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No one liked boring court duty. Only once in Regan’s thirteen-year career with the Marshals Service had there been an actual serious situation in the courthouse—the husband of a defendant had taken a judge and jury hostage and demanded his wife be released. The six-hour standoff had ended without bloodshed. Prison transport wasn’t fun either, but at least you were out of the building doing something.
Fugitive apprehension—that was the best gig, in her opinion, though other marshals disagreed.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“The Michael Hannigan file. Tommy had some notes about Mike Hannigan and the Potomac Bank robbery, as well as his victim, bank teller Becca Johns. He thinks that Hannigan and Becca knew each other, has a photo of them together that appears to be from social media, but other than that I don’t know how he made the connection or why he was looking there. I need to refresh myself, I don’t remember the details. Other than we had to go in when he killed Johns.”
“Regan—”
“I know what you’re thinking. I’m not feeling guilty about shooting Mike Hannigan. It was justified.”
She had complex feelings about the case after the fact because it had indirectly led to Adam Hannigan killing her son—allegedly. Though neither she nor Tommy had bought into the motive that the FBI put forward, the whole thing made her feel...off. Off-kilter, off-center.
She had to be in the right frame of mind if she was to figure out what Tommy had learned and why he had been killed.
And find his killer.
Because whoever killed Tommy may have orchestrated the murder of her son.
“Regan,” Charlie said softly, interrupting her thoughts as her car crept forward.
“I’m okay,” she said. She cleared her throat. “Tommy wrote down the name Jenna Johns, Becca’s sister. I found her phone number in Tommy’s records, tried to call her last night but the call went to voicemail. I’ll try again later today if she doesn’t return my call.”
“Physical copies of reports plus any physical evidence would be with the FBI, but you can swing by our office and access the digital reports from our system. Have Maggie log you in. If you need hard copies, it’ll have to be after lunch.”
“Thanks, Charlie.”
“Watch your back.” He ended the call.
She didn’t reach Grant’s townhouse near Founders Park in Alexandria until close to eight thirty. She knocked; he wasn’t there. She looked through a small garage window; his sporty Mercedes wasn’t there, either.
She shouldn’t have been surprised. Like her, Grant had always been an early riser and would likely have left for work before eight. His law offices were in Arlington, fifteen minutes without traffic, but nearly twice as long in the morning.
She parked in the courthouse parking lot, but before going up to her old office, she walked two blocks to her favorite coffee shop for much-needed caffeine. It also gave her more time to go through Tommy’s phone records and make a plan for the day.
What she found most odd was the empty Franklin Archer file in Tommy’s office. Where were the papers that were supposed to be in there? Could something about Franklin have piqued Tommy’s interest, and that’s why he contacted Grant?
The coffee shop line was long, even now that it was after nine, but she waited then ordered black coffee and a blueberry scone, then sat at a table by the window where she had a view of the door and the street.
Some habits never die.
She called her ex-husband. Best to get the conversation out of the way and set up a time to meet.
He answered on the second ring.
“Regan?”
“Hello, Grant.”
She didn’t know why it was still awkward talking to her ex-husband on the phone. They’d been married for twelve years before their divorce was finalized in March. It hadn’t been a perfect marriage, but they’d had good times. And they’d had Chase. She wondered if they had really loved each other if they would have been able to survive his death.
But they hadn’t loved each other, not anymore, and Chase’s death showed it.
“Um—Regan? Is everything okay?”
Of course he would ask that. She never called him.
“Tommy was killed on Monday.”
