The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

by Ally Carter

It didn’t make sense. Except in all the ways it did. When Maggie stopped thinking about it as real life and started thinking of it like a story, it felt like the most obvious thing in the world. But the fact remained that Eleanor was an eighty-one-year-old

woman with a bad leg and it was freezing outside. She could be lost or hurt or dying, and still Maggie couldn’t bring herself to panic.

With only two exceptions, Maggie had always been cool in a crisis and calm under pressure. She never overcorrected the wheel or shouted fire or fainted at the sight of blood, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise ten minutes later as she stood in the library with the others, trying to ...

“Oh, I have someplace you can shove your sweater, Kitty!” snapped the duchess. “Say, when do you think they’ll serve lunch?” (The lawyer.) “Perhaps someone should call the police?” (The doctor.) “I remember one time when I was consulting with Scotland Yard. Grizzly stuff. Blood everywhere.” (Sir Jasper.) “You think Aunt Eleanor is dead?” (Cece.)

“Hi. Hello. Welcome back. Just . . . throwing this out there . . . But maybe we should look for Eleanor.” It seemed like a perfectly logical next step but the others were staring at him like he’d just suggested they only have one course for dinner.