Dead is the New Black

  DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK

  Marianne Stillings

  “Marianne Stillings is now firmly planted on my auto-buy list—

  the first and only romantic suspense author there.”

  —All About Romance

  STRANGER—AND SEXIER

  —THAN FICTION

  Broke and desperate, failed romance author Stephanie Scott reluctantly accepts a position as a live-in housekeeper…to a Vampire. The very handsome Dr. Jonathan Van Graf, owner of Moonrise Manor, has sworn not to harm Stephanie, and he offers room and board to her ailing mother as well. And those eyes, those gorgeous blue eyes….

  But the mansion is a crazy place populated by stranger things than the undead, including a Morticia Addams lookalike named Leech and a film crew making a docudrama to show the world that Vampires are just regular folks. Except, one of them is murdered the same day Steph and her mom move in. When bite marks appear on someone Stephanie cares about, she finds herself thrust into a real whodunit, or a who’s-sucking-on-whom. Is it possible Dr. Van Graf is everything she feared…or is he the hero she’s never dared to create in her novels?

  DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK

  Marianne Stillings

  www.BOROUGHSPUBLISHINGGROUP.com

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, business establishments or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. Boroughs Publishing Group does not have any control over and does not assume responsibility for author or third-party websites, blogs or critiques or their content.

  DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK

  Copyright © 2015 Marianne Gilmore

  Smashwords Edition

  All rights reserved. Unless specifically noted, no part of this publication may be reproduced, scanned, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of Boroughs Publishing Group. The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or by any other means without the permission of Boroughs Publishing Group is illegal and punishable by law. Participation in the piracy of copyrighted materials violates the author’s rights.

  ISBN 978-1-942886-17-4

  To Kristine Cayne, Charlotte Russell, Sherri Shaw, Dawn Kravagna, Shannon O'Brien, KL Mullens, and Clare Tisdale—the most talented, caring, professional, fun, funny, and simply wonderful writing group on Earth. I love you all to pieces.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  DEAD IS THE NEW BLACK

  Chapter 1

  “Beggars can’t be choosers. Beggars can’t be choosers. Beggars cannot be choosers, dammit!” I all but snarled Mom’s oft-quoted mantra to my reflection in the rearview mirror.

  I felt my eyes sting and quickly blinked away the tears.

  My throat closed. Chin dipped. I let my shoulders droop. I could repeat Beggars can’t be choosers a thousand times and it still wouldn’t be enough to overcome the shame and humiliation.

  At the age of thirty-five, my life was a shambles—bank account empty, credit cards maxed, no job, nothing of value left to sell, a sick mom who needed constant care, and a dog with mailman issues. My house was in the final phase of foreclosure and I had to be out by the end of the week. I’d already sent my teenaged twins, Kimmie and Jace, to go live temporarily with their dad and his “new and improved” wife. At least until I got on my feet again, I hoped, before Christmas.

  Oh, that reminds me, the dog went, too.

  Any way you sliced it, I was up the creek without a paddle. I needed a job—any job that paid any amount of money. Now. Today. At this point, I was prepared to claim expertise in whatever undertaking a potential employer might require of me.

  Lying is wrong, except when you’re applying for a job. Looking for work changes civilized rules of behavior, and while a responsible applicant might never tell a lie under normal circumstances, in a job interview, lies are called “skill set enhancements” and are accompanied with either a straight face or an ingratiating smile.

  Unless the job necessitated performing open-heart surgery or anything involving higher math (such as calculating my own retirement age), you could usually get away with it.

  Can you juggle coconuts?

  Yes. Five at a time with one hand tied behind my back.

  Can you perform a somersault off the high dive?

  Yes. My mother was an Olympic gold medalist.

  Can you tune an engine?

  Yes. My father was Mario Andretti.

  Are you willing to relocate to Farflungistan?

  Yes. My grandmother was born there. I am fluent in Farflungish.

