One thing was for sure: those maybes were all he had left.
Liam thought about them throughout the night and was still thinking about them when a knock on his door got him out of bed early the next morning and drew him cautiously to the door of his condo. He should have gotten a call from the concierge announcing the visitor. Dressed in his boxers and white tee, he quietly slid the chain on the door into place. He had his cell phone in one hand, ready to dial 911. He looked through the peephole and saw Bash, flanked by uniformed officers.
Bash knocked again, harder. “Mr. Parker, I know you’re in there. I need you to open up.”
Liam instantly felt weak. He placed his free hand against the wall to steady himself. There was only one reason Bash would be here before seven a.m. Liam stepped deeper into the condo so he could call Patricia without being heard.
“What’s wrong, Liam?” she said when she answered, sounding surprisingly alert for the hour.
“Bash is outside. I’m pretty sure I’m about to get arrested.”
“All right, we knew this could happen. Don’t fight it. Do what they tell you to. I’ll find out where they’re going to take you and meet you there.”
With the demands for Liam to open the door intensifying, he did just that. The uniformed officers charged in first, guns pulled and clearing the unit. Bash entered waving an arrest warrant.
“Get dressed,” he said.
Liam Parker
Liam sat in an interview room at police headquarters, handcuffed to a table.
Bash sat across from him. “We know you weren’t at home when you sent the text messages to Elise.”
Liam didn’t respond.
“You were in Lakeview. Why did you lie to me?”
“I’m not saying anything until my lawyer gets here.”
Bash shrugged. “If that’s how you want to handle it, that’s fine with me. But she’s going to tell you to keep quiet, go to court. And every hour you spend in jail she’s going to be out there working on your behalf.” He made air quotes around the last three words. “All the while she’s charging you—what? Two hundred dollars an hour? More? I know you can afford it, but you have to ask yourself, do you really think she’s looking out for your best interest? If you go to court, you’re going away for life. I can guarantee you that. But, if we can put this thing to bed now, I believe I could get the DA to drop murder one to manslaughter.”
Liam leaned back in his chair, panic welling up inside him. Still, he knew he was being played. He kept his mouth shut. He’d already said everything he had to say for now.
“No matter how careful somebody is, a murder is a hard thing to cover up,” Bash said. “And it’s never a good idea to try to make it look like a suicide. When you strangle someone, there are a lot of little clues you leave behind. Pressure marks behind the ears, burst blood vessels under the eyelids, stuff like that. Not to mention the bruises you left on her neck. And cutting her wrists after she died?” He shook his head. “Since the body wasn’t pumping blood anymore, that was never going to fool anyone.
“Look, I’ll admit I don’t know what you were doing in Lakeview. But if it was something you felt you needed to lie about, I can be damn sure it’s not going to make your situation any better. And it doesn’t change a thing about what you did to Elise.”
Bash crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Liam until Liam said, “Lawyer.”
“Let me tell you what I think happened. I think you found out Elise was cheating on you. I think you went over there to tell her to cut it out. She said she wouldn’t. Maybe she broke up with you. Either way, you got mad, things got out of hand. You didn’t mean to kill her. It just happened. Then you freaked out. You had to cover it up. So you dumped her in the tub, cut her wrists, and took off. Like I said, the prosecutor’s going to go for murder one. But if that’s how things went down, you don’t need to spend the rest of your life behind bars. People make mistakes, right?”
“Lawyer.”
“I also think I know why you placed the call from your phone instead of hers. After all, if you could get into her phone to delete your messages, you could have dialed 911 instead.”
Liam restrained himself from reminding the detective that he hadn’t deleted the messages. If Bash hadn’t believed him the first time, he wasn’t going to believe him now.
“You nearly knocked over a resident when you were fleeing the scene. Remember her? I think that’s the real reason you placed the 911 call from your phone. Once someone had seen you, you couldn’t just disappear, right? And you want to know something else? I’ll bet you a jury’s going to think the exact same thing. Especially since you were the only one seen going in or out of the apartment.”
An officer opened the door and Patricia stepped inside just in time to hear the end of Bash’s sentence. She introduced herself, then said, “Mr. Parker did ask for his lawyer, didn’t he?”
“I did,” Liam said. “Several times.”
“You mind telling me what you’re doing in here, Detective Wyatt?”
“Passing the time.”
“Uh-huh.” She gestured to the door. “Do you mind?”
Bash looked from the lawyer to Liam and back. He got up slowly and, without trying to hide his disdain for Patricia, left the room. She took his seat and placed her briefcase on the floor beside her. “Did you say anything?”
“No.”
She nodded. “Good.”
“Detective Wyatt said something to me before you came in that doesn’t make any sense though. I encountered only two people when I went to see Elise—the woman who held the door for me and the one I ran into when I was going to my car to get my phone. Both of them were in the lobby. But he said I was the only one seen going in or out of her apartment. Nobody saw me go in or out of her apartment.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure.” Liam moved his cuffed arm a little bit, trying to make it more comfortable.
