Margot Verger regained consciousness slowly. Even before her eyes fluttered open, she knew she was in her gym. But details came slowly to her foggy brain. She had been out to the bar, where she went most weekends since Judy and her had broken up. She'd picked up someone – some cute Argentinian girl – and brought her back. And then what?
Her eyes fluttered open. She was lying on her own weight bench, with a barbell resting on it set to two hundred pounds. But she wasn't going to be lifting anything. Her arms were bound behind her back, under the bench. She tested her bonds and found them immovable. She looked down her body and found her legs were neatly bound to the bench as well. What the hell was going on?
She heard a sound and looked over. The girl she had picked up was looking at herself in the mirror, brushing her hair and looking annoyed. She wore only the flannel shirt. When she heard Margot stir, she looked around.
"Look, kid, I don't know what you want, but take it and get out," Margot said.
"I don't think so," Susana answered. She put her hairbrush back in her purse and pulled on her jeans. "What I want is going to take a while."
"Look. If I scream, the police will be here in five minutes. There are no drugs here, nothing like that. Let me go and I'll let you go, kid. You don't know what you're in for."
There was a sharp click and a knife appeared in Susana's hand. Margot wisely shut up.
"Okey dokey," Susana said breezily. "First off: drugs. Number one, don't tell me there aren't enough steroids here to make sure the Miami Dolphins win the next four Super Bowls. But that's okay, because number two, I don't want drugs anyway. Or money. Got plenty of it myself."
Her accent was gone, and somehow that more than anything else told Margot she was in deep shit.
"What I am here for is revenge. For my papa."
"Your papa?" Margot looked confused. "Listen, I don't know what you're talking about . I have, like, nothing to do with men. Just not my thing."
"You do with my papa," Susana argued. "Or did. Maybe you forgot." She leaned in close to the bound Margot. "Look into these eyes and tell me you've never seen them before."
As soon as Susana leaned in enough for Margot to see her maroon eyes, it hit her like a ton of bricks. In the bar, it had been too dark and smoky. And oh yes, all right, Margot would admit it, she wasn't looking at the younger woman's eyes. Maroon eyes. Maroon eyes she had seen once before…
Margot turned pale. "Oh my god…,"
"You got it!" Susana seemed perversely pleased. "I'm Susana Lecter. And I'm here to make you pay up. It's been a long time, but your life will do nicely."
That last name convinced Margot she was not only in deep shit, but in a sea of it and sinking fast. Being tied down alone with a knife-wielding psycho was bad. If that knife-wielding psycho was Hannibal Lecter's daughter, that was worse. Much worse. She'd never pretended to know what made Dr. Lecter tick and had no idea what might mollify his daughter. But she had to find out fast.
"What did your dad tell you about me?"
"You killed your brother and blamed him for it," Susana answered obligingly. She knew that Margot would try telling her that it was not so simple. This would be fun.
"Listen, Susana, please. Listen to me. I admit I blamed your father…for Mason. But he told me to do it. He told me when I was very young, and he told me when…well, when I was an adult."
"When Mason's goons kidnapped him and meant to feed him to the pigs," Susana agreed. "I know."
"Then hear me out. Please. I had nothing to do with that. Mason did it all. Your father volunteered. He told me if I did it he would take the rap. He agreed to do it, Susana. He wanted me to do it. He said 'What's one more murder charge to me'? Those were his words, not mine. He called here voluntarily and left a phone message claiming responsibility." Margot was sweating now in her bonds.
"My papa spent eight years in a cage. Have you ever been in a cage, Margot? Did you ever try to touch your partner…what's her name, Judy? Did you ever try to touch her through cage bars? Do you know what it's like to touch only the finger of the one you love and have to content yourself with that as a treasured memory?" A look of rage crossed Susana's pretty face, turning it into the face of a harpy. For a moment it seemed that her eyes glowed red with her fury.
Margot's eyes widened when she heard Judy's name. But she dared not lose her temper, not with being tied down and a look like that on her captor's face. "No. I admit that. Susana, listen. I know you're mad. But we can work it out, right?"
"No," Susana said. "Nothing can make up for blaming my papa for your crime. It's been almost thirty years. Thirty years my papa was accused of your crime."
"I bet you love your dad a lot. He's a…great guy. He wouldn't want you to do this."
"He was a great man," Susana replied, "and I did love him a lot." Her tone of voice made Dr. Lecter's current status abundantly clear.
