by Sage Parker
“I didn’t want to leave you out here all alone,” he said. “Are you all right?”
She wanted him to put his arm around her but it wasn’t right just yet. She couldn’t seek too much comfort from this man when it was well known what had happened to Doug.
Cheyenne was enjoying the attention of many people who came out of the work world to surround her with support. Jaymee was glad for that. Cheyenne needed it. Even her bosses at the law firm where she worked were gracious to her about it. Jaymee didn’t think much of the huge firm that took up a good acre of space in the beautiful town of Grand Bay, California.
If there was one thing Jaymee knew about her daughter, it was that Cheyenne would be heartbroken when she found out what kind of man her father was. They had been so close for so long. Doug had backed off his daughter in the last year or so, which Cheyenne didn’t seem to mind, as she was getting older and living a life of her own.
But Cheyenne always knew she could count on her dad. Until the day he disappeared, she was confident he would always be there for her. It was a fact Jaymee regretted now. Now that her eyes were open and she could see just what kind of man Doug really was.
“You know,” Jaymee said, moving from the railing to an empty chair, one of many that lined the railing for people who just wanted to enjoy the sunshine, “that money had to have gone somewhere. The money he was taking from people.”
Cameron reached behind him and pulled a chair close to her so he could sit next to her. “You’re right. It did. And you never saw any spike in purchases or anything like that?”
Jaymee blanched. “There would be no reason for me to know anything about it at all. I didn’t handle our finances. I didn’t have anything to do with our books. Only the café. Nothing personal. That was all Doug and his accountants or whoever it was that did his bookkeeping.”
Cameron nodded. “All right. Let’s go over what we know now.”
Jaymee listened closely, her eyes on the table in front of her, noting everything he said in her mind.
“We know that Doug was blackmailing six people. We know their first names. We know it has something to do with that vial and the labs and the drug. I can contact Alex. Here.” Cameron pulled out the flash drive that had been in the computer Tommy brought. “That was Tommy’s personal laptop. But the flash drive, as he said, is yours. This has all the information you need on it.”
“Did he keep a copy?”
“I didn’t ask but I doubt it. The original is probably still on Doug’s computer. Tommy won’t have a use for it. Now that he’s given it to us, it’s not like he can continue Doug’s scheme right?”
“That’s true, you’re right.”
“He’s trustworthy. Don’t worry about him.”
Jaymee studied Cameron’s face. “You really think so?”
He nodded. “I really do.”
“All right, I think so, too. I’m glad you agree. That reassures me. You said something about talking to Alex?”
“Yeah. I thought we’d go down there at some point and show the videos and pictures to him. He might be able to spot something we didn’t, like a logo that looks familiar and could tell us what kind of lab or where it is or if it has a specific name. He knows a lot about stuff like that.”
“I imagine he does.”
Cameron suddenly reached for his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. “In fact, I almost forgot he left me a message. It was in the middle of the night and once I’m in bed, I put my phone on silent. I don’t want to be disturbed. I don’t get a lot of sleep so I have to be undisturbed when the opportunity presents itself.”
She nodded. “I understand that.” She leaned toward him, watching as he brought up the phone and the voicemail and then hit the play button and the speaker button.
Alex’s voice came through loud and clear, though there was a hum behind him that told Jaymee he was in his lab.
“Hey, Cam, I thought I’d call and see if you and Jaymee are available to come and see me. I’ve got some interesting finds here that you might want to take a look at. I’m not sure exactly what I’m looking at and… well, I know that means you definitely won’t know what you’re looking at but… well, just get down here and I’ll explain to you what I mean. It doesn’t make sense for these two vials to contain almost exactly the same ingredients except for one or two compounds. Anyway. Just come down when you can and we can talk more. See ya.”
The phone went dead and Cameron hit the end button. “What do you think?”
Jaymee chuckled half-heartedly. “I think we need to go see what he has to say. And yeah, we should show him the pictures and videos. His link to the scientific and pharmaceutical industry might help us a lot.”
They both stood up at the same time. Jaymee let her manager know she was leaving him in charge and met Cameron in the parking lot. He was leaning against his Jeep with his fingers in his pockets. Her heart skipped a beat for a moment as she realized just how handsome he was.
She pushed the feeling away. She was still a married woman. Even if she didn’t plan to stay that way.
They stopped at a gas station on the way and Jaymee rested her head back in the Jeep, letting the sun come through and shine on her face. There was nothing like the bright sunshine of California to bring out the good spirits in a person. She wished she didn’t feel the darkness that came whenever she thought about Doug.
They’d had a perfect life together. Why would anyone risk something so wonderful for a lot of money? Money didn’t buy happiness. It bought material things and gave people the opportunity to seek happiness. But true happiness doesn’t come from material things. It doesn’t come from going on trips all over the world. It comes from the feeling of being loved and trusted and worthy.
All the other things were just small blips of happiness that come and then become a memory.
Jaymee had thought she and Doug would grow old and die together. They almost had, she joked to herself, with 21 years of marriage. She thought they’d make it to at least the fortieth or fiftieth anniversary.
