The apartment building in suburban Parramatta was quiet as night fell. Traffic was light. It was far from the mansion on the water in Watson's Bay in which the Littons lived, but it was still a good place. And it was here, in a neat two-bedroom apartment that Detective Isabelle Pierce lived.
A pot of pasta was sitting on the stove, the water beginning to boil into white foam. On the next burner, a pan of tomato sauce was simmering. The detective herself sat at her computer not far from the stove. She could keep an eye on it from here.
She was perusing the latest reports from the pathologist on the Cannibal Killer's latest victim. The coroner's notes didn't quite match her recollection of the body, and she thought that odd. Still, minor details.
The fact that the killer had targeted her made her nervous. She'd learned to handle herself. She'd had to do it from a young age; with two older brothers, she'd learned to fight early. According to the labs, the substance left in her car was indeed haggis. Haggis made from the latest victim, but haggis nonetheless. Bits of onion and oatmeal had been found in the victim's body cavity; bits of the victim found in the Tupperware container of chopped-up…meat. The detective found the weight of her Browning on her hip comforting.
Dr. Litton had been questioned at the scene and then released. She claimed to have no knowledge of the man going over her car or why he might do it. On that, the detective thought she was telling the truth. What was odder was that her husband seemed to have departed the area. Perhaps the country. Dr. Litton had said he was in Brisbane visiting family.
Detective Pierce found herself itching to bring Dr. Litton down to the station for fingerprints. She just knew what they would turn up. But the doctor's political connections were enough to keep her at bay.
Still, it was odd. Dr. Hannibal Lecter had never made haggis out of his victims. According to the VICAP file on him, he was Lithuanian in origin, not Scottish. There was precious little reason for him to make a traditional Scottish dish.
His wife looked Irish, though. Perhaps there was some Scots in the mix. Detective Pierce rolled her eyes; it was hard to envision the pleasant surgeon as asking her husband to do that. Dear, I chopped out his stomach and liver. Would you be a sweetheart and pop off to Woolworth's for onions and oatmeal? We can have a real traditional Scots meal.
Then again, she had to allow, Elaine Litton was a surgeon. She cut people open and mucked about in their insides all the time. She was beginning to have her doubts, though. This whole thing was…odd.
Where was Hamilton Litton? It couldn't be that hard to ring up the police in Brisbane and find out if he was there. Another call to Immigrations could tell her if he had left the country. Then again, if he was Hannibal Lecter, he would likely have several excellent-quality passports. He would have left the country with a passport not related at all to Hamilton Litton and would re-enter with another one.
Hmm. She tapped a pen against her teeth and stared at the monitor thoughtfully.
A knock came at the door. She got up and trotted over to the door, checking through the peephole. It was a man in a suit. His face was turned away from the tiny view the peephole offered. Carefully, Detective Pierce opened the door, leaving the chain on just in case.
"Hello," she said cautiously. "Can I help you?"
The figure slammed against the door with amazing strength. The bracket holding the chain ripped off. The door itself, now freed from its mooring, slammed into Isabelle Pierce and knocked her into the wall. Her breath wheezed from her in an agonized gust.
The figure entered the apartment, slamming the door behind him. Above the calm suit was a ski mask and sunglasses. It made the figure look inhuman.
What the hell? Isabelle Pierce thought.
The figure reached into its trenchcoat and withdrew a wicked, long-bladed knife. A gloved hand held it high overhead. Then it moved in and the knife came down.
The first strike sank the knife into her shoulder. There was a cold, nauseating pressure, like a thumb over an eye. Then she realized the blade was in her left shoulder. Then it began to hurt mightily. She felt and heard the blade scrape against her collarbone as it withdrew and felt lightheaded. All this had happened in only the space of a few seconds? It hardly seemed so, but so it was.
But Isabelle Pierce was no victim. She groped for the pistol strapped to her waist and drew it. The figure stabbed her a second time. She gritted her teeth, ignoring the pain and fighting the dizziness as best she could. The Browning seemed very heavy to raise and deploy.
I will not be stabbed to death in my own apartment, she thought. I'll take you with me, whoever you are.
