Page 59 of Child In Jeopardy

Also thankfully, Duncan wasn’t alone. Pamela’s hands were no longer tied, and she was hobbling alongside her husband, who no longer seemed as drugged as he had earlier. Pamela bolted ahead of them and practically fell into Lana’s arms.

“You made it out,” Slater said, and there was a whole lot of relief in his voice and his entire body.

Duncan nodded. “We were by the stalls with Leonard for the first blast and were already outside for the second one.” He looked in Marsh’s direction. “Did he confess to setting the explosions?”

“Not yet, but he tried to escape. Then he tried to kill Lana and me.”

Hearing his own words drilled home just how close they’d come to dying, and when Pamela let go of Lana, Slater pulled Lana into his arms. He didn’t care who was watching. He just needed to hold her for a moment.

Like him, she was still plenty unsteady, and this would no doubt give them both hellish memories for the rest of their lives, but like Duncan, Leonard and Pamela, they were alive. They could deal with the rest later. He let go of Lana and turned back to her mother.

“Marsh was going to kill us,” Pamela muttered. “He was going to kill us all.”

Slater thought she might start crying, but she didn’t. A fiery streak of temper crossed the woman’s face, and Pamela bolted toward Marsh when she saw him. She hurled a string of vicious profanity at the man and tried to kick him before Luca held her back.

“You should be dead,” Marsh snarled, aiming his own profanity at the woman. “You should have died in the blast.Hell, I wish I’d killed you a long time ago. You and your despicable SOB of a husband.”

Judging from the way Lana, Pamela and Leonard stared at Marsh, they hadn’t known his true feelings. Marsh had obviously kept his venom for them close to the chest.

Or maybe those feelings were a recent development.

Slater decided to test that theory.

“Did you want to punish Leonard for keeping Stephanie’s whereabouts from you?” Slater asked.

“Yes,” Marsh snapped while two of the other deputies began to untruss Marsh so they could cuff him. “I was worried sick about Stephanie. I couldn’t think of anything but her and what she might be going through. And Leonard knew where she was and didn’t tell me. So did she.” He aimed a stone cold glare at Pamela.

Pamela frantically shook her head. “How? I didn’t know.”

“You should have known,” Marsh yelled. “You should have been a better mother to Stephanie and she wouldn’t have run off like that and hidden. And Lana was the one to hide her,” he added in a snarl. “You kept the woman I love from me.” Now he was the one who broke down and cried.

And Slater thought he knew how this had all played out, but he needed to hear it from Marsh. “Tell me what happened,” Slater ordered. “Start with your part in Alicia’s death. Because you wouldn’t have known to come here had you not had some part in it.”

It took a while for Marsh to gain enough composure to speak. “Buck is to blame for that.”

“Buck?” Slater questioned. “He’s the one who killed Alicia?”

“No,” Marsh muttered, repeating that denial several times. He made a heavy sigh. “Alicia and I had just started seeing each other, and I went to her place and Buck was there.” He swallowed hard. “Things got out of hand, and Alicia shovedme, told me to get out. I shoved her back, and she fell. She hit her head.” His voice trailed off to a whisper, and Slater thought Marsh might be caught up in those memories of that horrible night. “There was blood. So much blood.”

“What happened then?” Slater asked.

“Alicia was dead. And I didn’t know what to do. I was in shock and couldn’t even make myself move. Buck said he could take care of things but that I would owe him. I agreed. I would have agreed to anything just to make it all go away.”

“You’re a killer,” Pamela blurted. “All this time I was pushing Stephanie to marry you, and you were a killer.”

Marsh didn’t deny it and didn’t try to add any sugarcoating. Good. Slater didn’t want to hear any lame excuses for the hell he’d caused.

“You and Buck emailed after he’d disposed of Alicia’s body,” Slater threw out there. “And after you learned Leonard had known where Stephanie was, you planted the emails on his computer.”

Marsh didn’t deny that, either. Couldn’t. Because the truth was there, all over his face.

“And you made sure I found them,” Pamela murmured. She turned to Leonard. “I’m so sorry. I thought you were the one who murdered Alicia.”

Leonard was still obviously dazed, but he pulled his wife into his arms, and he surprised Slater by murmuring, “It’s all going to be okay.”

No, it wasn’t. Not for Marsh, anyway, and since the man was clearly in a confessing mood, Slater pressed harder. He wanted the truth all out there, and then Marsh could be hauled away to jail.

“Alicia’s murder might not have been premeditated, but you knew Buck was going to murder Stephanie and that you were going to kill Taylor,” Slater pointed out.