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She first spotted the man while she was cleaning tables. He looked around 35, messy curls, stubble, big and beautiful blue eyes and an aura that warned people not to come any closer, thank you. He was drinking a black coffee and feverishly grading papers, avoiding eye contact with whichever poor soul happened to glance his way. A teacher, then, or a professor. Stress poured off of him and she gave him a wide berth, as well as a complimentary cookie when he was done with the papers.
He looked up at her in surprise, then suspicion, then cautious happiness when he realised the free food wasn’t her way of flirting with him.
“Thanks,” he said, looking somewhere in the vicinity of her nose.
“My pleasure,” she replied.
She was surprised when she returned to clear his table and found a $20 tip, far exceeding the price of the two black coffees he had paid for earlier. She smiled to herself, a private thing. Kindness begets kindness.
Meow.
The café cat had slunk around the tables into a patch of sunlight and stretched itself out. The curly haired man’s table was right next to the little Scottish Fold, and she kept seeing him looking down at the little animal.
When she went to retrieve his empty coffee cup, she said, “You can pet him if you’d like.”
The man looked a little startled at being caught staring so obviously at the cat.
“Thanks,” he muttered sheepishly, aiming what sat between a smile and a grimace in her general direction.
As she walked away, she saw him gingerly slide out of his chair and into a squat, gently running his hands over the cat’s soft grey fur. She returned to the front desk just as a man approached it. He was tall, extremely well dressed in what was, no doubt, a bespoke tailored three piece suit and leather shoes that clicked on the timber flooring, with the air of upper class just oozing off him.
“Good afternoon, sir, how may I help you?” she inquired politely, shifting into a more professional manner.
“Good afternoon,” he said in a beautifully accented voice. “I would like to buy one packet of your Ecuadorian coffee beans and another of the Panamanian variety, please.”
She turned around to retrieve the beans and when she returned, she found the man’s attention diverted. He was looking at the other man who was still petting the cat, and now mumbling soft words of encouragement and endearment. The sun shone through his dark hair, lighting it up so it looked like curls of chocolate atop a cake. His skin was glowing lightly, the side of his profile golden. He looked beautiful in his affection and innocence.
She looked between the newcomer to the professor, seeing the immediate spark of attraction. The man was quite distracted at the sight, his eyes drinking in the view. She waited patiently for him to turn back to her, suppressing her amusement under a neutral veneer. She cleared her throat.
“Here you are, sir.”
The spell was broken, and the man turned around to face her, offering her a warm smile in apology.
He accepted his bounty, paid her with an even heftier tip than the object of his affection had the week before, and turned to leave, but not before throwing a thoroughly interested and lingering glance at the professor.
“Sir?” she called out on a whim.
“Yes?” he asked, turning back to her.
“I hope this is not too presumptuous but...he's here everyday after 4pm.”
The man’s smile became a thing with teeth, crooked and uneven and a little bit more real.
“Thank you,” he replied, before leaving.
Both men were back. The professor, Will, who had volunteered his name to her today, was at his usual table grading papers. The rich man was sitting in the opposite corner, his back to the wall with a view of the whole coffee shop. He had with him a leather briefcase, from which he removed a diary and an iPad. For the better part of an hour he made notes in the diary. When she went to give him a cup of coffee, she saw that he had beautiful, flowery handwriting.
Then he put the diary away and took out his iPad. There, too, he spent a good amount of time, reading with care and attention. Someone with a less practiced eye would have thought he was focused solely on his tasks, but she saw the way he watched the other man over the rim of his coffee cup, and the way his attention kept flickering over to Will in between writing when he tried to appear lost in thought.
She wondered if Will was oblivious to the attention or simply uninterested. He was a highly perceptive man - she had the impression that he only talked to her, albeit sporadically, because he knew she was a busy person with no interest in drawing him into actual conversation.
Finally the man put the iPad away and took out a sheet of paper, a scalpel and a graphite pencil. Her eyes widened at the blade but she decided against saying something. It was clearly less of a weapon and more of an art implement, although a weirdly specific one. Perhaps the man was a doctor? Although what kind of doctor had the time to sit at a coffee shop for over two hours, she did not know.
