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returned. She looked through the curtains and watched him get out of the SU nd let himself into Cabin Number One. Somehow, it helped knowing that he was in the vicinity.
    She sat quietly and thought about the terrible summer of her fifteenth year, the summer when she had become for three short, memorable months, Pamela Webb’s best friend. The summer her parents had been murdered.
    At a quarter to three in the morning, she made her decision and reached for her phone.
    Adeline Grady answered on the sixth or seventh ring.
    “You’ve got Grady,” Adeline said in a sleepy voice that had been rendered permanently husky by a daily regimen of expensive whiskey and good cigars. “If this isn’t important, Irene, you’re fired.”
    “I’ve got an exclusive for you, Addy.”
    Adeline yawned audibly on the other end of the line. “Whatever it is, it had better be a lot bigger than the fight over the proposed dog park at the last city council meeting.”
    “It is. Senator Ryland Webb’s daughter, Pamela, was found dead in the family’s summer home on Ventana Lake at—” She glanced at her watch. “Ten forty-five this evening.”
    “Talk to me, kid.” The sleep disappeared miraculously from Adeline’s voice, leaving behind an edgy impatience. “What’s going on?”
    “At the very least, I think I can guarantee that the
Beacon
will be the first paper in the state to break the news of Pamela Webb’s mysterious and untimely death.”
    “Mysterious and untimely?”
    “The local authorities are going to call it a probable suicide or an accidental overdose, but I think there’s more to it.”
    “Pamela Webb,” Adeline said, sounding thoughtful now. “Is that who you went to Dunsley to see?”
    “Yes.”

    “I didn’t realize you knew her.”
    “It was a long time ago,” Irene said.
    “Huh.” There were some rustling movements on the other end of the line and then the muffled click of what sounded like a light switch. “I seem to recall some rumors about her having done some time in rehab.”
    Before Adeline had retired and moved to Glaston Cove to take over the Beacon, she put in thirty year s a reporter with one of the state’s major dailies. Irene was reassured to hear the unmistakable spark of interest and curiosity in her boss’s rough voice.
There was a
story here
, she thought. Adeline sensed it, too.
    “I’ll e-mail you what I’ve got in a few minutes, okay?” Irene said.
    “You’re sure this is an exclusive?”
    “Trust me, at this point the
Beacon
is the only paper in the entire world that knows Pamela Webb is dead.”
    “How did we get lucky?” Adeline asked.
    “I was the one who found the body.”
    Adeline whistled softly. “Okay, that qualifies as an exclusive. You’ll get your byline and you’ll be above the fold. Under most circumstances, the death of a senator’s daughter would be nothing more than a private tragedy. But given that Webb is getting ready to make a run for the White House, this is a bigger story.”
    “One more thing, Addy. Would you ask Jenny or Gail to go to my apartment, pack up some clothe nd overnight them to me?”
    “Why?”
    “Because I’m going to be here in Dunsley for a while.”
    “Thought you hated that town,” Adeline said.
    “I do. I’m hanging around because I’ve got a hunch there’s more to this story.”
    “I can feel lust growing in this old reporter’s heart. What’s going on?”

    “I think Pamela Webb was murdered.”

Five
    Maxine blew in through the lobby door at nine o’clock, moving like the small whirlwind she was. She was an attractive, high-energy woman in her mid-thirties with blue eyes and a cloud of artificially blond hair that always looked as if it had been whipped up by the rotor blades of a helicopter. She controlled the wild hair with a headband. Luke had discovered over the past few months that she had an endless assortment of bands, each in a different color. Today’s was bright pink.
    He found her enthusiasm