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He hesitated, then handed her one glove. “I only have one pair with me. Use that.”
She didn’t put it on, only folded it between her fingers and used it to try the bottom two drawers.
Locked.
“You picked his locks,” Quincy said, looking over her shoulder.
She didn’t respond. “They’re locked now, but I know what was in them, at least what the files looked like.”
“I need a warrant to search anything that isn’t in the open.”
“You don’t know Grant like I do. We were married for nearly twelve years. I don’t know what’s going on with him or where he is right now, but I can’t see him stabbing a woman in the back multiple times.”
“You were in law enforcement. You know that you can’t always predict criminal behavior, especially a crime of passion.”
“Maddie didn’t fight back. There was no evidence of a struggle, no signs of a fight. You’re suggesting that maybe they argued, she turned around, and Grant stabbed her in the back two, three times? Then he left her there, but took the knife? Didn’t touch her, smear the blood?”
“I don’t know what happened, but that’s a plausible scenario. Do you have a better one?”
“An intruder. Lying in wait. Because there wasn’t a struggle, no signs of a fight, one wineglass—not two.”
“You’re observant.”
Regan hesitated, but she needed this detective on her side so opted for transparency. “I’m in town because my former boss, Deputy US Marshal Thomas Granger, was murdered on Monday morning. I have Tommy’s personal phone records that show several calls between Grant and Tommy starting three weeks ago. Tommy’s killer shot him at dawn, took his phone and laptop, and walked away. Now Madeline McKenna is dead, Grant is missing, and Grant’s laptop is gone.”
“Is your ex being investigated for Granger’s murder?”
She didn’t even know how to respond to that. “No. And Grant’s not a sniper. The shot was approximately seventy feet from a slight elevation. Grant can barely hit a target fifty feet away on the range.”
“Could you have made the shot?”
Of course she could, and he had to know that—she had been a trained marshal. “That’s irrelevant. My point is, I believe Grant and Tommy were working together to solve my son’s murder.”
He stared at her. “I didn’t know. I’m sorry.”
She shook her head to dismiss any further condolences. She didn’t want or need sympathy. None of this was a coincidence. Tommy’s death, Madeline’s death, the missing laptops, Grant’s disappearance. She feared he was dead.
She had watched, assessed Detective Quincy and decided that she could trust him with what she knew. Not only was she worried about her ex-husband’s safety, but she felt at a loss about what was happening around her. Death, violence, Tommy’s investigation, all the pieces were here but she didn’t know how they fit together.
But one thing was certain: the more people that looked for answers the better.
“Our son was killed at the end of June last year.” She laid out what happened in a straightforward, matter-of-fact tone. Chase’s murder, Hannigan’s capture, his apparent remorse, and the FBI theory that he was avenging his brother’s death—a brother he hadn’t been raised with and wasn’t close to.
Quincy was listening, didn’t interrupt, so Regan continued. “I moved back to my hometown in Arizona, but three weeks ago, Tommy interviewed Peter Grey, the felon who killed Hannigan in jail. He’d been trying to talk to him for months, because we just didn’t buy the FBI conclusion. Tommy went on leave, started talking to Grant, had planned to lay everything out for his colleagues the day he was killed. He believed he had enough information and discrepancies to start an official investigation.”
“Let me get this straight—Granger did all of this without bringing you in? The mother? You didn’t know?”
“I knew he was looking.” Then, she added, “Losing my son nearly killed me. I couldn’t go down that rabbit hole without something...tangible.”
“I can understand that.”
He said it matter-of-factly, no veiled sympathy. She appreciated it.
“Tommy was in contact with Grant. I don’t know what they discussed, or what Grant was doing to help Tommy, but they had multiple conversations. His notes lead me to believe thatGrantwas Hannigan’s target—not me, not our son. It was a theory I posited early on, after Hannigan told me he was sorry, he hadn’t meant to shoot Chase. Now if I’m right and that is true, Grant is in danger.”
“Nearly a year later?”
“I don’t have all the answers, but I’m going to find them.”
