Ardelia Mapp was sitting at her desk, going over crime-scene photos of the LECCOPY case. She studied it with some disdain. She was itching for the phone to ring. She fidgeted and toyed with the photos. She got herself coffee and checked her email. Her profilers noticed it, but said nothing. She had two other profilers also working LECCOPY, and occasionally one of them would drop in to ask a question or two.

When the phone finally rang, she grabbed it on the first ring.

"Mapp. Behavioral Sciences," she said importantly.

"Hi, chief. We have your results in."

"And?"

"Well, a lot of us here don't believe it. Come on down and we'll show you."

Ardelia bulleted down the hall to the labs. The young lab tech was there, grinning.

"Some of us thought this must be some kind of a joke," she explained.

"Well?" Ardelia asked impatiently.

"OK. Let's start with the basics." Ardelia groaned. The lab techs were known for their dramatic flair. The lab tech – her name was Barbara, Ardelia remembered – took out a glass slide containing the hair she had brought it.

"This is a long brown hair. The length and the fact that it's been dyed leads us to believe that it's a woman's hair. Whoever she is, she takes good care of her hair and gets her hair done someplace nice. It's healthy and thick. Probably a young woman. Also, the chemicals on the hair trace back to some pretty expensive hair-care products. The dye is a formula only available in salons."

That doesn't sound like Clarice at all, Ardelia thought.

"What about the DNA?" she asked.

"Ah. The fun part. Here, I'll do it again right in front of you, so that you can see for yourself."

The tech brought the slide over to a machine and lifted the cover off it. With a tiny set of tweezers, she removed a small portion from the end of the hair. Then she brought it over to the DNA scanner and put it in the machine.

When Ardelia had begun her career, DNA technology was brand new and required tests and smears and took a long time. Now, it was merely a matter of inserting the matter into the machine and letting it do its work. The DNA scanner hummed briefly.

"Here we go," the tech said. A moment later, information began to appear on the tech's computer screen. "Do we have a name to go with this?"

"No," Ardelia admitted.

"Too bad." She entered DOE JANE when the computer prompted her for a name.

SCANNING…the computer reported.

Information began to fill in a moment later. It identified the hair as female, and a DNA helix began to appear in the upper-right hand quadrant of the monitor. After a minute or two, the words DNA SCAN COMPLETE appeared in the center.

The tech clicked OK and then clicked the 'Select DNA Database'. She chose 'National Missing Persons Database'.

"Check this out," the tech said confidently. In 2025, hard drive and processor technology was advanced enough that containing the genomes of all known missing persons, or felons for that matter, was a matter of course. Ardelia shook her head again, thinking how things had changed since she was in the Academy. She remembered when this database had been formed, and how she had insisted that a record be created for Clarice. She had brought in a hair from Clarice's hairbrush, she remembered.

SEARCHING….the computer reported for what seemed like eternity. Then that word was replaced with:

IM FOUND:0. PM FOUND:1. FM FOUND:0.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that our mystery girl is not in the NMP database," she said. "But one of her parents is. No fraternal – brother or sister -- match. "

"It can do that?"

"Yep," the tech said. "The program's been refined over the years. It's right 99.9976 percent of the time."

"Pretty good odds."

"Yeah, the Supreme Court thought so too. But wait. There's more. Guess who the match is."

"Who?"

The tech clicked 'Display Match'. PROCESSING read the screen. A second DNA helix appeared next to the first. A name appeared next to the name DOE JANE.

STARLING CLARICE M.

"Looky there," the tech said, pleased with herself.

"Oh my God," Ardelia mused, more to herself than the tech..

"But wait. There's more." She clicked 'Add Database', then selected 'VICAP Database', then 'Search'.

SEARCHING…the machine obediently displayed. After cross-referencing both databases, the second DNA helix disappeared and reappeared. A third one appeared next to it. The machine displayed:

IM FOUND: 0. PM FOUND:2. FM FOUND: 0.

"Check this out, chief," the tech said. She clicked 'Display Match'. A sick sense of dread invaded Ardelia's stomach. She knew what would appear on the screen a split second before it did.

DOE JANE. STARLING CLARICE M. LECTER HANNIBAL.

Ardelia turned an ashy gray at the sight of that name. "That's…that's Hannibal Lecter's daughter?"

"Yep," said the tech.

"And that computer can't be wrong?"

"Odds are one in three billion," the tech said drily

"So it's not."

"Nope," the tech agreed. "Congratulations. It's a girl."

Of all the ways Ardelia had expected to hear of Clarice again, this was not it. She turned away from the monitor. Elation, confusion and flat-out horror waged a war in her mind and on her face.

"So Lecter and Starling had a kid. And she's involved in the LECCOPY case, huh?" asked the tech.

