenne gave her an affectionate look and nodded. “Yes. A total scumbag is indeed what she is. The more I read about her the worse it is.”
“Hopefully she will be put away for a very long time and we won’t have anything more to worry about. IDL is already closed, isn’t it?”
“Nobody goes to work there anymore, I can say that. Whether it’s officially closed or not, I couldn’t really say.” Cameron glanced around the table. “It’s hard to say what happened to all the people who were victims of those people.”
“Are you still planning to testify, Mom?” Cheyenne asked.
Jaymee nodded. “Yes, of course. I have to. I was sent a subpoena.”
“What are you going to tell them, do you know?”
“I’ve been briefed on the questions by the prosecutors and went in for a mock trial yesterday. The prosecutor’s name, the main one, is Brandon Persinger. He asked me questions he thought the defendant’s lawyers were going to ask. It’s mostly about the work Cameron and I did to find out what happened to Doug. I’ll tell them about the vials we found, going to find Carmine, talking to all the suspects. My testimony isn’t all that important really. I’m just doing it because it was Doug who was blackmailing them. That’s really the only way I’m involved in this. Other than launching the investigation after he disappeared.”
“I’m sure they need you there, Mom.” Cheyenne sounded sympathetic. Jaymee gave her a big smile.
“I’m not putting myself down, honey. I just know that there’s not a lot I can answer to in this situation. It was all Doug. We didn’t know what he was doing. We’ve been cleared of any involvement with that. And since they can’t prosecute Doug, they aren’t paying attention to what happened to the money.”
“And that’s why we get it,” Cheyenne concluded for her.
Her mother nodded. “Exactly. So I don’t really want to be any more involved in the trial than I have to be. I don’t want them thinking anything about me or you being involved in this in any way. We are victims, too. In fact, that money we’ll get is ours by default because of our victimhood.”
Jaymee was glad when her companions chuckled. There was no way she or Cheyenne would ever claim to be “victims”. They were the first to stand up and fight if need be. There was no “fight or flight” for them. It was just fight or fight.
“Yes, we are such victims.” Cheyenne folded her arms on the table in front of her, winking at her mother.
