She wanted to laugh out loud. In return for a new identity and a new future, she had only a single obligation: murder.
Sarah liked the symmetry of it all. Death gives life. She conceded that it might not be the wisest approach to starting anew, but she was locked into a world that had little past-her life as Sarah seemed to be fading more every minute-and connected only to two red-haired onetime strangers whom she now felt she knew better than any friend she’d ever had before, and to some man who wanted to be a wolf and a character in a fairy tale.
She reached down into one of her shopping bags and wrapped her hand around the fish billy. It had heft and a smooth, polished surface. It felt lethal to her touch. She smiled. She felt lethal, too.
If he sees me, we’re screwed.
It was the only thought that penetrated Karen’s fear. Once again, she was in a rental car. She wore sunglasses, despite the gray overcast of the afternoon. Her distinctive red hair was hidden beneath a ski cap. In her right hand she had the video camera, as she cautiously steered with her left. The window was down on the passenger side of the car, and she lifted the camera up and took video as she slowly drove down the blocks adjacent to the house where the Big Bad Wolf might or might not live. She knew it would be jumpy, dizzying, unprofessional footage-but just letting the other Reds see the neighborhood was likely to help them.
She pulled to the side of the road a half-block away from the house. Looking up and down the street, she made certain that no one was around. Surveillance was important, but secrecy and surprise were more so. She took some shots of the house from afar.
Karen could feel her heart pounding, and she admonished herself, You can’t be like this later. Her hands shook, and she imagined that when she showed the other Reds the footage they would see how scared she had been, and that unsettled her, because she knew she had to be strong-willed.
It isn’t reasonable, she thought. I’m the one that’s supposed to be in control. She imagined that she was now only a doctor of doubt. Maybe a doctor of death.
Down the block, a teenage boy emerged from a nearby house and slid behind the wheel of a small dull-silver-colored pickup truck. The boy had absolutely nothing to do with anything, but she still ducked down, and as soon as he roared past her, she floored her own gas pedal and accelerated away from the neighborhood. It took miles for Karen to calm herself, and when her breathing returned to normal, she realized that she had driven into a totally unfamiliar part of the county.
It took her nearly an hour to find her way back to roads she recognized because she refused to stop and ask for directions, and another hour to return the rental, retrieve her own car, and make her way home in the dark.
She pulled up her driveway, descending into the woods that concealed her home from the road. More than ever before, she hated the isolation of her place. She stopped in front.
The automatic light system came on.
She was about to shut off the engine and head inside when she hesitated. She was nearly overcome by conflicted fears: The place that should have been her safe haven was also her biggest threat.
Karen suddenly slammed her car back into gear and did a tire-squealing U-turn. She drove as if she were being chased, even though she saw no one on any of the country roads that she took. It was suddenly as if the Big Bad Wolf had managed to kill everyone except her. She was alone in the world, last person standing, sole survivor, waiting for the inevitable. She screamed in her car as she accelerated down the highway, her voice rising through the small space, scaring her even more.
When she was able to get some slight control over her emotions, she drove up onto one of the main highways. Within a few seconds, she saw a sign: food-gas-lodging.
The motel at the bottom of the exit ramp was part of a national chain. The parking lot wasn’t crowded. There was only a single clerk at the desk. She seemed young, probably a recent college graduate in a management training program that required her to work late hours, and had an irrepressible, outgoing smile. The young woman checked Karen in, asking her whether she preferred a single king-sized bed or two double beds. Karen slid into nervous sarcasm. “I can only sleep in one bed at a time,” she replied.
The young lady smiled and laughed. “Well, that’s true. So a king-size?”
Karen handed over her credit card. This was dangerous. It made a record of her staying there. But there was little she could do about it.
“One night?” the young woman asked.
Karen shuddered. “No. Two. Business.”
In the small, oppressively neat motel room, the first thing Karen did was to indulge in a blisteringly hot shower. She felt filthy, sweaty. She wondered whether fear could make someone feel dirty. She thought it far more likely that it stemmed merely from being in close proximity to the person they all imagined might be the Wolf.
Hair damp, a pair of towels wrapped around her, she went to the small desk in the room and pulled out her comedy computer. No more jokes on this, she thought. She started in with various real estate sites, like Trulia.com and Zillow.com, followed by sites maintained by big banks in the mortgage business. It did not take her long to find the house where the secretary and her husband the writer lived. There were only exterior pictures. She cursed this bad luck, then looked a little harder and discovered that a house across the street-and seemingly identical-had been on the market three years earlier. One of the sites helpfully provided pictures of the interior and a virtual tour of this home. “Be the same,” she whispered to herself. “Please be the same.”
Like any prospective buyer, she followed the images on the screen. Front door. Turn right. Living room. Eat-in kitchen. Downstairs office space. Stairs up. Two small bedrooms “perfect for a growing family” and a master with its own bathroom. Finished basement.
She stared at the pictures. Suburban New England bliss. The great promise of the American middle class: home ownership.
Karen returned to the website showing the secretary and writer’s house. She learned how much they paid in property taxes. She learned how much in the current market conditions their house was worth. Useless information.
She had a brief memory right at that moment, staring at pictures of the house she intended to visit. The lyrics to an old rock song that played on the oldies stations she listened to frequently jumped into her head, and she mumbled in time to internal music: “Monday, Monday. Can’t trust that day.”
Karen ignored this warning and sent a text message to the other two Reds: Tomorrow. 2 and 2.
She didn’t think she had to add p.m. and a.m. They would know what she meant.
40
2 p.m.
He took her out to lunch-an unexpected pleasure.
Mrs. Big Bad Wolf left behind on her desk faculty assessments and student disciplinary reports that all needed to be properly assigned to permanent files. She put aside a long-winded analysis from a trustee committee investigating new revenue streams and a lengthy written request from the head of the English Department to expand course offerings away from traditional literature like Dickens and Faulkner and into classes on modern communications media, like Twitter and Facebook. She happily joined the Big Bad Wolf at a downtown Chinese restaurant, where they ate far-too-spicy foods and sipped weak green tea. She guessed that he had some motive for taking her out-as in any long-term marriage, spontaneous acts of affection were rare-but she didn’t care. She reveled in steamed dumplings and miso sauce.