TITLE: Fifth Day in Paradise (1/2)
AUTHOR: Kate Rickman


***CHAPTER ONE***


The White Mountains of New Hampshire
Saturday April 1, 2000

The engine chokes, stumbles, then catches again as the car
accelerates up a short rise and around a long curve in the road.
This afternoon the pavement is a black snake twisting through
the snowy countryside, sliding past an occasional small farm,
and winding through tiny hamlets shrouded in white. Tall trees
rise into gray clouds on either side of us as we pass between
tall banks of plowed snow. We're on our way to a small farm
near the town of Ramsey where a local woman channels the spirit
of a child killed almost twenty years ago. We're on our way
because the child, one Megan Cafferty, is about to name her
murderer. At least that's Mulder's take on the situation.

The engine chokes, then resumes its low rumble. Mulder and I
exchange worried looks. The road dips, taking us through a
long meadow, its snowy surface scarred by the twin tracks of
cross-country skis. A sign announces *Meadowlea Bed and
Breakfast, R. Bergen, Prop.*, but I only glimpse a brick
chimney and the edge of a steep gable as we whisk past and
drive into the trees again.

Now the road climbs seriously and the forest closes in around
us. Small hummocks of snow dot the asphalt where wind has
jarred snow from the heavy branches hanging above the roadway.
Mulder slows and drives carefully, the car sliding here and
there, slipping then regaining traction as it struggles up the
steep hill. I sigh, looking at my watch.

Mulder looks over at me. "What?"

"At this rate, the show will be over by the time we arrive in
Ramsey." Pity. In my own twisted little way, I'm sorry to
miss the entertainment.

"The show?" Mulder steers the car onto a switchback and
makes the sharp turn.

"I try to keep an open mind..." I catch the smirk he tries
to hide and immediately protest by swatting him with a
rolled-up map. He is not contrite. "I really do, Mulder.
But I have a gut feeling about this one."

"A *gut* feeling?" Mulder smiles, braking, making another
turn. "I didn't know you had *gut feelings,* Scully."

Wise guy. "My...gut...tells me the only one who will be
talking today is our 'psychic' and that she's either the
murderer, a complete fraud, or both."

"I don't know, Scully. She..." Mulder's voice trails off
as the engine chokes, gasps, then rattles into silence.

The car rolls downhill, the wet hiss of its tires loud
without the sound of the engine in my ears. Mulder twists
the ignition key repeatedly. No luck. He wrestles with the
wheel, sluggish without the aid of power steering. He guides
the car around yet another downhill turn, touching the brakes
carefully. Seamless banks of compressed snow slide past the
windows on both sides.

We negotiate a series of flat curves pressed tightly against
the hillside, the car slowing with each turn. I find myself
leaning forward, willing the car to move on, peering through
the windshield for a safe place to pull off the road.

"There!" I point, but Mulder has already seen the small diner
with its crudely plowed parking lot. We bump into the cleared
area and ease to a stop just a few feet from the road.

"I don't believe this." I stare at the diner, dark, a card
announcing *closed for the season* standing in one window.
Leaning over, I examine the gas gauge. Half full. I sit
back and raise an eyebrow at Mulder.

He twists the ignition key in response. The car whines and
grumbles but does not catch.

"This is an April Fool's joke, right?"

He chuckles - where did he find that, I wonder; my stomach is
twisted in knots - and shakes his head in the negative. He
turns the key again just to show me he's not fooling. "Nope.
It's as dead as a doornail."

I glare at the other April Fool's joke, piled white and high
outside the car. It has been snowing off and on for days, a
late season stretch of bad weather. It is just my bad luck that
Mulder dragged me here in the middle of it, April Fool's on me.
I turn to Mulder and make helpful suggestions, like "Broken
gauge? Bad fuel pump? Clog in the fuel line?" remembering the
informal auto shop conducted almost daily in our garage by my
enthusiastic, oil soaked brothers.

Mulder grumbles, kicks open the door, and climbs from the car.
I make a more graceful exit, joining him as he raises the
hood. We stare together into the indecipherable maze of
hoses and wires and metal parts. Nothing smokes. Nothing is
on fire. No helpful signs saying *fix me* appear under the
hood. The engine ticks stolidly at us as we glare back at it.
Mulder drops the hood with a resonant *thunk* then turns and
leans against the fender. "Well, shit" is his appraisal of the
situation. This time I agree, he's right on the mark.

It's three thirty and already daylight is thin. I find the map
in the car and lay it across the hood. The edges ruffle in
the wind as I hold it there with both hands. The hamlet of
Pemiwisset lies up and over the mountains, maybe three miles
ahead. I shiver as an icy gust blows across the map and into my
face. Many more miles behind us is the village of New
Blandford. I scour the thin red line that snakes between these
two points for some idea of what to do. A fine shower of snow
sifts over my head and splatters across the map. I fold it
carefully and squint at the gray sky.

Mulder grimaces at his cell phone. "No signal," he reports,
squeezing the off button and dropping the useless instrument
back into his pocket. He looks around, fastens on the
deserted diner.

"B and E" I remind him - Breaking and Entering - then add "the
phone's probably turned off for the season anyway."

"You have a better idea?" He stuffs both hands in his
pockets and hunches his back against the wind. "I haven't
seen another car on this road since we left New Blandford."

"What about the Bed and Breakfast place we saw a while back?" I
fold the map and throw it carelessly inside the car, stomping my
feet to warm them. Mulder shrugs. He didn't see it. "It's
down at the bottom of the hill," I explain, waving my hand in a
vague westerly direction.

"It could be closed for the season." He inclines his head
toward the sign in the Diner's window.

"Maybe," I open the trunk and haul out my garment bag,
slinging it over one shoulder, "but I saw a lot of ski
tracks in the area. I'll bet they're open for the winter
crowd." I hand Mulder his duffle bag and slam the trunk
viciously. The boom echoes around the small clearing and fades
away on the wind that snags at the edges of my coat and scours
the bare skin on my face and hands. I pull on my gloves,
flexing my fingers in the fleecy warmth, and look hopefully up
and down the deserted road. Still deserted. I listen carefully
for the sound of an approaching vehicle. I hear nothing but
the moan of wind through the trees. I hitch my bag more
comfortably on my shoulder then walk into the fine veil of
snow that blows sideways in the gray light. Icy snowflakes
pepper my face and I narrow my eyes against them, tucking my
chin more deeply into the warmth of my coat. Mulder falls in
beside me and, for the better part of an hour, we hike along
the road in companionable silence.

Trouble starts on the far side of the hill. Mulder's luck,
which hasn't been running well all day, takes a definite turn
for the worse. Snow blows hard into our faces, making it
difficult to see. The packed surface beneath our feet is
treacherous, slippery in patches; we stumble and slide our way
downhill. Heads down against the wind, we struggle along, side
by side, each helping to steady the other. Then Mulder
suddenly disappears. I am left standing alone on the road
with one of his leather gloves clutched in a numb hand.

"Mulder!"

I scream his name into the swirling whiteness and hear
nothing but the shrill cry of wind in return. A gust batters my
face so I turn my back to it, pulling my collar high around my
neck.

"Mulderrrrr!"

I shout louder this time. Still nothing. I shout again and my
words are hurled back in my face by the wind. When I push ahead
a few steps, one hand raised against the driving snow to protect
my eyes, my foot skates over an icy patch and shoots out from
under me. I slip and hit the road hard on my backside, rolling
over and over, then sliding downhill for a few yards before I
skid to a stop with my garment bag tangled around my feet, my
coat pulled up around my waist, and a thick wedge of snow packed
tight against the small of my back. My knees and elbows and the
soft tissue of my backside all throb painfully.

I struggle to a seated position, wiping the snow from my eyes.
I swat blindly at my lower back to dislodge what's caked there,
too late -- a rivulet of icy water already runs unpleasantly
down the back of my jeans. I look up and down the road as far I
can see in the swirling white, which is about three feet from
the tip of my nose, and see no sign of Mulder, his duffle, or
skid marks that would lead me to him. I unsnarl myself and
cautiously feel my way to the side of the road where I look over
the embankment.

Mulder.

He lies face down in the snow below me, his right arm twisted at
a strange angle, his duffle bag off to one side. A sick chill
runs through me at the sight. I drop my bag and slip over the
edge, tumbling down the slope after him, ending up on my aching
knees at his side. Heart pounding, my gut twisted, I shake his
left shoulder.

A gust of wind plows through the clearing, clattering bare
branches one against the other. Where it combs through the
thick pines, the trees gives voice to a long, low moan. I
flinch when a puff of snow fluffs into my face and the icy air
finds its way down the back of my coat. I barely feel the pain
in my hands and bruised knees as I lean over Mulder, trying to
shake the life back into him.

"Mulder!" This time I try his right shoulder.

"Scul..." he slurs part of my name into the snow. Thank God.
I start breathing again. "Stop," he gasps, rolling onto his
back, grasping his right shoulder with his left hand. "Shit.
It hurts." Pain strangles his words and my breath catches at
the back of my throat again.

I switch to Doctor Mode, pressing and probing his affected
shoulder, expertly using his elbow to firmly rotate the arm
in its socket. Everything seems fine until I notice the
pained expression on his face. "I'm sorry." I squeeze his
icy hand in apology while my stomach does flip flops. I pluck
his loose glove from my pocket and slide it over his fingers,
pushing it up securely around his wrist.

Mulder's fingers curl around mine. "Thanks," he whispers
into my face, so close the warmth of his breath thaws my icy
cheek for a moment. My breath catches for a third time, for a
different reason. I gather my wits and release his hand,
sitting back on my heels. Looking around - looking at anything
but Mulder - I notice my bag has tumbled downhill with me. I
flounder to my feet and retrieve the bag from where it rolled
under a bush.

"I'll probably be stiff tomorrow." He flexes his shoulder
carefully then turns to look at me with a wicked gleam in his
eye for an injured man. "Massage therapy would probably help me
recover faster, *Doctor* Scully." He emphasizes my professional
title in a very unprofessional tone of voice.

"In your dreams," I snap back at him, smiling. I know this
game.

"Yeah," he says softly, "in my dreams."

I feel the familiar heat swell deep inside me. Damn it. He's
done it again. I wish I'd stop melting every time Mulder
flashes those bedroom eyes or uses that seductive tone of voice
on me. It slides right under my shields and grabs me by the
heart before I can defend myself against it. I slip my head and
one arm through the strap on my bag, slinging it across my back.
"Come on," I kick him gently with my toe. I don't need this
complication in my life and, heaven knows, neither does Mulder.
We have enough things that trouble us these days.

I step back to a safe distance as he struggles to his feet,
his right arm held protectively against his waist. I keep
my arms crossed safely against my chest when he stumbles.
When he almost falls, I turn my face into the pelting snow.
"Let's traverse out of here and get back to the road at the
bottom of the hill" I advise as he moves up beside me. I
lead the way through the trees and hear him thrashing through
the snow behind me.

After a few minutes' struggle through drifted snow, slipping
and falling (me), with livid cursing (Mulder), we come to the
bottom of the hill and stumble out of the trees. From the edge
of what I remember to be a long meadow, I see an artificial
light shining a not-so-distant welcome through the snow and the
deepening twilight.

It seems we've cleverly taken a short cut.

We skate across some frozen water in a ditch and back onto the
road where the going is easier. While the snow has eased for
the moment, the wind is still strong -- the cold air needles the
inside of my nose and throat and I don't even want to think
about the minus two digit wind chill while I'm still out here in
it. Head down into the wind, my chin tucked deep inside my
collar, I slog along the snowy pavement at Mulder's side. The
beacon winks on and off through the trees lining the west side
of the road and we push in that direction.

After a few minutes, the tang of wood smoke has grown strong in
the air. Our beacon is clearly a porch light and I'm relieved
to see lighted windows arranged dimly around it. We turn off
the road and stomp the short distance to the covered front porch
of Meadowlea Bed and Breakfast. I lever the brass knocker a few
times then wait.

Warm air spiced with cinnamon and apples blows over us as the
door opens. A tiny woman wearing L.L. Bean from head to toe
stands just inside with one hand on the door and the other
hand holding an embroidery hoop. Her salt and pepper hair is
cropped short and combed neatly into a sensible style.
Diamond earrings soften the look. "Hello, dear. Oh you look
cold. Please come in." We're enveloped by two kinds of
warmth when the door closes behind us. Our unnamed hostess
clucks over Mulder's obviously injured shoulder as she
divests us of our outerwear. She piles the luggage neatly in
a corner of the hall before leading us into the parlor.
Another woman, almost twin to our hostess in age and style,
sits near the fire.

"This is my sister, Maggie Lisbie. I'm Sarah Morgan, by the
way."

"Dana Scully," I remove my glove and offer my hand. Maggie's
hair is more pepper than salt, combed in a softer style than her
sister's. Pearl-leashed reading glasses hang like a necklace
against her deep rose twin set, matching the delicate pearl
studs in her ears. A book lays open in her lap.

"Oh my dear Dana," she tsks as she takes my cold hand in her
warm one. "You're frozen. Sit...sit." She waves me to the
empty settee on the other side of the fireplace. I sink into the
warmth gratefully, holding my frozen hands against the heat of
the flames.

The room is Early American with a twist. Fine maple
furniture, some of it antique, is mixed with sleek wrought
iron lamps, modern art, and woven floor coverings that add
warmth and depth to the lustrous hardwood floors.

"Fox Mulder," my partner introduces himself as he sits at my
side.

"Dana and Fox." Sarah Morgan smiles down at us. "Such a
cute couple."

"Ah, we're not...." I start to explain our complicated
relationship but Mulder interrupts me.

"Do you have a telephone we can use?" He explains about the
car.

"Oh, I'll have to ask the owner. We're just guests here,
Maggie and I," Sarah smiles happily. "From Wisconsin," she
adds.

I make a mental note that it's Land's End from head to toe
instead of Bean.

"Just warm yourselves. I'll get her." Sarah pads across the
room and through swinging doors that reveal a slice of
kitchen before they swing back again.

After a moment, a tall woman in folksy overalls strides
across the room, wiping her hands on a checked towel. She
moves confidently, her eyes friendly, her demeanor open. Her
hair is blonde, streaked with a few wispy strands of gray
that escape a loosely coiled bun at the base of her neck.
"Welcome." She extends her hand in greeting, first to me,
then to Mulder, who stands like a gentleman. "I'm Rebecca
Bergen. Rebecca for short." The familiar cadences of Long
Island flavor her speech.

I smile, liking her already. I explain about our car and ask
about the telephone.

"You'll stay with us," Rebecca decides. "Our last set of
guests just canceled because of the weather. They had such a
lovely room at the back of the house. There's a fireplace
and a nice view of the meadow...when it isn't snowing. Very
romantic. You'll love it."

Romantic? Oh, no. Not for Mulder and me. I rush to correct
her. "Actually, we'd like two rooms if you have them, Ms.
Bergen."

"Rebecca. Please. We all go by first names at Meadowlea."
Rebecca looks from me to Mulder and back again. "Two rooms?
Really? We only have one room available, and it has a nice,
big bed..."

"But, we're just..."

"...and you can each have your own side...if that's what you
really want," she concludes skeptically.

"...partners," I finish my protest but it sounds strange, an
odd word that hangs in the air with nobody hearing it but me.
We haven't been *just partners* for a long time and I'm still
coming to grips with it.

"We'll take it," Mulder decides for us. Then in an aside to
me, he whispers "I'll sleep on the floor if that's what you
want, Scully."

Now I feel childish. I turn to the fire, scowling at myself
as much as I scowl at the situation we've gotten ourselves
into this time. I watch the fire flicker in the grate as
Mulder follows Rebecca to her office.

"Having a fight, dear?" Maggie Lisbie interrupts my reverie.
She touches me gently on the arm, a mother's touch. It
comforts me and I feel my self directed anger drain away.

"No, Maggie, we're not." I'm the only one fighting here.
Mulder has been open about his feelings for me for the past
two years. He does not push me but he often gently reminds
me that the door between us is open. He leaves it up to me
to decide when I can step through.

"I'm glad." Maggie sits back and looks around her. "This is
such a happy house. My late husband and I came here for several
years before he passed on. His memory is strong in this
place. Now my sister comes with me." Her voice grows faint
as she drifts into the memory and we sit quietly, each looking
into the fire, each occupied with her own thoughts.

Suddenly, the front door bursts open to admit a rush of cold
air and a gale of laughter. After much giggling and thumping
in the hallway, a young couple enters the room. She is
petite and blonde; he is tall with red hair. Both have pink
cheeks and noses. "Maggie..." the young woman starts to say,
then cuts herself short when she sees me sitting there. I
introduce myself, smiling, feeling my face bend in all the right
places for a third time tonight. It must be my all-time record
since I joined the X- Files.

"I'm Donna and this is Rob..."

"MacGowan."

"Newlyweds," Maggie adds in a loud whisper.

Donna blushes. The new yellow band on her finger flashes
brightly in the firelight as she looks down at my boots. I
follow her gaze and see water pooling around them on the
hardwood floor. "You know, Rebecca keeps a basket of
moccasins by the door for guests to wear while they're in the
house. I can get some for you. What size do you wear?"

"Six," I murmur, leaning down to take off my wet boots. I
trade them for a pair of soft moccasins then use the towel
that suddenly appears with Sarah Morgan to swab the polished
floor. In the middle of my work, Mulder clomps back into the
room and stops in front of me. A rivulet of water runs down
the side of his boot and pools on the dry, polished wood.

"Good new and bad news" he says over my head as if I'm not
kneeling at his feet. "The guy at Kelly's Garage - the only
garage around, by the way - says he'll pick up the car from
the diner parking lot tomorrow and have a look at it." I tug
at one boot and he lets me slip it from his foot. I hand it
to Donna as he continues. "The people at the Lariat Rent-a-
Car say that if he can't fix it, they'll have another one up
here by tomorrow night." Now I have the second boot in my
hand and Mulder stands in stocking feet amid the dribble on
the floor.

I mouth *size twelve* to Donna, then climb onto the settee
and look at Mulder from a more convenient elevation. "Then
we'll miss Megan Cafferty's big moment."

"Megan Cafferty?" A new voice. I swivel in my seat to see a
slight, dark-haired man enter from the dining room. He walks
with a marked limp and carries a steaming mug in one hand. "You
mean that so-called ghost over in Ramsey?"

Mulder nods and the man continues. "Yeah, I heard about it
so I went over this afternoon. Nothing better to do." He
divides his words between Mulder and me, his long curly hair
bouncing with each turn of his head. "I'm Harold Steinberg,
a feature writer for the Jacksonville Times-Gazette."

"And?" Mulder asks eagerly.

"It seems like *Megan* got shy at the last minute and said
nothing." Harold sits in a wing chair by the front window and
sips his coffee.

"So we..." A soft pattering sound distracts us all. An
elderly Asian couple enter the room in their slippers. They
smile and bow slightly at the waist. The man, barely taller
than his tiny wife, bows again in my direction. "We are
Koichi and Cheiko Nakamura." His English is slow but
precise.

I resist the urge to bow as I introduce myself. Donna hands
Mulder a pair of Rebecca's moccasins and joins her husband
where he leans against the mantle, studying the fire. Mulder
looks at the moccasins and his feet in socks on the wet
floor. I throw the damp towel at his chest.

The Nakamuras bow again and patter into the dining room.

I'm turning back to Maggie Lisbie when a muffled crash and a
shriek come from the kitchen. It's clearly not an 'I dropped
the gravy' type of shriek; the shock and the fear in it raises
the hair on the back of my neck. Mulder and I jump reflexively
from our seats. I reach under the back of my sweater and pull
out my weapon, thumbing the safety as I run into the kitchen on
Mulder's heels. Rebecca stands, wide-eyed, staring down at
something on the floor.

At her feet lays a woman with a large butcher knife stabbed
crudely into her chest.

Blood is everywhere.


***CHAPTER TWO***


"Mary," Rebecca whispers to the corpse. The corpse stares back,
its eyes wide open and pupils dilated.

The other guests pile up in the doorway, their gasps and nervous
whispers filling the air even though the center island blocks
most of the scene from their view.

"You'll need to stay out of the kitchen." I turn and push
gently at the others, easing them back into the parlor. "We
need to preserve the crime scene."

"What do you know about crime scenes?" Harold challenges me.

"Mulder and I, we're FBI."

"FBI!" Donna squeaks, emotions conflicting on her face.

"Yes." Again I push gently but this time the group responds to
my authority - or the gun in my hand - and retreats nervously to
the parlor. I sheathe the weapon, pulling my sweater discretely
over the bulge. Maggie and Sarah perch on the edge of a settee,
each gripping the other's hands. Rob MacGowan turns away and
his wife burrows her face into the front of his sweater. The
Nakamuras stand quietly near the front window, watching, clearly
frightened. Harold Steinberg retreats to the wing chair again
and crosses his knees at me. Five pairs of eyes bore holes
through the side of my neck as I find the crime scene kit in my
luggage and carry it back to the kitchen.

Aside from the blood spatter and the dead body on the floor, the
kitchen is a pleasant room, good for both cooking and gathering.
The cabinets are maple, a recurring theme in this house, with
glass fronts; neatly stacked dishes - service for a horde, it
seems - fill two cabinets on the wall near the living room door,
another cabinet stretches floor to ceiling with a different
style of drinking glass on every shelf. The counters and the
island in the center of the room are tiled in rich cream, the
walls - where they aren't papered or splattered with blood - are
a pleasing sage green. A row of lacquered stools rings the
outside of the island, where people can sit and chat while
Rebecca cooks. A chrome utility cart with a butcher block top
lays at the dead woman's feet, between her and the dining room
door. The floor - except around the corpse - is a medium terra
cotta. It should be easy to clean away the pooled blood or
blend it in if it stains, I find myself thinking. A real Martha
Stewart to the criminal set, I am.

I turn around. There are three doors to the room. A swinging
door divides the kitchen from the front parlor; it's propped
open now. There's a dining room through an identical door on
the left -- I see a table behind Mulder when he pushes through
it with his elbow, pulling gloves over his hands. There's also
an exterior door with a window on top that shows nothing but the
deep gray velvet of almost-night, minus the snow and wind.

Rebecca is on the phone with the Deputy Sheriff, ashen, grimly
nodding, speaking in monosyllables. She replaces the receiver
as if it were glass and informs me the Deputy will come, soon.

I catalog the crime scene, making notes as I go. "Middle-aged
woman named Mary..." Pen poised, I look at Rebecca for the name
of the deceased.

"Kelly. Mary Kelly." Rebecca presses her lips around the name.
"She lives in town and helps me out with the cooking and some of
the cleaning."

I record the name and crouch next to the body that was Mary
Kelly, touching her gently with one gloved hand. "Two wounds
are apparent on the clothed body, one to the left chest and the
other in the midline. A large kitchen knife protrudes from
wound number two." I resist touching the knife, even with a
gloved finger, not wanting to disturb the crime scene before the
Deputy arrives. I look around, tracing the pattern of
splattered blood up the wall and across the ceiling. "From the
distribution of blood spatter it looks like she was at the
counter when her attacker stabbed her. And she's still warm,"
I look up at Mulder.

Mulder looks around me to the counter. "A large cooling roast,
uncarved, on a pewter platter. A small salad decorated with
chopped vegetables and eggs. An apple pie on a cooling rack. A
pot of diced potatoes," he sticks a gloved finger in the water
and snatches it back quickly, "still hot."

"I don't understand," Rebecca's voice wavers on the question,
"why didn't somebody hear something?" Why couldn't we have done
something? Her questions hang in the air.

Where was I when Mary Kelly lost her life? In the next room,
idly chatting with the other guests around the fire? I cast
back through my memory, trying to isolate an odd thump or a
scrape, perhaps a short cry that could have been fear, from the
cheery sounds in the parlor this afternoon. All I hear is the
crackle of the fire, the voices of Sarah and Maggie, Rob and
Donna, and the rush of cold wind around the house. I turn to
Rebecca's question, the simple one. "The first blow, to the
left chest, probably sliced her aorta. She would have lost
consciousness almost immediately, then bled out very rapidly
after that."

Rapidly. I wrinkle my nose. I can almost smell the killer in
the room, he was here so recently. Little prickles work the
back of my neck even though I seriously doubt he's hiding in
Rebecca's pantry, waiting to slash again. Besides, he's unarmed
now -- he left his weapon behind in Mary Kelly's chest. Making
appropriate notations in my book, I look back at the dead woman.
There are no other obvious signs of injury except for a
yellowing bruise along one cheekbone. "Do you recognize the
knife, Rebecca?"

"Yes, it's one of my Henckels." She points to a butcher block
with one empty space.

"An opportunistic killing. Not premeditated." Mulder makes a
notation.

I sit back on my heels. "So it looks like we have a killer who
comes into the kitchen and surprises Mary Kelly. Then he grabs
a knife from the counter and stabs her."

"He? How do you know that, Scully?"

"It's a calculated assumption." I turn and look up at him.
"First, the knife has been embedded deeply into her chest
through the sternum. It would take a great deal of strength to
drive a blade through bone. Second, she appears to have been
struck by a taller person, since the knife enters on a downward
angle." I look back and measure the corpse with my eyes.
"Since Mary Kelly is close to 6 feet tall herself, that would
make her attacker at least that tall or taller yet. Further,
the attacker is right-handed since the knife not only enters her
chest from a superior position but also angles to the left." I
shift my pen in the palm of my right hand, gripping it tip
downward, and chop the air experimentally, showing Mulder how
the blade would naturally angle to the left.

"So the murderer is most likely a right-handed male, over six
feet tall," Mulder summarizes my conclusions, "who surprised...
no, wait -- that can't be it."

"What do you mean?"

"If Mary Kelly was facing the counter when she was stabbed, then
the killer had to be standing between her and the counter. It's
possible that *she* surprised *him.*"

"I see what you mean," I rise and both knees crack loudly.
"Surprised him doing what?"

"Carving the roast?" Mulder suggests, shrugging. "I don't know.
Maybe they struggled a bit, turning so that the killer was
between Mary Kelly and the counter when he struck."

"Possibly. Then again, nobody heard anything. So there
couldn't have been *too* much of a struggle." I lean back
against the far counter, away from the body and the splattered
blood. "So what do we have?"

"A tall man killed Mary Kelly with one of Rebecca's carving
knives," Mulder recites promptly, then points to the blood
spatter, "and he's very likely covered with Mary Kelly's
blood."

"Mary's husband is tall." Rebecca finds her voice.

I catalog Suspect Number One. "Would Mr. Kelly have any reason
to kill his wife?"

"He's...strange. Troubled." Rebecca bites her lip. "And
there's been trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Mulder asks.

"He...hits her. I've called the Deputy on him a couple of
times." Rebecca thought for a moment. "But he couldn't have
done it."

"Why not?" I think of the old bruise on her cheekbone.

"He runs the local garage. Fox spoke to him on the telephone
just a few minutes ago. In this weather there's no way he could
gotten here...or back...and...uh, killed...Mary in that amount
of time."

