The whole was . . . He heard himself exclaim under his breath and she turned around. He had a moment to think that she was going to disapprove of him again. But instead, she looked surprised, her eyebrows raised.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I'm not used to seeing you dressed up. You look . . . amazing." He just wished her little feather earring hadn't got lost. It would have looked lovely with that outfit.
"Thank you." She smiled, and her cheeks reddened, but for only a second, before the smile was replaced by a worried expression. As if she thought he wouldn't compliment her unless he had ulterior motives. "I was about to leave you a note," she said. "There's eggs and bacon in the fridge."
He realized he was starving. But still, it felt wrong to impose that far. She was being too generous. There was something wrong. "I should go," he said.
"Eat first. And then we'll talk," she said. She spoke as if she had some plan, or at least some intention of having a plan. She threw the note she had written to him into the trash, opened the cupboard above the coffeemaker. "There's cups and coffee beans here," she said. "The coffee grinder is behind the coffee beans. I'm going to go for brunch with . . ." She took a deep breath and faced him. "I'd rather you don't leave because I'm going to go for brunch with the policeman."
Tom felt a surge of panic. "You mean, he might want to arrest me?"
She looked puzzled. "No. I mean I might get some information out of him about what happened and what we can do, or even if there's any danger at all." She waved him into silence. "I know there's still danger from the triad, but I'm hoping there is no danger from the police. If there is, I'll call and let you know, okay?"
He nodded dumbly. Something in him was deeply aggrieved that she had dressed up to go to lunch with the policeman. But of course, there was nothing he could do about that. She wasn't his. He had no chance of her ever even looking at him like less than a dangerous nuisance.
And then for a moment, for just a moment, she looked at him and smiled a little. "Wish me luck," she said.
And she was out the door. And he silently wished her whatever luck meant to her. But he felt bereft as he hadn't in a long time. As he hadn't since that night he'd been thrown out of the only home he'd ever known.
* * *
Okay, and on top of everything else, the man is paranoid, Kyrie thought as she got out. Why would he think I wanted to turn him in to the police? In the cool light of day, her car looked truly awful, with its smashed driver's side window. She would have to get a square of plastic and tape it over the opening. Fortunately it rarely rained in Colorado, so it wasn't urgent. As for getting money to fix it . . . well . . .
She put the spare key in the broken ignition socket, thinking that would probably be more expensive to repair than the window. And she would make sure Tom paid. Yes, he'd done it to save their lives, but much too thoughtlessly. Clearly he'd either never owned a car, or never owned a car for whose repair he was responsible.
From the look of the sun up in the sky, it was noon and it was a beautiful day, the sidewalks filled with people in shorts and T-shirts, ambling among the small shops that grew increasingly smaller and pricier in the two miles between Kyrie's neighborhood and the hotel.
There were couples with kids and couples with dogs dressed like children, in bandanas and baseball caps. Lone joggers. A couple of businesswomen in suits, out shopping on their lunch hour.
Again Kyrie experienced the twin feelings of envy and confusion at these people. What would they do if they knew? What would they think if they were aware that humans who could take the shape of animals stalked the night? And what wouldn't Kyrie give to change places with one of them? Any one of them. Even the businesswoman with the pinched lips and the eyes narrowed by some emotional pain. At least she knew what she was. Homo sapiens.
She pulled into the parking lot of the hotel and, unwilling to brave the disdain of the valets, parked her own car. Wasn't difficult to find a parking space during the week.
Entering the hotel was like going into a different world from her modest house, her tiny car, or even the diner.
The door whooshed as it slid aside in front of her, and the cold air reached out to engulf her, drawing her into the tall, broad atrium of the hotel, whose ceiling was lost in the dim space overhead, supported by columns that looked like green marble. The air-conditioning cooled her suddenly, making her feel composed and sophisticated and quite a different person from the sweaty, rumpled woman outside in the Colorado summer.
The smoked glass doors closed behind her. Velvet sofas and potted palms dotted the immense space. Uniformed young men, on who knew what errands, circulated between. This hotel was designed to look like an Old West hotel, one of the more upscale ones.