“You heard what Tucker said; they argued.”
“I heard. But that doesn’t mean that he murdered her.” He paused briefly. “Could mean he knows what was on her mind in the last couple of days of her life, though.”
“Yes, it does,” Irene said eagerly. “Maybe they were lovers. Maybe she had ended the relationship, and Egan didn’t take it well.”
“It’s a possibility,” he agreed. “But that’s pure speculation at this point. Furthermore, you’re trying to prove that Pamela’s death was linked to what happened to your folks, right?”
“Yes.”
“Got to tell you, it’s hard to figure how Egan could fit into any scenario involving the deaths of your parents. He’s in his mid-thirties. Not much older than you. He was probably in college at the time. And he’s not from around here, anyway. Doesn’t seem to be a connection.”
“No.” Reluctance was a lead weight dragging down the single word.
He felt like a brute stomping on her conspiracy theories, but he told himself that he was doing her a favor, whether she realized it or not.
“Hey.” He tucked her closer against his side. “I’m not saying you’re going off the deep end here. I was with you the other night when someone torched the Webb house, remember? I agree that something very nasty is going on. I’m just not convinced yet that it has anything to do with the past.”
“What’s your theory?”
“Given her history of drug use, I’m starting to wonder if maybe Pamela Webb got involved with some very bad guys.”
“Oh, jeez.” Irene shuddered. “Drug dealers?”
“It’s one possibility. Unfortunately there are a lot more.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged. “Maybe someone used her addiction to try to blackmail or manipulate her.” He hesitated. “Or maybe—”
Irene turned her head very quickly to look at him. “What are you thinking?”
“It occurs to me that a senator’s daughter would be a very useful tool for someone who wanted access or inside information. Pamela knew the people her father knew. She entertained his associates. Helped organize his fund-raisers. She rubbed shoulders with some of the most powerful people in the country.”
“And she was not just beautiful, she was also sexy,” Irene said quietly. “I think it’s safe to say she probably slept with some of those important people.”
“Which opens up even more really unpleasant scenarios.”
“Good Lord,” Irene said. “Do you think Pamela was killed and the house torched because she knew too much? That maybe someone was afraid that she would reveal embarrassing or incriminating information?”
“I don’t know.” He held out one hand, palm up. “At the moment, I’m speculating, just like you.”
“But what about that e-mail she sent to me? I keep coming back to that. She must have had some personal reason for contacting me after all these years.”
“She probably knew that you had become a reporter,” he said, thinking it through. “If she had something to reveal to the media, she may have contacted you because she felt she could trust you.”
She wrinkled her nose. “I work for a small-town paper. In Glaston Cove, the biggest story at the moment is the debate over whether or not the city council should approve a new dog park. After all those years of working for her father, Pamela must have had lots of major media connections. I can’t see her coming to me if she had some great scandal to reveal.”
“Okay, let’s assume for the moment that she contacted you because she had a personal reason to do so.”
“That personal reason involved information concerning the deaths of my parents.” Irene folded her arms very tightly beneath her breasts. “I know it did, Luke. It’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But it does look like she might have come to Dunsley to hide out for a while, a week at least.”
“Perhaps she felt safe here because of her long-standing connection to the town. She knew everyone, and everyone knew her.”
“That may have been the plan, but when you think about it, she was alone and isolated out there at the Webb house. If someone did want to get rid of her, she sure as hell made it easy for him. I would have thought that if she was frightened, she would have wanted someone around her she could trust.”
“Unless,” Irene said, “she didn’t trust anyone she knew. Maybe that’s the real reason she got in touch with me. I was someone from her past that she felt she could trust.”
“With what?” he asked simply.
“That’s what I need to find out.”
He said nothing, just tightened his grip on her.
“I can’t help but notice that you are no longer trying to argue me out of my conspiracy theory,” she said after a while.
“Unfortunately, it’s starting to make sense. Probably not a real good sign.”
“You think maybe we’re both ready for a nice long vacation in a padded room?” she asked.
“On the whole, I’d rather go to Hawaii.”
“Me, too.” She paused. “But first I need to talk to Hoyt Egan,” she said very softly.
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. Got a plan, if you’re interested.”
She looked at him. “Tell me.”
“The morning after the Old Man’s birthday party you and I could drive on into San Francisco and corner Egan. If we take him by surprise, we might get some answers out of him.”
“I like your plan.” She nodded once, decisively. “I like it a lot.”
He smiled a little and turned her in the circle of his arm so that he could see her face. In the glow of the porch light her eyes were deep wells of shadows.
“I’m sorry that Tucker Mills scared you tonight,” he said.
“He didn’t mean to do it.”
“No, but that doesn’t change what happened. Are you okay?”
“I’m still a little shaky.” She gave a weak, forced laugh. “When I realized that the light was off in the bedroom, I just sort of froze for a few seconds. Talk about a deer in the headlights. When I could move, all I could think about was getting out of the house.”
