Draw One In The Dark(64)

Kyrie shook her head. Her feet hurt, and she felt sticky all over, as she usually did when she'd been working long hours at the Athens. And this time she'd worked ten hours. "I really don't think I have anything else to tell you," she said. "I only know Tom from work." And why was her mind, unbidden, giving her images of his coming out of the shower, his hair still dripping. He'd been perfectly dressed too. Well, almost perfectly. One thing her house didn't have any of was male underwear. "And I really don't know where he could have gone. If you go where he lives, and talk to his downstairs neighbor. I think his name is Keith. He might know where Tom went from there."



"Oh, but I think you might know more without realizing it," he said, and in response to what she was sure was very annoyed frown, he said, "I'm not underestimating your intelligence, it is just that I know people absorb things about other people, without meaning to. And you might know something about Tom, something that will give me a clue." He hesitated a long time, as if he were not sure a clue to exactly what. "A clue to where to find him."



Kyrie was sure, too, that this was not what he had meant to say. She looked up—Tom's father was considerably taller than him—at Mr. Ormson's chiseled profile, and she wondered what he was trying to find a clue to exactly, and why he'd come looking for his son these many years later. Or had he looked for Tom before? Had Tom refused to see him? Perhaps that was what he wanted a clue for? A clue as to why his son would reject him? Kyrie shouldn't be getting involved with this. She really shouldn't.



"Just a cup of coffee," he said, and looked wildly around, lighting at last at a coffee shop sign a couple of blocks away, the edge of the advance of gentrification of downtown Goldport. "I won't keep you long, I promise. I imagine you must be very tired."



"Yes, but—"



"Please," the man said. "Tom is my only son. If there's any chance I can . . . find him."



Again she had a feeling that what he had been about to say was not "find" but something else—persuade? Reach?



"All right," she said, setting off toward the coffee shop. "But just one cup of coffee." She had to admit to herself at least half the reason for allowing him that one cup of coffee was that she wanted to know what was happening—exactly what was wrong—between those two. Had Tom told her the truth about being thrown out of the house? Or had he run away? What had his father thought of the whole thing? Did his father even know that Tom was a shifter? And did he love him despite that?



Kyrie didn't have any personal interest in the matter, of course. Well, Tom's father seemed nice enough. Possibly too nice to be saddled with Tom as a child. But, really, ultimately, what drove her to walk those blocks to the coffee shop, what convinced her to sit across from him at the little, tottering table, amid the decor that tried to hard to be urban and sophisticated, was curiosity.



She had grown up with many families, but none of them hers. And none of her families had ever shown her much of the tangled feelings between close blood relatives. All she had of it was the understanding drawn from books and movies. She saw family and familial love through a mirror darkly.



So she went with Edward Ormson, and sat at the little table across from him, holding a cappuccino that she knew would have way too much milk, and watching the man sip his espresso grande, or very tall or whatever they were calling the huge cups these days.



"How long has Tom been working at the Athens?" Mr. Ormson asked.



"Six months," Kyrie said. Was everyone going to ask her this question? If Mr. Ormson's next question was about the murders three months ago, she was going to scream.



But he nodded. "And he's . . . he's a good worker?"



"He's responsible," Kyrie said, surprising herself with saying it. "And competent. He always shows up or calls if he's ill. This is the first night he missed work completely." And having said the words, she wondered where he was, what he was doing. She frowned at her cup of foam with very little coffee. She had as good as thrown him out. Of course, he deserved it. Or did he?



Rafiel's talk of an insect-origin powder, his talk of eggs in the wounds of the victim . . . Something was not right, and it seemed certain that high or not, Tom had been fighting something—some creature, possibly the same that had committed murder in the parking lot, just a day ago. But he had been high. And he should not have been high. He should have been more careful in her house.



Somehow this moral high ground was not as satisfying as it should be. She realized that Mr. Ormson was looking attentively at her, and she managed a smile at him, her professional smile that meant very little but seemed to make people feel at ease. "He was better than most servers we get at the Athens."