A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trust

by Reagan Keeter

  Anita was holding her mother’s arm to steady her as they headed toward a beat-up VW Jetta with a missing headlight. “What for?” she asked.

  “I think she’d be interested in talking to you about my defense. She might even want to put you on the stand. That is, if you wouldn’t mind. Since you two believe I wouldn’t come to the funeral passing out my business card if I was guilty, the jury might, as well.”

  “I don’t know,” the mother said. Anita opened the passenger door for her and she directed her gaze at her daughter. “I’m not sure it’d be such a good idea. Your father wouldn’t like it.”

  Anita rolled her eyes and closed the passenger door after her mother got in. With her mother out of earshot, Anita said defiantly, “I’ll do it.”

  Liam had expected that a no from the mother was a no from both. “Are you sure?”

  “I might not know what happened to my sister that night, but I know you didn’t kill her. I’ll help you.”

  Liam Parker

  Liam hung around David’s condo, killing time. His only breaks from the monotony were the walks outside with Chloe and his meeting with Patricia on Tuesday. Ryan Reyes was also in attendance. This time, Patricia had only introduced him as her PI, but the alliteration had made his name easy to remember.

  The three of them sat around a large conference table. The doors to the conference room were closed, sealing them off from the rest of the Flores and Washington suite.

  Ryan, who was leaning back in his chair, legs and arms crossed, looked to be in his early thirties. He was lean and in good shape. His hair was neatly parted to the right. He was dressed in a suit, sans jacket. His tie was loose, his shirt sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. A tattoo peeked out from underneath one of them.

  Patricia sat perched at the edge of her chair, laptop in front of her and fingers poised over the keyboard. She recited the facts of the case and said their best defense—their only defense—would be the truth.

  Ryan listened quietly, his eyes darting between Patricia and Liam as if he were watching a tennis match.

  “The best thing you have going for you is your credibility. You run a reputable firm that employs over a hundred people. You’re likable. You’re trustworthy. Except for a bar fight in college, you have no history of violence.”

  “That was a mistake. I wasn’t—”

  “The case the police have built is entirely circumstantial,” Patricia continued, barreling forward. “If we can make even one member of the jury doubt the prosecution’s story, we can get a mistrial at a minimum.”

  Liam didn’t like the way that sounded. He was expecting something more aggressive than honesty. An alternate theory, perhaps. Maybe even a guess as to who the real killer was. Wasn’t that why Ryan was here? To dig up some information they could use to finger someone else?

  “Are you sure that’s the best way to go?” he said. “If we get a mistrial, can’t they try me again?”

  “Yes, but it doesn’t mean that’s what will happen. And even if it does, it’s better than a guilty verdict.”

  “Would it help if we put Elise’s sister on the stand?”

  “How would that help?” Patricia said.

  “She thinks I’m innocent. I thought if—”

  “How do you know she thinks you’re innocent?”

  “I met with her over the weekend, and—”

  “You what?” Patricia’s ruddy complexation darkened. “I don’t want you out there talking to anybody. It’s a bad idea. Trust me.”

  “You don’t think she’d be helpful?”

  “Unless she was there when Elise died, then no, I don’t. Let’s set aside the reality that her opinion is just that—an opinion, but what happens if she gets up on the stand and changes her mind? We need to focus on your reputation and the facts. There’s no debating that Elise was alive shortly before you arrived, that you were found with her blood on you, or that you were the only one seen coming or going from her apartment.”

  Liam shifted uncomfortably in his seat, thinking about his conversation with the neighbor. He should tell Patricia about that at some point, too, but this didn’t seem like the best time.

  “The only people we need to put on the stand are those who can cast doubt on the prosecution’s theory—forensics experts, people who can speak to your reputation and, this is what we need to be focused on, your whereabouts. Because we have two big problems with our defense. First, you told the police you were at home, which you weren’t. So where were you?”

  Liam leaned forward. He clasped his hands together, intertwining his fingers, and squeezed. He had to tell them. “Okay, look, there’s a woman who hosts a poker game over in Lakeview. I was there.”

  If the news concerned Patricia, she didn’t show it. “All right. We’ll figure out how to deal with that later. Let’s discuss our second problem. The prosecution is going to claim you found out Elise was seeing someone else and killed her because of it.”

  Liam wasn’t surprised. He remembered Bash laying out that same theory for him after he was arrested. Although there wasn’t anything to say, he felt like he needed to say something, and the words that came out were: “You know that’s not true.” They sounded defensive and he regretted them as soon as he said them.

  “Ryan has been doing some digging on our behalf. Elise doesn’t have much of a paper trail. No credit cards, no bank statements, no work history. The one and only apartment he found in her name was the one she died in.”

  “I did get ahold of her phone records,” Ryan added, finally speaking.

  “And?” Liam pressed.

  “Apparently the theory isn’t so farfetched,” Patricia said.

  “What do you mean?” Liam said. Although the implication was clear, it seemed impossible to him. Despite all her lies, he still believed their relationship had been real. He figured he had to be missing the point.

