Nightfall (18 page)

And then he could withhold it no longer. He lifted her off the counter, holding her against him, as he plunged into her, hard, like a weapon, and she shoved her face against his sweat-slick shoulder and buried her scream, as she shattered, rigid and lost. He had no choice but to follow, to his own small death, feeling his body explode inside her, pulses of life flowing between them, endlessly.

He could no longer hold her. He let her slide down his body, so that her feet rested on the floor, and it took her a moment to find her balance. She swayed, staring at him as if she didn't recognize him.

Her dress was ripped to the waist, and her beautiful breasts spilled out. He wanted to reach for her, to pull her against him, to kiss her high forehead beneath the wild hair, to close her desperate eyes and murmur comfort. To take her back to his bed and do it all again, slower this time, using his mouth, on her breasts, between her legs, doing it all, everything he could think of.

Instead he reached down and calmly straightened his jeans, zipping them. And then his eyes met hers, and he plastered a wry smile on his face. "How does it feel to fuck a murderer, Cassidy? Worth it?"

He expected her to slap him. He expected fury and despair. He should have known better.

She simply looked at him, her eyes wide and sorrowful, her mouth swollen from his. "Bastard," she murmured, a mere token. And then she walked away.

He knew she would leave. He left his door open so that he could be certain she was gone. It took her close to an hour to shower, pack, and leave, the front door slamming behind her. He wondered absently how far she'd run. Whether she'd go all the way back to Maryland, or simply seek the safety of her father's house in East Hampton.

He hoped it was the latter. When he came back, if he came back, he still might be able to salvage something. To use her, as he needed to. He'd given too much time, and for him time was the most precious commodity of all, to preparing her. If she went to Baltimore, Sean could get her back. If Sean was still alive.

It didn't take him long to get ready. He'd packed the moment he'd heard her leave, throwing in just the bare minimum of clothes he might need. The passport Mark had left him was magnificent—it would be simple enough to answer to the name Richard Thompson when he arrived. The driver's license, insurance card, and credit cards were all equally professional. Mark, despite his reservations, had done well. If Richard could trust anyone, he could trust Mark.

But he couldn't trust anyone.

It was past dawn by the time he arrived at JFK. The early morning flight was already boarding, and he'd cut it dangerously close, but he didn't dare take a taxi. Taxis could be traced.

It took him a blessedly short time to get cleared to the plane, and he settled into his business-class seat with gratitude, pulling his alter ego around him. He was Richard Thompson, an insurance executive, on his way to a short holiday. No one would look twice at him, or connect him with the notorious Richard Tiernan. For the next few days, he was safe.

He leaned back as the half-filled plane began to taxi down the dawn-lit runway. He wondered how Cassidy was doing now. Was she furious? He hoped so. She was a fighter, far tougher than she realized. She got that from Sean.

And that was exactly why he needed her. She'd survive the rough sex on the kitchen counter. She'd survive anything he dished out to her. If only he had enough time to make sure everything went as planned.

He shut his eyes, suddenly exhausted. He couldn't remember when he last slept. The drone of the airplane, the comfort of the seat, was enough. He drifted off, and thought of Cassidy. And the despair in her dark eyes when she came.

«
^
»

Cassie got as far as Penn Station, shaken, shattered, confused. She bought her ticket and climbed aboard the first train heading south, out of the city, waiting until the very last minute before she jumped off again, just as it was pulling away from the platform. She didn't know what she was going to say to Richard Tiernan. She only knew she couldn't run.

But there was nothing to say. By the time she returned to the apartment, it was past dawn. And Richard Tiernan was long gone.

At first she panicked, imagining the worst. Remembering all the stories and half truths she'd heard. But he hadn't hurt her. He wasn't the madman the media portrayed him to be. In the middle of her father's kitchen, surrounded by knives, he hadn't hurt her. And he'd let her go.

She searched his room. Most of his clothes were still there, neatly folded, with almost army-like precision. She wondered if he was naturally that precise a man, or whether he'd learned that order in prison. There was nothing of a personal nature, not even a scrap of wastepaper left behind. She sank to her knees in despair on the spotless carpet, and leaned her head against the neatly made bed. And saw the tiny corner of plastic beneath the quilt.

