A/N: Canon hasn't given us Doc's curse-name, but "orvos" (pronounced "orvosh") is Hungarian for "doctor".

Chapter 41

Marco bought a candle off Neal that morning, as did Archie when the psychiatrist stopped by the workshop to chat, barely managing to hand Neal the money before Pongo jerked him away in hot pursuit of a passing squirrel.

"So she has you doing it now?" Granny asked him gruffly, when he stopped in for lunch and held up his wares.

Neal shrugged. "It's for a good cause," he replied.

"That's so," the old woman grunted. She peered down her nose at Neal, the overhead light glinting off of her steel-framed spectacles. Neal met her gaze squarely, waiting. Finally, Granny sniffed. "Well, seeing as it's for the nuns," she muttered, opening the cash register. She handed Neal a twenty, in addition to his change. "Make it two. But don't go bothering Ruby, without telling her I've already bought her one, you understand?" she demanded with a twinkle in her eye that belied her menacing scowl.

Neal swallowed theatrically. "Yes, Ma'am," he said, bobbing his head.

Granny sniffed again. "Good boy."

Emma felt her phone vibrate on the drive back, but she waited until she was at the station before she checked the message. She smiled slightly as she tapped the screen to return the call; she'd been expecting this one.

"Mr. Spencer? Sheriff Swan. If you'll let me know which documents you'll be needing, I can get them right out to—Excuse me?" Her voice rose up sharply. "You're what? But he… Yes, I understand. Okay. Uh… Thanks for letting me know… I guess."

She ended the call and spent a moment glowering at her phone. The assault charges against Gold were being dropped. The district attorney had said that in light of the fact that the victim had robbed him, and that Gold was willing not to press charges against him for that, there really wasn't much of a case against Gold and they weren't going to proceed. To Emma, that sounded like a load of crap. Sure, had Gold come home to catch French in the act of burglary and started laying into him then and there, 'Castle Doctrine' probably would have kicked in. But to abduct French hours later, drive him off to a cabin in the woods, and then proceed to beat the living tar out of him? Something stank here and it wasn't Gold's lanolin dip.

Emma sighed. Rightly or wrongly, it looked like Gold was getting away with assault. She couldn't do anything about that. Her main job right now was tracking down Kathryn Nolan. Probably, hopefully, Kathryn was fine and would turn up safe and sound within the hour. But if the empty car pointed to a more ominous outcome… Emma was damned if she was going to let anyone get away with murder.

Back in town, the Miners Day festivities were beginning to attract crowds. Those crowds, however, were giving Mary Margaret and Leroy's booth a wide berth, despite Mary Margaret's increasingly frantic pleas.

"Buy your Miner's Day candles here!" she was crying. "Handmade by Storybrooke's very own nuns! Light your way to a good cause! By buying a candle…" Emma started toward her, but then she spied Sidney at the ring toss and changed course, weaving through the other revelers and taking far longer than she normally would have needed to traverse some three hundred yards.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, when she reached him.

Something about the look on her face made Sidney turn from the game to give her his full attention. "What's happening?" he asked her.

What was happening was that she'd called Suffolk University Law School in Boston, where David had told her Kathryn had been heading, when she'd got back to the station. She'd been hoping that Kathryn might have somehow forgotten about her suitcase, or maybe hadn't wanted to carry it out of… shock, or a concussion, or some other reason that had made perfect sense to her in the moment, and walked out to the main highway, where she'd hitched a ride with a passing motorist but, "…Registration was this morning, and she never showed up."

"Something did happen," Sidney breathed, looking a bit stunned.

"It looks that way," Emma said. She wished she knew whether Kathryn had made it out of town. If she'd stumbled out of the car, battered and bloody, and managed to get to the highway, whoever picked her up might have driven her straight to the nearest hospital—which should be the one in town, actually. Of course, if Kathryn had been ambulatory, the driver might have taken her to a hospital on the way to Boston, one with better equipment than a small town could offer.

There hadn't been any blood at the site of the car crash, though, nor further up the road. Emma had a sinking suspicion that Kathryn hadn't made it out of town. She wasn't at her house and she wasn't at the hospital. So, where else could she be? She couldn't just… disappear. Not unless someone had made her.

Mary Margaret came running up, Leroy in tow. "Oh, Emma!" she exclaimed. "Help me out! What's more sympathetic? Um, scarf or no scarf?" She modeled each 'look' for her friend.

Emma blinked. "Uh… sc-scarf," she stammered.

Mary Margaret exhaled. "Okay," she said, sounding a little relieved.

Leroy tugged at her arm. "Come on," the janitor urged. "We're on a schedule."

Mary Margaret let him hurry her away. "Oh, uh, thank you," she managed. "Got to go."

