a fashion model and musician. But somewhere along the road to fame and fortune, she married her best friend and became the mother of two children, now grown. She lives in Wisconsin with her husband and two dogs. Before publication, the manuscript for Best Kept Secrets won a Hugh Holton Award. Psychological Thriller is her love and female characters drive her stories.Phillips applied the Page 69 Test to Best Kept Secrets and reported the following:
Page 69 falls in one of my favorite chapters from Best Kept Secrets. By this time in the book, we know that Detective Morgan Jewell has identified her main suspect Ekhard Klein in a very brutal murder case. Leading to this chapter, we have just begun getting to know Caryn Klein. Caryn prefers numbers to working with people. She has just discovered that a man named Nathaniel Johnson is not who he says he is. She is certain that Nathaniel is her estranged brother, Ekhard.Visit Tracey S. Phillips's website.
The blonde handed her the warm cup topped with a heap of whipped cream. Not pie, but it would have to do.Following this, we will see how the two women are both seeking the elusive Ekhard Klein for different reasons. Caryn wants to see—to speak to—her estranged brother. She hopes to reconnect with him.
In the corner of the low-lit coffee shop, Caryn got comfortable. She took off her jacket, pulling the left sleeve over the bandage on her arm. With her right hand she scooped her laptop out of her briefcase and set it on the small table. After it booted up, she typed his name into the search bar.
Never in a million years had she expected to see him again. Yet here was Ekhard Marcus Klein within a tap-tap of her fingers. Eks, whom she had written off and given up for dead. Eks, who had changed his name to Nathaniel Johnson.
And so he wasn’t dead. Just dead to me. She hadn’t seen him since the day of her graduation from high school. Ekhard was her only sibling and only living relative.
Seventeen years, four months, and twelve days was how long. She knew the number of days. He had dropped her off at graduation at 9:04 in the morning on June fourth in 2001 and said, “See you in hell.” And she hadn’t seen him since.
He didn’t call. He didn’t stop by, not for holidays or birthdays. She remembered being very angry with him. It had taken eighteen years, four months, and seventeen days to say that without wanting to kill him.
Kill him.
There was an idea.
Ekhard/Nathaniel currently lived in Lafayette, north of Indianapolis. He worked for a small accounting firm with a ridiculous name, Baker and Baker. Everyone knows there’s no baking at a CPA office. Caryn thought it should be called Checks and Balances, or Numbers-Are-Us. Nevertheless, he was hired in 2014, replacing William Baker as the one in charge of small business bookkeeping. Before that, he had worked in eastern Indiana for another accountant, Gary Pritchard. That job came after getting the sack at Garrison Electric.
Research was a cinch for Caryn. Easy as pie, she thought—her mother’s saying. She breathed in the warm scent of her pumpkin spiced latte. Though pie wasn’t easy at all. Like her mother, Caryn couldn’t bake if her life depended on it.
Morgan is seeking resolution to a murder committed many years ago. She thinks Ekhard may be the key to finding the killer of her best friend Fay Ramsey. The thing is, she can’t remember days surrounding the event. Back then, she met with a psychiatrist who diagnosed her memory loss as Perpetration Induced Traumatic Shock, or PITS. The doctor told Morgan her memory would return someday and now, with this current murder case, her memories slowly begin to surface.
My Book, The Movie: Best Kept Secrets.
--Marshal Zeringue
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