A Real Page Turner

by Rita Lawless

“No, it was nothing like that.”

  “Then what?” April was pissed now. She was tired of having to draw information out of people. “If you have something to say, then say it. Just spit it out.”

  “I will.” He sat on the edge of the bed. “Virginia and I knew each other in a professional capacity. I don’t teach anymore because… well, for her I did research on her books. I helped her to accurately portray the time period, from clothing to events, to the way people talked and what they ate. My expertise in history is the Regency era.”

  April sighed in relief. “You could have told me that ages ago. Why didn’t you?”

  “Um.” He held up a finger. “This next part is a little harder to tell, especially since someone asked me not to say anything.”

  “Who asked you?”

  “Threadway,” he responded. “I was going to stay silent, because I thought it helped his investigation. The minute I heard about her death, I went to the cops. I told them I knew her, and told them I’d seen her the night before she died.”

  “He said she’d been dead for a few days before they found her.”

  “A lie,” Titan said. “I think he was hoping to trip someone up, someone who might blurt out the truth.”

  “That someone being me?”

  Titan nodded. “I think that’s why he keeps coming around the store. I don’t think you had anything to do with Virginia’s death, but I think he does.”

  “Why?”

  “Jealousy.” He made it sound as if she should have known better, as if it should be obvious.

  April couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t understand.”

  “Let me spell it out for you, since there is information you don’t have.” He cleared his throat. “Like I said, I told the cops I saw her the night before. I knew the neighbors had seen me, were used to seeing me at her house, and would tell the cops that.”

  “That really makes me mad,” April said, anger building inside her. “He told me I was one of the last people to have contact with her.”

  “I really think Threadway is convinced that you knew my secret, and it pissed you off. I think he thinks our relationship started long before it did. To me, he’s decided you killed her to keep her away from me. He probably thinks I was lying to him about Virginia and me being lovers.”

  Her blood turned to ice. “What secret?” She hadn’t really heard much after he’d uttered those words.

  He looked her full in the face. Even in the darkness, with nothing more than streetlights coming inside to illuminate the bed, she could see his expression, drawn in resignation.

  No matter the reason, April knew that he’d been lying to her the whole time. She was back to thinking he was somehow involved in Virginia’s death. That she’d just had sex with someone who had ended the young author’s life.

  “The secret that Virginia is not T. G. Red,” he said. “I am.”

  Chapter Nine

  Laughter burst out like water from a broken dam. April couldn’t help it. The idea that Titan, the man who provided her with indescribable pleasure, wrote Regency romance novels that enthralled women worldwide was preposterous.

  She continued to chuckle, until she looked at Titan. He was totally stone-faced. “You’re not kidding.”

  “Titan Graves,” he said as he pointed at his chest. “T. G. Red.”

  “That can’t be,” she said. “T. G. Red has been publishing for years.”

  “Eight, as a matter of fact,” he supplied. “I tried to make my first book a mystery novel, but it wouldn’t sell. On the advice of a friend, I changed things around so that there was romance in there. It sold six months later.”

  April didn’t say anything, mostly because she wasn’t sure what to say. Something told her that she should be pissed, but she didn’t feel any anger. This was the second time today someone had told her the identify of T. G. Red. She believed Titan more than she did Threadway.

  “I’m stunned,” she admitted, hoping he would tell her a little more about his other persona.

  “I was teaching at the time I started writing,” Titan continued. “I was going to continue with both, but the books took off, and three years ago I decided I could live on that income alone. Which brings us to where we are now.”

  “You mean with me in my bedroom, naked, figuring out I was just screwed by one of the most popular romance novelists around?”

  Titan chuckled. “Soundly spanked, and seductively screwed,” he said. “I know you’ve read my books, and you know the hero always spanks the heroine for being a bad, bad woman.”

  “Oh yes, I know that.” It was one of the reasons she liked the novels so much. She gathered the covers around her chest. Somehow she felt very exposed. She wasn’t sure why. “Threadway knows all this?”

  “Yup.” He shrugged. “I told him every bit, and, like I said, he thinks you know, too.”

  April considered this. “It doesn’t explain why he keeps telling me I should do a background check on you.”

  “Yeah, it does,” Titan said. “I personally think he keeps saying that because he hopes it’s going to trip you up and you can say you already know, and then he will jump on you.”

  It was all so much to take in. He didn’t say anything, and she was sure he was giving her time to process the information he’d just given her, information she’d never thought she’d hear come from his mouth.

  She thought about the T. G. Red novels. They were Regency, sure, but they were what she always told readers were ‘dirty Regencies.’ In other words, there was a lot of sex in them, including the spanking scenes. Red’s novels were always at the top of the bestseller lists when they came out. Women were screwed in carriages, at parties, in dining halls, and in one particularly scandalous scene, one of the characters had gone down on her lover while they were at the opera house.

  The hero had given her a sound spanking in the next chapter because she was ‘such a nasty woman.’ April remembered how she’d begged for more, because April had, too. That one scene had made her a fan. She’d gotten herself off to that fictional spanking… several times. She’d read the scene, pulled out her vibrator and read it again.

