AN: Thank you so much for all the reviews! I shall make a point of replying to any questions or comments. This is the next chapter of Hounded, There are still a few chapters to go but this is going to be a BIG twist to the story.
Chapter 11
Clarice was rooted to the spot, the phone was still cradled in her palm, her knuckles were white with strain as her fingers stretched over the plastic receiver. Her throat was dry, her eyes were not. Tears flew freely down her flushed cheeks, her blush increasing over her neck.
She had heard his voice; the maddening riddles he had inflicted on her chased each other around her brain yearning for her attention. It wouldn't take her long; he always ensured she would know exactly what he meant. She dreaded what he was going to feel the need to do in order to drive his point home this time. Had a lobotomy not been enough? Surely by now he must have been aware that the way to her heart was not by bumping off her problem people one by one.
She dropped the receiver carelessly and allowed herself to settle into the sofa behind her; she tucked her left leg under her body allowing herself to curl up into the soft material. The duplex was eerily quiet, the press were gone from outside too; meaning that not even sounds of population on the outside were apparent. She missed the company of her friend; the friend that might have betrayed her.
She flicked the switch on the remote and watched the television progress from a blur of colour into the local news channel; she went to flip over in distaste when she saw her own reflection mirrored to her on the screen. Of course she would still be big news, just because they weren't rooting around her kitchen anymore didn't mean that she was off the hook. Sure enough another picture followed; the compulsory, expected picture of Dr Lecter, the one on his case file no less; the one which had been centre piece in the aptly named "Hannibal's House" in the Bureau. Her eyes were glued to his image; he hadn't looked like that for some time. She remained one of the few live people who could fit the new image with his name. The rest he had slaughtered on his way.
The picture changed abruptly into one that she definitely wasn't expecting; she wouldn't have been alarmed by a picture of the former Justice Chief, but this man was a relative stranger; he was oddly familiar. She hastily groped for the remote and unmuted the television.
The man was the editor of the National Tattler. She was going to be sick. There was no way this was a mere coincidence, mere days before he was ordering his counterparts to invade her home; and now he was missing. This is what Lecter had meant. What a masochistic guardian angel he was. She should have known that the minute that statement was aired that she had put a price on the head of that man; the person clever enough to work out just who she meant was the one person who would carry out the deed. She was in disbelief; she had never envisaged that this would happen.