Page 73 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
But Maggie’s gaze was sliding away. He could feelher swaying. Then slipping. Then freezing. And then she trembled.
“What is it?” Ethan spun, but there was nothing behind him but bedrooms and shadows.
She pointed to her half-closed door. “I thought I closed that.”
“Stay here,” he ordered, but Maggie was shaking her head.
“I don’t know. I could be wrong. I’m probably—”
He cupped her cheek with his free hand. “Maggie. Did you close it?”
She shook her head like she didn’t know what to say—what to think. Like she’d been told black was white and up was down so many times that she couldn’t trust her own eyes, much less her memory. Like she’d been taught to live by two simple rules: (1) When in doubt, assume you’re the problem. And (2) Always be in doubt.
“It’s okay.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Wait here.”
“I don’t know. It might be in my head. Ethan—”
But the door was already swinging open, hitting Ethan with a wave of colder air as he braced for an attacker or maybe a baby ghost, but what he saw was somehow worse.
Maggie was at his back, pressing softly, saying, “Well?”
“It’s definitelynotin your head.”
For once, he wished it had been because Maggie made a sound he never wanted to hear again as she stepped around him, taking in the rumpled bedsheets and tossed clothes, overturned chairs and overflowing suitcases. No part of the room was left untouched, and Maggie went rigid at the sight.
Someone had been there, among her private things—in the place where she slept. Someone had been there, and Ethan wanted to throw her over his shoulder and run, but he couldn’t do that, so he settled for finding the bright side.
“Well, I guess there’s one more thing we can add to the list: someone is looking for something.”
Maggie gasped, then bolted to the bed, tossing covers and pillows and clothes until she turned. Her face was ghostly white. “They found it. Eleanor’s new book—the notebooks. They’re gone.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Maggie
Maggie was torn. She should have felt scared. Violated. Outraged. But as she stood in the middle of the room that had seemed so lovely two days before, all she could do was wonder how she’d turned into a woman who was looking at her watch, counting down the minutes she’d been apart from Ethan Wyatt.
Of course, it’s easy to stay busy in a ransacked room, hanging up clothes and remaking the bed, stuffing cords and devices back in her bag. Only the sight of the laptop stopped her. She hadn’t written a word since she’d boarded the jet, and Maggie didn’t want to think about what it meant. Maggie didn’t want to think about anything.
So she straightened the room and examined the fireplace. James had told them that the chimneys were safe to use and they should feel free to light a fire since the electricity would likely be off for the foreseeable future. So she balled up some notebook paper and stacked some wood; but every time she tried to light it, the paper would burn too quickly, leaving her with a tiny pile of ashes and the smell of smoke and no warmth of any kind. It reminded her of Colin.
When she heard a knock on the door, she threw it open, unsurprised to find Ethan standing there, taking up every ounce of space like his day job had been Door or Gate or Human Barricade.
“Margaret...” He looked like he couldn’t decide if he should tease or scold. “Why did we go to the trouble of making a secret password if you’re just going to—”
She slammed the door in his face and felt herself smiling at the wood for three solid seconds—right up until a fist rapped again, quick and light and almost... flirty?
She reached for the knobbut said, “Password?”
“MacGuffin.” He managed to sound stern and gleeful at the same time, so she opened the door just a crack—and there he was, hand on the doorframe, leaning down.
It was exactly how he’d stood on the jet. At the time, the pose had felt imposing and calculating, like some kind of big cat—a tiger or lion—stretching and getting ready to pounce. But this time it just made her feel... warm.
“Happy?” she asked, looking up at him.
“Getting there.” His gaze dropped to her lips and he might have inched a little closer.
She knew, vaguely, that she was supposed to be doing something. Making fires or solving crimes or... moving. Yes. That was it. She was definitely supposed to be moving, but her feet were like lead and her body was weightless in the presence of a man who had always had his own gravity.
