Author's note: Here we are, an update. I know you're all anxious to know what happens to our Aussie detective, and we'll get there.  But this turned out long enough to be its own chapter, so here we go. 

                Clarice Starling tensed as the car turned into the condominium complex.  It was here that Rebecca DeGould lived.  Enemy territory.  Just as Behavioral Science was, now.  It galled her. 

                With her duplex burned down, she knew that Brittany and Kiera had to be living somewhere.  She agreed with Paul that it would be somewhere that DeGould could keep an eye on them.  DeGould might be ruthless and evil, but she wasn't stupid.  With Clarice free, she would keep her pawns close to her.  

                But what if she wasn't keeping them in her condo?  That nagged at Clarice.  Paul was helping her and so was Pearsall.  They were taking a hell of a risk, too.  According to the system, Clarice was a fugitive.  An escaped felon.  Both Paul and Pearsall were FBI agents; their job was officially to arrest her and return her to New York State.  Thank God they hadn't done that.  But there were limits to what she could ask.  They couldn't do a lot of poking around.  If DeGould knew that Clarice was here, and looking, she would simply pack them off to…God only knew where. 

                And what was she supposed to do with them when she caught them?  If she caught them?  All they had to do was hang tight for a couple of days.  The system was on their side, not Clarice's.  Try as she might, Clarice could not fathom either woman agreeing to go back to prison for the sake of the woman she had switched with. 

                But she had to do something.  She had to figure something out.  And that started with getting her hands on them.  Get 'em in federal custody, that was the ticket.  Once they actually had the girls in custody they'd be in good shape to work on loosening their lips.  There had to be something Clarice could offer them to flip on DeGould. 

                Get them first.  That was what mattered.   Clarice forced herself to ignore the voices in the back of her head asking what are you going to do with them once you've got them?

                DeGould's condominium was like every other one in the development.  That struck her as somehow odd.  She knew that evil had its banal side – even serial killers took showers and did their laundry.  Still, to see Rebecca DeGould's home was somehow odd.  A reminder that she was, after all, human. 

                So am I, and I don't know what her damn beef is with me, she thought. 

                There was no car parked in front of DeGould's unit.  If the girls were here, they had no car.  That was probably for the best.  Clarice felt a wire of nervousness wrap itself around her gut once, then twice.  She alighted from the car and watched Paul.  He smiled nervously at her and then walked up to the door.  Clarice drew her own weapon and held it along her thigh.  Paul did not draw his immediately. 

                "Okay," Paul said, and knocked on the door. 

                Nothing happened for a moment or two.  Clarice tensed. 

                Then a face appeared at the window next to the door.  It was Brittany.  She glanced out at Paul with a look of puzzlement.  Then her gaze shifted to Clarice.  Immediately, all the color drained out of her face.  Terror and dread wrote themselves across her features. 

                "Brittany, open the door," Clarice said. 

                But Brittany did not comply.  The curtain slammed shut and she heard a high-pitched scream from inside.  Clarice cursed and kicked the door hard.  It was steel, and there was a deadbolt on it.  If they'd had an 'Avon calling' round, they could have opened it.  But they didn't, and she wasn't going to sit here and shoot at the door like a goddam duck in a shooting gallery. 

                "Goddam it," she said.  "She's gonna get away." 

                They heard a door slam open on the other side of the condo.  Immediately, Clarice turned around.  DeGould's condo was in the middle of a row of them all sitting together.  Without needing to be told, she ran down to the end and through. 

                The condos all surrounded a green, verdant field.  In the middle of the field were two running figures.  Clarice grinned hard and pursued.  Her legs were strong and she was determined.  She reholstered her weapon so that she didn't shoot one of them by accident. 

                Paul DaSilva passed her, as he had much longer legs.  Ahead of them, Kiera Washington was slightly in front of Brittany.  She ran past the field and then passed the condominiums on the other side.  Ahead was a chain-link fence.  Kiera set about scaling it and then dropped over the other side. 

                Brittany Tollman began scaling the fence herself.  Paul DaSilva charged harder and grabbed her as she was climbing.   He pulled her down as gently as he could.  He wasn't able to be terribly gentle.  She fought him, gripping the chain linking desperately and kicking at him with her sneakered feet.  A frenzied scream arose from the struggling girl.

  Once Clarice had caught up to him a few seconds later, they were able to detach her from the fence and get her down.  It was harder than Clarice thought; she had to pry Brittany's fingers one by one off the fence while Paul held the struggling girl around the ribcage. But finally, she was off. 

Oddly, she didn't try to attack them. Paul pulled out his cuffs.  Between the two of them, they were able to pin down the smaller woman and get the cuffs on her.  Once they had her down, she quit struggling and started to sob pathetically. 

