The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

by Ally Carter

It was December twenty-third. It was December twenty-third. It was December— “Maggie?” She spun, but, in the darkness, the dark green and purple rug was hard to see and her foot caught on the upturned corner and Maggie fe...

She would have preferred the hard floor. Maybe a nice cliff? If only she could have broken a bone or two . . . “Easy . . .” His voice sounded like chocolate tastes: dark and rich and like some...

Maggie wanted to laugh. She was going to cry. Because, the truth was, no one had her and no one ever would. Maggie had herself. And that was enoug...

“Hey.” She was still in his stupid arms and he was still gazing down at her with his stupid face and stupid eyes, looking like he was worried—like he cared. Like— A loud, crashing sound broke through the silence, reverbe...

At first, Maggie thought she might have dreamed it, but Ethan was already darting out of the library and up the stairs and into the long, main hall where Cece stood outside the closed door of Eleanor’s office. There was a broken cup and saucer o...

“Aunt Eleanor!” the girl called, kicking at the bottom of the door since her hands were full. “Aunt Eleanor, you locked me out again!” She waited a moment. “I found that tea you like in the back of the pantry. I told you no one else had been drinking it.” Cece spotted Ethan and Maggie and lowered her voice. “Probably because it sm...

But no one called back and the door stayed closed and a moment later classical music came booming out of the room. “I guess that’s a no,” Cece told them, sounding worried. “The do...

“Dr. Charles?” Ethan asked and Cece shook her head. “No. The woman she saw after she fell.” She shifted the heavy tray in her hands and moved to a small table a little way down the hall. “I’ll lea...

Down the hall, a door opened. “Would you keep it down out here?” Rupert snapped. “You’re going to wake—” The baby began to cry and Rupert cringed as if he was the one who was going to have to put her back to sleep. “Sorry, Rupert. Good night.” C...

There was a lesson there—Maggie knew it. But there was also a clock, nestled in the middle and blinking red: 12:03 a.m. On December twenty-third.

And Maggie felt every ounce of fight drain from her body. Two minutes earlier she’d been full of steam, but now she was an old balloon, weak and sinking under the weight of too much string.

“Maggie?” She could feel Ethan’s breath on the back of her neck, so close that, when she turned, she could actually feel the rise and fall of his chest, but she just stood there, caught in his gaze as he whispered, “I could always pick you out of a lineup.” He walked away and she...

Maggie hadn’t wanted any of it, but Maggie had been outvoted. So she’d retreated to a café to try to get two thousand words written because it’s easy to zone out in a chaotic coffee shop but not in your own chaotic house and Maggie didn’t even try to understand the difference.

“Please tell me you’re sitting down,” Deborah told her. “Why?” “Because this might be the phone call that changes your life.” It wasn’t like Deborah to be hyperbolic, so Maggie was almost scared when she asked, “Change my life how?” “You’re a finalist”—Deborah gave a dramatic pause—“for Betty’s Book Club.”

“Betty’s . . .” “There’s a fifty-fifty chance that you will be the Betty’s Book Club pick for January. It’s down to you and one other author, but...

It meant millions of copies. It meant movie options. It meant that when strangers asked Oh, have you written anything I might have heard of? from that poin...

“Maggie? Did you hear me? This is big, but it’s not a done deal yet, so don’t tell anyone.” Maggie swore she wouldn’t and then she crammed her laptop in her bag and raced home to tell someone. “Em...

The house was full of flowers and chafing dishes and stacks of tables and chairs. “Where are you two?” Maggie yelled, ignoring the ridiculous ice sculpture that som...

Then she heard the voices, hushed words, and frantic sounds from Maggie’s bedroom. They were moving furniture, her tired brain...

And . . . And . . . And . . . Deborah was right, of course. That phone call had ch...

She was half tempted to draw the old-fashioned bed-curtains and go back to sleep but then she remembered. England. Eleanor. Ethan.

Snow. Feet of it. Miles of it. Clinging to every tree and bush, covering the rolling hills like a layer of thick, soft cotton. It was pure and bright and looked like Christmas—the kind in the movies. The kind that isn’t real.

Of course, Ethan had never had that problem. “Good morning!” he boomed from the doorway. He must have been one of those people who can thrive on very little sleep because he practically bounded over to the sideboard and started piling food on his plate and, nervously, Maggie followed.

