For a long moment, no one spoke. Jason Sullivan let out a foggy groan. Lisa Starling's weapon did not waver from Susana's head.
"Lisa, I didn't do this to him, and neither did Thomas," Susana said softly.
"Keep your hands where I can see them," Lisa said in a choked, gravelly voice. She glanced at the two men on the floor. Professor Creed untangled himself from the other man and stood up. He, too, raised his hands.
Darryl Schantz knew he was badly wounded. He knew he would only have one opportunity to pull this off. Whoever the blonde bitch was he didn't know. But there were three of them and one of him. He didn't want the blonde to shoot the bitch. She was his. But it looked like Blondie was a cop. He'd need to get the gun away from her. Maybe wing her in the leg or something. She might be fuuuun to play with once he was done. She seemed angry about the dude on the floor.
He got up and gained his feet shakily. She was still holding the gun on the bitch. Her eyes flicked to him. She took in the blood splattered on him.
"Who are you?" she asked.
"I was just comin' in here to do some work," he said quickly. "That's what I do. I'm a working man. They told me go to this address. Door was open, so I knocked and came on in. Maybe I got the wrong house, I don't know. But these crazy assholes attacked me. That's Susana Lecter you got there, you know. I seen her on TV."
The blonde considered that. Darryl took a step closer. Five running steps, then he'd tackle her. He had no choice. Sirens wailed in the distance. If the cops checked his ID he was screwed. It was now or never. His back hurt like a bastard where the psycho had stabbed him. He screwed up his courage.
Darryl Schantz moved forward slowly. One step…two steps…three. He darted forward then, bending low, meaning to tackle the blonde and get the gun out of her hand. Then get the hell out of here before the cops got here.
But suddenly there was a spurt of flame in front of him, and what felt like a full-force kick to the chest. He tried to keep moving forward, but his legs were suddenly no longer under him. He was falling, and now his chest hurt mightily. He felt himself thump to the floor of the bedroom. He stared wide-eyed at Lisa Starling above him, her weapon aimed at him still. A wisp of smoke rose lazily from the barrel. Then everything began to darken and turn black.
Lisa Starling stared at the dead serial killer on the floor, then back to the two live ones, then to the torture kit on the bed.
"Was that the Bludgeon Man?" she rasped.
Susana nodded.
Lisa seemed less interested than she might have been to discover that the man she had sought for weeks was lying dead less than five feet from her. The gun remained aimed at Susana. Lisa gestured down with the muzzle.
"Help him," she said simply.
Susana heard the sirens and tensed. "Lisa," she said tactfully, "the police are coming."
"Help him," Lisa said inexorably.
"If they catch us, you know what happens to you," Susana said.
Lisa sighed. "I know," she said. "Help him."
Susana glanced down at the man on the floor. He was in bad shape; looked like half his blood supply was on her carpet. But she'd seen worse.
"Lisa, you know what's going to happen if the police catch me," she said. "If I go down, so do you."
Lisa closed her eyes and swallowed. Her words were calmer but disjointed. Everything seemed so confusing. Her duties tugged at her in a hundred different directions. But she knew what she wanted to happen.
"You modified the deal, Susana," she said. "So am I."
Susana Alvarez Lecter glanced up at her cousin and tilted her head curiously.
"You went to all this risk to save Professor Creed," Lisa explained. "All this time…I've been a coward. I've been cringing at the thought of you coming back. I cringed and I cried and I begged. I didn't want you to come back. I liked it the way it was."
"Well," Susana said, "you know I can take you with me."
"You can," Lisa said. Then she turned her face away and muttered something. When she spoke again, her voice was calmer.
"Maybe I'm a lousy FBI agent for letting you go. Maybe Jason hates me now. Maybe I'll go to jail anyway. But if you can risk everything to save the man you love, so can I." Crazily, tears wavered in her eyes. Perhaps realizing that her cousin was somewhere south of compos mentis, Susana did not speak.
"You brought Creed into the deal. If you and Creed stay free, so do I. OK, fine. Now I'm changing the deal. If Jay lives, we all go free. If he dies, we all go down. Period. Don't tell me I'll go to jail too. I know I will. But so will you." Her voice turned harder. "You've been holding my freedom over my head all this time. For years now, you've made me do things for you, even when you're not here. I've squashed leads that I knew would lead to you. Or that I thought even might lead to you. I did that for you. You've made me let you take Professor Creed and let him walk free too. I'll do that, too. I'll feel like shit, but I'll do it. But godammit, Susana, you are going to do this for me."
Susana shrugged. "And if I do?"
