Nightfall Read Free

No matter what the cost.
    "You're awake, then." O'Rourke stood in the doorway, his aggressive chin pushed forward. He was like a bantam rooster, short, bandy-legged, pugnacious. Tiernan had no illusions as to what O'Rourke wanted from him, believed of him. He had every intention of exploiting him to the fullest.
    "I'm awake," said Richard Tiernan. "Where's your daughter?"
     
    Cassidy was afraid of flying. It wasn't something she admitted very often, even to herself, but three days later she blessed the fact that what existed of the United States railroad system was still working reasonably well between Baltimore and New York. She didn't have to mess with getting to and from airports, and she didn't even have to think about sitting in a contraption that lifted off the ground and suspended her in midair for a ridiculous amount of time.
    Unfortunately, it left her with too much time for distraction, and she'd made the mistake of grabbing
People
magazine just before she got on the train. By sheer force of will she'd managed to avoid any of the media stories involving her father and a convicted killer, but trapped on a crowded train with a sour-tempered bureaucrat to her left, there was no way she could resist the temptation, particularly with Sean's pugnacious face on the cover. " ' He's
innocent , ' claims Sean O'Rourke, who's putting his money where his mouth is " said the teaser. In the corner, over her father's shoulder, was a grainy snapshot of a happy family, a blond, perfect wife, two young, beautiful children, and a tall, dark man standing behind them, a protective hand on the woman's shoulder. Or was it a threatening hand?
    Suddenly she couldn't stand even touching the magazine. She dropped it on the floor, but the man beside her immediately scooped it up. "D'you mind?" he asked, not giving her a chance to object. "Disgusting, isn't it?" he leaned over and breathed expensive Scotch in her face. "They let monsters like that go free, just because someone with a little clout talks them into it. He'll kill again, you'll see, and then that asshole O'Rourke will write a book about it. It makes me sick."
    Cassidy controlled her trace of amusement in hearing her father called an
asshole. She couldn't put up an argument on that front. "Maybe Tiernan didn't do it."
    "Have you heard his story? He says he came home, found the bodies of his wife and children, and then went into shock and doesn't remember another thing. They never found the bodies of his children, but his fingerprints were all over the murder weapon. He was covered with her blood. And he's never shown a trace of sorrow or regret."
    Cassidy glanced over at the photograph on the cover. They looked so normal, so happy. The perfect family, now destroyed. She leaned back and closed her eyes, turning her face away. She could only hope to God her father wasn't going to want to talk about Tiernan. The whole subject made her faintly ill, the thought of a man murdering his own children. Not that she had any illusions about the sacred nature of the father-child bond. She'd lived with Sean for too long to retain her innocence. Her father could wallow in the mud as much as he wanted, but she wasn't going to let him drag her there with him.
    A light snow had begun to fall when the train pulled into Penn Station. She considered calling Mabry and warning her that she'd arrived, then thought better of it. Sean fancied himself an old-fashioned Irishman, one who kept a welcome for any friend or family who happened to stray near him. There'd be room for her in the cavernous old apartment on Park Avenue, and she'd prefer to see Sean without giving him time to prepare. He wanted something from her, she was certain of it, though she doubted it had anything to do with writing. Sean had always ridiculed her lack of creativity, referring to her as his little Philistine. He'd hardly be asking her editorial expertise.
    No, he wanted something else, enough so that he was willing to play sick,