Chapter 9

Thursday, Nov. 6th
12:02 am

Jesse Kendall was a block from home when his cell phone rang. He let it go to voice mail and kept driving. It rang again as he was pulling into his driveway. He sighed, dug it out of his pocket, and squinted blearily at the caller ID.

Warren Comm Hosp

Feeling reasonably confident that he wasn't about to be called back to work, he pressed the talk button and brought the phone to his ear. If it did turn out to be Will, he was in for an unpleasant surprise.

"Yeah, Kendall."

"Jess, it's me."

The sound of Michael's voice had its usual effect. Jesse felt the warmth start somewhere in the pit of his stomach and spread steadily outward until his toes-- among other things-- were tingling. He smiled at the windshield. "I was beginning to think you lost my number."

There was a shaky sigh on the other end of the line. Even with six beers under his belt, Jesse could tell a passionate sigh from one that shouted trouble. His grin vanished and he sat forward, gripping the wheel tightly. "What's wrong?"

"Will hasn't called you?"

Warren Community Hospital.   His heart thudded against his ribs. "I've been at Lacey's since I got off work." He always shut his phone off when he was at his favorite bar. She knew that. "Michael, what's wrong?"

He heard her take a shaky breath. "Something terrible happened tonight. I'm okay, but the woman from the FBI was kidnapped out of my car. We think it was the killer. They're releasing me from the hospital, and I'm... afraid to go home."

He knew what it cost her to admit that. "Jesus, baby. I'll be there in ten minutes. Just hang in there."

* * *
A Jeep Wrangler drove into the parking lot too fast, its rear tires slipping on the icy pavement so that the driver had to wrestle for control. Mulder watched it pull up to the front entrance with no more than passing interest, until the driver got out and looked in his direction.

It was Jesse Kendall. Mulder hunkered down in his seat, purely out of reflex, before he realized it was too dark for Kendall to see him anyway.

"What's he doing here?" It was unlikely that Sheriff Kessler had decided to send a guard after all, particularly since Kendall was out of uniform. No, this was something else. Something personal? Michael certainly wasn't the only patient in the building, but it would be an amazing coincidence if Jesse were here to see anyone else.

A moment later the question was answered-- and many more were generated-- when Jesse walked out of the hospital with his arm around Michael Hobart. They got into the Jeep and pulled away.

Mulder waited until they reached the main road, then followed, keeping as much distance as possible between the two vehicles and leaving his lights off.

Following them through the picturesque streets was one thing, but they soon headed out of town, past Warren's only shopping mall, and then west into the heart of the national forest.

The winding, two lane road complicated the task of trying to keep the Wrangler in sight without being seen. At any moment, he expected to come around a curve and either find the Jeep
directly in front of him or vanished up one of the narrow trails leading into the woods.

Twenty minutes after it began, the trek ended in a small cluster of single-story homes set into a hillside. The Wrangler pulled into the driveway of a white clapboard house in the center of the group. There were no streetlamps, but all of the houses had bright mercury vapor lights mounted on utility poles that left few shadows to hide in. Mulder hung well back, but close enough to see Jesse and Michael go into the house together through the side door.

Mulder turned off the car and stared at the house as lights came on inside. Kendall came out the front door a moment later and walked to the mailbox out by the street. He extracted a handful of envelopes and flyers and went back into the house. Nothing in his posture or his actions suggested anything other than a man home from work, going about his normal routine.

Did he actually believe Scully was in there? Was it possible that the sheriff's department profiler and one of its deputies had conspired to kidnap a Federal agent? Because the profiler had a crush on the Federal agent's partner?

Mulder let the scenario play in his head and imagined himself explaining the theory to Sheriff Kessler. Or to a judge, asking for a warrant. Or to A.D. Skinner.

You're losing it, Mulder.

I'm not sure I ever had it to begin with.

The lights at the front of the house went out, and another toward the rear came on. A few minutes later, the house went completely dark.

