Page 14 of Wild Justice

“I don’t know anything for sure,” Chase replied. “There’s a lot of gossip going around. Some of it is that Jay is still in love with Dana, and his new girlfriend Allie is jealous.”

“That’s Allie Baker? I didn’t recognize her. When did she come back to town?”

Allie had left for college about five years before and had pretty much announced she was never coming back. Something must have changed.

“Six months maybe? Maybe nine or ten.” Chase said. “Not exactly sure. And as for what Glen has to do with it, there was also a story going around that Dana cheated on Jay with Glen. I think she had better taste, but you never know.”

“I think I heard Allie telling Dana to stay away,” Lulu said. “It looked messy, to be honest.”

“Anything with Glen involved usually is,” Chase observed. “He’s walking trouble, is what he is.”

“Small towns,” Henry laughed. “Just likePeyton Place.”

Lulu was confused, and Chase had that expression, too.

“What’sPeyton Place?” she asked.

Henry was always making bizarre references that no one understood until he explained them. Even then, she didn’t get them half the time. He’d spent a great deal of his youth with his grandparents, listening to sixties and seventies music and hearing stories about a time way before the internet.

“It was a soap opera on television in the sixties,” Henry said with a heavy sigh. “My grandmother told me about it.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“Me neither,” Chase replied.

“Okay, how aboutMelrose Place?Beverly Hills 90210?” Henry shook his head at their blank stares. “Dallas?Dynasty? C’mon, now you’re just yanking my chain.General Hospital?Days of Our Lives?”

That one she knew. And he knew it. After all, he’d watched it with her many times.

“Got it.Peyton Placeis an ancestor of Salem, John, Marlena, Roman, and Bo and Hope.”

“Exactly.”

“You could have just said that,” she pointed out.

“But then you wouldn’t have learned anything aboutPeyton Place.”

“To be fair,” Chase said. “We haven’t learned much now. Just that it was a soap opera. Our gran used to watchGuiding Light.”

“Can I just say that I hope my life in Harper is not nearly as exciting as anything on those shows,” Lulu remarked. “Let’s hope for boring and calm.”

Chase lifted his glass with a grin.

“I’ll drink to that.”

“So will I,” Henry said. “Boring and calm. Let’s send that out into the universe.”

Lulu also raised her glass, as well.

Now all they needed was the universe to cooperate.

4

Since quitting his soul-sucking job as a corporate lawyer, Kai had made a point to be outside every day that he possibly could, and even more importantly, to break a sweat three or four times a week. During his time as an attorney, he’d sat at a desk under fluorescent lights far too many hours of the day until he realized that it was dark when he arrived at the office and when he left. He’d known he needed to make some major changes in his life, but he didn’t know where to even start. It had been his grandfather’s death that had brought him clarity.

He’d quit and never looked back.

His current life had him drinking far less bad coffee, eating in restaurants much less, and allowing him to care for his body so that he might not drop dead from a heart attack before the age of fifty-five.

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