Draw One In The Dark(123)

She was so mad, that she banged a load of dishes into the dishwasher, after bussing the empty tables. This was the hour when people started leaving before the rush, and she'd bussed her tables, and Tom's too. She banged the plates and cups in, and she gave Frank a dirty look when he glared at her.



The dirty look must have worked, because Frank didn't say anything. Just turned away.



And Frank was, of course, a problem, as was Frank's girlfriend. Kyrie couldn't believe how obtuse and close-minded Rafiel had been. How could he not see that this series of coincidences, here, at the center of the Athens, was far more relevant than no matter how many couples who'd started dating a month ago, no matter how many men with bandaged necks elsewhere?



Damn the man. She couldn't believe someone like that, who was clearly smarter than dryer lint, would attempt to solve crimes using parts of his anatomy that lay below the equator.



She closed the dishwasher and started it, and turned to face Tom. He stood just behind her, his arms full with a tray of dishes.



"Oh, Tom, I'm sorry. That dishwasher is full. Let me open the other one. I'll put the dishes in for you if you want me to."



He shook his head. He was keeping his lips together, as if he were biting them to keep himself from saying something. How weird. It was an expression she'd never seen on his face. "Are you okay?"



"Fine," he said. "Just fine. I'll put the dishes in. You can go." His voice sounded lower and raspier than normal.



She went. She picked up tips, she tallied totals, she filled coffee cups.



On the way back from the addition to the main part of the diner, she saw Tom bussing a table, and thought that was as good a time as any to talk to him.



"I couldn't get Rafiel to listen," she said, in a whisper. "About Frank. He says it's all coincidences, and he refuses to help. What are we going to do?"



For a while, she thought that Tom hadn't heard her. He remained bent over the table, his hand holding a stack of plates to put on the tray, while the other hand held a moist cloth, with which he was poised to wipe where the plates had been. But he didn't move. He just stood there.



"Tom?" she said.



He put the plates on the tray, very slowly. Carefully, he wiped the table. Then he stood up and faced her. His face was stark white. Not the sickly pale it had been in the parking lot the night she'd found him over the corpse, but white—the white of paper, the white of the unblinking heart of a thunderbolt. "I don't know what you want me to do," he said, his voice calm, emotionless. "If you can't get Rafiel to listen to you, I fail to see where I can be of any use. I'm sorry."



"Oh, Tom, don't be an idiot," she said, in an urgent whisper, sure he had to have misunderstood it all. "I want to know what you and I are going to do about it."



Tom shook his head. "No. You don't understand. We're not going to do anything. After tonight, I won't even be here."



"Where are you going?"



He twisted his lips and shrugged. "Somewhere."



She watched him pick up his tray and his cloth and disappear toward the main diner, tray held at waist level.



What on earth was going on? First Rafiel had behaved like a lunatic, and now Tom. What had they been smoking? And why were they not sharing?



"What do you know about this?" she asked Keith and Edward, where they sat in their corner table. "Where's Tom going? What is wrong with him?"



Keith sat back on his chair, looking vaguely scared. "Whoa," he said. "That's one of the few rules of safety I've learned. I don't get in between this kind of stuff."



"What kind of stuff?" Kyrie asked, her temper rising. "What kind of stuff? What is wrong with every male here tonight?"



"I think," Edward said, his voice regretful, his tone slow, "that if I told you what Tom told me I would forfeit whatever trust I've been able to earn back from him. And you must see I can't do that. He might need me. I have to . . . stand by to help him if he needs it. I've got to tell you I hope he comes to his senses, but I don't think my explaining things to you would further this in any way."



"Oh," Kyrie said. "I see. He"—and she pointed at Keith—"Makes cryptic remarks, and you make longer cryptic remarks, with far better vocabulary. Whatever. Sure. What is this? Be Stupid Day for males?"



She glared at them a while, daring them to answer. When neither did, she huffed out of there.



They didn't answer because they had no answer. They knew damn well—had to know—that they were acting like idiots. All of them.



Well, she would show them. Rafiel might be more practiced at smelling shifters, but Kyrie would bet that even she, herself, in panther form, could smell a rotting body in a shallow grave. If she knew what she was looking for. Even at the morgue, with all the preserving fluids and embalming whatnots, she had smelled it. She was sure she could smell it undisguised and in the heat of day under a thin layer of earth. The only reason she hadn't smelled it before—if it was there—would have been that she was escaping beetles and cops with guns.