Once Bitten, No Longer Shy by Julie Steimle (chrome ebook reader txt) 📕

a hand and shook Bobo’s rather quickly, hardly noticing anything strange about it. Perhaps Bobo gave what was given to him.

They all took their seats. Bobo sat next to Troy.

“Can I start the meeting with an announcement?” he said.

They all turned their attention on him.

“Ok, first off… uh, I have to let you all know I am currently a suspect under police investigation. My friend Robert Lafon is here… kind of as a, uh, watch dog.” Troy shook his head, looking to the ground. “To keep track of me.”

They stared, stunned. All of three of them. Bobo cringed but nodded.

“I, uh, tried to bring it up earlier, so I’ll just start over.” Troy drew in a breath, steeling up the strength to get it out. “Brandon Turner was found dead—”

All three men stared, gasps escaping, all three watching Troy with wider eyes—Cameron most especially.

“I don’t know the details.” Troy shook his head. “Only that I am their prime suspect.”

“Why you?” Steve asked.

Mr. Lenox nodded.

Cameron cringed, though, getting it quickly.

“You three must know by now that, uh, Nicole and I have hooked up. And… well, I caught Brandon sexually harassing her at a party—”

“My bad.” Bobo raised a hand. “It was a party at our place. I threw it, and somehow it attracted him and… who else?”

Troy inwardly groaned, closing his eyes. He counted. “I had returned with Nicole when the party was in full swing. After when I went looking for you on the roof, I went back in and found that those three guys, who apparently crash parties together—even after their biting—and also Alexandra. She was there. But anyway, when I came in I caught Brandon harassing Nicole, and I dealt with it.”

Bobo coughed, nodding. He had a hard time hiding the smirk as he knew the events afterward.

“Point is, Brandon was alive yesterday at our noon meeting in the park,” Troy said. “Nicole wasn’t. She was with family. I have an alibi. But the police think that I hunted Brandon down and drank his blood yesterday sometime between three in the afternoon to ten in the evening.”

“There would have been a one-hour window for Troy to have done what they say he had done,” Bobo said.

“But in that hour I was traveling from Dr. McAllister’s office to my apartment, in the daylight,” Troy said.

“So of course you didn’t do it,” Steve said, breathing more easily.

The other two exchanged looks.

“Was walking in daylight your proof?” Cameron asked.

Troy nodded. “Basically.”

“If he drank blood, he would not be able to abide the sun,” Steve said with a firm nod.

“The police may come by to talk to you,” Troy said. He then looked to Steve, “Is there any possibility that Brandon was tracked by those vampires who had bit them at the party?”

Bobo listened intently as Steve replied thoughtfully, “It would not surprise me. You’re still thinking about motive, right? What person would hunt a bitten man down and drain him?”

“What did the police think your motive was?” Mr. Lenox asked.

“Nicole,” Troy said frankly. “But what good would attacking him do me? Or her? Matthew and JJ were setting up a sexual harassment case, backed, by the way, by Deacon family lawyers. You couldn’t do better than that. Brandon was legally screwed. All I had to do was sit back and watch.”

Cameron’s eyes widened more. Mr. Lenox thought on it and shook his head. But Steve laughed, nodding.

Bobo raised a hand. “Do any of you know who would want to see Brandon Turner dead?”

Mr. Lenox and Steve quickly shook their heads, but Cameron peeked to Troy before saying, “The guy was an ass. But except for the last motive, which the cops clearly think about Troy, no.”

And that was it.

There wasn’t much else they wanted to discuss. Cameron had good news to report, but with Troy’s bad news, he was not so enthusiastic. It was job related anyway.

“I’ll be working in the cruise industry, singing,” he said. “So I’ll be leaving you.” He then looked to Troy. “You will have that website up, though, right?”

“It’s nearly done,” Bobo said.

Mr. Lenox looked to him, surprised.

But Troy chimed in. “Yeah, it is nearly done. Bobo is an assistant with Deacon Enterprises, so he knows the ins and outs of our group.”

“Did he replace Art?” Mr. Lenox said. Then to Bobo, “No disrespect to you, but he seemed a solid, hardworking sort of man. I liked him.”

Troy inwardly cringed. Of course Mr. Lenox liked him. Everybody liked the stiff. ‘Such a good boy.’

Steve nudged Troy with a chuckle, which Mr. Lenox saw. Yet he said to Bobo, “So you work intimately with the Deacons then?”

Casually, Bobo nodded. “Yes. I want to be Rick Deacon’s bodyguard, but he won’t let me.”

They all stared now, except for Troy who had heard this already. He was getting tired of it, actually.

“Why won’t he let you?” Cameron asked.

“Why do you want to be his bodyguard?” Steve asked.

Troy groaned then gestured to Mr. Lenox that he needed to talk to him after the meeting. Mr. Lenox nodded.

“Rick Deacon needs a bodyguard,” Bobo said pointedly to Steve, almost as a challenge.

“That he does,” Troy muttered.

“But why won’t he let you?” Cameron asked again.

To him, Bobo said, “He doesn’t like to see his friends get hurt.”

That was true. Even if Bobo only felt the pain, but did not get the damage, he hated to see them hurt.

As soon as the meeting broke up, Troy stepped aside with Mr. Lenox, thinking quickly as he handed him the cross Mrs. Lenox had given him to pass on. He whispered, “I was thinking. You said your wife was religious. Now, I know crosses only have significance to those who believe in them. Otherwise it is just a shape. So, I was thinking, if you wore this the next skype call you make to your wife and kids, you can show her that you at least have some solidarity toward her. You know, support her.”

