“Like I said, the guy who did the place probably did wedding cakes on the side.”
Irene examined the image more closely. “There’s something old-world about the room, don’t you think?”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget the fairy-tale color scheme. Look at the scale of the place and those windows. Early nineteenth century, I think. See those crown moldings? They’re not reproductions. It looks like an old house that you might see somewhere in Europe.”
Tess nodded slowly. “Now that you mention it, yes, it does.”
Before Irene could make any more comments, a man walked into view. There was no audio with the clip. The figure moved in unnatural silence.
At first it was only possible to see him from the waist down because of the camera angle. Then he lowered himself onto one of the pink chairs. The change of position brought his face into clear view.
“Ryland Webb,” Irene whispered.
“What in the world is going on here?” Tess said.
Webb settled back into the chair, hitched up his elegantly tailored trousers and cocked one ankle over his knee. Everything about his pose suggested ease and familiarity. He had been in this room before.
He looked at someone off camera, smiled and made a comment. A moment later a drink was placed in his hand by a woman dressed in a black skirt, severe white blouse and starched white apron. It was impossible to see the maid’s face.
The toe of Webb’s gleaming shoe bounced a little. Irene got the impression that he was looking forward to whatever was about to happen. She sensed suppressed excitement in him. There was a sheen of sweat on his brow. As she watched, he loosened his tie and focused his attention on a point across the pink-and-white room that was just out of the camera’s view.
Irene’s cell phone rang, jarring her so badly that she jumped a good three inches. She did not take her eyes off the screen as she punched the key to take the call.
“Irene?” Luke’s voice carried the hard, no-compromise edge of command.
“What’s wrong?” she asked instantly.
“Hoyt Egan is dead.”
“Dead?”
Tess’s head came around very fast, an alarmed, questioning expression on her face.
“Who’s dead?” she asked.
Irene held up a hand to silence her so that she could hear Luke.
“I found him a short while ago,” Luke said. “Someone hit his head very hard and very often with a heavy, blunt object. The cops are here now. They’re going on the assumption that Egan interrupted a burglary in progress.”
“Dear heaven.” Stunned, she tried to gather her wits. She looked at Tess. “Hoyt Egan, Webb’s aide. He’s dead.” She turned her attention back to the phone. “Wait a second, Luke. What do you mean, you found him? Where are you now?”
“In the hallway outside his apartment. The cops have set up a crime scene. I’m calling because I’m not going to be able to get away for a couple of hours, at least. The detective in charge has made that real clear. He wants to talk to me.”
“Of course he does. You’re the one who found the body. Why on earth did you go to Egan’s apartment?”
“Call it a whim,” Luke said dryly. “Look, I’ll give you the whole story when I get home. Meanwhile, I don’t want you there alone at the lodge.”
“I’m not at the lodge,” Irene said automatically. “I’m at Tess Carpenter’s house.”
“What are you doing there?” he asked sharply.
“At the moment we’re viewing some computer files that Pamela left for me to find.”
“What files? Where did you get them?”
“She stashed them in my old bedroom at the house where I lived with my parents here in town.”
“You went there?” Luke paused. “Alone?”
“I’ll explain later. The important part is what I found. Some of the files are film clips. We’re watching one now. It shows Senator Webb in this really odd pink-and-white room. He doesn’t seem to know that he’s on camera.”
“What the hell is he doing?”
“At the moment, he’s sitting on a chair with a drink in his hand. But it looks like he’s waiting for someone else to come into the room.”
“Irene, pay attention,” Luke said. “I called Phil Carpenter just before I called you. He’s headed out to the lodge. I’m going to call him back and tell him where you are.”
“Why?”
“I want him to keep you company until I get back to Dunsley.”
“I don’t understand.”
Tess was watching her with an expression of total confusion now.
“Didn’t you hear what I just told you?” Luke said. “Someone murdered Hoyt Egan.”
“A burglar.”
“That’s what the detective suggested. Me, I’m not taking any chances, given your theory about Pamela Webb’s death.”
