Nightfall (6 page)

Mabry smiled sweetly. "But it simply took him five tries to get it right."

"True enough. He certainly started out with two of the worst," Bridget said with the brutal frankness that was her hallmark. "And how is your dear mother? Still drinking too much?"

Cass took the cup of coffee Mabry poured for her. "You know mother. Same as ever. She sends her love."

"Not likely," Bridget said, returning to the stove. Bacon was sizzling in the cast-iron frying pan that had been in Sean's household since the beginning of time. "She's never forgiven me for staying with your father."

Cass took a deep, appreciative sip. She never had the energy to make more than instant coffee on the way to work, and she'd forgotten just how wonderful fresh-brewed could be. "I think they fought more over custody of you than me and Colin," she said ruefully.

"It's possible, knowing the two of them," Bridget said. "They never did have their priorities straight. You still like your eggs fried?"

"I still like everything fried," Cass said mournfully.

"At least I'll have someone to cook for. Mabry there doesn't eat enough to keep a bird alive, and your father's been just as picky recently. As for Richard…" Bridget rolled her eyes. "That man is impossible to tempt. I'm counting on you, Cassie, love."

Cass sloshed her coffee as she sat. She very carefully avoided Mabry's curious gaze. "How's that?" she murmured with remarkable innocence.

"He won't eat."

"That's his choice."

Bridget turned on her, fist on one sturdy hip. "Now listen here, missy. You know better than to pass judgment on your fellow man. I raised you better than that. He's a good man."

Cass choked on her coffee. She raised incredulous eyes. "Are we talking about Richard Tiernan? The man convicted of murdering his pregnant wife? The man suspected of killing his children as well? A good man?"

"You know better than to read those kinds of newspapers," the old woman said severely.

"
The New York Times
?" Cass said.

"Things aren't always what they seem."

"He's told you that, has he?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Bridget," Mabry said in her cool, tranquil voice, "it hasn't been a case of love at first sight." She took another sip of her coffee. "Cassidy doesn't approve of Sean's latest project."

"It's not for me to approve or disapprove."

"No," said Mabry. "It isn't."

"Cassidy!" Sean's voice bellowed through the hallways.

"He's up already?" Cass managed to say in a neutral tone of voice.

"He hasn't been sleeping much," Mabry said. "They've been waiting for you."

They. Another one of those inclusive words, as bad as us or we. They were waiting for her. Her father and Richard Tiernan. And avoiding it would only make things worse, make the tension that was clutching her stomach spread throughout her entire body. Bridget and Mabry were already watching her too closely, and she didn't particularly care to have everyone notice how the very thought of Richard Tiernan unnerved her.

She rose, smiling brightly. "Then I might as well take my coffee into the office."

"What about breakfast?" Bridge demanded from her vigil over the frying pan.

"I'm not hungry," she replied with perfect truthfulness, refilling her coffee cup and escaping before Bridget could screech in outrage.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. Escaping into the presence of her father and his houseguest was no escape at all. The door to Sean's office was open, and she could smell cigarettes, and coffee. She moved quietly, filling the door, hoping to startle them.

Sean was in the midst of some high-flown fantasy, staring out the window at the New York skyline. Tiernan was sitting in the huge green leather chair that had been in Sean's office since the beginning of time. Cass remembered when she was small, curling up in the warm leather arms of that chair, sleeping. It had been her favorite place in the world. Tiernan didn't turn, but she knew perfectly well he knew she was there. He seemed to have a sixth sense.

She wanted to order him out of her chair. Instead she simply stood in the doorway and cleared her throat.

Sean whirled around, an accusing expression on his florid face. "About time you woke from your beauty slumber, Cassie," he said. "You never used to be such a slothful creature. We have work to do, and time's a wasting."

"Is it?" She carefully avoided Tiernan's gaze. He was dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater against the cool morning air. She was wearing the same thing. He had a mug of black coffee in his hand. She drank hers black as well.

