by Anne Stuart
“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, 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 babysit, 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 my 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.
Chapter 4
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 fairytale 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 wars 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.
“Ariel and Seth. Ariel 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?”
“I didn’t do research,” she shot back. “As a matter of fact, I wanted to avoid hearing anything at all about your case,”
“You didn’t succeed.”
“I know. What was your job?”
“That doesn’t make the tabloids too often, does it?” he said calmly. “I was a professor at a small liberal arts college. Generally innocuous profession, even if it kept me busier than my family would have liked.”
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d make a very good teacher,” she said.
“Oh, but I was. Most of the female undergraduates thought I was fascinating.”
“Did you do anything about that?”
“Do you mean did I fuck them? Or did I kill them?” he asked, leaning back in the chair and watching her.
“Did you cheat on your wife?”
“Read the tabloids,” he suggested. “They have all the answers.”
She bit her lip, frustrated, and he stared at her for a moment, his eyes on her mouth.
“What happened the day your family . . . died?”
“Was murdered, don’t you mean?” He liked watching her squirm. Not very noble of him, but then, he took what enjoyment he could find nowadays. “I came home early that Friday afternoon. Diana was planning on taking the children on a visit to her parents the next morning, and I wanted to make sure she had everything she needed. The door was open when I got home, which was odd. Diana had always been pathologically paranoid about her safety. She never would have left the door open. I walked inside, and I found them.”
“Them?”
“Diana was lying at the bottom of the stairs. In a pool of blood, quite dead.” The lies were starting now, tripping off his tongue with the ease of long practice. “She had a knife in her heart.”
He could see Cassidy shiver. “What did you do?”
“I think I must have gone into shock,” he said, used to this by now. “I ran up the stairs, looking for the children. I must have gotten some of Diana’s blood on my hands, because they found my bloody fingerprints all over the place. I couldn’t find the children. When I did . . .” He’d gotten quite good at this part, at making his voice break as he spun the lies.
Cassidy was pale, suffering. He wondered just how far he could push her. “Their bodies were in the bathroom. Just lying there. I don’t know what happened next. My mind went blank. When the police arrived I was kneeling by Diana’s body, and the children were gone. Someone had removed their bodies, washed the blood away. I couldn’t even bury them.”
“That’s . . . unbelievable,” she said in a hushed voice.
“That was the consensus,” he drawled, deliberately breaking the mood.
She’d believed him. Been drawn in by the tale, and now he’d snapped her out of it. She stared at him, white-faced with shock, and he could tell she wanted to run. He had that effect on people. He could also tell that she wasn’t going to.
“For a while the family pulled together. The general and his wife flew into New York, and we all faced the media circus. Until the investigation kept coming up blank. No one could find any sign of an
intruder in the house, and no one could find any trace of my children’s bodies.”
She didn’t flinch this time, though he knew she wanted to. Already she was toughening up. He was going to have to push harder.
“Once I was officially under suspicion things began to change. At first the general was my staunchest defender. It wasn’t until the circumstantial evidence started piling up that he began to pull back. Right now he’s waging a one-man campaign to get me drawn and quartered. It was no accident that my case went through the New York judicial system in record time. My father-in-law has powerful friends. He wants my head on a platter, and he wants it yesterday.”
“Can you blame him? He thinks you murdered his daughter and grandchildren.”
“I lost my wife and children,” he said coolly. “My heart doesn’t bleed for him.”
She considered him for a moment. “You said circumstantial evidence. What was that?”
“Motive, opportunity, lack of alibi, physical evidence,” he said. “No one else was seen leaving or entering the house that day. The coroner put Diana’s time of death as close to the time I was seen coming home as he could possibly manage. My bloody handprints were on the walls, my fingerprints on the murder weapon, which happened to be a butcher knife from my own kitchen.”
“And motive?” she asked breathlessly.
His eyes met hers for a still, silent moment.
“I’m known to have a nasty temper. I had a not very discreet affair, and Diana wasn’t going on a weekend visit to her family. She was leaving me, and taking the children, and she’d already filed papers trying to deny me access to my children.”
“On what grounds?”
“That I beat them.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then you had nothing to worry about. If there was no sign of physical abuse, then they couldn’t keep you away.”
He just looked at her. “Maybe not. Unfortunately the jury didn’t tend to think I’d be smart enough to figure that out. The prosecution painted me as a violent man, willing to kill my wife and children rather than let them leave me. There were other disappearances as well. The woman I’d been known to have an affair with disappeared around the same time, and the jury was ready to convict me of anything they could.”