Nightfall

by Anne Stuart

  “He didn’t.” Cass couldn’t keep the aggrieved tone out of her voice. She should have been used to Sean by now. He’d sacrifice his own mother for a good story. A disappointing daughter would be no sacrifice at all.

  He closed the refrigerator, turned around, and leaned against it, looking at her. “Interesting,” he murmured. “Do you know why you’re here?”

  Something in his tone of voice startled her. “That’s an odd question. I’m here to visit my father,” she said.

  “Just a spur of the moment thing?”

  “No. Mabry called and asked me to come. She said he hadn’t been feeling well, but I assumed that wasn’t true. Sean’s never been sick a day in his life. Are you suggesting there’s another reason I’m here?”

  “I’m not suggesting a thing.” He pushed away from the refrigerator, moving past her toward the back of the kitchen. “Ask your father when he comes home.”

  “I have a lot of things to ask him.”

  He looked over his shoulder at her, and his smile was oddly, chillingly sweet. “I imagine you do.” And then he left her, without another word.

  Cass stood alone in the kitchen, still dazed from the strange encounter. Richard Tiernan was unlike anyone she’d ever met in her life, but then, as far as she knew she’d never met a murderer before. He’d disappeared in the direction of the back of the apartment, and she could only assume he was staying in her half-brother Colin’s old room. That, or the study, and Sean barely allowed anyone inside the room, much less let them sleep there.

  She had a number of options. The first, and most appealing, was to put on her shoes, her coat, grab her suitcase, and walk out the door. Sean was manipulating again, and while Cass had learned to withstand all but his most masterful schemes, she wasn’t sure she was up to dealing with the added complication of Richard Tiernan.

  Because she had no doubt whatsoever that he had something to do with why she was here. She’d been manipulated by an expert, and if she had any sense of self-preservation whatsoever, she’d get the hell out of there.

  Of course, that would mean not finding out what Sean wanted from her. And if Cass had one abiding weakness, it was her curiosity. She couldn’t stand not knowing, even the most insignificant detail.

  She also didn’t fancy rooming with a man who’d taken a butcher knife to his wife and children. His wife had been pregnant at the time, hadn’t she? The thought sent chills of horror through her. Sean might like to flirt with the very edge of madness—Cass much preferred comfort and safety.

  She would wait until Mabry and Sean returned from the doctor. She’d spend the night, make a graceful escape the next morning, and leave Sean to his own devices. If Richard Tiernan decided to continue his murderous rampage, there wouldn’t be anything Cass could do to stop him.

  He didn’t look like a murderer, a butcher, a man who’d committed the foulest crime imaginable.

  But he didn’t look like the boy next door, either. He looked like a man intimately acquainted with death and horror. A man capable of making a pact with the devil, only to find that the price was too high to pay.

  She dismissed the notion, giving herself a brisk shake. She was, after all, her father’s daughter, and fully capable of letting her imagination run away with her. Richard Tiernan was another of her father’s dangerous characters, in the flesh this time, but nothing to do with her.

  Mabry had redecorated recently, and Cass wasn’t sure she liked the change to her old bedroom. Gone was the beautiful simplicity of the shaker furniture, which had in turn, replaced her French provincial four-poster. Mabry had gone in for early Gothic, with oversize dark furniture, a dynasty-founding bed, and a green-gilt wallpaper that looked as if it came from a Venetian palazzo. Even the tall window overlooking Park Avenue was swathed in dark green velvet drapes, and the gloom was palpable. She looked around her, knowing instinctively that she was no longer alone.

  “How do you like it?”

  “Like what, Sean?” At least her father hadn’t startled her the way Tiernan had. She turned to glower at him. “Your houseguest, or Mabry’s vampire decor?”

  “Oh, I tend to think it looks a bit like a Victorian bordello,” Sean said airily, sauntering in. You know I don’t interfere with her hobbies.”

