Page 96 of The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year
Ethan was going to kill... someone. The killer, obviously. And maybe Eleanor for getting them both into this mess. Or Maggie. He was definitely going to kill Maggie, he decided, because in his tired, frozen, freaked-out brain it was the only way to keep her safe and wasn’t that very serial killer of him? With a side of toxic masculinity? So he just shook his head and reached back for her hand.
She’d spent five years being not quite real to him. More idea than flesh and blood but now he knew the way she felt and tasted and sounded. He was never going to forget her sighs and gasps and moans. They were burned into his soul at that point. He couldn’t forget them if he tried. And he had absolutely no intention of trying.
So he kept her hand tight in his as they traversed tunnels and ladders and passageways until they finally reached the dark, empty halls of the house. Someone must have banked the fires, but the coals glowed orange as they slipped into the library and closed the doors behind them and, reluctantly, Ethan let Maggie pull out of his grasp.
“Okay, so what is the game plan? Exactly?” he asked as she slipped through the dim light toward the shelves and ran one finger down the row of Eleanor’s backlist, stopping when she came to—
“ADeadly Shade of Night.” When Ethan saw the cover, he remembered— “That was my mother’s favorite.”
It was strange, thinking about his mom. In Ethan’s family, it was like she never existed—like Ethan and his brothers had sprouted out of Zeus’s head, fully formed. But they hadn’t. Once upon a time, there had beena woman in his world. She’d made cookies from the dough you bought at the grocery store and she’d known all the words to every song ever sung by Dolly Parton and she’d loved Eleanor Ashley.
“Then you should do the honors.”
The book felt too small in his hands, a physical reminder that he wasn’t the little boy who had been left behind anymore—he was a man. And the only thing that mattered was the woman beside him. “What am I looking for exactly?”
“There may not be anything,” Maggie admitted. “But Eleanor hid a piece of mistletoe in the last one, so... I don’t know. Something stuck in the pages or highlighted passages or...”
They must have seen it at the same time because Ethan stopped flipping and Maggie stopped talking and they both stared down at the copyright page—at the numbers circled in a row. Too few digits to be coordinates or a phone number; too many to be a date or a time.
“Is it just me, or does that look like...”
“A combination?” Maggie guessed, and for a long time, they stood there, thoughts and theories flying like the snow until—
“We have to find the safe,” he said.
She nodded. “We have to find the safe.”
Maggie’s cheeks were pink and her eyes were bright. She looked flushed with endorphins and energy and the high that comes when things start making sense. But then, just that quickly, her smile faded. “But the safe could be anywhere!” she whined. “The duke and duchess have been looking for it for days! It could be... Wait. Where are you...”
She must have missed the rattling of the doorknob, the low hum of the voices in the hall, because she made a small squeaking sound as Ethan half carried her toward the spiral staircase that led to the library’s second story.
They had just reached the shadows of the upper deck when the library door opened and Kitty entered the room.
Or at least Ethan thought it must be Kitty. She was carrying a veritable mountain of boxes and presentsand what looked like most of a whole bicycle. Rupert was tagging along behind her, carrying an old-fashioned lantern and one lone wheel.
“Rupert,” Kitty called through the pile of presents in her arms. “Help.”
“Help with what?” said the man holding approximately one-tenth of one present.
“We have to put the gifts under the tree.”
His answer was to grumble about having to do everything himself as he took two presents from the top of the pile and dropped them near the windows. “There.” He took the rest of the bicycle parts from Kitty and laid them beside the fireplace.
“We have to assemble it.”
“Why?” he shot back.
“Because it’s Christmas! And RJ didn’t ask Santa for bicycleparts. He asked for a bicycle. And don’t forget the train set.”
“I amnotsetting up that blasted train set!”
“But—”
“Santa came, Kitty. He dropped off toys. He’s a busy man and no one expects him to stick around for assembly. That’s what servants are for. Besides, how are we going to get the blasted thing home if we had to disassemble it to get it here in the first place?”
They couldn’t make out Kitty’s answer because Rupert was already ushering her out the door.
And then Maggie and Ethan were alone. And together.
