XIII

10 P.M., Alexandria, Virginia

Tom's arm was warm around Tina's shoulders as they climbed the porch steps and
she raised a mittened fist to thud on the door. Inside, shrill yipping grew
louder until it was accompanied by tapping and scratching on the opposite side
of the wood. "I guess that's Queequeg."
His Montana drawl was far easier on her ears. "What the God almighty is a
Queequeg?"
"Ever read 'Moby Dick'? About the guy who hunts the whale?"
"Nope." Worn-leather tenor. Tom's bushy mustache tickled her cheek and way
down in her belly as he leaned in to ask, "Queequeg's the whale?"
"No. Moby Dick's the whale."
"You ever heard of Moby Grape? He's a bottomfeeder."
Tina sniggered as the lock was turned, the front door pulled back, and a wave of
frigid air was sucked inward, breaking across their forms. There was Dana
Scully, cordless phone squished between her shoulder and chin, crouched in the
narrow vestibule to keep a finger around the collar of a frantic orange dog. "Is
it bigger than a breadbox?" Hill laughed out.
"No. Right...Hi." Didn't know if Dana spoke to her or them or the person on the
phone, so Hill just waved and smiled innocent and stupid as the little dog
strained on back feet, wheezing as it pulled against the pink felt band.
"Han...hang on a second....Come in." Dana motioned with a tiny tilt of her head.
Tina's wool overcoat scraped Tom's padded ski jacket and her knee thunked the
suitcase he carried as they squeezed in and Dana backed out of the vestibule,
pulling Queequeg with her. Little black claws left hair-thin trails in the
floorwax.
Dana released the dog's collar. Her pretty features pinched as she stood, as she
said, "It's tops and bottoms, one word. Wait...One word..." A size-four foot
scooted Queequeg away from the inner door. "No, it's one word. At
hellfire-dot-com....hellfire....Right. Call me if you get anything. I don't care
what time it is....No....No, I--No....Hey! That's enough!" Dana abruptly punched
off the connection, her smile nickelplate false as she shook Tom's hand. "Nice
to meet you."
"Tom Mercure. Pleasure to meet you, too, Ma'am." His weathered skin crinkled
as he smiled. "Don't need to put on a show for the company. I know this is a
bad time."
"It is. You're right. Sorry we're not meeting on a better day." She puffed at
fallen hair. Hill reached to brush away the auburn strand--felt watery hurt when
Dana sidestepped. Her eyes abandoned the oval face, looked above bright tresses
to the soft glow of the living room. The things she found raised memories: Dana
haggling over the price of the blue-and-white couch; cold rain and raw fingers
tying down the old, oak rocker in the trunk of a mid-'80s Escort; and the framed
faces of a sister and father--mantelpiece ghosts alongside a young mother in
lime polyester with coppertop boys.
"So, this is the Scully mad house?" Tina knew her jaw was tight. "Way cool." The
track of her gaze doubled back, reached the wall across from the vestibule. A
plain pine shelf was the foundation for their image: Class 89-11 in Hogan's
Alley at Quantico. It was a study in unabashed macho: thirty-one trainees
posturing--Tom Colton's chin tipped up; tall, broad Tina with hands on hips;
little, pugnacious Dana in front of them--shorter than Tina's shoulders--arms
crossed on breasts.
It was a mercy to have Queequeg bounce up and down between four legs and two,
furiously sniffing her Nikes, her knees. Tina cleared her throat. "He smells
Spot. Or he thinks I'm a fire hydrant."
Dana scooped up Queequeg and the thunk of an American Tourister where the dog
had been made Hill jump. As she straightened, her eyes followed the side-seam of
corduroy pants to padded nylon, to a poker face. "I've done my job as porter,"
Tom nodded once. "Now gimme my tip and I'll be off. I know you ladies have work
to do."
Her lips couldn't find his fast enough. "I'll call you," she whispered.
