Page 49 of The Matchmaker

“They’re pretending to be concerned, but they’re really devouring gossip,” I say bitterly. “This is more entertaining than the event was ever going to be. Any luck reaching Lena?”

“It’s going straight to voicemail.” Darcy bites her lip. “Radio silence isn’t like her.”

“Let’s check in with Genevieve.”

Moments later, we’re squeezed into Genevieve’s car in the parking lot. The laptop illuminates her worried face in the dark night. It’s obvious by now that there is no mehndi taking place tonight—but every car is still parked exactly where it was.

“They didn’t make it to the hall,” Genevieve says as she types. “Not since I’ve been parked here, anyway. And look, she shared a post about getting her nails done this afternoon. She seems as happy as could be. Whatever went down, it was recent.”

“Ifanything happened,” Darcy interjects. “She might have gotten cold feet at the last second or something.”

“Both of them?” I ask. “Tanvir’s missing too. And if she was getting cold feet, she would’ve reached out…. She would have said something to us, right? Or at least her mother would have touched base! They shared all the highs and lows with wedding prep. Why would both of them have stopped now?”

Genevieve’s phone dings. She reads the text. “Frank over at the control towers at Dekalb-Peachtree says the Kamdar private jets are still on the tarmac.”

“Borzu said they didn’t fly commercial either,” says Darcy, looking at her phone.

“So they drove?” I ask. “Where?”

“It looks like their car’s device location system was disabled,” Genevieve says. “Ditto for their phone trackers. Borzu can’t get any read at all.”

“I-I don’t understand. Why would they do that?” I ask.

“No idea. But even without the location tracker, if they’re in the Atlanta area, their plates will get picked up at an intersection at some point,” says Genevieve.

“Someone inside the mehndi hall was saying they heard rumors that she was thinking of eloping to Vegas,” Darcy says.

“She’s not eloping on her mehndi night,” I say. “She picked out everything from the flowers to the napkins. There are millions of dollars on the line in endorsements and sponsorships.”

We fall silent. I take in the lit-up venue. The lavish orange-and-red drapes hanging from the windows.

“Something’s happened to them,” I say quietly.

“She’s the heir to a billion-dollar cosmetics empire. There’s no telling who’s got a vendetta against her so…” Genevieve’s voice trails off.

“Or maybe the vendetta’s against us,” I say quietly.

Genevieve and Darcy don’t reply. Which means they’re thinking it too.

“I’m going to chat with the security team,” Genevieve finally says. “I’ll let you know if I get any insight.”

Genevieve exits the car as Darcy pulls out her phone. She scrolls a bit, then grimaces.

“What is it?”

“TikTok’s talking. The guests are sharing videos of the police storming in.”

“Didn’t they sign legally binding nondisclosure agreements?”

“How’re they going to enforce all of them? Oh, wow.” She cringes. “People are starting to list out theories about what happened.”

“Like what?”

“Mostly what we’ve already overheard. This one’s speculating that they ran off to Vegas.” She points to her phone. “Oh, here’s another one. It says they heard from someone who heard from someone else that they called it off last minute after a major elephant-related fight. And now this new one…” She reads the text flashing on the screen. Her lips press tight.

“What is it? Tell me.”

She glances at me, her eyes bright against the glowing device. “Someone suggested that Tanvir might have done something to Lena. Wedding tensions boiling over.”

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