started when Garrett asked Reign out and she turned him down flat. Apart from the huge age gap between them, he gave her a seriously bad vibe. I’ve learned to trust Reign’s bad feelings over the years, finding out the hard way that she’s actually a really good judge of character.”
I snort at that. Even Tate cracks a smile. I guess that was until she came here, where we fucked up her perception of good and bad, dirtying the image enough to fit our needs.
“Anyway, like I said, she blew him off, but then the gifts started coming.” Owen carries on, telling us everything Reign told us up until she got here.
“So, what did you turn up?”
“A lot of fucking bullshit. I had to go back to the start when he first left the academy. That’s where huge chunks of his file are blacked out or redacted, like he was deep undercover, only I can’t find any active or closed cases linked to him within that time frame. Did you know he was born here originally, him and his brother? After his parents were gone, they joined the police force and disappeared until he turned up in LA five years ago. He started working at one of the larger precincts. His arrest to conviction rate was huge and when the current chief retired, he stepped in.
“That’s where he started working with Rowlins. A lot of those cases have his name on them. They only ended up with us a year ago after an IA investigation ordered that some of those case files be reexamined. Nothing ever came of it, but there are rumors that he has not only a judge in his pocket, but also a budding crime lord with more money than sense, who is more than happy to do such dirty work for protection.”
“What about his brother?” Bates asks.
“Well, that’s where the plot thickens. It turns out his brother retired and opened a garage three months before Garrett moved to LA,” Tate answers, staring at us.
“Matthew James, Garrett’s brother, died six years ago.”
“This is all well and good, but we’re still no closer to finding her,” Bates snaps.
Tate’s phone rings, so he answers it, something that’s usually a no-no in here but every man and his dog can answer their phone if it means finding Reign.
Hanging up, he turns back to us, his face red as he grits his teeth and relays the latest.
“Ballistics for the gun found at the shack match the gun used to shoot Travis and all the other victims.”
“Let me guess, Garrett James,” Bates spits out, but I’m leaning toward Jake Rowlins, who looks like he might have been set up as the fall guy.
“No, the gun is registered to Reign,” Tate says, surprising the shit out of me.
“What?” Priest asks in shock.
“Reign has a Sig Sauer P250 Compact .45 caliber. She doesn’t carry it as it’s too fucking big, but she keeps it in a lockbox by the bed. I was with her the night of the break-in. I packed that gun box into the car, so she had it with her.”
“Unless the gun was never in the box and it was taken in the break-in,” Owen adds. “Let me guess, Travis was the cop she was arrested for shooting?”
“Yep. How could she have not noticed it’s missing?” Tate grunts, but then he likely uses his gun and cleans it every day.
“Like you said, it’s too big. She carries her little Colt Mustang XSP all the time, but I don’t think she’s even removed the gun box from the cases she has stored in the closet,” I answer, looking at Priest and Bates, who shake their heads to say they haven’t seen it.
“So we know why she was taken, but it doesn’t answer where and the longer she’s out there…” I leave the last of it hanging, not wanting to say out loud what we’re all fearing the most.
“Maybe, maybe not. We have a starting point now. If Garrett is from here, then there have to be people at the precinct that recognize him. They might even know his old haunts or a place he would take her.”
“Like that fucking cunt who arrested her, Donaldson,” I bark, wondering if he willingly handed Reign over, knowing what would happen or if he was genuinely innocent in all this.
“Yes, and it turns out Donaldson went through the academy with the twins.” Owen sighs. Well, I guess that answers my question then.