  As far as I knew, the housekeeping job I was on my way to interview for required none of those aptitudes, but it never hurt to be ready, just in case.

  Approaching an intersection, my GPS instructed me to turn at the next corner. I did, after which it claimed I was, “Arriving at destination, on right.”

  I slammed on the brake, jolting to a hard stop as my skull bounced against my headrest.

  Destination turned out to be an enormous iron gate. The accompanying fence to which it was attached disappeared on either side into lithe willow branches and whitewashed birch. Pine trees rose high overhead, poking the inky October sky with sharp needles, while gnarled mahogany-skinned manzanita clung to their trunks like frightened gnomes.

  I studied the gate. No call box, no button to push, nothing to give me a clue on how to proceed. The agency hadn’t said anything about a ten-foot iron fence or how I was to get through it. As I reached for my cell phone, the gate began sliding open; not like the Red Sea, split down the middle, but to the side, like a stiff living room curtain made of rusty metal bars. The mechanism grated and groaned as though it hadn’t been opened since Heck was a pup—as my mom would say. Nothing a little WD-40 wouldn’t fix.

  The gate, not my mom.

  The atmosphere was creepy, especially given the nature of my potential employer, one Dr. Jonathan Van Graf. According to the agency, just knowing who this Van Graf guy was—rather, what he was—had apparently been enough to keep most applicants away.

  But desperation is a mighty force that turns cowards into cowards-pretending-to-be-brave-but-who-are-still-really-cowards, and that was me, Stephanie Scott, in a nutshell.

  Assuming the house must be around the corner just ahead, I slowly drove through the gate. Immediately, the iron bars squeaked closed behind me.

  All righty, then. I was in. I peered through my windshield at the predatory-looking vegetation. Boy, this place sure was out in the boonies. I felt goose bumps tighten my skin, and though the day was on the chilly side, it wasn’t the weather that had caused them.

  As soon as I rounded the next curve, the road began to rise sharply. I forged ahead, up and around, and up again, curving left, then right, until finally, I was nearly at the top. One last curve and there it was…the house. Ostensibly, I hoped, my new place of employment.

  The thought made me a little queasy.

  In my brain, theremin music began to play, high-pitched and ominous…

  Hold your horses right there. Theremin music? you ask, as well you might. Yes. The theremin was an electronic musical device patented in 1928 and named after its Russian inventor, Léon Theremin. Its creepy, squeaky sound was all the rage in B-grade sci-fi and monster
flicks.

  See, when you’re a writer—even a washed-up has-been such as myself—you pick up a lot of useless information, knowledge of the theremin being one of the more obscure facts I have vying for space inside my storage-shed brain.

  I shook my head, but the eerie music remained. Its high-pitched whine played on like a sound track to my life as a telephone conversation from a year ago played out in my mind, in spite of my efforts to stop it.

  “I love it, Stephanie. It’s the best thing you’ve ever written. Really, it’s just fabulous, absolutely wonderful.”

  My agent, Raymond Basil of Basil, Basil, and Basil Literary Agents—Ray was the second Basil—didn’t display this level of zeal when his horse came in at Pimlico paying ten to one.

  “Methinks thou dost extol too much, Ray,” I said dryly. “Sounds to me like you have a big but.”

  Ray chuckled. “Too true, but I was hoping Jenny Craig would take care of that.” More hee-hawing and a slight snort.

  I tried to keep a tight rein on my fear of abandonment. Even though I’d published ten Debby Destiny, Private Eye novels, there were no guarantees future manuscripts would enjoy the same fate.

  Ray cleared his throat as if readying himself to sing the national anthem…naked.

  “Uh, well, Steph,” he hemmed, “um, see, as good as the manuscript is,” he hawed, “and it is good. The thing is, Prescott Publishing is going to take a pass on this one. They asked me to tell you that they wish you well, and the best of luck in your, you know, writing career…in the future…for some other, uh, publisher.”

