Draw One In The Dark(104)

Besides the bed, there were a loveseat and three armchairs and two chairs, a huge desk, where his father had a laptop, resting. And a lot more empty space than there should be in a room with all that furniture.



Over the bed was an abstract collage that brought the art form completely out of the realm of nutty Seventies fads—a thing in deep textures and gold and bronze colors.



The bathroom, glimpsed as Tom was going past, was all marble and actually two rooms, the first of which contained just a sink with a hair dryer and various other essentials of toiletry. Tom ached for a shower with an almost physical pain, but he went in to the bedroom, quietly.



"Mr. Ormson," Kyrie said. "Thanks for letting us come in at such short notice."



He shook his head. "No problem. Make use of . . . whatever you want. Tom? Are you . . . There's blood on you."



Tom shook his head. "I'm fine." And then, as though betraying that he wasn't, he walked over to the most distant armchair and sat down, as far away from his father as he could get.



His father frowned at him a moment, but didn't say anything.



"I wonder if Rafiel is going to be much longer," Tom said, pretending not to feel the weight of that gaze on him.



Keith sat down on one of the straight-backed chairs, and Kyrie, after some hesitation, took the armchair next to Tom's.



She looked at him, too, but her gaze was not full of disapproving enquiry. Unlike his father's expression, Kyrie's was warm and full of sympathy.



He wanted to smile at her, to pat her hand. But just because the woman didn't want him dead; just because the woman didn't think he was dangerous or a criminal, it didn't mean that she had any interest whatsoever in him.



So instead, he fidgeted in the chair and looked out of the window into the parking lot. But he kept looking at her out of the corner of his eye. She looked good enough to eat—and not in the sense he'd threatened to eat tourists. That cinnamon skin, those heavy-lidded eyes. He looked away. If he allowed himself to contemplate the perfection of her lips, or the way her breasts—one of which he remembered with particular fondness—pushed out her T-shirt, he wouldn't be able to answer for his actions.



Instead, he looked again, at her tapestry-dyed hair, falling in lustrous layers. And he remembered he had something of hers.



Digging frantically in his jacket pocket, he brought it out. He saw her eyes widen, and her smile appear, as he offered her the earring on his palm.



"You found it," she said.



"My landlady did," he said. "And I took it. I was hoping . . . I was hoping I would see you again, to be able to give it to you."



He felt himself blush and felt like a total idiot. But Kyrie put the earring on and was smiling at him. He'd have been willing to go a long way for that. Coming to his father's hotel room seemed like a minor sacrifice.



Even if Daddy Dearest ended up selling them up the river.





* * *




The boy looked tense, Edward thought. Only the thing was, he wasn't a boy, anymore, was he? The face looking back at Edward's with such studied lack of expression was covered in dark stubble. And the shoulders had filled out, the arms become knotted with muscle.



Tom was wearing a black leather jacket, ratty jeans, and heavy boots. His father could have passed him a hundred times in the street and never recognized him. Only the eyes were the same he remembered from childhood, the same that looked out of his own mirror at him, every morning. But Tom's eyes showed no expression. They allowed him to look at them, and then they slid away from contact, without revealing anything.



There was blood on him too, and a snaking scar on his forehead. Had the triad done that, or had Tom gone through worse scrapes in the last five years? There were many things Edward wanted to know. Unfortunately, they were the ones he would never dare ask.



He watched Tom for a while, watched him pull out the girl's earring and give it back to her. He wondered if the two young fools had any idea that they were giving each other sick-puppy-dog looks.



But not only wasn't it his place to interfere, he was sure if he tried to tell them, either of them would put him soundly in his place.



"Do you guys want some coffee?" he asked, "I'm making some for myself."



There were sounds that might be agreement from the bedroom, as he set up the coffee maker. Fortunately the Spurs and Lace went for normal-sized coffeemakers, not the one-cup deals that were normally the rule. And they provided enough coffee and enough cups. He set it to run and thought.



The boy needed a shower. And probably clean clothes. But Edward had a feeling that if he offered either Tom might very well fling out of the room in a fury. He got a feeling that Tom was holding something in, battling something. And that if he let it all blow, none of them would like it.