Slowly she reached into the bag. With shaking fingers she fumbled around a bit and eventually managed to extract the phone. She tossed the device over the side of the dock. There was a small splash, and then it disappeared beneath the surface.
“You were the one,” she whispered, barely able to speak through her fury. “You murdered them all—my parents, Hoyt Egan and Pamela. How could you kill your own granddaughter?”
Victor snorted. “Odds are good that she wasn’t my granddaughter. Her mother was a tramp who slept with anything in pants. She suckered Ryland into marriage when my boy was barely twenty. Didn’t take me long to figure out that he had married a woman who was going to be a millstone around his neck. I tried to get him to dump her.”
“But he didn’t,” Irene said tightly. “Because of Pamela.”
“He was obsessed with that child from the get-go. Never did understand it until I found out he had a thing for young girls.”
“You killed Pamela’s mother, too, didn’t you? Everyone thinks she died in a boating accident out on the lake, but I’ll bet you arranged it. Why didn’t you get rid of Pamela at the same time?”
“I gave it some thought,” Victor admitted. “But Pamela was almost five by then. Ryland was running his first campaign, and the kid looked great in the press releases. The media and the public loved her. After her mother died, voters went crazy for the image of Ryland as the young, noble, committed father, grieving the loss of his beloved wife and determined to raise his daughter on his own.”
“But when Pamela hit her teens, she started to become a liability, didn’t she? Ryland no longer found her sexually interesting, so he stashed her in a boarding school most of the time.”
“In her teens Pamela discovered drugs,” Victor said, disgusted. “She also found out she could manipulate any male who happened to be in her vicinity. The school kept her out of the public eye for the most part. I was concerned that she might prove to be a problem after she graduated, though. I started to make some plans.”
“Instead, after she graduated, she made herself useful in Ryland’s campaigns again.”
“What can I say?” Victor shrugged. “She was her mother’s daughter all the way to her little round heels. Pamela was a whore at heart, but she was our whore and she was damned good at what she did. She was willing to sleep with Ryland’s rivals, enemies and anyone else, male or female, who had information that we could use. She enjoyed her role as a spy. It made her feel powerful to know that she was a critical part of the campaign strategy and that Ryland had come to depend on her. I think it gave her a sense of vengeance. The silly creature probably felt like she was in control of her father at last. But I was always the one who ran the show, right from the get-go.”
“You talk as if Ryland’s success was your own.”
“It is mine.” Anger twisted Victor’s face. “I made my son what he is today.”
“A disgraced pedophile who won’t even be able to run for dogcatcher?”
“You’ve ruined everything,” Victor said, voice thickening with rage. “My son was on his way to the White House until you came along. The White House, damn you. He was going to be president. My grandsons would have followed in his footsteps.”
“Don’t know about the grandsons,” Irene said. “Ryland prefers little girls, doesn’t he?”
“Shut up. Ryland promised me sons. It was in the prenuptial agreement he signed with Alexa Douglass. It was spelled out that she would produce a male heir within two years with the help of in vitro fertilization if necessary or else accept a quiet divorce. The fact that she had already produced one child meant that she was fertile.”
“You saw Alexa Douglass’s daughter as evidence of her fertility, but your pervert son saw her as a target for future abuse. Pamela’s the one who pulled the plug on your plans, not me. She did what she had to do to save Alexa’s daughter, and you killed her in an effort to silence her.”
“I should have gotten rid of you seventeen years ago,” Victor said. “If you had been in the house the night I did your parents, I would have taken care of you, too. Unfortunately, you weren’t there when I arrived. I didn’t want to risk hanging around for what might have been hours waiting for you, so I left. Later, it was obvious you knew nothing about the video or who had shot your parents, so I decided not to worry about you. To tell you the truth, Irene, I damned near forgot about you over the years. Obviously that was a mistake on my part.”
“How did you find out that Pamela planned to go public with the accusations against Ryland?”
Victor gave her a thin, humorless smile. “She called me the day before she planned to meet you.”
“Of course,” Irene whispered, suddenly understanding. “She knew that what she was going to do would rip the family apart. She felt she owed you, the head of the clan, some advance notice and maybe an explanation.”
“I tried to talk her out of it, but it was clear that she had made up her mind. So I came up here to Dunsley to take care of things.”
“She opened the door to you, didn’t she?”
Victor snorted. “No, as a matter of fact, I let myself into the house very late that night. She was asleep in bed. I injected her with a lethal dose of a certain pharmaceutical. She woke up and struggled for a few seconds, but the drug works fast.”
“And then you set the stage to make it appear that she had OD’d. When did you find out about the little wedding dress?”
His face worked in remembered fury. “The drug worked a little too fast. She laughed at me at the very end. She actually laughed. Told me I’d never find the wedding dress that Ryland had made her wear, said it was on the video and that it had DNA evidence all over it. I looked for it that night, but I couldn’t find it.”
“Later when you watched the video, you realized that the dress was potentially a huge problem. You had to get rid of it. So you went back the next night and burned down the house in hopes of destroying it.”
