Author's note: This chapter is gory. Be warned. Or be intrigued, to my bloodthirstier readers. So come on in, sit down, learn about Norse literature, and re-visit history…
Susana Alvarez Lecter took a moment to look over her captive with rich satisfaction. He trembled on Mrs. Moore's dinner table. Had she been around to object, that worthy lady would have no doubt twittered: Mr. Graham, whatever are you doing duct taped to my table? A gentleman doesn't lie down on a lady's table, duct tape or no. But a hefty shot of Pavulon had taken care of that. Mrs. Moore would twitter no more.
The duct tape held him down firmly in wide strips across his chest, arms, and midsection. But his face and his stomach were free. Those were Susana's working areas. She gazed down on the bound old man with no small degree of pleasure. Ah, papa, she thought, you would be so proud.
Luke Taylor observed her with quiet happiness. He knew where he was supposed to be, but he had a few minutes. It had been easy enough to manhandle the old man into Mrs. Moore's apartment from his own – Susana could have done it herself, but he was glad to help. That was part of Christian virtue, to help carry the burden. Simon Cyrene had helped Jesus carry the cross, and Luke had helped Susana drag Will Graham into the other apartment.
"You look happy," he observed. "I'll go now. Send him to Glory."
Susana shook her head slowly. A wolfish grin wreathed her features.
"Oh, no," she said, careful not to call Luke by name, "we'll wait until you get back. This is something we'll take very…slowly."
Luke headed down the hall to Will Graham's open door. He stationed himself behind it, in the apartment. If there was more than one cop on the way, he would simply pretend to be an aide: he'd heard a crash and poked his head in to see if Mr. Graham needed help. But if Susana was right, and it was just Lisa…well, then he had other plans.
Will Graham himself was terrified as he saw the younger man leave. He was obviously an accomplice. The main perpetrator was the young woman above him. His eyes swept across Susana's face. Quite beautiful, really, but it was a malevolent beauty. Her maroon eyes bored into him and he trembled. Those eyes made it exceedingly clear to Will Graham what—and who—she was. She resembled Clarice Starling much more strongly through the face. But those were Hannibal Lecter's eyes, unchanged and constant, glowing down at him in triumph.
"Dr. Lecter," he said, his voice fearful. He wasn't sure if he was referring to the monster above him or the monster who had sired her.
Susana's grin widened. "Why, thank you, Mr. Graham. It's so rare for anyone to address me properly." Her head tilted as she perused him. She seemed almost like a little girl at Christmas, unwrapping the gift she had so eagerly awaited.
"You knew my father," she said. "You caught him. Papa told me that it was because you were just alike."
Will Graham blinked. Of all the names he might have expected someone to call Hannibal Lecter, Papa had to be the very last one. He still thought of Lecter as slim, neat, and completely insane in his cell. Somehow inhuman in his cage and thoughts. A father? Hannibal Lecter? It seemed impossible. But here it was.
"He was wrong," Graham managed. Susana's face clouded above him. Graham swallowed. He didn't want to beg – begging Hannibal Lecter's daughter would be as fruitless as begging Hannibal Lecter himself. But he didn't want to give her any more reason to hurt him worse than she was planning to already.
"I suppose," Susana said, notes of displeasure in her voice. "He died a free man, with his family by his side. I can't say the same for you, but I'll get you my family, all I can offer."
Will's eyes narrowed. "Leave Lisa alone," he warned. "It's me you want."
Susana chuckled and clapped her hands sarcastically. "How noble," she pronounced. "Defending the maiden fair to the last. But you're a little old for such knightly escapades, aren't you, Will? Fact is, the maiden fair's been taking care of you, hasn't she? So what do you think of my cousin, anyway?"
"She's good at her job. She'll see you back in jail," Will said, studying her carefully to see her reaction.
