But touching girls is so far out of line that not even my brain can wrap around it.
“I know those girls,” a voice says immediately to my right.“Why do you have pictures of them?”
I look down to find that Corinne has invited herself right into the conversation—no surprise—and is fingering the pictures, brushing her forefinger over the face of Victoria Mason.
Dammit.I can’t think quickly enough to come up with a story for why we’d have pictures of girls sitting in our war room, and end up making a split-second decision for the truth.I don’t want to tell her, but she’s caught me in a bad moment, and I can’t exactly say we’re doing research on girls for no reason.
She’d be immediately suspicious.
“We’re researching some disappearances,” I say, keeping it short.“Too many girls are disappearing, and it’s not just New Orleans.New York, Boston, Atlanta…”
She nods once.“That makes sense.You suspect a smuggling ring.”
Gods, this girl is sharp.Almost as sharp as me.“We do.”
When she turns her eyes up to me, they’re just as intelligent as I feared.She already knows what’s going on.Maybe she came here knowing, and has just found confirmation for her assumptions.“Is that why Brooks is back in town?Or did she come here just for you?”
“She’s not here for me,” I snap, angrier than I should be at her insinuation.
Because Brooks should be here for me, and she’s not, and I guess I’m just not okay with that.
Corinne shuts her mouth, but her eyes are laughing at me, and I reach down and snatch the pictures out from under her nose.
“Do you have anything to add to this conversation or are you just here to annoy me?”
“That’s rich.You were just trying to kick me out and now you want me to help?My, how the tables have turned.”
I growl, about ready to kick her back out, but she suddenly decides she’s going to play nicely.
“Actually, I do.I know both those girls, to start with, but I also remember when they disappeared.You must.Their families made such a big deal of it.The news did stories, their fathers offered rewards, everyone was searching.And then it just went away.Like the tap had been turned off.”
Now that she says it, I do remember.These girls went missing on the same day, and the story was wild.Everyone in town was talking about it because their fathers were brothers, and very rich.And then it just… stopped.
“As if their families had been told to keep it down,” I murmur, finishing the thought out loud.
“Forced, probably,” Daniel responds.“By someone.”
Yes.That… actually makes a surprising amount of sense.The girls being taken are outside of what I’d expect.These are high-level families, with lots of money, but there’s evidently no ransom being asked for them.They’re not given the chance to buy them back.
So whoever is doing this has plenty of money.They’re looking for something else.
Power.
Or revenge.
“Find other patterns,” I say sharply.“Girls who are related or disappeared at the same time.And start making a list of the families who’ve been hit.Figure out what they have in common.”
“Like a common enemy?”Daniel asks.
“Exactly.”
The three of us get to work immediately, going back through all the files with new eyes and looking for families rather than kidnapping sites or girls.I want to know what connects everyone to each other, because I don’t think it’s just the fact that they had girls worth stealing.
I think this is a whole lot bigger than just a sex trafficking ring.
Within half an hour, though, I realize that no matter what we find here, it’s not going to be enough.We’re finding the same families again and again, one way or another, but that doesn’t tell us why, and it certainly doesn’t tell us who.
“This isn’t giving us enough,” I say finally.“And it’s not going to help us save the girls who ship out next.”
