TITLE: Scar Tissue(1/2)
AUTHOR: Joann Humby
EMAIL: jhumby@iee.org
DISTRIBUTION: Gossamer - Yes; Others - please ask
RATING: R
CLASSIFICATION: X A
KEYWORDS: Pre-XFiles, Mulder/Other

SUMMARY:
It's 1988, the FBI sends Mulder out to do battle against a
ruthlessly professional kidnapper. But it's more than money that's
driving the kidnapper and more than a job that's driving Mulder.

Mulder joins another agent working on a kidnap/murder case. As the
case gets more complicated so does the rest of Mulder's life. It's
a pre-XFiles X-File, with Mulder working as a profiler for Bill
Patterson in the ISU.

Includes a serious Mulder/Other relationship. Yes indeed, you read
it right, where angels fear to tread, Joann boldly goes.

Rated R for violence, strong language and consensual sex.

Joann - jhumby@iee.org

THANKS:
To my trusty beta readers, to Ann and Pat who were there even
earlier, and to the ones I roped in right at the last moment. The
mistakes, as usual, are all mine.

LEGALLY:
Legally Mulder belongs to some combination of 1013, CC and Fox.
But his soul belongs to DD. I've merely borrowed him. This story
belongs to me.

=====

SCAR TISSUE

Wondrous. As miracles must be.

Admiring it. Shimmering stream of scarlet. The sight and taste of
life. Rich and warm and seductive.

Feeding the body, the spirit, the soul. At once fulfilling the
fantasy and feeding the dream. Dizzying spiral of intoxication.

With the fading of the life comes the fading of the pulse. It
hurts, this loss of life. This disappearance of the magic that
forces his lips to suck harder to draw in the elixir. It is an
anticlimax, a letdown. The irony tastes bitter. It is he who pays
for her death in disappointment, even as he himself is the angel
and instrument of her death.

Blood of a live one speaks of pleasure. Blood of a dead one is
merely food.

Solemn and brooding now, just a dark shape considering the
lifeless thing, limp and heavy in his arms. Food, only food. A
sigh of disappointment, no longer worth the effort. A change then,
mechanically processing, pleasure becomes mere nutrition, working
in silent speed, grimly pumping the remains of still warm food
into the functional plastic container.

Professional as always, covering his tracks, tracks of his
needles, tracks of his suction on her collapsing arteries. A swish
of the scalpel across her throat, its throat, the food's throat.
Neat, but not too neat. Ragged where disguise was an advantage.

-------

Slamming the phone down on Bill Patterson was a necessary release,
trivial in itself, like the hissing of the steam from the valve on
the pressure cooker, yet equally necessary. Jeanette Abrahams,
model of control, running just the right side of the safe working
limits, hers, her colleagues', her boss's. A specialist in walking
the line, she felt the tension wriggle deeper under her skin,
tickling at her nerve endings as it burrowed down.

Was it true that bad things came in threes, or was that merely the
brain's attempt to impose a pattern on random events?

Her boss, Bill Patterson, guru and autocrat had made the perfectly
reasonable deduction that Agent Abrahams could use a little help.
Not surprising, when a kidnapper copies his ransom demand to the
press agencies as well as to the victims' families, questions are
asked. What more can be done? Why haven't the police, the Bureau,
someone, done something already?

With two ransoms paid and two young women returned, it was evident
that the kidnapper was on a winning streak. The two unpaid ransom
demands had now delivered two corpses.

Pay or pray? Pay or die. So arrogant now, the latest victim had
been taken the night before, within hours of the second death. The
kidnapper was currently two million dollars ahead and confident of
making it three. And in the process he was making a mockery of the
investigators' tactics.

The bathroom mirror's lights were, she had decided, a little
harsh, highlighting every sag of tired skin, every red vein in
overworked eyes. Dispassionately, Abrahams studied herself in the
mirror, carefully pushed the comb through the short bob of dark
hair and cursed genetics. Henna rinse no longer so successful in
disguising the first tell tale gray. Losing its efficacy, soon
she'd need to use something stronger. Expected. Necessary.

She doubted that any of the detectives she'd worked with the day
before had gone home and dyed their hair. Equality demanded
implicit agreement of double standards and she was a consummate
professional.

She sniffed in another lungfull of air and finished buttoning her
jacket, considered the two phone calls. One, the promise of help
from Patterson. The other, the discovery of the second corpse.
Maybe they would get lucky. She shivered a little at that and
wondered since when her definition of luck had started with a dead
body.

The fifth and latest victim had been missing for around twelve
hours. Abrahams' first estimate was that, at best, they had five
days to find her, or more plausibly to pay the million dollars.
Her father, a political rising star, staunch devotee of law and
order, had proclaimed his faith in the Bureau. She knew that he
would do whatever the team advised.

She prepared for a long day. Another death. Another woman balanced
on the razor's edge. She was happy to acknowledge that she needed
help, would even be grateful for it. She even understood part of
Patterson's reasoning. She was cynically confident that Patterson
couldn't come in person. It was already a no win situation and
Bill didn't like to hang out with losers. She was less sure about
the rest of it. Why didn't he send Edwards or Granowitz or Petty
or any of his other picture book perfect, middle aged Agents? One
of the ones who actually looked like the serious, confident,
professional face of the FBI's finest?

Why was he sending Mulder?

---------

La Guardia was not the ideal place to spend the night, the seats
were not the most comfortable, the entertainment was not the most
riveting. Missing his planned flight from New York back to DC last
night had not been one of Mulder's smarter moves. Looking back, he
knew that there had been no reason for him to spend quite so many
hours at the hospital. Hindsight was truly one of the seven
wonders of the world.

After all, in hindsight, he was always able to do his job so much
better. The night spent at the airport had not improved his mood.
Nor had the repeating pattern of cancelled flights and full ones,
now there was a coincidence.

He would have been better off checking into a hotel. No matter.
After all, it wasn't as if he would have slept. Though he could
have showered and changed. Oh well, he could do something about
that here at the airport. Just think of the money he'd saved the
Bureau. Maybe he'd put it in the report for Patterson.

He closed his eyes again and his brain obliged by supplying him
with highlights of the day before. Pausing at the key turning
points to let him analyze his words, tone of voice and body
language, so he could try and work out how he'd managed to screw
up.

The pager buzzed. Message number 1. Well, there was a surprise.
Mulder pushed himself out of the uncomfortable chair, found a
phone and called his boss.

Patterson skipped the preliminaries. "How many hours late were you
getting to the house?"

"Six. More or less."

"And how many hours did you waste, booking flights, going to the
airport, flying up there and the rest of it?"

"I'd already tried to handle it by phone."

"I see. So, you arrived at the police HQ and led them directly to
the perp's house?"

Mulder winced, as if Patterson didn't have all the details jotted
down in his file by now. "No Sir. They still needed to be
convinced."

"So, having you there in person did a lot of good?"

"Can we talk about this when I get home. I think they are just
calling my flight." Mulder lied unconvincingly.

"I want you in Chicago."

Mulder stood up straight, suddenly wide-awake. "Same case as Agent
Abrahams?"

"Same."

"Is she ok?"

"She needs help. The PD will meet you off the flight."

Mulder put the phone down a few seconds after Patterson hung up.

---------

The police team were furious and Jeanette Abrahams couldn't blame
them. Patterson had phoned and in his own inimitable,
superficially polite, unashamedly arrogant manner, had ordered
them not to remove the body until Mulder had seen the site. A
frustrated cluster of detectives hovered on the edge of the muddy
hillside, muttering dire warnings about Federal interference,
politicians and delusions of grandeur.

The Federal Agent already in position had a different take on the
scene, she was well past furious. Not that any of the strangers
would have been aware of that, her body was an island of stillness
among the restless energy of those around her, her face an oasis
of calm concentration.

Patterson's request would have been an insult to an inexperienced
small town police force. The same request made to a Chicago
homicide squad was outrageous. Making the request when the Bureau
already had a behavioral specialist on site was clearly well
outside the limits of reason.

Abrahams was beyond anger. She'd lived with this team for the last
two weeks and had fought to get her voice heard and her opinions
respected. She'd earned every ounce of respect. She stared grimly
at the tense faces of her PD colleagues; mused on how casually
Patterson had pissed away her credibility in one offhand,
authoritatively spoken, request.

Professional to a fault, she ignored the clamor in her brain.
"Agent Mulder has an exceptional record." Spoken convincingly. She
talked about how in a case this sensitively poised, a couple of
hours delay might offer a new insight on the problem. They offered
sullen agreement, accepted that it wasn't worth muddying the
water, if through clarity they could get their man.

Mulder arrived with a splash. The sirens and flashing lights
blazed out on the squad car that brought him from the Airport.
Abrahams suppressed her smile, noted that it was the first time
she'd felt even close to smiling in a couple of days, sensing
automatically that Mulder would have loathed the trip. She
wondered about that. Odd really, after all, he himself had a
strong sense of the theatrical on occasion. It was other people's
melodramatic performances that he resented.

The faces of the detectives on site gave the game away. Stonefaced
turned to stunned and maybe a little horrified as Mulder got urged
out of the car and hustled up the hill to join the rest of the
investigating team. Abrahams realized her smile was getting harder
to suppress, took a deep breath, made sure that it stayed under
wraps.

Apart from some rookies on crowd control, up until now, she had
been the youngest person on site. Now, of course, that honor fell
to Mulder. She watched him, 27 going on 17, her exceptionally
effective backup as personally insisted upon by Patterson. Looking
for all the world like he should be picking up his fake ID ready
for a night out partying with his college friends.

She wondered just why he looked so young. The Bureau had a dress
code. She readily recalled those supervisors whose interpretation
had been that female Agents must wear skirts and jackets. She had
always been one for pushing the boundaries.

It wasn't that, on paper, he was actually violating any of the
regulations, not too badly at any rate. He was wearing what might
have been a regulation dark gray suit, cut at least one size too
big. Images of Talking Heads claiming to be on the Road to Nowhere
entered her head. Whether the two-tone gray striped shirt and
silver tie were even loosely in the spirit of the code was
questionable, certainly only an Elvis impersonator could find them
discreet. The just off regulation hair cut was respectably short,
but definitely not tamed. Mulder wasn't even trying to look like
the mature presence they'd been anticipating.

For a moment, Abrahams considered leaving the men to choke their
own way through the introductions. But that would, of course, have
been unprofessional.

She stepped forward, a slow wave of the hand. "This is Agent
Mulder."

She worked smoothly through the names of the investigating team in
strict order of rank, status and clockwise rotation. Mulder
politely removed his mirrored sunglasses to play his part in the
ritual handshaking. The formal round of introductions over, he
finally turned to face his Bureau colleague. "Good afternoon,
Agent Abrahams." She felt his eyes switch on for an instant. A
brief flash of hazel laser light in her direction, lasting only a
fraction of a second before he turned away. She blinked to clear
her vision of the after effects.

The dead body attracted only marginal interest from Mulder.

The Medical Examiner was icily composed, distinguished gray hair
topping a tall, trim, well cared for body. After an initial trip
to the site early in the day, the ME had wandered back to his lab,
returning now, simply to supervise the removal of the body. Mulder
spent a couple of minutes chatting to the professorial looking
doctor, animated hand movements from both parties suggesting that
they had found some common ground.

Abrahams watched them, fascinated, noted with surprise that it was
the ME who walked away looking like he had something to think
about. On balance, maybe not so surprising, she decided. Mulder
did that to people. The ME checked over the dead woman again and
arranged for some additional photographs before finally calling
for the crew to take the body away.

The locals were getting bored and Mulder was doing them no favors.
He wasn't even pretending to be part of the team. He asked
questions, but offered no opinions. Eventually he had even lost
interest in the questions, wandered around for a little while
until finally he found a newspaper to act as a cushion. Sat on the
ground, silently reading the casefile, occasionally looking down
from his chosen perch above the dumpsite.

An hour or so later, content that he'd spent long enough on the
file, he put it to one side, allowing himself to just sit and
watch, saying nothing, doing nothing, just staring at the place
where the body had been found.

Dusk was approaching; a damp haze of cold rolled over the site as
the sun started to drop. The forensics crew and most of the other
homicide detectives had already left. A steadily dwindling band of
police were standing around talking, casting occasional shakes of
the head towards the freaky Fed. Initial amusement imperceptibly
shifting to irritation as they analyzed his performance.