“All right, let me see what I can find out about the building’s security. Maybe they have footage of you on the floor. If they do, and you really are the only one going in or out of that apartment . . .” She shook her head. “Do I need to be prepared for that possibility?”
She’d held his gaze when she asked the question and he held hers when he answered. “If they’ve got footage of that floor, I won’t be the only one on it.”
Liam Parker
Patricia told Liam he’d be arraigned in a couple of days. Until then, he’d have to sit tight. After that, the police fingerprinted and photographed him. The routine was more or less the same as it had been when he was arrested in college. Now, however, instead of being kept in a large room with dozens of other men, he was outfitted with an orange jumpsuit and transferred to the county jail. He was assigned a cell and told he’d get an hour a day to shower and stretch his legs.
There was a small bed and a desk on opposite walls. A sink and a toilet. It looked like something out of a nightmare.
Liam sat down on the bed. The prison smelled like piss and vomit. He was scared and overwhelmed. He wanted to cry, and looked away from the other cells in case he did.
At least he was alone. Everyone on this wing was. It was where the guards housed those yet to be processed. He couldn’t imagine sharing the forty-eight square feet with another man. Especially someone who had committed murder.
Jacob Reed
Jacob found a black-market dealer online. Presenting himself to the public at large as an up-and-up businessman, the dealer ran a jewelry shop on Halstead called Forever Diamonds. He had told Jacob through secure messages exchanged on the dark web they would make the deal there.
The store was unassuming and small, nestled between a bakery and a clothing boutique. Inside, three long cases of jewelry had been organized in a U formation. There were no customers when Jacob arrived.
The dealer showed him to a back room. He silently examined the ring with a loupe while he made his assessment, then placed the ring on a piece of br
own felt that had been laid out on the table between them and made his offer.
Although Jacob wasn’t sure what the ring was worth, he was certain the man was offering a fraction of its true value. “I don’t know,” he said, feigning reluctance in hopes of driving up the price. “That seems low.”
The dealer crossed his arms over his chest. “Think you can do better?” He gestured to the ring. “Take it.”
Jacob knew he couldn’t do better. The offer was more than he was getting from the pawn shops and, most importantly, it would be enough to pay off his debt to the Heartland Nursing Home. He made the deal, pocketed the cash, and while waiting on the metro, pulled out his phone to check his news feed.
Jacob didn’t care much for the news and normally paid little attention to it. But since he’d seen the first story detailing Elise’s death, he’d been watching his feed closely for further updates. With cold, trembling fingers, he clicked a story titled “Suspect Arrested in Logan Square Murder.”
When he was done reading it, he knew what he needed to do next. He needed to get into Liam’s apartment.
Christopher Bell
Chris had been dating Emma for five years and living with her for eighteen months before he’d worked up the nerve to ask her to marry him. Actually, he hadn’t asked. He’d only bought a ring, but that was a big step forward for him.
The jeweler had described it as a French Pavé diamond eternity engagement ring with a round three-carat diamond clocking in at over fifty-three thousand dollars. Except for the price, that all meant nothing to Chris. But it was pretty. Emma would love it.
What Chris knew well were stocks. He was a broker for Ellison Trust with a solid track record. He could predict the movement of the Dow better than most. It was a reputation that had gotten him booked on CNN and MSNBC, as well as quoted in The New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
To say he was good because he did his homework would be an understatement. All the brokers Chris knew did their homework, though few stayed at the office as late as he did and even fewer took stacks of documents to bed with them to read before going to sleep.
Emma couldn’t understand how anybody could put that many hours into a job. Nor could she understand why, if he brought his work home anyway, he would so often stay at the office well into the night. Although Chris had told her he could concentrate better there, she didn’t buy it. On more than one occasion, she’d accused him of having an affair.
That was something he would never do. Making her believe that, though, wasn’t always easy. Emma would snoop through his drawers, open his credit card statements, check his email. Chris knew all this and loved her anyway. He had no secrets. Not until he’d bought the ring, and that one secret he couldn’t let her uncover before he was ready.
He’d carried it around in his jacket for the first two weeks, telling himself one night or the next, or maybe this weekend, he would pop the question. Perhaps he’d take her out on his boat for a candlelight dinner and do it under the stars. But the weekend came and went and one night folded into the next and still he hadn’t asked.
Chris wasn’t concerned about her answer. Emma had been hinting at marriage for a while. If he’d came home one day, dropped the ring on the table, and said, “You wanna?”, he was confident she would have said yes. Although in practice Chris had given up the single life long ago, he was reluctant to make it official. Marriage came with a string of entanglements, not the least of which was financial. Emma had already announced she wasn’t going to sign a prenup, and that never sat right with him.