And now she was contemplating divorce, something that would absolutely break her daughter’s heart.
So not only would Cheyenne find out that her beloved father was a crook and a blackmailer, she’d also have to accept the fact that her parents were getting divorced. All after her father goes missing under suspicious circumstances.
How strong was Cheyenne? Could she handle what was coming?
Those questions made Jaymee feel tense and anxious. She didn’t know how Cheyenne would take it. She imagined it was going to be pretty rough.
She rolled her head to the side and looked at Cameron when he got in the driver’s seat. He looked closely at her, making her do a double-take.
“What?” she asked, lifting her head up.
He didn’t say anything at first and then shook his head. “It’s nothing. Nothing.” He reached down and turned the key. The engine roared to life.
Jaymee pulled her eyebrows together in confusion. “No, tell me what you were thinking. You had a strange look on your face.”
Cameron stared through the windshield, leaning forward to rest his forearms on the steering wheel. After a moment, he turned his head to look at her. “I really shouldn’t tell you. It’s… probably not appropriate.”
Jaymee shook her head. “All right, now I’m very curious. You have to tell me. Please. I’ll never relent until you tell me. Please?”
Cameron chuckled through his nose and looked down. “I was… just thinking that you… looked like an angel with the sun on your face like that.” He hesitated before continuing, sitting back and pressing the gas pedal. “That’s all. Inappropriate. I’m sorry.”
Jaymee wasn’t offended. His compliment made her heart jump into overdrive. She knew she had to be blushing furiously but didn’t care. She gazed at his profile until he turned his head, pressing the brake pedal at the exit out onto the street.
He looked at her again.
“Don’t b
e sorry,” Jaymee managed to say breathlessly. “I… appreciate the compliment. I’m not offended. At all.”
His face relaxed. “I’m glad to hear that, Jaymee.”
Her heart didn’t stop slamming in her chest all the way to Alex’s laboratory
.
FOUR
The moment they stepped into Alex’s lab, Jaymee was once again fascinated by the energy the young man exuded. She would have loved for him and Cheyenne to get together. But it wasn’t matchmaking time.
She and Cameron walked quickly down the long hallway to the lab and entered through the double doors. Jaymee was a little surprised that the doors were cracked open. When she went in, she knew Alex was waiting for them and suspected Cameron had called him when he was in the parking lot waiting for her.
“Close those doors, please,” Alex called out. He was once again dressed in a white lab coat, looking like an official scientist to Jaymee. “You two doing good?”
“As good as can be expected, Cameron said, hopping down the curved metal staircase to the lower level where Alex was working. He was moving quickly around the lab, moving from one monitor to another.
“Doing pretty good considering,” Jaymee said, following behind Cameron.
“Good, good, good,” Alex murmured, bending over a keyboard and tapping the keys frantically.
Jaymee would swear he typed 80 or more words per minute. He would be a fantastic secretary.
The thought made her grin wide. She and Cameron stopped in place and watched Alex move around the lab. Jaymee looked around, fascinated by all the tubes and liquids and Bunsen burners and everything a good scientific lab needed. Alex had inherited the lab from his uncle and though he was only 26, he was a brilliant scientist and well-known in those circles. His main focus was drugs and pharmaceuticals. He researched them and developed them just like his uncle had before he passed away.
“That second vial you gave me,” Alex said, speaking quickly and moving at the same speed he was speaking. Although he was speaking quickly, his voice was soft and smooth. “It was something different from the first, like I told you before, with only a few compounds switched. You know that the first drug contained chemicals that will paralyze a person. That makes them viable to being manipulated and moved without being able to fight back.”
“Correct,” Cameron said, crossing his arms over his chest. Jaymee was impressed with his appearance once again.
Alex crossed the room and stopped, remaining still in front of a computer monitor. He tapped a few keys and moved the mouse. “Come look at this.”
Cameron and Jaymee went over to flank him, all three pairs of eyes on the computer screen.
“What are we looking at Alex?”
Jaymee scanned the two graph images placed side by side on the large screen. There were names attached to the statistics that Jaymee didn’t understand. They all sounded very scientific. Possibly some Latin thrown in for good measure.
“This,” Alex pointed at the graph on the left side, “is the compound mixture that was in the first vial. I know you don’t know these names but look here. This compound has a 50% saturation rate in this graph and a 65% saturation rate in this one. That means it was more potent in the second than in the first. And take a look at this.”
He switched the graphs for two more and pointed at one bar and then another.
“This one? Not in the first one. This one is also not in the first one. But the first has two compounds that aren’t in this one.”
“So the second had different compounds swapped,” Cameron said, his eyes steady on the screen. He had one hand up, cupping his chin. He chewed on his bottom lip. “Why would they do that?”
Alex shook his head, taking a step back from the computer. “I don’t know but my best guess is that the first one didn’t work. Either that or it didn’t have the effect that was intended.”
“But what effect are they even trying to achieve?” Jaymee asked. “And what does this have to do with Doug?”
Cameron turned his head to look at Jaymee. “I think we know that now, Jaymee, don’t you? Give him the flash drive. See what he thinks.”