“It never occurred to me that Pamela might have hidden the dress off-site,” he admitted.
“How did you find out that Hoyt Egan was blackmailing Ryland?”
He shrugged. “When Pamela called me to tell me what she intended to do, I demanded to know how she could be sure that Ryland was still screwing little girls. She said she had pictures that had been taken on some of Ryland’s foreign junkets. She told me they had been taken by Egan. He accompanied Ryland on several of those trips. Somewhere along the line he figured out what Ryland was doing on the side. That’s the problem with aides. There’s a tendency to let them get too close to the center of power. Ryland got careless.”
“What did you do the night you killed my parents? Ambush them?”
“In a manner of speaking. I used a boat that night, too, just as I did the night I got rid of Pamela and again when I torched the house. Tied up at the dock behind your parents’ place and went to the back door. Your folks had finished dinner and were sitting in the living room, talking about the video they had just watched.”
“I don’t understand. They were killed in the kitchen.”
“They both came into the kitchen when they heard me knock on the back door. They recognized me, naturally, and let me in. I told them I’d heard about the video and explained how shocked I was to discover that Ryland had a little problem.”
“A little problem?” Irene stared at him. “Your son is a monster. So are you, for that matter. Talk about bad genes.”
Victor ignored that. “I told your folks that I had made plans to put Ryland into a psychiatric hospital for treatment. Asked them to keep the whole business quiet for everyone’s sake. But Hugh looked out at the dock and my boat. I could see that he was starting to get suspicious, wondering why I had come by way of the lake. I had my gun inside my coat. It was the same make and model that he carried on the job. He wasn’t wearing his gun in the house, of course. I moved up right beside him and shot him before he had a chance to turn around. Your mother screamed and launched herself straig
ht at me like some kind of wild animal. I shot her, too. It was all over in an instant.”
Rage-induced adrenaline flowed through Irene. She wanted to do what her mother had done and fling herself on Victor Webb. She yearned to slash him to pieces with her nails. But she knew that if she rushed him, he would cut her down before she got close enough to claw his face.
She flicked a disgusted glance at the gun in his hand. “Do you really think that killing me will fix things? There’s no way Ryland’s career can be salvaged.”
“Don’t you think I’m aware of that? Thanks to you, I’ve lost one son. But I’ve got another and I’ve got a plan.”
“Freeze, Webb.”
Luke’s command had the strobe-like effect of lightning on the lake at midnight. For an instant everything and everyone, including Victor Webb, went utterly still.
Luke emerged from the shadows at the side of the house, moving with the lethal grace of a predator who has had plenty of experience bringing down prey.
He had a gun in his hand.
Sam McPherson followed close behind him, a pistol in one fist.
Webb snapped out of his startled trance. He turned his head and saw the two men approaching.
“You’re both fools,” he said. “Shoot me and you’ll hit Irene.”
He was right, Irene realized. Victor stood directly in front of her on the narrow dock. Once the bullets started flying, it would be a miracle if she wasn’t hit.
“Give it up, Webb,” Luke said, moving slowly toward the dock. “This thing is over. We all know that.”
“It’s over when I say it’s over, Danner.”
Victor suddenly lunged toward Irene, reaching out to seize her by the arm. She realized that he intended to use her as a shield and a hostage.
She dropped her shoulder bag onto the dock and threw herself backward off the dock. The last thing she saw before she hit the water was Victor Webb bringing his gun to bear on Luke.
She landed with a heavy splash and sank quickly. The cold waters closed over her, muffling the roar of the shots.
Her first instinct was to swim away from the vicinity of the dock. She went as far as she could underwater, hugging the shoreline. The weight of her coat and boots tugged at her, threatening to pull her deeper.
When she could hold her breath no longer, she surfaced, gasping for air, and turned to look back. Luke stood at the end of the dock, searching the water for her. Behind him Sam McPherson crouched beside Victor Webb, who lay crumpled on the boards.
Luke spotted her and raised a hand.
“You okay?” he called.
“Yes.” She got to her feet and staggered out of the shallow water. The crisp air struck like a knife, plastering her cold, wet garments around her.
Luke came toward her, peeling off his windbreaker. When he got close, he yanked off her soaking trench coat and wrapped the light jacket around her.
“You gave me one hell of a scare,” he muttered, dragging her against his warm, hard frame. “When you didn’t answer your phone a few minutes ago, I went a little crazy.”
“Oh, God, Luke, I have never been so glad to see anyone in my life.” She clung to him. “Is Webb dead?”
“Not yet.” His arm around her, he guided her back to where Sam was using his own shirt as a makeshift bandage to staunch the blood flowing from Webb’s midsection.
“Just called the aid car,” Sam said tonelessly.
“Are you both all right?” Irene asked, surveying Luke and Sam in turn.
Before either man could answer, Victor Webb groaned and opened his eyes. He squinted up at Sam, evidently trying to bring him into focus.
“Son,” he said in a grating whisper.
“Ryland isn’t here,” Sam responded without a flicker of emotion.