"Perhaps someday she will," Susana agreed, and then she grinned horribly at him. "But not today." She reached out and touched his face. Her fingers gently pulled at his skin, seeking out the scars that her father had put there so many years ago. As she did, her face changed, her expression melted from sarcastic and cruel to…
Will stared, blinking through his fear. Dear God, it was reverence. Susana Alvarez Lecter, who held religion in high contempt, was seeking out his scars as if they were the Shroud of Turin. He'd sometimes thought half-jokingly to himself that he was a relic, but it wasn't a joke to her. He was a relic to her, a holy relic. Or his scars were. Or something. She traced the line her father's linoleum knife had taken down his face fifty years ago and drew in sharp breath.
She closed her eyes and a look of combined exaltation and sadness came over her face. Will stared up silently, breathing very shallowly. Now was the time when she was most likely to be set off, and Will thought that maybe—just maybe—if he could stall for time long enough, Lisa might get here. With Laura Miehns. And eventually the whole reconstituted HRT. So he let the monster commune with her departed father silently.
Then her expression hardened, and he could see she was thinking of things here and now again. Probably going to cut him. He clamped his eyes shut. He had known that death would come for him eventually, but he didn't want to die this way.
"Aren't you curious about your father?" he asked. "How I caught him?"
…
Lisa Starling's heart was racing. Susana had outwitted her somehow, sliding neatly past the guards, somehow getting past the staff, past the door guards. She had Will. Lisa had to act. She could not allow Susana to simply slide in and take Will. Not when she had worked with him.
But she was doing seventy on the Beltway as she went. She slewed into the leftmost lane and stared bitterly down the highway. Perhaps a quarter mile ahead was a pass-through on the left, so that police officers could sit in the middle of the highway and prowl for speeders. Her heart was pounding and her veins filling with adrenalin as she slid over onto the left-hand shoulder. As the pass-through grew closer, she slowed down a bit so she didn't roll the damn car over. That earned her an angry honk from behind. She ignored it.
Lisa wrenched the wheel to the left. The Trans Am screeched as it turned, tires sliding. Through some miracle she did not slam into the concrete barrier. Then she was through. She almost rammed a Hyundai off the road as she got the Trans Am straightened out, but that mattered not a whit to her.
Behind her, Laura Miehns stared baffled at the retreating car on the other side of the highway. What the hell? What had gotten into Starling? This was a police car, and had police lights under the grille. Good thing. She popped on the lights and pulled into the pass-through herself. She grabbed her cell phone and tried to call Starling's cell. No luck.
"Goddammit," Laura Miehns said, and put it up to ninety, her lights going.
She pursued the fleeing Trans Am up a few more exits. Lisa screeched off the exit ramp, tires wailing. She was doing at least fifty. Laura frowned. The big Crown Victoria was more than able to keep up, but that wasn't the problem. Something had to be going down, and it wasn't gonna be good.
Ahead was a set of railroad tracks. Laura's eyes widened. The red lights of the railroad crossing were blinking, and the arms were lowering to block traffic.
Oh shit, watch out.
Lisa whipped the wheel to the left, then the right and screeched over the tracks. A train horn sounded, a loud blare filling the world. Then she was gone. But Laura Miehns could not follow. She slammed on the brakes of the big car, screeching to a stop as the freight train thundered past a few feet ahead. She pounded the wheel in frustration.
"Shit," she said desultorily. "Be careful, Lisa, I'll be there as soon as I can. But for God's sake, be careful."
…
"I know how you caught my father," Susana said indignantly. "It's all over the Internet. And there are plenty of books on him." She smiled. "You were…just alike."
Will shook his head and smiled tiredly. "No, I wasn't," he said. "I just…knew it was him."
"Yes, so you've said," Susana agreed. "Do you know who you remind me of, Mr. Graham?"
Will Graham sighed. "Your father. I know."
Susana shook her head. "Not him," Susana said. "Beowulf, actually. From old Norse literature. I presume you've heard of him?"
