Chapter Forty-Three
Maggie
Maggie should have been terrified of the darkness. Ethan’s cell phone flashlight was far better than nothing, but what if
his battery ran out? What if there was a cave-in and they got separated? What if they couldn’t find an exit and were destined
to roam the tunnels beneath Eleanor Ashley’s mansion until they died of starvation or old age?
She didn’t know what was scarier: knowing that she should have been panicking or realizing that she wasn’t. She didn’t want
to think about why. In fact, she didn’t want to think about a lot of things—not the damp earth or how the ceiling was so low
in places that Ethan had to hunch. But, mostly, Maggie wanted to ignore the little voice in the back of her head, whispering
that it was probably coincidence, a folly, a lark.
Not everything’s a plot twist , Colin had always said when she noticed things he didn’t want her to see—clues or coincidences that couldn’t point to anything
besides “Maggie is a little bit crazy.”
Of course I smell like Emily’s perfume. Have you ever seen Emily apply perfume?
How should I know how Emily’s earring ended up in our bed? She’s your best friend.
Sometimes Maggie worried that if she hadn’t caught them together she might still be telling herself that it was all in her
head—that she’d read too much and fantasized too often and was just one step shy of madness. If it had happened a hundred
years before, they would have locked her in the attic and thrown away the key. And the worst part—the scariest part—was the
fact that Maggie would have let them.
But as she held Ethan’s hand and walked through that dark and dreary tunnel, she could still hear Colin’s voice in her head,
telling her she’d dragged Ethan into that dusty, endless space for nothing and—
“Stop it.” Ethan’s voice cut through the black.
Maggie froze. “What?”
“Whatever you’re overthinking back there.”
“I’m not overthinking,” she said a little too quickly.
“This morning I watched you take fifteen minutes to choose a pair of socks.”
“I’m not spending another day with cold feet.”
“You brought three different kinds of toothpaste.”
“Oral health is very important and sometimes I’m not in the mood for spearmint.”
“You’re not wrong, Maggie,” he snapped, and it sounded like he was agreeing with her and arguing with her at the same time,
and Maggie didn’t know whether to be mad or grateful. “If you think Eleanor left clues for us, then she did. You found them.
And we’re going to follow them. You’re not wrong .”
“But what if I am?” She hated how small and frail her voice sounded—that it was still too loud in the darkness—that in that
narrow space it might just echo.
Then Ethan stopped and turned. Colin used to look at her like he could see through her, but Ethan looked at her like he had
x-ray vision—like he could see right into the heart of her, like there was no use hiding anything. And, suddenly, it started
getting hard to breathe. The tunnel walls moved in and—
“Maggie, sweetheart, are you going to have a panic attack? Because you need to let me know if—”
“No,” she blurted. “I mean yes. I mean...”
“Why the new pen names, Maggie?”
At first, she thought she hadn’t heard him. The question was so out of the blue that she had to blink through the pale glow
of the flashlight and she forgot all about the low ceiling and narrow walls. She stopped telling herself to breathe.
“Maggie? Pen names. Talk.”
“Oh. Well. I felt like diversifying. You know, the new e-book algorithms really—”
Ethan leaned against the filthy wall. He was going to get his shirt all dirty. “Come on, Margaret Elizabeth, I showed you
mine...”
“I got divorced.” It was the dumbest thing she could have said, because he already knew that. Everybody knew that. But there was more to the story, and Ethan must have known that, too, because the silence stretched out like the
darkness.
“I was twenty-one when I got married. My parents were dead and I didn’t have two cents to my name, and Colin’s family was
Old Money—or so everybody thought, but... Fun fact : even generational wealth can dry up if the later generations are morons. At the time, though...” She gave a sad smile
and a sadder laugh. “They said I was the luckiest girl in the world when they didn’t make me sign a prenup.”
Maggie hadn’t minded the whispers because, in her mind, they were shouts. Surely Colin deserved a wife who had more power?
Shouldn’t Emily want a best friend who had more poise?
But what no one—least of all twenty-one-year-old Maggie—had realized at the time was that Colin and Emily liked her exactly
where she was: somewhere between charity case and mascot. Someone who had no other options. Who was equal parts needy and
independent, who could go anywhere anytime but who could only do it with them. Because of them. She was the ultimate foil—only there to reflect their light.
