Author's note: This fic has been slow in coming. Some of this has been work and some of this has been blockage. The blockage will clear up eventually as I have a clear idea of where I want things to go. However, this story has a few allies. One is a certain someone who shall remain nameless, but lives in a country populated by strange and bizarre animals like emus, koalas, the Wiggles, and Steve Irwin the Crocodile Hunter. (Krikey!) This someone has continued to occasionally elbow me in regards to this fic. To them I say thanks, and here's your chapter. Oh, and have the emus stopped screaming? J
The other is Luna, who gave me something to work with when I really had no idea where this chapter was going. Thanks Luna as well, you're also to credit. But without further ado….
Clarice Starling shoved her key in the door of her duplex and sighed. She was disconsolate as she entered the house and plunked down her briefcase. The day had started so hopefully, when she had realized McCracken's tape – and presumably, his hideout – was near train tracks. Then she'd discovered just how many miles of train tracks were in the metro DC area.
It helped, oh yes. It cut down considerably on where she had to look. But there was still so much and she hadn't been able to come up with squat. She'd communicated her lead to the rest of the FBI, and the agents officially working the case had been receptive to it. Clarice didn't doubt that they were trying, but still. A depressive little voice in her head informed her that they'd find McCracken all right, and try him for the murder of Charlene Stenson.
No, she told that voice. I will not let that happen.
What are you going to do to stop it? the little voice asked. You knew Dr. Lecter was at Muskrat Farm. You don't know where Charlene is.
I will find her, Clarice vowed. No way in the world can Dr. Lecter be saved and Charlene die.
She kicked something as she went in and scowled. Then her eyes went wide. There were two envelopes in her doorway. One was a large manila envelope, containing a lump that Clarice knew was a cassette tape. Angry tears glittered in her eyes at the sight of it. The other was a fancy vellum envelope, which clearly contained only paper. It was too flat and neat to contain anything else. Her first name was written across it in a clear machinelike copperplate.
Goddam it, she thought, I'll have to have the house put on watch. When the hell did my front door become Serial Killer Central?
She couldn't bear to hear the screams of her niece quite yet, so she opened up the letter from Dr. Lecter first. It was surprisingly simple and didn't taunt her.
Dear Clarice,
You really ought to check your voicemail more often. Call me, please. (202) 555-3432.
H.
Clarice debated calling him before she opened the envelope. Well, wait, no: she ought to listen to it herself – painful as it would be. Part of her was loath to trust Dr. Lecter. For all she knew, he might simply tell her he'd found Mr. McCracken, they'd had a nice chat, and Charlene's body could be found at a local funeral home.
He wouldn't do that, Clarice told herself. He gave me his word. But still. She couldn't exactly trust him. He was a monster, and the fact that he was currently her ally did not change that fact.
So she screwed up her courage and put the tape into her player. There were a few moments of hissing silence. Then her niece spoke. She sounded shaky. That makes sense; she must be terrified. But he wasn't hitting her. Thank God for small favors.
"Aunt Clarice," Charlene said. She seemed to be reciting a prepared speech. That was good – if McCracken had prepared a speech for her, maybe he would keep her alive a little longer. Or maybe she was grasping at straws. Maybe McCracken was cracking up.
"Aunt Clarice, it's Charlene. I'm…all right. Don't worry about me. Dave McCracken has…he's been merciful." Charlene let out a sigh, and Clarice found herself doubting the level of McCracken's alleged mercy.
"He says he is willing to make a straight trade. If you want to him to let me go, you'll have to take my place. If you give yourself up to him, he'll let me go an'…an'…an' take care of his bidness with you."
Charlene burst into tears then, probably thinking that there was no way Clarice would agree to that. Clarice felt tears prick her own eyes. Goddam McCracken. I am going to put you in a cell and make sure you never, never get out. That is unless I kill your ass before I bring you in.
"If you want to take his…offer…"
A sharp smack echoed from the player, and she heard an angry voice grumble at her. Charlene spoke freely for the first time.
"Owwww! Okay, okay, I'm sayin' it." She sniffled. Clarice gritted her teeth.
"If you want to take his gen'rous offer," Charlene continued, "then take a white piece of paper and stick it in the middle of your front yard. Put a rock on it so that it's weighted down. Don't call no cops or nothing. You'll get a phone call once he sees it tellin' you what to do next."
She let out a long, shuddering breath, and Clarice found herself illogically tempted to reach for the cassette player, as if she could magically jump through the speaker and teleport herself to her niece. She clenched her fists, feeling the nails dig into her palms. Would she do it? Shit, she'd have to. She could deal with McCracken. She was a warrior. Charlene wasn't.
