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Alana flew back to the United States two days after they found the bodies. Margot and Morgan stayed in Brazil; there was no sense in taking unnecessary risks. She would send them word once there was anything to be known.
She had to be sure.
Her security detail accompanied her to the morgue. They had been denuded of their weapons the second they entered the building, as she expected, but provided a comforting presence at her back.
“Is this really necessary?” Zeller asked, looking at them from the corner of his eye. He was paler than usual, more rumpled. Like he hadn’t been getting much sleep. Price was nowhere to be seen.
“It is until it isn’t,” Alana said, and followed him inside.
The remains were laid out side by side and covered with clinically spotless sheets. And they weren’t alone.
There was a woman standing next to one of the tables. She had dark blonde hair, piled into a messy bun on top of her head, and rounded cheeks that were red from the wind outside. The parka she wore looked both old and comfortable. Alana knew who she was immediately.
Will had never shown her a picture of Molly. He wasn’t the type to carry polaroids in his wallet, or to brag about them if he did. But her face had been all over television. Even Alana couldn’t avoid it.
“They weren’t in the water very long,” said Zeller. “They washed up on shore pretty quick, which is good because -”
He stopped, pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, and wiped a sleeve across his mouth. There was a sheen of sweat on his upper lip. “I’m sorry. You don’t need to know the details. We should get started.”
Alana made a noise of affirmation; Zeller took the hem of one of the sheets in his latex-gloved hands. Molly didn’t say anything at all.
Something terrible had happened to Will’s face. His cheek was punctured straight through, separated into two loose flaps of skin that were an ugly graying purple along the edges. The wound was so deep that she could see the side of his teeth. Yet he was curiously free of blood. Either the ocean had taken it, or he had been cleaned up here. Zeller might have done it himself.
Alana forced herself to stop looking. It wasn’t Will she had been called in for.
Hannibal looked smaller than he had been when he was alive. Shrunken, as though even he could not escape the equalizing effect of a modest death. His flesh was sallow and puffy, discolored around the eyes and mouth. The scars Jack had given him looked like indents in wax. But otherwise he had fared better than Will. A more presentable corpse.
“They drowned,” said Zeller. He was being as gentle as he knew how. “It’s not the worst way to go.”
Alana felt suddenly faint, her pulse pounding in her ears. But she had not spent months learning how to walk again to fall now. She had become accustomed to vertigo; she locked her knees against it. She couldn’t do anything about her shaking hands except hide them in her pockets.
“Do you need a minute?” Zeller asked. He was addressing Molly, who Alana hadn’t spoken to and couldn’t, she couldn’t -
Molly’s eyes were dry. Her hands were not shaking. “That’s him,” she said, stone faced, and walked out of the room.
Alana told Margot about it under the cover of dark, in their bed. That was the only way they could talk about certain things.
(Once, like this, Margot had confessed that sometimes she looked at their son and saw Mason’s face. His forehead, his eyebrows, his sneering mouth. And then it was just Morgan again, playing with his toys.)
“I didn’t think it would be them,” Alana said. There was enough moonlight that she could make out the edges of her wife’s features but no more. “I couldn’t convince myself he could die like any other human being.” There was no need to specify which he she meant.
“But did you want it to be them?” Margot asked. She smoothed back Alana’s hair as if to soften the question.
Alana thought about it: Hannibal, dead. Hannibal, contained. Will, dead. Will, lost.
“I don’t know,” she said.
The young woman waiting in Alana’s study didn’t take her by surprise. Their security was excellent, even now.
“Ms. McClane,” Alana asked as soon as she entered the room. She didn’t have to announce her presence - her guest’s head had already turned in her direction. “How can I help you?”
“Call me Reba,” she replied, and stood with her hand out. Alana shook it and they moved back into their seats - Reba in front of the desk and Alana behind it.
Reba had cut her hair since she had last been in the news cycle. There had been less of her than Molly Graham, for whatever reason - perhaps even the shark-frenzy of the media had recognized her as a victim. Or perhaps Hannibal Lecter had stolen the spotlight from Francis Dolarhyde in the end. There were a few puff pieces about her heroic escape, but she wasn’t a woman to seek fame and Alana hadn’t heard anything about her for months. Even gothic tragedies had a short shelf life these days. The hairstyle suited her. It fanned around her head like a halo.
“My mother thinks I’m crazy for coming here,” Reba said. “And I wonder if she’s right.”
“That’s certainly a way to start a conversation,” Alana said, eyebrows raising.
“I prefer honesty,” said Reba. “Especially now.”
Alana nodded. “I can understand that.”
“I don’t need recommendations for a therapist,” Reba continued. “I have that. I don’t need legal counsel, or tips on dealing with the media. What I want -”
She fell silent. Alana could see her struggling to compose herself.
“What I want,” Reba said, “is to talk to someone who might understand. And that is one hell of a short list.”
