It was like someone stuck a pin in me. I jerked upright, anger flaring before I could even think. “No.” My answer came out fast and fierce, and I shook my head so hard my hair tangled against my cheek. “Not happening. You don’t see them together the way I do. Alice loves Henry. She adores him. It’s not an act. I’d bet my life on it.”
Beth reached over and squeezed my hand, her fingers dry and strong. “Then we trust you,” she said, her voice dead serious. “If your gut says something happened to Alice, we go with that. Forget the stranger-theory or the running-away stuff. You know her best.”
For a second, I wanted to fall apart and stay that way forever. But instead, I let Beth’s words anchor me, even as the worry twisted through my insides.
That’s when my phone started buzzing. The screen lit up Daniel’s name. I hit speaker and set the phone on my knee.
Daniel’s tone was steady, but I caught a current of tension underneath. “Emma? Quick update. I got a call from a friend at the station. The department talked with Alice’s parents. They said they didn’t see her leave last night or this morning. But her car’s missing from their driveway. There’s no indication she packed anything, either. Her room’s untouched. Clothes, makeup, everything’s where it should be.”
The group exchanged uneasy glances. None of us liked what that suggested.
“Nothing else out of the ordinary?” Beth leaned closer to the phone.
Daniel’s breath crackled through the line. “Not that I’ve found, but I’m not finished digging. I’ll check with the local gas stations for anyone who saw her car, and we’re pulling footage for the last forty-eight hours. If you hear anything, let me know. I’ll be in touch.”
I was suddenly too tired to move. “Thank you, Daniel. Seriously.”
He paused, maybe wanting to say more, but then the line clicked off.
I tried to process. Alice hadn’t packed. She didn’t say goodbye. The car was gone, but everything else was left behind.
Beth was the first to break the silence. “So, we retrace her steps.Allof them. If something happened to her, she must’ve crossed paths with someone who knows more. If that doesn’t get us anywhere, we’ll start asking if anyone had beef with her.”
I couldn’t hide my disbelief. “Enemies? Alice doesn’t have enemies. She’s the most harmless person I know. She bakes cookies for her mailman.”
Beth’s eyes narrowed, the way they did when she was on a case. “Everyone has enemies if you look hard enough. Sometimes people just don’t show it. You can’t always tell who wants you gone.”
That chilled me more than the air. I stared at her, stunned.
Carol offered a small shrug. “She’s not wrong. We had a guy come into the shop once, all smiles, who turned out to have a list of people he wanted to hex for the tiniest slights. People hold grudges like souvenirs in this town.”
Deva nodded, her bracelets jangling a little as she reached for the stale bag of popcorn. “We start with what we actually know. If the midnight person wasn’t a lover, maybe it was someone trying to scare her? Or maybe Alice was protecting Henry from something. She’s so soft-hearted, she’d walk straight into a hornet’s nest if it kept him safe.”
I wanted to argue, but all the fight had gone out of me. “Can we just, I don’t know. Hit pause until tomorrow? I need real food. Maybe six hours of sleep. Then we meet up, somewhere with actual chairs and less bird poop, and hash this out?”
“Rest is definitely a good idea.” Carol gave a small smile.
“Yeah, let’s meet for breakfast at my restaurant,” Deva said. “I’m buying.”
We split off, each of us headed to our own corners of Mystic Hollow, hoping the ground would stop moving under our feet, if only for a little while.
Tomorrow, I’d put my armor back on and go after the truth. Tonight, I’d curl up on the sofa with a reheated burrito and let my brain go quiet. The world could wait until morning.
SEVEN
Emma
Just after sunrise, I pulled into one of the angled parking spots behind Deva’s Delights and tried not to salivate over the scents of vanilla and cinnamon already billowing from the kitchen vent. Good food. Exactly what I needed to face another long day of investigating.
I let the door chime ring out my arrival and paused to take it in, the tidy tables, the mismatched chairs, and the faint sheen of the sunlight coming through the windows. Beth was already at our usual table, tucked near the corner with her two phones and an ancient blue spiral notebook, pen stuck in the wire binding like a dart. She looked up, blue eyes bright over the rim of a green mug.
“Hey, Em!” she called, waving as if there were any chance I’d missed her. “Sit. I’ve got our spot on lockdown.”
I slid into the seat across from her and shrugged off my coat. “You get here earlier every week,” I said.
She beamed at me. “It’s the only time I can get a whole table to myself. If I wait until seven, the old guys from Parks and Rec hogeverything by the windows and never leave.” She stabbed the notebook. “Besides, I’m mid-brainstorm.”
“World domination?”
