The atmosphere was tense when we returned to the living room, with the sirens huddled together on the couch as they nervously watched Troy carry out evidence bags containing Amanda’s belongings.
As the two agents left – Troy to take Amanda’s possessions to CSI for analysis and Phil to deliver a report straight to Mt. Olympus – Paul and I set out to interview the sirens one at a time. A little while later, Dike herself arrived, along with a large team of agents that included Lana and Agent Gries, and another round of questioning began. I expected the sirens to start getting restless, but they remained cooperative and quite willing to answer every question asked.
“When did you last see Amanda?”Three days ago.
“Has she ever spoken to anyone of you or mentioned anything about Zeus?”No.
“Has she exhibited any sign of unusual behavior?”No.
“Have you noticed any suspicious person showing up in the bar or anywhere near this place in the past three days?”No.
We rephrased the questions, asking the same things over and over in hopes of tripping one of them into betraying themselves but none of the sirens did.
It was almost midnight when Dike finally decided to call it a day, and the jubilation we had felt earlier upon finding our Jane Doe was completely gone. Both CSI’s lab team and tech support hadn’t been able to extract any kind of evidence from Amanda’s laptop or mobile phone. Amanda’s room was also completely clean.
As the other agents piled into the black sedans that lined up the street, I started to do the same only to have Paul cup my elbow and turn me towards the other direction. “Let me drive you home.”
I wrinkled my nose at his bit of high-handedness. “Is that a request or an order?”
“Whichever will get you inside my car,” Paul answered mildly, all the while leading me to his car.
I considered standing my ground and telling him that these things he did would only have more people talking about us.
Paul opened the door for me. “Blair?”
Oh, never mind.Who cared about what people said? If the world were to end soon, wouldn’t it be better if I spent more time with Mr. Handsome?
Paul asked me what I thought of the other sirens as he started to drive, and I took my time mulling over his question. “It didn’t seem like they were lying,” I said slowly. “Did you feel they were?”
“No.” The single word seethed with such frustration, I couldn’t help but blink, and a grimace touched his lips at my reaction. “Sorry. I’m not used to drawing blanks, but there’s just something about them...”
“You can’t quite put your finger on?”
Paul’s gaze narrowed. “They bothered you, too, didn’t you?”
“They did. For one thing, none of them acted like you were Mr. Handsome—-”
Paul sputtered.
“I’m serious,” I insisted. “Look at how Roseanne reacted to you. Even Agent Gries wasn’t immune to your looks. Sirens love beautiful things—-”
“And you think I’m beautiful?” he asked with a hint of a smile. “Is that it?”
I quickly turned my head away, not wanting him to see how my face had turned red. “For an INTERPOL detective,” I couldn’t help muttering under my breath, “you’re horribly bad at getting the point.”
Silence, but I could practically feel him laughing at me.
Clearing my throat, I said quickly, “Anyway, that’s not the only thing that bothered me. There’s also the lack of motive – I can’t seem to come up with any possible reason for one of them to go after AmandaandZeus.”
“It could be there isn’t any possible correlation,” he murmured pensively. “Amanda could have had her own reasons for poisoning Zeus, and we could have one or more individualsresponsible for Amanda’s disappearance but without having anything to do with Zeus’ condition.”
That was a good point, but a more complex one at that, and I made a face. “Okay, now my head hurts.”
Paul flashed a slight smile at my quip, and despite everything, my heart still managed to skip a beat at the sight. Here we were, facing imminent global disaster, and all I could think about was how handsome the man seated next to me was.
I mentally shook my head.Focus, Blair!Now wasn’t the right time to think about Paul’s looks. I had to focus on preventing the end of the world first, and after that –
I’ll find the courage to ask him out, I promised myself.I’ll even swear it by the River of Styx –
