I gave her a regretful glance. “Sorry, I tried.”
She rubbed a hand at her temple. “It’s not your fault, and I shouldn’t have put it on you to try and fix what I couldn’t.”
Atlas pushed up his sleeves. “Instead of dwelling on the past, I think we should be looking at what’s happening right now.”
“You mean Sienna Michaels?” Paisley supplied, bringing up the missing girl on the news.
Atlas nodded.
“She’s the first in months,” Paisley said quietly. “I secretly hoped it had stopped.”
“You really think it’s the same person as before?” I recalled her theory about Maddox’s family being involved.
“Or persons,” she said with absolute certainty. “Sienna’s the same age range as the others, all between sixteen and nineteen.” Paisley minimized the video window and opened a folder on the desktop, one labeled “Research.” She pulled up a document, her cursor moving faster, clicking through tabs. “Look.”
Photos of the other missing girls filled the screen in a grid, six faces staring back at me, including the one I’d seen Friday night of Sienna. There was one photo with an X through it. I glanced at the name typed under the image. Kaylor Steele.
She was…stunning. Long, beautiful, silvery-blonde hair, high cheekbones, and startling light-blue eyes. Jealousy stabbed me. This was the girl Maddox couldn’t get over. The girl he was likely in love with.
Paisley bit her lower lip. “I’ve been trying to piece together a pattern for weeks, but I can’t figure out what any of these girls had in common.”
“Maybe they were just unlucky,” Atlas offered, though his tone suggested he didn’t believe it. “Wrong place, wrong time.”
Paisley shook her head, her recently dyed dark blue hair swinging. “No. Predators don’t pick randomly. They pick deliberately. There’s always a reason, always a type, always something that makes the victim stand out as vulnerable or accessible or—” She gestured vaguely at the screen, words failing her. “If anyone knows anything, it’s her.” Paisley tapped on Kaylor’s face. “Not only is she the only girl I know who’s come back, but she’s connected to the Ravens…to the Corvos. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence she was saved. I thought before they might be involved, but…”
“But now you think they might have saved her,” I finished, guessing at where her train of thought had been traveling.
Paisley nodded. “It makes sense, especially since she is dating one of them.”
Atlas snorted softly. “And how do you plan to get past her bodyguards? We’ve tried this before. The Corvos have her locked down tight.”
Paisley’s mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’m not denying it’s a problem, but every problem has a solution. We just need to find the right one.”
I hesitated, an idea forming. “Have you tried asking Maddox?”
Both of them looked at me like I’d grown a third boob.
I shrugged. “Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. We could just ask him to talk to her or if he knows anything that might be helpful.”
“If only it were that easy,” Atlas mumbled, a finger tapping on the side of his thigh. “We’re the last people he or his brother would talk to.”
“She might be onto something. Maddox might not talk to us, but Mal…he might talk to you. You’re lab partners, right?” Paisley’s brows lifted as she waited for me to respond.
Heat crept up my neck, spreading across my cheeks. “Yeah. He’s actually coming over tomorrow to work on a project.”
She grinned. “Perfect.”
Right. Because nothing about being alone in my bedroom with Maddox Corvo while trying to pry information out of him about the girl he still had feelings for felt even remotely perfect.
I shifted in my chair, dragging my thumbnail along the rim of the table. “And just how am I supposed to bring up Kaylor?” The girl he had feelings for. She was the last person I wanted to be talking about when I was alone with Maddox.
“Seduce him with those big eyes of yours. Better yet, have a bottle of gin and rum on hand. That should loosen him up,” Atlas offered.
My brows shot up. “You want me to get him drunk.”
Atlas shrugged, completely unapologetic. “I’m saying the idea has potential.”
Paisley’s amusement dimmed. “It’s not the worst plan. Maddox is known to drink.”
