The Most Wonderful Crime of the Year

by Ally Carter

Of course, I’m not offended that you’d accuse me of murder. I’m offended you’d think I’d be bad at it.

“You could come home with me,” a voice said from behind her. And that’s how she met Emily. And that was the beginning of everything. Even the end.

A ding pierced the silence. Ethan hadn’t spoken since the airport. He hadn’t looked at her since the wink. Ding. She watched him tap his phone to check a text from Amber. Where are you, Mr. Hotstuff? Oh please . . . Ding. This one was from Maya: WE MISS YOU. Ding. Brooklyn: You seriously aren’t coming? Ding. Kimmy: I refuse to have Christmas without you. Ding. Rachel: I can beg, you know? Do you want me to beg? “Say whatever it is you’re thinking over there before your head explodes.” Ding. Maggie could have denied that she was snooping, but she was far too tired and too jet-lagged to try. “You’re . . . popular.” “These are from the last eight hours. We must have just gotten service.” “Oh.” She looked at her own phone. Twenty percent battery. Two bars. And not a single sound. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ding. Ethan barely glanced at a string of texts from “Do Not Resuscitate,” then sighed and powered off the phone. “Please tell me they don’t have cell service wherever we’re going,” he called up to the driver.

“Won’t your girlfriends worry if they don’t hear from you?” she couldn’t resist saying. “Oh, they’re trained better than that.”

She turned to see Ethan staring at her from the other side of the room. “And him?” Eleanor’s voice pulled her back. “Excuse me?” “What do you think of him?” “He’s very popular.” It wasn’t opinion; it was fact. Millions of copies sold. Signings that lasted well into the night. Fan groups and podcasts and (allegedly) a need to check into hotels under fake names to keep groupies from tracking him down. Maggie had it on good authority that there was a store on the internet that specialized in T-shirts with his face on them. (Not that she’d looked. Much.) “With . . . everyone.” “But not with you?” Eleanor asked.

“So how do you know my aunt?” Victoria, the Duchess of Stratford, held a gin and tonic in one hand and a healthy dose of skepticism in the other as they settled around the dining room table.

“As I told you, Victoria, Maggie, Ethan, and Sir Jasper are my guests,” Eleanor said from her place at the head of the table. Her gaze was sharp, but her tone was overly indulgent. “I’m a great admirer of their work. Besides, it seemed we were going to have more than enough room this year.” She shook out her napkin. “Tell me again why your boys couldn’t make it?”

“Simon’s new girlfriend is thirty-seventh in line for the throne, you know,” he added, like he didn’t want to brag, but, really, how could Eleanor compete with that? “Well, I hope you don’t want me to plan thirty-six murders. I could make ten look like accidents. Twelve at the most,” Eleanor said, and Maggie could have sworn the duke looked disappointed.

As far as Maggie could tell, Ethan Wyatt had been born five years ago, a six-foot-two-inch baby in a leather jacket. No résumé. No bio. Just a runaway bestseller and a jaw that could cut glass.

“For a murder isn’t a murder when there is no death. And a mystery isn’t a mystery when”—she slammed the book shut— “It’s only a test.”

“Sometimes I lie in bed at night, thinking of ways to kill you and make it look like an accident.” His whole face changed. Pity turned to arrogance as his gaze dipped to her lips. And lingered. “So what you’re saying is, you think about me in bed.” And then all Maggie could do was scream and storm away.

“Because even though I’m a sucker for an only-one-bed romance, I don’t know if it counts if there’s a second bed on the other side of the wall.” “But I like your bed being on that side of the wall. I like it even better when you’re in that bed. And— Wait. You read romance?” “Sweetheart”—Ethan lowered his voice and his eyes—“I absolutely read romance.”

But then he turned and she realized that his pajama bottoms had Thief in the Knight printed across the butt. “Please tell me you’re not wearing Ethan Wyatt swag?” “Margaret!” He sounded scandalized. “Are you looking at my buttocks?” “Your buttocks have the title of your third novel printed on them.” “Margaret! Are you trying to undress me?” “No!” “Because ordinarily I sleep in the nude, but given the circumstances—” “Branded buttocks are fine!” “I mean I’d rather not be totally naked if I’m called upon to protect you. Again.”

“There’s no way, no universe, no reality in which you aren’t the brightest star in the whole damn sky, and . . .” His cheeks flushed. His hand shook, and he looked away like, suddenly, he was the one who was embarrassed. “That’s all I wanted to say.”

