Hoyt’s face turned a dull red. For a couple of seconds Luke thought he was going to explode. Instead he seemed to deflate.
“I guess I knew going in that it wouldn’t last long,” Hoyt said wearily. “Hell, I’ve worked for Webb for nearly two years. I’d seen Pamela in action. I knew the pattern. But like every other man who got pulled into her orbit, I thought I was different.” He shook his head. “She was like a light fixture. When she wanted you, she turned herself on and glowed for you. When she got bored, she turned herself off. Left you standing in the dark wondering what had happened.”
“When did she end your relationship?” Irene asked.
“Couple of days before she went to Dunsley.” His mouth tightened. “She didn’t give me any warning. We attended a fund-raiser together that evening. I took her home thinking that we were going to go to bed. She stopped at the door of her apartment and told me it had been fun but that it was over. Said good night and shut the door in my face. I was stunned, if you want to know the truth.”
“What did you do?” Luke asked.
“What does any man do in a situation like that? I came back here and poured myself a large glass of scotch. The next day I tried calling her. There was no answer at her home here in the city. I finally tried the lake house. She answered the phone, but she made it clear she wasn’t going to change her mind.”
“But you drove up to the lake to see her anyway,” Irene said.
“For all the good it did.” Hoyt went to the window and shoved his hands into his pockets. “She told me to go back to San Francisco. Said she had things to do.”
“What kind of things?” Irene asked.
Hoyt grunted and turned away toward the window. “I suppose she was doing whatever people do when they plan to commit suicide.”
“You think the overdose was intentional, then?” Luke asked. “Not an accident?”
Hoyt shook his head. “How the hell should I know? I’m guessing it was intentional mostly because I can’t see Pamela making a mistake of that magnitude with the pills and the booze. She’d been managing her little addiction problem for years. Why screw up now?”
“Did you realize that she might be planning suicide when you left her that day?” Irene asked.
“Of course not.” Hoyt scowled. “If I’d had an inkling that she intended to take her own life, I would have done something.”
Irene studied him. “Such as?”
Hoyt took one hand out of his pocket and swept it to the side. “I would have called her father, for starters. Webb would have contacted Pamela’s doctor. I’m sure they would have worked out a scheme to get Pamela into a private clinic. But I swear I didn’t realize that she was in a suicidal state of mind when I left her. I thought she’d grown tired of me and was getting ready to move on to someone else. Like I said, that was her pattern.”
Irene’s dark brows drew tightly together. “Did you ask her if she was seeing someone new?”
“Sure. She said she wasn’t. Said she was taking a little break. That’s it. I left and drove back here. Next thing I know, Webb is phoning me at three o’clock in the morning telling me that he’s just had a call from the chief of police in Dunsley. He told me that Pamela was dead and that we had to make arrangements to pick up the body, organize a funeral and meet with Chief McPherson.” Hoyt gave Irene an accusing glare. “After that I did my job; I focused one hundred percent on trying to keep Pamela’s death a private family matter.”
Luke studied a photo of Webb and Alexa speaking to the president at a recent fund-raiser. “Whose idea was it to invite Webb’s fiancée along on the drive to Dunsley?”
“Alexa insisted on coming with us. She felt that she should be with the senator while he dealt with the loss of his only child. She was right. The press loved her at the funeral.”
Luke raised his brows. “The candidate’s loyal, supportive fiancée standing by his side while he grieves the tragic death of a deeply troubled daughter.”
“Perception is everything in politics, just like it is in real life,” Hoyt said dryly.
Luke saw Irene go very still.
“Are you saying that Alexa Douglass isn’t genuinely loyal or supportive?” she asked.
Hoyt seemed startled. “Hell, no. Just the opposite. There’s nothing Alexa Douglass wants more in the world than for Webb to make a run for the Oval Office. Got a feeling she’s already selecting her First Lady wardrobe and making plans to put Emily into one of those fashionable Washington academies where the presidents and diplomats send their kids.”
“Emily?” Irene prompted.
“Her daughter,” Hoyt explained. “Alexa is a widow.”
Irene glanced at the photo on the wall. “Alexa is several years younger than Ryland.”
“She’s thirty-three, to be exact.” Hoyt snorted softly. “But no one seems to care about a little thing like a twenty-year age difference as long as it’s the woman who is the younger one, do they?”
“Is it a love match?” Irene asked.
“It’s a political match,” Hoyt said evenly. “Webb needs a wife if he’s going to make it to the White House. The voters aren’t likely to go for an unmarried president, now are they?”
“Hadn’t thought about it,” Irene admitted. “But now that you mention it, I can certainly see that having a spouse would be a huge asset to any politician running for president.”
“Alexa is perfect for him. Good family, good schools, no scandals. She’s smart and articulate. In addition, her husband left her a very wealthy woman. Also…” Hoyt trailed off.
“Also what?” Luke prompted.
