Draw One In The Dark(108)

Nuts with chocolate and his favorite brand. Okay, this was becoming ridiculous. His father might have kicked him out of the house at sixteen, and he might know next to nothing about Tom's life since then, but, apparently, it was a point of pride that he remembered what Tom liked to eat and drink.



There was really no response for it, though, and Tom, no longer ravenousle hungry, still felt peckish of sorts. Besides, this was a hideously expensive brand of chocolates and he hadn't been able to afford it in years.



While he was tearing the ribbon, he saw his father open a bigger assortment of different types and set it on the side table. "For you guys, since none of you look like you've slept enough."



Tom noticed that Kyrie's eyes widened and that her hand went out for a dark chocolate truffle. He would have to remember that. Forget dead bodies. Any female with even a bit of Homo sapiens in her was going to go for the chocolates.



To change subject, and disguise his attention to her every action—and also how scared he'd been at his father's absence—Tom looked at his father and managed to say in a voice almost devoid of hostility, "I wonder if you could talk to us about the triad," he said. "How you came to be here, I mean. And how they got you to come here."



"The Great Sky Dragon kidnaped me from my office," Tom's father said. He dipped into the common box, too, and got a nut chocolate also. It was one of the tastes they shared. "He picked me up and told me that my son was my responsibility and he was going to bring me here, and I could find you and the Pearl, after which he'd take me back to New York. He made it clear I wasn't to return until I'd found them their Pearl. Tom, why did you take it?"



Tom shrugged. He'd tried to explain this before, and was getting tired of explaining. Particularly because the idea seemed really stupid now, and also because he was starting to realize what he'd searched for in the Pearl was what he'd found with Kyrie and even with the guys—acceptance, caring for him, giving a damn if he lived or died.



Instead, he said, "Because hard drugs weren't working for me." And seeing his father look shocked, Tom smiled. "Because the Pearl made me feel loved and accepted and I hadn't felt that since . . . In a long time."



His father had gone slightly red, and was looking at Tom as though evaluating something. "So," he said, "do you still need it?"



Tom shook his head. "No. I told the . . . them." He gestured toward Keith and Rafiel. "I told them that I would give it back, if I could just figure out how to do it. I haven't really been able to do that. Not recently."



"What do you mean?" Edward asked.



"I mean that if I gave it back to them, they'd kill me. They made it very clear they didn't take kindly that I'd stolen it. It's their . . . cultic object or something. They don't like the idea that a stranger grabbed it. I think they'll feel the stranger must be killed. Considering what they did to me when they captured me . . ."



"Okay," Edward said, very calmly. "So, how about I take the Pearl back?"



Rafiel choked on his chocolate. "Not a good thing," he said. "Because if you do that, then I suspect they'll kill you. The whole thing they said about you being responsible for Tom?"



"Okay," Keith said. "I've already said it, but you guys were out of the room. I think the easiest thing is for us to take it somewhere public and leave it. Yeah, they might still come after Tom in search of revenge, but there is at least a chance that after the massive ass-whooping of last night, they would leave him alone as being way too much trouble to discipline."



"Well . . ." Tom said. "Yes, it's possible." It wasn't probable. And it wasn't the plan he would have picked, if he had any other semisane choice. But he didn't think he did, and leaving the Pearl somewhere public and running beat his plan to keep hiding it and running from the triad.



"You could leave it in front of the triad center here in town," Edward Ormson said. "You could put it at the door, in a bucket of water. Wait till the bucket dries. By the time the water dries and they feel it—if we hide it a little—we'll all be out of town."



Tom looked up. "Out of town?"



"You could come back home," his father said, suddenly animated. "Maybe go to college." He looked around at the rest of them. "And I'd arrange for the other two here to go wherever they want to go. College? Move and a business? Just say it. I assume Officer Trall would be safe, by virtue of his position?"



Tom could feel his jaw set. "The only home I've ever known . . ." he said. There was the thought that Kyrie might want to go to college, but he didn't think she wanted to go at his father's charity. He didn't want his father's charity. "The only home I've ever known burned a few days ago. I'll have to find some other place to live."