Page 58 of Just the Pool Boy at Vampire Mansion

And that was why I kept her over there and me over here, with an expanse of water between us. I smiled and continued working in the filter pit. Being visually devoured by an ancient vampire had not been in the job description.

“Are you afraid of me?” she asked.

“I’m aware of you, ma’am.”

She huffed at that. “You know, pool boy, I’m the least of all the beings in this world you should be scared of. If you knew the things I know, you’d never get a good night’s sleep again.”

“Yeah?” I picked up the net and began to scoop out the bits of floating debris. “Beings like your neighbors?” I asked, trying to sound casual. If she felt like talking, then maybe now would be a good time to find out if she knew anything about Jay’s death.

“Exactly like them.” She huffed a tinkling laugh again. “People are so afraid of vampires. They forget, we’re the ones who came out. We’re the least dangerous. It’s everything they don’t know that should terrify them.”

“You could tell us?”

She stared without blinking. “Boy, it’s been ten years since we came out and I still get holy water thrown at me on the sidewalk. If humans cannot handle us, they certainly can’t handle the others. There’d be a war, people would die, and I have far too much time and effort invested in my political position for it all to be washed down the drain because your tribal, mammalian brains can’t handle change.”

Wow, just so long as her career was safe, never mind the human race might not be the top of the food chain.

So, I knew the Briars weren’t human, and they weren’t vampires. They were something other. Something that clearly threatened vampires. I scooped the net into the water, toward a leaf, and watched it swirl on the surface. “Are the Briars connected to water in some way?”

“As far as I have deduced, the Briars are beings of the earth. There are multiple things they could be, Tylwyth Teg, Huldufólk, perhaps some old strain of Spriggan, but none quite fit. They are frustratingly private and clearly have a reason to hide what they are.”

I had no idea what any of those words meant, but the way Geraldine had pronounced them hinted at ancient and otherworldly things. “Have you always been neighbors?”

“The Witherborne Mansion has been on this site for two hundred years, in some form or another. Their hideous box house was built three years ago and is a blot of ink on Coconut Grove’s pristine canvas. It should never have been allowed. I petitioned against it. They must have had some sway over the city, though, because my petition was dismissed out of hand. I even invited the senior planning officer to tea and offered him a sum that should have made his eyes water, in a plain envelope, like a civilized person. He declined. Declined, and then had the audacity to report me, as though I were the one behaving badly. I was sorely tempted to eat him, and not in a way he would have enjoyed, but the police take such a dim view of that sort of thing, more’s the pity. I settled for reminding him that I had his home address and a great deal of free time. People are so terribly sensitive these days.”

I was beginning to see where Bentley got his murderous tendencies from. “What about⁠—”

“I have answered enough of your questions,” she snapped, cutting me off. “Now answer mine. Did you find something belonging to the previous pool boy in that filter?”

I stopped working and looked up. “I did. Yes. A ring.” She’d know if I lied to her face.

“Why didn’t you give it to me?”

“It’s not your property.”

“It’s not yours either.” She sighed. “Perhaps you should give it to Theo. It might improve his foul mood. He does miss his friend. There is more of Leander in that boy than I’ll ever admit publicly.” She sighed again. “He’s soft and too thoughtful. He should be more like Bentley.”

“Does Bentley even have thoughts?” I muttered.

“What did you say?”

“Nothing, ma’am.”

I hadn’t thought of giving the ring to Theo. I should have. Maybe it would help repair the damage I’d done.

I squinted over the pool at the Witherborne matriarch. Theo had admitted to being afraid of her more than the brother who routinely tried to kill him. She looked like a typical suburban businesswoman. And that was where her danger lay. Vampires were the perfect ambush hunters, camouflaged among us, and Geraldine was the perfect example of a vampire at its peak. I’d do well to remember she wasn’t as friendly as she was currently behaving.

“How did Jay’s ring get in this filter, Mrs. Witherborne?” I asked.

“Perhaps he merely dropped it in the pool while working? It’s certainly not a stretch, is it?”

“On the morning he was murdered? Do you believe that?”

“Boy . . .” She sighed.

“I’m twenty-three,” I told her. “Not really a boy.”

“You are all children to me.” She sighed again. “As for the ring and Jay Green? I think that coming out made us targets, and once you are out, you cannot go back in, ever again.”