She could all too easily imagine gunslingers swinging from the chandeliers, a bar fight breaking out, and the uniformed receptionists ducking behind their marble counter.
Kyrie hesitated but only for a moment, because she saw the signs to the restaurant and followed it, down into the bowels of the atrium and up in the elevator to the top floor that overlooked most of Goldport. Light flooded the restaurant through windows that lined every wall. Kyrie couldn't tell how big it was, just that the ceiling seemed as far up as the atrium's, but fully visible—a cool whiteness twenty feet up. Soft carpet deadened the sound of steps, and the arrangement of the tables, on different levels and separated by partitions and judiciously placed potted palms, made each table a private space.
A girl about Kyrie's age, blond and cool and wearing what looked like a business suit in pretty salmon pink, gave her the once-over. "May I help you?"
"Yes," Kyrie said. "I'm meeting a Mr. Trall. Rafiel Trall."
The girl's eyes widened slightly. And there was a gratifying look of envy.
What, thinking I can't possibly be in his league, sweetie? Kyrie thought, and reproached herself for her sudden anger and calmed herself forcefully, giving the woman a little smile.
"Mr. Trall is this way," the hostess said and, picking up a menu, led her down a winding corridor amid wood-and-glass partitions and palms. From the recesses around the walkway came the sounds of talk—but not the words, the acoustics of the restaurant being seemingly designed to give tables their privacy—and the smells of food—bacon and ham and sausage, eggs, roast beef. It made her mouth water so much that she was afraid of drooling.
Then the hostess led her around a wooden partition, and stepped back. And there, getting up hastily from his chair, was Rafiel Trall. He was perhaps better dressed than the night before, when his pale suit had betrayed a look of almost retro cool.
Now he was wearing tawny chinos and a khaki-colored shirt. His blond hair still shone, and still fell, unruly, over his golden eye. The mobile mouth turned upward in what seemed to be a smile of genuine pleasure at seeing her. "Miss Smith," he said, extending a hand. He tossed his head back to free his eyes of hair. There were circles of tiredness around his golden eyes, and creases on his face, as though he too had slept too little and not well.
He shook her hand hard, firmly. The hostess disappeared, silently, walking on the plush carpet as though gliding.
"Sit, sit," Rafiel Trall said. "Relax. I was horribly hungry, so I ordered an appetizer." He waved toward a platter on the table. "Seafood croquettes," he said. "High on protein, though perhaps not the kind . . ." He grinned. The golden eyes seemed to sparkle with mischief of their own.
Kyrie sat down, bonelessly. What am I doing here? she asked herself. What does he want from me?
And there, she knew the answer to the first one. She was here because he had blackmailed her into coming. Regardless of whether a threat had been uttered, regardless of what the threat he might actually mean, Rafiel Trall had mentioned those bloody towels in the bathroom.
Kyrie didn't own a television, but she had watched enough episodes of CSI on the diner's television, during slow times of the day, that she knew that on the show, at least, they could tell if someone had wiped someone else's blood off their skin with a paper towel. There would be skin and hair and sweat. . . .
But she remembered Tom and the way Tom had looked. What else could she have done then? Short of ignoring the whole thing and pretending it had nothing to do with her? And then what would have happened to Tom? She wasn't sure what she thought was worse—Tom eating the corpse, or Tom getting killed by ambush in his bedroom.
So she'd used the towels, and now Rafiel Trall held the towels over her head. And Tom's head. Which had brought her here.
But why did Officer Trall want her here? And what was the point of it all? Did he want to blackmail her for favors? No. If he wanted to do that, he would demand she meet him elsewhere, wouldn't he? However secluded the table might be . . . it wasn't that private.
Besides—she looked up at Rafiel Trall and refused to believe that he had that much trouble getting dates that he needed to force a girl into bed. Even if she admitted she didn't look like chopped liver.
She became aware that he'd said something and was now sitting, his napkin halfway to being unfolded on his lap, while he looked at her, expectantly.
There was no point lying. "I'm sorry," she said. "I have no idea what you said."
He smiled. "No. You were miles away. I said your outfit is very becoming."