Chapter Thirty-Six
One Day Before Christmas
Ethan
On the morning of Christmas Eve, the sun broke clear and bright and far too late, but Ethan couldn’t bring himself to move.
As a connoisseur of only-one-bed romance novels, he knew they were supposed to wake up tangled and twisted together, but Maggie
was on the far side of the mattress, curled into a tiny ball. Like, even in her dreams, she wanted to take up as little space
as possible, like she wasn’t even entitled to half of her own bed.
He wasn’t trying to be that creepy guy, watching her sleep. It would have been better for him in every way if he could put
her out of his mind entirely. But he couldn’t. So he just crept into his own room and changed his clothes and brushed his
teeth and three minutes later he was slouched in the chair by her fireplace, trying to guess how many favors he was going
to owe his old man if he ever got to make the call he’d need to make.
“You’re still here.” She was nestled down in the blankets, and Ethan couldn’t even see her face. Just dark hair on white pillows,
two pale hands reaching above her head and stretching like a cat. It was so freaking adorable it hurt.
Then Maggie poked her head out of the covers and stared at him.
“I’m not going anywhere.” He hated how much he meant it.
“Does that mean the bridge is still out?” she asked, because she had no idea he wasn’t talking about the roads.
“I don’t know.” He looked out the window. Too-bright sunlight bounced off too much snow. Maybe the storm was over. Or maybe
it was just taking a break. “Probably.”
“Are the phones working?” She sat up and swung her legs off the bed and he laughed again at her T-shirt.
“No.”
“You didn’t have to wait on me.”
“I’m not leaving you alone, Maggie,” he said and she looked at him.
“Because we’re the only people we can trust?”
The moment stretched out, as cold and silent as the snow-covered hills, and he could feel his heart pounding—like a telegraph
operator tapping out a message he couldn’t quite read.
Ethan gave a slow nod. “We’re the only people we can trust.”
He watched her stretch again and pile her hair on the top of her head. It almost wasn’t long enough and little wisps broke
free and framed her face as she pulled her legs up and wrapped an arm around her knees.
“I keep asking myself: What would Eleanor do?”
He bit back a grin. “Eleanor would work the case. Find the killer.”
He saw the mistake as soon as he made it. He’d been outmaneuvered and outplayed, because Maggie was smiling now, her face
nothing but focus and light. “Exactly.”
“No—”
“Come on, Ethan. You said it yourself: it’s what Eleanor would do. So it’s what we have to do. We have to work the case!”
But Ethan wasn’t just leery. He was scared. Someone had already shot at her once, and if they started kicking hornet nests,
she was bound to get stung.
“No.”
“But—”
“Inspector Dobson already told us to stay out of it.”
“Inspector Dobson thinks we did it!” she reminded him, and she wasn’t wrong.
“Maggie...”
“She’s missing, Ethan! She could be out there, freezing and hurt and... She’s missing. And you and I are the only two people
in this house that we can trust.”
“You trust me?” he asked, and she looked at him with the absolute innocence of a woman who didn’t know her words were knives.
“I trust you.” She gave a jaunty shrug of her shoulder and a come-hither stare. “Besides, we solve murders all the time.”
“We also plan murders.”
“And we’re so good at it!” Maggie climbed to her knees and bounced on the bed.
And all Ethan could do was look at her. And smile. And say, “So where do we start?”