“How’s it going, buddy?” Liam said, giving his son a one-armed hug back.
Tommy let go. “Good. Hey, did you know, um, did you know that if you ever have to outrun a crocodile, you shouldn’t run in a straight line? Because crocodiles can run fast, but they can’t turn very well. So you should go like this.” He demonstrated how Liam should evade a pursuing crocodile by balling his fist and moving it back and forth. “Like in a zigzag. Hank told me that.”
“He did, did he?”
“Uh-huh. At lunch. He went down to Florida last week with his family. They went to Disney World. Can we go to Disney World?”
“Maybe over summer vacation.”
“Hank said they went now because it wasn’t as crowded.”
“One day Hank’s going to be serving you fries at McDonald’s, so let’s not use his family as role models, shall we?” Catherine said, appearing behind Tommy.
Liam glanced up at her. She was lean and dressed all in white. She looked younger than she was thanks to the miracle of Botox. She stood with her shoulders back, head high, always aware of her posture. Her mother had developed a stoop as she’d aged, and Catherine had said she was afraid the same thing would happen to her. “Beauty starts in the back,” she’d told Liam more than once.
“I wouldn’t mind serving fries at McDonald’s,” Tommy said. “I like fries.”
Liam patted the top of his head. “Go get in the car, son.”
Tommy darted down the brick steps and Liam watched him until he was belted into the back seat of the Tesla.
“Liam, we have to talk.”
Before he could say anything, Liam’s daughter appeared in the doorway. It was cloudy out, but that hadn’t stopped her from putting on a pair of oversized sunglasses. Quite the opposite of Catherine, Alice dressed in ratty flannels and looked down at her feet when she walked. Liam suspected she was aware of her mother’s feelings on posture and beauty and was doing both to piss her off.
Headphones on and blasting music loud enough that Liam could have sung along, she passed by with barely a “Hi, Dad” on her way to the car. Alice still blamed Catherine for her parents’ divorce and didn’t try to hide her feelings. She would become more talkative once they got to the restaurant.
For some reason, thinking about how the divorce had affected Alice caused Liam to think about the conversation that had proceeded it. Catherine had approached him in the kitchen and, as far as he was concerned, the whole thing had come more or less out of the blue. She told him she wasn’t happy, hadn’t been happy for a long time. After a while, they moved to the living room and stayed there until there’d been nothing left to say. She’d already made up her mind. She’d blamed it on his long hours at work and the gambling and had said something like, “Even when you’re at home, you’re not at home.” Liam remembered packing a bag and going to a hotel and Alice crying; she wasn’t much older than Tommy was now. He remembered the divorce itself and how things had turned mean, with Catherine squeezing every dollar out of him she could. But he couldn’t remember exactly how the conversation had started. Perhaps it had been with the same three words he’d texted Elise. We need to talk. Oh, well. Liam figured it didn’t matter now. Things started, things ended.
“What about?” he asked.
Catherine glanced at her daughter, then back to him. “I’m putting the house up for sale.”
“Good for you.” It was hers now, after all. She could set it on fire for all he cared.
“We’re moving.”
“Probably a good idea. I don’t think the new owners would want you hanging around here after they move in.”
Catherine shifted her weight from one leg to the other, annoyed. “No, Liam. You don’t get it. We’re not staying here. We’re moving to Mississippi. I’m going back to Jackson.”
Liam was stunned. His mouth dropped open a little and stayed that way for a second or two before he said, “Wait. What? You can’t do that.”
“Mom’s getting old. She needs me around. Besides, this isn’t the kind of place I want to raise my kids. Alice has been sneaking out lately. Did you know that? Who knows what kind of trouble she could get into.”
Liam wasn’t surprised Alice was sneaking out. (He’d done it plenty of times growing up—going with his friends to the playground behind Ives Middle School to smoke cigarettes and, when he was older, drink Pabst.) He didn’t like it. He’d talk to her about it. But teenagers did things like that. Alice was a good kid, so no matter what Catherine thought she was up to, he could be pretty sure he’d done worse.
