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“Could be,” Trent said. “Do you know if she had any?”
Melody shook her head. “Not that I’m aware of. If she did, she never mentioned them to me.”
“What about any deranged fans? Someone who crossed the line?” Amanda intentionally left out mention that Felicity’s ex-boyfriend put them on this track.
“Deranged? Not sure about that, but some could be obsessive.”
Amanda angled her head. “Help me see the difference.”
“I suppose I see deranged as someone sending black roses or leaving a horse head in her bed.”
That is quite the spectrum on the crazy scale…
Melody added, “An obsessed fan just means they love her work and can’t wait for the next book to drop. Usually they’re harmless.”
It was the usually part that concerned Amanda. How much of a nudge did it take to go from obsessed to deranged? Amanda didn’t imagine much. “Do you know if Felicity had any obsessed fans?”
“She had a lot, but none of them crossed a line. At least none that scared Felicity or caused her concern.”
“That she mentioned to you, as you said.” Amanda had laid out the cold fact that Felicity’s not talking about them didn’t mean they didn’t exist.
“True enough. I’d suggest you speak with the marketing department as they handled her email.”
Amanda was left to wonder how Celeste and Luis would have known about the messages they’d mentioned if they hadn’t passed by Felicity’s eye. Maybe someone here had mentioned them to her, and she told her friend and former boyfriend about them? Another possibility was they came in through direct messages on social media. “She had her email on her phone,” Amanda pointed out again.
“Likely just her personal one. It wouldn’t have been her public-facing one. Only G & M has access to that.”
Amanda doubted this was the case for the publishing company’s entire stable of authors, so she asked about that.
Melody shook her head. “It’s only a service extended to A-list authors.”
“Felicity wasn’t always considered A-list though, was she?” Amanda asked.
“No. It takes the right book hitting at just the right time. No amount of marketing can supersede this.”
Trent pecked notes into a tablet he had with him. He paused and looked up. “And that’s what happened with The Romeo Killer? It hit at the right time?”
“Exactly. It’s a formula we can strive to replicate—and do—but book marketing is not a rinse-and-repeat or one-size-fits-all.”
“We will need to speak with the marketing person in charge of Felicity’s email account,” Amanda said.
“It’s Kristopher, with a K, Black.”
It would seem the K was worth being stressed, likely due to the marketer’s insistence.
Trent finished tapping on the screen of the tablet and asked, “Does he also handle her social media?”
“We hoped that he would, but Felicity insisted on managing that herself. She said it was one way for her to stay in touch with her readers.”
Amanda admired Felicity’s intention, but surely that task would be overwhelming. Even more so with her recent success. Comments would have multiplied exponentially. “How did she keep up?”
“That I don’t know.” Melody frowned. “There’s no one like her, Detectives. She was super to work with, and she always turned her manuscripts in on time.”
“Then your overall assessment is she was great to work with?” Amanda asked.
“Yes, most of the time.” Melody’s lips twitched, and her eyes misted. “I just can’t believe she’s dead. I keep thinking that I’ll wake up, and it will have been a nightmare.”
Death has that effect… Amanda suffered for years, wishing the loss of Kevin and Lindsey was a bad dream. Ironically, it took accepting her dire reality was a living nightmare to move forward. “We wish it was, Ms. Schmitt.”
