All Night Long

the rest of my natural life.”
    Irene picked up her coffee mug. “I just wish I could have found a way to force Ryland Webb to confess to the murders.He killed four people that we know of—my parents, Pamela and Hoyt Egan. And he’s going to walk.”
    “Maybe not,” Luke said. “It’s true that the cops probably won’t be able to prove that he killed your folks and Pamela, but they may be able to link him to the death of Hoyt Egan. They’ve got a strong motive, after all.”
    “Blackmail,” Phil said. “Yeah, that definitely works as a motive. Now that they know what to look for, the cops may get lucky and turn up some solid evidence in that case.”
    Tess leaned back in the booth, a worried frown shadowing her face. “There’s one thing that I’m no ure I understand here.”
    Luke speared a wedge of the uneaten portion of the stack of pancakes on Irene’s plate. “What’s that?”
    “Why did Pamela decide to expose her father after all these years?” Tess asked.
    “She kept the secre or so long. Why go public now?”
    “She had been in therapy,” Phil reminded her. “Maybe something happened in those sessions tha ushed her into going public.”
    Irene looked at the newspaper on the table. A sense of absolute certainty welled up inside her.
    “It wasn’t the therapy,” she said quietly. She pointed to the photo of Alexa Douglass and her daughter. “There’s the reason. Little Emily Douglass. Pamela realized that her father was about to acquire another child bride. She could keep her own family secret, but in the end she could not stand by and allow history to repeat itself.”

Forty-Six

    Irene tossed the pen onto the table and studied the latest version of the time line.
    Frustration churne n her stomach. No matter how she tried to connect the dots, she could not come up with a reasonabl ay to put Ryland Webb anywhere near Dunsley on the day of Pamela’s death.
    She had been so certain that when she sat down with all the facts she would find something in additio o a motive that she could give to the police to tie Webb to the murder. But thus far she had come up empty-handed.
    There had to be a connection, she thought. It was inconceivable that Pamela had died because of an accidental overdose.
    She got up and went into Luke’s small, orderly kitchenette to pour herself more tea.
    It was the fourt ime she had gotten out of the chair in the past forty minutes. She had already wandered into the kitchen area three times, twice to refill her mug, once to check the refrigerator to see what she needed to buy for dinner.
    Mug in hand, she went out the back door of the cabin, propped one hip against the porch railing and contemplated the placid surface of the lake. The view from this cabin was slightly different from th ne she’d had while residing in Cabin Number Five. From here she could see more of the lake.
    She had promised Adeline another local-color piece to feed to the maw of the wire services and to keep the hits coming at the Web site. The new deadline was looming, but she had been unable to concentrate on the story. Instead, her brain insisted on returning to the problem of Pamela’s death. Maybe this intense fixation was the true definition of a conspiracy theorist, she thought.
    A chill went through her. Maybe all the therapists over the years had been right when they tried to convince her that she was obsessing on her own fictional version of events because she could not deal with reality.
    No, don’t go there,
she ordered herself.
You’re a reporter. Try sticking with the
[_dots. Better yet, try coming up with some new ones. _]
    She watched a battered pickup pull into the drive and park near the lobby. Tucker Mills got out and removed a rake and a large broom from the back of the vehicle.
    Maxine emerged to greet him, radiating animation and enthusiasm.

    The Sunrise on the Lake Lodge was enjoying a rush of out-of-season business due to an influx of members of the media who had arrived in Dunsley to get background on the big story. Appalled at the prospect of so many unanticipated paying guests, Luke had abandoned the front desk altogether, leaving everything in Maxine’s hands.
    Once in command, Maxine had risen to the challenge immediately. Her first act had been to quadrupl he rack rates. After renting up all of the available space, she had politely but firmly suggested that Irene move into Luke’s cabin, thereby freeing up another room. An hour ago Maxine had