Chapter Twenty-One
Maggie had probably spent a thousand hours imagining what the inside of Eleanor Ashley’s mind would look like, but standing
in her office had to be the next best thing.
The desk was the only clear surface in the room, with nothing but the tea tray Cece had been carrying the night before sitting
near the edge. Everywhere else, there were stacks of mail and dog-eared paperbacks, empty water glasses, and crosswords done
in ink. It was a room that was lived in. Used.
Three of the walls had built-in shelves full of nearly identical notebooks, but a large window seat covered most of the fourth.
Soft, velvet pillows rested against the frosty glass, and, outside, the sill was piled high with fluffy fresh snow.
There was an old-fashioned turntable in the corner, and the low, steady scratching of a spinning record was almost ominous
in the quiet room, but when Ethan picked up the needle, the silence was even louder. Because the most significant thing about
Eleanor’s office was simple: Eleanor wasn’t in it.
“Maybe she went for a walk?” Kitty tried.
“It’s freezing outside,” the doctor said.
“Well, she’s not in here!” Rupert grumbled as if this had all been someone else’s idea and why were they wasting his time?
But that’s when Maggie saw something on the floor beside the desk. She bent to pick it up. “She was.”
“Oh, well spotted, Ms. Chase!” Sir Jasper said. “Look here, everyone, Ms. Chase has found the key!”
“There! Ha!” Rupert laughed. “Two keys! Clearly, Aunt Eleanor locked the room with the second when she left.”
“Sorry, Roofus—”
“Rupert,” Rupert corrected, but it was like Ethan didn’t even hear.
“In no way does that prove there are two keys. And besides...” Ethan trailed off but angled the busted door so that everyone
could see. There was a slide bolt on the back—the kind like you’d find in a bathroom stall—and it was latched. Ethan stood
to his full, intimidating height. “She didn’t lock that from the outside.”
The moment stretched long and silent as they all stood there, doing the math in their heads. Two plus two suddenly equaled
fifty and no one knew what to think—what to say.
“This is ridiculous!” The duke gave a huff. “A ninety-five-year-old—”
“She’s eighty-one!” Maggie and Ethan said at the same time.
“—woman cannot simply disappear out of a locked room!”
Maggie was drifting closer to the window. Cold air radiated off the glass, and the world outside was soft and still, stretching
for what felt like a thousand miles in all directions. But all she could say was “Eleanor Ashley can.”