Regan Harris Box Set

by Kelly Wood

  “You broke down the door and came to my rescue. What about Seth and Anais?”

  “Both arrested. Seth is in jail. Anais is here.”

  “Here?” The surprise caused me to sit up. The quick movement made me dizzy after laying down for so long.

  “She took a turn for the worse. She isn’t expected to make it long. I think she gave up her will to live.”

  “She accomplished her goal. She wanted to protect Peter. Leave him a legacy with the pub. It was failing. Everything was working fine until Anya tried to blackmail the mayor about his daughter being an escort.”

  “Anais killed her?” Gray asked. “We heard her but I just couldn’t believe it.”

  I understood his reluctance. It would’ve been to me too if she hadn’t tried to kill me. “Yes, she did it in a fit of rage. Anya was stealing from the clients. She padded their invoices and reimbursed herself and Seth for the amounts she faked.”

  “Greed was at the heart of this?”

  “I think so. And pride for Anais.” I reached out to touch Gray’s hair. “You need to go to Peter’s. Take a shower. Change your clothes. You’ll feel better.”

  “I can’t leave yet.” A slow grin spread across his face. “We still have one matter left to discuss.”

  “What’s that?” I asked with a smile.

  “We never picked our wedding date.”

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  I talked Gray into going back to Peter’s to clean up and rest. I convinced him that I would only be sleeping and would be perfectly fine.

  I lied. I had my fingers crossed the whole time.

  I gave Gray fifteen minutes to get downstairs and into a cab before I snuck out of my room. I found Anais’s room with ease. After all, she was the only patient with a policeman guarding her room. It just took a little wandering and eavesdropping on the nurses until one of them mentioned it.

  At least, I hoped it was her room. It would be rather awkward if I barged in on a stranger.

  True to form, I had no plan, but quickly realized that I didn’t need one when I saw Liam and his partner standing outside the door. It took some finagling and some puppy dog eyes, but they finally let me in for five minutes. Liam stood by the door watching us but kept his distance.

  “Regan. I’m glad you are well,” Anais said.

  Anais had aged overnight. Withered really. In her kitchen, she had been full of life and determined. Today she looked frail and thin under the blanket. Her hair was thin and unkempt. I realized that I didn’t think I’d ever seen her with her hair down. She looked like she had already wasted away.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “You won’t understand this now. I’m hoping maybe someday you will when you have children of your own. There is nothing like a mother’s love. We turn into protective bears when our own are threatened. I couldn’t let everything fall apart around him, especially with me dying soon. I have been in protection mode since I found out about the debt. I only wanted to protect Peter.”

  “I think this crosses the line, don’t you?” I asked.

  “It’s all perspective, I guess.” Anais closed her eyes for a moment and gathered more strength.

  Although I found it creepy, I could understand . . . to a point. My mother had the same relationship with my baby brother. She didn’t see it, but the rest of us could clearly.

  “I just want to understand,” I said. I stood a few feet back from her bed. I couldn’t go any closer.

  “You may never, dear. I am sorry that you got in the middle. I have always had a soft spot in my heart for you.”

  Nice way to show it! If poisoning me with peanuts was a soft spot, then thank God, she didn’t love me.

  “Why did you come?” Anais asked.

  “To tell you that I forgive you. I don’t understand you, and I am angry with you, but I forgive you.” I turned to leave, having said my piece. I was angry with her. I felt hurt and betrayed. She’d been my Chicago mother. I didn’t want to carry around the negative feelings until they turned into bitterness. That was why I had to forgive her.

  “Regan?” Anais said. I paused at the door but didn’t turn back.

  “I’ve read every one of your books . . . and enjoyed them.”

  I left the room, closing the door behind me quietly. I leaned against it and smiled. Even Anais’s last words were a compliment. She had to make it clear that she not only read them but had actually enjoyed them. Every time she’d commented on my writing, I’d thought she hadn’t been proud of what I’d accomplished. I was wrong. That was what I was choosing to remember about her.

