Page 24 of Pride, Prejudice, & Pretense

She let another beat pass. "I suppose that'd be okay. Ned and I canceled our plans, and I don't have any others."

"Wonderful," he said, no surprise in his voice. From his point of view, he was succeeding, too. "I'll have a car. Should I pick you up?"

Darcy had moved to stand beside her, and she was holding the phone so he could hear, although she knew Charlie should be recording the call. Darcy nodded when she looked at him, and she responded to Wickham. "Yes, that will be fine. I'll text you my address."

"Good. Say 3 p.m.? That'll give us two or three hours of daylight to see some sights, and we can decide about dinner as we do. You're sure it won't be any problem…I mean, with Ned?"

"No, I'll tell him. He knows you, and he hates that our plans had to be canceled."

"Brilliant. Be sure to bring a jacket. We may be outside, do some walking."

"Okay. I'll text the address soon. I'll be downstairs. Text me when you arrive."

"See you soon, Fanny."

"Bye, George." She ended the call.

Darcy looked flushed beneath his stubble, but he smiled at her. "Kellynch was right. You were the woman for the job." He said it in a low voice as if his words were both verdict and sentence.

He turned and walked into the living room. She followed. He stopped and stared down at the checkerboard.

Chapter Seven: Prophets and Losses

Darcy turned from the checkerboard to face Lizzy, his stooped, pondering posture becoming ramrod straight. He was frowning, his eyes dark. "We need to prepare for tonight. Ready ourselves. Sooner…not later." Although he faced her and spoke in the first-person plural, it was unclear if he was really speaking to Lizzy.

He seemed to catch himself, and he focused intently on her before he spoke again. “Bingley should have put some tech equipment in the bedroom closet. Since you'll be with Wickham without me, we need to confirm that we can track you and track what's happening. Since Bingley must have heard the call and recorded it, he knows to get the other tech preparations underway."

Darcy gestured for her to lead the way, and they walked to the bedroom. In the closet, pushed to the back on the top shelf, a large, used-looking cardboard box labeledPhotoswas sitting.Lizzy had not yet noticed it, as it was too far back for her to see it without craning.

He placed it on the bed and opened it, then pulled out photographs of a dark-haired girl with a man and woman, presumably her parents?Fanny's parents. There were also photos of Lizzy from her high school and college days, all altered so that the backgrounds were nondescript, featuring nothing that would identify the locations. Lizzy recognized them as photos the CIA had used before when constructing a cover for her, other covers.

Darcy nodded at them. "The usual. Fanny's prior life. They're all also on your phone, but more since hardly anyone has hard copies of photographs now. These are here for atmosphere."

"Like my new used books?"

That got a flicker of a grin from Darcy.

He dug deeper into the box and, beneath the photos, unearthed a smaller cardboard box that was long, narrow, and flat. He opened one end and shook it. A paper holding tiny discs fell out, looking like thick white stickers, along with a necklace—a heavy gold pendant with a topaz gem in the center—and three pairs of earrings, each pair still attached to a decorative flat piece of cardboard.

Lizzy understood it all without Darcy explaining: the discs, adhesive, would allow her to be tracked when slipped into a purse, a jacket, or a shoe and fastened in place. The necklace contained the latest CIA high-tech camera, and the earrings were similar cutting-edge listening devices. Darcy glanced at her, and she nodded her recognition.

"Be sure to stow two of the disks away tonight, one on your person and one in your jacket or your purse, and, of course, wear the necklace and a pair of the earrings. Bingley will tell you more about it in the video conference he mentioned. To be honest, I hadn't expected Wickham to act so quickly. I figured we'd have all day today to prepare."

His words contained a tincture, not just of disappointment, but of disapproval. The disappointment Lizzy thought she understood, but she did not know whom or what he disapproved of. He put his hands in his pockets, looking for a moment at the items on the bed and then for a moment at her.

Shrugging, he pulled his hands out and waved one toward the door. "I'm going to go and help Bingley. He'll video conference with you soon.

“Oh! One thing that I haven't mentioned since it wasn't available until today. Between the parking deck below your building and the one across the street where Bingley and I are staying, there's an underground tunnel. It's part of the reason Ichose this location. It took this long to get the building owners to give us the keys to it, and they finally arrived last night while we were at the party." Putting a hand back in a pocket, Darcy produced a worn, thick brass key, which he handed to her. "The door's heavy steel, gray, with no markings, only a round brass lock. Just follow the tunnel, and it will take you to a matching door in our parking deck. The key will open that door, too. I checked them both this morning and walked the tunnel a couple of times. The tunnel's not in regular use and it's dark, so be careful. But the floor is smooth, free of debris. So far as I know, there should be no need for you to use it, but it will allow Bingley and me to move between the buildings without being visible." He paused. "If—when—Wickham's in your apartment, one of us will be in this building nearby, too."

"That sounds good. Thanks to you both."

"Like I said, I'm going to go help Bingley. He'll be in touch soon."

With that, Darcy left, leaving Lizzy standing in the living room, deciding what she would wear and trying steel herself to face what was ahead. She found it hard to do. The nature of this mission and her lack of downtime made it hard to summon the energy she needed.

She felt worn, threadbare?wrong from the start.

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