                On the other side of the fence, Kiera Washington stood and watched helplessly.  Her face had gone gray, struck with sympathetic pain and shame.  Brittany's head popped up as Clarice was trying to cuff her.  For a moment, the two prisoners stared at each other wordlessly.   

                "Kiera, run!" Brittany screamed.  "Just run!  Get out of here!" 

                Clarice glanced up and at the black woman on the other side of the fence.  Christ, she was young.  They both were. 

                "Kiera, wait there," she said firmly.  "The other agents will be here any minute." 

                "Don't listen to her, haul ass while you can!"  Brittany shrieked.  Clarice cursed as the black girl began to turn and run.  She rose from where Brittany was pinned down and began to climb the fence herself.  Paul was an FBI agent who had arrested Mafiosi and drug dealers in his time; he ought to be able to handle a single handcuffed woman. 

                She scaled the fence and glanced left and right.  There was nothing to be seen.  Just a pleasant, bucolic bit of suburbia.  There was a row of trees a hundred yards the other way, and she ran over that way. No Kiera there.  But there were lots of places to hide in there.  Finding her would be damn near impossible for one agent. 

                Goddam it, she thought meanly.  But one catch was better than nothing.  Of course, now she had to figure out how to get Brittany talking.  She'd need her to own up to the scheme, get Clarice straightened out, and find out how to get Ardelia sprung.  How Clarice was going to accomplish this she had no idea.  All she knew was that she had to. 

                Clarice heard footsteps echoing off metal from somewhere far away.  She ran back and forth in the small patch of woods.  Metal?  Where the hell was that coming from?  The patch of woods served to divide the one condo complex from the next one over.  There was a slight ravine in between the two of them.  Clarice stepped carefully down one side of the ravine.  It was steep.  Sweat gleamed on her forehead.  She could feel the back of her blouse sticking to her skin.

                Then she saw it.  A large metal culvert stuck out of the ground, gurgling a small stream of water.  She had to step carefully down the steep ravine in order to look inside.  Sure enough, there was a silhouette inside the culvert, heading for the tiny dot of light at the far end. 

                Clarice stuck her head into the culvert and grimaced.  It smelled nasty.  She could hear the metallic echoes of Kiera's feet striking the surface.  Her shoes got wet as she climbed in.  The culvert was small, and she had to hunch over. 

                "Kiera!" she shouted.  "Kiera, freeze!  This is the FBI.   You're under arrest." 

                The figure did not stop.  Clarice raised her pistol and then put it back in her holster.  For one thing, she didn't like it; it was your standard FBI-issue six-shot .38.  Damn thing was dinky when you came down to it; you could hit a suspect six times and they didn't always go down.  For another, the bullet might ricochet off the walls of the culvert.  Shooting a suspect now would get her in a boatload of trouble.

                So she closed her mind and her nose and headed into the musty pipe. Her own feet echoed back metallic clangs, counterpointing the duller, far-away ones coming from Kiera.  Dirty water splashed on her feet and legs as she ran.  Cobwebs brushed her face as she ran.  She grimaced and pressed on.  The culvert stank of metal and water and her own fear. 

                Ahead, Kiera gained the exit to the pipe and ran out into the sunshine.  Clarice swore.  The black girl turned and did something to the pipe.  Clarice was about forty feet from the exit herself.  She stumbled and landed on her hands.  Grubby water splashed on her face and she scowled. 

                A large metal grille clashed down atop the pipe, shutting Clarice in as efficiently as a cell door.  Her eyes widened when she saw it.  Goddam it, she boobytrapped the  fucking pipe, Clarice thought.  That was probably DeGould; she lived here and would've seen the pipe.  Kiera ran up the incline and disappeared. 

                Clarice reached the edge of the pipe and threw herself against the grille.  Even before she got close to it, she knew it was too heavy to open.  Slamming against it with all her force only moved it a few inches, swinging on a top hinge as if it was a doggie-door.  But this doggie-door must've weighed a couple hundred pounds if anything. 

                She tried again, grimacing and baring her teeth.  The grille would not move more an inch or two.  Her feet slipped against the scummy walls of the pipe.  She tried a third time and then stood, her head down, her hands on the bars of the grille like a prisoner. 

                Kiera had gotten away.  

                "Fuck," Clarice muttered morosely.  She heard an engine start.  Was that Kiera?  Made perfect sense; DeGould could just park a car for them in the next condo complex over, where nobody would've looked.  Or maybe it wasn't.  Maybe Kiera was running away somewhere else.   She'd never be able to find out.  Not without a goddam power winch.

