The Triumph of Katie Byrne by Barbara Taylor Bradford Page A

eyes, which were intent on the road ahead.
    How he regretted now that he had been caught up with a client, going over extensive plans for a house he was currently remodelling. His appointment with Bill Turnbull had become not only involved but interminable. It had dragged on and on, had made him arrive home much later than usual, to be greeted on the back doorstep by Maureen, who had obviously been waiting anxiously for him.
    He had known at once that she was distraught, and as she blurted out the story through her tears he had turned ice-cold inside. He could not stand the thought that his daughter might have been at risk, in harm’s way.
    The moment Maureen had finished speaking, he had told her to go inside and lock the door. And then he hadrushed over to his jeep, shouting over his shoulder that he was going to the barn to get Katie and Niall.
    The only thing he could think of, as he had pulled out, was that Katie was safe. Not injured. Not dead. But safe. It was a miracle of sorts. She was always at the barn rehearsing and if she hadn’t left early today, to go home to help her mother, she would more than likely have been a victim too. That did not bear thinking about. An involuntary shudder ran through him.
    Now all he wanted was to get to his daughter, to satisfy himself that she was really all right, and to bring her home with him. His Katie. He loved his sons Niall and Finian very much, but Katie was extra special to him, the light of his life, and had been since the day she was born.
    In all truth, she reminded him of his sister Cecily who had died of meningitis when he was fifteen and she was only twelve; his young heart had broken with her dying. He had loved and protected that child all through her sweet short life; after her death it would often strike him that perhaps unconsciously he had somehow known she was not long for this world.
    Cecily had been a redheaded leggy colt, just as Katie was, although there the physical resemblance between them stopped, since Katie was the spitting image of her mother. But in other ways he saw Cecily in his daughter…the feyness, the gaiety, the openness, and the warm personality. There was very little, if any, guile in Katie, and she had a pureness, an innocence that hehad only ever seen in Cecily. And like her long-dead aunt, whom she had never known, Katie truly was a free spirit.
    He was thankful Niall was with Katie at the barn; that was a most comforting thought to him. His mind instantly veered to Denise’s family. There would certainly be no comfort for Peter and Lois Matthews, and none for Ted either, who was a widower and childless and adoring of his only niece.
    Michael shuddered again at the thought of Denise’s awful fate. He had known her since she was a child, and Carly, too, for that matter, but Carly was alive, thank God. He hoped her injuries were not too severe. Suddenly, thoughts of her mother, Janet, intruded. As a widow all alone she had striven hard to do her very best for Carly, after her husband had died. Barry Smith had been a good friend of his for a number of years, and like everyone he and Maureen had been shocked when Barry had died of lymphatic cancer. He had been far too young for the grave. After his tragic death it had been a struggle, an uphill battle for Janet, and she had been faced with so many difficulties. Maureen had often wondered aloud to him how she managed.
    Bad days ahead for those two families, he thought, his mouth grimly set, but he and Maureen would do the best they could to help them through this painful and shocking ordeal. He sighed and his hands gripped the steering wheel that much tighter…burying a childwas something he could not imagine, or contemplate. A murdered child, at that…
    Michael slowed when he came to the entrance to the dirt road which rolled down the hill to the barn. He eased the car in gently and found his way instantly blocked by a state trooper’s patrol car.
    As he opened his window another state