In any case, the man seemed harmless enough, or as harmless as any man could seem to her. She worked then, alone as she was in her shop, tending to the after work rush of people needing a caffeine boost to get through their day. When the rush cleared, she saw Will was packing up. The man continued to sketch silently, pretending he wasn't aware of Will’s impending departure.
She was silently impressed. He had a good amount of self control clearly.
“Bye, Wren,” said Will as he walked out, hoisting his packed messenger bag over his shoulder, his keys jingling in his hand.
“See you, Will,” she called out, quietly pleased at having earned his polite acknowledgement.
She cleaned up the tables and vacuumed the floor and made the odd coffee for the occasional straggler. Still, the other man stayed and sketched. When the time had come to close, he quietly packed up all his belongings into his suitcase except for the sketch and stood up.
She watched a little warily as he approached her.
“Wren?” he asked.
“Yes, that's me?” she replied, a little tiredly.
“This is for you, in thanks for your assistance. See you tomorrow.”
As he turned and left, Wren slid over the sketch from the countertop into her hands and gasped out loud. It was a sketch of her with a tiny little wren on her shoulder, like something out of a fairytale. The man was talented for the likeness was exceptional. He had drawn her long wavy hair exactly the way she wore it - in a low chignon. He had taken care to include her freckles, and had even taken the time to properly draw the way her eyeliner looked on her monolids.
The drawing was signed Hannibal Lecter. Odd name, she thought. Unique, she corrected inwardly. As unique as the man himself.
She blushed and smiled at the attention. She would have taken it as flirting, if the man hadn't been so clearly enamoured with Will. As it was, she found a frame to put the painting in and attached it to the wall on an empty nail that had had no use for a long time.
Maybe Will would look at it and ask her who had drawn it for her. Then she would be able to brag on the behalf of the talented man in the three piece suits who she was sure was on his way to becoming a regular.
Something was wrong with Will. It wasn’t that he was any more avoidant or twitchy than usual, but he looked pale, sweaty, and she saw his eyes wandering, following something on the walls that wasn’t there. When she went to give him his second coffee, she saw him dry swallow two aspirin and winced in sympathy.
“We have water to wash those down with, you know?” she said mildly, setting his drink down.
He shot a somewhat shaky smile in her general direction.
“I’ll be okay.”
She frowned. She didn’t know why she did it - maybe it was some internal sense that something wasn’t right or the way Will looked so small and vulnerable - but the next thing she knew was that she was leaning forward and brushing the palm of her hand firmly across his forehead. Will jolted in surprise, a violent twitch going down his body, before he relaxed and leaned into her touch. He was burning up.
“You have a fever, Will,” she said in surprise, pushing down the tiny spell of mortification that ran through her at the uncharacteristically overly familiar gesture.
“I tend to run hot,” he said, avoiding eye contact.
She sat down across him, retracting her arm. He looked up at her in surprise. Perhaps he had expected her to drop it.
“That is not you running hot, that is a fever. How long have you had it?” she pressed.
Will shrugged, then took a deep breath.
“Maybe a week? Maybe longer? I had headaches first.”
“Have you seen a doctor?” she asked.
“Not yet, it might just be a bug, I’m hoping it passes soon.”
She sighed a little. Will was lovely, but she got the feeling he was a bit of a mess. What kind of person has persistent fevers for a week and doesn’t go see a doctor? She thought about Hannibal Lecter, the suave man in the suit, quite possibly a doctor. If Will had someone that put together in his life, surely he’d be better taken care of. She shook her head - if a man could solve your problems, then she wouldn’t have chosen to be single for so long.
“My friend had headaches and fevers and she went to the hospital where they found out she had meningitis. I’m no doctor but you never know with these things, best to get it checked out,” she said warmly.
Will chuckled.
“You might be right.”
“I am right,” she said stubbornly. “Oh wait, I’ll be right back,” she said suddenly, rushing into the staffroom and rummaging through her handbag.
“Here it is!” she said, brandishing a business card in her hand. “This is my PCP’s business card. He’s really good, thorough and patient and very helpful. He’s a middle aged Italian man who doesn’t shut up but he takes good care of you and has never led me astray.”
Will took the card from her and tucked it into his briefcase.
“You better go see him,” she said sternly. “I won’t serve you coffee until I know you’ve made an appointment.”
Will gaped at her.
