There were two Starlings in the room.
Two Starlings, one alive, one no longer. One had remained loyal to the FBI, one had left it. One had abandoned the FBI for a husband and a child; one had given up a husband and children for the FBI. One was Susana Alvarez Lecter's mother; the other, her captive.
Lisa Starling lay on the bed. The guest room of Susana's beach house was far preferable to the cell. She had a view of the South Atlantic, and the bed was far more comfortable than the mangy mattress she had been expected to sleep on in the cell. A plastic bag of lactated Ringer's solution dripped nutrition into her wrist through an IV. A portrait of Clarice Starling hung on the wall of her bedroom. Lisa was eyeing the oil image. Clarice was younger in the painting, holding a five-year-old girl on her lap. Lisa knew exactly who it was. Her cousin. Her captor. Her savior.
"You happy now?" Lisa grumbled at the picture. "I did it. I sold out the FBI. Just like you did."
But she was doing vastly better now, no arguments about that. Her first night in the house was marked with a meal far better than anything she'd gotten in jail. After letting her stuff herself, Susana had finally told her enough, she would make herself sick. Lisa Starling did not care for shopping the same way her cousin did, but her appetite for food, after the bland and skimpy portions of the jail, was the same as Susana's. She was finishing out an antibiotic cycle Susana had put her on. Susana Alvarez Lecter, MD, did not believe conditions at Ezeiza were sanitary for a woman who had been stabbed in the stomach.
The days passed slowly for Lisa Starling. Each one seemed much the same as the day before and the day after. There was little suffering for her; time was not a punishment. There were painkillers for her stomach wound and other injections Susana gave her, which she did not know the contents of. In the mornings, Lisa slept in, enjoying the delicious luxury of not having to get up for eight o'clock staff meetings – or seven o'clock cell check. Around ten she arose and have lunch with her cousin. The afternoons were spent in idle enjoyment. At first, Lisa had taken to swimming on Hannibal Lecter's strip of beach just as Susana had on her return. A few times, Susana took her cousin to Buenos Aires for shopping or dining.
Dinner was a casual but elegant affair. The Alvarez family had always eaten well, and the private cook that had been in the employ of Hannibal Lecter was perfectly happy to come back to his post for his daughter. Despite that, Susana rarely made her dress up for dinner. The food was invariably excellent and tasty, but none of it came from homo sapiens.
After dinner, the two women would go into the library. There, Lisa would lie down on a couch and try to relax. The needles Susana slid into her arm were so fine she barely felt them. She would have difficulty remembering what happened after that. She would remember the droning sound of her own voice, reading back the dull tests and psychological profiles stored in her memory. All the while, Hannibal Lecter watched closely from his portrait on the wall. At times, it made her feel like a tape recorder.
Susana Alvarez Lecter was not a psychiatrist, but she had her father's extensive collection of books on psychology and psychiatry. Even better, she had his notes. Combining those with her own knowledge of drugs should be enough. Not, perhaps, enough to try and convince her to stay, or to explore the depths of Lisa's mind, but enough to get her cousin to cough up the contents of the file. She found it very interesting, how carefully her cousin had studied her. Lisa was able to predict better than anyone else where she might be. Lisa had to be given due credit – she'd been able to find Susana tucked away in northern Virginia, where she had thought they would never find her.
But she was wiser for the experience. The FBI was crippled, but would not always be so. She needed to find herself someplace to hide, someplace like her father had. She could keep Lisa Starling from tracking her, but she could not fend off the entire FBI. So once this was done, she would find somewhere else. There were many places in the world.
The sessions would last for a few hours. Lisa would repeat back the contents of whatever report or file they were working on for that day; Susana's voice gently prodding and urging. What were the lab results, Lisa? What does that mean? I see…go on.
Of those sessions, there was only one that Lisa would remember. It was perhaps two weeks after she had come to stay at the beach house. It had started off normally enough, Lisa lying on the couch, hypnotic drugs coursing through her veins. But instead of reeling off facts and figures and files, she had simply looked over her cousin and frowned like a child.
"I don't want to talk about the file today," she said.
Susana Alvarez Lecter sighed. "Lisa," she said patiently, "we don't have much time, and you've made such progress."
"Not today," Lisa persisted. "We always talk about what you want to talk about." She folded her arms and flipped her hair like a little girl. "We never get to talk about what I want. You're always asking me questions. I have questions I want to ask you."