Will thought back to his schooling so many years ago. "I guess," he allowed. "Tell me more about it. I want to hear more about that."
"Stalling for time? That's all right, it won't help, Mr. Graham." Will tensed. "But I'll indulge you. Beowulf defeated first Grendel, then the mother of Grendel. Just as you defeated Garrett Jacob Hobbs, who was a big dumb forceful monster, like Grendel. Then my papa. He wasn't Hobbs's mother, of course, but Hobbs had been seeing him for a while – court appointed thing, as I understand – and it was papa who encouraged Hobbs to start killing once he moved back home."
Her eyes gleamed down at Will. Despite his fear, the investigator in him was interested and he did want to hear more. To her, Garrett Hobbs would always be a remote figure, marooned in the past, known to her only by her father's words. No more real to her than a character in a children's story. But Will could recall watching Hobbs slash away at his own daughter's throat like it was yesterday. He trembled at the decades-old memory, its horror still fresh. But still…Lecter had treated Hobbs? When? Why in God's name hadn't anyone picked up on that?
"I guess if you wanted to, you could see papa as the Mother of Grendel," she continued. Pedantic, just like her father, Graham thought, trying to keep his mind calm so that he could stall her. She raised her chin and sounded like an English teacher. "Papa set Hobbs loose, started him killing, and so you could draw parallels. He was the parent of the killer in Hobbs, one might say. Not an exact parallel, but close enough. So you killed Grendel and then you got the Mother of Grendel." She grinned. "Do you know the story, Will? Do you know what happened next?"
"No," Will said, although he did. "Tell me. Let me hear…your wisdom."
Susana let out a short, amazed laugh. "Mr. Graham! So very sly. You must think I'm Francis Dolarhyde…oh, don't look so surprised. I've heard the tape Mr. Lounds made. I'm not that vain." She grinned again. "Yes, I know about him too. And it's relevant." Her eyes were filmy with thought, her expression sardonic.
"Beowulf lived for many years, rich and happy and at peace," she said. "I don't know if that part applies to you or not." Will smiled, despite his situation. Rich, no. But happy and at peace? As much as a man who has been cut open with a linoleum knife could ever be, yes. He'd had years with Molly and Willy. Good years. Susana continued.
"But then a dragon came along when he was older," Susana said. Will heard the fourth word and shivered, thinking of Dolarhyde's yellow eyes. And the Jacobis and Leedses. "A servant of Beowulf's stole something belonging to the dragon, and the dragon was angry. So it started to attack the villages. Beowulf was an old man then, but he went into battle against the dragon anyway."
Will shivered, thinking of horrors long past. He didn't know what point the monster was trying to get at, but he was more than willing to let her ramble. He thought of Lisa, and maybe her bodyguard, showing up with guns to end the literature lesson.
"Dolarhyde," he breathed.
Susana raised an elegant eyebrow. "You think?"
"Has to be," Will said. "Dolarhyde was the Dragon. Had that big tattoo. He ate the painting, for God's sake."
Susana looked surprised. Perhaps Dr. Lecter had not told her about Dolarhyde's bizarre pilgrimage to the Brooklyn art museum and his having eaten William Blake's painting. Will tried to remember how publicized that had been. He had known, but Lecter might not have.
"You think Dolarhyde was the dragon?" Susana asked again. She crossed her arms at him.
"That's what he called himself," Will said, getting the idea it wasn't the answer she was looking for. "He called himself the Dragon, he made Lounds call him that, he had a big tattoo of the dragon on his body, and he ate the painting. Stuffed it in his mouth and ate it. What more do you need?"
Susana chuckled, smiled, and shook her head sadly.
"Perhaps he did," Susana said slowly, "but he's not the dragon in Beowulf." She leaned over him.
Will stared up at her determinedly. Somehow, in his gut, he knew his time had run out.
