Title: Blood Oranges
Author: Syntax6
Rating: NC-17; minors please read elsewhere
Classification: SRA, and W, for whodunnit
Summary: The latest victim in a series of brutal murders
has a surprising connection to Mulder, but it's Scully who
has the connection to the killer. Their relationship might
not survive either one.

Feedback: all types welcome at syn_tax6@yahoo.com



XxXxX

Chapter One

XxXxX

I like to cut them slowly, with a small knife.

It's hard sometimes to keep them lying white and quivering
on the table while I decide where to put the first mark,
but this is a process that cannot be rushed. It's no good
if it is over too quickly. So when they cry, I tell myself
that it's okay because it is the last time they will need
those tears. Soon I will make all the pain go away forever.

But this one is not crying yet.

She is looking up at me with huge black eyes that have gone
glassy from the barbiturates I fed her earlier. When I move
her tangled brown hair off her cheek, she does not even
twitch a muscle. Her pale chest rises up and down with
each shallow breath, and I trace my gloved finger lightly
over the ridge of her breastbone. She doesn't jerk away
like some of the others before her, and I congratulate
myself again on such a fine choice.

Of course some part of me knows this is wrong, but I can't
make myself stop. I don't really want to stop. I've been
this way since...well, since I can remember. I think maybe
it all started back in Mr. Gilroy's biology class, when I
held the knife for the first time. Everyone else was busy
complaining about the sickly sweet smell of the
formaldehyde or giggling over the rubbery frog bodies, but
my palms were sweating with anticipation and excitement.

The knife was cool and sharp in my hand, and I tried not to
shake very much when I approached the pinned frog.

Naturally, Betsy Dombrauer with the blond curls did not
mind when I said I wanted to do the cutting. I can still
remember how the frog split open with one single slice.
That night, I dreamt over and over again of the steel blade
as it slit through the frog's soft, gray belly. It made me
feel calm, and I knew I had to cut again.

The girl on the table whimpers into the rag in her mouth as
I slice the first cut across her abdomen. It's a clean
cut, and the blood line is straight and narrow. I add a
second line above it, touching my handiwork as I go along.
On my fingers, her blood is warm through the tight latex,
and I wish I could feel its wetness as well.

My victim wriggles against her leather restraints as I cut
into her flesh twice more. She is crying now, whimpering,
and I see that she is older than I had originally thought.
Over thirty, maybe. Thirty years of pain that I am helping
to erase.

One more line.

This one I draw from her collarbone all the way to her
navel. It's deeper than the rest, and I can feel the blood
pounding through me in response to the sight of the red
rivulets streaming over her ribcage.

After three more deep cuts, the woman goes limp on the
table, her eyes closed and her head lolled to the side.
She is still alive, but there is blood everywhere. I can
taste it in the air as I remove my shirt.

It is time for the most important part.

Glancing down at my naked chest, I see that the scar from
the last time is still an angry red, and I guess that I
must be cutting them closer together now. Six in all, is
it? I think that is what the papers have been saying.
Well, five so far...six isn't finished yet.

I take her wrist and wait until the faint pulse flutters
and stops beneath my fingertips. She is gone.

She seems so peaceful in her death, and it is this peace I
have come for. I want to smell it, taste it, wrap myself
in it until the screaming inside my head is completely
gone.

The small knife hurts me only for a minute as I cut my own
stomach, and I can barely hold back a moan of ecstasy.
When the dark, red drops slide warmly over my skin, I climb
on top of the girl, my body flat against hers. Our blood
merges in a wet smear. My eyes close.

I breathe in deeply, and the screaming fades away.

XxXxX

"A little...higher."

Mulder shifted accordingly, never stopping the steady
rhythm of his hips between her legs. "Like this?" he
breathed against her face.

"Mmmm, yeah." Scully's eyes drifted closed again as she
concentrated all her thought on the thick feel of his penis
moving deeply inside her.

"You sure?" he panted, thrusting more firmly. "Want to.."
*thrust* "Make sure it's..." *thrust* "A happy birthday."

