Returning to Alexandria

By Bob Moats

Tom Walters was an author of best-selling erotica romance novels. But he was unknown under his name, since he wrote as a woman named Daphne Spenser. One morning he received an email saying his younger brother had passed away and he had to return to his hometown of Alexandria, Virginia. While back there he decided to look up a couple women he had left behind years past. His love adventures took twists and went from good to bad. Plus, he was now going to expose himself to the world as a man writing his books. Would he get burned in more ways than one? This is an all new genre for Bob Moats and is a novella.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bob Moats
• Release date: May 20, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386563525

Bob Moats

Detroit area resident, Bob Moats, has been writing short stories and plays for as long as he can remember. He has lost most of his original stories, typed or handwritten, in the numerous moves he has made from his hometown of Fraser, Michigan to Northern Michigan, to Las Vegas and back to Fraser, where he now lives. Moats became one of the causalities of unemployment a year ago, and had time on his hands to finally pursue a life long dream of writing a full blown crime novel. Thus was born the first book, "Classmate Murders".What followed was a series of seven books starting with "The Classmate Murders" which introduces the main character, Jim Richards, who has to admit he has become a senior citizen, reluctantly. Richards, one day, receives an email from a childhood sweetheart asking for his help, but by the time he reaches her, she has been murdered. His life turns around and he is pulled into numerous murders of women from his high school who he hasn't seen in forty years. Along with a friend of his, Buck, a big, mustached biker, they go off to track down the killer before he can get to one former classmate, Penny Wickens, a TV talk show host who Jim has just fallen for while protecting her. The killer is also murdering the women right out from under police protection, driving homicide detective Will Trapper crazy, and he slowly depends on Jim to help. There's humor, suspense, wild chases across suburban Detroit with cops, classic cars and motorcycle clubs; murder, mayhem, a good amount of romance and a twist ending.Jim and his crime fighters, continue in the other books, traveling to Las Vegas twice, back to Detroit and out to New York to solve murders involving dominatrix; mistresses; Bridezillas; magic and strip clubs.Book titles: Classmate Murders; Vegas Showgirl Murders; Dominatrix Murders; Mistress Murders; Bridezilla Murders; Magic Murders; Strip Club Murders and Made-for-TV Murders.

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No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

This is a work of pure fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

For information and address:

Magic 1 Productions

P.O. Box 524, Fraser MI 48026-0524

Website: http://murdernovels.com

Cover design by Bob Moats

Extra special thanks to:

To Susan Haughton, for editing my chapters.

TO THE BETA READERS, Cindy Valstad, Carolyn Linington, Amy Morningstar, and Al Norris for proofing the final copy and hopefully catching all those annoying little errors that slip through.

THANK YOU TO ALL THE people who purchased this book. I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it for my faithful readers.

THE BOB MOATS FAMILY of Readers is listed in the back of the book.

Chapter 1

The email arrived early one miserable, rainy Monday morning. I dragged myself out of bed to check my online presence and found the email. My brother, Steven, had passed away yesterday.

I sat staring at the computer screen, not believing what I was reading. My brother was two years younger than I am and in excellent shape. Or so I had thought. The email said he died of cardiac arrest, a heart attack, in simpler terms. I knew he kept in good shape with stringent exercise and eating all the foods that the fitness freaks said were good for you. Evidently his heart didn't agree.

My sister, Lily, had sent the email and I didn't know how to respond, so I sat wondering how I was going to reply. I put my fingers to the keyboard, but nothing came out. I sat back, trying to put two words together to send my expression of shock and grief. I just couldn't dredge up the words. This was not good for me as I was an author of romance novels, under the pen name of Daphne Spenser. My real name was Tom Walters, but a man was not someone who usually writes hot, steamy, romance novels.

I stared at the screen as I had many times when I couldn't think of a sentence to start a new book. It was either Stephen King or Hemingway who had said the scariest thing for an author is a blank page. Or something like that, but the meaning is true. Now I was facing the blank page of my email program wanting to pour out my feelings about my younger brother.

I came from a close-knit family from Alexandria, Virginia. Besides my parents, there were seven children in my family. It was always a mess trying to survive the daily rituals of using the bathroom or getting ready for school. I was the oldest, so it fell on me to shepherd everyone out of the house and off to learn how to grow into good adults. We were well off financially and didn't have to scrape to get by. I never felt privileged, but I always felt we had to be prudent in our lives.

I moved from home the moment I graduated from high school and gained a job at the local newspaper. I wrote the daily obituaries, which I never told my friends or family that I did, so I said I had many positions at the paper. I started to learn to write properly when I attended community college and took courses in journalism. I was surviving on my meager pay and found a cheap apartment to live in.

My classes in journalism paid off and I was promoted to being a reporter for the paper. There weren't a lot of things going on around my town, so my stories mostly were rather bland, but it was nice to see my byline. One night at my laptop I got silly and started writing a short story about love and sex as an exercise in writing fiction. One of my girlfriends at the time had read my story and really liked it, she thought it was good. I found out later that she copied it and sent it to a relative in the publishing world. That's how I started writing romance novels.

But staring at the computer screen of my email program, my mind went blank and I lost everything I learned and experienced. I was starting to feel numb about the loss of my brother. It's different when you are old and close to death's door, but not a twenty-nine-year-old healthy male. He shouldn't have died.

I finally mustered up my courage and replied to my sister, expressing grief and asking what I should do. It was a brief email since I was troubled by the feelings I had. I hit the send button and sat back.

I thought back on all the things my brother and I had shared. We were good kids but got in trouble all too often. I reminisced for a while until my phone rang, bringing me out of my thoughts. The caller ID said private, but I answered it, prepared to give hell to a telemarketer. It was my sister, Lily.

Tom, are you alright? she asked.

No, how do you think I should be? My brother dies and you ask if I'm all right.

I'm sorry, Tom, I just got your email and I was just concerned. I know you and Steven were close.

I appreciate the concern, I'm still in shock. Did he die quickly?

They say he didn't know what hit him, he didn't linger. He was with his girlfriend, Heidi, when he had chest pains and then it struck. The medics said he was dead immediately. I hate talking about this, Tom. I know you live in Toledo, are you coming home?

Of course, Lily. I have to be there for the family. How are Mom and Dad taking it?

Really hard. Mom won't come out of her bedroom. She's barricaded herself in the room. Dad can't even get her to come out. I think if you were here, she may come out.

I'll get a plane out today if I can. I'll call and let you know when I’ll arrive. I'll need your number, it came up private on my phone.

She gave me the number and I wrote it on a pad of paper on my desk. Okay, let me get a flight out and I'll call you.

I can pick you up at the airport when you get here, she said.

I asked, Are you and Charles still married? I had to ask because I knew from the start it was not a good marriage.

She was silent, then said, No, we separated about two months ago. He was impossible to live with. Since we had no children it was easy to let go. He hasn't even responded about Steven's death. That's typical of him.

We can talk more about it when I get there. I'll get a flight out and call you as to when I arrive.