* * *

1:40 am

Jesse strained and sweated above her, fumbling at her body with rough and clumsy hands. His breath on her face reeked of beer and cigarette smoke. Michael turned her face into the pillow and closed her eyes.

This is the last. Just hold on.

It always took a long time when he'd been drinking, but she could be certain when it was over that he would sleep like the dead for hours. She needed him to do just that, and almost any price was worth paying if it bought her the time she needed.

When he finally stiffened, then collapsed upon her, she slid out from beneath him and wiped his stickiness from her thighs with a corner of the musty sheet.

"Don't go, baby." He was already on his way to sleep, but one paw reached for her in the dark.

"I'm going to the bathroom, Jess. I'll be right back." She forced herself to stroke his cheek until he relaxed. When the snoring began, she slipped out of bed.

She grabbed her purse and her clothes from the floor, slipped into the bathroom and turned on the light. She dug the plastic bottle from her purse and held it against her body as she squatted over the toilet, catching his fluid as it drained from her. After a moment, she recapped the bottle and put it back in her purse. The shower might wake him, but she could not bear to feel his sweat on her skin another moment. She stood under the steaming flow for as long as she dared, then dried herself and dressed quickly.

When she came out, Jesse was still sprawled across the bed, sound asleep.

His keys lay on the dining room table next to his gun. It was tempting to take the gun, but even a man as dimwitted as Jesse Kendall would catch on if she did. Michael pulled on her coat and went out into the frigid night.

* * *

Mulder was midway to the house when the front door opened. If he hadn't happened to be passing the only shrub on Jesse's front lawn, it would have been all over. As it was, he barely managed to duck out of sight before she glanced his way. He held his breath as she paused, seeming to focus right on him. Then, she pulled the door shut and walked to the Jeep.

He waited until she had backed down the drive and out into the street before he moved. His car was a hundred yards away, but if she drove back the way they had come, she would certainly recognize it.

She didn't. Wherever she was going, it was in the opposite direction.

When she disappeared around a curve down the street, Mulder ran to his car.

The road narrowed to barely a lane and a half as he followed her from a quarter mile back. With his lights off, he knew he was all but invisible at this distance, but the darkness made it extremely hard to stay on the paved surface. Every time she vanished around a curve, he held his breath until he caught sight of her taillights again.

There was no question in his mind now that she was lying about what happened to Scully. Either she had taken Scully herself, or she knew who did. The why of it no longer mattered. All he cared about was finding Scully alive, and he could only hope that Michael was going to her now.

The road wound around another curve and Mulder slowed to a crawl. When he came to the other side, the road lay pitch black and empty before him. The Jeep was gone.

He stopped the car and peered into blackness. It was so complete that he literally couldn't see his hands on the wheel. Off to the right, he thought he caught a brief flicker of
something through the trees, but it disappeared before he could focus.

He could either sit here until the sun came up, or risk using his lights until he picked up the Jeep's trail. In this total darkness, even a momentary flash of his headlights would be visible for miles-- if anyone was looking his way-- but he didn't see any alternative.

Mulder reached for the switch and pulled it out one stop to the parking light setting. The instrument panel lights came on along with the outside lights, and he blinked at the faint glow, blinding in contrast to the total
darkness of a moment before. He found the dimmer switch and turned the panel lights off completely. When his eyes readjusted to the darkness, he found that the parking lights gave him enough vision to see the road.

The Jeep had only been out of his sight for a few seconds. Wherever it had turned off had to be very close. Mulder put the car in gear and crept forward.

He saw the turnoff almost immediately. A path into the woods on the right looked recently traveled, and he followed it. A few yards farther along, the contrast between snow and trees was strong enough that he decided to try it with his lights off. After his eyes
adjusted, he found he could see well enough to keep moving.

Up ahead, a brief glimpse of light through the trees told him he was on the right track.