"You're the one who's so determined to get back to Baltimore, though why any sane person would choose to live in Baltimore when they have the option of New York is beyond me," Sean declaimed. "We're planning on changing your mind, aren't we, Richard? Make it impossible for you to leave."

"Impossible," Richard echoed.

She couldn't help it, she threw him a wary glance as she moved to her father's littered desk. He met the gaze blandly enough, but she wasn't so gullible she didn't recognize the challenge. The threat.

"I have a job," she said mildly, glancing at one stack of papers that looked like official court transcripts.

"You could take a leave of absence."

"I could. I don't want to. I have plans, things I want to do with my life."

"Richard doesn't."

Cass glanced at him. He was leaning back in the chair,
her
chair, looking faintly amused at the father-daughter quarrel. "That's hardly my fault, is it?" she said, knowing she sounded childish. "Is it yours?"

She was hoping to provoke a reaction from him. But Richard Tiernan was schooled in the art of concealing his feelings. He simply gazed at her out of those dark, disturbing eyes. "What do you think?"

The silence between them was a palpable thing. She wanted to look away from him, but she couldn't. His gaze caught hers, held it, and in the background Sean was uncharacteristically silent.

And then the spell was broken. "You're not getting through the day without the breakfast I cooked for you," Bridget announced from the doorway. She stomped into the room and dumped the heavy laden tray on the desk in front of Cassie. The eggs and bacon sat in front of her, still sizzling, but Cass's appetite had long fled.

"Cassie eats too much as it is," Sean protested. "Take it away, you fool woman."

Cass immediately picked up her fork. "I'm hungry," she lied, digging in.

"You're always hungry," Sean said with a sniff. "While I fail to see why you don't have a little more self-control, a little more vanity, I'm at least pleased to see you aren't letting your overwrought imagination get in the way of your appetite."

"Sorry, Sean," she said, forcing herself to tuck into Bridget's food with a semblance of relish. "You haven't been much of a role model when it comes to self-control, and I figure there's already enough vanity in this family."

Richard laughed. Cass lifted her gaze, not recognizing the sound, but there was no mistaking the dark amusement in his eyes. "Your shy daughter's got a wicked tongue on her, Sean," he observed.

"She's inherited some of my gifts, at least," Sean said proudly. "Even if there are times when she's hopelessly middle-class. I live in dread of the day she'll decide to get married and have the requisite two point three children. Don't expect me to baby-sit, Cassie, love. I'd probably murder 'em.

The silence that fell was absolute. Cassie put her fork down, telling herself she wouldn't throw up the bacon and eggs she'd just forced herself to eat.

She also had no intention of meeting Tiernan's ironic gaze. There was a limit to her self-discipline, after all. Instead she glanced at her unrepentant father.

Sean simply shrugged. "I've been tactless, haven't I? I can't spend my time watching what I say," he added. "Richard's used to me. I don't offend you, do I, my boy?"

Cass couldn't picture anyone less like a boy. She forced herself to look at him, but his face was cool, reserved, unfeeling. "You don't offend me, Sean. Though I expect you'll keep trying."

Sean lit another of the thick, unfiltered cigarettes he'd given up years ago. "You know me well."

Cassie pushed the tray away. "When did you start smoking again?"

"Life's too short for self-denial," he announced.

"If you keep smoking those things, it's bound to get a lot shorter."

Sean rolled his eyes. "You see what I have to put up with? Next thing I know, she'll be grabbing the drink out of me very hands and singing temperance songs. I'll make a deal with you, Cassie love. You keep your opinion of my little indulgences to yourself, and I won't make any more remarks about your healthy girlish figure."

He'd done it on purpose. Cass had known her father all her life, she should have been used to it by now. He'd done it to embarrass her, to make Richard Tiernan cast those far too observant eyes over her body and decide just how healthy it was.

She didn't blush, a wonder, given her pale skin and rising temper. She didn't pull the oversize cotton sweater around her, or cross her arms over her chest, or do anything more significant than glower.

"It's a bargain," she growled.

Sean's smile was beatific. "That's settled then. I'm off. You and Richard can start to work without me."