“I’m pushy. Go on,” she said, knowing she was being a nuisance.
Will let a reluctant smile draw on his face. He was quietly pleased that someone cared this much. She let a matching smile flicker across her face before she pushed her face back into her stern expression, watching him retrieve the card and dial the number.
“Hello? I’d like to make an appointment with Dr Notte...”
She walked away with a satisfied expression, knowing she had done a good job with both the coffee and the pushy customer service.
She didn’t see Will for six weeks. She saw Hannibal Lecter almost every day. He never spoke to her, but he watched Will’s empty seat in silence for two hours. She wondered when he would lose hope.
The Will who returned to her coffee shop a month and a half later was pale and drawn and looked as if he had lost weight. But his eyes were bright and clear and he moved with confidence. He also had a huge gift basket. She observed Hannibal sit straighter in his seat, and unabashedly drink in the sight of him.
“Will,” she said, feeling the relief wash over her. “It’s been so long.”
“Wren,” he replied with a warm smile. “This is for you.”
She looked into the basket, spotting expensive chocolates, a bottle of whiskey, several books, and looked back up in bewildered surprise.
“Whatever for?” she asked.
“You saved my life,” said Will. “If you hadn’t sent me to your doctor, I would never have found out that I have encephalitis. They caught it early. I had to get outpatient plasmapheresis and immunotherapy to manage it. There’s still a small chance it might come back but I feel so much better now.”
“Oh, Will,” she said, suddenly speechless. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“Me too,” he said, smiling and meeting her eyes. She felt the strength of the appreciation in his gaze down to her core. “Now, can I get a coffee?”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Hannibal return to his sketching, his pencil strokes slow and deliberate. She wondered how he felt knowing Will had been sick.
“Of course.”
She had never felt happier making a cappuccino in her life.
It was another week before it happened.
Hannibal Lecter’s table was occupied. It was raining when he walked into the shop, closing a rather stately looking black umbrella with a smooth wooden handle and setting it by the door. Almost immediately she saw his eyes drawn to his usual spot but rather than looking miffed, she saw a faint glimmer of something akin to triumph in his eyes. He walked up to the counter.
“How may I help you, sir?” she asked politely.
“A black coffee, please. And a tiramisu as well.”
He paid and then turned towards his table before pausing abruptly, as if he had only just noticed that it was taken. He paused almost comically in the middle of the shop, turning his body slowly as though trying to find a free table.
“I’ve got a seat free.”
Hannibal turned to see Will smiling up at him, gentle and wicked at the same time, gesturing to the armchair across him. His desk was covered in his papers as usual and he began to shift them a little, dumping marked ones into his messenger bag.
“So long as I am not being an inconvenience,” said Hannibal, ever gracious, although she imagined he was thrumming in excitement at the prospect of finally speaking to Will after so long.
“Not at all,” said Will. “I have been waiting for an opportunity to speak to the man who has been watching me for weeks.”
Hannibal paused a little in his walk over to Will, before continuing forward smoothly and sitting down in one graceful movement, setting his briefcase beside him. She turned her back and busied herself with cleaning the steamer so she could hide her smile. She knew Will had noticed! How she loved it when she was right.
“I apologise, how rude of me. I thought I wasn’t being obvious,” she heard Hannibal say smoothly, his voice like smoke and whiskey.
There was a pause. She wanted to turn around so bad, but she now knew exactly how perceptive Will was. The almost certain mortification of being caught eavesdropping kept her from looking.
“Most people wouldn’t have noticed.”
“But you did.”
“I’m not most people.”
Oh they were flirting. This was good. She started loading the dishwasher as silently as possible. The core tenet of eavesdropping was looking busy.
“No you’re not. You’re something of an enigma.”
“Hannibal Lecter, psychiatrist. I searched you up after I saw the sketch you made for Wren. Are you here because of a professional curiosity, Dr. Lecter?” asked Will, his voice biting and cold.
“I am curious about you, although I cannot say that it is professional.”
“I’m glad. That would have been tasteless,” said Will.
“Do you have trouble with taste?”
“My thoughts are often not tasty.”
“Nor mine. No effective barriers.”
“I make forts.”
“Associations come quickly.”
“So do forts.”
She had no idea what they were even talking about anymore.
“I’m working on marking essays.”