Irene swallowed hard. “Got it.”
At that moment a girl walked into the pink-and-white fairy-tale room. She appeared to be no more than ten or eleven years of age, blond and delicate.
“She looks like a flower girl at a wedding,” Tess said softly.
The girl was dressed in a floor-length white satin gown. A gossamer veil clouded her features. She came to a halt a few steps away from Webb.
Irene went cold. She felt the phone start to slip from her suddenly nerveless fingers and hastily tightened her grip.
“Not the flower girl,” she whispered. “She’s the bride.”
Tess paled. “Oh, my God. You’re right.”
“Irene?” Luke’s voice crackled roughly. “Are you okay?”
“It’s the film clip,” she said. “There’s a young girl dressed as a bride. And Webb. I can’t believe it. No. I can believe it. That’s what’s so awful.”
“I’ve got to call Phil. As soon as I get in touch with him, I’ll call you right back.”
“Okay.” She was vaguely aware of Luke’s cutting the connection, but she could not take her eyes off the screen.
Webb rose from the pink chair. The bulge of his erection was clearly visible, tenting the fabric of his trousers. He reached out, took the child bride’s hand and said something to her, his manner a mockery of gallant behavior. The girl did not respond in any visible way. Irene assumed that she was in some sort of trance that had been induced by either the psychological trauma of the situation, drugs or both.
Webb tugged the girl toward the door. She trailed after him listlessly, the train of her miniature white gown dragging forlornly across the carpet behind her.
The film clip went dark. A second later a new scene appeared. The setting was a frilly pink-and-white wedding-cake bedroom. It was obvious from the limited range of the camera’s view and the lowered lighting that this clip had also been shot clandestinely. The child bride stood statue-still next to the bed, clutching her bouquet.
Webb walked into view. He was nude, his middle-aged body soft and sagging and obscene without the camouflage of his expertly tailored clothes. He reached out to raise the wedding veil that covered the child’s face.
“I can’t watch any more of this,” Irene said. She spun away from the scene before she got physically ill.
“Neither can I.” Tess lowered the screen of the computer.
Irene’s phone sounded.
“Luke?”
“Phil’s on his way,” Luke said. “What’s happening in that film clip?”
Irene looked out the window at the dark expanse of the lake. “I think we just found out why Pamela was murdered.”
Forty-two
Pamela looked into the camera. She was still sitting on the sofa, the glass of wine in her hand. A mocking smile curved her mouth, but her eyes were as cold as northern seas.
“That was taken on Daddy’s last trip out of the country. Pretty sick stuff, isn’t it? Got to give Hoyt Egan some credit. He accompanied Daddy on some of the foreign junkets and figured out what was going on. He bribed one of the brothel employees to make that
video. Thing is, until I discovered a few weeks ago that Hoyt Egan was blackmailing my father with that video, I had convinced myself that Daddy wasn’t doing little girls anymore. Turns out he’d just taken his business out of the country. Talk about denial, hmm?”
Irene clutched the cell phone. “Can you hear this, Luke?”
“I can hear it,” he said softly. “Webb is a pedophile, and he’s getting set to run for president. You’re right, what you’re looking at is a hell of a motive for murder—a couple of them, in fact.”
“Pamela and Hoyt Egan.”
“I’ve got to call Tanaka,” Luke said. “I want him to find out where Webb is right now. Once I know the sonofabitch isn’t anywhere near Dunsley, I’ll feel a little better. Meanwhile, make sure Tess’s doors are locked.”
Tess was close enough to hear Luke’s voice coming out of the small phone. She was already on her feet. “I’ll take care of it.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can get away from here,” Luke said. “Don’t let anyone in except Phil.”
“Understood,” Irene said.
Luke cut the connection.
Tess hurried back into the living room and sat down on the couch. “We’re all secure, as Phil would say.”
On-screen, Pamela lowered her wineglass.
