Chapter Twenty Little Red Cabin

The flight attendant opened the plane door, and the passengers began to deplane. Lizzy looked out the window. It was sunny and clear, cloudless, in Casper's afternoon.

The two of them were near the front of the plane, so their turn was coming soon. Wickham stood to retrieve their luggage from the overhead bin.

Lizzy blew out a breath when he couldn’t see her, allowing the sadness she was stowing away a moment of freedom, allowed it to touch her again. She unclicked her seat belt and stood up as much as she could beneath the bin as she recomposed her face and her feelings. Then she eased into the aisle and stood straight. Wickham was carrying her suitcase and his duffle just ahead of her.

The willowy blonde flight attendant who stood at the plane door offered perfunctory goodbyes as the passengers filed past her—but her goodbye to Wickham seemed genuine, aimed to capture his attention. She had been too obvious in her attentions to him on the flight and subtly dismissive of Fanny. Her behavior targeted Wickham, telling him he could do better and that better was in front of him, serving from the drink cart. He had noticed, of course, but he had done nothing to encourage the behavior. His hand had remained anchored to Fanny's knee, confirming Fitzwilliam’s theory. It wasn’t just the sex; it was the sex and ruination.

Wickham nodded to the attendant but did not speak. She gave Fanny a quick, envious glance but did not say goodbye to her, not even perfunctorily. Fanny returned the glance, not with envy, but with entitlement. Wickham had turned his head and saw Fanny's face. He smiled at her expression, pleased. Lizzy could tell he thought Fanny was loosening up, warming up as their travel continued. Ned was decreasing…Wickham increasing. They would dance to completion.

Fanny stepped quickly and was beside Wickham as they entered the Casper/Natrona International Airport. Despite the airport's large title, it was a tiny place, at least in comparison to O'Hare. O'Hare made Lizzy think of vast and ancient Gormenghast, the labyrinthine and endless castle in Mervyn Peak’s novels. In comparison, Casper's airport was a tiny, thatched cottage in the woods. But it was neat and clean.

As they came through their gate, Gate 1, Lizzy saw a restroom sign to her left. She nodded to it and Wickham, understanding, acknowledged with his own nod. “Wisdom. I'll wait."

Lizzy walked quickly under the sign and down the short hallway to the women’s room. She had seen no one around the gate―at least no one who had shown any interest in her and Wickham.

Before she went inside the bathroom, she dug her phone out of the Patagonia bag and held it up, reorienting the camera so that it showed her herself. She pretended to be checking her hair, her makeup, though not actually interested in her own face. She angled the phone to see over her shoulder. No one was following her or watching her. That included Wickham, who stood some distance from the restroom hallway near the gate seats with his phone out, staring hard at it. His duffel and her suitcase were at his feet.

Lizzy quickly lowered her phone, put it back in her bag, and pushed the women’s room door open with her shoulder. She tensed for the meeting she expected. Fitzwilliam had said someone would be waiting for her.

The restroom appeared to be empty. She walked in farther and looked again. She could see a pair of women's shoes—filled with a woman's fleshy feet—beneath one of the stall doors. The feet were placed so that the woman was standing facing the toilet.

The orientation of a man's feet, perhaps, but not normally of a woman's.

She walked to the sink and put her hands under the faucet to get the water to run. A moment later, a blue eye peeped through the crack in the stall door. And then the stall door opened slowly and the woman stepped out.

Lizzy blinked. Female CIA agents did not conform to a stereotype, but whether light or dark, tall or short, they were usually lithe, athletic. There was a certain physical and personal self-possession to them, probably due to the Farm, the combat training, their time spent clashing with and fending off toxic male agents.

But this woman was not athletic, at least not in appearance. She was short and almost as wide as she was tall. Solid, not flabby. Her bright floral dress, too snug at the chest and the waist, was belted, the belt white, clashing with her low blue heels. Her hair was reddish blonde, and her skin was so pale it seemed translucent. Her cheeks, however, were bright red. She was obviously flustered, panting between parted orangy-lipsticked lips. She looked less like a CIA agent secretly delivering a lethal weapon and more like a harried PTA mom making a late delivery of bake-sale cookies.

She surveyed the room with wide eyes and then looked at Lizzy, using the mirror to look into her eyes despite standing behind her. "Agent Bennet?" she asked in a whisper. Then she went on immediately. "I'm McDougal. Agent Karen McDougal." She had a huge leather purse over one arm, and she plunged her hand into it. Lizzy readied herself, but McDougal produced only a CIA pass case and flashed her credentials—badge and photograph.

