Page 62 of Wild Justice

“Relax, I’m going to cook dinner for you,” Kai said. “I’m not a great, but I can rustle up a couple of steaks and throw a few baked potatoes in the oven.”

Kai and Lulu were back at his place after their long day. He’d promised her dinner in exchange for hearing all that she’d learned. He’d also promised to tell her what he’d learned that day as well.

He’d called in a favor from an old college friend who worked at a major news agency on television. He’d asked his friend to check out Allie Baker and Jay Bradford. He was anxious to let Lulu know what had been found.

“Any meal I don’t have to cook is gourmet to me,” Lule replied, stretching out in front of the fireplace. The temperature had dropped quite a bit today. “Can I help?”

“I’ve got this under control,” he assured her. “Steaks are in the fridge marinating and the potatoes are in the oven. Cooking the meat won’t take long. How do you like your steak?”

“Medium. How about you?”

“Medium-rare. I had horrible visions of you saying well done.”

“My dad refused to cook steak above medium-well. Not that we ate steak a lot, mostly he grilled burgers and hot dogs because that’s what we liked most.”

“I could make hot dogs if you’d rather.”

“No, I’m happy to eat the steak, but I admit that I don’t have one of those refined palates. I can be happy with grilled cheese. After living in Los Angeles, you probably like fancy food.”

He wasn’t sure what she classified as “fancy”, but he could admit to liking well-prepared food. He could also admit to enjoying quite a bit of junk food on occasion. It was all about balance, right?

“The problem with fancy food is that they don’t usually give you much of it. Comfort food, on the other hand, usually is served in large portions. I have a big appetite,” he explained. “Ladies first on talking about their day.”

“I talked to Allie Baker, Glen Foster, and Allie’s roommate Kathleen Meadows today, but I’ll just cut to the chase. I handed over the evidence so far regarding Allie to the district attorney, and he’s going to try and get a judge to sign off on a warrant to search her home and vehicle.”

Lulu had been a busy bee today. He was floored that the investigation had made that much progress. But then, he’d had a productive day, too. He’d already started writing the human-interest piece about Dana Cartwright, wanting people to know more about her than she was just a victim of a heinous crime.

“Maybe you should start at the beginning,” he said, settling onto the floor next to her. The heat from the dancing flames felt cozy and almost hypnotic after his long day in and out of the cold. He’d been thinking about just this scenario - curled up with Lulu - since morning. “What did you learn about Allie that makes you think she might be the one?”

“Allie knew that Dana was pregnant,” Lulu said. “Her roommate Kathleen works in the doctor’s office. In a roundabout way, she told Allie. That gives her even more motive. She also blew a huge hole in Allie’s alibi. Kathleen heard Allie leave the apartment after Jay dropped her off, and she didn’t come back until early in the morning. That means she had opportunity, too. Take that with her threat at the sports bar that night… I’d be remiss if I didn’t consider her a major suspect.”

“That does sound like motive,” Kai agreed. “Does that mean that Jay Bradford knew about the baby?”

“Supposedly not. I have to say that he truly looked shocked when I mentioned it this morning. He could be a great actor. I can’t rule that out, but right now, the answer is that he didn’t know.”

“You’d think Allie would be mad at Jay, not Dana.”

“You’d think she wouldn’t be mad at anyone because the chances of it being Jay’s baby are small. It’s a huge leap in logic to go from Dana being pregnant to it being Jay’s baby, especially when it sounds like Allie rarely leaves him alone long enough to get another woman pregnant. But Kathleen said that Allie was pretty much obsessed with Dana. She planned to try and convince Dana to leave town to have the baby and then get Jay to marry her while she was gone.”

“Allie doesn’t sound…stable.”

A guy in college that Kai had hung around with had a girlfriend like Allie. Every girl on campus was after her man, and she’d kept him on a short leash. The poor guy couldn’t have any fun unless she was there. She’d actually said that out loud, too. Life was too short for that shit.

“Being jealous doesn’t mean she has mental health issues, although I’ve heard more than one person say today that it does. While Jay seems perfectly innocent, I have to wonder if he has some ownership of this jealousy. We don’t truly know if he’s stoking this, playing Allie for a fool while he dreams about reconciling with his ex-wife.”

“It could be a little of both. I wanted you to have a chance to talk about your day before I did, but since we’ve brought up Allie’s mental health, I do have something to add to that.”

“You didn’t dig into her health records, did you?”

“I didn’t break any laws,” Kai assured her. “I asked a friend who works at a news agency to look into Allie and Jay. Public information only. No hacking. He didn’t find anything at first. Bradford has lived a quiet and pretty uneventful life, and Allie seemed the same. It was only when he dug further that he found a record with the campus police at her university. Another student had complained about her harassing him after they went out once. He didn’t want to see her again, and she didn’t take the news well.”

“One complaint isn’t exactly a crime spree or murder,” Lulu replied. “But it’s something to keep in mind.”

“It sounds like she’s a clinger.”

“A clinger?” Lulu repeated.

“The type that goes out on a date or two but gets these grandiose ideas in their head about how they’re going to live happily ever after with two kids, a dog, and a picket fence. All after a frozen yogurt, and maybe a kiss goodnight.”

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