The Body Keeper Read online

  PRAISE FOR NEW YORK TIMES AND USA TODAY BESTSELLING AUTHOR ANNE FRASIER

  “Frasier has perfected the art of making a reader’s skin crawl.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A master.”

  —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

  “Anne Frasier delivers thoroughly engrossing, completely riveting suspense.”

  —Lisa Gardner

  “Frasier’s writing is fast and furious.”

  —Jayne Ann Krentz

  PRAISE FOR THE BODY READER

  Winner of the International Thriller Writers 2017 Thriller Award for Best Paperback Original

  “Absorbing.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “This is an electrifying murder mystery—one of the best of the year.”

  —Mysterious Reviews

  “I see the name Anne Frasier on a book and I know I am in for a treat . . . I thought it was a very unique premise and coupled with the good characters, made for an almost non-stop read for me. I highly recommend this.”

  —Pure Textuality

  “The Body Reader earned its five stars, a rarity for me, even for books I like. Kudos to Anne Frasier.”

  —The Wyrdd and the Bazaar

  “A must read for mystery suspense fans.”

  —Babbling About Books

  “I’ve long been a fan of Anne Frasier, but this book elevates her work to a whole new level, in my mind.”

  —Tale of a Shooting Star

  PRAISE FOR THE BODY COUNTER

  “Anne Frasier never fails at the perfect amount of suspense and relatable characters in her perfectly written storytelling.”

  —Reader

  “Anne Frasier delivers in a stunning sequel to The Body Reader. As a serious lover of books, particularly psychological thrillers, I have learned that there are ‘books’ and then there are ‘reads.’ To me, a ‘read’ means being completely sucked into a story that blocks out one’s surroundings, and immerses them in the characters’ worlds. Anne Frasier does that. You can’t take this along as a ‘beach read’ or any other method that involves quick little bits and pieces when you have time. This kind of story is a true literary experience. You become a part of Jude Fontaine. When you read The Body Reader, you met a character so damaged, yet so powerful, that you felt like you were living her tragedy and ultimate comeback from being stripped of everything that holds a human together mentally. Frasier developed Jude so deeply in the first book in this series, and picks us up right where she left us in the second.”

  —Reader

  “I thoroughly suggest that you take your time with this book. If it’s been a while, I would suggest you re-read The Body Reader so you can revisit the horror Jude Fontaine has already endured, before embarking on this journey. Truly, sit back and let Anne Frasier take you on a journey that can’t be matched. I have never seen an author develop a character so vividly as Frasier does with the characters in these books. You feel their desperation, their isolation in their fight to survive, their will to live, not physically, but mentally. You feel their compassion that has managed to remain despite the evil they lived through.”

  —Reader

  PRAISE FOR PLAY DEAD

  “This is a truly creepy and thrilling book. Frasier’s skill at exposing the dark emotions and motivations of individuals gives it a gripping edge.”

  —RT Book Reviews

  “Play Dead is a compelling and memorable police procedural, made even better by the way the characters interact with one another. Anne Frasier will be appreciated by fans who like Kay Hooper, Iris Johansen and Lisa Gardner.”

  —Blether: The Book Review Site

  “A nicely constructed combination of mystery and thriller. Frasier is a talented writer whose forte is probing into the psyches of her characters, and she produces a fast-paced novel with a finale containing many surprises.”

  —I Love a Mystery

  “Has all the essentials of an edge-of-your-seat story. There is suspense, believable characters, an interesting setting, and just the right amount of details to keep the reader’s eyes always moving forward . . . I recommend Play Dead as a great addition to any mystery library.”

  —Roundtable Reviews

  PRAISE FOR PRETTY DEAD

  “Besides being beautifully written and tightly plotted, this book was that sort of great read you need on a regular basis to restore your faith in a genre.”

  —Lynn Viehl, Paperback Writer (Book of the Month)

  “By far the best of the three books. I couldn’t put my Kindle down till I’d read every last page.”

  —NetGalley

  PRAISE FOR HUSH

  “This is far and away the best serial-killer story I’ve read in a long time . . . strong characters, with a truly twisted bad guy.”

  —Jayne Ann Krentz

  “I couldn’t put it down. Engrossing . . . scary . . . I loved it.”

  —Linda Howard

  “A deeply engrossing read, Hush delivers a creepy villain, a chilling plot, and two remarkable investigators whose personal struggles are only equaled by their compelling need to stop a madman before he kills again. Warning: don’t read this book if you are home alone.”

  —Lisa Gardner

  “A wealth of procedural detail, a heart-thumping finale, and two scarred but indelible protagonists make this a first-rate read.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Anne Frasier has crafted a taut and suspenseful thriller.”

  —Kay Hooper

  “Well-realized characters and taut, suspenseful plotting.”

