Catch (31 page)

"Babe, it's okay.
 
You've got to let her go now," Matt whispered.
 
He understood that it seemed somehow disrespectful not to whisper.
 

"Will you be okay, Mr Solomon?"
 
Sergeant McKean's baritone voice broke into their quiet intimacy.
 
"Someone from Victim Support will be in touch with you both."
 
He flicked through his notes again. "They can get you at this address."
 
It was a statement, not a question.

"I'm taking Miss Parsons to stay at my home for a few days. You can get us both there."

The sergeant made further notes in his pad and shook Matt's hand. "Don't worry about seeing us out, Mr Solomon. We'll be fine."
 

He looked directly at Tamsen, who was starting to feel nauseous.
 
"Thank you for your assistance, Miss Parsons.
 
We'll be in touch if we have any more questions."

She couldn't imagine what other questions they could possibly have - she'd told them everything she knew, short of what Gina usually ate for breakfast.

"Come on, you."
 
Matt's tone gentle and loving.
 
She wished he'd just yell and scream.
 
She would if she could, but she didn't have the energy.
 
"It's a good job you didn't start unpacking - we can just put your case back in the car and get the hell out of here."

Past caring, she sat glumly on the couch and watched Matt retrieve her cases from the bedroom and put them at the front door.
 
She didn't have the strength to fight with him anymore and knew she couldn’t stay the night in the stinking apartment.
 
The place felt cold, death, destruction and darkness filling the void created by the universe when someone died.
 
She knew she'd have to come back and not only physically clean up the mess in Gina's room, but also spiritually cleanse the area too.
 
She figured it couldn't do any more harm to leave the bleak emotional and spiritual energy swarming around in the meantime.

"I'll just get these down to the car and then be back up for you - okay?"
 
Matt opened the front door and a bundle of black fluff shot between his legs.
 
"Christ.
 
What was that?"

"Azzie, baby."
 
Tamsen's spirit lifted a little above that of a bottom-dwelling catfish.
 
Azriel never failed to lift her mood.

The cat leapt into her lap and began rigorously scenting her chin.
 
Tamsen couldn't help giggling and her furry friend purred in response.
 

"Have you missed me, Azzie, hmm?"
 

Azriel's purr sent reassuring shivers through to her earlobes. She nuzzled into his furry head, the cold, fine skin on the top of his ears stroking her hot cheeks.
 
Cooling the emotional fallout, helping her find some sense of calm.
 
"We've gotten through a lot together haven't we, Azz, and we'll get through this too, won't we?"

Kissing the top of his fluffy head, she tucked him under her arm.
 
"We can't leave you here all by yourself, can we, Azzie?
 
I need you.
 
Now, where's your cage, hmm?"
 
Big yellow eyes peered inquisitively at her, but he made no move to break free from her grip.

She found the golden cage on top of the utility cupboard.
 
A newspaper from nearly eighteen months ago lined the bottom, confirming her suspicions it had been quite some time since Azriel had been anywhere.

"Your shots must be overdue. We'll have to get you to the vets, my little friend."
 

Either he understood every word she was saying or - more likely - the sight of the cage brought back terrifying memories.
 
He struggled in her arms, almost making a break for freedom before the lid came down firmly, holding him prisoner.

"Don't fret.
 
We're just going to stay at Matt's for a couple of days.
 
You'll be fine."
 
Azriel sat hunched, fur standing on end, clearly not fine.

They stopped by the kitchen to collect cat food.
 
Even rattling the dried food box, which usually prompted a positive response, didn’t work.
 
At the front door they ran into Matt, literally.

"What the hell?"
 
He looked stunned.
 
"You're not bringing that cat."

"He comes or I stay."
 
She was non-negotiable.
 
Enough had happened today and she wouldn't be leaving another friend behind.

"He's a cat.
 
I live in an area with endangered bird life."

"Fine.
 
We'll stay home then."

"Do you know how difficult you can be sometimes?"
 
Matt raked his hand through his hair; he looked as exhausted as she felt.
 

But she was adamant, she and Azzie were a package deal. "I won't leave him Matt. I couldn't stand it if he ran away - it's enough trauma just dealing with..."
 
The sense of loss hit her again, a full frontal blow. She might as well have been punched.

"Okay, okay." He held his hands up, looking solemnly at the cat in the cage. "I know when I'm beaten."
 

He slipped an arm around her waist, and Tamsen allowed herself to lean into his solid bulk.
 
He felt safe and she needed safe.
 

"I suppose we can always lock your little beast up in the house." Matt's expression changed to one of concern. "It is house-trained, right?"

She smiled. "Of course." And directing her speech to Azriel: "You're an apartment dweller, aren't you, boy?"

"A tomcat.
 
Great."
 
Matt picked up the dried food and cast his eyes to heaven.

"He's been done so he behaves himself - unlike some of the men in my life."

"I'm too tired to argue with you, Tamsen. Come on, let’s get you both out of here before anything else happens."

Two on a scale of one to ten, with ten being eventful - that's how Matt's day should have been.
 
What it had become, however, was another matter entirely.
 
Macabre and maudlin thoughts filled his mind as he drove the familiar motorway and winding tree-lined roads back home, feeling disconnected from himself, his environment and Tamsen.

Dusk light fell over the landscape.
 
Cerulean blue sky meeting the dark shapes of the trees.
 
Tension and terror rose inside him as those same trees rose to meet the sliver of a new moon hanging perilously on its back.
 
It looked almost as vulnerable and small as he felt.

Azriel's pitiful yowling filled the car and Matt’s sense of doom deepened.
 
