Chapter Sixty-One
Two Hours Before Christmas
Maggie
Maggie didn’t really sleep, but that didn’t mean she didn’t dream. About dorm rooms and deserts and being desperate to stay
warm. About fires and red ribbons and women who disappear without a trace.
“Easy.” Something soft brushed against the back of her neck. “It’s okay. I have you.” The arm draped across her was a heavy,
unfamiliar weight that should have made her want to run, but she settled beneath it, burrowing in and coming fully awake in
the darkness.
Looking around the tiny, frigid cottage, Maggie had to wonder if she’d always been destined to spend Christmas Eve in a small,
unheated room. It was what that first year without her parents would have been like if it hadn’t been for Emily, and part
of her wondered if she would have been better off freezing in her dorm. Yes , she would have said three days ago. But now? A big, warm hand slid around her waist, and a little voice inside her whispered,
Maybe not .
“I need to put more clothes on,” Ethan grumbled, sounding more than a little bitter about it. “But then you’ll put more clothes on, and I don’t like that. But”—he pushed up and looked down at her—“I like you cold and shivering even
less. So...”
They scrambled into their layers and then he padded toward the fireplace. “Hey. At least someone left some wood.” He pointed
to the stack in the corner.
The cabin clearly wasn’t used very often, but it wasn’t totally abandoned, either, and Maggie busied herself, opening cabinets
and trying not to think about the last few hours. Or the last few days. Or the last few years. Maybe it would be better not
to think about anything ever again?
“Hand me that old newspaper, will you?” Ethan squatted in front of the fireplace, and Maggie passed the paper, then watched
him rip off the back page and light it with a match before nestling it into the wood.
Thirty seconds later, a small flame flickered and caught. And grew. And Maggie watched the glow take away the shadows. She
felt the first little tendrils of heat taking away the chill. And she heard Ethan’s words again: It’s the part where I say that you should trust yourself . It was the first time anyone had ever tried to take away her doubts.
“Hey.” The voice was soft and gentle. “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head like nothing . But what she thought was thank you . What she said was “Whoever stocked this place didn’t leave any snacks.”
Then Ethan pulled something from his coat pocket. “You mean like this?” Maggie didn’t recognize that brand of chocolate but
she didn’t exactly care when Ethan said, “Come here.”
And that’s how she found herself nestled in front of the fire in her archnemesis’s arms on Christmas Eve, eating mystery chocolate
and wondering exactly how her life had come to this and exactly why it felt like she might like it.
“Let me look at you.” He tilted her head toward the orange glow of the flames and used the cuff of his shirt to wipe away
a spot of blood.
“I’m okay,” she reminded him.
But he only growled and kissed her again, and she looked down at the ground because looking at him was dangerous and she’d
almost died enough already.
The newspaper was right there, something from the village—a headline about Christmas Eve service and the coming storm, but
Maggie couldn’t stop staring at the date: December twenty-second. Just two days before.
Two days.
Two days since they’d arrived. Two days since she’d met Eleanor. Two days since the man behind her had been her enemy. And
then her friend. And now more. At least it felt like more? All in the matter of two days.
Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised. Her whole life had changed in two seconds once. Two days could alter the universe.
“What?” He pulled the blanket off the bed and wrapped it around them both, making a cocoon that smelled like dust and snow
and Ethan.
“I was thinking... this is only our third night here. It feels like a lifetime.”
He made a noise, then interlaced their fingers. “Next year, let’s go someplace warm for Christmas.”
He said it like that was something people do—make plans a year in advance and keep them. They look forward to things and dates
and dreams. They live life as if they’re never going to stumble through a door one day and leave their whole world on the
other side. He said it like he didn’t know that plans are like hearts: they get broken.
His lips brushed against her temple and stayed there as he asked, “Did I just freak you out?” And Maggie tried not to cry.
Or laugh. Or run out into the blizzard.
“Me? No. I’m not freaking out. I’m totally—” Freaking out.
“Hey—” The arms squeezed tighter. Like even Ethan was summoning his courage. Like it was the bravest thing he’d ever done.
“I know the world hasn’t given you a lot of reasons to believe this, but just so you know, if you were mine, I’d never make
you park the car because my shoes are suede. If you were mine, I’d carry you through the storm. If you were mine, I’d fight
the sky.”
The wind still howled and the snow still fell, but Maggie couldn’t even hear it over the roar of her own heart. She was supposed
to say something. It was definitely her turn to say something! But the words got stuck, so she wrapped her arms around him.
And her legs. And she squeezed tighter too.
“Ethan, I...” She couldn’t get the words out, so she pressed her lips to his instead, and when she pulled back, her cheeks
were wet and his hands were in her hair and—
“It’s okay,” he said. “You’ll get there. I had a head start.”
“Since when?” She felt herself blushing, suddenly obsessed with the loose thread on one of Ethan’s buttons. “Since Tucson?”
His hands stilled. It was like he had to summon his courage to say, “Since the elevator.”
But that didn’t make any sense. They’d never even been in an elevator except—
“The one where we got stuck?”
He nodded like he’d forgotten how to speak. “It was snowing and your hair was...” He gestured to the top of his head like
he, a bestselling novelist, had forgotten the word damp . “You said you looked like a Victorian street urchin.”
She let out a silent laugh. “How did I really look?”
But Ethan grew serious, thinking... remembering... deciding. “I thought you looked like forever.”