When Chris had come to terms with the reality that he wasn’t going to propose yet, he’d decided he better put the ring somewhere safe until he was finally, actually, and truly ready. He’d selected the First National on State Street because it was close to his office. Then he put the key in his wallet where Emma wouldn’t find it, and in the eight months since had thought about it exactly three times: Christmas, New Year’s, and their anniversary.
After his wallet was stolen, he promptly replaced his credit cards and went by the DMV to get a new license. The photo of Emma was digital; he could reprint that when he got around to it. But the cash was gone forever. That irritated him the most. On some level he never thought about he believed people were replaceable. Even Emma. She hadn’t been his first girlfriend, and if she left, she wouldn’t be his last. Money, on the other hand, was not. A dollar stolen was a dollar gone. When he came into possession of another, it did not fill the void of the one he no longer had.
He remembered the key to the safety deposit box several days later. He and Emma were lying in bed. They’d been making love not minutes before. Emma clung to him, one arm draped over his chest. She asked if their relationship was going anywhere, which of course meant marriage, and, more immediately, a ring, a safety deposit box, and a key.
Chris told himself not to worry. A pickpocket wouldn’t have any interest in a safety deposit box or any way to get into it. They were opportunists, that was all. He’d have taken the cash. Bastard. Perhaps he’d have charged up the credit cards if he’d had the chance. But a key? It would have gone in the trash with everything else.
Chris decided he would stop by the bank in the morning and replace it. Everything would be fine.
But it wasn’t fine. The personal banker went pale when Chris told her he needed to replace the key to his safety deposit box. She called her manager over. They spoke privately for a while, and he took the brunt of Chris’s explosion. Nobody knew whether the man posing as Chris Bell had taken anything out of the safety deposit box; they only knew he’d been inside it.
Chris didn’t have to check the box to know the ring would be gone, but he did anyway.
“Certainly the ring is insured,” the manager said, huddling with Chris and the personal banker in her office.
“I thought it was safe here,” Chris snapped. He wanted to break something. He wanted to hurt someone. Fifty-three thousand dollars—gone. Emma should have agreed to sign a damn prenup.
“Okay, relax. We’ll call the police. We have security cameras. I’m sure they can get to the bottom of this.”
The police reviewed First National’s CCTV footage. Views of their suspect were obscured by a Cubs baseball cap, a mop of hair they thought might be a wig, and glasses they weren’t sure he needed. Dusting the safety deposit box for prints only turned up ones that matched bank employees.
The police put the photo out on the wire anyway because, as one officer said, “You never know.”
Chris could tell he wasn’t optimistic and spent the next two days on a slow burn. He blamed everyone: the police, the bank, the thief, but most of all, he blamed Emma. This was her fault, after all. If she’d agreed to sign a damn prenup, none of this would have happened. Finally, he told her as much.
The confrontation happened in the living room. It was nearing midnight and they’d both had too much beer. He paced the room, decorated with black leather sofas and a multicolored rug with no discernable pattern.
Sitting on the sofa closest to the fireplace, Emma let Chris talk until he had nothing left to say. He called her stupid and selfish. He could tell a part of her was delighted that he’d gotten so close to a proposal he’d bought a ring, and that only made him angrier.
When he was done, she waited a beat, letting the tension in the room defuse a little, then got to her feet. “Honey, you should have come to me about this sooner. We’re a team.”
“What could you do about it?” he spat.
“You said the guy who stole the ring is the same guy who stole your wallet, right?”
“So?”
“Did you tell the police that?” Emma asked, gently placing a hand on Chris’s arm.
He shook her off. “Of course I told the police.”
She took a step back. “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“Why not?”
“What do you think is going to happen if they arrest him? He’ll deny everything. Without fingerprints, a conf
ession, or any good way to visually ID him, will they even charge him with the robbery at the bank?” She shrugged. “No doubt they’ll set a trial date for the theft of your wallet, but he’ll get bail. Then what? If he hasn’t sold the ring already, he’ll sell it then, for sure. It’ll be gone for good.”
“You have a better idea?”
Her lips stretched into a Cheshire cat grin. Chris had only seen that expression on a few occasions, and only when she was up to no good. “I might.” Then it fell away and she said gravely, “If it’s not already too late.”
Liam Parker
During the hour out of his cell, Liam placed a collect call to David from a wall-mounted pay phone (he hadn’t seen one of those since he was a teenager) and asked him to watch Elise’s dog until he got bail. God, he didn’t even want to think about what would happen if he didn’t get bail. After he hung up, he headed to the yard to walk around.
There was a basketball hoop on one side, free weights on another. Liam stuck to the perimeter, walking along the fence line and keeping his head down. He was there not twenty minutes before a fight broke out right in front of him. In a flurry of activity, the inmates surrounding the two fighters backed away. Some, who egged the men on, did it to make room. Others, like Liam, just wanted to get the hell out of the way.
A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust Page 28