“We should start a support group,” said Alana. “Make it easier to find each other.”
Reba laughed in a startled but genuine way. “Can I ask you a question?” she asked after she had sobered. “Be warned it’s a big one.”
“Honesty,” Alana murmured. “Of course - go ahead.”
“How do you keep going?” Reba’s hands tightened around the end of her cane and she took a deep breath. “How can you get back to normal, after all of this?”
Reba didn’t want platitudes so Alana didn’t offer them. “As soon as I am,” she said, “you’ll be the first to know.”
Molly really shouldn’t have opened the door.
She should have called the sheriff, or whoever it was you reported wayward paparazzi to. She should have called Jack Crawford and told him: this is your mess. Deal with it.
But he had quit; or been fired. And he didn’t burn the village down all on his lonesome, did he?
Freddie Lounds, on her doorstep. Jesus Christ.
Molly cracked the door, and only that. Unlike Will, she knew how to avoid inviting the vampires in. Lounds peeked inside. A harmless smile curved the corners of her lips. Molly wanted to slap it off.
“Say your piece,” said Molly. “You have five minutes by the clock.”
“That’s more generous than most people in your position would be.”
“And quit trying to flatter me.”
The smile twisted; collapsed. Freddie Lounds, miracle of miracles, looked genuinely uncomfortable.
“It’s about your husband,” she said. “Look. I’m not here to interview you.”
Which was bullshit, and Molly knew it. Still, she let Lounds go on. It was better than packing up Will’s things.
“I’ve heard - it’s not substantiated, not yet but - I have a source in Argentina -”
“No,” said Molly. “No, we aren’t doing this.” She started to close the door.
Lounds stopped her by jamming a foot in. “Wait! You didn’t even let me finish.”
Molly yanked the door open all the way and pushed out onto the porch. Lounds stepped back with a quick glance over her shoulder, back at her car. She was surprised, Molly realized. Whatever she had been hoping for it wasn’t this.
“Will is dead,” said Molly. “I identified the body. He’s dead, and he isn’t in Argentina or anywhere else.”
“Oh,” Lounds said. She leaned against the railing. All her careful words seemed to have deserted her.
“I guess they kept you from getting your hands on any pictures after all,” Molly said. So Jack Crawford could do that right, at least.
“I was at the funeral,” said Lounds, almost sheepish. “In the bushes. But -”
“It was closed casket,” said Molly. “Yeah.”
She stepped back, suddenly tired. Anger came and went, these days. But, god - she was so exhausted.
“Where’s your son?” Lounds asked.
“With his grandparents,” Molly said. There was no reason to lie - their number wasn’t listed. Lounds couldn’t find them if she tried.
She folded her hands in front of her, like a schoolgirl, and looked Molly up and down. Her expression was unreadable. “I know you won’t believe me,” she said, “but I liked Graham. I’m going to miss him.”
“You’ll miss the bylines he generated, sure.”
“That too,” she admitted with a shrug. Her fine skin was turning pink from the cold, and her breath rose as steam. “But I mean it. The world was more interesting with Will Graham in it.”
“Yeah,” said Molly. She wanted to go back inside. Her fingers were going numb; it was snowing. “Is there anything else?”
Lounds gestured towards the door. “Mind if I come in? I could use a drink.”
“Sure,” Molly said, because maybe she didn’t know as much about keeping monsters out as she thought. Or maybe she just wanted to remember Will with someone who wouldn’t pity her.
They found a bottle of bourbon tucked behind the baking supplies. A few shots in Molly cracked; not from the liquor but from everything else, all of it.
“I told him to go back,” she sobbed, and put her hands over her face. “I told him -”
She woke up covered by a blanket, and alone. The next day she got a picture sent to her email from the official TattleCrime.com account. A blurry cellphone shot of her sleeping tearstained face. Practically up her goddamn nose.
But it never showed up on the website. She checked.
Jack Crawford stood on the steps with his hat in his hands. He hadn’t called ahead.
Alana faced him, standing in the doorway. She waited for him to speak. She could wait forever if she had to.
“It looks nice up here,” he said, a turn of his head indicating the white expanse of Muskrat Farm. “When it’s like this.”
“When the snow covers everything,” Alana agreed. “Yes, it does.”
There was a moment, a beat, when it seemed as if he would say something else. But he didn’t; his eyes roamed over the drive, the barn - and he stayed silent.
“What do you want, Jack?”
“To talk to you,” he said. “That’s all.”
“I’m not your psychiatrist,” said Alana. “If you want that go someplace else.”
“I know.”
He was thinner, thought Alana. More worn. She had heard he wasn’t with the FBI any longer.
“And I’m not the forgiveness you’re looking for.”
A narrow smile appeared on his face. It was bitter but not directed at her. She could see the shadows in the backs of his eyes, and she knew who they belonged to. “I know.”
Alana nodded, once, quickly. “It’s freezing out here,” she said, and stepped aside to let him in.