All Night Long

do was look at the view. It would remind her of all the meals she had eaten in this room, her father seated at one end of the table, her mother opposite, and her in the middle looking straight out at the lake and the old dock.
    She pushed aside the memories with the skill and determination born of long practice. Turning, sh ade herself go to the entrance of the big, old-fashioned kitchen.
    At the threshold she was forced to come to a halt. Nausea twisted her stomach. Her breath seemed t e locked inside her lungs. She could not go any farther.
    It was all she could do just to make herself look into the room where she had found the bodies. Sh ave the counters a swift, sweeping glance, saw nothing out of the ordinary and then spun aroun efore she got physically ill.
    If the object of her search was in the kitchen, it would have to remain there. She could not brin erself to walk into that space. Surely Pamela would have realized that.
    She fled back through the dining room and living room and stopped in the front hall.
    She knew her labored breathing was caused by incipient panic, not exertion.
    Take it easy. You’ve got to do this logically, or you’ll never find whatever it is
[_you’re looking for. _]
    She went down the hall to her old bedroom. Dread and certainty gripped her every step of the way.
    Like the other rooms, her bedroom, too, had been redone. The colorful posters had been taken down, and the sunny yellow walls that her mother had helped her paint were now a boring shade of beige.
    There was a white cardboard box on the bed. On top of the box was a book. She recognized the small volume immediately.
    It was a paperback romance novel, one that had been published seventeen years earlier.
    Anticipation shuddered through her. She crossed the floor, removed the book and lifted the cover of the white box. Inside was a white dress sealed in clear plastic. At first she thought it was a wedding gown. Then she realized it was too small. A christening gown, perhaps, she decided. There was another object in the box, a video.
    She replaced the lid of the box and reached for the paperback novel. The badly faded cover illustration depicted a beautiful blond heroine in the arms of a dashing hero. Both were garbed in romantic nineteenth-century fashions. The edges of the pages were yellowed.
    She opened the book to the title page and read the inscription written there.
    Happy 16th Birthday, Pamela.
    You look like the heroine on the cover.
    I’m sure that one day you’ll find your hero.
    Love,
    Irene
    She tested the weight of the small volume in her hand. Few people would have noticed that the boo as a little too heavy for a paperback novel, she thought.

Thirty-Nine
    “It’s too large to be a christening dress.” Tess examined the plastic-wrapped gown that Irene had place n her coffee table. “Maybe it’s an old costume that she wore for Halloween or a school play.”
    Irene turned away from the window and the view of Tess’s garden. It had been instinct as much as anything that had led her to bring the dress and the video to her former English teacher. She did no now what to expect from the video, but she had been very certain that she did not want to view i lone. She also knew that she could not wait until Luke returned from his meeting with Ken Tanaka.
    Tess Carpenter was the only other person in town with whom she felt comfortable enough to share whatever secrets might be revealed.
    Student-teacher bonds ran deep. But it wasn’t just their old classroom connection that had compelle er to come here. She knew that, in the old days, her mother had considered Tess a friend who coul e trusted.

    She walked back to stand in front of the coffee table.
    “I don’t know,” she said slowly. “Hard to imagine that Pamela was sentimental about a childhood costume.”
    Tess frowned in a considering manner. “She didn’t show it to you when the two of you were friend hat summer?”
    “No.” Irene studied the dress. “I never saw it.”
    “But you do recognize the book?”
    “Yes. I gave it to her for her birthday.” She sank down onto the couch beside Tess.
    “Thanks for letting me bring these things here.”
    “No problem.” Tess poured coffee for both of them. “I must admit, you’ve made me very curious.
    Where do we start?”
    “With the novel.” Irene looked at the volume, aware of a sad, wistful feeling. “She laughed when she opened her present and saw it. She said that the romance thing