"Beowulf was an old man when he fought the dragon," Susana explained. "He knew it would be his final battle, but he went in anyway. And the dragon killed him. He had one helper with him, one loyal subject named Wiglaf." Her tone shifted from pedantic to conversational. "Quite a name, isn't it? Could you imagine naming your child Wiglaf? You weren't old when you went up against Dolarhyde, and you lived to tell the tale." She loomed over him and stared at him upside-down, looking down on him from the head of the table like a pallbearer staring into a grave.
"But you are old now, Mr. Graham, and Wiglaf is rushing her way over here as we speak. Little Wiglaf – or Lisa, as she's called in this retelling of the tale – stole something from me, all right. My freedom. She'd have taken my life too, but she didn't get the chance. And so I am angry, and I am attacking your little village. Got four of your villagers already, did I not?" She smiled down at him coldly, but her eyes were angry.
"I am the dragon, Mr. Graham. Not a harelip killer fifty years in his grave. And I'll do what both Grendel and the Mother of Grendel failed to do."
Something silver glittered in her hand.
…
Lisa's heart was still racing and the engine still revving high when she screeched into the lot of Will Graham's assisted-living complex. She barely had enough control over herself to pull the Trans Am into a space instead of leaving it there. Then she was pulling the door open and drawing her gun all at the same time. Fortunately, the pistol was on safety; otherwise she would have likely shot herself in the foot.
Heart pounding in her ears, Lisa raced into the building and charged for the stairs. The woman at the front desk let out a surprised gasp when she saw Lisa waving the pistol, but Lisa ran around her and headed for the stairs.
Her running footsteps echoed crazily in the concrete stairwell. Up four flights of stairs, taking them two at a time, praying she would not be too late. She slammed open the door to the fourth floor. Her FBI instructor's voice immediately spoke up. Check your corners. She held the gun out in front of her, arms, body and head all rotating at once. Satisfied that her cousin was not in the hall, she charged ahead to his apartment.
The apartment door was open. Lisa went in, gun muzzle first, forcing herself to slow down. Her eyes and arms were one, the gun muzzle covering whatever she looked at. There was no one in the living room. The phone was hung up neatly. Lisa stared at it for a long moment.
A man in scrubs came out of the bedroom. Lisa aimed at him. He gave her a frightened look and raised his arms.
"FBI, freeze," Lisa said, her eyes wide. "Who are you and what're you doing here?"
"I'm an aide," he said. "I…I heard a crash and came in. The door was unlocked. I thought Mr. Graham might have fallen. I was just…trying to help."
Lisa considered and lowered the gun. "Your name is?"
"Umm…Jack Gordon," he said, looking relieved when she put it down. "Midnight-shift aide."
"Did you see anyone?" she demanded.
He shook his head. "He's not here."
Lisa nodded and reached for her cell phone – what she should have done. She dialed the main FBI office number. She turned around, examining the living room floor for clues. When she'd left, Will had been sitting in his motorized lift chair. He seemed to like the thing a great deal: simple old age does not prevent a man from liking gadgets. Would he have gotten up out of it? Only if he had to go to the bathroom, and Lisa had the feeling he did not.
She didn't know exactly what was happening until it was too late. She was trying to make out any drag marks in the carpet – Susana was not here, and the easiest way to get Will out of here would be to drag him. And then there was a tremendous whack on the back of her head. The world went blurry and the carpet was jumping up at her. As she tried to whirl, she felt the sting of a needle at her throat. She could see a white-garbed figure, too big to be Susana, reach down and pluck the Glock from her limp fingers.
The goddam aide? she thought, and then she knew no more.
When she regained consciousness, it was quick. She did not feel groggy or knocked out. One moment she was unconscious, the next moment her head was up and she was looking around. She blinked once or twice and took in the scene in front of her.
It wasn't Will's apartment, but it looked similar. That meant she was still in the complex. She tested her jaw and found that something had been stuffed in her mouth. She was sitting in a chair, her hands cuffed behind her. When she tried to rise, she felt hands press down on her shoulders. The damn aide. Wasn't an aide after all, was he? Then she saw, and her eyes widened in shock.