The blade came down a third time. She could not bring her left arm up to defend herself; her right was occupied with the pistol. The blade skated along her ribs and punched in. Black flowers burst across her vision. But then the heavy metal-punching-through-cardboard sound of the pistol echoed twice in her ears, and she heard a cry. When her vision returned, she could see a splotch of dark red blood darkening the figure's trenchcoat. And darkening rapidly. Savage pleasure filled her at that sight.
The figure stepped back and opened its coat. Isabelle's hand shook as she strove to raise the pistol. She'd aimed center-of-mass, just as she had been taught. Now she intended to aim the muzzle directly at the figure's ski-masked head. The trenchcoat hanging open looked like scabrous black wings. The lower right quadrant of the figure's white shirt was steadily turning red with blood.
I got you, Isabelle Pierce thought.
But then the figure turned and ran, wing tips rattling on the wooden floor. Before she knew it, the door was slammed shut. She heard thundering on the stairs, but she could not give chase. Isabelle took a moment of covering the door to ensure that the assassin would not return. Then she saw the blood on her own shirt and stood shakily.
Surprisingly, her legs carried her over to the phone just as they always had. She had to put the gun down to pick up her phone, and she didn't like that one bit. Still, the figure had been badly hurt. If Hamilton Litton did not return, or if he was cared for by his wife at home for a bit, she would know why.
But for now she needed help. She pulled the phone off the hook and dialed zero three times.
"Emergency Services," a voice said cheerily in her ear. "What is your emergency?"
"I need an ambulance," Isabelle Pierce said through dry lips. "I've been stabbed."
There was so much more she wanted to say. The bastard's hurt and fleeing. Arrest Elaine Litton. Hannibal Lecter did this. But her body wouldn't take much more. The dizziness was returning and she couldn't fight it this time.
"Right," the voice said crisply. "I see you're at 311 Ruse Drive in Parramatta?"
"Yes," Isabelle groaned. "Apartment…121."
"Apartment 121, got it. The ambulance is on its way. Hold on."
Isabelle Pierce lay back on her floor. Black spots danced at the corner of her vision. Was it too late? She couldn't tell. She could barely raise her head to examine her wounds.
As the darkness closed in, she could hear the sound of approaching sirens.
…
Clarice's street was just as it had always been. A quiet, blue-collar neighborhood in which kids played and adults came home after a hard day of work. It was safe there; crime was pretty much unknown. But her duplex….her home. She sat on the sidewalk and stared.
Things had moved along decently. Paul had brought her down to Quantico. They'd been very careful to avoid Behavioral Sciences. For now, that was enemy territory. A hot burst of anger had overtaken Clarice when she read that Rebecca DeGould was temporarily running Behavioral Sciences while she was on leave.
She could have tried to fire DeGould right off, but it wasn't time. Her position was tenuous and weak. A fingerprint check would indicate that she was Brittany Tollman, a convicted murderess. She needed to wait before she struck back at DeGould. Going after her now would simply earn her a trip back to Bedford Hills in handcuffs.
She'd laid down the story for Pearsall. Thank God for him. He'd agreed to help her out quietly, issuing her a temporary FBI ID in another name. He'd also made arrangement with the New York field office to send Paul down here on a TDY case. He'd made up some fish story for them – something about Mob ties in Washington, DC. It was necessary; the DeGoulds were powerful in New York, and the New York field office might have a leak to them. Clarice found it sad. The very organization she had sworn to serve had to be treated as an enemy.
Pearsall had promised to do what he could for Ardelia. The problem was that Clarice was free and Ardelia was not. It wasn't possible to get Ardelia out of prison without tipping their hand to DeGould. After all, according to the system, Ardelia Mapp was dead in a house fire; the woman in a Florida prison was Kiera Washington. That had stabbed Clarice deeply. She'd kept her spirits up as she told him the story. But when he told her Ardelia would have to stay put for the time being, she had broken down and cried.
But Clarice had a weapon and an ID. It was a tenuous grasp on her old life, but a grasp it was. She'd wanted to see the house and see how bad the damage was. Pearsall had warned her soberly that it was bad…but she'd never expected this.
The roof was blackened and a large section had collapsed in. The walls were still standing, but the one wall leaned in as if exhausted. Peeking in the windows indicated…nothing. Sections of the floor were missing, caved into the basement. The home in which Clarice had lived since adulthood was…gone. Replacing it were only charred black cinders. A few blackened lumps were all that remained of the furniture.
