Dalton, Tymber - Brimstone Blues [Brimstone Vampires 2] (Siren Publishing Classic) (22 page)

“It
’s not your fault, Taz baby!”

God, not NOW!
Taz wanted to scream, and the only thing that kept her from doing so was that Matthias and Trish sat right there. Taz wanted to reach into her brain and rip the source out. She was having a hard enough time keeping it together.

The girl pulled away, hugging herself. “Dead?” she whispered.

Taz nodded. The girl looked to Matthias, who also nodded but remained silent. He knew he was on Taz’s short shit list over suggesting they call instead of stopping, and he didn’t dare enrage her.

Trish shook her head. “I talked to him the night before he left. He said we’d get together when he got back…” She started sobbing.

Taz lost the inner battle not to ask the question. “Were the two of you close?”

The girl didn’t look up. “I wanted to be. We weren’t…you know. We hadn’t. He wouldn’t, said he wanted to get to know me better first. We’d been out on a few dates, only knew each other a few weeks.” She finally looked up at Taz. “He just had this really sweet, playful side, you know?”

Taz knew. All too well. Seeing this girl’s grief stirred her own, and it was sheer will holding her own tears in check. They stayed a little longer, then Taz handed Trish a business card. “If you want to talk, give me a call, okay?”

Trish nodded, still stunned. Taz knew the girl would cry herself to sleep that night.

Matthias wanted to drive but Taz withheld the keys. “I need to do this. I need the focus.”

“Okay.” Without further discussion he went to the passenger side. He was learning to take his cues from her.

Taz adjusted the seat, the mirrors, and tried to steady her shaking fingers as she hooked her seat belt. She didn’t want Matthias seeing how rattled she was, how close to her own breakdown.

It didn’t get any easier, even after her own grief.

* * * *

They arrived home after midnight. Matthias offered to carry the laptop case, but Taz shrugged him off.

“No, I’ve got it.” She also had Rafe’s phone and MP3 player in there, and she wasn’t letting them out of her control. She needed more time to deal, and she still wanted to know why the playlist mysteriously appeared.

“All right.” He took their bags, leaving the photo albums and other things until morning. He followed her up to their room and she put the laptop case on the floor on her side of the bed. She’d deal with it tomorrow. For tonight, she needed to sleep.

“You don’t really want to sleep, do you, Taz baby?”

She froze. The voice had remained mostly silent on the way home from Atlanta.

It had to be the guilt. That was it. Her subconscious was adding Rafael’s voice to her own guilt. It didn’t matter that everyone else kept telling her it wasn’t her fault.

“That’s because it’s
not
your fault.”

She closed her eyes, gritted her teeth, and tried counting backward from ten.

It didn’t return.

She took a shower while Matthias was downstairs talking with her dad and Albert. She wanted to stay awake until he returned, but by the time she heard their door open she was nearly asleep. She felt him kiss her cheek before he slipped his arm around her waist and spooned against her back.

“I love you, Taz,” he whispered.

She smiled. “I love you, too, Matthias,” she mumbled.

As she drifted off to sleep, the voice chimed in one last time.
“
That makes two of us, Taz baby.”

* * * *

Matthias was asleep upstairs when Taz went down for breakfast the next morning. Albert held a small box in his hand. “This came while you were gone.”

She took it, looked at it, and nodded. “Thank you.” She placed it in her lap, out of sight under the table.

Albert hesitated for a moment before realizing she wasn’t volunteering any information, and left the room. After finishing her meal, she took it upstairs to their bedroom. Matthias was in the bathroom. Taz hid the box in a drawer. She didn’t want Matthias to see it. Not that it mattered, she supposed, because eventually he’d see her wearing it, but there were some things she needed to do privately to deal with her grief.

It was so late when they returned she didn’t ask about Rafe’s ashes. But when she walked through the living room, she spotted the urn sitting on the mantel. How she’d missed it earlier was a mystery.

She walked over to it, touched it, and closed her eyes.

I won’t cry. I will
not
cry.

* * * *

She finally took her shower.

The Mustang needed another oil change. Thumbing through the phone book, Taz found a local oil change place that could fit her in.

“Don’t do that, goddammit! Do it yourself.”

She closed her eyes, willing the voice to shut up. She didn’t feel like changing the oil. Besides, she didn’t have any tools.

“You’ve got my tools.”

This was too much. The voice was gaining strength and clarity in her brain. Beating herself unconscious with the phone book was a tempting option.

Albert chose that moment to walk in, looking slightly uncomfortable. “Taz, can I talk to you for a moment?”

She sat up. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong. I need to show you something.” She followed him out to the separate garage where he opened one of the bays. Everything from Rafe’s garage was there, arranged as it had been at the condo. Even cabinets from the wall were hung in nearly the same places. “I had the movers take detailed pictures and measurements before they brought everything down so we could arrange it as closely as possible. Matthias said you’d want it.”

