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) 📖

and his bedroom window, both of which opened onto the courtyard. He was trapped. Maybe if he could figure out what the visitor wanted, he could talk his way out of the situation.

But even with his mind working on overdrive, he came up empty. Then another demand from the other side of the door. “I want the ring back, you son of a bitch!”

With that, Jacob no longer had to wonder who it was. He didn’t know how Chris had found him, and now wasn’t the time to figure it out.

Think. What do I do?

He’d been quiet. So far, there was no way for Chris to know he was here. If Jacob stayed quiet, maybe he would go away.

Christopher Bell

The stone patio outside the thief’s door was four steps below ground level. Although there was enough room for a table and chairs, the patio was empty except for a long-dead fern in one corner and a bed of leaves that hadn’t been raked since they began to fall months earlier.

“You think he’s home?” Chris asked Arkin.

Arkin ran his fingers through his greasy, unkempt hair. Without a word, he climbed the stairs that took him from patio to street.

“Where are you going?” Chris demanded.

Arkin didn’t respond. He walked to the small yard in front of the building, examining the ground. Then he picked something up, which Chris realized was a rock as big as his fist when Arkin returned.

“You can’t—”

“Do you want the ring back or not?” Arkin wound up like a pitcher and heaved the rock through the window beside the door. It shattered the glass, tore open the blinds with a clatter, and thudded across the hardwood floor. The single pane of glass that was never designed to be opened was now open for good.

Chris saw a flash of a man running through a doorway that, in an apartment this small, he suspected led to a bedroom. That had to be his thief. Although he would never have broken the window himself, he was emboldened by Arkin’s actions. He reached through the hole, careful not to cut himself on the shards of glass that still clung to the frame, and felt along the inside of the door until he found the deadbolt.

Jacob Reed

Seconds earlier, Jacob had heard Chris say, “You can’t—”

Then there was another voice. “Do you want the ring back or not?”

His fingers flexed like they did when he was about to steal a wallet. This time, though, the energy driving that flex was terror, a feeling of being trapped. Chris wasn’t alone. More important, the man he was with planned on getting inside, whether or not Jacob answered the door. Standing still like this didn’t seem like such a hot idea anymore. He scooped up his laptop and disappeared into his bedroom just as a rock crashed through the bay window and thudded across the floor.

He toppled the dresser to bar the door, slid the bed across the room to reinforce the blockade. He knew this wouldn’t keep the men out forever. That was okay. He had a plan.

“Get out of here or I’ll call the police!” Jacob didn’t expect that to discourage them. But he wasn’t sure if they had seen him duck into the bedroom and he wanted them to know where he was.

A second later they started pounding on the door, trying to force it open, again demanding he return the ring. That was the moment Jacob had been waiting for. With the men distracted, like a magician’s audience looking to the left side of the stage while the real trick was performed on the right, he opened the bedroom window and crawled through it. He crouched low, keeping the laptop clutched to his chest as he passed beneath the bay window.

Once he made it up the four steps to the street and around the corner, he considered his disappearing act complete. Sooner or later the men would get into his bedroom. They’d find him gone and probably trash the apartment looking for the ring.

Jacob didn’t care. With his laptop in hand and the envelope of cash he’d gotten from the jeweler in his pocket, there was nothing there of value. Besides, if everything went according to plan, he had no reason to ever return.

Liam Parker

As the evening wore on, the lasagna brought Liam a small degree of peace, first through its smell and then its taste. After a second glass of wine, he went to bed. He needed to stay sharp.

Chloe scratched at the door until Liam let her in and then whined until he picked her up and put her on the bed with him. Sometime during the evening, his anger with her, his irrational feeling that the tiny Pomeranian should have been able to prevent the attack, had dissipated.

Chloe curled up beside Liam and put her head on his calf. The two stayed that way the rest of the night. Liam slept deeply. In the only dream he’d remember later, he was running through the jail, chased by guards and prisoners alike. They were screaming at him, blaming him for Elise’s murder. Each hallway led to a fork. Each choice he made seemed to be wrong. There was no escape, and every cell he looked in, he saw Elise, struggling to get out of her bathtub, begging for his help.

Just after seven, Liam woke up with his forehead damp from sweat and terrified of going back to jail. David was right, he should speak to the neighbor. Nobody would be able to tell his story better than he could. If she would listen to him, she would probably realize she was mistaken.

Elise’s building looked dirtier, older, even monstrous and forbidding in a way it hadn’t before. Liam could feel the six stories of gray stucco and glass looming over him as he approached the entrance.

He scrolled through the directory until he found a listing for Carlson, A. He thought about buzzing her apartment, asking her to let