It was Grahams who cracked and after a few moments consideration,
finally sought out Abrahams to get her observations on the show.
He patted her politely on the shoulder. She turned, automatically
looking up, then adjusting her gaze higher still as she realized
who it was. The detective gestured towards Mulder. "HE's going to
help YOU?" His voice was cheerfully heavy on the sarcasm.

The smile hit her lips unintentionally. The relief, she knew, was
foolish and definitely a little petty but she couldn't help but
feel pleased that they were still talking to her. Grateful for an
instant that they'd not yet written her off as the FBI's token
female.

The detective saw her smile and encouraged by it, smiled back.
"What's his game anyway? Bureau psychic?"

"It helps him concentrate. He's usually consulting from DC on a
dozen different cases. When he's out in the field, it takes him a
while to clear his head."

"I get it." He laughed softly. "He doesn't get out much. I can see
why."

For an instant she was tempted to play along, but her conscience
cut in too quickly. Later they might need to take anything that
Mulder suggested as if gospel given. She was annoyed by the sudden
twinge of jealousy that rippled down her spine. Ironic that she
would have to start building Mulder's reputation. "He's too
expensive an asset. Though actually, he came straight here from
New York, so I guess he's trying to get that one out of his system
as well."

"How much longer?"

"The ME reckons the woman has been lying here overnight and that
fits with the times when we know the site would have been
deserted. I guess Mulder will wait for sunset. You may as well
forget hanging around. If we get anything tonight, we'll call."

Grahams reported back to his colleagues. Abrahams watched as they
walked away. The two FBI Agents and the young police officers
guarding the site now had the place to themselves. As the others
disappeared into the evening rush hour, she could almost hear
their mumbles about leaving it to the kids, kooks and women.

The site was suddenly empty and silent, fewer people now and the
sky was darkening fast. The privacy offered Abrahams her first
real chance to watch Mulder in comfort. He had removed his
sunglasses when twilight arrived. She studied him as he sat,
slightly hunched, defending himself from the cold. Silly mistake,
she observed, coming out here without his coat and letting the
squad car take all his clothes direct to the hotel. Mulder was
eerily still, the only giveaway that he was actually awake the
occasional movement of his head as he surveyed the empty hillside
with its police marker tape and measurement flags.

Mulder had once told her that watching helped him to focus. He was
a very visual person, he liked to watch. She knew that was true,
they'd never made love with the lights out.

========

For all her professional cool, it was nonetheless Jeanette
Abrahams who was the more obviously irritated by the note that was
waiting for them when they returned to the hotel. Mulder surprised
her by agreeing to play nice and accept the invitation to dinner
that had come in from the homicide detectives. After all, they
were planning on eating here at the hotel, so what was the big
deal?

Sure, no big deal. Abrahams pushed irritably into her room, glad
to be leaving Mulder to walk to the next one along. Mulder in
Spooky mode was bad enough; Mulder hamming it up for the benefit
of an exhausted police homicide squad was not an attractive
prospect. It would have been good to back him into a quiet corner
and given him a little chat on team work. Wouldn't have helped,
but at least she could have salved her conscience and got the
misgivings off her chest. Unfortunately, she was already too tired
for that particular squabble.

Anyway, as it was, she barely had time to shower and change. That
annoyed her too, a quiet meal with Mulder and she could have
actually treated it as a little timeout. Instead, she was
polishing her shoes. Mulder knew exactly what the big deal was.

No time later, Abrahams was phoning Mulder from her room to
confirm that she was ready to leave. They met at the elevators.
She studied him with irritation. If it hadn't been serious, it
would have been funny. She had expected this or something like it.
The Bureau dress code suggested that smart casual wear could be
acceptable for truly informal, off duty meals.

According to Jeanette Abrahams, a dozen members of a psyched up
homicide squad, preparing to interrogate the two profilers loaned
to them by the FBI, was anything but informal. Without the excuse
of cold weather and a muddy crime scene, she hadn't even risked
using a little artistic license on her outfit. Tailored jacket,
knee length skirt, high neckline blouse, elegantly heeled black
court shoes. She considered her appearance, 32 years old and she
reckoned she probably looked ready for her pension. Sexless and
safe for social interaction with local law.

Mulder wore trainers, tight black jeans, black shirt and leather
jacket. Abrahams tried to block the sudden idea that he should be
calling her, mom.

No comments were made as they waited, but the slight curve of his
mouth indicated clearly enough that the whole thing was
deliberate. They stepped into the elevator and were alone,
studying one another in the long mirror. Mulder stood behind her,
suddenly reaching forward to nibble her ear lobe.

She tried to keep her voice stern. "I'm not that easy. You could
have made more effort."

"What if I promise to put in more effort later?"

It was hard for her to avoid smiling when he dipped his tongue
into the hollow below her ear. Fortunately, for her composure,
they quickly reached the restaurant level. By the time the doors
opened, they were strangers again. A brief brush of his hand
against the small of her back as they turned towards the
restaurant the only indication of any familiarity.

Back to business. Jeanette Abrahams forced herself to remember
that she was the senior Agent on the case, not just in appearance,
but in reality. Two years with San Francisco PD, three years with
the Bureau in Detroit and New York before Patterson had decided
that she was gifted and added her to the ISU. That was three years
ago.

Mulder was the freak here; Patterson had taken him straight off
the Quantico rookie production line. She prepared herself to give
him a ten second pep talk on appropriate dress and conduct in
informal situations and its relevance to inspiring confidence from
fellow law enforcement professionals. She didn't get the chance.

"Forget it. They already think I'm a green kid, let me have a bit
of fun with it."

For all the mention of fun, the voice was so knowing and so
unhappy, that she didn't bother to reply. She forced herself to
agree, you should take your fun where you find it. She found
herself wondering which particular version of Mulder was going to
be on show tonight.

Their hosts had rearranged the restaurant furniture to ensure that
the whole group could sit together. Eight members of the homicide
team were already seated. It was clear from the position of the
two most obviously empty chairs that the FBI Agents were the
guests of honor, or something. As they spotted Mulder, vague
expressions of disbelief formed on their faces. A couple offered
grim smiles, a couple shuddered, but most just looked vaguely
resigned and increasingly despondent.

Mulder walked briskly to the vacant center seat on the far side of
the table. Abrahams took the seat facing him. Mulder stood up
straight for long enough to nod a politely formal hello, a self-
confidence in his posture and expression that belied his
determinedly casual clothes.

Mulder continued the performance by pulling another of his magic
rabbits out of the hat and greeting everyone by name and rank. He
paused on the two unfamiliar faces who had not been at the site
that afternoon and quickly introduced himself.

A politician, when he needed to be. Within five minutes he had
managed to ask a question or raise a comment that demonstrated
that he remembered the contributions to the case files made by
each detective. He had also left them thoroughly disoriented. They
were watching him with even more curiosity now. A theatrical
trick, they knew it and so did Mulder.

Playing a dangerous game. Abrahams had years of practice forcing
initially resistant Bureau teams and police departments to accept
her as a competent professional, as an authority in her field. She
was a good team player, not "one of the boys", but not an
outsider.

Mulder wasn't even trying to feign an interest in joining the
team. His style simply reinforcing his self assigned role of
investigative freak. From where she was sitting it was clear that
he was not even trying to build a working partnership, merely
making them aware of his presence in the hopes that they wouldn't
automatically ignore his comments.

For an instant, she sympathized. A freak and he knew it, he
wouldn't be allowed to join their team. So he wasn't even trying.
But she tried, always. And on this case, it was looking like she
would be forced to try for the both of them.

The task force members asked him for first impressions. He looked
at Abrahams briefly, signaling a warning with a single, barely
noticeable, flash of his eyes.

Mulder only offered the others a casual wave of the hand as he
replied. "I've not discussed the case with Agent Abrahams, so I'm
not ready to comment, yet." He paused for just long enough to let
the mumbles of the detectives rise, before cutting back in, some
sense of the dramatic steering his timing. "Except, if it was my
kid missing, I'd pay the ransom. And I have no idea how he placed
the dead woman on that site."

The remarks raised temperatures, pulse rates and blood pressures
around the table. Mulder studied the menu, seemingly oblivious to
the reaction. Apparently unaware that he had committed two
cardinal sins.

His first statement was quickly identified, as the kind of
defeatist remark which custom and practice said must never be
offered as a tossaway comment. His second ran counter to
everything Patterson taught as good public relations. Profilers,
Abrahams mused, never had 'no idea', they never 'don't
understand'. They merely see anomalies that could be crucial to
identifying the perpetrator's signature and therefore vital to
their eventual capture.

"Yeah, your crime scene crystal ball not programmed for Illinois
then?" It was a voice Abrahams initially had to strain to
identify, laden as it was with both sarcasm and anger. Detective
Kerridge.

No further. Abrahams decided it had gone far enough. She stepped
in before Mulder decided to dig a deeper hole. "I suspect Agent
Mulder is disturbed by the lack of mud and grass stains on the
front of the woman's body, she couldn't have been rolled to that
position. The implication is that she was carried to that
location, then placed on the ground."

The detectives quickly clarified the problem for themselves. The
woman was 5 feet 8 tall and weighed 130 pound. She died of blood
loss from knife wounds, yet there was no blood on site, so it had
been assumed that she must already have been dead before being
dumped here. The slippery slope, the soft ground. Yet there was an
absence of any of the deep indentations or missteps needed to
indicate that a big man was carrying a heavy load, more than fifty
yards down a steep and muddy hillside.

The first body had been dumped in a similarly tough location, but
too many footprints had damaged the site before the analysis had
been completed. Everyone had been careful this time. Which was why
there had still been something to see when Mulder arrived.

Sensing a lull in the conversation, Mulder raised his eyes from
the menu and looked around the room. The waitress almost ran to
the table. It was obvious to Abrahams that the young woman had
been waiting for him to look up, just watching them, or maybe just
watching Mulder.

There were times when Jeanette was dismayed by own sex, though
actually this time she couldn't really blame the girl. They were,
after all, a pretty curious looking bunch. Three dark suits, two
dark blazers over gray pants, three tweed jackets over brown or
black. Abrahams herself, who reckoned she probably looked like the
Principal of an extremely strict girls school. And Mulder who, at
that instant, looked like the Fonz's angsty kid brother.

The waitress, Sandie according to her lapel badge, took Abrahams'
order first, then worked her way around the table, pausing between
each order to flutter long eye lashes, or flash perfect teeth at
Mulder. When she finally reached him, the phrase "see anything
else you'd like" slipped briefly through Jeanette's head. Sandie
didn't say it, but she did offer a "nice choice" and lick her lips
very slightly as she turned to the next member of the party.

Abrahams idly considered quietly pulling the young blonde to one
side for a little girl talk. Wondering if she ought to explain
about him, tell her that he was available for rent, but it was
strictly by the hour. Jeanette guessed Sandie would probably book
two or three, just to check him out.

It struck her that actually it would be interesting to ask the
girl exactly who she thought the oddity at the table might be. The
son of one of the suits? A criminal that they were half way
through arresting? She studied Mulder. What crime? Looked at the
way the soft leather draped to emphasis the line of his shoulders.
The neat but softly ruffled cut of his hair. The way his eyes
danced with curiosity as he watched colleagues, other customers,
blond waitresses. A hustler?

The discussion flitted around the case and Mulder remained silent.
Even direct questions to him provoked only one word replies. He
had thrown the cat among the pigeons when he arrived and since
then had been content, simply to watch the fallout.

They, however, remained determined to find out more about him.
Madeley, the leader of the investigating team turned towards
Mulder again. "You've been in New York?"

"Yesterday and this morning."

"The cannibal case?"

"It was a misnomer." A pause to allow people time to take fresh
bites from their steaks. "He was very selective about which body
parts he ate. Only things that he could remove while the victim
was alive. He wasn't interested in dead flesh."

"You got him?"

"They already had a good shortlist. We picked one." Mulder
stiffened, suddenly looking around as if startled by a movement in
the room, fidgeting slightly. "He got killed during the arrest."

"You got the evidence though?"

Mulder stilled his fidgeting by taking a sip of water, all calm
now. "He had a victim there, still alive. When we arrived, he had
just finished the eyeballs."

"Jesus." A mix of reactions from the others around the table,
sitting up a little straighter in their seats or slouching down a
little further.

A quick shrug of the shoulders, Mulder flicked back his hair. "So
if anyone orders lychees, I won't be held responsible for my
actions."

