Nightfall (8 page)

"Trying to shock me, Richard? I'm a little hard to horrify at this stage in my life. I can understand why you might want to kill your wife. Why on earth would you want to kill Cassidy?"

He sank back on the bed, suddenly weary of the man's obtuse egotism. "Maybe for the simple reason that it would hurt you, and you're beginning to piss me off."

"I've always pissed you off, Tiernan. Let's not pussyfoot around. We've made a Faustian bargain, you and I. My daughter for your story. You want someone to screw, and for some reason you've hit on my daughter. So be it. I need someone to help me with the book, and she's a talented girl. I'm not about to renege. Are you?"

He curved his mouth in a unpleasant smile. "No," he said. "Though I have one question."

"Just one?" Sean said boisterously. "Fire away."

"If we have a Faustian pact, just which one of us is the devil?"

There was a momentary silence. "That, my boy, is what's going to make this book a classic."

She was being watched. It had taken her several blocks of city streets to recognize the feeling, but when she turned and looked around her, no one seemed particularly interested in a tall, well-rounded redhead dressed far too casually for the Upper East Side.

She'd been right about the sunshine and smiling faces. The bright morning had turned dark and glowering, the people around her were striding down the wide sidewalks, their heads down, their perfectly painted faces blank. The air smelled like thunder and exhaust.

She headed toward the park. Not the place to go in search of peace and safety, but she needed trees, even ones that were half-dead from pollution. She needed to watch children playing, to see life, to forget about Richard Tiernan and his twisted destiny.

She was being followed. She entered the park at Seventy-second Street in a small group of people, and she knew one of them was there with her. But whether it was the silk-suited yuppie, the mumbling homeless woman, the cop, or the jogger, she had no idea. It could just as easily have been the pretzel salesman or the elegant gentleman with the military bearing.

And then she knew.

She walked slowly, aimlessly, making it easy for him to keep up with her. She stopped and bought a bag of popcorn, then sat on one of the relatively clean benches. She tossed a piece of popcorn on the ground, watching as a pigeon darted toward her.

He stood at the edge of the path for a moment, watching her as she fed the
pigeons. Squirrels with ratty, moth-eaten tails joined battle, and eventually
Cassie resorted to throwing vast handfuls out.

"You have a soft heart."

He sat down next to her. She turned to look at him, hoping the sudden tension wasn't as transparent as she feared it was. "I have a passion for justice."

"So do I."

"Justice?" she asked. "Or revenge?"

Retired General Amberson Scott nodded approvingly. "You're smart as well as pretty. I like that in a woman. In this case justice and revenge are the same thing."

He was a distinguished-looking man, Richard Tiernan's father-in-law. He
didn't look all that different from the media darling who'd fielded questions on the Gulf war, giving even Norman Schwarzkopf a run for his money. Despite the tailored British suit, he still exuded a military fairness, a decency, an intelligence mixed with equal parts determination and compassion. It was little wonder he'd been such a damning witness for the prosecution.

"Your father's a fool," he added abruptly.

"No, he's not."

"Then he's playing a very dangerous game, and he's old enough to know better. Richard Tiernan is a sociopath, totally without conscience. Any man who could slaughter his pregnant wife and children and still sleep at night must be some kind of monster."

"What makes you think he sleeps at night?" she asked, knowing it was a stupid, inconsequential question, unable to banish the memory of his hands on the glass of warm milk, handing it to her.

Scott shook his head. "I've talked to your father, any number of times, and he refused to listen. I kept out of it—Richard's been convicted, and I have a strong faith in the justice system of this country. It's not going to let a man like him go free. He'll pay for the murder of my daughter and her babies, and I intend to be there and watch."

It was spoken with calm determination, and Cassidy had no doubt whatsoever that Scott meant every word he said. "But what if you're wrong? What if my father is able to prove he didn't do it?"

Scott shook his head. "Not as smart as I thought," he murmured. "Your father had no qualms about admitting the truth to me—why don't you ask him yourself what his new book is about?"

