Page 70 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
“Excuse me, but I believe Inspector Dobson would like a word.”
Chapter Forty-Six
Maggie
It was a scene they all knew well by that point. The same library. The same crackling fire and falling snow. The same cast of characters, with the hapless husband and tired wife, the snobby couple and bored physician. The overeager girl and the lawyer still wet-behind-the-ears and asking, “Say, where did you get that sandwich?”
But it wasn’t the same. Not at all. Maggie and Ethan had spent all day poking and prodding and learning how verynot-the-sameit really was. So Maggie didn’t care that Dobson was standing in front of the fire, red-faced and livid.
“Where have you two been?” He looked a little like a rabid dog. “I told you to stay out of this! But then you disappear all afternoon, and now I hear you’ve been asking questions—”
“Was that a piece of spit that flew out of his mouth?” Ethan whispered, but there wasn’t a doubt in Maggie’s mind that everybody heard it. She was even more certain they were supposed to.
“If we weren’t stuck here, I’d have you both arrested for impeding an official investigation.” Dobson was choosing to ignore the spit comment, evidently. “For contamination of evidence. For—”
“Did you know someone locked Eleanor in the greenhouse and set it on fire, Inspector?” Maggie didn’t recognize her own voice. She didn’t smile or soften the words or do any of a million things she’d been trained to do to keep a man from feeling threatened. No. She just stood there, feeling the heat from the fireplace and trying not to think about a room full of flames and smoky poison.
“Did you?” Maggie asked again, louder now, and Dobson practically shivered.Guilty.Hedidknow. Maggie could tell before he even opened his mouth.
“Of course Eleanor told me aboutthe fire, but as I told her, those doors weren’t blocked intentionally—or very thoroughly—or else she wouldn’t have gotten out, would she?”
“So you examined the scene, then?” Ethan asked with his most deceptive,don’t mind me, I’m just the eye candydrawl. “Conducted a thorough investigation?”
“Of course not!” Dobson looked ready to spit again. “It was a small fire in a room with its own sprinkler system, and no one but some flowers got hurt.”
Dobson didn’t mention the poisonous plants or flammable chemicals or the bag full of fertilizer. Even under the best of circumstances, it didn’t take a genius to figure out that flames and greenhouses shouldn’t mix.
“What about the stairs?” Maggie asked.
From the other side of the room, Rupert huffed. It was a sound Maggie knew well. She wasn’t born to their money or their mansions. She wasn’t born withanything. But she’d earned plenty, and that gave her something the Ruperts of the world didn’t have. And that was why the Ruperts feared her.
“My aunt slipped and fell because she’s a careless old woman,” Rupert declared.
“So careless and old that she wouldn’t notice if some money went missing? Is that what you’re saying?” Maggie asked.
“Rupert?” Kitty turned to him. “What’s she talking about?”
“I’ve had it up to here with the two of you,” Dobson snapped. “I don’t know what you think you’re playing at—”
“Oh, we’re not playing.” Ethan leaned against the mantel, too calm, too cool, too competent to be real—but hewasreal. Maggie couldn’t believe it, but Ethan Wyatt was more than the sum of his parts. He was more than the sum of theirs, too, and every last one of them knew it. “We’re not playing at all. No, we’re getting used for target practice. Sir Jasper has already been poisoned. And Eleanor is still missing, not that any of you care.”
“Now see here,” the duke started, so Ethan glanceddown at him. Smirked.
“How’s the will hunt going, Your Grace? Find out if she wrote you two out and put her in yet?” Ethan pointed at Cece, who shifted on her chair, trying not to grin.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The schoolgirl act was slipping.
“Oh, shove it, Cecilia,” the duchess snapped. “Everyone knows you’re trying to get your claws into her.”
“Aunt E asked me to come help—” Rupert and his sister both groaned, and Cece talked on. “We have a special bond—”
“She didn’t even know you existed until six months ago!” Rupert shouted.
Well, that was news, and Maggie couldn’t help herself—she looked at Ethan, who took a step closer to Cece. “What does he mean by that?”
Cece looked down at her hands, a little sheepish when she said, “My father was Aunt Eleanor’s baby brother and, well, I guess he was a little bit wild. And he... well... I guess you could say he...”
“Ran away,” Victoria said a little too precisely, like Cece was a moron who needed it all spelled out.