  But he wasn’t, and when Ryan said, “Looks like she was indeed seeing someone else,” a powerful cocktail of shock and denial powered through Liam’s system like a locomotive.

  Christopher Bell

  Chris pushed the thief’s bedroom door open far enough to see the cracked window and knew he was gone. He was livid. He didn’t think about the risk he was taking by being in this apartment. (If the thief called the police to report a B&E, his career—his whole life—would be over.) All he thought about was the ring and where the thief might have put it.

  He and Arkin turned the apartment upside down, dumping everything out of the drawers and cabinets, toppling furniture, checking every pocket in every article of clothing. They found several loose coins, mostly pennies, and came across a folded and worn photo in the back pocket of a pair of jeans, but no ring. Or not the ring he was looking for, anyway.

  Chris hadn’t gotten a good look at the thief on the CTA video and barely remembered what he looked like—skinny, white, average height. He wasn’t a redhead and his hair wasn’t jet black either. To be any more precise than that, he’d be guessing. But that alone was enough to know the thief wasn’t among those in the photo he found. The man in it was older, balding, sitting next to a woman who held an infant in her lap.

  When Chris gave up his search, he felt defeated. Emma chastised him for his failure. She told him he should have expected the thief to go out the window. “If I’d been there,” she said, “I would’ve told Arkin to wait outside, just in case something like that happened.”

  “You’re going to Monday-morning quarterback this thing?”

  “Call it what you want, but you screwed this up royally. We’re never going to get that ring back now.”

  Although Chris didn’t say as much to Emma at the time, he refused to accept that. He’d get the ring back. If he couldn’t, he’d get revenge. It only seemed fair. When the thief had stolen it, Chris felt violated. He’d wanted the thief to go to jail and had wanted the ring back because it was expensive. Now he had a more personal reason, as well—Emma. She was disappointed in him. If he didn’t
make things right, she’d always be disappointed in him.

  The only question was how.

  Liam Parker

  Liam couldn’t stop thinking about the mystery man Elise had been dating. Ryan hadn’t been able to tell him much but the quantity of texts and phone calls the two had exchanged. As far as suspects went, though, it didn’t make any difference. The police had questioned him and ruled him out.

  After two more days stuck in David’s condo, watching TV and thinking about Elise, Liam couldn’t take it anymore. He needed to direct his attention elsewhere for a while. His trial was six months away and he couldn’t put his entire life on hold until then.

  He decided to swing by ConnectPlus to pick up his computer. A quick in and out. Although he’d agreed it was best to let David run the place on his own for the time being, that didn’t mean he had to remain entirely uninvolved. If Liam had his computer, he could monitor the business in a way he couldn’t without it. Unlike David, he knew how to use the data to look for sales opportunities and warning signs. It was only smart he use that knowledge to help David steer the ship in his absence.

  Liam made it to his office with little more than a few awkward hellos. He unplugged his laptop, stuffed it into his computer bag, and was about to leave when his phone rang. He pulled his cell out of his pocket and answered.

  “What the hell were you thinking?” Patricia demanded. “You spoke to the state’s witness. Are you crazy?”

  “Who are you talking about?”

  “Who am I—Jesus, Liam, how many people did you talk to?”

  Then Liam realized Patricia had to mean Ashley Carlson. Before he could say as much, Patricia said, “Elise’s neighbor. Did you go by her apartment to try to get her to change her story?”

  “I wanted her to know what really happened,” Liam said defensively. He had left the door to his office open. Several employees on the other side had stopped what they were doing to listen.

  “I told you not to speak to anybody.”

  “I know. This was before—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me? It doesn’t matter. The judge is revoking your bail.”

  He turned toward the tall windows behind his desk, seeking privacy. “He can’t do that.”

  “If he thinks you were trying to influence her testimony, he absolutely can.”

  Liam pressed one hand to the glass to steady himself. He saw a line of police cars two blocks away and headed in his direction.

  Patricia took a deep breath to calm herself down. “Are you at home?”

  “No, not right now.”

  “Okay, I think Detective Wyatt’s going to let you turn yourself in. I want you to go home, get your affairs in order, and then call me back.”

  Nearly frozen with fear, Liam watched the police cars get closer and closer still. He nodded and, feeling like he had responded, hung up.

  He left his laptop on his desk and hurried to the elevator, ignoring the eyes on him. As he descended the floors alone, he told himself he was going home, following Patricia’s instructions. But something deep and primal was screaming out, demanding he run as far and as fast as he could.

  The police have somebody watching you, that voice said. Despite what Patricia had told him, they knew where he was and they were coming.

  The elevator doors opened. As Liam stepped off and rounded the corner toward the lobby, the four police cars he’d seen from a distance pulled up to the curb, lights flashing. Any doubts he had they were coming for him were gone. Bash stepped out of one, uniformed officers stepped out of the others.

  Liam moved back into the alcove that housed the elevators before anybody saw him. That primal instinct to run was growing stronger. He needed a second to think. Giving in to that instinct would be crazy. If he ran, if he dodged and weaved and managed to avoid getting caught, he would become a criminal for real, even if evading arrest was his only crime.