"I know what it's about. He's going to tell Richard's side of the story. He's going to prove he couldn't have done it." Even as she said it, the words sounded hollow.

General Scott shook his head. "No, he's not. He's going to tell Richard's story, all right. He's going to illuminate the mind of a murderer."

"I don't believe you," Cassie said hotly. Too afraid that she did.

"Sean O'Rourke wouldn't be interested in anything as tame as a true crime story. He's expecting this to be a masterpiece, and he doesn't care what kind of price he has to pay."

"And what kind of price do you anticipate?" Cassidy asked in a frosty voice.

"If Richard runs true to form, it will be the same price I paid. The life of a daughter."

The wind stiffened, catching a piece of torn newspaper and scudding it down the winding pathway. In the distance Cassidy could see the blurred image of Richard Tiernan, and one word of the headline. Murderer.

It would have been simple enough to go with the fear that had been teasing and taunting her for the last twenty-four hours. Ever since she'd arrived in New York. But if she started running, she didn't know when she'd be able to stop. And she wasn't quite ready to run yet.

She rose, tall, graceful, and he rose with her, polite, distinguished, a few inches shorter than she was. "I understand how you must be feeling, General Scott," she murmured. "And I wish there was some way I could help, but I think…"

"There is a way you can help," he said, and she braced herself, knowing what would come next. He'd ask her to spy on Richard, to intervene with her father, he'd ask her to…

"Stay alive," he said. "He's already killed at least two women, and the police think there were probably a great many more."

"But…" Cassie protested, filled with sick horror, but his stern voice overruled her.

"Don't let him kill again." Without another word he turned and walked away from her, and the pigeons scattered in his path.

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The apartment was still and silent when Cass let herself back in. There was no sign of Mabry and Sean, no sound coming from the bedroom. Cass locked the door behind her, slipped off her shoes, and leaned back against the solid surface.

It was after midnight, but for the first time she had felt safer on the mean streets of New York than she felt in her father's house. The run-in with General Scott had left her shaken, and nothing could rid her of that nagging fear. She'd been trying to tell herself there was nothing to worry about. In a few short minutes Scott had reinforced all her fears. She was living with a murderer. And she was stupidly, irrationally drawn to him. As doubtless his other victims had been as well.

She'd gone shopping, hoping the bright lights and bustle of Bloomingdales would distract her. She couldn't bring herself to buy anything. She went out to dinner, only to find she couldn't eat anything. She went to the movies, and discovered she'd mistakenly made the worst possible choice. She'd been looking for something absorbing and Hitchcockian. Instead she'd ended up with a slasher movie, rampant with elegant erotica, and she'd sat there, horrified, mesmerized at the stylish bloodbath on the screen.

It was no wonder she thought of Richard Tiernan.

She'd delayed even further, stopping for dessert and Irish coffee at a small restaurant around the block from her father's condo. By the time prowling singles started noticing her, she realized she couldn't put off her return any longer.

She pushed away from the door, pulling off her jacket and tossing it on a chair. She moved down the carpeted hallway, tiptoeing. It wasn't until she reached her bedroom door that she heard the voices. Muffled, ominous. Sean's light, bullying voice, carrying the deliberate tones of drunkenness on its Irish lilt. And Tiernan's, slower, deeper. Hypnotic.

She opened her door, prepared to shut out the sound, when her name reached her. And then she was lost—it would take a better woman than she was to resist the urge to eavesdrop.

She moved down the hallway in the direction of those voices. They were in Sean's office, the door ajar, the lights dimmed, and she could smell the peaty scent of the good Irish, hear the faint chink of ice. Tiernan must like his on the rocks, she thought inconsequentially. Her father drank his straight.

"… Not sure she'll cooperate," Sean was saying, just a little too loudly. "She's got a mind of her own, and always has. Takes after her mother, though she's not the bloody bitch Alice is. Still, I wouldn't put it past her to castrate a man who looked at her the wrong way. She's a fierce woman, I'll tell you that outright."

"Should I be frightened?" Tiernan's voice was much softer, yet Cassidy could hear each word distinctly.

