Come the Night

“I wasn’t any trouble. No one knew I was there.”

“But you didn’t tell anyone you’d left home.”

Toby gazed down at his badly scuffed shoes. “No,” he said quietly.

“How long have you been in New York?”

Toby brushed at his soiled short pants, which Ross guessed he’d been wearing for several days, if not longer. “Just a few days,” he said. He mover closer to Ross and lowered his voice. “I think someone was after me,” he said, “so I hid until they went away.”

“Who was after you?”

“I thought they might be gangsters, but I don’t really have anything worth stealing.”

Ross glanced at the battered suitcase standing beside the table. It might have held a couple of changes of clothing and a few other necessities, but not much else. “I don’t think it was gangsters, Toby. But if you thought you were in danger, you should have come straight to the police.”

“Maybe it was the police,” Toby whispered, rolling his eyes in Art’s direction. “I had to come here because it was the only way I knew how to find you.” Unexpectedly, he grinned, the expression transforming his features the same way Gillian’s smiles had always done. “I knew you’d come for me.”

Ross straightened, reminding himself not to swear in front of a kid. “Okay,” he said. “I need to talk to Art for a few minutes. Can you wait here a little longer?”

“Of course, Father.”

With a wince, Ross turned for the door. Art went with him.

“You didn’t know about him, did you?” Art said as soon as they were in the corridor.

There wasn’t any way to avoid answering, and Ross didn’t see the point in lying. “Not until this morning,” he admitted.

Art nodded sympathetically. “The War?”

“Something like that.”

Mercifully, Art didn’t pursue that line of questioning. “Did Warbrick come to see you?” he asked.

“You talked to him?”

“Yeah. He came in first thing this morning, asking to speak to the Chief. I got stuck with him.” Art’s lip curled in contempt. “He demanded that we inform him if a certain kid turned up. Said the boy had run away and might come to the station.”

“Did he tell you why?”

“It came out after he asked where you lived. Except he claimed the kid mistakenly thought you were his father, and made noises about going higher up if we didn’t do exactly as he said.” Art snorted. “Damned Limey, thinks he can lord it over us.”

“He showed up at my place with the same story,” Ross said. “I threw him out.”

Speculation brimmed in Art’s eyes. He controlled it. “I wasn’t much in the mood to kowtow to Warbrick, so when the kid turned up, I called you instead of him.”

“Thanks, Art. I owe you one.”

Art shrugged. “I can always play dumb if the higher-ups come after me,” he said. “Only a couple of uniforms know he’s here, so you can…” He hesitated. “You are going to take him, aren’t you?”

Ross saw the chasm opening up before him. He knew he could walk away, find out where Ethan Warbrick was staying and send Tobias to him, just as Mrs. Delvaux wanted.

But it wasn’t that easy. Ross couldn’t look away from the cold hard evidence of the boy’s parentage. Gillian’s son.

His son.

“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll take him.”

Art’s relief was obvious. “Right. It might be a good idea to go out the back door.”

Ross nodded, and then an unpleasant thought occurred to him. “He doesn’t know…you didn’t tell him…”

“No. As far as he knows, you still work here.”

“That’s another one I owe you.”

Art shifted his weight. “Do you, uh…if you need a little cash, I’d be glad to—”

“Thanks, but I’m fine,” Ross said, more sharply than he’d intended. “The kid won’t starve before he gets back to England.”

Their eyes met, and Ross realized what he’d just said. He’d already assumed he was sending Toby back to his mother.

And what else are you supposed to do with him?

“I gotta get back to work,” Art said. “Take care, Ross.”

They shook hands. Art strode away, his thoughts probably on whatever case he was working on now. The way Ross’s would have been not so long ago.

Hell.

Ross blew out his breath and opened the interrogation room door. Toby sprang back as the door swung in, guilt flashing across his face.

What did you expect? Ross thought. He walked past Toby and picked up the suitcase.

“Come with me,” he said.

“Are we going home?” Toby asked, hurrying to join him.

Home? “To my place, yes,” he said. Where else was there to go?

He led Toby down the corridor and around several corners until they reached one of the back doors, encountering only a couple of detectives along the way. If Toby noticed their stares, he didn’t let on. The door opened up onto an alley, where several patrol cars were parked. Ross continued on to West Fifty-fourth Street and kept walking, one eye on Toby, until they’d left the station some distance behind. Only then did he stop, pull Toby out of the crowd of busy pedestrians and ask the rest of his questions.

“How did you find out I’m your father?” he asked.

Toby’s body began to vibrate, as if he could barely contain his emotions. “Mother wrote it all down. She didn’t think I’d ever find out, but I…” The spate of words trickled to a stop. “You are my father.”

It was as much question as statement, the one crack of uncertainty in the boy’s otherwise confident facade.

“I know you didn’t expect me,” Toby said, slipping into a surprisingly engaging diffidence. “Mother never told you about me. She was never going to tell me, either. That was wrong, wasn’t it?”