“For years Webb’s father has been after Ryland to remarry and provide a male heir. It’s not exactly a secret that, before he dies, Victor Webb wants a grandson to carry on the family name and legacy. Just between you and me, Alexa was given an intensive physical exam to make certain that she was in excellent reproductive health before the engagement was announced. Also, there’s a prenuptial agreement that states she will make every effort to get pregnant within a year of the marriage.”
“Talk about pressure,” Irene said. “I don’t envy Alexa one bit.” She paused to glance at one of the photos featuring Douglass. “Alexa is the same age as Pamela was. How did those two get along?”
“At first Pamela treated Alexa the way she did the other women Webb had over the years,” Hoyt said. “Which is to say she ignored her. But when Webb announced the engagement, Pamela started taking her damn seriously, I can tell you that.”
“What do you mean?” Irene asked.
“Pamela suddenly decided she didn’t like Alexa very much. There was gossip that she confronted her in the ladies’ room at a fund-raiser a few weeks ago. No one knows what they argued about, but the assumption was that Pamela made it clear she didn’t want Alexa marrying her father.”
“I wonder if Pamela was jealous of her,” Irene said. She walked slowly along one wall, studying the photos. “She was about to lose a great deal. Alexa was set to take over the role that she had played in her father’s political life for years. Once married, Alexa will become Webb’s hostess and closest adviser. She’ll assume the power and social position that Pamela used to enjoy.”
Hoyt gave her a pained look. “Who knows what Pamela was thinking? I sure as hell never figured her out.”
Ten minutes later Luke got back into the SUV beside Irene.
“Well?” he asked, inserting the key into the ignition.
“I don’t know what to think,” she said. “But it occurs to me that if Pamela and Alexa were feuding, we now have a solid suspect. Alexa appears to be a rather ambitious woman.”
“Think she might have gotten rid of Pamela because she believed that Pamela was going to make things difficult for her? Maybe even convince Webb to call off the marriage?”
“It’s a possibility,” Irene said, studying Hoyt’s apartment complex through the windshield.
Luke eased the vehicle away from the curb. “Why burn down the h
ouse, though? The arson looks like the work of someone who was trying to get rid of evidence.”
“Yes,” Irene said. “It does, doesn’t it? But what sort of evidence requires torching a house?”
He thought about it for a moment. “The kind that the killer was not able to find but which he suspected was inside the house.”
“Something small, maybe.”
“Or something very well hidden.”
“You know,” she said softly, “I don’t think we can trust Hoyt Egan.”
“I’m with you. He was talking way too fast for a guy who didn’t want to talk to us at all.”
“We need to learn more about him. I can do some research on the Internet.”
Luke turned thoughtful. “I know someone who may be able to get us some deep background on Egan a lot quicker than you or I can working the Internet.”
“Who?” she asked.
“Guy I knew in the Marines, Ken Tanaka. He’s a private investigator now. He does mostly corporate work but he’ll do me a favor.”
She thought about that for a while. “Do you have a lot of friends who went through what you went through?”
“Not a lot. A few.”
“Do you talk to them about it?”
“Not much.”
“Because they know and you know and that’s enough,” she said.
“Yes.”
Thirty-three
Luke showed up on the front step of Cabin Number Five at five-thirty that evening. When Irene opened the door she saw that he was not alone. He had a shaving kit, a small duffel bag and his computer with him.
“Correct me if I’m wrong, but this looks like you’re expecting more than dinner this evening,” she said, trying for lighthearted banter.
His expression barely flickered, but she thought she could hear a steel door slamming closed somewhere. So much for the lighthearted banter.
“We spent the past two nights together,” he said evenly. “Did I get the wrong impression somewhere along the line?”
She looked at him standing there in the doorway and felt as if he were asking her to make a life-altering decision. What was the big deal? They were involved in a highly charged affair fueled largely by the intensity of their recent shared experiences. This relationship probably wouldn’t last but while it did, Luke made her feel like a sex goddess. When was the last time any man had ever made her feel like a sex goddess?
“No.” She smiled. “You didn’t get the wrong impression.”
She stepped back to allow him to enter. The bleak, dark aspect vanished from his face. She sensed the steel door reopening.
Luke moved into the room, looking oddly satisfied, looking like a man who was coming home.
She awoke much later that night when she felt him slide out of bed. She did not move but opened her eyes in time to see him stealing silently down the hall into the front room of the cabin. He had his jeans in one hand.
When he disappeared she turned to look at the clock on the table. It was two-thirty in the morning.
She gave him a few minutes, time enough to get a snack in the kitchen or use the facilities. He did not return.
She sat up, tossed the covers aside and got to her feet. The man had a right to his secrets, she told herself. But this was downright weird. If he couldn’t sleep, she wasn’t going to sleep, either. She slid her feet into her slippers and went down the hall.
In the glow of the lamp that she had left burning on the end table she saw Luke sitting on the edge of the couch, his computer open on the coffee table in front of him. His intense expression told her that he was riveted by whatever he was writing on the screen.
“If you’re into any late-night Internet chat room hobbies, you’d better tell me now,” she said.
