I twisted a napkin until it nearly tore. “So, nobody has seen her? Or heard from her?”
They all shook their heads.
“Well, that’s helpful,” Beth mumbled under her breath. Then, to the group said, “Thank you, truly. If anything comes to mind, can you call us right away? Even if it seems weird.”
Ruth squeezed Beth’s arm. “We’ll keep our ears open. I’m sorry. We all adore Alice. We just feel so sorry for Henry. This must be really hard for him.”
Beth managed a nod. “He’s beside himself.”
They filed out, shoes clicking in perfect rhythm, leaving the air thick with too much perfume and disappointment.
I flopped onto the nearest chair, staring at where the mouse had vanished. “Well, that cleared up nothing.”
Beth moved around the table, collecting plates with a little more aggression than necessary. “One more person to track down. Krissy. After that, we’re out of options.”
Right, Krissy. One of Alice’s closest friends and the last person to see her before she vanished. Seeing her would either clear everything up or leave us with no straws to grasp at.
I counted the empty chairs and wondered how long it would be before Henry started to lose hope.
Beth looked at the ceiling, like maybe an answer was hiding up there with the cobwebs. “Poor Henry.”
FIFTEEN
Emma
The sky was just starting to purple up, that time of evening when every porch light looks like an invitation. Beth and I turned down the lane, if we could call it a lane, since it had about as much pavement as a gravel parking lot behind a dive bar, and the house at the end was bright pink, the color nearly blinding in intensity. The address matched, but I still checked my phone to be sure.
Beth whistled. “Krissy’s taste is, well. I guess the best thing I can say is consistent?”
I snorted. “She probably eats shrimp cocktail on Wednesdays and has a matching outfit for her cat.”
“She doesn’t have a cat,” Beth said. “Two ferrets, though. Their names are Legolas and Lucien.”
How she knew that I had no idea, but it tracked. Everything about the house was aggressively girly. A pink picket fence, heart-shaped wreath on the door, pink mailbox with “Krissy” painted in sparkly script. But there were also black plastic batshanging from the porch railing, and a life-sized cardboard cutout of Iron Man peeking out from behind a rosebush.
I could already smell vanilla frosting, and we hadn’t even knocked.
Beth pressed the doorbell, which played something that might’ve been the theme from Sailor Moon, and almost immediately the door swung open.
Krissy was not what I’d expected. I braced for pink, but it was pink like a science experiment. Bleach-pink hair with streaks of electric blue, a unicorn onesie that left nothing to the imagination, and a bubblegum pop smile that could’ve launched a thousand Instagram accounts. I also did not expect her to be taller than me, or to wear heels with her pajama pants.
“Are you here for the convention?” she said, scanning us from head to toe and landing on my Chuck Taylors like she’d never seen black canvas in her life.
Beth answered before I could. “We’re actually here to talk about Alice.”
Krissy’s face flipped from excitement to confusion so fast I almost got whiplash. She blinked, opened her mouth, forgot to speak, closed it again.
“Alice?” she repeated.
“Yeah. She was here yesterday, right?” Beth said.
Krissy nodded, but slowly, like the information was moving through peanut butter first. “She had tea. She said she needed a break from work. I made my famous red velvet muffins.” She turned to me, earnest. “You would love them.”
“I believe you,” I said.
She beamed.
I tried not to let my skepticism show. “Do you have a few minutes to answer some questions?”