Groans of embarrassed amusement. Mulder kept his eyes averted,
looked down at his hands, noted his fingers were shivering
slightly, quickly moved them from the table so they couldn't be
seen. Too late, Jeanette had already spotted them.

The waitress returned, looking carefully at Mulder as she asked if
they would like anything more. Her shift was ending shortly, she
explained that someone else would soon be taking over her duties.
Abrahams reassessed her calculation, maybe Sandie would book him
for the full night. She looked around the room and noticed the
distinct absence of serious competition, even the man at the
neighboring table wearing the expensive suit was accompanied by a
woman of matching dress sense.

She looked back at Mulder, looking dark and mysterious and full of
mischief even as he enlisted extra sugar lumps to demonstrate a
particularly good basketball play.

Mulder drank his coffee and said goodnight. His quick
disappearance provoking some good humored raised eyebrows and
smirks from the team. And a couple of scowls of disgust, whether
of jealousy or because they had daughters of the same age as the
girl, Abrahams wasn't quite sure. Respecting the presence of a
female at the table, they avoided slipping too far into the
graphic in their messages of good luck.

The evening's entertainment duly disposed of, they sat and
discussed their schedules for the following day. They took the
opportunity to question Abrahams cagily on her FBI colleague.

She explained the value of a second opinion and identified why
Patterson had sent Mulder. Despite his short length of service, he
could offer a different way of looking at a problem. They didn't
seem surprised by that description.

Abrahams checked her watch a couple of times to make sure that she
didn't leave the table too early. She was heartened by the warmly
polite goodnights from the detectives as she left. She took the
elevator ride as the opportunity to comb her hair.

Bracing herself against the doorframe, she knocked a quick rattle
of greeting on Mulder's bedroom door. He looked through the spy
hole, quickly undid the lock and stepped back to let her in.

Jeanette shook her head as she studied his naked body. "Lucky I
didn't bring back any of the detectives."

"Lucky I didn't bring back that waitress."

"Are you ok?" It was a coded, loaded question, understood and
familiar, a symptom of a shared history.

"Yes." His voice was soft and tense. "And you?"

"Yes."

He relaxed into a smile at her reply.

Without a pause for discussion or indecision he led her to the
bed, pressing her gently back, making her sit down on its edge.
Her hands moved to loosen the buttons of her jacket but his hands
rose quickly to meet hers, stilling her movements, preventing her
from making any further attempt to undress.

She felt a shiver flutter along her spine, recognized a sudden
flicker of guilty passion adding piquancy to her already growing
excitement. She was suddenly, shockingly turned on, at least
partly by the odd thrill of being fully and formally dressed as
her man stood naked before her.

He dropped to his knees, resting on the ground between her feet.
He leaned down, bending to the floor and kissing her ankle. She
felt the wet heat of his lips as they walked slowly upwards,
brushing lightly over the achilles tendon, along her calf,
steadily higher. He paused to let his tongue play a while when he
reached her knee, provoking a giggle of laughter from her, then
onwards and upwards again.

Soft and hot and she was melting from his touch. She reached for
him, played her long fingers through his short dark hair. He
sighed into her touch. She closed her eyes and felt her breathing
go ragged.

Only minutes earlier her body had been all hard edges. Now, she
was liquid. She dropped, letting her shoulders and back fall and
sink onto the bed, while her legs dangled over its edge. The world
blurred, his touch driving conscious thought from her brain. He
was ruthlessly efficient. She was happy to admit, that she was
embarrassingly willing. Reaching for it, she stretched, body
demanding, brain releasing her from its grip. She knew how to fly,
she let herself go.

Time had become a thing outside her, certainly she was unsure how
long it took for her body to allow her to reopen her eyes after
she lost her mind and her control and learned to fly. When she did
look round again, Mulder was lying beside her on the bed, just
staring at her. Dispassionately, she considered her position; her
feet still planted squarely on the floor; shoes, panties and hose
pooled on the ground between them. Otherwise, she noted with
amusement, she was still fully dressed. A little creased, but
basically looking as prim and proper as that School Principal,
except for the deep red blush that her cheeks were wearing.

He chuckled as she tried to clear the confusion from her head.
"Women are sooooo lucky. If a man succumbs that quickly, he has to
write a letter confessing his problem to Doctor Ruth."

She couldn't help but laugh as his fingers wandered to the buttons
of her blouse. She helped him undress her. They slid happily
between the sheets. Content that they could both go slow, make
love with the patience of people who knew one another well.

Sleep was easy, it came for them, took them to a safe place.

===============

The bed was already empty when Abrahams woke up. Three thirty and
no Mulder. She quickly checked the room and tried not to panic.
She found her clothes and realized as she dressed that her room
key was missing from her pocket. She could breathe again. And she
would, right after she strangled him.

She was trying not to look angry as she knocked on the door of her
own bedroom. She kept her face relaxed as she walked in.
Inevitably, the TV was on and so was her PC. It was obvious that
he was in full flow. She looked at him, he looked dreadful. "Did
you get any sleep?"

"Some." His voice rattled back almost sullen and certainly to
Jeanette's ears, vaguely petulant.

"Do you want a pill?"

Mulder looked back at her, blinking once, as if startled by the
offer, a look she read as suggesting that he was profoundly
offended by the concept. As if he were insulted that she might
think Fox Mulder might need to do anything so primitive as sleep.
As if a pill might know better how and when to stop him than his
brain did.

She tried again, a different tack. "What are you doing?"

He ignored the question, decided that it had to be rhetorical.
Breathing in carefully, he gave a reply of sorts, his voice
softening to something apologetic and unhappy. "I'm sorry."

That probably meant something. Jeanette Abrahams, trained in
psychology, an expert profiler, considered it for a few seconds
and remained totally bewildered by his response. She decided to
blame the time of day for her lack of telepathy. She was however a
trained investigator. "What are you sorry about?"

"Today."

Well that narrowed it down. Not by much. Ok, she'd play. Let's
guess. Wearing jeans? Flirting with the waitress? Getting out of
bed? "Something about the case?"

His reply was a speech, said fast with no pauses for breath. "I
couldn't help it I should have talked to you at the site I
shouldn't have messed with them at the meal I know you will have
to work with them after I leave it won't happen again."

What the fuck? Ok, fair enough, an apology was in order, but it
was unexpected. She hesitated, tried to work out why he was so off
balance. Try again. "So why did you do it?" She made a sudden
mental leap. "What happened in New York?"

He stared at the wall behind her head. Eyes wide open. She
couldn't stop herself from wondering what he saw when he closed
his eyes. It didn't do to ask. After all, he might tell her, or he
might ask her what she could see when she closed hers. Either way,
it was best not to ask.

His voice fluttered, stumbled, as he spoke. "They ignored me. I
read their list of possibles. It was obvious who they needed to go
for. But they wouldn't."

She frowned. For fuck's sake, he was only there for a few hours.
What did he expect? Faith that moves mountains? "They went in.
They found the killer. You got his latest victim out alive."

"He was eating her, Jen. He'd eaten her eyes."

"She'd have died."

"She needn't have been blind."

It was a pointless argument. She tried something different. "How
did you make them go in?" Accentuate the positive, study the
technique that worked, make a horror story into an opportunity to
learn. Patterson, she thought wryly, would be so proud.

He threw his head back then eased it forward and down again,
staring unfocused at the ancient Star Trek episode on the TV
screen. She watched him as he took deep breaths. "I couldn't take
it. Broke down in the middle of their fucking office, begging
them. They were so embarrassed, they sent a couple of men with me
to the suspect's house, just to calm me down."

It was starting to fall into place for her now. That was why they
had sat through the silent psychic act at the site and the
expressionless college boy smart-ass over the dinner table. Shit.
She could see why that was not a technique he would want to reuse.
For the first time, it occurred to her that Patterson might have
sent Mulder, not to support her on this case, but simply to stay
with her. Bastard.

Gentle pressure, her hands on his shoulder, she made him lie down,
side on to the TV set, keeping his eyes filled with its benign
images. She already knew that he was unlikely to sleep, he might
not even dare close his eyes, but she could force him to rest. She
lay against his back, wrapped herself around his body to keep out
the chill.

----------

Some of the police team had looked merely dubious last night when
Jeanette Abrahams had told them of her plans for today, others had
looked horrified. She had explained that she would go with Mulder
to visit the two women who had been returned and the families of
the two dead victims. The thought of a public appearance by
Special Agent Fox Mulder had made them more than a little edgy.
All eyes were on the two agents as they arrived at the station.

They needn't have worried. Not playing the game with the other
people on the investigating team was one thing, but Mulder was a
different animal when faced with a victim. Even his appearance had
changed, Bureau recruitment poster material. The suit, tie and
shirt were sober to the point of somber. His normally slightly
ruffled hair was neatly combed. He moved with a dignified ease,
looking older than his twenty-seven years, looking like someone
who had already seen too much.

In an automatic politeness, Mulder held the door for Abrahams as
they walked into the office, attracting more than one or two
raised eyebrows from the watching police officers. Mentally, she
shook her head at their interpretation, knowing that he would do
the same if he had a male colleague at his side. In his mood of
nervous concentration, his default behaviors were taking over. She
could find fault with a lot of things about the Mulder family but
their son had undoubtedly picked up these residual good manners
from somewhere.

He followed her into the main bullpen of an office, stood slightly
behind her and to one side, emphasizing through body language that
she was the lead FBI Agent on the case. He paid attention,
listened, spoke only when spoken to.

She swapped notes with the police team and agreed the schedule.
Everyone equally determined that the families would not be asked
to meet a dribble of police and Agents in some uncoordinated way.
Two of the senior detectives would travel with the Agents, but
only one or two of the quartet would be involved in any particular
interview.

Car seating arrangements are frequently used to identify pecking
orders. Normally, Abrahams ignored such niceties whoever they
traveled with and threw the car keys to Mulder, keeping him busy
and distracting him from boredom and brooding. Unfortunately,
today, common sense dictated that one of the locals should drive,
so Kerridge took the driving seat.

Second choice, she could sit in the back seat with Mulder and if
necessary talk to him without being overheard. Third choice, he
could sit in front of her so that she could keep an eye on him as
they traveled. Etiquette, professional and social, interfered.
Abrahams found herself inescapably steered towards the front
passenger seat, Mulder sat behind her. Grahams sat by his side.

A quickly agreed consensus had decided that they would start easy
and work their way up.

They visited the first of the survivors, the girl who'd been
safely returned more than a month before. After a few minutes of
introduction, Mulder signaled to Abrahams that he'd like to talk
to the victim. No surprise there. Kerridge joined him as planned.

Grahams followed Abrahams into the dining room for yet another
discussion with the parents about the days leading up to their
daughter's disappearance.

Amanda Fullerton's startled blue eyes glanced out through unruly
blonde curls. She looked at Mulder and Kerridge once and then
looked edgily away. Her eyes flitted point to point around the
room, weighing up all the doors and exits, considering threats and
possible weapons. Tight jeans ending over the pale flesh of her
bare calves. Looking much younger than her eighteen years. The
confident young woman in the file photographs had vanished,
replaced by this still scared girl. "I didn't see him. I don't
know what help I can be."

Hands resting on his knees, Mulder leaned quietly forward,
capturing her nervous gaze in reassuringly calm eyes, like falling
into the safety net. "I know you didn't see him. But he saw you.
That's what I'd like to talk to you about."

Soft, nervous, half smile of a reply. She would do what she could.

A white box of a room had been her home for almost a week, without
revealing more than its boxiness. Meals had arrived through a
hatch in the door delivered without words, without sight of her
jailer. Food had been run of the mill microwave ready meals served
still in their plastic trays and eaten with plastic forks and
spoons.

The night of her abduction was a blank. The night of her return
had been a haze of drugs and confusion.

After forty minutes, Abrahams and Grahams were wandering the
grounds of the house, with no new information from their meeting.

The only thought that it had triggered in Abrahams took her back
to day one of her involvement on the case and the idea that had
struck her when she first read the reports. If she didn't know
better, she'd have said that the victim not only knew her
kidnapper but that she went willingly to him. If it had been a
single incident, she might even have said that it was not a kidnap
at all.

With two dead bodies on the same case, such an idea had become
ludicrous. She wondered if Mulder had found any new insight.