It was about to be a *very* happy birthday, if he would
just shut up and keep the hips going. Unlike Mulder, she
did not multi-task very well, and consequently had to
choose one form of intercourse over the other. Verbal was
running a very distant second at this point.

She drew her knees up fractionally as her body tensed for
the big finale. Another second of teetering, and she fell
completely over the edge, jerking against him in rhythmic
pleasure. "Mulder, now!" she blurted, just in case he
wanted to join her.

He did. With low moan and three quick thrusts, he went
rigid in her arms and then collapsed heavily on top of her,
panting warm breaths on the side of her face. She hid her
face in his neck, kissing him lightly. His hot, sweaty
weight was a welcome comfort in her still-spinning world.

He answered by giving her hair a messy caress, and a moment
later his low voice tickled the sensitized skin near her
ear. "I think the books were right about the female sexual
peak being around thirty-five."

Eyes still closed, she smiled and squeezed his hips with
the insides of her knees. "Are you complaining about my
past performance?"

"No." He raised himself up a few inches to look down at
her. "I'm just really looking forward to the coming year."

She laughed then, and he tumbled them over the bed until
she rested half-sprawled on top of him. Feeling around
behind her for the edge of the blanket, she drew the soft
cotton over their cooling bodies. He kissed her head and
was asleep within minutes.

It was always this way. He could hold a perfectly fine
discourse *during* the act, but once the curtain fell, so
did he. Today it was okay with her just to snuggle. The
Merlot from dinner had made her extra sleepy, and she was
technically still recovering from a gunshot wound to the
abdomen.

Another year of cheated death, she thought with some
amazement as she gently touched the scar. Happy damn
birthday, indeed. No wonder the sex had been so
exhilarating.

She nuzzled his chest in another silent "thank-you", and
realized suddenly that the aerobic workout had left her
thirsty as well as tired. Extricating herself gently from
his warm, heavy arms, she slipped on a robe and went to the
kitchen.

Once there, she sipped a glass of water and studiously
ignored the dinner dishes congealing with Alfredo sauce
from the seafood primavera, concentrating instead on the
framed Kandinsky reprint Mulder had given her. It was a
chaotic, colorful piece, with too many shapes and images to
process all at once. At the bottom, he had taped over the
actual title with his own: "Sex with Scully".

She smiled, remembering. Tonight they would have needed a
full gallery.

Mulder had been teasing her earlier, but she really did
feel differently about sex now than she had in her
twenties. Perhaps it was the wisdom of age that allowed
her to let go of all the youthful insecurities--Does this
position make me look like an idiot? Should I moan more?
Less? What does he want now?--and just enjoy the moment.
Her body might not be perfect, but it satisfied her fine
and Mulder certainly wasn't complaining.

Mulder.

He was the other main reason she suddenly found herself
craving sex all the time. It was not just that he was a
creative and caring lover, though certainly that was true
enough. But for the first time in her life she was making
love with someone she trusted with her whole self--her
intellect, her sexuality, all her shortcomings and all the
tender places inside that she usually kept so well hidden.

It was scary and wonderful and the most amazing thing that
had ever happened to her. Thank God he seemed to feel the
same way.

She rubbed at the tape with one finger for a moment before
deciding to leave it in place a little while longer.
Looking at it was actually making her feel aroused again,
and she wondered idly if from then on, she was going to get
turned on every time she walked into her living room.

One could only hope.

Setting her glass in the sink, she noted that the clock
read nearly midnight. Perhaps Mulder would have recovered
enough to squeeze in a quick round of sleepy sex before the
day was officially over.

He seemed dead to the world when she returned to the
bedroom, and the sight of him caused her to emit a
sympathetic yawn. Maybe it was time to call it a night.
She tugged at the sash on her robe, but stopped abruptly
when the phone rang.

Mulder jerked, blinking sleepily at her in the dim light.
"Phone?"

She nodded, looking at her cordless and realizing it was
not the source of the ringing. The noise was coming from
Mulder's pants. "It's your cell phone," she said, moving
to retrieve his rumpled pants from the floor and extracting
the chirping black phone from his pocket. She tossed it to
where he sat up in bed.

