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) 📖

Catherine shifted her weight from one leg to the other, annoyed. “No, Liam. You don’t get it. We’re not staying here. We’re moving to Mississippi. I’m going back to Jackson.”

Liam was stunned. His mouth dropped open a little and stayed that way for a second or two before he said, “Wait. What? You can’t do that.”

“Mom’s getting old. She needs me around. Besides, this isn’t the kind of place I want to raise my kids. Alice has been sneaking out lately. Did you know that? Who knows what kind of trouble she could get into.”

Liam wasn’t surprised Alice was sneaking out. (He’d done it plenty of times growing up—going with his friends to the playground behind Ives Middle School to smoke cigarettes and, when he was older, drink Pabst.) He didn’t like it. He’d talk to her about it. But teenagers did things like that. Alice was a good kid, so no matter what Catherine thought she was up to, he could be pretty sure he’d done worse.

The car door opened up behind him and Tommy shouted, “Dad, are we going?”

“In a minute, son,” Liam said, putting on his best everything’s-okay smile.

Tommy got back into the Tesla.

“I’ve already spoken to my lawyer about it.”

“But—”

“I just wanted to give you a heads up.”

“They’re my kids too.”

Her lips curled into a nasty grin as she placed one hand on the door handle. It was the same grin she’d shown him when the judge had ruled on the division of assets. “And that’s the only reason you get to see them, at all.”

Catherine closed the door before Liam could say anything else.

Liam thought she’d made it sound like she was doing him a favor. Could she really take the kids to Mississippi without his permission? He’d have to look into that.

He stepped off the stoop and, on the way back to his car, his cellphone rang. He glanced at the Caller ID. It was Patricia. He pressed a button to answer.

“What’s up?”

“First things first. You were right. Elise was never married.”

Clearly, Patricia hadn’t believed Liam when he had told her as much in her office. But at least she was being thorough.

“That said, remember how I told you Elise might have a record?”

“Yeah.”

“She does. Reyes got a copy of it.”

After everything else Liam had learned, he wasn’t surprised. But he didn’t expect Patricia to read off the charges she did.

Jacob Reed

The Heartland Nursing Home was a sprawling behemoth of stone and brick surrounded by gardens that had gone dormant. Jacob slipped past the reception desk, hoping he wouldn’t be noticed, and made his way up to the third floor where his mother had a private room. She was the only family he had, and after the dementia had taken hold, he hardly even had her anymore.

While he waited for the elevator, Jacob pulled a faded, cracked picture out of his pocket. He’d found it in a wallet he’d stolen four months back, and had kept it for the same reason he’d kept the picture he’d found in Chris Bell’s wallet—to fuel his dreams about the life that might one day be his. Though the woman and infant posing Christmas-card style with the man he’d robbed were two-dimensional strangers, he had imagined a rich, fulfilling life for all of them. One full of love, where the parents read stories to their child at bedtime and the whole family spent summers on the lake and nothing bad ever happened. He didn’t try to square this with stealing the man’s wallet.

His childhood had not been anything close to that, not that it was bad. His mother was always working. She left early, came home late. She cleaned houses for Maids Around Town, bagged groceries at Treasure Island, and worked the cash register at McDonald’s part-time. While it was enough to keep the lights on, she depended on food stamps to keep Jacob fed and the good will of the neighborhood to make sure he stayed out of trouble.

Jacob never knew what had happened to his father. He had never seen a picture or heard a story. His mother refused to talk about him. Whenever he had asked, she’d said it was just the two of them now and the past didn’t matter.

Sometimes Jacob imagined his father was dead, and perhaps he was. Sometimes he thought his father might not have known his mother was pregnant, and that could be true too. Whatever the reality was, it amounted to the same—the man never sent a check.

Jacob had decided a long time ago his life wasn’t going to be like that. His mother had followed all the rules; she had raised a child in a hard world and done a damn fine job of it. Now that she needed him to take care of her, he made sure she had the best care available. She deserved that. But that was what following all the rules got you, wasn’t it? A tough life. If Jacob followed them, too, hers would have been a tough life with a tougher end.

The rules were for suckers. He would take care of his mother, make his fortune, and raise a family the right way. If he had to screw some people over to make that happen, so what? Family was all that mattered. Besides, most of them probably deserved it.

When the elevator doors opened, he put the picture back in his pocket. It wouldn’t hold together much longer.

He put his phone on silent. Since his mother had started suffering from dementia, he tried to keep distractions to a minimum. Especially those she found unsettling, and the phone was without a doubt the most unsettling distraction he’d introduced. The one time it rang, playing a portion of The Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil,” she first looked confused, then alarmed when he pulled the device out of his pocket. She didn’t know what it was, and trying to explain it to her only upset her more.

Jacob