Page 67 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
“We have sleuthing to do.” She tried to slip around him.
“Oh, I’m gonna find it. And I’m gonna read it. And...” He caught her and held her, and suddenly, Maggie’s breath was coming hard for all new reasons. She was breathing out as he breathed in, chests rising and falling and—
“Hey, Maggie? You want to make out?” he asked. It took three whole seconds for her to slap him lightly on the arm. “Is that a yes? Because impact play is something both parties need to discuss—” She did it again. “There are safe words—mine will be Sherlock—”
She did it again, harder that time,and the look on his face morphed into a smile that was almost a dare.
“Fine. Then I guess we’ll just have to go up there instead.” He pointed the light toward the end of the tunnel. And the trapdoor in the ceiling. And the ladder that was rising up into the night.
Chapter Forty-Four
Ethan
Ethan insisted on being the first one through the trapdoor. It should go without saying that Maggie disagreed.
“Is this because you’re a man?”
“No.”
“It’s sexism, isn’t it? And the patriarchy. And—”
“It’s because I’m taller and it’s my flashlight and, most of all, the first person through the creepy trapdoor should always be the person who knows seven different ways to kill a man with an ink pen.”
“Oh.” For once, she looked defeated. “I only know three.”
“Ha! There. I get to go first. Now hold this.”
“Do you even have an ink pen?”
But he was already handing the phone to Maggie, who pointed the light toward the top of the ladder. The hatch was solid metal and cold to the touch. At first, it barely budged, inching up slowly as something scraped against it overhead. Ethan could feel the weight shifting, changing. But whatever was up there was heavy and the angle wasn’t doing Ethan any favors.
“I would have been in already,” Maggie said from down below.
“Something’s blocking the door,” Ethan shot back and pushed harder and then, suddenly, the door opened with a bang as it flipped over and landed hard on the ground, and for a moment, the two of them froze, not sure who might come running from the racket.
A long, quiet moment later, Ethan peeked out and looked around.
Night had fallen, but moonlight filtered down through snow-covered glass, and after being underground for so long, even that seemed bright to Ethan. It was colder, too,and he couldn’t help but feel the chill as he climbed out of the tunnel and hunched over on a dirty floor, listening to the sound of the wind and the too-heavy pounding of his heart until he was sure they were alone.
There was a broken table lying on its side, trowels and shattered pots and a bag of potting soil that must have fallen on the trapdoor when the table collapsed, blocking it shut.
“Some of us are still down here, you know!” Maggie’s impatient voice echoed up from down below. “Oh, the heck with this...”
He heard her on the ladder, and a moment later her head popped through, wide-eyed and almost giddy. That’s what Child Maggie must have looked like, high on too many cookies and Eleanor Ashley novels, filling up notebooks and spying on neighbors. He wanted to go back in time and be her very best friend.
“It’s the greenhouse!” Maggie’s voice was full of wonder as he helped her off the ladder. Their breath fogged in the air, and snow blew through holes in the glass.
“Not a very good one,” Ethan said as she aimed the light on row after row of blackened plants that stood dead and covered with a fine layer of snow like trees too long after Christmas.
“Maybe I’m showing my ignorance, but aren’t greenhouses supposed to be... not freezing?” He shivered and put his hands in his pockets as Maggie turned the cell phone’s flashlight on the broken panes of glass that were somehow darker than the others.
“What’s that?”
He rubbed a finger across the glass, and it came away black and gritty. “Soot.” He turned to look at Maggie, and at the same time they both said, “Fire.”
It was pitch-black and freezing, but, suddenly, something went on high alert inside of Ethan. There was a bag of fertilizer ten feet from where the flames had licked along the floor and across a shelf covered with chemicals. He could track the way the fire had shot up the glass walls and made them shatter with the heat.
“Maggie...” he started, but she was making her way down the long row of tables, looking at the blackenedplants, brushing snow off nameplates as she passed them.
