Page 15 of Outlaw Ridge: Reed
Jay squeezed his eyes shut a moment, and while his groan did sound genuine, Reed figured this could be an act. Jay could have somehow orchestrated all of this. He could have gotten this woman to do his dirty work while his own hands stayed clean. And Reed didn’t have to think of a motive as to why Jay might have done that.
Nope.
Jay hated Hallie, period, and that hate was enough to spur him to do something like this.
“Get this goon off me, Jay,” Charity begged. “Make him let me get up.”
“I can’t, sweetheart. Just stay still, don’t fight back, and I’ll make them understand what’s happening,” Jay insisted. “You’ll be free soon.”
Reed wasn’t counting on Jay saying anything that would make them “free” this woman. She’d be charged with the attempted murder of a police officer and likely wouldn’t get bail.
“I’ve called the cops,” Corman shouted, peering through the front window.
“Good,” Reed replied, but Jay didn’t have a similar reaction.
Jay began frantically shaking his head. “No, please don’t do this. Charity’s been under a lot of stress. She didn’t know what she was doing. Just let her up, and we can talk about this.”
“We’ll let SAPD sort that out.” Hallie’s voice had some ice in it. “I’m sure they’ll want to have a chat with you, too. You knew your girlfriend was coming here to try to kill me?”
“No. Hell, no.” Jay threw up his hands in frustration. “And she wasn’t trying to kill you.”
“Yes, I was,” Charity snarled, clearly not helping her cause. “She needs to pay for what she’d done.”
“What exactly is it that I’m supposed to have done?” Hallie asked. “And how did you know I’d be here?”
The questions seemed to frustrate Jay, and he dragged a hand over his face. “Look, I still have a few friends at SAPD, and one of them told me that’d been Corman’s sister who was murdered and that you’d be coming here to talk to him.”
Hallie and Reed had indeed let SAPD know that they’d be on their turf to interview Corman so that meshed with what Jay had just admitted. But Reed wanted to know the name of the cops who were feeding that kind of info to Jay.
“Charity heard me talking on the phone about you being here, and before I could stop her, she got in her car and drove off,” Jay explained, his gaze flitting between Hallie and Reed and Charity. “I guess she got Corman’s address from the internet or something. I went after her and got here as fast as I could. She’s upset. She didn’t know what she was doing.”
“It certainly looked as if she knew exactly what she was doing,” Reed disagreed. He tipped his head to the knife. “She had that, and she charged right at Hallie.”
Jay groaned again. “Yeah, but you saw her eyes, right? She was scared out of her mind.”
Again, Reed could argue that. “She didn’t seem scared. Only determined to get to Hallie.”
“Because that bitch is trying to kill Jay,” Charity wailed, and she broke down into a hoarse sob. Since she had quit struggling, Reed eased the grip he had on her.
“What is she talking about?” Hallie demanded.
Jay blinked as if doing a mental doubletake. “The note,” he said as if that explained everything.
It didn’t, and Reed made a circling motion with his free hand to prompt Jay into continuing.
“Seriously?” Jay snarled. “You’re saying you don’t know about it?”
“No,” Hallie replied. “Tell us.”
Jay didn’t look as if he bought her denial, and he huffed again before he answered. “This morning someone left a note on my car. It said,Welcome back to hell, Jay. You’ll soon be dead, and you can thank Hallie for that.”
“Welcome back to hell,” Hallie muttered.
Those had been the exact words in the note left at the crime scene. So, either the killer had left the note for Jay. Or Jay was the killer, and this was a sick, deadly game he was playing.
“I’m a target,” Jay continued. His nostrils flared, and he took a deep breath, as if trying to contain the anger bubbling inside him. “And I want to know why.”
“Hallie sent the note,” Charity cried out.
