Page 49 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
She tried to tease. “Because you’re the guy who takes the bullet?”
He didn’t even grin. “Exactly.”
Maggie felt hot all of a sudden. Awkward and clumsy and like maybe if the dresser wasn’t in front of the door she’d run right out of that room. Of the mansion. She’d run into the night and not stop running until she hit water. So she did the next best thing and stepped toward the bathroom.
“Well, thank you, Mr. Boy-Scout-Assassin-Spy—”
“Secret Service.”
She stopped at the bathroom door and turned, expecting to get the smirk again, that teasing grin and boyish charm, but the man in the glasses was the most serious version of Ethan Wyatt that she had ever seen.
“I was in the Secret Service,” he said again.
In the years since Ethan burst ontothe scene, Maggie had probably heard a hundred theories—about who he was and where he’d come from, but she’d never heard a whisper about the Secret Service. For a moment, she assumed he must be lying—teasing.Ethan-ing.But there was something on his face then. He was serious. It was true.
She remembered the scene on the plane, the scar on his back. She wanted to ask a million questions, but she was frozen in the headlights of a gaze that was too hot and too strong—like a beam in a sci-fi movie, it was going to suck her in.
But she must have been the only one to feel it because he looked at the pile on her bed.
“Wait. Are those...”
“Nothing,” Maggie blurted, darting around him as if she could block his view, but Ethan had gone all Ethan-y again and he just picked her up and set her aside.
“Margaret Elizabeth Chase,” he said slowly, drawing out the words, but that just reminded her of how he’d gotten her name right in the gun room—of how he’d known it all along. Of how he’d said she was the best. “Did you steal Eleanor’s new book?” He plucked a notebook from the top of the pile.
“No,” she blurted. He gave her a look that saidohreally?“Okay. Yes. Maybe? I borrowed them. I couldn’t help it! It’s book number one hundred! I had to.”
Did she sound like a whiny child? Yes. Did she care? Not even a little bit.
“Inspector Dobson clearly told us not to go into the office. It’s an active crime scene.”
“Well, Inspector Dobson also told Kitty that he’d always wanted a sweater with a drummer drumming on it, so Inspector Dobson lies is what I’m saying.”
“So you snuck in? Without me? I am wounded.” He thumbed through one of the notebooks, way too fast to read. “How is it?”
Maggie’s legs gave out and she dropped onto the bed. “I don’t know. It’s... different. And I can’t really put my finger on why.”
“Well, it’s a first draft,” he told her.
“Yeah. And there are only sevennotebooks, so it’s not finished.”
“But that’s not what’s bothering you.”
Oh, she hated it—how well this man could read her.
“No, it’s...” She knew in her heart she shouldn’t tell him. And then she told him anyway. “I just keep thinking... what if it’s the last Eleanor Ashley I ever read for the first time?” She toyed with the loose thread again. Even the words hurt. “What if it’s the last Eleanor Ashley?”
Maggie didn’t cry, but when the bed dipped and an arm fell around her shoulders she actually savored the weight. And when he tugged her closer, she didn’t fight.
Gravity and Ethan Wyatt: two incontrovertible forces of nature were conspiring against her and Maggie was just too tired to struggle.
She felt warm breath against her temple. A brush of lips in the tiny wisps of her hair. “Hey. We’re going to find Eleanor. I promise. Okay?”
It was all she could do to nod and stammer out, “Okay.”
When he clicked off the light, her eyelids grew heavy and the night grew still and yet she didn’t even dream of sleeping. Maybe it was the silence or the stress or the jet lag—or maybe it had simply been too long since she had felt another heartbeat, keeping time beside her in the dark, but Maggie heard herself say, “When I was a kid, we didn’t have a lot of money. Camps and sports were out of the question. Even birthday parties, because you have to take a gift and then, eventually, you have to host the party, and besides, my parents were at work, so... Summers were the worst. Or the best?” She honestly didn’t know. “Because I had two things: a library card and time. And then I guess I had three things because I also had her. I’ve always had Eleanor.”
Maggie’s head had ended up on his shoulder somehow, and she tried to pull it back, but he just held her tighter. Like it was instinct. Like it was natural. Like he was—she felt the rise and fall of his chest—asleep? Maggie was trying to decide whether she should feel disappointed or relieved when she heard—