“And nieces and nephews. So many nieces and nephews.” “How many?” “Seven. No, twelve. Maybe eighteen? I don’t know. They keep popping them out.” “You sound very attentive. Involved.” “Hey. I give piggyback rides and buy candy. Those little monsters love me.”

“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.”

“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—”

“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.”

If you were missing, I’d find you. I’d tear the house down stone by stone. I’d rip apart every room and scour every field and I wouldn’t stop. I would never stop.”

“Listen to me, Inspector.” Ethan’s voice was dark and low. “I don’t know where Maggie is at the moment, but I’m going to find her. And you’re either going to help me or get out of my way because I’m getting ready to start breaking things. Lamps. Dishes.” He cocked an eyebrow. “Heads.” To Dobson’s credit, he didn’t even flinch. “I could arrest you for that, you know?” “Oh.” Ethan didn’t even try not to smirk. “You’re more than welcome to try.”

Ethan. Another picture filled her mind then: Ethan’s face in black and white, making Eleanor laugh before handing her a tray full of poison. Ethan smirking and glaring as he turned and walked away from the scene of the crime. Ethan staring down at the nanny cam in Maggie’s arms like it was a land mine, like it was going to blow his life to smithereens. Ethan.

It’s because I love you, Margaret Elizabeth Chase.” He almost sounded angry. “Don’t tell me I don’t, and don’t tell me to stop because, believe me, I’ve tried. I know you don’t feel the same. But I love you. And so I’m going to get you out of here.”

“I want to know what your hair feels like wrapped around my fist. I want to lift you up and press you against that wall until your lips get plump and your breath goes ragged and your legs wrap around my waist because, otherwise, you’d just melt away. I want to feel your hands on my shoulders and mine on your waist. On your ass. I want to feel you everywhere. I want to know you everywhere. I want to purge you from my system and I want to never let you go. I want you. And I want it to end. “But I can handle those moments, painful as they are. The bad moments—the ones I really hate are the five hundred times a day I want to hold your hand. Or touch that little piece of hair that never stays behind your ear. Or walk just a little bit closer to you than I have to. I want to stop feeling like life is a game of tag and you’re base. I want to forget that base hates me.”

“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.”

But Ethan grew serious, thinking . . . remembering . . . deciding. “I thought you looked like forever.”

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.”

Ethan was going to kill . . . someone. The killer, obviously.

“You know, if mankind has one universal superpower, it’s gaslighting women into thinking they’re the problem.”

“I think you’ve been looking for this, Inspector. It’s the ending of Eleanor’s new book.” She flipped through the pages. “Everyone knows Eleanor loves a twist, and I’ve got to say, it’s a good one. You see . . . when I realized she was writing a story about a woman who fakes her death and disappears because someone is trying to kill her, I thought she was being meta . . . making a point. I thought it was a clue—and it was. But I was also wrong because this book isn’t about Eleanor. It’s not even about now.” Maggie felt herself drifting toward the windows that looked out over the wide expanse of snowy grounds. “It’s about a young woman who walked five miles in the rain on a broken leg before collapsing on Eleanor’s doorstep. It’s about a girl who was so poor and a boy whose family was so powerful that no one would ever believe their golden son had beaten her unconscious and left her for dead. It’s about a young woman who was so terrified she decided to just be dead—change her appearance and her name and disappear—because, sometimes, being dead is the only way to stay alive.” Maggie looked back at the group. “It’s about a girl who was so scared she never spoke her attacker’s name—not even to Eleanor. But Eleanor was Eleanor . . . she always had her suspicions.” Ethan looked down at Dobson. “It’s about the woman you thought you killed, Inspector. You know the case you came to Eleanor asking for help with forty years ago? The crime you thought you’d gotten away with? Well, Ele...

“Loralee.” Maggie almost tripped over her own feet. “What did you just say?” “Loralee. Shayne.” He spoke the words slowly, enunciating every syllable in turn and Maggie gulped. “I’m afraid I don’t know who that is.” “Really? Because the lip you always bite when you lie says otherwise.” Maggie immediately stopped biting her lip, but it was too late. He knew. And, oh, was he smug. “I told you I’d find the fourth pen name.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “Monster books, Maggie! Monster f—” “We’re not talking about this.” “Oh, we are absolutely talking about this.” He pulled her closer and whispered in her ear, “Later. Later we are going to talk about this in very”—he kissed her—“specific”—he kissed her again—“detail.” “How did you even . . . How?” “It’s an anagram of Eleanor Ashley.”