This wasn’t happening. It wasn’t real. There aren’t actually men who look like that. And there aren’t men who say things like that. And they definitely don’t say them to Maggie . The Venn diagram of that moment was three very different circles of nonexistent men, and yet... Ethan Wyatt was...
real.
Imagine that .
Guilt was doing war with butterflies in her stomach. “I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. I was—”
“It’s okay.
She thought about snow and suede shoes and—
“I remember the panic attack. You were so nice, and I should have remembered—”
“It’s okay. Really.”
“Was that the year they told us Eleanor might be there? I was so mad because—you know how the security desk has to print those
little stickers? Well, that year, mine had the wrong name on it and I spent the whole night thinking I was going to have to
change my name to—”
She remembered the word but she forgot how to speak and the silence that followed was deafening, full of flying sparks and
crackling logs and snow falling in clumps off the rooftop.
And then a deep voice whispered, “Marcie.”
She covered her mouth but the gasp came out anyway, almost echoing in the silence.
He tucked her hair behind her ear. “All this time, I thought you knew. I thought we had an inside joke.”
“Oh, Ethan—”
“If I’d known you didn’t remember... I never meant to hurt you. The last thing I would ever do is hurt you.” The words
were almost as hard as the look in his eyes. “I will never hurt you.”
“I know.”
“And that’s why...” He trailed off but looked out the window and she didn’t even have to try to read his mind.
“No.”
“You don’t even know what I was going to—”
“I’m not letting you go for help.”
“I could—”
She scooted off his lap, backing away. “No. I know you’d carry me through the storm and fight the sky and all the other really
hero-y hot stuff—”
He flashed a small, slow grin. “Is that the technical term?”
“But if you tried to carry me through this storm, we’d probably both break our necks.”
“Try me.” He took it like a dare.
“Next Christmas,” she blurted, feeling nervous and shy and terrifyingly optimistic. “If you still want me, we can do that
next Christmas. Someplace warm.”
“It’s a date.” And then all he could do was kiss her. And kiss her. And kiss her. Until he pulled back and breathed against
her lips. “And next year, I’ll get you a present.”
Like a magnet, they both turned and looked at the narrow strip of satiny red ribbon that had fallen out of his pocket and
onto the floor.
“At least they didn’t strangle me with it.”
Every muscle in Ethan’s very muscly body went taut and Maggie knew she shouldn’t have said it. Shouldn’t have reminded him.
Shouldn’t have taken the kissing away.
“I’m going to find the person who hurt you, Maggie, and then, so help me, I’m not sure what I’ll do.”
He kissed her forehead and she leaned against his strength.
“It’s a clue, at least.” Maggie pointed to the ribbon. “If we can figure out where they got it—”
“We know where.” He pulled back, remembering— “Oh. That’s right. You were busy being concussed. Well, you know the plant that
had the bow on it? It was on the ground beside you. Without the bow, so I’m guessing that’s it.”
“So it wasn’t premeditated?” Maggie was thinking. “Someone knocked me on the head and got me to the greenhouse and grabbed
the first thing they could find to tie me up with?”
“Right. Unless they gave Eleanor that plant for Christmas and are experts in forty-seven-dimensional chess, there’s no way
they’d even know—” Maggie bolted upright. “What? What did I say?”
“ Was it a present?” Maggie was honestly asking.
“What?”
“The nightshade. When I saw it in the greenhouse, a part of me thought, yeah. Makes sense. That’s the kind of thing someone
would give Eleanor Ashley, but...” Maggie closed her eyes. She tried to remember. “It wasn’t as dead as the others.”
“No. It wasn’t. Which means it wasn’t in the fire.” Ethan was catching on.
“But why would Eleanor put it in a burned-out greenhouse where it would definitely die from the cold unless...”
There was something inside of Maggie—a swirling, starry haze. Like she’d been hit on the head ninety minutes before and was
only just now waking up—like the whole picture was slowly coming into focus. A kaleidoscope of Eleanor and mistletoe, old
beat-up paperbacks and other people’s presents. But, mostly, Maggie saw Ethan and the greenhouse and the way they could have
died, surrounded by ice and fire and smoke made out of poison.
“We have to go back.” Maggie bolted upright and started looking for her shoes.
“What?”
“Get your coat on. Hurry. We have to go back.”
“Go back where?”
“To the house! We have to follow the last clue!”
It was filling her up then, like helium. Like hope. She was glad she was inside because she felt light enough to float away.
“What clue? Maggie!” Ethan was reaching for her, stopping her. But not like he wanted to hold her back; it was like he wanted
to keep her safe, and she had never been more achingly aware of the difference. He said the words slowly: “ What clue? ”
“In Deadly Shade of Night, the killer left a nightshade plant tied with red ribbon on the porch of the victim. Now hear me out—what did you say this
afternoon?”
“That you were right and Eleanor must have left us clues so that we’d find the greenhouse.”
“Right! But what if that wasn’t the end of it? What if—while we were in the greenhouse—we were supposed to find another clue?”
She threw her hands in the air, furious with herself. “I can’t believe I missed it!” She was looking, searching the room.
“Did I have a ponytail holder?”
“We can’t go back.”
Maggie froze. “Of course we can. We have to.”
“There’s a killer in that house, Maggie.”
“I know.” She pressed a hard, quick kiss to his lips. “And this is how we stop them.”