Susana sighed and raised a hand. "All right, then. For a bit. What question did you have?"
"Not just a question," Lisa said. "A whole discussion."
"About what, Lisa?" Susana asked with unaccustomed patience.
"Pablo Cayoquin," Lisa said eagerly.
"Pablo who?" Susana gave her cousin a polite but blank look, not recognizing the name pronounced American-style.
"Cayoquin," Lisa repeated. "You know."
Then it struck Susana who Lisa was talking about, and she took a deep breath.
"Cayoquìn," Susana said slowly, pronouncing it ca-zho-keen in the Argentine fashion. "Pablo Cayoquìn."
"Cashokeen," agreed a highly stoned Lisa Starling.
"El Desollador. The Skinner."
"Yes," Lisa said. "What was that like?"
"It was…frightening, Lisa," Susana said, and shifted uncomfortably. "The Skinner was a serial killer, Lisa. He killed five girls and had me captive in his basement for several days." Her right hand wandered upward and touched the side of her jaw, where the Skinner's scalpel had sunk into many years ago. No physical scar remained to mark it. "That should all be in the FBI's files. I met the agent assigned to the case." Her eyes darkened as she remembered.
Lisa's tone was high-pitched and little girlish, owing to the cornucopia of drugs Susana had administered. Her words were those of an educated profiler. Questions she had longed to ask, questions she had thought of as she pursued her cousin over long dark nights. It was a curious counterpoint, and might have been amusing in other circumstances.
"Yeah, but it doesn't fit the standard pattern," Lisa said. "Serial killer victims – the ones who survive, at least – almost never turn to violence themselves. There's never been anyone who went through what you did and became a killer themselves."
Susana Alvarez pursed her lips. "Since when," she asked, "have Lecters ever fit into a standard pattern?"
Lisa blinked owlishly. "I guess so," she said. "But still. What was it like? Is that what made you…start?"
Susana chuckled. "No, Lisa, you cannot ascribe my career to a dead janitor who liked to cut off the faces of well-off Argentine girls," she said. "Please, you do me a disservice. Nothing happened to me, I happened. The Skinner simply…helped me to realize what I was."
"There were bodies that didn't meet the Skinner MO in the file," Lisa said promptly. "Two of them. One was dumped in a trash dump like the others, Cristina Vazquez, her name was. She was stabbed but not skinned. The other was found in the basement of the house. Dr. Ramon Hig…Higooo…," she stopped, her head spinning.
"Higuara," Susana supplied, her eyes distant and hard. "Yes, Dr. Higuara."
"Were those Skinner killings?"
Susana sighed and took several moments before answering.
"No," she admitted, "those were me."
Despite the drugs, Lisa Starling nodded, as if a long-held theory had finally been proven true.
"Why?"
"The Skinner forced me to kill Cristina," Susana said, as if they were long-time friends instead of murderer and victim. "He kidnapped her and told me if I didn't kill her he would kill me. I had no choice. I wouldn't have killed her if I had the opportunity to avoid it. But…it was her or me, and I didn't want to die." She actually seemed remorseful, alone among her many victims.
"What about the doctor?"
Susana sighed. "At the time, I didn't know if Dr. Higuara was the Skinner himself, or perhaps an accomplice," she said. "I was frightened, I was drugged, I was bleeding. And Papa wanted me to kill him. He…he told me to. He didn't like Dr. Higuara. I felt I needed to kill him in order to be safe myself."
"What about the Skinner himself?"
"Oh, I didn't kill him," Susana said mildly. "Mother did."
Lisa Starling, her drugged curiosity sated, fell silent for a few minutes. She suspected it somehow. Had Susana done it, it would have been much more painful. Then she spoke again.
"What about the FBI agent assigned to those killings? She never came back from Argentina."
Susana chuckled. "Ah, yes. Belle Fontaine. Yes, I killed her. She came to interview me the day she went back to the US. She spent a few hours with me, and I waited until she went back to the hotel to pack her things. I followed her to the hotel, overpowered her there, and brought her here, actually. I put her own handcuffs on her and brought her out to the beach. That's where I actually killed her, so there wouldn't be any blood. It was spring, not summer, and there was no one here. She was…confused, of course, she didn't know what to expect. Her sixteen-year-old interviewee kidnapping her and killing her, who'd have thought? But she didn't cry or beg. She went bravely."
