She didn’t see Tyler Brock coming. His voice surprised her from behind.
“Melissa.”
“Tyler.”
He watched her move. “Did Ruby and John hurt you that bad?”
Missy laughed. “No, this was the work of Anastasia Monroe.”
“Oh right.” He smiled and his face turned red, like he was embarrassed. “I did hear about that.”
“You heard about that? How?”
He shrugged. “Word travels fast in the police station. Especially when transparent yoga pants are involved.”
She wanted to die. And would have, if he wasn’t smiling like he enjoyed the thought.
Missy asked, “Speaking of the police station…who did Trudy Shaw see pick up Anne Baxter that night at the grocery store?”
Tyler grunted. “One of our guys responded to a call. Anne was reviewing the books at the end of the month and thought she heard somebody come into the store after hours.”
Missy nodded. “And what’s going to happen to Ruby and John?”
“Ruby offered a full confession.” He shook his head. “John is an accessory after the fact, and we’re trying to get him on attempted murder also.”
“How can you do that?”
“Because he was planning on killing you.”
Duh. “Oh.”
“I just can’t believe it. I remember Ruby from when you babysat her.”
And like that, a beautiful, fresh memory came back to Missy. She hadn’t thought of the evening in question for a long time. But there was one night where Missy had been babysitting Ruby and Tyler had surprised her with a visit after the girl had gone to bed. He wasn’t supposed to be there, so Missy forced him to sit outside with her on the porch. Up until that point, she had always liked him but suffered from invisibility syndrome. Or so she thought. That night Tyler admitted to always noticing her. They hadn’t started dating right away, but that night had been the start of something much, much bigger. How could she have forgotten that happened while she’d been babysitting Ruby?
When she came back to the present, his eyes had that look. He knew exactly where she’d gone in her mind. He’d probably gone there too.
“So she really killed Anne Baxter because the woman was going to leave a bad review on a book she self-published under a pen name?”
Tyler nodded. “It actually wasn’t the first time.”
“What?”
They started walking in no particular direction. She fell in step with him as they crossed the parking lot.
“Ruby had written five books under various pen names. Her dream was to be a writer. Anne maintained that book review site where she accepted requests. Ruby approached her, through email and under her pen name of course, and requested a review on one of her other books. Anne blasted it, completely tearing it down, to the point where Ruby actually unpublished it. According to Ruby she had been seeing slow, but steady sales on the book, but once Anne got the proverbial ax out, that book died, along with that pen name.”
“But Ruby approached her again?” Missy said, in total disbelief.
“Yes. Under a different pen name. She wanted to change Anne’s mind about her writing. She said all authors are bipolar, one minute they’re the best ever, and the next they’re suffering from sheer panic, thinking they’re no good. Ruby craved that validation from a tough reviewer like Anne, but she didn’t get it. Anne destroyed the next book as well, completely eviscerating it. According to Ruby, her sales immediately dried up. Apparently, one star reviews on Amazon can kill a new writer’s career if they don’t have hundreds of glowing reviews to offset them.”
“Oh my God.”
“So Ruby tried a new name and new genre with this book. She thought this time maybe Anne could see the light if they talked about it at the Book Club and heard others express their opinions, but it became clear pretty quickly that Anne loathed the book and would write another scathing review.”
Missy just shook her head. The argument and the murder, it all seemed so pointless. Ruby could have just published under a different name and avoided Anne altogether. If she was motivated enough to write five books that quickly, she would have had a good chance at making it. But instead she just couldn’t accept the fact that Anne hated her stories and would always hate her style. It was all so sad and so…pointless. Two lives ruined because Anne was a vicious reviewer and Ruby needed validation from some third party about her writing. To think Noreen had almost gone to prison because of that…
“Thank you, Melissa.”
She stopped and looked up at him. She’d been so consumed by her thoughts of Ruby and Anne, she thought she’d misheard him.
He chuckled. “I said, thank you.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” Missy said. “I did it for Noreen.”
“You saved her life. Nobody believed her story, not even me. You saved me from doing something truly awful.”
All that was true, but Missy couldn’t bring herself to blame him. Looking at all the facts objectively, and knowing nothing about Ruby’s secret life of writing books under pen names, everybody else would have thought Noreen guilty also. There was no other conclusion to draw. But Missy had stubbornly clung to her belief, against all the evidence, that Noreen wasn’t a killer.
“Maybe next time I’ll actually listen to you.”
His joke lightened the moment perfectly. “You always have. You always made me feel special, Tyler.”
The words were out before she could stop them. But she was glad she’d said it. She had always felt that way.
Tyler stared deep into her eyes. “I also wanted to apo—”
“Noreen told me this morning,” she blurted out. “And you really don’t have to apologize. You and I had drifted apart by then, and you weren’t cheating on me, so you didn’t owe me anything.”