  “What kind of room does Richard Tiernan have? Something with barred windows, to make him feel more at home?”

  Sean clucked disapprovingly. “You’re getting sour in your old age, darling. Don’t you have any compassion for the poor man?”

  “I have more compassion for his wife,” she said tartly.

  “He’s the victim of a grave miscarriage of justice . . .” Sean declaimed, but Cass interrupted him.

  “I don’t think you believe that.”

  “How do you know what I believe?”

  “Let me correct that. I don’t think you care, one way or the other. As long as it makes a good book, that’s all that matters to you.”

  Sean’s smile was self-deprecating, charming, the sort that would melt the stoniest heart. Cass had learned to resist it years ago. “I’m a slave to my muse,” he said. “And that’s why you’re here.”

  “I’m not going to be a slave to your muse as well.”

  “Cassie, darling, you never fail to make me laugh. I need your help, not your disapproval.”

  “You should have learned by now that one doesn’t preclude the other.”

  Sean beamed at her. “Bless you, darling.”

  Cass perched gingerly on the high bed. “So what do you want from me, Sean? And don’t give me some runaround about you being sick—I wouldn’t believe that for a moment.”

  Sean grinned. “Of course not, love. It’s the book that I need you for.”

  “About Richard Tiernan?”

  “Who else? The truth. Complete, simple, compelling. Stark, even. I need an editor . . . God, I never thought I’d admit such a thing. But all the testimony, the witnesses, are such a mess. You should see my office. I need you to organize it, pare it down, while I work with Richard.”

  “You think you’re going to be able to clear his name? I don’t know if even the great Sean O’Rourke is a good enough writer to save his life.”

  “Always the kind word,” Sean said. “You let me worry about Richard’s part in the book. I understand perfectly that you wouldn’t want anything to do with him. You always were such a shy, nervy little thing.”

  Cass, who was five feet nine and well-rounded, had never considered herself shy, nervy, or little in her entire life, but she didn’t bother correcting Sean. Her father had a habit of arranging reality to suit himself. “I’ve got a job, Sean.”

  “You’ve got scads of vacation time, I checked,” he countered. “Surely you can give your poor old da a few weeks? Think of the glory of it, the two of us working together on my . . . finest piece of writing in decades. If you don’t care about me, how can the professional side of you resist?”

  “I care about you, Sean. I just don’t want to fall for any of your stunts.”

  “No stunts, darling, I promise you. Just the two of us, working together.”

  “The three of us,” she corrected sourly.

  “You’ll do it, then?”

  She glanced up at him. If she didn’t know better, she would have thought that Sean was almost anxious about her answer. Sean O’Rourke wasn’t the kind of man who asked for anything, or allowed himself to care about the answer. He considered himself inviolate, omnipotent, with the women of his family and most other mortals put on earth to serve his genius. That he did so without alienating them was a testament to his brilliance.

  But he wanted her. For the first time since she could remember, Sean needed her help, truly needed it. And she was far too human not to respond. “I’ll do it,” she said. “I can give you a couple of weeks.”

&nbs
p; “I’ll need at least two months . . .”

  “A couple of weeks,” she said firmly. “And then I’m gone.”

  “We’ll deal with you leaving when the time comes,” Sean said, typically oblivious. “In the meantime, let’s tell Mabry you’re staying. She bet me you’d have left the moment you saw Richard,”

  “I should have. Don’t you think you should have warned me he was up here?” She followed Sean’s sturdy little figure out into the hallway.

  “Nonsense,” said Sean. “Why would I need to warn you? I’m surprised you even recognized him. You don’t usually pay attention to mundane considerations like tabloid murders.”

  “I saw People magazine on my way up here.”

  “Populist trash,” her father sniffed.

  “And how will your book differ?”

  “Because I’m an artist,” he said simply. “Mabry, she’s going to stay!” he announced, sailing into the huge living room.

