Page 46 of Wild Justice

“I will because Mom and Dad won’t,” Jillian replied bitterly. “Heaven forbid we say anything negative about Dana. If you talk to them, they’ll say she was perfect but still finding herself. That’s my mom’s favorite description. Dana wasfinding herself.In reality, Dana had terrible taste in friends and men. They brought her nothing but trouble.”

“Does Jay Bradford fit that description?”

“Jay was the only decent man Dana ever dated, and she couldn’t even hold onto him,” Jillian scoffed. “He’s a good guy who thought he could fix Dana’s issues, but the fact was that no one could. She had to do it on her own, and she was too lazy to do it. Dana was always looking for the shortcut in life. She didn’t want to have to do the real work of making something of herself.”

“Did you ever share that point of view with her?”

“Pretty much every time I saw her,” Jillian replied. “I know that sounds mean, but you see, she only ever reached out to me when she needed something. Whether it was money, a favor, a ride, her tire changed, she didn’t call to hang out and chat. She’d call when she needed me to do something for her. After a while, I got tired of it, and I told her off.”

“What did she say?”

“She’d just laugh and shake her head. She’d tell me that I was too intense and that I took things too seriously. That I needed to lighten up. Then she’d ghost for me months before crawling out of the woodwork again when she needed to borrow gas money. I think she thought getting lectured by me was the cost of whatever she wanted. I doubt she ever listened to a word I said. She certainly never changed, that’s for sure.”

Jillian held up her hands in surrender, her eyes glistening with tears.

“I’m sure that I sound like a total cold-hearted bitch. I can hear myself, and I wouldn’t disagree. But you have to understand that it’s been over a decade of this. Dana was a thirty-year-old woman who acted like she was eighteen. She refused to take on any adult responsibilities. I guess she wanted to be Peter Pan or something. And the rest of us were only around to clean up when she made a mess.”

They were cold, hard words. The sister’s description of Dana wasn’t flattering in the least.

But the real question…was it accurate? It was too early for Kai to know.

“You said that she expected others to fix her bad decisions. Can you expand on that?”

“Do you see my house?” Jillian asked, her gaze roaming the room. “My husband and I worked and saved to pay the downpayment for it. We pay the monthly mortgage, and all the bills associated with being an adult. Now Dana had a far different life. She lived in my late grandmother’s house for free. My parents were supposed to sell the house and split the proceeds between us, but then they backed away from that because poor, poor Dana was renting an apartment she couldn’t afford with a roommate that she didn’t like. So, they let her move in. I’d like to say she at least paid the utilities, but I seriously doubt it. I think they were even paying for Dana’s car insurance. Do you see what I’m talking about?”

He did. If he’d had a sibling like this, he wouldn’t be thrilled either. He’d seen this inequity in some of his friends’ families. One sibling was the responsible one, and they were expected to just suck it up when the screw-up needed help.

And theyconstantlyneeded help. It made him glad that he was an only child.

“That must have made you angry. Frustrated.”

Enough to kill?

“Yes, but my husband would always remind me that it was Dana who was really being hurt in those circumstances. My parents were keeping her from growing up and taking responsibility for her own life. In the end, I was stronger for not depending on others for my day-to-day life.”

“Dana did have a job,” Kai observed. “That’s something.”

“She did,” Jillian sighed. “But it was a party job. She wanted to pretend that she was still a party girl in her early twenties, so she got a job at a bar with a bunch of people younger than her. It was pathetic, if you ask me. I don’t think she made all that much either. My parents constantly offered to send Dana back to school for dental hygiene or paralegal. Anything to get her off the gravy train.”

“She didn’t take them up on the offers?”

“Of course, not. Then she’d just be one of a crowd of people who work nine to five. Dana thought she was so different, so edgy. She was simply far too special to do something so ordinary.”

Kai could hear the bitterness ooze from Jillian’s tone. It was clear that there was no love lost between the sisters.

Just where were you, Jillian, the night that your sister died?

Clearing his throat, Kai shifted on the chair. It was time to change the subject a bit - perhaps to something that would help Lulu.

“Was Dana seeing anyone recently?”

“She was always seeing someone,” Jillian replied with a shrug. “But I don’t know who.”

“What about Jay Bradford? Was there any chance of the two of them getting back together?”

“There might have been, but his new girlfriend put an end to that happening. Thank goodness for him, honestly. I think Dana was presenting herself as having grown up, but that was a lie. She was as dysfunctional as ever.”

“Did you ever hear Allie threaten Dana?”

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