“You’re my son. You know that. Listen to me. What happened here will come down to our word against theirs.” Victor glanced at Luke and Irene and grimaced with pain and hatred. “They’re outsiders, and you’re the law here in Dunsley. And I’m Victor Webb. The locals will believe whatever we tell them.”
“Sorry, but that’s not how it’s going to be,” Sam said. He got slowly to his feet.
“You’re family, damn you.” Victor broke off, coughing blood. “When the chips are down, family takes care of its own.”
“I am taking care of my own,” Sam said quietly. “I’m arresting the man who murdered my niece.”
“Pamela was a cheap little tramp. Listen to me, Sam, I’ve got a plan. You’re going to take Ryland’s place. You’ll have to start small, naturally. A state office to begin with, but we can build you fast. No one outside Dunsley knows that you’re a Webb. You’ll be the heroic small-town chief of police who helped take down a U.S. senator. The voters will love you. But first you’ve got to help me clean up this mess.”
“What I’ve got to do is my job. If Bob Thornhill had done his all those years ago, Pamela would still be alive.” Sam took a card out of his back pocket. “You have the right to remain silent—”
“Shut up, you ungrateful bastard,” Victor screamed. “My word is the one everyone will believe. I’m Victor Webb.”
“You’re right, Mr. Webb.” Irene picked up her handbag, reached inside and took out the recorder she had turned on when she pretended to fumble for her phone. “Your word is good enough to take to the bank around here.”
She switched on the recorder. There was no mistaking Webb’s harsh, angry voice coming from the machine.
“…If you had been in the house the night I did your parents, I would have taken care of you, too.…”
Forty-eight
That evening, after a late dinner, they went out onto the back porch of the cabin and stood looking at the lake. The air was chilled and clear, and the moon cast a cold white light across the dark water.
Irene pulled the collar of her coat up around her neck and leaned into Luke, seeking his heat. He put his arm around her shoulders and held her tightly against his side.
“When they take that bullet out of Victor Webb, they’re going to discover that it came from your gun, aren’t they?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. He didn’t offer anything else.
“Did Sam fire his weapon?”
“No.” He was quiet for a moment. “It would have been a damn tough thing to do, firing a gun at your own father.”
“Even if he was a murderous sonofabitch.”
“Even if,” he agreed.
She shivered. “I’m glad you were with Sam this afternoon, or I probably wouldn’t be here now.”
“Don’t think about what might have happened. Think about what really did happen.”
She wrapped her arms around his waist. “What happened was that you saved my life.”
“I had a lot of help from you.” He bent his head and brushed his lips across her forehead. “If you hadn’t jumped off the dock into the lake—”
She tightened her arms around him. “Don’t think about what might have happened.”
“Okay, so much for discussing the past.” He turned her so that he could see her face. “Got any objection to talking about future possibilities?”
Joy bloomed through her. “No.”
“I’m thinking of selling the lodge.”
“Where will you go?”
“I’ve heard Glaston Cove is a nice town. Got an active city council and a dandy little newspaper.”
“Picturesque, too. Perched on the cliffs overlooking a small, charming bay. It’s just the place for a writer, if you ask me.”
He eased his fingers through her hair. “I told you, I fell in love with you the day you walked into the lobby and asked if there was any room service available.”
“I thought you said you wanted to have sex with me the first time you saw me.”
“That, too.”
A deep sense of rightness warmed her all the way to her bones. “As I recall, you informed me that the goal of the management of the Sunrise on the Lake Lodge was to provide guests with
a genuinely rustic experience. No room service, no TV, no pool, no workout facilities.”
He stopped her by putting his fingertips on her lips. “But you have to admit that management did provide certain other amenities that are not typically available even at the finer, five-star establishments.”
She smiled and kissed him lightly on his mouth. “This is true.”
“Management stands ready to continue providing said amenities.”
“Even though management is selling the property?”
“Yes.”
“How long do you think management would care to go on providing those amenities?”
“For the rest of our lives,” Luke said quietly. Absolute conviction rang in the words. “I know I’m rushing you, sweetheart, but I feel like I’ve been looking for you for a very, very long time. I love you. I will always love you. I’ve never been more certain of anything in my life. And I sure don’t want to waste another minute.”
“You aren’t the only one who has been searching for a future,” she said. “I love you, Luke Danner.”
His mouth came down on hers, sure and true and right.
A long time later she stirred beside him in the cozy bed. “You really are going to sell the lodge?”
“Yes.”
“Might be tough to find a buyer for this place, especially at this time of year.”
“Already got a buyer.”
“Really? Who?”
“Maxine.”
“Luke, that’s a lovely idea. But she can’t possibly afford it.”
He turned over on the pillow and gathered her close. “We’ll work something out.”
Forty-nine
Seventeen years ago, I spent a lot of time convincing myself that there was no link between that damned phone call that I made to Victor Webb and the murders of your parents, Irene,” Sam said wearily. “Did a pretty good job of it, too.”
Luke turned away from the view outside Sam’s office window to watch Irene’s reaction. He wasn’t surprised when he saw the look of mingled sadness and compassion on her face.