Disapproval combined with genuine bewilderment as Grahams quizzed
Abrahams on just why she had allowed Mulder to conduct the
interview with the victim. If anyone was going to suddenly come up
with something after a month, if anyone had temporarily forgotten
key data immediately following trauma. If there was a possibility
of some new recollection, then it was with the girl.

Abrahams smiled at the idea. Why she had allowed Mulder? She had
long since recognized that people were too easily misled by the
superficial. Even people who should know better.

She was amused by it, Grahams had actually been taken in by
Mulder's quiet show of deference. The careful hanging back in
discussion at the office and the respectful body language had led
them to assume that Mulder was indeed her subordinate. They
probably even thought Mulder had received a lecture from her
before work that morning, been given some pep talk to warn him
against repeating the theatrical performance of the previous day.

The warm and hopeful look in Grahams' eyes made it clear that he
at least didn't think there was anything other than a strictly
professional relationship between the Agents. Mulder's carefully
timed departure from the dining table last night had thrown them
off the scent.

People see what they expect to see, what they want to see.

Grahams emphasized his argument with a little flattery. "I mean,
Agent Abrahams, look is it ok if I call you Jeanette. I've watched
you in interviews. You're so patient with them, they feel so easy
with you. Everyone feels easy with you. I don't think the same's
true for Mulder. He doesn't have the experience. You said it
yourself, he works out of an office in Quantico."

"I've interviewed her before. A different voice may trigger a
different reaction." She didn't bother to explain that Mulder
could see straight through what he was expected to see. Nor the
inevitable corollary, he seldom saw what he wanted to see.

It took a while before their missing colleagues emerged from their
discussions with Amanda. When they did appear, Kerridge was
looking irritable, Mulder was looking tense. Jeanette Abrahams
studied him more carefully. His face was offering nothing, yet his
eyes were dark and alert, processing. She addressed her question
to the ether somewhere between the two men, confident that Mulder
would not reply, but offering him the opportunity. "Anything?"

Kerridge growled his answer as they strapped themselves back into
the car. "Sure. She takes tennis classes. Her favorite vacation
destination is Greece, favorite Greek island is Skiathos. She
likes tequila. Her cat's called Battie. She likes to keep her hair
short, the highlight dye color is called blonde bombette. She only
buys red cars. Anything else you wanna know?"

Abrahams looked over the seat back towards Mulder, to his credit
he chose to come out of his self-induced trance for long enough to
offer her a fast smile. It lasted for an instant, then he blanked
again, diving back under to wherever he went when he worked.

The next house call was almost a repeat of the first.

They were at their most cautious as they moved on to deal with the
families of the dead. Catherine Dalton had been dead for three
weeks. No magical revelations had struck anyone in the family,
only the bitter realization that the nightmare was real and that
Catherine would never be coming back.

They had saved the worst for last. Yesterday's dead woman, Karen
Devlin. Her mother was sedated and unable to talk to them. Her
father was almost limp with fury and grief, angry with the police
and the Bureau for not finding her, with himself for not paying
the ransom exactly in time, noon last Saturday.

Mulder's voice was gentle yet strangely matter of fact when he
asked for permission to look around Karen's bedroom. The rest of
the request was implied, left unspoken. This man, a stranger
wanted to dig into Karen's personal things, maybe read her diary,
pull files from her computer, grub through her drawers. Perform
some kind of dissection of the remnants of her life. As aggressive
and as invasive as cutting her open on the autopsy table and
without even the clinical detachment.

Her father didn't need the details spelt out. He looked stunned,
horrified. They had searched Karen's room before, of course, which
made it all the worse. Back then, it was a part of the
investigation that might have brought her home. Now, to the
Devlins, it would surely be the violation of a shrine. Even
Jeanette Abrahams felt vaguely nauseated at the request, though
she knew it had to be done. A brief moment of doubt, an exchange
of eye contact between Mulder and Devlin, then permission was
granted.

There was so little that could be done to ease the pain. So
Jeanette Abrahams did the best that she could. Soft spoken, she
told Karen Devlin's father that he mustn't blame himself.

There was no way he could have known how things would turn out
when he missed that first deadline given by the kidnapper. No way
to know that when the kidnapper had spotted a couple of police
watching the pick up point it would sign Karen's death warrant. No
way even to know if paying the money exactly as ordered would have
prevented her death.

It didn't take her long to convince him. Abruptly, he moved from
blaming himself to blaming her, the Bureau and the police. She
felt more comfortable with that.

Kerridge and Grahams wandered the grounds of the house, steering
clear of both Agents and the family. Abrahams couldn't actually
fault them on their decision. There were no new witnesses and no
new facts to be found here. The fewer people intruding, the
better.

The talking between Devlin and Abrahams had slowed. Both were
reduced to quietly sipping at cups of too bitter coffee. They were
waiting for Mulder to finish his search. She tried not to make it
too obvious when she looked at her watch.

The noise that startled them back to attention was confused and
angry. The shouts of a small boy. Abrahams thought back to the
previous meeting with the family, Michael Devlin, ten years old.

The realization that Michael must have stumbled on Mulder working
in Karen's bedroom hit Abrahams and Devlin simultaneously. They
ran upstairs to meet the sound.

By the time Jeanette reach Karen Devlin's bedroom, Michael's
confusion had turned to a need for action and he was running hard
and angry at Mulder. Ten-year-old tearful fury versus trained
Federal Agent. It was really no contest.

Abrahams stood in the doorway, shocked that Mulder actually let
Michael's fists collide with him before reaching for the kid's
shoulders. The boy screamed it out, kicking angrily, mostly
against fresh air. Mulder deflected the worst of the force of the
on target blows and watched carefully, moving as little as
possible, until finally with a last howl of frustration the boy's
anger deflated like a burst balloon.

Michael's father had arrived at the bedroom door soon after the
one sided battle began. Stunned by the horror of the day and the
fury coming from his normally placid son, Devlin just stood,
frozen in shock. The sudden calm as Michael stopped fighting threw
the room into silence, only the boy's heavy breathing breaking the
peace. Devlin cleared his throat and started to move forward,
uncertain of the role he should be playing, but sure that he
should be doing something.

Mulder shook his head and Devlin stopped his approach. Mulder's
voice was quiet and calm, yet distinct against the stillness of
the room. "I'd like to talk to Michael, if I may."

Devlin backed away a step or two. "Michael..." His voice trailed
off.

Jeanette Abrahams took over. "Michael. Would it be ok for Agent
Mulder to talk to you?"

Michael offered a single, slow but definite nod of the head. His
father withdrew nervously, aware that he was not yet ready to deal
with his son, uncomfortably grateful that Mulder apparently was.
Abrahams looked at Mulder for guidance, but he silently waved her
away. Swallowing hard, she backed off, decided to give both Mulder
and Michael the privacy they were asking for. She led Michael's
father back downstairs.

Kerridge and Grahams had run into the house on hearing the noise.
It took a fair dose of Abrahams' influencing skills to persuade
them back outside. They mumbled angrily as she tried to explain
what she had seen of what had taken place. Interviewing minors
without the presence of a parent. The risk of the parents filing
an assault charge if Mulder actually had to defend himself against
an hysterical kid. The unlikelihood of any good coming of the
interview. Mulder wasting everyone's time, upsetting a family in
mourning, adding to the distress. She was too professional to tell
them to shut the fuck up, but made sure they saw it, written in
her eyes.

She let her brain freewheel while they waited for Mulder. It fed
her pictures of Karen Devlin, her slashed throat, the absence of
blood at the crime scene, the lack of blood in her body. The
killer had drained her then left her on that muddy slope. Same MO
as the first victim.

The ransom payment was only hours late, the punishment had been
absolute. Why? The victims who had been returned had been handled
gently, there had been no assault, the transaction had been
thoroughly professional, absolutely controlled. The dead had died
without mercy, yet also without obvious additional torture or
molestation. All signs were pointing towards a ruthless
professional, killing strictly for business. So why the
bloodletting MO? Why not a bullet to the head and no pantomime
over the dump site. What was in this charade for the killer?

It seemed like an eternity before Mulder arrived in the porch. He
hesitated there for a moment recovering his poise, gradually
straightening his slumped shoulders, raising his bowed head. Some
impulse forced Abrahams to look up at the window of Karen's room.
She saw Michael standing there, a silhouette amongst the shadows
and drapes. Mulder slipped dark glasses back in place before he
left the cozy blackness of the doorstep and walked back to the
car, finally turning and giving Michael a long look and slow nod
of the head in farewell.

Almost eight hours spent talking to two survivors and two grieving
families and Abrahams was at the end of her rope. She needed to
talk to Mulder and she would, if necessary, force Mulder to talk
to her. Kerridge and Grahams were in her way and she had concluded
that the car sharing was a serious tactical error. If they had
taken two cars, then at least she would have had some time alone
with Mulder as they traveled between sites.

Mulder loaded himself carefully into the car, as if every movement
felt complicated and fraught with danger. He kept his eyes down,
his face carefully averted from Grahams and Kerridge. Utterly
washed out. Abrahams decided that was hardly surprising after the
last couple of days. Lack of sleep, the upset in New York, the
meetings with the victims' families. He would probably end up with
a black eye from that one sided scrap with Michael Devlin, she
paused over how they were going to explain that. Mulder noticed
her attempt at inspection and slumped as small as he could against
the window. The dark glasses stayed in place. She could only sense
that he had closed his eyes against them all.

Returning to the hotel seemed grossly unprofessional to Abrahams,
but she made the demand. She told Kerridge and Grahams that she
would make her own way down to the station in a couple of hours.
She talked vaguely about research and the need for her to review
the behavioral information with Mulder.

The detectives threw meaningful glances at one another. Grahams
gave her a quick sympathetic smile, a shrug of the shoulder and a
raised eyebrow in Mulder's direction confirming that he viewed her
Bureau colleague as the source of all her problems.

The drive back took a lot longer than any of them felt comfortable
with. Kerridge and Graham looked relieved to be dropping the
Agents off at the hotel.

========

Mulder's bedroom was chosen as the venue for their discussion.
Mulder offered her a drink. She rejected it as a timewasting
activity, which was, she decided an instant later a foolish
blunder, cutting off her nose to spite her face. Whether she
cooperated or not, Mulder would take all the time he needed.

He kept his back to her as he poured the glass of water, which he
downed in one. He took the can of coke and went to sit at the
desk. His movements were slow but purposeful; he removed his
sunglasses and studied her through red rimmed eyes. She watched as
the pupils slowly shut down, as if even they were too exhausted to
adjust immediately. She marveled at the sharp color change as his
eyes faded from almost black to a soft green gold.

She needed to say something before the silence choked them. "How
is Michael Devlin?"

Mulder's expression didn't change, as if he'd seem it coming and
had known that she wouldn't dodge. Soft controlled voice. "He
wants his sister back. If he can't have her, he'd like his parents
back. If he can't have them, he'll make do with himself."

She was listening more to his tone than his words. His reply was
painful but resigned, it was the resignation that hurt her. She
tried to find out how badly he was hurting. "And what about you?"

"I'm still confused. I found no direct links between the women,
apart from the obvious ones that they are from wealthy families.
So, I'm forced to assume that they were chosen and stalked by a
stranger. Yet, everything says they went willingly with their
kidnapper, that they knew him and that no coercion was required."

"That wasn't my question."

His eyes flashed a hands off warning, his jaw tightening slightly,
she was being ordered to leave him alone. The new briskness of his
voice echoed the order. "Without the deaths, I'd be questioning
whether the victims had been compliant in a scheme to obtain money
from their parents. With the deaths, that's unimaginable. Both
survivors would do anything to help us get the killer."

Abrahams was forced to nod her head in agreement. He wanted to
talk about the case. Ok. Good. There was a lot to talk about. The
other discussion could wait. She tried to tell herself that her
patience would be rewarded later. That Mulder, of his own
volition, might choose to tell her how hard it had been to watch
Michael Devlin scream and cry out over losing a sister.

Meanwhile, she would try and tackle him for theories on why such a
professional kidnapper would choose such a theatrical way of
killing and of posing the bodies. Instead of answering that one,
he twisted it back to the act of killing itself and in particular
to the sites where the two women had been found.

The lack of blood had originally been taken to mean that the women
were killed elsewhere and carried. Mulder had countered with the
suggestion that the women were alive and that they walked without
a struggle to those locations. They were killed by draining their
blood in some clean, neat way and that only once dead were their
throats cut. Wild story or not, it was consistent with the
evidence. This was what Mulder had asked the ME to consider
yesterday.

