He laughed. “You’re a piece of work. I hope you’re more sensitive with Grover than you are with me.”

“If Stan didn’t kill Victoria, who do you think did? Someone must have had a reason. And Victoria wasn’t close to many people, her life revolved around this business, according to her parents.”

“I thought it was a robbery until Stan confessed,” he said. “Then I didn’t know what to think.”

“There was nothing taken from the house, according to the police reports.” Yet … what if something was taken that the homeowners didn’t want the police to know about? Or what if something was taken from Victoria herself?

Sean had run a background on the homeowners of the stately home in Alamo Heights that Victoria had listed, where she had been killed. They were out of the country at the time of the murder, but what if they weren’t as squeaky clean as Sean said they were?

Sean was good, but it was only a cursory background. Max would ask him to dig deeper because maybe they’d missed something. She doubted it, but investigations meant going over every possibility from every angle, layer after layer, until every truth was known.

Mitch said, “Look, Max, I appreciate that you came all this way to give Victoria’s parents peace of mind. But you should let the system handle this.”

“And if Stan dies? What then? Are you content with not knowing whether he killed Victoria? Whether he was blackmailed or threatened into making a false confession?”

“I need to check on Marie. She’s probably sick with worry. So please, if you want to talk later, call me and I promise to make the time, okay? I know your family is close to the Millses, I get that you’re just trying to help. But right now you’re stirring everything up. Maybe you should just let things settle down and it’ll all work out.”

No comment at all about Stan being blackmailed or threatened. No reaction.

He knew.

Because Stan told him? Or because Mitch was behind it?

Earlier today, Simon had been in complete disbelief that Stan had been threatened. He thought it was a ploy, and maybe it was.

Maybe Mitch helped Stan come up with the ploy. After all, he visited him in prison several times.

And Simon visited him twice.

Max rose and so did Mitch. In her heels, she was as tall as he. She used her height to her advantage—it seemed to intimidate some people. She extended her hand; he shook it. Damp, but soft. He didn’t do a lot of manual labor. She considered when she saw Stan—he had callouses on his hands. From working in the yard or working out at a gym or what she didn’t know, but he used his hands. Mitch didn’t. Not that it was a bad thing. Just interesting.