Page 65 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

“Hey. I give piggyback rides and buy candy. Those little monsters love me.”

Eventually, they reached a set of stairs that spiraled down into a space that looked even tighter and darker, so he tried to usher Maggie back in the opposite direction.

“Okay. Let’s turn around and—”

“No. Don’t you want to know what’s down there?”

“You don’t have to go,” he said simply.

“I’m not scared.” She tried the top step. It creakedbeneath her weight but didn’t break. And then the look in her eyes slayed him. “I’m with you.”

At the bottom of the stairs, the floor was dirt and the ceiling was lower and Ethan knew without being told that they were underground. He needed to get her out of there. But Maggie was right behind him. And when he took her hand in his, it didn’t shake at all.

Chapter Forty-Three

Maggie

Maggie should have been terrified of the darkness. Ethan’s cell phone flashlight was far better than nothing, but what if his battery ran out? What if there was a cave-in and they got separated? What if they couldn’t find an exit and were destined to roam the tunnels beneath Eleanor Ashley’s mansion until they died of starvation or old age?

She didn’t know what was scarier: knowing that she should have been panicking or realizing that she wasn’t. She didn’t want to think about why. In fact, she didn’t want to think about a lot of things—not the damp earth or how the ceiling was so low in places that Ethan had to hunch. But, mostly, Maggie wanted to ignore the little voice in the back of her head, whispering that it was probably coincidence, a folly, a lark.

Not everything’s a plot twist, Colin had always said when she noticed things he didn’t want her to see—clues or coincidences that couldn’t point to anything besides “Maggie is a little bit crazy.”

Of course I smell like Emily’s perfume. Have you ever seen Emily apply perfume?

How should I know how Emily’s earring ended up in our bed? She’s your best friend.

Sometimes Maggie worried that if she hadn’t caught them together she might still be telling herself that it was all in her head—that she’d read too much and fantasized too often and was just one step shy of madness. If it had happened a hundred years before, they would have locked her in the attic and thrown away the key. And the worst part—the scariest part—was the fact that Maggie would have let them.

But as she held Ethan’s hand and walked through that dark and dreary tunnel, she could still hearColin’s voice in her head, telling her she’d dragged Ethan into that dusty, endless space for nothing and—

“Stop it.” Ethan’s voice cut through the black.

Maggie froze. “What?”

“Whatever you’re overthinking back there.”

“I’m not overthinking,” she said a little too quickly.

“This morning I watched you take fifteen minutes to choose a pair of socks.”

“I’m not spending another day with cold feet.”

“You brought three different kinds of toothpaste.”

“Oral health is very important and sometimes I’m not in the mood for spearmint.”

“You’re not wrong, Maggie,” he snapped, and it sounded like he was agreeing with her and arguing with her at the same time, and Maggie didn’t know whether to be mad or grateful. “If you think Eleanor left clues for us, then she did. You found them. And we’re going to follow them. You’renot wrong.”

“But what if I am?” She hated how small and frail her voice sounded—that it was still too loud in the darkness—that in that narrow space it might just echo.

Then Ethan stopped and turned. Colin used to look at her like he could see through her, but Ethan looked at her like he had x-ray vision—like he could see right into the heart of her, like there was no use hiding anything. And, suddenly, it started getting hard to breathe. The tunnel walls moved in and—

“Maggie, sweetheart, are you going to have a panic attack? Because you need to let me know if—”

“No,” she blurted. “I mean yes. I mean...”

“Why the new pen names, Maggie?”