Page 26 of Child In Jeopardy
“I thought not. It’s not something you’d admit to a cop,” Julia added. “Anyway, last night Taylor hired BoBo.”
Lana groaned and looked up at Slater to provide an explanation. “BoBo is a well-known hacker with no loyalty whatsoever. His favorite scam is to have a client pay him well for info and then to turn around and find out how he can get even more money by informing someone of the hacking.”
“Bingo,” Julia agreed. “And about an hour ago, BoBo, aka Robbie Jansky, called here asking to speak to you. He said you’d be very interested in some information he came by. I told him you were tied up with some personal stuff and agreed to the thousand bucks he was asking for.”
“I’ll pay you back,” Lana was quick to say.
“I knew you would, and I also figured it’d be worth the price. BoBo usually has something good. And, Deputy McCullough, I know all of this must be setting your cop’s teeth on edge, but please understand, we don’t use any of the hacked info in court cases. We use it as more of a jumping-off point to find our own data and sources to corroborate what he gave us.”
Julia had been right about Slater’s teeth being on edge. There was definitely some disapproval on his face, but that didn’t stop him from pressing Julia for what she’d learned. “And did this hacker give you something good this time?”
“He did.” Julia stopped, sighed. “Well, you might consider it more of a hornet’s nest, but here goes. BoBo hacked into Leonard’s emails and learned that Lana’s father not only knew Stephanie was pregnant, but he also knew her location at least for the last three months she was alive. There’s a flurry of emails about it between him and one of his PIs.”
Lana wanted to curse, and it meant her father had out-and-out lied to her. Of course, she suspected that wasn’t the first time he’d done something like that.
“The PI had Stephanie and Lana under surveillance,” Julia went on. “And Buck, too.”
“Buck?” Slater repeated.
“Buck,” Julia verified. “The emails don’t come out and say that Leonard knew Buck had gotten Stephanie pregnant, but Leonard instructed his PI to keep close tabs on the man to make sure he didn’t go sniffing around Stephanie again.”
“And did he keep close tabs on Buck?” Lana wanted to know. Because if he had, her father might have known that Buck planned to kill Stephanie.
“He did. There’s another flurry of reports about that and even some surveillance-type photos of Buck shopping and eating out.”
“Please tell me Buck was with someone in those photos,” Lana said. “Someone who could have been his accomplice.”
“Nothing, but again, this is a jumping-off point. Using the hacked PI reports, we now have some locations where we know Buck was. You know how this works, Lana. We’ll go to those locations and talk to people. Look for more security footage. We’ll create a digital map of where he was and who he might have encountered.”
Yes, Lana did know this was how it worked. The info from BoBo was essentially tips from a criminal informant, and none of it could be used to make an arrest. However, if the accomplice did turn up on camera or through eyewitness accounts, then the cops could get the pieces to put the person behind bars.
Lana hoped.
She had to believe there’d be justice for her sister and a safe future for Cameron. That she wouldn’t have to spend the rest of her life looking over her shoulder for a killer.
“Now, to the hornet’s nest,” Julia added a moment later.
Lana shook her head. “I thought that was my father knowing about Stephanie and Buck.”
“No, there’s more. I just don’t know if it’s related to Stephanie or if it means anything at all, but the way it’s worded makes me think there’s something your dad’s trying to cover up.”
“What?” Lana managed to say.
Julia cleared her throat. “Does the name Alicia mean anything to either of you?”
Lana felt as if someone had punched her, and she figured from the way Slater’s jaw tightened, he felt the same way. “Alicia Monroe,” he provided. “My father was investigating her murder when he was killed. And we recently learned that Buck was a person of interest in Alicia’s death.”
“Yes, I pieced that together when I did a search for the name. The email didn’t mention her surname, by the way,” Juliatacked onto that. She stopped, muttered an apology. “Let me start from the beginning. In one of Leonard’s emails to his PI, the PI expressed some concern about Stephanie being a loose cannon. His exact words,” she emphasized.
“Did my father say why?” Lana asked.
“The timing fits for him finding out she was pregnant so maybe that’s it. But it was also around the time your dad first mentioned Buck and that he needed to be monitored. Again, Leonard’s exact word. And now here’s the hornet’s nest. Leonard adds, and I quote,I don’t want another Alicia on my hands.”
“Oh, God,” Lana heard herself mutter.
She looked up at Slater to see his reaction. Every muscle in his face had turned to iron. And Lana knew this was indeed a hornet’s nest.
Lana cursed. Had her own dad played some part in murdering Slater’s father?