  I clutched the phone to my ear while the silence that followed Ray’s proclamation reverberated through my body. My brain continued to function, but only to keep involuntary vital systems going—vision, respiration, digestion. But my synapses, instead of firing, fizzled.

  I tried to swallow the salty tears and bitter bile clogging my throat. It took several attempts, but by the time I was ready to speak, all I could manage was, “Why?”

  “Okay, here’s the deal, hon. P.P. will be flowing in a different direction. They’re planning to target younger readers looking for a quick pace with lots of sex, which means they are buying authors who write hot, intense, deep, sexy manuscripts.”

  “I can do that,” I squeaked. “Can’t they let me—?”

  “The truth of the matter is, hon,” he interrupted. “P.P. felt your sales numbers weren’t as strong as they’d’ve liked, and they’re dropping you.”

  Numbers. I know what numbers are. They’re dollars. The bottom line was The Bottom Line; I didn’t make enough money for Prescott. I had a loyal readership, a nice following, wonderful fans…just not enough of them to pull down the big bucks.

  I pressed on. “Just how flat is this market of which you speak?”

  “Think of an envelope without a royalty check in it.”

  “Oh.” It was an image not only graphic, but painful.

  Just that quick, stage three on the grief chart, aka bargaining, kicked in, and I whined, “What if I rewrite number eleven and make it hotter and hipper? I can retitle it…how about, uh, I don’t know…um…”

  As I desperately grappled with a new concept that would keep me published, Ray said softly, “The market has changed, hon. You need to get with the times.”

  “Okay, Ray,” I said, keeping my voice steady. “What should I write?”

  “If you want to stay published, Steph,” he offered, “you’re going to have to update your style, basically reinvent yourself. A new manuscript. Conflicted characters. Lots of sex and maybe a torture scene or two. Rough, raw…a gruesome killing, lots of blood, more sex. Bigger, broader, deeper. And more sex, of course. Sort of a cross between No Country for Old Men and Friends. Even better, a vampire story.”

  I tried mentally to mesh those concepts. When my eyes rolled back in my head and my brain began to convulse, I gave up.

  Ray interrupted my seizure with, “Do you know anything about vampires?”

  “I do. My ex-husband was a bloodsucking bastard.”

  Ray sighed. “Steph, if you want to continue being published, you need to write a sexy vampire story.”

  “Vampire stories are stupid,” I snapped, aghast at the very idea. “I hate them. Besides, vampires aren’t real. Who believes in that crap?”

  “Everyone. Vampires are real, Steph,” Ray said patiently. “And vampire stories sell like hotcakes.”

  “Well I’ll never write one,” I vowed. “It’ll be a cold day in hell when I so much as cross paths with a vampire.”

  As my own words echoed inside my skull, I blinked, sending my reverie back into the past. I looked around. I’d parked my car and now sat staring out the windshield at the snow falling all around me.

  How long had I been sitting there? How long had it been snowing?

  Before me, past towering pines and leather-leafed shrubs, a hundred stone steps led up the hill to an enormous house. Dr. Van Graf’s mansion. It glared down at me through the white swirls like a black mood.

  I tugged my coat closer around my body as I stepped out of my car onto the cement drive. A sharp wind bit at my cheeks, and I shoved my hands into my coat pockets.

  “It’ll be a cold day…”

  I shuddered at the memory.

  That day had arrived, and it was cold. Very cold indeed.

  Chapter 2

  Standing at the bottom of the stone steps, I gazed up at the house.

  The architecture of the three-story mansion had a 1920s feel to it, but its exact style was difficult to define.

  I tilted my head and narrowed one eye. Hm. Then I narrowed the other eye. Ah, better.

  From where I stood, the place looked like the Winchester Mystery House had collapsed onto a dilapidated English manor and been rebuilt by nearsighted Neanderthals using the blueprint for Hogwarts.

