She knew it was Rafiel Trall without his announcing himself. She could see him at the other side of the phone, relaxed and seductive masculinity, poise and confidence and that something in his eyes, that something in his expression that said he was very bad for her. In the way that chocolate was bad for you. And all the more irresistible for being bad.
"How may I help you, officer?" she asked, making her voice crispy and official. All business. She had to keep this all business.
"In a lot of ways," he said. "But right now I just want to ask you a favor."She could hear him smile, and she couldn't quite tell how. One of her first jobs, out of high school, had been with a cold-calling telemarketing company. The job hadn't lasted long, though she'd been surprisingly good at it. Perhaps, she thought now, they could hear the harmonics of the panther in the human voice. And bought. And bought. And were very polite with it.
At that job they'd told her to always smile while she was talking because people on the other side could tell. She'd never believed it till now.
The silence lengthened between them, stretched like taffy, feeling sticky and endless, thinner and thinner, but never breaking. "All right," she said, at last. "Ask."
This time there was a very masculine chuckle at the other end.
"I can always say no," she said, tempted beyond endurance by the chuckle.
"You can," he said, gravely. "But I hope you don't. There's a restaurant about . . . oh, two miles from your house. It's the in-house restaurant at Spurs and Lace."
Spurs and Lace, was the one good hotel in a Western town plagued with cheap motels and improbable cabin resorts, which catered to those families too poor, too numerous, or too shy to stay at the one Holiday Inn. The nineteenth-century hotel was in a completely different class. Once used by moneyed Easterners coming for the benefit of the mineral waters and the dry Western air, it had been renovated within an inch of its life, furnished with antiques and updated. It was now the haven of moneyed business travelers and honeymooning couples. An executive resort, Kyrie believed they called it.
"The restaurant is called Sheriff's Star, but despite the name it's good," Trall went on. "They serve brunch, which we're just about in time for."
Again, she said nothing. Oh, she could see where this was going, but she would let him come out and say it.
"I'd like to swing by your house to pick you up in about . . . oh . . . five minutes?"
"Why would you like to pick me up?" Kyrie asked, though her mind, and the recollections of his smell from the day before, gave her pretty good indications.
The chuckle again. "I'd like to feed you, Ms. Smith. Nothing worse than that. And if, during brunch, you should feel like talking to me about the diner, and what you think might have gone on in that parking lot in the dark, I will discuss the other cases we've had with you and—"
"Did you say other cases?" Kyrie asked.
"Indeed."
"Other cases of . . ." She remembered his story the day before. ". . . attacks by Komodo dragons?"
"Possibly. Mysterious attacks, shall we say."
"I see."
"Well, I think if we discuss it, we'll both see better," he said. "So . . . I'll pick you up in a few minutes, if that is acceptable."
"No," Kyrie said, before she even knew she was going to say it. But as soon as the word was out of her lips, she knew why. She knew she had to say it. Stranded at a restaurant with only this relative stranger and no way home on her own? No. She didn't think so. She might have gone stupid last night, but now it was the next day and she wouldn't be stupid anymore. "No. I'll bring my car. I'll meet you there. In twenty minutes."
She could see him hesitate on the other end of the phone. She wasn't sure how, or not exactly. Perhaps the letting out of breath, or perhaps some other sound, too light for ears to consciously discern. But it was there. And it was followed by a hesitant, "Your car . . ."
And now it was her turn to smile into the phone, "Why, officer. Would you be embarrassed to be seen with me, because of the condition of my car?"
"What? Of course not. It's just that I thought with the broken window, you have a security liability and—"
"Oh, I wouldn't worry, Officer Trall. After all, it's a good part of town, isn't it?"
After she put the phone down, she thought that it was a good part of town. And that her car might look ever so slightly embarrassing. But probably more so for Officer Trall, whom she doubted ever left the house without wearing a pressed suit.