All Night Long

Make up for the slow months.”
    She thought about the SUV parked in front of his cabin. The vehicle was big, expensive and new. Charlie Gibbs had never been able to afford such high-end transportation. Nor had Charlie ever worn a watc ike the one Luke was wearing, she reflected. Titanium chronographs that looked as though they coul e submerged to a depth of three hundred feet and keep track of several different time zones did not come cheap.
    Her curiosity was growing by the second, but she sensed that Luke would not welcome an in-depth discussion of his household finances. She groped for another subject.
    “What did you do before you bought the lodge?” she asked.
    “Got out of the Marines about six months back,” he said. “Tried the corporate world for a while. Things didn’t work out.”
    She could well believe that he had spent time in the military, she thought. It wasn’t just the way he held himself, as though he were dressed in a uniform instead of a casual shirt and jeans; rather it was the aura of confidence, authority and command.
    Alpha male through and through. She knew the type well. Her father had been a Marine before he became a cop.
    Luke was the guy who would keep his head and lead you through the smoke and flames to safety when everyone else was running around in a mindless panic. Men like this certainly had their uses, but they were not the easiest sort to live with. Her mother had explained that to her on more than one occasion in tones of great exasperation.
    “The lodge must have been in bad shape by the time you bought it,” she said. “It was practically falling apart the last time I saw it, and that was quite a while ago.”
    “Been working on the infrastructure a bit.” He looked toward her cabin, perched on the edge of the lake amid a stand of tall trees. “Maybe you didn’t notice the little card in the room that suggested you might want to help the management of the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge save the environment by making sure

    that all lights were turned off when you left the cabin.”
    She followed his gaze to Cabin Number Five. It glowed like a football stadium in the middle of a night game.
    “I saw the card,” she assured him. “But I also noticed that management was driving a very large sports utility vehicle that probably gets less than five miles to the gallon.
    I naturally assumed, therefore, that the request to conserve energy was merely a devious, hypocritical ploy designed to make guests feel guilty if they didn’t help management save a few bucks on the lodge’s electricity bill.”
    “Well, damn. Told Maxine the card wouldn’t work. Never pays to be subtle. You want people to obe he rules, I said, you’ve got to make the rules loud and clear. No two ways about it.”
    “Who’s Maxine?”
    “Maxine Boxell. My assistant manager. She’s a single mother. Her son, Brady, is going to handle the lodge’s boat during the summer. I understand we get a lot of guests who like to go out on the lake at that time of year. Maxine says we can charge a ton of money for a three-hour fishing trip. She’s also after me to get another, faster boat that can be used to haul water skiers. I’m holding off on that decision, though.
    Might encourage too much business.”
    The name rang a bell. There had been a Maxine who graduated from the local high school in June of the year that the world had shattered. She had been Maxine Spangler then.
    “Mind if I ask what brings you here to Dunsley Miss Stenson?” Luke asked.
    “Personal business.”
    “Personal, huh?”
    “Yes.” She could do inscrutable, too, she thought.
    “What kind of work do you do?” he asked when it became clear that she wasn’t going to fall for the not-so-subtle prompt.
    What was this about? she wondered. He had barely said two words earlier but now he had suddenly decided to ask some very direct questions.
    “I’m a reporter,” she said.
    “Yeah?” He sounded amused, and a little surprised. “Could have fooled me.

    Wouldn’t have figured you for a member of the media.”
    “You know, I get that a lot,” she said.
    “Those high-heeled boots and that snappy coat are real impressive. It’s just that you don’t look like on f those scrawny airhead beauty pageant dropouts who read the news on TV”
    “That would probably be because I work for a newspaper, not a television station or a network,” she said dryly
    “Ah, you’re with the print media. Different species entirely.” He