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One of the boxes in the bank.
Before Regan could ask Jenna about it, she said, “When I got back from the camp, I found out my house had been robbed. My cell phone and laptop, gone. My place was a mess. I called the police, and Lance let me stay at his place because I didn’t want to stay home alone.”
“Did the police arrest anyone?” Charlie asked.
“No. At least, not that I know about. Then the next day, Thursday, I went to clean up—it was the middle of the day, I thought it would be safe. Lance was going to come over after his classes. I saw an SUV drive up. Two men in suits got out. They looked like FBI agents, and because Agent Wexford said they would be coming, I thought they were FBI, but I asked to see IDs before I opened the door and they didn’t show me. One of them flipped open a badge, but I couldn’t read it. Something about them felt...I don’t know, off. So I ran out the back. They chased me. I hit one of them with my car, but he was okay, he got right up.” She spoke faster as she got going.
“I know the area well,” Jenna continued, “and drove to a place I didn’t think they could find me, waited awhile. Then I went to the hospital, because I wanted to call Lance, tell him not to come over, but I’d left my phone, the new phone I got at Walmart, at the house. And I saw them there, at the hospital, like they were waiting for me! I bolted, just kept driving until I almost ran out of gas, contacted Lance...and that’s it. Oh—and the two men at the door? They mentioned the phraseunauthorized investigation. Just like the guy on the phone. That freaked me out.”
Charlie said, “Lance, you saw them, too?”
“Yes. Before I knew where Jenna was, I went to her place and they confronted me there. Then I saw them outside my apartment. So I called the police, and they disappeared. But I didn’t take any chances, I swapped cars with my roommate.”
Regan said, “Tell me more about what you and Tommy were working on, what he needed from you.”
“A few weeks ago, I think May first, Tommy came by the hospital. He waited until I was off shift, then told me he was looking into reopening the Potomac Bank robbery investigation, and he wanted to ask me some questions about it. He showed me a photo of my sister, Becca—you know about the robbery, right? She was a teller and she was killed.”
“Yes,” Regan said.
“The photo was of Becca and Michael Hannigan, the man who killed her. I had never seen it before. Tommy told me that he found it on social media from more than ten years ago. Becca and Michael had known each other in college. I hadn’t known—no one told me, and I was still in high school. Tommy said he thought that Becca might have been Hannigan’s accomplice. He wanted to talk to me about her finances, her state of mind, her friends, her history—anything I knew.
“At first, I said I wanted no part of it. Denied everything. But the next day, I realized I was being willfully blind. I mean, Becca was killed so I didn’t want to believe anything bad about her. But I realized I knew a lot of stuff about Becca and not all of it was good. So I called Tommy and we met. He listened to everything I had to say, even stuff that wasn’t relevant. And I’ll never forget what he said. He said, ‘Everyone makes mistakes. Your sister didn’t deserve to die for hers.’ And I knew he would do everything he could to find the truth. And I wanted the truth.”
“How did you and Tommy come to the conclusion that Becca was an accomplice?”
“Becca had an influx of cash in the month before the robbery. A car she drove that she said belonged to her second job, and she refused to tell me what it was because they were paying her under the table. She made some comments to me about how everyone had secrets, and some people even kept their secrets in safe deposit boxes.
“But, it wasn’t until the second time we met, when Tommy asked me to look through some information he’d compiled—this was a week before he was killed—that he realized something else was going on.”
“What was that? Did he tell you?”
“He asked me to review the evidence logs and witness statements from the robbery to see if something stood out to me. One thing did. Legacy CPA. Becca had worked for them for several years, back when I was still in high school. I told him that and he got quiet. Said he had to research something, but this might be the connection.”
“The connection to what?” Charlie asked.
“To the murder of a little boy.”
Regan’s heart tightened. “How so?”
“I don’t know. He asked me for any of her personal financial information, so I put that together for him—I had handled her estate and debts after her murder. I’ve always been a bit anal-retentive about tax things, so I had all her tax information, which included W-2s. She worked for Legacy as a receptionist for more than two years.”
“Did Tommy indicate what he thought about this information? Whether she was involved because she knew Legacy had valuable information in the box, or for another reason?”
“He thought that Michael Hannigan had been hired to get information from one or all of the boxes. But when he learned about Legacy, I don’t think he thought quite the same thing—he didn’t give me details. But he was very interested when I told him I’d seen Becca and her old boyfriend.”
“Who was?”
“A CPA at Legacy. Chad Rockford.”
“Rockford?” Regan and Charlie said simultaneously.
“Tom had the same reaction,” Jenna said, wary.
“Is he any relation to Bruce Rockford?”
“I don’t know. I’d only met Chad a couple of times, when Becca was still living with me in Bethesda. He’d pick her up, so I didn’t really talk to him much. He was older than her—like she was twenty-two when she was working there, he was thirty, maybe older. I mean, I guess there’s nothing wrong with it, but he was just very different than Becca. Anyway, they’d broken up—Becca didn’t lose sleep over him. At least not that she told me. Then I saw them having brunch. And I thought that he had gotten married, so that made me sad and angry at the same time.”
“When and where?” Regan asked.