Lisa Starling had considered Susana's later killings horrible and brutal. All of it seemed somehow unimportant now, something that had happened in the dim, dark past. Now faced with the fact that her cousin had been killing FBI agents ever since they had both been in high school, she found no anger inside her, none of the righteous wrath that had helped her to track her down and bring her to justice. She was simply curious.
"Why did you kill her?"
Susana shrugged. "Really, I suppose you're looking for some deep meaning. There isn't any, Lisa. I was forced to kill Cristina Vazquez. I needed to kill Dr. Higuara. But from those I learned what I was…that I was my father's daughter." She chuckled. "I killed her because I wanted to see what it was like to kill someone on my own. That's all there is, Lisa, no deep meaning, nothing about my mother's past in the FBI, and certainly nothing to do with you. It was fun. She got close to me at the wrong time, and I knew they would never suspect me. That's all."
Lisa absorbed that and blinked a few times. "Where…what did you do with the body?" she asked.
Susana Alvarez Lecter chuckled and tilted her head, striking the heavily drugged FBI agent as more like her father than ever before. "That should be obvious," she said calmly. "Please, haven't you studied me at all? Try and guess, Agent Starling."
Lisa Starling closed her eyes and tried to think her way around the drugs. "Well…you wouldn't have buried her here, that's too obvious. You might've dumped her offshore, there's no boat here now, but you might've had one then."
Susana shook her head. "Good idea, though," she said mildly.
Lisa looked around and thought. "You might've dumped it in the trash dump, make people think it was the Skinner, but the timing is wrong…umm…wait…,"
Then it came to her in a flash. "Med school! Your father taught at the med school. And they have cadavers."
Susana Alvarez Lecter chuckled. "Mostly correct," she said.
"What? What'd I miss?"
"You didn't miss anything," Susana said. "Very good, Agent Starling. I did indeed dump her at the med school as a med school cadaver, much as when she fell into my hands." She chuckled. Lisa pondered for a moment and then blanched.
"Wait a minute…," Lisa said. "Much as when she fell into your hands? Your father said that about Benjamin Raspail."
"I wanted to make dinner for my papa," Susana said delicately.
Lisa Starling turned away and grimaced.
Susana chuckled again. "Now, Lisa, let's get back to where we were."
Other than that one session, the evenings were much the same. Lisa slowly but surely reported back everything she knew about her cousin. What she looked for, what vulnerabilities she had identified. In the part of her mind that was still an FBI agent, she realized what she was doing. Susana would curb her more rarified tastes or find ways to get them that she could not know.
But it hardly mattered anyway. Susana had already escaped. She would never fall into the FBI's hands again. Lisa would not be able to track her down. Capturing Susana would simply put her in prison, too.
On the thirtieth day of Lisa's sojourn in the beach house, Susana woke her up quite early. After the maid had fortified her with strong coffee, Lisa accompanied her cousin out to the limousine. The driver held the door courteously for her. Lisa was quite tired and sipped at the coffee along the way. It wasn't until they were in Buenos Aires and turned down a driveway to a suspiciously familiar triangle of buildings that Lisa realized where they were going.
"Back to prison?" she asked Susana incredulously, her eyes widening.
"Just for the day," Susana assured her. "I have to check you back in, then you go to court in half an hour."
"You promised," Lisa quavered, staring at her cousin with a look of betrayal on her face.
Susana sighed. "Lisa, you want to be an FBI agent when you get back, don't you?"
"Yes," Lisa said suspiciously.
"Well, then, I can't exactly drive you to court in my limousine with plates registered to me, now can I?" Susana asked, an eyebrow arching. "I do know how you feel, cousin. They're going to get you changed, cuff you and put you on the van. Play along, Lisa, this has to look right."
Lisa Starling's heart raced at the thought. She could understand, cerebrally, what Susana was talking about. As far as the authorities knew, she was in prison. She had to go to court as a prisoner would. But emotionally, she rebelled at the thought of going back. She'd done her part, dammit, she'd given her cousin everything she needed to stay free for the rest of her life. The thought of even entering the prison made her sick.
"Then what?" she demanded.
Susana shrugged. "They'll take you to court and you wait your turn. Your lawyer stands up and says the evidence hasn't been received. The police admit that it's missing. They dismiss the charges, then you come back here for out-processing, and I'll pick you up. Probably this afternoon. Then you go to the airport. I have a first-class ticket for you, from the airport to Miami, then Miami to Dulles."
