I hadn’t grown up on the stuff and thought most soda was god-awful, but it was one of Knox’s bribes of choice. I was also pretty sure he had a stockpile of weird Coke merch stashed around the house somewhere based on the pictures he’d posted in the past.
He was a borderline hoarder with some things but not about Pepsi.
Even if they seemed to be the exact same thing with different labels slapped on them.
“Houston, we have a problem.” But I didn’t think Knox would be any help in answering my questions, so I didn’t bother him as I went back to work finding at least part of the kitchen.
One more run to the recycling container in the garage and a load of dishes in the dishwasher made an incredible differenceand gave me several more questions I was still going to ignore. Making his kitchen usable and less stressful was the goal.
I’d figure out if he had gremlins later.
When I’d moved the clean laundry to the dryer and put in another load to be washed, I headed toward Knox’s office to see what he was up to. It’d been entirely too quiet, so it wouldn’t surprise me to see him playing naked solitaire with a deck of dirty cards, but he seemed to actually be working.
Hunched over his desk, he was scribbling into a notebook and mumbling to himself about fuckers and something about murder.
Since either that involved an elaborate plot to punish the gremlins in the house or he was working on a book, I headed back to the kitchen and studied the progress I’d made. It wasn’t anywhere near clean, but I could see half the room and knew where I was going to start next.
The random shit all over the house.
I was done with the never-ending dish pile for the moment, partly because dishes were terrible and partly because some of them didn’t seem to belong to Knox. He wasn’t a roses and vines kind of guy. He had some kind of stoneware that was in coordinating blue colors, but at least half the dishes in the kitchen didn’t match those in any way.
So it was time to get other things in order and make sure he didn’t have someone living in his attic that he didn’t know about.
I’d always thought those were just urban legends, but I was starting to realize that Knox was just the type of distracted homeowner who wouldn’t notice he had other people living with him.
I should’ve felt stupid searching the house as I randomly picked up shoes and books, but I didn’t. Unfortunately, it felt a bit too reasonable, and I was glad when I found the bottom ofthe foyer and there didn’t seem to be anyone living in the attic I’d found.
So where were the dishes coming from?
And why were there knickknacks in random places that didn’t look like anything Knox would bring home?
There was everything from knockoff plastic African masks that looked like someone had raided The Dollar Store to odd books on finding his inner goddess.
Knox was afind his inner alienkind of guy...inner demon, if he was drunk...so I started a box of random shit and set it in the corner of the living room once I cleared out the bubble wrap. “We’ll work on that another time.”
Once I’d figured out if he actually read goddess self-help books.
If he did, then I would start tackling the empty bookshelves in the random room upstairs that seemed to have been another guest room at one point. I had a feeling he’d forgotten about that project because the room wasn’t messy and it was almost a blank canvas.
Maybe the gremlins didn’t live upstairs?
Did he have a basement?
Fuck, he might’ve had a basement and had forgotten about it.
Heading back toward the kitchen, I methodically searched that part of the house and made sure to open every random door. I found a lot of closets but no basements and no weird strangers making messes and fucking with my distractible author.
I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or not.
On one hand, I was glad there wasn’t anyone else around—I didn’t want him to end up murdered in his sleep—but on the other, I wasn’t happy that my questions seemed to be growing. But I didn’t think Knox would be able to answer any of them.
He hadn’t even realized that he didn’t eat cereal.
Nope. We were not going to leave the mystery up to Knox to solve. He was busy planning murders and slightly fucked-up love scenes.
“What do you think about people who just won’t die?” Knox’s question didn’t make any sense at all as he rushed through the living room and glared at me like it was my fault he was dealing with the undead.
“That they’re vampires or immortal?” I wasn’t sure what the problem was or if my response was helpful or made me a smart-ass, but the second thing to pop into my head was that he needed a distraction. “Come here. We’re going to put that mouth to good use while you figure out the problem.”
