Page 53 of Reset

“That doesn’t sound like Ryan.” Dimitri took a Danish pastry from the huge platter in the middle of the table. The sight made Megan sad. If Ryan had been there, that platter would have been empty by now. “Since when did he want to talk to a woman before getting her into bed?”

“He was trying something new,” Elle replied primly. “He was fed up being conned, robbed, and generally misused, and it was pointed out to him that possibly he was the problem and his attitude to dating might need some tweaking.”

Megan couldn’t help grinning at Elle. She could just imagine how that was pointed out to Ryan and wished she’d been a fly on the wall.

“Anyway,” Elle said, “someone hacked all of their conversations, and as far as I can see, there wasn’t any reason to read them. Sure, they’re flirty, but mainly it’s two people talking about everything and getting to know each other. She sounds smart and funny, and he was really opening up to her. Did you know he reads? Like a lot?”

“You mean books?” Megan was confused. “I know he reads comics.”

“Yeah, books. There’s a whole conversation about Moby Dick in their messages.”

“Are you sure he read it and didn’t just think it was a porn movie?”

“No.” Elle shook her head at Megan. “He read the book.”

“Apart from his reading taste,” Callum growled, “did you find anything that might give us a clue as to what’s going on here?”

“No, there’s nothing.” Elle looked deflated.

“But you dug into her background too, right?” Callum frowned.

Elle shrugged. “There wasn’t much to find. She’s the only child of two alcoholic parents. Her dad drank himself to death years ago, and it looks like her mother could join him any day now. She hasn’t had any contact with either of them since she turned sixteen. The place she grew up…let’s just say it makes a war zone look good. There are school records mentioning that she often came to school in little more than rags and was malnourished. Sarah definitely didn’t have an easy childhood.”

Julia looked like she might burst into tears. “That’s so sad.”

“Yeah,” Elle agreed. “But she got out of there by working hard, being smart, and never setting a foot out of line. Seriously, this woman has only one reprimand noted in all of the records I combed through. Just one. There were no work problems, no speeding tickets, nothing.”

Megan tossed her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I have to know what the one reprimand was.”

“When she was thirteen, and top of her year academically, two boys got grabby during swim class and she decked them. Broke one of their noses.” Elle’s grin oozed appreciation. Then she scowled. “The boys got away with it, and Sarah was suspended for three days as punishment.”

Okay, now Megan was beginning to like this girl. “Typical. A woman gets assaulted, defends herself, and the guys get off scot-free.”

“I wouldn’t say scot-free,” Dimitri had the nerve to say. He held up his hands in surrender when he saw her face. “I mean, they were in the wrong and deserved to get punched, and the school should totally have backed up Ryan’s woman. But at least they got hit, right?”

“You narrowly talked yourself out of that hole, buster,” she told him.

“Can we please bloody focus on the job?” Callum barked. “Ryan is missing, unless you’ve forgotten.”

“Anyway,” Elle said hurriedly, no doubt to deliberately stop Megan from snapping right back at their grumpy-arsed boss. “As far as I can tell, Sarah Davidson has a few casual friends that she hangs out with now and then. She doesn’t have any debt, she works hard, gives to charity, and leads a pretty regimented life. She only joined Tinder a few days before she met Ryan. He was her first date, and her last. She deleted her account a few weeks later.”

“Any trouble at work?” Joe folded his arms, making his shoulder muscles bulge and Julia’s mouth water.

“Nope.” Elle shrugged. “She’s squeaky clean—no upset clients, no disgruntled colleagues, nothing. Trust me, I did a deep dive on this woman and there isn’t anything that raised alarms.”

“Past boyfriends?” Rachel asked, her eyes on her phone.

One day, Megan was going to get that phone off Rachel, just so she could find out what she did on it that took so much attention.

“There were only a couple. One is married, the other transferred to Germany for work.”

“Hobbies? Weird reading or TV habits? Did she write to death row inmates? Or have a long-lost cousin in the mob?” Dimitri asked.

“Not everybody is lucky enough to have mob connections.” Elle stuck her nose in the air. “She reads—a lot. Which is hardly a crime.”

“And also explains why Ryan was suddenly literary,” Megan said. “That boy will do anything to get laid.”

There were groans all round.