She rechecked her watch; the autopsy report should have arrived at
the station by now. She promised to fax the report across to him,
as soon as got to the police HQ. Mulder announced his intention to
stay at the hotel and work. She was relieved about that, he was
fitting in with her plan.

She knew that their reasons were different. She wanted him to get
some rest, which he wouldn't. She wanted to shield him from the
locals, a selfish idea that she recognized was more for her peace
of mind than his. He wanted to think. She left him to it, stroking
his hair for good luck as he kissed her knuckles goodbye.

-------

Was that hangdog expression, that they were all giving her, pity?
Grahams and Kerridge had clearly filled the rest of the team in on
their working day. She could almost hear the words "sit down you
poor dear" as she looked into their eyes.

Grahams smiled as he handed her a coffee. "Spooky staying home
then?"

Spooky? Someone had been checking up on him. She winced slightly
at that, so stuck were they on the surface phenomena they were
ready to assume that she'd rather be with them than with Mulder.
"Agent Mulder is working on the profile. I need to send him the
autopsy on Karen Devlin, do you have a copy we can fax?"

They found the least dog-eared copy of the report and fed it to
the machine. Abrahams stood over it, supervising the paper as it
slipped into the rollers. She wondered just how obvious the
tension in her shoulders was right then. How easy was she for them
to read? She knew that she needed to keep them on her side,
couldn't afford to alienate them. Their willing cooperation was
essential. But she was furious at their attitude to Mulder. They
had no right, she thought uncomfortably. They had no fucking idea.

She evaded their scrutiny and opted to keep their questions away
by smiling and asking if there was somewhere quiet that she could
read the report for herself.

Inevitably, they were too keen to help. A posse, led by Grahams
were ready and eager to explain its conclusions to spare her the
trouble of reading it. She smiled again, "please, if you could
just give me a couple of minutes, it'll help me fix it in my
memory." An apologetically disappointed nod of the head from
Grahams as they admitted defeat and waved her to a deserted
cubicle.

The report was inconclusive, but it confirmed what was possible.
Reading between its official lines, the ME had written that Karen
Devlin could indeed have died of blood loss on site, that the
slash to the throat could certainly have been made post mortem. It
was also difficult to know for sure, but there was a raggedness to
the wound as it crossed the jugular that could easily be masking
the remains of a hole made by a wide barrel hypodermic. A device
that could have been used to extract the blood. But such a slow
process. How could he have drawn enough to kill her without even
the marks of a struggle, without any trace of drugs?

The questions only served to add extra doubts to the
investigation, but Mulder's scenario remained plausible. The
victim had walked to her death without a struggle. The last of her
blood had been removed. When her heart stopped, her throat had
been cut. Why?

Abrahams explained the interpretation to the detectives, telling
them it was Mulder's hypothesis and that she could see no reason
to disagree. The group settled down to mull over the problem and
try to link it back to what they saw with the first death. It was
also sending them down a more focused track. Forget a search for a
pool of blood and a murder scene. Was there anyone on file who
liked to drink blood? Or bathe in it? What about cults? A national
trace to find corpses drained of blood. The guy was too
professional to be a first timer. How did he learn his trade?

Politics, policy and procedures were complicating the task force's
dealings with the parents of the latest missing girl. An outright
recommendation to pay the ransom and to unquestioningly conform to
any conditions would be too painful. Yet that was the only advice
anyone could offer. Abrahams decided to leave the detectives to
wrestle with the job of sugar coating the pill.

Last week's missed deadline had been a disaster. She still found
it unimaginable that the six hour delay caused by the kidnapper
spotting police lookouts had cost Karen Devlin her life.

Madeley, the chief of the police team was acknowledged by Abrahams
to be a master of his job. She tried to look comfortable with his
request that they should meet in private before she headed back to
the hotel. She was exhausted, she desperately needed a break. She
nodded her head and forced herself to look keen to talk. They
walked to his office. He remained standing even after she sat
down. She cursed that move, immediately recognizing and regretting
the psychological advantage it had given him.

His warm eyes made her squirm as she sensed them reading her.
"Agent Abrahams. We are grateful to the Bureau for your assistance
on this case. I appreciate Patterson's offer of extra help, but I
suspect that Agent Mulder may be better off back in DC."

She almost laughed, she could easily have howled the roof off
about petty inter Agency squabbles, but she knew that was not what
Madeley was concerned about. In fact, if she read him correctly,
he was more bothered about the strain that Mulder was placing on
her. She started to warn him off, but he briskly waved her back to
silence, signaling without words that he wanted her to let him
finish before responding.

The room seemed to be getting smaller as Madeley prowled, Abrahams
was grateful when he finally came to rest against a filing cabinet
before speaking again. "I spoke to some people in New York. Seems
like Mulder was pretty choked up over the capture of that psycho
the other day."

She cleared her throat, determined that her words should be
crystal clear. "Agent Mulder was choked up before they made their
move to get the killer, not afterwards."

Madeley hesitated. Abrahams suspected that he was surprised that
she knew what he was talking about. He'd obviously prepared
himself to tell her about Mulder's emotional confrontation with
the NYPD. He nodded. "If you say Mulder's an advantage, I won't
pursue it with Patterson. For now."

Fair enough. "I think that's very reasonable, Sir."

She was almost running as she left the office. Professional
decorum, without any conscious decision on her part, determinedly
turned her run back into a brisk march. She was almost at the door
when she felt the hand on her shoulder. She turned so sharply at
the contact that she almost flattened the owner of the hand.
Grahams held up his palms in a gesture of surrender, then smiled
down at her and suggested dinner, at the hotel or somewhere
better. He knew a great Italian place or whatever.

She froze for an instant and looked for the polite reply, but her
brain was too tired to come up with a good one. Lying about her
personal life had become so much second nature that she couldn't
even remember a good half-truth. She opted to tell some of the
truth, someone was waiting for her back home. She was grateful
that he took the hint, he was almost apologetic as he backed away.
She was relieved that this time she actually made it to the door.

------

Inevitably, Mulder was in her bedroom rather than the one that was
nominally his. Inevitably, because Jeanette Abrahams was the one
with a computer set up. Mulder didn't spend enough time on the
road to have got into the habit of lugging one about, just assumed
he could gatecrash someone else's, like now.

It didn't look like her room, Mulder had been redecorating. Before
and after. Happy smiling young women on one wall. Corpses on
another. His eyes were racing through a fresh stack of
information.

They called down for food and argued about the case. She told him
the plans of the police teams, he told her what extra information
he thought they would need.

The latest profile had emerged from the headlines of the case. A
man. The women, all attractive and wealthy, all single, all
between 18 and 25, went willingly to him. The whole methodology
behind his ransom demand and ransom collection mechanism implied
both cool planning and high intelligence. A professional, not
inclined to take risks.

Mulder's description of the killer made her shiver. Good looking,
polite, charismatic, high IQ, over 25 but not so much older that
it acted as a turn off to the young women, obsessive attention to
detail, self confident, self contained. He could be writing about
himself, except for one item, utterly ruthless killer. She could
see Mulder processing it, making some bit of himself into the man
he described. She felt the pull of his determination. She knew
where he was going. She was confident that he had not got there
yet. It was getting late, time to stop for the day.

There was the just the faintest tremor in the steel of her voice.
"Are you ok?"

He looked up at her, clear, bright eyes locked with hers. The
bruise from Michael Devlin's fist didn't look as if it was going
to turn out too bad. He nodded. "Surprisingly, yes. How are you?"

The coded, loaded question hung in the air for a while. She was so
tempted to lie. So tempted to hide herself in him, at least for a
little while. But it would be unfair, she would be misusing him,
abusing him. It was understood that they didn't lie about this, it
was too important. She told him their coded, shorthand version of
the truth. "I'm tired."

He smiled up at her, quiet and understanding. He looked around the
bedroom, at its walls. "I've messed things up in here. Move
rooms?"

She nodded her agreement. They headed out, turning off the lights
on the images of death and locking the doors on their work.

Safe from the PC and the photos on the walls, they undressed and
slithered comfortably into bed. Mulder rolled her towards him,
pulling her in close. One arm resting on her hip, his hand gently
stroking her back, his other hand nestled in her hair. His nose
rubbed lightly against hers. They kissed, a slow soft movement of
lips on lips, tongue on tongue. He moved back slightly, nestled
his forehead against hers for an instant, then gave her a last
brief whisper of a kiss before pulling away again.

Wanted to take the words back. Wanted so badly at that moment to
scream out that she was ok, that she was just fine. Ready to
scream that if only he would make love to her then the monsters in
her head would disappear. Shout out that she had been mistaken,
that in fact she had no fears that suddenly her eyes would flash
on a picture of a dead woman or on the silhouette of a man with a
scalpel in his hand. But it was already too late, he slipped his
arms protectively around her and said a soft goodnight. His care
broke her heart.

------------

She woke up at seven and prepared to make her way back to her own
room to shower and change. She assumed that Mulder would already
be hard at work. She wasn't disappointed.

He smiled brightly as she walked in, squeezed her hands in his and
gave her a brisk but affectionate good morning kiss. She ignored
his playful suggestion that they save water by sharing a shower,
they needed to get moving and they didn't have time for one thing
to lead to another. She didn't trust herself that it wouldn't.

The glint was still in his eyes as he informed her that in that
case he had better go back to his own room to shower and 'dress up
like a Fed'.

As she dried her hair she turned her attention to the draft of the
profile that was up on the PC. Vampires! That's my boy, she
decided. It was wrong to laugh, she knew that she needed to read
and understand. He arrived back in the room just as she got her
face back under control. He was indeed dressed up like a Fed. Her
eyes were more awake now and she could see the discoloration below
his cheekbone.

He understood her stare, shrugged. "Michael was wearing a ring.
Karen's."

"You're lucky he wasn't taller."

The tension fell from his shoulders, clearly relieved that her
first comment had been no more than a joke. He was right, she was
trying very hard to keep the lid on her questions. Why did you let
him hit you? What did you talk to him about? Of course, that was
just the surface, just the warm up routine, the real questions
would cut darker and deeper. Who talked to you when your sister
was lost? Who did you lash out against? What did they do to you?

But he was being let off the hook. Allowed off so lightly because
she had decided that the job was too hard even without her adding
to the pressure, she stayed quiet, despite the noisy clamor of
questions dancing in her brain. Maybe later, maybe after the case
was over. Maybe, she'd ask. Maybe, he'd say.

They ate breakfast while Mulder talked about Count Dracula.
Vampires had just had a bad press, he opined. Ugly gray incoherent
monsters were just movie fashion items. Vampires were all about
the freeing of repressed sexuality. The victim must walk willingly
to its doom, the vampire must charm and seduce before it kills.

It was a discussion that Mulder could only conduct with Abrahams,
a lateral thinking fantasy. She could see his point. Take the most
seductive Count, hybridize it with the most professional of
financially motivated kidnappers and what have you got? A profile
of their UNSUB. It was laughable, but only in its cartoonish
imagery, the underlying storyline was not nearly so comical.

Only one problem. Why didn't the two girls who had been returned
remember anything of their abduction and why did they have nothing
useful to say of their captivity. Why did no one who knew them
recall a seductive stranger who had developed an infatuation with
the women?

His hand waved breezily to acknowledge that they still had no
idea. "Drugs. Hypnosis. Brainwashing. We've got that problem
whoever the kidnapper is."

He was right of course. Perhaps if they could find some other way
to question the victims who were recovered. If they could get the
woman who he was currently holding returned quickly. If they could
work out a battle plan to talk to her as soon as she came back.
Another review of the medical examinations of the survivors
perhaps. An attempt at hypnosis, maybe.

Mulder's eyes flashed with ideas, bright and breezy as he talked.
Abrahams was glad that he was there. Colleague and friend. It
might not be the life she had planned, but it was the life she
had.

----------------

The station was alive with chatter. Madeley led the briefing,
enjoying at least for now the feeling that he was actually doing
something useful. His next task would not be so pleasurable, soon
he would need to leave to discuss the arrangements for paying the
ransom.

He was happy to be sharing the surrender with the Bureau's
specialist negotiator. The local PD hadn't fought back over the
Bureau involvement in yet another aspect of the case. After all,
why jockey for jurisdiction on a losing deal. Mulder and Abrahams
were just as happy to evade the issue of the ransom. They were
even happier not to be joining Madeley on his trip to meet the
missing woman's parents.