The limousine pulled up to the women's section. There were a few guards waiting outside that Lisa recognized. They approached the limo as the driver opened the door. She made no move to get out.
"Susana," Lisa said, her voice shaky. "You…you better…I mean, come on, I held up my end of the bargain."
Susana seemed disappointed. "Lisa," Susana said delicately, "I am as well. But if you want to go back to the FBI after this is over, you cannot march into the courtroom arm in arm with the only woman on the FBI's Ten Most-Wanted List. Remember, I've been in jail myself. I am not betraying you. This is just a little bit of dumbshow. Think of it as going undercover. Now you've got to move, Lisa, the court van will be departing soon."
Lisa Starling gripped the leather upholstery of the limousine and looked out at the guards. One of them leaned in. Starling recognized her; the only one who spoke any English.
"Starleeng," the guard said, "come on. You have court. We need to get you changed and on the van. Your lawyer say they dismiss charges. Let's go."
Susana Alvarez Lecter rattled off a few Spanish sentences Lisa didn't even try to understand. Then she turned to Lisa and put a hand on her shoulder.
"Lisa," Susana said calmly, "I know I've done some things you don't like. And yes, my morals are slightly different from most. But when have you ever known me to lie?"
"You haven't," Lisa said stubbornly, not wanting to believe.
"I'm not betraying you, Lisa," Susana said. "You'll just have to act the part for less than a day. They'll drive you to court and then back to process you out. You'll be free by this afternoon and on a plane home by this evening. I give you my word, Lisa."
Slowly, unwillingly, Lisa Starling stepped out of the limousine and into the arms of the prison guards. Her eyes remained locked on her cousin. For her part, Susana kept eye contact easily. But not even that was a comfort for Lisa. She had no doubt that if Susana Alvarez Lecter wanted to, she could lie with the best of them.
The guards brought her back into the prison and down to a small room. There, they made her change back into a jail uniform. Sour acid roiled in Lisa's stomach as she put the shabby uniform back on. Anger and fear coated her tongue with copper as they cuffed her wrists and led her back outside.
"Don't worry, Starleeng," the one guard said. "You go to court today. You know the deal."
Lisa Starling turned and eyed the guard with complete distrust. "And what happens if I get out?" she asked. Her voice was full of turmoil and anger.
The guard displayed open palms. "Not my call, Starleeng, you know that. Judge says you get out, you come back here, we do the papers, you get out."
Once she was shackled, there wasn't much she could do other than shuffle along with the guards out to the van. The van was already loaded with prisoners like herself. All in chains, all going to court. The atmosphere in the van was tense, as it always was. Court was a welcome break from the mindless tedium of prison. Some prisoners expected to be freed and seemed jubilant. Some prisoners expected to be sentenced and were nervous. And there was Lisa Starling, acid eating a hole through her gut, wondering if she had just been colossally suckered.
It made perfect sense, goddammit. Susana had what she needed. The smartest tactical move on Susana's part would be to return her here, send her back with a fish story about being free. Now that she was here, there would be no getting her out. And as she pondered, she remembered what she had read in those old, long ago files: that many years ago, a Starling had approached a Lecter with a bogus offer.
So she barely spoke at the courthouse when the guards brought them into the holding tank. She stared at the wall and waited. She sweated in the tattered jail uniform. Eventually, they called her name and brought her into the courtroom. Having the shackles off was definitely a plus. The guard brought Lisa Starling through the courtroom to where her attorney and the translator waited.
In the end, it was very simple. After doing the introductory parts, her attorney stated that he had not received the evidence he had asked for. The prosecutor, a man with a florid walrus mustache, admitted with some embarrassment that yes, the evidence was missing, and the police had not been able to find it. Her attorney then respectfully asked the judge to dismiss the charges against Lisa Starling, pointing out that without access to that evidence, Lisa Starling would not get a fair trial.
The judge then said the words that Susana had promised he would.
"The charges of murder against Lisa Starling are dismissed. The prisoner is to be released."
Yet Lisa wasn't convinced yet. After all, they brought her back to the holding pen. Calmly, the guard told her that they had a few things to do at the jail, and that Lisa would be free once it was done. But she offered Lisa good-faith congratulations. Lisa had to wonder what came next, though. She remembered her cousin's words all too well.
