All Night Long

a lock. Irene and Tess both started.
    The door opened. Phil loomed in the entrance, a small duffel bag in one hand. He looked very reassuring, Irene thought.
    “I hear Luke wants me to keep you company until he gets back to Dunsley Irene.”
    Phil closed the door and locked it. “What’s going on?”
    “You’ll never believe this.” Tess scooted closer to Irene to make room for him on the couch. “Take a look.”
    Pamela was talking again.
    “.. . It’s too late to get justice for your parents, Irene. But you can make sure that
[_my father _]
    never gets to the White House. You can destroy him. Don’t worry, this time I didn’t
make the mistake that I made last time. I didn’t tell the person I confided in the
night your parents were murdered. You’ll be safe until you get the story into print.
    [_After that, it won’t matter, will it?” _]
    Pamela paused again, reaching out to refill her wineglass.
    “Well, I think that’s about it. Oh, except for the little wedding dress, of course. I
wore it for Daddy. He never knew that I kept it all these years. Probably forgotten
all about it. Don’t
    unwrap it. Let a DNA testing lab do that. Mustn’t tamper with the evidence.
    “I was able to duplicate the video and the film clips and the travel records, but
[_there was no _]
    way to copy the dress. I had intended to give it to you when I spoke with you. But
after thinking about it for a while, I’ve decided to leave it with the duplicate set of
evidence that I’m going to
    put in your old house here in Dunsley. Just a precaution. It will be safe there,
regardless of whether or not I lose my nerve. As soon as I finish this video
recording, I’ll take everything
    over to Pine Lane and put it in your old bedroom.

    “By the way, I rented the house under another name from the real estate firm in
San Francisco that manages it. No one here in Dunsley knows that I’ve got any
connection to the place.
    “Good-bye, Irene. I wish I had the courage to face you with all this. But I’m not
surprised that
    in the end I decided to avoid our meeting in Dunsley. I’m very good when it comes
[_to practicing the fine art of denial.” _]
    The screen went dark.
    For a long moment, no one spoke.
    Phil whistled softly. “Looks like your theory was right, Irene. Someone killed her.”
    “Ryland Webb,” Tess said. “It must have been him. He murdered his own daughter.
    It’s unbelievable.”
    “No, it isn’t,” Irene said fiercely. “He was quite capable of raping her. Why would a monster like tha top there?”
    “After he killed her, he must have taken the copy of the old video and Pamela’s computer, which contained one set of the files of evidence,” Tess said. “He probably thought he had everything. But he obviously never realized she had made a copy of the evidence and left it for you to find in Pine Lane.”
    “Wonder how he cracked the password code to access the files on Pamela’s computer?” Phil said.
    Irene shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t. But he must have realized that there was damning information on it. Perhaps he simply tossed it into the lake.”
    Phil nodded. “Wouldn’t be surprised if he torched the house just to make sure there was no other evidence left that could come back to haunt him.”
    Irene looked at the white box. “Or maybe he somehow found out about the little wedding dress.”
    “But he couldn’t find it,” Tess added thoughtfully. “So he burned down the whole house hoping t et rid of it.”
    Energy snapped through Irene. She reached for her phone. “I’ve got to call my boss.”
    Before she could punch out Adeline’s number, the small phone chortled in her hand.
    “Hello?”
    “Looks like we’ve got some breathing room,” Luke said. “Tanaka just located Ryland Webb. He’s a is office in San Francisco, in a meeting with some heavy-hitter campaign contributors. He’s got a fund-raiser tomorrow evening, so he probably won’t be leaving town anytime soon. Stay with Phi nd Tess until I get there.”
    “I’ll be waiting.”
    When he hung up, she made the call to Adeline Grady. While she waited for Addy to answer, she watched Phil unzip the small duffel bag. He did not remove the contents.
    It wasn’t necessary. Fro here she was sitting she could see light gleam dully on the barrel of a gun. It came as no surprise to discover that Phil owned one. This was Dunsley, after all, a genuine slice of rural California. There was probably a gun in every house in