Page 12 of The Beachside Cafe 6
The young man who had pulled the gun was struggling with Carmine. The old Italian man had the man in a death grip, his arms linked from behind around the man’s arms.
Jaymee watched the gun drop from the perpetrator’s hands and clatter to the floor. One of the police officers immediately scooped it up and was beside Carmine less than a second later. He was cuffing the suspect, who was shrieking and crying as if the police were hurting him by taking him into custody.
The entire crowd now gathered around Russo, who had dropped himself into a chair. He had one arm up on the edge of the table next to him with his hand hanging over. He kept raising the other one and shaking his head, waving off the accolades he was hearing from everyone around him.
“You saved him, Carmine. You saved him!”
As Jaymee went to her employee and friend, she watched as another man approached Carmine, his face filled with emotion. He held out his hand and Carmine took it. As they shook the man said, “My name is Mike. I know yours. I’ve talked to you a lot in here. Drinking my Vanilla Cappuccino like I always do. I appreciate you saving my life. I can tell you you made a lifelong customer out of me. I can come here and my life is saved. Amazing work. I can’t thank you enough.”
“You’re welcome, young man. Mike. You’re welcome.”
“You could have been shot. I can’t believe that bullet didn’t graze you at least.”
“You’re welcome. I’m glad I was there to help.”
The man continued to lob praise on Carmine and Jaymee went to stand on his other side. She patted him on the shoulder. “What an incredibly brave thing for you to do. I am glad I hired you. Not that I wasn’t before. But, wow, what a brave thing for you to do. You’ll be in the paper for this one.”
“All over the web, too,” Cheyenne said. Jaymee had forgotten her daughter had come along until that moment. “You’re gonna be famous!”
Carmine blushed.
“And we’ve got some other good news for you, too, Mr. Heropants,” Cheyenne added, her grin mischievous. Carmine gave her a curious look, moving his eyes from her to Jaymee to the others one by one.
“Good news?” he repeated. “What good news do you have?”
Cheyenne looked at her mother. “You tell him, Mom.”
Jaymee chuckled, pulled out the chair beside Carmine and sat down. She leaned toward him. “I’m glad you’re sitting down, Carmine.”
She hesitated a moment, just to build the suspense. She really thought that was more for herself and her friends because Carmine had no idea how big this news was going to be.
“The money that Doug took from you and his other victims has been found. They are holding it for us. We are taking it. We want you to have some of it back.”
It almost seemed like Carmine grew an inch taller. His face brightened and a smile cracked his face, making wrinkles appear. “I will get my money back? From being blackmailed? That is amazing! You have gone through the records to see how much I paid, have you?”
Jaymee shook her head. “No. We’ve decided to give you a cool million. How’s that sound?”
The blood drained from Carmine’s face. “That’s… not right. I couldn’t have given him more than a couple hundred thousand at the most.”
“It doesn’t matter how much you gave him, Carmine. You’re getting a million for your pain and suffering.”
Carmine stared at them. “Well, I must say thank you very much for this. What a wonderful thing to hear. Especially after you risked your life to save a stranger’s. I feel like I’ve been given an instant reward.”
The rest of them gathered at the table around him, pulling up chairs to sit in front of him. Cameron turned his backwards before sitting down.
“You went through plenty,” he said. “You deserve the money. You’ll have a nice nest egg to fall back on.” He glanced at Jaymee when she said that. She snorted with laughter, which made the others laugh, too, while Carmine just gave them all an amused and confused look.
“I never expected Doug to do something like that, you know,” he said, his voice carrying a sudden interest in it. “He was always good to me when we were working together. I think he had a good working relationship with everyone he ended up blackmailing.”
“That’s probably how he managed to get the information he needed to blackmail them.” Jaymee saw looks of agreement on the faces of those around her.
“Amanda had to think he would cave to her feminine wiles,” Cameron put in. “I can’t see her attempting anything like what she did if she didn’t think he’d give in. The resulting tape would have been all they needed to blackmail Doug in return. Instead of a truce, they decided to get rid of him. The recording that Lianetti made of the whole incident with her poisoning Doug and getting rid of his body.”
“I can’t believe Granger was involved after all,” Jaymee murmured.
“Me either.” Cameron shook his head. “He seemed so harmless. We took him off our suspect list first and he was directly involved in the murder.”
Jaymee raised her eyebrows. “Maybe we should reconsider me joining you in the PI firm. It doesn’t seem like I’m all that good at it.”