“A real good strategy, under the circumstances.”
“I must have looked ridiculous.”
“No, you looked scared,” he said. “But you were moving, doing the smart thing. Not everyone can function under that kind of fear. Some people stay frozen.”
“I was terrified,” she whispered.
“I know.” He massaged the nape of her neck, trying to loosen some of the taut muscles he found there. “I know.”
She closed her eyes after a moment. “That feels very, very good.”
He felt some of the tension seep out of her.
“Something I’ve been meaning to ask you,” he said after a moment.
“Mmm?”
“What’s with the lights? Why do you leave them on all night long?”
“I suppose you could call it my security system,” she said, eyes still closed.
“This may not be the best time to go into the subject, but there are better security measures you can take if you’re worried about intruders. A good alarm system, for instance. You saw for yourself tonight that having the cabin fully lit didn’t keep Mills from letting himself inside.”
Her lashes lifted. He looked into her haunted eyes and went cold to his bones.
“The lights were off in the house that night,” she said in a disturbingly steady, dispassionate tone. “I got home late. Long past curfew. I’d violated one of Dad’s strictest rules. I allowed Pamela to drive me over to Kirbyville. I didn’t want to face my folks any sooner than necessary. When I saw that the lights were off, I thought they’d gone to bed. I went around the back to use the kitchen door.”
He remembered what Maxine had told him. Hugh Stenson shot his wife to death in the kitchen of their home. Then he turned the gun on himself.
He gripped Irene’s shoulders. “I’m sorry. I shouldn�
�t have asked. You don’t have to talk about this. Not now. Not tonight.”
She did not appear to hear him. He realized that it was too late. She was in another zone.
“I thought I could sneak into my room, that if I was careful and didn’t make any noise or turn on any lights Mom and Dad wouldn’t hear me,” she said.
He had known it would be bad, he reminded himself. He also knew that there was nothing he could do but hold her while she talked. He tightened his grasp on her shoulders.
“I unlocked the back door, but when I tried to open it, I realized that there was something heavy blocking it. I pushed harder, forcing it open. There was a smell, a terrible stench like nothing I’d ever known. I thought maybe a wild animal had somehow gotten inside the house and ripped into the garbage. But that didn’t make sense. Mom and Dad would have heard the commotion.”
“Irene,” he said softly. “I’m here.”
“I couldn’t see anything,” she continued in the same flat, frighteningly uninflected voice. “It was so dark.”
“I know.”
“I found the light switch on the wall beside the door. Turned it on.” She sucked in a shuddering breath. “And then I could see.”
“Irene, hush. That’s enough.” He cradled her close, rocking her gently. “You don’t have to say any more. For God’s sake, forgive me. I understand about the lights now.”
“It was as if I went into another dimension,” she said against the front of his shirt. “I could not deal with being there alone with them, so I went someplace else for a while.”
“I know,” he stroked her hair. “I’ve been in that other place, myself.”
“Jason implied you were in combat.”
“Like I said, another place.”
“You’ve seen how they look, haven’t you?”
He knew what she meant. “Yes.”
“People you know. People you care about. You’ve seen what they look like…afterward. You know how it is. And you wonder why them and not you.”
“The world is different after that,” he said. “Things are never, ever the same again. People who haven’t been to that other place can never really understand how hard it is for the travelers who return, travelers like us, to pretend that nothing has changed.”
She put her arms around him, hugging him fiercely.
They stood there for a long time, holding each other, not talking. After a while he led her indoors. He walked her down the hall to the bedroom and turned on the lights for her.
She pulled a little away from him, putting some distance between them. She gave him a shaky smile and used the back of her sleeve to wipe the moisture from her eyes. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back to my usual self in the morning.”
“Sure,” he said. “If it’s okay with you, though, I’m going to sleep on your couch tonight.”
She blinked and then her eyes widened. “Why do you want to do that?”
“Because you had a bad scare this evening and because I asked you about the past and because you told me. You don’t really want to be alone tonight, do you?”
“No,” she said.
The stark, painful honesty of the reply hit him hard. She was not used to letting others this close, he thought.
“Neither do I.” He opened the tiny hall closet and took out the spare pillow and blanket stored inside. “Mind if I turn down the lights in the front room, though? If it bothers you, I can sleep with my shirt over my eyes.”
“No,” she said. “As long as I know you’re out there, I won’t be afraid of the dark.”
Twenty-six
An hour and a half later, Irene got up for the second time and embarked on another short trek around the tiny bedroom. Another bad night; another ritual. In the blue glow of the night-light she had installed, she surveyed the rumpled bed and the small chest of drawers. There was barely any room to move in here.
When she was at home, a walk through her well-lit condo to check the locks on windows and doors was the first of a two-part ritual that she used to deal with the midnight jitters. The second part consisted of a spoonful of peanut butter spread between two saltine crackers.