"I don't know for a fact that I spoke with Richard Kelly,"
Mulder points out. "Someone picked up the phone, said 'Kelly's
Garage,' and made arrangements to pick up the car tomorrow. It
could have been anyone."

"Call again, let Rebecca speak to him...ah..." I'm distracted
when the lights flicker "...she'll recognize the voice."

Rebecca nods, picks up the receiver, and listens for a moment
before replacing it in the cradle and pronouncing it dead.

Mulder and I exchange glances. The lights flicker again. The
storm, gaining strength, gnaws at the eaves. I peel off my
gloves and shove them into a convenient pocket, find my cell
phone, and study the display hopefully. No service there,
either - not that I expected it. "When was the last time anyone
saw Mary alive?" I call into the parlor.

The answers vary from 'this morning' to just a few minutes ago
when Sarah called Rebecca from the kitchen to meet us. Rebecca.
She's tall. I catalog Suspect Number Two then add Rob MacGowan
as an extremely tentative number three. Technically speaking,
Mulder is Suspect Number Four although I doubt he could raise
his right arm above his chest right now. Maggie and Sarah are
too short to be serious contenders as are Harold and the
Nakamuras. And me.

For the next few minutes, I help Mulder dust for prints -- on
the knife, the knife block, the counter, the back door knob --
leaving a trail of black smudges behind us. Prints are lifted
and carefully transferred to cards for analysis. Before long,
the sound of a laboring vehicle rises over the moan of the wind
and headlights flare against the kitchen window. Three bright
flashes, spaced over a minute or two, precede the Deputy into
the room. He blows into the house on a gust of wind, waving
three Polaroids in one hand, snowflakes frosting his salt-and-
pepper hair. A large duffle bag hits the floor with a thump
"It's nasty out there. Snow's picked up again. I barely
made it up the hill," he announces to everyone, blowing on the
photographs, ruffling his hair with the other hand, scattering
snow everywhere.

I flash my badge, introducing myself and Mulder.

"I'm John Monroe," the Deputy nods, shaking our hands in turn.
He's late middle-aged, with a strong grip and broad shoulders
beneath his thick jacket. He squats by the victim for a moment,
running his eyes over the body then around the room before
standing again. "I'm so sorry about this Rebecca," he turns to
our hostess before shrugging off his jacket and hanging it
carefully on the set of knobs by the door. It promptly begins
to drip on the tiles.

Rebecca nods stiffly and knocks a tear from the corner of one
eye with her knuckle. She stands well to one side of the crime
scene, turned half away. White faces follow us from the other
room.

"What have you found?" Mulder gestures at the Polaroids.

Monroe lays the pictures across the clean counter. "Partially
drifted footprints from the back steps that lead to the covered
walkway," he points to the first two with a gnarled finger. A
large shoe shaped depression shows black against white snow. "I
followed to the end of the walkway but, out past the buildings,
the wind's scoured everything clean." The last picture shows
nothing but smooth white snow.

"What's out there?" Mulder taps the black background in the last
picture, looking to Rebecca for an answer.

The lights burn gold then brown then bright white. Everyone
stops, staring at the ceiling fixture where all four bulbs glow
steadily again.

Rebecca clears her throat. "It goes into the garden, dead and
buried in snow this time of year. Oh." She freezes at the
sound of her chosen words. She dampens her tongue and
continues. "Beyond that is a trail that leads down to the lake.
On the other side is an open meadow, our barn, some other
outbuildings."

"Did you see anyone driving down as you drove up?"

"Like Richard Kelly?" Monroe shakes his head, he obviously knows
the story. "Nope. I was looking for him. Lights were on at
the garage when I drove past."

"He could have skied down, across the lake, and cut through the
fields." Mulder turns to Rebecca. "Does Kelly ski?"

"I don't know, but most everyone around here does."

"It was still pretty much daylight," Monroe checks his
wristwatch, "and Kelly knows the area like the back of his hand.
I'd say it's possible. At any rate, I can question him when I
go talk to him about his wife's...passing." He fiddles with his
coat for a moment, shrugging it on, mating the zipper and
pulling it up. "We need to check the outbuildings. Agent
Mulder?"

"I'm game, but I don't have much of a right shoulder to speak
of," Mulder winces as he confirms my suspicion that he can't
raise his right arm higher than his chest.

"I have a gun," the Deputy reminds him, a smile creasing his
weathered face and filling his sun-bleached eyes, "and I know
how to use it."

"So do I, but I'm right handed," Mulder wiggles his fingers
against his chest.

"You stay here, Mulder," I offer. "I'll go."

"No, I'll go," he brushes aside my offer, "blood and dead bodies
are more your line than mine, Scully."

They are. I'm at home with the dead; Mulder is at home with the
undead and the supernatural. "Go on, then. Go get Sasquatch."

He quickly retrieves his boots from the front entry and puts
them on, tying them awkwardly with one and a half hands before
following Deputy Monroe outside. A mixture of snow and sleet
skitters across the tiles before the door closes with a thump
behind them. After a moment, lights flare and bob off into the
night.

"Well, then," I turn to Rebecca," let's see what..."

The inside lights fail, plunging the house into sudden darkness.

A scream, loud and short, pierces the darkness then only the
whine of wind around the eaves fills the room.

"Damn." A piece of furniture - the kitchen footstool, I think -
bites me in the shin when I turn. I hobble forward, pulling my
gun in the darkness, letting it lead the way. "Hello," I call
ahead, "where is everybody?"

A heavy thump shakes the floor, followed by a long scraping
sound.

My gun bobbles in my grip. "Maggie? Sarah?" I call to the
sisters. Somebody answer me. I slide forward, skating my feet
cautiously along the hardwood floor. I walk into something soft
that yowls like an outraged cat before it melts away in the
darkness. "Maggie!"

"Over here, dear." The voice comes faintly from my right. I can
almost hear her heart pounding in the words.

I breathe again. My grip tightens on my weapon, still pointed
steadily in the direction of the thump.

An orange light explodes in front of me and I turn away,
blinking painfully, recoiling from acrid fumes that burn my
nose. When I re-open my eyes, the glow from a newly lit
candle puddles around an end table laying on its side amid a
pile of books. Purple dots dance over Donna MacGowan's feet
where they are tangled with the books and the polished mahogany
table legs. She's completely limp, supported by her husband
with one hand beneath each of her arms.

OhmyGod, I stumble forward, looking for blood and the wound.

"It's OK. It's just Donna," fond amusement colors Rob's voice.

"Is she...?"

"She's okay. She's terrified of the dark," Rob drags Donna to
her feet and she stands, swaying a bit, before turning her face
into her husband's sweater, "really terrified."

"Jeez," my goose bumps pop one by one, like bubbles, down my
back. My skin tingles where they stood. "You scared me to
death."

"You could have shot us to death," Harold points a finger at my
gun. The candle wavers in his other hand.

I'm swayed by the temptation but I tuck the gun in its holster
at the small of my back instead. Red embers glimmer weakly in
the hearth and I see the unmistakable outlines of Sarah and
Maggie, huddled against the warmth and light. Rebecca clunks
around in the kitchen - away from the crime scene, I hope -
while the candle in Howard's hand etches deep lines across his
glowering face. Something flutters at my elbow.

"God!" I invoke the Almighty and land two feet from where I
stood before, snatching at the gun behind my back.

"Sorry." Mr. Nakamura backs away, head down, his wife backing
behind him.

"No. I'm sorry," my heart thunders in my chest. "Please," I
reach out to them, "it's OK. Why don't we all," I turn, my
gesture including the MacGowans and Harold Steinberg, "sit by
the fire where it's warm. And relatively light. I need to take
your statements while your memories are still fresh."

I work to catch my breath as Rob MacGowan helpfully piles logs
onto the fire and urges it back to a low crackle and a warm
glow. Rebecca gathers candles while we collect in front of the
fireplace. Soon the room is pioneer bright. Cozy. I start
asking questions and taking notes.

The MacGowans had been outside in the snow all afternoon, each
providing an alibi for the other. They arrived the day before
yesterday, from Boston, on a week-long honeymoon. They have a
nodding acquaintance with Mary Kelly, but didn't know her name.
Donna, recovered from her fright, is noticeably pale, even in
thin candlelight. Her eyes avoid contact with mine and slide
back to Rob after each of my questions. She defers to her new
husband for most answers.

Sarah and Maggie had been in the parlor all afternoon, each
providing an alibi for the other. Except, as Maggie points out
helpfully, "for that time you went back to your room, Sarah, to
get the extra embroidery thread." Duly noted. Both sisters had
known Mary Kelly for years, and knew her story.

Harold Steinberg had been in the library, working on his
computer as he had for the past three days, except for the brief
period this afternoon when he'd run over to Ramsey. No one had
seen him go out or come back. In fact, no one had seen him for
hours. No alibi. In the movies, he'd be cast as the villain of
this piece, case closed. I resist temptation to cuff him on the
spot. His crime? Irritating the living crap out of me.

The Nakamuras had been in their room, each providing an alibi
for the other unless they did it together. Granted, they were
both out of sight in the dining room when Rebecca discovered the
body but they are low on my list of suspects. They lack the
physical strength to do it, even with a step stool and a mallet
to drive the knife in.

Finally, there is Rebecca, apparently the last person - before
the murderer - to see Mary Kelly alive. She's obviously
distraught but you never know - her anguish could be over the
crime she's committed rather than for the loss of a friend. She
remains, unfortunately, a secondary suspect, without an apparent
motive.

Then there's Mulder and me, each providing an alibi for the
other and, since I know for a fact that *I* didn't murder Mrs.
Kelly, I also know for a fact that Mulder didn't, those few
minutes when he went alone to Rebecca's office to call the
garage notwithstanding. Strike two FBI agents from the list.
From *my* list, anyway. Mulder will need to remain on the
official one, despite his obvious disability.

Oh, and finally, there's Sasquatch. Maybe it's a snow monster.
Maybe it's Richard Kelly. Maybe it's an unsub - unknown subject
- but we'll see what the Deputy and Mulder drag in.

I'm disoriented by a sudden flare of light and a clutter of
strange noises that swell over the crackling fire. Then I get
it. The refrigerator hums again. Somewhere beneath my feet the
forced air heating system has kicked on. The exhaust fan over
the stove winds up to a steady rush of air. The smoke detector
chirps loudly as it's re-electified. My pupils contract,
painfully pulling the room into focus around me.

"Dana!" There's a sharp edge to Rebecca's voice. "Come look at
this."

I lead the crowd to the kitchen, turning at the door, reminding
them to stay back.

Rebecca leans over a cabinet near the crime area. Inside a
drawer I can see neat rows of white candles. On its edge, a
small piece of red and black fabric has been skewered by a sharp
corner of the cabinetry. Finding my kit, fishing the gloves out
of my pocket and pulling them on again, I use forceps to unhook
it, dropping the shred into the safety of an evidence bag. I
smooth it through the plastic, holding it up to the light.
"Plaid wool," I show it to Rebecca. It reminds me of the
Pendleton shirts my father used to wear in the winter.

"Everyone has one of those in these mountains," Harold announces
from the doorway. "It's the local uniform."

"Well, somebody's uniform has a piece missing," I remind him.
And I wish it were yours, I continue under my breath, still
disappointed I didn't find blood speckles on his face or wet
hair - evidence of a recent shower - on his head. I use the
Deputy's camera to flash Mary Kelly from multiple angles then
lay the photographs on the uncontaminated counter to develop and
dry. I find what I'm looking for next - a neatly folded black
vinyl body bag - in the Deputy's duffle. I lay it on the floor
next to the body, unzipping it, turning the flaps aside. I'm
thankful the counter rises between me and the other guests as I
pull Mary Kelly's feet then her shoulders then her torso in line
over the opening in the bag. It takes a bit of finesse to close
the zipper over the knife handle but I manage; it tents the
vinyl strangely over the chest region.

By the time I finish processing the scene, the boys have
returned empty-handed from their Sasquatch hunt. I carefully
tear the relevant pages from my notebook and combine them with
Mulder's notes, the evidence bags, the photographs and the
fingerprint cards. Three swabs for DNA blood type analysis -
one from inside the victim's chest wound, one from the counter,
and one from high up the wall behind the counter - are each
tucked into their own little bag, labeled, then bagged together
with my business card in case the Deputy needs my help with the
test.

While I'm working, the Deputy shifts from foot to foot at the
door, glancing at the white flurry outside every few seconds,
finally saying "I'd better get going before all of us get snowed
in up here."

I tuck the note and the evidence bags neatly into a one quart
freezer bag courtesy of Rebecca's pantry, zip the lock, and hand
it to Deputy Monroe. "Here are all our notes, the evidence,
fingerprint cards...everything we collected."

He takes it with thanks.

"We'll drop by and see you on our way out of town tomorrow," I
tell him, peeling off the sweaty latex and tossing the well-used
gloves in the trash this time, "touch base on the case, let you
know anything more we find out between now and then."

"Thanks for all your help, Agent Scully, Mulder. It was pretty
remarkable, you just stumbling in here, right on top of a
murder."

It was, wasn't it? The serendipity is a bit creepy. No April
Fool's joke intended. I force a smile.

"Can you help me out to the car with the...bod...uh, he glances
at Rebecca, who turns away with a hand over her mouth, "...Mary,
Agent Mulder?"

"Uh," Mulder shrugs his shoulder and winces. "Maybe Rob...?"
his voice trails off.

Rob MacGowan stands to the rear of the pack clotted around the
kitchen door. At the sound of his name, he drifts backward a
few steps.

"Rob?" I give him the double eyebrow treatment.

He freezes then scuffs forward, dragging his moccasins slowly
across the hardwood floor. The crowd at the door parts to let
him through. "I need to get my boots," he motions back to the
other room.

"Here, wear mine," Mulder offers, bending to undo the laces. He
freezes, sucking air between his teeth with a loud hiss. He
wobbles to a standing position and leans back against the wall,
holding the palm of his left hand hard against the front of his
right shoulder. He's pale and his eyes are unfocused, staring
into the middle distance.

"Mulder!" I cover the short distance in two steps, pulling up
with my arms already around him. I cup his forehead in one
palm, knowing full well that it's his shoulder that's hurt.

He fits me under one arm, leaning on me. I stagger a little but
take his weight. "It's just the strain, Scully. Don't worry.
It's tightening up, just a spasm. Hurts like bloody hell,
though."

I'll bet it does; it's killing me.

"You want me to drive you down the hill to the hospital, Agent
Mulder? I'm going that way..." the Deputy offers. "...only I
can't guarantee I'll bring you back before the roads are plowed
in the morning."

"I've got some Motrin in my bag. That should help." I answer
the Deputy quickly, not taking my eyes away from Mulder's pale
face. I stroke the hair out of his eyes. "Let me get it for
you."

He nods, hissing again as the movement jars his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry." For the second time today, I'm sick to my
stomach.

"For what, Scully? You didn't knock my feet out from under me
and push me down the hill, did you?"

Of course not. I want to say I feel terrible that you're hurt
and I wish I could bear your pain for you, but I don't. I think
these things but never say them to anyone, not even Mulder.
Instead, I steer him to a stool and leave him balanced there
while I retrieve the bag with my medicines in it.

When I return, the Rob and the Deputy have disappeared with the
body bag. Mulder has a glass of water in his hand, ready for
the pill. I shake a 600 milligram tablet into my palm and offer
it to him. "You need to eat with that," I remind him as he
swallows it down and hands the glass to me.

"Eat?" Mulder laughs at me, his eyes drifting around the carnage
in the room.

"No, seriously," I insist , "Motrin..."

"Where are the Wellses?" Sarah asks suddenly. Everyone turns
and stares at the verbal rabbit dangling over her proverbial
hat.


***CHAPTER THREE***


"What is or who are the Wells?" Mulder asks, wiping his lips
with the back of his hand.

"Grace and Davis Wells, from Atlanta," Rebecca fills in the gap.
"They're staying in the apartment above the garage." She lifts
the curtain and cranes her neck to see through the trees.

I follow her eyes to a light patch in the swirling show. It
looks like the Wellses are home.

"Did you speak to them, Mulder?"

"No. We knocked and no one answered, the door was locked, and
the lights were out."

"Well, they're on now."

Rob struggles through the door, only a thin strip with his eyes
Showing between the band of his knit cap and the zipped up
collar of his parka. Before he can close the door on the storm,
I turn him around and push him back into it. "Bring the Wellses
please," I shout over the wind. It sounds a little like 'fetch,
boy' to my ears, so I add an "if you don't mind" to the end of
it.

The door and windows rattle in their frames as a gust batters
the house. I peer through the curtains, half expecting to see
Rob plastered against the window like a cartoon character, his
face spread across the glass. Nothing. It's black out there
except for the square of white light, high and on the right,
still diffused like the glow through a bathroom window.

"Is it okay to come in there, now?" Maggie Lisbie stands at the
kitchen door, her sister behind her.

"Yes, the scene has been documented."

Maggie consults her sister briefly. "We'd like to clean it up
for Rebecca...before the bloodstains set and ruin the
wallpaper...it's so lovely with those sprigs of herbs and
flowers..."

Sarah eyes the drying bloodstains from behind her sister's
shoulder, each hand washing at the other.

"Sure," I dig around in my kit, finding two pairs of gloves and
offering them to Sarah. The rust of dried blood might
add an interesting accent to the light sage background of the
wallpaper...or not. "You might want to wear these."

The gloves dangle from the tips of Sarah's fingers. "Thank
y...oh!"

The kitchen door pops open with a bang, bouncing off the wall.

Three people blow into the room. With a gust of snow, the wind
sweeps things off counters and sends them tumbling, crashing and
clattering, across the tiles. Some bounce off the shins of the
gallery jammed into the kitchen doorway. Mulder launches
himself at the door, pushing hard against it with his bad
shoulder, forcing it back into the frame with a loud thump.
Everyone blinks at everyone else for a moment. The kitchen
temperature has dropped at least 20 degrees.

Davis Wells, tall, dark, and handsome, appears to be unruffled
by the storm he just walked through to get here. I look down,
surprised to see snow boots instead of polished loafers on his
feet. Where Mr. Wells is tall and dark his wife Grace is
petite and blonde. She's bundled to the cheekbones in an
expensive sheepskin jacket, the kind turned inside out with a
thick layer of creamy fleece on the inside. Rob stands behind
them, dripping, just inside the door.

Davis shrugs out of his jacket and slips it over a peg on the
wall, smoothing his short cropped hair with both hands. "I
understand there's been a problem?" he asks Rebecca. I find
myself drawn to his grace, his refinement, the timbre of his
voice, and the rich glow of his caramel skin.

Rebecca chokes up again. Everyone stares at the rusty spatter.

"Mary Kelly was murdered this afternoon. Stabbed to death with
one of Rebecca's kitchen knives." I watch the Wellses closely.

Davis surveys the mess systematically, looking at the mess on
the floor, following the blood spatter across the counter and
up the wall. Grace blanches, her hand going to her mouth.
"Who..." her eyes skip from Rebecca to Harold to Rob MacGowan.

"We don't know," I step in. "The Deputy is going to question
her husband."

"Rich..." Grace bites the name in two.

"Richard Kelly, yes." Suspect Number One. I note that Davis is
well over six feet and add him to my list as Suspect Number
Five. "Where have you been for the past hour or two?"

"In our apartment. Over the garage." Grace answers for both of
them, rushing the words together, coming out more like a breathy
inourapartmentoverthegarage, before turning to her husband for
confirmation.

"We were taking a nap," Davis explains, whisking some unseen
lint from both sleeves of his sweater.

"I was taking a nap." Grace shrugs out of her jacket and hurls
it at an empty peg. It catches and hangs there, one arm
dangling toward the floor. "You were making noise."

"I was *reading.*" He barely flicks a glance in her direction.

"Well, you were turning the pages loudly. And banging drawers
in the bathroom downstairs." Grace's nasal whine doesn't sound
like Atlanta but I can't quite place the faint accent.

"For Christ's sake, Grace..."

"Shut up, Davis. People don't need to hear this."

Davis knits his lips together and glares.

Grace shrugs and pushes her way past him, into the dining room,
throwing "I'm hungry" over her shoulder as she leaves.

Eight jaws drop as the swinging doors rock back and forth behind
her.

Without comment, Davis pushes through the doors after her,
bouncing the one off the dining room wall with a solid thump.
We flinch as a group and hold our collective breath until
Rebecca speaks. "I guess we should eat something," she sighs,
turning away from the blood-splattered food. "I have sandwich
things in the refrigerator."

Maggie wedges a large bucket into the sink and turns on the
water. "You go ahead and eat, Rebecca..."

"I don't think I could eat a thing," the refrigerator muffles
her voice.

"Try, dear. You need to get a little something down, just to
balance the shock you've had." She throws a sponge into the
suds, wrestling the heavy bucket out of the sink and onto the
floor.

I make a mental note to find that sponge and throw it away when
Maggie's done cleaning. I don't want it touching anything I'm
going to eat from.

She kneels, wringing the sponge, and starts wiping the
cabinetry, meticulously turning the sponge through each curve in
the wood. "You go on ahead and eat," she senses our eyes on her
back.

I help Rebecca work on a small table at the far side of the
kitchen. We lay sliced meats and cheese on an attractive
platter and pile a tray with extras like lettuce, tomato,
pickles, and sprouts. I carry the veggies in one hand and a
caddy filled with jars of mustard, mayonnaise, and a pot of
butter in the other, following Rebecca through the door into the
dining room. Mulder brings up the rear with baskets of bread
and rolls. The other guests are there waiting for us.

"No, no, no," Grace waves away the cold cuts, "I'm a vegetarian,
you know that. I want a salad."

I think of the blood-splattered salad still sitting on the
counter and am tempted to serve her that one -- there'd be extra
protein in it. Vegetarians always need to be watchful to get
enough protein, right? My imagination is cut short by Davis
Wells's practical solution to the problem. "Look Grace, here's
some nice cheddar and tomato and lettuce. That will make a good
sandwich for you." His voice, deep and smooth, seems to quell
her peevishness for the moment. He starts putting it together
on her plate.

I turn and find Mulder has assembled a nice turkey on rye,
putting it, open faced, on my plate with lettuce and tomato.
One handed. "Mulder, thank you," I nearly blush at his
kindness. I'm the one that should be tending to him. He's
injured and I'm not.

"You call him *Mulder*? How preppy." A bit of Donna's vitality
has come back with the color in her cheeks. She takes a bite of
her sandwich and retreats again.

This time I feel the heat creeping across my face. I fold my
sandwich together, taking a studious bite. Why do I call him
Mulder? It's part of the boys club I've joined. Why not Fox?
It's intimate. Fox. It's something to breathe in a moment of
passion. It's another wall we've built between us. In fact,
Mulder erected that one, himself, years ago. Now he knocks
bricks out of that wall from time to time, calling me Dana. I
resolutely call him Mulder in turn.

Conversation is terse and distracted at the dining table. Davis
and Grace hurl angry glances at each other. Donna hides behind
her roast beef on rye while Rob fascinates himself with Donna.
The Nakamuras eat quietly, whispering in rapid-fire Japanese. I
consciously avert my eyes from Harold's smug face; there's
something in his eyes - the smug twinkle there - that makes me
want to hurl the pot of mustard at him. Rebecca drifts between
dining room and kitchen, tearing at the edge of a sandwich with
her teeth. Mulder has polished off a ham on whole wheat and is
working his way through a turkey on white with lettuce and mayo;
nothing much disturbs Mulder's digestion. Mulder indulges in
conversational interrogation of the Wellses, discovering that
they are a husband-wife team of investment bankers who manage a
variety of investment funds for a private firm they founded
several years ago in Atlanta. Other than that, the occasional
verbal foray draws the group out of their thoughts and into
conversation but dies quickly and, by the end of our meal,
nobody is saying much of anything to anyone.

The wind has fallen to a gentle murmur by the time I drag my
feet down the short hallway behind Mulder and Rebecca, hauling
both my bag and Mulder's. The precipitation now is more sleet
than snow if the irregular tapping against the windows is any
indication. Double doors at the very end of the hall open into
a cozy room lit by firelight and the glow from a small Tiffany
lamp with a ruby red shade. In the middle stands a four poster
bed - mahogany this time - covered with a Battenburg lace
comforter. In the middle of the white lace lays a gray Siamese
cat, curled, unworried by the entrance of strangers into her
room. Rebecca introduces her. "This is Princess Mia. She
comes with the room although, if you like, I can take her for
the night."

Princess Mia stretches sensuously, blinking at us with sleepy
blue eyes. A huge yawn stretches over her face, pulling her
eyes open then bouncing them shut again. She licks a paw and
begins to wash herself idly.

Rebecca shows us the attached bathroom then excuses herself for
the night. We find our jammies and pull them on, each taking a
turn in privacy of the bathroom. We do our teeth and wash our
faces together, each expertly dodging the other in the small
space. We've shared a bathroom hundreds of times on the road,
particularly when staying in small towns and country inns. It's
the other part, the getting into bed together, where we lack
depth of experience.

Mulder winces, rotating his arm gingerly at the shoulder. "I
think you should give up your side of the bed to the Princess."
The cat's stretched long on the edge of the bed warmed by the
fire.

"Oh, really? That's my side, is it?" I slip beneath the
blankets from the cooler side and creep over, careful not to
disturb the cat where she lays with her tummy turned to the
warmth.

Mia barely flicks an ear as I crawl in behind her.

I hold the covers for Mulder, who awkwardly follows me in, his
right arm tight across his chest to avoid pulling at his
shoulder when he moves. I pull the comforter up to his chin and
he snuggles into it. His left hand tugs at my shoulder and I
agree, rolling against his side; his good arm gathers me against
him. His shoulder makes an excellent pillow. We lie together,
listening to the crackle of the fire, the gentle sigh of the
wind, and the tick of sleet against glass. The little red
Tiffany lamp flickers then goes out.

I listen to the crackle of the fire for a moment. It throws
golden shadows into the room from behind a fine brass grate.
"There goes the power again."

"I don't need light to sleep."

"It will get cold when the fire dies down."

"Then we'd better snuggle, don't you think?"

"Mulder," his name rumbles in the back of my throat like a purr.
I cough - where did that come from? - and start over. "Go to
sleep, Mulder."

He doesn't reply.

"Mulder?"

He's asleep. I wish he did what I asked so easily every time.
I fidget within the constraint of his arm. Something tickles at
the back of my mind, something I saw or heard tonight that
wasn't quite right. I try to put my finger on it but it slips
away every time, a greasy eel of a memory, just out of reach.
The fire burns to red embers before sleep finally takes me to
join Mulder in dreams.


Sunday April 2, 2000


The gentle touch of gray light draws me from my sleep. Turning
my head to the window I see snow sifting from the sky, drifting
groundward, undisturbed in the still air. I stretch and yawn,
turning toward Mulder who's pressed against my back.

