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“Well, we know my mother isn’t one to think anything through. She cares about money and that’s it. At least now we know what was up her sleeve,” Lauren said.
“Something isn’t right,” Cade said again. “I don’t know what it is, but something feels off.”
“I think it’s an empty threat. A play for money,” Evan said.
“What if it’s not, though?” Kayla asked. “If I don’t pay and they do have the information they release, then I’m done. No one would ever come back.”
Evan looked back over the email again.
Dear Kayla,
I was saddened to learn about the recent break-in at your restaurant. Information has come my way that may be valuable to you.
It seems that your business operates under certain conditions of anonymity. I am in receipt of a list of all the clients that patronize your facility and the dates that they have been on.
I am willing not to share this information for a price, of course. I expect that your restaurant has flourished and that, combined with your friends, you will be able to pay for this list to keep your business from being revealed.
I will be in touch again with the details of where to send the payment. In the meantime, you may work on gathering it all. I expect that the sum of $500,000 is not too high a price to pay to keep your secrets, as I am sure plenty of people would be upset if their names and dates were revealed.
There is no need to contact the police. They work too slowly to find out who I am, and I assure you that I will release the information to others who will pay for this type of gossip if you refuse to pay.
We will talk again soon,
Information Holder
It was from a random email address, nothing traceable at first glance.
“We need to call the police,” someone said.
“It strictly says not to,” Kayla argued.
“Technically, it says that it would be a waste of time,” Evan said.
“While also saying that they would release the list to other people,” Kayla argued.
“Well, you can’t just pay them half a million dollars. They don’t even say they’re going to return this supposed information to you,” Evan challenged her.
“If they have something and it gets out, it won’t matter if I lost money to them or not because there will be no more restaurant,” Kayla yelled back.
“Calm down, everyone. We aren’t going to solve anything by arguing,” Lauren said, playing mediator yet again.
“I will get this over to my investigators and see what they can find out,” Jake told everyone.
“Fine,” Kayla said. She folded her arms across her chest and took a seat. “So I guess now we just wait for more emails and see what happens?”
“It’s the best of both worlds. We have investigators on it who aren’t police,” Evan said, trying to soothe her.
“I said fine,” Kayla told him.
“Do it,” Evan told Jake.
The only thing he could do right now was give her more space. Leaving her side, where he wanted to be, he went to Cade to see what he was doing.
“I’m looking through the surveillance to see if there was anything they could have done to get access to the information from downstairs. It doesn’t look like, but I want to be sure,” Cade’s gruff voice met him as he walked over.
“Thanks,” Evan told him.
The rest of the day flew by in a flurry of activity. Catherine had drafted copies of several different e-mails to send to clients depending on the outcome of the situation. She also had a few press releases ready to go, heading it off or in response to bad news,