The problem tonight was that she was confined to the bedroom because Luke was sleeping on the couch in the other room. The more she reminded herself that she could not pursue her nighttime routine tonight, the more restless and edgy she felt.
She had to move, she thought. She had to get to the peanut butter and crackers.
She went to the door, cracked it open and peered down the short hall into the darkened front room and kitchen area. There was no sound from the vicinity of the couch. Luke was most likely asleep. If she was very quiet, she might be able to go into the kitchen without waking him. She could get the box of crackers and the jar of peanut butter and take them back to the bedroom.
The package of clothes she had received had not contained a robe. The thought made her hesitate a few more seconds. Then she decided that her cozy, full-length, long-sleeved cotton nightgown would provide ample modesty and coverage if Luke did happen to wake up and see her.
She went toward the front room as stealthily as possible, automatically glancing into the well-lit bath to make certain that the high, frosted-glass window was still securely locked.
When she reached the shadowed living room, she looked toward the couch. Although the lamps were off, there was a fair amount of porch light seeping between the cracks in the curtains. She could make out Luke’s sleeping form sprawled on the cushions.
She worked her way cautiously toward the kitchen. When she arrived, she opened the cupboard door as soundlessly as possible and groped inside for the peanut butter jar.
“You going to eat that all by yourself, or are you planning to share?” Luke asked out of the shadows.
She gasped, started violently and nearly lost her grip on the peanut butter. Clutching the jar, she whirled around.
“I thought you were asleep,” she said.
“Hard to do that with you prowling around back there in the bedroom.”
“Oh. Sorry about that.” She took down the box of crackers. “When I can’t sleep, I walk. I also eat peanut butter and crackers.”
“Personally, I usually go for a long walk and a slug of brandy. But I’ve got nothing against peanut butter. That works, too.”
She looked across the counter at him and nearly dropped the jar a second time.
He wasn’t quite naked, but dressed in a pair of white briefs and a black tee shirt, he might as well have been. She saw him reach for something in the shadows. His jeans, she thought. He pulled them on. She heard the metallic slide of the zipper. For some reason it seemed like an excruciatingly erotic little sound.
Be cool, she thought. Remember to breathe. Look at the positive side, you might not even need the peanut butter to take your mind off your nerves.
Peanut butter was, however, a good deal safer.
She turned away from the fascinating sight of him, opened the drawer that contained the limited selection of flatware and seized a butter knife.
“Do I get one of those peanut butter crackers?” Luke asked.
She risked another quick glance in his direction and saw that he was coming toward her.
“Uh, sure,” she said.
She started to reach for the kitchen light switch but suddenly remembered that, while Luke was now quite decent, she was wearing only a nightgown.
No problem, she thought. She could make peanut butter crackers with her eyes closed.
“You gotta have something to drink with peanut butter.” Luke walked around the edge of the counter, heading for the refrigerator. “Otherwise it sticks to the roof of your mouth and gums up your tongue. Scientific fact.”
“No, wait,” she said quickly.
But it was too late. He already had the refrigerator door open. The fixture inside gave off a shaft of light that illuminated her from head to foot.
Why hadn’t she brought along a sexier nightgown? The answer was simple,
of course. While she had been careful to pack full fashion battle armor to confront Dunsley and the past, she had expected to spend her nights alone, as was her custom.
Luke glanced at her over his shoulder. She went very still, not knowing what to expect.
What she got was a meltingly slow, breathtakingly sexy, utterly masculine look of appreciation.
Without a word, Luke closed the refrigerator door. He crossed the very short space between them with a single stride and gripped the counter behind her, one arm on either side of her waist. Leaning in close he put his mouth against her ear.
“Told myself I wasn’t going to do this tonight,” he said. “Clearly I lied.”
“This is probably not a good idea,” she whispered.
“Got a better one?”
Therein lay the real problem, she thought. She didn’t have a better idea. Kissing Luke was far and away the best idea she’d had in years, maybe forever.
She wound her arms slowly around his neck and smiled. “Nope.”
He gave a soft, husky groan, and then his mouth closed over hers.
Heat and sparkling energy crackled through her. He made the kiss last a long time, not rushing her. A slow hunger that had nothing whatsoever to do with peanut butter and crackers built inside her, tightening her lower body.
She could kiss him like this for weeks or months at a time, she thought, relaxing into the embrace. The sleek, muscled contours of his back felt wonderful beneath her hands. Experimentally, she slid her palms under his tee shirt and around to the front of his chest. She spread her fingers in the crisp, dark hair she discovered there.
“This,” he announced, releasing his grip on the counter to peel off the tee shirt, “is a whole lot better than peanut butter and crackers.”
He pulled her close a second time. First she felt his lips on her throat. Her head tipped back. Then she felt his teeth. Thrill after thrill coursed through her. She had been wrong, she thought. She could not go on kissing him like this for weeks or months. If she did, she would suffer unbearable frustration. She needed much more, and she needed it right now.
All Night Long Page 16
