“Because…”
Because she hadn’t wanted to be alone. Because the cyclone came when she was undistracted.
Her phone dinged.
“The pool guy is here.” Saved by the pool guy. “I’ll be right back.”
She headed outside and was surprised when Jack followed her.
“Oh, yeah,” Cody, the pool guy, said the moment she let him in the gate. “Algae bloom. This isn’t normal. Pretty much the only way this could have happened since my last visit is if someone sabotaged it.”
“Sabotage!”
“Let me have a look.” He squatted down and examined the water, did some fiddling with vials and chemicals, and eventually said, “We’re going to have to drain it and start over.”
“Who is sabotaging my pool?” Blair exclaimed. She looked at Jack.
He held his hands up. “You honestly think I’m sabotaging your pool?”
Of course she didn’t. “Maybe it’s your crows, though.”
“They’re smart, but they’re not that smart.”
“It’s usually an enemy of some sort,” Cody said. “Ex-spouse who still has a key?”
“I do have an ex-spouse who has a key, but I’m ninety-nine percent certain he’s not the culprit.”
“Disgruntled neighbor?” Cody said. “That’s another common one.”
Blair looked at Jack again, and his face told her they were thinking the same thing.
“But how would she even do it?” Blair asked.
Jack turned to Cody. “What do you put into a pool that does this?”
“Oil, gas, fertilizer.”
“Hang on.”
Jack proceeded to tell a story about Mrs. Afonso asking him to carry a bag of fertilizer from her porch to her backyard. “But how would she get it into the pool?” he finished. “She couldn’t even lift the bag. I don’t see her getting it over the fence.”
“I would have agreed with you, but she does seem to be able to levitate.” Blair was kidding. Mostly. “Maybe she got someone else to do it?”
“But wouldn’t the cameras have notified you in real time? Like that time we saw her when we were watching TV?”
“You’d think. I’m going to call the security company.”
Later that night, after talking to the security company, Blair called Tiffany. “You remember when we used to get invited to Harold Hostra’s Christmas caroling parties?”
“Oh my God, yes. There wasn’t enough alcohol in the world for those parties. But also, why don’t we get invited anymore? Wait. Did we stop getting invited when we started Moonpics?”
“Probably. He probably started seeing us as competition instead of pliable talent.”
“I was never pliable,” Tiffany said.
“That’s true, and I think this is probably the point where I’m supposed to make a joke about how you’re not talented, either.”
Tiffany made a jeering noise.
