The hospital was busy and bustling. Doctors and nurses ran to and fro. Voices rose and blended into an unimaginable din. The ER was barely controlled chaos. Echoey voices spoke from the speakers overhead, asking doctors to call particular extensions.
The surgical floors were calmer. Here, most of the patients were in bed. Occasionally a nurse would appear in the halls. In the surgical waiting lounge, Lisa Starling waited in a black vinyl chair. She wore borrowed surgical greens. Now, she thought, she knew how Kelly McNeely had felt. Shame, anger and humiliation burned in her gut. Her cousin had won this round hands down. Laura Miehns sat next to her in the chair, equally silent. Lisa supposed she was upset that she hadn't saved her. Lisa did not hold her responsible.
Will was recovering from emergency surgery. She had been seen down in the ER. The ER doctor had been calm and apologetic. There's nothing I can do for your face, Agent Starling, not right now. Anything I do would just make it worse. For now, just let it heal. How very comforting. She'd gotten a referral to a plastic surgeon and new bandages to replace those Susana had wrapped around her head. But she was okay, no matter what Susana had done to her. Feeling under the bandages revealed that everything that was supposed to be there still was. That was what mattered.
She was able to ignore her injuries for that reason. She was up and running and functional. Whatever her cousin had done to her could wait. And part of her quailed to think of what might lie under those bandages. Susana hadn't scrupled at leaving her with a crazy guy who stuck his tongue in her mouth; God only knew what she had decided to do to Lisa's face. At Laura Miehns's insistence, they had admitted Lisa for overnight observation, just in case Susana had left them a surprise – internal injuries, perhaps. Lisa had abandoned her room the minute she was installed there and headed for surgery to wait for Will.
As soon as she had seen Will, she was heading straight to Alexandria to pull their files. Maybe the jail ministry was part of a church, not the jail itself, but the jail would have names, at least. Something to work off. Thinking about putting a name to Susana's accomplice gave her something to think about, other than rage and shame.
All right. The UNSUB was religious. If he was the torture killer who had been dumping bodies around metro DC for the past few years, he was definitely a sadist. Probably emotionally disturbed. But he had to hold a job. Lisa doubted the jail ministry was his main job: it was probably volunteer. He'd dumped the bodies in some rural locations, some city locations, so he had to have a car. That meant he had a job, because he had the means to maintain and operate a car. The murders were pretty detailed. He wasn't sloppy. He'd also evaded detection this far. That suggested something professional, something where he'd also have the time to volunteer. Something better than unskilled labor, at least.
His job wouldn't be something like sales, either. This boy was capable of appearing normal, but internally, he was pretty messed up. He would prefer a job that didn't deal with people. He'd be somewhere in the back office. Somewhere where he could dream his awful dreams, select his next victim….
No, wait. From what she could recall of the victims there wasn't any connection. He was nonpreferential, a spider waiting for whatever fly flew into his web. She resolved to get the file as soon as she got back to Quantico. Susana had taken Graham away from her – perhaps forever – so she would take Susana's accomplice away from her.
A doctor walked up to them, interrupting her reverie.
"Hi," he smiled. "You're here for Will Graham?" Thankfully, he ignored the bandages swathing her face.
Lisa's head snapped up. "Yes," she said instantly. "Is he awake?"
The doctor nodded.
"What's his condition?" Lisa demanded.
The doctor adopted a regretful mien. "Mr. Graham's condition…is not good," he said after some thought. "He coded twice on the table. It's touch and go. We've done everything we can for him. You can see him now…we're not sure if he's going to survive much longer."
Lisa Starling pressed her lips together and rose. Behind her, Laura Miehns followed at a respectful distance. She was alert, though – Susana Alvarez knew hospitals and might try attacking again. It was her turf. But Lisa was here for Will, so she would let her see him. And probably say goodbye.
So they followed the doctor through the hall to a small, private room. Will Graham lay on the bed, looking impossibly frail and old in the hospital johnny. He seemed to have aged ten more years since the afternoon. Lisa clamped her eyes shut against the sting of tears at seeing him. They stung the incisions made in her face, but she couldn't help it. Will saw it and smiled gently.
"Hello, Lisa," he said in a faint, papery whisper. "Well…I guess this is it for me."
Lisa shook her head. "You're going to live, Will. You'll see this through to the end."
Will Graham smiled again. "Lisa…this is the end for me. It's all right. Don't cry."
"No," Lisa said, and not a soul in the room knew what she was refusing.