  “That was very big of you,” Liam said. He leaned against the wall near me.

  “I needed to see her one last time. I needed to see her not as the ruthless manipulator and plotter, but as the woman I have always known. Thank you.” I started back toward my room.

  “Regan . . . What you just did in there. That will help you heal.” Liam straightened up his stance but hesitated. “I know from experience.”

  I hid back in my room under the covers and cried. I let the release come. I purged out all of it. All of the insanity of the last few days. I mourned for Peter and what he was going through. I mourned what was to come. I was giving myself this time and then I was putting it away. Putting it behind me. Maybe even running from it.

  I felt the bed shift and heard the squeaks as Gray crawled in beside me to hold me. I should’ve known that he wouldn’t actually leave. I should’ve known he would stay with me while I hurt.

  One day I might learn.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  I stared at Peter across the table. He had been uncharacteristically quiet throughout the whole memorial. I broke down and cried with him. Not knowing what else to say to ease the pain, I just held him while he grieved.

  Anais had passed the night I went to see her. Peter thought she was just waiting for me. I ignored the emotions inside me since I wasn’t sure how I felt about that. I wasn’t confused about her death or her life.

  Liam, Jax, Peter, Gray, and I sat around a table at O’Kelly’s Pub. Peter had closed down the restaurant the day following his mother’s death until further notice. The after-funeral meal had ended, leaving the five of us in the restaurant. We had ushered everyone else out; we needed the time to ourselves.

  The sun still shone, but I found the mood of the restaurant very dark. Like the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the gloom in here. Funerals were hard. I always found them to be rude to the living. The poor family members were mentally and emotionally exhausted, but yet, forced to stand in front of a coffin holding their loved one for hours, talking to people they might not even know. I thought it was emotional cruelty.

  “Regan. What happened that night at Mother’s?” Peter asked. I’d never told him my side of the story.

  “Are you sure you want to hear everything? Especially now?” I asked.

  “Maybe this should wait,” Jax said. She reached out to him and rubbed his back.

  “No, now. Funerals are about closure, and I want my closure with Mother. Tell me what happened so I can grieve it too, please.”

  I understood his logic. I would’ve rather had to face everything all at once too, so I told him. I told him everything. How I snuck into his computer, and broke into Ben’s apartment. I chanced a look at Liam when I mentioned the break-in, but he didn’t say anything. I told Peter about Seth finding me here and shocking me with the stun gun, Anais feeding me peanuts and having me spit out the tainted food. I wanted him to know this, that, in the end, she couldn’t do it, she couldn’t actually kill me. I wanted him to know that she tried to stop the reaction but couldn’t. I told him what happened to Anya. I especially told him about Seth embezzling from the clients. If I ever saw that little weasel again, I was going to knock his lights out.

  “She admitted everything in her interview with us,” Liam said, confirming my story to Peter.

  “I only have one more question. I never did figure out how Seth knew what I was u
p to. I thought I had covered my tracks well.”

  “I can answer that one. I asked Seth the same thing in his interrogation. He was more than willing to share everything, hoping to make a deal. Of course, he didn’t know Anais was also talking.” Liam covered his mouth to cough before he continued. “He heard talk about it. He said whenever you were in the office, he would go into the private room and listen through the vent. He heard you explaining what you found on the phone.” Liam nodded his head to us. “To Gray, I think.”

  He used my own trick against me.

  “But how did she get the clients?” Jax asked, switching the subject.

  “Looking to give up painting, Jax?” I joked.

  “Maybe. Did you see the clothes those girls wear?”

  “Mother had always been involved with political fundraisers. She had a personal relationship with the mayor, and he spread the word,” Peter explained. “I don’t know what Mother was thinking when she hired his daughter. She had to know it would end poorly.”

  “What’s going to happen to the mayor?” Gray asked.