                But there wasn't much she could do here, so she headed out the other way.  No use sitting in the goddam culvert with wastewater getting her feet wet.  She cursed again and emerged from the culvert, climbing up the ravine and scaling the fence to return to Paul.  Maybe he had something. 

                Paul stood there, waiting for her.  Clarice scowled at him and shook her head, indicating her failure.  She glanced down at Brittany, who knelt handcuffed on the ground and watched Clarice as a crippled mouse might view a cat. 

                "I didn't get her," Clarice said bitterly.  "She got away." 

                Paul shrugged.  "That sucks," he said in commiseration. 

                Brittany let out a shuddering sigh of relief.  Her lips formed the words Thank God.  She did not voice that opinion, perhaps not wanting to anger her captors.   Her eyes closed and then opened again, watching Clarice carefully.  From the look on her face, Clarice thought, she seemed to fully expect Clarice – or perhaps Paul – to fire two bullets in the back of her head.  Clarice crossed her arms and observed the young prisoner coolly. 

                "Well," Clarice said briskly.  "Kiera got away, and so it's just you.  You're in a shitload of trouble, Brittany.  It's just a question of whether or not you help yourself out." 

                Brittany's face seemed to be the color of ivory.  A slightly yellowish white, not at all healthy.  She nodded and swallowed once. 

                "I know," she said in a shaking and tiny voice. 

                Clarice walked a few steps forward, her mouth quirking.  She let out a measured hiss of air. 

                "C'mon," she said.  "Get up."  She gestured to the house with her chin. 

                She felt the muscles of Brittany's arms tense when she bent down to take her arm.  Brittany glanced away from her and did not move.  When she spoke, her voice was halting and frightened. 

                "If you're gonna kill me," she said, "just do it here.  No sense staining the carpet." 

                The statement was so bizarre that at first Clarice did not know what to say.  DeGould had done this before, once, with Erin Lander.  How the hell does she do this?  Clarice wondered.  How the hell does she convince people I'm some sort of murdering psychopath? 

                "I'm not gonna kill you," Clarice said disbelievingly.  "Now c'mon." 

                Brittany looked at her doubtfully, but she let Clarice help her to her feet and moved.   Obediently, she entered the condo and sat down in the chair Clarice steered her to.  Clarice sat down across from her. 

                "You all right?" she asked. 

                Brittany shrugged. 

                Clarice tried to look sympathetic.  It wasn't easy; she'd never been good at the whole interrogation spiel.  It was her usual preference to try and simply lay it out. 

                "Well," Clarice said, "looks like you're in a lot of trouble.  Maybe I could help you out.  First off you can tell me what you were doing here in Rebecca DeGould's condominium." 

                Brittany looked down at the carpet for a moment, then back at Clarice.  Without a word, she shook her head. 

                "We broke in," Brittany said. 

                This was what Clarice had been afraid of.  Brittany would have to go back to prison to serve out her sentence.  Clarice might have been able to keep more charges off her head, but she couldn't change that.  From Brittany's point of view, there was little Clarice could do for her.  Even if she managed to get Brittany off scott-free for anything she'd done since she was free, she couldn't help the sentence that had already been imposed, and she doubted she could keep New York State from filing escape charges.  For a twenty-three-year-old who'd already been in prison for five years, the twenty years left on her sentence combined with whatever escape charges would bring would seem an eternity. 

                If Brittany kept her yap shut, there wasn't too much more Clarice could do to her.  If she talked, there wasn't really that much Clarice could do for her.  Given those choices, Brittany might well decide to simply take her lumps.  After all, she'd get zero respect in prison if she snitched. 

                Now Clarice had to find out if Brittany knew that.  It seemed she did. 

                "Bullshit," Clarice said easily.  "She helped you.  I know that." 

                Brittany shook her head.  "We broke in," she repeated. 

                Clarice leaned forward and put her hand on the other woman's arm.  "Why protect her?  She's not going to help you, you know," she said.  "You know what happens to those who fail Rebecca DeGould." 

                "You won't either," Brittany said tonelessly.  "You forget, Starling…I've been through this before."  She shook her head bitterly.  "I spose you're gonna hit me for saying this…but you're just a flunky cop.  You got no power.  I know, I know, you'll talk to the DA.  You'll help me.  Except you won't, and you can't.  You just want me to give up what I know."  She tensed, clearly expecting Clarice was going to smack her one.  "Forget it.  All I wanted was a second chance.  I guess I don't get it.  But if I'm going back, I'm not giving you Kiera.  Sorry." 