That was good, Margot thought. It had to be. Her life depended on convincing this small monster that her father wouldn't want her to kill her. She swallowed and wet her lips. Her tongue was dry with fear.
"Is he…did he pass away? I'm sorry. I didn't know. Your dad helped me a lot. When I was a kid, and then later. I had a lot of respect for him, and he wouldn't want you to do this."
"No," Susana agreed, "probably not."
"Look. I…I understand. Really. I do. I'll make you a deal, Susana. Let me go, and I'll forget this whole thing ever happened. No cops, no nothing. We can work it out ourselves."
"You don't think I'm dumb enough to cut you loose, do you?" Susana queried.
Margot's pulse raced. Her heartbeat roared in her ears. Sweat trickled down her body. "If you feel better keeping me tied down, fine. Take the car, if you like. Just leave. I'll wait half an hour, then I'll start yelling for help. Hell, you can make it to the airport and be anywhere you want in half an hour. Money? You want money? I've got twenty thousand in a wall safe. It's in my bedroom behind a painting. Twenty thousand cold hard cash, Susana."
"You're not buying your way out of this," Susana threatened. "I am not some politician."
"No, no. But you'll need money."
"I've got money," Susana said.
"Take it as a token of my esteem. Donate it, if you want."
"I have probably about as much money as you do," Susana said evenly, "considering your kid is the one who really owns this place."
"What? Oh, yes. Michael. Have you ever met my son?" Margot smiled spastically. Maybe Susana had given her a back door into convincing her to spare her life.
"No. I told you. First time in America. And he's not your son, really. He's your nephew." Susana chuckled. "That must be kind of messed up, I guess."
"I guess," Margot allowed. "Look, who's your mother? Starling? Gotta be, you look like her. Think about how Starling would feel if you got killed. That's how Michael will feel. And Judy, even though we broke up."
Susana's mouth twitched. Margot grinned. She was getting through.
"Look, your mom was FBI. She wouldn't want you to kill me. She was for law and order."
"I think the last time I ever did what my mother wanted me to do was when I was, oh, maybe six."
Wrong tactic. Okay. Stick with Papa. Dr. Lecter was probably the only one who'd had any kind of control over his daughter anyway. It seemed just the sort of thing he would do, too. Had he spent all this time building the kid into some kind of assassin just for this?
"Your dad wouldn't want you to kill me," she said quickly. "He volunteered, Susana. He wanted me to. He invited me to. I swear to you he volunteered. On my brother's grave I swear it."
Susana walked over to her with a curious look on her face. She was pondering something.
"Interesting choice," she said curtly, and folded the Harpy and put it away. Margot sobbed with relief.
"OK, Susana, now look. We don't have to be friends, we don't have to hug, but you know your dad wouldn't want you to stab me."
Susana looked askance at her. "Stab you? Oh, no. I wasn't going to stab you. I had something else entirely in mind."
Margot stared at her for some moments before giving in to her curiousity. "What?"
"This," Susana said promptly, and grabbed the barbell. With some effort, she lowered it down onto Margot's chest. Quickly, she secured it to the rest with two ropes so that Margot couldn't roll it off her.
"Susana," she heaved.
Susana hoisted another fifty-pound weight and put it on one end of the barbell. As she hunted for another to match, she explained.
"You keep saying my papa wouldn't want me to kill you," she said. "And you know what? You're right. He wouldn't."
She found the weight and attached it to the other side of the barbell. The weight dug into Margot's chest. It was agonizing against her ribs. Margot fought to pull air into her lungs.
"But my papa is dead. Dead and gone. I'm settling up his accounts, but I do have to let him go." She found another set of weights and affixed them with a metal clink.
"My papa's wishes are not the driving factor here," she explained. "I do this in his name, but what I need of him is here." She tapped the side of her head. "And it is subject to my judgment. Not his. And I say that you should pay." She attached a third set of weights.
Margot struggled to heave in air. Her heart began to protest the four hundred pound weight lying across it in her chest. Bright lights began to sparkle in her vision.
"Susana," she gasped. "Please, in the name of God,…" she trailed off. The bright sparkles expanded into a bright light that shone so brightly she could not see the monster's face. Then, suddenly, it turned to darkness. Her last breath exhaled slowly from her tortured lungs.
"In the name of God," Susana snorted disdainfully. "Really. You went to see my papa and he didn't teach you any better?"
She gathered up her things and grabbed the towel she had used to dry herself. She put on her boots and shrugged into her jacket. She glanced over briefly at the naked dead woman.