Sean snorted. "I'm just telling you she's not the easy mark you might think she is. And there's no guarantee she'll stay here any longer than she has a mind to. Family loyalty is a forgotten virtue. She looks after herself first, and me and her mother come a long ways behind."

"She sounds like a survivor."

"She's needed to be. Her mother, if you can believe it, is even worse than me."

"It's a little difficult to imagine," Tiernan drawled.

"I've been having second thoughts. Why don't I see what my publisher can do? There are hundreds of savvy, smart women in New York who'd give their eyeteeth to collaborate on a book like this."

"I wasn't looking for eyeteeth."

"Richard," Sean said, sounding even more drunk, "I want you to be good to my girl."

There was a long silence. Cass could feel the color flame in her face, and she waited for Richard to speak. To say something, anything, that would clarify what in hell's name was going on. Why had Sean brought her here? For Richard Tiernan?

Finally he spoke, and Cass could have punched the wall in frustration. "You ought to go to bed, Sean. Your daughter's an early riser, and I expect she's going to want us hard at work by nine o'clock."

"Cassie has a singular disregard for the realities of life, such as insomnia, hangovers, and the artistic muse. These things come on their own schedule."

"I don't think I have a hell of a lot of time to waste," Tiernan said.

"Then the two of you can start without me," Sean said brightly.

Another silence. "Make up your mind, Sean."

"I already have. Mabry blames me, you know. For some reason she's very fond of you. You have that effect on women, don't you? The ability to charm them."

"I don't charm your daughter."

"The hell you don't. I've known her all her life. She's a stubborn creature, and she's fighting it like mad. But I've never seen her look at anyone the way she looks at you."

It was all Cass could do to keep from screeching a protest. She stayed silent, eavesdropping, riveted to the spot.

"And how does she look at me?" He sounded cool, only vaguely interested, and Cass could feel her shame and embarrassment rise.

"I've been trying to define it to my own satisfaction. Partly like a child looking at a train set, one he wants desperately but knows he can't have."

"Why can't he have it?"

"The price is too high." Another noisy sip of whiskey, as Sean's voice grew even more maudlin, as his insights drew dangerously sharper. "For the rest, it reminds me of the way people watch the polar bears in the Central Park Zoo. As far as I know, they've never hurt anyone, but people watch them and they remember the one in the Brooklyn Zoo who ate the kids."

Cass listened to his faintly slurred words with a sense of outrage that only increased with the amusement in Tiernan's voice. "So I'm a toy she wants but can't afford, one that will turn around and eat her. Is that it?"

"What do you think?"

"I think it's time you went to bed."

"You're right. Mabry will be wondering what happened to me."

"I doubt it," Tiernan said. "She must be used to you by now."

Cassidy moved quickly, ducking into the nearest doorway. The kitchen was shrouded in darkness. She waited there, scarcely breathing, as Sean emerged into the hallway.

His grizzled gray hair stood up wildly around his ruddy face, and his raisin dark eyes looked oddly sunken. For the first time he looked old, and Cassie stared at him, unseen, as the mortality that had been looming over her settled on her shoulders.

She didn't dare go back into the hallway and risk running into Richard Tiernan. The layout of the old apartment was circular—she could head through the kitchen and breakfast nook, back out into the front hall and make it safely into her bedroom without anyone being the wiser.

She moved silently, resisting the impulse to open the refrigerator. After a day of picking at her food she was suddenly famished, but she didn't dare risk spending a moment longer in the kitchen. Her nemesis seemed to have a talent for finding her there.

The hall was dark, only the streetlights from the living room windows behind penetrating. She started toward her room, tiptoeing, and then stifled her sudden scream.

"Cassidy," Tiernan said, and his hand clamped around her wrist, stopping her flight. He'd loomed out of the darkness, more silently than she, and in the shadows she could barely see him. For some reason that was no comfort. "Did you hear anything interesting in your eavesdropping?"

She yanked her hand free. "What do you mean?"

"Don't play childish games, Cassidy. I'd thought better of you. You were standing outside the study, listening to your father's drunken fantasies. What did you make of it?"