                This was the worst thing Clarice could have expected.  She needed time.  Time to cajole, time to develop rapport.  She needed someone who was good at interrogation.  Maybe Paul was.  She glanced up at him wordlessly. 

                On cue, Paul walked around to stand in front of Brittany, and immediately Clarice realized the problem.  Paul DaSilva was a nice guy and a good guy.  But he was also a big guy, and towering over the handcuffed woman made him look threatening.  Brittany was expecting threats.  From what it seemed, she expected Clarice to start in on all sorts of horrible things. 

                "Look, kid," Paul started.  "We can be fair to you, you know." 

                Brittany shook her head.  "No, you can't," she said softly. "Are you from New York?  You sound it." 

                She sounded Southern herself, Clarice thought confusedly.  Was that a way in?  Nah, she didn't sound like home.  She sounded a lot more Deep South than Clarice's own drawl. 

                "Born and raised Brooklyn boy," Paul said. 

                "Then you know damn well you can't do anything for me," Brittany said softly.  "I been down five years.  Do the math." 

                Clarice wasn't sure what she was talking about, but she'd ask him later. 

                "Brittany," she said.  "Listen, you know, my friend is in a prison cell she doesn't deserve to be in.  If you helped me out, I'd help you out.  I mean…there's got to be something." 

                Brittany sighed.  "I told you before," she said.  "You can't, and you won't.  I know how it goes." 

                It was hard to be understanding.  Thinking of Ardelia in that cell made her want to grab the recalcitrant convict and shake her until she coughed up everything.  But she couldn't do that.  It wouldn't get her what she wanted. 

                "Why do you say that?" Clarice asked.  "Look, I don't know what DeGould told you about me, but I'm not this monster." 

                Brittany shook her head.  "No," she said.  "You're a cop."  From the helpless venom in her voice, it seemed she considered cops only a step or two above pond scum.  "There's people like you…and then there's people like me.  The system's set up for people like you.  It's set up to screw people like me.  Sorry about your friend and all, but face it, Starling, you've got a badge.  You'll get her out.  People like you always get what they want, and if they have to walk all over people like me to get it, well, that's fine." 

                Clarice wondered for a moment how Brittany could possibly think that, after what she had just been through.  But she sensed that arguing wasn't going to get her anywhere.  She decided to let Brittany finish. 

                "Your friend will get out.  And that's what you want, and to hell with me, right?  All I have to do is give up Kiera, and you'll…what.  Drop a good word?  Yeah, like that'll do anything.  I know how the game is played.  I give you what you want and you give me a load of hot air and send me back to prison.  Kiera got away and I wish her the best and I hope you never catch her.  Don't give me a lot of talk about how you'll help me because you won't.   Do your worst, Starling.  You will anyway." 

                Clarice opened her mouth and felt no words come.  What the hell did she do now?  She might point out that Brittany would think differently when she was forty-three, but suggesting that to a twenty-three-year-old was crazy. 

                Brittany let out a sigh.   Then she seemed to ponder something.   "I'll tell you what, though," she said.  "I got something you do want.  I want to go to the bathroom.  Let me go and I'll give you something you do need." 

                "Like what?" Clarice asked. 

                "Like your fingerprint card," Brittany said. 

                Clarice's eyes bulged.  She put both hands on Brittany's upper arms.  "What?"

                "Yup," Brittany said.  "Got put in some papers of mine by accident.  Your fingerprint card.  From when you first joined the FBI."  

                "Tell me where," Clarice said instantly.  That was something she needed desperately.   

                Brittany shook her head.  "I want these handcuffs off," she said.  "I want to go to the bathroom on my own.  With the door closed.  It'll be the last time I get to do that for a long time.  Let me do that and have a few minutes to myself and I'll tell you where it is." 

                Clarice pondered for a second.  "Fine," she said.  "Let me just check the bathroom first." 

                Brittany rolled her eyes. 

                "Well," Clarice said, "yes or no?" 

                Brittany gave her a hard look.  "You tell me," she said. 

                Clarice wasn't going to give something like that up, and if all the kid wanted was a trip to the bathroom, that was fine.  She took Brittany's arm and walked her upstairs to the bathroom.  A quick check assured Clarice that there was no hope of her prisoner escaping.  There was no window.  To remove the other girl's restraints took only a moment.  Calmly, Clarice gestured to the bathroom.  If that was what Brittany wanted, that was fine.  Seemed like such a petty little thing.

                Once Brittany was closed in the bathroom, Clarice gestured for Paul.  He came halfway up the stairs.  Clarice headed down a few steps before turning so she could keep an eye on the closed bathroom door. 

                "Paul, this isn't working," she said.  "I need something we can give her.  Something that'll make her talk." 

