“That’s your world,” Max said, “not mine. I know there’s a story here. I can expose the illegal gambling, I can report anything I want as long as I can support my claims with evidence. We talked to Ryan shortly before you arrived, just to run a hypothetical situation by him. In a nutshell, land transactions generate a paper trail. But to unravel something like this would take months, if not years, of work, and there’s no probable cause for a warrant. Victoria being dead doesn’t seem to count.”

“Because Monroe isn’t a suspect in her murder,” Lucy said.

“We don’t know that, because Detective Reed doesn’t share.”

“With you,” Lucy reminded her.

Sean said, “Ryan had a good suggestion—to focus on the murders, not the gambling or land transactions. A reverse Al Capone, where technology and forensics will yield more evidence than a white collar investigation in the short run.”

“He’s right,” Lucy agreed, “and I’m more comfortable investigating violent crime over money laundering.”

“We need access to all the reports from Victoria’s murder,” Max said.

Lucy couldn’t help but smile. “We?”

“We’re a team,” Max said. “I share, you share.”

Lucy knew what she meant, but she didn’t like their arrangement. “I will talk to Detective Reed tomorrow after I interview the bank manager in Kerrville. I don’t think Denise embezzled the money. We have a handwriting expert comparing a known signature to the authorization forms that granted her exclusive signatory powers. The original investigation already proved that Kiefer’s signature was forged.”

“We have a lot of dots, but few connections,” Sean said. “What we need is one of those people to talk.” He gestured to the list.

“Three of them are dead,” Lucy pointed out. “I find it hard to believe that they were all party to murder. It takes a special coldness to kill someone you care about—like a sister or even an ex-wife. And even colder to kill an entire family.”

“We were talking about that earlier,” Max said. “What if they didn’t know or consent to Victoria’s murder? What if they bought into the Stanley Grant confession? When I saw Simon at the courthouse yesterday, he was truly grieving for his sister and clearly blamed Grant. Yet that doesn’t mean he didn’t know they were doing something illegal—or that he was a part of it. But what part? The gambling part or the land part or both?”

“You’re making a huge leap, Max. You haven’t established that Harrison Monroe even runs an illegal gambling organization.”