Sean continued, “I’m going to drive by her house first. If she and her brother are close, she might plan on going to the courthouse. Otherwise, I’ll catch up with her at school.”

“I should go with you.”

“Let me talk to her first.”

Max had a control issue. She knew it. It had taken her more than a year to feel comfortable letting David handle interviews and other matters for her. She had gotten better, but she’d only worked with Sean on a few cases and letting go was difficult.

“Okay,” she said cautiously, “but I need to talk to her after I talk to her brother.”

“I expected no less.”

“Is that sarcasm?”

“No.”

She shook her head. Her fruit and toast came. “Would you be willing to keep an eye on her this morning? At least until I find out what’s going on? That way I can tell Grant that she’s safe.”

“If she’s okay with it. I’m pretty good at talking people into things, so I don’t think it’ll be a problem.” He drained half his orange juice. “One more thing I learned last night when you woke me up.”

If he was trying to make her feel guilty, she didn’t. She paid him very well to be on call.

He handed her a folded piece of paper. She opened it. It was a printout from a hotel in Austin, about an hour north of San Antonio. A room registered to Marie Richards for two nights. She must be missing something, because she didn’t see the importance. She glanced at the dates. September. Marie had checked into the hotel the night before Grant went to the police and confessed to Victoria Mills’s murder.

“What am I missing?” Max asked. “Just because Marie left town when he confessed? Maybe he gave her a heads-up and she didn’t want the headache of the press.”

“When I initially ran backgrounds, nothing about Marie seemed off. But last night after I saw this photo, I ran her in another database and that registration popped.”

“Still doesn’t tell me why this is important,” she said.

“Maybe there’s nothing important here, but it shows a pattern. Before Grant confessed, she disappeared for a couple days. Then she returned to San Antonio but kept a low profile. Work and home and the occasional visit to her brother. But this Sunday she visited her brother and then left town.”

“So he told her he was going to change his plea and she left town again to avoid the media spotlight. A lot of people would do the same thing.”

“But she didn’t go to a hotel. My guess? She went to the house in the picture.”

Then it clicked. “And someone followed her.”