“I still want to talk to Andy Tompkins.”

“My guess is that he won’t say a word to you.”

“He talked to Ben.”

“Before you put him back on Monroe’s radar. My guess? By now Monroe either has called him and threatened him or had someone pay him a visit to keep his mouth shut.”

“If you won’t drive to Dallas, maybe I should.”

“Save the time and call him. I guarantee you, he will not help.”

Sean didn’t know her well. She looked up Tompkins’s number and punched it in. “Mr. Tompkins, this is Maxine Revere. I work with Ben Lawson at—”

“You fucking bitch. Lawson said you wanted information! Just research, he said. Now Harrison is going to destroy me.”

“I can help—”

“You can go to hell.”

He ended the call.

“I told you,” Sean said.

“I didn’t think Monroe would act that fast.”

“As soon as we were followed, I figured he was reining in the horses, so to speak. But we have to tread lightly. If Monroe is behind both the Albright murders and Victoria’s murder, he’s running a large conspiracy and has more people than we know about working for him. That’s both good and bad.”

“Good because all it takes is one person to flip and bad because we don’t know where he might come after us.”

“Exactly.”

“We also have a team,” Max said. She had been a lone wolf for so long, and she was still getting used to working with others to investigate her cold cases. She both liked and disliked having a team. She was used to doing everything herself and only having herself to answer to, but in a case like this she needed help. Victoria Mills wasn’t a cold case, at least not the kind she generally investigated. She would have been far more comfortable looking into the Albright family murders than Victoria.

“I have to make some arrangements.”

Sean got on his phone again. “I’m sorry to bother you, Mateo,” he said. “I was hoping Jesse could stay at Saint Catherine’s for a day or two … If he can go home with Brian after soccer practice?… Thank you. And he’s going to miss school tomorrow. Give him some chores, it’ll be good for him.”

When Sean got off the phone, Max said, “Are you worried that Monroe is going to go after your son?”

“No, I’m being cautious. I won’t put Jesse in a position to be used against me, and while my house is safe, I don’t want him home alone all night. It would take Monroe a lot of digging to find my connection to Saint Catherine’s, and even if he did, he wouldn’t think I’d send my kid over there. Jesse’s safer there for now. We’ll reevaluate after tomorrow.”