Shattered (Max Revere #4)

The oldest, Nelia Kincaid, had been in law school when she married Andrew Stanton and gave birth to Justin four months later. It was pretty clear they married because of the child—not unheard of, especially nearly thirty years ago. After Andrew—who was a year older—graduated, Nelia went back to law school, then took a job as a corporate lawyer for a defense contractor. After her son was killed, she resigned and moved to Idaho. She worked from home for a law firm reviewing contracts, which seemed tame and completely uninteresting, but after losing her son she had never returned to a regular nine-to-five position.

After Nelia, Rosa had twin boys—fraternal, according to Max’s research team. Jack Kincaid had enlisted in the army when he turned eighteen, never went to college, then after fourteen years left the service voluntarily and honorably discharged. He had numerous medals and accommodations. He became a mercenary—that was interesting, Max thought. She wished she had more time to delve into his background, but it didn’t seem relevant when he’d been deployed in the Middle East when his nephew was murdered.

Now, however, Jack Kincaid was married to an FBI agent in Sacramento—an SSA, same rank as Max’s ex-boyfriend Marco—and he was a principal in the security company of Rogan Caruso Kincaid … that must be the same company that Agent Kincaid married into.

Dr. Dillon Kincaid was a forensic psychiatrist who lived in Washington, D.C. with his wife, an FBI agent who taught cybercrime at Quantico. Max had hoped to speak with Dr. Kincaid at some point, but he had been in medical school when his nephew was killed, and it didn’t seem that he would have any relevant information—except for his expertise working with criminals and the criminal justice system. Max hadn’t asked her staff for anything except the basics on Dillon and Jack Kincaid because they hadn’t been around during Justin Stanton’s murder, but now she wanted to know more. She sent Ben a note to that effect. Interesting that both twins married FBI agents.

Connor Kincaid was the middle child. He was a private investigator, though he had been a cop for ten years first. He resigned after a public trial where he testified against a corrupt cop. Max had to admire him for that—it took a lot of courage to stand up against one of your own, even when one of your own had done something illegal and morally reprehensible. He was married to an assistant DA, the independently wealthy Julia Chandler. Max was familiar with the Chandler Foundation—they were generous in their philanthropy.

Carina Kincaid had been in college when Justin was killed—but afterward she dropped out and joined the police academy. She became a uniformed officer at the age of twenty, then made detective before she was thirty. She’d been married to Nick Thomas—former sheriff of Gallatin County in Montana—for nearly eight years. They had a seven-month-old son, and Nick was now a PI in the same business with his brother-in-law, Connor.

And because it seemed everyone in the Kincaid family—except the oldest, Nelia—was in some sort of law enforcement, Max hadn’t been surprised to learn that Patrick Kincaid had also been a cop. Again, he had been lower on her list because he lived in Washington, D.C., but as she reviewed the file on him, her curiosity was piqued. He’d been a detective with San Diego PD until he was injured and in a coma for nearly two years. Nothing in the file said how he was injured—was it on the job? A year after he recovered, he joined Rogan Caruso Kincaid Protective Services.

That company again.

She sent another note off to Ben to dig deeper into Patrick Kincaid. Just because she was curious—his injuries were sustained nearly nine years ago, they had nothing to do with Justin’s murder or the investigation—but information was king. It was better to know everything than to make assumptions.

More than ten years after Patrick was born came Lucia “Lucy” Kincaid, born two weeks before her nephew, Justin.

Max quickly did the math … Rosa Kincaid would have been forty-three or forty-four when she had Lucy. Not unheard of, but not common.

There wasn’t much on Lucy Kincaid. She graduated from Georgetown University in D.C. with a dual degree in psychology and criminal justice, and then earned her master’s in criminal psychology from the same school. She’d served as an intern in several capacities, but the longest stint was thirteen months at the D.C. medical examiner’s office. She was a certified assistant pathologist—that seemed odd for a federal agent. Had she considered going into the field? She also held a certification in underwater search and rescue through the Commonwealth of Virginia. It would probably have been updated when she joined the FBI, they had their own underwater training program, but Max couldn’t access Kincaid’s FBI records.

Max continued to stroll through the original documentation her team had put together.

Lucy would be twenty-seven next month—young to have such a weighty background. Seemed she did a little of everything. Dabbled? Overachiever? Undecided? Flighty? What little Max knew about the Kincaid family told her that they were all overachievers, at least when it came to law enforcement careers. But as the youngest in the bunch, maybe Lucy Kincaid didn’t know what she wanted so tried a little of everything.

Max didn’t have much time before she needed to meet Stanton and Kincaid, so she checked her e-mail to see if Ben had uncovered anything else. He had sent her an e-mail with several attachments.

Max—

Federal agents rarely make the news, but I’ve pulled all the articles referencing the San Antonio Field Office over the past year.

Kincaid graduated from the FBI Academy a year ago December and was assigned to the San Antonio Field Office. She and her then-boyfriend Sean Rogan bought a house in an established neighborhood (property records attached).

As you know, most federal agents stay out of the press, and Kincaid is no exception. I learned that she was part of Operation Heatwave (details in the article from the SA Press) and she was part of the task force during the manhunt for escaped prisoner, former DEA Agent Nicole Rollins. It appears she’s been involved in several major cases during her first year as a rookie agent, but according to my friend in the N.Y. office, the San Antonio office has been short-staffed. Maybe an all-hands-on-deck situation?

Now here’s the interesting point—when I talked to my contact in N.Y., he told me off-the-record that Kincaid had been involved in at least two investigations in N.Y. before she was a federal agent. She was a consultant for the Cinderella Strangler investigation, which seems odd considering she wasn’t even in law enforcement at the time. While she was at the FBI Academy, she consulted on the Rosemary Weber homicide. Both cases were NYPD investigations, but the same FBI agent liaison worked with the police. My contact either wouldn’t or couldn’t give me more details, but it seems interesting to me that someone prior to graduation—especially a young recruit like Kincaid—was consulting with the FBI on major criminal cases.

I’m reaching out to the liaison to see what else I can learn.