Page 19 of Child In Jeopardy
And Slater couldn’t blame her.
Buck’s words were no doubt repeating like gunfire in her head.Lana and you are going to die. The thing was they justdidn’t know if the threat was real or if it’d been one last shot by a dying man. Buck had indeed spoken to someone on the phone when he’d broken into Lana’s house, so he hadn’t been working alone. However, that didn’t mean the accomplice would continue to do his bidding now that he was dead.
It was somewhat of a miracle that Lana hadn’t been seriously injured, but Slater had still insisted she be examined by the EMTs. Thankfully, they hadn’t found any damage from her being hit with the stun gun.
“Are you okay?” Lana asked, turning from the window and fixing her gaze on him.
Slater knew it wasn’t a simple question. Nor did he have a simple answer. Only three hours earlier, he’d killed a man. A man who’d seemed hell-bent on murdering Lana. But Buck had been more than their attacker. He’d been a suspect in the murders of Stephanie and Slater’s father. Maybe Buck had ended both their lives.
And maybe he hadn’t.
“Now I know how people feel who’ve had loved ones disappear,” she muttered. “No real answers. Only speculation.”
Yeah, he understood that. Of course, a disappearance wasn’t necessarily a murder. Murder was final. But without the answers as to the who and the why, he and Lana wouldn’t have that elusive closure. Mercy, he needed that, and he was certain Lana did, too. It was the only way they were going to be able to look past the now and move on to the future.
At the thought of “future,” the baby came to mind, and he knew Cameron was weighing heavily on Lana right now. It was obvious she loved the baby and was worried about him. That’s why it was critical for them to find out the identity of Buck’s accomplice.
Slater had plenty of wheels in motion for that. Both his fellow cops and Austin PD were digging through Buck’s phone recordsand financials, looking for anything that could give them a lead. Slater wanted to dive right in to that research, too, and he would just as soon as they got these interviews out of the way. Maybe Marsh or Lana’s parents would spill something that would help.
The door to the break room opened, and both Slater and Lana automatically reached for guns that weren’t there. Lana, too, had had to surrender her gun since personal firearms weren’t allowed in the headquarters.
Their reaction, though, wasn’t necessary since it wasn’t a threat. It was Detective Thayer, and judging from her troubled expression, something else had gone wrong. Lana must have picked up on it as well.
“Is the baby all right?” Lana asked, the frantic edge in her voice.
“As far as I know,” Thayer said. “I haven’t gotten any alerts or anything.”
That verbal assurance didn’t appease Lana, and Slater saw her fire off a text to Joelle. Something Lana had already done several times since Buck’s death. His sister’s response was equally fast and told Lana that all was well.
“I’m not here about the baby,” Thayer went on once Lana looked up from her phone. “I wanted to let you know that someone leaked to the press.” She walked closer to them, bringing up some images on her phone.
Slater steeled himself up to see pictures of Buck’s body. Or maybe even Slater shooting the man. It was so easy these days for people to post such things on social media. If the photos were “compelling” enough, then media would pick them up, too.
Both he and Lana leaned in to take a look, and he heard the soft sound of surprise that Lana made when she realized what she was looking at. Not Buck. But rather Stephanie. And these weren’t death photos but rather of Stephanie clearly in party mode.
In the first shot, Stephanie was wearing just her underwear and was dancing. Since she had a cocktail glass in her hand, she had likely been drinking. The second one was of another party with Stephanie making out with some guy. Neither shot was flattering. Ditto for the third. It’d been taken from behind, and a grinning, inebriated Stephanie was looking over her shoulder just as she was about to dive into a pool.
“Who posted these?” Lana wanted to know.
“We’re not sure, but they were on Stephanie’s Facebook page,” Thayer explained. “Stephanie obviously hadn’t used the page in a while, but she had it set to public, which means anyone could have tagged her so they’d wind up there.”
“You can trace the person who posted these?” Slater asked.
Thayer shrugged. “The photos were published from a new account, one without an actual profile name, only numbers, but we’ll try to find who’s responsible.” She paused. “And the pictures were also put on every one of Stephanie’s friends’ pages.”
Lana dragged in a long breath. “Could Buck have done this?”
“No,” Thayer was quick to say. “These showed up an hour ago, and they hadn’t been scheduled in advance. Maybe it’s some kind of smear campaign from his accomplice, but that doesn’t feel right.”
Slater made a sound of agreement. “An accomplice wouldn’t want to draw this kind of attention.” That got nods from both Lana and the detective.
“So why do it?” Lana asked. “Stephanie’s dead. She...” She trailed off and muttered some profanity under her breath. “This could be meant to get back at my parents.” Lana stopped again and groaned. “Or someone who wants to make people believe Stephanie was irresponsible and deserved to die.”
That could be a large pool of people. Stephanie had likely made some enemies, and Slater had no doubts that her parents had, too.
“Anyway, I thought you should know about this before the interviews,” Thayer said, checking the time. “The Walshes and Marsh Bray will be here soon, and any info about Stephanie’s potential enemies might come out in their statements. If they haven’t seen the photos already, I’m sure they soon will.”
No doubt, and maybe that would set one of them off enough that they’d reveal something they’d rather keep secret.