* * *

Scully saw the lights outside a moment before the sound of the engine reached her ears. In the reflected glow, she finally caught a glimpse of her surroundings. It was a cabin, and she was lying on a cot right under a window. Before she could register much more than that, the vehicle outside came to a halt and extinguished its lights.

She heard a car door slam, then footsteps squeaking across frigid snow. When the cabin door opened, her heart rate tripled.

A flashlight beam found her face and stayed there. It was impossible to see beyond it.

"I see you're still here."

A woman's voice... chuckling.

"Who are you?" Scully used her command voice, but a tremor spoiled the effect.

"Hang on a minute, and I'll get us some light," came the cheery response, and this time Scully recognized the voice.

"Michael?" It briefly crossed Scully's mind that this might be a rescue. "What are you doing here?"

"Patience, Agent Scully. Patience."

A scratching sound preceded a strong scent of sulfur, and a match burst to flame. It
reflected Michael Hobart's face as she lit two oil lamps on a rough mantle over the stone fireplace. When she had the flames adjusted to her liking, she turned to Scully.

"There. Now we can talk." She dragged a wooden chair next to Scully's cot and sat down. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Untie me, Michael." Her voice was steady this time.

"You really don't think much of my IQ, do you?" Michael shook one finger at Scully like a peevish schoolmarm. "I'm disappointed, I have to tell you."

"I think you're an extremely intelligent woman, Michael. I just don't understand what you could hope to accomplish by keeping me here."

"I think you do." All the lightness was gone from her voice and her eyes.

Scully weighed her options and decided she had nothing to lose. "All right, then does this have something to do with Mulder?"

"It does now, but only because you've left me no alternative."

"I left you no alternative? Are you under the impression that I'm the reason Mulder isn't interested in you?"

"If you hadn't been here, I think I could have made him talk to me about the murders. I think he might have understood." She shrugged. "It doesn't matter now."

"I'd like to understand, if you'll tell me."

Michael stood up so quickly that the chair tipped over. "Don't patronize me." She leaned down and hissed the words into Scully's face.

Scully kept her voice level, but her pulse thudded hard in her throat. "If you didn't want me to understand, you would have killed me right away. I think you want to tell me. I think you're proud of the planning that went into this, and I think you want me to know."

Michael sat down on the cot next to Scully and studied her intently for a moment. "I didn't kill you right away because I couldn't. I don't give a damn what you think, but I had hopes for Mulder. Unfortunately, you've made it necessary for him to die, too." She shivered and rubbed her arms. "We need some heat in here, don't we? Can't work in this cold."

She stood and walked to the door. "I'll make us a nice fire, and we can get started," she said pleasantly.

Scully watched open-mouthed as the woman gave her a cheery smile and went outside.

* * *

The terrain was proving to be more of a problem than the darkness. More than once, Mulder had driven the Taurus into a dead end and had to back up a dozen yards. Even when he managed to stay on the right track, the deeply rutted snow made steering nearly impossible.

The pressure of time slipping away, and what that might mean for Scully, finally drove him to take chances. The inevitable followed moments later. He lost his bearings in the dark, and lost control of the car because he kept his speed up without being able to see the road. The wheels on the right side of the car dropped off the edge of the paved surface onto the crumbling shoulder and pulled the rest of the car with them. It was a short slide, but that didn't matter. The car couldn't have been more deeply mired if he'd planned it.

"Shit!" Mulder slammed one fist into the steering wheel, panting with frustration. "At least the car's off the road if she comes back this way." He doubted he was even still on the original route.

It didn't matter. Unless he got extremely lucky and spotted lights in the distance, he was going to freeze to death out here before he found her anyway. Sitting in the car or hiking through the snow were about equal in insuring that outcome. But unless he got his ass moving, he had zero chance of finding Scully.

He smelled wood smoke as soon as he opened the door. Whether or not it was coming from where Michael was, it meant someone was out there.

Mulder dug the flashlight from his pocket and followed his nose into the densest part of the woods.

* * *

Continued in chapter 10