Page 3 of The Mirror

An inch from her bare foot, Owen stomped on it. Her stomach rolled as she heard the ugly crunch.

“Up.” He hauled her to her feet. “Move!”

“Did you get it? Did you get the ring?”

“It’s gone, and so’s the bride. We’re not.”

He dragged her through the chaos, shoved her through the mirror. And leaped after her.

She tipped straight into Trey’s arms. And he wrapped them tight as the three dogs swarmed them.

“I’ve got you. Jesus, you’re freezing.”

“It got so cold.” Now her teeth chattered with it.

“Are you hurt?” As he ran his hands over her, he looked at Owen. “Either of you hurt?”

“Sonya took a flight like you did outside the Gold Room.”

“I’m okay. It just rattled me.” Leaning into Trey, grateful for his warmth, she looked over at Cleo. “It was Lisbeth Poole. We couldn’t stop it.”

“Let’s get you downstairs.” Cleo stroked Sonya’s hair. “Let’s get you both downstairs.”

“I need a drink.” As he spoke, and his scrappy mutt, Jones, sniffed at it, Owen looked at the bottom of his shoe. “And a new pair of shoes.”

“What is that?” Cleo demanded.

“Evil spider guts.”

“Take them off! You can’t track evil spider guts through the house.”

“Yeah, that was my first thought.”

Cleopatra Fabares, Sonya’s best friend and housemate, took over.

“Trey, take Sonya downstairs. The kitchen. We all need a drink. You. Take those disgusting shoes off,” Cleo ordered Owen again. “Leave them right here until we get something to put them in.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”

“We’re right behind you. You can pour us both a whiskey. A double.”

As Owen bent to pull off his shoes, Cleo sucked in a breath that put him right back on alert.

“The mirror. It’s gone. It’s just gone.”

He turned. “Son of a bitch.”

“Get those damn shoes off,” she insisted. “And let’s get the hell downstairs. Then you and Sonya are going to start at the beginning, when the two of you just vanished inside that damn mirror.”

“Whiskey first.”

Though a MacTavish—emotionally if not by blood—Sonya wasn’t one for whiskey. Tonight, she’d make an exception. Still shaken, shelet Trey lead her down from the ballroom, down hallways, through the house as he snapped on lights.

“I don’t remember anything before I was standing up there in front of that mirror.”

She pushed at her hair, wished for a tie to hold it back, then just let the weight of it fall again.

“I don’t remember getting out of bed, walking up there. And you were there.”

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