She studied the shadowed room carefully and methodically, starting on the left where the massive stone fireplace formed most of the wall. Halfway across the space she saw the overturned slipper. It lay on the rug at the end of the brown leather sofa. A portion of a bare foot extended slightly off the edge of the cushions.
Irene stilled. Stomach tensing, she moved along the wall of windows until she could aim the beam of the flashlight directly at the front of the sofa.
A woman reclined on the cushions. She was dressed in camel-colored trousers and a blue silk blouse.
Her face was turned away from the windows. Blond hair tumbled across the brown leather. One lim rm dangled above the floor.
A cocktail pitcher and an empty martini glass sat on the low wooden coffee table.
“Pamela.” Irene pounded on the glass. “Pamela, wake up.”
The woman on the sofa did not stir.
Irene seized the handle of the sliding glass door and tugged with all of her strength.
The door was locked.
Whirling around, she raced out of the garden, the beam of the flashlight bouncing wildly, and hurrie ack to the door of the utility room.
Crouching, she felt around beneath the bottom step. Her fingers brushed across a small envelope tape o the underside of the tread.
It took a considerable amount of effort to loosen the aged duct tape, but finally the envelope fell into her hand. She could feel the weight of the key inside. Rising, she ripped open the sealed packet, took out the key and fitted it into the lock.
She opened the door, groped for and found the light switch. The weak bulb in the overhead fixture winked on, revealing decades’ worth of boating, fishing and water-skiing gear.
She raced down the shadowed hall into the living room.
“Pamela, it’s me, Irene. Wake up.”
She stopped beside the sofa and reached down to grip Pamela’s shoulder.
The flesh beneath the thin silk blouse was icy cold. There was no doubt as to the identity of the woman. Seventeen years had made remarkably few changes in Pamela’s extraordinarily beautiful features. Eve n death she was a classic, patrician blonde.
“Dear God, no.”
Irene stepped back, swallowing the nausea that threatened to well up inside. Blindly, she reached int er purse for her cell phone.
A figure moved in the darkened hallway that led to the utility room.
She whipped around, clutching the heavy flashlight. The fierce beam fell on Luke. It was all she coul o to suppress the scream that threatened to choke her.
“Dead?” Luke asked, moving toward the sofa.
“What are you doing here? Never mind.” The questions would have to wait. She punched out 911 with shaking fingers. “She’s very cold. Too cold.”
He reached down and put his fingers on the woman’s throat in a practiced manner.
Looking for the pulse, Irene thought. She knew from the way he did it that this was not the first time he had dealt with a body.
“Definitely dead,” he said quietly. “Looks like she’s been that way for a while.”
They both glanced at the empty pitcher on the table. Standing next to it was a small prescription bottle.
It, too, was empty.
Irene fought the guilt that clawed through her. “I should have come here earlier.”
“Why?” he asked. He went down on his haunches to read the label on the little bottle. “How could you have known?”
“I couldn’t, I didn’t,” she whispered. “But I knew there was something wrong when she never answered the phone.”
He studied the body in a meditative way. “She was cold before you even checked in at the lodge this afternoon.”
He’d definitely had some experience with the dead, she thought.
The 911 operator spoke sharply into her ear, demanding to know what the problem was.
Irene took a deep breath, pulled herself together and gave the details of the situation as quickly and concisely as possible. It helped to concentrate on the facts.
By the time she ended the call, a strange numbness had settled on her. She fumbled with the phone and nearly dropped it before managing to put it back into her shoulder bag. She could not bring herself to look at the body.
“We don’t need to wait in here,” Luke said, taking her arm. “Let’s go outside.”
She did not argue. He steered her back along the hall, into the foyer and out onto the front steps.
“How did you get here?” She looked around the drive. “Where’s your car?”
“I left it down the road a ways.”
Understanding hit her. “You followed me.”
“Yeah.”
There was no apology in his tone, no hint of awkwardness or embarrassment. Just a simple statement. [_Yeah, I followed you. So what? _]
Outrage washed through her, dissipating some of the numbness. “Why did you do that? You had no right whatsoever—”
“That woman in there on the sofa,” he said, interrupting her short tirade with the calm arrogance of a man accustomed to command. “Is she the person you were trying to get in touch with earlier this evening?”
She clenched her teeth and folded her arms very tightly beneath her br**sts. “If you’re not going to answer my questions, I see no reason to answer yours.”
“Suit yourself Miss Stenson.” He turned his head slightly in the direction of the distant sirens. “But it’s obvious you were acquainted with the victim.”
Irene hesitated. “We were friends once, a long time ago. I haven’t seen her or talked to her in seventeen years.”
“I’m sorry” he said, his voice surprisingly gentle, his eyes startlingly bleak. “Suicide is always tough o he people left behind.”
“I’m not so sure it was suicide,” she said, before stopping to think.
He inclined his head, acknowledging other options. “Could have been an accidental overdose.”
She didn’t believe that, either, but this time she kept her mouth shut.
“Why did you come here to see her tonight?” Luke asked.
“What’s your interest in this?” she countered. “Why did you follow me here?”
A police cruiser turned into the drive before he could respond, assuming that he would have responded, she thought grimly. Harsh lights pulsed in the night. The piercing siren was so loud now that she automatically raised her hands to cover her ears.
The siren stopped suddenly. A uniformed officer got out of the car. He glanced first at Irene and then turned immediately to Luke.
“Got a report of a dead body,” he said.