  “Nothing. Any mention of him or anyone else is gone. Even the follow-up interviews have been wiped clean of any mention of him. I have your say that Seth and Anya tried to blackmail him, but no proof. Of anything. The computers here have been wiped. Even Peter’s personal computer. We don’t have any proof of anything. We only have Anais’s confession of her murdering Anya. Case closed from that perspective,” Liam said.

  Gray and I locked eyes. I knew exactly where the proof had gone, and so did Gray.

  Ben.

  “What about Anya’s murder and the escort service?” I asked.

  “Anya’s case is closed. When I say the interviews and evidence are gone, I mean all of it. Officially, it’s over. Nothing else left to prosecute,” Liam said. Ben must have been very thorough in his house cleaning.

  “What happened to Ben?” I asked. I avoided meeting Gray’s eyes. I had a feeling Ben would be a sore subject for a while to come.

  “He’s gone. No one has seen or heard from him since you saw him at City Hall,” Liam said.

  I knew where he had been. In my hospital room. At some point, anyway. I found a note. The words “I will see you again” written across the page with a phone number. It hadn’t been signed, but I knew who had left it. It was folded up and hidden in my wallet. I kept forgetting to throw it away where Gray wouldn’t find it.

  I didn’t share the note with anyone else. It was my secret and what was the point? Gray would only get angry, and there was nothing he could do about it. I was positive Ben was gone, for now anyway.

  Liam and Jax left. Gray and I were soon to follow, but I wanted a moment alone with Peter. I followed him to the office. That place, the hub of everything. Anya’s ghost would forever haunt this room.

  “Peter?”

  “Oh, hi, Regan. I thought you were leaving,” he asked. He leaned back in the chair and turned to face me. The events hadn’t been kind to him either. His hair seemed to have turned gray overnight.

  “We are leaving, but . . .” I trailed off.

  “So, you want to do this now?”

  “It’s true, then?”

  “Maybe. What do you think the truth is?” Peter asked.

  “I think Anais gave me ninety-nine percent of the truth. She gave up everything . . . everything, but you.”

  I’d been mulling over it for the last few days, the picture never quite clearing until I brought Peter into it. I could easily see Anya and Anais running the business and the girls under Peter’s nose. He didn’t pay attention to the numbers. He didn’t like paperwork. He barely glimpsed at it each period. I could even ignore the spreadsheet on his home computer. After all, it was nothing more than the dates and times of each girl who was supposed to be working an event.

  What I couldn’t see was Anya and Anais “closing” the girls to bring them on board. Closers knew how to finesse a situation. How to make the prospective client laugh one minute, but focus on business the next. Closers got the clients to the light at the end of the tunnel.

  Anya and Anais were many things, but subtle was not one of them. I’d seen Peter, though, talk almost anybody into doing anything. One year, a group of us went skydiving. One of the waitresses was terrified of heights and was only there to watch. By the time Peter was done with her, she was wearing her parachute with glee. He was a “closer.” He could close any deal, including how to talk a wholesome, down-on-her-luck, good girl into becoming an escort. He would’ve made it sound fun and exciting, making her forget her values. Anya was the one who talked Sarah into becoming a working girl, but I knew Peter had done his fair share, too.

  I let Anais go, but I held anger toward Peter. My thoughts and emotions warred inside of me. For once, I chose to leave and run away because it was what was best for me and not out of fear.

  “What are you going to do?” Peter asked.

  “Nothing. I’m leaving, and there is no proof, according to Liam. I’d say it’s your lucky day.”

  “Thank you. Do you think Liam knows?” Peter asked.

  “Yes. He’s not a dumb guy. I’d suggest cleaning up your business. You’d be pressing your luck to continue now.” I smiled.

  “Cute. Where are you off to?” Peter asked.

  “Las Vegas.”

  “Will I see you again?” Peter rested his head in the palm of his hands and rubbed his temples with his fingertips.

  “Not for a long while.”