  At least this hadn’t changed appreciably since Cass had last been there. Still the same clean white walls, the Southwest furniture. Her stepmother lay stretched out on a rustic white sofa that was far more comfortable than it looked. Mabry’s endless legs were encased in white cotton as well, her corn-silk hair hung with precision to her broad shoulders, her angular face, which had graced the cover of every major magazine in the world, was ageless. She could have been as young as twenty-five, though Cass suspected forty was more like it. Since Mabry considered her age to be a state secret, she would never know the truth.

  “He talked you into it, then?” Mabry murmured, holding out her hand as Cass leaned down to kiss her perfect cheek.

  “I never could say no to him,” she said, noting with distant concern that up close it was Mabry who looked ill. There were shadows under her limpid blue eyes, a haunted expression on her perfect face, and the hand that held hers trembled slightly. Damn Richard Tiernan, and damn Sean, for putting them in this situation.

  “That’s your father’s problem, Cass,” Mabry said easily, and that flash of intensity might never have existed. “No one ever says no to him. He’s never had to learn any discipline.”

  “Bullshit,” Sean said, moving to the bar. “Can I get you something, Cassie? None of that white wine crap, I mean a real drink.”

  “It’s early . . .”

  “The sun’s over the yardarm,” he said, pouring himself a tall, dark glass of Irish whiskey, neat.

  “Nothing for me,” Cass said firmly, taking a seat beside Mabry. “What did the doctor say?”

  “He won’t tell me,” Mabry said.

  “Nothing to tell, darling. He said I’m as strong as a horse, and I’d make it another sixty-five years without any problem, as long as I keep on the way I am.”

  “You’re kidding!” Cass said.

  Sean’s smile was beatific. “Drink in moderation,” he said, holding aloft his dark glass, “good food, sex”—he smirked at the elegant Mabry”—and work. That’s what a man needs in order to have a good life.”

  “What about family? Children?” Cass pointed out.

  “Them, too,” Sean agreed as an afterthought. “And that’s what I have. My older daughter, here by my side. The only thing that would make it better would be if Colin and Francesca were here as well. Particularly Francesca. Your baby sister is a constant delight, Cass. It wounds me that her mother keeps her several continents away from me.”

  “Alba lives in Italy,” Cass said. “Your own fault for marrying a contessa.”

  “No. My fault for divorcing her,” Sean said, momentarily chastened. Then he glanced at the phlegmatic Mabry. “Still, life has been very generous with me. Good company, good work, good food, interesting conversation. What more could I ask?” He wandered back toward the bar, tipping another few inches of dark whiskey into his glass. “Speaking of interesting conversation, I’ll leave you two alone to gossip. I know you want to talk about me.”

  “Believe it or not, Sean, we have other things of interest to discuss,” Mabry murmured, but Sean, as always, was oblivious, disappearing down the hall, whistling under his breath.

  “It’s good to see you, Mabry,” Cass said.

  Mabry surveyed her silently, ignoring the polite phrase. “Are you certain you’re willing, Cassie? I don’t want him putting pressure on you.”

  “Sean exists to put pressure on people. If I don’t like it I can always leave. Sneak out in the middle of the night, taking the silver,” she said cheerfully. “What in the world got into you when you redecorated my bedroom?”

  “I was depressed,” Mabry said flatly.

  “Why? You don’t usually let things bother you.”

  “Mortality,” Mabry said in a quiet voice. “It affects us all. I’m getting old, Sean is getting old, people are dying.”

  “You shouldn’t have Tiernan around. He’s enough to give anyone a case of nervous prostration. The man is quite . . . terrifying.”

  “I didn’t think you were so gullible.” There was a faint thread of disapproval in Mabry’s voice.

  “He’s hardly my nominee for family man of the year.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” Mabry said. “Anyway, this started before your father’s current fascination.” She glanced across the room at her reflection. “I’m thinking of getting a face-lift.” She stroked her unlined throat.

  “It’s bound to look better than my room,” Cass said.