  The next night she’d done the same thing. In fact, she’d done it so much, she could practically recite the words by heart.

  “The opera scene,” she whispered.

  “And the crop scene that followed,” Titan said. “I had fun thinking of that one. I love a good cropping, both fictional, and real.”

  April’s clit tightened, which shouldn’t be possible, considering the amount of sex they’d just had.

  “I’m trying to talk my editor into letting me do a ménage scene in my next book,” Titan informed her. “He says my readers won’t believe it when the heroine gets double penetrated. I told him they’d love it.”

  “You’re right,” she whispered. “Lots of women, including me, have that fantasy.”

  “Good to know,” Titan said.

  April stared at him. “Before you get any ideas, we have a mystery to solve.”

  “Let the cops do it,” he said. “People who get involved in things like this get hurt.”

  “I agree with you, but Threadway won’t leave me alone, remember?”

  “There are three big reasons for murder,” Titan said. “Money, love, and revenge. In your case, I’m sure he thinks you’re jealous.”

  April pushed the information around in her mind. She had so many questions that needed to be answered. “Threadway told me they found T. G. Red’s work on Virginia’s computer.”

  Titan held up a finger. “One piece of work,” he corrected. “I’d sent it to her because I was at a standstill and I needed some advice. We did that for each other sometimes. We had the same publisher.”

  April tried to think back to what Threadway had told her, but she couldn’t remember his exact words. “So, Virginia was a writer.”

  “Yes, she published under the name Deedee Martin.”

  Anger surged through April one more tim
e. An author shopped in her store, but never offered to do a book signing. She supposed she could give Titan a pass, since he hadn’t known about the bookstore, and he probably didn’t want his true identity known.

  She wondered how many of her customers would feel if they found out a man wrote the sexy T. G. Red stories.

  “So, you and Virginia weren’t lovers?”

  Titan stretched out next to her. “No.” He tugged on the blankets until she let them go. After he’d bared her breasts, he caressed them, tweaking her nipples from time to time. They were both silent as he played. April wondered if he could get it up again. But then she decided now wasn’t the time for that. There was too much going on in her mind. “You know what I feel like? Like someone dropped a boulder on my head.”

  He pinched first one nipple, then another. April groaned. Maybe more sex would be good. But then he dashed her hopes. “I’m sorry, April. I really thought I was doing something that would help Threadway find Virginia’s killer. But the more he came to see you, the more I realized what he was trying to do.”

  “Pin it on me,” she said. “He made me think you did it.”

  April put her head on Titan’s chest as he wrapped his arms around her. “I want to confront him,” she said as she nestled herself against his chest. He made her warm, and she felt safe in his arms.

  “Bad idea,” he countered. “As much as you want to, letting him know I’ve told you could potentially be a bad thing.”

  “How?” She pulled away and sat up. “He’s spending too much time trying to pin this on people who didn’t do it. If he were focusing his efforts in the right direction, there’s every chance he could find who killed Virginia.”

  “I agree with you, but if you go in there, guns ablazin’ as the saying goes, he’s going to think you have something to hide. Don’t rock the boat, April. Just let him think he’s doing what needs to be done.”

  “Bullshit.” Now she was pissed. For a minute, she thought Titan was going to explode. She was pretty sure his face was a deep shade of red. She knew heat was coming off his body.

  “What did you just say?”

  “You heard me,” she said, yanking on the covers. “He’s wasting his time, and I’m going to tell him that.”

  This time, Titan laughed. “Yeah, because every murderer he’s ever dealt with has said, ‘Well, I don’t want you barking up the wrong tree, so yeah, I did it.’ April, I’m telling you that if you go on the defensive, he’s going to think you have something to hide. Let him investigate the way he sees fit, and sooner or later he’ll figure out he’s not on the right track.”

  “In the meantime, Virginia’s killer has more of a chance to get away.”

  When Titan spoke again, his voice was soft, and April knew he was trying to placate her. All he did, however, was piss her off more. “You’re not a cop,” he said. “Don’t stick your nose into it and mess things up.”

  “And if I do?” She glared at him. “Are you going to take me over your knee and spank me?”

  “You’d like that too much,” he responded. “I might let Threadway do it, however. Maybe at Charlie’s. That would be a little embarrassing to you, wouldn’t it?”

  April flung herself down on the bed, turning as she did so that her back was to Titan. “I’m going to sleep,” she said.

  “I know you’re angry,” he said, “but you need to listen to me. Don’t make me regret telling you the truth.”

  “What a crock of crap,” April yelled, leaping up from the bed. “If you think you can’t tell me the truth about things, then maybe I don’t want to be in a relationship with you.”

  “Calm down,” Titan said, softly.

  “No!” She pointed at the door. “I don’t think I want you here tonight. First I find out that you’re T. G. Red, then you say you think you should have continued to lie to me. Please leave.”

  “Nope.” He stretched out in the bed. “You can be as angry as you want, but I stand by what I did, because I thought I was helping to find Virginia’s killer. And on the T. G. thing, I didn’t know you until a week ago, so don’t be pissed that you didn’t know what I did for a living. My parents don’t even know.”

