Chapter 11

Thursday, Nov. 6th
4:22 am

Michael stepped down hard on the accelerator and sent the Jeep's rear end skidding to the left. She fought the wheel to regain control, but never let up on the gas. If that bastard had managed to find the cabin, she was going to have to kill them both right there with no opportunity to stage the scene. It was all going to hell, and she was damn well going to make them pay for it.

What had she overlooked? She couldn't afford another surprise, not now. Jesse should still work as the killer, but what if she'd missed something else?

What if Mulder had read the email Scully sent? What if that's why he was following her out here?

What if he'd told someone?

There were too many possibilities to deal with right now. Focus on the most urgent, and work from there.

She rounded the final curve, shut off the headlights and coasted the rest of the way.

The cabin door was standing open.

She stopped the car and grabbed Scully's gun from the seat. He'd had plenty of time to free her, but not enough time to get very far. Michael opened the car door and got out, flashlight in one hand, gun in the other raised to shoot at whatever moved.

They could have gone in any direction. Tracking them through the woods would be nearly impossible in the dark, but she couldn't afford to wait another two hours for the sun to come up. If she could see better, so could they.

She found the tracks leading from the cabin, but they didn't go into the woods. Michael stared at running footprints in the snow, following the line across the road and off into the distance with growing amazement.

They had gone out onto the lake.

Why would they do that? Why choose the only route without a hint of cover? She studied the tracks more closely, moving the flashlight's beam slowly across the snow.

They weren't running, she realized. They were stumbling, or one of them was. One of them was having a very hard time just walking. One of them was hurt. They chose the flat open ground because they had no choice.

There was a God after all.

Michael smiled.

* * *

Mulder caught the sound of the Jeep's engine over the rasping of his own breath, but he couldn't look back over his shoulder without risking his precarious balance. "Scully. Stop."

"I hear it, Mulder. Keep going." Scully was gasping now, too, pulling the icy air into her lungs in searing gulps.

He felt her grip tighten, but it wasn't enough to overcome his resistance. "You have to leave me. She's gonna catch us both if you don't."

"God dammit, Mulder. MOVE!"

He couldn't see her eyes in the dark, but he heard the tears in her voice. "Scully, I can't. I've got nothing left, and you know it. You can make it. Somebody has to tell them who did this!"

It was too much for his overtaxed lungs. Mulder's good leg gave up the fight, dragging Scully down to the ice with him. His injured leg folded beneath him and the pain wrenched a scream from his raw throat. He clutched at her in the dark, pleading with eyes she couldn't see. "Get away. Please get away."

And suddenly, he could see her face.

Light. And the roar of an engine.

"She's coming," Scully hissed through clenched teeth. "You have to get up. NOW!" She pulled at him with desperate strength.

The ice beneath him vibrated. Mulder looked toward the approaching lights. Michael was out on the ice with the Jeep. Coming straight for them.

He tried. God, he tried. But there was no way. They were both going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. "I can't."

Scully's arms closed around him in a fierce embrace.

Mulder looked back toward approaching doom. The cabin was invisible in the dark, but the Jeep's headlights told him that they'd made it farther than he'd thought.

Michael was rapidly closing the distance.

A hundred yards. Fifty. It would be over in seconds now.

And then, she stopped.

The ice shook. Hard.

A sound that was loud and muted at the same time. Soft and sharp. Mulder felt it more than heard it, a vibration in the surface beneath them.

The Jeep's headlights angled sharply upward. The engine revved to a scream.

Another thunderclap of sound.

Scully whispered, "The ice is breaking."

* * *

Michael tried to spot them with her flashlight, but their tracks extended beyond the range of its beam. They were a lot farther out than she would have expected.

"But you can't outrun a car, you bastard."

She jumped back in the Jeep and aimed it along their tracks. Revving the engine, she threw the transmission in gear and bounced out onto the frozen surface. A few seconds later, she had them squarely in her headlights.

They had managed to make it almost to the center of the lake. Huddled together, cringing like the backstabbing cowards they were. She should just leave them there to freeze to death. It would serve them--

Wait! That was the answer! No one would find them until it was too late, and she could make up any story she--

CRACK!

The right rear of the Jeep dropped abruptly and her forward momentum halted with a jarring twist to the right. Shock paralyzed her for long seconds.

GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT Her mind screamed at her, but all she could do was stare at the figures clinging to each other just out of her reach. She pressed down on the accelerator, spinning four wheels at once.

"Climb OUT, you BITCH!" She gripped the steering wheel and leaned forward, trying to levitate the mass of metal out of its mire by sheer will.

Then, the whole rear end of the Jeep dropped down through the ice, headlights clawing at the sky.

* * *

"She's going down!" Scully's triumphant shout rose above the shrieking engine. Her joy lasted a few seconds before a lifetime's worth of saving lives smothered it with guilt. "She's going to drown." She released Mulder and stood up.

