Page 13 of Child In Jeopardy

“The cops are investigating Buck for his brother’s and his parents’ deaths. In fact, he’s their prime suspect, but they don’t have any evidence to charge him.” Joelle paused, and it sounded as if she was muttering what she was reading. “Wow, listen to this. Their late parents’ will was worded so that any grandchild would inherit a hefty share of the estate, and Buck might have been willing to eliminate not only his own brother but his brother’s offspring.”

Lana’s stomach twisted, and her heart began to pound. This was why Buck had killed Stephanie. Well, maybe. Why had he waited until after she gave birth to get rid of any competition for family money? Maybe because he hadn’t been able to find Stephanie?

“Any other motive for Buck to kill other than the money he inherited?” Slater asked. He accessed the report, the pages loading on the screen.

Joelle paused again, and Lana figured she was skimming the report. “There’s a history of what I guess you could call sibling rivalry. Buck and Patrick were involved in a fistfight when Patrick was in college. It landed them both in jail. Temporarily, anyway, until their parents bailed them out.”

“Please tell me DNA samples were collected,” Slater said.

“They were, since the fight led to a serious injury of a bystander. Buck was initially charged with that, but the charges were pleaded way down. I’m guessing it was because of pressureor influence from the parents. Anyway, I just read a couple of witness statements that said Buck always seemed to have it in for his brother. I’m guessing because he didn’t want to share the family estate with him.”

That brought Lana back to a big concern. “Patrick’s only been dead a week so if Stephanine and he were involved, he could be Cameron’s father. If Buck sees Cameron as a threat to his family inheritance, then the baby will be a target.”

“Yes,” Joelle agreed. “That’s why I’m hoping there’ll be something in this report that’ll help the Austin cops find him. His face is being plastered on the media as a person of interest so that might...” Her words trailed off. “Oh, God,” she said on a gasp.

“What’s wrong?” Slater demanded, but he seemed to stop skimming the report, too. He froze, and Lana hurried to the laptop to see what had caused the reaction. She saw it the moment Joelle spelled it out.

“Oh, God,” Joelle repeated. “Austin PD thinks Buck might have been the one who killed our father.”

Chapter Five

Slater kept watch of the security monitors, fought off the fatigue and rehashed everything he’d uncovered since Joelle’s bombshell.

Buck might have been the one who killed our father.

Since Buck hadn’t been on Slater’s radar before tonight, Slater hadn’t latched onto the theory. But that had changed after he and Lana had spent the last two hours going through any and all background on Buck.

They hadn’t found any direct proof, but the connection was indeed there, and Slater could now see why Austin PD had flagged it as part of their investigation into Buck’s involvement in the deaths of his brother and parents. It was yet another circumstantial piece that when put with the other pieces could point to murder.

“I should have seen this sooner,” he muttered, scrubbing his hand over his face to keep himself alert and awake.

“How?” Lana questioned. “It wasn’t even your father’s case.”

True, but after poring over every one of his dad’s investigations, he should have widened the net to other cases. If so, he might have found the details about Alicia Monroe, a nineteen-year-old woman who’d disappeared from Weston, a small town near Saddle Ridge. There’d been enough blood at the scene of Alicia’s small apartment to declare her dead, but they’d never found her body. Alicia’s mother, Maryanne, had been old high school friends with Slater’s parents and had asked his dad, then sheriff, to look into the matter.

And his father had.

Slater had managed to find notes about it in an old file that his dad had marked personal. In those notes, his dad had listed several scenarios and suspects for Alicia’s death. It’d been a lengthy list since Alicia had apparently been considered a party girl and had a huge circle of friends.

Including Buck.

There’d been nothing concrete about Buck in his dad’s notes or in the investigation that the Weston PD had conducted, but Buck had been a person of interest since he’d had a relationship with Alicia. And a volatile temper even back then. Several people had verified that the breakup with Buck hadn’t been amicable, but there were no specifics about such things as stalking or violence. Buck had been just nineteen at the time, and with the lack of evidence, he’d been questioned and released. That wasn’t the end of the story, though.

Slater stared at the notes now. Observations made by his father that had started nearly twenty years earlier and had continued until right before his death. Even though Alicia’s death was considered a cold case, his dad had continued to dig into it, had continued to ask questions, had still considered it an active if unofficial investigation. That maybe meant he’d continued to ruffle some feathers as well.

Had Buck found out about the investigation and murdered Slater’s dad to silence him once and for all?

Maybe.

There was one note in particular that troubled him. The month before his father’s murder, he’d jotted down a comment that he wanted to reinterview the persons of interest, and he’d listed some of Alicia’s friends, including Buck. If his father had actually talked with any of them, there was no indication of it in the file notes. Or maybe he’d died before he could add them.

The bottom line was his father could have spoken to Buck, spooked him, and that could have prompted Buck to murder him.

“Do you remember when Alicia disappeared?” Lana asked, drawing his attention back to her. Not that it’d strayed far since she was literally sitting shoulder to shoulder with him.

“I do.” He’d been sixteen at the time, and even though it’d happened one town over, it’d caused some panic among the townsfolk who’d speculated there might be a killer on the loose. “You?”

She nodded. “Stephanie knew Alicia, and she talked a lot about the murder.”