But now the light was gone and, if possible, the passageway got even darker.
The filthy wall pressed against her back as a big hand cupped her cheek and a deep voice whispered, “Breathe.” It was an order
and she did it. And then it felt so good she did it again.
Her hands were on his hips, fingers hooked through his belt loops and desperate to hang on. “We would have split everything
in half, but it turns out, he didn’t have anything, and that just made him madder.”
Ethan gave a low groan and closed his eyes and then pressed his forehead against hers. “I’m so sorry, sweetheart. That asshole
didn’t deserve half your money.”
“ No. ” The word was so jagged it could have sliced her throat to shreds. “He got fifty percent of my copyrights .”
Ethan pulled back. “ What? ”
Maggie nodded slowly. “By law, he owned half of every word I’d ever written. Every book. Every character. He was going to
get half of every royalty check I earned for the rest of my life.”
“Oh, Maggie...”
“Even if he’d had money of his own at that point...” This was the hardest part in some ways. Maggie’s secret shame. “He’d
helped me brainstorm book one a million years ago. I didn’t use any of his suggestions, but the more successful I got, the
more my little hobby became our books . He told himself they were his ideas. To hear him tell it, I only got published in the first place because of his contacts. They could both live on Emily’s
trust fund for the rest of their lives. He doesn’t need money. But this way, even after we divorced, he could still own half
of...”
She couldn’t say it. She couldn’t...
“Half of you .” Ethan’s voice was low, more growl than whisper, and just like that she was glad they were locked in a glorified hole in
the ground, glad they were snowed in with no phones, no internet, and no way out. Because she was terrified of what Ethan
might have done next. It didn’t matter that he couldn’t use a gun anymore. In that moment, he wouldn’t have needed one.
“Maggie—”
“The only way I could get free was to buy back his half of my copyrights. But even once I let him have the house and the car
and my savings... it wasn’t enough. Even once he had everything, the copyrights were still worth more. Which meant I needed
cash. And I needed it to have absolutely no connection to him.”
She knew instantly the moment when he got it. “So you wrote under pseudonyms.”
She nodded slowly. “I wrote under four new names until I could buy him out—which I did.” She was proud of that part. She’d
worked twelve hours a day, seven days a week, for nine months straight, but she’d done it. “In the end, he got my house and
my savings and my best friend—did I mention that part?” Maggie laughed to keep from crying. “But I got to keep... myself.”
“You got the best part,” Ethan said without missing a beat. “You got the only thing that matters. Tell me you know that.”
She nodded yes and swallowed hard, and his hand kept rubbing against the back of her neck and she wanted to lean into the
pressure. She wanted to make herself forget. But there was a subtle drip-drip-drip of melting snow, too loud in the stillness, a steady reminder that the world was still out there. Eleanor was still out there. And, without a word, his hand slid down her arm and into hers.
They were twenty feet farther down the tunnel when he realized— “Wait. You said four pen names?” And Maggie froze.
“Oh.” Oh no. “I meant three.”
“ Nooooo. There’s a fourth one! Wait. Is the fourth one dirty?” She felt her face go scarlet and even in the shadows, Ethan must have
seen it. “Oh, the fourth one is really dirty!” Maggie bit her lip and tried to make him move, but he was a load-bearing wall—solid and sure and, without him, the
whole tunnel would cave in. “Come on. Give me a hint.”
“No.”
“I’m going to find it. You know I’m going to—”
“We have sleuthing to do.” She tried to slip around him.
“Oh, I’m gonna find it. And I’m gonna read it. And...” He caught her and held her, and suddenly, Maggie’s breath was coming
hard for all new reasons. She was breathing out as he breathed in, chests rising and falling and—
“Hey, Maggie? You want to make out?” he asked. It took three whole seconds for her to slap him lightly on the arm. “Is that
a yes? Because impact play is something both parties need to discuss—” She did it again. “There are safe words—mine will be
Sherlock—”
She did it again, harder that time, and the look on his face morphed into a smile that was almost a dare.
“Fine. Then I guess we’ll just have to go up there instead.” He pointed the light toward the end of the tunnel. And the trapdoor
in the ceiling. And the ladder that was rising up into the night.