Correction. It's Princess Mia I feel, lying between Mulder and
me, stretched long like a weenie in a warm bun. She lifts an
eyelid at the disturbance, eyeing me thoughtfully. I stroke the
length of her softness, from ears to tail, and she stretches so
hard she shudders with the effort, rolling onto her back. Her
soft gray paws dangle oddly in air and a soft rumble rises from
her throat.

"Ah, to be a cat," Mulder whispers above my head. When he
tickles her pale belly she rejects him with a sharp kick from a
hind leg.

I giggle into my pillow, stroking her tummy with my fingertips.
Mia relaxes into my caress. "Obviously I rate and you don't."

"Well then, I'll give you girls some privacy and take a shower,"
he slides from the bed, working his right arm in its socket.
His range of movement, though forced, is better than
yesterday's. Mia chirps at me, drawing my attention back to her
itchy spots. I scratch dutifully and am rewarded with loud
purring.

An hour later, rested and washed, we return ownership of the big
room to the Princess. The aroma of toast and bacon draws us
directly to the kitchen where I'm amazed at the transformation
in the room. Everything is neat and clean. No bloodstains mark
the floor, cabinets, or herbal wallpaper. There is no evidence
of the sooty powder we dusted over everything to raise
fingerprints, even in the tan grout that crisscrosses the
countertops. Rebecca's haggard expression is the only
indication that something terrible happened here recently.

I push through her palpable waves of grief and offer a "good
morning."

"Morning," Rebecca stops chopping fruit and looks up, using the
back of one hand to brush wisps of hair out of her face. Today
her bun is carelessly knotted, already coming undone, with
hairpins slipping out of the twist. One has caught on the
oversized sweater that droops long over the jeans she wears.
She forces a thin smile that vanishes before it rises to her
eyes. "Did Princess Mia bother you last night?"

"No," Mulder lays his right hand on my shoulder, responding for
both of us, "we were effortlessly manipulated into being Mia's
own personal heated cat bed."

"That sounds like my Mia," dry leaves rustle in the back of
Rebecca's throat. "John...Deputy Monroe called this morning.
He asked that everyone go down to headquarters and give their
fingerprints for comparison to the prints you found in the
kitchen."

"And?" I sense there is more, trying not to squirm beneath the
unaccustomed weight of Mulder's hand. I want it there, really.

"This has met with an interesting mix of reactions," Rebecca
drops a handful of chopped apples into a bowl and pours a bag of
walnuts onto the board. She levers the chef's knife across the
nuts in short, quick strokes. "The Wellses agreed immediately.
They decided to ski into town and left an hour ago, after a
quick breakfast. The Nakamuras also agreed to have their prints
taken. However, they - respectfully - asked to be released from
the remainder of their reserved time at Meadowlea. If Deputy
Morgan approves, they'll be returning to Osaka this afternoon.
Apparently Chieko is unnerved by the...uh...events."

"Well, who wouldn't be?" Harold enters behind us, sporting a red
and black wool shirt.

There's obviously nothing wrong with Harold Steinberg's nerve.
I regret leaving my weapon locked in the suitcase upstairs.

Harold senses my antagonism and flaps his untucked shirt in my
direction. "See? No missing pieces."

I take advantage of the situation and scrupulously examine his
shirt, all the way around. No rips or tears, not even a loose
thread inside the hem. Damn. I have a pair of cuffs in my room
with his name on them.

Rebecca tells Harold about the fingerprint request, dumping the
chopped nuts into the bowl with the apples.

Harold nods slowly, pouring himself a cup of coffee and browsing
through several muffins before selecting one from the basket on
the counter. "I'll do it this afternoon, after the roads are
cleared. Neither me nor my Miata are very good in the snow, I'm
afraid. For now, I'm off to work."

"What are you working on?" Mulder asks.

"A Pulitzer," he replies simply, pushing through the swinging
doors into the parlor.

A Pulitzer. The doors flap back and forth in my face. Mulder
draws me back to the conversation with a light touch on my elbow
then tucks the hand into his jeans pocket, leaving an empty spot
on my shoulder.

"So everyone has been cooperative about the fingerprinting?"
Mulder draws Rebecca back to her tale.

"Not actually," she washes several stalks of celery then groups
them on the cutting board and begins slicing from one end.
"Surprisingly, Rob and Donna MacGowan were evasive about when
they'd go down and have it done. I offered to give them a ride
when I go with Sarah and Maggie this afternoon but they
declined, said they'd go...whenever. It was not at all clear
when that would be." She tips the cutting board and the celery
slices tumble on top of the apples and nuts.

"But they're still here, they haven't run off," I clarify the
situation.

"Oh yes. Their car and their things are here. They've gone off
skiing again." Rebecca pulls a large red grape from its cluster
and slices it in half, tossing the halves into the bowl with the
rest of the salad. "They took sandwiches, though. I don't
expect to see them before dinner time."

I busy myself plucking grapes for Rebecca who slices them up as
fast as I pile them on the cutting board. "My prints and
Mulder's are on file in the national database, so we don't need
to go down today."

"That's what John said," she twists the lid off a jar and spoons
a generous heap of mayonnaise on top of the fruit, folding it
in. In the mid-fold, she chuckles -- a hollow sound, humorless.
"I came up here after my divorce, with my share of our assets,
and bought this place. I bought it because it was a refuge in
the middle of paradise even though it was a bit run down...just
like me at the time."

She abandons the salad, wiping her hands on a cloth, leaning
back against the counter. "I opened Meadlowlea to guests in the
winter of '88, advertised it as a rustic retreat, a hunting
lodge sort of place. Even so, you'd be surprised at how little
trouble I've had. We had a drunken fight once, between husband
and wife, in the library. They took out a few rows of books
and a vintage lamp I really liked. A couple of years after
that, I found a guest had unbolted one of the more attractive
light fixtures in his room and taken it with him. One
guest accidentally fired his hunting rifle into the ceiling --
fortunately his room was on the top floor and it only took out
part of the roof. Odds and ends of silverware, ashtrays, and
small decorative items have disappeared over the years, nothing
really big, nothing that I couldn't cope with.

"Then my ex-husband died and, much to my surprise, the rat left
me the rest of our community assets. I used it to renovate the
entire property, put in the garage apartment where there'd just
been a loft, and began to attract a whole new class of
clientele. I could afford Mary..." she chokes up for a moment,
then continues,"...and people like Maggie and Sarah starting
coming. Repeat customers I'd see year after year. Friends
almost.

"*This* was never supposed to happen here." Her lips are tight.
Her eyes, rolled to the ceiling, puddle with tears. After a
long moment when we all consider how things like *this* end up
happening, she straightens, visibly gathering herself. She
rummages beneath the counter and produces a roll of plastic
wrap. "Why don't you spend the day outside? They won't be able
to tow your car until the road's plowed and the roads up here
aren't usually plowed until later in the day. If you leave your
keys on the table in the front hall, Richard will pick them up
when he goes by. He can call you later with the damages."

"Richard Kelly? After all this, are you sure he'll be by?" I'm
surprised. "He isn't too distraught?"

"Or in jail?" Mulder adds his two cents' worth.

"He's holding up. I spoke with him this morning." She applies
a thin drum of the wrap to the top of the bowl and puts it
in the refrigerator. "He'll come."

Wow. I wouldn't be so cool if it were Mulder in the morgue with
a Henkels in his chest. I exchange a look with Mulder that says
he feels the same way, then tear myself away from the emotion,
crossing to the window.

"I wouldn't mind having a look around in daylight," I press my
nose to the fogged windowpane, rubbing steam away with the cuff
of my shirt. There's a garage nearby with the red dome of a
barn rising behind it. Snow has drifted in heaps against the
side and front of the garage, nearly up to the bottom of the
first floor window. To the left is a covered walkway sided in
glass that extends from the glass-in part of the back porch. It
disappears around the side of the garage without a break in the
glass for a door or other opening. Pine trees, heavy with snow,
fringe the sky in the distance.

"I've got quite a collection of cross-country skis and boots in
the cellar. Something had ought to fit the two of you."

"Uh...I don't really ski," Mulder hesitates.

He doesn't ski at all is my interpretation of the funny look on
his face.

"We've got snowshoes as well. They're not as popular with our
guests but they'll get you around on this snow."

"That's right, Scully. You'll be buried to the hips if you try
to walk around in this." With his long legs he'd be stepping
through the drifts like a Lipizzan stallion.

I'm game. We forage through the warmers in the dining room,
collecting eggs and bacon and buttered toast for a hurried
breakfast before I run upstairs to get a few more bits of
outerwear - and my weapon; I might find the opportunity to plug
Harold this afternoon and don't want to miss the moment - while
Mulder goes to the cellar with Rebecca. The Princess is passed
out in the middle of the comforter as if we never disturbed her.
One ear tracks me like a radar dish as I move around the room,
collecting our gloves and scarves and hats.

Mulder waves two sets of fancy aluminum snowshoes at me when I
join him back in the kitchen. "Just our sizes, Scully. It's
fate."

Great. We bundle ourselves, wrapping heads and necks and hands
against the cold, slipping into our parkas and zipping them up.
Rebecca steps outside when we do, showing us how to fasten the
straps to our boots and how to use the ski poles to assist in
our walking. Mulder and I thump experimentally around the back
porch, our snowshoes punching through the thin layer of
drifted snow to clank against the cement.

"I think you're set," Rebecca slaps her mittened hands together,
spraying us with ice crystals. "You've got water and your
lunch," she nods at Mulder; I see he has a small day pack slung
over one shoulder.

"And my cell phone..."

"...not that it's been very useful up here so far," I remind
him.

"Yeah, but I feel naked without it." He does; I know. I feel
funny without mine, too. It's zipped in my jacket pocket.

"There's an emergency aid kit in the bottom of the pack with
some chemical hand warmers and mylar wraps. Heaven forbid you
might need them."

"We'll stay on the main trails," Mulder promises her, clanking
off into the covered walkway.

I clump along in his wake until we reach the snowdrift at the
walkway's end. From there, a narrow path punched through the
snow winds around the back of the garage to a covered stairway.
The rest of the yard and meadow lays trackless in the weak
morning light.

I follow Mulder onto the snow and find myself walking over a
cloud. A few steps way from the garage, we're in the woods and
I hear nothing but the sound of wind in the trees and the whump,
whump, whump of our snowshoes churning the snow. Snow, still
falling, mists the landscape like a Hallmark card.

I work foot and pole into a secure rhythm, breathing deeply of
pine scent as we move through the wooded area at the top of the
ridge and begin to traverse downward, toward the east side of
the lake. I'm lost in the rhythm and the sight of Mulder's
tight ass working hard beneath the thick denim of his jeans, the
power of his muscular thighs clenching with each step, when he
stops and turns to me, leaning on his poles. "So what do you
think?"

"Uhhh..." is about all I can say, stumbling to a halt next to
him. I struggle to wash the image of his gluts out of my short-
term memory and bring details of the case back in. I hide my
confusion by taking a sip of the water he offers me and looking
at the paradise around us.

We're standing on a trail that splits a gentle slope between the
tree line and the lake. The downhill edge of the trail is
rounded where many skis have tipped over the lip and run down to
the snow-covered lake. The lake - more of a pond, really - is
pristine white like the meringue top of an unbaked pie. Across
the lake, trees heavy with snow struggle up the hillside to meet
a sky that hangs low, brushing their tips. Snow trickles down,
frosting it all.

"Suspects, Scully," Mulder urges me, "whaddya got?"

I start with the least suspicious. "I don't think the Nakamuras
could possibly have done it. Not only do they not have clear
motive..."

"...does anyone but Richard Kelly?"

I bob my head in agreement and continue, "...but they are too
small in stature to have driven a knife into Mary Kelly's
chest."

"Maybe Chieko sat on her husband's shoulders to do the job."

"Well, that's formally possible, but I think we can rule them
out in the practical sense."

Mulder suggests the next most unlikely suspects. "What about
The Lands End Sisters?"

"You noticed that, too?" Sometimes its spooky how much Mulder's
mind works like mine, not necessarily a good thing. "I think
the probability of Sarah and Maggie being involved is about the
same as the Nakamuras being involved. It involves a decimal
point and a lot of zeros."

"I agree. I think those four are not very likely suspects."

Now we start on the interesting part of the list. "Rob and
Donna MacGowan are a different story. They're young. Donna's
flighty. I can't think of a single reason why either of them
would stab an middle-aged woman to death. But, from the start,
Donna's been on edge about something, as if she has something to
hide."

"I agree with you, Scully. Donna's hiding something and Rob's
protecting her." Mulder stamps his feet, embossing waffle marks
on the snow around him. "Even though I can't imagine a motive,
they're still on my suspect list."

"What about Harold Steinberg?" I blow into my gloved hands.

"You don't like him. Why?"

"It's his smug attitude. From the moment we walked in, he had
this posture of superiority, like he saw the big picture and we
were two mangy rats running aimlessly through the maze."
Scully.

"Mangy rats?" Mulder's grinning at me.

"Mangy Maze Rats. I feel that level of disdain, yes." My voice
sounds defensive and I'm irritated with myself. "What do you
think?"

"Hmmm, I don't know. I don't think he killed Mary Kelly. He's
not much taller than you are, Scully. He's disabled in some way
since he walks with a heavy limp, at times almost dragging his
right foot behind him. I don't see him as being nimble enough
to kill a woman in the next room without a sound."

Mulder has a point. "Still...Harold is guilty of something. I
can just feel it."

"We're all guilty of something, Scully."

"I know that." That's why I go to confession when I can. "But
for what it's worth, I think I'll put him on my list."

"OK. We can agree to disagree on that one." A Gray Jay
distracts Mulder as it glides overhead. He loses it in the mist
above the lake before reclaiming his train of thought. "What
about Rebecca?"

"She didn't do it." I'm firm.

"You're so sure. Why?" Mulder asks.

"It's just a gut feeling I have." Gut feeling. I watch for his
reaction and he doesn't disappoint me.

"Wow, Scully. Two gut feelings in two days -- three if you add
you *feelings* about Harold Steinberg. If I don't watch out I'm
going to have to consult with you in your tent from now on, the
one with the 'The Madame Dana Predicts Your Future' sign
outside."

I bend, scooping a handful of snow then hurling it at him; it
disintegrates harmlessly in midair. "Do *you* think Rebecca did
it?"

"My gut says no," he smirks - at me, not at Rebecca's innocence.

"Then what about the Wellses?" They also rub me the wrong way.

Mulder squints against the landscape and thinks for a moment.
"I don't know about them. There's a problem there. It could be
simple marital tension. Grace seems jumpy..."

"...like Donna."

"Ummm yes, but in a more predatory way. Grace seems nervous."

"And Davis does not." He doesn't, not to me.

"No," Mulder agrees, "he's as smooth as silk. Maybe that's
equally suspicious, to be unruffled by a murder in the house
where you are staying."

"He's an investment banker. Maybe staying cool in a dynamic
situation is part of the job description."

"But Grace is banker, too. But then," Mulder slants a look at
me, shifting on his snowshoes, "Grace is a woman."

I elect to ignore the bait. Brushing it aside, I think of our
prime suspect. "What about Richard Kelly?"

"Well, he batters his wife. It wouldn't take a leap of logic to
extend that to murder."

"But how often do batterers simply murder their wives as opposed
to batter them to death?" I wonder aloud. "Whoever murdered
Mary Kelly did it in complete...or near...silence. No argument.
No fighting. No struggle."

"Hey!" Mulder derails the discussion, "we missed a suspect."

"Who?" Didn't we think of everyone?

"Mary Kelly. Maybe she was despondent over her situation,
didn't see a way out, and whammo!" he mimes stabbing himself in
the chest.

"You know as well as I do that people don't kill themselves by
stabbing in the chest. They take pills, they use guns, they
slice their wrists..."

"There's hara-kiri."

"That's a specialized case. It's a ritual Japanese death,
slicing the abdomen," I stress the anatomical location, "not the
chest, releasing the intestines. I'd be more likely to buy that
theory if it were Koichi Nakamura who had died."

"I'm just being thorough." He's just being Mulder, grinning at
me.

I stomp my feet up and down on the snow, not feeling much of my
toes anymore. "I need to get moving, Mulder. I'm getting
cold."

He spikes the snow with both poles and shakes the snow off each
snowshoe, one at a time. "Then lead on. Where does your gut
say we should go?"

I look across the lake and see twin furrows crisscrossing the
snow, evidence of many skiers passing there. In fact, there go
a family now -- two tiny skiers gliding easily across the snowy
ice followed by two smaller figures, gangly and awkward,
chopping along in their parents' wake. They've moving slowly,
south to north, out for a nice Sunday's glide.

Then I follow the trail we're on - descending into the trees,
winding at or close to the lake shore - and see only two sets of
tracks. I remember what Robert Frost wrote of these woods, that
taking the road less traveled had made the difference, and so I
strike out for the shore with Mulder bringing up the rear.

Maybe it was the dreamy presence of Robert Frost and his snowy
wood that uncoupled my feet and my brain but, while traversing
a copse of young pines, pushing through some overgrown shrubbery
not far from the lake's edge, I find myself suddenly face down
in the snow.

"Scully!" Mulder comes through after me, pushing the brush
aside, concern in his voice. He ends up face down in the snow
beside me. "What the hell?" he rolls onto his back, wincing a
bit as he uses his right arm to push himself to a seated
position. "What the hell?" he says again, this time to the
bushes.

I sit up and follow his gaze. "Damn Robert Frost" is all that
comes to mind.


***CHAPTER FOUR***


Beneath the bushes, the face of Davis Wells is dark against the
pristine white. A thin rivulet of blood has leaked from one
corner of his mouth and onto the snow, melting it a little.

"Well, shit" is Mulder's comment. He leans forward, laying his
arms across his knees, and stares at the body thoughtfully.
"This isn't even our case. It isn't even an X-File." He's
clearly disappointed.

I awkwardly roll onto my knees, struggling to get a large
aluminum foot beneath me, scanning the clearing and as much as I
can through the thicket of trees. No sign of Grace Wells. No
sign of anybody but Mulder, me, and one dead body. For a moment
I flirt with the idea of hiking away, enjoying the rest of our
idyllic day, calling the Deputy when we get back to Meadowlea
tonight. What the hell -- it's not like he's going to go bad or
anything, laying there in the snow like that. Then I think of
what hungry little winter animals might do, how I've been
trained to preserve the crime scene at all costs, and I relent,
grumbling as I admit it, "We might as well as be useful, since
we stumbled over the body."

"Literally."

I find my poles flapping from both wrists and use them to lever
myself to a standing position. I scratch in my pocket and pull
out my cell phone, more out of habit than from optimism. I
thumb the power and look at the display. Signal. There's one
measly bar. I've never successfully made a call with one bar.

I wave the phone back and forth, seeming to pick up a transient
second bar when I point it down valley. Hopefully, I punch in
9-1-1 and send. The phone peeps after I hold it to my ear. I
check the display, knowing what I'll see but checking anyway --
Call Failed. Damn, damn, damn. I drop the useless thing back
into my pocket and cross my arms against the cold. I'd tap my
toe impatiently but the big aluminum snowshoes weld me to the
snow.

Mulder's watching me. "One of us needs to go for the Deputy."

"One of us needs to guard the crime scene," I counter. I can
see how this should unfold. Mulder, with the longer legs, will
cover more ground more quickly than I can. He's the logical one
to go and he knows it. I give him a hand up.

"Which way is New Blandford from here?" he casts around for his
bearings.

"I don't have a clue," I offer helpfully, "but there's a
telephone, possibly functional, that way," I point back to the
bed and breakfast.

"Do you have your gun?" he asks me, swatting the caked snow off
his legs with one hand.

"Yes," I tap the small of my back. I don't leave home without
it.

"Do you?"

"Yes. Both of them." He gestures to his left side and shakes
his right leg in the air.

"Good." These woods give me the creeps. I find my weapon in my
hand, safety off, cocked, and pointing at the snow, ready to
fire. "If you really move, it will probably only take you an
hour to get back to the house."

Mulder squints up the trail to where it disappears in the mist
that has moved in to blanket the hillside.

"Just follow our shoe marks. They're distinctive. They should
get you back okay." I look at my watch and do the math. "If
you're not back by 1:30, I'm coming after you."

Mulder looks back at me, then shuffles over to my side. "I
don't feel comfortable, leaving you here. These woods give me
the creeps."

Both you and me, Mulder.

"I don't feel comfortable, you going off on your own into the
clouds," I snap back, not mentioning the number of grungy places
where he's left me to fend for myself without a second thought.

We glare at each other for a moment, more out of worry than
anger. Mulder cracks first, pulling me against him with one
arm. His breath is hot on my nose, then my lips, then his lips
are on my lips and I'm lost inside his kiss, weak kneed, holding
onto him for dear life.

Somewhere in the sane part of my mind which, at this moment, is
about the size of a sugar cube, I remember there's a dead man
lying in the snow at our feet. Then Mulder makes a little
growly sound at the back of his throat and I'm lost again, a
willing victim of the chemistry that flashes between us like
matches in kindling...until something thumps me on head then
blinds me in an icy shower. I recoil before realizing it's a
clump of snow that has slipped from a branch and broken over our
heads. I blink the snow out of my eyes, spitting ice crystals
at Mulder's chest.

Large clouds of steam wreaths both our faces.

"I'll be back as soon as I can." He steps away, untangling his
snowshoes from mine. The weight of my weapon comforts me as
Mulder whuffs up the hill. Then he steps into the mist and is
gone.

My heart beats loud in my ears. I strain but I hear nothing
else. These woods swallow sounds whole. Looking up, I'm
pressed into the snow by clouds that clip the treetops, sinking
lower by the minute, consuming them branch by branch. Across
the lake, through the light mist that hangs there, I might see a
curl of smoke above a chimney, but I'm not sure I even see a
chimney -- I could be imagining the splash of ochre against the
deep green of the trees. As far as I can tell I'm alone on
this planet.

A low whistling sound comes from behind me. I whirl and raise
my weapon. Davis Wells stares sightlessly into the middle
distance. Doesn't he? He hasn't moved. Has he? I slip my
finger inside the trigger guard. When the brush rustles near
his feet I sight down the barrel and wait.

A low whistling sound comes from behind me. Goose bumps explode
across my back and neck and, this time when I whirl, I catch the
end of one snowshoe against the other. Tangled, I fall into the
snow with a dull whump. Something bursts out of the bushes and
whirrs over my head. I roll, tracking it, then let my weapon
fall onto my legs. Two White Breasted Nuthatches cling head
down to the bark of a thick pine, their shiny black eyes staring
back at me.

"Dana Scully, Big Game Hunter," I announce myself to the
clearing; mistry gray tendrils ooze through the bare branches,
absorbing my words as they drift groundward. The nuthatches
blink curiously through the mist. The nine millimeter slug from
my Sig would have vaporized that tiny handful of bird if I'd
managed to shoot it. The nuthatches flutter nervously at the
crisp clank the gun makes when I decock it and thumb the safety
into place.

I look from the birds to the corpse and back again. "You've
probably seen the whole thing, haven't you?"

One unhooks from the bark, darting across the clearing; the
other soon follows and they pair up again. "I wish you could
talk."

Yankyankyank they say. Great. A Yank...ee did it. In New
England, that doesn't narrow it down much. I stand with a
little more grace this time, slipping the gun against my back,
even daring to chuckle a bit at my own little joke.

I look at my wristwatch. It's five minutes later than it was
the last time I looked at my wristwatch. I stomp the snow and
chafe the outsides of my arms then turn my mind to the task at
hand.

I retrace my steps to where Davis Wells lays crumpled in the
snow. Placing each snowshoe in a mark we've already left
behind, I crouch and examine him as carefully as I can without
disturbing the evidence more than it's been disturbed already.

The bloodstains around his mouth might mean he bit his tongue in
a struggle but I'm betting a punctured lung is involved. I lean
as far to the left as I can, balancing myself by grabbing a low
hanging branch, and scan his chest area. The hunter green parka
is loose, probably unzipped before he fell. I lean over a bit
farther and see wisps of goose down oozing from a small hole in
the Gore-Tex, a hole that has telltale scorch marks around the
edge.

Bingo. "Am I good or what?" I ask my gallery that flutters
somewhere in the mist overhead.

GSW - gun shot wound - to the chest. Umm-umm-umm. Talk about
marital discord. I think about Grace and Davis, sniping at each
other over dinner last night. I sit back on my heels as best I
can with my feet strapped onto the snowshoes. There've been
times when Mulder has pissed me off to the degree that I wish I
could have pulled my weapon and drilled a hole in *his* chest.
Scratch that, I have pulled my weapon and drilled a hole in his
chest...but it was from fear, not anger, and didn't give me any
pleasure -- it scared me to death, before I did it and after it
was done. Grace, obviously, is a woman of action. I can't
decide whether that raises or lowers her a few notches in my
esteem.

I pace around the fringe of the clearing, scanning the snow for
untrodden ski marks. I push through the scrub at the far side
and onto a large flat area that must be a lakeside meadow when
it isn't snowed over. Three tracks twine their way into the
trees a few hundred yards away.

Three tracks.

I hear a yank-yank and a light whistling. My nuthatch friends
sway on a bare maple branch high and behind me. I stare at them,
doing the math. It doesn't add up. How can two people ski into
the woods, one be killed, and three people ski out? I stomp my
way back through the brush, staying clear of the crime scene,
and battle my way out the far side. Three could ski in, one be
killed, and then two people would ski out. I stand looking at
two sets of ski tracks going up the slope, threading in and out
of the waffling left behind by Mulder and me, coming down.

Scratch that. They are coming down, too.

These are clearly downhill tracks. Parallel lines, not the
herringbone marks you leave when going uphill on skis. No one
has skied uphill from here.

I turn, scratching the inside of my head, massaging the numbers,
trying to make them work. The snow has stopped. The clouds
have rise, arching high over the lake where I can see houses
tucked so neatly into the far woods they are hardly visible.
Here and there gray streams spiral into the air; if I breathe
deeply, I can smell the wood smoke.

For some reason, I'm uneasy here in the middle of paradise.
This is not like me. Mulder has become very protective these
past few weeks. That is not like him. I think of the IVF, my
promise not to let it come between us. Somehow, having failed
at parenthood has brought Mulder and I closer together. Now we
share a wound.

I retrace my steps up to the brush that hides Davis Wells. His
milk chocolate ski pants are dusted with snow that fell earlier,
visible beneath the bushes now that I know where to look for
them. One foot, skiless, is fully exposed, sole up. I pull at
the shrubbery - a mixture of pine and bare brambles - around
him. Oddly, there's no ski to be found in the twisted brush.
Not one. So Grace Wells is not only my prime suspect in the
murder of her husband but she's stolen his skis as well.

I chew on that one for a moment. I've been hearing the dull
whumps of snow sliding off trees all morning; now I hear a chain
saw in the distance, coming closer, slicing the quiet with its
jagged edge. I turn toward the sound and see a sleek black
snowmobile powering its way across the frozen lake with a sled
in tow.

The Law has arrived.

