Page 66 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

"After seeing her, Wickham pursued her with vigor, more seriously when he found out about Paul. He pursued her…but he never forced her, physically. Oh, he touched her"?Darcy glanced up again?"but he always seemed to know how far he could push that. What's the American baseball metaphor?Second base. He would get to second base and stop while talking about more. The same thing he's done with you. As I mentioned, he wants to sleep with you, and he wanted to sleep with Georgiana. But he wants it to be self-betrayal, and a betrayal of someone else, someone you care about. That's what he did to Georgiana and Paul. He destroyed everything between them by making sure that Georgiana…slept with him while still withPaul. He kept her sleeping with him and kept her lying to Paul about it for as long as he could.

"Paul eventually guessed she was with someone else and ended it. It didn't take long after that for Wickham to lose interest in her. He went on sleeping with her until he tired…of her body, and then he began to mistreat her. Not physically but psychologically. What she had done, her compromise of herself and of Paul, her broken promises"?Darcy paused, and Lizzy thought about the wordcompromise?"had already destroyed her self-esteem, filled her with guilt and self-loathing. He tapped into that and added to it.

“In the end, he abandoned her in Manchester in a dingy hotel. That's where she was when she called me. When I arrived, I barely knew her. She was caved-in, wild."

He laced his fingers together and faced Lizzy. "So far, his pattern with you has been the same as his pattern with Georgiana. I've based Ned loosely on Paul. The point of all of this—and I know I've said it before, or some of it—is that I don't believe he will try physically to force anything on you, not tonight, maybe not ever. He would only do thatin extremis.What...arouses him isn't physical power?it's moral power, the power to cause you to act against what you know to be right, the power to make you choose what you know is wrong. He wants to exploit weakness of will rather than physical weakness.

"Having said all that, I'd still feel better if I knew you had a firearm when he is in the apartment." His eyes left Lizzy's face and took all of her in.

He seemed to notice her outfit for the first time. He had been too preoccupied when he came in. "Is that what you're going to wear?" he asked, standing up.

Lizzy wasn't sure who was speaking. Agent Darcy, Fitzwilliam, or Ned. "Yes." She spun around on her bare feet. "Ithought it was…as close tojust right, given the situation, as I could find."

Darcy's eyes swept up and down, ending their movement at her feet, her red toenails.All-day permanent red,Ned had texted.

"Was I wrong?" she asked during his silence.

"No, you look casual and wonderful, and I have to live with that."

"It's Fanny dressing for Wickham. Not me…or not really me, if you know what I mean. I'm dressing myself as if I were someone else."

He nodded, his lips pressed in a thin, grim line. "Yes. But he has to touch you to touch Fanny. He has to stare at you to stare at her."

She started to respond, but Darcy's phone beeped. "It's Bingley," he said, puzzled by the call.

He walked over to the computer.

When Charlie appeared on the screen, he looked pale and upset, and then he spoke as if he could not quite own his own words. "The CIA team that was trailing Wickham, the Rapid City team…One of the Company analysts just called. The South Dakota Highway Patrol found them shot to death inside their car. The car was tangled in a destroyed section of fence alongside a deserted stretch of road."

Neither Lizzy nor Darcy responded at first. Like Charlie, they had to come to grips with the information.

"Where, exactly?" Darcy asked, his voice suddenly hoarse.

"The nearest landmark is Vivos xPoint."

Darcy turned to Lizzy, his face blank. She stepped over and stood beside him. "The bunker community?"

Charlie nodded. "Yes."

Darcy looked at the screen and then at Lizzy. She shrugged. "I don't know much about it, but it was part of a briefing wehad a couple of years ago, a briefing about preppers. Doomsday preppers. It was the Black Hills Army Base, built by the Army Corps of Engineers, a fortress of bunkers to store bombs and munitions. In use from the early 40's until the late 60's, roughly. There are over 500 bunkers. The land area's like three-quarters the size of Manhattan."

"Americans!" he muttered in disbelief. He did not elaborate, instead turning back to the screen. "Did Wickham do it?"

Charlie shook his head. "We don't think so. He may have been involved somehow, but it’s impossible for him to have pulled the trigger. The team was found not long ago. As soon as the South Dakota trooper called it in, Langley heard. The team had been expected to report earlier, and Langley was worried. The trooper found them shortly after they'd been killed, although it was long enough for the scene to have been swept—no shells, no tire tracks. Wickham was on the security cameras at the Rapid City airport and had been there for a couple of hours before his flight. It’s about an hour and a half from the airport to the scene. Since he was on camera just after the trooper called it in, there’s no chance he was there when it happened. The timeline is wrong. He had to have help."

Darcy’s shoulders were hunched. "Like I said when this started, the Wicker Man is not just George Wickham. The Wicker Man's a network. So did Wickham visit this fortress of bunkers?"

Charlie shrugged slightly. "Unclear, but that seems like the likeliest explanation for the team being there. After all, their orders were to trail Wickham. I'm guessing he made their tail and called for reinforcements. However, the team never reported being there. Maybe they intended to mention it when they were scheduled to call in.

“The Company has already stepped in and claimed the scene. We'll get full details from the cleaners after they'vefinished. There's a security team employed by Vivos xPoint, and they keep watch. They claim they can spot anyone within three miles of the property. There's just one road in and out. Our analysts have a call in to Vivos, but they aren't known for easy cooperation with the government."

Darcy and Lizzy exchanged uneasy looks, and he turned to the screen again. "Anything else?"

"No, except I ran the tests on the bugs in Lizzy's apartment a little while ago?before I got the call from Langley. Everything's working as it should. They'll go back on at 7:30 p.m. I need you to return, Darcy, so I can get into position in Lizzy's building. It'll be time for Wickham soon. His flight is on time, and I have a feeling he'll hurry to Fanny once he's on the ground."

Darcy held Lizzy's eyes. "Okay. I'm going to go. Don't think about this. Rapid City. Just think about what's going on here, in your apartment.Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof—and unto the location. When Bingley and I trade places, I'll keep up with what's happening in South Dakota and share it after Wickham leaves."

Charlie acknowledged his agreement, and Darcy shut the computer. He put his hands on her shoulders, gripping them tightly, urgently, but not hurting her. "Stay focused. Whatever the Wicker Man came to the Midwest for is now underway." She nodded. His face, his lips were tantalizingly close to hers.

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