Will looked up at the ceiling and a look almost like grace came over his face. "I mean it," he whispered hoarsely. "That's it for me. And it's all right. I've had as good a life as any man could hope for. It's not the same for you, Lisa, you're young. Me, I'm ready to go." He met Lisa's eyes again. "I'll be with my Molly," he said almost thoughtfully. His eyes were alive as they touched Lisa's. In pain and thinking of the past, perhaps of those things left unsaid, but alive and aware.
"It's going to be all right, Will," Lisa said softly. Will sighed wistfully. It was her nature to comfort the old man to the last, he thought. But she didn't understand.
"Course it is, Lisa, but not how you think. If she had to get someone," Will Graham said, "better it be me."
"I wish they hadn't asked you out here," Lisa said futilely, like a small child. "She'd have left you alone."
Will Graham's gnarled hand reached out and touched Lisa's chin in a paternal gesture. His smile was sad and kind. It caused a fresh burst of tears from Lisa.
"Lisa, don't think like that," he said. "I gotta go sometime. And I volunteered to come. I…," his eyes closed in pain for a moment and he paused. "I was just sitting around, waiting to die." His chest rose and heaved as he tried to suck in air.
"Lisa," he said, "there's those who come before, there are those who are there with you…and then there are those who come after. I was old, Lisa, I'd been old for years. Felt like the world had moved beyond me. Dr. Lecter was gone for years, now we know he's dead. Crawford died. Molly passed on twenty years ago. I was just an old man waiting to die myself. I had a longer ticket than most, that's all."
Lisa Starling did not say a word. It seemed somehow very wrong to cut the old man off. He didn't have much more time left, and this was something he wanted to say.
"But then…then Black Wednesday happened. And Behavioral Sciences needed me. And for just a little bit at the end, I got to be…well, part of the team. I wish it hadn't happened, but it did, and I got to help out. Real help, really making a difference, not just humoring an old man. I got to be…one of those who come after." His old, blocky hand tightened on her smaller, smooth one.
"You did, Will," she whispered back. Her throat had closed down too tight to allow anything else. "You saw the martyr murders. I didn't. And I know who he is, Will. I can get him. Just like you said…get the heretic. And he'll lead us to Dr. Lecter."
Will nodded. He seemed pleased, smiling at her like a proud grandfather.
"Least I could do," he pronounced hoarsely, "for the profiler who caught Dr. Lecter."
An expression of pain crossed his face then, and the EKG attached to his chest began to bray a loud alarm. His hand tightened on Lisa's. The room changed from peace to chaos then. It seemed to Lisa Starling that several people instantly materialized in the room. Agent Miehns shooed her out into the hall. Helplessly, she stood in the doorway, watching urgently. White coats and scrubs milled around the old man. They spoke calmly but urgently, in an argot Lisa Starling could not comprehend – V-fib, looks like an MI, he's flatlining… charge to 50…clear!
The medical team applied the electrodes to Will Graham's chest. His body jumped as the current crackled across his body. The alarms continued to sound, the chaos continued to work. They injected drugs into him. They pounded on his chest. And then, as quickly as the controlled chaos had started, it stopped. They stood away from the bed as if obeying an unknown signal. One of them had a look of minor disgust on his face, as if losing a video game.
"Call it," he told another.
"Time of death….ten sixteen p.m." He sighed. It had been no more than ten minutes since Will Graham had last spoken. The bald doctor came out into the hallway and eyed Lisa Starling, assuming her to be family.
"I'm sorry," he said. "We did everything we could, but we weren't able to resuscitate him." He sighed.
Lisa Starling nodded silently, feeling tears sting her eyes. When Laura Miehns took her arm and gently steered her back to her own room, she didn't protest. She sat on the bed, staring into space blankly. Her arms were clasped around her knees and her eyes were blank. In that, she was not so dissimilar from how Susana had sat in her cell a month ago after the news of the death of her mother.
"I'm sorry, Starling," Laura Miehns said softly. She paused for a moment, thinking about whether or not she should speak.
"Starling, did you want any files brought over from Quantico while you wait?" she asked.
Lisa's first idea was to say no. No, she simply wanted to stare at the wall and grieve. But it would be a more fitting memorial to Will to track down Susana's accomplice. She sighed.
"Yes," she said. "I want my DC torture killer file…it should be on my desk. I want Susana's file too, just in case. And also I want Alexandria Detention Center's records on their jail ministry. I don't know how they track them, so get everything you can. But if we know who was on Susana's cellblock the night of her escape, or whom they sent to talk to her, that's our man. Find out if they have photographs on record or fingerprints or what. Anything we can get."