The bulk of the task force had been assigned to the tedious chore
of digging out history on unsolved deaths in the area. Looking for
a case where the blood found on site plus the blood in the body
had not equaled a nominal five liters. If they were lucky then the
record would be found on a computer, but the odds weren't good,
unless it was a very recent incident.

Mostly the team were just stuck with wading through reams of paper
and microfiche. Unless of course they got lucky and someone
actually remembered such a case. They asked the ME teams, they put
the word around the local police. They asked hospital ER units if
they'd treated casualties with the symptoms of blood loss and no
good explanation.

Kerridge and Grahams were left to fight out the next steps with
Mulder and Abrahams.

Abrahams was working hard to ignore Kerridge's attempts to bait
Mulder. She forced herself to acknowledge, albeit with some
discomfort, that a temper driven defense of Mulder would not
actually be of any help to him or her.

Kerridge was starting to take offence at Mulder's indifference to
the jibes, as if it had become a challenge to him to make Mulder
react. Lucky you didn't go to the latest victim's house, her
brother's a lot bigger than Michael Devlin.... So why do they call
you Spooky, Fox.... Good that you got off early last night.... Did
that little waitress show you the sights....

Mulder had no desire to react, energy and attention being needed
for more important matters, too busy to get caught in a war of
words, but he was getting irritated by the distraction. Abrahams
noted the stiffening in his posture, the way his eyes flashed
warning signs as Kerridge started to quiz him on New York. She
smoothly stepped in before it got too out of hand. "Let's draw up
what the two women said about where they were held." A distraction
if nothing else.

The only one of the group who was not surprised when Mulder took
the suggestion absolutely literally was Abrahams. Mulder walked
swiftly to the whiteboard and quickly sketched up two separate
room plans.

Even Abrahams was startled by the fact that he had drawn two
sketches on the board, grimly aware that anyone else would have
simply assumed the two women had described the same six by eight
windowless, cell like room with white walls. The same metal door
with food hatch that had allowed their captor to deliver their
meals without revealing himself. The same narrow bed, small basin
and chemical toilet. Anyone else would have had to check the file
to remember how many blankets and towels were in the rooms. The
two detectives couldn't resist shaking their heads with amusement
at the pointless perfectionism.

Kerridge made the first comment. "So, it's a cell. The same cell."

Mulder shivered slightly, but carried on writing the key points of
the descriptions on the board. Absence of distinguishing external
noise and even of traffic noise. Absence of cooking smells.
Absence of hot water, despite the presence of a hot tap at the
basin.

Kerridge pointed out that most of this had already been discussed
in depth. "We've done disused cell facilities, old police
stations, prisons, military."

Mulder jotted down the list of places where the cell definitely
wasn't located.

Kerridge, Grahams and Abrahams started to debate the problem
again, in particular focusing on the difficulty of constructing a
cell in a home, the sheer complexity of hanging a metal door. Not
many amateurs could do it. Had any professionals been called in
for the job. Should they be talking to builders?

Mulder sat through the debate, silent, his eyes locked on the
board. Eventually, he cleared his throat and made his first remark
for fifteen minutes. "Are there any empty film studios in town?"

========

It's amazing how long half an hour can be. It's amazing how much
you can get done. Within half an hour the team had the address of
a temporarily vacant studio. They had quizzed the owners and
quickly confirmed that it contained, among other things, a
realistically ruggedly constructed cellblock. Its location inside
a studio building offering a plausible explanation for why the
women heard no traffic noise, why the ceiling appeared to be made
of painted wood.

It's not that hard to understand where the piece fits once someone
has assembled the rest of the jigsaw puzzle.

They moved fast, quickly recalling Madeley from the missing girl's
home to take responsibility for the next round. They would go in
fast and go in at full strength. They activated their SWAT unit,
the team had been waiting for the call. All the paraphernalia to
deal with a siege was in place. Frantic activity followed.

Mulder noted that he had already been forgotten in the frenzy,
which was exactly as it should be. Yet, even as their excitement
and optimism rose, so did Mulder's nervousness and pessimism. He
tried to get enough breathing space to nag at Madeley. "What if
he's not there?"

Madeley couldn't offer any answer to Mulder's concerns except to
agree that they were legitimate. But that didn't mean that there
was anything that could be done about them. If the kidnapper was
at the studio, then things could turn nasty quickly. If he wasn't
there, then the sheer mass of numbers involved in the raid would
warn him off from returning. The bottom line was that they really
had very few options, the priority had to be to get the hostage.
The kidnapper would be a bonus.

The assault was organized with dutiful care and unfolded as
planned. They were prepared to play the waiting game. A period of
watch and listen surveillance told them nothing, except that
someone was in the building, but whether that was one someone or
two was still not obvious.

They moved to the next step, two officers walking casually into
the building dressed as decorators working for the studio's
owners. An attempt to scope out the situation without necessarily
provoking a full scale shoot out. The SWAT team waited out of
sight. The men inside gave their colleagues a running commentary
on their tour of the building, talked softly as they found the
block of cells. They saw no sign of a kidnapper.

The team moved cautiously forward to secure doors and exits.

A message of readiness and a signal that it was time. The officers
tentatively opened the fake cell doors and found the scared but
uninjured woman inside. The EMT team moved in to usher her quickly
away.

The next step had been agreed in advance. The woman would go for a
medical examination first and then Jeanette Abrahams would handle
the interview.

The kidnapper was nowhere to be found.

Jeanette Abrahams went looking for Mulder. Even if no one else
remembered his role in this, she did. She wanted to talk to him,
even congratulate him on a job well done. As soon as she found
him, congratulations vanished from her thoughts. It was almost as
if he was in hiding, standing alone, far back from the studio and
the bustle of police activity.

She walked towards him, noted that his hands were flexing and
unflexing hard, as if he were trying to flick the tension out
through the fingertips. She noted the way that when he saw her
approaching, he quickly stuffed them into the pockets of his FBI
flak jacket. Abrahams surveyed the area and realized that they had
only a minimal amount of privacy, it would have to do. She touched
his arm and pointed to the car, breathed a grateful sigh of relief
when he didn't resist, just walked obediently to its relative
safety and loaded himself in.

She took the passenger seat, leaned in close. "She's ok. We were
in time. We're close to him now. We'll find him."

"They're celebrating. They've no fucking idea." His head slammed
back, hitting fast into the headrest as the tension took over,
then released so suddenly that he almost hit the steering wheel on
the rebound.

He rested his hands on the dashboard, stretched out hard as if he
were trying to force the car apart, head bowed. Sat so tense and
stiff that each of his too rapid heart beats was visible as a
little shudder running along his back and up his neck. Close to
hyperventilating, close to vomiting. Painful shivers rippling
through tired muscles.

Jeanette Abrahams felt suddenly helpless. Wanted to touch him,
wanted so badly to put her arms round him, to kiss him better.
Nagging voice in her head telling her that such thoughts were
pathetic. Reminding her that she dared not even talk to him, that
all she could do would be to sit quiet, let him feel her presence
without invading his space.

She knew that all he wanted was to be left alone, she could feel
the wave of discomfort rippling from him that told her he'd prefer
to be in hiding somewhere. Maybe locked away in some bathroom
cubicle, isolated and safe from prying eyes. Knew that he was only
tolerating her presence because he needed her as a shield from the
rest of the team, because there was nowhere more private for him
to run to.

She waited and was oddly grateful that the spasm of tension was so
violent that it was quickly tiring him, she knew it would soon
pass.

He started to ease up, his muscles stopped trembling in time with
his heart beat, relaxing now to move more smoothly in time with
the still too fast rise and fall his chest. He concentrated on
slowing his breathing. Slowed it down to something close to
normal, but not normal at all, after all, normal doesn't require
that much effort. His words when they finally arrived were softly
distinct, studiously unemotional. "He'll kill tonight. Punishment
for us getting her back."

Jeanette Abrahams closed her eyes. Oh shit.

She delayed her return to the rest of the team until she knew that
any further delay would make the discomfort worse, not better.
Mulder didn't follow her, just leaned back in the car seat staring
blankly straight ahead, unsteady and uncomfortable, sitting quiet,
listening to the steady thud of blood pulsing through his head,
watching for something that no one else could see.

Abrahams passed Mulder's warning on to the team. She watched their
eyes as she spoke and recognized that at that moment they hated
her, though apparently not nearly as much as they hated Mulder.
She saw and understood the natural desire to blame the messenger.
She made allowances for them. Everyone needed the occasional
moment of triumph, she reflected uncomfortably, even her.

She turned towards Mulder and studied him, knew that he could find
no more triumph here than he had done in New York. She saw the
bleakness in his eyes, heart on his sleeve, exposed and raw,
helpless in the face of the inevitable.

Despising herself for what she had to do, she returned and handed
him the car keys. She had an interview to conduct. It was for the
best. He needed time to compose himself. She didn't need to hover
over him while he did. Best for the case, best for her, best for
him, best for them.

---------------

The absence of physical trauma, the confirmation that there had
been no sexual assault, the freed woman's apparently drug free
condition were all grounds for celebration. Which was indeed what
most of the team planned on doing that night.

The fact that, whilst shocked and scared, the woman was lucid and
willing to talk should also have been grounds for optimism.
Abrahams tried to feel optimistic as she went in to talk to her.
At the very least they'd be able to tell whether she'd been
drugged at the time of her capture.

Half an hour later and all Abrahams had got was another
description of the cell in which the woman had been held. They
talked about people she knew, friends and strangers. But the girl
had no recollection of the night she went missing. Hunting hard,
Abrahams kept up the chase for good signs. Found nothing concrete.
They talked about favorite places, the kind of place she might
have visited that night. As the young woman started to tire,
Abrahams gathered together her notes and headed back to the hotel.

----------------

Her hotel bedroom looked more like an office each day. Jeanette
couldn't suppress the sigh as she walked through its door. Mulder
looked up, quickly scanned the room himself and his face drifted
to offer a vaguely helpless, but guilty, look of apology. She
considered the scene, pondered on the fact that she used to have a
bed, not just a surface for dumping paperwork on. Mulder seemed to
read her mood and suggested that they actually formalize the room
swap, bow to the inevitable, easier to move their clothes between
rooms than to move the rest of it.

That night, Patterson's call to Abrahams was laced with
congratulatory words. She let the mask slip a little, let a few
percentage points of her concern drift into her voice. She
carefully explained what had happened and more importantly what
hadn't happened. The real conclusion was that they still had no
handle on the man who had killed two women and taken three others.

Room service provided the pizza. The TV provided the background of
white noise. Mulder was racing, moving into overdrive, trawling
through the reports of exsanguinated bodies and blood lust cults.

Abrahams felt oddly weakened by the day's events. By any rational
test they'd had a wildly successful day. If someone had suggested
last night that they could recover the latest hostage unharmed, no
ransom paid, she'd have jumped at the offer. Mulder had spoiled
the party. Torn between horror, fatigue and the desire to
celebrate, she studied him as he pushed a hand restlessly through
his hair and tried to explain his next leap of logic.

"Are you ok?"

He stopped abruptly and puzzled over her words, shifted guiltily,
remembering, suddenly grateful for the anonymous safety of the
coded messages they passed. "I'm working." Apologetic but
distinct, a warning for her to keep her distance.

She nodded. "Then I'll say goodnight."

A brief exchange of polite advice to sleep well and she headed to
her new bedroom, noted the shoes that Mulder had left behind when
they'd swapped clothes between wardrobes. So lonely and cold in
the bed tonight, she wondered why. Three days ago, before Mulder
had arrived, sleeping alone had given her no problem.

Logically, it was foolish to feel like the world was emptier just
because Mulder was ten yards away behind a thin hotel dividing
wall instead of a thousand miles away in another city. Ridiculous
to feel worse because they'd got a kidnap victim back unharmed.
She should be out celebrating with the police team, not lying
here, fearing sleep.

--------------

Choice. They had left him no choice.

He had offered them a choice. A million dollars or a dead woman.
They chose money over human life. Shameful. And they thought they
were so much better than him.

The terms had been explicit.

By nature a hunter, a lover. But also a man. It was the man in him
who needed that money.

The lover in him had caught her eye. He'd heard her blood surge,
pulse quickening, warm life rising to bring prickles of heat to
her skin. Come to me. She'd heard him, felt him, calling out to
her. She'd heard and responded. Seen the love in his eyes.