Course, that didn't mean she couldn't be right sneaky herself.
McCracken's voice, low and menacing on the tape: "Say it."
"I don't wanna," Charlene whimpered.
"Say it or I'll do it now," McCracken hissed.
Charlene took a deep breath.
"If'n you don't," Charlene said, her voice shaking with fear, "if'n you don't Aunt Clarice, the next tape he's gonna take a cattle prod to me."
She screamed suddenly, the sound shrill and excellently reproduced by Clarice's speakers.
"No, I said it! Don't! PleeeeAAASE!"
Another agonized scream. Clarice flinched. McCracken chuckled cruelly.
"That's a little sample of what West Virginia girls sound like when they get up close and personal with a cattle prod," McCracken said breezily. "Just in case you were wondering. But listen, bitch, I'm in a rare good mood. Make you a deal: straight swap. You for her. Then we'll settle up our differences. If I don't hear from you by six tonight, I'll assume you're not interested and we'll just go to tape number three. Cattle prod special, just for you."
Anger and pain shot through Clarice as she punched the STOP button on her cassette player. For several moments she trembled, not sure if she was going to cry or punch the wall. She settled for both. Her reward was a flare of pain in her hand, a hole in her drywall, and tears in her eyes. She glanced at her clock. 5:30. He'd deliberately picked a tight deadline so that she wouldn't have time to get backup.
Clarice scarfed a piece of paper from her printer and headed outside. She put it on the front of the lawn, so that McCracken would see it. She would have to assume he would be hard to catch, probably driving by the house or checking from a street over. Or sending a friend. Criminals had buddies.
When she returned, she poured herself two fingers of whiskey for the sake of her aching hand. Would she have time to call Dr. Lecter? Did he have something? She stared at her FBI cell phone.
Nope, she had to prepare first. McCracken was probably planning to try holding her hostage. Fine; he could think that. Clarice went into her bedroom and came out with a hotel sewing kit, a handcuff key, and a razor blade in a cardboard sheath. It took only a moment or two to sew the handcuff key to the back of her waistband. The razor blade was harder, and it took her a few tries to get it secured.
I'll probably cut my ass seven ways to Sunday, but it doesn't matter, she thought. Now if McCracken put handcuffs on her, she could get to the key. If he tied her up, she had the razor blade. Better she cut herself than McCracken cut Charlene. She could always get stitches, wasn't nothing new to her.
Next, she took a boot knife and carefully strapped that to her right ankle. To her left, she attached her cut-down .45 in its ankle holster. She'd keep her regular .45 in its Yaqui slide on her belt, so McCracken could take that and think he'd disarmed her. Her hand throbbed, but what the hell.
Her cell phone taunted her from where it lay on the desk. Call him or no? Trust him or no? She had no illusions about Hannibal Lecter. He was a serial killer, a monster, and by all means incredibly dangerous.
But he was also an ally, of sorts. Better to try. She held it with her uninjured hand and began to punch the buttons. She'd made the first four when she suddenly knew something had changed. It wasn't a sound; it was merely a rush of disturbed air, and then the scent of men's cologne – something absurdly expensive, she was sure – was tickling her nose. She turned around in her desk chair and observed the figure of Hannibal Lecter standing in her living room with no surprise.
How had he gotten in? Window? Back door? She didn't know. Her gun was right at her hip, along with her handcuffs. She could try and take him down immediately. But no; trying to arrest Hannibal Lecter would get in the way of saving Charlene. She didn't want Dr. Lecter to escape justice, but the life of her niece was not something she was willing to pay.
"Hello, Clarice," he said simply.
"Dr. Lecter," she whispered powerlessly.
"You don't check your voicemail, do you?"
"Voicemail?" Clarice stared blankly at him.
"I called your voicemail earlier today," he said, quite calmly.
"You got something?" she asked. Her eyes lit up and her heart began to pound. Across the room, keeping his distance as he had in his cell, Dr. Lecter noted this.
"Indeed, I do," Dr. Lecter affirmed.
"What is it?" she panted.
"McCracken was an electrician," Dr. Lecter said calmly. "He worked in a factory. I believe that he's going to go back to what he feels comfortable in. He's in a new place. He doesn't know the area or the people. He has no more…buddies from prison. Seek out an abandoned factory, and hide there. I took the liberty of examining some local maps. There's an abandoned factory ten miles outside the city limits, right off the highway. North of here. Easy to find. It used to make calculators, I believe." His eyebrows rose and lowered, and it struck her that this was very amusing for him. "I calculate that if you go there, you'll find a dirty gray van parked there, and Mr. McCracken and your niece therein."
