Page 19 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

put garlic in his smoothie

I sent back. Then followed it with,

I’m sleeping go away

slpeeing alone?

he sent, including the spelling errors. He’d sent it fast, without thinking.

I smiled, and let that message sit on read, unanswered.

For the rest of the night, I slept really well.

The following day, I had chores to run, but no work booked in. I ate breakfast standing at my kitchen counter and scrolled my phone for news about the Witherborne pool murder. Theo had known the victim. I wanted to find out how and why.

The internet had done its own sleuthing, and it didn’t take long to find a bunch of threads on the case. The victim, Jay Green, had been employed for a year as the Witherbornes’ pool guy. He’d also done some ground maintenance work, caring for the gardens, and general odd jobs around the house. Thirty years old. His social media was filled with smiley pictures. He’d travelled in his van, was often on the road. Had a girlfriend but they’d separated a while ago.

Just some normal guy living his life.

But someone had wanted him gone. And now Theo had been arrested for his murder, then released without being charged.

How had Jay ended up in the neighbors’ pool, where I’d seen him, and then in Theo’s? Theo hadn’t moved him, he’d been with me. The Witherbornes wouldn’t have moved a body into their own pool. So, that left the neighbor.

Jeremy in his black robe.

Was he trying to frame the Witherbornes? It would be easy to do. People would believe a vampire had killed the pool boy.

But why would the neighbor kill the Witherbornes’ pool guy?

Or maybe it had nothing to do with either of them, and Jay was involved in something shady that got him killed. I scrolled Jay’s Facebook page, passing the hundreds of grieving messages, pictures with his girl, backpacking on a mountain somewhere, walking a dog in the sunset . . . I propped my head on my hand. What if Jay had had someone in his life who he’d thought he cared for, who he’d trusted completely, trusted with his heart, and then that person had turned on him? He wouldn’t have seen it coming. You think you know someone and then bam! The whole world turns on its head.

Maybe that’s what happened to Jay the pool guy?

I could relate.

The cops were on it. They’d get to the bottom of it . . . But sometimes justice didn’t work like it was supposed to. Sometimes the victim didn’t get the justice they deserved.

Justice wasn’t going to bring Jay back anyway. And it was well known that the cops generally didn’t know what to do with vampires.

I closed the apps and pulled up Theo’s text chain.

The “sorry,” the “UV bulb,” the “are you sleeping alone?”

He’d cared about Jay. He’d revealed that much when he’d walked away without answering me. I had no idea how deep that care went, but he’d cared enough that it had cracked him open. He’d known Jay’s body was in the neighbors’ pool. He’d paid me to go see it, so he had a witness.

If I hadn’t shown up for work that morning, maybe Theo would have let himself die on that lounger?

“You saved my life,” he’d told me after I brought him back to my place.

I’d laughed him off, thinking him dramatic.

But why hadn’t he called the cops himself? Afraid of vampire discrimination, maybe. I dragged a hand down my face and looked at the generic wall art I’d bought off Amazon to break up my apartment’s boring beige walls.

I was the new pool guy, so it made sense to dig a little deeper, right? Survival instinct, really. I needed to know what was going on here, so I didn’t end up face down in the neighbors’ pool too.

I set the phone’s alarm for two p.m., then got on with my chores, filling half the day with tedium. At two p.m., I was at the hardware store when my phone alarm went off. I stopped in the aisle, slipped my phone from my pocket, and opened Theo’s text chain.

I’m in the paint aisle, what are your thoughts on beige?