Lisa sighed. The words came far more easily than she thought.
"I'll let you and Creed go," she said. "Both of you. No lies. No bullshit. You and Creed and your little boy. Me…well, we'll see."
Susana nodded. She squatted down by Jason Sullivan's side and examined the wound. She glanced up at Lisa.
"I have supplies downstairs," she said. "In my suitcase. I need to get them."
Red flashing lights filled the room. Police cars screeched to a halt and began disgorging officers. Susana closed her eyes and thought of her son. She'd only meant to leave him with his nanny for a week while she arranged for Professor Creed to be free. Would it be for life, now?
Lisa nodded wordlessly and pointed the gun at Creed, wordlessly making it clear that the price of her man's life would be the life of Susana's.
True to her word, Susana returned with a fine leather suitcase. When she opened it, white-boxed medical supplies spilled out. Susana calmly squatted next to Jason Sullivan and began wrapping a tourniquet around his arm. Susana tied off the tourniquet and injected a syringe of Demerol into Sullivan's arm. He began to stir. Following the anesthetic was an IV needle.
"Where did you get all those?" Lisa asked, watching her. How odd, part of her thought. Jason Sullivan was a good cop. He'd always been a good cop. That was what had attracted her to him; in him she saw the unsullied force for good she had once been. Now, the same woman he had once scorned as a cop-killer would save his life.
And Jason wasn't wrong. Susana was a cop-killer. She had done horrible things because she enjoyed them. She had slaughtered eight of Lisa's co-workers and Will Graham as well, largely because she had deemed their deaths necessary for her to remain free.
But to paint her as pure evil was mistaken, Lisa thought, just as it had been mistaken to consider her father so. She was a killer, but she was also a surgeon. Lisa found herself thinking of the letter Susana had sent her upon leaving the US. Left alone, I should never have harmed another soul. And even now, I've saved more than I've killed.
That was also true. Susana had saved lives in her work as a surgeon. Before that, she had saved Lisa's life. Now she would save Jason's. If he still hated Lisa after that, so be it.
Susana attached an IV bag and tubing to the needle and handed it up to her cousin without a second thought. "Hold that," she directed absently. Then she bent over Sullivan again and checked something else.
"Originally, I thought Thomas might have been hurt more badly in getting him out that I thought," Susana said absently. "Covering all bases. After that, I'd thought it might be fun to finish the job on the Bludgeon Man, but you seem to have taken care of that."
Satisfied with Jason's condition, Susana lifted his severed arm and looked at it thoughtfully. She took a set of hemostats and clamped something off.
"Are they…are they going to be able to save his arm?" Lisa asked. He touched me with that hand, she thought, and suddenly had to fight off nausea.
Susana shrugged wordlessly.
Lisa's voice trembled a bit as she spoke. "Don't torture me," she said, and waited a moment for her voice to firm up. "Just say yes or no."
"Maybe," Susana said thoughtfully. "I've never done limb reimplantation. I can't say. As long as he hits the OR within two hours, the odds are good. That's all I can tell you." She took a blue cold-pack and pressed the severed arm down on it. "I can tell you that there are very good reimplantation surgeons in Boston, though. Here was where they did the very first one, you know. Make sure to ask for Dr. Gulick. Some of his patients recover up to eighty percent function." She sighed.
Then the room was rapidly filled with police officers. They saw Susana crouching over the wounded man. A few shouts filled the room. Lisa Starling silenced them. Professor Creed advanced towards his fiancée and stood beside her, wondering if everything had been for naught.
"Who the hell is that?"
Susana looked up calmly at the officers swarming into the room. "I'm Sarah Levine," she said smoothly as if she was telling the truth. "I'm an orthopedic surgeon. My husband and I were just up from New York City. A friend of ours lent us their townhouse here. Then…this man over there broke in."
The cop looked down at her, over at Professor Creed, and finally at Lisa.
"This man needs an ambulance," Susana continued. "As in now. I've managed to control the bleeding, but every minute that goes by makes it less likely they can reimplant his arm. Have them bring ice, get him to Mass Gen, and page Dr. Gulick."
The cop looked over at Lisa. "Detective Sullivan reported there were two escapees holed up here. Federal fugitives. Tom Creed and Susana Alvarez."
Professor Creed's mouth quirked.
"No," came a groaned, choked voice on the floor.
Jason Sullivan gestured with the one arm he still had. "Tony…no. It's not them." His eyes shifted over to Lisa's.
"I…I made a mistake," he said. "I jumped the gun. It's not them. Just…just let 'em go, no need to hassle them, right?" He smiled painfully. "I made a mistake," he repeated. "Shouldn't have come here alone anyways."
