Page 29 of Wild Justice

“Cheating on Jay, that’s what. She and that Glen Foster. Everyone knows they were having an affair. She skanks around town and then comes crawling back to Jay like he could ever forgive her. She had to be crazy to think that he would.”

“It certainly makes your life easier if she’s gone.”

“Few people are going to mourn Dana,” Allie spat out, her lip curled in derision. “The world is a better place now.”

Kai leveled his gaze at the furious woman standing in front of him. She’d basically just admitted that she was happy as a clam that Dana was gone and no longer some sort of threat to Allie’s relationship with Jay.

Allie seemed to realize it, too, as she quickly began to backpedal.

“I mean…I didn’t want herdeador anything. I’m not that kind of person. I’m not violent in the least. I can’t even kill a fly.”

“But you’re glad she’s gone.”

“Not—not in that way,” Allie replied with a shrug. “I didn’t want her dead, alright? I just wanted her out of our lives. She was nothing but trouble. If she was murdered, it was probably for a good reason.”

Christ, this woman was cold as ice. Someone was dead, and she was busy blaming the victim.

“The sheriff is probably going to ask where you were last night,” he said. “She’s going to ask about an alibi.”

Because it was clear Allie had motive. She had hated Dana Cartwright.

“I don’t need an alibi because I didn’t do anything wrong,” Allie said with a smug smile. “Jay didn’t do anything, either. We were together all last night. He spent the night at my house. So the sheriff can go bother someone else and leave us alone. Jay will set Lulu Reilly right.”

That brought up an excellent question…

Just what was Jay inside telling Lulu right now?

“I loved her.I loved her for a long time.”

Jay Bradford was a man in mourning. He might not have been with Dana Cartwright anymore, but he was sad about her passing. His eyes were red-rimmed, and they had a faraway look in them as if he was remembering images from their past.

“And then you stopped?”

“It’s not that I stopped,” Jay explained. “It was that I had to move on. No matter what we felt for each other, we weren’t good together. We brought out the worst in one another. We couldn’t live together. We were just too different. It was sad, but we needed to stay apart for our own well-being.”

“Did you keep in touch? Talk now and then?”

“Sometimes, although there was nothing formal. If either of us had good news, we might call to let the other know. Dana was very close to my family, and I know they kept in touch, too.”

“What about last night at the sports bar?” Lulu asked. “What was going on there?”

Jay groaned and rubbed the back of his neck. He closed his eyes for a long moment before replying.

“It got all blown out of proportion. My sister got accepted to go back to school, and she told Dana a few days ago. We were both at the restaurant last night, and while Allie was in the ladies’ room, Dana stopped and talked to me about it. Just to say that she was really happy to hear about it. That’s all it was. Allie came back to the table, and she wasn’t happy to see Dana. She said something nasty, and I went after Dana to tell her to ignore Allie. Glen joined in, and told Dana that Allie was being a bitch. That’s all that happened.”

It was “almost” all that happened.

“I saw Allie come and pull you away,” Lulu said. “She said something else to Dana. What did she say? Because Dana looked like she was about to cry.”

“Allie didn’t mean it. She was just caught up in the moment.”

“What didn’t she mean?”

Jay didn’t want to tell her, that was easy to see. It made Lulu want to know even more what Allie had said to Dana last night.

“She didn’t mean it,” Jay repeated. “It all got blown up, and it sounds worse than it actually was.”

He wanted to dance around? This was murder. Lulu didn’t have the patience.

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