"Hello?" he said, sounding vaguely puzzled.

Scully watched him carefully, trying to determine who could
be calling him so late. There was no big case to worry
about these days, and outside of the occasional shadowy
informant, she was the only one who ever phoned him at this
hour.

"I see," Mulder was saying as he got up from the bed.
"When did this happen?"

She waited for him to turn and give some sort of hint about
who the caller was. Instead, he went naked into the
bathroom and shut the door. She jerked at the sound of the
"click" and blinked in surprise at the white door. What
the hell was this all about? He had not pulled the cloak
and dagger routine on her since their first year together,
when he still thought she might be spying on him.
v Tightening the sash on her robe, Scully took three steps
toward the door, intent on listening the murmurs coming
from within. Then she stopped.

Spying was spying, and she wasn't about to become guilty of
it now. She would just have to wait. Curling in a nearby
arm chair, she watched the door expectantly, half-needing,
half-dreading the moment he would come back out.

At last, he did. He sat down heavily on the bed, his head
bowed and his back to her. It was apparently not good
news. "Mulder?" she said, rising slowly from the chair.
She padded across the room until she stood near his
shoulder. "What is it, Mulder?" she asked softly. "Who
was on the phone?"

He looked up at her, his expression unreadable, and
answered her question with one of his own. "Are you well
enough to travel, Scully?"

The remark did nothing to lessen her anxiety. "I'm fine,"
she said as calmly as she could. "What is going on?"

"I put in for some profiling work to keep us off of wire-
tap duty," he replied, sounding wooden and hollow.
"There's been a series of pretty brutal murders up in
Cambridge over the last few months, and they want us to
look into it."

Scully frowned, not content with his explanation. He was
busy getting dressed in slow motion, as if his mind were
already somewhere far away. Clearly, there was more to the
phone call than he was telling. "What sort of murders?"
she asked carefully.

"Mutilations. Someone is carving women alive."

"My God." She sucked in a sharp breath, already imagining
the terrible autopsies ahead. "How many so far?"

"They just found the sixth one a few hours ago." He
shrugged on his shirt and began buttoning it from the
bottom. He seemed just a little too focused on the menial
task.

"Mulder?" When he did not answer, she walked over to
where he stood and laid a hand on his arm. He jumped.
"Mulder, what is it?" she asked urgently, searching his
shuttered face for any clues. He was as pale as the
January sky.

After a long minute, he swallowed twice and answered her.
"The latest victim...the one they found tonight on the
street...her name was Elizabeth Callahan."

Scully drew back a bit in surprise. "You knew her?" He
nodded slowly, and his eyes drifted shut. He reached for
her hands, which he squeezed painfully. Her heart started
to pound as she realized there was still more to this
story. "You were...you were lovers?"

"In a way," he whispered. His eyes opened, black and
bottomless as he seemed to look right through her. "She
was my wife."

XxXxX

Continued in chapter two.

XxXxX
Chapter Two

XxXxX

The winter that greeted them outside Logan Airport on
Wednesday morning was an ugly step-sister to the kind found
in story books. No glistening, white capped trees or
smiling snowmen. This winter was about bitter wind that
chilled to the bone and brown slush that surrounded every
curb, waiting for each hapless victim to plunge ankle-deep
into its icy depths. It covered the bleak concrete
landscape of Logan like a frozen shroud.

As they walked along the wet and slick sidewalk toward
their rental car, Mulder risked a sideways glance at
Scully. Usually she would feel his eyes on her and meet
his gaze. Not this time.

She had not looked directly at him since he had come out of
the bathroom and told her that Elizabeth was dead. He
could tell by the set of her shoulders that she was still
smarting from his clumsy revelation. Some people would get
angry with only their faces, but Scully managed to use her
whole body. It seemed to him that she had not blinked once
during the two hour plane ride from D.C., as though even
her eyelashes were angry with him.

