“I sent an associate to pay her off. For her silence and misplacement of certain paperwork,” Robert said. “She was eager to destroy Liz’s file regardless. I imagine it’s rather embarrassing for someone in her profession to lose a body.”
Liz said, “And who would believe her, anyway, if she were to tell the truth? A body rose from the dead and tried to attack her? They’d think she’d lost the plot.”
I asked, “But what about the police and David? Everyone thinks Liz was murdered.”
Robert shrugged. “This is San Francisco, Olivia. The police have enough murders on their hands to deal with. And the persistent officers can always be bought like the medical examiner.” He didn’t add that they could also be killed by less principled vampires who would rather silence them forever than deal with bribing a human.
“And David?”
“I called him,” Liz said. “He’s on his way over here now. He doesn’t know that I’ve turned vampire. He was shocked enough to find out that I was still alive. Alive-ish. We thought it would be better to tell him in person.”
“What about your parents?” I asked. “Don’t they think you’re dead?”
She shook her head. “The police haven’t gotten in touch with them yet, with them being overseas. I already called them with a cover story about mistaken identity. I told them they should ignore all calls from the police.”
“How long have you been here?” I asked Liz.
“Not long. Thankfully, Robert and Carl showed up, or else I don’t know what I would have done.”
“I came here looking for you, Olivia,” Robert said. “I would have come sooner, but I had to wait for the sun to set.”
“I’m sorry that I accused you of being a killer,” I told him.
He shook his head, smiled. “It’s in the past. Let’s focus on our future.”
Blubbering harder, I squeezed my arms tightly around Liz again, almost expecting her to dissolve into thin air. Robert came over and sat at my other side, and suddenly I was being gently rocked in four vampire arms. Liz assured me that she was okay, that we’d figure everything out. She was kindhearted like that. It was ridiculous, her comforting me, when she was the one who’d been murdered and awakened in the morgue as a vampire.
I sat back and studied my best friend’s gorgeous face, which looked like a painting come to life. She looked different but also the same in a vague sort of way, like a sister or cousin of her former self.
She raised her eyebrows. “What is it?”
“This new hairstyle,” I blurted. “It suits you.”
33
For the weeks that followed, Liz handled her transition into vampirism with her usual brand of gutsiness and enthusiasm. The girl could not be ruffled, no matter what immortal life threw at her. Luckily, she also had help.
As she adjusted to her changeover, she called Robert at all hours of the night with every question a new vampire could possibly have: How often should she consume blood? Could she drink from an animal in a pinch? Would David turn into a vampire if she bit him? How long would it take her to burst into flames if she went outside—like would she have enough time to quickly grab something she’d forgotten in the car?
She’d scored a job as a hairdresser at Dignitary, where she styled vampire and decoy hair for special occasions. She loved her new career and her new boss, Michael. She didn’t mind Marlena too much, either. They’d even gone out to Crimson together for a couple drinks.
David, who’d had the shock of his life when he walked in the apartment to find his murdered girlfriend sitting on the sofa talking and laughing like it was any other day, had also taken everything in stride. He’d been so overjoyed to get Liz back that her being a vampire seemed inconsequential. According to Liz, he was so superstitious about the whole thing that he feared she might be taken away from him again if he asked too many questions.
Their relationship strengthened after Liz moved into the little house David had bought for them as a surprise. She’d been there for only a week when they got engaged. As a housewarming present, Robert had a lightproof sleeping chamber installed in their home so the happy couple could share the same bed.
Liz and David weren’t the only ones to have started cohabitating. I’d moved in with Robert the same night we discovered Liz was a vampire. A hasty, knee-jerk decision for sure—and if Tilly had been alive, she would have said things with Robert and me were moving way too fast—but when it’s right with a man, you just know it. Regardless, we were taking things day-by-day.
Life was perfect for once, which was strange. My best friend was alive (sort of), I had an amazing man, and my job as a decoy made me happy. I was so accustomed to struggling that I started to get suspicious when things finally started to go my way. Still, one day at a time was perfectly alright with me
34
James, my vampire client for the evening, brought back two drinks from the bar, both filled with crimson liquid. The “rocks” in his snifter were gelatinous cubes of plasma. How they got the blood to do that was beyond me, but I really didn’t want to know.
He presented me a glass of wine with flourish, flaunting it like a magician who’d just pulled a bunny out of a hat. “Olivia, you’re in luck,” he twinkled. “They have soil!”
I was glad that I was being paid to hang out with James. Decoying for him was a task as painful as getting a bikini wax on sunburn. Though attractive in a bad boy kind of way, he was so awfully uninteresting that he made Bloody Hell, the edgy British rock-themed nightclub he’d taken me to, as fun as hanging out at the DMV. If he was this boring as a vampire, I kept thinking, he must have been downright tedious as a human.
“Huh?”