Going around to her bedroom in the back was no better. Her things were all charred and burnt. There were holes in the wall that she could see in her bedroom window, where her stash of bullets had gone off with the heat. Ardelia's side of the duplex had gotten the same treatment. On the kitchen wall she could see the blackened, twisted picture frame that had once held her grandmother's insurance policy.
Clarice stared at her wrecked duplex and felt tears of anger and pain rise to her face. Oh, DeGould would pay for this. She would pay for this and everything else she had done. She would pay and pay and pay. Clarice would see to it.
But before she could begin to collect on that debt, she had to get back what she could. She couldn't get her duplex back or her things; the flames had consumed them. Besides, they were just things. She could live without them. What she needed was Ardelia.
Clarice Starling could think tactically, despite what some people had thought of her. Her determination to see justice done did not blind her to the fact that sometimes you had to kick the bad guy's ass in order to get there.
She turned back to Paul and stared at him with eyes that were grieving but dry.
"Good God," Clarice said. Her voice was dry and gritty. "What in God's name did I ever do to make this bitch hate me so goddam much?"
Paul shrugged uncomfortably. "I…I don't know."
"Why?" Clarice persisted. Part of her knew that Paul could not give her an answer. He was a good guy, and he was trying to help her. And she needed that so very badly. But another part of her had to know. Had to grieve. What had she done to deserve this? Why was Rebecca DeGould so determined to see her suffer?
Paul DaSilva was a bluff-looking tough guy. On seeing him one would have thought he was a brute. He was tall and blocky and muscular. When he spoke, it was surprising how calm and sensitive his voice was.
"Clarice," he said, "I don't know why this happened. I don't know what this DeGould woman has against you. But for right now, let's concentrate on setting as much of it right as we can. Your house burned down. That's awful. But you can buy a new house. Now look. Let's try and put things aside, as much as we can. We have to get your name back and we have to get your friend Ardelia out of prison."
The mention of Ardelia reminded her anew that Ardelia was suffering for no other reason than that she was Clarice's friend. But it also served to bring her back to earth. She could not sit here and cry, not with Ardelia locked away in a solitary-confinement cell. She lowered her head and emitted one quick sob, then looked up at him and nodded.
"Okay," she husked. "You're right. I'm sorry, Paul. It's just…," Privately she thanked God for him. He was her rock. She could lean on him for strength when she needed it.
"It's OK," he said soberly. "Let's go pick up the fake Clarice and Ardelia, so we can help the real ones."
Clarice sighed. "They could be anywhere," she said. "DeGould would have them tucked away somewhere."
Paul nodded. His dark eyes fixed hers. "Yup," he said. "But let's face it. She knows she needs them. She's got them tucked away, but wherever it is, it's somewhere she can keep an eye on them." He reached into his pocket and removed a slip of paper.
"Pearsall gave me DeGould's home address from Central Records. I say we go check it out." She grinned despite herself at how Pearsall's name came out in his Brooklyn accent. "Betcha she's got her girls stashed away in her place, or a place nearby. Somewhere she can keep track of them."
Clarice smiled sadly. "You make a pretty good profiler," she offered.
Paul smiled and waved his hand dismissively. "Profiler, bah. We rolled up a coke network in the city a couple months ago. The muchacho in charge of the operation had a couple witnesses he didn't want to flip on us. Same deal. He had 'em living in his house under armed guard."
The idea of comparing Rebecca DeGould to a Columbian drug dealer was faintly amusing. She liked it; it reminded her what Rebecca DeGould was. A criminal. She accompanied him to the car.
"What if they don't talk?" Clarice asked. "I mean…they just go back to prison if they do. Not much incentive for them to help us."
Paul shrugged. "For now, that don't matter too much," he said. "Cross that bridge when we come to it. Whoever gets those girls is the one who's probably gonna win." His eyes gleamed. "I like winning. How about you?"
Clarice thought about everything she had lost. Her name. Her freedom, for a month. Her home. Her best friend. She clamped her hands into fists. .
"I've lost so much," she said. Then her face hardened. "Thanks for being there for me, Paul. It means a lot to me. A lot more than I can say right now. Now…let's go win."