The car door opened up behind him and Tommy shouted, “Dad, are we going?”
“In a minute, son,” Liam said, putting on his best everything’s-okay smile.
Tommy got back into the Tesla.
“I’ve already spoken to my lawyer about it.”
“But—”
“I just wanted to give you a heads up.”
“They’re my kids too.”
Her lips curled into a nasty grin as she placed one hand on the door handle. It was the same grin she’d shown him when the judge had ruled on the division of assets. “And that’s the only reason you get to see them, at all.”
Catherine closed the door before Liam could say anything else.
Liam thought she’d made it sound like she was doing him a favor. Could she really take the kids to Mississippi without his permission? He’d have to look into that.
He stepped off the stoop and, on the way back to his car, his cellphone rang. He glanced at the Caller ID. It was Patricia. He pressed a button to answer.
“What’s up?”
“First things first. You were right. Elise was never married.”
Clearly, Patricia hadn’t believed Liam when he had told her as much in her office. But at least she was being thorough.
“That said, remember how I told you Elise might have a record?”
“Yeah.”
“She does. Reyes got a copy of it.”
After everything else Liam had learned, he wasn’t surprised. But he didn’t expect Patricia to read off the charges she did.
Jacob Reed
The Heartland Nursing Home was a sprawling behemoth of stone and brick surrounded by gardens that had gone dormant. Jacob slipped past the reception desk, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed, and made his way up to the third floor where his mother had a private room. She was the only family he had, and after the dementia had taken hold, he hardly even had her anymore.
While he waited for the elevator, Jacob pulled a faded, cracked picture out of his pocket. He’d found it in a wallet he’d stolen four months back, and had kept it for the same reason he’d kept the picture he’d found in Chris Bell’s wallet—to fuel his dreams about the life that might one day be his. Though the woman and infant posing Christmas-card style with the man he’d robbed were two-dimensional strangers, he had imagined a rich, fulfilling life for all of them. One full of love, where the parents read stories to their child at bedtime and the whole family spent summers on the lake and nothing bad ever happened. He didn’t try to square this with stealing the man’s wallet.
His childhood had not been anything close to that, not that it was bad. His mother was always working. She left early, came home late. She cleaned houses for Maids Around Town, bagged groceries at Treasure Island, and worked the cash register at McDonald’s part-time. While it was enough to keep the lights on, she depended on food stamps to keep Jacob fed and the good will of the neighborhood to make sure he stayed out of trouble.
Jacob never knew what had happened to his father. He had never seen a picture or heard a story. His mother refused to talk about him. Whenever he had asked, she’d said it was just the two of them now and the past didn’t matter.
Sometimes Jacob imagined his father was dead, and perhaps he was. Sometimes he thought his father might not have known his mother was pregnant, and that could be true too. Whatever the reality was, it amounted to the same—the man never sent a check.
&
nbsp; Jacob had decided a long time ago his life wasn’t going to be like that. His mother had followed all the rules; she had raised a child in a hard world and done a damn fine job of it. Now that she needed him to take care of her, he made sure she had the best care available. She deserved that. But that was what following all the rules got you, wasn’t it? A tough life. If Jacob followed them, too, hers would have been a tough life with a tougher end.
The rules were for suckers. He would take care of his mother, make his fortune, and raise a family the right way. If he had to screw some people over to make that happen, so what? Family was all that mattered. Besides, most of them probably deserved it.
When the elevator doors opened, he put the picture back in his pocket. It wouldn’t hold together much longer.
He put his phone on silent. Since his mother had started suffering from dementia, he tried to keep distractions to a minimum. Especially those she found unsettling, and the phone was without a doubt the most unsettling distraction he’d introduced. The one time it rang, playing a portion of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” she first looked confused, then alarmed when he pulled the device out of his pocket. She didn’t know what it was, and trying to explain it to her only upset her more.
