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

by Reagan Keeter

  Liam Parker

  Liam wasn’t sure whether Chris was telling the truth. There was something in his eyes, some flicker that might have been recognition, when he saw the picture. But with Chris heading for his office and the receptionist on the phone with security, his opportunity to pursue this lead had come to a close . . . at least for now.

  It was disappointing, but not surprising. Their encounter (if it had even happened) had been a long time ago. Chris might have been drunk. Or he might have forgotten it. If he did remember it, he probably didn’t want to own up to a hitting a woman.

  Either way, Liam was confident Chris wasn’t the killer. All he’d hoped to get out of their discussion was some insight into Elise’s life, something that would take them one step closer to figuring out what had happened the night she died.

  Besides, with Anita pursuing the name of Elise’s cellmate, it wasn’t even all that important.

  “I’m going,” Liam told the receptionist.

  She either didn’t hear him or didn’t care, because she said into the phone, “Someone’s on their way now? Good. Thank you.”

  Liam pressed the button for the elevator. He wasn’t particularly concerned about the security guard that was on his way. A security guard would do nothing more than force him to leave the building. Still, he had no reason to stick around and didn’t want to draw unnecessary attention.

  As Liam exited onto the sidewalk, his phone rang. It was Anita. He moved out of the flow of pedestrian traffic, squeezing close to the building.

  “I got it,” she said. “Elise was housed at Redwood Penitentiary. I’m going to talk to her cellmate now. Have you seen Chris yet?”

  “That was a dead end. He didn’t remember her.”

  Anita was quiet for a moment, and in that moment, Liam started to feel exposed. He couldn’t stand here like this. A cop could walk by any second. Someone could recognize him. The more faces he saw, the more danger he was in. He had to keep moving. He had to get off the street.

  He started to walk.

  Christopher Bell

  Chris stepped into his office and closed the door, still wondering about Army Jacket and his questions. He’d been so preoccupied by the man’s appearance he hadn’t thought to ask his name. Seconds ago, when he’d been approached in the lobby, it hadn’t seemed to matter. Chris had just wanted to get as far away from Army Jacket as possible. Now, though, he had an uneasy feeling it might.

  He returned to the lobby to ask the receptionist who said she hadn’t gotten his name. At his insistence, she called down to the security desk and repeated to Chris the name they gave her: Richard Hawthorne.

  The man didn’t look quite like he did in Chris’s memory. But Chris didn’t entirely trust his memory. He tried to picture Army Jacket without the hair dye or sunglasses and, as he did, his blood started to boil. It didn’t make sense that Richard would come here asking questions like that. Actually, it didn’t make sense that Richard would come here at all.

  Chris pressed the button to call the elevator. It took an unusually long time to come—or maybe it only seemed that way. In his agitated state, Chris couldn’t be sure.

  When the doors opened onto the lobby, he ran out, pushing past those who exited too slowly. Richard couldn’t have gotten far. Chris charged through the revolving glass door toward the street. A security guard shouted for him to slow down.

  Once outside, Chris looked in each direction, trying to figure out which way Richard had gone. With heavy foot traffic, it was impossible to see everyone clearly. Even those who were only a block away had melded into a tapestry of color and movement that threatened to make identification impossible.

  Then he saw a flash of green to his left and started to move. He wasn’t sure he was chasing the right person until the sea of pedestrians parted again and he saw Richard’s spiky black hair.

  Chris all but mowed over the people in his way. And he was close—so close—to catching Richard when a cab pulled to the curb and Richard got inside.

  Liam Parker

  “Can I send you a picture?” Anita said.

  “Sure.” Liam flagged down a cab and climbed in. The driver asked where he wanted to go, and he gave the address for the Best Western. At least he’d be safe there until Anita was done talking to Elise’s cellmate.

  His phone vibrated and he checked the message Anita had sent him. “You got it?” she asked, her voice sounding tinny with the phone held out in front of him.

  “Got it.” He tapped on the picture she’d sent. It was a photograph of a piece of paper with something too small on it to see until he zoomed in. He recognized the picture in the photocopied ID as Elise. “What’s this?”

  “Look at the name.”

  He did, and realized this made for a second alias. “Where did you get this?”

  “Hold on. You answer my question first. Why didn’t you tell me my sister was living under a fake name?”

  Liam wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Ryan told me.”

  He glanced at the rearview mirror, where he could see the cab driver’s eyes. The man appeared to be watching the road, paying no attention to Liam’s conversation. Regardless, Liam chose his words carefully. “It bothered me too when I first found out.” Just like the deleted text messages had. Just like all the lies had. But also like the deleted text messages and the lies, he didn’t think the alias would get him any closer to finding the killer and he didn’t want to tarnish Anita’s memory of her sister any more than he had to. “I didn’t think you needed to know. It doesn’t really matter, does it?”

  “What do you mean? How could it not matter?” Anita’s voice pitched up with annoyance.

  Liam cupped one hand around the microphone and whispered, “Whoever killed her was probably somebody who knew her real name because they knew how to find her.” He watched the rearview mirror as he spoke. No reaction from the driver.

