A Wicked Kiss by M. S. Parker Page B

at all. I didn’t want to open it, but I knew I had to know what was inside.
    It wasn’t another legal notice. It was a letter. From Aime.
    Shae, I know you and Jasper killed Allen so you could get his money and be together. You’ve deprived my daughter of her father and you owe me for that. You owe me for the years that you had with Allen that should have been mine. You’re not going to fight this lawsuit. In fact, you’re going to sign a statement saying that Allen is Jenny’s father and you’re going to give her half of everything Allen left you. You’re also going to sign a statement saying that you feel so bad for taking Allen away from Jenny that you’re going to pay a thousand dollars a month in child support until Jenny turns twenty-one. If you don’t do what I say, I’m going to follow through with my lawsuit and take everything. Then I’m going to call the police and tell them that Allen told me before he died that he suspected you and Jasper were having an affair. And that he was so worried the two of you might do something to him that he asked me to come forward if he died suddenly. I expect to hear from you before the court date.
    I read the letter twice, trying to figure out if she honestly thought Jasper and I had done something to Allen or if she was just using that as an excuse to blackmail me. I knew Allen hadn’t talked to her. The police had gone over his calls and texts to see if there had been any suspicious activity in the months before he’d died. I was pretty sure the detectives running the case would’ve only been too happy to tell me that my husband had been communicating with his ex-girlfriend. Even though that part was a lie, it didn’t mean she didn’t think I’d done something.
    I didn’t care about the money. If Jenny was Allen’s daughter, I had no problem putting money in a trust for her – one that her mother wouldn’t be able to get her hands on. But I still didn’t believe that Jenny was Allen’s. Not really. Part of me thought it was true just because of the timing, but my gut said that there was something I was missing.
    I looked at the notice again and then at the letter, pushing aside the emotions involved so that I could only see the facts.
    A few minutes later, it hit me.
    A paternity test. Aime didn’t want to actually go through with the court case because she knew any half-decent lawyer would be demanding a paternity test first thing. She’d written the letter to try to get me to give her the money and acknowledge paternity outside of the court without any medical proof that Jenny was Allen’s child.
    I needed to call my attorney. Savill Henley had helped me through all of the legal stuff that had come up with Allen’s estate. He hadn’t mentioned anything about Allen putting aside money for a daughter and he’d know the best way to handle the situation. The first thing he’d do, I knew, would be to get a judge to order a paternity test.
    I needed Allen’s DNA.

Chapter 12
    I’d thrown away too much. Allen’s hairbrush, toothbrush, razor...I’d gotten rid of all of his clothes – not that I thought they’d be able to get much off of those. I couldn’t find a single thing that would have enough DNA to test against Jenny’s.
    But that wasn’t the reason I was sitting on the floor in the guest room directly across from my bedroom, crying. Again. No, that had come about because I came in here, hoping that I’d missed something when I’d cleaned things out last week, and I’d indeed found something I’d missed.
    Color swatches.
    It was stupid, but as soon as I’d seen them, I’d started bawling like a baby.
    A baby.
    This had been the guest room that Allen and I had always intended to convert into a nursery. Being the planner that he was, Allen had picked up paint swatches nearly a year ago and we’d spent more than one night in this room, sitting on the floor and holding up different colors, trying to decide which one we liked the most.