Page 40 of Child In Jeopardy

Slater listened to Taylor shouting profanities and threats all the way out of the house. Moments later, Sonya texted him to let him know that Taylor had gotten in her Jag and driven off. Slater was betting, though, that she wouldn’t stay gone. There was something going on between her and Leonard, and Taylor would no doubt return once she’d burned off some of her anger.

“I’m sorry,” Marsh muttered, directing the apology to Leonard. “I didn’t know Taylor would be here, but when I saw her car, I thought she might be...well, I didn’t know if she was trying to make you believe I was the one who killed Stephanie. I didn’t,” he emphasized, glancing at all three of them.

“But you believe Taylor did team up with Buck,” Slater said, taking the photo from Marsh to get a better look.

Slater studied the image, but it was hard to tell if it had indeed been photoshopped. Even if it was the real deal, though, it didn’t prove Taylor’s guilt. After all, the woman had already admitted that she knew Buck.

“I don’t know for certain,” Marsh said. “But something’s going on with her.” He groaned, shook his head. “She wanted us to get back together, and when I told her no, that it was never going to happen, she just seemed to lose it.”

Slater glanced at Leonard to see how he was reacting to that. Not well. He was scowling and looked to be on the verge of muttering something. He didn’t. When he noticed Slater staring at him, he shut down and on went his poker face. If the man was having an affair with Taylor, though, he probably wasn’t pleased about Taylor trying to reconcile with Marsh.

Well, maybe he wasn’t.

It was possible that if an affair was truly going on between him and Taylor, it was only about sex.

“You can keep the photo,” Marsh told Slater. “In case you want to send it to the crime lab. I took a picture of it,” he added, lifting his phone.

Slater nodded, but while it probably wouldn’t give them any new information, he would indeed send it to the lab since it possibly contained fingerprints of the person who’d left it. If those prints belonged to Leonard, then it could add to the circumstantial evidence against him.

Marsh said his goodbyes to Leonard and headed out, but when he opened the office door, Slater didn’t see the guy in the suit who’d been there earlier, and he wondered if this “assistant” had stepped out to make sure Taylor had truly left.

“Where’s your mother?” Leonard asked Lana the moment Marsh was gone.

Lana sighed. “I’m not going to tell you that.”

And just like that, Leonard’s fierce anger returned. “She won’t answer my calls, and I have to talk to her. I need to find out why she’s telling these lies about me before the lies get out of hand.”

In other words, before the press picked up on them. But Slater had no intention of helping the man defuse that kind of bad press. Apparently, neither did Lana.

“No,” she said, and there was no indication in her tone that she would change her mind.

Her father must have realized that, too, because he cursed again. “Get out,” Leonard told them. “Both of you. Now.”

Slater looked at her and nodded. They weren’t going to get a confession or anything else from her father. The man had dug in his heels and had already taken out his phone, no doubt to get started on finding his wife. Slater had to make sure that didn’t happen. At the moment, Pamela didn’t have a guard with her, but that could be arranged.

He and Lana threaded their way through the massive house to the front door and out onto the porch. Still no sign of the guy in the suit, but Slater immediately noticed the black Mercedes that hadn’t been there when they’d arrived.

Sonya stepped out of the cruiser and looked at them from over the top of the vehicle. “It’s Marsh’s,” she said, tipping her head toward the thick gardens on the right side of the house. “He muttered something about going for a walk.”

Slater immediately got an uneasy feeling about that. If Marsh had needed to cool off, why do it here? Why not just go back to his own place?

Some movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention, and Slater saw something else he didn’t like. Taylor’s car. It was parked up by the gate—which was also on the right side of the property. He couldn’t tell, though, if she was still inside.

“She drove off but then came back,” Sonya explained as Slater and Lana started down the steps.

Maybe waiting for all of them to leave so she could go in and try to mend fences with Leonard. But again, that made Slater uneasy.

“Did she get out?” Slater wanted to know. If she’d seen Marsh walking, Taylor might have wanted to continue her argument with the man.

“It’s possible,” Sonya admitted. “The passenger side of her car is hidden by the gate post.”

It was, and Taylor could have slipped out that way if she hadn’t wanted Sonya or anyone else to see her.

“Get in the cruiser,” he told Lana.

But he was already too late.

The shot blasted through the air, tearing into the wood column right next to where Lana was standing. She dropped onto the limestone steps. So did Slater, and he immediatelytried to pinpoint where the shot had come from. If he wasn’t mistaken, it had come from the area where Marsh had gone for his “walk.”