Monroe, Mulder, and I process the scene rapidly, bag the dead
Mr. Wells, and load him onto the sled. We search the area and
find no trace of a murder weapon, the dead man's skis, or Grace
Wells. A search of the body - Davis Wells has now become 'the
body' - reveals that he has no papers or identification of any
kind on him. Mulder and Deputy Monroe mount the snowmobile for
the quick trip into town; I earn the privilege of riding in the
sled with the deceased. After the body has been handed off to
the country coroner, the Deputy drives Mulder and me back to
Meadowlea where we can question the other guests.

We're getting good at this...both us and the guests.

Rebecca does a double take when Mulder and I walk in the back
door with Monroe in our wake; neither she nor any of the guests
saw Mulder earlier in the day when he crept inside to use the
phone then slipped out to await the Deputy at the side of the
road. A tray filled with cookies and decorated cakes bobbles in
her hands as we separate ourselves from our outerwear and hang
it up beside the door.

"Greetings Rebecca," the Deputy nods, removing his hat and
hanging it on a peg.

Rebecca stares wide-eyed at our group.

"We need to see Grace Wells. Is she here?" the Deputy asks.

"No," Rebecca carefully lays the tray of goodies on the tile and
wipes her palms against the sides of her overalls, "she went out
with Davis this morning."

Meaningful looks ricochet among Mulder, the Deputy, and I.

"What's wrong?" Rebecca demands, her question trailing off in a
quaver. "Did something happen...to Davis?"

Monroe takes the lead. He lays a gentle hand on Rebecca's
shoulder. "I'm afraid there's been another murder."

Rebecca flinches at the words, shaking her head. She turns away
and hugs herself with both arms, hunching into herself.
"Davis?" the words are muffled by the scarf around her neck.

"Yes," Monroe finds a stool and guides Rebecca to it.

"Davis," the name rolls, flat, from Rebecca's lips as she sits
down. "And you think Grace....?"

"You said they left together this morning..."

"Yes, to ski into town for the fingerprinting," she looks up,
"but they keep their ski things in the apartment. I can't say
exactly when they left. I didn't see which way they went."

"They ended up down at the lake some time early this morning,"
Mulder says, then pauses for a moment. "At least Davis did."

"You can get to town easily from there," the Deputy fills in the
blank for us. "Just go down Ford's Road at the end of the lake
and cut through the fields behind the town hall, pretty much the
same way we went after collecting the body."

"Right now Grace's our prime suspect..." Mulder explains.

"...or another victim," I add, "which is why we need to find
her."

"Unless she came back in the last thirty minutes, she's not
here," Rebecca glances at the kitchen window. "I just cleaned
their apartment, since Mary..." she chokes up and doesn't
continue.

"Who *is* here?" I ask.

"I left the Nakamuras in town when we went for the
fingerprinting. They've taken the bus to Manchester for a
plane," Rebecca explains. "Harold, Maggie, and Sarah are in the
parlor. I was just taking some afternoon snacks to them."

"Has Harold been here all day?" I ask quickly.

Rebecca nods. "As far as I know. Except for the time he went
to town with the rest of us, he's been in the library, working
on his laptop, every time I've gone by there. Until now, that
is."

"Rob and Donna?" I ask.

"Still out skiing. I haven't seen them since this morning."

I lift an eyebrow at Mulder who shrugs, noncommittal, in return.
It's hard to imagine those kids being involved in this, but
their suspicious behavior begs the question -- and they are avid
skiers.

Deputy Monroe shakes out his jacket and hangs it on a peg by the
back door. "Let's see if anyone knows anything useful."

The buzz of conversation stumbles and falls when we enter the
parlor on the Deputy's heels.

"More questions, Deputy Morgan?" Harold asks over the rim of a
fat white mug.

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Steinberg," the Deputy pulls a slim black
book from his back pocket and flips it open. "Where have you
been all day?"

Harold laughs, cradling the mug in both hands. "You're
serious?"

"I'm deadly serious," the Deputy insists, holding his pen above
the blank page, waiting.

"I got up around seven, came downstairs to get coffee and
breakfast, spoke to Rebecca - Dana and Fox were there, too -
then went to the library and have been working on my article all
afternoon...except for the hour or so when I went to town with the
ladies, here." He chafes his fingertips, still lightly stained
with fingerprint ink. "What's this about?"

Monroe taps his pen lightly against the page, his eyes flicking
from person to person in the room. "There's been another
murder."

"My word," Sarah's hand flies to her mouth and she reaches for
her sister. They grip hands so tightly Maggie's knuckles turn
white.

"Well, well, well," Harold's lips twitch the way lips do when
they're trying not to smirk, "who's the lucky stiff?"

I bristle at his disregard for the dead. "You tell me. You're
the investigative reporter." I swallow the words 'hot shot'
that made it to the tip of my tongue before turning back.

Harold shifts in his seat, leaning forward, the mug balanced on
one knee. "Well, let's see. If the Nakamuras - a dangerous
pair, I might add - are safely on the Manchester bus, and
present company are alive and accounted for, then it has to be
one of the Wellses or either of the MacGowans."

"It's Davis Wells," I reply bluntly.

"No kidding?" the smug expression disappears from Harold's face.
He sets the mug on the table with a thunk.

"No kidding," I agree. Especially not from Davis Wells's
perspective.

The Deputy takes control again. "And you, Mrs. Morgan? You and
your sister were..." his voice recedes to the background as I
turn to Rebecca. She's standing behind us with one hand at her
throat.

"We need to take a look at the garage apartment," I lead her
into the kitchen where we can talk and not disturb the Deputy.
"Do you have the keys?"

Rebecca uses a key from the ring in her pocket to unlock a
cabinet on the wall. She selects a single key and a key chain
with two keys on it, handing them both to me. "Here's the key
to the apartment and the keys to their rental car. When the
storm was coming, we parked everyone inside the barn."

By the time I retrieve my crime scene kit from our room, Mulder
is at the back door, suiting up to go outside with me. The
afternoon sun worries the edges of cobblestoned clouds, trying
to find its way through. The wind has picked up again and
slices at my exposed skin. I tuck my head down and walk
quickly.

A path has been shoveled from the end of the covered walkway
across the back of the garage, and from the back of the garage
across to the big red barn where a plow has pushed the snow back
into tall banks on either side of a driveway.

We take the turn at the corner of the garage and climb the
outside stairs to the apartment door. It opens easily with our
key and we're inside. The ceiling in the garage below must be
quite low because this room is spacious and charming. The
living area is centered on a large wood stove, the kind with
glass doors so you can watch the flames. In the rear corner is
a compact kitchen and a dining area; beside that is a spacious
bathroom. Polished oak stairs seem to rise on air to a loft
that spans the back half of the apartment. Upstairs, there's
room to spare for a queen sized bed and a matching wardrobe.
Two large windows overlook the barn and the meadow beyond. A
willowy Calico sits on a windowsill, her face lifted to the thin
sunlight like a flower, eyes closed in deep meditation.

Make-up, hairspray and other female toiletries had been strewn
around the bathroom while the men's things were neatly tucked
into a shaving kit. Women's clothing and shoes are tossed
carelessly around the sleeping area while men's shirts and
slacks hang neatly in the wardrobe over shoes arranged in pairs
on the floor beneath.

There's no smoking gun, no bundle of blood-soaked clothing to
be found.

I sit on the bed and look up at Mulder, who leans against a
windowsill, looking out toward the barn. "Why on earth would
Grace take her husband's skis away with her?" The question has
picked at me since this morning. It didn't make sense.

"Maybe he wasn't dead yet. Maybe she wanted to be sure he
wouldn't get up and ski after her."

Although it seemed pretty clear to me that someone shot in the
chest would not be traveling far on skis or by any other earthly
mode of transportation, maybe it wasn't so obvious to someone
like Grace. I get up and look under the bed, pulling out two
suitcases stored there. Hartman. They're unlocked, so I open
them and look around. Nothing of interest. In fact, the whole
place has nothing of interest for our investigation.

"Would you take all your papers with you when you go skiing?" I
ask Mulder, who's now lounging on the bed, watching me where I
sit on the floor with the luggage.

"It depends on how many personal papers I brought with me on the
trip," I work the zipper on the larger suitcase. It sticks, and
I tug at it with increasing frustration. "This morning I had my
wallet and badge with me, although technically I didn't need
either of them for our hike."

The darned thing won't close so I unzip it again and study the
place where the zipper got stuck. There's a bit of loose fabric
hanging from inside the lid that's tangled with the zipper's
teeth. I grab the shred with my fingertips and give it a tug.

A false bottom - top? - pops into my lap.

Mulder leans over to look. Empty. "Well," he says, "somebody
certainly has been hiding something."

I nod, pressing the panel back in place. "Whatever it is,
someone's hiding it somewhere else now."

He stands and offers me a hand up. "It's formally possible
they've hidden whatever it was in the rental car."

I take his hand and let him lift me to my feet. "It's possible
but highly unlikely."

"True," he agrees, still holding my hand; his thumb rubs back
and forth across my knuckles, "but still worth the search."

Our eyes catch and hold.

His shimmer tawny green in the sunlight that's finally broken
through the clouds. Mine mist over and I find myself rising
into that warm green place, letting it roll across my face and
over my shoulders and down my back. I brace myself with one
hand against his chest; the skin beneath my fingers tightens and
trembles slightly through the thin knit of his sweater. My lips
graze his lips. His breath mingles with mine. Off balance on
my toe tips, I'm on the verge of falling - in so many ways -
when his arm slides around my waist and brings me home.

I'm the hungry one here. I feast on the banquet of his mouth;
he serves it up for me but lets me take the lead. God, I want
more. My arms go around his neck and, before I know it, I've
hopped up and wrapped my legs around his waist. He loops both
arms beneath me, making a seat, holding me against him. Then I
find myself falling, turning, bouncing in air as Mulder hits the
mattress on his back and cushions the blow for me.

My thundering heartbeat and the rasp of our breathing are the
only sounds in the room. His eyes are open right down to the
soul. The love I see there never fails to humble me because I
know how little I've done to deserve it. Suddenly my throat is
dry. I trace his lips lightly with my fingers and feel the heat
burning there.

"I suppose we really should get on with our investigation so we
can connect with Monroe before he leaves," Mulder's lips move
against my fingers, "but hold the thought."

As if I could get it out of my mind.

A few minutes later, we're crossing the plowed area between the
garage and the barn. We wade through afternoon sunlight that
puddles like thick yellow cream on the plowed snow. The air,
heavy with the scent of wood smoke and crisped by approaching
night, tickles the inside of my nose. As Mulder works the huge
wooden door, half of a pair that close together at the front of
the barn, I turn and take my first good look at Meadowlea.

It's a rambling nineteenth century farm house that sits at an
angle to the road, or perhaps the road runs at an angle to the
house, since the house has grown there for more than a century.
It shows signs of having aged gracefully -- an ell has been
added to the back, the original verandah has been extended on
one side, modern windows light many of the rooms. Dormer
windows nose their way through the snow pack at different
levels. Gray slate shows at the ridge line where the snow has
already started to slip downward over the steep pitched roof.

Smoke oozes from chimneys at both ends of the house; it is torn
away by the same brisk wind that dries my throat. A line of
thick pines screens this place from the road, and the Deputy's
car is out of sight around the far side of the house, making
this feel like an island in the middle of paradise. Multiple
tire tracks scar the packed snow surface, disappearing under
the wide wooden doors at the front of the barn. I take a
generous swig of water from the bottle in my pocket and turn,
following Mulder inside.

The barn is a barn. Little has been done to make it more than
an informal place to store things and hide cars from a bad
storm. A large loft, designed to hold hay, is largely empty;
wispy threads of dried grass hang over the edge but there's
probably not enough left up there for a good roll. Farm
implements hang from both side walls -- I recognize the common
gardening tools but many of the other items defy definition by a
city girl like me. Most look like they've not been used in a
long time; some bring to mind horses and harness and pulled
wagons.

Mulder touches a light switch behind the door. A row of metal
fixtures hanging the length of the barn produce enough weak
light to see in the gloomy interior. Four cars huddle together
on the ground floor. The green Subaru Outback with New Hampshire
plates obviously belongs to Rebecca. Sitting next to it is a
powder blue Miata, rag top up, with Florida plates issued in
Dade County. I don't know whether it's the color or shape, but
the poor car seems like it's shivering in the New Hampshire
cold. Behind them, a red Camaro with Massachusetts plates sits
beside a black Lincoln Town Car with Massachusetts plates. A
red light flashes inside the Camaro and so I don't touch it, not
wanting to set off the alarm and startle everyone.

Mulder bounces the rental keys in his hand. "So which one is
it?"

I've got my head in the last of three trash cans; nothing
remotely resembling clothing - blood soaked or not - has been
discarded there since the trash last went out. "No brainer," I
drop the lid back in place then take the keys from Mulder's hand
without even looking at the tag. I slide it into the lock of
the Town Car and it turns easily. The heavy door swings open at
my light touch. "Voila!"

The interior is painfully clean with only a few signs of rental
car debris. The ashtrays are empty and the map compartment on
the driver's side holds only a single New Hampshire road map,
neatly folded. I slide over to the passenger's side and try the
glove compartment. Locked. I waggle my fingers at Mulder.
"Your pick gun, please."

It lands in my hand with a solid splat. I knew he'd have it.
The well dressed field agent wouldn't leave home without one. I
apply it to the simple lock on the glove box and it yields
immediately, popping open into my lap. Mulder leans over my
shoulder to look inside.

There's no gun smoking up the small space, only a rental
contract folded on top of a pouch containing the user's manual
for the car. I unfold the rental contract and tip it toward the
light coming through the window. "Executive Investments, Inc.,"
I report, handing it to Mulder, "with offices in Atlanta."

"Excellent," Mulder flips between the two pages. "It's been
charged to Davis's corporate American Express card. "We can
call first thing tomorrow morning and see what they have to
say."

I don't know what makes me do it, but I pull out the owner's
manual and run my fingers along the back and sides of the glove
box. I feel something, jammed into a seam at the top front of
the box, mostly hidden between the glove box and the frame of
the compartment. I slide onto my knees in the passenger's side
foot well, turning so I can get a better grip on whatever it is.

I work at it, not pulling so hard that the thin plastic comes
apart, slowly easing it from its hiding place. A small baggie
drops into my hand.

"What is it?" Mulder's words puff against my cheek. He's
leaning over my shoulder, practically face down on top of me.

I dangle the baggie in air. A small amount of white powder
collects at the bottom.

"Someone's private stash?" Mulder suggests.

"Could be," I climb out of the car and open the bag, taking a
tiny bit on the tip of my finger and tasting it.

The second it hits my tongue, I know it's not cocaine. "God!" I
spit repeatedly, saliva running fast in my mouth. I fumble in
my pocket for the water.


***CHAPTER FIVE***


Mulder tumbles out of the car behind me, reacting helplessly in
my peripheral vision as I find the bottle and pull it out. I
sluice a quick swig through my mouth and hastily spit it on the
floor. I gag and the remains of my breakfast threaten to
rise in my throat. I pull harder at the bottle and rinse my
mouth thoroughly before spitting it out, too.

"Scully!" I feel Mulder's hand on my shoulder; I hear his voice
close to my ear. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, fine," my words are muffled by my sleeve as I wipe my
mouth on it.

"What is it?"

"Not cocaine," I work my tongue around my mouth, taking another
pull at the water, swishing it through my teeth and around my
gums. I spit it onto the cement floor along with the rest.
"Something closer to rat poison, more likely."

"I think it's safe to say they don't have a rodent problem in
the glove compartment."

"Safe to say," My voice shakes along with the rest of me.

"I wonder who planned to poison whom?" He gets to the heart of
the matter.

"Interesting, isn't it? I wonder if this was earmarked for dead
body number three...to be named later?" I find a tissue bunched
in the bottom of my pocket and blow my runny rose. I wipe my
watery eyes and spit again onto the floor. This spitting is
inelegant, I know. It would horrify my mother. But the taste
of the poison stays with me, strong and bitter on my tongue. I
shiver again and Mulder pulls me against his side.

Back at the house, we find Deputy Monroe sitting in the kitchen
with Rebecca, sipping coffee. I give him the bag, reporting the
results of my crude analysis. "...and I presume, it was
intended for murder...but whose?"

"And by whom?" Mulder adds to the question.

"I'd say we're talking about one killer here, given the
historically low murder rate for this county," Monroe points
out, his eyes withdrawing to a middle distance as he reaches
into the past. "There was a murder back in, I think, 1978, but
that's the last one I can remember. Two drunks fighting over a
deer carcass. Messy."

"If Richard Kelly killed Mary Kelley - which seems to be
explainable - then what was his motive for killing Davis Wells?"
Mulder poses the question.

"Did he even know the man?" I look to Rebecca for confirmation.

Rebecca shrugs, shaking her head.

"But if Grace Wells killed her husband - which seems to be
explainable - then why would she have killed Mary Kelly the
night before? And how could she have?" Mulder poses the
question in the reverse.

"Richard Kelly and Grace Wells...how do they fit together?" the
Deputy worries the stress lines in his forehead with one hand,
thinking aloud.

"And here's a larger question -- " I bring up something that's
been bothering me since I got here, "what are a couple like
Grace and Davis Wells doing in a small Bed and Breakfast in New
Hampshire in the first place? They strike me more as the four-
star hotel types."

"And who was the poison meant to kill?" Monroe raises another
unanswered question. "Mary Kelly, Davis Wells, or someone
else?"

Everyone is stumped for an answer. Rebecca slumps into her
hands, holding herself up with both elbows on the counter. "I
can't believe this."

"Frankly, I can't either," but for different reasons. I was on
my way to a seance with Mulder and have ended up trapped in an
Agatha Christie novel.

Dinner - Yankee Pot Roast - is an odd affair all the way
around the table. Even Harold is quiet in the next chair over,
keeping his thoughts to himself for the most part. Maggie and
Sarah flutter around Rebecca who is visibly drawn.

"Sweetie, let me do that," somehow Maggie manages a slight-of-
hand wherein she wrestles the dish containing the stewed
potatoes and vegetables out of Rebecca's hands and into hers,
potholders and all. "Sit down with your guests...

"...there," Sarah steers Rebecca to a chair and coaxes her into
it.

Maggie puts the dish on the table then hustles into the kitchen.
"My cousin Agatha was very fond of...who was the girl next
door...?" she calls to her sister while backing through the
door, the roast securely clamped in her hands.

"Bethany. Bethany Szabo, I think." Sarah hands Mulder a long,
wicked knife. "Would you mind doing the roast, Fox?"

"Yes. Bethany Szabo." Maggie slides the roast under Mulder's
waiting hands and heads back to the kitchen.

Mulder hovers inadequately over the platter until I make subtle
little slicing motions with my hands where they are tucked
discretely beneath the level of the dining table.

By the time Maggie returns from the kitchen, Mulder has managed
a cautious incision in the roast. Rebecca sits back, apparently
resigned to the sisters taking charge of her and everything
else at Meadowlea this evening. Maggie puts a basket of crusty
rolls on the table and wipes her hands, one against the other.
"Now where was I?"

"Your cousin Agatha and her friend Bethany Szabo," I offer
helpfully, taking a roll and tearing it apart before putting the
two halves on my plate.

Maggie brightens. "Yes. Bethany...a sweet thing, she and her
husband had been married only a few years when she...came down
with..." she pauses, looking at her sister, "is 'came down with'
the correct term, Sarah?"

"I suppose it's as good as any," Sarah says, finding a chair.

"Poor Bethany came down with ovarian cancer and was dead just
like that," she snaps her fingers for emphasis, a little too
close to Rebecca, who flinches at both the sound and the
death. Maggie fusses with the table settings, redistributing
the butter and salt and pepper more to her liking. "She was
crushed..."

"Somebody needs to find the off switch..." Harold mutters, just
loud enough for me to hear "...to put us out of our misery."

"...but she got through it because she had friends and family
who carried the load for her...just for a few weeks...until she
had *grieved* and was ready to move on again. So, Rebecca, just
sit..." Maggie tips her ear toward the parlor, her train of
thought derailed by the sound of the front door. "Oh good. Rob
and Donna, just in time for dinner..." She heads for the front
of the house, her words trailing behind her.

Sarah smiles indulgently in her sister's wake. "She means well.
Our mother always called her Miss Maggie Magpie."

I can see why.

Maggie Magpie flutters back into the room with the MacGowans in
tow.

Donna and Rob are red-faced with apologies when they come in.
"I'm so sorry, Dana," Rob says to me, slanting a quick
look at wife, "we will go down first thing in the morning and
have our prints taken. We have no excuse."

Donna nods her head vigorously, meeting her husband's look
with one of her own before taking a chair at the table next to
Harold. "Really we will, it's just this afternoon we skied off
on that direction," her hand gestures vaguely to the north, "and
we saw these tiny little tracks and followed them, then..."

The burble of Donna's voice flows through the background of my
thoughts. I finger the bit of paper in my pocket with the red
Camaro's tag number. I wonder what that will turn up when I
wash it through the FBI computers in the morning. Rebecca's
voice drags me back to the dinner table.

"...Kelly called. He says your problem is a faulty fuel pump.
He'll get one from the dealership tomorrow morning and put it
in. You should be on the road by tomorrow afternoon."

"Great," I say, but I have mixed feelings about it. I should be
delighted to head back to DC. A quick glance at Mulder catches
him looking at me with the peculiar longing I see more and more
often these days. I stab an unsuspecting lump of potato and put
it in my mouth, making a concentrated effort to eat while
considering what I really think about our stay here.

It would be deliriously enjoyable if people would stop getting
killed.

The dinner finishes with a glorious cherry pie - I think I'll
lay off anything with apples for awhile; the memory of last
night's blood-flecked pie is too fresh in my mind - and it's
barely eight thirty when Mulder and I head upstairs to our
room. I'm dragging my feet up the stairs one at a time, feeling
the weight of fatigue in them. Mulder stumps behind me down the
hall. "It's not that I mind helping out on this investigation.
I - we're - trained for this after all. It's just that..."

"...it's not the same when there's no demonic possession, green
goo, or morphing aliens involved?"

"Something like that. I'm a little rusty with your basic issue
Agatha Christie."

I snap a quick look at him. Is he reading my mind? His
expression is bland, not coy. It must be that we're on the same
page. Again. What does that tell you, Dana, my inner voice
asks?

Our room is dimly washed with gold from a fire flickering low on
the hearth. On my way to a lamp, I stumble over Princess Mia
who suddenly appears beneath my feet. An incredible racket
pours from her mouth, including brrrrow, yowwwww, a series of
squeaks that end on a trill, and another sound like someone
stomping the life out of a Smurf. She arches her neck coyly and
rams her head against the bedside table with a loud thunk. The
lamp rattles loudly and I catch the Tiffany shade with one hand
to steady it.

"She sounds like R2D2," Mulder laughs as Mia shakes her head,
blinking. "I wonder what she's saying? She obviously thinks
we're as dumb as dirt for not understanding what she's telling
us so clearly."

Mia leans against my legs, rubbing her chin on my shin then
blinking up at me with bright blue eyes.

"You know, Mulder, I've read that a cat's physiology is so
unusual it could be extraterrestrial in origin."

"Really?" he looks at Mia with new interest. Mia yawns back at
him, relaxing onto the carpet, licking a paw.

"It's true," I insist, continuing, "maybe they're really alien
sentinels, put on our planet as watchers for some alien race.
Who would suspect them, with their lazy eyes and tendency to nap
at all hours?"

"That's a cool story, Scully," he looks from Mia to me. The
heat in his eyes scorches me where I stand.

I can't breathe. I'm trapped in his gaze like a bunny in
headlights. Then he smiles and looks away. He knows the effect
he has on me. I stretch then think better of it.

Mulder kneads the air to show me what he has in mind. "I have
the cure for what ails you."

I have to smile. "I'm sure you do. But what I want right now
is a nice, long soak in a big, hot tub."

"That's okay for starters. It's what comes afterward that will
really loosen you up."

"Ummm, I may have to take you up on that," I pad into the
bathroom and twist the taps. Hot water immediately steams into
the tub. I pour in a liberal dollop of the bubble bath that
comes with the room and watch a mountain of bubbles rise beneath
the faucet. I push the door into its frame then call through it
to Mulder.

"What?" he's right on the other side of the thin wood panels.

"Check on me every few minutes, will you?" I peel off my
clothes, leaving them in a pile on the floor. After testing the
water with one toe, I slide into it, and moan as the heat rises
to my chin.

"Are you okay in there?" he asks immediately.

"Ummm. More than okay," I close my eyes and lay back,
stretching the length of the tub.

"Are you sure you don't need any help?" he sounds hopeful now.
'Say yes' is the subliminal message in his question.

"I'm fine, Mulder," I am. I shake out my arms and let them fall
to my sides in the water. I nestle my chin in the thick suds,
listening to the crisp pop of the bubbles. I meditate on the
rhythm of my breath as it pulls in and out, in and out.

"Scully?"

I hear my name from a distance and swim toward it. My limbs are
heavy. Time has stretched long like a Dali painting, without
the tick marks of seconds and minutes.

"Hey, Scully."

His voice is near, it tickles my ear. I feel hands go around my
back and lift me from the cooling tub. I sway on my feet, eyes
closed, and savor the soft chafe of terrycloth up and down my
legs, across my shoulders, and on my arms and face. The air is
cool against my hot skin when it's replaced with the light
warmth of pajamas. Then his arm is behind my knees and my arm
is around his neck and I'm traveling through air, my head
rolling back and forth against his shoulder. I land in a soft
place where he fits his warmth along my back. I melt against
him, feel his breath tickle my ear, and his arms come around my
waist.

"Night, Scully" are the last words I hear before sleep folds me
in its arms and carries me away.

***

Monday April 3, 2000

An intermittent whistling snags at the edge of my consciousness
and pulls me from my sleep. I lay quietly in Mulder's embrace,
my face nesting in his hair. His face chastely nuzzles my
chest, his right arm tucking loosely around my waist while my
left one drapes over his shoulder in easy possession. We are
warmed by each other beneath the downy paradise of a thick
comforter.

Now the house rests quietly around us. I listen to the steady
pull of Mulder's breath, in and out, and feel the thump of his
heart beneath my hand where it rests on his back. With a hiss
and creak, snow shifts on steep slates overhead. A bird calls
once into the morning air. Sunlight floods the room and,
although I can't see outside from where I lay, I know sun has
driven the storm clouds away.

Light whistling starts again. Without moving, I roll my eyes
upward. A delicate gray muzzle rests against my forehead,
whiskers twitching gently in sleep. The warmth of my head makes
sense now -- I'm wearing a plush gray cat hat. The whistle
becomes a lingering snort that fades away slowly as Mia sighs
and is still.

Now Mulder stirs in my arms. His sigh warms the skin in my
cleavage and goose bumps rise along the back of my arms. I find
my fingers tangled his hair, cradling the back of his head
against me.