Laura nodded calmly and called in the request to the HRT. The basement corridors of Quantico were under extremely tight security. The agent on the other end agreed to get the files that Lisa wanted and arranged for someone to be dispatched to Alexandria to get the paperwork she sought.
The paperwork arrived quicker than the doctor did. That surprised Lisa. It took barely half an hour for an agent from HRT to show up with two manila folders and a computer printout. Lisa had already seen the other two files, and so she was most interested in the printout from Alexandria. She was miffed to discover they had no photographs or fingerprints on file. But there were names, and names would be good enough. Names, birthdates, and home addresses. Not bad. She could work with this.
Susana's accomplice was male. That ruled out the women on the list. She believed the accomplice to be close to her own age – perhaps a bit younger. It struck her as appropriate that Susana would prefer a younger man she could manipulate. Then again, Susana hadn't really been in a position to choose. She would have had to take whoever offered to help her. She hesitated over a fifty-year-old and decided to cross him off the list. The man who had stuck his tongue in her mouth had been younger than that. She shivered at the memory and forced herself to keep on going.
That narrowed it down to ten names. Three had been to the prison that day. Feeling the satisfaction of a hunter closing in on her prey, she circled the names and called over Laura Miehns.
"One of these three is Susana's accomplice," she said, and pointed to them. "If we bring them in for questioning, we'll find our way to Susana."
Miehns nodded and grinned, wanting to get in on the hunt herself. "Read me off the names?" she asked.
"Charles Pearson…, John Stapleton…., or Luke Taylor."
A doctor stuck his head in the room and smiled nonchalantly. "Hi," he said calmly. "I'm Dr. Lindbergh. I was called over to have a look at your face."
Lisa shrugged and put her files on the bedside table. "All right," she said. The thought of her face made her tremble. But the guy had to be on the level – the door guard outside would not have let him in otherwise. So she sat passively and let him remove the bandages again. He studied her face with some degree of calmness.
"Hmmm," he said thoughtfully. "Now, no one in the hospital did this?"
Lisa shook her head. "The…the perpetrator did," she said simply.
"Well, Agent Starling, here's the deal. Your wounds are already stitched up. Quite neatly, I might add. I couldn't have done any better myself. I can cut them if you want, but the thing is, your skin has already been cut once. If I do, then your skin might scar, and that's your face, so we want to avoid that. Better to let it heal, then see what we're looking at."
Lisa took some time to digest that. Finally, she asked, "Is it bad?"
"No," the doctor said with some relief. "A little swelling, but not bad. Would you like to see?"
"Yes," Lisa said flatly. The doctor handed her a small hand mirror. It trembled in her hand as she raised it to her face. She took a deep breath and looked into the mirror.
The results surprised her. There was little visible damage to her face. Her eyes had changed. There were sutures in the corners of her eyes, and also on her cheeks. She touched her cheek experimentally: there was something on her cheekbones making them slightly more prominent. As he had said, there was some redness and some swelling, but nothing too bad. There was bruising around the eyes, but that did not concern her. It would fade off.
The biggest change was the hair. Instead of the light blonde color that had been there all her life, her hair was a rich reddish brown. She remembered the stink of ammonia and the feeling of Susana massaging something wet and gluey into her hair. At the time, she'd thought it was some type of acid gel, perhaps a depilatory, something that would leave her scalp bald and horribly scarred. Instead, her murderous cousin had simply given her a dye job. In some ways it was almost laughable.
"She made you look like her," Miehns said softly.
Lisa stared into the mirror. Starling women had always had a strong resemblance. Susana's resemblance to her mother was clear enough. Even the planes of her old face were similar to her first cousin and first cousin once removed. Susana's knife had simply enhanced this resemblance. Then it hit her. The face that had haunted her ever since her career began was now hers. It was frightening in its own way: she wore a face that she connected with failure, with betrayal. The face she had sworn to overcome in the FBI's eyes.
"No," she said and grabbed Susana's file. When she spoke, her tone was calm and nonchalant, which seemed odd given her words. "No, she didn't make me look like her. My eyes are still blue. She wouldn't have missed that. She'd have gone after my eyeballs with a tattoo gun if that was what she wanted. Don't you see?"
She slipped the picture from Susana's file and held it up. It was unmistakable then, swelling or no. Laura Miehns sighed as she realized Lisa was correct.
