4

Clarice arrived home, after going to dinner with Ardelia, to find her message machine flooded with calls. Five from Greg the Snake, four from her boss, another four from more tabloid journalists who wanted to question her on her mad love affair with the cannibal, and a few mixed throughout from legitimate journalists who seemed to have remembered that Lecter was an interesting case, and suddenly wanted to do pieces about him.

She fast-forwarded through most of them, all the ones from Greg, all the ones from the journalists, and listened only to the messages left by her boss. They all said basically the same thing: "We have a problem."

"No shit," the agent muttered, kicked off her boots, and went to pour out a glass of wine for herself. She needed it, and it was a welcome feeling to be able to just sit alone, sipping at the cold drink, and blocking out all that had transpired. Block out the letter, the gifts, the Enquirer, and all the hell she was sure to face when she finally called back her superiors to see what was to become of her. Already she was hanging on to her job by a thread, after the last Lecter encounter. She looked at the table in front of her couch, with its Lecter files in a neat little pile, where she set them after bringing them home earlier.

"If only you could see me now, papa," she murmured, and raised her glass to the ceiling in a toast. To what, she really couldn't say.

**********

The hotel room he had was satisfactory. The menu not of the highest class, but enough to do in the short period he planned to remain. Yet on this night he was not sitting in comfort in his room to plan, or play. Rather, he was sitting with patience in his rented car, across the street from the house that Clarice had moved into with Agent Mapp, waiting until the time was right.

Just as his watch ticked to one o'clock, Ardelia's light went out. He swung open his car door, and adjusted his coat once he'd risen from his seat. As always, his appearance was impeccable.

He entered the house easily, and in utter silence. He'd determined on his first visit here which room belonged to Agent Starling. It was the one devoid of personality and color, without photos of friends and family hanging on the walls, without so much as a pleasant knick-knack to personalize her home. Right now the only thing cluttering her tabletops were the unopened files about him. That was, in a way, darkly ironic in view of her situation.

Her bedroom door was partially open, and Hannibal entered without the slightest squeak to give his presence away. There she was, clad in an oversized T-shirt as was customary for her. Her hair was fanned out on the pillow around her. Her face was half-lit with moonlight streaming in through a crack in her curtains, which plunged the other half of her face equally into darkness.

The doctor considered this for a moment, before moving forward to sit on the side of her bed. She didn't wake, merely murmured something in her sleep, with breath tasting of sweet grapes. What she murmured in this sleeping state gave him reason to pause, but just for a moment. He reached out a hand towards her face, and left his fingers extended above her lips, with only the barest distance to keep them from touching... and he could feel her breath. One finger dropped. He traced the curve of her bottom lip with that finger, and gave only the slightest of smiles through the darkness. That was all he wanted.

Back in the living room he drew a letter from inside his jacket. He unfolded it, and sketched something quickly on the bottom of the single page, beneath his signature. The note he left on top of the folders concerning him, and atop the note he left another flower. A single forget- me-not, set right beside her name.

His business complete, he left to return to his hotel, and await the morning.

Let the games begin.

**********

Clarice's sleep was broken in a most unpleasant way. She had even been having a good dream, which had been unanticipated under the circumstances. But right in the middle of her dreamings, a scream pierced the veil of sleep, and sent her launching out of bed and straight into the living room. Where she found Mapp, looking as though she'd just seen a ghost, and the ghost asked her if she wanted fries with that.

"Ardelia?" Clarice asked, heart beating fast with the sudden surge of adrenaline through her system. "What the hell was that?"

Her friend took a minute to respond. When her breath had been caught, with difficulty, she ended up not using it. Words, she decided, could not do justice what had made her respond in so childish a fashion. Rather than speak, she just pointed, one slender finger to the stack of files on the coffee table.

Starling advanced cautiously, half-expecting to see a spider, rodent, severed head, or something of that ilk, sitting beside her case files. What she actually found was considerably more frightening, and she could feel her breath catching in her chest as she read the sweeping letter stroked across the front of the papers.