Fulfillment was the reward for his touch, his loving touch. She
felt him and was fulfilled, bright eyes sparkling with pleasure.
So responsive.

Damn them for making him do this. Damn them for turning pleasure
to pain, life to death.

The terms had been explicit. Yet, they had failed to understand.
They would understand now. They would know that the man was not to
be toyed with. An unwelcome task, angry that their greed had, once
again, turned him into a killer.

With the dispassion of the hunter, the last drops of life drained
from her pale body. A final fast slice of the scalpel. Job done.

--------

Fear was not an unfamiliar emotion. In the right circumstances it
was even a useful one, reminding the body to produce the right
chemicals to allow for rapid reaction. Fear of an event that had
probably already occurred and that he had no power to prevent was
not of any use to Fox Mulder.

On the contrary, fear and adrenaline right now were clouding
Mulder's mind, interfering with his thinking. Another case and he
could turn it, twist it, use it to fuel his thoughts, construct
the mirror he needed to understand the killer. But this killer
knew no fear, Mulder was certain of that. So fear had no place in
his brain.

Running was good exercise. Good for heart and lungs. Good because
you were alone. Good, because you could let the daydreams in or go
faster and push them out. Good for remembering, good for
forgetting. Good because afterwards, you could stand in the shower
and for a time you felt clean, as if the sweat and the dirt and
the soap stream could carry away your sins.

Solemn and deliberate, ran until he knew he was too tired to
supply any more adrenaline to fuel the fear. Forced himself to
wash it all away in the protective warmth of the shower. Made
himself get out of the shower and curl up warm under the covers of
the bed. No fear, just exhaustion, something he could sleep off.
Thought of life and death, of love and death, of hunting and
loving and dying.

The rattle of the phone pushed him quickly awake. Five fifteen.
Only one thing a call at this time of the morning could mean. He
swallowed the reaction. Resigned, professional tone of voice.
Asleep to fully awake in two rings of the phone's bell. "Mulder."

Silence from the caller. Then, an embarrassed voice. "I was
expecting Agent Abrahams."

Mulder almost laughed at the irony, the first night they hadn't
slept together and they'd been caught. Except they hadn't. "We
swapped rooms. Have you got a body?"

Mulder jotted down the address and a set of directions. Abrahams
responded on the second ring. Ten minutes later and they were
meeting in the hotel parking lot.----------

Less show to this latest performance. The body had been found in a
dingy backstreet behind an anonymously quiet bar.

A possibility then, a chance that this lack of preparation could
have allowed room for an error. Had he found his victim in that
bar? Had someone seen her? Him?

There was no pleasure in being proven right. Not for Mulder. Not
like this.

Breathing in hiccups, moving in robot steps, Mulder ignored the
eyes of the detectives. Pitter patter of rain drizzling into his
eyes, droplets finding their way through his hair, slipping ice
cold fingers behind his collar.

Day break was slow arriving, gray clouds masking the light. The
alleyway remaining dark despite the instructions of the hands on
the watch. All the evils remained hidden in the shadows. A clatter
of noise, plastic covers being clumsily unloaded from the back of
the police truck. Mobile floodlights fixed on towers starting with
a flicker and failing with a flash. There were procedures for
handling this. Rain surging harder.

Difficult to imagine a killer so historically efficient, leaving
clues so large and permanent that they would still be viable in
this river of a street. Most of the detectives hung back in the
doorway, waiting for the weather to ease, the tent to be erected,
the light to improve. Grateful for the shelter and the coffee
provided by the bar owner. Pools of artificial light picking up
oily rainbows in the puddles.

>From the shadows of the buildings, the police task force stood and
watched. Amusement growing as the young Fed drifted in slow motion
along the street before finally taking up position next to the
body. Watched the damp shoulders of dark coat hunch up as the tall
figure rested down on his heels. Shrugging once, freezing to a
statue, pausing for an age, then suddenly another movement that
might have been a shiver, followed by a shuddering convulsive
movement that could have been a sob.

Ashamed of their roles as voyeurs, some turned away, feigned a
sudden interest in gossiping to a colleague. Madeley moved to the
truck to find out why the floodlights were proving to be such a
big deal. He paused to bite out a stream of threats and promises
to the reporters and TV news crews huddling behind the thin stripe
of tape that guarded the end of the street. The rest found
themselves held captive, transfixed by the scene, unable to raise
their eyes from the dark man cowering over the dead woman.

Bitterly angry as she borrowed the umbrella, not sure who she was
angry with, Jeanette Abrahams moved forward. Self assigned task as
Mulder's human shield, standing behind him to mask his body from
their eyes, holding the umbrella above his head to protect him
from the rain. "Mulder. Wait for the covers, the lights."

"Look at what he did, Jen."

"I know. We've seen it before." Bit her lip in frustration at how
callous her words had sounded.

"No." Tight, angry voice. "Look at her."

"I can see her. Let's get out of the rain."

Stood up fast, banging his head into the umbrella she was holding.
Flicked it angrily away from his face, knocking it from her grasp
in the process. Turned to face her, grabbed her hand to force her
attention towards the body on the ground. "Look at her. Really
look."

She tried to stop herself from flinching away. Took deep breaths.
"Ok. I'm looking."

"You're not." Almost shouting now. "Look at her, Jen. It's you. He
killed you." Lifted a hand to her shoulder, brushing icicle
fingers to her jaw, soft pressure directing and controlling her
gaze.

Long seconds. A sudden gasp. Then a panicky shift off balance,
pulling fast away from him. Turning quickly on her heel, hard
sprint to the doorway, barging past the onlookers and into the
bar. Not pausing for breath until she'd locked herself in the
smallest room in the place.

Mulder stared up into the gray. Hard rain against cold raw skin.
Droplets merging and washing away tears and immediately squeezing
out more. Icicle streams sliding down his neck, damp shirt
sticking to his chest. No pleasure in being right and even less in
being right about this.

"You fucking asshole." Grahams' sudden scream of disgust was very
loud and very close to Mulder's ear.

Mulder flinched back to alert and upright. Said nothing, flicked
his head to try and get enough water out of his eyes to see who
was talking to him.

"What'd she do? Tell you to start acting like a fucking adult?"

Mulder's reply was almost lost in the rain. "Is she ok?"

"What do you think. I thought you college boys were supposed to be
able to work with women. Not like us dumb ass cops."

Mulder looked nervously around. "Where is she?"

Madeley was next on the scene. "Agent Mulder. I'd like a word.
Now."

Mulder froze in place, confirming his passive agreement to the
order, slouched, kept his head down. Grahams kept up the growl,
stood up tall, hands on hips, emphasizing his presence.

Madeley kept his gaze firmly on Mulder even as he spoke to
Grahams. "In private."

Grahams breathed in noisily, threw a final threatening sneer at
Mulder before walking away.

Madeley's voice was quiet, but suffused all through with
unselfconscious authority. "In the dry."

Mulder nodded, nervous and apologetic, but didn't move, except to
shift his weight between feet. "Sir. The body. Jen. I mean. Agent
Abrahams."

"What?"

"It's a threat, a warning, to us, to Agent Abrahams."

Madeley studied the dead woman. Difficult to see anything much.
Young, she might have been pretty, medium height, slim build,
short dark hair. So what? All this guy's victims scored under most
of those headings. "Agent Mulder." Name spoken as an order.

Mulder was choking on the words. "Look at her. Please."

Madeley looked again, but was seeing nothing.

Mulder sensed that Madeley was about to turn away, reached out and
put a hand on his arm. Immediately withdrew it when he saw
Madeley's irritated, questioning expression. "Her shoes, Sir. They
don't match her hair."

Even Mulder realized how stupid that sounded as he saw Madeley's
confusion grow. Mulder tried again. "Two hundred dollar shoes, bad
hair cut."

"It's pouring. Nobody's hair looks good."

"It's uneven, a bad cut, Sir. "Madeley studied the body, slow and
deliberate. Maybe. Once they'd got her dried off. He'd look again.

When they got back to the doorway, the crowd of detectives parted
easily to allow Madeley admission to the bar, almost turned into a
solid object as Mulder tried to follow him. A glare from Madeley
reopened the route.

Mulder followed, head down, wishing that the door had remained
barred, desperate to be somewhere else. Moved one careful foot in
front of the other, kept his hands determinedly deep in his
pockets.

"Agent Mulder." Madeley's words were part reminder, part
instruction. Madeley sat down at a conveniently located table.

Mulder nodded blankly as he sat down, switched off his responses
in anticipation of Madeley's next words.

Madeley shook his head sadly. "Get dried off, then tell me what
that was all about."

Mulder, who'd imagined himself to be ready for whatever the chief
of detectives threw at him, wasn't ready for the softness in
Madeley's voice, felt his own breath catch.

Madeley tried again. "At least ditch the coat."

The bar owner was starting to regret living over the bar and his
public spirited gesture of letting them come inside. Trails of
water marked each new arrival's path. Bad enough when it was
paying customers messing up his floors. He sighed, past the point
of no return, offered the chief of detectives and his drowned rat
some coffee. How did the kid get that wet? He grinned to himself,
realizing that he'd answered his own question, kids always got the
crap jobs, why would the police be any different.

His grin faded when the drowned rat stood up again, shrugged off
his coat and proceeded to shake a glistening shower of water from
his hair. Reminded him of a spaniel pup he'd once owned. He turned
at a noise behind him and saw the woman emerge from the little
girl's room. He'd seen her green skin when she ran in, heard her
choking coughs as she slammed the door. He'd have to go in there
in a minute and check it out, in case it needed some sort of hose
down. Homicide squad. No job for a woman. Case proven.

The bar owner handed her a coffee and told her he'd be back with a
glass of water as a chaser.

The drowned rat almost ran him over as he bounded down the steps
to the woman.

Mulder stopped inches away from her. "Are you ok?"

She stared back, cold and controlled, quiet reply. "Three
guesses."

Madeley had followed Mulder and now stood almost shoulder to
shoulder with him.

All she needed. She wasn't short, but in this position she found
it hard to shrug off the suddenly intimidating sensation of having
the two men looking nervously down at her. She quickly decided to
shift the balance by sitting down at the nearest table.

"Are you ok?" The words were different coming from Madeley,
something more like an order, demanding an answer.

"Agent Mulder believes that the killer may have chosen that woman
due to a likeness to me."

"And what do you think, Agent Abrahams?"

She hesitated, looked carefully at Mulder's anxious expression. "I
need more evidence."

A nod of agreement from Madeley. "Unless there's something more
specific you need here. Maybe we should leave this to the
forensics crew. We'll need better surroundings to get a good look
at the body."

Quick murmurs of agreement from both Agents.

Madeley took advantage of their sudden compliance. "I suggest you
two get some dry clothes and then meet me up at the ME's office."

They did as they were told.

=============

The knock on the door of her hotel bedroom came as no surprise to
Jeanette Abrahams. If nothing else, Mulder needed to come in to
get a change of shoes. She looked him over, obviously he'd
showered and changed. Equally obviously he should have stayed
longer in the hot shower, he still looked cold, telltale
gooseflesh over slight shivers.

Pale skin and paler voice. "I'm sorry."

A good start. Abrahams would investigate what he was apologizing
about this time, best to start with a shared understanding.
"About?"

"Embarrassing you. I got scared."

She nodded her reply. "So did I."

Stood still with her arms outstretched. Mulder fell into her
warmth. Safe cocoon.

----------------

"He cut her damned hair, hauled it behind her head, snipped across
it with a sharp knife, or another scalpel maybe. Obvious."

It was obvious, with the young woman's hair dry and brushed back
from her dead face, neatly parted. The strange arc of the cut made
perfect sense. The ME, perfectionist to a fault, had asked an
assistant, who'd worked part time in a salon during her college
years to do justice to the tresses. Made sure that there could be
no doubt. He demonstrated the cutting angle with a wig on a dummy.
Most likely the woman was lying down as he cut, most probably dead
or at any rate already unconscious.

"Ok. This is new. Right. Trophy hunting." Kerridge was a born
optimist, a paradox in a man who saw the worst in human nature
every day. If there was a trophy then they could find it.
Somewhere.

Jeanette Abrahams spoke before Mulder got the chance. "No. It's
nothing to him. It'll be in a dumpster somewhere. Maybe even in
that street, though I doubt it."