"I don't know," Ardelia said. "Excuse me." She ran to the bathroom and threw up. Her head was spinning.

Ardelia's search for her friend had become a driving factor in her life. And up until now, it had been fruitless. She had located the home Dr. Lecter had rented on the Chesapeake shore. She had found only the bones of Clarice's father. As a gift to her friend, she had arranged for his bones to be reburied at a cemetery in West Virginia. Over the years, she had waited for a lead, something, anything.

Her first lead in all these years. Clarice's daughter. Not a passport photo, not a lead from an informant. The girl had been outside her freaking house. Right there. For a moment, Ardelia cursed herself. If only she had gotten outside faster. Maybe she could have intercepted her, made her talk, find out where Clarice was after all these years.

The connection was plain as day. Lecter copycat murders, and the appearance of Lecter's daughter. At her house…and at FBI headquarters.

FBI headquarters! Ardelia wiped her mouth and ran back to her desk. She called FBI headquarters and got the security office.

"I need the visitor logs from three days ago. Specifically, the tour groups from 9:00 to 11:00. I want all female names on those tours," she barked at the security officer.

"OK, Chief Mapp. I'll get them to you."

"Fax them to me. Now. This is in regard to the LECCOPY case. Highest priority."

The security officer seemed surprised, but he promised to comply.

Ardelia wasn't sure where she was going with this. There was no evidence tying Clarice's daughter to LECCOPY other than her biological tie to Lecter. Peeking in the windows of your mother's former house wasn't a crime, federal or otherwise. Neither was being fathered by a sociopathic genius. But dammit, she decided, she was going to see this through. She could always clear the kid as a suspect later, she rationalized. But she would have a name for Clarice's daughter by the end of the day. And next she would have Clarice's daughter in her hands.

Unlike the deceased Mason Verger, Ardelia did not want revenge. She simply wanted to talk to the girl, to find out what had happened, and hopefully to find Clarice. So far, she had neither evidence implicating or exonerating Clarice's daughter.

Clarice's daughter. Much easier to think of her that way. Ardelia did not want to think about the girl's other parent. Unfortunately, she had a vivid imagination. It was a great help in her line of work; she was able to visualize scenes and see things from the points of view of the victim and the offender. It served to torture her now. She envisioned Hannibal Lecter whispering in Clarice's ear, urging her to do unthinkable things. She saw Lecter carrying around his child– NO! Clarice's daughter. She's Clarice's daughter – and showing her scenes of violence. Had he taught the kid to practice cannibalism? Torture people? Stab them? Gas them? Her all-too-keen imagination tossed up images of each atrocity committed in the LECCOPY murders. She saw Hannibal Lecter instructing a small girl, a girl with Clarice's eyes. Saw the girl grow to adulthood as an amoral killer, warped by being raised by Hannibal Lecter. Saw Clarice bound to a gurney. The girl over her with a knife in her hand. Hannibal Lecter standing beside her, nodding approvingly. Yes, sweetheart, now do what you must and let's eat. Saw the blade come down. Oh God no. She threw up again and bit the inside of her cheek to make the horrible visions go away.

LECCOPY, she reminded herself. The National Tattler could suppose that a biological link was enough. The courts demanded a higher standard of proof. She did not even have the name of Clarice's daughter yet. She couldn't help but feel guilty. She knew why – she was attempting to use the resources of the FBI to find Clarice's daughter over a personal issue.

I'm not going to falsely accuse her, Ardelia told herself. I'm not doing anything wrong. She can be a suspect. For now. Just till I find her. If the evidence exonerates her, so be it. I just want…to talk with her.

…

The emergency room at Maryland-Misericordia was busy. That was nothing new. City life provided the doctors and nurses with plenty of motor vehicle accidents and gunshot wounds to care for. Throughout the din, they worked busily around the clock. Patients were admitted, treated, and either released or admitted. In some cases – more than any ER would like – the patients ended up in the morgue. But there were always more patients, and the pace rarely slackened.

Barney moved swiftly through this tumult. Although he was a man both older and larger than the norm, he was deceptively fast on his feet. He helped in Trauma Room One, then buzzed out to Two, then checked back at the desk.

Barney was a man content with his life. He was a nursing supervisor now. Twenty years ago, he had gotten his bachelor's degree in nursing and become an R.N. Before he managed to do that, though, he had appeared before the court in California and requested expungement of his criminal record. He had told the court that he was sorry for his prior crime, and that he had showed this by dint of his ten-year-long good work history and attempts to improve himself. He quoted Socrates and Marcus Aurelius. The judge had been most cooperative, pronouncing that if all former felons were as hardworking and rehabilitated as Barney, the world would be a better place. The judge did not know that Barney had learned about Socrates from Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

So Barney's criminal record had been expunged, and he had gone on to complete a nursing degree. During his career, he had been promoted to shift supervisor, and finally Nursing Supervisor for the entire hospital. He still pulled ER shifts, though. He liked the ER. He liked the fast pace of the work and the adrenaline rush of pulling a patient back from death's door.

