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Margot started to get up.

“Listen to me,” the doctor hissed. “Mason will deny you. You know you’ll have to kill him, you’ve known it for twenty years. You’ve known it since he told you to bite the pillow and not make so much noise.”

“Are you saying you’d do it for me? I could never trust you.”

“No, of course not. But you could trust me never to deny that I did it. It would actually be more therapeutic for you to kill him yourself. You’ll remember I recommended that when you were a child.”

“‘Wait until you can get away with it,’ you said. I took some comfort from that.”

“Professionally, that’s the sort of catharsis I had to recommend. You’re old enough now. And what difference would one more murder charge make to me? You know you’ll have to kill him. And when you do, the law will follow the money—right to you and the new baby. Margot, I’m the only other suspect you’ve got. If I’m dead before Mason, who would the suspect be? You can do it when it suits you and I’ll write you a letter gloating about how I enjoyed killing him myself.”

“No, Dr. Lecter, I’m sorry. It’s too late. I’ve got my arrangements made.” She looked into his face with her bright butcher’s blue eyes. “I can do this and sleep afterward, and you know I can.”

“Yes, I know you can. I always liked that in you. You are much more interesting, more … capable than your brother.”

She got up to go. “I’m sorry, Dr. Lecter, for what that’s worth.”

Before she reached the door, he said. “Margot, when does Judy ovulate again?”

“What? In two days, I think.”

“Do you have everything else you need? Extenders, equipment to fast-freeze?”

“I’ve got all the facilities of a fertilization clinic.”

“Do one thing for me.”

“Yes?”

“Curse at me and snatch out a piece of my hair, back from the hairline if you don’t mind. Get a little skin. Hold it in your hand walking back to the house. Think about putting it in Mason’s hand. After he’s dead.

“When you get to the house, ask Mason for what you want. See what he says. You’ve delivered me, your part of the bargain is complete. Hold the hair in your hand and ask him for what you want. See what he says. When he laughs in your face, come back here. All you have to do is take the tranquilizer rifle and shoot the one behind you. Or hit him with the hammer. He has a pocketknife. Just cut the ropes on one arm and give me the knife. And leave. I can do the rest.”

“No.”

“Margot?”

She put her hand on the door, braced against a plea.

“Can you still crack a walnut?”

She reached in her pocket and brought out two. The muscles of her forearm bunched and the nuts cracked.

The doctor chuckled. “Excellent. With all that strength, walnuts. You can offer Judy walnuts to help her get past the taste of Mason.”

Margot walked back to him, her face set. She spat in his face and jerked out a lock of his hair near the top of his head. It was hard to know how she meant it.

She heard him humming as she left the room.

As Margot walked toward the lighted house, the little divot of scalp stuck to the palm of her hand with blood, the hair hanging from her hand and she did not even need to close her fingers around it.

Cordell passed her in a golf cart loaded with medical equipment to prepare the patient.

CHAPTER

84

FROM THE expressway overpass northbound at Exit 30, Starling could see a half-mile away the lighted gatehouse, far outpost of Muskrat Farm. Starling had made up her mind on the drive to Maryland: she would go in the back way If she went to the front gate with no credentials and no warrant she’d get a sheriff’s escort out of the county, or to the county jail. By the time she was free again, it would all be done.