"Don't have to unless you need to, Darlin'. Take care of business. Do it
right."
When the front door closed, she turned back to Dana. "He--he seems nice,
Jeff," her friend offered.
"He is nice." She yanked off fuzzy mittens, shrugged out of her coat and
hung it in the vestibule's built-in cabinet. Grabbed at humor. "Looks like
Wyatt Earp, huh? A Buntline Special at the OK Corral every night." The
responding frown disoriented--as if Dana Scully's common smile was twisted
back on itself in a mirror world. Cleared her throat. "So this is Queequeg.
What kind of rat is he, anyway?"
A corner of Dana's mouth thinned, turned upward. "Pomeranian. Who's Spot?"
"Our Labrador." Hill reached out to pet the panting, wiggling thing. He
felt hot, the heartbeat in his bird-boned chest was wild against her palm
as she lifted him from Dana's arms. Their dog was heavy and his paws could
brace on her shoulders when she sat on the arm of the recliner and he stood
on back legs. Slobber was Spot's calling card, not the olfactory detective
work the orange pompom was pursuing down the front of her vee-neck
tee-shirt--his wet, pea-sized nose snorting in the gap between her breasts,
then tracking up her goosebumped neck into her black sheet of hair.
Dana gestured with her eyes. "It's freezing over here, Jeff. Come where the
radiators are."
Fake grin. "You and your Outward Bound lifestyle. Sheesh. We've even got
central heat back on the Rez." Hill trailed Dana into the living room and
shuddered as Queequeg's icy sniffer poked into her ear. "Oooo--you're
turning me on. S-stop it!--So, when you called earlier you said Skinner did
the weird thing? What happened?"
Small sigh. "Skinner said it was all right for you to work with me."
"And?"
Dana paused near the couch. Hips canted; chin turned to parallel one
shoulder. "He said he was too busy to hear my briefing and I knew where the
door was."
"Jesus, Mutt!" Hill's eyes widened. "What the hell is up with Wally? How
could that sonofab--"
"You want coffee?"
"--itch...." A peeved pause. Blew air out through her nose.
"Whatever...Sure."
Dana's new stride was quick. Hill followed more slowly, past a cold fireplace
and a table where a glass bowl of dried lavender briefly vanquished Queequeg's
damp, ureic smell. Set the Pomeranian down on the black-and-cream checked
linoleum as she entered the kitchen. Dana was
staring up into a deep, white cabinet above the stove--one of more than a dozen,
with solid brass hinges and pulls that spoke of workmanship and age. "Will Kona
keep you up?"
"Hell, yes. And free me from gravity, too." Tina took a few steps around
the large, bright room, noting the contradictory shine of new appliances,
coveting the refrigerator's exterior ice dispenser. "You didn't want to
cook on a wood stove, huh? Maybe haul your ice up from the Potomac?"
"I'm not that Outward Bound, Jeff." Dana strained to grab a white paper sack.
Hill knew better than to offer help. Checked out the tin ceiling instead. "How
long have you been in here?"
"Just a month. There's still boxes and boxes up in the spare room to
unpack."
"Ain't that the story of life?"
"Yeah," Dana nodded. "The timing of the move worked out well. I had to get
out of Woodly Park."
Hill watched velvet brown beans rattle into the electric grinder. When Dana
threw the switch the sound was harsh, but the smell that pervaded was
Monday morning Starbuck's. "You had to or HAD to?" she prodded.
Her friend's features calcified and azure flickered. "I'm not going there,
Jeff."
Hill squared her shoulders. "You gave me the inroad. Andy says the investigation
is going nowhere."
Dana voice was terse as she dumped the grounds the machine's gold-strand filter.
"It's not for lack of evidence."
"What do you mean?" Tina's black eyebrows pulled together. "If they had
anything on the killer, they'd use it, right? Someone shot your sister
thinking they'd snuffed a federal agent. You know Freeh's riding the D.C.
police chief's ass on this one."
