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She’d officially left in October, but her heart left on June 30 when Chase was killed. Shot in his own home, where he should have been safe.
Not much had changed. Administrative assistant Maggie Crutcher still manned the main desk. She was fifty-five and could retire, but Regan knew she wouldn’t until mandatory retirement age. Six semiprivate cubicles faced the center of the room where there was a large table for morning briefings. Two of the cubicles were occupied; four were vacant. Three glass-walled offices: one for the chief deputy, one for the supervisory deputy, one for interviews and meetings.
The office for supervisory deputy Thomas V. Granger was dark.
“Regan?” Maggie jumped up from her desk and ran over to embrace her. Hugging the diminutive woman felt like hugging a child. “Oh, Regan.”
“Don’t cry,” Regan said, but it was too late. Maggie stepped back, wiping tears from her eyes.
Charlie North heard Regan’s voice and rose from his cubicle, strode over, and hugged her tight. Regan was nearly five foot nine; Charlie towered over her. He didn’t let her go right away. The US Marshals office was small: they normally housed between five and six marshals, the supervisory deputy, and the chief deputy. But positions were slow to fill. It looked like they had only four deputies now, with the chief deputy retired and Tommy dead.
She stepped back and looked into Charlie’s sad face. His dark eyes were red, showing the emotion she felt deep inside. She said, “I wish—”
“Yeah. Me, too.” He touched her chin. “We’ve missed you here.”
If only things had been different. Regan had tried to work the month after her son was murdered, but she couldn’t do it. Her world had fallen apart and there was no going back. If she wasn’t reliable, wasn’t one hundred percent focused on her job, she could have put herself or her team in danger. She resigned.
Everyone understood—Charlie had three kids. He and his wife, Sharon, had been there for Regan whenever she needed anything. She would never forget that. But even with all the support from her colleagues—from Tommy, Tommy’s sister, Charlie, her own family—Regan couldn’t put Chase’s death from her mind. She couldn’t find a way past it, not until she left and moved back to her childhood home two thousand miles away.
Yet here she was: in her old office because of another death. Only she no longer wore the star.
She glanced at the empty office of the chief deputy. “Steven’s position hasn’t been filled?”
Chief Deputy Steven Mortimer had retired three months prior—Regan was supposed to attend his retirement dinner, but it had just been too close to Chase’s birthday and her emotions were raw. She’d sent Steven two dozen cookies from his favorite bakery and a gift certificate for two tickets to a Nationals home game. Her former boss loved baseball as much as her son had.
Charlie shook his head. “Tommy was acting chief. Let’s grab some privacy.”
He motioned her into the interview room, closing the door behind them. She glanced back at the only other person sitting at a cubicle: a female marshal she didn’t recognize.
She sat in Regan’s old cubicle.
Charlie followed her gaze. “That’s Anna Lujan. Rookie, joined us three months ago. She’ll be attached to me for three more months. Good instincts, graduated high in her class. Right now Carl and Doug are transporting a prisoner. Another agent transferred in from up north—I doubt you know him, he has courthouse duty today.”
She sat down across from Charlie. “What happened to Tommy?”
“I told you everything we know on the phone. I’m waiting for the autopsy report, but the FBI’s preliminary forensics report confirms that the sniper was perched in the big oak tree in his front yard, took at least one shot from there—maybe more. But they believe the gunman also shot Tommy at close range, in the head.”
Cold flowed through her, a darkly familiar sensation that she’d only felt one time before. When she was told Chase was dead.
“The shooter fired when Tommy was leaving. To meet with you,” she added.
Charlie nodded. “What do you know about that? You know he took a month’s partial leave. He was still handling the administrative work in the office, but from home—and no field cases.”
“I didn’t know he had taken leave,” she said quietly. “I would have told him not to do that, but...” She assessed her old friend. She wasn’t certain how much Tommy had told Charlie, but they trusted each other implicitly. If she wasn’t upfront with Charlie from the beginning, they might never find the truth, and she would damage one of her best friendships. “This has to be between you and me,” she said.
He didn’t say anything. Waited.
She raised an eyebrow at him. “I need to know, just for the next five minutes, that we’re talking as friends only.”
She was relieved when he nodded his consent.
“I was here six weeks ago,” she said. “I would have called, but... I came to visit Chase’s grave.” She cleared her throat.
Charlie reached out and took her hand, held it. “It had been his birthday.”
“Yeah.” Nothing got past Charlie, but she had forgotten how empathetic he was. She stared at their clasped fingers, her Arizona tan still very pale against Charlie’s black skin. She took a moment, pushed down the pain of discussing Chase. She realized that it was easier now—nearly a year after his murder—but still brought back bad memories she struggled to suppress.
Finally, she said, “I saw Tommy, after. You know that neither of us were satisfied with the FBI investigation—first Chase’s murder, then Adam Hannigan’s murder.”
