Page 33 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

She reached for a roll, but Ethan’s arms were longer and he tugged the basket away.

“No! No bread for you. Not until you tell me who you were talking to.”

“I wasn’t talking to anyone.” She raised her right hand. “I swear.” She wasn’t even lying, which made her even happier. She was giddy. Bubbly. She was going to rise out of her chair and float away. She was even enjoying Ethan, the hard glint of his eyes and deep scowl on his face as he glanced around at the others and then lowered his voice.

“Listen up, buttercup. I don’t know what kind of game you think you’re playing, but you’re not going to win.”

“Oh yeah? And who’s going to stop me?”

Maggie wasn’t teasing anymore.

I’m not surprised he left her.

Ethan had said that. And he’d been right. Maggie had had a lifetime of being left. A lifetime of being alone and unwanted and unchosen. But Eleanor Ashley had invited three authors to her home for Christmas: Ethan, the best-selling juggernaut. Sir Jasper, a staple of the genre. And Maggie.

Three authors. One contest. But Maggie was the only one who’d found the clues.

Ethan was right about something: itwasa game; but no one else even knew they were playing.

She glanced at Sir Jasper on the other side of the table—tweed jacket with an unlit pipe in his pocket—droning on to Dr. Charles, who appeared to be half asleep.“Well, I told those chaps at the Yard—that’s what we call Scotland Yard when you’re in the business. Justthe Yard, you see...”

It almost wasn’t fair.

“Just tell me this, Margaret Amelia—”

“That’s cute.” Maggie smiled over her sandwich. “How you decided that, even though you know my name now, you’re still going to get it wrong every time because I’m so beneath you.”

Maggie licked some mustard off her index finger and Ethan drew a ragged breath and closed his eyes for one long second. Then something in him seemed to snap and he shook off whatever he was thinking and asked, “Are you still going to feel like smiling if we find Eleanor at the bottom of a rotten staircase or in a snowy ditch or—”

“We won’t,” she said before she could stop herself and he pulled back. Just a little.

“What do you know?” The words were cold and hard and sounded like a dare and Maggie couldn’t help herself, she looked at the sprig of mistletoe. It was pressed flat but still green—still fresh.

I know Eleanor.

Ethan was right beside her, putting off heat and pheromones and that omnipresent gravity that kept the whole world in his orbit. But Maggie was immune. She didn’t need Ethan. She just needed a plan and a strategy and about five hundred Post-it notes. She needed whiteboards and reference materials and maps.

And time. What Maggie needed more than anything was time.

“I know...” The room was full of laughter and chatter, the scrape of forks and spoons. And Ethan—with his broad shoulders and even larger presence. For one brief moment, Maggie actually felt guilty because he did seem to be genuinely worried about Eleanor. But—

I’m not surprised he left her.

“Maggie...”

When she spoke again it was louder, and to the group. “I know they’re making one of Ethan’s books into a movie! Did you know that, Kitty? A movie!”

“They are?” Kitty squealed. “Which one?”

“Knight of the Living Idiot.”

“Dead of Knight.” Ethan shot Maggie a glare as the roomturned into a madhouse.

Questions like “Well, who’s going to star?” and “Do you have a role for me?” and “Who’s writing the screenplay?” were flying around so quickly that no one seemed to notice when Maggie stood and walked back to the sideboard.

“Well, why don’tyoujust play the lead?” Cece tittered and Maggie slipped out the door and across the empty foyer.

The little sprig of mistletoe was practically burning a hole in her fist and the collective works of Eleanor Ashley were ping-ponging around in her mind.