Susana Alvarez Lecter stood ten feet in front of her at a table. She wore a surgeon's gown over a pair of expensive slacks. She also wore latex gloves, shoe covers, and a victorious expression.
"Well, I declare," Susana said. "Cousin Lisa, you're here. So nice to see you. Too bad one of us always has to be handcuffed, isn't it? But it is your turn, I wore them last time."
Will Graham was on the dinner table, long strips of duct tape holding him down. He twisted his face over and gave Lisa a desperate, sick look. Lisa tried to scream, but the material stuffed in her mouth muffled it neatly.
"Oh, don't bother," Susana smiled. "Come on now, cousin. You could be happy for me." She gestured to the unseen man holding her down. "I've met someone very nice, and here I get to touch something my father has touched." She chuckled coldly. "This is…kind of exciting for me."
She lifted a scalpel from the table near Graham's head. Will flinched. Lisa leaned forward and squalled into her gag.
"Oh, don't be impatient, Cousin Lisa," Susana said. "Your turn will come." She enjoyed the look of horror and fear in her cousin's eyes. Well, the dear girl would have to learn sometime. Sometimes the dragon wins.
Susana leaned over Will Graham and studied his face intently. With her left hand, she pulled the wrinkled skin of his face taut so she could see the old scars. Slowly, her scalpel hand began to lower.
Lisa tensed forward, held back by the handcuffs on her wrists and the arms on her shoulders. Her eyes burned futilely at her cousin, unshed tears welling up in them. Susana had gagged her, so that meant she didn't want to hear Lisa beg for Graham's life. If only she could talk—get her cousin to let her say just a few sentences – she might be able to convince her. Torturing an old man to death – that Lisa could not stomach. Not Graham. She let out another muffled sound.
Susana looked over at her. "Oh, don't cry, Cousin Lisa. You're a big girl."
Lisa mmmphed again. Susana gave her a consternated look.
"Do you have something you want to tell me?" Susana asked, sounding like a kindergarten teacher talking to a pupil.
Lisa nodded.
"Now you know that if you scream, I'll cut off Graham's lips and feed them to you. Do we understand each other?" Susana asked in that same kindergarten-teacher voice.
Lisa nodded again.
"All right, then." Susana approached her cousin and squatted. She pulled the duct tape away from Lisa's mouth and cleared out the washcloth Luke had stuffed in it earlier.
Lisa worked her jaw. When she spoke, her voice was tense and panicked, but her tone was low. She knew that begging wouldn't work, and she knew that Susana would resent her if she tried to cajole or manipulate. But perhaps a straight-up deal would work.
"Susana," she said. "The profile we used to catch you had four major elements we were looking for. Let Graham go, and I'll tell you what they are."
Susana chuckled. "And how would that be worth a thing? You'd lie."
Lisa shook her head. "Keep me as a hostage, if you prefer. You could torture it out of me later if you want." she said breathlessly.
"Torture you?" Susana tilted her head, smiling wolfishly. "That sounds like a fun idea. I like that."
"He's an old man and he had nothing to do with catching you. Please. He's helping the FBI, that's all. He doesn't deserve to die."
Even as she said it she knew it was the wrong thing to say. Susana's eyes narrowed at her suddenly and her gloved hand tightened down on Lisa's jaw, forcing it open. She rammed the washcloth back in and slapped the tape back across Lisa's lips.
"But according to your masters, I do," Susana said venomously. Lisa screamed into the terrycloth holding her tongue down flat. She lunged forward. The hands of the man behind her grabbed her and pulled her back. Lisa tried to twist her head around to look at him, but he twisted her head back around, strong hands on either side of her head.
