Chapter Forty-Seven
Ethan
It was too early for bed, but it also felt like the middle of the night and Ethan didn’t try to make sense of the math. The
sun had been down for hours and the days were starting to bleed together. Christmas was coming, but Christmas had been coming
for days now. It was like they were stuck in a time loop. Like they might never get out. So when Kitty started serving eggnog
and asking if anyone knew any carols, Ethan looked at Maggie and jerked his head silently toward the door.
That was how they found themselves walking down a cold, empty hallway that felt even longer in the dark. Maggie was carrying
a candelabra, and six flickering tapers framed her face in a kind of golden glow; she looked ethereal but also filthy, covered
in cobwebs and dust. And she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. Ethan was suddenly grateful for time loops and blizzards
and bridges that fall down under the weight of too much snow.
Maggie, on the other hand, was all business.
“Okay. Assuming one person is responsible for shooting at us, poisoning the tea tray, and burning down the greenhouse...”
“Don’t forget the stairs,” he put in.
“Right.” Tiny flames danced as she nodded. “And possibly the stairs.”
“Which is a lot of assuming,” he conceded and she spun on him. The candles flickered.
“Is it wrong?” She was honestly asking. “I mean, I may be wrong. I probably am. I could be—”
“Hey. We’re not wrong.”
It was the we that did it. Ethan watched Maggie start to speak—to argue. She could have fired off a dozen pithy comebacks, but her eyes
went soft and warm and she inhaled a rushed little breath before letting it out, slowly. “We’re not wrong.”
Someday he was going to crush the people who had crushed her spirit. He was going to grind them into dust and not give it
a second thought.
“I don’t suppose you could tell where the shots were fired from?” Her tone was hopeful but her eyes had doubts.
“Not without checking the grounds. But they didn’t come from the house. I know that much.”
“Okay! Good. That means we can probably cross Cece off the list. I doubt she could have fired the shots and then made it upstairs
in time to scream as we came through the doors.”
“Agreed.” Ethan nodded. “Which leaves the inspector—”
“Who wasn’t here.” Maggie sounded disappointed.
“The lawyer, the butler, and the doctor.” He cut a look at her. “Hey, I think I know a joke that starts that way.”
She gave him an indulgent smile, but told him, “None of them have any kind of motive.”
“That we know of,” he said and she cocked her head as if to say touché .
“We know Rupert and Kitty were in their room with the baby and the nanny,” Maggie said.
“Which leaves David and Veronica.”
“Victoria,” she corrected.
“Whatever. The duke and dukette.”
“Duchess.”
“Whatever. But what would their motive be? Aren’t dukes loaded?” Even though it was an excellent question, he watched Maggie
look away. Like she was almost afraid to admit that—
“Sometimes money makes people careless, and careless people never realize that, eventually, money runs out.” But what Ethan
heard was Sometimes careless people hurt careful people . “Besides, they both seemed really worried about...”
“Finding that will,” they said in unison and she looked down at her toes.
Ethan wanted to kiss the lip she was biting, but he settled for saying, “So all the people who have motive don’t have opportunity.”
“And the people with opportunity don’t have motive. Ooh.” The light was coming back in her eyes. “They could be Strangers on a Train –ing us.”
“Or Orient Express –ing.”
“Or One-Eye Dog in a Snowstorm –ing...” she started, then cocked her head at his vacant expression. “It’s a novella Eleanor published in 1982.” But then,
suddenly, her face fell. She looked like a little girl at a carnival who had come this close to winning a prize. “But no one is a triplet.”
“That we know of,” he consoled and she beamed, and Ethan thought he might spend the rest of his life chasing the rush of making
Maggie smile in that long, dark hallway, with the drafts and (possible) ghosts and cold wind howling right outside.
As they turned the corner and started toward their rooms, Ethan let his gaze drift to the window, frosty glass and inky black
sky. Millions of stars and thousands of acres and the reflection of two people who had crawled and climbed and searched all
day and yet had nothing to show for it.
Maggie made a sound and grimaced. “I look like I’m one long white nightgown away from being killed in a gothic novel.”
But Ethan simply said, “I’ll protect you.”
She laughed softly. “From a ghost?”
“From everything.”
And, suddenly, nothing was funny anymore. The drafty corridor was cold and still and even the wind stopped howling. Ethan
forgot about murders and bullets and poison, about cruel fathers and feckless husbands and the fact that he probably didn’t
deserve her, but he was going to have her, anyway—if she was foolish enough to want him. And it was looking—right there—in
that moment—like maybe she did.
“Maggie...” He stepped closer and raised his candle. She had to see—she had to know. “Sweetheart...”
But Maggie’s gaze was sliding away. He could feel her 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 definitely not in 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.”