“That’s alright. I have patient notes to make. A quiet working companion sounds delightful,” said Hannibal.
As she straightened up, she saw him remove his leather bound journal from his briefcase and start writing.
And so it continued. Dr. Lecter’s original table remained empty or taken by someone else, as he had grown accustomed to simply sitting across from Will. A week in, he insisted on buying Will’s second black coffee. Two weeks in, Will bought him a fruit tart. Three weeks in, Hannibal brought in two lunchboxes with chicken soup and pulled pork sandwiches.
“Is that Tattlecrime?” asked Will, peering at Hannibal’s iPad one evening as it snowed outside.
“Yes, I am looking at the reports of the Ripper murder downtown,” replied Hannibal.
“You can do better than Tattlecrime.”
Hannibal looked amusedly at Will.
“Do you have a problem with Freddie Lounds, Will?”
“More like she has a problem with me,” he ground out.
“Top up, gentlemen?” she asked, holding her pot aloft and gesturing towards their extra cups.
“None for me, thank you.”
“Yes, please.”
She topped up Will’s coffee cup, catching sight of the article on Hannibal’s iPad. There was a horrifying photo of a gruesome murder, a man with chocolate curls and a stunning physique pinned to a tree with several arrows protruding from his body. Blood stained his pale skin and onto the grass around him. She started a little, dropping coffee onto the floor.
“Oh God!” she exclaimed. “I am so sorry, I’ll clean that up right away.”
She hurried away from Will and Hannibal, heart pounding in her chest, the image of the murder imprinted behind her eyes. When she came back, Will and Hannibal were watching each other intensely. She cleaned up the coffee quickly and quietly, wanting to leave them alone to do whatever they considered dating.
“Jack Crawford wants me to consult on the Ripper case.”
“Will you do it?”
It was a quiet night for once. Wren wiped tables, knowing there was just a half hour till closing. She was done with the after office rush, had fed the cat, and just had to take the trash out after vacuuming. Then she could go home and drink some warm soup by the fire.
“He wants to borrow my imagination. I don’t know if I want to lend it to him.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
There was a pregnant pause.
“You want to help him. Even though you don’t want to.”
“Saving lives feels good.”
“I don’t care about the lives you save. I care about your life.”
She looked up to see Will blush a little. He played idly with the empty coffee cup on the table.
“It would be wrong to know what I know and not share it.”
Hannibal leaned forward and covered Will’s hands with his own.
“What do you know, Will?”
“You don’t want to hear this,” protested Will. “You know how I see the world - it’s...most people see it as something worthy of alarm.”
“I’m not most people.”
Will laughed at the reminder to their first conversation. She turned away to hide her own smile.
“The Chesapeake Ripper...he kills without impunity. His victims aren’t people to him, they don’t follow a discernable victim profile because there is no victim profile. He doesn’t choose people based on a pattern or a pathology. He chooses them because…”
Will paused.
“Go on,” said Hannibal, his voice low.
“He chooses them because they’re beneath him. They’re beneath him and they’ve committed a grave error. Not a crime, he’s not a vigilante, he doesn’t care for all that. They’ve been...indelicate, rude, personally slighted him somehow. He takes their insignificant lives and elevates them into what he sees as art. He takes the banality of their lives and bodies and moulds them into his vision.
“They’re not victims to him, not even people, they’re...they’re pigs. He kills them in sounders as befits their status. He is a painter, an artist, a God - he destroys and he creates. These people are little more than art supplies who signed their death warrants when they wronged him.”
A chill grew down her back. It was like hearing the Boogeyman being described. How Will understood the man who had been haunting Baltimore for years she did not know. It was impressive. And terrifying.
“There will be other murders from him, other than the ones he displays. He has some degree of medical expertise, he has been killing for a long time, and knows how to avoid both public scrutiny and the authorities. If he doesn’t want someone found, then we haven’t found them. This suggests a certain degree of forensic knowledge, as well a public persona that doesn’t invite many questions. No one sees him.”
“How do you see him?” urged Hannibal.
“I see him as one of those pitiful things sometimes born in hospitals. They feed it, keep it warm, yet they don’t put it on the machines. They let it die. But he doesn’t die. He looks normal...and nobody can tell what he is,” said Will quietly.