You know, the day the judge told the FBI to turn over the evidence or he would free me, I actually thought there might be some justice for me after all. So I went back to my cell and waited. And then, a few days later, McNeely came and told me I had to go to court. I had no idea for what. Then in I went, and I was arraigned on charges of murdering Ardelia Mapp and attempted murder on you. And they brought me back to my cell and I laid down on my bunk and stared at the wall. And all I could think was that they were going to dismiss the charges that I had done, and kill me for something I hadn't.
She wanted to believe her cousin. She wanted to believe that she was going to go home. But part of her kept reminding her that Susana liked to play games. Like her father before her, Susana Alvarez Lecter liked her fun. This might be part of that.
So she closed her eyes and readied herself. It would be simple, starting so innocently. A guard would stick her head in and yell Starleeng! Back into the courtroom she would go, only to be told that she was under arrest for the murder of…whoever else Susana might have killed while she was down here. Sorry, Lisa, back to jail you go. Nice try.
Finally, they loaded up the prisoners again for the ride back to the jail. Lisa still wasn't convinced. A few prisoners were jubilant. Others were completely crestfallen, staring out the windows of the van. Lisa wondered if they had gotten life sentences or what. Still, they had one thing on her. They knew what was going to happen.
At the jail, the prisoners were trooped back in. One of the guards consulted a list and then came up to Lisa.
"Starleeng!" she said. Lisa's fists clenched.
"Yes?" Lisa asked in English. No use pretending to speak Spanish.
"Vaya conmigo," the guard said.
Oh boy. Here it was. Designed to crush her hopes, no doubt. Lead her on, and then do the deed here. The guard took her by the arm and walked her down the hallway. Lisa cast a single look back at the other prisoners. They watched her with a hangdog look as she went. None of the others was taken along with her.
"¿Adonde vamos?" Lisa asked in her clumsy Spanish.
"Lanzamiento," the guard said.
"Um…¿sabe usted come se dice en inglès?" Lisa asked.
The guard did not. Lisa's stomach did a dipsy doodle. Susana, you sadistic bitch, she thought, just show up and do it already.
So what was Lanzamiento anyway? Re-arrest? Booking? Backstabbing Cousin Central? When was Susana going to drop the bomb? Had this all been a colossal game? Just a bit of exceptionally cruel sadism on Susana's part? What would she think when they brought her back up to her cell? She could see herself ten years from now, hoping to be put in an American prison, staring out her cell window and wondering what Susana was doing. Yeah, that would go over great.
Ahead was a sign reading Lanzamiento. Lisa tensed when she saw it. The guard brought Lisa in and removed the shackles. She brought Lisa to a small room and shut her inside. A few minutes later she reappeared with a paper bag. Inside it were the clothes that Lisa had worn when she was dropped off in the morning, as well as a manila envelope containing her passport, her FBI identification, and her holster. No gun; that had disappeared along with the rest of the evidence. Lisa tensed. Oh, this was a real sadistic game of Susana's. Dragging it out to the last minute. Letting her put on free-world clothes. Nice touch. What would happen next? Would a squad of cops be waiting to jump her when she got out, just like the operation that Lisa had masterminded to take Susana down?
Once Lisa had changed, the guard took the uniform back and brought her over to a desk. There, she gave Lisa a few forms and pointed out where she should sign. After that, she handed Lisa a few bills. Peso notes, Lisa thought, staring at them and wondering what the hell was going on. Well, she could tell. But what came next?
After that, Lisa was walked down the hall. There were two glass booths, made of bulletproof glass. Another guard occupied one. The other was empty. It led to outside. Outside. For just a moment, a ray of hope shone through Lisa Starling's embittered and terrified soul. The guard in the first booth indicated for Lisa to enter the second booth.
When she did, the heavy door crashed shut behind her. The door ahead buzzed. Lisa stood stoically, for a moment. The guard rapped on the glass, annoyed.
"Vaya, Starleeng," he said. "Sos lanzada." The guard who had brought her here said something to the guard in the booth. Then the guard in the booth turned back to her.
"Go, Starling," he said in English, having realized she didn't understand Spanish. "You…lanzada. Released. Go home."
"Released?" Lisa said, not wanting to have her hopes dashed.
"You free. Be good, don't come back," the guard said, and waved. "Bye."
Lisa Starling pushed open the door and walked down the steps. On the main access road to the prison, a limousine sat waiting. Lisa swallowed, gathered her courage, and approached it. When she came near, the driver got out, bowed, and opened the rear door. She entered the calm world of luxuriant leather seating and saw Susana seated in the back with no surprise. The door closed behind her.