He handed Mr. Lenox the cross.

But when it rested in the man’s hands, Mr. Lenox’s eyes widened on it with horror. He whipped his gaze up to Troy and almost grabbed the back of his head by his short hairs, hissing, “Where did you get this?”

“I bought it,” Troy lied.

“No, you didn’t!” the man hissed out. “This belongs to my wife! You went to my house! You put them in danger!”

Moaning, pulling from him, Troy, jerked back to face him. “Fine! I did. I had to find out if this whole separation is actually all you’ve got. Dr. McAllister swears that—”

“I told you not to interfere!” Mr. Lenox shouted.

The others stared.

“I don’t want to lose my wife!” Mr. Lenox’s face seemed whiter.

Shouting back, Troy bared his fangs. “You already lost her! You’ve lied to her and your kids! I just wanted to find out if you really could not come home. And she told me to tell you to wear that damn thing at the next skype call! Or else! She thinks vampires can’t wear crosses!”

“You told her what I had become!”

“No! I didn’t! I said you had some kind of condition, a disease like leprosy! Ok?” Troy huffed, teeth aching. “I just wanted to help you! Get you out in the sun! So you’d stop living in fear!”

“I don’t need your help!” Mr. Lenox looked likely to bite him.

But Troy stepped back, tossing up his hands, giving up. He turned to go.

“You have to stop meddling!” Mr. Lenox shouted after him.

Turning back around, Troy said, “I hardly meddled at all. I was just following doctor’s orders.”

“Dr. McAllister told you to see my wife?” The man looked murderous now.

“No,” Troy said. “But his sister the vimp said I should try to think outside myself and help people.”

“The what?” Mr. Lenox deflated a little, yet stood back from him.

“My… guardian angel.” Troy shook his head. “Only she’s somewhere in Africa now, being chased by Hanz….” He looked to Bobo. “Let’s go.”

Bobo nodded, waving goodbye to Cameron whom he had regaled him with a short story about his childhood in New Orleans. They both stepped to the door. Steve following them.

“The vimp?” Steve said, almost on Troy’s heels.

Troy nodded. “Yeah. She was the angel that…” He sighed, shaking his head. He just wanted to get home. Maybe call Randon, or Nicole. She would be at her home that night. Late shift at work.

“The vimp became a death angel?” Steve asked.

Troy nodded. Then he closed one eye and asked, “You know about her?”

“I saw the last one,” Steve said.

Troy and Bobo halted.

“He was a beast.” Steve nodded to them. “Crazy how this generation’s vimp has become an angel. It truly must be the End Days.”

Steve parted from them as soon as they were outside.

As Troy and Bobo rode back to their apartment via the subway, Bobo asked, “What is a vimp?”

For a moment, Troy was startled by the question, as nearly everyone he knew knew what a vimp was. But of course Bobo would not know, so Troy explained what had been explained to him by Dr. McAllister. Bobo was enthralled, as were a few listeners-in on the subway car. The person next to them thought they were discussing a fiction novel, and before he got off, asked where he could buy the book.

“It was on loan,” Troy said, shrugging with a peek to Bobo. “I don’t know the author.”

As they rode further, Bobo said, “Isn’t it funny how people only believe what their minds can hold? They just dismiss everythin’ else out of hand, don’t they.”

Chucking, Troy nodded.

“Too true,” a crystal wearing hippie across the way said, nodding, a copy of the latest Electricity comic book in her hands.

Bobo and Troy exchanged glances then chuckled.

After another stretch, nearer to their stop, Bobo asked, “What was that you and Mr. Lenox were arguing about?”

Such a groan escaped Troy, one he had not meant to escape. But he said, “I was trying to see if I could help him go back to his family. The man is so scared of sunlight and all that, thinking his wife will reject him if she saw what he was. So I wanted to see if it was true.”

Bobo stared. “That is kinda nosy.”

“I know,” Troy nodded wearily. “I normally wouldn’t have done it. I’m not usually a busybody, but… I just wanted to help him. Being with Nicole kind of made me realize how lonely and empty he must have been feeling. How much he must miss her and his kids.”

“He probably just doesn’t want to hurt them,” Bobo said.

Troy nodded. “Yeah, but the appetite is easy to curb if you’ve never tasted any blood.”

“But what if he has?” Bobo asked. He then lowered his voice even deeper. “What if the real killer was in that group and he just pretended he hadn’t killed Brandon?”

A shiver went up Troy’s back. “No way. Mr. Lenox wouldn’t.”

Shrugging it off, Bobo said, “Alright, but what about the other two? That Steve is a blood-drinker. And he nearly hypnotized me. You’re right about me not being up to snuff against that. I’ll have to figure out a way to combat it. But the guy, are you so sure—”

“I’m not sure of anything,” Troy said, but somehow it just did not feel right. “Except what’s their motive?”

“Easy target?” Bobo said. “That guy Cameron didn’t have anythin’ nice to say about that Brandon.”

Troy rolled his eyes. “Oh please. Very few in the group liked him, even his so-called friends. I’ve heard them bad mouth him.”

“Maybe the motive is hunger,” Bobo said. He patted Troy on the shoulder. “You know vampires don’t need much more motive than that.”

 That was a truism. Troy could not deny it. Vampires killed for the pure joy of it. They enjoyed carnage as much as they did sex.

“And they could blame it on you,” Bobo added.

Stiffening, Troy shuddered. That part felt real. Someone was trying to frame him.