Dana shrugged and opened the cabinet under the sink. Bent down, reached in, and
paper rustled while the dog whined and whirled. Snatched the treat from his
owner's hand and pranced off as the cabinet door clicked shut and Dana
straightened to lean back against the counter. "We're not here for this, Jeff."
She grimaced, adjusting against discomfort. "We're here for Mulder."
She looked so tired but words had to serve as an embrace. "I'm here for
you, sweetie."
Hill had pitched her voice soft; Dana answered with granite. "You're here, Agent
Hill, because you've been assigned to this case by AD Skinner and we can't make
any progress until you get focused."
Hill stared as her heart pounded. Her steps matched its rhythm as she went
to sit at the breakfast table and folded her big hands in her lap. Put on
an Efrem Zimbalist face. "Go ahead, Agent Scully. Brief me."
Dana's eyes roved the 'midafternoon piquant' or whatever froufrou shade of
gray-lavender colored the wall above Tina's head. Her mouth worked before
she said, "I'm sorry, Jeff. That was--"
"You're wasting time." A basalt glimmer.
Dana Scully looked at the floor and Hill watched breasts rise and fall slowly.
"All right, then. Mulder was doing research on sexual slavery
before he was abducted. He'd read files on a Nineteen-eighty-seven Bureau bust
in Oregon--the estate of a multimillionaire named DiAgosti. The women freed had
been brought to the compound as pubescent girls. Before being
sold, most said they were in the house of a 'master'--someone who raised these
children to be slaves."
Dana lifted her head and their eyes locked briefly. "I'm going to digress now,"
Scully sighed. "But it all comes back together in the end."
"Go on. I'm really focused."
Dana blinked several times--almost rolled her eyes--and both their mouths
finally quirked. "My partner had a little sister. In November, Nineteen
seventy-three, when he was twelve and she was eight, his parents went to a
bridge party and left Mulder in charge."
"Okay." Hill relaxed against the seatback and crossed her legs. The gurgle of
the coffeemaker drew her eyes to dark, draining liquid.
"According to their depositions, when they came home the sister--Samantha--was
gone and Mulder was balled up in a corner,
brandishing the father's gun. One shot had been fired. He was hysterical,
but by the time the police got there, he'd gone catatonic and stayed that
way for four days. When he came out of it, he didn't remember anything. But
Mulder became convinced he was responsible for what happened to Samantha--"
The back of Tina's neck prickled as she looked again to Dana. "You mean, he
shot--"
"Mulder did not kill his sister," Dana stressed each word. "His father
worked for the State Department and the Bureau investigated the disappearance.
The slug was in the ceiling directly under where Mulder was lying. There was no
blood anywhere. The case agent ruled out that Mulder murdered Sam; he said he
was a traumatized witness to an
abduction--probably by an aggressive pedophile. But Mulder believed he--he was
convinced he had not done enough to save her. He grew fixated with finding her,
or learning what happened to her. It's been his whole life--searching for
Samantha."
Dana took a slow breath. Her arms stockaded across the logo of her
University of Maryland sweatshirt. "Back in 'Eighty-nine, Mulder went into
regression hypnotherapy. He believes he partially recovered memories of the
abduction. He--he remembered his sister being taken by extraterrestrials."
Hill frowned. "Like that Whitley Strieber guy?"
A wash of pink on her cheeks and her alto lilted. "Right." "Well, that's pretty
weird."
Eyebrows lifted. "That's all--weird?"
"No, that's not all." Hill's muscles felt heavy as she arose, already
protesting what was obviously going to be a long voyage to Alpha Centauri.
"Creamer?"
"What?"
"Coffee's ready."
"Oh." Dana's fingers kneaded biceps through cotton/polyester. "There's
half-and-half in the icebox."
Hill opened the door and squatted to hunt. Decided to have a little mercy after
extracting the pint carton from behind Tupperware. "If you thought I'd be
surprised, Mutt, I'm not--I got an earful from Colton after that case you guys
worked together."
