Chapter Eighteen
Slater’s heart slammed against his chest, and he had to fight his instincts to let go of Marsh and run toward the arena. Duncan and Lana’s parents could be trying to claw their way out of the wreckage.
But he couldn’t leave Lana alone with a killer.
And he had no doubts, none, that Marsh was exactly that.
Lana’s hands were shaking and she’d gone ashen when she reached for Marsh’s belt. It took Slater a couple of seconds to figure out what she was doing. She yanked the leather belt from the man’s khakis and used it to make cuffs to restrain Marsh’s hands behind his back. She didn’t stop there. Lana took Slater’s belt and did the same to Marsh’s feet, hooking one belt through the other to essentially truss him up.
Slater snatched up Marsh’s gun so the man wouldn’t be able to somehow crawl his way to it, and he and Lana took off running toward the collapsed building. He was sure they were praying along the way. Slater certainly was, and he hoped that Duncan had somehow managed to get Pamela and Leonard out before the second blast.
The blue lights from the two approaching cruisers slashed through the darkness, and the moment the they stopped, Deputies David Morales and Ronnie Bishop bolted out of one of them. Luca and Deputy Brandon Rooney came out of the other.
“Arrest him and read him his rights,” Slater instructed Luca, motioning toward Marsh, and he and Lana kept running with David and Ronnie right behind them.
Some of the muscles in Slater’s chest unclenched when he saw that one of his prayers had been answered. Duncan was making his way toward them. His face and clothes were covered with dirt and dust, but he didn’t seem injured.
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 shoved me, 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.
“I didn’t know Buck was going to kill Stephanie,” Marsh yelled just as the deputies got him out of the belts and cuffed his hands. They pulled him to his feet so he was now eye level with Slater. “If I’d known, I would have stopped him. I would have killed him.”
“You knew Stephanie was pregnant with his baby?” Lana asked.
“He told me, but I didn’t believe him. I thought the baby was mine.” Marsh shook his head. “But then I realized if it had been, Stephanie wouldn’t be in hiding. She was scared of Buck, and Buck was a monster.”
“He was your partner,” Slater reminded him. “You were his accomplice.”
“Not because I wanted to be.” Marsh groaned. “It all got so messed up. He killed Stephanie and then said if I didn’t help him cover it up, he’d give the cops a recording he made of the night Alicia died. Buck blackmailed me while I was sick with grief over losing Stephanie. This is all his fault.”
The wimp was trying to deflect the blame, but Slater knew there was enough blame for both Buck and Marsh. “It wasn’t Buck’s fault that you killed Taylor. Buck was already dead by then. Why did you kill her? Because she was getting too close to the truth?”
“She got to the truth,” Marsh clarified. “Taylor had worked it all out. She didn’t have proof yet, but she would have kept digging until she found it. She wanted to hurt me for telling her to get lost.” He paused. “In hindsight, I should have led her on and let her think she stood a chance of being with me, but I couldn’t stand the sight of her. Not after all those things she said about Stephanie.”
Yeah, hindsight might have saved Taylor long enough for them to figure out Marsh was the accomplice, but Taylor might not have been willing to play along with that.
“You were willing to kill Sheriff Holder, Lana and me to get back at Leonard,” Slater stated. “Why didn’t you just kill Leonard when you drugged him and brought him here?”
More anger fired through Marsh. “Because I wanted you all to pay for Stephanie dying. You should have figured everything out sooner, and then you would have come gunning for me. You were all supposed to get trapped in the first explosion, and the second one should have killed you all.”
“How did you even know how to build explosives?” That question came from Duncan, who was motioning for the EMTs to move in to examine Leonard.
“Buck did them. All of this was his backup plan to cover his own butt if the cops pinned Stephanie’s murder on him. He thought he was going to get away with that since he’d jammed the security cameras.”
It sickened Slater to think Buck might have indeed gotten away with it if Lana hadn’t seen him. Then again, if she hadn’t, then Buck might not have come after her.
Marsh likely would have, though.
The rage was too strong for Marsh just to have dropped this. He wanted revenge for all those who’d kept Stephanie from him. And it didn’t matter that Stephanie had been the one who’d initiated the hiding.
“I must have messed up the timing of the explosives,” Marsh snarled. “Buck didn’t leave good enough instructions. The first wasn’t supposed to do much damage but give me time to get away once I had all of you in the arena. Then, the second one was supposed to go off within seconds so you’d all be punished for what you did.”
