A Reagan Keeter Box Set: Three page-turning thrillers that will leave you wondering who you can trus Reagan Keeter (most difficult books to read TXT) 📖

Liam put his eyes back on his phone. Last time he’d looked at the screen, he could still see Chris and his friend making their way, aisle by aisle, to the far end of the store. Now, they seemed to be gone.

This was his chance. He had to get back downstairs and outside. It would take Chris and his friend several minutes to figure out they’d been duped. Liam ran for the escalator, and he was almost there when out of the corner of his eye he saw Chris’s friend coming at him full speed.

The escalator was more crowded going down than it had been going up. He pushed his way through the shoppers and glanced back when he got to the bottom. Chris was nowhere to be seen, but his friend was closing the distance between them fast.

If Liam went out onto the street, he’d be right back where he started. He needed a place to hide. It had to be somewhere that would lead the men to think he’d left the store even though he hadn’t. The stockroom? Maybe. He could fold himself up in a cardboard box. They’d search the area and determine he’d gone out through the loading dock.

But there were problems with that plan. The biggest was that he didn’t see a door to the stockroom that wasn’t behind a manned food counter. What he saw, instead, was an empty elevator, arrow pointing down, doors starting to close.

Liam made a break for it. As he slid between the doors, they bounced back. With Chris’s friend nearing the bottom of the escalator, Liam furiously pressed the close button.

Finally, the doors obeyed. Chris’s friend was only seconds from reaching Liam when they shut.

When the doors opened again, Liam was inside the parking garage. Most spaces were full, but there were no shoppers within sight. There was a stairwell that no doubt led to the street and a ramp at the end of the lot that did the same.

Liam had to think fast. He desperately wanted to get back to the street, hail a cab, save his daughter. But the stairs weren’t an option. They might connect to the store, as well; Chris’s friend could be coming down them right at that very moment. And he might not make it to the end of the lot without being seen.

His best move would be to hide in the dumpster.

Stick with the plan, he told himself. But the street was right there. There were taxis going up and down this road all the time. It was stupid and irresistible and he ran.

I can do this.

He repeated the four words over and over in his head, pushing himself faster.

I can do this. I can do this. I can do this.

He was almost at the bottom of the ramp, hadn’t heard any doors open. There’d been no ding of the elevator. He was going to make it.

Then he heard more than felt a thump on the back of his head. It was like a low thud that echoed around his skull before pain blossomed along the same paths, following it like thunder follows lightning.

Liam felt the world slip away. The shadows of the parking lot were swallowed up by a nothingness that was black and all-consuming.

Liam Parker

Unconsciousness gave way to a dull ache. It rose slowly through the darkness, began to pulse, then throb. Liam groaned and put a hand to his head. He tried to remember what had happened and where he was, but all that would come back to him was running. Up a ramp. To the street . . . to save his daughter.

Alice.

His eyes shot open as the phone call at the airport and the chase that followed flooded back. The world was as dark as it had been when they were closed. Where was he?

Liam was rolled up in the fetal position shivering when he awoke. Wherever he was, it was cold. He tried to get up, banged his feet against something after they’d moved only a few inches. Then, as he lifted himself off the ground, he banged his head.

With growing panic, he reached out and touched the wall in front of him. It felt like fiberglass. He walked his hands up it, along the ceiling, and down the other side, mapping the space he was in. It was barely big enough for him to sit up in. And there was something else—it seemed to be moving. Rocking. Or perhaps that was only the pounding headache playing tricks on his equilibrium.

Wherever he was, he had to get out of here. He had to save Alice. She was out there and in danger and, dammit, he was the only one who could help her.

Then Liam saw a sliver of gray light, something like the outline of a door only much smaller. He reached out, found a handle. Relief washed over him as his fingers wrapped around the steel.

But the handle wouldn’t turn.

He pressed down harder, leaning into it, hoping he could break the lock. He couldn’t. His strength gave out. His muscles told him the effort was useless. He screamed, pounded the door, kicked the walls.

When that didn’t work, Liam felt his pockets for his phone—he could call Anita, or, better, the concierge in his building—but it wasn’t there. His pockets were empty. No phone, no keys, no wallet. He searched the ground around him by touch, hoping it all had slipped out of his pocket. He found nothing. Chris and his friend must have taken everything after he was knocked unconscious.

Finally forced to admit there was no getting out of here and no sending Alice help, he gave up. What would it matter at this point, anyway? Liam didn’t know how long he’d been out, but it had been long enough for somebody to move him here. No matter where here was, a quick calculation put that at thirty minutes, minimum. Plenty of time for Rick to kill Alice and get away, if that was what