The Shifter Romances The Writer (Nocturne Falls Book 6) (27 page)

Roxy’s phone chimed with Delaney’s reply.
I’m sure you’re swamped. Why don’t I pick up lunch and bring it over? If that’s cool.

That would be great! I could use the extra time to work.

Perfect. What are you in the mood for?

Something healthy. A big salad with chicken. Or something like that. You decide. I’ll be happy with whatev.

Okay, sounds good. See you noon-ish.

Noon-ish. Bye.
Roxy put her phone on the counter. Having Delaney come here was an excellent solution. It meant instead of spending time getting ready to go out and then driving into town, Roxy could work this morning. It was sweet of Delaney to suggest. Of course, Delaney may have really just wanted to talk in private, and considering what they were going to discuss, Roxy could understand.

And then, after that discussion, she’d go get groceries. Enough that she didn’t have to leave her house for a solid week. Except to see Alex. Because other than that, she needed to chain herself to her keyboard.

With the goal of pages in mind, she fixed a second cup of coffee and headed back to her office. “Morning, fish.” She wiggled her fingers at them as she sat at her desk and opened her laptop. New words were about to happen, and it was high time. Poor Wolfgang and Marabella, stranded on the pages of their unfinished story.

“You two will be together soon enough,” she told them. “But first…email.”

She fired up her inbox and let out a groan as the screen came up. Twelve hundred and thirty-one emails. She scanned through them looking for anything that might pop out as urgent, but her eyes started to blur. There were too many.

Instead, she started by deleting mass quantities of advertisements from places she didn’t need to be shopping at anyway, and writers’ loop digests filled with info that was pretty much guaranteed to be something she already knew or not that important.

Then she filed away the various statements and newsletters that had come from the retailer vendors that sold her books. She told herself she was filing them to be read later, but she also knew that was very unlikely. At best, she’d be forwarding the important ones to her accountant come tax time.

Responding to fan mail came after that. Not all of it. That would be an hour. Maybe two. Instead, she answered the oldest ones, buying herself a little time. But reader notes had to be answered. Readers were everything. If they’d taken the time to write to her, then she could certainly take the time to write back.

Almost done, she looked through what was left, picking out the easiest to answer. Some got forwarded to her assistant to deal with. Em was good at that. Maybe her responses weren’t as elaborate as Marissa had been, but Em’s concise style did the trick.

Roxy kept going. Some emails took a simple yes or no to be handled. Some were invoices to be paid, promotions to approve, and interview requests that got politely turned down, an unfortunate necessity when she was this far behind on a book.

Only a few more emails remained, all from senders she didn’t recognize. Then one subject line caught her eye and made her suck in a breath.

Signing this Saturday

Those words made the identity of the sender, [email protected], as clear as crystal. Agnes. And the signing at the Bell, Book & Candle. Roxy had completely forgotten. With a groan, she clicked on it.

She read the short note twice to make sure she understood what she was reading. Agnes had pre-sold two hundred and fifty books and had another two hundred on hand for the signing. Which she expected to sell out of.

Holy bookseller of the year.

Roxy started typing an enthusiastic reply to make sure Agnes knew how much she appreciated the hard work, as well as an apology for not responding sooner. Roxy also promised to bring lots of swag. She finished with more thanks and a happy emoji.

As she hit send, she realized she wanted to bring Agnes a little gift on Saturday. Something special to really show her how blown away Roxy was by her efforts.

Roxy smiled and her thoughts turned to the book locket. That would be perfect. Except she couldn’t give Agnes that one. Not only would that be weird, but that locket had an R engraved on it. And it was going back to Thomas.

She rolled her eyes, realizing that meant a trip to the post office. More wasted time thanks to that man.

Shaking that off, she went online, did some searching and found the same locket. Overnight delivery was pricey, but worth it.

Finally, she opened her Word doc and got to work. She read through the last chapter she’d written, pleased to see it wasn’t entirely dreck. She did a quick edit on it to bring it up to par, then finally began new words. Her fingers flew over the keyboard with speed and intent, and she was happy to be making progress at last.

Wolfgang and Marabella were on the verge of seeing each other for the first time in eight months when her phone rang.

“Ugh, not now.” But she picked up the phone anyway to see who was calling. Delaney. Roxy answered. “Hey.”

“Hey. I was going to ring the bell, but—”

“Are you here already? What time is it?”

“It’s twelve fifteen. Too soon?”

“No, I was just in the writing zone.” She checked her progress. Almost twelve pages. Perfect. “I lost track of time is all. Why didn’t you ring the bell?”

“Yeah, I think maybe you should come to your front door.”

Roxy hit save, then got up. “Okay, on my way. You sound weird. Is something wrong?”

“Sweet crispy crackers, yes, something is wrong. Something is very wrong.”

Roxy raced down the hall as she hung up the phone. She opened the door, her focus on Delaney first.

Then Roxy saw what Delaney was talking about.

One of Roxy’s books was spread open and stuck to her door with a knife. The blade went straight through the book’s spine and on the exposed pages of type, the word
traitor
was written in red marker.

Delaney’s brows were knit together in clear concern. “Does stuff like this happen to you a lot?”

Roxy shivered. “No. That is really creepy.”

“Majorly creepy. I thought Thomas had been dealt with.”

“He was. In fact, I finally got the divorce papers. He’s officially out of my life.”

