Karma’s Save the Date (Magical Midlife in Mystic Hollow #9)

1. Emma

ONE

Emma

By the time the kitchen clock ticked past one, the lasagna on the table had grown a glossy, congealed film over its cheese, and the salad in its glass bowl had begun to look even sadder than it had an hour ago, which was when I’d last tried to get Henry to eat.

Now, forks and napkins waited by the plates, but the room remained stuck in a holding pattern.

I watched my brother from across the dining room table.

He sat opposite me, looking out the big windows that stared at the ocean, arms crossed, focused on nothing in particular but seeming braced for some epic celestial sign.

His black hair, identical to mine, bristled from his scalp in greasy, uneven tufts, and his gray t-shirt had taken on the color and fit of a wet dishcloth.

His plate sat in front of him, untouched.

“The lasagna will taste like cardboard if you don’t eat it soon.” I picked up my own fork and made a show of cutting the noodles.

Henry didn’t move, except to twitch one eyebrow. “I’m not hungry.”

“You haven’t eaten since—” I checked the clock again. “Since last night. It’s going to get cold.”

“Everything is cold.” He pressed his forehead into his hands, looking miserable. I set my fork down, appetite gone. The only other sound was the slow, periodic whirr of the fridge and the thud of Daniel’s heavy footsteps upstairs.

I counted to six, then tried again. “You know she’ll have my head if she comes home and finds out you haven’t eaten.”

“She’s not coming home.” His voice sounded sad and broken.

“And if she did, she’d just laugh at you.

She’d tell you that you can’t keep coddling a grown man.

” He looked up then, brown eyes overbright and rimmed with the red of lost sleep.

“You don’t need to take care of me. I need to take care of Alice.

That’s the whole point of the two of us being a couple. Of us getting married.”

Silence pooled between us. I counted to ten this time, picturing Alice in the green kitchen chair, her slippered feet tracing nervous little circles on the tile, her hands staying busy.

My memory was cheating, overlaying her absence with the possibility that she’d just wandered out, that she’d be home by dinner, rabbit-eared slippers and all.

Instead, only Henry stared back at me. And the cold lasagna.

“Daniel said the police were here again this morning?” I asked.

“They were.” Henry’s arms crossed, hugging himself so tightly I wondered if he’d splinter.

“They don’t have a clue. They think she got cold feet.

” He barked out a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup.

“Cold feet. Like people don’t vanish every single day and sometimes never come back.

Like Alice was the kind of person who’d just—” He lost momentum and closed his eyes, shoulders squeezing tighter.

I refilled both our water glasses and nudged his plate an inch closer. “What did they ask you?”

“The same things as last night. Did she act different? Did she say anything? Was she anxious about the wedding? Did she have any secrets she was keeping?” His jaw ticked. “She didn’t.”

I could have told him that wasn’t true. Everyone has secrets, especially women with magical powers, including Alice’s psychic abilities, but I knew what he meant.

“The wedding is in two weeks,” he continued, quieter. “She wanted this. She wanted the carrot cake and the crocheted dress and the—”

“—white daisies. You’ve told me.” I picked a piece of congealed mozzarella off my plate and rolled it into a ball. “Maybe she just, maybe something came up. She could be with a friend, or—”

“No,” he said firmly. “If she was safe, she’d have called me. She knows how anxious I get.” He opened his eyes, and for the first time, I saw something sharper in them, something edged in panic. “If you love somebody and they’re missing, you can feel the gap. You can feel them not being there.”

I looked at my brother and tried to bridge that logic with my own. The last time I’d seen Alice, she’d pressed both hands over mine and said, “Don’t worry, Henry is amazing. He’ll always take care of me.” I’d assumed she meant just on a daily basis, but maybe she’d meant something more sinister.

Daniel’s tread reached the bottom of the stairs and I steeled myself.

He entered the kitchen already rubbing at the back of his neck, the way he did when he was worn out or uneasy.

The bear in him showed in the breadth of his shoulders, the way his body filled every room he entered.

He hadn’t bothered to tame his hair. He wore a shirt with the town’s police emblem on the chest, but he’d left the buttons undone at the wrist. It made him look like he’d just been dragged out of bed and hadn’t stopped working since, which was about true.

He appraised the scene, the plates and the salad, and let out a low sigh that seemed to pass through his entire frame. “Any luck?” he asked me, tilting his chin in my direction.

“He says he’s not hungry.”

Daniel padded to the table and sank into the chair across from Henry, taking care not to crowd him. “Buddy, I know you’re worried. But you can’t help Alice if you’re running on fumes. Eat something, for her sake.” He spoke gently, but the expectation in his words was clear.

Henry ignored him, but his jaw worked as if he was chewing the conversation instead.

Daniel leaned forward, elbows on the table. “I checked in with the guys downtown. They’re still looking. They’ve put out the BOLO and checked the bus stations. They even looked through the old security cams, just in case.” He paused, and I caught the look he aimed at me, asking for help.