  “I think it might matter. I got the impression Ryan did also. He said, since there are two, there are probably more.”

  “Does he have a theory about them?”

  “No. All he could say for sure was that the ID wasn’t linked to any crimes. But think about the timing of it all. She had an alias before she was arrested and after. It’s not something new. So what does it mean?”

  Liam considered the possibility that the second alias pointed to identity theft. Then again, there was nothing on her record, and since Ryan hadn’t found any crimes tied to the ID, he was back to his original theory. “I think Elise was hiding from someone.”

  Only now he wondered how long she had been hiding from someone.

  Liam Parker

  Liam could feel a certain paranoia taking hold. A feeling that he couldn’t let his guard down, not even for a second. Even after getting off the phone with Anita, he watched the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He listened to the radio calls to see if any sounded like a request for police assistance. He looked at every person in every car they passed to make sure that person wasn’t looking at him and examined the few who did for signs of recognition or alarm.

  To a degree, that paranoia had been present ever since he had evaded arrest. It was the whole reason he had dumped his cell phone in the trash. But it was getting stronger, and by the time Liam reached the hotel, he was exhausted. He couldn’t understand how those on the run lived with that paranoia long-term. Maybe it was something you got used to.

  He went to his room and hung the Do Not Disturb sign on the knob outside. (That should have been task number one after checking in.) Then he put Anita’s gun in the small safe beside the mini fridge; he was more likely to shoot off his own foot than do anything else with it and didn’t want to carry it around any longer than he had to.

  He pulled out his phone and clicked on the photo Anita had sent him. He stared at it for a long time. He wondered if there might be a reason for the fake ID other than the ones he’d considered. What if the aliases were not to protect Elise from someone who was after her b
ut the reason she was killed?

  That theory had a ring of truth that sent chills through his body. Had he been looking at this whole thing upside down?

  By itself, Liam didn’t feel like the theory got him any closer to figuring out who had killed Elise or why. It did, however, introduce new questions that might. Like: What was she doing with the ID? Why did she have two aliases? Was Ryan correct—were there more? If so, why did she need more aliases?

  Liam didn’t know much about fake IDs. Other than buying alcohol as a teenager or running from the police, he certainly didn’t know why anybody would want one. But he did know somebody who might be able to help him fill in the blanks.

  Jacob.

  Looking for him on Facebook would be pointless. He didn’t know Jacob’s last name, and it was too late to go digging his phone out of the CVS trashcan. It would have been emptied by now anyway.

  Then he had an idea. He logged into his AT&T account from his phone. Navigating the website on the small screen was difficult and it ultimately took a detour to Google to find what he was looking for: a call log.

  Jacob’s number had been the last one Liam dialed, making it easy to find. He punched the digits into his burner and waited.

  Jacob Reed

  Jacob stopped by the Heartland Nursing Home with a check for Felix Winkler. “Get her back into her old room,” he told the nursing home administrator when he handed it over. Then he found the door on the second floor with the paper flowers stuck to it. His mother was alone inside, watching Wheel of Fortune with the volume turned up loud.

  Jacob stepped in front of the screen so she knew he was there and her face lit up. She muted the TV and used both armrests to push herself out of the chair—an act Jacob noticed had become considerably harder than it had been the year before.

  “They’re going to move you back,” he said when she hugged him.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m fine where I am.”

  Jacob knew she was lying, and he was glad that, on this—his last—visit to see her, he could do something that would make her happy.

  He took off his jacket, planning to stay for a while, and hung it from a hook on the back of the door. He sat down on the footstool in front of his mother’s chair and took her hands in his. “I have to go away for a while.” Actually, he would to have to go away forever, but he couldn’t bring himself to tell her that.

  She looked concerned. “What for?”

  “Work.”

  “They’re sending you to another factory? Why?”

  More and more often, Jacob’s mother confused him with her brother, Howard, who had worked at a General Motors plant years ago. Today was one of those days. He wished he’d said goodbye on his previous visit, when she was lucid.

  Normally, he’d play along, pretend to be Howard, say he had a message from her son, and usually that message would simply be that he loved her. He couldn’t bring himself to do that today. He couldn’t stand the thought that he would have to leave Chicago without her ever knowing, and he didn’t want to pass such a message through “Howard,” who had died last year. If he did that, he feared she would think he didn’t care enough to say goodbye in person.

  “No, Mom. It’s me. Your son.”

  Confusion crinkled her face, folding the skin along deep wrinkles. She shook her head. “No, you’re Howard. My son’s just a boy. You’re not a boy.”

  “I’m your son, Mom.”

  “Why are you saying that? Why are you trying to confuse me?”

  Jacob’s phone vibrated in his pocket. He ignored it. “I’m not trying to confuse you. I just wanted to say goodbye. I have to leave for a while and I wanted you to know I loved you.”

  “If you have to go, just go, Howard,” she snapped, ripping her hands away from him. “I don’t need you coming here and messing with my head. You were always mean to me. Always! Get out! My boy will take care of me. He loves me.”