Five minutes later, the gate guard noticed Ms. Verger's Porsche pulling out of the exit gate at better than fifty. The engine screamed, in low gear. She took the turn hard but well, swerving out onto the access road and hauling ass for the highway.
"Guess the girl of the night tonight didn't work out so well," he muttered.
…
Ardelia Mapp arose in her duplex and glanced over at the clock. 6:00 AM. She heaved herself out of bed and padded into the kitchen. She poured herself a cup of coffee and sat down at her breakfast table. As she had almost every day for the past twenty-seven years, she cast a guilty look at the door connecting her half of the duplex to Starling's.
She had never been able to sell the duplex, nor rent out Clarice's half. Legally, she could have – Clarice had no relatives, and had signed paperwork granting her half to Ardelia in the event of her deeath. No, her block was emotional. She was glad she'd kept the duplex – the mortgage was almost paid off, and housing was so incredibly expensive around D.C.
She glanced down at the LECCOPY case file and pondered. Whoever the UNSUB was, she thought, they knew a great deal about modern criminology. No hair, no DNA, no fingerprints. No witnesses, either, and all the murders were planned so that the UNSUB could literally walk away and no one would be the wiser. Luck had also been on the UNSUB's side. If only one damn tenant had been in the hallway when Agent Braxton got hit…
Don't go there, Ardelia, she thought.
All they needed was a break. One lousy little break. Ardelia wasn't superstitious, but she believed that luck was like a fulcrum. First, luck would be on the side of the UNSUB. Then, it would shift over to Behavioral Sciences. And then, slowly but surely, luck would tip all the way to them and away from their prey, leaving the UNSUB exposed and caught. And then, of course, behind bars.
She did not know a lot about who the UNSUB was. She knew a lot about what the UNSUB was and wasn't. She started to review these again, just to see if anything came to place. For her review's sake, she decided to call the killer 'the Son of Lecter.' UNSUB was the official FBI term, but it drove her crazy to repeat it over and over.
OK, Ardelia. We know the Son of Lecter isn't a mental patient. Too much planning and forethought. Someone sane, someone not at all psychotic. No mental illness.
We know the Son of Lecter is strong. Quick, too. Took out two armed police officers with just a knife. Even though they weren't expecting it – probably walked up to them and asked them for something. Caught 'em with their pants down.
The Son of Lecter knows a lot about Lecter's crimes. More than your usual Internet junkie.
The Son of Lecter is short. Knife wounds on the two cops were from a shorter person. Course, Lecter isn't gonna play for the NBA anytime soon.
The Son of Lecter is cruel. Cruel the way Lecter was. Stood there and watched Jameson die, and watched Smithfield die too. Got the hell out of the Dover murder, but Dover's nose was broken premortem. Probably enjoyed it.
The Son of Lecter knows guns, but prefers knives. The first two cops were killed with the knife. The second two cops were shot. I bet the bullets would match up to the first two cops' guns. That suggests that the Son of Lecter doesn't have guns of his own, but has some familiarity with them in the past. Hell, the shot on Polowski was pretty damn good – got him in the gut to take him down and then put a bullet in his head. So maybe some military service, maybe an MP or something like that. Actually, wait. A cop or a cop buff. I'd bet he's tried somewhere to become a cop and failed. But there's in intense knowledge of police procedure there. Must've had a scanner or something, picked up the radio discussion between the dispatcher and Rodell about Braxton. Or wait…
Ardelia suddenly realized that the Jameson cops had been missing their guns and badges. She opened the file and hunted for their morgue reports. She was willing to bet that one or both were missing their walkie-talkies. That was how the Son of Lecter had known where Dover was and how to get at him.
The morgue reports on the two officers was printed in a very small font and the room was dark. Ardelia got up and walked over to the kitchen window. She opened the blinds to let in the Virginia morning light. What she saw froze her to the spot. Her coffee cup dropped from one limp hand. The morgue reports dropped from the other to flutter softly to the floor, where they soaked up coffee.
Across the street was Clarice.
She stood there, watching the house quietly. Looking in. Her eyes met Ardelia's and widened slightly. It was the young Clarice, the same one she had seen at the Hall of the Fallen. Somehow, time had not affected Clarice. She remained young while Ardelia was fifty-four.
Her blue eyes were cool on Ardelia's brown ones. There was no real friendliness in them, as Ardelia might have expected. She wore jeans and a motorcycle jacket.. It wasn't quite Clarice's look, but that was definitely Clarice. Ardelia had no doubt. Tentatively, she raised a hand in greeting. Her heart almost stopped when Clarice raised a hand, but not to wave back. She smoothed her hair back instead.