After they'd departed, Sidney turned to Emma with a puzzled expression. "Why didn't you say anything?" he demanded. "You're looking for a suspect. Someone with a motive. Pixie cut over there has got one a mile high."

Emma's expression hardened. "She had nothing to do with anything," she told Sidney. "Trust me."

Sidney blinked. "But she's the one—"

Emma didn't want to hear it. "Trust me," she repeated. "I know her. Just get me those phone records."

Neal sold another two candles, but no more. Some people hurried past with an unintelligible mumble. Others smiled apologetically or murmured that they had no time right now. Neal wasn't pushy, but he was getting discouraged.

"Candle?" he asked a hurrying young man with a worried look on his face, wincing as he realized his voice had taken on the same plaintive note it once had when he'd been begging for alms in Victorian London. "For Miners' Day?"

The man stopped. "Uh… yeah. Sure." He raised an eyebrow. "Haven't seen you around."

"I'm new, here," Neal smiled. "It's ten dollars, please."

"Here," the man said, holding out a twenty. "Better make it two."

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me," the man said. "Guess you heard that Kathryn Nolan's gone missing."

Neal blinked. "Who?"

"Right, you're not from here," the man said, slapping his head. "Sorry. Jim Jeffries," he said, holding out his hand. "I teach phys. ed. at the elementary school."

"Neal Cassidy." He frowned. "You said someone's missing?"

Jim nodded. "Her car was found abandoned at the town line. Search parties are forming and hopefully, we'll find her by nightfall. If we don't," he said, "I was just at Mr. Clarke's to buy a flashlight but he's all out. These should come in handy instead."

Neal took the money and handed over two candles. "Good luck."

"Thanks."

Emma glowered at the sheaf of papers in her hand. Technically, the former reporter had done well. The phone records purported to disclose every call that Kathryn had made yesterday, up until the moment her car had crashed. Including an eight-minute call that she'd had with her husband less than an hour before the accident.

"That's not possible," Emma protested when Sidney told her. "He said he didn't speak to her that day." More to the point, he hadn't set off her superpower when he'd told her.

"It's right here on paper, Emma," Sidney repeated. "Phone records don't lie. People do. And our friend David does it better than most. Don't beat yourself up over this," he added with a grim smile. "You're not the only person David fooled."

Her hand clenched around the pages. She should be satisfied. According to these records, she had an obvious suspect in Kathryn Nolan's disappearance. Someone who knew her, who had a motive for wanting her gone…

No. Kathryn had already been on her way out of town and out of David's life. There would have been no need for him to look for a more… permanent solution. Sure, it was possible that he'd decided to make sure she wouldn't be back. Or he'd been… what? Trying to avenge Mary Margaret's honor for that slap? Somehow, from what Emma had seen of David thus far, he didn't seem like the type.

On the other hand, if David could fool her lie detector, maybe he had been lying, or putting on an act, or… No. She still didn't believe it.

Maybe… Maybe Kathryn staged the whole thing. She faked the accident and she left town, or she's hiding around here somewhere to gloat after framing her philandering husband for murder. Was it wrong that Emma found that last scenario more plausible than David being behind Kathryn's disappearance? Her superpower wasn't infallible.

No, but it isn't usually this far off when it's wrong, either. Unless the person I'm talking to believes what they're telling me is the truth.

She massaged her forehead. If David was telling the truth, then the phone records were wrong. If David was lying, then her superpower was wrong. If David thought he was telling the truth, then either he'd been… talking in his sleep, or he'd blacked out, or… Or what? Someone had hypnotized him into forgetting he'd had a long conversation with his wife? That was crazy! She winced. She'd promised Archie she'd try to stop using that word as a synonym for 'impossible', but she didn't seem able to stop thinking it. Worse. She didn't seem able to stop thinking that, as farfetched as the notion was, it just might be the only answer around here that made sense.

On his hands and knees as he ran a fastener into a deck board, Neal had the uncomfortable feeling that he was being watched. He'd learned to trust the prickling sensation at the back of his neck in Neverland. Pan might have sneaked up on him on a lark, to see if he could scare him, but some of the Lost Ones had been far more homicidal in their outlooks.

Not that Pan wouldn't kill if he thought it necessary… or fun, but he had at least grasped the idea that once a boy was dead, he made a bit of a boring playmate. Some of the Lost Ones had been too young to appreciate the concept. Others, however, simply hadn't cared. Or they'd been jealous of the attention Pan had showed their victim. Or they'd thought that their victim had fallen out of Pan's good graces and hoped that by killing him, they'd improve their own standing. That last one had always been risky; one could never really predict whether Pan would respond with approval, or a dreamshade-coated weapon.