"Hello, Lisa," Susana said calmly. "How was it?"
For a moment, Lisa shook with rage. When was she going to be free? When was enough?
"That…was torture," Lisa said vehemently.
Susana raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Torture? How so? I know sitting around in shackles is terribly boring, but really, Lisa. You're free. And free you shall remain, so long as I do. Just as I promised you."
"Yeah," Lisa said acidly. "I thought you were going to leave me there, though."
Susana Alvarez Lecter chuckled. "Betray you? Have you arraigned for crimes you didn't commit, just to keep you where you were?"
"Something like that," Lisa said tightly.
"Well, Lisa," Susana said lightly, "I guess I'm just more honest than the FBI."
"So now what?" Lisa demanded.
The limousine pulled out. Susana reached down for an ice bucket and removed a bottle of champagne. She poured two glasses and offered Lisa one. Lisa accepted it, even though she hadn't eaten all day and the roiling acid in her stomach would probably object. It tasted great, she thought, and she drank to her freedom.
"We get you to the airport," Susana said calmly. "I'd hoped we could have dinner, but that's not an option. It took longer than I expected. I suppose they went by alphabetical order for court, did they not? I always went first, being an Alvarez. I should have thought of that. But no matter, we'll get you to the airport and on your way. You have a life to get back to, you know."
They were both quiet on the drive to the airport. Lisa found it a hideous coincidence that the airport and the prison were both named Ezeiza. But here she was. The driver slid smoothly up to the departure gate nearest the airline Lisa would be flying on. Just as many years ago he had dropped off Susana Alvarez Lecter on her first trip to the United States, he scurried around and got Lisa's bag out of the trunk. Susana disembarked from the limousine as well and beckoned for a skycap to take charge of Lisa's bag.
"This is it, Lisa," Susana said calmly. "You're free now. You know the drill. Go back to America, and continue your career. Catch whatever criminals you want. So long as you leave me in peace, I'll leave you in peace."
Lisa Starling sighed. "What if they find out? I mean, if they ever find out that you did this, that you got me out of jail…"
Susana shrugged. "I gave you your freedom, Lisa. I can't guarantee everything. But they won't. They may write you up for coming to Argentina, I don't know. But they need profilers, and that's what you are. They'll just take you back after a little tongue-lashing. After that, it's up to you."
"What about you?" Lisa asked. "What are you going to do?"
Susana Alvarez Lecter looked slyly at her cousin.
"I'm not asking to track you," Lisa said softly. "I'm asking as your cousin, not an FBI agent. Heck, I don't know if I'm even going to be one when I get back."
Her cousin considered for a moment. "Leave here," Susana said. "I'm an Argentine girl and always will be, but the FBI knows I'm here, and I'd be better off somewhere else, anyway. I'll keep out of the US, I can promise you that, and I won't be killing anyone any more, unless I am forced to."
"Am I ever going to see you again?" Lisa Starling asked her only living relative.
"Probably not," Susana allowed. "It would be very bad for your career, plus too risky for me. Let's be honest, Lisa…neither one of us wants to end up back in prison. And I do have to be firm on that."
There was a bittersweet melancholy among both women. After everything that had happened, everything that each had suffered and won, it came down to simply that: a quiet goodbye at the curbside of a busy airport.
"Should you need to contact me, Lisa, place an ad on the agony column of the International Herald-Tribune's website," Susana said. "Address it to A. A. Aaron, so it will be first, and sign it Hannah. The FBI may know about it, but it'll be very old and in Papa's file, not mine. Well, that, and every few months some crank posts an article claiming to be from Mother to Papa or vice versa, so it'll get lost in the noise." She smiled ruefully. "But I'll know yours," she said.
"So…that's it?" Lisa asked.
Susana nodded. She extended her hand out to Lisa. Without any feeling of irony or strangeness, Lisa Starling took it. It seemed quite normal somehow. Fleetingly, she thought back to a few months before, and what she would have said then if anyone had ever told her she would shake Susana Alvarez Lecter's hand. Yet here she was, shaking hands with the woman who had killed her colleagues. And she felt zero guilt over it.
"Enjoy your freedom, Agent Starling," Susana said.
Lisa smiled and turned to enter the airport. Back to America, back to the FBI, back to her life. But there was one thing she wanted to say before she left. Before she boarded the plane that would take her back to where she belonged.
"Thank you," she said. "Enjoy your freedom, Dr. Lecter."