                Paul shrugged.  "It's been more than a year since her sentence," he said.  "Nothing you can do." 

                "There's got to be something," Clarice said. 

                Paul gave her a helpless look.  "Clarice…the law's the law." 

                "Paul," Clarice answered back, "if I don't think of something, she's going to keep her yap shut, and no matter how many years we pile on her head, it won't matter.  Because she thinks we're going to do it anyway.  Scaring her isn't going to work." 

                "For now she's in federal custody," Paul said.  "Throw her in a cell.  We've got time." 

                "Yeah," Clarice said, "but we can't keep that up forever.  DeGould will be looking for her.  She'll try to get her back to New York.  If she goes back to New York DOC then we're finished.  And then God only knows how I get Ardelia out of this mess." 

                Paul pondered.  "Is there a fingerprint card for her?" 

                Clarice shrugged.  "I don't know," she said.  "Maybe.  Brittany would know.  If so, then maybe.  But if it's just me, then we're back to square one." 

                They stared at each other helplessly.  They knew what the next step was but didn't know how to get there.  Brittany had no reason to talk.  Threats wouldn't work.  Clarice was lost as to what to do next.  And they had to get the hell out of here.  If DeGould found them here, things would get very ugly real fast.   

                So she let her prisoner have ten minutes or so to compose herself.  Then she knocked on the door. 

                "C'mon, Brittany," she urged.  "C'mon out now." 

                There was no answer except for the blank sound of running water. 

                "Brittany?" Clarice said, and banged on the door again. 

                No human voice replied. 

                "Open the goddam door, Brittany," Clarice said.  A cold finger touched the back of her neck.  "C'mon, now, there's no point in this.  C'mon out." 

                As if mocking her, Brittany did not reply. 

                Clarice tried to open the door.  It was locked.  She threw her weight against it to no avail.  It was of good quality and held.  Then Paul, realizing what was happening, came up to help her.  With that, the door soon collapsed in. 

                Clarice Starling stepped into the bathroom and gasped. It was Rebecca DeGould's bathroom.  A flowered shower curtain.  The toilet had a small blue rug and a matching seat cover.  There were clean towels hanging on the towel bar.  All very normal and bourgeois.  Then she saw what wasn't bourgeois or normal and stood horrified.

                Brittany Tollman lay in the tub, her eyes staring blankly upwards.  On the edge of the tub lay a razor blade.  Its edge was marked with blood.  The shower was on, spraying warm water over Brittany's body.  Her sleeves were rolled up. 

                A clean line of red blood welled from Brittany's left arm, running from elbow to wrist.  The blood mixed with the water into a less vivid mix.  Her right arm was also slit similarly, but that slash trailed lazily back and forth and looked more ragged.  Blood gurgled in the drain.  The white shirt she wore was swiftly turning a washed-out red color.  Awful trails of crimson streaked her jeans. 

                On the bathroom wall, Brittany had written MANILA FOLDER DOWNSTAIRS ON COFFEE TABLE.  Clarice stared at the scarlet letters.  Her gorge rose, despite all the crime scenes she had seen.  There was something horrible in it:  even planning this, she'd kept her end of the bargain.  She'd written in her own blood.  The words under that Clarice found absurdly touching, even given the shit-hitting-the-fan situation.

                ALL I WANTED WAS A SECOND CHANCE. 

                She knew what to do, but couldn't do it.  She meant to turn, to yell to Paul to call 911.  Jesus Christ, how long had this been going on?  How long did someone need to die from this?  Five minutes?  Ten? Was she dead already?  She'd meant it, too.  Those slashes were deep and vertical, exposing a big chunk of her arm.  Clarice thought of the psychology courses she'd taken.  Slashing across the wrist is a cry for help, one professor had told her.  Slashing vertically – that's a real suicide bid.

                "Call an ambulance!" she told Paul.  He grabbed his cell phone. They'd have to explain being here, but for now that was the least of their problems.   Clarice grabbed a towel and tried fruitlessly to stanch the blood with it.  She couldn't; she needed two towels and four arms to be able to do this. 

                "Jesus fucking Christ," Clarice Starling said to herself.  "Brittany, what the fuck?"

                Brittany stirred and tried to pull her arms back out of Clarice's grasp.  She could barely move; loss of blood had already made her weak.  How much had gone down the drain?  No way to tell.  But this couldn't happen.  She wouldn't let it.  She'd lost Kiera.  If she lost Brittany too, then she and Ardelia were equally lost. 

                   Clarice tightened down the towel and grabbed another one. She climbed into the tub atop the wet girl and struggled to bind up her wound.  She would not lose like this.