Neal had learned to keep his eyes and ears open and trust his instincts. Even then he'd had a few close calls. And right now, his instincts were screaming.

Slowly, coolly, he looked back over his shoulder, and saw nobody.

"Hey!" the homeowner, a middle-aged man whose straight gray hair fell just shy of the earpieces of his eyeglasses called. "I'm not paying you to goof off!"

"Relax, Mr. Orvosh," Marco snorted. "My new helper, he's a hard worker. He just thinks a little too hard sometimes." He gave Neal a quick smile, even as he gestured for him to get back to work.

"And don't you dare get sawdust on my Miata!" Mr. Orvosh warned.

Neal reached for another fastener to secure the board at its other end. As he crawled over to position it in place, a sound from the road made him look back again to see a motorcycle roar away. The driver was wearing a helmet, so he couldn't see who it was, but his money was going on August W. Booth. Seriously, what the hell was the guy's problem?

Whatever it was, Neal told himself with a mental shrug, it was August's problem, not his. Let him deal with it. He drove in the fastener and reached for another deck board.

Emma was not thrilled to be called away from the sheriff station when the alarm company notified her that one of their units had gone off. She was especially not thrilled when she arrived at the clock tower to find Henry working intently on the lock around the door of the library on its ground floor.

"Uh, hi," Henry said, meeting her glower with a sheepish smile as he tried unsuccessfully to palm the hairpin he was using.

"What are you doing?" Emma asked, trying to hide her annoyance.

"Trying to find Rapunzel," Henry said, turning back to the lock.

"Excuse me?"

Henry shrugged. "Rapunzel's supposed to be in a tower and," he shrugged again, "this is the only tower in town. Dad and I were here the other day, but I think someone changed the lock."

Emma went cold. "You were here before?" she asked, wondering how she was able to sound as calm as she did. "With Neal?"

Henry winced. "Uh… yeah."

"I suppose he showed you how to do that?" she asked, gesturing toward the lock.

Henry winced. "Well, he told me not to look, but I sort of, maybe… peeked a little? He said it was about the tumbl—"

"The tumblers," Emma groaned. "Yeah, I know." She took a deep breath as she watched a familiar Mercedes pull up and park behind her patrol car and Regina emerge from the driver's side door. "Let me talk to your mother."

"Sheriff, I received a call from the alarm company that someone had attempted to break into—Henry, what are you doing here?"

Emma took a step forward. "It seems someone dared him to go in, Madame Mayor. Latest rumor around the elementary school is that the building's haunted," she said, with a smile and a slight eye roll. "Kids, huh?"

Regina didn't smile back. "Who dared you?" Regina demanded of her son.

Henry shrugged.

"I want an answer," Regina pushed, and when Henry shrugged again, she stooped down to his level and laid her hands on his shoulders, her expression thunderous. "Now you listen to me," she said, her voice heavy with tightly-controlled fury and another emotion Emma couldn't quite pinpoint. "That building isn't safe. The only reason I haven't had it condemned is because it's a historical landmark, but it is dangerous in there. I had the locks upgraded just last week, when I realized how easily someone might be able to slip inside and meet with some accident and I do not want it to be you. Do you understand me?"

Henry nodded.

"Now get in the car," she ordered, and Henry obeyed with a last look over his shoulder at Emma.

"Kind of intense, weren't you?" Emma asked her.

Regina turned the same angry eyes on Emma. "Where did my son learn to pick a lock, sheriff?"

Emma winced, but there was no way she was selling out Neal. "Well, he obviously didn't find out from a library book," she muttered. "Did you check his internet browsing history?"

"If this is something that you or your lover taught him…"

While Regina's use of that term wasn't wrong, hearing it coming from her made the relationship sound somehow cheap. Emma walked over to inspect the lock. "I didn't," she sighed. "And I doubt Neal would have either, but I will sound him out tonight." Not really a lie, considering that first, by Henry's own admission, Neal had told him not to watch and second, Henry's breaking-and-entering skills were still minimal enough that she didn't think she could say he'd learned to pick locks. At least, not yet. She gave the lock a hard tug, and the chain rattled a bit, but showed no sign of weakness. "Doesn't look like there was any harm done," she said. "Of course, since I did catch Henry red-handed attempting to break into city property, if you want me to book him, you can follow me to the sheriff station and I'll take his prints and photo."

Regina gave her a hard look. "Thank you for your help, Sheriff. I'll handle things from here."

Emma's smile lasted until the Mercedes drove off. Then it changed to a scowl, as she headed back toward the station. She was definitely going to have a few words with Neal. Some which probably would not be G-rated.