Susana stalked back to the table and pulled off her gloves. She put on a fresh pair and took up her scalpel again. Her left hand snagged in Graham's bristly white hair. Will Graham clamped his eyes shut. Lisa strained forward until the cuffs dug into her wrists. Both Will and Lisa stared helplessly at the pointed silver tip of the scalpel descending slowly, light running off its point wickedly. It halted four inches or so from Will's right eye.
Will Graham was not afraid to die. He did not want to die at the hands of this monster, but death itself did not scare him. What always had scared him was losing his mental abilities, of becoming senile and unable to think. He had never suffered the mental enfeeblement he feared. But now, with a younger Lecter's blade poised over his face, his sentience seemed to him a great curse. For just as before, he would feel and know every cut, every slash. He would be aware to the end. As she paused above him, he took a deep breath and steeled himself.
Susana Alvarez Lecter stopped and took a deep breath. This could not be done in the heat of anger. This was for her papa. And no other victim of Hannibal Lecter was still alive. This would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, never to be repeated. Sloppiness was not called for.
The first cut was accurate and direct, a slash above Graham's right eyebrow. Susana had decided not to give him anesthetics – he hadn't had them first time around, either. His body tensed with greater force than she would have expected from such an old man. Blood welled immediately from the cut. Susana added another quarter-inch to the cut and was pleased with her work. Her cut had precisely mirrored her father's.
Graham began to thrash under the tape as she continued. A rough triangle around the right eye, lined almost immediately in red. A careful line bisecting the face, beginning at the middle of the forehead. Down his face, skirting the nose, to a measured quarter-inch of the lip. She placed one hand on either side of the cut and pulled gently. Graham writhed and hissed. But she was able to do what she intended to, pull the skin of his face apart so that he had a strange, asymmetrical appearance. The circular scar on his cheek was harder to duplicate with the scalpel. It did not turn the same way as a linoleum knife. But Susana managed, and soon a half-dollar-sized circle appeared in Graham's cheek. It fell in as it had before, just a gobbet of flesh holding it on. She could look through the hole and see Graham's teeth and tongue working in pain.
Next came another, shorter slash under the right eye, making him look like a bloody harlequin. She had to push the glasses out of the way to start it. Then, most of the way down the cheek. The blood from earlier incisions was getting in the way. She wiped it away and proceeded to her task with precision and care.
The left ear had been repaired well, she thought. One could barely see the scar where the ear had been reconstructed. Some plastic surgeon had earned his money. Susana cut the top of the ear, a slightly upturned diagonal slash, and the top quarter of Graham's ear tumbled to the table.
Susana stood over the suffering old man and nodded with approval, inordinately pleased. She had done it. Will Graham, mutilated by one Lecter fifty years ago, was now a perfect duplicate of what he had been, the mutilations carefully retraced by another Lecter. Now for the coup de grace.
Susana put the bloody scalpel down. For this, she would not use a scalpel. No, this mark she would do as he had done. She listened to Will's shuddery breathing and observed him for a moment. In the background, she barely registered Lisa sobbing. Will Graham met her eyes, hellishly aware and bright blue against the running crimson of his blood, and she stared back at him for a moment or two before proceeding.
She flipped open the old man's sports jacket and let it lie on either side of him, like a butterfly's pinned wings. The oxford shirt underneath was clean and pressed. That pleased Susana. Her father had been right; they were just alike. Even until his death, Dr. Lecter had insisted on wearing dress shirts, preferably a tie. She appreciated seeing this again in Graham.
The buttons of Graham's white broadcloth shirt were harder to pop off than she thought. The shirt was made well and the buttons double-sewn with strong thread. Good taste in clothing, Susana thought, blissfully unaware of how many years it had taken Molly Foster Graham to inculcate that habit in him. But it was well within her ability to break them once she had adjusted for their strength. The cotton T-shirt he wore underneath was much easier to rip.
