Mistletoe’s Kiss

26. Chapter 26

26

Chapter 26

“Oh yes. I’ve no doubt in my own mind that we have been invited here by a madman - probably a dangerous homicidal lunatic.”

And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

“ I t was you!”

As she uttered those words, Maddy felt the world drop out from underneath her. She had only just met Nolan, but she couldn’t deny the connection she felt, a chemistry that had sparked between them, one she’d hoped to explore once tonight was over and they returned to their normal lives.

He smiled, stepping further into the room, closing the door behind him. “That’s right, baby doll. It was me.”

At her hitched breath, he rumbled, “Don’t worry, Maddy. I won’t hurt you… unless you want me to.” He bit his bottom lip, his gaze darkening. “I’d hurt you SO bad, sweetheart, in all the right ways… if you let me.”

Panic swirled in her chest as she processed his words. Nolan clearly wasn’t who she had thought he was. He’d killed Dan, and now he was blocking her exit. Yet, a small part of her clung to the memory of their short time together—he hadn’t hurt her then, and for some foolish reason, she wanted to believe he wouldn’t hurt her now.

Shaking in disbelief, she managed to ask, “Why? Why did you do it? Was this all some elaborate game?” Her voice trembled, and she fought against the rising tide of fear mixed with an unsettling curiosity. The truth felt tantalizingly close, but it also threatened to unravel everything she had thought she knew.

“You first…” Nolan said, tapping his fingers against his lips in consideration. “What gave me away?”

Maddy steadied herself, she would need to remain calm and refocus if she was going to get through this… whatever this was. She took a deep breath “…well…at first… I believed your story about living nearby and getting here before the roads got too bad, but as the night went on and some of my immediate panic faded it became less and less plausible. I mean, come on! What constabulary sends a lone detective to a murder scene?!”

“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” he said with a shrug. “Being a detective was never a part of my plan, so I had to improvise. It was such a great opportunity, I just couldn’t resist.” Before she could ask what he meant by that, he pressed on, “What else?”

“Your behaviour. I’ve written about detectives and amateur sleuths. I’ve met and talked to real detectives to get insights into how they work. I was a suspect just as much as the other guests, but you let me tag along with you while you interviewed them. Actually, you let me question them too!”

Nolan raised an eyebrow, a hint of amusement playing at the corners of his mouth. “And?”

“Then there was the flirting,” she continued her heart racing. “I wasn’t imagining it. It was wildly unprofessional and not something a detective would have been doing during an investigation.”

She’d let the excitement and adrenaline sweep her away tonight; for once, she’d gone with the flow, and look where it had brought her. She’d almost kissed a murderer! A surge of guilt and anger coursed through Maddy, twisting in her chest. It was infuriating, knowing she’d been deceived, drawn into this reckless attraction to a man who’d been lying to her from the start. She felt betrayed, not just by him but by her own emotions, as if she’d been tricked into falling for a mask instead of the real person lurking behind it.

“Don’t be cross with me sweetheart,” he cooed. “I’ll explain everything. Just tell me what finally clued you in. It was Michaels wasn’t it…”

“Well, Michaels was a big part of it. At first, I wasn’t entirely sure about everything else. I thought maybe I was imagining your strange behaviour, or just being overly suspicious. I was stressed and not thinking clearly. But later, in the parlour, when Michaels said we needed to call the police, he looked straight at you. It wasn’t the look you’d give a detective… It was as if he knew you in some other way,” she trailed off, her gaze shifting away, struggling to find the words.

“It was my fault, after we found Dan and I took Michaels to the kitchen I was talking to Sara about the police. Michaels interrupted me, he was really confused and muttering “police”, I thought he was saying he’d already called them from here. But he didn’t did he? He was too far gone to do anything but shout for help, the sight of all that blood sent him into shock, there’s no way he could have picked up a phone and called the police.

Nolan nodded, “you’re right, he didn’t call the police. But that’s not all, is it? There was something else that hammered the nail in the coffin.”

“The character cards, that’s the reason I came back to the study…”

At Nolan’s raised brows, she pressed on, her voice steadier than she felt. “When I pushed Dan away from me after the tarot readings, I dropped my clutch, and in the chaos, Dan’s jacket fell to the floor. Everything in my bag spilled out and I’m assuming the contents of Dan’s pockets did too.” She took a breath, trying to piece it all together in her mind. “I didn’t think much of it at the time, but now…

“In the parlour I was looking for something in my bag when I realized that I had Dan’s character card. Mine was definitely in there earlier, so I think Dan picked mine up by mistake before he left the room.”

Maddy watched Nolan’s expression shift from confusion to curiosity. “I’m not quite following, Maddy. What’s that got to do with anything?”

“It was something you said earlier. You called Dan ‘The Millionaire Playboy,’ and when Sara asked how you knew he was that character, you said you saw the card on the desk when you went into the study. But you couldn’t have seen it, could you? It wasn’t there. It was in my bag. So I went to see for myself, and sure enough, my card, ‘The Famous Author,’ was sitting on the desk, spattered with blood.”

She jumped about a mile into the air as Nolan slowly clapped his hands. “Fuck! You’re even more impressive than I thought you’d be, and baby, I already thought the world of you! Well, now it must be my turn. But let’s move somewhere more comfortable. I need to explain myself to you, and it’s a long romantic story. Too romantic to be told next to a dead body and a puddle of congealing blood.”

Maddy’s heart raced, a mixture of anxiety and intrigue coursing through her veins. She opened her mouth to protest, but the fervour in his eyes made her hesitate. Perhaps she wanted to know what he had to say if only to understand how deep this tangled web of deception truly went.

“I’m not sure I want to go anywhere with you,” she replied, her voice firm despite the tremor of uncertainty beneath it. “You said you won’t hurt me, but I don’t know you. You’ve already lied to me tonight.”

“But that’s just the thing, Maddy,” he said, taking a step closer. “You do know me. You know me very well…”

As he walked slowly toward her, he extended one hand, as if to shake. When she didn’t move away, he took her hand in his, gently squeezing it. “Nice to finally meet you, Maddy. I’m ‘[email protected].’”