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Bella nearly dropped everything onto the floor the second the front door closed behind her. The few things she had allowed Winnie to buy her would most likely be useless in two months time. She collapsed to the floor, leaning back heavily against the door and huffing out a breath as her eyes closed. When she heard the soft footsteps coming down the stairs, she let a small smile grace her lips. "Is there a chance we could just disappear tonight?"
"What happened?" Clarice asked, sitting on the floor in front of Bella and playing with the ends of her hair.
"Well, we ran into Chet, but he's always horrible." Bella scoffed before meeting Clarice's eyes. "I don't belong here. We don't belong here. I stood in a mall full of people, shopping with somebody I've known my whole life, and I felt completely alone. I felt hollow, and it made me wonder. . .made me think." She exhaled slowly as Clarice took her hands into hers. "I've accepted that as my normal. When it was you and me, I could be myself. Laughing on the couch over something stupid somebody did at work or at school. With Hannibal, I feel the same way. I'm not hiding."
Clarice caressed Bella's cheek. "And, everywhere else has been some kind of false front."
Bella nodded slowly, tearing up despite herself. "I've spent my whole life that way. I don't want to spend anymore time pretending." She welcomed Clarice's embrace, settling into her arms as she stroked her hair. "I just want to go as soon as possible."
Clarice pressed a kiss into Bella's hair, holding her tighter. "I know. We're working on it." She rocked gently, wanting to grant Bella her wish and just disappear into the night with her and Hannibal. But doing that would leave a lot of people looking out for them. "Six weeks. Just give me six weeks, and we'll leave. We can go anywhere you want."
They sat silent for a moment, clinging to one another on the floor in the small space considered a foyer in the townhouse. The silence was broken though when Bella couldn't hear another sound in the house. "Where is he?"
"Creating an out." Clarice whispered.
Hannibal sat fifty yards from the old farm truck he had found in a downtown parking lot. The moonlight hanging over the desolate park cast shadows on the case file Clarice had in her bedroom - the case file of the Beer Can Killer.
Rather a ludicrous name. Weapon of choice becomes the killer's nickname. What would have Jame Gumb become if not Buffalo Bill? The Savage Skinner?
The case file laid open in his lap, showing the victims of the new serial killer in order of discovery. Seven women, all carved up for no apparent reason with the jagged edge of a beer can. The kind of beer was never the same and neither was the manner to which they were carved. Some was post-mortem. Others were not that lucky. Those crime scenes looked like the victim had been torn up with a chainsaw. Always outside in a park while the victim was either going to work or jogging for exercise.
All the women were toned, white, innocent enough looking. They ranged in two different age groups. Age nineteen to twenty-five and forty to forty-four. The younger age group consisted of brunettes who were regarded and praised by their friends and professors. All of them were bright young things. They were the ones carved alive. The older of the two groups seemed to vary from single mothers to workaholic women or both combined. Fairly successful in their own careers. Natural red heads or purposely dyed that way. Each one of these women had been scalped with the beer can before it was thrust into the soft tissue of their torsos where their wombs lay concealed.
The blatant example brought a metallic tinge to the back of Hannibal's tongue.
He may not know who this killer is yet, but he knew that the kills hadn't become personal yet. These women were merely objects of practice.
"You're rather clean considering what you were planning for tonight." Clarice stated when Hannibal snuck through the back door in the jogging pants and sweatshirt he left in earlier.
Hannibal hurriedly looked between Clarice, standing in the kitchen, and Bella, curled up in the over-sized arm chair, before dropping the case file onto the counter top. "Your Beer Can Killer should be called the Starling Stalker."
Bella didn't look up from the book in her lap, making a note on a paper pad resting on the cushion beneath her. "That's a way better name." She mumbled before she really realized what Hannibal was stating. "Wait, why that?"
Clarice opened up the file she had given Hannibal and saw the numerous notes that he made next to the victims' pictures. "The killer targeted people who looked like Bella and I." She felt a knot in the pit of her stomach growing and tightening. "How did I not see this?"