Lizzy turned and faced her. "Hi, Karen. You have something for me?" She tried not to sound too commanding, too rushed. The poor woman looked overwhelmed.

Karen nodded, putting her pass case away and digging again in her purse, now holding it open with her other hand. She talked as she rummaged, talked fast, breathlessly. "Wow, just, wow! Never imagined meeting you in person! I know your name. I was at the Farm after you, and you were sorta legendary there―highest all-time scores in classes and so on and so on. I was barely able to pass most classes. After graduation, they ended up sending me here, to the Casper satellite office. American Siberia. At first, I thought the assignment was a joke. A joke! Casper? But no—it was my real assignment. And I've been here since. Years."

She looked up and then back down, nervously. "This is the first time I've carried a gun since the Farm." She looked around again, though the door had not opened. "Guns, plural, even if I'm not carrying them both for myself. I mainly shuffle papers no one cares about and read old chatter no one expects to amount to anything. I'm sorry! I have so much in this crazy purse. My toddler's plastic animals…my whole life."

Karen rummaged with more intensity and then grinned. "Here it is." She scanned the room again, theatrically, as if she were play-acting at being a spy. Then she produced a gun, handing it to Lizzy. It was a small revolver, old and a little rusty, but with fresh oil smeared on the barrel and onto the grip. She grimaced as Lizzy noticed the oil.

"It was the only gun in the office that could be easily hidden. My old one. It'll work. I oiled it at the office after Agent Darcy called, and I stopped at a range on the way here and tested it." The faint, unmistakable odor revealed that the gun had been recently fired. "It's not loaded now, but I have a box of ammunition for you." She dug around again, eventually producing the small box and handing it to Lizzy.

“Darcy wanted a team to follow you, but I'm afraid I'm all you've got. I'll tail you until he and his partner find me." She looked into Lizzy's eyes, her blue eyes watery but steadying. "I won't let anything happen to you. Don't worry about my Farm scores. This is the real world. And I'll watch my back along with yours. Darcy told me what happened in Rapid City." She gave Lizzy a smile with some real fortitude in it, and Lizzy smiled back as she slipped the gun and the box of ammunition deep into her bag.

"Thanks, Karen."

Lizzy started to go, but she reached out and grabbed her forearm. "That Agent Darcy…he sounded sexy , like…I don't know…Timothy Dalton or something. That voice made my legs tremble. First time I've reacted like that since long before my divorce, before my toddler." She chuckled. "MI-6?"

"Yes, MI-6," Lizzy admitted.

"Spoken for?" Karen's hesitant smile grew into one that was impish, hopeful, "Married?"

"Not married but, yes, spoken for. Committed."

Her smile twisted to become rueful. "Too bad. Not many worth having in this line of work."

"No, almost none."

"Be careful, Agent Bennet."

"I will. You, too, Karen." Lizzy hurried from the bathroom.

Wickham had turned and was peering down the hallway as she came out the bathroom door. She walked quickly to him. "Sorry to be slow," she said with a vague don’t-ask smile

He gave her a searching look but then nodded and turned toward the exit sign. "All right. There's a car waiting for us at Herz. We still have a drive ahead of us. I want to be there in time for the sunset."

"So, where are we staying? Can't I know now?"

"I already told you we’re going to Casper Mountain, and that's all I'll say. You'll just have to wait and see the rest."

Lizzy nodded and stepped closer, smiling, hoping she might coax more from him. "Casper Mountain sounds wonderful. I love the mountains. Sunset! Won't we need to stop and get…you know, supplies, groceries? You said something about being off the grid."

"It's a cabin," he said, mirroring her smile. "But that's all I'm saying."

He started toward the exit sign carrying his duffle, leaving her suitcase to her. She grabbed the handle, rolled it along, and then looked back. Agent McDougal had come out of the restroom and stood at a distance behind them carrying her huge purse and now wearing a pair of large cheap sunglasses. She was positioned in front of a vending machine, tapping her foot as if in indecision. Karen’s feet facing the machine made Lizzy think of Karen’s feet facing the toilet.

Lizzy turned and caught up with Wickham.

Not married but, yes, spoken for. Committed.

She wondered at her own words, the certainty she had felt in speaking them, her possessiveness. She needed to bridle herself, slow herself. Fitzwilliam said that word, and I feel like he promised something, but what? Are my sudden hopes distorting my understanding of him―even my understanding of me? For years, I've either lived without hope or substituted Kellynch's mission parameters in its place.

She pushed the questions down, the doubts unanswered, reminding herself that she was walking into the unknown with the Wicker Man…trailed only by the sunglassed Agent McDougal carrying her CIA Mary Poppins bag.