"Morning," he whispers into my skin.

The delicate brush of his lips sends a second wave of shivers
after the first. "Morning," I reply shyly. I remember too few
mornings like this. So what's wrong with this picture as
opposed to that one, I ask myself? Mulder presses his lips to
the underside of my neck where the skin is sensitive. Suddenly
I'm gasping for air because my lungs are empty. Then he slides
his body along mine, rising to meet my lips; I lean into him,
greeting him with lips of my own.

Now I'm sweltering under all these covers and I push them aside
with my hand. Cold air refreshes me where it tickles my
shoulder and chills my back to the waist through the thin fabric
of my pajamas. Mia squawks with displeasure as her warm nest
abandons her. She flounces off the bed and onto the floor with
a thump. Mulder rolls onto his back, pulling me with him. I
straddle him, laying chest to chest with him, our breaths
mingling as I bask in the desire that shows in his eyes.

"Scully," he brings my head down to his mouth.

The bedroom door rattles hard in its frame.

"Mulder," I press my forehead against his as the knock comes
again.

"Dana? Fox?" it's Rebecca's voice, "Deputy Monroe is here to
speak with you."

"'kay." I work the word through the husky emotion that tightens
my throat. It's anything but okay. Damn. "We'll be downstairs
in a few minutes." I look down at Mulder who, so obviously
dejected, makes me smile for a moment.

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing." I roll away, sitting up on my side of the bed. I
pull the light fabric of my pajamas around me, gripping it with
both hands.

"Hey," he sits next to me, his shoulder touching mine.

"Bad timing, Mulder." I pull my collar up around my neck. Now
the room is warmer than I am. Mia sits on the windowsill,
watching us from the corner of her eye as she pretends to look
out; it's the pitch of her ears that give her away. I look at
Mulder again. "I think we're doomed to bad timing. Or someone
else's master plan for us."

"Nonsense." Mulder climbs over me to stand at my side of the
bed. He offers me a hand and I get up. "We've always found our
moments, Scully. Some day we'll get to string them together
into a good time."

I'm not convinced. I can take a cosmic hint.

I hug both arms around my waist and go to the window as Mulder
disappears into the bathroom. Outside, the day is truly
spectacular. Snow casts the meadow and farmland beyond in
Plaster of Paris white. The bare brown arms of maple and oak,
mingled with the deep greens of pine and spruce, all reach for a
heaven where just enough cloud remains to remind me how blue a
sky can truly be. Mia slides against my hip and waits there
patiently until I start to scratch.

Half an hour later, both freshly scrubbed and dressed, we join
Deputy Monroe where he waits in Rebecca's kitchen over a cup of
coffee and the morning paper. He nods as we push through the
door.

"Morning, you two," Monroe sips the coffee, "sorry to root you
out so early..."

I glance at the clock -- it's nearly nine AM.

"...but I thought you'd be interested in what the APB on Grace
Wells turned up."

"Grace Wells?" I answer hopefully, gathering cups of coffee for
Mulder and myself before joining the guys at the counter.

"Nope. But I think I can put a new spin on the situation." His
expression clearly tells me we'll be fascinated.

"Do tell," Mulder pulls up a stool and sits down, leaning
forward with his forearms on the counter. I put the coffee in
front of him. He ignores it for the moment.

Monroe shifts in his seat. "It turns out the Atlanta PD would
like to have a chat with both Mr. and Mrs. Wells."

"Really?" my coffee joins Mulder's on the counter. I slide onto
a stool. "Why?"

"Turns out quite a few million dollars' worth of funds have
dropped off the books at their investment firm..."

"Executive Investments, Inc.," Mulder adds.

"...yes," Monroe agrees. "So far, they're just wanted for
questioning. No one is ready to charge them with anything. So
far as anyone knows, they're just up here on vacation and
there's been a simple bookkeeping snafu that needs to be fixed."

"Uh-huh," Mulder says like he doesn't believe it. He sips his
coffee, "So they're up here, obviously on edge about
something..."

"...several million dollars worth of something," I cradle the
warm mug between my hands.

"...something like sixty million dollars worth of something,"
Monroe specifies, savoring the number like a man who enjoys a
thickening plot.

"*Sixty* million," Mulder whistles through his teeth, "that's
motivation."

"For what?"

"To kill your husband."

Could it really be that simple? They were alone in the woods
yesterday. Someone carried the gun away. Someone carried the
skis away. Someone carried Grace Wells away, maybe?

"What's wrong?" now Mulder's looking at me. So's Monroe.

"I don't know, Mulder," the little place in my gut that's been
so active for the past couple of days doesn't like this one, "I
still have a hard time *seeing* how tiny little Grace Wells
could have gotten the drop on her tall, athletic husband...even
with a gun in her hand. It would have been one thing if she'd
shot him in the back. But she didn't. She shot him point blank
in the chest..."

"She could have pulled the gun on him suddenly," Monroe
suggests.

"Maybe he didn't believe she'd really pull the trigger," Mulder
offers another scenario.

"Maybe he pulled the gun on her and, in the ensuing struggle, it
went off and he shot himself in the chest." Monroe tries
another explanation.

A series of delicate chimes marks the end of Round One.

Rebecca enters the room, following the sound to the oven,
pressing a button to still the alarm. Fresh muffins come out,
reeking of blueberries and brown sugar. My mouth begins to
water; one sniff and my stomach rumbles. Rebecca puts three on
a plate and puts the plate on the counter between us. She tips
fresh coffee into our cups then disappears through the doors
again, carrying the rest of the muffins and the coffee pot. All
without a word.

"So who killed Mary Kelly?" I bring the other corpse into play.

"Grace Wells?" Mulder hesitates over two muffins and selects
the third. He quickly drops it on a napkin and presses his
scorched fingers against the tiles to cool them.

"Why?" I cautiously pull at the muffin Mulder's selected,
taking a shred between my fingertips, blowing on it, then
popping it into my mouth.

Mulder picks up the muffin and juggles it in his hand, "Maybe
Mary Kelly uncovered something while cleaning the Wellses'
apartment. Maybe she was blackmailing Grace Wells with it."

"I know Mary Kelly fairly well," Monroe chimes in, "and that's
not at all in character for her."

"An abusive husband, money, a way to escape," Mulder finds a few
ways to build the case. He bites into the muffin, closes his
eyes, and chews.

"It still remains a hurdle to figure out how someone as tiny as
Grace Wells could have embedded a knife in the breastbone of
Mary Kelly. That would have required an overhand swing with a
great deal of force." I use my index finger to capture a crumb
on Mulder's lower lip that I transfer it to my own mouth. My
cheeks grow warm when I notice my tongue washing and rewashing
the tip of that finger. I don't look to see whether Mulder or
the Deputy has noticed my little diversion; I hastily wipe my
hand and find a muffin of my own.

"It's possible that Davis was the one who killed Mary Kelly,
then Grace panicked and killed him," Mulder takes that last bite
of his muffin, "...or not."

It still doesn't track for me. "Don't you think he,
she...whoever, would have picked a more secluded place than
Rebecca's kitchen to commit the murder if it were planned?"

"Like a snowy wood alongside the lake?" Mulder comes back to
this world, licking his fingers for the last crumbs.

"Exactly."

Mulder nods his head. "I agree. I don't see a first-time
murderer *choosing* to do the deed in a very public kitchen next
to a room full of people. That sounds either like a very
seasoned professional with a flair for the dramatic or a spur-
of-the-moment killing."

"But she...he pulled it off."

"That was pure luck."

"Well, here's the other interesting thing I've found out,"
Monroe breaks in. "When the coroner tested the knife handle for
fingerprints, he found none."

That raises my eyebrow. "So if not premeditated, then the
murderer had presence of mind in the aftermath to wipe the
handle clean."

That factoid adds another layer to our reasoning. "And what
about Richard Kelly?" Prime Suspect Number One, last weekend at
least.

"I broke the news..."

"...or confronted him," Mulder adds.

"...Saturday night. He took it strangely."

"Ahah." How strangely, I wonder.

"He grew very quiet, almost withdrew, mentally, from the room.
I had to continually prompt him with his name or a touch on his
arm to bring him back to the line of questioning."

"A man meditating his sins." Mulder swirls his coffee in the
cup and shifts back on the stool, sitting upright.

"A man ambivalent about the loss of his punching bag." I pitch
one of my patented looks at Mulder, who chooses to ignore it,
choosing instead to be preoccupied with something outside the
window.

"Or a man who bottles up his emotions reacting to the murder of
his wife," Monroe brings us both back to the kitchen, after a
pause.

"Where was Kelly Saturday evening?" Mulder wants to know.

"In the residence attached to the garage, he says."

"Witnesses?" It's my turn to ask.

"Nope."

"Ahah." I say, again. "I wonder where he was Sunday morning?"

Mulder turns. "You think he has something to do with Davis
Wells's death?"

I'm crunching the numbers again, thinking of how the ski tracks
don't add up. "What if, Mulder...what if Richard Kelly skied
from town to meet the Wellses in that wood? An argument ensued,
Kelly shot Davis Wells, then he and Grace Wells skied off
together."

"But..."

"No, Mulder, do the math," I grab his arm, "Two ski tracks -
Davis and Grace - go downhill to the wooded area. Three ski
tracks leave it. What if Kelly skis in from town, that's one
set of tracks, meets the Wellses there and kills Davis, then
skis away with Grace Wells, leaving two more sets of tracks for
a total of three."

"Could be. It *does* add up. But what motive would Richard
Kelly have had to kill one of the Wellses? Again, did he even
know them?"

"For the money." Monroe suggests the obvious motive.

"How would he know about it? How could he reasonably expect get
his hands on it? I'll agree that Mary Kelly is the obvious
connection between them. But he's got to know that people don't
carry that amount of money around with them in a suitcase.
Usually sophisticated methods are used to hide it and equally
sophisticated means are needed to track it down. Treasury has
an entire division devoted just to that."

We stare among ourselves for a long minute.

"I think we should go directly to the source," Mulder says
finally.

"Good idea," Monroe pushes away from the counter and checks his
wristwatch. "I have to make a run up to Belvedere, to meet with
the Deputy up there, but I can drop you off at the garage on my
way over. Maybe your car will be ready."

The Deputy drives through adequately plowed back roads to the
bottom of the lake. He skids a bit turning onto Ford's Road and
I steady myself with the door handle. Mulder's feet press
against the bottom of my seat as the car steadies and plows
forward again, through a narrow cleft in the hillside.

Ahead, oily black smoke billows into the air.

The Deputy thumbs the transmit switch and calls for his
dispatcher. When static hisses back at him and he speaks to us
instead. "We've got a lot of empty vacation homes around here.
Things spring a leak, water gets in the electrical, then...poof!
Fortunately, they're spaced far enough apart the fire usually
doesn't spread. Especially this time of year."

The road dips and the car runs across a narrow bridge with a
thunk, thunk, thunk, then climbs the hill on the other side.

"I've got to swing by there first," the Deputy steers around a
broken tree limb in the road, "so you can either come with me or
I can drop you off at a point close to the garage and you can
walk on over there."

"Sure, we'll walk," I agree. Mulder concurs from the back seat.
It's not far. The roads aren't too slippery. The thought of
steadying myself with an arm around Mulder's waist raises the
temperature inside my coat considerably. I scrub at the blush
on my cheeks but it only gets hotter.

"Sheila are you there, come back?"

"John!" comes through the static. "We've got a fire over at the
garage. I was just outside, having a look."

"No way," I swivel and look at Mulder.

"Way," Mulder rolls his eyes.

"Isn't that a bit too convenient?"

"Way too convenient."

"What's the situation?" he asks. We're on dry pavement now,
picking up speed, approaching what looks to be a downtown area.

"The pumper's over there now, putting water on it. Looks like
they'll have it under control in a few minutes."

"Who called it in?"

"I did. I stepped outside to have a cigarette and saw smoke
coming out of the windows. It went up really fast, John."

I swap looks with Mulder.

The Deputy signs off with his dispatcher and flips a switch. A
siren wells up from beneath the hood and we pick up more speed.
"Of course you know we can't jump to conclusions about arson
when a garage catches fire. He's got all sorts of solvents,
oils, other petroleum products in there. Let's wait to see what
Kelly says about it."

Downtown New Blandford is a single street lined with brick-
fronted stores on either side. A white steeple splits the blue
sky halfway up the block; a black column of smoke rises
symmetrically on the other side, just down a bit. Traffic clogs
the narrow road -- it's amazing how quickly sightseers converge
on smoke in the air.

The Deputy pulls the wheel hard and we take a sharp turn, tires
squealing. The car slithers into a narrow lane that runs behind
the businesses on the left side of the street. We whip past
trash cans and back doors, fishtailing and gaining traction
again. With a thump and a clatter, the rear fender sends a
metal can spinning down the lane behind us. The Deputy slows,
negotiating his way around snow pushed back by a plow, then
skids to a stop a few yards away from the pumper truck.

White clouds of steam streaked with black smoke billow into the
sky above the garage. A single hose plays back and forth across
the red clapboards, mostly caved in, and water pours through the
space where a roof used to be. Water that has escaped from the
buckled walls puddles, freezing, in the narrow yard around the
garage where burnt debris litters a handful of snowbound cars in
various states of disrepair. Gables of a small house rise
over the steaming wreck.

I work my way through the emergency workers and sightseers to
the house side of the building, flashing my badge when a sooty
firefighter moves to block our way. I hold Mulder's arm
and he steadies my shoulder as we wade through the slush, moving
into the debris field near the side wall of the building. Here
the damage is less severe -- a window has shattered and the wall
sags gently away from a scrap of slate roof clinging to an
exposed beam. We step cautiously over broken slates and bits of
charred wood to the gaping window hole where thin tendrils of
smoke curl through the empty frame. The smoke, the heat, and
the choking fumes of burnt rubber force us back a pace or two.

After a few minutes when the smoke and steam have cleared a
bit, Mulder shuffles forward carefully, looking through the
blown out window to see what he can see.

"I do *not* believe this," he groans, shaking his head.


***CHAPTER SIX***


Mulder shuffles forward carefully, looking through the blown out
window to see what he can see. "I do *not* believe this." His
summation is succinct, somewhat muffled by the hand against his
face.

"What?" I mince my way across debris and water turning to slick
ice and join him there, anchoring myself with one hand on his
arm. He points. "No way." The smoldering remains of our
rental car sit crushed beneath a heavy charred beam. Sooty
water drips on the hood with a loud plunkplunkplunk against the
twisted metal.

There's another cosmic hint if I've ever seen one.

I turn half away from the charred hulk, cupping each elbow with
a hand, nearly walking into a firefighter who deftly makes a
course correction, swinging his long ladder safely around me.
Fluorescent orange letters, NBVFD - New Blandford Volunteer Fire
Department, I translate - are stenciled across the back of his
black coat. Another firefighter uses a tool resembling a
fireplace poker on steroids to whack at a pile of fallen debris;
a dull whump follows a loud pop and then flames and a cloud of
dark smoke boil into the sky from a new hole. I skip backwards,
clawing the air with both hands for balance as water poured on
the flare up misses me by inches.

Finding my footing, I turn again to see Mulder pacing the edge
of the scene, hands in pockets, idly flipping bits of debris
with one toe. He flicks a glance at the burned out building and
our burned out car -- it's still there, crushed under the same
beam. His eyes, bouncing back to me, hold odd consternation
mixed with tender promise. "I guess we should call Lariat about
a new car," he shrugs, watching me from the corner of his eye.

"I guess we should," I agree. Neither of us makes a move.

With the fire out, the crowd trickles away in twos and threes,
leaving only the firefighters, the Deputy, and the most devoted
of onlookers. Knowing arsonists often remain to enjoy their
handiwork, I scan what's left of the crowd -- among them stands
a young man in overalls, wiping his hands repeatedly on an oily
rag. Mulder sees him, too, and nudges me.

"Do you work here?" Mulder calls to the young man across the
debris.

"Yeah. Well, I used to." He picks his way over to us, his
voice pitched somewhere between boyhood and manhood. I raise an
eyebrow at Mulder and he shakes his head. He doesn't recognize
the voice.

"Were you here when the fire broke out?"

He shakes his head. "Richard gave me the day off. I was
working on my own car at home all day. When I saw the smoke, I
came running."

"Can anyone confirm you spent the entire day at home?" I narrow
my eyes and watch his reaction.

The whites show all the way around his brown irises. His hands
freeze against one another, the rag locked in between. "My
Mom?" he squeaks, his voice having suddenly slipped backward
through puberty.

"Where's Kelly?" Mulder wants to know.

He shakes his head more vigorously this time. "Haven't seen him
since Saturday. I've looked all over. His truck's out back
though. I checked."

"Are any other cars missing?"

"I'm not sure," the boy stuffs the rag into his back pocket and
looks around. "I'll have to take a look."

"Do that, won't you?" Mulder asks him. "By the way, what's your
name?"

"Tim. Tim Harrow. I live down the street," he points in the
intermediate distance behind the garage where rooftops and
chimneys show over the trees.

"Look around Tim, see if any other cars are missing, then get
back to me or the Deputy, okay?"

"Okay," he nods, chafing his arms through the thin cotton
sleeves of his coveralls.

We watch Tim skid his way through the debris, dodging bits of
burnt timbers and shingles and twisted metal that the
firefighters have tossed from the building in their search for
hot spots. Lazy streams of white steam climb into the sky like
cumulus clouds. I turn to Mulder. "Arson?"

He shrugs, pushing his hands deep into his pockets. "Maybe.
Like Monroe said, it would be hard to prove if he used the
chemicals normally found around an automotive garage."

I squint into the sun, shading my eyes a bit. "So you think
Richard Kelly, once he learned how to access the missing funds,
killed Grace Wells and torched his garage to hide the crime?"

"To give himself a head start, maybe," Mulder chews his lip.
"What do you think happened here?"

Now it's my turn to think for a moment. "It just seems so
obvious, like lighting a neon sign, saying 'here marks the
spot,' you know?"

Mulder nods. Behind him, a firefighter carefully coils the hose
back onto the pumper truck, curling loop after loop around a
frame on the side.

"It would be so easy to take the body and dump it somewhere in
the woods where it wouldn't be found until spring, if then." I
lower my eyeshade and turn, looking into the demolished garage
again. "What if there's no body at all? What if he torched the
garage to distract our attention while he made off with..."

"...with what?"

"Good question," I agree. "We're assuming this has something to
do with the money missing from Executive Investment's books.
We're assuming that Mary Kelly was killed for her knowledge of
it. We're assuming that she confided that information to her
husband, who then ambushed the Wellses, killed Mr. Wells, then
brought Mrs. Wells back here..."

"...to pry all the details out of her, including the secret
numbered account secret numbers," Mulder's grinning now, whether
from excitement or amusement, I don't know. "Then again, you
know what 'assume' can make out of us."

"Yeah, an ass- of -u- and -me," I play the card Mulder's dealt
me; he always likes that one. While we're grinning at each
other, Tim Harrow returns, shifting from one foot to the other
before he even stops walking.

"Yes, Tim?" I ask.

"There are two empty spaces at the back of the lot. Mrs.
Cooper's Toyota was parked back there last night and it's not
there now. But I think Richard might have been working on it
today. So it could be...in there," he hesitates before the last
words, turning away from the wreckage as he says them.

"And the other one?"

"Oh yeah," now Tim worries the zipper tab on the jacket he
wasn't wearing the last time we saw him. He pulls it up and
down then back up again. "Uh...Mary's car is missing."

"Mary Kelly?"

He nods, watching the toes of his work boots, continuing to work
the zipper.

I glance at Mulder. "Her car could be at Rebecca's. She didn't
drive it back here as far as I know." I think of the black bag
going out the back door, held head and foot by the Deputy and
Rob MacGowan. I turn back to Tim. "What kind of car is it?"

"A Subaru Impreza. Black."

I don't remember seeing it at Meadowlea, unless it was in the
garage -- we only checked the barn for vehicles because that's
where Rebecca said they would be. I touch Tim on the sleeve and
he flinches a little. "Would you please find the Deputy and
tell him what you told us? He should know."

Tim nods and backs away in a hurry. He nearly falls over a pile
of old tires, spins off, and skids across the parking lot to
where Deputy Monroe stands talking with a firefighter.

"Hmmm," is all Mulder has to say.

A low moan rises from the building. Startled, I whirl, heart
pounding. The moan rises to a shriek. I scan the blackened
structure for some kind of life, lunging toward the gaping
window, looking for a way through the jagged glass, when a hand
clamps on my shoulder and pulls me back, hard.

My heels skid out from under me. A thunderous concussion fills
my ears. I gag as soot and thick fumes run up my nose and down
my throat. I blink against the thick cloud of ash and steam and
half frozen water that splatters against my face. Something
hard glances off my shins; something heavy strikes both my
knees. Then I hit the ground with a dull whump and see nothing
but stars.

I'm numb. It should hurt but I'm numb. My lungs are empty and
I can't breathe. I hear something through the ringing in my
ears but it takes me a while to find words in it then longer
still to recognize the sound of Mulder's voice saying them. Grit
fills my eyes; grit grinds between my teeth. I gasp, pulling
hard at air thickened by dust and smoke; I sputter and paw at my
face, trying to sit up. I can't.

I can't move my legs.

Fright burns through the parts of my body I can feel. "My
legs," I manage to cough two words. My heart accelerates in my
chest. My lungs burn painfully.

"It's okay, Scully," I feel Mulder's hands on my face and
shoulders, "just lie still for a moment."

"My legs..." I lay back on the pavement and try to hear through
the pounding in my ears and the rasp of air finally moving
through my throat. I hear shouting voices at a distance,
creaking, the sound of an engine, revving. Suddenly, the
pressure on my legs is gone and I can move them.

Big mistake.

Pain burns in my right ankle and lances up the back of my right
thigh. I bite down hard on a moan but it comes out anyway.

"Scully, where are you hurt?" Mulder is back. His hands cradle
my face.

"I'm fine, Mulder" I feel a soft cloth rubbing at my eyes,
rubbing away the dirt and soot. I open them to catch Mulder's
reaction to my words. I turn a whimper into a sigh; I refuse to
make that sound, even with Mulder. I turn my ankle cautiously
and flex my leg. "Okay...what I *mean* is that I don't think
anything's broken or permanently damaged. I hurt like hell,
though."

"Should I get the paramedics?" His lips are smiling and maybe
his cheeks but definitely not his eyes; they're dark green with
worry. "Can you get up?"

"I can get up," I offer him both of my hands; he scoops me up
with both of his hands beneath my arms and deposits me on my
feet...correction, make that *foot;* my right leg reflexively
retracts from the pavement. I know without trying that I don't
want to put weight on it.

Mulder pulls a twisted plastic slat from the debris and hands it
to me, clean end up, to use as a cane. I balance myself against
it and against Mulder, then survey the wreckage. The entire
garage has collapsed into a heap. The front wall I'd been
rushing toward has caved outward, shattering on the pavement
where I would have been standing had Mulder not pulled me back
at the last minute. As it was, I caught the flying bits of
clapboard and wood that broke loose and flew ahead of the main
wall. Those bits lay around us in the freezing slush.

The burned garage has pulled neatly away from the attached
residence, suggesting it wasn't all that well attached in the
first place. 'Abutted' would be a better description. I lean
into Mulder, enjoying his strength and the security of his arm
looped around my waist. "Has anyone checked the house?"

"You think Kelly's in there, doing the New York Times crossword
puzzle?"

"I think Monroe's got his hands full out here. We can go in
there and get started."

"I don't know, Scully," he looks at my raised foot critically.
"Maybe we should have you checked out at the hospital first."

"You survived your twisted shoulder and I'll survive my twisted
ankle."

"Maybe it's a broken ankle."

"No. It doesn't feel broken to me. It feels like a soft tissue
injury. I'll be fine."

He uses his lie detector eyes on me -- narrowed and unwavering.

"Mulder, the closest hospital is two towns away. I'll be fine,"
I repeat my prognosis. I will be. I'm just going to hurt like
hell between now and then. I'll find some water inside and take
a Motrin from the bottle in my pocket. That should help. I
tap the pavement with the burnt end of the slat. "Come on,
Mulder, let's go."

He supports me on one side while I hobble forward with the stick
in my right hand. I absently tap my slat against the hard
cement of the bottom step and look back over the smoking debris.
Does this add up? Does it add up too easily? I don't have the
answer. I gingerly put weight on my right leg and am rewarded
with an explosion of knives and pins and needles. I recoil into
Mulder's side compartmentalizing my pain into the single, terse
word -- "Sorry."

"Don't be sorry, Scully," softly, his words cushion me against
the pain, "I'm here for you. Lean on me."

Mulder's arm tightens around my waist and when I try a little
weight on my foot again the pain is much easier to take. I lay
the slat against the side of the house where I can find it again
when I come out. Something catches my eye, down near the burnt
part, and I pick it up again to look. I work my thumb across
the printing - etching, actually; I can feel it against my skin
- and four letters rise out of the soot.

E - L - L - S

Wells. I size the - fiberglass, not plastic - ski in my hands
and look at Mulder. "One of Davis Wells's missing skis."

He nods. "I guess that ties Richard Kelly to the murder."

"Unless someone planted the ski here."

"True," he says. "I guess we'll know better when we find Kelly
and question him."

"If he isn't long gone by now, sipping an umbrella drink on a
tropical isle."

"True again." He tries the knob and it turns easily in his
hand. He pushes the door inward. "Ready?"

I nod and he helps me over the threshold into a tiny foyer. A
narrow hall in front of us leads to the back of the house while
a steep staircase rises on our left. Rooms open to either side,
one a living room, the other a tiny den. In general, the house
is well kept. The living room furnishings are old without being
antiques. The room is pin neat and dust free. The den, on the
other hand, is cluttered and looks like it's been a while since
it's had a good cleaning. Framed pictures cover one wall from
wainscoting to ceiling. Newspapers totter in a pile on an end
table, file folders lay scattered across the desk. This room
has investigative potential, I think, finding a pair of gloves
in my pocket and pulling them on. Down to business, I discover
I can hobble across to the desk where I start lifting papers.
For a minute or two, the sound of rustling paper fills the room.

"Shit," Mulder swears suddenly. He's been using that word
frequently these past two days. But this time, it's the excited
sort of shit, not the ominous kind.

"What?" My hands are filled with invoices and receipts. Oil.
Transmissions. Coolant Recycling. A dozen new truck tires,
Firestones. Riveting stuff.

"Come have a look at this." He's standing in front of the
picture wall, looking at a framed newspaper clipping.

I hobble over and read the caption aloud, "Kelly Twins Cap
Debate Triumph." It's a clipping from the Harvard University
Gazette, dated 1982. "Richard Kelly's a Harvard man? Go
figure."

"Go on. There's more." He taps his finger against the glass.

I read the caption. "Richard and Grace Kelly...Grace Kelly?" I
shake visions of Monaco from my mind and continue, "lead the
Harvard Debating Team to triumph over rival Yale in the..." my
narration trails off as my eyes wander over the grainy
photograph above.