"Then it's like he said." Kerridge pointed dismissively at Mulder.
"A threat."

Abrahams moved in quickly. "A warning, a punishment. The woman we
rescued had short hair. He chose a substitute."

Mulder stared at her, silent and cold. She tried to match his gaze
with her own, but crumbled and looked instead at her fingernails.

Grahams caught the exchange of looks between the two Agents. "I
take it the FBI's finest don't see eye to eye on this."

Kerridge took up the attack. "Well I know where my vote's going."

The stare got icier as Mulder shifted it for use on Kerridge.
"Fortunately, the democratic process is not involved."

"Look, why don't you just scoot back to DC. Buy some Kleenex and
go see the shrinks about your difficulty working with women. Maybe
brush up on your self defense classes for next time you interview
a ten year old."

The sound was of a hand crunching hard into the table. All eyes
flew to Jeanette Abrahams. "Enough. We've got work to do."
Kerridge and Grahams nodded apologetically. Mulder made no
movement. Abrahams turned her gaze to him. "Agent Mulder?"

Impassive, soft spoken, careful eye contact with her as he spoke.
"We should work on the profile."

Abrahams noted the emphasis in Mulder's words. Her eyes confirmed
her agreement in a blink. "If you'll excuse us." Before she'd
reached the end of the phrase, Mulder was already on his feet. By
the time she stood, he was ready to leave.

---------

They reviewed the facts as they drove, steering clear of opinion
until they reached the hotel. Up at five fifteen and running for
fourteen hours on coffee and cookies. They decided to eat some
real food before they argued. Knowing full well that once the
argument was over, they'd both have lost their appetites.

The young waitress was pleased to see them, one of them. It had
taken her a few seconds to positively identify the man in the dark
suit as being the one in the leather jacket who she'd seen a
couple of days earlier. Better and better. Shame about the woman
at his side. Obviously a colleague though, wasn't she there the
other night as well?

It was impossible to enjoy the food, difficult even to taste it,
hard enough simply to chew it and swallow. They focused on the
meal as if it was simply another chore from the job description.
Ranking somewhere better than reading microfiche records of
births, marriages and deaths, but worse than all night stakeouts
in front of an empty apartment. Good for them, like medicine, a
necessary evil. Chose and ate with care, no red meat to remind of
blood or flesh or autopsies. Slow chewing to give a guarantee that
there would be no sudden movements, no choking effort to swallow.
Careful sips of water between bites.

They hesitated, struggled to find the excuse that would delay the
discussion. Ordered coffee, disappointed the waitress by telling
her that they'd drink it through in the bar. Abrahams found the
change of venue oddly soothing, a sensation of glorious normality
even if it could only last for an instant. She scanned the other
patrons, the tall man in his ostentatiously formal business suit.
He hadn't changed clothes, presumably planning to meet some
associates later in the evening. The group arguing over a magazine
article on PC networks. The man and woman with love in their eyes.

She and Mulder could fit right in, at least on first impressions.
What kind of business? She let her mind pretend, dreamed that they
argued over inanimate objects, not the living and the dead.
Fantasized about just looking at the love in his eyes and not
seeing the shadows behind. She studied him now. He was intent on
the same task as she had just abandoned, watching the strangers.
Assessing job titles from dress, mannerism and tone of voice.
Judging relationships from body language.

Sudden flash of hazel in her direction, startled, as if surprised
that she was there, or at the very least shocked that she was
looking at him. Steady intake of breath and a look that might
easily have been alarm flashed across his face. Instantly replaced
by a look that was far too calm. He opened his mouth as if to
speak, but she waved a hand to stop him.

Jeanette Abrahams' voice was almost too low for Mulder to hear,
but he felt every word. "Let's stay a while."

He looked down at the table for an instant, when he looked back up
at her he was smiling. Any other man, she would have taken it as
pretense, a little piece of play acting. In Mulder's case, it was
the offer of a little undivided attention, some freely given prime
time moments. Like a mini vacation, she decided. She smiled in
reply.

A game of fantasy as they talked about progress on the new
apartment. A holiday as she talked about the squirrels that the
realtor had promised would arrive in the spring. She could imagine
living there, not just lodging there, not just passing through,
not like all her previous homes. He offered to paint the high
walls. He argued with her on plans and reasons for her choices
from the kitchen tiles to the layout of the bedrooms. She was
shocked by how quickly he questioned his way to the heart of her
dreams. The psychologist, the interrogator dissecting her hopes.

The words just slipped out from her. "What do you think you'll be
doing a few years from now?" She winced a little as she heard
them. Wasn't that exactly the question that was supposed to send a
man running in terror from the room?

To her relief, he didn't run. He looked embarrassed, took a deep
breath before he replied. "I don't know. I try and imagine the
future, but I can't. Not really. There's us. Fantasies. Nothing."

"You'll be in Patterson's job."

"I said fantasies, not nightmares. And you. What do you want?"
Voice as soft and as safe as she had ever heard it.

"I won't be in Patterson's job." She paused. "I don't know. Some
days, this job is everything. Other days, it's still everything,
but I don't want it to be."

His hand snaked across the table to rest on hers as they talked.

The spell lasted for only a matter of minutes before it was broken
by the buzz of Jeanette Abrahams' pager. All the more annoying
that the call was of no great significance, just an advisory to
tell them the autopsy report minus the toxicological report was
being faxed through to the hotel.

Physically still together, yet suddenly miles apart. The pain of
separation hit her like a physical blow, a sharp punch to the
stomach leaving her feeling empty and nauseous. Mulder shivered in
sympathy.

They left quickly without any need for words.

The office that doubled as Mulder's bedroom was the most
appropriate place for the discussion. Not that when it came right
down to it there was much of a discussion.

Mulder's stance was clear cut. "She was not a substitute for the
one that got away. She was a way of punishing us for freeing that
woman. He has no reason to punish her, for one thing she won't be
aware of it, for another she was passive in the escape. It was not
her fault that he didn't get the money."

Abrahams responded doggedly but without real enthusiasm. He was
seeing patterns where none existed. He was seeing monsters in the
dark. The very fact that any death at all had occurred had been
warning enough to the police team, punishment enough for their
celebrations. The only one who thought the senseless death of an
innocent was not enough, was Mulder. Mulder, who always needed to
put on the hair shirt of penitent and get punished some more.

Argument without resolution. In the end, fatigue had merged with
something akin to fear and forced her to ask the question that
they had both avoided. "What makes you so sure?"

A heavy sigh of dark discomfort. A long pause as Mulder carefully
swallowed down the nasty taste in his mouth. "Last night. I tried
to understand him. Really tried."

She shifted uncomfortably at the warning words.

He turned away from her. "I was too scared, knowing how little
time we had, that we were already too late on this one. So I ran
it off, cleared my head of it. Picked my target like a hunter or a
lover." Slow heavy breaths.

She finished the words. "And you picked me."

His silence gave the reply for him.

Pushed the idea away. Hid the thought under a cloak of
forgetfulness. Changed the subject. Focused on the practical tasks
of the day ahead. Let logic and experience guide the analysis.

Worked through dark hours towards pragmatic solutions.

It was getting late. Tiredness was threatening to put dents in the
surface calm. Fragile cracks were emerging in the structure of
impersonal rationality that they had constructed. They sensed they
were approaching the danger zone, time to stop.

Quiet pleading infected her voice. She would not beg, but he would
know her need. It was a breech of the unspoken rules that had
evolved between them, a protocol designed to protect them, but
which tonight would force them apart, if she played fair. For one
night she would pretend she was just like any other woman, that
her lover was just any other man. No danger from the monsters in
the id.

Soft then, and needy as she spoke. "Are you ok? I'm ok." She bit
her lip immediately she said it, she'd answered her own question,
another rule had been broken.

The words hung between them, frozen for an instant as Mulder
processed them and understood. Tell the truth. Abandon her on a
cold night. Tell her she's a target, then walk away. Not allowed,
either way. No right answer to her question. Compromise, then. Be
with her, just a comforting presence, but only to make sure she
gets some sleep. "I'm tired." He said at last.

She let out the breath she'd been holding. A sad smile of relief.
Better than nothing, better than being told that he was working,
better than him just walking away, sending her away.

Work was done for the day, so they left the office. They moved the
few yards next door, to the other bedroom.

A shower to shed the grime she felt. Funny, second time today.
First time had been after their return from viewing a corpse in
the rain. A sluicing away of the story Mulder had told her as they
huddled over a dead body. 'It's you Jen.' She gripped her ribs to
try and stop her stomach from betraying her, again. Turned off the
water to stop the violence of the shower jets from rattling
against her suddenly hyper sensitive skin.

So cold. Rested her head against the wall. Keeping the nausea from
her throat. Controlling her breathing.

Mulder rechecked his watch on the bedside table. She'd switched
off the shower, how long ago? Why hadn't she come out. She had to
come out now. If she'd changed her mind about wanting him there
with her then he'd go back to his own room, she knew that. But she
had to come out now. He slithered out from under the covers.

When she failed to respond to his knocking, he tentatively opened
the door, preparing himself and dreading whatever might be on the
other side. "Jen."

Pale and shivering, huddled in a corner of the bath. Standing with
her feet as far apart as they could get, seeking extra
equilibrium, leaning heavily forward, gooseflesh lining the pale
curves of her buttocks, face resting in the V formed by the walls
of cold white tiles. He moved towards her, spoke soothing nothing
words. The instant his fingers touched her, she folded. Knees
concertinaing as she slithered down the wall. Collapsed, a clammy
ball of too pale flesh. The places where he'd touched her showing
pink against the white.

"Aw, Jen." He moved in behind her in the bath, slowly hauled her
to her feet. He controlled and manipulated her legs to help her
clamber out of the tub. Slow, little movements, one foot in front
of the other. Kept his grip tight against her shoulders to stop
her falling. Pulled towels around her, rolling her up. Half walked
her, half carried her back to the bed.

Violent shivers as he wrapped her up in the warm bed covers.
Pausing only for an instant before he slipped into bed alongside
her, holding her close, trying to share some of his warmth,
reminding her that she wasn't alone.

Time eased the cold and softened her body.

With snail pace tiny movements she gradually uncurled from the
tight little ball. Easing, shifting and stretching against him.
Finding more points of contact. Her back resting against his
chest, her buttocks pressed to his groin, her thighs resting on
his. She pressed back, rolling gently into his warmth, let her
hand search him out.

Groaning at the shock of the sudden intimacy, he shuddered a
little. Her hand drifted, gentle exploration of his heat. Holding
his breath now, a hiss as her fingers moved over him.

Emboldened by his gasp she twisted in his arms. Face to face,
leaned forward, a kiss. Tongue pressing against lips, demanding
admission and finding it granted. Warm and sensual, slowly
evolving without any obvious change in pressure or speed, to hot
and passionate.

He pulled back, gasping for air, studied her. White skin still
showing the marks where his fingers had held her as he hauled her
out of the shower. Still so cold. This wasn't right.

"I need you, Fox."

Forgot about right, surely this warmth couldn't be wrong. Keep her
warm, keep her safe. Carefully edged his knee forward, no
resistance, instant response, thighs separating to allow him to
entwine their limbs more closely. His arms encircled her, long
strokes of slender fingers along her spine, warm reminders of his
presence. She arched into his movement, purring under his touch.

A sudden shock of energy surged through her veins, she shifted
onto her back, dragging him with her so that his knees rested
between her thighs and he hovered above her. Sighed deep as he
slipped down her body, his hands resting on her upper arms,
locking her in place, his tongue brushing hot flames over her
skin. Soft groans as her nipples sought more fire from his mouth,
a groan of need as he removed his lips. His breath on her ear
warning her of his change of focus, her eyes stayed closed. A lick
at her neck, a nibbling at her throat, soft hot wetness against
her skin.

Strong hands pushed her arms above her head, trusting her now to
keep them there without his weight. He could smell her, her
arousal, her life, her desire. He could hear the sharp drum of his
heart beat and he could feel her sympathetic vibrating replies.
Surge of satisfaction as he listened to the rhythms of their
bodies build fast and then synchronize.

His hand slipped down, found soft curls, found humidity and heat.
Ready for him, as ready for him, as he was for her. Breathed now,
happy and relieved, grateful that he'd found something to distract
him from her smooth, pale, unmarked neck.

Glad that he could focus on her warmth and ignore how strong a
pulse he'd heard beating in her throat.

============

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