"She made me into Clarice. I'm supposed to be Clarice."
…
Susana Alvarez Lecter pulled into the condo complex and looked around in the dark night. No one was there. It was a pleasant place, a nice place. But it was certainly not where she would have lived. She stepped from the car and stood in front of unit 252 for a moment. Lisa's keys jangled in her purse as she pulled them out. There weren't many keys on the ring and it was a simple matter of trial and error before one of them worked in the lock. Susana held her breath, waiting for the telltale beeeeeep of an alarm system, but apparently Lisa was satisfied with a deadbolt lock and a key-in-knob jobbie. Not too bad, she had to admit. The key-in-knob lock would've taken her all of thirty seconds to get past, but the deadbolt was good quality and well fitted. That would've slowed her down for a bit.
The condo was not spacious, but it looked comfortable. A middle-class abode for a middle-class woman. Susana flexed her hands in the leather gloves she wore and opened her cousin's kitchen cabinets to check out her china. She shook her head. Nothing good. Perhaps she would send her cousin something nice – Lenox, maybe – when this was over.
The living room got only a cursory notice. The couch was decent but not worth a second look. A vinyl La-Z-Boy that Susana suspected was inherited – it screamed 'guy chair' and looked to be as old as Susana herself. The TV was 32 inches, the stereo middle of the line. There was nothing to interest Susana here. She headed upstairs.
Lisa's bathroom interested her only for a few minutes. She took Lisa's toothbrush, a tube of toothpaste, and a comb. She discovered that her cousin favored department-store cosmetics, and not much of them. Better than drugstore, she supposed. It was Lisa's bedroom that she sought out. It was a larger room than she would have expected, and quite comfortable. A queen-size bed took up one quadrant of the room. There was a smaller TV on a table set where Lisa could watch TV in bed. Between the bed and the wall, hidden as if contraband, were three paperback novels by Shawn Irons. Susana grinned at the sight of them.
Lisa's closet gained her what she was looking for. There was a black pants suit that she held up against her own frame and tossed in the bag for herself. Lisa did not go for name brands, unfortunately, and the suit was a step below what she usually favored. But, it would be of great help in enacting the final phase of the plan. It would fit well enough.
Pink fuzzy slippers made her grin as she scooped them up and put them in the black leather carryall she had bought. Lisa's taste in sleepwear appeared to run more towards the comfort side of things. Mostly flannel pajama pants. There was a small safe on the closet floor with a keypad lock, and that attracted Susana's interest. She squatted, thought for a moment, and punched in 03052004 on the keypad. With a click, the door swung open. Her birthday. Lisa's too, she amended. Well, I declare, Cousin Lisa, why don't y'all just write the combo on a sticky note and stick it to the door? Inside were a small, cut-down .45 and a 9mm Beretta. Susana nodded, pleased that Lisa at least had enough brains to lock up her weapons. Too bad the combination was so easy to figure out. There was a bureau across the room, and Susana scooped up some underwear for her cousin from the middle drawer.
She'd squared away her cousin's needs, she thought. Bathrobe, change of clothes, clean underwear. It would also give her a great opportunity to smuggle her cousin's identification back to her. Lisa's FBI ID had been in her pants pocket, and Susana had unwittingly taken it along with her pants when she escaped the apartment. Luke was having at it now with his scanner, busily trying to duplicate it as best he could. Susana tried to explain to him that it didn't need to be perfect. If Lisa went for a new picture, the whole thing would be shot, but Susana did not think she would. Not immediately. There were other things to keep in mind, like keeping alive and mourning Will Graham. Susana didn't want her cousin to go get a new picture with her new face and hair color. She wanted her to keep the old one a while longer. And besides, she did want Lisa to have a comfortable convalescence. Dropping these things off would help her cousin out.
She glanced across the room to the closed door in the hall. The blueprints she had seen at Town Hall indicated it would be a second bedroom. Susana thought it likely that Lisa used it as an office of sorts. She walked calmly forward and opened the door. Her eyes flicked around the room, taking in each item. Her jaw dropped open, just a bit. She could see herself in the mirror on the opposite wall. The expression on her face was one she had seen before, but never on her own face: shock and surprise.
A computer and desk took up one corner of the room. The rest of the room was all about her.