Dana grunted, slid the sugar dish Tina's way. Pointed out a cabinet. "Cups are
in there."
"Thank you." Hell. Everything on the cupboard shelf was china and probably a
million years old. "Don't you have a real coffee mug, Dana? Something that
doesn't belong in the frickin' Smithsonian? What did you do with all the
cheap stuff?"
"Gave it to the Salvation Army when I made GS 12, Step 6," the voice behind her
hinted tartness.
"Great," Tina chose the sacrificial vessel at random. "I hope GEICO or
somebody will pay for this when I drop it. Anyway, I think I see where
you're going with this alien thing."
"Yes. Well," Dana sighed. "In the interview transcripts from the DiAgosti
bust they talked with a girl named Brandy. She mentioned a slave named Sam.
I think Mulder was wondering if that woman was his sister."
"It all makes sense," Hill agreed as she poured. "The kid sees some pervert
carry off Samantha and he turns him into an alien, buries the whole experience,
and remembers it as an adult under hypnosis. Reads this transcript and gets a
peek under the screen memory." She dribbled cream into oil-black.
"Maybe. My partner's a doctor of psychology, Jeff. He knows retrieved
memories aren't reliable, but he's clung to the conviction that it was alien
abduction despite disdain--a lot of it mine. But there's something missing
here and my guts are telling me it's important. I think it might have come
from a Web site out of San Francisco run by Hellfire Mating Service."
"Oh yeah. Them?" Silverplate tinkled against porcelain as Hill stirred in the
sugar.
"You know about Hellfire?"
Hill turned. "Should I not know about them?"
"It seems like a strange coincidence."
She didn't like that hardened tone. "Jeez, Dana. We were on a case--after-hours
at a cybercafe in Princeton a couple months ago--too many Irish coffees. We came
across Hellfire. Sadomasochism, bondage and discipline, masters and
servants--right? So, who were you talking to on the phone? I heard you mention
Hellfire."
Dana's cheeks showed another shallow blush. "I don't know if should tell you,
Jeff."
"If you want me to do you some good, you'd better."
Her friend shrugged. "It was a hacker Mulder and I occasionally work with
when--when...."
"Hey," Tina prompted into the void with open palms, "do you think I am going
to run to OPR?"
"No, it's just..."
"Just what?" She gestured the question again.
Dana grimaced. Her eyes squinted. "I'm not sure I want you to know how bizarre
my life is."
Tina's chuckle belied apprehension. "Just tell me about the hacker, for
chrissake."
"He's a little, scrawny, horny, fifty-year-old computer geek named
Frohicke," Dana admitted with a slight squirm of her shoulders. "He's going
to try to hack Hellfire's sysop log and see if Mulder was ever there."
Relief and the smile in Hill's voice was genuine. "Okay, so I should be
expecting a slimy phone call later in the A.M.?"
"Probably," she frowned.
"Then I'll be prepared to defend my chastity." Tina laid a light hand on her
friend's arm. Was glad when Dana leaned into the touch just a little. "So,
what else needs to be done tonight? Show me."
The laptop was up and running on the living room coffee table, files and papers
surrounding it. Hill perched on the arm of the sofa and watched Dana toy with
the glide path, sending the arrow cursor skittering over the screen while an IAF
service loaded. "We're looking for a Dr. Victor Alexander Abloy," Dana told her.
"He--he's a psychologist who used to practice in D.C., but left the area about
four years ago."
"Okay." She slid down over pinstripes to settle next to Dana as the log-on
screen came up.
Keys clicked and the screen changed to the main search menu. "Today I talked
with Preftakes over in Psych Services," Dana explained, tapping in information,
setting parameters. "He was on the team that cleaned up after the DiAgosti bust.
He thinks Abloy might know what happened to Brandy. He's still at the office,
reading transcripts to see if there's more information on Sam. He'll call later,
too."