Lisa Starling picked up the meaning and smiled softly.
A few minutes later, a hastily summoned ambulance crew arrived and put Jason Sullivan on a gurney. Susana followed them out, barking orders at them non-stop until they were safely in the ambulance and moving away.
Professor Creed followed through the throng of police officers. They were excited as they saw the torture kit laid out on the bed and the corpse lying on the carpet. They paid no attention at all to him. His shoulder throbbed, but Susana could take care of that later. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Lisa Starling behind him, seeing both of them safely out the door.
He was almost bowled over to see Susana Alvarez Lecter politely asking a cop to move his cruiser so they could get their car out of the driveway. Lisa followed him to the edge of the driveway and stood by the car they had used. The three stood together, looking calmly at each other.
"I'll tell them your ID checked out, so I released you," Lisa said softly. "I'm not going to bother. I know it will."
Susana chuckled. "You know me too well," she commented.
"You know you two will have to leave the country," Lisa said.
"We didn't plan on staying," Susana said. "I do have a bouncy four-year-old waiting for me."
"And no more killing. Ever. For both of you."
Susana rolled her eyes as if Lisa was being terribly unreasonable. "Oh, that. Thomas just wanted to show he still had it. Male ego, you know."
Lisa closed her eyes and wondered if she was doing the right thing. Were these two monsters too dangerous to be free? But no, Susana had held up her end of the bargain. Lisa would do the same.
"What about the federal marshals?" Lisa asked cuttingly.
"What about the Bludgeon Man?" Susana asked.
Lisa stopped. "He was…he tried to attack me."
Susana shook her head and grinned. "Oh no, Lisa," she said. "That's not why you killed him. I know why you killed him."
Lisa eyed her cousin carefully and held her breath.
"You know what blood spatters look like," Susana continued.
Lisa glanced away. "Yes, I do," she said.
"You knew it was the Bludgeon Man who had attacked your boyfriend," Susana pressed.
Lisa nodded.
"And that's why you killed him," Susana continued.
Lisa's mouth quirked. Finally, she nodded.
"That's why I killed the marshals," Susana said. "Same as you. For the sake of the man I love."
Lisa digested that for several moments. "Then go," she said. "Just go. Now, while people are busy."
Susana nodded and put her bag in the back seat of the car.
"I ought to get to the hospital myself," Lisa continued.
Susana shrugged. "There's no pressing need," she said. "Certainly you want to be there, but he'll be in the OR for several hours anyway. You'll just sit around."
"I'm going," Lisa repeated. Then she paused. The words slipped out of her mouth before she realized it.
"I love him, Susana," she said. "Thank you for saving him."
Susana shrugged. "It's my job," she said and slipped into the passenger seat of the car
"Goodbye, Susana," Lisa said.
"Goodbye, Lisa."
Behind the wheel, Professor Creed sketched a quick salute before turning around to back the car out of the driveway. Lisa watched it go.
For a moment she considered what she had just done. She had just let two wanted serial killers go. She had just killed a third. The odds of any real repercussion were minimal; the Bludgeon Man's equipment was spilled out on the bed and he'd died with a knife in his hand. The same knife he'd used to attack Jason.
She felt no guilt. Not about letting Susana and Creed go; not about shooting the Bludgeon Man. She'd done what she had to do. The Bludgeon Man would menace no more. Would Susana or Creed? Lisa thought not. Having lost their freedom once, they would value it more.
She was icily calm as they took her down to the station to fill out the paperwork necessary on her shooting. She handed over her weapon as was necessary. She called Kenton and informed him that she had found the Bludgeon Man attacking another woman, and had shot him when he refused to desist. Her job here was done.
At the hospital, she sat and waited for Jason to get out of surgery. It was good that he was in there that long, she thought. Meant they were trying to reattach the arm. So she sat around and waited until they rolled him out.
Susana and Creed. She actually loved him. That was hard to believe. But when Lisa found herself thinking about what she would do if she was in Susana's place, it was hard to think of anything else she would have done differently.
What about her and Jason? Would he still hate her? Would she get her heart broken? She didn't know. It remained to be seen. But she would stick with him.
When they rolled him out of surgery, she went to him. He was still very groggy. His arm was back, wrapped in a bandage. A metal brace and ring was attached to his arm at the point of amputation. He would need therapy to get his arm working again and he might never be completely recovered. But he was there, he was whole, and he gripped her hand back when she took his good hand.
Lisa Starling smiled softly and held his hand. She would stay with him.