He hadn’t even glanced in her direction, and she thought about the look on his face the night before, the low soft words I could always pick you out of a lineup. “Ethan?”

He kept his gaze on the sideboard, and when he spoke, the words were low and under his breath. “I’m hot while I’m pouring coffee. I’m charming while I’m dishing up eggs.”

Maggie was trying to decide if she should feel irritated or relieved that he’d resumed his mocking ways when Kitty appeared at the door, exclaiming, “Good morning! Is everyone here?” She looked around the assembled group as if silently taking a head count. Aside from the children and Nanny Davis, only El...

“I hope you don’t mind, but I’ve worked up a little . . . agenda.” She bit back a grin, like she didn’t want to brag but she was really good at agenda-making. “Nothing formal. Just a few activities to make this”—dramatic pause—“the perfect C...

“Item one!” Kitty went on. “Cut the Yule log. Now, Mr. Wyatt, you look like a man who can wield an axe.” Ha! Lumberjack! Maggie almost pumped her fist before she felt warm breath on the shell of her ear as someone (one guess who) whispered, “I’m hot while I wield an axe.”

“When you’re done, I have a few places you can stick it,” she whispered back, but his only response was a chuckle. “Item two! Decorate—” But before Kitty could finish, Cece came bursting into the room. “Miss Honeychurch!” Dr. Charles exclaimed. “What’s wrong?”

“We haven’t seen her,” Rupert said, going back to his eggs. “Up writing half the night, blasted music blaring.” He sounded more than a little annoyed. But Cece . . . Cece looked distraught. “Has anyone seen Aunt Eleanor? Has anyone seen her this morning?”

A shiver went down Maggie’s spine for reasons that had nothing to do with flannel-wearing men and chilly windows. “Why?” “She’s not in her bedroom,” Cece said. “Or the library. She’s nowhere. She’s . . . gone.”

For a moment, the room was frozen, silent. It was like they had all misheard simultaneously. Like it was a joke and Cece was taking forever with the punch line. “She’s disappeared!” Cece blurted louder.

But the duke simply huffed from the place he’d assumed at the head of the table. “Ninety-year-old women—” “She’s eighty-one,” Maggie cut in, but the man either didn’t hear or didn’t care. “—do not simply disappear, young lady.” He spat the words like it was somehow Cece’s fault. Like Eleanor was a dog and Cece had let her off her leash. “I know that,” Cece implored. “But I can’t find her.” “Well, did you check her office?” the duchess asked.

They must have made an odd little processional—Rupert in the lead with the rest of Eleanor’s friends and family trailing behind him. Maggie shouldn’t have been surprised to feel Ethan beside her, but there he was, expression oddly serious as they walked down the long hall toward Eleanor’s office.

James was already there and knocking. “Ma’am? Ma’am, if you could open the door, please?” “Give me the key,” Rupert demanded, but James kept on knocking. “The key!” Rupert snapped at Cece this time, sounding a bit too haughty for a man who was currently wearing a sweater with a pear tree on it.

James didn’t cry or whimper. He just looked at Rupert in the manner of a man who had been there long before Eleanor’s ungrateful nephew showed up and who would be there long after. “There is only one key, sir. And Ms. Ashley keeps it with her at all times.”

Ethan was squatting on the floor and looking at the lock, examining the door in a way the others hadn’t noticed. “This lock is new. A master key wouldn’t work on this door.” “Precisely,” James said. “Ms. Ashley had this lock changed a year ago and was adamant that she keep possession of the only key.”

“That’s insane.” Rupert turned to his sister. “I told you she was paranoid. Delusional. I was afraid something like this was going to happen.” The hall filled with bickering and shouts, but all Maggie could think was What if something is wrong? What if she’s hurt? What if, at this moment, Eleanor is on the other side of that door, and . . .

Maggie turned and looked at Ethan. He didn’t feel like a stranger anymore. They were the only silent people in the space but a whole conversation...

Can you believe these idiots? And Priorities, people! And, most of all, This could be bad. This could be very, very bad and they either don’t know or don’t care ...

She watched Ethan make up his mind. And spin. And kick. The door splintered, springing open, and the hall went suddenly silent. “Oh, look. The do...

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, outs...

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 picke...

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 a...

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.” “...

“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...

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 ridiculo...

“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 ...