Page 110 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

Her smile died.

Mrs. Bennet was huge-eyed, pale, her elbow gripped by one large hand. The man's other hand held a gun to her temple. The back door stood open, allowing the wind to whip in. Lizzy inexplicably noted the swaying, loose wisps of her mother's graying blowing in the wind. She hadn't noticed before how gray her mother had become.

Outside the door, the back parking lot was dark. Usually a single light on a narrow pole kept it illuminated, but it was not shining. The only glow in the lot came from inside the store room, an illuminated trapezoid of white light falling on the dirty, footprinted snow.

"Lizzy?" her mother whimpered. Her eyes were terrified but unfocused, lost.Drunk, Lizzy realized.Uncle Hubert was right. I hadn't paid enough attention. I stopped paying attention in general. I wanted to leave the spying and the artificial anxiety at Langley, in the past.

Her training rushed back to her now, though. She may have distanced herself from her Company habits, but they were not gone. Although her comportment did not change, Agent Bennet’s body tensed, poised itself, and became weaponized.

"Mom, please. Stand still," she commanded in a whisper. She faced the man, staring into his eyes. "What do you want?"

In response, he lifted his head and tossed his chin over his shoulder toward the open back door. Looking in that direction, Lizzy first saw black shoes in the storeroom light…then a black overcoat…then the black gun in a hand. The white of his collar showed before his grim, satisfied smile.

"Father Robyn?"

The priest had not come in but stood just outside the doorway in the trapezoid of light as if it were a fell spotlight. "Hello,Fanny—or should I sayAgent Bennet?" He did not wait for a response. "I need you and—your mother?Mrs. Bennet?—to come with me."

Behind him, she could now discern the looming shadow of a large van darkly silhouetted against the dark. She did not try to process his sudden appearance—maybe later.

Instead, she spoke emphatically, unmistakably, to her mother. "Do what he says, Mom."

He is the Wicker Man.Lizzy knew it.

Mrs. Bennet nodded confusedly as she stared at her daughter and then at the gun in the priest's hand. "Agent Bennet? Father Robyn?" She repeated the words as if they lacked any meaning, brute sounds.

Lizzy stepped out the back door as Collingwood backed carefully toward the van. He stood well in front of her and reached with his free hand to open the van's side door. Mrs. Bennet followed. Lizzy glanced back and saw the other man still gripped her mother's elbow, still had the gun pressed against her head. He had closed the back door of the bridal shop.

Collingwood gestured with his gun for Lizzy to stop beside the van. It was big, tall, and lengthy. Black…or maybe navy. Lizzy had used similar vans for surveillance on previous missions. The rear section appeared to be empty, although her angle of view kept her from seeing all the way to the back. The vans she had used had a windowed partition between the front two seats and the rear cargo area. This one did not; she could see forward to the windshield. It did have a bench seat behind the front seats.

"Put Mrs. Bennet in first, Leo," Collingwood ordered.

Leo led Lizzy's mother to the side and helped her up and onto the bench seat. She slid all the way to the end, muttering. "I don't understand, Lizzy…"

"Now you." Collingwood gestured again with his gun, this time to Lizzy. She could not gauge his facial expression in the dark, but the courtly mock-formality of his tone was completely gone.

She climbed inside and seated herself beside her mother. As she scooted, she felt the seatbelts and immediately helped her mother get hers fastened. Her mother's movements, intended to help, were slow and fumbling, but eventually she was belted. Leo squeezed onto the seat beside them, forcing Lizzy to sit bodkin. Collingwood closed the side door from outside. She pretended to buckle her own seat belt, timing her pretense to coincide with the sound of the closing door. It did not seem that Leo had noticed that the belt did not click.

The driver's door opened, and Collingwood got inside. The gun in his hand had been incongruous enough, but the sight of him behind the wheel struck Lizzy as almost funny. Almost. He placed his gun on the passenger seat, within reach, and fastened his seat belt.

Leo jabbed his gun into her ribs as a reminder of his presence. The injury from Caspar Mountain protestedsharply?the first time it had hurt her in days?but Lizzy did her best to stifle any reaction to the pain.

A moment later, the van was in motion and Collingwood turned it onto the narrow street. Eyes on the road, he took a phone from his coat pocket, put it in a phone holder attached to the dash, and touched the screen. Its GPS app glowed. An address had already been entered. Arrows appeared and a map, but the audio must have been turned off.

"Where are you taking us?" She glared at Collingwood in his rearview mirror.

"To the end of this tale." His lips stretched into a cruel smile. "At least, it will be the end for you…and Agent Darcy."

Lizzy's intake of breath was audible, impossible to hide. Collingwood’s smile became a gloating smirk in the mirror. "Your partner has caused me considerable trouble. And you have, too. It's a shame for your mother that she answered the door. I expected it to be you, the youngest in the shop, still spry after a long day." He shrugged as if more affected by his dashed expectation than what it meant for Mrs. Bennet.

"Who is Agent Darcy?" Lizzy’s mother asked, trying to understand the conversation but lagging behind. "Why is everyone anagent?"

Collingwood nodded in response to her question, agreeing with it rather than answering it. "Yes, Mrs. Bennet, I've wondered that, too."

"I'll explain it all later, Mom." Lizzy tried to sound kind and unafraid, but she saw Collingwood snicker in the mirror. She stared back at him. She wished she could ask about Fitzwilliam but could not risk revealing more than she had. At least what Collingwood said implied Fitzwilliam was still alive and that they were heading toward him.

"So, you'rehim?The Wicker Man?" As she asked, Lizzy squeezed her mother's hand, hoping she would understand the unspoken request for silence.

"Me? Literally? No, Synecdochally, yes. Or, you might say that I am theheadof the Wicker Man. It was never Wickham, despite the similarity of the names." He pointed at himself, his head. "I am the head—but not the belly of the beast. Not the body. Others, like my friend Leo here, make up the body." He waved one hand. "Think of it as vaguely like the relationship between Christ and his church."

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