He hesitated. “That’s not what I was going to apologize about.”
“Oh.” Her heart swelled. She had no idea what he was about to say, but hoped it was good.
“When we drifted apart, it was my fault. Totally my fault.”
She said nothing.
“I was just a boy. I thought I was a man, but I was just a boy. And when I went away to college, my feelings scared me.”
“Why?”
He looked away. “My whole life, I loved this town but I was supposed to go on and do big things. I had this idea that I was meant for something more, something bigger than all this. Talk about an ego, right? This town is a great place to live. But I was Tyler Brock. I kept hearing my Dad’s voice, over and over again. You’re Tyler Brock. You’re Tyler Brock. And it eventually stuck. I started believing I was supposed to go away and live this other life.”
“And you did.”
He nodded. “And I knew you didn’t want that. When we talked about the future, you were always looking at what was to come in Grove City. You wanted to live here. Work here. Be with your parents here. And I couldn’t handle that. It wasn’t part of the Tyler Brock Plan, whatever the hell that was. So I drifted…on purpose.”
She wanted to say so much, but most of all this: she would have gone with him anywhere.
Anywhere.
“I was head over heels in love with you, Melissa. And I was scared my feelings would keep me from doing all these big things. I know how shitty that sounds, but at nineteen years old, that’s what scared the hell out of me.”
So many emotions ran through her, but the most powerful one was love. By far.
“Like I said.” Tyler made a pained face. “I was just a dumb kid.”
She saw the hurt in his eyes and wanted to reach out, but she also saw the ring on his finger.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Tyler,” she said. “That was a long time ago, and like you said, we were only kids.”
When he looked at her again, his expression was inscrutable. She thought she saw hurt and longing in his eyes, but there was a smile on his lips too that suggested nostalgia…and maybe something else?
“My wife,�
�� he said suddenly, “can get a little possessive. Sometimes it’s flattering and sometimes it goes a little too far.”
She wanted to tell him she’d be possessive too if he was her husband, but that would have sounded way too stalkerish. “I totally understand. It does look strange when your ex-girlfriend calls you in the middle of the night.”
He laughed. “Yes.”
Missy didn’t want the moment to end. There was more, always more to ask him and never enough time. He also seemed like he didn’t want to be anywhere else. As he stood there, she knew he would answer every question she had. The last week had stripped him of any defenses he had left…
But she couldn’t ignore that ring on his finger. And the more she thought about it, it was kind of silly of her to need closure on something that had happened almost twenty years ago. It was time to move on. Like her Mom said, Tyler would either leave his wife or not leave his wife, but that was his decision to make and she could not play a part in that.
She looked past him and saw another surge of customers headed for the store, all carrying canvas bags. Noreen and Brett needed all the help they could get.
Missy looked back at Tyler. “I have to get back to the store.”
He said nothing, just stared at her. She half-expected him to reach for her hand.
“Take care, Melissa.”
“I’ll see you soon.” She headed back for the store.
“I hope not.”
She stopped in her tracks, puzzled by his words. Missy looked over her shoulder.
He smiled. “When you see me these days, it means somebody has died.”
She laughed and waved goodbye. When she got back into the store, she smiled at all the customers and their books, and at Noreen behind the counter, and at the thought of her life. She was still young, still had so many things to do, and she loved this town.
***********
THANKS FOR READING!
I hope you enjoyed Book Club Bloodshed, the second in the Missy DeMeanor cozy mystery series. I’ve got plenty more adventures planned for Missy, Tyler, Cody, and Noreen so if you enjoyed this book, please check out these other titles as well:
Flea Market Fatal (#1)
Book Club Bloodshed (#2)
Diet Club Death (#3)
Scrapbooking Slaying (#4)
If you have a spare moment, please let other readers know you enjoyed the books by leaving a review on Amazon.
And if you’d like a FREE BOOK, please sign up for my Newsletter here.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brianna loves mystery, hunky men, and crafts, but not always in that order. She has long yearned to write a cozy mystery series but always struggled to find the time between raising children, trying not to blow up the kitchen, and taking care of her rescued dogs. In her fleeting spare time, she enjoys scrapbooking, reading mysteries, trying out new recipes, and binge-watching TruTV. She and her family live in Pennsylvania.
Feel free to tell all your Facebook friends about her books ;-)
For more information, visit her website: www.briannabatesauthor.blogspot.com.
ALSO BY BRIANNA BATES
MISSY DEMEANOR SERIES
Flea Market Fatal
Book Club Bloodshed
Diet Club Death
Scrapbooking Slaying
MARLENE AMBROSIA, WITCHY WIZARD COZY MYSTERY SERIES (coming soon)
The Once and Future Scream Queen
Book Club Bloodshed. Copyright 2015 by Brianna Bates. All rights reserved.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, place and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
Edition: December, 2015
Book Club Bloodshed Page 13
