Page 24 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
“Where is that sword?” The dagger would also do. “Oh, is that a crossbow?”
Someone had banked the fireplaceand the flames flickered behind the screen, sending shadows dancing through the dark. Beyond the windows, falling snow filled the sky and even the stars had stopped shining. She was sleepy and a little hungry and the clockdinged. Midnight.
It was December twenty-third.
It was December twenty-third.
It was December—
“Maggie?”
She spun, but, in the darkness, the dark green and purple rug was hard to see and her foot caught on the upturned corner and Maggie felt herself falling, crashing, landing right in Ethan’s arms.
She would have preferred the hard floor. Maybe a nice cliff? If only she could have broken a bone or two...
“Easy...” His voice sounded like chocolate tastes: dark and rich and like something you’d regret indulging in later. “I have you.”
Maggie wanted to laugh. She was going to cry. Because, the truth was, no one had her and no one ever would. Maggie had herself. And that was enough. It was. It was—
December twenty-third.
“Hey.” She was still in his stupid arms and he was still gazing down at her with his stupid face and stupid eyes, looking like he was worried—like he cared. Like—
A loud, crashing sound broke through the silence, reverberating down the stairs and through the library’s open door.
At first, Maggie thought she might have dreamed it, but Ethan was already darting out of the library and up the stairs and into the long, main hall where Cece stood outside the closed door of Eleanor’s office. There was a broken cup and saucer on the floor and she was struggling to balance a tray in her hands.
“Aunt Eleanor!” the girl called, kicking at the bottom of the door since her hands were full. “Aunt Eleanor, you locked me out again!” She waited a moment. “I found that tea you like in the back of the pantry. I told you no one else had been drinking it.” Cece spotted Ethan and Maggie and lowered her voice. “Probably because it smells like the back end of an olddonkey.” She turned to the door again. “Aunt Eleanor?”
But no one called back and the door stayed closed and a moment later classical music came booming out of the room.
“I guess that’s a no,” Cece told them, sounding worried. “The doctor doesn’t want her working all night anymore.”
“Dr. Charles?” Ethan asked and Cece shook her head.
“No. The woman she saw after she fell.” She shifted the heavy tray in her hands and moved to a small table a little way down the hall. “I’ll leave your tea on the table. Don’t work too late, okay?”
Down the hall, a door opened. “Would you keep it down out here?” Rupert snapped. “You’re going to wake—” The baby began to cry and Rupert cringed as if he was the one who was going to have to put her back to sleep.
“Sorry, Rupert. Good night.” Cece smiled at Ethan and Maggie, then gave a yawn and walked away.
There was a bookshelf on the wall across from the office door. It was covered with antique cameras and magnifying glasses and kaleidoscopes and crystals. Maggie could think of at least six Eleanor novels that were about prisms or looking glasses or seeing things in ways no one ever has before. There was a lesson there—Maggie knew it. But there was also a clock, nestled in the middle and blinking red: 12:03 a.m.
On December twenty-third.
And Maggie felt every ounce of fight drain from her body. Two minutes earlier she’d been full of steam, but now she was an old balloon, weak and sinking under the weight of too much string.
“Maggie?” She could feel Ethan’s breath on the back of her neck, so close that, when she turned, she could actually feel the rise and fall of his chest, but she just stood there, caught in his gaze as he whispered, “I could always pick you out of a lineup.”
He walked away and she went back to bed, and ten minutes later she fell into a deep, deep sleep.
Chapter Eighteen
One Year Ago
“Are you sitting down?” Deborah asked the moment Maggie picked up the phone.
It was two days before Christmas, but Deborah was a workaholic and Hanukkah was already over and she always said she liked the quiet of a nearly deserted office.
