Cover Copy
Running an independent bookstore in small-town Hazel Rock, Texas, doesn’t sound like a high-risk pursuit. But when a fundraiser reveals a story with a truly killer ending, Charli Rae Warren will need to scramble to sort out the deadly plot…
Sponsoring the literacy drive to benefit the foster care system should be a feel-good endeavor, but one of Charli’s helpers is definitely on another page. Charli’s dad is distracted and keeping something secret, which Charli suspects is a harmless flirtation with an attractive county clerk who offered to lend them a hand. It’s nothing to worry about—until the same clerk winds up dead…
When nosy locals begin pointing fingers, Charli finds herself entangled in a race to uncover the killer’s identity—and to get to the bottom of a shattering family secret that could rewrite her history in alarming ways. Suddenly Charli is facing her worst fears and her childhood nemesis in order to unmask a murderer—before he silences her for good…
The Book Barn Mystery Series
by Kym Roberts
Fatal Fiction
A Reference to Murder
Perilous Poetry
Lethal Literature
Lethal Literature
Kym Roberts
LYRICAL UNDERGROUND
Kensington Publishing Corp.
To the extent that the image or images on the cover of this book depict a person or persons, such person or persons are merely models, and are not intended to portray any character or characters featured in the book.
LYRICAL UNDERGROUND BOOKS are published by
Kensington Publishing Corp.
119 West 40th Street
New York, NY 10018
Copyright © 2018 by Kym Roberts
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Lyrical Underground and Lyrical Underground logo Reg. US Pat. & TM Off.
First Electronic Edition: May 2018
eISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0658-5
eISBN-10: 1-5161-0658-X
First Print Edition: May 2018
ISBN-13: 978-1-5161-0660-8
ISBN-10: 1-5161-0660-1
Printed in the United States of America
Dedication
For all those fighting the good fight
Chapter One
I knew better than to arrive at a bachelor’s house early in the morning, but I’d been happily oblivious to the possibility that I might look like I was checking up on him—like I wanted to catch him in the act. I should have remembered that key word before I’d decided to surprise him with breakfast from the diner. He was a bachelor.
And the last person on earth I wanted to catch in the act.
Yet there he was . . . standing in his doorway wearing a T-shirt and jeans with his bare feet announcing to the entire neighborhood, make that the entire world, that he’d just rolled out of bed. The situation couldn’t get worse. At least, so I thought. Until I noticed his hair was tussled and Ava James gave him a tender kiss on the cheek—with matching sex-mussed hair.
I stood on the sidewalk, surrounded by the spring fragrance of the wisteria bush growing over the white picket fence around his front lawn, my mouth hanging opening. Our to-go order breakfast was in my hands as Ava turned around and saw me for the first time. She immediately averted her gaze and jammed a pair of sunglasses onto her face. Their endearing moment over, I watched completely dumbfounded as her hand grasped at the neck of her button-down shirt, and her knuckles whitened as she held it together. I did not want to notice the missing buttons on the top of her blouse as she bowed her head in the traditional walk of morning-after shame.
We were all adults. We could handle this. It wasn’t that big a deal. Their age difference wasn’t shocking, nor was their potential of being a couple out of the question. It had just taken me off guard, and that was what I found most disturbing.
At least that’s what I was telling myself.
Ava and I passed on the sidewalk and I tried to establish eye contact through her mirrored lenses. “Good morning, Ava,” I said and smiled at the woman fifteen years my senior.
She mumbled a good morning without raising her head. I wouldn’t have been able to see her eyes anyway, but I didn’t want her to think I harbored a grudge. I didn’t. They were consenting adults. I had no reason to judge them or be upset.
“Are you ready for the literacy drive for the foster care program?” I asked.
Ava nodded but kept walking right past me. “I’ll call you,” she said without looking back.
“Sure thing. Whenever you get a chance, I’m flexible.”
I don’t think I fooled anyone. I wasn’t that flexible about any of this.
I looked up at the door where he stood watching the whole scene unfold. His jaw was tight, and his eyes narrowed as he scanned the street to see if anyone else witnessed their indiscretion. Then his gaze returned to me, and I could tell it wasn’t a proud moment for him. He sensed what neither one of us wanted to admit—he’d just fallen off the pedestal I’d put him on shortly after I’d returned to Hazel Rock, Texas, my hometown of 2,093 people.
That however, wasn’t what I found most disturbing. There was something in his eyes that said, “Don’t ask questions; don’t ask for an explanation.” If I did? My inquiries would be ignored.
I reach the steps with the warm paper bag and two paper cups of sweet tea in my hands. “Are you going to let me in?”
He looked like he had no idea how to handle the situation. That made two of us, but from the look on his face, Ava James wasn’t just a one-night stand—she meant something to him, and I needed to suck it up and accept the fact that the man had moved on. He stood back and held the door open for me to enter, but his gaze followed Ava as she walked down the sidewalk, past Mike Thompson, who had apparently started running to work off a few pounds, or fifty, before she rounded the corner.
“Daddy, you don’t have to keep your love life a secret.”
Bobby Ray Warren closed the door without saying a word, and by the time he turned around, he’d hidden that lost look in his eyes. “I’m glad you brought breakfast. I’m starved.”
If he noticed the shudder he sent through my body with that comment, he didn’t say anything. He grabbed the bag from my hand and walked into his kitchen without another word. I followed him into the perfectly designed kitchen of his old Victorian home. His last girlfriend, who had died the day I return to town a little over a year ago, had decorated and remodeled the century-old home.
Sometimes I wondered if he stayed in the house in memory of her. Today