Page 24 of Child In Jeopardy
Slater stayed quiet a moment. “Maybe it did. Have you considered that Stephanie being in hiding was exactly what your parents wanted? No, that doesn’t mean they wanted her dead,” he was quick to add. “It could mean that they’d hoped to sweep the pregnancy under the rug and have her return to marry Marsh.”
Lana thought back through her conversations with Stephanie, and while her sister had never admitted to something like that, it could definitely be true. And that meant she had possibly been used as a dupe in all of this.
Slater’s grip tightened on her hand, and he eased her to him. No kiss this time. He just held her while she tried to process another disturbing possibility in this investigation.
“Do you want me to go ahead and call Sonya so we can start the drive back to Saddle Ridge?” he asked.
Her first instinct was to say yes because she desperately wanted to see the baby. But Lana held back on that response and spelled out her concern. “Be honest. If I’m near Cameron, will that put him in more danger?”
Slater pulled back from her and met her gaze. “I don’t know. If we go with the theory of Buck wanting to eliminate any competition for his family estate, then there shouldn’t be a threat to Cameron and you since Buck’s dead.”
True. But the threat still felt very real. “No other relatives who might take up claim to the money?”
“No. I checked on that while I was in observation for the interviews. With Patrick and Buck both deceased, the inheritance would go to their heirs. Right now, that’s only Cameron, and there isn’t anyone on record who could challenge that claim.”
Lana didn’t want a penny of that estate for Cameron, but she also knew it might not be her decision to make. “What about heirs who might come forward? A secret baby maybe?”
“It’s possible,” he admitted, “but I can’t see Buck working with someone who could inherit something he wanted to keep all for himself.”
“No,” she agreed. “So, maybe not a threat for the money but possibly Buck left orders with his accomplice. Orders to kill me because I helped hide Stephanie from him.”
“Maybe.” He paused, repeated that and then groaned softly. “But this feels bigger than that. Buck could have killed you on the spot, but he didn’t. He stunned you instead and was obviously going to try to escape with you.”
“He could have just wanted a human shield,” Lana muttered, blinking back the flashbacks. “The plan could have been to kill me as soon as he was out of harm’s way.”
If so, that bolstered her revenge theory, that Buck wanted her to pay for helping Stephanie. But would he have been so obsessed with payback that he wanted to strike out at her from beyond the grave?
Or was this about something else?
Something that involved her parents and maybe Marsh, too? If so, she and Slater could dig into that in Saddle Ridge.
“Call Sonya,” Lana said just as her phone rang, and the moment she saw the caller, she answered it on speaker.“Taylor,” she greeted, but she didn’t manage to say more because Taylor spoke right over her.
“Why does an Austin cop want to talk to me?” Taylor demanded. “She left a voicemail telling me to contact her. What does she want?”
Lana ignored the woman and went with a question of her own. “Where are you, Taylor?”
Taylor’s huff was plenty loud. “Why does an Austin cop want to talk to me?” she repeated, enunciating each word as if talking to a child.
Lana debated how to go with this, but then Slater gave her a nod. “The cops want to talk to you about Stephanie’s death.”
“Of course,” she said in the same tone as an annoyance but not anything big. “Well, they’ll waste my time and theirs because I don’t know anything about it. She’s dead, period.” Taylor paused. “She is dead, right? That wasn’t all some kind of stupid hoax, was it?”
“Stephanie’s dead,” Lana verified, speaking around the sudden lump in her throat. Even though she and Stephanie weren’t best pals, it still hurt to hear Taylor’s callous attitude toward her sister.
“Good,” Taylor declared, but then she must have realized who she was talking to. “I’m sorry for your loss and all, but you know I’d be lying if I said I wish Stephanie was alive.”
“Yes,” Lana softly agreed, and then went with another question. “Why did you hate Stephanie so much?”
A burst of air left Taylor’s mouth, not quite laughter but close. “Oh, let me count the ways. I was seeing Marsh when Stephanie horned in on our relationship. She got your parents and Marsh’s to persuade him to dump me so Stephanie and he could go through with what would have basically been a business merger marriage.”
Lana thought back to something Marsh had said. “Marsh called Stephanie the love of his life.”
That brought on a string of raw profanity from Taylor, and she ended it with, “No way in hell. He just said that to keep your precious daddy on his side. Marsh has political aspirations, too, and Leonard Walsh is his ticket. That’s all.”
Lana wasn’t sure she’d ever heard Marsh mention anything about politics, but it was possible he was brownnosing her father to keep in his good graces. But Marsh’s feelings for Stephanie had seemed genuine.Seemed.
“Now that Stephanie’s out of the way, Marsh will come back to me,” Taylor went on. “And I can play nice with your father, too, because that’s how much I want Marsh.”