The raised scar on Will Graham's belly was long and wide. It snaked up from his left hipbone, curving across his stomach like a snake. It notched his rib cage on the right side, the end of the scar angled like a check mark. Susana's eyes closed, and the presence of her father was so palpable she expected him to be behind her, nodding approvingly.
Susana lifted the blade she had chosen to do this work, the most important. It was not a medical instrument by any means. Will Graham grunted in pain, but his eyes widened in fear when he saw the hooked blade of the linoleum knife protruding from her closed fist. But he was weak from loss of blood and loss of years, and he could only strain against the tape fruitlessly.
Lisa Starling watched this helplessly, anger, grief, and pain writ large across her face. She glared at her cousin hatefully as Susana hovered over Will's stomach, a cat playing with a mouse before killing it. Helpless tears welled in her eyes. This was nothing more than pure, unmitigated torture. Susana's eyes met hers for a moment. Anger and hate were pushed aside by astonishment at what Lisa saw: tears burned behind Susana's eyes, too.
Oh God. Oh God. To her, this is like the freaking Ark of the Covenant. There's no way she'll stop. I'm sorry, Will, I'm so sorry.
But Lisa could not turn her eyes away from the sight before her as Susana lowered the linoleum knife and pressed the curved blade against Will's scrawny hip. She flinched when she heard Will let out what might have been a pained scream from between clenched teeth. DeGraff had been bad enough, but Will was her friend. Blood welled from the wound.
It took far longer for Susana Alvarez Lecter to open Will Graham's stomach than it had for Hannibal Lecter. The scar was raised and wide, and it did not cut easily. Susana was determined not to deviate from it at all. Slowly, surely, however, the blade traced its predestined path across Will's stomach. It bled much more heavily than the facial wounds Susana had inflicted on him, and soon the carpet under the table was stained with crimson.
The blade was difficult to maneuver as it cut through flesh and gristle, and getting the notch on the ribcage right was even more difficult. The blade kept grabbing at the rib below the skin. But Susana's efforts were finally rewarded. Will Graham lay on the table, his face carved up and his stomach slashed open. His viscera were visible. As he had half a century before, he lay back and groaned in pain. Susana took a moment to observe her work before carefully taping Will's mouth with duct tape. She smiled brightly, realizing that there was no closer to her father's work she could get beyond this. Her only regret was that she almost certainly knew she would never get another chance like this. It was easy to ignore her cousin's hateful glare: besides, Lisa would learn what was waiting for her.
Suddenly, there was a pounding on the front door. Susana's head jolted around.
"Open up! This is the FBI! Open the door, please."
Susana and Luke traded glances. She stepped deliberately around her cousin and whispered into his ear.
"I'll handle it," she hissed. "Can you get her ready?"
Luke Taylor nodded. "Bedroom?"
Susana nodded. "I still have…a few things I need to do to him, too."
Luke shrugged.
"And you know what you need to do to get started, right?" she told him.
He nodded again.
Lisa Starling was too overwrought with grief and horror to really notice. She hoped desultorily that it was Miehns at the door, preferably with the entire HRT behind her. How she could have ever felt sorry for her cousin in jail was beyond her now. Susana had been right: she did deserve to die, after this.
But then Luke grabbed the rung of the chair back and was dragging it easily over the carpeted hallway. Lisa started and tried to look around at him. Her arms flexed against the handcuffs. But all she could do was watch what was behind her as Luke dragged her backwards into the bedroom.
She saw the body of the old woman sprawled in a corner, the body of the door guard stacked neatly next to it, like cordwood. She couldn't help but tense. Two more notches on Susana's belt. Means to an end murders, the profiler in her decided. The end had been Graham. What the hell was this guy doing with her anyway?
I swear to God, Susana, you'd better kill me now or I'll be there when they get you, I'll be there when they try you, and I'll be there when they strap you down in Terre Haute.
And then Luke Taylor was bending down behind her, his lips against her ear, breath unpleasant against her skin:
"Do you believe in God, Agent Starling?"