8. Law & Order #2
‘I mean, not that I know of.’ She adjusts her designer handbag on her arm. ‘We weren’t officially together. It was casual,’ she finally admits.
‘You didn’t want anyone to know?’ I grimace slightly, woman to woman, the sisterhood, I get you, girl.
Gina laughs, the sound edged with bitterness. ‘I knew he was Cartel, and not even high up. I’m a respected lawyer. How do you think that would look?’ She’s staring at me with a hard look in her eyes.
‘Were you in love?’ I ask. Unlikely, but part of the picture I’m trying to build.
‘Not even close. It was all about the sex. We’re not all lucky enough to be banging a hot Alpha.’ She slides me an assessing look.
I keep my face carefully blank. My relationship isn’t even close to being a secret, but I hate it being brought up like this. So much for the sisterhood.
‘Were you with him at Delilah’s, Gina?’ Tim steps in before I can say something stupid.
‘Sure,’ she huffs out a breath, smooths down her already immaculate jacket, and tosses her ponytail over her shoulder. ‘For a while. It was pretty safe to be seen together there. You may as well know, we fought.’
She’s not stupid. She’s a lawyer giving us info we would eventually find out anyway. Smart move, and one I respect.
‘Do you want to tell us about it?’ Careful wording, lightly spoken by my diplomatic partner. He was made to play good cop.
Gina Montego stares at me and seems to come to a decision.
‘Fine. I was in love with him, as stupid as it was. I was convinced he was seeing someone else. I got jealous and gave him an ultimatum. He laughed at me. I may have thrown my martini at him. Then he stormed off. I waited at the bar, but he never came back.’ Now she’s close to tears, but I don’t offer my sympathy. I know she won’t appreciate it.
‘Was he seeing someone else?’ I have to ask, even if it’s painful for her. If there’s another lead, we need it.
‘No,’ she shakes her head adamantly. Her defenses have dropped.
She’s less the lawyer, more the girlfriend defending her man.
‘I was being paranoid and stupid. In the beginning, it was my idea to keep it secret. I was ashamed. I can’t blame him that when I changed my mind, his feelings weren’t the same. ’
I can’t ask her if she believes that now because he’s dead.
It’s harder to think ill of someone who’s died, especially if we love them.
Her rose-tinted glasses could be on. She could be trying to protect his memory.
If there was someone else, we’ll find out some other way.
But I doubt some jilted lover was the murderer.
At least, not if that lover was a woman.
If Ruby is fairly certain that even an Alpha in a frenzy couldn’t do the amount of damage Jason sustained, there’s zero chance it was a human female.
‘I’m sorry for your loss,’ Tim tells her quietly. ‘One more question, and we’ll leave you alone. What time did you last see him?’
‘I’m not sure, but it was after ten. I left at ten forty-five, and I’d been waiting and hoping for a while before I gave up.’
That tracks with his Time of Death. The body was found at eleven pm, and Tim and I were on the scene fifteen minutes later. The paramedics and med bots arrived just before we did, with the crime scene tech bots shortly after, along with the ME. Ruby ruled TOD between ten and ten-thirty.
‘Did he go out the back to avoid me?’ Gina asks, her voice strained, hands held tightly against her thighs. No more pretense of being unfeeling. I can see the reality sinking in that the man she loves is dead.
She’s come to the same conclusion I have. Jason Rodriguez avoided her after their blow-up and left the club through the back door into the alley. Another piece of the puzzle for us equals blame and guilt for her.
Call it womanly camaraderie, or that I know how she feels, but I put my hand on her arm to get her attention. Her face is even more pale, tight over sharply angled cheekbones, tears making tracks down her smooth skin. There’s nothing to be seen of the wary lawyer of minutes ago.
‘Gina, believe me when I tell you, there is no way to know what Jason was thinking, or why he went out the back door into that alley. Maybe he needed to relieve himself, and it was the closest exit. Maybe he was meeting someone there. It could have been Cartel business. Do not let this weigh you down.’
She looks at me through her tears, and I see the moment she decides to grasp onto the escape I’ve given her from the torment of guilt. It’s not a cycle I would wish on anyone.
‘Promise you’ll find out who did this. Obviously, you don’t think it was your boyfriend,’ she adds with a small smile that I manage to return.
I’m not sure who her source is. She’s a lawyer, so maybe the DA’s office. Jake’s arrest is still under wraps, but it won’t be long before the media scents blood in the water.
I know what the correct protocol is; what I should say. Instead, the words that come out are a promise that I will find who murdered the man she loved. And I mean it.
We leave her alone with her tears, her grief, and her regrets.