All Night Long

Victor Webb.”

Forty-Seven
    It took more courage than she had ever dreamed she possessed to walk into the ghastly kitchen. Pushing through the invisible veil of the old nightmare aroused a wave of nausea and terror so powerful she ha o cling to one of the counters to keep from falling.
    Fighting the vertigo, she looked down at the floor.
Oh, God, the floor
. It was the same imitation white stone tile that her mother had chosen for the room on the grounds that it would be easy to clean. The kitchen had been repainted over the years, but no one had replaced the tile.
    Easy to clean.
    Don’t think about the blood. You are not going to be sick. You can’t be sick. You
[_came here to look _]
    at the evidence. This is a crime scene, and you were the first witness. You are also
[_a journalist. Do your job. Step back and take another look. _]
    She straightened and studied the sunny kitchen. Very slowly she unlocked the vault in her mind and dragged the nightmares out into the light of day.
    She took her notepad and pen out of her handbag. Then she forced herself to cross the kitchen, ope he back door and walk out onto the small porch. She closed the door behind her and stood still for a moment, bracing herself.
    The plan was a simple one. She would retrace her movements that night, recalling as many of the dreadful details as possible to see if she could come up with anything that might serve to link Ryland Webb to the murders of her parents. Even the smallest sliver of memory or evidence might be enoug o pressure Webb into a confession.
    Taking a deep breath, she checked the time on her watch and reopened the door.
    Moving slowly, she stepped back into the kitchen. The nightmarish images she had worked so hard to hide in the vault smashed through her.

    Panic and anguish screamed in her head. It took everything she had to get the emotions under control.
    So much for the theory that facing your fears rendered them less awful, she thought.
    She made herself take her time, reliving it all in as much detail as possible from the first chillin ealization that the door was partially blocked by some heavy object, to the moment when she managed to punch in the emergency number on the telephone.
    At first it was disconcerting, even disturbing, to discover that, although the images stored in the vaul ere shattering and intense, there were very few of them.
    Then again, that made sense, she reflected. All the psych articles she had read over the years pointe ut that when an individual was thrust into the center of a traumatic event, the deluge of adrenaline and shock created a very narrow range of focus. It was a survival mechanism, she thought. You can’t deal with everything that comes rushing at you in that sort of situation, so you tune out the nonessential elements and concentrate on what you need to do in order to keep going.
    Nevertheless, when she rechecked her watch a short time later, she was stunned to realize how littl ime had passed between the moment she had discovered the bodies and when she made the call that brought Sam McPherson to the front door. Not long at all, she thought. At the time it had seemed an eternity.
    She made herself examine the kitchen counters, trying to recall if there had been any dishes or cooking utensils out when she got home that night. It seemed to her that the countertops had been clean. Di hat indicate that the killer had arrived after dinner and the dishes had been done? Or had he com efore her mother had even started the evening meal?
    It was hopeless. She wasn’t going to get any answers from the kitchen. What else did she remembe bout that night?
    There had been a great deal of confusion, she thought. She recalled Sam’s horrified expression whe e had seen the bodies. He had been shaking when he called Bob Thornhill.
    When Thornhill arrived, he and Sam had taken her outside to one of the cruisers, bundled her into the passenger seat and wrapped a blanket around her shoulders.
    Later Thornhill took her home to his house for what remained of that terrible night.

    She recalled sitting huddled on the bed in the Thornhills’ spare bedroom until dawn, the soft, relentless hiss of Gladys Thornhill’s oxygen machine a sad pulse beat in the darkness.
    The phone had rung just as the sky began to turn a dull gray over the lake. Bob Thornhill came ou f the bedroom and trudged down the hall to answer it.
    Irene rubbed her temples, struggling to recall more details. She knew she could not