He was halfway out the door before Cass let out a muffled shriek of rage and panic. "Just where do you think you're going?" she demanded.

"Another doctor's appointment, love," he murmured, and Cass knew it was a bald-faced lie. "The two of you will have plenty to do, organizing all the papers."

"But…"

"Ask him what really happened that night," Sean called over his shoulder, his cigarette smoke trailing behind him. "And take notes. I want to see if he can keep his story straight."

It took every ounce of Cass's pride to force her to meet Richard Tiernan's cool gaze. "He's impossible," she said.

Tiernan rose, moving across the room. She'd forgotten how tall he was, and what a lethal sort of grace infused his body. He walked to the door, and closed it. Closing them in.

He leaned against it, and there was an ironic expression on his face as he watched her.

"Are you going to take notes?" he asked softly.

She stared at him, bemused, distracted for a moment. "Why?" she asked inanely.

"Because I'm willing to talk."

She wasn't ready for this. She was suddenly very cold, in that elegant, book-lined office that still smelled of bacon and Sean's cigarettes.

She pushed the tray away, hoping he wouldn't notice that her hands were trembling. "All right," she said. She schooled her nervousness, glancing up at him. "Are you going to tell me the truth?"

His smile was devastating. She'd heard that sociopaths had a certain charm, but that was nothing compared to the man in front of her. She could feel the pull, and she wanted nothing more than to smile back, to move toward him.

"No," he said, very gently. And instead of reaching for her, he went and sat down in the green leather chair once more.

«
^
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Richard Tiernan never thought he'd look forward to spinning that endless pack of lies. He'd told it so often, for police, lawyers, investigators, in-laws. He knew all the details—they were engraved on what passed for his heart. He'd told them to Sean O'Rourke, and watched him try to trip him up. It had become a game between them, one Sean relished and Richard endured. As he endured life.

But faced with the woman sitting at Sean's oversize, messy desk, he found he could summon at least a trace of interest. Just how much could he tell her? How close to the truth could he skate, and when would that reluctant fascination turn to horror?

He needed to find out. He leaned back in the leather chair, stretching his legs out in front of him, watching her. "My wife was a very fragile creature," he said, keeping his voice carefully neutral. That much was the truth, at least. "She was an only child—frail and blond and high-strung. Like a fairy-tale princess."

For a moment Cass just looked at him. And then she pulled a pad of legal paper in front of her and began to write, and if he hadn't been watching her so closely, he wouldn't have seen the frown that wrinkled her brow.

"She was an army brat. But not just any army brat. Her father was General Amberson Scott."

She knew the name—he could tell by the faint pause in her note taking. Most people did. His father-in-law was a war hero, one of the media darlings of the Gulf conflict and a tough-talking man who knew his way around politics far too well. "They were devoted to each other," he said flatly. "Diana's mother is a quiet, unassuming woman, content to follow in her husband's shadow. Diana was their darling, pampered, petted, adored."

"In other words your wife was a spoiled brat," Cassidy said, her eyes meeting his briefly.

"You might say so," he agreed. "But she was a beautiful, charming spoiled brat. We were very happy."

"How nice."

He wanted to grin at the faintly acid tone in her voice. She was surprisingly tough, Cassidy Roarke was, but then, he'd hoped for that much. She'd need to be tough when he got through with her.

"The general approved of me, her mother adored me, and Diana enjoyed being the perfect wife and mother. She loved her children." He kept his voice cool.

She flinched at the mention of his children. He liked that. And then she raised her eyes to meet his, fearlessly. He liked that even more. "You had two," she said.

"Amy and Seth. Amy was five when she died, Seth was three. And Diana was pregnant."

"I remember." Her voice was soft, reluctantly sympathetic. As if she could hear the pain in his voice. Silly, really, when he knew perfectly well there was no pain in his voice at all. No feeling whatsoever.

She dropped her eyes again, looking at the notes. "You lived in Bedford."

"We had a very comfortable life. Diana's mother came from old money, and Diana had already inherited quite a bit from her grandmother. And I worked hard."

"At what?"

"Your research didn't tell you that much?"