A Romance writer tries to solve a murder. Suspects? The three investigators! ➱ An Affair With Murder by Robert Sells Book Tour & Giveaway
A Romance writer tries to solve a murder.
Suspects? The three investigators!
An Affair With Murder
by Robert Sells
Genre: Mystery Romance
Devastated by the murder of her best friend after the prom, Rebecca has a nervous breakdown and flees her hometown. Twelve years later, now a successful author, she struggles with agoraphobia. Her therapist insists she return home for closure. But when she arrives, she's horrified to find there’s been another grisly murder identical to the first one.
The three
officers of the law handling the investigation are former friends of
Rebecca and, coincidentally, love interests in high school. Knowing
she is writing a murder-mystery, the three men agree to share their
findings with her. Rebecca stumbles upon a note from the original
homicide suggesting that the killer has be one of the three
investigators. But which one? Not knowing who to trust, Rebecca
decides to solve the case on her own. As she gets closer to
uncovering the truth, it looks like she will be the next victim.
When I left the diner, the sidewalks were empty. Fortunately, my car had been parked right outside the restaurant. As I started the engine, two headlights appear in my rear-view mirror. Another parked car about half a block away. I pulled out and so did the other car. Just a freaky coincidence, Rebecca. Don’t panic. I turned down Main Street and the other car followed. Could it be John?
I slowed down for a red light and, in my rear-view mirror, I saw two bright lights grow larger and disappear. The other car must be right at my bumper! A large semi lumbered toward the intersection at right angles to me. My car jolted forward as my head was thrown back. What the hell? The car behind me, bumper-to-bumper was forcing my car into the intersection! I jammed my breaks as hard as I could, but my car kept going forward. The truck swept by me, inches from my front bumper. Without checking for any cars, I shifted my foot from the brake to the accelerator and shot through the intersection. Climbing the slight hill, my speedometer hit sixty. I barely slowed down for my street and made a sharp turn, the passenger side wheels biting into the grass-covered shoulder. I went down my street and made a screeching turn into my driveway. As I bolted from my car, I saw headlights enter the street from the distant corner.
I fumbled for the key, dropped it, retrieved it, waiting for that damn car to stop in front of my house. The key slipped into the lock and I opened the door. Once inside, I locked the door and turned off the lights. My heart slammed beneath my ribs. What should I do? Call the police? I peeked outside my window. Down the street, a few doors past my house, the car pulled alongside the curb and turned off its light. Was that the same car? The driver side door opened slowly.
My head jerked around. The back door? Was it locked? I raced to the back door and checked it. Locked. Back to the front door. Peeked outside the window. The strange car was gone.
I thought about calling Dave, but it all seemed so surreal. Was I overreacting? I ran to the kitchen and grabbed a butcher knife. For a few moments I just sat in the dark watching both the back and front doors. I waited for about an hour and finally went to bed … with a chair braced against my bedroom door, the knife resting on my bedside table.
Excerpt 2
Three murders. All connected. Most likely committed by John. Yet I couldn’t be certain. I needed help. Dave? No. I still had to check his alibi for the Orlando murder. What were the chances he might be visiting Florida in October two years ago? Unlikely, but with my own life hanging in the balance, I had to find out for sure. I need a long chat with Mrs. Johnson; if anyone knew his vacation schedule, it would be her. What about calling Kip? I didn’t know enough about Kip yet. Didn’t know whether he was in Florida at the time of the murder there. Didn’t know his alibi for the murder here. When I walked into the office that morning, Charlie and Dave were focused on a wrinkled map flattened across Dave’s desk. Charlie pointed to the map and said something to Dave, but I couldn’t quite make out the words.
Mrs. Johnson got up from her desk and pulled me away from the two men. “Jake Lanway escaped from prison,” she whispered in my ear.
“How? What happened?”
“Apparently Jake got assigned to the outdoor work crew. Those work crews are only for small time offenders … drunk driving, criminal mischief, things like that. Well, he disappeared from the work crew.”
Both our heads turned when we heard a metallic squeal. Dave had opened a large metal cabinet in the corner of the room. He pulled out two flak jackets and two shot guns. This was serious. I turned back to Mrs. Johnson. “Is Jake armed?”
The older lady shrugged. “He already killed two people, dear.”
“When? Last night?”
“No, dear. Angie and the other poor girl.”
My face wracked with guilt, I glanced at Dave and Charlie. The murder I just uncovered … two years ago in Orlando. Jake was in prison. It points to another killer. Should I, at least, tell Dave? I heard metal clicks and looked back at the men. They had snapped ammunition cartridges into their guns. The pair started toward the door and I jolted up to join them. Dave turned at the door and pushed his arm out, his hand up in a stop signal. “No, you stay here.”
“But—”
He closed the door in my face and all I could do was stare at it. What should I do? Tell him about the murder two years ago? What if Dave was the killer? Damn it! I had to tell him. I opened the door to get to them, but the police car was already speeding down the street, blinking red and blue lights warning away the trucks and cars of peaceful Mayburg. I dialed Dave’s cell phone. The bored voice of Dave doomed my call to voice mail. Crap! Why didn’t he answer?
I attended college at Ohio Wesleyan where I struggled with physics. Having made so many mistakes in college with physics, there weren’t too many left to make and I did quite well at graduate school at Purdue.
I worked for twenty years at Choate Rosemary Hall, an exclusive boarding school in the heart of Connecticut. More often than not, students arrived in limousines. There was a wooded area by the upper athletic fields where I would take my children for a walk. There, under a large oak tree, stories about the elves would be weaved into the surrounding forest.
Returning to my home town to help with a father struggling with Alzheimer’s, the only job open was at a prison. I taught an entirely different clientele whose only interaction with limousines was stealing them. A year later Alfred State College hired me to teach physics. I happily taught there for over ten years.
My wife’s boss, the superintendent of a rural school in western New York, begged me to teach physics and earth science. Helping young high school students was particularly appealing to me at this point in my career and the salary was more than reasonable, so I find myself happily teaching at Mt Morris Central School.
Five years ago, my wife pestered me about putting to “pen” some of the stories which I had created for the children and other relatives. I started thinking about a young boy and a white deer, connected, yet apart. Ideas were shuffled together, characters created and the result was the Return of the White Deer. This book was published by the Martin Sisters.
Years ago I gave a lecture on evolution. What, I wondered, would be the next step? Right away I realized that silicon ‘life’ had considerable advantages over mortal man. Later this idea emerged as the exciting and disturbing story called Reap the Whirlwind.
Two years ago I stumbled upon an old article in the local paper about a Brinks’ robbery in 1992. Apparently over ten million dollars were stolen and most of it was never recovered. Although the mafia was peripherally involved in the heist, it was unlikely they took the missing millions. This was the seed which has now grown into the young adult novel, The Runner and the Robber.
I have many other stories inside my mind, fermenting… waiting patiently for the pen. Perhaps someday I will even write about those elves which still inhabit the woods in the heart of Connecticut.
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This sounds like a good story.
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