At the center of NAGLER’S SECRET, Book 6 of the Frank Nagler Mysteries, is an incident and investigation from 1995.

At the center of that incident is a woman known as Naomi Baptiste.

Does she hold Nagler’s secret? Or is he Nagler’s secret?

What does this letter, read by Nagler’s companion Lauren Fox in 2021, say about that?

Who did he write the letter to, and why does he still have it?

The letter:

“September, 1995.

I never told you how much you scared me.

There you were walking through the ghetto looking to drag me out of the trouble.

There you were smiling at me, eyes dark and open, face willing and mouth so soft, saying take me.

And you stood there, even as I didn’t.

And there was I mad at the world, either looking for a fight or trying to hide because I couldn’t find the words to tell you how much all that meant. So I walked the dark streets, tripped through the damage, not realizing it was not the world that was damaged, it was me.

 And I couldn’t fix either. Which just made me angrier.

The ghetto taught us to be angry, to be suspicious, let us hide in the loneliness and isolation.

No one  would know. We could tough it out.

And we fooled ourselves to believe that.

I fooled myself to believe that.

You tried to teach me that was not the truth.

And believed that I could scrape off all that had crusted my heart and soul.

And then you were gone, the lessons incomplete.

Who will help make scrape it all away now?

I stand outside your house broken like me, sit on the crumbling steps and hold a broken board to the porch railing and hope.

Who will hold me to that railing, as I lean and fall?

Whose voice will fill my ear, whose breath will drift across my neck, whose hand will slip between my fingers?

I hear your voice, both soft and husky, the tingle of a laugh, your smile like the sun.

There has to be something  more than just pain.

Your Frank.”