Jacob followed the hallways to his mother’s room. Residents shuffled past him, some with staff help, some on their own. With each visit, he recognized more of them, but only one did he know by name. Natalie Winder. She was a small woman who moved slowly, a friend of his mother’s. Ms. Winder—she didn’t like to be called Natalie by anyone a generation younger than her—was headed in the same direction he was. She was wearing a white sweater, tan slacks, and white slippers. As far as Jacob could tell, her bouffant hairstyle hadn’t changed since the sixties.
He said hello as he passed. Another thirty paces down, he reached his mother’s room. The door was closed. That was unusual. She liked to see the people crossing back and forth. It made her feel like she wasn’t alone. He turned the knob. The door was also locked. That was even more unusual. Jacob told himself she could be in the cafeteria or any of a dozen other places she might visit on a good day, but that still didn’t explain the locked door.
He knocked and, instead of his mother’s voice, heard Ms. Winder say, “You’re looking for Lizzy?”
It was a stupid question, Jacob thought. Elizabeth was his mother. This was her room. Of course he was looking for Lizzy. But he kept his answer to a simple, “Yes.”
She closed the distance between them and craned her neck up so she could look him in the eyes. “You don’t know? I would have thought they’d have told you. They moved her downstairs. End of the hall. Do you know Ms. Locklear?”
Jacob shook his head.
“They put Lizzy with her. She’s got these little paper flowers stuck to her door. You can’t miss it. Personally, I think they look stupid. I told her to take them down. But she likes them and won’t listen to me.”
Jacob thanked Ms. Winder, then took the stairs down one flight and quickly found the door with the flowers on it. His mother was alone, sitting on one of two beds inside, a photo album open in her lap.
“Mom, what’s going on? What are you doing here?”
She looked up. He could tell from the way she smiled today was one of her good days. “Come sit with me. Do you remember this?” She pointed to one of the pictures. In it, much younger versions of himself and his mother were standing at the top of the John Hancock Center. Beyond the windows behind them, miles of city stretched out in miniature. They had been on one of their “vacations.” Lizzy could rarely afford to take them anywhere beyond the suburbs, but she did her best to make up for it with trips like those.
Jacob often found her looking at old photo albums on her good days. She loved to reminisce. Although he thought she colored the past in a way that made it seem better than it was, where was the harm in that?
“I remember it.” Jacob sat down beside his mother. He gently took the photo album from her, closed it, and placed it on the bed. “Mom, what’s going on? Why are you in this room?”
“They moved me.”
“When?”
Felix Winkler, the nursing home administrator, appeared in the doorway. He had an arrogance about him Jacob had never cared for. “This morning,” he said. “We’ve been trying to reach you for days now.”
Jacob knew that was true. He’d been avoiding their calls. However, their reason for calling, and his reason for not answering, didn’t justify what they had done. “You can’t just move her.”
“Let’s talk in the hall.”
Jacob reassuringly cupped one hand over his mother’s two. “I’ll be right back.” He followed Felix into the hall and closed the door. “What are you doing putting her in there?” he asked.
Felix was somehow both slight and pudgy, a wisp of hair brushed across his bald spot as if that would be enough to hide it. He didn’t look like he was good at confrontation. But he held Jacob’s gaze firmly when he said, “You’re two months late. Private rooms are in high demand. If you can’t afford to pay for yours, we can’t keep her in it.”
“I’ll get you the money.”
“Please do. We can keep her in this room for a month or two, but if the account isn’t brought current by then . . .” Felix let the threat hang in the air. He didn’t have to mention the word “eviction” explicitly. It had all been spelled out in the paperwork Jacob had signed when he moved his mother in.
“I said I’ll get you the money.”
“I hope so.” Suddenly Felix’s mood changed. His eyes brightened and he smiled. “Anyway, they’re serving Chicken Florentine in the cafeteria tonight. It’s quite good. Stick around if you can.”
Jacob snorted and returned to his mother’s room.
Liam Parker
Patricia told Liam that Elise had been arrested twice, once for prostitution and once for possession. She’d avoided jail time for the prostitution charge but did one year at the Redwood Penitentiary for the drugs.