It was a credit card, a gold one with one of those limitless credit ranges. It belonged to a man named Richard Thompson.

She turned it over to look at the signature. It hadn't been signed yet, but it didn't need to be. It was issued from a New York bank on the cutting edge of technology, and the photograph on the back was Richard Tiernan.

It should have come as no surprise. He was a man under sentence of death—he had nothing to hold him here. It wasn't even his money that had provided his significant bond. It was Sean's—every last penny. If Richard Tiernan broke his bond, her father would die penniless.

She figured she had three choices. She could call the police and have them hunt him down before he got too far. She could call Mabry and Sean, and warn them. Or she could go after him herself.

Mark Bellingham's apartment was twenty blocks north, and Cass didn't hesitate. She should have known he wouldn't be surprised to see her. He buzzed her up without question, and when he opened the door, he held out a cup of coffee. "He's gone, hasn't he?"

She ignored the coffee. "Do you have any idea how much money my father posted for him?"

"He'll be back."

"What makes you think that? What's he got to come back for?"

"Nothing," Mark said, closing the door behind her. He was obviously fresh from the shower, his sandy blond hair standing on end, a velour robe around his damp body. "He's been less than honest with me, but I know he'll be back. Six days. I've been ordered to keep your father away from the apartment—the fewer people who know he's gone, the better. You didn't call Sean, did you?"

"I thought I'd better check with you first."

"Good girl," he murmured. "Come on, Cassidy, drink some coffee. We were friends last night—you trusted me. Don't look at me like I'm some sort of serial killer."

"Like Richard."

"I didn't say that."

"Do you believe it? Of course you don't—you wouldn't have helped a serial murderer escape. You did help him, didn't you?"

"What makes you think that?" he said warily.

"Don't be cagey now. You've practically admitted it already. He needed help—someone must have gotten him the credit cards in a phony name. What else did you do for him?"

He threw himself on a white cotton sofa, staring at her with uncomfortably discerning eyes. "The question is, what did you do for him? There's a mark on the side of your neck, one that's fairly easy to recognize. It wasn't there when I left your apartment last night."

Her hand reached up, instinctively, and then dropped again. "I don't think that's any of your business."

"Unfortunately it doesn't seem to be," he admitted with clear regret. "I didn't realize I needed to warn you about him again. I thought you had more sense than to get involved with a man like Richard. He's dangerous, far more dangerous than you can imagine."

"Then why did you help him?"

"He's my friend," Mark said simply. "Besides, he's not dangerous to me. It's women who are the problem. He draws them to him, like some goddamned high-powered magnet, and they're willing to lay down their lives for him."

"Do they have to?"

He didn't say anything for a moment, and when he spoke his voice was angry. "Go back to the apartment, Cassie. He'll be back. In six days. When he returns you can ask him where he's been, and he just might tell you. It's not my place to divulge Richard's secrets."

"And if he doesn't come back?"

Mark sighed. "Maybe we'd all be better off."

Cassidy took a deep breath, trying to beat down the unreasoning panic that filled her. "Just one question, Mark. Where's he gone?"

"You're better off not knowing."

"Where's he gone?" she persisted.

He tipped his head back, looking at her. And then he rose, moving over to a glass-topped table and his briefcase. He pulled out a file and tossed it at her. "Take this with you. Read it before you decide to follow him."

"I can't follow him if I don't know where he's gone."

"England. To a village on the coast of Devon called Wychcombe. I wouldn't recommend following him."

"Why not?"

"Read the file."

She clutched it against her. "Mark, thank you…

"Don't," he said sharply. "There are times when I think execution is too good for him. Don't let him use you, destroy you, as he has so many others."

"He's not going to use me."

"Cass," Mark said heavily, "it's already too late to stop him."

It had been three years since Cassidy had last been in England. She'd come in the fall, after months of planning, weeks of packing, with a detailed itinerary, and stash of traveler's checks, and enough tranquilizers to ensure that she slept the entire seven-hour flight to Heathrow.