A bookshelf held copies of her case file. Next to it, incongruously, were copies of the yearbook from Susana's college years at the University of Buenos Aires. Next to those were yearbooks from the private academy that she had attended for high school. Next to that, books on introductory Argentine Spanish and Argentine history. A box held receipts from Susana's prior purchases. The wall held framed copies of Susana's bachelor's degree from UBA, as well as her degree from Harvard Medical School under the name of Alina Lektor. They let her have a copy of my degree? Susana thought incredulously.
Next to the degrees were photographs of Susana, just as if they were normal family with no murder in the mix at all. But not quite. Susana's mug shot was there. Next to that, the picture they had taken in lieu of a mug shot back in Wheeling, when she had been in the ICU. And again, college and high school yearbook pictures. A snapshot she'd put in the yearbook, of her and her then-best friend. She had just turned sixteen, completely innocent of murder. The two of them were sprawled across the hood of Susana's first Mustang like fashion models. Incongruously, the handcuffs that Lisa had apparently locked onto her wrists three months ago were mounted on a wooden plaque next to that snapshot. A small brass oval on the plaque had her name and the date of her arrest. Presumably the FBI would not let Lisa have her head stuffed and mounted on the wall, so this was a substitute. Susana stared at all of them in amazement.
Two large sheets of butcher paper on the walls were carefully lined into charts. Charted therein were names, magazine subscriptions, and extravagant purchases of the types Susana liked. Examining these told Susana that Lisa had cracked a few of her identities, missed a few entirely, and gotten a few that weren't her. Some woman would be extraordinarily angry if she found out. In the closet hung a Hermes suit that Susana gawped at. The dry cleaners had told her it was accidentally lost six months ago. She'd have to track them down when she had more time. Outright liars. And next to it… ¡que bàrbaro! A uniform from the high school Susana had attended as a girl. How had Lisa ever gotten her hands on that? The shipping alone must've been insane.
Shock was not an emotion Susana Alvarez Lecter was familiar with, and so she sank down into the chair by Lisa's computer. A stunned, humorless laugh escaped her as she looked around at her cousin's shrine. She looked around the room, realizing just how much her cousin had studied her. Like a rare specimen. Lisa Starling's second bedroom was a shrine to her. She tried to imagine Lisa bent over the keyboard late into the night, dialing into the FBI's network, carefully delving into her life and studying her. And they thought she was crazy?
"Well, I declare," she said in the empty room. "No wonder you caught me, Cousin Lisa. Obsess much?"
Then an idea occurred to her. She took the criminal file and looked in it. Had Lisa known? There it was, right on top. Susana grabbed a few stapled-together sheets of paper and slid it into her pocket. She'd confront Lisa with it later. For now, she had to get out.
She debated taking back her suit. After all, it was hers, and for it to be here was nothing short of outright theft. Then again, fair was fair – she was borrowing one of Lisa's. And hers was much nicer anyways. Lisa was coming out ahead of the game. It was so very tempting to leave her cousin a little surprise to let her know of her presence. But no, not yet. That could jeopardize things. They would be tight enough as they were, and Susana needed all the wiggle room she could get.
She left, bags in hand, and locked up carefully. A hardware store enabled her to copy Lisa's keys easily. Once this was over, she wanted to get her hands on her entire case file. But that would have to wait. Lisa would notice it missing, even while mourning over Grampa Graham. In a few more days, the wound she had inflicted would be complete, and she would get the file then.
She headed back to Luke's home. He had his stuff ready and packed, keeping out just what he needed to make decent copies of the ID's. A bag of prior purchases sat on the backseat of the rented sedan. She was satisfied with the car: a big sedan. It would be necessary to do what she wanted to do. And it wouldn't be much longer anyway.
Luke was sitting at his computer. Most of his stuff was boxed up already, and he was ready to go. He passed her a plastic laminated card. Susana perused it and decided it was a very good copy of Lisa Starling's FBI identification. She slid it into a black wallet she had obtained and smiled at him.
"Wow," she said appreciatively. "This is great."
Luke nodded. "Got one of my own, too," he said. "But they'll suspect this one, because they know he's already dead."
Susana shrugged. "Won't be for long," she replied. "Let's get ready. I need to drop off some stuff for Lisa. Then we have to wait."
She gave Luke his bag and went upstairs to change. Lisa's suit fit her tolerably well. Enough to pass. It was better this way, Susana thought as she stared at herself in the mirror. She could've bought herself a suit, but this was better. It was real. Compared to what she usually wore, it was a rag, but it was real. She would pass unnoticed in this suit. She pulled on a shell and then her shoulder holster.
