Disclaimer: First of all, I don't own Dr. Lecter, Crawford, Chilton, etc. Second, this story is a little different from most of the fanfiction here. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of Hannibal and Clarice, but there are only so many different ways to write it. Most of them have already been done. I'm trying something a little different. This story takes place between Red Dragon and Silence of the Lambs, so Clarice isn't even a trainee yet. She could turn up later; I haven't decided. However, the events of Silence are never going to take place. I know this is really weird, but the idea has been bouncing around in my head for a while. If you don't mind the lack of Starling, please read and respond.

Special Agent Sheridan Pasternak, of Quantico's Department of Behavioral Sciences, was always exactly fifteen minutes early for meetings. In spite of this, the room was already filling with people when he entered. Crawford had told everyone else that the meeting started at 7:30; he told Sheridan that it started at 7:45.

A large wooden table, with manila folders at each seat, dominated the room. Sheridan slid into his chair, watching everyone else stand around, talking and sipping cups of Starbucks.

"Have a seat, everyone," Crawford said, turning on the slide projector. Six skeletons appeared on the white wall at the end of the table. They were lined up, side by side, with their arms stretched above their heads as if they were about to dive. The one on the far left was nearly ash; evidence of burning was less and less severe down the line, with the far right skeleton only a bit scorched, with burnt pieces of flesh still clinging to it.

"All six of these bodies were found in the woods along I-70, near Baltimore. They were found by some Boy and Girl Scouts out picking up trash for a community service project; the kids are in therapy now, and will probably be fine." He changed the slide to show six x-rays of teeth.

"We checked the teeth; they're all in our missing persons database except one man. That one shows a lot of old injuries and some very unhealthy teeth; he was probably a street person. They all lived in or around the city, and they're all white except for one Latino, a college student. Four were men and two were women. All we can tell is that none of their bones were damaged; the rest is gone. We haven't found any fingerprints, but we're still looking." The first picture reappeared, six grinning skeletons.

"The cause of death could be the burning, but the way that they're laid out makes that unlikely. Unless the killer went through and rearranged them after burning them, they would have to be tied up. We found them in a neat little row, just as you see. If you look in your folders, you have pictures of each person before and after death, and their missing person file. No foul play was suspected in any of the cases until this—" he gestured to the picture—"was found, so the killer either didn't take them from their homes or is very good at breaking in undetected. It's probably the first; they all lived in apartments, except the hairstylist. Someone would have noticed a kidnapping."

Sheridan looked through the file. None of them looked very strong, but some of the men were no shrimps. They didn't seem to have anything in common; one man was an extra at the Baltimore Opera house, one was a college student, one a teacher at a different college, and the homeless man. The homeless man was the one who was almost ash, Sheridan noted.

The women were an equally mixed lot. One was a hairstylist, and the other a secretary. None of the victims had been above middle class, and they ranged in age from 20 (the college kid) to 58 (the hairstylist).

"The only common factor that we've seen so far," Crawford said, "is that they all lived alone, no spouse or kids. It's possible that they were chosen at random, by someone who didn't want the added difficulty of multiple people in the house, although since they probably weren't taken from their homes that's unlikely. We're still looking for a motive, of course, but we're running with the random theory for now. We have a serial killer on our hands, gentlemen."

He began to hand out jobs. Some were going to examine the bodies; others were going to look at any suspects from the missing persons cases. One unlucky man was told to try to find any records of the unidentified—and probably homeless—victim.

"Sheridan, you're coming with me to the victims' apartments. We're taking another look around."

Carlos Fonta, the opera extra, lived about two hours' drive from Quantico. The first hour and a half passed in increasingly tense silence, before Crawford gave in to the boredom and tried to make small talk.

"So, Sheridan, how's the girlfriend? Laura, was it?"

"Lauren. She's fine." Crawford waited for more information. None was forthcoming, so he tried again.

"What is it that she does?"