He raised his head. For a second or two, she got the distinct feeling that he was surprised to see her standing there. Then he smiled wryly.
“Didn’t mean to wake you,” he said. “I got a couple of ideas. Wanted to get them down before they faded.”
“Ideas about what? The Webb situation?”
“No.” He leaned back against the cushions, stretched his legs out under the coffee table and hooked his thumbs in the waistband of his jeans. “The book I’m trying to write.”
“What book?” Curiosity flowered deep inside her. “A novel?”
He hesitated just long enough to make her think he was not accustomed to talking about the book.
“No,” he said finally. He studied the glowing computer screen with a basilisk stare. “It’s definitely nonfiction. You could call it a textbook or a manual.”
“Really? What’s your subject?”
“A way of thinking about and formulating strategy.”
She moved closer to the coffee table. “Military strategy?”
“Strategy is strategy, regardless of how it is applied. Nobody believes me when I tell them that what saved my team and my own rear on more than one occasion wasn’t just my military training, it was that work in philosophy I did before I went into the Marines.”
She suddenly understood. “Philosophy didn’t teach you what to think; it taught you how to think.”
“And war taught me…other things. I’m trying to pull lessons from both aspects of those two human endeavors.”
“Certainly sounds impressive.”
His mouth quirked. “I’m trying to get around that little problem. I don’t want people to think the book is too esoteric or arcane.”
“Esoteric and arcane. Fancy words. Jason warned me that beneath your laid-back veneer beat the heart of a natural-born scholar. What made you leave the academic world to join the Marines?”
He looked deeply into the computer screen as though searching for the answer to her question. “It’s hard to explain. Part of me was drawn to that world. But there was another part of me that felt…unfinished. It was as if I needed a counterbalance to my academic side.” He shrugged. “Or something.”
“You know what you are?”
He raised his brows. “What?”
“A twenty-first-century version of what they used to call a Renaissance man, a scholar-warrior.”
“Now who’s using the fancy words?”
“And this book of yours,” she continued, very sure of herself now, “is an effort to meld both sides of your nature, isn’t it? It’s your own private version of therapy.”
He looked back at the screen. “Dang, woman, you may be on to something here.”
She sank down onto the couch beside him. “You came here to Dunsley to find a nice, quiet place in which to write.”
“That was the plan.”
“Why did you buy the lodge? Don’t tell me you need the money because you’re not even trying to run it at a profit.”
“I’m okay financially. Made a few solid investments over the years.” He covered her hand with his own. “As for the lodge, well, you know what they say, you can’t go wrong with waterfront property.”
“You can in Dunsley. When my aunt sold my parents’ house, she got almost nothing out of it.”
“Thanks for that cheery piece of data.”
“How did you end up as an innkeeper?” she asked.
“I sure as heck didn’t intend to go into the hospitality business. The plan was for me to live in one of the cabins and close up the others. But there were a couple of glitches.”
“Such as?”
“Maxine and her son, Brady,” he said. “And, to some extent, Tucker Mills.”
She threaded her fingers through his. “I get it. Maxine is financially dependent on her work here, isn’t she?”
“Not like there’s a lot of employment options around the lake, especially in the off-season. About five minutes after I moved in, it dawned on me that if I closed up the lodge, Maxine and Brady were going to be in serious financial trouble.”
“What about Tucker?”
“Tucker probably would have gotten by without the part-time work here because getting by is what he does.” Luke
hesitated. “But he likes working here. He’s used to it. Taking care of the lodge is part of his routine.”
“And Tucker needs his routine.”
Luke’s mouth kicked up again. “Don’t we all?”
“For sure. In other words, you didn’t close down the lodge because three other people would have been directly affected.”
“It’s not like the place can’t pay for itself. I took a look at the financials and figured that, given enough summer business, the lodge could continue to turn a modest profit. Hell, with Maxine managing it, the place might even turn a decent profit.”
“Keeping the lodge open was a very generous thing to do, Luke.”
“Just seemed like the easiest strategy, all things considered.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment. You left things the way they were because you felt a responsibility to the people you inherited when you took over. I remember something that Dad once told me.”
“What?”
“A good officer always takes care of his people.”
She leaned forward and kissed him.
He kissed her back. After a while he closed down the computer and drew her back into the bedroom.
Thirty-four
The call from Ken Tanaka came at seven-thirty the next morning, just as Luke was getting ready to serve his special French toast to Irene.
“I haven’t finished examining Hoyt Egan’s financial records, but I think you should see what I’ve got,” Ken said. “There’s a pattern here. A familiar one. Looks potentially messy.”
“Can you e-mail me the information?” Luke asked.
“Don’t think that would be a good idea at this juncture,” Ken said. “We’re talking about bad stuff that may or may not involve the man who might become the next president. I don’t want an e-mail trail leading to either you or me just yet. I’d rather discuss it in person. I need to show you some data.”
That was Ken, Luke thought, always careful. It was one of the reasons that he had survived in a war zone, and it was no doubt the reason that he had been successful as a private investigator.