  While Jacob knew his mother became agitated when confronted about her dementia, he’d never seen her like this. Was it because he told her he was leaving? Because once he was gone she wouldn’t have any family left to visit her? He feared it was, that on some level she knew he wasn’t Howard and that once he left Chicago she would be alone.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have to go away forever, he told himself. Maybe once things settled down, he could come back to visit her. Either way, he had to see his plan through. It would be as good for her as it would for him.

  She pointed to the door. “Go!”

  Jacob got up and grabbed his jacket. Standing by the door, he said one last time, “Mom, I love you.”

  “You’re not my son, Howard! Go!”

  Jacob left. He heard his mother call him a jerk after he closed the door. It hurt, but he convinced himself she didn’t mean it. Then, on the way to the elevator, he pulled his phone out of his pocket to see who had called. The number was not one he recognized, and the caller hadn’t left a message. Jacob didn’t return calls from people he didn’t know.

  As he departed the hospital, ready to put the last steps of his plan into motion, he didn’t realize that when he’d pulled his phone out of his pocket, something else had come with it: an ID he’d transferred from suit pants to jeans without thinking, an ID he should have gotten rid of days ago but hadn’t.

  Anita Watson

  Anita made her way past the guard post and parked in a fenced lot. The Redwood Penitentiary was three stories, with guard towers at each corner of the property. From those towers, armed men surveyed the prison grounds.

  She emptied the pockets of her leather jacket into a small plastic bin, then went through the metal detector. Eventually, she was directed to one of a dozen booths that had a phone built into the steel partition dividing her station from the next.

  She sat on the stool, hands in her lap.

  A minute later, Julia Santora appeared on the other side of a large plexiglass window. She was wearing an orange jumpsuit. Her matted black hair didn’t look as if it had been combed in weeks. She was skinny—too skinny, Anita thought—and when she sat it was more like she collapsed.

  When Anita had arrived, the three stories of barred windows and razor wire had hardly registered. This was not her home, would never be her home, and she wasn’t worried that the women housed here could be a threat with the bars between them. Perhaps because of that it wasn’t until she saw Elise’s cellmate that she realized how hard this place must be. The guilt she felt for not doing more to help her sister compounded.

  Julia picked up the phone and Anita mirrored the action. “What do you want?” Julia asked.

  “I wanted to talk to you about Elise.”

  “Yeah? What for?”

  “I’m her sister. I wanted to find out—”

  “She didn’t tell me she had no sister,” Julia looked bemused. “She must not have liked you, huh?”

  Anita wasn’t sure she believed Julia, but quickly decided it didn’t matter. Julia didn’t care about Elise’s relationship with her sister. She was trying to find out how much control she could exert over the conversation. To what end, though? Perhaps Julia pushed everyone she met, poking and prodding to find out who was weak, who could be manipulated.

  Anita refused to take the bait. “Do you know anybody who might have had a problem with Elise?” she asked.

  “If I tell you, what are you going to do for me?”

  Anita recognized the question as another attempt to take control of the conversation. Well, if that’s the way she wanted to play it, so be it. “What do you want?”

  Julia frowned. “Two hundred dollars. Put it in my commissary account and then we’ll talk.”

  “One hundred. And you tell me now.”

  Julia considered the offer, shrugged. “There was a girl over on Block C who didn’t like her much. Called her a princess and shit like that because she thought Elise acted like she was too good for Redwood. And you know something? She was right. I didn’t say it to nobody because I had to live with her a
nd I didn’t want her stink getting on me, but that girl of yours was always talking about how she was going to turn her life around when she got out of here, how she was going to make something of herself. As if.”

  “Did the girl on Block C get out?”

  “No way. That bitch has got another three years or something.”

  Anita shifted in her seat, disappointed. She was certain she was on to something for a second. “Was there anybody else she talked about? Someone on the outside?”

  “Not that I can think of. There was this one woman writing her letters. I found one of them tucked up under her pillow. As far as I know, that was the only contact she had with the outside world. Nobody ever came to see her. I guess she was about as well liked out there as she was in here.”

  “Do you know what they talked about?”

  “Some shit about church retreats and books. It’s what got Elise reading all that psychology crap from the prison library. That’s what she called it, anyway. Psychology. Those books looked more like self-help garbage to me. I didn’t pay any of it too much attention. It was all just the same sort of uppity BS I got from Elise about changing her life and I didn’t need any more of that than I had to put up with already.”

  Everything Anita had learned about Elise’s life since leaving home had sounded bleak. This was different. Anita couldn’t quite say how it made her feel. Proud wasn’t the right word. But it was something akin to that, because it meant Elise hadn’t entirely given in to her worst impulses. Maybe the good part of Elise, the part that had felt guilty for framing her brother all those years ago, had finally begun to win out.

  But if that was what she wanted, why didn’t Elise come home when she was released? Why didn’t she let her family help her?

  Elise could be so stubborn.

  “Do you know who the letters were from?” Anita asked.

  Julia pushed her greasy hair from one side of her head to the other. “Think her name was Kate.”