  She huffed in disgust. “So you lie to the people you care about regularly?”

  “April, I’m not going to argue with you about this. Go to sleep and we’ll talk about it in the morning.”

  That wasn’t a plan she wanted to follow, but she knew he wasn’t going to leave, and she was pretty sure she wasn’t going to win any arguments, either. After a few moments hesitation she took her place in the bed again, but this time she stayed as far away from him as she could.

  After a little while, she heard his breathing even out, and then he started to snore. The noise wasn’t the type that would keep her up half the night, but, hopefully, it meant he was fast asleep.

  April crept from the bed and went into the bathroom. She glanced at the clock. It was four-thirty. She was pretty sure Threadway was the type of cop who was at work first thing in the morning. She planned to be there, too.

  She gathered a clean set of clothing from her closet before she went back into the bedroom. Titan was still sleeping. April went to the second bathroom where she showered and dressed. A quick check of the clock showed it was now just before six. One more check showed Titan was still asleep.

  After she’d gathered her purse and keys, she put on her coat and headed out the door. She planned on being the first person Threadway saw when he came into work this morning.

  ***

  April had expected the detective to be shocked. Instead, he just looked as if he’d expected her. “Come to confess?” Threadway asked, looking down at her, since she hadn’t had time to stand before he’d seen her. She wondered if the sergeant had called to say Threadway had a visitor waiting. She hadn’t been shocked that he was already at his desk. “They say it’s good for the soul.”

  “I came to tell you to look for the real killer,” April said. “I didn’t kill Virginia, and neither did Titan.”

  He made a face she couldn’t quite decipher. Was he trying to hold back laughter? Yes, that was it.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “You, showing up so early in the morning to defend your lover,” Threadway said. “He was here last night, right before I left, defending you.”

  “He was?” Suddenly she felt like a heel for thinking Titan was a jerk.

  “Yes, he was,” Threadway confirmed. “And for the record, I don’t think either of you did it, although I suspected him more than you.”

  “Why did you think he did it?”

  “Doesn’t matter anymore,” Threadway said, and she knew she wasn’t going to get any information out of him.

  “Who are you focusing on now?” She knew he wasn’t going to answer that, either. Before he had a chance, though, she held up a finger. “What do you mean you no longer consider us suspects? Last night you acted like you did. What is going on?”

  The detective stared at her. Finally, he said, “No offense, April, but I’m not used to explaining myself to people in a murder investigation. If I need anything else from you, I’ll let you know.”

  “You can be a real jerk, you know it?”

  This time he actually cracked a smile. “On the job, yes, I can be. But I can also be a nice guy. If you and Titan don’t work out, let me know. I bet my spankings bite better than his do.”

  Wow, April thought, Misty was right. He actually was interested in April in a spanking/sexual way.

  “Well, he’s going to be angry at me for coming up here, but I don’t think that’s going to cause that big of a rift between us,” April said, even as she silently added, ‘I hope.’

  “If it does, let me know.” Threadway nodded as he spoke. Two uniformed officers walked by, one of them staring and smiling, as if he’d heard what Threadway had said. The detective glared at him, then indicated that April should follow him. April wasn’t really sure why, but she decided to take advantage of his g
ood mood to hopefully get some information out of him about the case.

  They went through a door and walked through a fairly empty room until they came to a desk, marked with a nameplate bearing the detective’s name.

  “Have a seat,” he indicated a chair next to it. “I’ll go and get us some coffee. You want anything?”

  “Sugar and milk,” she said.

  “You mean sweetener and fake creamer,” he said with a laugh. “That’s pretty much all you get here.”

  He left and April immediately turned her attention to his desk. It was mostly clear, except for a computer and a tidy stack of papers. After looking around to see if anyone was watching, she leaned over to examine the top sheet on the pile. The header indicated it was a report on the electronic database on Virginia’s computer.

  She didn’t have time to pick it up and read; the risk of being caught doing that was too great. Instead, April reached into her pocket and pulled out her smart phone. She snatched the paper and quickly opened the camera app. She took a shot of the page, and then decided she should do the sheet under it, too. She captured the words on six sheets of paper before a noise caught her attention.

  Threadway was making his way toward her, balancing two cups of coffee. She hurriedly put away the phone and rearranged the papers.

  “Thanks,” she said as he approached and offered her a cup. She realized she’d probably broken a bunch of laws, and if the man standing in front of her found out he’d probably lock her up. Her hands started to sweat, and she was afraid the cup would slide through her fingers.

  “If I ask you once again if you remember anything from the night you saw Virginia at Charlie’s, would you think I’m beating a dead horse?”

  ‘Yes,” she said. “I promise you, if I knew anything else, I’d tell you.”

  “I’m very interested in identifying the man she met with,” Threadway said.

  April took a drink from her coffee. After she’d swallowed, she said, “I now wish I’d talked to her after my session with Tom. But at the time, I told myself I was invading her privacy, though. If I could go back and change things, I would.”