He grabbed at her coat and pulled. "NO! Scully, you can't do anything. If you try, you'll go down with her, and I can't help you."

She hesitated, but then it didn't matter. The Jeep's rear wheels dropped completely through the ice, aiming the headlights upward at a steep angle.

It was too dark to see inside, but they could hear Michael screaming even above the engine noise. Cursing. Cursing them. Cursing God. A voice filled with hatred and fury.

"Let her go," Mulder breathed. "Let her go."

Scully watched as the front wheels cracked through the ice. The Jeep bobbed for a moment, floating amid the chunks of ice and steam as the hot engine hit the frigid water. It sputtered, gasping for air, then died.

In the relative silence that followed, they heard Michael's cries change from anger to terror. She was screaming for help.

* * *

She shoved frantically at the door, but something blocked it. Ice pressed against the sides of the Jeep. Water poured in everywhere, drenching her legs and then her hips in needle- sharp pain that felt like licks of icy fire. The water rose to her waist. Her chest. Pain so intense that she couldn't breathe.

Panic seized her as the level reached her chin. She thrashed and pushed and clawed at the soft fabric roof. There was a latch somewhere, if she could find it.

"HELP ME! OH, JESUS, HELP ME!"

The water covered her face in the middle of a scream, and she sucked in a huge lungful of it. Too much to cough out. Too much.

Darkness reached for her, icy fingers closed around her throat. Cold. Cold. Breathe. Can't breathe. Can't--

* * *

The Jeep floated for a moment, nose in the air, wedged in the icy hole. The headlights were still working, but the engine was dead. Michael's cries intensified.

And then, it shook free of the ice and sank like a stone. Michael's frantic, panicked shrieks went silent with the swiftness of a thrown switch.

After a few seconds, the headlights went out. Eerie silence, broken by his own and Scully's gasping breaths and the burbling sounds of air escaping from the sinking Jeep.

Scully knelt next to him and wrapped both arms around his shoulders. "We can go back to the cabin now, and get warm. We'll be safe."

Mulder tried to smile. "The fire's probably out."

She chuckled softly. "There's a wood pile out front. Didn't you see it? All we need is a match." She tugged at him.

"Maybe it'll rain sleeping bags." He couldn't see her face, but he felt her jerk of surprise. "I was kidding."

She chuckled again, but it had a nervous edge that made him wish he could see her eyes. She stood up, leaning back to counterbalance his weight. "Come on, Mulder. We don't have all night."

The pain in his leg was paralyzing, but he'd be damned if he was going to lie out here and freeze to death. Get up, he ordered his exhausted body. To his surprise, it began to comply.

And then, the surface beneath them shuddered.

A series of cracking, popping sounds seemed to come from everywhere at once. The ice took a sickening lurch that knocked Scully off her feet. She dropped to her knees at his side.

"Oh, my God." Scully breathed. "Mulder, we have to get off this ice." He felt her getting to her feet again, pulling at him.

Another cracking sound, so close that it could have been right under them.

Mulder grabbed for her with a strength born of panic. "NO! Don't move!"

All around them, the ice became like a living thing, shifting and sighing in the dark.

* * *

Crystal City, VA
5:50 am

The phone rang as he was stepping out of the shower. Skinner threw a towel around his waist and dripped his way to the bedroom. He snagged the receiver from the nightstand, noting that the caller ID showed the Bureau switchboard number.

"Skinner."

"Sir, I have an emergency call for you from a Jeremy Grissom in Scarsdale, New York. He says he has urgent information for Agent Scully. Your instructions said to call with any word about her, so I thought..."

"Give me the number." He repeated it as she spoke, searching through the nightstand drawer for paper and something to write with, finally settling for a stub of pencil and the jacket of a novel he had yet to read. "When did he call?"

"He's called six times in the past hour, sir. He said it was a matter of life and death. The last call came in just a few minutes ago."

What he'd said when he'd the office an hour ago to pack for the trip to Warren was to call him immediately with any messages. Why it had taken six tries and nearly an hour of effort for this call to reach him was a matter he would address later. "Thank you," he managed through clenched teeth, then hung up and punched in the number. It rang once.

"Agent Scully?" A man's voice, out of breath.

"This is Agent Scully's supervisor, Assistant Director Skinner."

"I have to talk to her right way. Can you tell me how to reach her?"

"I can get a message to her."

"Agent Scully was here asking about my sister's murder. She told me to call her if I remembered anything, and I found a name. Jackie must have been meeting this guy the day she was killed. I know it's him!"

Scully had been on her way back from Scarsdale when she disappeared. This man was the last victim's brother? "Slow down. Where did you find the name?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I started going through Jackie's things and I found her boarding pass for the flight she took to Pittsburgh the day she died. There's a name written on it, and a time."

It wasn't likely that even a small town sheriff would have missed anything so obvious. "I'm sure it's already been checked out, Mr. Grissom. Why do you think this has anything to do with her murder?"