  Having said that, the place was amazingly not unattractive, consisting of dark half timbers, turrets, leaded windows, red brick, and white plaster. Spires and chimneys jutted up in odd places.

  Though trepidation was screaming for me to turn and run, I began taking the steps one at a time, past a rose garden—now just sticks and thorns as autumn blew its way toward winter.

  When I reached the massive oak door, I raised my hand to knock, but before I had a chance, it squeaked open, revealing a sort of…woman person.

  Her skin was pale as milk (but not like whole milk, thick and creamy; more like nonfat, watery and a little blue). Her Angelina Jolie lips were stained a congealed ruby, while her dark hair, parted in the middle, hung straight down her back. The ankle-length satiny dress she wore was black (what, you were expecting maybe a yellow-checkered summer pinafore?).

  I gaped. I couldn’t help it. I opened my mouth to speak; she beat me to it.

  “You ran-n-ng?” she drawled, totally deadpan, sort of like Miss Transylvania on barbiturates. My lashes fluttered and I nearly backed away, and then I stopped myself. Halloween was next week; maybe she was practicing or something.

  I ignored that I had not rung or knocked or yelled or coughed, and simply said, “Hi.”

  Her shiny black eyes studied me.

  “I’m Stephanie Scott,” I added quickly. “I have a nine o’clock appointment with Dr. Van Graf. It’s about the housekeeper position?”

  Woman Person raised her head and nodded, then literally looked down her aquiline nose at me.

  “I…,” she announced in her sonorous voice, “…am Leech.”

  Of course you are, I thought. I would have dropped dead on the spot if her name had been Sally Sunshine or Felicity Happy Pants.

  “You may call me…Leech. Der dock-tor is in der shhh-tudy.” She stepped back, allowing me passage into the cavernous foyer. Closing the door, she turned to face me. Hands clasped over her concave stomach, she droned, “He is ex-peckting you.”

  The phrase He vants to drink your blood ran through my head, but I cast it aside as being silly and immature. I had nothing to fear. This was simply a job in
terview. Sure, an interview with the vampire—hmm, that might make a good book title—but the agency had promised I would be in no danger. I was letting the rumors, the location, the mansion, and the Leech get to me. I needed a job. Best to focus on that.

  Again, theremin music curled around my eardrums, and I resolved that if my potential employer did show the least sign of being thirsty, I was so out of there.

  As Leech led me through the first floor of the house, I couldn’t help but notice how normal it looked. Yeah, it was a little shadowy, a little dusty, the windows needed washing, and the carpets could use a good vacuuming. Perhaps the slightly unkempt state of the place was the reason the old doctor needed a new-and-improved housekeeper?

  Oil paintings, the size of which approached the square footage of Delaware, and a variety of faded, threadbare medieval tapestries adorned the walls. Palm trees and ferns set in gigantic ceramic pots reached for the high-beamed ceiling, giving the room an unexpectedly airy, welcoming feeling—unlike my guide who gave me the impression I had interrupted her at feeding time.

  We turned a corner into a long, long (taking in a mental deep breath), lon-n-n-ng hallway lined with gilt-framed oils—ancestral portraits, I assumed. At the end of the wide gallery stood an ornately carved mahogany door.

  Without facing me, Leech lowered her head, knocked three times, and slowly pronounced, “She is here, Herr Dock-tor.”

  What, not Herr Master?

  I swallowed a nervous laugh as I imagined an elderly bespectacled physician with a magnificent silvery coif.

  Though no response was forthcoming from the study, Leech turned to me. “Vait here.”

  I muttered a thank-you to her narrow back as she proceeded to retrace her steps down the corridor, then vanished around the corner. I didn’t hear the flap of bat wings, so I assume she didn’t morph into a creature of the night once she disappeared from view.

  “I hope she didn’t scare you.”

  While I’d been musing over Leech’s true nature—Homo sapiens vs. Chiroptera—the door had silently opened.