Page 59 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

“How long have you and he been...”

And something in the words broke through Maggie’s trance. “Oh no! He and I don’t... We aren’t... Wehateeach other,” Maggie said, but the words felt hollow somehow—like a dress that no longer fit, but it was her favorite and she was going to wear it anyway.

“Really?” Kitty gave her a look that was somewhere between knowing and mischievous. “Because he seems smitten.”

“Well,” Maggie conceded, “she is a very cute baby.”

But Kitty’s grin turned sly. “I mean,with you.”

“Me? No. He hates me. And I hate him.” She had to laugh. “It’s the one thing we can agree on.”

But Kitty didn’t look so certain.

Twenty minutes later, Maggie and Ethan were walking down a long, empty hallway. A damp chill clung to the air, and she half expected her breath to turn to crystals as she looked at him.

“Okay.” Ethan rubbed his hands together like he was working on some evil plan. “Let’s say Rupert’s little ‘miscommunication’ with the accounts wasn’t so little...”

“And Eleanor caught his hand in the cookie jar...” Maggie filled in.

“That gives him motive. Not to mention...”

“If James was right, and Eleanor was changing her will...” Maggie prompted.

“Thena lotof people havea lotof motive...” Ethan raised an eyebrow.

“But only if they knew about it,” Maggie said.

“Which the duke and duchess obviously do.”

Ethan gave a grin likethat was fun, but Maggie... All Maggie could think about was spring break ofher freshman year. She’d decided she wanted to write her first novel and Colin had decided he’d help. They’d spent a whole week lying side by side on the pier at the beach house, ideas bouncing back and forth like Ping-Pong, chasing the plot like tag. They’d taken turns writing longhand in a notebook because that was the way Eleanor Ashley did it. His handwriting was terrible, and his ideas were worse, but it was the closest Maggie had felt to another person, maybe ever, so she’d smiled and laughed and gotten a sunburn on her shoulders.

She didn’t do what she should have done, which was throw that notebook in the sea.

“Maggie?”

It had been a long time since she’d felt that kind of back-and-forth. The parry and thrust of possibilities. Her thoughts swirled like the chilly air and blowing snow, but one thought felt real and tangible and right there in the palm of her hand:he’s not Colin.

“Hey...” It was a face she’d seen on the back of a million dust jackets, but the expression was one she didn’t recognize. It was like she was looking at a stranger and an old friend at the same time when he asked, “Where’d you go?”

There was a gilt-framed mirror behind Maggie, and her first thought was that she almost didn’t recognize what she saw in it: a woman who looked eager and excited and... hopeful? And a man who was leaning toward her like a flower leans toward the sun.

“Ethan?”

But then she saw something else in that mirror: Rupert, walking down the hall while glancing over his shoulder, looking very much like a man who hoped he wasn’t being followed.

So Maggie did the only thing she could do. She followed him.

Chapter Forty

Ethan

Ethan shouldn’t have been enjoying this. He was a terrible person. A scoundrel. A rogue. He was a bad guy is what he told himself.

Becausehe should not have been enjoying this.

A man was fighting for his life. A woman was missing. A shooter was somewhere in their midst and there were children on the premises. And Maggie... So help him if he wasn’t able to protect Maggie...

But Ethanwasenjoying this, he had to admit as they followed Rupert through the shadowy halls. He enjoyed it even more when Rupert stopped suddenly and Maggie grabbed Ethan’s arm and tugged him into a narrow alcove, shielded behind a pair of heavy drapes.