When the power cut out that evening, Emma swore darkly under her breath. Then, she turned on her smartphone's flashlight to see if she could find a candle, thinking to herself that she should have bought a couple off of Mary Margaret when she'd had the chance. That was when the emergency lights winked on. With a sigh of relief, Emma put a call through to the power company to ask them to look into the outage.

She wondered whether Marco handled electrical work, too, and whether he and Neal were already out fixing whatever was wrong. Carpentry wasn't the same thing as electrical work, and being able to handle repairs didn't mean that the town didn't have a specialized team working on it. Probably, this had nothing to do with either of them, but she still found herself wondering.

Rubbing her eyes and squinting in the dim light, she went back to her folders and pulled out Kathryn's phone records. Sidney, or his source, had helpfully highlighted David's name for her. Emma chewed on her lower lip. She didn't want to do this. She wanted to go home.

But if she went home, she'd have to have that conversation with Neal about Henry breaking into the library, and she only hoped he'd take the matter seriously. Sometimes, Emma loved Neal's ability to find the humor in almost any situation, but right now, she was almost as ticked off over the incident as Regina had been. If Neal tried to turn this into a joke, between having a son who was graduating from credit card fraud to breaking and entering and Kathryn's disappearance, Emma's temper was fraying and she didn't want to blow up at him.

She heard the station door open, and stiletto heels clacking on the hallway floor. A moment later, Regina stepped into her office. Emma sighed. "If you're here to ask about Neal's reaction, I'm talking to him when I get home. If this is about the blackout, I've got the guys from the power company down there working on it."

Regina shook her head. "That's not why I'm here," she said crisply. "It's been twenty-four hours since my friend, Kathryn, went missing. Have you found anything?"

Emma thought carefully before she replied, "I found something. I just don't know what it means."

Regina took a step forward. "Well, what is it?" she asked, sounding surprisingly more curious than hostile.

Emma took a breath. "At this point in the investigation," she stonewalled, "it's best I don't divulge that information."

Regina's expression hardened. "If you're covering for someone," she cautioned, "if you're not doing your job, Sheriff Swan, I'll find someone who will."

Her threat hung in the air and echoed in Emma's mind, long after the mayor had departed.

The power hadn't come back on an hour later, and Emma had gone over every digit and letter in Kathryn's phone records several times by now. She was fairly sure that she could recite each phone number and the individual to whom it belonged from memory, but there was only one that was possibly relevant to Kathryn's disappearance.

Unbidden, Emma's mind flicked back to her theory about the town being some sort of science experiment. It was a ridiculous notion and most of the time, Emma knew that. But, she remembered, it had occurred to her that maybe, for all Regina seemed to be in charge of things, perhaps the mayor was just the figurehead and Kathryn had been—or was—the real mastermind in control here.

If that theory was true, then had Kathryn realized that Emma knew something was 'off' in this town, and had she taken herself off the board, as it were, in order to avoid a confrontation? Maybe Regina had realized what was going on, and taken matters into her own hands.

Emma frowned. She might not like the mayor very much, but that didn't make Regina a kidnapper or a killer. Graham had been showing signs of coming out of the haze almost everyone else in this town seemed to operate under. Maybe he wasn't the only one.

Or maybe that other theory about Kathryn being a vengeful wife, faking her death to screw over the husband who was having an affair wasn't so farfetched after all.

She shook her head, still scowling. Hell, maybe there was some butler somewhere who'd done it, but until she had hard evidence, there really was just one person on her suspect list who had the means, the motive, the opportunity, and some admittedly circumstantial, but still pretty damning evidence staring up from the page in front of her.

Emma heaved a sigh. Then she pushed back her chair, grabbed her coat, and headed off into the night.

The carnival was winding down, and the crowds were beginning to disperse, but there were still a fair number of people there. Emma spotted her quarry and made her way toward him, barely noting in passing that Mary Margaret was heading off with a lit candle in both hands and a smile on her face.

"Emma," David greeted her, when she reached him.

She didn't return his smile. "David," she said, "we need to talk."

"Did you get a hold of Kathryn?" he asked, and for a moment, Emma found herself believing his curiosity was genuine.

He's good, she admitted grudgingly to herself. Or he really doesn't remember. Or he's completely innocent. Trouble is, I have no clue which it is and finding out is seriously part of my job description right now. Aloud, she said, "No, I'm afraid not."

David's smile dropped at once. "Then what is it?" he asked.

Emma took a breath. "I need you to come to the sheriff's station with me and tell me everything," she said firmly.

"I'm sorry?" David blinked. "I thought I already did."

Emma exhaled. "So did I," she replied, motioning for him to accompany her. "Come on."

As she led him to where she'd parked the squad car, she caught sight of Mary Margaret watching, the schoolteacher's puzzled expression yielding first to surprise, and then a dawning horror.