"Isn't there anything you can do to shut that animal up?"
 
Matt couldn't hide the irritation in his voice.
 
He was intolerant at the best of times; these were not the best of times.

"He hates car trips."
 
Tamsen's voice sounded flat.

"Great."
 
Matt flicked on the radio, hoping to drown out the noise. The cat's loathsome wailing just increased an octave.

"Does he never shut up?"

"He'll calm down as soon as we stop.
 
It's not far, and considering what we've been through today he's the least of our worries."

"You're not wrong there."
 
All hell was about to break loose.
 
The thought of Tamsen, his Mother and the shrieking cat were more than Matt's frazzled nerves were able to deal with. He'd tried to talk Marguerite into accompanying him to the airport five days ago and heading home, but she wouldn't hear of it.

"Looks like your landscape people have finished." Tamsen cut short his morose musing.
 

He barely recognized the entranceway to the house off the bush-clad right of way. "If I'd known going away would speed the process, I'd have gone weeks ago."
 
At least he wouldn't have to unload Tamsen and her precious feline at the top of the drive and have them all risk life and limb on some sort of suburban assault course - he could deliver them right to the front door, a convenience he hadn't even realized he'd missed until this moment.

The engine died and the feline wailing came to an accompanying halt.

"Oh, thank you, God."
 
Matt clasped his hands together in appreciative prayer, gazing at the ceiling of the vehicle.
 
"I don't know what I've done to piss you off lately, but whatever it is, surely I've done my penance."

"Maybe you just need to talk to him more."
 
Tamsen's matter-of-fact tone caused a flood of Catholic guilt.
 
Her straightforward approach to spirituality often caught him off guard.

"Come on.
 
Let's get you and the demon cat settled in."

"Don't listen to him, Azzie.
 
He's just upset 'cos God's punishing him."

"I'm not being punished!"
 
He relieved her of the cat cage so she could get out of the car.
 
The cat eyeballed him through the bars and he had an unnerving feeling they just weren't going to be friends.
 
Some people were cat people and some people were dog people; unfortunately, he was the latter and Azriel seemed to have worked that out already.

"If you give me the front door key, I can get him inside and then come and help you with the rest of the bags."

Matt popped the boot before obediently passing over keys and cat, glad to be relieved of the furball from hell.
 
"It's the biggest silver key," he told her, all too aware that, the way things were going, this might well be the one and only time she put a key into his front door.

Foreboding feelings manifested in the far reaches of his mind. He tried to brush them away but they stubbornly remained.
 
He could almost feel them taking root, like the moss and lichen that crept up the cold, southern corner of the house.

Shuddering, he turned his mind back to the task at hand.
 
He was determined they should have some time to sort this mess out, and wanted her to stay until at least after the funeral.
 
She needed somewhere safe to grieve.
 
He'd witnessed first-hand what suppressed grief could do to a person: it made them bitter and cold.
 
Tamsen was too lovely and vibrant a person for that.
 

Gina's life had affected her almost on a daily basis, now he worried that the fallout from her death could destroy the woman he'd grown to love.

Tamsen struggled in the door with the cat cage in one hand, Matt's keys in the other and the box of cat biscuits, which she'd absentmindedly picked up off the floor of the car, tucked under her arm.
 
She kicked the door closed behind her and then remembered Matt was following with the bags.

"Damn!"
 
She put Azzie down and attempted to open the front door.
 
To her dismay it wouldn't budge.

"You need to put the key in again - it's a deadlock."

Tamsen screamed in shock. Spinning around, she dropped the dried food, the lid popping off the box and light brown and yellow circles and crosses spilling all over the polished wooden floor.
 
It looked like midgets were playing some obscure game of noughts and crosses.

"I didn't know Matthew had a cat?"
 
The look on Marguerite's face advertised in no uncertain terms she wasn't a cat-lover.

"He doesn't, he's mine."
 
She unlocked the deadlock and opened the door, to find Matt materialized on the doorstep.
 
Thank God, she thought, he could save her from a fate worse than death - his mother.

"Mother."

"Matthew."
 

Tamsen didn't understand the apparent lack of love between them. Why did Matt have her here if they so obviously disliked each other?
 

Marguerite almost looked through Tamsen. "And why, pray tell, has she brought an animal with her?"
 
Marguerite had an enviable, upper-class way of sounding spiteful while still managing to keep a pleasant expression.

"Tamsen's staying for a few days."
 
Matt sounded tired and Tamsen felt unexpectedly sorry for him.
 

"She simply can't.
 
I'm in the guest room."
 
Marguerite sucked in a breath and puffed out her chest, a superior smiled pasted on her face.
 

Tamsen lost patience with the up-herself social climber. "Not a worry." She picked up Azriel and strode past the unpleasant woman. "I'm in Matt's room with him."

"I'll be along with the bags in a minute, babe."
 
From the pain in Matt’s voice Tamsen knew it would be a long few days.

"Mother, why are you still here?"
 
Matt was exhausted.
 
The last thing he needed was a confrontation, but it looked as if he was going to have one anyway.

"I told you before you went to Melbourne with that...that..."

"Tamsen. Mother.
 
Her name is Tamsen." Anger boiled in his gut, a long, slow boil; it had been simmering all day and so far he'd kept it capped.
 
If his mother wasn't careful she’d would wear the lot.

"It's not worth me making the effort to remember that woman’s name, Matthew.
 
She's not you.
 
Now, Angie, she's your type.
 
I've spent a lot of time with her while I've been here and I think she's prepared to forgive you and come back."