Chapter Seven
Max returned to her hotel and checked her email. When she first arrived that afternoon she’d unpacked and set up her temporary office. She detested living out of suitcases and made a point of getting comfortable in any hotel, even if she was staying for a short time. She hoped this trip was short but feared she’d be here all week, or longer.
Her life had certainly changed over the last seven months; last year she wouldn’t have thought twice about being away from New York for a couple weeks. Now even two days felt like an inconvenience.
In April, she learned the truth about her mother’s death and discovered she had a sixteen-year-old half sister, Eve Truman. Eve now lived with Max in New York and after the upheaval in Eve’s life—not to mention her first meeting with the entire Revere-Sterling clan over the summer—Max didn’t want to travel. She focused on crime in New York City and the surrounding area, which provided enough content to keep her monthly cable crime show filled. She now hosted a weekly interview program on crime-related issues for another show that NET aired, and her producer, Ben, said he wanted more. She’d already put her foot down on a daily segment, but she was seriously considering moving to a weekly crime magazine format. It could mean more time in the studio—and thus more time in New York—but she was also in the middle of writing her fifth true crime book, which was a series of chapters about mothers who kill, starting with Blair Donovan. Dr. Dillon Kincaid, Lucy’s brother, had already agreed to write the foreword for the book and was collaborating on some of the cases she’d selected.
However, the one thing Ben really wanted was for her to cover a high-profile murder trial in California that started in March and would keep her on-site for at least two weeks. She didn’t want to leave Eve for that long, and while she debated taking her sister out of school—the girl was smart and could work on her own for a couple of weeks—Max realized that she would miss Ryan.
She already missed FBI Agent Ryan Maguire now, which was wholly unlike her. She had never missed a lover before—sure, she missed sex and intelligent conversation, but she’d been a loner growing up and she craved her privacy. That Ryan had so easily moved into her life and she still enjoyed him after seven months of seeing him weekly—almost daily, she realized—gave her pause. He spent more time at her penthouse than his own apartment. He was staying there now with Eve. Max had intended to let Eve stay by herself—she was nearly seventeen and responsible, plus the building was secure—but Ryan offered, and Eve seemed happy to have him around.
Her life had definitely changed.
She sent Ryan a text message saying that she’d arrived, had dinner with Sean and Lucy, and was meeting with Stanley Grant’s attorney in thirty minutes. He responded almost immediately:
Eve and I are at Black Burger. You don’t know what you’re missing! Call me later. Love you.
Not Max’s first choice of eateries, though she knew the place was very popular. She preferred restaurants that served good wine and fresh fish over milk shakes and french fries. She supposed she should join Ryan and Eve at some point, see why they loved it so much, but she usually found an excuse to avoid the burger place.
Max was still getting used to this relationship, but Ryan made it easy. Too easy, sometimes, and she feared she was missing something. Yet she was an intelligent woman and assessed her life both impartially and critically and she couldn’t see where she had missed any clues that the relationship wasn’t working. That fear seemed to come from a place she didn’t recognize. Things were going well, why did she have to think anything was wrong? First, she’d always been attracted to law enforcement types—even when she butted heads with them. Second, Ryan was smart. They could talk about virtually anything. Like her, he loved art museums and history. Better, he had a head for money and numbers and understood her trust fund and her family charity as well as or better than she did. Third, he was honest and ethical. She demanded honesty in all her relationships and found that most people fell short. Not Ryan. And he was fun—which was something she rarely had with past boyfriends. She tried not to compare them—it wasn’t fair to Ryan or to her past lovers—but Ryan had a spark that had been missing in her life. He could turn off the job but never ignored his responsibilities. She had found that rare in too many people, but most of the men she had dated were workaholics like herself. At this point in her life … well, now she seemed to enjoy putting aside work for fun.
Wholly unlike her.
She also liked that her boyfriend and her sister seemed to enjoy each other’s company. Max was still getting used to being Eve’s guardian, though considering Eve would be eighteen in fourteen months, adjustment didn’t seem to be a big issue. Max filled most of their time educating Eve about the Revere family trust and talking to her about the family Eve had never known she had. It had been a bit of an eye-opener for Max as well, as she had a love-hate relationship with many in her clan. And now, since Eve was a junior in high school, they were looking at colleges and Max was learning what Eve was interested in, what she wanted to do with her life—which she was still unsettled about.
Plus, they were sisters, not mother and daughter, and Max had no intention of filling a maternal role for Eve or, frankly, anyone.
She poured herself a glass of wine and looked again at her timeline. She was frustrated that Lucy wouldn’t help her get the information from SAPD. She supposed she hadn’t actually expected her to, though she’d made a compelling argument. Curiosity always piqued Max’s interest and led her to asking questions; why not Lucy?
She put aside Lucy’s lack of interest and focused on her case as she waited for her meeting with Grant’s attorney.
Victoria Mills had been killed two months ago. A Realtor—which seemed like an odd way to label the real estate diva who ran a multi-million-dollar business. Her longtime friend and business partner Stanley Grant had confessed to her murder nearly a week later, stating that she’d learned that he’d embezzled money from their company because of a gambling addiction.
The case seemed straightforward. The only reason Max had even been interested was because the Mills family were family friends. When Grover Mills asked Max for her opinion on the investigation, Max had hired Sean Rogan. Sean had done a good job tracking the media, pulling copies of public records, and running a basic background on Victoria, Grant, and their third partner, Victoria’s ex-husband, Mitch Corta. Sean thought there was something more going on with Corta—he had a large cash flow—but Max didn’t find it unusual considering that MCG Land and Holdings moved high-end properties throughout Texas.
Max’s timeline had photos, charts, police reports—some she probably shouldn’t have, but Sean had truly gone above and beyond. But she didn’t have all the reports, including the original crime scene report. The coroner’s report had been released to the family, but it didn’t give her the full story. Victoria had been stabbed twice in the gut, then fell into a pool. Cause of death was listed as drowning with secondary cause of stabbing. She wouldn’t have drowned if she hadn’t first been stabbed.
Max knew that the weapon had never been recovered and that Stanley Grant hadn’t turned it over to the authorities when he confessed. He claimed he threw it in a sewage drain near the property, and since this was right after a big storm, the water was still running high. The police searched—at least they said they did—and didn’t find it, but that didn’t necessarily mean he was lying.