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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 rather 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 Richard 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