Page 51 of The Matchmaker

“It’s too early for dinner.”

“Nura, it’s nine o’clock at night.”

I check my watch. She’s right. This means we’ve been here for over fourteen hours at this point. Darcy’s got faint circles under her eyes. She looks as exhausted as I feel.

“Go home,” I tell her. “That goes for everyone. It’s too late to still be here.”

“Areyougoing home?”

“I can’t.”

“Then neither can we.”

I bury my face in my hands. “I don’t understand how there’ve been no sightings of them.”

“Nocrediblesightings.”

That’s true. Social mediahasturned up numerous sightings. They’ve been spotted in Belize. At a cantina in San Jose, California. Someone reported a man matching Tanvir’s description who was seen digging a grave in the middle of an abandoned park near dawn this morning. The anonymously posted grainy footage garnered millions of views—but it turned out to be the local arborist, planting a crepe myrtle.

“How bad is the coverage lately?” I’ve been studiously avoiding seeking out the conspiracy theories for myself. If I start down this rabbit hole, I may never climb out.

“The prevailing theory is still the same, that there was trouble in paradise, he killed her, and now he’s on the run,” says Darcy. “But other conspiracies are gaining traction. There are some truly wild ones like how they tempted fate by throwing a wedding-related festivity on Friday the Thirteenth. Then there’s growing speculation that her parents might have done it for the insurance money—apparently Karma Cosmetics had a rocky few months on the stock market leading up to the wedding. Someone also pointed out a few hours ago that Lena’s former driver conveniently moved to Italy the day after she disappeared, and people are raising questions about the timing of that.”

“So everyone is a suspect.”

“Which means no one is. Not really.”

“What about us?” I ask.

Darcy bites her lip. My heart sinks. It makes sense, though. If people think Lena’s fiancé is behind this, they’re going to blame the agency who set them up.

“Nothing online yet,” she says. “But our inbox is…”

“A shitshow?”

“It’s just trolls being trolls.”

Of course our inbox is a hot mess. The Tanvir-related theories validate all the haters who flooded in after theVanity Fairpiece posted. This moment gives them a proper opportunity to gloat.

“Sherri said she’ll get us something by morning,” says Darcy.

“Good. We definitely need to put out a PR statement soon.”

Because this time, the haters have the kindling they need to destroy everything my aunt and I worked so hard to build.

I draw in a deep breath and try to steady myself. Growing up, Khala always taught me the importance of inner stillness. In the early days when I still woke crying for my mother, she taught me how to meditate. Tobreathe. How to erase all thought and focus on my steady breath coming in and out. She told me to see my worries as though they were floating past me on clouds above or tumbling past me like sticks on a river while my true heart stayed centered.Be present. Be here. Be with me,she’d say as she would wrap me in her arms.

Now that I’m older, I understand Khala wanted to make sure I had tools to access peace in the chaos of life. Because no matter what the world throws at you, the earth continues to spin. One must keep moving forward. There is still work to do. And right now, my work is finding Lena and Tanvir, except—I brush back tears—there’s nothing. Absolutely nothing I can do. The helplessness is killing me.

When Darcy leaves, I refresh my inbox. No updates. Tapping my legs, I look down at my phone. Then, as though my fingers have a mind of their own, I click Instagram. There’s a new photo on Zayna’s account. Or rather,photos. Featuring her and Azar. They’re at a restaurant. At the movies. At…I pause. I look at this selfie of the two of them. His arm around herwaist. They’re both mid-laugh. She looks up at him as he’s gazing down at her. I don’t need to see the geotag to know they’re at the botanical garden. The edge of the green-flowered Medusa off to the edge of the photo. A knife twists inside of me. This location has shown up in countless movies and television shows. It doesn’t belong to us. Except it does.

That’sourspot. It’s like he’s taking her to every place that’s ever meant anything to both of us. Like he’s erasing me from his narrative.

“Who’s that?”

Genevieve. She’s standing over my desk. Her hair’s tied in a messier-than-usual topknot. I’m fairly certain she’s in the same white T-shirt and jeans as yesterday.

I flip the phone facedown. “Oh, nothing. It was just Azar.”

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