  —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

  PRAISE FOR SLEEP TIGHT

  “Guaranteed to keep you awake at night.”

  —Lisa Jackson

  “There’ll be no sleeping after reading this one. Laced with forensic detail and psychological twists.”

  —Andrea Kane

  “Gripping and intense . . . Along with a fine plot, Frasier delivers her characters as whole people, each trying to cope in the face of violence and jealousies.”

  —Star Tribune (Minneapolis)

  “Enthralling. There’s a lot more to this clever intrigue than graphic police procedures. Indeed, one of Frasier’s many strengths is her ability to create characters and relationships that are as compelling as the mystery itself. Will linger with the reader after the killer is caught.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  PRAISE FOR THE ORCHARD

  “Eerie and atmospheric, this is an indie movie in print. You’ll read and read to see where it is going, although it’s clear early on that the future is not going to be kind to anyone involved. Weir’s story is more proof that only love can break your heart.”

  —Library Journal

  “A gripping account of divided loyalties, the real cost of farming and the shattered people on the front lines. Not since Jane Smiley’s A Thousand Acres has there been so enrapturing a family drama percolating out from the back forty.”

  —Maclean’s

  “This poignant memoir of love, labor, and dangerous pesticides reveals the terrible true price.”

  —Oprah Magazine (Fall Book Pick)

  “Equal parts moving love story and environmental warning.”

  —Entertainment Weekly (B+)

  “While reading this extraordinarily moving memoir, I kept remembering the last two lines of Muriel Rukeyser’s poem ‘Kathe Kollwitz’ (‘What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open’), for Weir proffers a worldview that is at once eloquent, sincere, and searing.”

  —Library Journal (Librarians’ Best Books of 2011)

  “She tells her story with grace, unflinching honesty and compassion all the while establishing a sense of place and time with a
master story teller’s perspective so engaging you forget it is a memoir.”

  —Calvin Crosby, Books Inc. (Berkeley, CA)

  “One of my favorite reads of 2011, The Orchard is easily mistakable as a novel for its engaging, page-turning flow and its seemingly imaginative plot.”

  —Susan McBeth, founder and owner of Adventures by the Book, San Diego, CA

  “Moving and surprising.”

  —The Next Chapter (Fall 2011 Top 20 Best Books)

  “Searing . . . the past is artfully juxtaposed with the present in this finely wrought work. Its haunting passages will linger long after the last page is turned.”

  —Boston Globe (Pick of the Week)

  “If a writing instructor wanted an excellent example of voice in a piece of writing, this would be a five-star choice!”

  —San Diego Union-Tribune (Recommended Read)

  “This book produced a string of emotions that had my hand flying up to my mouth time and again, and not only made me realize, ‘This woman can write!’ but also made me appreciate the importance of this book, and how it reaches far beyond Weir’s own story.”

  —Linda Grana, Diesel, a Bookstore

  “The Orchard is a lovely book in all the ways that really matter, one of those rare and wonderful memoirs in which people you’ve never met become your friends.”

  —Nicholas Sparks

  “A hypnotic tale of place, people, and of Midwestern family roots that run deep, stubbornly hidden, and equally menacing.”

  —Jamie Ford, New York Times bestselling author of Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

  ALSO BY ANNE FRASIER

  Detective Jude Fontaine Mysteries

  The Body Reader

  The Body Counter

  The Elise Sandburg Series

  Play Dead

  Stay Dead

  Pretty Dead

  Truly Dead

  Other Novels

  Hush

  Sleep Tight

  Before I Wake

  Pale Immortal

  Garden of Darkness

  Nonfiction (as Theresa Weir)

  The Orchard: A Memoir

  The Man Who Left

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2019 by Theresa Weir

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by Thomas & Mercer, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Thomas & Mercer are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781542040242

  ISBN-10: 1542040248

  Cover design by PEPE nymi, Milano

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  CHAPTER 41

  CHAPTER 42

  CHAPTER 43

  CHAPTER 44

  CHAPTER 45

  CHAPTER 46

  CHAPTER 47

  CHAPTER 48

  CHAPTER 49

  CHAPTER 50

  CHAPTER 51

  CHAPTER 52

  CHAPTER 53

  CHAPTER 54

  CHAPTER 55

  CHAPTER 56

  CHAPTER 57

  CHAPTER 58

  CHAPTER 59

  CHAPTER 60

  CHAPTER 61

  BOOK CLUB DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  Minneapolis, mid-November

  Once the bodies were loaded, she slid into the driver’s seat, turned the ignition key—and heard nothing but a terrifying click. Her heart hammered as she panic-pumped the accelerator while twisting the key again. The cargo van shook and the engine sputtered, then fell silent. That was followed by the alarming scent of gasoline. All her instincts shouted to run, just run. Maybe catch a cab and then a plane to Mexico or someplace, anyplace.

