Page 68 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
“Henbane. Foxglove. Catha edulis. Oleander.” One was in a cage. “Ricinus communis.” One had a red ribbon tied around the base like it might be the worst gift ever. “Nightshade.” She looked up at him. “Ethan...” He’d never heard Maggie’s voice sound like it sounded then, trembling and uncertain and afraid. “These are all poisonous. This is a poison garden.”
Ethan couldn’t keep from grinning, biting back a laugh. “Leave it to Eleanor...”
But Maggie wasn’t smiling, wasn’t beaming. Instead, she was shaking her head. “Do you know...” Her voice broke. She swallowed hard. “Do you know what happens when poisonous plants burn?”
Her hand trembled. The light shook. And then he got it—
“They turn into poisonous smoke.”
There was only one door, and Ethan rushed to it and pushed. It shifted a little, but only an inch.
“It’s jammed.” He took a small step back and lowered his shoulder, took the door at something between a lunge and a run, but it still didn’t budge and all he got for his trouble was a sharp pain in his bad shoulder. But Ethan had suddenly forgotten to care. He reared back and kicked. Nothing.
Maggie was standing behind him. “Maybe they locked it after the fire... Maybe...” She pressed against the glass, aiming the light and trying to see outside.
“Maggie—”
“There’s got to be a lock or a latch or—”
“Maggie.”
She stopped and looked up at him, but he was pointing through the glass, at the crowbar that was wedged between the doorknob and the ground.
“Maybe Eleanor or James put that there after the fire? Maybe they didn’t want anyone to come in because it was dangerous? Maybe...” But as her voice trailed off she looked up at him, a gentle pleading in her eyes. It was like,just once, she wanted a man to tell her she was paranoid and wrong and crazy.
But she wasn’t. She never had been.
“Or maybe someone set a fire and blocked the door and without that secret passageway Eleanor Ashley would already be dead?”
Chapter Forty-Five
Maggie
By the time they made it back through the passageway and into the main part of the house, Maggie was able to feel her fingers again, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t numb.
“Well, what happened to the two of you?” Cece exclaimed as they passed the library and headed toward the stairs. Maggie didn’t know if she was talking about the time that they’d been missing or the fact that they were covered with dust and their hair was full of cobwebs. Frankly, Maggie didn’t care.
“When did the greenhouse burn?” Maggie blurted and Cece took a step back because, well, Maggie did slightly resemble a ghost or maybe a serial killer. Or the ghost of a serial killer. Or all of the above. But it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except— “Cece! When was the fire in the greenhouse?”
“I don’t know,” Cece exclaimed, likeHow am I supposed to keep track of these things?“Maybe three weeks ago? A month? Something like that. It wasn’t much of a fire. We’d just had a sprinkler installed, and it put it out. Why?”
Maggie felt Ethan shifting. Turning. And she knew the moment when he saw the staircase, with its mismatched pieces of wood, old and new, dark and light.
“What about that?” Nothing about Ethan sounded flirty anymore. “What happened on the stairs?”
“Eleanor fell.” Cece looked around, confused.
“Whydid she fall?” Maggie demanded and Cece spun on her. She didn’t like it coming from both sides.
“I... I told you. The runner came loose.” She was flustered and frantic and fumbling.“And the... the boards were old. They were old and the railing wobbled, and... she fell.”
Suddenly, the whole world felt unsteady—like the deck of a ship in rough seas, and Maggie wasn’t just worried she’d fall down. She was terrified she might go overboard, and in that moment, she wasn’t just looking at Ethan. She felt tethered to him. And he looked back like he wasn’t going to let anything happen to her—like the ocean was going to have to go through him first.
Cece threw out her arms. “Why are y’all asking about this?”
There were a dozen different answers to that question.Because not everything is a coincidence. Because, sometimes, accidents don’t just happen. Because Eleanor was rich and powerful but also frail and alone. Because...
Ethan shook his head, slowly—a single time—and Maggie blinked and said, “No reason.”