Hill nodded. "No problem. I'll play hunt-the-snipe. What else?"
"I have a list here of the rest of the girls." Dana passed over a yellow
legal pad to Hill. "These two are dead." Her forefinger blotted the names.
"The two with stars are officially missing persons. Let's try to track the
rest. If I can't find Brandy, maybe one of the others can help."
"Can do. You go get some rest now. Get those lenses out." Hill jostled her
softly with her elbow as Dana rubbed at red eyes. The redhead nodded, slowly got
to her feet, then breathed down Hill's bent neck as the first hundred search
results appeared.
"You're making my flesh crawl," Hill warned.
The steps dragged but headed for the staircase and bed.
XIV
11:13 P.M., J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.
Neil Preftakes rubbed smudged prescription lenses on his shirt front. The ache
behind his eyeballs had not succumbed to Tylenol.
It was late and he should be home--a thought locked on target for forty-two
years. His autopilot wasn't convinced that the brick rancher in Silver Spring
was empty--that Martha wasn't waiting there--couldn't turn its course to Rock
Creek Cemetery, Section I, row ten.
There were words on the computer screen: alphabet amalgamations that allowed him
to know again the life of another woman--a slave woman, not a helpmeet and
partner. Brandy had never known the love of family, friends, and community as he
and Martha had growing up in rural Maryland. She'd never seen the bedsheet
ghosts of October, never rode on a flatbed creche in a Christmas parade. No
valentines, no Easter Sundays, no prom....Preftakes breathed a trace of the rose
water Martha'd worn that night. Hadn't let his Grandma wash his dress shirt for
a week.
That was life. That was living--not what Brandy had endured. Diaper rash and a
child alone in a rented room when Mommy went out to buy. Slaps and shouts and
sometimes kisses and crushing hugs when the stuff was good. A mother who smiled
big and pretty once at all that green.
A long drive in a big white car with windows that rolled up and down at the push
of a button. Plush velour seats and chocolate ice cream. More simple words
painting pictures of a house where things were so much better that the hurting
inside when the "daddies" came seemed like such a small trade.
Preftakes eyed the red and white bottle by the keyboard. Popped the childproof
cap, dumped two more gelcaps in his hand, and washed them down with a sip of
luke warm tea. Pushed his glasses up over the hump of his nose.
Tapped a finger on the mouse as he came across another reference to Brandy's
friend, Sam. "Sam and I played dolls. Boy dolls and girl dolls. Nice dolls. Our
Master gave us those. I slept with my doll because I had bad dreams. So did Sam.
Sometimes our Master would sing us to sleep. He loved us more than the other
girls, I think."
Preftakes made a few notes for Agent Scully. Doodled with his pen. Saw the tall,
thin, handsome man who'd sat in the same chair and denied he needed anyone's
support. Preftakes knew Mulder would need help this time and was glad he
wouldn't be around. Brandy had been enough--and Carl. He sighed and put his face
in his hands.
The languid footsteps were expected. When the man finally reached the doorway to
his office, Preftakes looked up and preemptively assured, "I'll toss her bones."
"Good." The visitor leaned against the doorway, inhaled his air through the
cigarette held between thumb and forefinger. "String her along." Smoke and
words slipped out over dim lips. "Just give Agent Scully something to pass
the time."
The psychologist swallowed, throat tight. "All right."
"I know we can count on you, Dr. Preftakes." The man smiled. "You've always
been discreet.". The red ember flared again. "Enjoy your retirement, Doctor.
You've earned it. "
--Lisby
lisby@earthlink.net
---------------------------------------------------------------------------"And
if I die today I'll be the happy phantom,
and I'll go chasing the nuns out in the yard,
and I'll run naked through the streets without my mask on,
and I never need umbrellas in the rain.
I'll wake up in strawberry fields everyday
and the atrocities of school I can forget.
The Happy Phantom has no right to bitch." --Tori Amos
----------------------------------------------------------------------------