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Regan decided she needed the rest of the drive to clear her mind so that when she talked to Grant, she didn’t have any of the baggage rattling around. She pushed the CD button and listened to what Tommy had in his truck—it was Crosby, Stills & Nash. And she smiled, and remembered better times.
Shortly after Chase’s murder, Grant had moved out of their house and bought the townhouse in Alexandria with a view of the Potomac River, just north of Founders Park. It was twenty minutes from his office in a quaint, exclusive neighborhood. Four stories, with the bottom floor being the tandem garage. Regan had been here a few times, but it had always been awkward—this was Grant, post marriage: sterile house, masculine furnishings, everything new.
She was only a few minutes early, but Grant wasn’t home. She waited a minute, then decided she was too irritated—and yes, angry—that he was making her wait. That he was delaying the inevitable. And fearing he might not show up at all.
She didn’t have the keys to his place, but there was an electronic keypad on his garage door. Grant was a creature of habit. She’d explained to him more than once the importance of not using key dates or names as his passwords. When they first met, he’d used his childhood address as his pin and the street and zip code as his computer password.
He hadn’t gotten much better over the years. It took her two tries to decode the garage. Chase’s birthday didn’t work—that was too obvious, but one she thought he’d revert to.
Instead, he’d gone back to his childhood address. 9051.
“Oh, Grant,” she muttered.
She hadn’t been able to shake how different he had looked that morning. Scared, worried, almost...lost. Still, the idea that his office was bugged seemed nuts. Who wanted to listen to his conversations? A client or one of his partners? An associate? For how long? And why?
She made sure the garage door closed behind her, then walked up the stairs to the first floor. A small parlor in the front—not the main living room, but what could be used as an office or a waiting room if someone had a home-based business. Two narrow bedrooms in the back, a bathroom. Straight up from the front door was a wide staircase leading to the main floor, which had a living room, dining room, and a large gourmet kitchen. Neither she nor Grant had been great chefs, though she had a few things she cooked well. She was better at soups and casseroles than she was at four-course meals. But Grant didn’t cook much at all. She opened his refrigerator and confirmed her suspicion that he hadn’t become a gourmet chef after their divorce: wine, water, juice, fruit, and several boxes of leftover takeout.
Debating with herself for about a minute, Regan went up to the top floor to further explore. If he got home now, it would be difficult to explain what she was doing.
Yes, Grant, I’m snooping because you’ve been a dick since I came back to Virginia and I want to know what you’re hiding.
But she pushed aside any residual guilt.
Everything in the house was expensive, well-appointed. Grant had always had expensive tastes. She didn’t intend to go into his bedroom; it felt too intimate and personal. Odd, considering he’d been the only man she’d slept with in more than a decade, until Tommy six weeks ago.
What might be of interest to her was likely in his home office.
But something through the open bedroom door caught her eye and she looked again. On a narrow wall to the left of a wardrobe cabinet were photos of Chase.
She couldn’tnotlook at them.
The collection had been professionally framed, but—other than his grinning first grade school photo where he had no front teeth, which had always been both her and Grant’s favorite—the photos were casual. Chase playing baseball. Chase at three with their family dog, who had died two years before Chase was killed. Chase at seven flying a kite in the park, his hair—a little too long back then—flying around his face as his wide eyes tracked the kite. Chase at Christmas opening a long, narrow box that had held a coveted bat. Because he would be playing with the older kids.
In his last Little League season.
There was even a framed selfie of the three of them camping in the Blue Ridge Mountains the summer after Chase turned eight, one of her favorite vacation memories. It had probably been the happiest year of their marriage. Grant had landed several big clients for the law firm, she was happily working in fugitive apprehension, Chase was doing well in school and excelling in baseball, they had friends and socialized often—something Grant enjoyed more than she did. He’d compromised by agreeing to small parties and dinners, not the big events that stressed Regan out. She much preferred talking with two or three couples in an evening than making small talk with dozens.
Her eyes burned. There had been so much hate and anger between her and Grant during the divorce, but it hadn’t stopped him from at least reflecting on what had been good in their marriage, the times that had formed these wonderful memories...bittersweet as they were now.
The divorce had been nasty. Not because they fought over the house or the things inside or money, but because of what Grant had said to her after Chase’s funeral. That he blamed her for their son’s death. His words more than anything had twisted inside her, dark and poisonous and painful. She knew he meant them. Her own guilt—of not being home when Chase was killed, of the possibility that he was killed because of her job—had most definitely contributed to her overwhelming sorrow and depression.
And then, six weeks ago, he said the three words she hadn’t realized she needed to hear. As they sat at Chase’s grave, he took her hand and she didn’t pull away, she didn’t flinch. He looked at her, waited until she looked at him, and said, “I am sorry.”
She knew what he meant and why, and she had nodded, accepting the apology. She hadn’t thought she needed anything from Grant, but she had. Maybe that’s why six weeks ago she’d told Tommy she wasn’t going to stay. BecauseI am sorrywas the closure she had needed to bid farewell to this chapter of her life.
She walked away from the wall of photos. Regrets and what-ifs and anger and sorrow about Chase—none of it would help her find who killed Tommy.
Put it away. Put it all away and focus.
She went to Grant’s office, grounded herself in the reason she was here: How was Grant helping Tommy in his investigation? Did Grant have the same information Tommy had, information that was now missing and presumably in the hands of his killer? Was the empty file labeled Franklin Archer important? If so, what had been in it? Was Franklin involved in any way in the death of their son?
She sat at Grant’s tidy desk, nothing on it except his laptop, an attached mouse, and a photo of him and Chase at a Nationals game when Chase was six. That photo cut her—it was a game she was supposed to be at but had missed because of a prison break at Lee Penitentiary and they’d needed all hands on deck.
She didn’t attempt to access his laptop. That was crossing a line she wasn’t ready to cross just yet. The top drawers were unlocked, but they didn’t have anything of value—notepads, bills, pens. The bottom right drawer was locked.
Desk locks were notoriously flimsy; it took her only a few seconds to pop it using a letter opener. So maybe the lines for her were getting blurry, because she had no qualms about searching his desk.
Inside were files, including a file on Franklin Archer that on the outside was the same type of file that was empty at Tommy’s house. But this file was full of court documents, lists of clients, financial sheets, and more.
