Page 16 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

I probably had a better idea than she did. “No, ma’am.”

“It would be most inconvenient to my political ambitions. Imagine if they kept him in there?” She shivered. “Bentley would be all I had left.”

I smiled, because clearly this conversation was only about to get worse. “I have work to do, so I’ll just go back over there and do it . . . unless there was something else you wanted?”

“There was actually, Owen.”

Was that the first time she’d used my name?

“Did you find anything in the pool that morning?” she asked.

“What morning?”

“You know what morning, dear. The morning you left with Theo.”

“I didn’t actually leave with him, he stowed away—” I cut myself off when her eyes narrowed to slits. “Oh, yeah, that morning. Did I find anything in the pool? Hm . . . let me think.” I glanced at the pool, as though it could give up its secrets, even though the cops had already gone over it forensically. “I don’t think so. Was there anything specific you were looking for?” Like a ring?

“I see.” She sucked on her vape and eyed me carefully, rooting around in my soul with her pale gaze. I’d read somewhere that vampires could see souls, but I wasn’t sure if that was true or just another folklore rumor.

“Nothing at all?” she pressed.

“No, nope, don’t think so.”

“Alright, I’ll let you go back to your work.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” I headed back to the filter pit and kept my breathing slow. Inside, my heart thumped in my ears. Why hadn’t I told her about the ring? It seemed important that she not know. Like the ring being in the filter that morning was a clue she didn’t want me knowing about.

She watched me for a few more minutes, then headed inside, leaving the sliding door open behind her.

That morning, I’d found the ring, tucked it in my pocket, then forgotten about it while dealing with an emotionally unstable vampire playboy and finding a body next door. Was it somehow connected?

I stared at the pool with its calm turquoise water. It would have been easy for Geraldine to say the ring was hers, and for me to hand it back. So, either she didn’t know I’d found it, or she didn’t know what it was I’d found.

What did the ring have to do with the dead pool guy?

And why had Theo been trying to hurt himself on the lounger that morning? Was it just something he did on the regular, or had he been triggered? Did he know the pool boy who had died next door, and that was why he’d sent me over there? As a witness? A hundred bucks to go look at the neighbors’ pool, where there happened to be a dead body. Hm, that was pretty suspicious.

I believed him when he said he hadn’t done it. It wouldn’t have made sense for him to kill someone and then deliberately send me over there to show me the body. But something had prompted him to ask me to go see the neighbors’ pool, and it hadn’t been because he was bored.

“Not your problem, Owen.” I mumbled to myself.

I was keeping my head down and not getting involved.

“Beer?” Theo offered, appearing half an hour later, wearing wide-legged linen pants that hung low on his hips, almost like a skirt, and a tight white V-neck T-shirt. No shoes. Bare feet. Cute feet. He looked better than when I’d last seen him. His face was warmer, skin a little softer, more sun-kissed and less like a corpse. He held out the beer but hung back under the shade of the sail.

“I’m working,” I told him, then realized that sounded rude. “Thank you.”

Although, I had every right to be rude, after he’d had his fans mob me on social media. Which I was not going to mention.

Nothing to see here.

“Suit yourself.” He sat on the lounger, beer bottle dangling between his fingers.

I continued testing the water’s composition, using the colored bottles of chemicals for each one.

After another ten minutes, he asked, “What are you doing there?”

“My job.”