Abandoned factory. It made perfect sense. Plenty of factories were located next to railroad lines, too. How many abandoned factories could there be?
Even so, with McCracken's new offer, it didn't matter. The only question was whether or not she would tell Dr. Lecter about this latest development. It was hard. He'd dealt foursquare with her this time. But that didn't mean he would continue to do so. He might even be jerking her around now. When you came right down to it, innocent lives didn't mean much to Dr. Lecter. Catherine Baker Martin had only been a means to ride to freedom for him; he hadn't cared terribly much for what she'd felt or experienced in Buffalo Bill's pit. Did Charlene Stenson's trauma mean anything more to him? Would he help her? If Charlene were wounded, would he do anything for her? He was a doctor, sure, but he was also a sociopath.
Could she trust him?
"You seem nervous, Clarice," Dr. Lecter said, glacially calm. "Is there something new? Some new development?"
5:55. McCracken had almost assuredly seen the white paper on her yard and would probably be calling soon. Would he call the house phone or the cell? Probably the house; that's what Charlene had. No, wait. Had she given Charlene her cell number? It was impossible to remember with those calm maroon eyes locked on hers.
Did she trust him? Yes or no? What should she do? She'd already given confidential files to him. It would be easy enough to lie. Dr. Lecter, I'm going back to Quantico to check a few things. Wasn't like he would follow her there. But he'd know. Somehow he always did.
"He gave me another tape," Clarice said, deciding honesty was the best policy.
Dr. Lecter raised his eyebrow. "A tape?"
"Here," she said. "I can't…I don't want to listen to it again."
Considerately, Dr. Lecter let her step out of the room and put on a pair of headphones he found next to the tape. A slight expression of displeasure crossed his face, as if someone had said something he found slightly rude. After listening to both tapes, he put the headphones down and called Clarice back in.
"It's a trap, Clarice," he said. "Almost assuredly. He plans to get you there, and then he will probably try to kill you both. Or perhaps kill you while Charlene watches."
"How do you know?" Clarice asked, her tone wary enough to make it a challenge.
"I would," he answered calmly.
It was a stark reminder of whom she was dealing with. She took a deep breath.
"I could find out where he is," Clarice pointed out.
"Quite dangerous, Clarice. You might well kill your niece by going, or force her to watch you be killed."
"If I don't," Clarice said, "he'll kill her anyway."
"If you go," Dr. Lecter said, "let me shadow you."
The thought of that sent chills down her spine. Shadow her. The idea of the monster in the fedora shadowing her was enough to give anyone the heebie-jeebies. But Clarice found herself wondering if it was more than fear that made her tremble.
"Dr. Lecter, even if you did, you'd be in danger of capture," Clarice pointed out. "There'll be cops there real quick, and ambulance and such."
"I'm not worried," Dr. Lecter said. "You should have some backup, though."
Clarice's lips trembled. Did he actually care about her? But then she squashed it off: her own emotions towards Dr. Lecter would have to wait. To even think about falling into his arms while a sadistic psychopath held her niece captive was blasphemy.
"I'll be all right, Dr. Lecter," Clarice assured him, seeming oddly like a teenager assuring her parents she can be trusted with the family car. Her hands were behind her back, adopting a posture of a soldier at parade rest. Their eyes met, interested but distrustful. They circled each other like two cats. Cool blue eyes met equally cool maroon ones.
Why didn't she want him to go with her, she wondered. That was actually easier to answer than she thought. Because he was a serial killer who'd killed law enforcement officers before, that was why. And she'd have to be pretty stupid to put herself in a life-and-death situation with a man she wasn't sure or not she could trust backing her. Might be better to rely on herself; she'd done it before.
What was odd was that part of her told her to trust him, to bring him along. It was a good idea to have another set of hands along. And if he turned on her, it wasn't like she couldn't shoot him for that matter.
Should she trust him or not? Would he be help or a hindrance? A blessing or a curse?
The phone was ringing. That would be McCracken. Decision time.
She eyed Dr. Lecter, letting the phone ring a few times. In her mind, scales bounced back and forth, before finally coming to rest at a decision.
Knowing who was on the other end of the line, looking at the man on the Ten Most-Wanted list standing in front of her, Clarice Starling lifted the phone.
"Hello, McCracken," she said neutrally. But her eyes and her mind were on Dr. Lecter, and she wondered as she spoke if she had made the correct decision.