Marsh stopped his tirade to launch into another one. All aimed at Leonard when the EMTs started taking the man toward the ambulance. Pamela was trailing along right behind them, and while she might never forgive her husband for his affairs, she certainly didn’t appear to be ready to leave him, either.
“Who dug up Alicia’s body?” Slater asked, trying to get Marsh back on track so he could get as much information from him as possible.
Especially since Slater had a huge question he needed answering.
“Buck did,” Marsh muttered as if weren’t important. “That was part of his backup plan, too. To use Alicia’s body to blackmail Leonard so he’d help him. I figured I’d piggyback on that and use it to lure Pamela and Lana here. And you,” he added, and now there was the tone of importance.
Marsh smiled at him. A sickening smile that slammed Slater with anger. Because Slater knew what was coming next.
“I shot your father because he wouldn’t butt his nose out of the investigation into Alicia’s death.” Marsh said the words slowly, punctuating them with that smile that was straight from hell.
There it was. The answer Slater had needed. And it cut him to the bone. His father had been gunned down for doing his job.
Slater felt a hand on his arm and realized it was Lana. He hadn’t even noticed her moving closer to him. Hadn’t noticed anything. Except the smiling monster standing in front of him. He’d always heard the expression “seeing red,” but Slater hadn’t known it was real. But the red came. Wave after wave of rage that was closing in on him.
“Kill me, Deputy McCullough,” Marsh taunted. “You know you want to. That way, you get your so-called justice, and I don’t have to spend the rest of my life in a cage.”
Slater wanted that justice. Wanted it more than his next breath.
Or so he thought.
Then he felt Lana’s grip tighten on his arm, and she gently turned Slater to face her. “Marsh will be punished every day he’s in jail,” she said. “No trust fund. No pampered lifestyle. He’ll be with other killers who’ll make him sorry he was ever born. He’ll have to spend every moment looking over his shoulder, waiting to be attacked by monsters worse than he can ever imagine. Every moment will be his own personal hell that he can’t escape.”
The cockiness and taunting drained from Marsh’s face. Slater could thank Lana for painting that vivid picture of what the man’s future would be. Yes, Slater would get plenty satisfaction from killing Marsh right here, right now. But this way, Marsh would pay for the rest of his miserable life.
Slater gave Marsh one last look, and while the grief didn’t vanish, some of the tightness did in his chest. Tightness he’d been carrying for a year since his father’s murder.
“Thank you,” Slater managed to say, and he leaned in and kissed her. Again, it wasn’t the best timing, but he needed it.
He needed her.
“I’m in love with you,” Slater heard himself say.
Even though he’d surprised himself with the words, it didn’t seem to surprise anyone else around them. Duncan muttered, “About time,” and the other deputies voiced agreement.
Marsh cursed them, but Slater tuned him out as Duncan and the deputies led him away to one of the cruisers. He and Lana stayed put, and she smiled when she stared up at him.
“About time,” she repeated, leaning in to brush a kiss on his mouth. “I’ve been half in love with you for a long time. Now it’s the real deal, fully in love. Are you okay with that?”
“Better than okay,” he assured her.
It wasn’t exactly a prime spot for the kind of deep kiss they gave each other. After all, this was a crime scene, and the blasted fog was getting thicker. Along with the stench of the explosion, there was nothing romantic about it.
But it was still perfect.
Because of Lana. Because of the man he was when he was with her.
“Let’s tie up any loose ends with Marsh,” he suggested. “Then let’s go to the ranch, give Cameron some cuddles and then find a bed so I can get you naked.”
“The perfect plan,” she quickly agreed, glancing at her parents. “And I’ll say a quick word to them, too. All is not well there, but I don’t want anything I feel for them interfering with what I feel for you.”
Good. Slater wanted the same thing.
“You make me a better man,” he told her. “You soothe me. You fire me up. You give me exactly what I need. I’m in love with you,” Slater repeated, and thought he’d be saying that a whole lot more, not just tonight but for a long time. “And I want Cameron and you in my life forever.”
Lana smiled. “Good, because I love you, too, and forever works for me.”
She kissed him with that amazing smile. Kissed him and helped heal all those dark places that’d been inside him.
Yeah, forever would work just fine.