  Mabry managed to smile. “Don’t worry about Richard, Cassie. He may be somewhat intimidating, but he’s not going to hurt you.”

  “You don’t believe he killed his wife and children? And weren’t there rumors that he’d killed a whole string of women? You think he’s innocent?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Mabry temporized.

  Cassie felt an involuntary shudder run down her spine, and she wished she’d accepted the drink her father offered her. “You do think he killed his family?”

  “I didn’t say that, either. I really don’t know. I just don’t think he’s going to hurt anyone else. If he did it, he had his reasons.”

  “Are you crazy? What reason could a man have for slaughtering his family?” Cassie demanded, horrified.

  Mabry shrugged her elegant shoulders. “I wouldn’t know, and I wouldn’t want to guess. All I know is that the man, right now, is no danger to anyone. Except, perhaps, himself.”

  The image of the tall, haunted figure in her father’s kitchen came back to her, with the dark eyes and twisted smile. Danger was exactly the word she would have used for Richard Tiernan.

  But then, Mabry had the best instincts when it came to people that Cassie had ever known. She had a rare sense of who you could trust, and who was a danger. If Mabry trusted Tiernan, then perhaps there really was nothing to worry about. If you forgot about the man’s eyes. Or the elegant, tortured grace of his body. Or his mouth . . .

  What the hell was she thinking about? “All right,” she said. “I’ll take your word for it that he isn’t going to come crawling into my bedroom and slit my throat. Why were you and Sean so determined to get me up here? Why that cock-and-bull story about Sean being sick? It’s you, isn’t it? Something’s wrong with you?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Mabry said. “I don’t get sick.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with Sean.”

  “No,” Mabry said, but something in her voice caught Cassie’s attention.

  “There isn’t, is there? Sean’s not really sick?”

  Mabry shrugged again. “He insists he’s fine.”

  “And you don’t believe him?”

  Mabry turned her perfect profile to the tall expanse of uncurtained windows, and there was a bleak expression on her face. “I don’t know what to believe,” she said in a quiet voice. “I’m just worried. I don’t like his obsession with Richa
rd Tiernan. I don’t like the fact that he was so desperate to have you come up here. And he was, Cassie. He may seem like it didn’t matter, but it mattered dreadfully. And I don’t understand why.”

  “Belated paternal affection?” Cassie suggested wryly.

  “He’s always loved you, Cass. You know it as well as I do. He’s just not capable of putting someone else’s welfare first. He’s got blinders on when it comes to his own needs, his own interests. And I’m just afraid that this time he’s going to go too far.”

  “In trying to prove Richard Tiernan is innocent?”

  She turned her sorrowful eyes to Cassie. “I don’t know,” she said. “And that’s what scares me half to death.”

  “WHAT DID YOU think of her?”

  Richard didn’t move. He was stretched out across the bed, the sunlight streaming in, but there was no heat in the brightness of the March day. He thought about it, as he’d thought about nothing else since he’d walked into the cavernous old kitchen and seen her.

  “She’s not the way you described her.”

  O’Rourke closed the door behind him, moving in and settling his sturdy bulk into the chair in the corner. The glass in his hand was over-full. He slopped some of it, and the room was filled with the sweet-acrid scent of Irish whiskey. “I’m a writer, laddie,” he said, affronted. “I’ve got the awards to prove it. Who the hell are you to tell me I can’t describe my own daughter?”

  “You said she was tall and plain and unimaginative.”

  “Did I now?” Sean considered it. “You saw her photograph, you knew what you were getting into. And she is tall.”

  “She is. But she’s certainly not plain. And she took one look at me and her imagination went soaring. I think she was convinced I was going to rape and murder her right there on the kitchen floor.”

  “Now why would the question of rape come into it?” Sean asked softly. “Did you rape your wife before you killed her?”

  Richard ignored the question. “I calmed your daughter down, but she’s not too happy with you for sending her up here without any warning. I don’t think it’s going to work.”