“But you can.”
“I can.”
Abruptly, Hannibal stood up, stuffing his iPad and diary into his briefcase. He pulled a flabbergasted Will up with him, hand still tightly wound with Will’s. Before she could so much as breathe a word, they were gone, Hannibal tugging Will and their belongings out the door, a $20 bill on the tabletop.
Nonplussed, she put the money away, cleaning their table too. It took her a few minutes to vacuum and then she closed up early, tired and ready to go home. Turning off the lights, she grabbed the rubbish, went out the back door to go to the dumpster in the alley, and almost immediately blushed so hard she felt her cheeks burn.
Hannibal had Will pushed against the brick wall of the alleyway, one hand around his throat and the other pressing him firmly against the wall. They were kissing almost violently, small muffled moans breaking out as their mouths aligned and realigned. Hannibal broke away to bite kisses down Will’s throat and Will moaned almost obscenely, his hands running across Hannibal’s broad back and down to his waist.
His hips rocked into Hannibal’s with aborted motions and he pulled the other man’s long dark hair until he hissed and went back to kissing Will’s mouth. She must have made some kind of a noise because suddenly they broke apart, breathing heavily and Hannibal turned around to stare at her with a blank, fierce stare, angry and almost violent at being interrupted. Will looked flushed and aghast, red marks blooming on his neck like pomegranate seeds, hair sticking up every which way, pants tented.
She blushed even harder and hurriedly put the garbage bags in the dumpster before hurrying inside. It was time to go home.
The next day Will came to the coffee shop with a scarf. She blushed, he avoided eye contact, and they both pretended they didn’t know why the scarf was there.
The murders continued. The next were of two men, this time found near Baltimore Port out near the Chesapeake Bay. They were draped in golden cloth, kneeling while facing each other in a mockery of Klimt’s The Kiss. They had been photographed and the photo was all over social media and the news. It was horrific yet beautiful. The victims had been dubbed ‘the lovers’. Wren kept seeing the image of them surrounded by flowers on the shores of the ocean, gilded and entwined.
Tattlecrime claimed that the Ripper had gone one step further and sewed the two together. Forums claimed the flowers the Ripper had scattered all around the lovers had a hidden meaning. They proclaimed everlasting love, devotion, courtship. The Chesapeake Ripper was looking for a lover.
Will and Hannibal came to her shop, but the frequency of their visits decreased. One evening, she saw them on the news in the background of a report on another Ripper murder - this one apparently made to look like two Botticelli paintings made to stare at each other from opposite walls in an abandoned warehouse. One was a woman with red hair, another was that of a man with a paintbrush. Will and Hannibal were standing side to side, their backs to the camera but she would recognise Hannibal’s slicked back hair and dark overcoat, and Will’s riot of curls anywhere.
She paused the recording. They were holding hands and staring at the corpses. They would have fit into the image of a couple at a museum staring at art.
“Do you know what an imago is, Will?” asked Hannibal, getting up to leave.
“I wrote the standard monograph on determining time of death by insect activity. Of course, I know what it is,” replied Will coolly, gathering his belongings.
“It's the final stage of a transformation. Maturity.”
“When you become who you will be.”
“It's also a term from the dead religion of psychoanalysis. An imago is an image of a loved one buried in the unconscious, carried with us all our lives,” said Hannibal.
“An ideal.”
“The concept of an ideal always searching for an objective reality to match. I have a concept of you just as you have a concept of me.”
“I have reconciled my concept of you with the reality of you,” said Will as they walked to the door.
“You have seen the imperfection instead of the ideal.”
“I’ve seen you,” said Will, stopping and cradling the side of Hannibal’s face. “Seen who you are. Seen who I've become with you. Known the truth.”
Hannibal smiled and kissed Will, wrapping his scarf more firmly around Will’s neck before holding his hand.
“Goodbye, Wren,” called out Will, not taking his eyes off Hannibal. “And thank you.”
“See you tomorrow!” she called out absentmindedly, already tuning them out.
One morning, she reached her coffee shop to see a tall Black man in a hat and overcoat waiting for her. He looked cold and troubled.
“Jack Crawford, FBI. May I come in to talk to you?”
She started a little. The name rang a bell.
“You’re Will’s boss.”
