Ticket for a long journey 2/ ?
Clarice awoke out of her trance when she heard
the entrance door. It had to be Ardelia coming home. Hastily she
put away the letter and the cuff. She stuffed it back into her
bag. *what am I doing here - hiding evidence .... no, no I am
not - this is no evidence, it's personal -- none of there business*
she calmed herself.
Ardelia came bursting into the room without
knocking, like always.
"Clare, girl, you're alive! I was worried
to death when I heard who kidnapped you! Thank God you're alright!
How did you do that? I can't imagine being in the hands of that
monster....!" tears of relief were streaming down her friends
face. Clarice wrapped her arms around her, holding her and stroking
her hair. Ardelia embraced her tightly, she almost crushed her.
"Hey, Ardelia it's ok. I'm fine. Not
a scratch on me!" Ardelia let her go. They just stood there.
Clarice wiped off the tears on her friends face.
"'You ok?"
"Yeah, I'm better now that I know you're
safe!"
Clarice looked down to the floor before turning
round. She couldn't look into her eyes. Ardelia knew her too well,
she'd know right away that something was wrong. Somehow Ardelia
sensed that Clarice wanted to be alone. She just stroked her shoulder
and said.
"Why don't I prepare a nice hot bath
for you, hm? I think that'll be the perfect thing for you now!
Would you like that, Clare?"
Clarice just nodded. *I hope you're right*
- how she wished that it only took a bath to straighten up her
senses.
---------------------------------
Weeks passed and Clarice went on with her
life. Her work at least kept her busy. Ardelia tried everything
to get her to tell what had happened to her but Clarice couldn't
just bring herself to tell the truth, not even to her best friend.
She knew Ardelia wouldn't understand, to her the Doctor was just
a monster, a bestial killer whose heinous crimes didn't deserve
anything better than a life behind bars. Actually, she didn't
understand it quite either but she couldn't change her feelings.
--------------------
Clarice was tired. She had spent her whole
day driving around asking questions. Sometimes FBI work was just
a plain tedious sisyphean task. Always the same never-ending things
you do every single day.
She got out of her Mustang, finally at home.
Clarice took the mail out of the box and went up to her apartment.
Inside, she closed the door behind herself and leaned against
it. She was so exhausted, not sure why. Placing the mail on the
kitchen table she opened the fridge door to get something to drink.
She sat down with a glass of milk to check the letters.
A thick letter draw her attention. She picked
it up, it wasn't heavy. She opened it carefully. Between the lining
was another envelope and a key. She produced it from the envelope
- there was number on it ....# 24. Clarice shook her head briefly.
Then she produced the second envelope and opened it. Finally,
she began to realize from whom the letter had come from. It was
like a déjâ vu, again there was this elegant stationary
neatly folded and a ..... it was a ticket! A ticket to London,
the flight was due 4 days from now. Her heartbeat accelerated.
HE had written her -
She unfolded the letter...
-to be continued-