Beverly Katz grew more alluring with Will Graham’s words upon her lips, Will’s insight gleaming in her eyes. Was her walk a little more wary when it approached Hannibal Lecter? Wary because of Will’s warnings?
Hannibal enjoyed breathing her in, along with the scent of Will, escaping from the walls which surrounded him.
How they’d all changed because of Will Graham being caged.
Alana Bloom had lived up to her name, facing this heartbreak, this challenge. Her face flushed with passion, her chin raised in a heroic pose of determination. Determination to save Will Graham.
How Hannibal admired them, Alana and Beverly, these two attractive and remarkable women who’d gotten closer to Will Graham, drawing Hannibal closer by doing so. Admired them, yet envied their closeness to the man Hannibal himself yearned for.
Distracting, this attraction and envy. It took him away from the two women he was keeping hidden from the world in his house on the bluff.
“You were away for a long time.” Abigail Hobbs held Miriam Lass’s remaining hand, gazing at her surrogate father, eyes bright with fearful reproach.
Miriam, in contrast, was placid and calm. She gazed at Hannibal with dreamy blue eyes, not really seeing him. Occasionally she offered Abigail a reassuring little smile.
Abigail didn’t seem reassured. She seemed ready to bolt. “What’s happening to Will?”
“He’s safe. For now.” Hannibal took a seat in a chair opposite the sofa Abigail and Miriam shared. “He’s at a critical point right now. I cannot leave him. Not for long.”
Abigail inhaled as Hannibal himself might have. “You smell like death.”
Hannibal smiled a little. Under his tutelage, his surrogate daughter’s sense of smell was developing. “I was at a crime scene. It was no one I killed.”
“Why?” Abigail’s question, her sharp gaze reminded him of Bedelia Du Maurier. A growing wariness which might drive her away if Hannibal wasn’t careful.
“It is best to stay close to the F.B.I., stay in their good graces.” Hannibal met that sharp gaze, projecting calm. “We no longer have an ally in their ranks.”
“No.” Abigail’s lower lip trembled. “We turned him into an enemy.”
“Give him time, Abigail.” Hannibal leaned forward in his seat, closing the distance between them. “Time to see that Jack Crawford is not the all-powerful father controlling his destiny.”
His own words brought back a memory of Will Graham, lying on the couch. Lips parted, eyelids fluttering.
Those eyes had fixed themselves upon Hannibal, not really seeing him. A smile had struggled with his lips.
“Promise me, Jack. Promise you’ll always be bedrock.”
“Jack Crawford is at the mercy of forces more merciless than himself.” Hannibal steepled his hands together, letting them conceal the twist to his lips, brought on by an angry ache. “He cannot be bedrock when those forces rush to erode him along with everything Will ever knew in the F.B.I.”
“You make Will’s old life sound like my old life.” Abigail cocked her head, keeping a fall of hair covering where her ear no longer was. “Jack Crawford sounds like he’s to Will what my father was to me.”
“In some ways which give you both pain.” Hannibal offered Abigail a little nod in response. “Will needs to accept Jack’s love for what it is.”
“As I accepted my father’s love for what it is.” A tiny smirk played at the corner of Abigail’s mouth. “Are you planning to have Will shoot Jack? As I cut my father’s throat?”
Miriam stirred, disturbed for the first time. “Don’t kill Jack, Clarice. He doesn’t understand. A peculiar cleverness gives him an edge. It doesn’t give him everything.”
“No, it doesn’t.” Hannibal smiled at Miriam. “Don’t worry about Jack. No matter how violent Will's inclinations toward him might be, they come from love.”
A spark of clarity flashed in Miriam Lass’s far away gaze, almost dimming into something like a half-formed tear at the corner of her eye.
Abigail tightened her grip on Miriam. “I sometimes dream about Will. Dream that he’s taking me fishing.”
She let go of the other girl’s hand. Miriam watched her withdraw, a slight frown furrowing her brow.
“I thought he wanted to be my father.” Abigail titled her head, giving Hannibal a measuring look. “The truth is he’s a lot like me. Isn’t he?”
“He’s lost.” Hannibal reached across the space for her hands, now free and flailing in the space in front of her. “It’s our turn to find him, Abigail. We’re his family now. We must give him time to deal with his former family.”
“The F.B.I.” Abigail shook her head. “Can you have more than one family?”
“Sure.” It was Miriam, not Hannibal who spoke. “The second family only conflicts with the first when your loyalties do. This is when you have to choose between them.”
“And you’re making sure he’ll choose us.” Abigail reached up to touch a hair which she might once have tucked behind her ear. Only her ear was no longer there. “How do you know he will?”
“You did.” Hannibal gazed at his surrogate daughter for a long moment. How like and unlike Mischa she was. “You chose me.”
“You would have killed me if I hadn’t,” Abigail muttered, looking down at her hands.
“You’ve had chances to escape.” Hannibal leaned back.
“You’re all I’ve got left.” Abigail looked up. “My family wasn’t the F.B.I. You didn’t frame me for murder.”
“I may have been the one framing Will, but the F.B.I. accepted Will's guilt.” Not only accepted it, but acted upon it with a ruthless urgency. “Acceptance is important to Will. As is being listened to. We’ve proven to Will we’re not what he thought, but so have they.”
“You’re expecting Will Graham to forgive a lot.” Abigail twisted her lips into a grim smile which was very like Will’s. “If he can forgive us, he can forgive them.”
Hannibal considered this, recalling the way Will’s dark eyes absorbed the shadows around him, the very sight of Hannibal Lecter. How intimate his promise had been, the promise of a reckoning.
All Hannibal had to do was think about it. A tingling feeling travelled down his legs to his groin.
Abigail was looking at her, her mouth softening into a smirk. “You are obsessed with Will Graham.”
Once again, Abigail Hobbs seemed to be channeling Bedelia DuMaurier, not that she was aware of it. “I sometimes think you’d kill us, sacrifice us all, just to have him.”
“He’s already planning to.” Miriam stared at Hannibal with a sharp, almost predatory look in her eyes. “He’s already planning to get rid of me. Eventually he’ll get rid of you, Clarice.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not this Clarice,” Abigail muttered, giving Miriam a sideways glance. “Not that you’ll remember this conversation.”
“I never do.” Miriam kept her attention fixed on Hannibal. “You’ll try to kill Will Graham, too. You can’t help it. You’re too curious what he tastes like.”
She rose to her feet. “I’ve got to warn Jack. I’ve got to stop you.”
Abigail gazed up at the prisoner in confused alarm. No wonder. Hannibal always treated Miriam as a guest as much as a captive. Never had she spent this kind of time with her father’s victims, not once he had them in his grasp. She didn’t know what to expect.
Hannibal did. So did Miriam. “Never mind, Miriam. You’re not really here. You’re waking up. Waking up in a quiet room.”
“Waking up in a quiet room.” Miriam sat down, slumped in her seat, eyelids fluttering. “We don’t need to get up for another ten minutes, Clarice.”
Abigail glanced at the blond head rolling over in the seat, close enough to cradle. “I guess living with her is preparation for Will Graham. When he comes here, it’ll be in a similiar state.”
“No, Abigail.” Hannibal leaned forward with a private little smile, not entirely for her. “When Will comes here, it will be with his eyes open.”
Abigail Hobbs raised an eyebrow, not convinced.
It doesn’t matter. Hannibal was.
He once told Will Graham himself he had tremendous faith in him.
He’d meant every word.