Page 85 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

Not promising.

Meticulously, slowly, she began to unpack the bag’s contents, making sure that she stacked the items in reverse order so that, when she returned them, she would place the top of her stack on the bottom of Wickham's duffle. The expected clothing items were there: a couple of shirts, a couple of pairs of pants, socks, underwear.

His leather Dopp kit was in the bottom on one end. She took it out and unzipped it. Inside were a hairbrush, toothbrush, toothpaste, a plastic razor, and a small tube of shaving cream. A small bottle of aftershave. And there was a box of condoms, unopened. Lizzy held it as if it contained a tarantula and put it back.

As she replaced it, she felt a stiffness in the bottom of the kit and heard a faint sound, the crinkle of paper. Taking the condoms back out, she ran her hands around the cloth interior of the kit. There was a seam on the side, near the top. She tugged it, and it opened with the unzipping sound of Velcro. Slipping her hand down into the opening, she felt stiff, folded paper and carefully pulled it out.

It was a map. She could see handwriting on it as well as highlighting. With maddening but necessary slowness and care, she unfolded it and placed it on the bed. It showed South Dakota, all the writing and highlighting concentrated near Rapid City.

An inked star marked a spot labeledSummit Arena at the Monument

Below the label was a date:Saturday, October 24

And a time:7 p.m.

And another notation:Dancer Grand Entry

Below that was the further notation:2024 Black Hills Pow Wow

Stomach sinking, she turned the map over and saw an architectural schematic taped to it; that explained why the map was so stiff.

The schematic was unmarked, but it chilled her. Wickham had apparently gone to Rapid City to meet with Bang Fumerton, although no one could confirm that they had met. Since Fumerton was a bomb maker, the schematics made the inference unavoidable: The Wicker Man was planning an attack on the Black Hills Pow Wow, an annual celebration of Native American culture and heritagethe next day. The specific target was the Dancer Grand Entry. She stood, stunned and disbelieving.

Destabilization. Anarchy. Create or worsen hatreds.

She photographed the map and schematics with her cell phone, making sure that all of the details, the notations, were clearly legible in the pictures. After finishing that, she folded the map and returned it to the Dopp kit, refastening the Velcro. Then she forced herself…very deliberately…to return the other items to the kit and to repack the duffle.

Wickham made a mistake.Lust, frustration, anticipation, whatever?he did not suspect Fanny.

Lizzy picked up her phone, desperately hoping for a signal, some way to send the pictures to Fitzwilliam. She went outside, looking around and hoping that Agent McDougal was there and would respond. She turned on the front deck lights, and then she flicked them on and off. There was no response, only the silence of the trees and the gathering dark.

The time on her phone showed it was now after 7 p.m. She found a flashlight in a drawer and ran up the driveway toward the main road, waving the light, again hoping to alert McDougal. Again, there was no response.

Running back to the cabin, she went inside and relocked the door. It was now fully dark. She clicked on lights in the living room and kitchen. The oven was hot, and the water had nearly boiled away. It was close to the time for Wickham's return. The next few minutes were a flurry of desperate but controlled cooking as she brought the meal nearly to completion.

He needed to believe what Lizzy wanted him to believe, that Fanny had set the scene for her own seduction. She hurried to the bedroom, opened her suitcase, and fished out the one piece of lingerie she had packed in case she needed it as a prop to make Wickham believe the weekend was going to go his way.

She took off her clothes and pulled the silky, short nightie over her head. It was lacy in all the right places, teasingly daring but not quite revelatory?the sort of thing Fanny would wear. Even though it fell all the way to mid-thigh, it exposed enough of Lizzy's legs that Wickham would conflagrate. She brushed her hair and applied lipstick.

Back in the kitchen, she finished preparing the meal and plated it. The flashlight drawer also held candles as well as candleholders and matches, so she placed the candles in the center of the small table and arranged the plates around it.

The meal was ready. Almost everything was ready.

After one more quick breathing exercise, she found liquor in the pantry and poured two glasses of bourbon, neat. She pulled the pretend birth control package from her purse, took one pill out, dropped it into the drink on the right, and watched it slowly dissolve.

Headlights showed outside.Wickham.

Lizzy unlocked the door and ran her hands over the nightie, smoothing it, feeling more naked, more vulnerable than she ever remembered feeling in her life. She picked up the two drinks carefully, the one on the right in her right hand, and she posed Fanny in the lingerie.

Dessert on display.

It occurred to her only then that her lingerie was red.

It felt like a sign, but she didn’t know what it meant.

Chapter Twenty-One: Visions

Lizzy stood with a drink in both hands. The wood floor felt cold beneath her bare feet. She arranged Fanny—arranged herself—like the swimsuit models she'd seen standing in photographs on social media, angling her body slightly to the side with almost all her weight on one foot, that leg straight with the other leg, the one toward the door, bent, just the ball of that foot in contact with the floor.

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