“You’ll see from the charge card expenses and flight records that I’ve included in one of the other files that Daddy’s done a lot of traveling abroad in the past few years. Southeast Asia used to be his favorite destination. Lots of kiddie brothels there.
“But there are plenty of similar operations in other parts of the world. Last year Daddy found the one in Europe that you just saw on the film clip. It’s his favorite these days. I included the address for you, Irene. I know reporters like lots of details.”
Tess looked at Irene. “This is devastating stuff. Ryland Webb’s campaign will go down in flames when this hits the media.”
Irene did not take her eyes off the screen. “Yes.”
“If you got this far, Irene, you’ve probably already figured out that I want you to be the one to go public with the news about Daddy’s little hobby. I owe you that much, at least.”
“She knew you had become a reporter,” Tess said thoughtfully. “She kept track of you over the years.”
“Evidently.”
On-screen, Pamela leaned back into the corner of the sofa and stretched out one long leg.
“But before you break the big story, I have to tell you what really happened to your parents. I said I was responsible for their deaths, and that’s the simple truth. You see, at some point that summer, your mom began to suspect that I had been abused.”
“Webb raped his own daughter,” Tess said, face tight with anger.
“You may have wondered why your mom would never let you stay overnight at my house when Daddy was in town that summer. She needn’t have worried, though. Daddy was no longer coming into my room in the middle of the night in those days. I was too old at sixteen. He liked me better when I was younger. It started when I was ten, you know. Stopped when I was about thirteen.”
“Poor Pamela,” Irene whispered. The weight of a great sadness pressed down upon her. “I never knew. She always seemed so incredibly sophisticated and cool and worldly.”
“I pretended that nothing had ever happened, of course. That’s what kids do in those situations. They keep the secret, sometimes even from themselves. I never even told any of the therapists I saw over the years. I can’t explain how it works. I think they call it compartmentalizing. I read somewhere that it’s a survival mechanism or something. Whatever, I was real good at it.”
“I wonder how Mom found out,” Irene said.
“Your mother was a very intuitive person, Irene. She started talking to me that summer, asking me questions. At first I blew her off. But then, one day I suddenly got the urge to let her discover the truth. Didn’t have the guts to do it in person, of course. But I knew where Daddy kept his favorite video, the one he had made of the two of us.”
Irene went very still. “She gave that video to my mother, who would have told Dad.”
“Who, in turn, would have done something very serious about it,” Tess concluded quietly.
Irene drew a deep breath. “Yes.”
On-screen, Pamela was gazing very intently into the camera.
“I arranged for your mother to find the video. That same evening I made sure that you were with me. I couldn’t stand the suspense of not knowing what was going to happen, you see. I didn’t want to be alone.”
“She wouldn’t take me home.” Irene laced her fingers very tightly together in her lap. “Kept me out past curfew. Made me drive all the way to Kirbyville with her. I was so angry. I knew my parents would be furious.”
“I thought I had it all planned out, Irene. But I made a terrible, terrible mistake. I can’t really explain why I did it, except to say that, having made the first move to share my secret with your mother, I could no longer pretend the secret didn’t exist, if you see what I mean. All of a sudden, it was boiling up inside me. So that afternoon, before I picked you up to go to the movies, I told someone I thought I could trust about the video and what I had done with it.
“Later, after I heard what happened to your folks, I realized that person must have called Daddy in San Francisco.”
“Only a couple of hours away,” Tess whispered.
“Ryland Webb knows how to handle a gun,” Irene said. “He goes hunting every year with his father.”
Pamela blinked a couple of times. Irene got the impression that she was trying to get rid of tears.
“You’ll never be able to prove that Daddy killed your parents, of course. I’m very sorry about that, Irene. But we both know that too much time has passed. Any hard evidence that might have existed disappeared long ago.”
A key turned in 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 that stop 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 to get 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 at his 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 Phil and 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. From where 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 town. But the realization that Phil had come armed today sent an odd chill through her. Luke was definitely worried, she thought.