This time there were no tranquilizers, no traveler's checks, and not the faintest idea where she was going.

It was her fault that he'd gotten away. Driven him away, perhaps, though she wasn't sure she was ready to take the blame for that. The scene in her father's kitchen haunted her, and she replayed it over and over again in her mind, trying to see how it could have changed, how she could have stopped him, stopped herself.

Each time she came up with the same answer. It had been inevitable, no matter how much she'd tried to deny it. Richard had made it more than clear, and she'd ignored the very real danger. Ignored it until it was too late.

Sean had asked so little of her. He needed Richard Tiernan, needed him to finish the book that seemed to be his sole reason for hanging on to life. And she'd let him escape.

She managed to get herself on a plane bound for Heathrow by seven o'clock that night. It wasn't until she settled in to her seat that she pulled out the file.

She almost slammed it shut again. It contained newspaper clippings, tabloid articles, all the twisted filth that the press could come up with. A color photograph of a blood-soaked hallway, with the chalk outline where a body had lain. Shrieking headlines, horrifying ones. Richard hadn't exaggerated. The
National Sunset
did suggest that he might have eaten his children.

Those were the most heartbreaking—the family photos of two beautiful, innocent children, hardly more than babies. The older one, Ariel, was blond and pretty like her mother, though with a look of strength to her china blue eyes that the photos of her mother didn't convey. The younger one, Seth, was dark, mischievous. She stared at the photo, and for a fleeting, hopeless moment she could see Richard as an innocent.

The other charges mounted. He was connected with three different women who'd disappeared, and the articles hinted at satanic rituals, sexual perversions, blood and torture and mutilation. It wasn't until she forced herself to read every word that she found the brief mention that two of the women had surfaced, claiming to have nothing more than friendship with Richard Tiernan. Only Sally Norton remained missing.

She was as different from Diana Scott Tiernan as she could possibly be, if Cassidy could go by the photographs. Small and pixie-dark, with a wry smile and laughing dark eyes, she would have made a perfect foil for Richard. He never denied having an affair with her, and it was all Cass could do not to sit there and hate her.

But Sally Norton had never shown up. She'd disappeared, no one knew quite when, and there'd yet to be any trace of her body. The state had enough evidence to convict Richard of his wife's death—after a while they stopped searching for Sally Norton's decomposing body or the remains of the children. Why waste the taxpayers' money?

Cassidy closed the file with a shudder, too sick to even consider that she was trapped on a hated airplane. She was traveling thousands of miles to chase after a man accused—no, convicted—of some of the most heinous crimes imaginable. Would she end up like his children, like Sally Norton, her existence simply wiped out without a trace?

She could turn around when she arrived at Heathrow, fly straight back. There was no need to put herself in danger. She put her hand to her neck in an absent gesture, against the mark he'd made. She wasn't going back. He wouldn't kill her. He had a reason for coming all this way, for putting his appeal in jeopardy, and she needed to know that reason. And if it wasn't good enough, she could always call the British authorities. For a convicted murderer, extradition should be a simple enough matter.

Or maybe it wouldn't. England didn't have a death sentence. Perhaps he'd be kept here, safe…

She pushed her seat back, closing her eyes as the thoughts whirled around and around in her brain. She couldn't make any plans, any decisions, until she found him. Until she made him answer the question he'd always avoided. She needed to hear it from his mouth, the mouth that had taken hers with such devastating force. Whatever he chose to tell her, she'd believe it.

She moved through customs in a jet-lagged fog, and when she was asked the purpose of her visit, it took her a moment to come up with a suitable answer. A suitable lie. Because she hadn't the faintest idea what the purpose of her visit to England was. She could hardly tell the matronly looking customs officer that she was following a murderer.

She'd never driven in England, she was lousy at reading maps, she was tired and edgy and restless in a way she refused to recognize. She almost killed herself three times as she drove west from London, forgetting which lane she should be in. A gray drizzle was falling, only to be expected, but it didn't help her mood, and the rental Vauxhall had a manual transmission, when she'd grown too used to an automatic. There was nothing on the radio but funereal organ music, and by the time she reached Somerset she was ready to cry.