He still had a fair amount of paperwork to do. Came with the territory. Fill out forms, sign stuff. Barney wrote his name more every day than he had in the years he watched Dr. Lecter at the asylum. So when he saw a FedEx employee looking around quizzically at the charge desk, he went up to her and asked if he could help her.

"Are you the nursing supervisor?" she asked.

"Yes, I am," he said. "I'm Barney."

She consulted her clipboard. "I have a package for you, then." She held out the clipboard. "Please sign here."

He glanced at her up and down. She held no package that he could see. "Where's the package?"

"In my truck out front," she said. Then she blushed and looked down. She wore sunglasses under her cap, but Barney could tell that she was embarrassed. "I…um…I was wondering if I could get some help. There are a lot of boxes."

"What are they?"

"Standard medical supplies. IV needles, catheters, stuff like that," she said. "But some are coded for the E.R. If you'd like, we can bring them in here rather than through shipping and receiving. That way you get them now," she offered.

She was probably right, Barney thought. The ER was running low on supplies. If they got to shipping and receiving, it would take a few days for those lazy bastards to unpack them and ship them on their way.

"I'll be glad to help you, miss," he smiled. "Right this way."

She walked out through the ambulance bay doors. In the drive-through loop, a FedEx truck was parked off to the side. Barney thought about telling her that it was for ambulances only, and then decided not to. She had pulled it off to the side so that ambulances could get through easily. And after all, it wasn't like she was delivering pizza. The ER needed medical supplies as clearly as it needed patients.

She opened the back doors of the truck. "There's two dollies in there," she explained. "Just hop on in there, if you don't mind. "

Barney did as she asked. The interior of the truck was dark and it took a moment or two for his eyes to adjust from the bright daylight outside. Behind him, the FedEx girl jumped up into the truck herself and slammed the doors shut again.

"Don't you need those open?" he asked.

"Nope," Susana Alvarez Lecter said. Her right hand came blurring up. In it was a syringe filled with acepromazine. Susana had purchased the syringe and acepromazine at a veterinary supply company outside of Baltimore before waylaying an unfortunate FedEx employee and borrowing the truck. She jabbed the needle into Barney's neck and pressed the plunger quickly. It was a big dose in a critical area, and it went to work quickly.

Barney fell to his knees as if axed. He reached out and pawed the air. He tried to regain his feet, but the tranquilizer was steadily turning his limbs into water. Susana watched him warily, staying between him and the doors just in case. Finally, he slithered to the floor. Susana took a moment to study his large black features, and satisfied herself that he wasn't going to die. That was good. She had estimated the dosage by guessing at Barney's weight. She jumped into the front seat and pulled the truck into the parking lot. There, she was able to work quietly. She had made some other purchases at a medical supply company in Baltimore itself, and she pulled those out now.

When Barney awoke, it was night. He could tell immediately through the portholes of the back doors. He groaned and tried to rise. He could not. His arms wouldn't move. When he tried to move his legs, he found that they would not move either.

It took several moments before he realized what had happened to him. He was still in the back of the truck. But now, he was wearing a straightjacket which held his arms tight across his big chest. He was lying against a furniture dolly, standing up straight. His legs and chest were strapped firmly to the dolly with canvas straps. In the portholes of the back doors, he could faintly see his own reflection. Over his face he wore a plastic mask that covered the lower half of his face. Three metal bars over the mouth opening prevented him from biting. The mask pinched his nose unpleasantly. The straps dug into the back of his head.

Barney's eyes widened. He let out a choked sound. He knew exactly who he was dressed up to look like.

"Dr. Lecter?" he said into the darkness. This couldn't be. Lecter would not have done this. For one thing, Lecter was too old. Barney himself was almost sixty. But Lecter would have considered this rude. Barney and he had always been civil with each other.

A footstep echoed on the metal floor of the truck. Barney tried to twist his head around, but he had very little room to maneuver. A shape walked around to stand between him and the doors. Barney struggled in the faint light to make it out. It was difficult. He could see the FedEx uniform, but he knew by now this was no FedEx employee. On her head she wore a black ski mask covering her features. Her eyes were uncovered, though, and the sight of those eyes terrified Barney. Maroon eyes, which seemed to glow red in the faint light. He had seen those eyes before.

"No," Susana Alvarez Lecter said. "Not Dr. Lecter. But you're close." She smiled a terrible, frightening smile. "I have waited so long to talk to you, Barney. In his name."