Dead is the New Black

By Marianne Stillings

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?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Boroughs Publishing Group
• Release date: Apr 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9781942886174

Marianne Stillings

Marianne Stillings has loved stories with happy endings since she was three years old and her mother read her The Little Golden Book of The Ugly Duckling. Originally from California, these days she lives in the Pacific Northwest, where she’s the single mom of two fantastic daughters, and where she takes shelter from the rain by writing happy endings of her own.

Book preview

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