" Personal hopes are an encumbrance. Agents cannot carry hope. There is only the mission; its horizons are your life's horizons. A hopeless agent stays alive." Instructors at the Farm had said that to Lizzy repeatedly.

***

The road wound and wound, up and up and up the mountain. Wickham, now wearing sunglasses himself, was driving. He had not been talkative. Lizzy had tried to keep her mind blank, preparing herself for whatever the next few hours might bring. She was in sunglasses, too, mirrored aviators keeping her eyes secreted, unavailable behind them…eyes that would betray her regret for each passing mile as the car climbed the mountain.

She had glanced behind their car a couple of times when she had been able to do so without making Wickham suspicious. There did not seem to be any particular car tailing them. Either Agent McDougal was better in the real world than at the Farm or Lizzy had lost her only present help.

The winding road had reawakened her seasickness, her feeling of being trapped in a vortex, whirling…whirling…but now in slower motion. The slower motion seemed more ominous somehow, not a relief, as if the vortex were sure of her now, no longer in a hurry. Deliberate. It could take its time.

She noticed that Wickham was more alert now. They must be getting close. She looked at her phone. No signal. It had lost signal earlier, a few miles back. Wickham noticed. "Off the grid?"

Lizzy nodded.

"Well, it's only the two of us now. Together. Admit it―you've been eager for this."

"Yes," Fanny said, "but—"

"No 'buts.' We're off the grid. It may not be Vegas, but what happens here will stay here."

The slogan now struck Lizzy as a threat. She made herself laugh, modulating the sound so that it captured Fanny's supposed state of guilty anticipation.

The rays of the late afternoon sun were long now, honey golden, as they shafted through the trees. The scenery would have been beautiful in different company, in a different life.

Wickham slowed the car. A narrow gravel road interrupted the trees on the left-hand side of the road, and he turned into it. It took them down to a cabin, its exterior logs stained rusty red. The roof was metal, dark green. The road—the driveway, Lizzy realized—curled tight against one side of the cabin and ended at the rear.

When the car stopped, Lizzy saw stone pavers covering the ground next to the driveway and forming a kind of patio that led to the back door, the door stationed on the near rear corner of the cabin. Beyond the patio was a small wooden deck, fenced around, with a charcoal grill on it. The deck led to stairs that went up to the far end of the cabin.

Wickham got out, waited for Fanny to emerge, and they both shed their sunglasses. "The Little Red Cabin. Leave the luggage; I'll get it in a bit. The view from the front deck is supposed to be amazing."

He led her onto the deck and then up the far stairs. The front of the cabin had been obscured by trees as they drove in. As she reached the top of the stairs, she involuntarily caught her breath. The deck stood on long stilts and wrapped around from the side to the front, the ground on the front side of the cabin falling away sharply.

The view was stunning, a prospect of rocks and trees and faraway green fields all unfolded beneath a clear, benign, forever-blue sky. The sky seemed like a lie. Casper was visible, but in delicate miniature, nestled near the far horizon. Even Wickham seemed speechless.

After a long moment, when he finally turned to her, his eyes were anything but benign. Hungry. Hungry for me. Fanny.

He moved, and Lizzy could see that the front deck continued as a wooden walkway that led to steep red-stained steps up to another deck stationed far above, a lookout that would presumably afford a view from above the trees.

"What do you think?" he asked, obviously pleased with the place himself. He gestured to the lookout. "I was told there’s a waterfall up there, along a path."

"It's amazing. The view…but it's isolated, isn't it?" Lizzy needed to know more about the cabin if she could.

"Yes, the owner said the nearest neighbor's a long way away, down the mountain." He turned and headed back to the stairs. “Let's go inside. There's a key box on the back door. I paid the owners to stock the place, so everything we need is here. Food and drink."

Lizzy followed him back down the stairs. He punched a code in the box hanging from the knob of the back door, took out the key, and opened the door. He stood aside as if he were going to let Fanny enter first, but when she reached him, Wickham suddenly scooped her up into his arms. Lizzy had to suppress her first response—to counterattack—when she realized Wickham wasn't attacking her.

He was carrying her inside. Across the threshold.

She looked at him, her face close to his. He was smirking again. "Now Ned can't be the first to do that," he said, his pleasure laced with a malice he could not entirely hide. "I claimed your threshold virginity."

Lizzy tried to laugh, but the action had not only alarmed her; it angered her. It brought back the hopes she had been trying to squelch and made her wonder if Wickham had managed to steal something from Fitzwilliam, if not from Ned. The taint of violation that she had felt since she’d agreed to go with Wickham intensified. She tasted despair like black bile.