She knew it couldn't be true. She knew that Clarice was away, probably with Lecter. The sick bastard had taken control of her mind. That was a lot of why she had gone into Behavioral Science: to understand the man who had taken control of her best friend. But whatever mental tricks Dr. Lecter might be able to do, he could not turn back the clock thirty years.
But there, in front of her disbelieving eyes, was proof positive. Impossible as it might be, a young Clarice stood on the other side of the street, looking in her window at her.
"Clarice?" Ardelia asked in a choked, shocked voice.
Then the shock that had paralyzed her limbs let go, and she turned and sprinted for the door. Her fingers fumbled on the lock for a moment or two, and then she was in her driveway, sprinting across the yard. Somehow, in the pit of her stomach, she knew what would happen before it did.
Ardelia Mapp stood in her yard, wearing only her bathrobe and slippers. She stared at the empty sidewalk across the street from her house. She turned right and left, and saw no cars she did not immediately recognize.
Ardelia, she thought, you're losing it.
She walked across the street to where the ghost Clarice had stood not a moment ago. She had to laugh ruefully. "It's all psychological," she murmured. "Duty. Braxton. The ghost Clarice is just a phantom I dreamed up to keep myself on track here. Or remind me of my duty, which is to catch the Son of Lecter." She raised a slippered foot, preparing to ruefully kick where the ghost had stood. Or not stood.
And then she saw it and froze her foot in the air.
On the sidewalk, barely visible, so common and germane she would never have noticed it, was a single long brown hair.
Ardelia ran for her kitchen. When she returned, she had a clear plastic bag and tweezers. She grabbed up the hair and put it in the bag.
"Cute, Clarice," she said. "Did you think I'd miss it?"
She showered and dressed quickly and headed for Quantico. Once she was there, she checked in briefly down at Behavioral Sciences, and then ran for the lab. The lab tech there greeted her.
"Hi, chief," she chirped. "Whatcha got for us today?"
Ardelia held up the bag. "I need lab work done on this hair, " she said carefully. "DNA testing and general forensics package."
The lab tech reached for the bag. "No problem. What case is it for?"
Ardelia stopped. What was she supposed to say? Well, you see, it's Clarice's hair. I saw Clarice in the Hall of the Fallen a few days ago and then she was across the street from my house. But it's a young Clarice. Somehow, Clarice has gone back to when we first met at the Academy.. And it's the only proof I have that I'm not seeing a ghost or losing my mind. So could you please test it for me?
Ardelia sighed and then gritted her teeth. She didn't want to lie, but saw no choice.
"LECCOPY," she said.
…
Susana drove up the street, pondering. She decided she really liked the Porsche and would feel bad about abandoning it. It was a killer car. But it was impractical. The police would find Margot's body, if they hadn't already. There would be an APB out on the car.
But before she got rid of it, she wanted to see her mother's old house. She knew the address. So this morning she had woken up early, put on her Clarice Starling face, and driven out to the house. It wasn't far away, just over the border in Virginia.
She hadn't been impressed. It was just a small, plain duplex in an unremarkable neighborhood. The sort she imagined the servants living in. She stood on the sidewalk, looking in at the house. She couldn't see anything from the outside that made her think of her mother. Like the FBI, the house had no trace of its prior occupant. Susana wasn't entirely sure herself of what she was looking for by seeking out artifacts of her mother's life. She did know that she wasn't finding it.
Then the blinds on one window had twitched open. A black woman had stared out at her. Susana glanced at the black woman, trying to place her. She had seen her before. Oh, wait. The FBI. The black woman staring into the Hall of the Fallen. Suddenly, it clicked. The black woman must be Ardelia Mapp. Good. Now Susana knew what she looked like.
Susana brushed at her hair with a hand. The black woman suddenly vanished from the window. Susana felt the presence of danger and ran up the street to where the Porsche was parked. She jumped in, revved the engine, and got out of there. She planned to park the car in long term parking at Dulles Airport, where it would sit for all eternity, or until the police found it. The police would assume that Margot's killer had fled. Susana's own departing flight was not for a few more days and was from Reagan National to Miami, so she was safe.
Behind her, the door rattled. Ardelia Mapp sprinted out onto her lawn, but by then Susana was already turning onto the main drag and heading for the highway. In the still suburban air, a single hair knocked loose from Susana's head wafted down gently to the ground.