Richard and Grace Kelly.

Richard Kelly and Grace Kelly Wells.

"Well, I'll be..."

"Yeah."

I'm distracted for a moment by the piece of burnt plywood that
flies past the window and lands in the backyard with a clatter.
"This makes it rather unlikely that we're going to find Grace
Kelly's body under the rubble, doesn't it? This makes it more
likely that it's Grace and her brother that have killed Davis
Wells to get him out of the picture then run off with the money,
together."

"It makes it unlikely that one stabbed the other in the back,
doesn't it?"

"Don't see it too often." I return to the desk, opening and
closing drawers, not expecting to find the smoking gun or a
forgotten deposit book for the First National Bank of Outer
Mongolia, but I do the search.

"Hey, look at this," This time he's at the bookcase, a plaque in
his gloved hands.

I've got one hip propped against the desk, sparing my twisted
leg. This time, Mulder brings the plaque over to me so I can
read it. "What's a Harvard MBA doing, running a garage in rural
New Hampshire?" I have to ask.

"Another good question," Mulder's distracted by the rattle of
the front door and a clomping of boots.

Monroe closes the front door behind him. "I thought I saw you
come in here. Find anything?"

Mulder points to the clipping.

Monroe squints at the text, then at the photograph, then shakes
his head, "Damned Flatlanders." The term's obviously a curse.
He turns to us. "I knew he had a sister, I'd just never met
her."

"What do you know about Richard Kelly? How does a Harvard MBA
end up a mechanic in a small town?"

"Well, first of all, I'd like to say there's nothing wrong with
being a mechanic in a small town." Monroe sits back against the
edge of the desk and crosses his arms at Mulder.

Mulder scrambles to clarify his statement. "I just don't think
managing a small town garage is one of the classic case studies
in B School. How did he get here from there?"

Monroe relaxes against the desk. "I know that Richard is
troubled, apparently has a long history of mental problems. He
seems okay to me, though. Functional. Maybe a bit moody at
times. Dark."

"What about his wife?"

"Mary's a local girl...was a local girl," the Deputy corrects
his verb to account for her death. "Richard's from Dorchester,
near Boston. I don't know how they met. When they married he
moved up here and started helping out at the garage. I guess
that was the late eighties, '89 or thereabouts. Mary's father
ran it until he died several years ago, then Richard took over."

"I gather their marriage was contentious," I ask even though I
know the answer to this one.

"There was a certain amount of discord. Maybe Richard took out
his frustrations, his lost dreams, on his wife, blaming them on
her instead of his own problems. Mary never complained. He
never hurt her so badly that she had go to the doctor."

I bristle immediately, heat rising in my face. Mulder grabs one
of my clenched fists, holding me back.

"I'm not saying I condone the way Richard treated his wife,"
Monroe rushes to add, "I'm just saying they kept it private.
For all we know, she was whacking him with a frying pan on a
regular basis."

Mulder squeezes my fist and I uncurl my fingers into his palm.
He laces them through his own and we're holding hands. "I
sincerely hope so...about the frying pan." I'd like to find
Kelly and give him a whack or two myself.

Monroe looks at his watch. "No wonder I'm hungry."

I check the wall clock. It's 1:15 PM. My stomach rumbles
automatically; my irritation turns into a need to eat.

"Nothing like a good bonfire to whet an appetite," Mulder nearly
smacks his lips, waggling his eyebrows at me. "Makes me want to
roast a weenie."

"You're a weenie, Mulder."

He clutches his heart. "Moi? I'm so *pierced,* Scully."

"With a fork," I roll my eyes; I can't help but grin. Goofy
Mulder gets me every time, just like Puppy Dog Mulder does.

"Why don't we go over to the station, I'll get Sheila to order
in some sandwiches, we'll get out a Bulletin on Richard to add
to his sister's, and we can talk." Monroe wrestles the
conversation back in line. "You should get off that leg, Agent
Scully. We can have the paramedics take a look at it."

"I'm a doctor."

"Still, we have paramedics here in town with bandages, splints
if necessary." His look challenges me to produce the mentioned
items from the depths of my pockets. I can't, of course.

Mulder pulls at my hand and I concede. "Sure." I'm suddenly so
hungry I'd let a baboon probe my ankle for a ham and cheese on
rye.

An hour later I'm sitting with one booted foot up on a chair and
an Ace bandage in my lap. The paramedic deemed my boot an
adequate brace for the time being, as I did, but provided a wrap
for tonight when I take my boots off. Crumbs of a ham and
swiss on whole wheat litter a paper plate on the table next to
me. Monroe works the phones in his office while Mulder uses the
phone at any empty desk to call Executive Investments in
Atlanta.

I munch on a potato chip and listen to Mulder's side of the
conversation.

"This is Special Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I'd like to
speak to the director of your company, please." Davis Wells.

"He is?" Mulder says blandly. "I see. Then who is in charge?"

"Treasury? May I speak to the lead investigator, please?"
After a pause, Mulder introduces himself all over again,
complete with badge number, then listens some more.

The pumper truck rumbles slowly up the street, returning to its
home at the fire station. A telephone rings and Sheila the
Dispatcher dispatches the call neatly. Mulder uh-uhs some more,
listening to the Treasury man on the other end of the line. I
fiddle with a bit of spare lettuce on my plate, cautiously
working the back of my thigh, hoping it won't stiffen painfully
but knowing it's just a matter of time until it does. I don't
even want to think about my ankle right now.

"I can solve the missing persons part of your investigation. At
least part of it." I'm drawn back to Mulder's end of the
conversations as he explains the situation -- Davis Wells dead,
Grace Wells missing -- then he listens again with an occasional
uh-huh and "Really?"

"What?!" I'm fit to burst with curiosity. Obviously something
very interesting is going on at Executive Investments, Inc.

"The plot has thickened considerably, Scully," Mulder finally
cradles the phone, kicks back in his chair, and crosses his arms
over his chest. "This morning, FinCEN investigators seized the
offices of Executive Investments, Inc., because the missing
funds have finally turned up."

"Where!?" I need to know.

"In the Cayman Islands."

"Woo-hoo. The Caymans. Off-shore Laundromat for dirty money."

"Apparently so. There's only one problem."

"And that would be?"

"It's been wired to The Royal Bank of Hong Kong."

"When?"

"The order was put through early this morning."

The footprint of Grace Wells and her brother. "What does the
bank in Hong Kong have to say about this?"

Mulder looks at this wristwatch and does some math. "Part of
the problem is that it's the middle of the night in Hong Kong.
Authorities here are trying to raise authorities there, but it's
taking time."

"We should flood the airports with photos of Grace Wells and her
brother, especially those in the Far East."

"Grace Wells's picture is everywhere, along with that of her
husband, which is no longer needed. I'll go back over to the
house and get the most recent shot I can of Kelly and fax it to
the Treasury Department so they can get his face out there with
hers."

"Good idea," I say and background noise swells for a moment -- a
ringing telephone, the whir of a fax machine, a conversation
between the Deputy and his dispatcher. "Did the FinCEN people
give you any idea of what they think really happened down
there?"

"It's a conundrum. Executive Investments and, by extension, the
Wellses, are highly respected in Atlanta financial circles.
There it's well known that neither Grace nor Davis came from a
moneyed background and, generally, they were respected in the
community for the way they'd gotten an education and pulled
themselves up into positions of responsibility. In fact, their
firm attracted a large number of smaller clients, dollar-wise,
people who couldn't afford to lose their investments because,
often, that money was all they had. Both Grace and Davis
are...were...active in the community. They sit...sat on the
boards of a number of local charities. They were active
participants in several community-based organizations.

"Ironically, it was their standing in the community that gave
them such a head start on this investigation. No one was
willing to believe that they'd stolen the money." Mulder
continues to describe their estate, their horses, and the
comfortable and respected lifestyle they led in Atlanta.

"They had money and respect," I shake my head. "What turned
them? Boredom? The thrill? A new challenge."

"Greed. The other G-spot."

So true. "It's hard to imagine wanting so much more when a
person has so much more than most other people in the first
place." I try to imagine what I'd do with a six...or
seven...figure income. A townhouse in Georgetown, one of those
nice places with the towering oaks out back. A spiffy new
Mercedes...SUV. That trip to the Greek Islands I've wanted to
take since High School. I sigh, thinking more realistically
now. "I wouldn't mind moving up to a GS-14."

"See?" he nudges me with his good shoulder, "there's always a
little bit more to want."

There is. Our eyes catch and hold on the thought.

"A-hem." The Deputy clears his throat; he's standing right next
to Mulder and me but ten seconds ago he wasn't even on the same
planet. "Do you kids want to hear what I just heard?"

I shake my head to clear the visions of me and Mulder, standing
arm and arm behind a white picket fence with stuffed animals in
hand, and say "Sure."

We're interrupted by an opening door.

"Del," Monroe greets the newcomer.

Del wears sooty fire-fighting regalia and a helmet that reads
"chief" across the front. "Bad news, John. We've got a dead
one."


***CHAPTER SEVEN***


"Oh, Christ," is all Mulder can say.

"Any ideas about who it might be?" I'm doing my best to be
logical while Mulder's rolling his head in his hands.

Chief Del shakes his head. "We've just pulled back enough
material to see a crushed head and two feet. The feet seem to
be different sizes so we may have more than one body on our
hands but it's difficult to say. What's left of the shoes is
similar but...uh...they're both rather 'well done.' I've put a call
out for the Coroner. He's posting your last victim, won't be
over for an hour or so."

I shift my foot to the floor then hiss loudly as blood pounds
through the sprained tissue -- I hiss, not whine.

"Don't even think about it," Mulder warns me and I know he's
right. The Coroner's a competent man, he will do what I can do;
this is his jurisdiction and his case, not ours. Still, my
hands itch to dive into some latex and have a go at it. I re-
elevate my ankle instead.

Ninety minutes later, Mulder helps me hobble back to the garage
after the Coroner's van rolls by the Sheriff's Station. I knew
I would; I can't help myself. *Dead Bodies backwards-R Us*
is my way of life. Mulder props me up at one side of the crime
scene and I watch over the Coroner's shoulder as he records
details of the crime.

There are, in fact, two bodies. We can clearly see them once
the debris is lifted away under the watchful eye of the Coroner.
What remains of one body is longer and bigger framed, the other
is shorter and smaller in mass. Both are curled in a fetal
position, fists raised in the pugilistic manner that comes from
exposure of muscle tissue to extreme heat. No clues can be
gathered from hair or clothing that remains, so the best we can
do for the moment is make the conclusion that it's a man and a
woman - or a tall person and a person of slight stature - on the
floor of the demolished garage. Dental records and DNA tests
come later. I let Mulder lead me back to the Deputy's car when
he honks out front, so we can return to the bed and breakfast.

It's dinnertime when we shuck our jackets in the foyer of
Rebecca's place, hanging them on the beautiful old mahogany hall
tree. We each trade our boots for a pair of soft moccasins then
follow the sound of voices to the dining room.

Maggie and Sarah sit alone at the table.

"You aren't down to just four guests, are you?" I ask Rebecca,
who's arranging shiny brass trivets in a line down the center of
the dining table.

"Any more bodies we should know about?" Mulder whispers in my
ear. I shush him with a finger against his lips; he squeezes me
around the waist with the one arm that supports me. I can walk
on my foot, thanks to modern pharmaceuticals, but it feels
infinitely better to lean on Mulder. At many levels.

"Oh no." Rebecca's oblivious to my foot problem and Mulder's
flippant remark. "The MacGowans ran down to Laconia, to have
dinner out with some friends..."

"And Harold?" My favorite thorn.

"He left a note that he's gone to Concord, to visit a friend of
his on The Monitor...the paper down there," Rebecca explains.
"He said he'll be back late, not to expect him for dinner."

I don't know whether to be disappointed or elated at his
absence, although I have to admit the second murder took the
edge off his bluster; with his blustery wind out of my sails I
find he irritates me much less and seems less guilty for simply
breathing.

"He has something to show you, something he's excited about,"
Rebecca finishes laying napkins at four places - Sarah, Maggie,
Mulder, and me.

"Did he say what?" I start over to one of the empty places.

"No, but..." Rebecca begins, but is cut off in mid-sentence when
Sarah notices my limp.

"My dear Dana, what happened to you?" Sarah exclaims, rising
from her chair.

Mulder helps me into a seat as Sarah hovers. "I slipped on the
ice," I deliver a sanitized version of the facts. We don't need
two corpses at the dinner table with us.

By the time dinner's over my head weighs a ton and my eyelids
hang at half mast over my eyes, nearly blocking my view of
Mulder's wristwatch where it moves over the table beside me.
The little hand is barely touching the seven but I'll fall off
this chair with a thunderous thump if I try to sit here much
longer. I shift in my seat and nearly cry out as I flex the
back of my twisted leg. It's crept into a knot that feels like
I'll have to cut it out like a bad mat in a dog's coat.

Everyone starts fussing over the expression on my face.

Before I know it, I'm drifting upward. My ankle's numb in my
boot but I have no such luck with the back of my thigh. I turn
my face into Mulder's shoulder and muffle a hiss of pain in his
thick sweater. Crap. I hate it when I'm a girly girl. "I need
another Motrin," I enunciate carefully, doing my best not to
whimper in the process.

Mulder's lips brush my temple. "Let's get you upstairs and take
care of that," he says to me while anxious hands touch my
sleeve, pat my arm, or gently rub my back. I hear Rebecca and
Mulder talking but for the life of me I can't make sense of the
nouns and verbs that come jumbling out of their mouths. Then
we're bobbing up the stairs and down the hall to our room.

Coming through the door, Mulder trips and we stumble forward a
few paces before he retrieves his sense of balance and gathers
his feet beneath us again. I'm wide awake now, having narrowly
missed being dumped on the floor in a painful heap.

"The rug's turned up," Mulder explains and I feel him kick it
back into place before I hear the quiet snick of the door
closing behind us. Logs crackle on the hearth in our fire-lit
paradise as he carries me to the bed.

"Balance," he instructs me, so I put my good foot down on the
floor and hold onto him with one hand. He pulls back the covers
and throws the pillows into a heap against the headboard.

"Turn," he guides me in a circle so my back's to the bed, "sit,"
he supports me around the waist so I don't have to take my
weight on my bad leg, "and lay back," he lifts my right leg onto
the mattress. It hurts only a little bit when he does it that
way.

I ease back into the pillows and let the pent up air run between
my lips in a long sigh. Mulder presses two tablets into my palm
and helps me raise them to my lips, followed by a long swallow
of water to wash them down. I flicker between consciousness and
sleep.

"Scully," his hand brushes my cheek, "stick with me for a
moment."

"Ummmm," is all that forms on my tongue although I'm trying to
say more. I feel my right ankle levitate and sink into a cloud;
as Mulder's fingers fumble at the laces and loosen the leather,
it begins to ache. I wince when he cautiously pulls the boot
off my foot, then relax again as he lays my foot gently on the
pillow that takes its weight. He peels my sock down and I peel
my eyes open for a moment to examine the prize.

An odd shape for an ankle is this thing that lays on the pillow,
creased deeply here and there by the lines of my boot. Both
knees are swollen thick but, surprisingly, they don't hurt
much. I watch Mulder unwind the bandage he retrieved from my
jacket pocket. "Do you know how to wrap an ankle?" I have to
ask.

"Moi?" he feigns injury. "After all my years playing
basketball, you have to ask me that question? I am an ankle-
wrapping wizard."

"So what you're telling me is that you're a klutz?" I prop both
myself and my eyelids up so I can see my ankle better.

He smiles and lays the first turn of bandage around the arch of
my foot. "Watch and learn, Scully."

He does a fine job of it. I'm impressed but I smother it behind
a yawn.

"Don't give up yet. We've got to get you in your jammies and
work out that knot in the back of your leg so you're not worse
off tomorrow."

"Uggh. I can sleep in my clothes." I'm nearly sleeping in them
already.

"Nope. Jammies it is."

I see the royal blue silk fluttering in my peripheral vision
and I resign myself. I unzip my slacks and let Mulder pull them
down; in another place and time, the look in his eyes would turn
me to liquid fire, but the sight of my fat purple knees
reminds me that I'm better off tonight if I succumb to Mulder's
tender loving care instead of his tender loving. I pull my
sweater over my head and my bra follows it. I keep my eyes
averted from Mulder's because I know what will burn there and
I'm in no condition to answer it. When I'm safely buttoned, I
look up to see Mulder standing beside the bed with a bottle in
his hand. "What's that?"

"Roll over, Scully," he motions with one hand, "it's some
liniment that Rebecca swears will do wonders for your pulled
muscle."

"Mulder, no. Liniment smells ghastly."

"Not this stuff. Come on, Scully. Roll over."

I obediently roll and nestle my face in the pillow. I wonder
where Mia is.

"This has oil of wintergreen in it, I think. It smells
wintergreeny."

I does. The odor is strong through the pillow but not
unpleasant.

Mulder's hands touch the back of my thigh gently, then harder,
in a kneading motion. It hurts but it hurts good. I
relax into the mattress and go with it. "So Mulder," I turn my
head sideways so my words aren't muffled by the thick down
pillow, "shall we jump to the obvious conclusion, that the
bodies in Kelly's Garage are, in fact, the *Kelly Twins*?"

He pauses for a moment, then starts moving with a circular
motion up and down the back of my thigh. "It's an easy
conclusion, considering they are likely to have been there at
some point. It's an unsatisfying conclusion, because that means
the murderer is still at large."

"Or there's a second murderer."

"Right, or they weren't murdered at all, but victims of rather
ironic bad luck while trying to torch the garage or do something
else with flammable materials." The mattress dips as it takes his weight.

"The wire transfer this morning doesn't rule out the latter
possibilities, does it?" I nearly moan from the pleasure
Mulder's fingers work on my leg.

"No," he says. I feel him shift back on the bed for a moment
before he speaks again. "Here's a thought -- what about the
MacGowans?"

"What about them?"

"Well, they're apparently from Boston as are Richard Kelly and
his sister. There could be a connection there. The MacGowans
are obviously on edge about something, acting suspiciously."

"True. They didn't want to get their fingerprints taken..."

"...but they finally did that."

"That's correct," I agree, "but then they've disappeared."

"They haven't exactly disappeared, Scully. They're out for the
evening."

"That could be a cover. Something to give them more time to get
away."

"Or maybe it's the MacGowans in the garage. He's about the same
height as Richard Kelly and she's only a little taller than
Grace Wells. They could have been involved in this somehow and
then killed off in the process."

"That's a formal possibility." Without pain my leg to keep me
awake, I'm getting drowsy again. "What about Harold? He's
out for the evening, too." We have one suspect left.

"Right. He didn't have an alibi for Mary Kelly, did he?"

"Uh-uh."

"But he seemed to have had an alibi for Davis Wells."

"Right. He wouldn't have been able to ski down there, I'm
reasonably certain." I struggle to hold the thin tether that
links me to wakefulness.

"And he doesn't have an obvious connection to the Wellses.
They're from Atlanta or Boston; he's from Jacksonville."

"That doesn't rule him out," the words are thick on my tongue.

"True," Mulder pulls the comforter up around my shoulders.

"And who was the rat poison - if that's what it is - intended
for?" My eyes flick open one last time and I find myself
staring into Mia's blue ones, half open where she lays in a warm
spot near the fire. Her lids close slowly; the weight of sleep
in her eyes added to the fatigue in mine tips me over the edge
and I slide into unconsciousness right behind her.

Tuesday, April 4, 2000


"Dana? Fox?"

I roll onto my back and listen to the familiar rattle at the
door that follows the staccato of Rebecca's voice calling our
names.

Mulder stirs next to me, pushing himself up on an elbow, swaying
while he paws his eyes. "Yeah?" His voice is thick with the
dust of sleep.

"I'm sorry, Fox, but the Deputy's here to see you again." The
words patter against the outside of the door like raindrops.

"Shall we just make this a standing date, pencil the Deputy in
for...uh," Mulder squints over my head at the bedside clock,
"eight o'clock in the morning?"

Rebecca's quiet for a moment. I can imagine her trying to wrap
her mind around Mulder's peculiar brand of wit. "He just wants
to speak with you for a minute. Can you come down?"

"Of course," I answer, shoving at Mulder with one hand.

"Aaaaaah," Mulder collapses onto the bed as light thumping fades
in the distance.

I yawn and stretch the back of my right leg cautiously. It
seems to have responded well to Mulder's therapy last night --
it's tight and sore but not knotted anymore. It's also nestled
between his legs, my injured thigh embraced securely by the
strength of his. My ankle is numb in its tight wrap. I hope
that's a good thing.

"When I get home, I'm going to have to buy an alarm clock that
knocks so I know when to get up," Mulder mutters at me from his
pillow. Our legs are warm and comfortable where they are twined
together. His fingertips trace a delicate line across my cheek,
skimming so close to my lips I can feel their heat as they pass.

I reach for him, sliding into arms that he's opened to me,
pushing him onto his back. My need is so strong, I can't
imagine needing him any less, ever. How do I survive the
weeks that pass between times like these, I wonder as I slide my
hand beneath the gray tee-shirt he's worn to bed, sliding my
palm up the tight muscle of his belly and onto his lightly
furred chest; I find one tiny nipple, hard and erect, beneath my
hand. I'm rewarded by a deep groan that vibrates through every
part of his body.

I capture his moan with my lips against his; he opens his mouth
to me and I slide right into him. How can I stare into these
ripe lips day after day and resist touching them like this,
tasting their richness, and losing myself in them? I feel the
hard knot of appreciation through his pajamas and mine.

"Prrrt," says Mia. She's appeared from whatever warm place she
slept and noses around our heads, sniffing curiously at where
my face is joined to Mulder's. The fine quill of her whiskers
tickle my cheek.

Mulder smiles against me, pushing at Mia with a free hand.
"I'll take a rain check on this," the words spill into my mouth.

I swallow them, nodding, drifting across his lips as they close
and move against mine for a moment longer.

My pulse beats at a normal pace by the time we push through the
doors to the kitchen and join the Deputy. Like yesterday, he
sits at the counter, sipping coffee, reading the morning paper.
He nods a greeting as we pour our own coffees from the carafe on
the side counter then assume the position -- Mulder and I side-
by-side on twin stools, the Deputy across the counter on his
own. I drift through the aromatic steam with my eyes closed.

"Got the prints back," the Deputy opens the conversation.

"That was fast," the mug muffles Mulder's voice.

"You know, we have adequate investigative tools up here in
the sticks," there's a sharp edge to the Deputy's voice.

"I wasn't saying..." Mulder begins but is cut off by the
Deputy.

"No, sorry." The sharp edge has blunted a bit, smoothed by
resignation or wry amusement. "It's just that Flatlanders who
come up here to take in the leaves or 'discover' our covered
bridges seem to think we all should be toting our muskets
around, wearing knee breeches, riding horses."

"And shooting wild turkeys for supper?" Mulder smiles with
empathy. He has the perspective of having grown up in New
England himself, although the difference between Martha's
Vineyard and small town northern New Hampshire is more than a
simple matter of distance.

"So what have you found," I drift back to the conversation,
surfacing between Mulder and the Deputy. I open my eyes slowly.

"The prints in the kitchen are all accounted for. Mary and
Rebecca's prints dominate but you also picked up clear prints
belonging to Sarah Morgan and Maggie Lisbie, Harold Steinberg,
and both of the...MacGowans. When we include the postmortem
prints we took from Davis Wells, we know he had been in the
kitchen as well. When we include prints lifted from the
cosmetics in the garage apartment, it's suggestive that Grace
Wells had not touched anything in the kitchen during her stay at
Meadowlea. Small surprise," he adds an editorial comment to the
end of his report. An excited smile threatens to appear but he
holds it in check.

"And...?" I urge him.

"Richard Kelly's prints are also absent, as are yours," he nods
to both Mulder and me -- we had pulled on our gloves before we
touched anything in the kitchen, "and the Nakamuras. So that
rules out Richard Kelly in the death of his wife, unless he had
the presence of mind to wear gloves while he did it."

I consider the possibility of gloves in what would have
been a crime of passion. "He could have done. The killer had
the presence of mind to wipe the knife clean after all."

"So, unless the murderer wore gloves before entering the
kitchen, it is likely that she or he is one of the guests in
this house," Mulder concludes.

Little prickles crawl up my spine and into my hair.

"But there's something else you'll find interesting," the Deputy
butts into my case of the willies.

"And that is?" I'm glad to think of something besides the
murderer in our midst.

"When we ran the sample prints through the national database,
only Rob...MacGowan's showed up."

"Really?" I sit forward. "And...?"

The grin finally bursts across the Deputy's face like the sun on
a cloudy day. "It seems that Mister...MacGowan has not been
altogether honest with us."

"Please don't tell me his name is really Robert Kelly," Mulder
groans, nearly cradling his face in his hands. "I really don't
want to hear that."

"No, actually. It's Robert MacGowan *Gordon.*"

"So?" I remember the way he cut off his wife's greeting the
first day, quickly offering their last name - his middle name -
before she could say it herself. "Why's he in the database?"

"Three years ago he did an internship with a defense contractor
near Boston while he was an engineering student at MIT."

"That's hardly a criminal act." I work this new information
against the facts of the case, trying to find a way to fit them
together. "What's he doing now? Does it have any relationship
to what's happened here?"

The Deputy shrugs. "Turns out he works for Hopkins-Rogers-
Tilley International, a firm of structural engineers that
participates in major construction projects around the world.
Big ticket stuff, like bridges, dams, skyscrapers. Based in
Boston."

"So there's no obvious connection, except..." I begin to tie the facts together.

"...except the international angle," Mulder picks up my line of
reasoning, "and Boston...

"...and lying about his identity for some reason," I finish it
up. No pretty bows or nice knots. "All tenuous links," I
admit.

"Anyone familiar with the mechanics of doing business in a
variety of countries must be familiar with the banking system in
each of them. It takes a lot of money to do business on that
scale," Mulder swirls his coffee, watching the dark liquid as it
circles the inside of his mug.

"But, Mulder...a large company like that has accountants and it
has engineers. Engineers aren't usually involved in the
financial end of the work, or even exposed to it."

"I'm not saying he was, Scully, I'm just saying he had *access*
to international banking information. How much he knows and
what he can do with it is another story."

"Where he was yesterday morning is the real story I want to
hear. I don't suppose they came back last night by any chance?"
I turn to the Deputy. They're likely long gone.

"I asked Rebecca. She heard them return in the wee hours."

"Really?" I'm surprised, "and are they still here?"

"I think so. Rebecca's gone to bring them down." The Deputy
shifts in his seat. "And another thing, we got the dental on
Richard Kelly. It's a match with one of the bodies in the
garage."

"So the other one's likely to be his sister," Mulder makes the
obvious conclusion.

"Likely," the Deputy stands and stretches then makes his way
over to the coffee maker and fills his empty mug. "It will take
until later today to get Grace Wells's dental records from
Atlanta. Oh, and another thing...the money moved out of Hong
Kong overnight last night."