I reached for Henry’s hand and squeezed it. “Please, Hen. Just one bite.”

He stared at me for a second, and then, with the slow, deliberate motion of a man performing a sacred rite, he stabbed a single, limp noodle and ate it.

I wanted to cheer, but I settled for a weak smile and let go of his hand. Daniel nodded, satisfied, and looked down at his own plate as if surprised to find food on it.

For a minute, the three of us sat in what passed for peace, chewing mechanically and not quite meeting each other’s eyes. I could feel the tension in the room, humming just beneath the surface, a wire pulled too taut.

Henry broke first. “You were a cop. What would you do, if this was your case?”

Daniel put his fork down and considered. “Honestly? I’d keep doing what the department is doing. Most missing persons come back in the first forty-eight hours. Usually it’s a misunderstanding. A fight, or a family thing.”

Henry’s mouth twisted. “This isn’t a misunderstanding.”

Daniel nodded, accepting the correction.

“So we operate on the assumption she didn’t leave on her own.

Which means someone took her, or something happened to her.

But there’s no ransom call, no evidence of a struggle, nothing unusual in her stuff here at the house, or in her old room at her parent’s house, except that she’s not in it. ”

Daniel’s hands curled into fists, his knuckles blanched.

“What would you do next?” I asked.

He looked at me, then at Henry. “You’re not going to like it, but the best thing we can do is stay out of their way. Let them do their job.”

“Bullshit,” Henry said, his voice tight. “She’s out there. She needs us.”

Daniel’s face softened. “I promise you, Henry. We’re going to do everything we can to find her. But you need to let the cops work.”

Henry pushed his plate away and stood. “You can do whatever you want. I’m going to look for her.”

Daniel stood too, meeting him at eye level. “Where? The town’s been searched. Her favorite haunts, her parent’s home, the woods. If you have an idea, say it.”

Henry’s mouth opened, closed. “I don’t know. She had some errands to run. She was working on the wedding plans. She said she’d go to the library and the craft store and then to town for specialty groceries, but after that—” His shoulders sagged. “I should have gone with her.”

I grabbed a notepad from the kitchen drawer and handed it to him, along with the stub of a pencil.

“Write down everything she told you. Every place she was supposed to go, everyone she was supposed to see. We’ll check them all.

” The cops likely had but it couldn’t hurt.

And keeping Henry busy was a good thing.

He stared at the blank page for a moment, handed it back to me, then started listing.

“Library. Vale Provisions. The gaming store, because she wanted the new Wicked Widow figurine. She mentioned going to the movies, but I said I wouldn’t go with her, because it isn’t anything like the comic, so she went by herself.

” He chewed his lip. “Book club, coffee shop, and she said something about helping Krissy with her collectibles.”

I wrote as he spoke, copying the list onto a clean page, then tore it off and handed it to Daniel.

“We’ll start at the top,” I said. “Divide and conquer.”

Daniel nodded, tucking the list into his pocket. “I’ll handle the police, see if they missed anything. Emma, you take the shops. Henry—” He trailed off, trying to find the right job for my brother, who looked like he might shatter if he lost momentum.

“You know her best,” I said. “Talk to her friends, since they know you, and anyone else you can think of. If Alice left any hint, you’ll catch it.”

Henry nodded, and for the first time that day, his body unclenched, just a little.

“She never liked parties,” he said, almost to himself.

“She hates crowds, but she wanted to celebrate becoming my wife. If she left, it wasn’t because of the wedding.

” He gripped the back of his chair, knuckles whitening again.

“She wanted the carrot cake. She wanted the flowers.” He pressed his thumb to his nose, fighting off emotion.

“She told me the only thing she worried about was the shoes. She didn’t want to trip walking up the aisle. ”

“She’s not going to trip,” I said, hoping I sounded sure. “She’ll be home for the wedding, and she won’t trip.”

He didn’t answer but turned and stalked out of the kitchen. The front door opened and closed behind him, and I waited for the echo of his steps on the porch to fade.

Daniel sat down hard, resting his elbows on the table. “I wish I could do more for him,” he said.

“You’re doing fine,” I said. “We’ll find her.” I surprised myself by believing it, at least for the moment. “If anyone can, it’s Henry. He’s obsessive.”

Daniel snorted. “Runs in the family.”

I smiled, but there wasn’t a lot of humor in it.

The kitchen had finally gone quiet. Even the fridge had shut up. Daniel reached across the table, took my hand in his, and squeezed once, hard. His hand was warm, callused, and I realized how much I’d needed to feel someone else’s certainty.

“Carrot cake and daisies,” he said, as if committing it to memory.

I nodded, then went to clear the plates, scraping the lasagna into the trash. The meal had been a disaster, but we had a plan, and the beginnings of a list.

It wasn’t much, but it was a start.