All Night Long

firstborn son walk slowly somberly toward the front of the chapel. Anger
p. and a fierce regret clawed at his insides. Years ago he had made a terrible mistake, and now there was

    no going back.
    On the outside, Ryland appeared to be all that a man could want in a son. Victor had showered hi ith everything required to achieve that goal. He had given Ryland a world-class education, mone nd connections. Victor knew that his greatest dream, that of founding a powerful dynasty that woul ast for generations, was on the brink of being realized.
    But he also knew now that his worst fears had proven true. In spite of everything he had done to forg is son’s character, it was clear that Ryland lacked the strength of will required to overcome the crack t his core. Deep down inside where it mattered, Ryland was weak.
    He had, indeed, made a grave mistake back at the beginning, Victor thought. He had two sons. He had chosen to give everything to the wrong one.

Twenty-Eight
    “I spoke with Dr. Van Dyke yesterday. She informed me that you haven’t returned any of her calls.”
    The Old Man looked at Luke across the width of the library. “She says you appear to be refusing t ace your issues. You may be in some kind of denial, she says.”
    Luke came to a halt in front of the hearth and rested one arm on the carved oak mantel. He looked a he shelves full of heavy tomes and scientific papers that surrounded him. Every volume, journal and article in the extensive collection concerned the subject of wine making. Viticulture and enology were matters of great passion for everyone in the family except him.
    It wasn’t that he had not tried to follow in his father’s footsteps. At various times in his life, includin ix months ago, he had made serious attempts to develop the kind of enthusiasm and all-consuming interest in wine making that drove his father and Gordon Foote and the others. But he had failed. I he end, he had always followed his own path, first into academia, then into the Marines and no nto The Project.
    He had known from the moment he and Irene arrived at the sprawling complex that housed the Elena Creek Vineyards cellars, wine-tasting facilities and reception rooms that sooner or later his father was going to corner him and raise the subject of Dr.
    Van Dyke.
    He and Jason and Hackett referred to their father as the Old Man, but the term was in respectful recognition of John Danner’s status as the eldest male in the family, not a comment on his advance ge.
    The Old Man was, in fact, only in his late sixties. He had the hard, ageless face of a hawk, and thank o a disciplined exercise regimen, some good genes and Vicki’s strict attention to his diet, he possesse he physique and stamina of a much younger man.
    Dressed in an elegantly tailored tuxedo, as he was tonight, with a glass of very good Elena Creek Vineyards cabernet in his hand, the Old Man looked as if he had been born prosperous, Luke thought. The truth was that he and Gordon Foote had fought their way up every rung of the ladder of success.
    “I’ve been a little busy,” Luke said.
    John’s heavy silver-gray brows bunched together in a watchful frown. “With Irene Stenson?”
    “And the lodge,” Luke said. He paused a beat. “Also, I’m doing a little writing.”
    John ignored the reference to the lodge and the writing. “Irene is an interesting woman,” he said. “She seems intelligent. Quick. Rather striking.”
    “I see you noticed the dress,” Luke said. “She looks good in it, doesn’t she? Must be all that Pilates training.”
    “The what?”
    “Never mind.”
    John snorted softly. “Jason tells me she’s a reporter and that she has a troubled past.”

    Note to self
, Luke thought.
Strangle youngest brother at earliest convenience.
    “Jason used the word ‘troubled’?” he asked.
    “No,” John admitted with obvious reluctance. “But that was the implication.”
    “What, exactly, did he tell you about Irene?”
    “Not a great deal. He seemed taken with her, to be honest. But then he explained that her father killed her mother in a murder-suicide years back and that Irene has cooked up some kind of crazy theory about Senator Webb’s daughter having been murdered.”
    “There are a few murky details surrounding the death of Pamela Webb.”
    John’s eyes sharpened. “I read in the paper that it was an accidental overdose involving meds and alcohol.”
    “Irene believes there is more to it. I’m inclined to