  But so what? He had unwittingly destroyed any chance Patricia’s defense had by talking to the neighbor. And she herself had said she didn’t have a better strategy. If he went to jail now, he might never get out. That terrified him. He couldn’t imagine living the rest of his life the way he had those two days awaiting his arraignment. His only chance was . . . was what? Then it came to him—his only chance was to find the real killer, and it looked like he was going to have to do that on his own.

  From the elevators, Liam only had access to the twentieth floor. Returning to ConnectPlus would be as useless for his escape as staying where he was. He needed to find another way out.

  He glanced around frantically, seeing nothing that would help him and reconstructing the layout of the ground floor in his mind. On the other side of the alcove, closer to the lobby, there was a mail drop. Along the back wall, partially visible from the street, was a stairwell.

  That might work, he thought.

  Reaching it without being seen would require a little luck. But since he had no other choice, Liam made a run for it. There was no reason to be cautious, peering around the corner to see where the cops were and weighing his odds of success. Either they’d see him or they wouldn’t, and if they did, a full-out sprint was his best chance of getting away.

  He slammed through the door and took the stairs down. He hoped they would lead to a loading dock at the back of the building or a basement where he could hide. And perhaps they did indeed lead to one of those places. But since for Liam, they stopped at a door secured by a wall-mounted scanner, it didn’t matter where they went.

  He stayed there for a minute or so, crouching down and doing his best to hide, in case any of the cops came in after him. When they didn’t, Liam was confident he had made it to the stairwell unseen.

  He quietly eased back up the stairs to the ground floor. He wiped the sweat off his forehead using the sleeve of his overcoat. He placed one hand on the doorknob, slowly turned it, and hesitated. He imagined coming face-to-face with Bash when he cracked the door open to see if the coast was clear. But having ruled out the stairwell, the lobby was his only way out. He breathed in through his nose, out through his mouth, and pushed the door forward an inch. No cops. Another inch. Still no cops. He had been certain there would be at least one—a lookout Bash had left behind—but they must all be on their way to the twentieth floor.

  A group of well-dressed office workers stepped out of the elevator alcove. Acting on instinct, Liam blended in behind them, keeping his head down and the collar of his overcoat up.

  As he approached the revolving door, he noticed two cops standing outside by their cruisers. So that was where Bash had placed his lookouts. If Liam was going to make a clean escape, he was going to have to get past them unnoticed. He kept his pace slow so as not to draw attention, pulled out his phone, and held it to one ear to further obscure his face. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see them watching him as he turned left onto the sidewalk and melded into the throngs of foot traffic.

  One tapped the arm of the other and pointed in Liam’s direction. Liam picked up his pace. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the second cop had pulled out his radio. He didn’t have to be a genius to know the cop was saying something about him.

  Liam pushed his way through the pedestrians and around the corner. The cops started to move, closing in fast. They shouted for people to get out of the way, for Liam to stop.

  There’d be no losing the cops on foot. Thankfully his car was parked in a four-story lot at the end of the street. If he could get to it, he’d be home free. Until then, the best he could do was stay far enough ahead of them so that they couldn’t catch him.

  Liam slammed through a gray metal door that took him into the parking lot’s stairwell. Last time he’d looked back, he had a forty-foot lead. The time before that it had been fifty. He took the steps two at a time. The stairwell smelled like urine. The handrail was chipped and sticky. Once on the third floor, Liam went through another metal door. This one was red and was marked with a large “N3.”

  His car was parked midway
along the back row. He reached it without getting caught, jumped in, slammed the gearshift into reverse, and took off. As he wound his way down to the first floor, ignoring the directional signs that would take him longer to reach the exit, he was overcome with the uneasy feeling that he’d been outmaneuvered. The cops should have been right behind him. Liam should have seen them when he was backing out of his parking spot. He should have heard them on the stairwell. But he hadn’t, and when he reached the exit, he found out why.

  Liam Parker

  Standing behind the mechanical arm that separated the parking lot from Michigan Avenue, the two officers drew their guns. Liam slowed to a stop.

  “Get out of the car, Mr. Parker! Get out of the car, now!”

  Liam licked his lips and tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. He squinted in the sunlight that reflected off the Bank of America across the street. There wasn’t anywhere for him to go but through that gate. He was either doing it on foot with the cops or alone in his car.

  One of the officers stepped forward. “Mr. Parker!”

  When Liam had decided to run, he’d imagined an easy escape and a hero’s welcome after he showed the police who the real killer was. The first part of that fantasy had already been blown to hell. The second part might be also, if he kept running. Because the only way to keep running would be to slam his foot down on the gas and trust those two cops to get out of the way.

  He tightened his hands on the steering wheel. There was really only one choice, wasn’t there?

  In case the cops didn’t move fast enough, Liam tapped the brakes as the mechanical arm splintered. They dove safely into the bushes that flanked the exit and Liam careened onto the road. Drivers honked, slammed on their brakes. He slowed at the red light in front of him, but didn’t stop. There was a gap in the crossing traffic. He seized it, and turned right, heading for Lakeshore Drive.