He looked a little surprised that she knew who he was.
“He mentioned you once,” she said, smiling. “Well, come in.”
Then she paused.
“I’m not in trouble, am I?”
He smiled. He looked warm and comforting despite his imposing figure and previous turmoil.
“No, I just need to get some information from you.”
She led him inside, deciding to keep the shop closed until he was done with her. She didn't want her customers to overhear her being questioned by the FBI. There was every chance that it could affect her sales.
“Now, would you like a coffee?” she asked. “It’s on the house. Anything for a friend of Will’s.”
Agent Crawford winced a little. Then he nodded.
“A coffee would go a long way.”
She made the coffee in silence, feeling the tension ratcheting up around her. She took a few deep breaths to calm herself, bringing the coffee around to the table Jack had sat himself at. She wiped her sweaty hands on her apron, before sitting down in front of him.
“Go ahead,” she said, smiling and trying to appear braver than she felt.
“How do you know Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter?”
“They’re my regulars,” she replied, a little surprised.
“How often do they come to your shop?”
“Almost every evening from 4 to 6pm.”
“Almost every evening?”
“Well, yes, but I’d assume they have prior appointments and engagements some days. And of course, they don’t come on the weekends.”
“Do you remember if they were here the night of the 7th? And the 23rd?”
Ice flooded through her veins. She knew those dates.
“I- I- I don’t know.”
Jack Crawford was silent.
“Yes, you do.”
Yes, she did. They weren’t here. Those were the two dates before the latest Ripper murders had been discovered and they hadn’t been here. At the time, she hadn’t thought anything about it, but now…
“They weren’t here.”
“Did they ever discuss anything pertaining the Ripper murders while here in your shop?”
Her mouth was dry.
“Yes,” she breathed out.
“What did they say? Miss Chua, this is extremely important.”
“Will...one time Will gave a profile of the Ripper to Hannibal. It was...detailed. Intimate. He knew a lot. Hannibal was transfixed,” she breathed out, a shiver running down her spine.
“We have reason to believe Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper.”
There was a beat of silence.
“Oh my God.”
Everything fell away around her. She felt her vision tunnel. She had had a serial killer in her shop. She had served him coffee. She had set him up with a college professor.
“Oh my god,” she said again, dimly acknowledging that her voice was tinged with hysteria. “Will, oh God, is he safe?”
Jack looked grave and stared at her silently.
“We have reason to believe Hannibal Lecter is the Chesapeake Ripper. But we have further reason to believe that he was assisted by Will Graham on the last two murders.”
Suddenly, everything shifted into place. Hannibal’s attraction to Will analysing him, the romantic murder tableaux, their intimacy at the crime scenes. She pushed herself back from the table and ran to the toilets, retching, throwing up. She had been so close to danger. She could have died. She could have been murdered by people she trusted. She shook and shook and tears gathered in her eyes.
The door opened. Jack Crawford stood there with tissues and a glass of water.
“We’ll need you to give a statement.”
Will and Hannibal disappeared. Their homes were devoid of evidence, Will’s dogs had apparently all been given to shelters except one, which had disappeared along with them, and Hannibal’s patients had all been referred to other psychiatrists. It was almost polite.
Then she found out they were cannibals. Then she remembered the meals they had shared in her shop. She called professional cleaners to clean the entire premises, trying not to look too green around the gills as she supervised.
Word spread that her coffee shop had played host to the most notorious serial killer in the DMV and his partner for months. Tattlecrime dubbed them the murder husbands. Her shop went from being called The Coffee Ground to The Coffin Ground. Reporters flooded the shop and she closed it indefinitely and camped out in her house.
Her mom called and she spent an hour reassuring her that she was safe, she was fine, she was not going to get murdered by two serial killers. On the fifth day of her disappearance from the outside world, a red haired woman knocked on her door.
“Hi, can I come in?”
“Who are you?”
“My name is Freddie Lounds and I’m a reporter. I’m writing a book and I was wondering if I could interview you. Everyone is interested in the love story of Will Graham and Hannibal Lecter, and you saw it happen. Imagine how you could shape their story.”
She shut the door on her face, put her headphones in and took a nap.