He supposed he should try to explain. To give some sort of
account of his actions, at least. But he could not think
of anything to say to her that wasn't a lie.

"I'm sorry I never told you" would be ridiculous because he
had quite deliberately kept his marriage a secret from her.
He had promised not to tell, and after everything that had
happened, it was easier just to keep the promise. And
safer. If Scully had been in the empty hospital room with
him on that last day, she might understand that he had done
the best he could.

He had gotten the hell out of there and never looked back.

Until now.

He wondered what Scully would say if he told her the first
thought he had after hearing about Elizabeth's death was "I
suppose she finally got what she wanted."

She would probably be sick. Of course she would. Who
wouldn't be, given such a terrible statement?

But at least then she would also have a sense of the truth.
He had been a fucking lousy husband when Elizabeth was
alive, and there was no reason to think he would suddenly
get it right at this point.

Their usual nondescript Taurus was waiting for them at the
curb, and Mulder scrawled his name on the young man's
clipboard in return for the keys. After they had loaded
the suitcases in the trunk, the man smiled cheerily. "I
hope you and your wife enjoy your stay in Boston," he said.

Mulder flinched, and Scully froze. Warily, he glanced at
her again, and this time she looked right back at him. Her
cool blue eyes held his for a long, painful moment before
she turned without a word and got into the car.

He was left alone in the stinging wind.

XxXxX

Ten minutes into the trip to the Cambridge Police Station,
Scully pulled her frozen fingers away from the heated vents
and sighed. The story was not going to become any easier
to hear, so she steeled herself enough to ask, "Are you
going to tell me, or am I going to have to read about it in
her background file like everybody else?"

His hands tightened on the wheel, and he looked at her
cautiously. "What exactly do you want to know?"

Oh, no. No way. She saw the loophole in that question
instantly, and it sent a fresh surge of anger through her.
What she did not ask, he would not have to tell. More lies
by omission, that was what he was proposing. She drew a
shaky breath and shook her head. "No, Mulder," she said,
her voice just on the edge of tremor. "I am *not* going to
let you shift this onto me. Given the circumstances, I
think it's outrageous of you to even try."

"I wasn't..."

"You were."

He frowned and lapsed into silence. For several moments,
the only sound in the car was the rushing of the stale hot
air through the dashboard vents. "I'm sorry about this,"
he said at length. "I never meant to hurt you."

His words caused unexpected tears to pool in her eyes as
she realized suddenly how hurt she really was. "That's
difficult to believe," she managed after a minute. "I
don't know how you could have thought that keeping
something like this from me wouldn't hurt."

"I didn't think you would ever find out."

"And that's supposed to make it okay?" she demanded
angrily, turning in her seat to face him. The back of her
throat was raw with pain. "Just what else am I never
supposed to find out, Mulder?"

Startled, he looked at her with mild horror. "Nothing! I
swear to you, Scully, there's nothing else!"

The attempted reassurance only caused sadness to swell
inside her, and she turned her head to look out the window
at the choppy gray Charles river. He's been lying all
along, said a voice in her head. Who's to say he's not
doing it again now?

Despite the warmth in the car, she shivered.

"You have to believe me, Scully." His voice was rough and
tight. "I would never lie to you, not like this. I'm not
keeping anything else from you, I promise." He snatched
one of her hands from where it was balled in her lap and
squeezed her with painful desperation. "Please...you have
to believe me."

She looked his face, pale and tired, his eyes dark with
naked fear. It was like looking into an emotional mirror.
"I can't," she whispered achingly, and then carefully
withdrew her hand. "I want to, Mulder, but I just can't
right now."

"Scully..."

"No." She cut him off. "I can't." This was not a
conversation she was ready to have. Not when she still
felt so bruised inside. In a few minutes she was going to
have to hear the evidence and view the body, pretending all
the while that this case was just like any other. The pain
was going to have to wait.

After another minute of stilted silence, Mulder began
nodding slowly. "Okay," he said quietly, but he did not
look at her. "Okay, Scully. Just the facts then, all
right?"

She nodded, not yet trusting her voice. She resisted the
urge to screw her eyes shut as he began talking.