"You were looking for your killer outward, not inward. You weren't going to think that you were the real target unless they spelled it out for you with a note." Hannibal sighed before standing beside her at the counter, his eyes trained on the file even though it was still fresh in his mind. "I didn't see it until I found out about our little bird." He didn't see Bella raise her eyebrows at the mention of her unknown nickname. "Who could be after you two, Clarice?"
"A lot of people." Clarice breathed with a shake of her head. "But, I'm not the only person here who has made enemies. The only reason you were in the country eighteen years ago was to help me redeem my place at the FBI when your surviving victim at the time wanted revenge on you."
Hannibal steepled his hands under his chin. "I have earned my share of enemies over the years." He glanced over at Bella, staring back at both him and Clarice. "Do you have anybody to add to our exhaustible list of possibilities?"
Bella's eyes widened sensing the seriousness in his tone. "Uh, only Chet Krendler off the top of my head, but I've been fending him off since we used to have nap time together." She closed her book and walked over to look at the case file herself, not having yet seen this one since it was active under Clarice's eyes. She quickly found the photos of the girls a little older than her, left half naked and mutilated in park bushes. On the news, they had said that the girls had been actually killed with the beer can piercing their internal organs. But, the rest of the case was pretty vague. "Do you really think that someone is after us?"
Clarice moved the evidence pictures around to hide the victims that resembled Bella. She knew that those victims suffered worse. Their autopsies showed that the killer had stabbed the sharp aluminum upward and shredded those women's insides from between their legs. They felt everything before their killer slit their torsos open down the middle and gave them the sweet release of death. Bella didn't need to see those pictures and think about herself being put in that position. Clarice didn't want to think about it either. "We'll find out."
Hannibal noticed the slight change in Bella's pulse, the quickening of it. He could also smell the small amount of perspiration that gathered at her palms. He reached out and gently brought her against his side. "It will all be fine, my little bird. Whoever this is, we will find them before they decide to turn to the worst."
"How could it get any worse? Look at them." Bella breathed, pulling out a picture of the first brunette victim. "If what you're saying is true, these women died because of us. Just lives wasted away like trash."
"These women died because there's someone sick out there with a vendetta." Clarice stated, gently taking the evidence photo from her daughter and putting it between the many documents. To look at the photo and see Bella was too much for Clarice to take, and she knew that Bella was feeling guilty about people dying because someone was after her. "We might be the target, but we aren't the ones in control here."
Hannibal gently rubbed Bella's spine as she hugged herself. Her eyes were glazed over, almost trance-like, and she looked withdrawn from the words being spoken to her. "Bella, you didn't cause this." She met his eyes briefly before they moved back to the evidence. "It's late, and you have school in the morning. Why don't you go get ready for bed? There's no one that will hurt you here."
Clarice wrapped her arm around Bella's shoulders and kissed her head when Hannibal moved Bella to stand between them. "Go. I'll check on you in a couple of minutes."
The two parents waited as Bella gathered her things and headed upstairs to change and do her nightly ritual before climbing into bed. When she was safely out of earshot, Clarice turned her attention to Hannibal. "You think this was Krendler."
"It reeks of them, which makes me question if it's them or not. They aren't very bright, but they wouldn't be this obvious." Hannibal stated, taking a seat at the counter. "Then again, you know them better than I do, and their brain functions might be a little different compared to how it was the last time I ran into Mr. Paul Krendler."
"He's a moron, but he isn't a take action kind of guy. He'll carry out orders, but he doesn't form any plan of his own." Clarice sighed and sat on Hannibal's lap when he tugged her to him. She gazed back at the file. "But, this case points straight to them other than no sexual assault. The women my age were sliced open around the skull where you opened up Paul. The younger ones were nearly torn open from the inside out, and Chet has been trying to sleep with Bella for a long time."
Hannibal's eyes landed on one of the victims that resembled Clarice. Despite his calm exterior, his insides deceived his emotions. Clarice felt the slight twitch of his hands as he held her only a fraction tighter than normally. His body was tense under hers, and she could feel the slight acceleration of his pulse beat against her hand. Hannibal Lecter, despite what everyone else thought, was a human being capable of caring and loving others, and he wanted to protect what was important to him.
Hannibal softly cleared his throat as they both looked down at the file. "Something doesn't sit well though."
"No, it doesn't." Clarice whispered in agreement.
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