“You sure he knows that?”

“I need to call Alex.”

“Agreed. This is too much.” Delaney slipped into the house, keeping a wide distance from the knife. “But I’m so glad to see you. You look like you’re doing pretty good. I wasn’t sure if you’d ever talk to me again.”

Roxy smiled. “You can thank Alex’s mother.”

Delaney squinted. “Not sure I follow.”

“I’ll explain later.” She lifted her phone. “Let me call him first.”

“Yes, absolutely.” Delaney lifted the takeout bag in her hand. “I’ll go put lunch in the fridge.”

While Delaney did that, Roxy dialed Alex’s number.

He answered on the first ring. “Hello, beautiful.”

She smiled. That was an especially nice way to be greeted, given the circumstances. “Hi. I need you.”

“Straight into the dirty talk, I like that.”

She laughed. “That’s not what I meant.” Her smile faded. “I have an issue. Like a knife stuck in my door issue.”

“What? Are you home?”

“Yes. Are you?”

“No, I’m at the station. Don’t touch anything. I’ll be right there. I’m bringing Sheriff Merrow with me. Enough is enough.”

She thought about the strange handwriting and the unusual gift of jewelry. “Alex, I don’t think this was Thomas. In fact, I’m not sure it was ever him.”

Alex arrived at Roxy’s with Sheriff Hank Merrow in tow as promised. They parked their cars and walked toward her front porch. Roxy and Delaney came out to meet them.

Roxy raised her brows and tipped her head toward the front door, where the vandalism was in plain view. “Nice, huh?”

Alex shook his head. “We’re going to figure this out.” He jerked his thumb toward Hank. “This is my boss, Sheriff Merrow. Hank Merrow, this is my neighbor, Roxy St. James.”

He nodded at her and Delaney. “Nice to meet you, Ms. St. James.”

“You too, Sheriff. Thank you for coming.”

“Uh-huh.” He looked at Delaney. “I take it you two are friends?”

Delaney answered. “We are. And I’d consider it a personal favor if this matter could get some priority attention.”

“That’s not necessary,” Roxy said.

“No,” Hank responded. “It is. And we will. The safety of our citizens is something we take very seriously.”

“Don’t worry, Roxy, we’re gonna be all over this.” Alex gave her a wink, hoping to reassure her.

Hank shot him a look. “You two more than neighbors?”

“I, uh…” Alex glanced at Roxy.

She smiled. “We’re more than neighbors. Not exactly public about that yet, but yes. Is that a problem?”

“No, ma’am.” Hank turned to Alex. “So long as it’s not an issue for Deputy Cruz.”

Alex shook his head. “It won’t be.”

“All right.” Hank started up the steps to the porch. “What time did you notice the knife stuck in your door?”

“I didn’t, actually. Delaney saw it when she came over with lunch.”

Hank nodded as Alex joined him on the porch. “What time was that?”

“About twelve fifteen,” Delaney answered.

Roxy glanced at Alex. “I guess the door was fine this morning when you went to work, huh?”

“I got a call about a fender bender on Route 17 so I left in the opposite direction, but nothing caught my eye.”

Hank got closer to the knife. “This could have been here awhile.”

Roxy bit her lip. “I locked up around ten last night. There was nothing on the door then.”

“What’s going on?” a voice called out.

They all turned toward Alex’s house to see Carmen standing in the yard between the two homes. She had a kitchen towel thrown over one shoulder.

“I’ll tell you later, Mom,” Alex answered.

Carmen walked closer. “Is that a knife stuck in Roxy’s door? Oh my. What on earth happened? Hello, Sheriff Merrow.”

“Ma’am.” Hank moved to the edge of the porch. “Did you see any suspicious characters in the area between ten o’clock last night and noon today?”

Carmen shook her head. “No, but then, I’ve been in the kitchen most of the day making black bean soup and picadillo.” She smiled. “Got to keep Alex fed.”

Alex leaned out. “Didn’t you go to the store this morning?”

“Oh!” She put her hand on the side of her head. “Yes. But I still didn’t see anyone.”

“Okay, but Mom, did Roxy’s door have a knife sticking out of it when you left or came back?”

She grimaced in apology. “I didn’t notice. I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll come see you before I leave.”

“Okay, honey.” She waved at him, then Roxy before heading back to his house.

“So much for that,” Alex said.

Hank shifted closer to the knife again. “Well, at least we have an approximate window of opportunity.” He studied the book. “Ma’am, any reason why someone would write the word traitor on this book?”

“It’s my book. And I’m not sure.”

Hank pushed his sunglasses onto the top of his head. “You mean this book was stolen from your house?”

“No, I mean I wrote that book.”

He made a small noise of understanding. “This particular passage mean anything to you?”

“I haven’t looked at it actually. If you tell me the page number, I can grab a clean copy from my office and look it up.”

He peered closer. “One ninety three.”

“Be right back.” Roxy disappeared into the house.

Hank looked over his shoulder at Alex. “I’ll get a kit from the car and bag this all up. No point in leaving it here any longer than necessary.”

“You want me to do that, boss?”

“No, I want you to take her statement. She’s more comfortable with you.”

Alex nodded, appreciative.

Roxy returned, book in hand, a wide frown on her face. “It’s a passage where the hero sees the heroine kissing another guy. It’s all a big misunderstanding, but that’s what it’s about.”