All Night Long

that I won’t let you touch her again. How could I have been so blind?”
    She flew to the door, wrenched it open and fled the room.
    Ryland swung back to face Irene. His rage had turned ice cold.
    “I’ll see that you pay for this,” he said. “You have absolutely no solid evidence. No one is going to pay attention to doctored videos.”
    “I think they will, but just in case, I’ve got something else you might want to see.”
    Irene reached int er purse and took out the packet of photos that Duncan had made earlier in the day.

    She scattered the pictures on the table. “Pamela wanted to be very certain that I had enough evidence to make her accusations stick. In addition to the computer files, she also left me this miniature wedding dres ostume preserved in a plastic wrapper. Care to comment?”
    Ryland glanced at the photos. At first he appeared baffled. Then recognition struck.
    His jaw sagged.
    He went pale.
    “Where did you get that dress?” he demanded, hoarse with fear and fury.
    “Pamela saved it,” Irene said. “She states that you forced her to wear that gown on several occasions when she was a girl. She says you got a kick out of raping her when she was dressed like that.”
    “You can’t prove anything, do you hear me?” Ryland snarled. “Not one damned thing.”
    “Pamela also states on the video that any reasonably good lab will find DNA evidence all over the skirts of that dress.”
    Ryland uttered an inarticulate roar and leaped toward her, both hands outstretched.
    Instinctively she fell back, vaguely aware of the sound of Duncan’s video camera in action. All sh ould see was the rage on Ryland’s face as he came toward her.
    And then Luke was suddenly between her and Ryland, moving so quickly she wasn’t sure what had happened until she saw Webb stretched out flat on his back on the floor.
    Luke stood over him. “I told you, no threatening the reporter.”
    “I want my lawyer,” Ryland said, strangely composed now “I’m going to ruin each and every on f you.”

Forty-Five

    Two days later Irene sat in a booth next to Luke in the Ventana View Cafe. Tess and Phil faced them from the opposite side. The remains of four platters of pancakes littered the table.
    Irene was aware of the curious eyes that surrounded them. The cafe had filled up with remarkabl peed shortly after she and the others had been seen entering the establishment.
    “You did it, Irene.” Tess picked up the copy of the previous day’s edition of the
Glaston Cove Beacon
that Adeline had sent via overnight delivery. She waved it like a banner. “You brought down Senator Ryland Webb. I heard on the news this morning that there are rumors that he’ll officially call off his campaign by the end of the week. Not only did you crush his chances of getting into the Oval Office, it’s safe to say that his odds of being reelected to the Senate again in this state are less than zero.”
    Irene looked at the headlines splashed across the Beacon. She had already viewed them on the online edition of the paper, but there was something very satisfying about seeing them in print.
    WEBB CAMPAIGN HIT BY ALLEGATION F SEX WITH MINOR he scandal was in full sail. All of the major dailies in the state, including those from San Francisco, Los Angeles and San Diego, were rushing to jump on the story, but they were still playing catch-up. Two had announced that they were launching independent investigations of their own. The radio and television talk shows were in a frenzy. New evidence of Ryland Webb’s murky sexual past was pouring in hourly. Adeline had phoned three times to gloat over the number of hits at the
Beacon’s
online Web site.
    “At least this time the politician’s loyal little woman isn’t going to stand by her man.”
    Tess indicate he photo that Duncan Penn had shot of Alexa Douglass. It showed her getting out of a limo with her daughter in front of an elegant San Francisco town house. The caption read
Douglass ends engagement
    to Webb.
    “Webb is definitely dead meat,” Phil said. “And Irene is the one who brought him down.”
    Irene looked at the three of them, gratitude and affection so thick in her throat she was afraid she might burst into tears. “I couldn’t have done it without the help of all of you. I don’t know how to thank you.”

    Luke grinned. “Guess that makes us all junior cub reporters. Who knew we had the talent? Here hought I’d be stuck on the innkeeping career track for