"Ardie... call the damn police. Tell them Dr. Lecter has been in our damn house, and another letter has been sent. I'm going to get some gloves and read the damn letter."

*

Dearest Clarice,

I find I must apologize for intruding in on your home without an invitation, but it was necessary to my current plans. I would have called ahead, but I did not want to wake you, and I'm quite glad. You look so very much at peace when you're asleep, Clarice, much different from the constant strain in your eyes when you are awake. I think this must mean the lambs have stopped screaming, am I right?

What you said, however, when I momentarily disturbed your rest, makes me think the silence of the lambs has been filled with something else. You said my name, Clarice, in such a way that it put me in mind of the last time we met, when we attended dinner at Paul Krendler's home. But I should not bring that up, as my reason for writing this is not to bring up any bad memories.

I just wanted to remind you what I said a year ago, Clarice. All you need is a mirror. There is nothing that any of those torpid, inept, and acerebral colleagues of yours can truly take away, as it is all inside you. Your dear sweet daddy was shot like a dog despite his prestigious job, yet if he'd not had that badge he'd still have been the same man that you loved. The F.B.I. doesn't define you, Clarice. Your situation doesn't define you. You define it.

I shall have to invite you to dinner soon.

Ta-ta.

Sincerely, your pal,

Hannibal Lecter M.D.

*

Beneath his signature was a drawing of her, sketched hastily but skillfully, half shrouded by shadow, half illuminated by moonlight. It made her feel slightly ill, knowing that he'd been there in her room. Been there long enough to draw her, evidently. In great detail.

Clarice had to reach up to harshly rub away a tear before it could fall, confused once more by the doctor. In their previous encounters, each time, he gave her hope when there seemed to be none in sight - made her feel as though there was, indeed, enough hope left to hold, rather than just grasp at like straws.

She placed the letter back down where she found it, and picked up the flower in turn. The forget-me-not. "Forget?" she murmured to herself, staring at the sweet little flower. "Not much of a chance of that, doctor."

It was lucky (or not lucky, depending on your view) that Ardelia walked back in at that moment. "They're coming, Starling. What did the bastard have to say this..." The last word was stillborn on her lips as she caught sight of the flower in her friend's fingers. Somehow the sight of it set off a bell ringing in her head, and she made an about face to go flying back into her room.

Starling barely had time to put the flower down and start after Mapp, when the agent returned with a thick book open in her hands. Mapp's lips were moving quickly, searching in earnest for something on the page. When, at last, she succeeded in finding it, she gave a triumphant shout, and thrust the book toward Clarice.

"Read this, Starling! Does that ring a bell, at all?" she asked, thrusting the book over, looking pleased that she may have figured out the meaning behind Lecter's sudden interest in botany.

"Cedar of Lebanon: Incorruptible," Clarice murmured, after finding the first plant mentioned in the first letter. Incorruptible. That was how he described her. What was the next one? "White periwinkle... white... white... ah. White Periwinkle: Pleasure of memory/pleasant recollections. Yeah. That sounds like him."

"What about the forget-me-not?"

"Well, Mapp, I thought that one was painfully self-evident," Clarice responded dryly, and set the book aside. "But its good you found this. Perhaps it'll be of help if he sends more plants."

Ardelia gave a nod, and a final thoughtful look towards the purple flower left behind. "I'll just make coffee then, shall I?"

After her friend had left the room, Clarice picked up the book again. She was just flipping through it, really, but somehow she found her way to the f-s. Then the fo-s. So on, and so forth. She was apprehensive about what it might mean, if the meaning indeed differed from the obvious 'don't forget me', and that was her reason for waiting until she had a moment alone.

Her finger had just traced down a column to fall on her target, 'forget-me- not', when the police arrived... and she slammed the book shut without reading the description. It could wait. She had to get back into the proper mindset now, and find a way to catch this murderer.

**********

Author's Note: Ah, my thanks again go out to Steel, The Rest Of Me, and tourn. Thank you so much, peoples! I'm hard at work on the fifth chapter.