Two weeks in and the flood of reporters and serial killer groupies did not cease. She was annoyed - her livelihood was being threatened. More than that, staying at home meant more time spent thinking about her matchmaking. She felt stupid, stupid at feeling so safe with these men, stupid at trusting them around her.
Worst of all, she had set them up. Encouraged Hannibal to go for it, told him when Will would visit the shop. Hannibal had been a serial killer before he met Will but Will had been a normal man. He could have been just fine without Hannibal had she not thrust him into the other man’s path.
Guilt gnawed at her. She pushed it away. No use crying over spilled milk.
The doorbell rang.
She opened it to find a courier holding a gigantic gift basket.
“Sign here,” he said, looking bored.
She signed.
The gift basket was huge. She placed it on her kitchen counter and unwrapped the ribbon that wound around the cellophane wrapping. Inside were several exotic fruits, six bottles of wine, two red, two white, and two rosé, an assortment of cheeses, four bags of Panamanian coffee, a bottle of whiskey, Swiss chocolates and what looked like expensive cat food.
An fancy looking envelope sat atop the hoard, beautiful black lettering spelling her name on its front, proclaiming the basket as hers. She paused, her heart hammering in her throat. She knew that handwriting.
Gingerly, she picked up the envelope and tore it open. There were two pieces of paper inside. She opened the first.
Dear Miss Chua,
Will and I would like to give you this gift basket as a token of our appreciation. We would not be here today if it wasn't for you and your encouragement at the nascent stages of our courtship. We are greatly indebted to you.
We hope you will like the meagre offerings that we have chosen for you. We tried to make them varied and enjoyable to your liking but given that we don't actually know much about you, I suspect they are much more to our liking. We hope you will enjoy them nonetheless.
We would further like to thank you for not speaking to the media, specifically to Miss Lounds. We do not hold it against you for speaking with the FBI, but I will say we would've been particularly disappointed if you had gone to the press.
In any case, we have enclosed a cheque with enough to cover you for a month’s worth of lost wages. We sincerely apologise for any damage we may have done to your coffee shop. We are rather fond of it actually, and it is a little upsetting that we may have caused any harm. Please accept our gift as a token of our appreciation and as an apology.
Kind regards,
Hannibal Lecter
Wren’s hands shook. If she had spoken to Freddie Lounds, the Ripper would have come for her. Shaking, she grabbed the bottle of whiskey, twisting the cap off and downing several burning gulps for courage. Then she reached for the second letter.
Wren,
I am sorry for the emotional turmoil Hannibal and I have put you through. It was never our intention to get you caught up in our world. You've been nothing but polite and helpful to the both of us and we are very grateful.
I want you to know that you have nothing to worry about from either of us. You will never see us again as we have no intention of ever returning to Baltimore. We will not call on you. We will not contact you after this. We simply ask that you respect our privacy and we shall respect yours.
Thank you for saving my life. And thank you for introducing me to Hannibal. He has afforded me an experience that I never knew I could have. I know you think we are monsters, and we probably are, but even monsters need someone to spend their lives with. So thank you for everything that you've done for us.
Yours,
Will Graham
She set the letters down and reached into the envelope. There was a polaroid of the two of them on a boat, faces pressed tightly together. She smiled instinctively at their happy faces but then her gut tightened. Her hands shook as she removed the cheque from the envelope. It was from a bank in the Cayman Islands. Her eyes widened at the amount. She grabbed the bottle of whiskey and the chocolates and went to her room. This was a problem for future Wren to deal with.
Two days later she cashed the cheque. She never told anyone about the letters. She ate and drank her way through the gift basket, and the letters sat in the bottom of her desk drawer in her bedroom. She took down Hannibal’s drawing of her from the coffee shop and moved it into her bedroom. The polaroid was pushed into its frame and sat behind the drawing, where only she knew it existed.
She looked at it some nights. Their happy faces behind her own. Their joy as a result of her existence. It was hard to swallow - people were dead because of them and they were together because of her.
Life went back to normal. The coffee shop reopened. People forgot about her and her past cannibal patrons.
“Can I have a cappuccino?” asked the man in front of her.
“Of course, sir,” she replied, practised hands making the beverage.
“It must have been tough,” he volunteered. “Being part of such a terrible story.”
She paused, and looked at him.
“It may have been terrible, but it was a love story.”
The Coffee Ground was open for business once more.