Beth and Ben had made breakfast about half an hour before I had arrived . I gulped everything out from exhaustion . I was more tired from jogging than I had expected . After breakfast , I called dad to talk in private .
"Dad , I had seen a man go to the house across us . I felt like he was following me when I was coming back home and when I inquired him about it , he said that he lived across us . Do you know him ? Is he the son of the landlord that comes here to visit or something ? I'm asking because I got a feeling that he might be noting our moves in the house , it's uncomfortable . "
Dad seemed surprised at the mention of the man . Did he know him beforehand ? Dad replied to me after a few seconds . " He isn't the son of the landlord . He IS the landlord . He comes here every 5 years . He also knows that I'm a vampire . I needed to tell him because he would definitely be suspicious of me if I had no signs of changing , or ageing . I had just found you out and I didn't want to leave immediately . "
I nodded in understanding . It made sense . "What job does he do ?" I asked him again before leaving . "He's from the mafia too . I don't know which group he's working for ."
oh.. being in the Mafia seemed to look much more stable than being an influencer now . He was working for someone .... wait . Working for someone ?! What if it was Fredrick and he was coming here to keep checks on us .
Dad was almost out of the door when I called him again , "What ?" He asked me annoyed . "How long does he stay when he comes here ?"
"About 1 week. Yeah . He never stays longer than a week ."
I let him go . I didn't know that I had created doubts for dad when I asked about that man . Oh shit .. thinking about him ... I don't even know his name !
Well ... let's give it a week's time . If he doesn't leave even after that , I promise myself that I would confront dad and the others about my suspicion .
A whole week went by . I tried to take glances of his house whenever I could . The only observation I had that seemed unusual was that he spent most of his time around the window that gave a clear view of our house . His house was bigger than ours . He always stood on his first floor and that would mean that he would be able to see what happened inside our house if we simply open our windows to let the air move around the house .
At times , both of us would exchange accident glances with each other and the both of us would act like we didn't know what we were doing and move out of sight of each other . My new reactions , from moving away quickly , to looking towards the house the whole week wasn't left unnoticed . They tried to ask me what bothered me , even though they had an almost answer . Ben was the most irritated because I gave almost no heed to his existence in the house .
The visiting of that man was so common for dad that he didn't even think that he should be suspecting him . Finally , the week came to an end .
I looked over more than before , not even caring to hide the fact that I was trying to look for that man . My neck was starting to hurt because of the constant slanting and checking through any windows available . I didn't move to my own room , afraid that I wouldn't catch him leaving . It was evening now , and I still couldn't see him leave . I decided that he wasn't going to leave most likely because he saw much more people living here than he had seen the hast five years .
I smiled in victory at last . I ran down to see a very sad Ben sitting down on the sofa. "Don't you love me anymore , Rene ?"
He asked with a wavering voice . My heart melted at the sight of his face and I went to calm him down .
"Just wait , I'm going to explain everything to you now . And for your information , nothing has changed between us , ok ?"
He looked calmer than before after my answer and then helped me bring everyone else down to the living room . It was almost midnight and almost all of them had started to sleep so I had definitely disturbed their sleep .
"Hi guys , I need to tell you something . I think all of you know what I've been doing this week ." They looked tired but successfully gave me their full attention . I continued and explained what I was trying to do , to what his usual routine was , and finally , the fact that he hadn't left until now , even though his exact one week stay was over by now . I had not only bought this subject to attention for the other people , but also made my dad realise what he was not giving much heed to .
We decided to play it mature and went for his house . We walked to his house and knocked on it several times and waited for the door to open . The door was open and I heard the same man's voice telling us to come upstairs . The house was bigger and better than I had expected so it was kind of trouble for us to find the stairs .
After successfully finding out where the stair were , all of us , that is ; Kate , Dad , Ben and I went upstairs to find him sitting while facing his back towards us . I had seen his face from observing him for some time and so wasn't surprised to see a large visible cut from both ends of his lips towards his jawline . Was it artificial ? I don't know . But one thing I knew for sure was this ; He had something disturbing in store for us for sure if he had the courage to shamelessly spy on us even though I had caught him in the act multiple times .