  “I didn’t think so. Good luck, Regan. I will miss you.” When he spoke, he looked up at me. I saw true sorrow in his eyes. I didn’t know if it was over the loss of his mother, our friendship, or the business. Maybe all three.

  I didn’t say anything to him. I left the office and that part of my life behind. I didn’t know if Peter and I would ever rekindle our friendship. It’d taken a beating lately, but who knew what the future held?

  Gray waited for me in the hallway. Without saying a word, he held out his hand toward me. I looked at it and then moved my eyes up to his face. Was I ready for this? To take the next step and have a forever commitment? I smiled at him as I put my hand in his.

  The End

  Chapter One

  I didn’t see the person jump off of the building. I didn’t know if it was a man or a woman. I was minding my own business, sitting at a café table that overlooked the Bellagio Hotel water show and the newly remodeled Magari Hotel when I looked up and saw it. I watched the image get larger and larger, the shape constantly shifting as it fell through the air. I still wasn’t able to comprehend what I was seeing until the body hit the pavement between the Bellagio and the Magari and the screaming started. A chill ran up my spine.

  If you have ever seen someone hit the ground from a twenty-story fall, they splat. They splat hard. I turned away as the screaming started. Security rushed out of the hotels surrounding the area while barking orders into their walkie-talkies. I wondered how many of them could hear what the others were saying since they were all talking at once. Patrons around me stood up from their tables to watch the mess. I stayed seated. I had no desire to see the outcome, instead pretending that nothing had happened, but sending up a quick prayer for the person and their family. I didn’t know what to think about the jumper. Was it by choice or at the hands of someone else? Neither were good options.

  I scanned the crowd for my fiancé, easily spotting him in the crowd since he towered over everyone else. His head was turned toward the scene I was purposely avoiding. A dark cloud now hanging over our planned lunch date. I focused on him. Gray was handsome in a devil-may-care way. His hair was always a little too shaggy, curling around his ears. His standard outfit was a black t-shirt and old jeans. I eyed him now, appreciating the view. The muscles in his arms strained the fabric of the shirt. His faded jeans hugged his muscular legs. And I knew, when he turned around the tight fit would give me an excellent view of his dairy-air.

  After five years, one proposal, followed by one break-u
p, a make-up and another proposal, I was getting married! I found the excitement in it and focused on it, so I didn’t focus on the nerves. I knew I was making the right choice, but twenty-plus years of fearing marriage just didn’t go away.

  The wails from approaching ambulances and police cars snapped me out of my reverie. I followed Gray with my eyes as he worked his way around the crowd. I ran my hands through my hair and smacked my lips together to freshen my gloss. Just because I had snagged my man didn’t mean I couldn’t look good for him

  “Regan Harris,” Gray said as he reached the table, bending down to kiss my cheek. I raised my face toward him, feeling the flush of warmth as his lips touched me. I fluttered my hands nervously, smoothing my hair and then fiddling with the silverware on the table as he walked around the table to take his seat. I caught myself and forced my hands into my lap. I attributed today’s nervousness to the jumper. Watching the person fall sent a sense of foreboding down my spine. I realized I was very blasé about the event, but I had a shallow tendency not to get absorbed in things that did not directly affect me.

  “You’re using my full name now?” I asked with a smile before frowning and motioning toward the crowd. “I’m apparently cursed. I’m 28 and dead bodies are following me. You sure you want to marry me?”

  Gray angled his head toward the scene, taking in another look. Fire trucks and ambulances blocking the body. The lights flashing across the onlookers, the sirens now quiet.

  “I’ll still marry you.” Gray used his thumb to point over his shoulder before sitting down. “I don’t see how this could have anything to do with you. Sad as it is. Poor guy.”

  “It was a man?” I asked.

  “Oh, I don’t know. I just picked a gender. How are you today?” he asked.

  “I’m better than that guy,” I said as I pointed over my shoulder at the commotion. Another emergency vehicle arrived leaving the sirens on, adding to the noise and congestion. Gray raised one eyebrow at me but didn’t comment.