"She's a singer. A good one. The star of the opera house this Fonta guy worked at, actually." Crawford's eyes widened.

"Small world, isn't it?" Sheridan simply grunted. Another minute passed before Crawford spoke again.

"Is there good money in opera?"

"Yeah. Lots of work, but good money."

"That's good." Crawford decided that another conversation topic was in order. "So, do you have any ideas about the killer?"

Sheridan accepted the subject change with relief. "Well, I'm sure you noticed that some of the skeletons are more burnt than others. I was looking thorough the files, and the most burnt one besides the homeless man is the one who disappeared first, Fonta. They go in order—the one that wasn't too scorched was Katrina Mann, the secretary, who disappeared last. I think the killer must have put them there one at a time, and then burnt the new one with all of the old ones. There could even be some earlier ones that are completely gone, so I hope the team looks carefully inside that circle."

Work was good. Work was something he could talk about. He was positive that Lauren was with him because she enjoyed those true-crime novels; talking to him was like reading one. He couldn't do small-talk. She was the only girl who didn't start backing away when he vividly described crime scenes and shoot-outs. He loved her almost as much as he loved his job. Speaking of which—

"We're here," announced Crawford.

"Fonta disappeared nearly a year ago. He left with the rent paid for the entire year, so luckily his apartment hasn't been re-leased," said Crawford.

The building was dingy, grey, and rickety. Its sides had been lovingly adorned with spray-paint, showing numerous gang symbols and random messages. They walked in the creaky door cautiously; the building looked like it was going to fall on their heads at any moment.

"There's only money in opera if you're good," remarked Sheridan absently. Crawford didn't bother to reply; he knew Agent Pasternak would never hear him.

OUT OF SERVICE, announced the sign on the elevator door. Below that, someone had written, "For 2 yeers now. Hir a repar man cheep dumass"

The stairs were made of rusted metal. They didn't look like they would hold two people, and creaked ominously under their combined weight.

"If he was taken from here, I doubt anyone would have noticed," murmured Sheridan.

"But he wasn't, was he?"

"No," agreed Sheridan.

"No what?" asked Crawford. Sheridan ignored him. They reached the apartment, number 304, and unlocked the door.

It was a bachelor pad, certainly. Everything was exactly as Fonta had left it, mostly in a pile on the floor. The mattress was lumpy, the sheets were dirty, and there was year-old underwear hanging from the ceiling lamp. Incongruously, a small electric keyboard stood on a stand in the corner, presumably for Fonta to practice with.

"According to the people we interviewed, he like picking up society girls who would come to the opera. He convinced them to take him back to their place, obviously. When that didn't work, he went to prostitutes. The salary of an opera extra apparently doesn't cover that and the rent for a decent place," said Crawford.

"None of the neighbors saw anything suspicious?"

"If they did, they didn't tell us."

"We're wasting our time, then. It didn't happen here. Did he have a car?"

"No."

"The killer grabbed him off the street. Let's take a look at the next house, that college professor. Jacob Martin." Crawford stared.

"Come on, Crawford. If there was any evidence here, we would have found it before," Sheridan insisted impatiently. Crawford shrugged.

"Do you want to go to the house, or the vacation house?"

"What? Which was he taken from?" Crawford grimaced.

"We don't know. He lived in an apartment most of the year, but he went on a retreat to the vacation house once a year, whenever he felt like it. It's in his contract, apparently; he's allowed to disappear for two weeks whenever he feels like it. He wrote some book, or something, so they let him get away with anything." He shook his head. "When he disappeared, everyone assumed that he went there. We checked the house—there's no concrete evidence that he was there, but he easily could have been. Lots of nonperishables in the fridge."

"The rest of the time he lived in an apartment?"

"Yes."

"The vacation house, then. It's hard to kidnap someone from an apartment."

"All right, but we're stopping for lunch on the way. It's three hours from here." Sheridan looked at him blankly. Lunch?

"Not everyone lives on evidence alone, Pasternak."