Page 106 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
So Maggie plowed forward, bumping against hedges and shaking branches, making as much sound as she could while staying silent. It was something that came naturally to her. Her whole marriage in a nutshell.
“Turn up here. Right. No. Left. Go! Go!”
They stopped. They froze. Because someone was standing in the way, saying, “Let her go.”
Chapter Sixty-Five
Ethan
“I said, let her go,” Ethan said again.
Dobson was breathing hard and his face was pale. The ankle was killing him, a part of Ethan’s brain said. Because a part of Ethan couldn’t stop doing math and measuring angles. Calculating odds.Good, Ethan told himself. Because the rest of him—the bulk of him—was a frantic and terrified mess.
The only thing keeping him from launching himself at Dobson and strangling him with his bare hands was Maggie—both the gun at her temple and the look in her eye. She looked like a woman who had plotted this out, spotted the twist and knew what was coming. Like someone who had a trick or two up her sleeve.
She looked like Eleanor.
But she also looked like someone who trusted him. Who was waiting on him. Who needed him. Wanted him. Like they were a team. And for Ethan, a man who had spent his whole life trying to be enough, it should have been terrifying to realize that he was best when he was half of a whole. When the rest of him was her.
But Dobson had an arm around her shoulders and the small gun was still in his hands. He couldn’t miss from that range. And even if he did—even if the gun misfired it would kill her.
So Ethan kept the rifle steady. It felt like an extension of him. Like he’d been training, waiting, preparing his whole life for just this moment.
“You’re going to let her go and she’s going to walk to me.”
“Or what?” Dobson actually laughed, a cruel, cold sound that carried on the wind. But Ethan didn’t say a word. He cocked the rifle, but that just made Dobson laughharder. “I read all about you, Wyatt. Five years ago, you could have made that shot, but now?”
And then Ethan’s hand wasn’t just trembling. It was shaking. His whole body was. Because there was Maggie. She was so close, but Dobson was right. Of course he was right. Ethan couldn’t make that shot with an old rifle that he’d never fired before. Even the Ethan of five years ago shouldn’t have tried it. Not with Maggie in the way. Not with Maggie right there. Not with Maggie...
Slowly, Ethan lowered the rifle, and Dobson’s grin turned into a sneer.
“Toss it!” he yelled, and Ethan started to drop the rifle in the snow, but Dobson jerked his head toward the hedges. “Over there. Nice and out of reach.”
Ethan didn’t want to do it. He couldn’t do it. But then he looked at Maggie, who was nodding likeIt’s okay. It’s fine. We’ve got this.So he threw the rifle over the snowy hedge and heard it land with a softplopon the other side.
It should have felt like failure, but he wasn’t looking at Dobson at that moment. He was looking at her.
At the little grin on her face and the look in her eyes and the way her hand was moving, sliding, disappearing into the sweater’s sleeve.
“You’re right, Inspector. I’d probably miss.” There was a quick flash of metal in the sunlight, and Ethan smiled. “But she won’t.”
There was a half second of confusion on Dobson’s face as he looked at Maggie likewhat could she do—she’s no one. But then the confusion turned to agony as Maggie slipped the knitting needle from her sleeve and plunged it into Dobson’s thigh.
The inspector roared as he dropped the cane and tried to pull the needle free.
Maggie fell to her knees in the bloody snow.
“You bitch!” Dobson pointed the pistol at Maggie’s head.
“Ethan!” Maggie picked up the cane and hurled it in his direction and Ethan didn’t give it a second thought.
He aimed, and in the next moment,a small dart was flying from the end of Eleanor’s cane and lodging in Dobson’s throat.
The man choked as he stumbled backward, crashing into a hedge and then falling, frozen beneath a pile of snow.
“Maggie!” Ethan pulled her tight. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m—”
