Page 55 of Child In Jeopardy

Why the hell was Lana’s father here? What did he want? And where was Pamela? She certainly wasn’t in the stall with her husband, so had she been taken?

Or was she the person firing those shots?

Slater figured any and all of those possibilities could be true, but for now he focused on Leonard.

And the gun that the man had gripped in his hand.

Leonard didn’t aim the gun at them. In fact, he stayed against the wall, his body sort of slumped to the side. Slater didn’t want to take a chance, though, that Leonard might turn that gun on them, so he reached in and snatched it away. All without Leonard putting up a fight.

The man moaned again and shook his head. “Who’s shooting?” he asked, his words slurred.

There was indeed some gunfire going on, and it was all coming from Duncan. Either he’d managed to pin down the shooter, or else the shooter had given up the fight and was escaping.

“Leonard’s in here,” Slater relayed to Duncan, figuring that wouldn’t be info that Duncan was expecting.

“I’ll check him for more weapons,” Lana insisted, moving into the stall so she could frisk her father.

Again, her father put up no resistance whatsoever, and when Slater used the flashlight on his phone to aim it at the man, he saw Leonard’s slack face and unfocused gaze. It was possiblehe’d been injured, but there wasn’t any blood. However, the sleeve of his shirt had been shoved up, and there appeared to be a puncture mark on his arm. Not from a weapon but possibly from a needle.

“How did you get here, Leonard?” Slater asked while he continued to keep watch around them. He didn’t want someone hiding in another stall to attack him and Lana while they were occupied with her father.

Leonard shook his head and ran his tongue over his bottom lip. “Here?” he questioned.

Yeah, he’d been drugged all right, but Slater figured that didn’t mean the man hadn’t committed murder. He could have done this to himself so he’d look innocent. After all, they’d just found the body of a woman he’d likely had some part in murdering.

Outside the stall, Duncan’s shots trailed off some, and he was probably testing to see if the shooter would start up again. Hopefully not. Even though he and Lana were in the stall, it wouldn’t give them much protection from bullets coming at them. And Duncan was practically out in the open where he, too, could be gunned down.

“Lana,” Leonard murmured, clearly trying to focus his eyes on his daughter. “What happened?”

“You tell me,” she countered. “You can explain how you got here and why your former lover, Alicia Monroe, is buried in a grave just a stone’s throw away.”

There was rage in her voice, and Slater couldn’t blame her one bit. He was feeling plenty of that himself. Not just for Alicia but for the danger that had nearly cost Lana her life.

“Buried?” Leonard repeated, shaking his head, but then he stopped. Just stopped. And any trace of color drained from his face. “Alicia.” He said the name as a low moan that ended in a groan.

“Yes, Alicia,” Lana snapped. “You murdered her and—”

“No,” her father argued, and while that response was still slurred, he seemed adamant about it. “I didn’t kill her.”

“Then who did?” Lana snapped.

Leonard shook his head again. “Buck, I think. I think he did it. Because he was jealous. He was seeing her, too.”

Lana grounded out some raw profanity. “And why didn’t you report that to the cops?”

“No proof.” Leonard repeated that a couple of times, and while he sounded somewhat convincing, Slater wasn’t ready to buy it.

Not with so many unanswered questions.

There were those emails in the files that Pamela had taken from Leonard’s computer. Or rather had supposedly taken. Slater had to concede it was possible that was a setup to frame Leonard for a murder he’d had no part in committing.

“It’s me,” Slater heard Duncan say, and a few seconds later, he slipped into the stall behind him and Lana. “There’s no movement in the bleachers, no sign of the shooter. Or Pamela. I’ve called for backup.”

Good. Because Slater wanted all the help they could get, and he knew this was far from over. They had to find Pamela. And the person who’d fired those shots. They could be one and the same, but they had to know.

“What the hell happened to him?” Duncan asked, tipping his head to Leonard while he continued to keep watch on the bleachers and the arena.

“To be determined. But I think he was drugged.” Slater motioned to the puncture mark on his arm.