"Elizabeth grew up in my neighborhood. Sometimes she would
play with me and Sam, but mainly she kept to herself. Her
mother had died when she was still a baby, and her father
liked to keep her home with him. She said he needed the
company."

Grown men should not require the company of little girls,
Scully thought, and a terrible idea occurred to her.
Uncertain how Mulder would respond, she held back the ugly
question. He heard it anyway.

"Yeah, I think now he may have been abusing her. It would
explain a lot."

"She never said anything to you about him?"

Mulder rubbed his eyes with one hand. "Oh, she talked
about him constantly." He glanced at her once and sighed.
"But it was mostly positive. The only time I caught a hint
of something weird was Christmas, 1990. Liz and I wanted
to spend the holiday in Vermont, just the two of us, and
for some reason she seemed really afraid to tell her
father. I wasn't around when she made the phone call, but
when I got home I found her sitting in the bathtub with all
her clothes on, crying. Needless to say, we spent
Christmas with the old man."

Scully closed her eyes for a moment, his words still
churning in her mind. It was "Liz" now, was it? She was
not sure why this small detail hurt so much, but it did.
"How long...how long were you married?"

"Fifteen months. I ran into her on the Vineyard in the
summer of 1989, and we got to talking. I don't know
exactly how it happened, but we were married by that
November."

"Seems awfully fast." Tinged with disapproval, the words
were out of Scully's mouth before she could stop them.

"Too fast," he agreed softly. "It was wrong almost from
the start..." His voice trailed off, as if he had been
sucked into the past right before her eyes. Whatever had
happened with Liz, he was clearly still haunted by the
memory.

How could you not tell me? The mournful question vibrated
inside her, but she did not let it out. Instead, she
treated him like any other background witness, gathering
only the information necessary to solve the homicide.
"When was the last time you saw her?"

He let out a deep breath. "Almost eight years ago exactly.
February 21, 1991."

A quick and sudden ending? That seemed rather strange,
since Mulder was not one to let go easily of those he
loved. "No contact since then?" she pressed, watching him
closely. He shook his head. "Not even a letter or a phone
call?"

"I signed the papers and never saw her again." His mouth
twitched at the corners, and she wondered what emotion he
was holding back. Anger? Regret?

"Why did it end?" she asked after a minute.

His mouth opened but no sound came out. He swallowed once,
then tried again. "When you see her, you'll know," he
managed finally.

"What will I know?" He did not answer, instead steering
the car into the Cambridge PD parking lot. When he moved
for the door handle, she stopped him abruptly, straining
against the seat belt to touch his arm. "Mulder, answer
me. What will I know?"

He froze with his back to her, his elbow stiff under the
thick wool overcoat. "Some people take their whole lives to
die," he murmured to the window, and then slipped his arm
free.

XxXxX

So her name was Elizabeth Callahan. In the bar she had
said it was Elise. Still, I don't mind that she lied to
me. We all do whatever we can to make it through the day,
and surely Elizabeth was no different. At least now she
can be at peace.

My own lies are getting more complicated. They found
Elizabeth only three hours after I dropped her off, which
is the fastest time yet. As much as I don't like to leave
the women lying in the snow for very long, I think next
time I will have to chose a more circumspect location.

Perhaps the cemetery would be appropriate.

I make myself read the papers even though what they say is
disgusting. No one seems to understand. That asshole
reporter from the Herald has named me "The Slash and Dash
Killer", and it seems like this one is going to stick. I
heard two guys talking about it in line at the coffee shop
this morning, in between their discussion of the bigger
guy's new motorcycle and the Patriots' upcoming game
against the Broncos.

On the news, they are warning women to be careful. To stay
home at night or at least not to go out alone. I can only
shake my head at these earnest warnings, because they won't
make a bit of difference.

The women I choose will never stay home. It's too quiet
there. These are women on the run from their own demons,
and they prowl the streets almost constantly, trying to
create a moving target.

These women will not be out with friends because they do
not really have any friends.

There is only me.