"Really?" Mulder joins him at the counter, raising his mug for
more coffee, "was it a preauthorized transfer or had someone
just called it in?"

"We're still checking on that," the Deputy pours coffee into
Mulder's waiting mug.

"Where did it go?" I rise and cautiously put weight on my
twisted ankle. I sigh when the pain rises only to the level of
a dull ache.

"Rome..." the Deputy says before we're all distracted by the
jangle of the telephone on the wall by the back door. When the
Deputy reaches for it, it falls silent.

A moment later, Rebecca pushes through the door and looks at
Mulder. "Fox, it's Lariat Rent-a-Car on the telephone for you.
I picked it up in my office but go ahead and grab it here," she
gestures at the phone on the wall.

"Great," he says with a flat tone of voice. When our
replacement car arrives, we will have no reason to stay. With
no reason to stay, our mutual promise this morning in bed will
be postponed until the next idyllic bed and breakfast turns up
on our schedule. Given our current rate of success, I can
pencil that in for some time in late 2003. My self pity is
derailed by the appearance of Rob and Donna MacGowan Gordon
coming through the door left swinging when Rebecca returned to
her office.

"Well, I guess the jig's up, huh?" Rob's lips are tight and
thin in his flushed face. One arm is looped protectively around
Donna's shoulders and he's looking at her, at Mulder's back as
he talks on the phone, at the floor, out the window. "I knew my
prints would blow the lid off things" is what he says to me.


****CHAPTER EIGHT***


"So why'd you do it, Rob?" I take the direct approach, see if I
can jolt the truth out of him, whatever it may be.

"For love, what else?" He smiles down at Donna whose lips
tremble into a smile that shines back at him.

"Not for the sixty million dollars?" I suggest an alternative
motive.

"Sixty million?" Rob raises his eyes to mine for the first time.
"From where?"

"Davis and Grace Wells's investment firm in Atlanta."

"Uh...say that again?"

I take another tack. "How long have you known Richard Kelly,
Rob?"

He shakes his head. "I've never met the man."

"What about his sister, Grace Wells?"

"Really? Grace is...Mary Kelly's sister-in-law?" He shakes his
head. "I never would have guessed. They didn't seem to know
each other."

"But what about you, Rob, how long have you known her?"

"Who? Grace Wells?"

I nod and wait, slanting a look at the Deputy. He leans against
the wall, arms crossed over his chest, and patiently watches me
work his case. I probably should have let him take the lead but
now that I'm here, I go with the momentum and turn back to the
Gordons.

"I met Grace for the first time when we arrived here."

"You don't know her from Boston? She's from Dorchester."

"I'm from Lexington," he says as if it's more than the distance
that separates himself from Grace Wells.

"Oh my God, Dana...you don't think he killed those people do
you?" Donna gasps suddenly, clutching at her husband, "Rob
would never do that, he's not that kind of person, Rob's..."

"It's okay, Donna," he presses a gentle kiss against the top of
her head and hugs her tightly before looking up at me. "It's
just a mistake."

"Is it?" I say more fiercely than I intend to.

"Yes, it's..."

"So why the false name?" the Deputy steps in with a key
question.

"Robert MacGowan *is* not..." Rob begins to say, but the Deputy
cuts him off.

"I think you had a lead on what was happening here, maybe even
helped the Wellses get the money out of the country, maybe using
a conduit from Hopkins-Rogers-Tilley to one of their banks
overseas."

"No, really, I can explain..." but the Deputy cuts him short
again.

"Things got ugly when it boiled down to dividing it up. You met
with Grace Wells and her brother at the garage yesterday
morning, didn't you? Things got heated and you used a wrench to
bash in the back of his head before strangling his sister who's
less than half your size."

I raise an eyebrow at the modus operandi, surprised that the
Deputy would give away that information at this point in the
investigation.

"We're running prints on the wrench as we speak." The Deputy
moves into Robert Gordon's space, coming face to face with him.
"Now you're in sole possession of the banking information and
passwords. You set up a transfer, moving the money from the
Cayman Islands to a bank in Hong Kong used by Hopkins-Rogers-
Tilley for their Asian operations, then set a fire in the garage
to cover your tracks...and the murders."

"Deputy, I wouldn't..." Rob backs away, so pale that freckles
stand out as scattered green splotches across his skin.

The Deputy makes up the space and comes face to face with the
younger man again. "Then, last night, while out - supposedly -
with friends, you make another call. You transfer the money
from Hong Kong to a bank in Rome, also used by Hopkins-Rogers-
Tilley in the past, this time for their Mediterranean projects."

Rob blinks rapidly. "But Hopkins-Rogers-Tilley uses banks all
over the world to fund their operations. Pick a major bank in
any country and it's likely that HRT uses it or has used it in
the recent past."

"Well then, Mr. *Gordon,* why don't you give us a thumbnail
sketch of the international banking business from your
perspective."

"I can't really. I only know that..." Rob begins to explain but
his wife steps between him and the Deputy, her eyes the color of
freshly-pressed steel.

The Deputy retreats a pace.

"If you won't listen to him, then listen to me," Donna pushes
her chin up in the air and locks eyes with the Deputy. Now it's
my turn to lay back and listen. "It's *me* that he's
protecting. My name is...was...Donna Tilley. My father is one
of the owners of Hopkins-Rogers-Tilley, where Rob works. If you
don't know the company, then let me tell you that it was
established by born and bred Mayflower stock back in the
sixteenth century and has been run by a consortium of direct
descendants ever since.

"Rob and I met at the company picnic two years ago. My father
didn't like the idea of the little people who work for him
mingling with Mayflower blood. He did everything he could
to discourage our relationship. I was only sixteen. Rob was
twenty one and just graduated from MIT, summa cum laude." Her
voice swells with pride and she leans back against him; Rob
circles her shoulders with his arms and holds her against his
chest as she continues her story. Her hair barely tickles the
underside of his chin.

"Since I was sixteen, my father had a legal right to keep us
apart. But we kept seeing each other. I'm pretty sure he
figured we'd run off and get married when I turned eighteen.
All year he's been talking about sending me to a finishing
school in Switzerland for a year after high school." She turns
to me. "Finishing School? Can you imagine that? Doesn't that
sound just too Jackie O. for words?"

"Finishing School certainly wasn't one of the popular options in
my family," I admit. Basic Training was more like it.

"Switzerland," the Deputy breaks in. "There's a lot of banks in
Switzerland. Banks with strict privacy rules. A good place to
hide stolen money."

"But we're not going there. Do the math," Donna snaps at the
Deputy before continuing Rob's defense, now directed at me. "So
Rob and I decided to elope as soon as I turned eighteen last
month. It took us a few weeks to put it together but we did.
We got married in the courthouse in Concord on the way up here.
We have the marriage certificate to prove it. It's locked in
Rob's car."

"So you're still in high school, Donna?" I ask and when she
nods, I add "aren't you supposed to be in school right now?"

"No actually, we're on Spring Break until next Monday," she
looks outside at the snowy landscape and laughs a little. "You
know, Dana, Rob's father's an orthopedic surgeon at Mass
General. His mother's a lawyer. His younger brother will get
his MBA from Harvard Business School later this year and Rob's
an MIT-trained engineer," her voice softens for a moment as she
looks up to her husband with love in her eyes. Then she returns
to his defense, "But Rob's not good enough for me because the
Gordons arrived from Scotland only 70 years ago, between the two
world wars. My father thinks anyone who arrived less than 300
years ago is simple immigrant trash."

I exchange looks with Mulder. That makes both of us smelly
landfill by Mr. Tilley's estimation. I'm already not liking
this man.

"I may be just eighteen, scared to death of the dark and my
father, but I know that everything he's told you is true. I'm
telling you the only time we've been separated over the past few
days is when one or the other of us have gone to the bathroom.
Rob didn't kill anyone or steal any money and neither did I.
I'm telling the truth."

My hyperactive gut agrees with her. I look first at the Deputy
and then at Mulder for their reaction.

"The proud Mr. Tilley's probably going to can your ass when you
get back," Mulder says from his listening post near the
telephone.

Rob shrugs. "Fine. Let him. I can always get another job. I
can't find another Donna. She's one of a kind."

My eyes go to Mulder then dart away when they meet the powerful
sexuality of the look he fires back at me. A rush of heat
burns through me and I struggle to regain my equilibrium,
stumbling ahead. "So...ah...you decided to...um...use an
assumed name..."

"MacGowan is my middle name, my mother's maiden name," Rob
clarifies the point.

"...use your middle name to avoid detection by Donna's father."
I conclude.

"At least slow him down enough so we can get married and
have...uh...some quality time to ourselves before we have to go
back and face the music," Rob swallows hard; from the look on
his face I gather he already hears the tune.

"I'd like you to come down and make a formal statement to that
effect," the Deputy says.

Rob looks at his wife and they both nod before he turns back to
the Deputy. "You won't contact Donna's father, will you?
There's no reason, right? We...Donna and I...can prove everything
we've told you -- we're married, she's eighteen..."

I can hear the lump in his throat.

"No. There's no need," the Deputy agrees. "But I'd count on
sticking around town for the time being. Just a suggestion."

"We're here until Thursday afternoon," Rob promises. It's
Tuesday. He fishes around in his pocket and hands the Deputy a
fat wad of keys. "Here's the keys to my car, my house, my gym
locker. Hold them as bond."

"Great," the Deputy looks at the wall clock before handing the
keys back to Rob, "but you'll need them. Why don't we meet down
at the Station around two o'clock? I should be back there by
then."

"Okay. Great. We can go out skiing for a couple of hours and
work off some of this adrenaline," Rob shakes his hands loosely
at the end of his arms, "and meet you later."

"I'll be looking for you," the Deputy reminds them as they
nearly fall over each other, leaving the room. The scampering
of puppy feet fade in the direction of the front door.

"So it was blunt force trauma and strangling?" I ask the Deputy
when they're gone.

He shrugs. "I have no idea. Haven't got the Coroner's full
report yet. I was indulging in a little creative lying to see
what kind of reaction I would get."

That elevates my eyebrow again. "Do you think they're telling
the truth? That hiding from Donna's father is what this is all
about?" The nervousness, the anxiety.

Monroe shakes his head. "It's plausible. It's one way to
explain everything. And we have no reason *not* to believe them
at this point."

"So if the Gordons didn't do it, who killed the Wellses and
Richard Kelly? We're getting a bit low on suspects." Mulder
reminds us.

"We've still got Harold Steinberg," the Deputy reminds us.

"Harold? I'm afraid I still don't see it." Mulder collects our
mugs and rinses them in the sink. "He has no obvious connection
to the Wellses or the Kellys. He has a pretty good alibi for
the morning of Davis Wells's murder. He's got a disability that
would give him a disadvantage in a struggle with an abler
victim, even a small woman."

"That makes him the perfect suspect because we don't suspect
him," I take the mugs from Mulder's hands and put them in the
dishwasher. "Don't you read mystery novels?"

"*You* used to suspect him, Scully."

"I used to dislike him," I clarify my problem with the man, "I
suspected him of being a horse's ass. I hoped but never really
suspected him of being involved in these murders."

"Then he must be our man," Mulder grins at me. "There's a rule.
I'll bet you ten bucks, anyway."

"That he's the killer or he's not the killer?" I'm not sure
whether Mulder's quick acceptance of Harold's guilt is more of
his deadpan humor or not.

"That he's *not* guilty," Mulder insists. "I don't live by the
rules."

Now there's a great truth. "You're on." I throw a dishrag at
his chest; it bounces off and hits the floor at his feet.
"Let's go talk with him and see whether he confesses."

Harold's room is upstairs at the opposite end of the hall from
our room. Rebecca opens the door, leading us into a room where
sunlight falls through a sparse veil of pine boughs, puddles
here and there on the floor, and lays in long sheets across the
neatly made bed. A large orange tabby sprawls across a wedding
ring quilt; he deigns to lift his heavy head and blink at us
with sleepy yellow eyes when we enter the room. "This is
Thomas, Tommy for short," Rebecca makes the introduction; Tommy
trills a greeting before he empties himself with a big sigh and
stretches over the comforter again.

"Either he's come and gone," Mulder looks around the room, "or
he never came back last night."

I open the armoire and see odds and ends of clothing hanging
there. A small suitcase is tucked neatly between the armoire
and the night stand. Through the door into the bathroom I see
miscellaneous men's toiletries scattered across the counter.

"I didn't hear him come in last night and my bedroom's directly
beneath this one," Rebecca looks around the room. "It looks
pretty much like I left it yesterday after I tidied up."

"So is Harold the most recent casualty of this war or the last
man left standing?" I have a bad feeling about this, one way or
the other.

Mulder shrugs, looking through the empty suitcase, not finding
any false compartments in the top or the bottom. "I guess we
should check the barn for his car, to see if he came back."

"We could call his newspaper in Jacksonville," I finish patting
down the last jacket without finding anything significant hidden
in the pockets or lining. The red and black paid hangs
prominently in front of the other items as if it were placed
there to speak to me. "What was the name of it?"

"Jacksonville Times-Gazette. Why don't I go check on the car
while you call the newspaper," Mulder suggests a division of
labor in deference to my wrapped ankle and strained hamstrings.

"Thanks." I'm still a bit sore to try walking on slippery snow
and ice with any degree of confidence.

"You can use my office," Rebecca offers me a private place
to make my call.

"Great." Mulder's half way to the door before his mouth closes
behind the words. He lopes downstairs and out the back door
while I lean on the railing and take it step by step. Rebecca
hovers at my elbow, reaching and withdrawing, obviously wanting
to offer help but obviously not wanting to offend me.

Fifteen minutes later, I put down the telephone and meet
Mulder's inquiring eyes. "Fasten your seatbelts, I think we
have our answer. Most of it, anyway."

Mulder slides into a chair and leans forward, "My breath is
bated. Lead on."

I clean my throat and take a moment to organize my thoughts.
I'm enjoying Mulder's antsy form of anticipation so much it's
almost a shame to go ahead with the story. "Was the car there?"
I ask instead.

"No. Come on, Scully," he urges me, "spill."

"Well. I finally ended up talking to William Featherstone, the
managing editor of the Times-Gazette. It turns out that Harold
Steinberg doesn't work for the paper anymore." I feed the
excitement on Mulder's face. "It turns out that Harold was
fired from the paper over a year ago."

"Fired?" Mulder's eyes nearly sparkle now. "For what reason?"

I clear my throat. "It turns out our Mr. Steinberg cost the
Times-Gazette a very large sum of money."

"And why would that be?" Mulder moves across the room, sitting
on the edge of the desk next to me, nudging my shoulder
impatiently.

I think of all the tortuous slide shows Mulder's put me through
and take my sweet time unfolding this story, enjoying every
second of his obvious discomfort. "It seems that *this*
Pulitzer is not the first one Harold Steinberg has gone after.
About a year and a half ago, a jewel thief was making the rounds
of West Palm Beach. This was a highly skilled thief hitting
only the homes of the very rich..."

"...and very bejeweled, no doubt" Mulder chimes in.

"Correct. Security systems were no obstacle." I pick up my
notes and read over them for a moment. "Apparently, Harold had
gotten on the tail of this thief in a way the police had been
unable to do. He was, apparently, following the thief from
burglary to burglary, recording *her* exploits for a series he
planned to later publish in the Times-Gazette."

"The thief was a her?" Mulder leans over to look at my notes.

I fold them against my chest and smile at him instead. "Yes,
apparently so. It makes a good story, doesn't it? At any rate,
she was never caught. When the managing editor read the
finished draft of Harold's story, he hit the roof and
immediately turned the information...and Harold...over to the
police."

"Did he know that by not reporting the crimes, he had made
himself an accessory, not a Pulitzer winner?" Mulder asks.

"Who knows? Maybe the lust for recognition overwhelmed his
common sense. If he had any in the first place." I shake my
head. "When the victims whose burglaries were chronicled in
Harold's story learned he'd witnessed the thefts and not
reported them, they brought suit against Harold and, by
extension, the Times-Gazette, for the dollar amount of their
cumulative losses incurred after he witnessed the first theft.
The insurance companies were most insistent."

"How much?"

I refer to my notes again. "Approximately seventeen million,
four hundred and fifty five thousand, six hundred and seventy
one dollars...and twenty seven cents."

"Approximately," he whistles at the dollar amount.

"The Times-Gazette settled for an undisclosed sum then canned
his ass. The last they heard he was living in Miami, free-
lancing."

"Given what we know about Steinberg and the Wellses, can we make
the a priori argument that the Pulitzer he's tracking this time
is not the first Pulitzer he's gone after with reckless
disregard for the law? That's he followed the Wellses here in
pursuit of that prize?" Mulder gets up and moves around the
room. "But...does that make him the murderer? Maybe he got too
close and it made him a victim."

I nod, shrugging. "He had a pretty good alibi for Davis Wells's
murder, combined with the fact that he probably couldn't have
skied down there to ambush him." I prop my foot on the chair
Mulder vacated. "I have a hard time seeing him overwhelm Mary
Kelly, or understand why he would kill her. I don't know about
the Kelly twins. I suppose he could have torched the garage
with them in it."

"Maybe he decided to go for the sixty mil instead of the
Pulitzer."

"Instead of jail," I remind Mulder of Harold's near miss with
the jewel thefts. "I'm not saying he's responsible for any or
all of these murders, but I'm sure he knows who is."

"So we need to find Harold to find our answer."

"That's one way."

Mulder reels off an short alphanumeric string.

"What's that?"

"The license number of the missing Miata. Registered in Dade
County, by the way." He picks up the telephone and dials the
Sheriff's Station from memory as well.

We spend the rest of the day making no progress on the case.
Shortly after four o'clock, Lariat Rent-a-Car delivers a shiny
new Taurus, a duplicate of the one that sits, burned out, in
the remains of Kelly's Garage.

Mulder jiggles the keys in his hand while squinting at the sun
skimming the ridge to our west. "I suppose it's too late to
leave today. We might as well stay until tomorrow."

Fire leaps in my belly. "I think that's a good idea," I
struggle to keep my voice steady and avoid making eye contact
with Mulder. "The roads are probably icy at night."

"Probably," he agrees. "Unsafe," he adds. "You wanna go
upstairs?"

I glance at my wristwatch and am surprised to see the tips of my
fingers trembling. "We have two hours to kill until
dinnertime."

"Have any ideas, Agent Scully?" his arm loops around my shoulder
and steers me gently toward the stairs.

"We could take a nap." I start up the stairs at his side,
gingerly testing my ankle with each step.

"A nap. Now there's an idea. We'd be refreshed for dinner." He
guides me down the hallway toward our room, letting me lean on
him. A four-legged shadow flits across the hall in front of us.

His arms are around me; my hands are free. I push the door open
and, when I enter, I trip over the same bit of carpet that
snagged Mulder last night. I'm still a bit off balance,
favoring my bum ankle, and would have fallen if Mulder hadn't
grabbed my shoulders and pulled me back onto my feet. I turn
and glare at the offending bit of floor covering, giving it a
kick with my good foot. It still doesn't lay flat so I bend and
pull it straight. It's still humped up over something, so I
flip it back to see what's up

A zip disk lays on the polished hardwood.


***CHAPTER NINE***


"Well, look at that," Mulder bends and picks it up. He turns it
over and back again. "No markings."

"One of yours?" I hobble over to the bed and sit down.

He shakes his head. "I don't use that brand. Whatever it is,
it was left here for us to discover. Left here yesterday, if my
stumbling last night is any indication. Let's see what's on
it."

Mulder tosses the disk on the bed and rummages in his duffle
bag, producing his laptop. He opens it on the bed and presses
the button. It chimes then nothing happens. The screen is
black. The hard disk is silent. He presses the power button
again. Again. Still nothing.

"I guess you hurt more than your shoulder when you went over the
embankment last Saturday." Damn. I pluck the disk from the
comforter, tapping it against my fingertips, irritated that a
thin layer of plastic and a string of inscrutable zeroes and
ones stand between us and knowing what's on this disk.

"Yeah," Mulder's taking the thing apart now. The zip drive and
battery lay on the comforter and he's fishing blindly around the
insides with his fingers. The keyboard pops up and he turns it
down.

"Does Rebecca's computer have a zip drive?" I run through my
memory but can't recall the configuration of her machine
downstairs. I wince a little, wondering whether he knows what
he's doing in there.

"Uh-uh," Mulder's got a screwdriver from the tiny kit he always
carries with him and he's applying it to a plate in the middle
of the machine.

"We could call the Deputy, see if he's got one." It's going to
explode when he turns it on, I know it.

"We could," Mulder has removed the plate and fiddles around
inside.

It's going to explode with the disk inside for sure. "Come on,
Mulder! I've got to know what's on this disk. It could be the
answer to everything."

"Forty-two."

"What's that?"

"The answer to everything."

I don't get it. I tap the disk impatiently against my palm.
"I'm going downstairs to call the Deputy and see..."

"Ahah!" Mulder says, voice muffled by the guts of his computer.

"What?" I stop on my way to the door.

"I got it...I think." He pushes on something for a moment.
"The RAM chip is loose."

"Rams tend to cause real problems when they get loose," I limp
back to the bed, folding the disk protectively against my chest.

"Pesky RAMS." He chuckles at my attempted humor until he
presses the power button and gets no response. "Shit. I was so
sure that was it."

I lean over and give it a little wiggle. There's an audible
click as it seats completely. "Try it now," I advise him,
trying to ignore the expression on his face as I stifle a
grin.

He quickly puts it back together again then presses the power
button. This time, the computer comes to life.

We wait breathlessly as it goes through its start-up routine
and, eventually, produces a stable desktop. Mulder extends his
hand for the disk.

I give it to him then crawl, belly down, onto the bed next to
him, my feet hanging off the side next to his feet that hang
farther off the same side.

His breath is warm on my cheek as we both eagerly scan the
directory of the unlabeled disk. There's numerous files here,
mostly .docs, mostly with inscrutable names like "ex.doc" or
"morehouse.doc" or "february2000.doc." One file stands out from
the rest -- "readme.doc" -- that begs to be read, right now. I
reach across Mulder and oblige it with a double click.

"Greetings, Dana and Fox," it begins. For a few minutes we both
read in silence, one or the other of us reaching out to scroll
down to the next page when we've read to the bottom of the last
one. It's easy to lay my head against Mulder's shoulder as I
read; he tucks me beneath one arm and supports himself with one
hand on the far side of me. I'm warm and secure where I'm
nestled against him, fascinated by the story that's unspooling
before my eyes. "...and if you ever find yourselves in the
Seychelles, look me up," it concludes.

Mulder rolls into his back, pulling me with him so I lay half
across his chest. "Do you think he's really in the Seychelles?"

"Are you nuts?"

Mulder shakes his head. Then he nods.

I laugh at the goofy expression on his face. "Which is it?"

"I'm nuts about you, Scully."

A tsk comes out of my mouth before it curves into a smile. He's
got that defenseless puppy dog look on his face that always
turns me to silly mush inside. He doesn't use it on me often
but, when he does, I'm a sucker for it. I cup my hands against
his cheeks; he breathes deeply and closes his eyes. I lean
down, brushing my lips against his, then brushing harder, then
moving against his lips when they move against mine.

The door rattles in its frame.

"Go away. We're not here," I snap at the person who stands
behind the door, in the hallway -- this door thing is getting to
be a bad habit; surreal almost, with reliably bad timing.
Mulder pulls my head back down and proceeds to kiss me silly.

"Uh, sorry, Agent Scully." The Deputy tries again after a
moment. "I just wanted to touch base with you before you
leave tonight."

"We're leaving tomorrow morning," I rest my forehead against
Mulder's, breathing heavily. Go away. I hurl the thoughts
through the door.

"Oh. Okay." I can almost hear him turning his hat in his
hands. "I...uh..."

I roll away from Mulder and he rolls over on the evidence,
facing the computer again. "It's okay. Come in. We have
something to show you anyway."

The door opens slowly and the Deputy peers cautiously inside,
looking both ways before he eases into the room and closes the
door behind him with a gentle click.

Sitting up, I motion him over to the bed. "We received a love
letter under the door this morning."

"Last night, actually," Mulder corrects me.

"From?" The Deputy hangs his hat on a bedpost and leans over the
computer when I wave at it.

"Our friend Harold Steinberg."

"Really? Well, I have some information on Mr. Steinberg, too.
His car is parked in an economy parking lot at Bradley Field
...in Hartford. Doors unlocked and keys in the ignition."

"Since when?"

"Dunno. The ticket's not in it. We're lucky we found it before
some opportunist drove away with it. They're checking outbound
flights now, for a clue to his destination."

"I'll bet it's not the Seychelles," I say to Mulder.

"Huh?" the Deputy doesn't follow.

I turn the laptop so he can see the screen and explain about the
zip disk under the carpet. "Granted, it's all hearsay. The
only witness seems to be Harold Steinberg and he's long gone.
But it does explain what's been going on around here."

"So what *has* been going on?" the Deputy crosses his arms and
waits for the story.

"Apparently one of the Wellses' clients alerted Harold Steinberg
that something funny had happened to her investment. It's not
really clear, but I gather this client was an old girlfriend
of Harold's." I start from the beginning. "Harold checked it
out and discovered that, in fact, something funny was going on.
His notes on the investigation, interviews with other
disgruntled clients, descriptions of the movements of both
Wellses, are all here on this disk. He intended to write it up
and win his elusive Pulitzer with it."

"Is that so," the Deputy sits on the edge of the bed. "So what
does he have to say about the murders?"

"That part is very interesting," Mulder picks up the narrative.
"Apparently, he hid behind the dining room door when Scully and
I were in the living room getting acquainted with the other
guests. He saw Davis Wells sprinkling some white powder from
a baggie onto a tossed salad he'd asked Mary Kelly to make
specially for his wife."

"Mary Kelly surprised him and he killed her on the spot?"

"Evidentially. Harold writes that Mary challenged him, asked
what he was doing. Davis turned, grabbed a knife out of the
block on the counter, and stabbed Mary twice in the chest. He
grabbed her as she fell and lowered her to the floor. At that
point, both he and Mary were hidden behind the utility cart and
Harold couldn't see what went on, but we all can guess that's
when Wells wiped the knife blade clean. Then he saw Wells dive
out the back door and close it quietly behind him. That was
about three minutes before Rebecca discovered Mary's body in the
kitchen."

The Deputy whistles. "So Rebecca almost walked in on the
murder."

"It would seem so," Mulder rolls onto his back, lacing his
fingers together and using them behind his head as a pillow.
"And, although he intended to murder his wife, he killed Mary
Kelly on the spur of the moment, as a defensive measure instead
of a calculated one."

"Well he was calculating enough to wipe his prints off the knife
and get the hell out of the kitchen, back to his apartment
before his wife work up from her nap and discovered him gone.
So what about Davis Wells's murder?" the Deputy moves on to the
next case.

