Free Torch Song by Kate Wilhelm

that Pete might have holed up in the cabin—and tell him that we haven’t called in the locals yet.”
    After she left, Charlie pushed open the doors to the bathroom and bedroom, both empty. Bedding was in a jumble on the bed; Breckinridge looked away in embarrassment. “Let’s go sit in your car and wait,” Charlie said. “Smell’s giving me a headache.”
    Breckinridge led the way, his head bowed, hands deep in his pockets. At the car, he said, “I won’t say anything until the FBI gets here.”
    Charlie shrugged. “Suit yourself.” They got in the Land Rover, where Charlie slumped down in the passenger seat and gazed at the cabin broodingly.
    After a short silence, Breckinridge said, “She’s so pretty.” Charlie made a noise, and Breckinridge went on. “She’s only thirty. All the trouble she’s had and only thirty now. I’m forty-two,” he added. “She’s the first girlfriend I ever had… real girlfriend.” Then, haltingly, fragmenting it, jumping around in time, he told it all.
    She had been coming to Bennington for a couple of years before he met her. One of his students had made a necklace and earrings and wanted to put a price tag of a thousand dollars on the set; Marla had said six hundred, and they came to his gallery for an opinion. He did appraisals, he said. He had said two hundred. Two months later, Marla had dropped in to tell him she had gotten six hundred, and they had gone out for coffee. He mentioned the cabin a month or so later, and they had met here, and she had stayed all night…He trailed off.
    She hung around his gallery for a few hours and the artists brought their pieces to her, he said a few seconds later. He always came out first, fixed things up, bought wine, things for dinner, made a fire, then she came. He was sure no one suspected that he was letting her use the cabin, that he met her there.
    â€œShe’s so paranoid,” he said unhappily. “She’s afraid someone will accuse her of being an improper mother or something and take Nathan away from her. I tried to talk her out of the notion, but that’s what she believes. So I had her for a few evenings a month, and those were the happiest times of my life.”
    â€œYou’ve broken up?” Charlie asked when the silence continued this time.
    He nodded. “Not altogether, but… I asked her to marry me. I told her I’d pay for a hospital, that she didn’t have to worry about that. I said she could move up here, we’d get a house… . She walked out and I didn’t see her for three months. Then I went down there, to her place. She was furious that I showed up, but she let me in, and I saw Nathan. She didn’t have a minute for me all afternoon, through the night, and the next morning she made me leave. She read to him nearly all night,” he mumbled. “All night. I could hear her voice outside his door. I begged her to start coming back the way she used to, and finally she said she’d spend a night in the cabin, and that’s what it’s been like for a year now. But I’d be’ happy to have her one night a year, if that’s all I can have.”
    Charlie probed a little, and Breckinridge obliged with answers. Then Charlie asked, “What did she say when she called this time?”
    â€œI knew about Pete,” he said. “She said you thought she knew where he was, that you were making Nathan miserable, making her miserable, and she had to tell you about us, make you believe her. I told her to tell you.” For a moment he looked defiant. “I don’t care who knows. I never tried to keep it a secret I would have danced in the streets if she had let me talk about it. I want to marry her,” he said miserably. “I haven’t seen her since January! We had that blizzard in February; she couldn’t get here. I call and leave messages; she