Still, she managed to smile. "Put me down, George. I want to look around."

He did, and she surveyed the cabin, trying to ignore the way she felt. The interior was attractive, rustic, with lots of displayed wood and stone. A massive stone fireplace dominated the living room. The kitchen was simple but impressive, the countertops granite. The refrigerator was a perfectly preserved antique and red, matching the cabin’s exterior. Most of the accents inside, Lizzy realized, were also red. The color red dominated the room despite blue pillows and a blue-hued painting of a bison on the wall.

Wickham went out the door to retrieve their luggage and swiftly returned. "I saw the master bedroom this way," he said as he passed her. She steeled herself and stepped into his wake.

The room was large, large enough that the king bed did not crowd it. The remains of the afternoon sun came through one of the two large windows, making the white, nearly transparent curtain glow golden. He put the luggage down, looked at the bed, and then looked at Fanny.

Lizzy glanced at the bed and then away from it. "I'm hungry. How about some dinner? I'll see what there is." She left the room before he could agree or disagree.

The cat-and-mouse game was beginning.

For how long can I evade the bed that Wickham takes to be fated, destiny? So far, he had made no mistakes. But Lizzy wondered about the texts he had received and his reaction to them, especially the first ones after he picked her up in Chicago. Something was happening, she was sure of that.

She put her Patagonia bag on the counter, pushed it back against the splash guard in the corner, and took off her coat, folding it and putting it against the bag. Hiding the gun was crucial, but she could not chance doing that yet, and it would make no sense to keep wearing the bag inside. She'd have to chance that Wickham would pay it no attention. So far, he had not.

As if on cue, he came into the kitchen, his phone out, with a dark, frustrated frown on his face, his eyes glinting. "I have to leave for a little while. Business. The people I'm supposed to meet…to meet tomorrow… now want to meet this evening. At least they're coming partway. I'll be"―he paused to think―"an hour or so. Back by 8 p.m. Will that be too late for dinner?"

Lizzy let Fanny seize the moment. "No, I wasn't…planning on sleeping tonight, anyway." Violation.

Wickham's face brightened. His hungry smile returned, starving. He put his phone back in his pocket. "Good. Very good. I'll be back as soon as possible."

It was clear he meant that. His lust, now barely controlled, bodied out, filled the room, thickening the air, heating it, making it hard for Lizzy to breathe. It was as if he were groping her already.

He still had his jacket on, and he stepped to the back door. "Lock up after I leave. You'll be alone up here." Wickham hurriedly left.

A few seconds later, the car engine roared to life. Lizzy locked the door and took the first deep breath she had taken since leaving her apartment.

Once she heard the car drive away, she hustled to her bag on the counter, retrieving the revolver and box of ammunition. She loaded the gun quickly and smoothly, her practiced readiness apparent had anyone been observing her. She carried the gun to the bedroom and stowed it under the corner of the mattress, then retrieved her suitcase and put it on the side of the bed that hid the gun, claiming that side.

Next she went back to the kitchen and took the phone out of her bag. She walked all around the cabin, waving the phone, and then outside to the front deck hoping for a vestige of a signal. A single bar…anything. Nothing . The tracker Charlie hid in her purse should let Fitzwilliam and Charlie know where she was, but she was hoping to talk to them. To Fitzwilliam. No luck―no signal.

No hope.

A hopeless agent stays alive.

She put her phone in her pocket after deleting the recent record of her call to Fitzwilliam. Ned .

Then she made herself stand still. Breathe. In and out, in and out.

After taking that much-needed moment, she felt steadier. She had a plan, but she had little time. She opened the red refrigerator and found ribeyes on a shelf…fresh broccoli…cheddar cheese. She looked in the pantry and saw potatoes. She quickly decided on a meal of steak and baked potatoes with broccoli in cheese sauce. There were cans of evaporated milk and cornstarch in the panty, too. Mustard was in the fridge—everything she needed for the cheese sauce. She found a package of rolls, opened it, and put it on the counter. She turned the oven on to heat and put on water for the broccoli.

Leaving the kitchen, she went back to the bedroom and picked up Wickham's duffle bag, which he had left behind. Although she doubted it would hold any secrets, this was her one chance to look.

She needed him to make a mistake. Just one mistake!

She placed the duffle on the bed and unzipped it, opening it carefully and not touching anything inside until she had memorized where all the items were and how they were folded. Wickham is neat. After she had stored the organization in her mind, she checked the outside of the duffle. There was one small pocket. She unzipped it, but it was empty.

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 labeled Summit 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 heritage the 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.