Jaymee nodded. She pulled the flash drive from her back pocket and handed it to Alex, who took it with a look of curiosity.
“What’s this?”
“It’s not that I don’t see the connection here, Cameron,” Jaymee said quickly. “It’s how Doug is involved that bothers me. I get that he knew about this drug business but how was he involved in it?”
“Those are definitely the questions we need to answer, Jaymee,” Alex said, lifting the flash drive in the air in front of him and shaking it at her. “And we will find the answers. Don’t worry about that.”
He turned and moved to one of the computers behind him. “Let’s just plug this baby in right here and…” He let his words trail off as he clicked on the appropriate icon to bring up the contents of the flash drive.
Jaymee directed him on what folders to click on and where to go to see the videos and pictures. Alex leaned in close and examined them.
“I’m going to put these through my… enhancement… program…” He spoke slowly and performed the task as he told them what he was doing. Jaymee watched in fascination as Alex enhanced and sharpened the images on the screen, selecting and cropping certain areas and focusing in on them.
“Well, I’ll be…” he said, softly, leaning in even further as if his eyes were bad. “Would you look at that?”
For the first time since she’d met him, Jaymee detected a note of irritation in his voice. Or it could be anger?
Her eyes darted to him as he lifted one finger and pointed to a logo on the sleeve of one of the people working in the lab. “I know this lab. I know this company.”
Excitement filled Jaymee’s chest. A lead was just what they needed. “How do you know them?”
“That’s the logo for Intersectional Dynamics Laboratories. They are one of my rivals.”
“Oh no.” Jaymee’s heart sank. “That doesn’t sound too hopeful.”
“So this company creates drugs like the ones we’ve brought to you?” Cameron asked.
Alex looked at him and nodded. “Yes, and if these came from their labs, they’re probably looking for them. Which means everyone on this list, these six people, they obviously have something to do with it and Doug was blackmailing them. You’ll need to contact IDL yourself. I can’t do it. They know who I am.” He grinned. “I’d say I’m banned from their property but I’m not sure. If I’m not, I should be. I was a wild teenager, even if I was a scientist.”
Jaymee was immediately curious. “What do you mean by that?” She thought Alex’s mischievous smile was suspicious.
“Oh it’s nothing,” Alex replied. “I’ve been there, well, I went there a few times as a teen and blew up a couple of their labs. They couldn’t do anything because I had trade secrets and was very willing to expose their fraudulent behavior. I didn’t see it as a crime then. But I don’t know what this is. These drugs you’ve given me, I mean. The only explanation I can give is that IDL is experimenting. They’re creating something and giving it to the masses. Maybe as a drug instead of Cocaine or Fentanyl? Morphine? They might be mixing it with other drugs. Shoot, for all we know, they’re selling it to hospitals as something it’s not just to do tests on the patients it’s given to.”
“Oh my Lord,” Jaymee said, shocked. “Surely that’s not something that’s really happening.”
Alex tilted his head to the side, lowering his eyelids, halfway. “Ah, the sweet and naïve. It is happening, Jaymee. It’s been going on since the invention of drugs.”
“What a travesty,” she said. “I’m just stunned that any of this is going on.”
“Well, like I said,” Alex turned to take the flash drive out of the computer, “that’s only a theory. I just made that up right now that IDL could be doing that. It’s not that it’s not being done but I can’t prove IDL is doing it so don’t quote me. I don’t want to get
shot by one of their goons.”
“Oh, you have to be kidding me now,” Jaymee said, holding out her hand for the flash drive.
“I’m not.” He set the flash drive into her hand. “Don’t you think those scientists and their discoveries and laboratories have security? Trust me, they have security just like mine. Trespassing on this property will cause someone to have some lead injected into their body.”
“Yeah, but you don’t have goons,” Jaymee said.
“No, I don’t,” Alex replied. “But I’m not one of the bad guys. I use my knowledge to really try to help people. That’s not their ultimate goal. They want to experiment until they have the perfect drug and they don’t care who they have to sacrifice to get there. That’s probably what these videos are about and why Doug was using them to blackmail those people. They’re doing something morally and ethically wrong, perhaps even legally wrong.”
FIVE
Jaymee looked across the table at Cheyenne when she and her daughter stood up at the same time. The women laughed briefly.
“You don’t have to clean up, Cheyenne, I’ll do it.”
Cheyenne shook her head. “No, of course you won’t do it alone, Mom. These men need to talk, don’t they? Isn’t that tradition after dinner? The men go on the porch to have a drink and smoke while the women clean up and go to the living room for a cup of tea?” She used a British accent to finish off her sentence, mimicking sipping tea from a cup, lifting her eyes up to the sky in a haughty way.
This made her mother, Alex and Cameron laugh.
“Maybe about two hundred years ago,” Cameron said. He looked at Alex. “Though an after dinner drink does sound pretty good, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah, I think so, too.” He looked at the women, focusing on Cheyenne. “I do hope you two will join us when you’re done though. And I feel like I should offer to help clean up even though you will both turn me down.”
The women laughed.
“No, we don’t want your help,” Cheyenne teased. “Men don’t know how to load a dishwasher. Leave it to us.”