"Howard didn't see that one. He was, as we suspected, right
here at the Bed and Breakfast, working on the earlier parts of
his story. He was as surprised as Rebecca when Davis Wells's
body turned up. He'd been betting that Davis would have another
go at his wife at his earliest opportunity, not the other way
around."

"Do we know for a fact that it's Grace Wells who killed her
husband? It seems more likely that it was her brother, after
having skied in from town to meet them by the lake."

"Or to ambush them...or him...by the lake," I remind the Deputy of
an alternate interpretation of the evidence, "but we don't know
for a fact that Richard Kelly was involved in the death at all.
We just have a number of ski tracks that add up to that."

"Correct. So what happened next?"

Mulder takes over. "Harold went to town to do some sleuthing.
He hid behind the garage and overheard Grace Wells and her
brother plot their...getaway...with the money. He saw Kelly
lock a leather portfolio filled with legal documents, including
a couple of passports, in the bottom of a tool chest before
going into the house for the evening. Harold slipped into the
garage, used a pick gun on the tool chest lock, and discovered
the documents not only confirmed everything he'd been
investigating for the past couple of months but also gave him
the wherewithal...names, dates, passwords...to take control of
the money."

"That's where greed stepped in and the need for literary
recognition suddenly flew out the window," I suggest the motive
for the next part, then continue with Harold's narrative.
"Harold writes that he set up a number of gasoline cans, half
full, around the perimeter of the garage, rag wicks knotted
together in a loose daisy chain, with one end hanging out a
cracked window that was obscured behind a pile of boards, to use
as his starter. Then he came back here with the documents,
gathered what he needed from his things and left this disk for
us before, as he planned, going back to the garage and waiting
for an opportunity."

"And that seems to be what he did," Mulder adds.

"Was it his plan, then, to wait until Kelly and his sister went
back into the garage for the documents, start the fire, then get
away?" the Deputy looks at both of us in turn, to confirm his
understanding. "Jeez, he musta froze his tail off down there,
waiting for something to happen. It was well below freezing
last night."

"It could have been, although he was not specific in his memo to
us," I nod and then shrug. "That seems to fit the evidence,
anyway. And maybe he just meant to burn the place down to cover
his theft of the documents. But unless we find him, we'll never
know for sure."

"Well." The Deputy stands and paces over to the window. He
scratches his head. "Whodathunkit?"

I smirk at Mulder. "I always knew Harold was guilty of
something."

"But you said you thought he was guilty of being a jerk, not
being a murderer."

"Just details, Mulder," I roll off the bed and straighten my
clothing.

"He sure had a lot of brass, putting that disk under your door
yesterday, before he'd done the deed and gotten away." The
Deputy stands, too, retrieving his hat.

"Grandstanding," Mulder says definitively. "He still has the
need to be *glorified* for his story, to take the credit for it.
That probably outweighed the risk of being exposed before he
could pull it off."

The Deputy moves to the door. "I'm going to call in and see if
Sheila's gotten any call backs on the APB I put on Steinberg. I
need to change the wording anyway...from missing person to
murder suspect. That oughta get the fires lit down there."

Downstairs, mouthwatering smells ooze out of the kitchen and
puddle in the living room -- something with garlic is roasting
for dinner. Sarah and Maggie sit by the fire reading; they look
up hopefully when we enter and cross the room. I smile in what
I hope is my most non-alarming manner and follow the Deputy and
Mulder to Rebecca's office. The Deputy closes the door behind
us and makes a call while Mulder and I wait quietly.

"Bad news," he finally says to us, cradling the phone. "There's
no record of a Harold Steinberg flying out of Bradley. Or
taking a bus or a train. He seems to have driven there and
disappeared."

"It's unlikely that he had false identification on him, ready
for such a contingency," Mulder says, "given the apparent
spontaneity of his action."

"We also gave a description. No one has seen a slight man with
long curly hair and a pronounced limp at any of those places ."

"So where did he go?" I want to know.

"Wherever he went, he managed to move the money again."

"Where's it now?"

"It's been transferred, in three separate chunks, to three
separate banks in Switzerland."

"See," Mulder nudges me, "Switzerland." He trades a knowing
look with the Deputy.

A light knock sounds at the office door. Rebecca cracks the
door and looks in, finds the Deputy, and announces the arrival
of Lester Marshall, the county coroner. "He says he has
something you need to see...now."

"Great. Bar-be-cued bodies for dinner. Yum-mee." Mulder's
clearly not as excited as the Deputy and I are. We lead the way
out of the office, into the living room. Rebecca's ushering
Sarah and Maggie into the kitchen on some pretense as we arrive.

"Lester," the Deputy extends his hand, "what have you got for us
that's so important you'd drive all the way up here this
evening?"

Lester Marshall is tall and lean, with nearly trimmed black hair
and moustache, and meticulously kept hands. He looks more like
a country pastor than a county coroner. He pulls two
photographs out of a manila envelope and hands them to me. "I
think this will make the most sense to you, Agent Scully."

I take the photographs and look at them for a long moment,
shifting back and forth between the two. "No. Way." is all I
can say.

"What, Scully?"

I have to laugh and so I do. Mulder is mystified by my
amusement over a couple of autopsy shots. "What?!"

"Oh this is too good, Mulder." I giggle again. "We're such
chumps" is all that comes to mind.

"Why?!" He's getting impatient now so I hand the photos to him,
pointing there and there.

"Well, I'll be..." Mulder says after a moment, a grin spreading
over his face.

Mulder, the Coroner, and I are nodding among ourselves when the
Deputy pushes into the non-conversation. "So what's so funny?"

I wipe my eyes and hand him the first photograph. It's a body,
largely consumed by fire, with most of its flesh burned away.
The skeleton is easy to see in many places. I point at the
pelvis. "This is clearly not the pelvis of a woman. It would
be wider with a large opening...here...if it were. This is a
man's pelvis."

"So you mean that Grace Kelly was really a man?"

"No. Look at this," I show him another shot, a close-up of the
lower right leg. Both the tibia and fibula are bowed going into
the ankle, and the remains of the foot, obviously protected by a
shoe at the time of death, is markedly clubbed. "Who do we know
with a limp around here?"

"It can't be," the Deputy adds his bewilderment to our own.

"It, apparently, can," Mulder insists.

"So what happened to Harold's scheme? How did it go so wrong
that he ended up being the victim rather than the victor?" I
pose the question.

"And how did Grace double cross..."

"...and kill," I specify.

"...her own twin brother in the process?"

"Fratricide," the Deputy shakes his head. "I would have bet
against it."

"Me, too," I nod. "So you'd better change that APB back to
specify Grace Wells, although I doubt you'll find her. It's a
sure bet she came up here with false identification and a plan
in place to get out of the country...with or without husband..."

"...or brother," Mulder adds.

"I'll send her picture and alert the Swiss authorities
although," he scrubs his face with both hands, "heaven only
knows where the money will be by morning."

"By the way, Mulder, I was right. Harold *wasn't* the murderer.
You owe me ten bucks." I hold out my hand.

"Wait a minute, Scully. *I* bet that Harold wasn't guilty."

"Well, I didn't bet he *was* guilty."

A slow grin spreads over Mulder's face. He takes my hand,
lacing his fingers through mine instead of planting a ten dollar
bill in my palm. "Why don't we swap Alexander Hamiltons after
dinner? That ought to even the score," he promises and I get
goose bumps up and down my back.

Still, we linger after dinner tonight, joining the remaining
guests for coffee in front of the fire. Sarah and Maggie are as
talkative as they were on the first day; identification of the
likely murderers has both relieved them and given them a great
story they will take home to Wisconsin and tell for weeks,
months, and years to come. Rob and Donna are back to being
young lovebirds, each engrossed in the other, willingly
oblivious to the other dramas going on around them. A new
couple, Mary Wescott and James Earley, are quite dismayed to
discover that they've chosen to spend an extended weekend at a
crime scene, despite our assurances that the killers are dead or
miles away from here by now. Surely.

Mulder sits across the room in the wing chair formerly favored
by Harold Steinberg. Nonetheless, I feel his glaze slide under
my clothes in a most disruptive way; I consciously stop myself
from holding the tabs of my collar together like an old maid but
my face turns suspiciously red from the effort. From the corner
of my eye, I notice how Mulder's silk turtleneck outlines his
broad shoulders and clings to his pecs, how it tucks neatly into
the beltless waistband of his jeans and feel my cheeks grow even
hotter. It's no use. I just hope everyone else will think it's
the wine I had with dinner.

Finally we head up the stairs. It's late, pushing past
midnight. Mulder loops his arm around my waist to ease the
pressure on my injured leg and I loop my arm around his waist
just because it feels good to do it.

"You know, Mulder, I still can't believe that Grace Wells killed
her brother. That's the hardest part of this whole case to
swallow."

"It didn't sound like they were too close. I mean, Richard
Kelly had lived here for over ten years and no one remembers
seeing his sister up here before now."

"But they were twins. That counts for something, Mulder."

"So does sixty million bucks."

"Maybe she didn't set out to kill her brother. I mean,
according to Harold, he planned to wait until they were in the
garage and perhaps kill them, not himself. What went wrong?
Why was he in the garage instead of Grace Wells? What started
the fire, if Harold didn't? How did Grace Wells end up with,
presumably, all the important papers as well as Harold's car
keys?"

"We'll have to wait for the fire marshal's report and still we
probably won't ever know exactly what happened, Scully." He
opens the door to our room.

"Prroooow." Mia meets us at the door, coyly dipping her head,
rubbing the arch of her back against the wood.

Mulder scoops her up and deposits her unceremoniously in the
hallway behind us.

Mia whips her head around, giving him a narrow-eyed glare before
raising her tail in the air and sauntering down the hallway,
saluting us with her backside.

Mulder closes the door behind us, throws the lock with a
decisive *click,* then we stand there a moment, listening to the
fire crackle. I lean into him, breathing his scent through the
thin fabric of his sweater. It's rich and musky, pure Mulder, a
signature scent I would recognize anywhere. He loops his arms
around my shoulders, whispers my name into my hair, and chafes
my back with this large hands as he waits for me to make the
move.

Fueled by the warmth of his breath in my ear, I oblige, tugging
at his sweater, pulling it loose from the waistband of his
jeans, sliding my eager hands beneath it and across the broad
strength of his back. Mulder is solid on so many levels.

I look up and meet his half-lidded gaze looking down into me,
through me, with the golden highlights of firelight burning like
oil across deep green water. I'm drawn to them and leaning up,
rising on my toes, I reach for his mouth with my own. He meets
me partway. Tonight I'm hungry, reaching for more when he
offers me some.

He lets me guide him back toward the bed. On the way, we both
lose our moccasins and, somehow, both my sweater and Mulder's
are gone. My bra soon follows and then I'm popping the buttons
on Mulder's fly, one-by-one, setting him free.

I like it slow like this, savoring each moment.

I kneel, peeling the denim down his legs. When I stand, he does
the same for me, his long fingers tickling my legs on the way
back up, forcing a sigh with his name on it between my lips.

Now we're naked, pressed flesh to flesh from chest to toe. The
comforter lays in a heap on the floor; we lay in a heap on the
bed, using our lips and hands and fingers to find those secret
places we save for each other and time likes these.

I swim onto his chest, opening myself to him. Mulder's long
fingers leave a trail of goose bumps down my back, they circle
over the tight globes of my backside, they trace the soft skin
of my inner thigh before sliding into me so deeply I cry out
against his lips.

"You're killing me, Mulder," I whisper once I find words to rub
against my vocal cords. It comes out a low purr. This time I
don't mind the sound at all.

I feel his mouth turn up in a satisfied smile. He nips at my
lips, pulling at them, using his hot tongue to lick and swirl
inside my mouth the way his fingers stroke me down below. I
feel the heat of his sex, swollen hard, burning against the
tender flesh of my thigh, calling ScullyScullyScully, prodding
me insistently.

"Yesssss," I answer in a long hiss that leaks out of my chest as
Mulder raises my hips and guides me to him. I slide down, onto
him, taking him deep inside me before I sit up and look down at
him. He fills and fulfills me. His eyes glitter in the
firelight, an expression of wonder spreads across his face.

"I can't breathe," he gasps.

I lean down and brush his lips, "You can."

He can. He fills his lungs with a long shuddering moan. His
large hands grasp my hips and settle me more firmly on him; he
pushes into me and I push against him, leaning forward, letting
his shoulders take my weight.

His eyes, wide open, tell the whole story. He avoids the three
words he thinks will spook me but I see all three of them, over
and over, in his eyes at moments like these.

I love you, too, Mulder, I beam back at him in our wordless
language. Shifting my hips, I rock gently then move faster. I
don't know why I need him so badly tonight, but I do. Maybe
it's been too long since our last joining. Maybe it's a flare
up of my hormones, weakened by the abuse I suffered during my
abduction. Maybe it's the cumulative pressure of so much denial
- both to ourselves and to the people around us - that makes it
explosive when we finally manage to come together like this.

I lean into him and he rises to meet me. He grins, laughter
bubbling out of him and into me. He finds my hands with both of
his and laces his fingers through mine, melding us there, too.
"Mulder," I whisper to his lips, finding them, slowing my
headlong race in order to taste them. He shudders beneath me,
his breath coming in heavy rasps through his nose while our
mouths are joined.

"You're killing me," he repeats my words back at me, his lips
tickling my lips with each syllable. Lightning arcs from my
nerve endings, prickling my skin, as he begins to move smoothly
beneath me in a sensuous loping gait that I match with my hips,
sliding and joining and sliding again, in perfect coordination
until he stiffens and cries out against my shoulder.

The white heat of his explosion sets off a chain reaction in my
belly; I lose the control of my body and mind. Shreds of
overwhelming sensation, the sound of Mulder's voice, the faint
rhythmic creak of bed springs, and the hoarse pull of my own
breath all fragment around me.

Now I lay against his heaving chest, the gallop of his heart
loud beneath my ear, riding him back to earth. "Not bad for a
thirty-nine-year-old."

"Thirty eight," he gasps, "until October," then he rolls me over
so he's on top, cradled between my legs, swelling somewhere in
the vicinity of my heart that's about to burst from the sheer
pleasure of it.

We move together again, each holding on to the other, smiling,
trading kisses, whispering fragments of words that make perfect
sense at the moment but are nonsense in retrospect. When the
tension coils in my belly, so tight I can barely breathe, my
eyes flick wide open and find Mulder's open and ready above me.

"Go on, Scully," he manages a coherent directive, pushing me
with his hips, "fly!"

I do. With Mulder's help, I'm sailing, the air cooling my blood
where it hammers just beneath my skin. I bring Mulder with me;
he jerks once, gasps, then explodes and follows me into the air.

We drift slowly and land on a cloud. The comforter is somewhere
on the floor; I don't care, I could fry an egg on either Mulder
or I, we're that hot. Mulder slides off to one side, turning me
with him. We lay, face-to-face, watching each other come down.
He strokes the hair plastered to my forehead away from my face.
I run my fingertips across the softness of his lips. He nips at
my fingers, pulling them one by one into his mouth as they pass
over his face and into his sodden hair. I follow them with my
lips, tasting the hot saltiness of him.

This is just between Mulder and me, the magic we alone can make.
It has nothing to do with an X-File or cancer or a conspiracy or
aliens or what Skinner or the Bureau might think if they saw us
together like this. None of that matters. This is *us* lying
here. Naked. Elemental.

This is the way it should always be, I remember thinking as I
fall asleep in the gentle strength of his arms.


***CHAPTER TEN -- Epilogue***


Wednesday, April 5, 2000


There's something different about this morning.

Water runs overhead; not rain, just the sound of sun-warmed snow
melting over steep slates. Expanding beams creak in the ceiling
and walls as the house wakes to the day. A chain saw whines
about its business somewhere in the distant outside and Mulder
breathes peacefully in my hair, his head on the pillow beside
me.

Then the door rattles gently.

I raise an eyelid to see a long gray leg scrabbling blindly
underneath, snagging the carpet then losing the edge, claws
waving wildly, looking for something to grab onto and finding
nothing but air. Poor Mia. She's been locked out in the cold
while Mulder and I snuggle, warm, in her bed.

"Tough luck, kitty," I barely mouth the words when her paw
freezes in mid-swipe and disappears back into the hallway.

I turn my head and watch Mulder sleep for a moment. Sleep.
That's something he's learned to do in the past several years
as, one by one, he's let his demons slip away from him. I roll
onto my side and, wiggling backward, fit my backside to the
curve of his hips, relaxing into him.

A perfect fit.

That's exactly how it seemed last night, too. It's more than
two people coming together for lust and release, although lust
is part of it and the release is glorious. The poetry of our
lovemaking would likely spark the life force of a beautiful
child if that were possible for us. My fingers creep across my
belly. It is warm, tingling, alive with blood pumping through
tissue the way champagne bubbles in a glass.

Mulder stirs, embracing me with a strong arm around my waist.
He tucks me against his chest, then holds me with his fingers
splayed over mine. "I would if we could, Scully," the promise
tickles my ear. "You know that."

Now I'm sure he can read my mind.

We're late to the dining room, having taken a long detour
through a hot shower, arriving when other guests are rising to
leave. Odds and ends are available in the warmers that stand on
the antique sideboard -- one strip of bacon, a pair of sausage
links, a ham patty along with a thick slice of French toast, a
small mound of hash browns and a lone egg, over easy. We chat
with Maggie and Sarah as we fill a single plate with the orphans
and join them at the table.

"Oh no no," Rebecca hurries into the room, clucking over the
plate that sits between Mulder and me. This morning she wears
a bright red painter's smock over worn jeans. A dish rag hangs
from one pocket like a strange handkerchief, flapping as she
strides to the table. "You can't eat *that.* Please, I feel
terrible. Let me cook something for you."

I think of the endless muffins and cold bagels, the cups of
burnt coffee and gallons of lukewarm juice I've consumed over
the years and laugh, gratefully, at Rebecca's discomfort. I
describe our usual diet, dividing a sausage link with my fork
and eating both halves with gusto.

Mulder slices the French toast down the middle and slides part
over to my side of the plate. I carve it earnestly, feeling the
weight of Rebecca's doubting gaze on my hands.

"Fresh coffee then," she compromises and we agree to it.

"Have you heard anything more about Grace Wells?" Sarah Morgan
leans forward in her seat, eyes twinkling with excitement.

I shake my head, chewing the rich toast, swallowing. "No. It's
up to Deputy Monroe now. It's his case." I slice the egg in
two parts and eat one of them.

"You can walk away from it? Leave the mystery unsolved?"
Maggie asks in a skeptical tone.

"Is it?" Mulder throws the question back at Maggie then spears
the his half of the egg with his fork. "Unsolved, that is? We
have a reasonably good idea who killed Mary Kelly."

"According to Harold," Sarah reminds us it's hearsay. It's the
best we - the Deputy, that is - have at the moment, barring
discovery of the killer's bloodstained clothing or receipt of a
signed confession from the afterlife.

"We have it narrowed down to two - Grace Wells or her brother -
for the murder of Davis Wells," Mulder continues with the body
count. "Then, since Grace Wells is the last man, or should I
say woman, standing after the debacle at the garage, it's a
pretty good bet she was responsible for deaths of her own
brother and Harold Steinberg...maybe her husband as well."

"Harold. He seemed like such a nice young man. A little full
of himself, but still quite pleasant." Maggie says wistfully.

"I don't know about that," her sister joins the conversation.
"From the message he left for Fox and Dana it sounded like he
planned to burn both Grace and her brother to death. That
doesn't sound very pleasant to me."

"That's true, dear. We often don't see the dark waters flowing
beneath the calm surface, do we? Still, I wonder if he really
meant to kill them?" Maggie continues thoughtfully. "What if
he only meant to burn down the garage? They would assume their
documents were still locked in the tool chest and a lot of time
would be wasted between the time of the fire and the time
Richard Kelly would be able to get back into the debris and
discover the theft. Maybe all he wanted was a head start for
himself and a chance to move the money so they couldn't find
it."

"That's one thing I love about you, Sweetie. You always look
for the good in people," Sister Sarah pats the back of Maggie's
hand affectionately. "And what about the gun used to kill poor
Davis? Have they found that?"

"No," I shake my head, "but they're sifting through the debris
in the garage. Maybe it's there. Maybe they'll be able to lift
prints from it. Maybe then we'll know who killed Davis Wells."

"Well, we know they didn't throw it in the lake," Maggie says
with a wave of her hand.

I think of the snow-covered frozen lake for a moment, then
something hits me. "You know, the murderer - Grace or her
brother - could have thrown it *on* the lake. It would be
buried in snow until the thaw, when it would eventually fall
through the thinning ice and end up in the mud at the bottom
just the same as if they'd thrown it in during summer time."

"And what are the odds of someone skiing over that exact spot
between now and the thaw, probably only a week or two away?"
Maggie seizes the importance of her off-hand comment.

"Probably slim," I say, watching the intense concentration on
Maggie Lisbie's face as she considers how to go about resolving
this final detail. The Deputy will surely receive her offer of
help.

With a rumble of footsteps, Donna and Rob tumble into the room
wearing full ski regalia, minus the boots and poles. Donna
rushes to the table, holding her arms for me. "Dana! I wanted
to see you before you left."

I obediently stand and let myself be hugged, surprised at how
reasonable it seems to communicate this way. "Good luck, Donna.
I hope you two can talk your father around so that he accepts
your marriage."

Donna's sunny personality goes behind a cloud for a moment.

I find my hand in my pocket and one of my business cards in my
hand. Surprised to find it there, I extend it to Donna. "Take
this. Call me if you need a big sister to talk to."

"Or if you need help getting Rob out of jail," Mulder adds.

Donna takes the card, holding it delicately with both hands.
"Wow. Thanks, Dana! I'll definitely be calling you." She
bounds over, planting a kiss on my cheek and bouncing up to put
one on Mulder's. Rob offers a more subdued handshake to both of
us before they excuse themselves and head for the front door.

I gather my mug and the empty dish; Mulder collects the
silverware and his mug. I limp ahead of him into the kitchen.
Rebecca stands at the sink with her back to the dining room
door. She turns when she hears us come through.

"What are you doing?" She rushes over and takes the dishes from
our hands, ferrying them to the sink in two trips. "You need to
hit the road." She jostles the plates in the sink for a moment.

"Will you be okay?" Mulder looks around the kitchen. He
remembers, as I do, the blood spatter and the dead body on the
floor.

Rebecca remembers them, too. She turns, balling her wet hands
and hiding them in the oversized pockets of her smock. "I'll
have to be," she resolves, straightening her back and meeting
his eyes. "I have a business to run. Mary Ellen Pearson, the
Pastor's wife, has offered to come help out until I find someone
permanent to help me here. And she wasn't the first one to
volunteer." Her voice chokes on the last word.

"Of course, my sister has used this as an excuse, the one
hundred and oneth reason why I should give up living in the
sticks and move back to the civility of Long Island. But how
can I leave? This place is so beautiful, a true paradise.
There's such a community of friends here. And how often will
two murderous renegade investment bankers come to town, anyway?"
She extends one hand, dries it, then extends it again.

Mulder squeezes it in both of his, then it's my turn. Rebecca
walks us to the door where our luggage waits. I shrug into my
coat and lace up my boots, putting the ultra soft moccasins in
the basket for the last time. I find my bag and hoist the strap
over my shoulder. Mulder wears his jacket and snow boots; when
he opens the door, crisp morning air floods the foyer.

Rebecca hands Mulder his duffle then chafes her arms through the
thin cotton smock. "You will come back." Her words are a
command, not a request.

I agree and so does Mulder as we step through the door, turning,
each raising one hand in farewell. The solid thunk of the door
in its frame seals the agreement without argument.

The packed snow in the drive is slushy in places, icy in others,
hummocked here and there where it has melted before freezing
again. Mulder holds me securely against his left side,
supporting the weakness in my right leg and ankle, avoiding the
residual stiffness in his right shoulder, while we pick our way
to the barn. The rental car sits out front in the morning
sunlight, its nose pointed toward the highway. Mulder delivers
me to the passenger side.

"Back to the real world, Mulder." I resign myself as we pull
apart.

"Why can't this be the real world?" He means *us.*

I open my mouth and close it again. I don't have an answer to
that one, or a reason or an excuse. Why can't this be real?

I turn my face into the sun, seeking its warmth. I close my
eyes and inhale deeply of wood smoke, pine resin, and the crisp
tang of fresh air. I hear the murmur of wind through the trees,
the trickle of melted snow running to ground, the excited
chatter of small birds somewhere nearby, the receding crunch of
Mulder's boots on the packed snow, and the clean metallic thunk
of a key turning a door lock. I open my eyes and see Mulder
watching me over the car's roof.

His expression is cautiously neutral. Where the bright morning
sunlight shades the lines in his face, I'm struck by how much
character has risen to the surface over the eight years I've
known him. He smiles hopefully. "Ready?"

I sift through the layers in his question as I pull the door and
climb in. My hand brushes the back of his hand when we snap our
seatbelts in place. The silence between us is as thick as a
bond. Then the car rumbles to life and we bump over the uneven
surface of the driveway, onto the clean pavement of the highway,
turning south.

The road unspools in reverse. In the side mirror, I watch the
high gable of Meadowlea slip behind a line of tall trees. Smoke
spirals from the chimney to be swallowed by a puffy cloud
overhead. At the end of the long meadow we thump over a narrow
bridge where tiny wedges of the snowy lake show between trees
that crowd the road. We crest a steep rise then roll downhill
through the pines to New Blandford, slowing for traffic on its
main street. We pass the Sheriff's Station, where the Deputy's
car sits outside; the lights are on inside and I see Sheila
leaning over a desk, the telephone at her ear. Mulder brakes
for a big dog dragging a young boy across the street in front of
the old church and I crane my head sideways to see where the
white steeple pierces the vault of the blue sky. Further down
on the left lay the charred remains of Kelly's Garage, still
jumbled in the heap where it collapsed. Yellow tape flutters in
the breeze between the front gate and a tall pine in the side
yard then disappears around the back of the house. We
accelerate, crossing the still-frozen river then pulling uphill
to the plateau that will take us to the interstate, and home.

All the while, I watch Mulder's face from the corner of my eye,
follow his steady hands as they turn the wheel, listen to the
hiss of the road beneath the tires, and imagine I feel the pulse
of new life deep within my body.

***
END Fifth Day in Paradise


Rebecca's Blueberry Muffins

1 cup sugar
1 stick butter
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons baking powder
1-1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1/2 cup blueberry yogurt
2 cups flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg

Cream sugar into butter. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Mix in
baking powder and vanilla. Mash 1/2 cup of the blueberries,
then stir into the mix. Fold in 1 cup of the flour, the 1/2 cup
of blueberry yogurt, then the last cup of flour. Mix in the
remaining blueberries. Divide between 12 muffin cups. Mix the
tablespoon of sugar with the nutmeg and sprinkle over muffins.
Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes (or until toothpick
inserted comes out clean). Let cool 30 minutes in the pan
before trying to eat.