She felt her tears fall and threw her arms around Albert. “Thank you,” she whispered.

He hugged her back. “It’s quite all right, love.” He kept his arm around her. “Rafe was, as I’m sure you guessed, quite fond of his cars. He loved working on Matthias’ Mustang. He’s the one who took care of yours, too, before Matthias gave it to you. Rafe came down several times a month. When he was here, he would check it out, start it, drive it for a few minutes to make sure it was running fine, did the oil changes.”

Her tears fell and she didn’t care. Rafe took care of her car? Yet another reason to cherish it beyond the fact that it once belong to her father.

“Why doesn’t Matthias like to work on cars?”

Albert shrugged. “He’s handy. He can, but he doesn’t enjoy it the way Rafe did. I remember when cars first came out.” He looked at Taz and laughed. “Oh God, that sounds horrible, doesn’t it?”

She smiled. “Go ahead.”

“Rafael loved horseless carriages. He was positively fascinated by them. I’m sure a psychiatrist would say he transferred his energy into his cars to avoid relationships. Maybe that’s true. I remember a period several decades ago where he didn’t date at all for a couple of years, too interested in learning about cars and working on them. Eventually he settled down, and when he’d get a car he’d, well, as you see from his Mustang, bigger, better, faster.”

“He was a racer?”

“Not really, surprisingly. Like you, he enjoyed going fast on the interstate. I think one reason he loved coming to visit was because it afforded him time to be alone in the car on the highway with his foot to the floor for hours on end.”

“I can understand that.” She did her best thinking in the car.

“Bastard’s not so bad after all.”

Taz stiffened. That snippet from her phantom voice sounded the clearest since Yellowstone.

She realized she had to know. “Albert, what was going on between you and Rafe?”

Albert’s turn to tense. He pulled away from her. “We had our differences of opinion over the years. It’s not that we didn’t like each other—”

“Bullshit!”
snorted the phantom voice.

“—but we tended to butt heads from time to time. Personality differences.”

“Why?”

Albert met her eyes. She felt his mental barrier strengthen. “It doesn’t matter anymore, Taz. Truly.” She would never force him to tell, and he knew it.

“Okay.” She needed to lighten the subject. “I need to get the oil changed in the GT—”

“Goddammit, Taz, do it yourself!”

“—but do you know a good place to have it done?” She hoped she didn’t wince when the voice chimed in. Fuck, that would drive her over the edge if nothing else did.

Albert eyed her carefully. “Are you all right, dear? You look a little peaked.”

“I’m tired.”

Her dad walked up, looked inside the garage, and nodded. “I’m sure he would have approved.”

Taz gritted her teeth, preparing for another onslaught from the phantom voice. “I need to get the oil changed—”

“No, listen to me—”

Tim patted her on the back. “I’ll do it for you, sweetheart.”

The voice shut up. The sudden silence startled her, almost as deafening as the voice.

She blinked in surprise. “Really?”

“Of course. I don’t mind. Rafe never let a shop touch his cars if he could do it himself. I certainly wouldn’t call myself a mechanic, but I’ve changed the oil enough over the years, I don’t think I’ll bollocks it up.”

No word from the voice, and she took a deep, relieved breath. “Okay. Thanks, Dad.” She hugged him and handed him the keys.

One problem solved. The voice left her alone for the rest of the day.

Chapter Thirteen

Matthias found Tim in the kitchen later that afternoon.

“I think I’m starting to feel human again after that drive.” Tim smiled, and Matthias laughed. “Don’t say it, Tim.”

He shook his head. “She’s a handful. I did warn you.”

“Yes, you did.” Matthias rinsed an apple under the tap and took a bite. “You certainly did, and I love everything about her.”

“Shall I remind you of that in a few years?”

“I wish I could make it up to her. You know this isn’t how I wanted things to happen.”

Tim leaned against the counter. “Quit feeling guilty, Matthias. This wasn’t your fault.” He softened his voice. “You haven’t even had time to grieve for Rafe properly. You need that as much as she does, you know.”

Matthias suddenly lost his appetite. “I don’t want to deal with that right now. I need to help her through this.”

“She’s strong, Matthias. Stronger than you think. The worst is behind her, and we all need to heal and move forward. You cannot deny yourself this.”

“What can I do for her, Tim? How do I make this up to her?”

“Simply show her you love her.”

* * * *

Taz needed to snack. She walked downstairs and stopped outside the kitchen door when she heard Matthias and her dad talking. She knew it was wrong, but she eavesdropped anyway.

“Tell me how to do that, Tim,” Matthias said. “Tell me how to show her I love her. I thought we’d have years to get to know each other, and now I feel like I’m flying blind.”