A Girl's Guide to Vampires

hours making little Raphaels and Joys.'

I grimaced. 'No. That's all over with.'

She stopped in mid-chew, then gave a big swallow. 'What do you mean it's all over with? It can't be all over with, I just decided to give you my blessing. What happened?'

I shrugged and looked back out the window. Nothing had changed out there; it was still the same tranquil scene. Birds flew overhead, people got into cars and drove away, late-blooming flowers bowed and dipped their heads in the wind. Everything was the same. Everything but me.

'Joy?' Roxy put her hand over mine, her voice worried. 'Honey, what happened? Last night Raphael looked like he couldn't wait to get back to you.'

I willed myself not to cry. I'd done enough of that during the long night, too. 'He wouldn't tell me his secret.'

She frowned. 'What secret?'

'He has some secret, something to do with the police and his past. I think he was convicted of some crime and never really cleared. Dominic knows about it, and is using it to keep him with the fair. I asked Raphael about it, but he said he couldn't tell me. He could tell Dominic, but he couldn't tell me. He doesn't trust me, Roxy. I don't matter enough to him that he can trust me with some stupid secret about his last job.'

'I don't believe for one minute you don't matter to him. I've got eyes, babe. I can see how he looks at you, and it is not the look of a man who's simply using the closest dipper to drink from the well. He's crazy about you. Serious crazy, too, which is why I changed my mind and decided that you two were perfect for each other.'

'But his secret—'

She waved his secret away with a bit of breakfast bread product. 'Have you told him every little secret in your life?'

'No, of course not, but this isn't little, this is something big, something serious, something that's affecting him now and will no doubt continue to affect him in the future. I wouldn't keep something on that level secret from him.'

She nodded. 'You're a woman. He's a man. Women don't mind asking for help with a problem, while men take it as a slight to their character if they can't deal with everything themselves. Besides, you both kind of jumped into this relationship quickly. Sometimes trust takes a bit of time to build. I'm sure he'll change his mind about not telling you whatever it is he's hiding if you're patient with him and don't do anything rash.'

'Rash like telling him I didn't want to see him again?'

She stared at me, jam dripping off the spoon she was applying to her roll. 'You didn't!'

I nodded.

'Oh, geez.' She slathered the piece of roll and popped it in her mouth. 'Well, we'll deal with that in good time. We'll take the most important things first.'

'Raphael is the most important thing to me,' I objected.

'I know that,' she said indistinctly around a mouthful of roll. 'I meant important things as in stuff we must accomplish in order for you to be able to get Raphael where you want him—by the short and curlies.'

I pushed my cup of coffee away untasted. 'Roxy, I don't understand a thing you're saying. What things are you talking about?'

She wiped her jammy hands on a napkin before ticking the items off on her fingers. 'One, we find out what Raphael's secret is.'

I stared at her. 'Have you heard anything I said? He wouldn't tell me.'

'We won't ask him.' She smiled complacently. 'Two, we determine who killed Tanya.'

I rubbed my forehead. The headache I had been nursing ever since I got up was building. 'Christian killed Tanya,' I said very slowly, enunciating clearly just in case she couldn't hear and chew at the same time.

She waved her roll—her third roll—at me. 'I don't buy that. Christian doesn't seem to me to be the type to kill someone.'

I stared at her. 'Roxy, he drinks people's blood to survive. He can kill people without touching them. He's lived for more than nine hundred years, and he's been turned down repeatedly by the one woman who he thinks can save him. Of course he's the type to kill! You're just letting the fact that he's Dante sway your judgment.'

'Geez, you really don't have faith in anyone, do you?'

That stopped me dead.

'You don't trust Raphael when he asks you to, you believe a man who's only showed you kindness and given you information that could be used against him is a murdering bastard, and you don't give me credit for seeing a few things you're too blind to notice.'

'I'm sorry, Rox, I didn't mean to imply that you aren't seeing things clearly. I just—it's just that Christian didn't share his visions with you. They weren't nice, Roxy. He's a very, very powerful man, tormented and in constant battle with himself. It's because of the blackness I've seen within him that I know he is capable of killing.'

'Has he been anything but gentle with you?'

'No, but he thinks I'm his Beloved.'

'Exactly. So why would he take the chance of angering or sickening you by ruthlessly killing someone, knowing full well that you'd guess he was responsible for it?'

I stared at her in surprise. I hadn't thought of that. Surely Christian must realize I'd know if he killed Tanya.

Roxy nodded as the understanding dawned in my eyes. 'If you're right and he can feed on anyone he wants, it only makes sense that he'd do so away from here, somewhere you wouldn't hear about it. Killing Tanya just doesn't make sense.'

I rubbed my forehead again. 'All right, if that's the case, then who did kill her? And don't tell me it's Raphael, because I won't believe it.'

'Well, he did have both the opportunity and the motive.'

'What motive?' I asked, bristling against my will at the slur on his character.

'His secret, whatever it is. Which brings us back to the list. Once we find out what his secret is and clear him of murdering Tanya, we will know what to do about Dominic.'

'Dominic?' I tried to follow her convoluted reasoning. 'You mean about him blackmailing Raphael?'

Something occurred to me as I spoke the words. Dominic had a fight with Tanya the day before she died—he might fill the role of murderer. 'Or about Tanya's murder? Or both?'

'Hmm. Dominic as murderer—I suppose it's possible.' She shrugged and reached for my pot of coffee, pouring herself a cup and adding an unhealthy dollop of cream. 'Doesn't matter; either way, we get Dominic off Raphael's back. If he's the murderer, he goes to jail. If he's not and we figure out Raphael's secret, we apply a little judicious blackmail pressure of our own.'

'What sort of blackmail pressure?' I asked suspiciously.

'Who knows? We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. You want that last roll?'

I stared at it, not seeing it. Raphael's face loomed large in my mind. 'OK. I guess. I'm game.'

'Either he's worth fighting for, or he's not the one for you,' Roxy said sagely, buttering the roll.

I met her gaze as her words clicked into place. 'He's worth fighting for.'

'I thought you'd see it that way. Let's get a little breffy under our belts, then we'll tackle item one.'

'You've already eaten enough rolls for two people,' I pointed out.

'A girl needs her strength when she's saving her best friend's romance, not to mention uncovering mysterious secrets and solving a murder.'

'You sound like an overgrown Nancy Drew,' I smiled.

'I always liked Nancy. You can be my George.'

'Oh, hell,' I said, looking over her shoulder.

'What? You want to be Bess instead? That's OK with me, but I always thought Bess was a bit of a wet blanket.'

'No, it's not that.'

'Don't tell me you want to be Hannah Gruen? Wasn't she elderly? Well, OK, you can be her, but don't be saying things like 'Lawks a-mercy, Miss Nancy' to me.'