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Grant still didn’twantto believe it, but the doubts were there. Nothing he could prove. And now Tom was dead and Grant didn’t know if his investigation into Brock Marsh Security had been the trigger.
“What else,” Franklin said. A statement, not a question.
His friend and partner knew him well, and Grant wasn’t ready to accuse him of murder—an accusation he couldn’t come back from. So he said the first thing he could think of, the other thing on his mind.
“Regan is back.”
“Oh. For good?”
“No. A friend of hers was killed. I assume she’s here for the funeral.”
Some fib. He knew why she was here and what she was doing and what she wanted to know from him.
“She called me this morning, and it threw me off. I haven’t talked to her since Chase’s birthday.” His voice cracked. His son had been dead for ten and a half months and he still couldn’t talk about him without getting emotional.
Franklin reached out, his pale blue eyes moist with concern, compassion. How could this man, the man who had held Grant when he broke down after Chase’s funeral, be involved in his death? The man who bought Grant a box of Cuban cigars when Chase was born, the man who was his best man in his wedding, the man who made him a full partner? Grant had been to his home for dinner more times than he could count; Franklin’s teenage daughters had babysat Chase; they’d gone on vacation together, their families! It just couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.
“It’s difficult to have a conversation with Regan,” Grant said.
“I can imagine. After...everything.”
“Anyway, I shouldn’t have allowed my personal life to bleed into my professional life.”
“It happens, Grant. I mean, you’re no CJ Burgess.”
And they laughed. They were friends, they were colleagues, and Tom Granger had to be wrong about Franklin Archer knowing anything about Chase’s murder. Maybe Tom was right that it was one of Grant’s clients. While he couldn’t imagine that Senator Burgess could hire a hit man—the thought seemed ludicrous—it seemed far more likely than Franklin Archer.
There were other clients. One of them could be responsible.
Yet Grant had doubts.
He had many doubts.
Sixteen
Regan arrived back at Tommy’s at three that afternoon. Since she’d skipped lunch, she cut up some cheddar cheese and an apple, then sat at Tommy’s desk. She had the owners list of the five safe deposit boxes that had been accessed by Michael Hannigan. Tommy clearly felt they were important; he’d had them listed in his notes. If only he’d written down why.
“What did you see in these people?” she muttered as she worked at Tommy’s computer.
Two of the owners raised no red flags. One was a retired couple married for forty-two years. Their FBI interview revealed basic information, and they offered that the only items in the box were their passports, marriage and birth certificates, insurance records, and savings bonds. All the savings bonds were accounted for. The other individual was a divorced mom of three, a Realtor who had not even remembered that she had rented the box—inside was her wedding and engagement ring from a failed marriage that she didn’t want in the house but didn’t want to sell, plus all the legal paperwork from her divorce, some financial documents, and bonds for each of her children that she’d bought at their birth that would mature when they turned twenty. Again, all was accounted for.
People were...odd, Regan thought. As if papers from the divorce could curse someone or project bad karma if they were under the same roof. Maybe she’d been too matter-of-fact about her own divorce. She hadn’t wanted it—but not because she had been in love with Grant, not anymore. The two of them had loved Chase, though, and that would never have changed. But without their son, they didn’t have a foundation. Without a foundation, the marriage crumbled.
Grant had always been more romantic and passionate than her. He’d planned every vacation or anniversary dinner. In the beginning, he’d asked her out. He’d pursued her. She liked him, was attracted to him, they had some great conversations. He was the first to sayI love you; he remembered important days while she relied on her calendar.
She’d always seen things clearly, and never felt the need to overanalyze anything, especially relationships. She enjoyed Grant; therefore, she must love him. Regan had been content in their marriage, but Grant had wanted more than contentment and mutual respect.
They went to counseling; that helped for a while. They were united in their love for Chase and wanted to make their marriage work. Grant worked hard at it. She didn’t. In the back of her mind, she didn’t understand how she could constructively work on something when she couldn’t identify the problem. Grant said that just once, he’d like her to be spontaneous, to surprise him with a romantic dinner while Chase was at a sleepover. He seemed to find fault with her because she didn’t think of these things herself.
She countered with the truth: he had known she wasn’t spontaneous when they met. She had always been methodical. Surprises unnerved her. And she wasn’t romantic—she was too practical, she supposed, to find whimsy or love in flowers or food. She felt that time was the important component—she gave Grant her time, and that saidI love youbetter than a dozen roses.
Her job was part of the problem, as was his. At first he seemed to be proud of her position in the Marshals Service, but Grant didn’t like when she moved over to fugitive apprehension, which sometimes necessitated overnight trips. Chase was in preschool at the time. Then Grant’s work hours started to keep him away from home. He was a lawyer: he left the house by seven in the morning and was rarely home before six—but if he worked on the weekend, he did it at home. She’d made sure her schedule matched his, becausetimewas valuable. But then he started working nights...then weekends...and it got to be finding time together was difficult. The last year of their marriage had been particularly rough, and they argued far too much about it. Well,heargued. She didn’t. She laid out the situation in a matter-of-fact tone that he once told her grated on him more than fingers on a chalkboard.
“Don’t you care? You stand there, talking as if you’re in a fucking negotiation, never raising your voice, never showing me that you actually care that we fix this!”
“Why is yelling equal to caring? I care, Grant. I want to solve the problem. But I have to understand the problem first.”
It wasn’t until after their divorce that Regan finally understood why their marriage had failed. Grant sincerely believed that passion—anger, lust, spontaneity—equaled love. She didn’t have the passion, she didn’t raise her voice, she didn’tfightfor their marriage. That’s what Grant wanted; she couldn’t give it.
