Tom locked the door behind her, obediently. He wondered where she was going, but it wasn't like he had any room left to argue about what she might want to do. He should count himself lucky she hadn't screamed bloody murder when she'd found him in the parking lot. Perhaps she should have screamed bloody murder. Wasn't that the name for what he'd done? No— He hadn't— He couldn't—
A muffled knock. He realized that not only had Kyrie been gone for a while, but also that he'd somehow managed to remove most of the red stains from his hands and face. His hair was a drying, sticky mass that he didn't want to investigate, much less clean.
"That will do," she said. "You can wear these." She extended to him, at the end of a stiff arm—like a person feeding a wild animal—what looked like a red jogging suit.
"It's mine," she said, as though mistaking his hesitation for a belief that she'd mugged a vagrant for the clothes. Or taken them from the corpse. "I usually jog in the morning before going home. Safer here. It's a main street."
He swallowed hard, trying not to think of what street would be less safe than Fairfax. But then if she lived nearby—as he did—in the interlacing warren of downtown streets, there would be many less safe. Well, not less safe in reality—the crime rate in Goldport was never that high and most deaths were crimes committed by and between gang members. But in the side streets, dotted with tiny houses, or with huge Victorian mansions long since turned into tiny apartments, a woman jogging alone in the wee hours of the morning would not be seen. And that, perhaps, meant she wouldn't be safe—because she could disappear and not be noticed for hours.
A thought that whoever tried to attack this woman would be far from safe himself crossed Tom's mind and he beat it down. Perhaps that was what she was afraid of. Of being mugged in the dark street and killing—
He grabbed the jogging suit. It felt too cold to his hands, and too distant—as if it weren't real fabric but some fabriclike illusion that his senses refused to acknowledge fully. As if he weren't really here. As if this were all a dream and he would, shortly, wake up back in the safety of his teenage room, in his father's house, with his stereo, his TV, his game system, all those things he'd needed when life itself wasn't exciting enough.
The clothes fit. Of course they would fit. Kyrie was his height, just about, and while his shoulders were much broader, and his chest far more muscular, she had other . . . endowments. A memory of her in the parking lot swept like a wave over him, and he felt a warm blush climb his cheeks and adjusted his—her—jogging pants and prayed that she wasn't focusing there just now.
But he might have been too late, because she frowned as if she were about to ask if blood turned him on. She didn't, though. Just said, "Wait for me. By the back door."
"The back?" he said. His voice came out too low and raspy. "But—"
"You can't walk through the diner like that. It's clear your hair is caked with blood. Someone might notice and say something. Later. When . . . someone asks."
The police. But neither of them mentioned it.
"I'm going to tell Frank I'm going out for a moment," she said.
He nodded. She was efficient. She was determined. And she was helping him. It was more than he could have hoped for. And certainly no fault at all of hers if it made him feel helpless and out of control.
As he hadn't been in six months.
* * *
Kyrie wasn't sure what she was going to tell Frank. She had some idea he'd already be on simmer from what he would see as her sudden disappearance. In the ten steps between the bathroom and the diner proper, she ran her options through her mind—she could tell him she felt ill. She felt ill enough after the mess in the parking lot and the more specific mess in the bathroom. And the last thing any greasy-spoon owner wanted was to have a sick employee—visibly sick—tending to tables. On the other hand, if she did that, she was going to be some hours short this month. Because there was no way she could come back again tonight. And there was rent to pay.
She didn't know what she going to say at all until she emerged from the corridor into the yellowish light of the diner and said, "Frank, I need a few minutes, to go to Tom's." Which made perfect sense as she said it. A few minutes should suffice to go to Tom's house, because Tom walked here, and if Tom walked here, he couldn't live very far away. That meant a couple of minutes would also see him back to his home with no problem at all. And her back here, pretending she'd just dropped by his place.
Frank was attending to the students' table and had the sort of look on his face that meant he was trying very hard not to explode. Kyrie had worked for him for a year and she'd been a reliable employee, never late, rarely sick, and trustworthy enough to be left alone with the register on occasion. None of which were easy to come by in a college town in Colorado for the late-night shift and considering what Frank was willing to pay.