The usual applies; I own no one or nothing pertaining to this story.

Chapter 2 It's Good To Be Home

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The next two days were spent watching an endless supply of soap operas and infomercials, occasionally, a decent movie. Last night she got lucky. There was an Anthony Hopkins marathon on cable, her favorite Actor. Once she thought that he reminded her of someone, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it.

True to his word, on the second day the Doctor released Starling from the Hospital. Ardelia came to take her home. Once they got to Clarice's house Ardelia said, "Girl, I don't know why you won't let me take you home with me. Mike and the kids would love to see you." "Thanks Delia, but I just want to be at home and relax, you know, just be lazy for awhile." Clarice explained. "O.k. then, but if you need anything you better call me first!" Ardelia demanded. Clarice agreed as they hugged and said there

good-byes.

Once alone, Clarice made her way to the kitchen, she was getting rather good with her crutches. After all that Hospital food she was in dire need of some junk food. Ardelia had stocked her house with enough food to feed an army for at least a month. Clarice laughed out loud saying, "Damn, Delia, guess you wanted to make sure I wouldn't starve." So she made herself a sandwich and grabbed a coke.

Just as she placed the food down on the kitchen table, she noticed her message light blinking on her answering machine. She hobbled over and hit the play button before returning to the table to eat her lunch.

The first message was Ardelia telling her she better call every couple of days to let her know how she was doing. "Yes Mother." Clarice said as she giggled.

The second message was Agent Pearsall, who said her paperwork had gone through with no problems, and she looked to have quite a monthly pension coming. He said he would call her next week with the details, but that it wasn't too late to change her mind, if she wanted to come back. "Yeah right," she said.

The third message stopped her in mid chew.

Good afternoon, Former Special Agent Starling. I do hope your feeling better.

Did you like the flowers? Unfortunately I was unable to deliver them in person.

My sincerest wishes for a speedy recovery. Bye

Damn him anyway, she thought. How the hell does he find all this stuff out?

If the Bureau had 'his' connections, crime would be extinct.

The thought made her laugh.

Clarice had been comfortable with his voice in her head for some time now, so after the initial shock of the flowers and the message had worn off, she decided that it was no big deal. He was just having some fun, and why not, she was too. For the first time, it really didn't matter to her that he was on the ten most wanted list.

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Three months later, the cast finally came off. All Clarice did for the first ten minutes was scratch. She set up her appointments for her physical therapy then decided she needed a Big Mac.

Returning home after her feast, Clarice went into the kitchen to clean up the four days worth of dishes in the sink, punching the play button on her answering machine on the way. She wondered if the Good Doctor had left her another message. He had done so seven times over the past three months. Nothing in particular. She just figured he must be pretty bored and didn't have anyone else to play with.

This time, however, it was Agent Pearsall asking her to call him, that it was important.

Clarice put the dishes on hold, that didn't take a lot of prodding, and started for the phone when the doorbell rang. She changed direction again and headed for the door.

Still using her crutches, she was getting quite a workout.

To her surprise it was Agent Pearsall she found on the other side of the door.

"Hi Starling, can I come in?" "Sure, come on in. What's up?" she asked.

Pearsall put his briefcase down on the coffee table and opened it. "We got a bad one Starling. I was hoping you would take a look at what we have so far. Before you start, I know your retired, but I hoped you would just take a look and tell me what you think."

She thought about it for a few minutes. What could it hurt, she thought, just a quick look, Dr. Lecter wasn't the only one getting bored. "O.k. Mr. Pearsall, I'll take a look.

What's the situation?" He handed her a file from his briefcase. She opened it to see a photo of a dead young woman. She had an ice pick sticking out of her right temple. There didn't appear to be any further damage, like that wasn't enough.

As she looked through the file, there were two more victims. A woman, forty-two and a man, thirty. All had been killed in the same manner, an ice pick protruding from the right temple. Clarice noticed the ice picks were all identical. Proceeding further in the file, she found the killer had inscribed a word on each of the handles.

They read in order of discovery: F I R S T, S E C O N D and finally T H I R D.

Clarice looked over the file for an hour, but couldn't find anything that stuck out. There was no pattern, no apparent motive, and no robbery, nothing that made any sense at all. She looked at Pearsall and said, "You're right, this is a bad one. Has anyone got a theory?"

Pearsall was looking at the photos again and said, "No, no one has the faintest idea where to start. We checked out the ice picks. They're sold at any Target or Wal-Mart, impossible to trace unless they were bought in large quantities and these were not. Even the bodies were found in very different types of locations. One in a car at a convenience store. One in an alley and the other in an elevator in the parking garage at the mall."

Clarice sat back on the couch and said, "You definitely have you hands full with this one."

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