He heard the front door of the house open.
“What the hell are you doing in my garage, Danner?” Sam McPherson called out from the top of the steps.
Luke went to stand in the garage opening. “Out of curiosity, were you just trying to scare Irene to death the other day when you chased her on Lakefront Road, or did you intend to kill her?”
Sam came down the steps. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.”
“That SUV looks like it went through a bad hailstorm.”
Sam scowled. “Some kids stole it. Took it joyriding. I haven’t had a chance to take it in to Carpenter’s garage.”
“How long have you been doing favors for your older brother, Sam?”
Sam looked as if he’d been punched in the gut. “What?”
“We’re going to talk. Either we do it out here where your neighbors can watch, or we go inside and do this in private. Your choice.”
“Why should I talk to you?”
“Because I knowyou’re Ryland Webb’s half brother. I figure it was you who called him seventeen years ago to warn him that Pamela had given the video to Elizabeth Stenson. Did he ask you to burn dow he Webb house the other night? Or did he drive up here to do the job himself?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sam rasped, unnerved now. “Get out of here.”
“Must have been hard watching your brother get the benefits of being a legitimate Webb all these years. Ryland was the golden boy, wasn’t he? The local crown prince. You never told anyone that you had just as much Webb blood in your veins as he did. Why was that, Sam? Was it because Victor Webb paid your mother to keep the secret, and after she was gone you felt you had to do the same?”
Sam made fists of both hands. “Shut up.”
“You seem to do okay on a small-town police chief’s salary.” Luke angled his head toward the garage. “Nice new car. House in a good neighborhood.”
“I don’t have to listen to this.”
“Yeah, you do have to listen, Sam.” Luke started toward him. “Because the way I figure it, you’re an accessory to at least three murders, maybe four. I’m not sure about Hoyt Egan yet. It’s possible tha our brother handled that one all by himself.”
“You can’t prove anything.”
“That’s what your brother keeps saying. But you’ll notice that he’s going down in flames. Won’t b ong before he breaks. If you didn’t help him commit any of the murders, you’d better be prepared to prove it.”
“I don’t have to prove a damn thing,” Sam said.
“You’re wrong. You’d better prove to me that you didn’t try to force Irene off the road into the lak he other day, or I’m going to take you apart.”
Sam’s face worked. “For God’s sake, man, I didn’t try to kill her. Why the hell would I do a thing like that?”
“Maybe because Ryland Webb asked you to do it?”
Sam’s eyes hardened. “I don’t take orders from Ryland Webb, damn you.”
“Pamela trusted you, didn’t she? You were her uncle, after all. Not like she had a lot of close family to turn to. The day she gave the video to Elizabeth Stenson, she confided in you. She told you that Ryland had abused her for years and that the secret was about to come out. But instead of honoring your niece’s trust, you called your brother and warned him about what was going to happen.”
“No, damn you, I didn’t call Ryland.”
“Did you kill them yourself, McPherson?”
“No.” Sam looked as if he were drowning in a sea of anguish. “God help me, I didn’t believe Pamel hat day. I thought she made up the story about being abused because she wanted to get back at Ryland for sending her away to boarding school. I didn’t know what was on that video she gave to Elizabeth Stenson, but I was afraid that Pamela was about to create a lot of trouble for herself and the family. So I did the only thing I could think of.”
All the dots were connected now. Ice sleeted through Luke’s veins.
“You didn’t call Ryland,” Luke said. “You called your father, Victor Webb.”
Forty-Seven
It took more courage than she had ever dreamed she possessed to walk into the ghastly kitchen. Pushing through the invisible veil of the old nightmare aroused a wave of nausea and terror so powerful she ha o cling to one of the counters to keep from falling.
Fighting the vertigo, she looked down at the floor. Oh, God, the floor. It was the same imitation white stone tile that her mother had chosen for the room on the grounds that it would be easy to clean. The kitchen had been repainted over the years, but no one had replaced the tile.
Easy to clean.
Don’t think about the blood. You are not going to be sick. You can’t be sick. You [_came here to look _]
at the evidence. This is a crime scene, and you were the first witness. You are also [_a journalist. Do your job. Step back and take another look. _]
She straightened and studied the sunny kitchen. Very slowly she unlocked the vault in her mind and dragged the nightmares out into the light of day.
She took her notepad and pen out of her handbag. Then she forced herself to cross the kitchen, ope he back door and walk out onto the small porch. She closed the door behind her and stood still for a moment, bracing herself.
The plan was a simple one. She would retrace her movements that night, recalling as many of the dreadful details as possible to see if she could come up with anything that might serve to link Ryland Webb to the murders of her parents. Even the smallest sliver of memory or evidence might be enoug o pressure Webb into a confession.
Taking a deep breath, she checked the time on her watch and reopened the door.
Moving slowly, she stepped back into the kitchen. The nightmarish images she had worked so hard to hide in the vault smashed through her.
Panic and anguish screamed in her head. It took everything she had to get the emotions under control.
So much for the theory that facing your fears rendered them less awful, she thought.
She made herself take her time, reliving it all in as much detail as possible from the first chillin ealization that the door was partially blocked by some heavy object, to the moment when she managed to punch in the emergency number on the telephone.
At first it was disconcerting, even disturbing, to discover that, although the images stored in the vaul ere shattering and intense, there were very few of them.