  She tried the key again.

  The vehicle rocked and spewed black exhaust, but this time the engine caught. Without waiting for it to settle into a steady idle, she put it in gear and shot forward.

  She took a side street. No interstate for her. Last thing she needed was to break down on a busy highway. She ended up winding through the Stevens Square neighborhood of Minneapolis, somehow ending up on Franklin Avenue. A right turn, an incline, a bridge spanning water, and the engine started coughing again, then died completely. She kept her foot off the brake pedal and coasted uphill, muttering, “Come on, come on, come on.” But the vehicle didn’t quite crest the center rise of the bridge before slowly coming to a complete stop. Then it began to roll backward. Now she slammed on the brakes, put the van in park, and tried to restart it. A few futile minutes later, a red light bounced off her side mirror.

  A cop pulling up behind her.

  With a flashlight in his hand, the officer got out of the squad car and approached. She lowered the window. The typical drill. She gave him her driver’s license and registration, trying to keep her voice and hands steady, all the while aware of the bodies behind her seat, covered in a tarp.

  “Cold night to be out so late,” he said.

  “I had some errands to run. A friend’s in the hospital and I’m watching her dogs.” She’d always been good at bullshitting. But this kind of thing had been easier when she was young and attractive. She could get out of any predicament back then.

  He took her license to his squad car, then returned a couple of minutes later, passing it through the window. “Do you have someone coming to help you?”

  “I called a tow truck.”

  “Would you like to wait in my car until he comes? It’s below zero right now. I don’t want you ending up in the hospital too.”

  “No, that’s fine. They said ten minutes max.”

  “I’ll be back in ten or fifteen to check on you. Don’t try to walk anywhere. Always best to stay with your vehicle.”

  Once he was gone, she jumped out of the van and scanned the area. She was in one of those neighborhoods that existed deep in the city: oddly secluded, except she could hear Interstate 94. The houses were close, but not too close. And there were a lot of big evergreen trees. It would be tough for someone to see her from a window; plus it was dark, the nearest lights far off. She’d read that vandals had been shooting out streetlights, but Minneapolis was also a dark-sky-compliant city.

  Scared shitless about the cop’s promise to return, she hurried to the back of the van and dragged out one of the bodies, pulling it across ice and snow. Her heart was pumping so much adrenaline she probably could have lifted a truck over her head. No need. The edge of the bridge was low.

  With what fel
t like very little effort and superhuman strength, she balanced the stiff body on the concrete ledge and raised the feet—like raising one end of a teeter-totter. It practically did the rest on its own, vanishing over the side into the blackness. But instead of the splash she expected, she heard a dull thud. She looked over and barely made out the dark shape lying on top of the ice.

  Committed now, nothing else she could do, no way to get the body back, she returned to the van for the rest, disposing of them one after the other. Third time really was the charm because the ice cracked and the dark shapes disappeared. By the time she tossed the fourth body over, she heard the splash she’d been waiting for. Finished, she closed the van doors, climbed into the driver’s seat, and called for roadside assistance.

  True to his word, the cop swung past again. He seemed about to get out of his vehicle when the emergency lights of the tow truck appeared from around a curve in the road. The cop lowered his window, waved, shouted for her to have a nice night, and pulled away.

  CHAPTER 2

  Minneapolis, December 31

  He was always careful. He’d never tried to kiss her, never touched her really, never even held eye contact too long. She’d been through a lot, and he figured right now she needed a friend more than a boyfriend. So he was surprised when he felt her hand brush his.

  At first, he thought it was an accident. Maybe she’d flailed a little as they skated across the frozen city lake and had unintentionally gotten too close. But when it happened again, he knew it was deliberate. Before he could process the situation, they were holding hands. Really holding hands, as much as people wearing mittens could do. And even then, he told himself her grasp was for stability, but in truth he was the shitty skater, not her.

  Loring Park, with the beautiful lake surrounded by brownstones, had been his idea for New Year’s Eve. It was the last night of an event called Holidazzle—two weeks of outdoor holiday celebrations that included a block of food vendors and a heated beer tent. They were even showing Frozen on an outdoor screen while bundled-up families and couples sat on hay bales. You didn’t get much more Minnesota than that. Off in the distance, an arched pedestrian bridge led across Interstate 94 to the Walker Art Center and Spoonbridge and Cherry—the giant sculpture that was every bit as iconic as the Mary Tyler Moore statue.

  Elliot had been told Loring Park used to be one of the coolest areas of town, but the blackouts and subsequent crime wave of last year, along with artists moving to less expensive digs, had left the area grappling to retain its culturally significant spot in the city.