"No, it hasn't been checked out. She wrote it in a code only the two of us knew. We made it up when we were kids. To anyone else, it would just look like doodles. Hell, it took me an hour to figure it out. I haven't seen it for more than twenty years. For some reason, she didn't want anyone to know she was meeting him." He took a deep breath. "And then, when I called information and found out he lives right there in Warren..."

Skinner walked out to kitchen and flipped on the overhead light. He pulled a sheet of paper from the notepad next to the wall phone. "What's the name?"

"Michael Hobart. I can give you his phone number, if you like."

* * *

Warren County Sheriff's Department
Thursday, Nov. 6th
6:55 am

With network reporters sniffing around, Will had known it would only be a matter of time before the news of a missing FBI agent got out. He'd gone home a few hours ago to catch a shower and grab a few winks, fully expecting to find something like this when he got back. Still, the cluster of satellite trucks and local news vans was a bit daunting.

They were all over him the second he stepped out of his car. He brushed them off with the stock 'No comment at this time', weaving his way through the maze of microphones. When he closed the front door behind him, he found Linda holding out a cup of coffee. She looked much too alert for someone who'd had less sleep than he.

"You want the good news, or the bad news?" she asked brightly.

Will took the mug from her hands and sipped the steaming liquid. "Surprise me."

"I just hung up from talking to an Assistant Director with the FBI." She picked up a pink message slip from the desk behind her and held it out to him. "He said you were to call him the minute you got back."

Will took the piece of paper, glanced at it and stuck it in his shirt pocket. "What's the good news?"

"That was the good news. The bad news is that he's on a Bureau jet right now, on his way here."

"Christ, that's all I need." He headed for his office.

Will sat down hard enough to rock the ancient chair back on its wheels. After another slug of caffeine, he dug the message from his pocket and picked up the phone.

The call was answered on the third ring, the background noise so loud that Will had to strain to hear. "This is Will Kessler. I got a message to call Assistant Director Skinner."

"This is Skinner," a man's voice shouted. "I want you to locate a local resident by the name of Michael Hobart and have him available for questioning on my arrival. I'll be at Bradford Airport in ninety minutes."

Kessler puffed out a weary sigh. "You've been talking to Agent Mulder, I see."

The man was silent for a moment. "What about Agent Mulder?"

Will had no desire to carry on a conversation at this volume. "Michael is a woman," he said patiently, "and she's not a suspect. She's a victim. I'll explain when you get here."

The silence was longer this time. "I haven't been able to reach Agent Mulder. Do you know where he is?"

"Back at his hotel asleep, I would imagine."

"Find him." The call was disconnected.

The silence left his ears ringing. Will put the phone down and scrubbed at his face with both hands. Was the entire FBI crazy? Or just these two?

He punched the intercom button. "Linda, get Agent Mulder on the phone for me. Try his hotel and his cell."

"You know, you could talk to me directly if you'd leave the door open."

"Just get him on the phone?"

Christ, he needed a vacation.

* * *

The alarm went off, and Jesse slapped at it without opening his eyes. Two thoughts drifted through the fuzz in his head: he had to pee in the worst way, and the bed next to him was empty.

He hauled his ass out of bed and wandered into the bathroom to take care of the first item on his list. When he came back to the bedroom, he flipped on the light and gazed morosely at the rumpled sheets. Just one goddamned time, you'd think she would stay the night. Hell, just give him the illusion that he was more than a quick scratch for that itch of hers.

Then it dawned on him that she couldn't have left. She didn't have a car.

"Michael?" He went out to the living room, expecting to find her on the couch. She wasn't there.

Walking past the front windows, he glanced out at the driveway. His Jeep was gone.

His whole body sagged with defeat. He stared at the empty driveway for long minutes, wondering just how he was going to explain another sick day.

God dammit, Michael. Why?

* * *

Mulder lay in her arms, limp and silent. He wasn't shivering anymore. She wasn't, either. In fact, she felt warmer now, but Mulder's body lying against her felt like a block of ice.

The damage to the ice was even worse than she had feared. The sky had lightened enough so that she could see, and she knew now that they were going to die here.

They were in the center of a frozen lake, ringed in the distance by tall, bare trees. A few dozen yards away was a gaping hole in the ice where Michael had drowned.

All around them, there were fissures and fractures in the ice. Black water lapped at the edges of the nearest one, so close that she could almost reach out and touch it.

Michael was going to win after all.

Mulder had been exposed to the frigid temperatures much longer than she, and the effects of hypothermia were terrifyingly evident. He had become confused and disoriented not long after the Jeep sank through the ice. He'd kept telling her to leave him, refusing to believe her when she said there was nowhere to go.

And then, he had just drifted away. She could still feel his chest moving, but so faintly now. Soon it would stop altogether.

And she knew she wouldn't be far behind him.

Scully pulled him closer, rested her cheek against his soft hair, and closed her eyes.

* * *

Continued in Chapter 12