Nothing seemed to touch or bother the accused. Dr. Hannibal Lecter sat while Ms. Vega hurled charges of murder, manipulation, cannibalism, and betrayal, a contemplative expression on his face.
“Lost in prayer,” Clarice Starling muttered when court was adjourned. “It’s his trial, yet Dr. Lecter doesn’t seem particularly bothered by it.”
“He’s exactly where he wants to be.” Miriam Lass sounded a little dreamy herself, as if she wasn’t quite there either.
Clarice looked down at their interlocking fingers. Cool and firm, this particular prosthetic did an excellent job of mimicking flesh and blood.
“He is exactly where he wants to be.” Miriam drew a sharp breath and gazed with hard, brittle eyes at her kidnapper. “Everything is going according to plan. It’s always part of his plan.”
“What plan?” Clarice gave Miriam a sideways plan. “What does the Ripper want?”
Sometimes Miriam got confused when Clarice Starling or anyone else called Dr. Hannibal Lecter by name. She didn’t seem to realize whom they were talking about. Calling him the Chesapeake Ripper or the Ripper helped Miriam focus and remember what he’d done. Even if she couldn’t always fix the right face to the title.
Dr. Alana Bloom shot Miriam a brief look of concern around her wife, whom sat on the other side of Clarice. At any other time, this would have been awkward, considering Margot and Clarice’s past but the past was the past. No time to think of encounters in the rain, sharing whiskey, and singing songs from musicals before Margot’s brother had put an end to anything which might have been. That was in the past when Clarice had been trying to forget that Miriam was missing and probably dead. All the while Margot had been trying to forget that her brother was alive. Neither of them had been satisfied with reality.
Now Miriam was back, Mason was gone, and Margot was married. Married, holding onto her wife’s hand for dear life, and shooting secret glances of the accused. No one would have noticed these looks under thick eyelashes used to concealing secrets, but Clarice knew Margot a little better than most people. Margot was on edge and deeply nervous about what might be said at this trial.
Dr. Hannibal Lecter had been her psychiatrist as well as Will Graham’s. Clarice swallowed a lump rising in her throat. Margot might well be another one of his victims except Margot looked healthier than she’d ever been. There was a flush to her cheeks, a glow which usually disappeared whenever her brother appeared. Mason wasn’t about to do that ever again.
Actually Dr. Lecter probably did Margot a favor, claiming Mason as his last victim. Why did she watch him with such wary eyes?
Miriam turned her head but she wasn’t looking at Clarice, Margot, or Dr. Bloom. She fixed her attention upon the young man on the other side of Margot’s wife. The one Dr. Bloom and Jack Crawford were trying so hard to shield from anyone’s attention, particularly the accused.
Will Graham kept his face blank. He had a classical statue’s wistful beauty, the scar across his temple bringing humanity to his countenance as well as acting as Hannibal Lecter’s mark, his brand. That was a gift from the accused, where he’d tried to saw Graham’s head open in order to eat his brains. He didn’t look back at Miriam or anyone else. Like Lecter himself, Will Graham appeared to be lost in his own thoughts.
Perhaps he’s in the same place as Dr. Hannibal Lecter, Clarice thought, feeling a ripple run through the hairs on the back of her arms.
“He only let me go when he found what he truly desired,” Miriam whispered almost in Clarice’s ear. Clarice felt the other woman swaying slightly in her seat, not quite moving. It was as if she was listening to music unheard. Perhaps it was the chamber music which continued to haunt her. “Everything leads to what he truly desires.”
Will Graham. Clarice didn’t turn her head but watched the young man out of the corner of her eye.
Dr. Bloom frowned, but not at Clarice. She appeared to be thinking about Miriam’s words, weighing them, contemplating whether she could throw them. There was something a lot harder about this professional woman who once wore flowered prints and offered everyone a warm smile, even when she was deep in cases seeped with family trauma. She’d been broken and reforged into something sharp, ready and willing to drive herself into the hearts of her enemies.
Margot turned her head just a tiny bit and offered Clarice a wistful little smile. Oddly enough she turned it on Will Graham as well.
This made Clarice wonder just how well Margot knew Graham. The court room was positively stewing with secrets…and lies. Clarice Starling sensed there were a lot of lies, living and breathing, even being uttered under oath.
The things Miriam Lass was muttering were not lies. Clarice saw her lips shaping Will Graham’s name.
At that exact moment Dr. Hannibal Lecter turned his head ever so slightly in their direction.
Clarice shivered at those dark, searching eyes locking onto her, or was it Miriam in their sights?
No, neither of them. Dr. Lecter was looking past them, past Margot and Dr. Bloom, fixing themselves upon the young man lost in his own thoughts.
At that exact moment, Will Graham seemed to wake up from his dream, green eyes filled with wary tenderness. He met the accused’s gaze and held it.
If Clarice Starling didn’t know better, she’d think she was looking at two people in love.
Only she did know better. Didn’t she?