He didn’t ask any questions. He needed time to process the news. He thanked Patricia for the information and told her he would call later. Then, after an uneventful dinner with the kids at Chili’s, he headed over to Ava’s to blow off some steam.
It was becoming increasingly clear that Liam knew very little about Elise. If all the secrets he’d learned after she died had been revealed sooner, he might have walked away from the relationship. No, he would have walked away from the relationship. But with Bash gunning for him and no relationship to walk away from, Liam was bound to Elise’s ghost for the time being.
At a red light, he pulled up Ava’s app and requested permission to play. While he waited for a response, he called the attorney who’d handled his divorce. Ever since he’d stepped off Catherine’s stoop, he’d been planning on making that call in the morning. He hated to bother the lawyer after hours. But her threat was only compounding his stress and he needed to take action where he could.
The lawyer assured Liam that Catherine wouldn’t be able to take the kids without a hearing and no judge was likely to grant a move during the school year as long as they had another capable parent in the city. “She’s trying to push your buttons,” he said. “You know how she is. If I were you, I’d focus my attention on the criminal case for now, okay? That’s what matters. If it goes sideways, you’re not going to see the kids much no matter where they’re living.”
“You’re right.” Even though Liam thought the advice could have been delivered without reminding him what was at stake, the bluntness of it also took some of the sting out of Catherine’s threat. In that respect, it was exactly what he needed to hear.
He got off the phone and, a couple of seconds later, a barcode for the elevator appeared. Liam was in business.
He parked in the garage, took the elevator to the ninth floor, punched the PIN he’d received through the app into the keypad mounted next to Midwest Design’s glass door, and navigated his way to the back of the suite. The bo
dyguard who patted him down was sporting a gray t-shirt tucked into black slacks and a pair of wingtips. He had a gold medallion featuring St. Christopher on a chain around his neck. When he was done, the bodyguard gestured toward the room with an open hand and said, “Have good time, sir.”
Ava Perez was sitting quietly in the corner. She looked from the players to Liam and nodded a welcome.
Liam took a seat at the table.
“How’s life treating you?” Jacob asked in his usual upbeat tone.
Normally Liam responded with a “pretty good” or “better than yesterday.” But since he couldn’t bring himself to gloss over everything that had happened lately, he settled on the most benign news he could. “My daughter’s been sneaking out.”
Jacob offered a tsk-tsk, and added, “Kids will be kids, I guess, right?” On the next hand, he dealt Liam in.
The Grunter was back. So was Emily, her short black hair again plastered to her head with gel. The only other player Liam knew by name was Eric Ricci. Liam had played with him on several other occasions—he had been among those to leave early the night Elise died—but he’d known about Eric long before their first game.
Eric had been a star football player at Northwestern and had gone on to play a couple of seasons with the Bears. During that time, he’d racked up endorsement deals faster than any other player Liam could recall. He was on billboards selling cologne and in magazines selling clothes. Even now, more than a decade later, he was still a celebrity of sorts, making minor appearances on TV and in films.
Liam did his best to concentrate on the cards and watch for tells. He knew Emily would tap her fingernail on the table when she had a bad hand. Eric’s right eye would twitch. Eventually, he figured out the Grunter, whose real name was Tom Morgan, had the most obvious tell of all—he grunted.
Despite those insights, Liam didn’t play well. He kept thinking about the last time he was here, the messages from Elise, the things he might have done differently. If he’d left thirty minutes earlier, just thirty minutes, she might still be alive. If he hadn’t come here at all, she would be, for sure. They could have gone to a movie (Elise wanted to see Jurassic World) and stayed at his place. Maybe when he dropped her off the next day, they’d have found her door broken in or other signs of an unwanted visitor. Maybe that would have been enough for her to tell him about the bad people. Maybe if she’d told him everything in her own words, he would have understood. Maybe they’d still be together, and maybe one day she could have been Mrs. Parker. Maybe, maybe, maybe.
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 27