Free Nightfall by Anne Stuart

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.

CHAPTER 5
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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