When she got back downstairs, Luke had dressed in the fatigues. The name Taylor was sewed above the pocket, the letters HRT sewed above the other. Susana had carefully transplanted all the patches from the unfortunate Agent Taylor's original uniform to these BDU's. This one actually fit him well, and did not sport bloodstains. He checked the holstered 9mm on his belt and scowled down at it.
"Feels heavy," he said. "I'm not used to guns."
Susana sighed. "Didn't you use guns in the Army?" she asked.
He shrugged. "In basic. And we didn't carry pistols. Rifles, M-16's."
"This might be dangerous," she said. "If they recognize the name, they'll know we're bogus. We may have to fight our way out."
He shrugged. "The Lord will watch over His servants," he said simply. Susana fought the urge to roll her eyes. But hopefully, they would believe her.
In the driveway, he took a long look at the house before getting behind the wheel of the sedan. Susana let him drive. Easy way to keep the peace in the relationship, plus it gave her time to think. This would be an excellent dry run for the third strike. The drive to the hospital was short.
The ER was noisy and busy, the way all ER's were. It was easy for Susana and Luke to enter and simply walk through the bustle. They looked like they knew where they were going, and no one bothered them or asked them what they were doing. It wasn't until they reached the floor Lisa was staying in that there was a guard. Just one, on Lisa's door. The guard was a plainclothes FBI agent. An older man, dressed in a plain gray suit, blending nicely into the woodwork, ready to politely tell anyone to leave, and if that didn't work, shoot them. Laura Miehns had finally gone home for the night after this agent had arrived to relieve her.
Susana strode up to him, Luke walking a half step behind her as if he was her bodyguard. The guard looked curiously at her and walked a few steps forward on an intercept course. He was polite and calm when he spoke. For his part, Luke did exactly what Susana wanted him to: assumed a parade rest position, looked like a bodyguard, and shut up.
"This is a private area, ma'am, I'm afraid there's no admittance."
Susana smiled and blinked. The contact lenses turned her eyes from maroon to dark brown, almost black. She preferred blue as a disguise color, but she didn't want to resemble Lisa's clone. She pulled out her copy of Lisa's ID and flashed it quickly.
"Hi," she said archly. "I'm Special Agent Singleton. I know the story. I'm a friend of Lisa's, we were in the Academy together."
The guard nodded. "There's no admittance," he said. "I'm sorry."
Susana took the leather bag off her shoulder. "I understand," she said. "It's a rough time, after all. This is just some stuff I picked up for her from her place. Underwear and such. Could you give this to her, please?"
The guard took it and examined the contents critically. Satisfied that Lisa's bathrobe and slippers would pose no threat to security, he glanced up at her and nodded silently.
"Thank you," she said.
"She's asleep," the guard said. "Otherwise I'd ask if she wanted to see you."
Susana had counted on this. "I don't want to disturb her, just let her have that," she said calmly. "Thank you so much. Keep her safe." She essayed a shudder. "I know I'll feel a lot better once this is over," she said with complete honesty.
"We all will," the guard said with complete neutrality. He took the bag inside the room. For just a flash, Lisa Starling was visible to those in the hall. She was indeed asleep in her bed. Susana allowed herself an instant to stare at her sleeping cousin, their resemblance stronger now. Then she turned and left. Luke left a moment behind her, feeling oddly torn. Seeing them looking so alike confused him. The girl in the bed could have been Susana.
Then they were gone, heading back to the car. Susana was pleased. If the third strike went like this, Behavioral Sciences would suffer another heavy would shortly.
"So what next?" Luke asked.
Susana stared ahead into the night. "Graham's funeral will be in a few days," she said confidently. "We lie low until then. I got us a suite at a hotel in the city. Ever stay in a five-star place? You'll like it. It'll make for a nice base of operations until we leave. We'll get our stuff in the morning." She gestured for him to turn onto the Beltway.
The suite was as glamorous as Susana had expected. A beautiful view of old Georgetown beckoned from the windows. Luke thought it was almost too opulent. Two full bathrooms. It seemed ostentatious to him, glorying in luxury. It struck him as vaguely sinful. Susana showed no such compunction: she ordered sushi from room service, commandeered the master bathroom and set herself up with a bubble bath.
Night enveloped the city. The windows of the suite Susana shared with Luke twinkled against the velvet darkness like valiant little sparks, but eventually it won out as it always did. It ruled in the cold steel drawer where Will Graham lay, his journey done. It swathed the hospital where Lisa Starling slept, under the watchful eyes of her guards. The next phase lay ahead.