No one outside Dunsley knows that you’re a Webb. You’ll be the heroic small-town chief of polic ho helped take down a U.S. senator. The voters will love you. But first you’ve got to help me clea p this mess.”
“What I’ve got to do is my job. If Bob Thornhill had done his all those years ago, Pamela would stil e 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 sh ad 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 a he 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 Sunset 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?”
p. “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 tha amned 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.
It had been two days since Victor Webb was taken to the hospital that he had financed years earlie nd placed under guard. In those forty-eight hours Irene had changed in some subtle ways. It was a f she no longer viewed the town of Dunsley through a dark lens, he decided. Much of the cautious reserve with which she had treated most of the locals had dissipated.
Maybe there was something to that old adage about the truth setting you free. Or maybe, in this case,
the truth had simply made it possible for Irene to give the past a proper burial.
“I understand, Sam,” she said gently.
McPherson folded his hands very deliberately on top of his desk. “Later, when the rumors started up about your mom having had an affair with someone in town, I told myself that might have been enoug o push your dad over the edge. I knew that you and Elizabeth were the two most important things i he world to him.”
“Victor Webb must have been the one who planted those rumors,” Irene said. “It would have been easy enough for him to do, given his connections in this region.”