XxXxX

The Cambridge Police Department was not much different from
the hundreds of others he had visited. Kept up a bit
better, perhaps. The desks were not as scarred as those in
the local D.C. stations, and the linoleum floor was not
worn through to the cement beneath. The paint on the walls
was fresh, but it was the same drab gray-green he had seen
endless times before.

Except, of course, that this visit was very different.
This time Elizabeth was dead.

Scully kept pace with him as they made their way to Chief
Englehart's office, and he was glad for the reassuring
click of her heels echoing through the corridor. It might
be a temporary détente, but at least she had not left him
yet.

Then again, she had not heard the whole, terrible tale.

At the door to Englehart's office, he met her eyes briefly
before knocking on the translucent glass window. "Come
in," came the call from the other side, and he led the way
into the Chief's office. It was like walking into a sauna.

A portly man of about sixty, Englehart sat behind his desk
with his sleeves rolled up past his elbows and his red,
striped tie hanging loosely around his neck. "You must be
the Feds I asked for." He rose from his chair and extended
one beefy hand across the desk. Mulder accepted it.

"I'm Fox Mulder and this is Dana Scully."

"Please, sit down," he said, indicating the leather chairs
in front of him. "I appreciate you coming so quickly." He
picked up the phone on his desk, putting the receiver to
his shoulder. "Sorry about the heat in here. The whole
floor is on the fritz today." Then he punched a couple of
numbers and said into the phone, "Hey, Marta. Send
Bertelli and Jacobsen up here, will you? Thanks."

Mulder pulled at his own tie as he shifted uncomfortably in
the chair. "We saw the headlines on the newspapers
outside," he told Englehart. "Seems like you've got a
pretty panicked city on your hands."

The Chief heaved a deep sigh and leaned back in his chair.
"You're telling me. The phones are ringing constantly.
I'm having daily press conferences at this point, and the
damnedest part is I never have anything new to say except
that there's been another death. The Mayor is about ready
to pull my plug." He moved to sit with his hands folded on
the desk. "That's why I thought maybe you guys could help.
Maybe do a profile or something, so we know what kind of
character we're dealing with."

Mulder fidgeted again, not at all sure he wanted to try to
climb inside the mind of the man who had killed Elizabeth.
He was not even sure that he could. "You have no suspects
at all right now?"

"Not a one so far," grumbled Englehart. "We've had our
guys going back through computer records for anyone in the
area with priors for kidnapping or assault with a knife.
There's been a couple possibilities, but nothing that's
panned out. Bertelli and Jacobsen can fill you in on the
details. They've been on this since the whole goddamn mess
started back in June."

Nine months of chasing a monster with no breaks in sight.
Sometimes he managed to forget why he had left the BSU, but
this sort of thing always brought it right back. He was
about to ask if there was any sign of sexual assault on the
victims when there was another knock at the door.

"Come," called Englehart, and a man and a woman entered the
office. The woman was perhaps forty, dressed in an olive-
colored pantsuit and wore her thick brown hair in a French
braid; she carried a stack of folders in her arms. The man
was younger, closer to thirty, but with an early-receding
hairline and belligerent eyes that passed coolly over both
Mulder and Scully. "These are the Feds I was telling you
about earlier," Englehart explained. "Agents Mulder and
Scully."

"Claudia Bertelli," said the woman, extending her hand
first to Scully and then to Mulder. "I'm the one who
caught the case."

Yeah, she looked like it, too, Mulder decided as he took in
her lined face and tired eyes. The man, who stood leaning
with his back against the wall, nodded once in a curt
greeting. "Robert Jacobsen," he said.

Scully was eyeing the folders in Bertelli's hands. "Are
those the files?" she asked.

The other woman nodded and handed them over. "All we have.
We're still in the process of gathering information on the
latest victim, Elizabeth Callaran."

"Callahan," corrected Mulder and Scully at the same time.

"That's right, Callahan," Bertelli agreed, thumbing through
her notes. She glanced curiously from Scully to Mulder.
"You've already got the details?"

Mulder glanced at Scully, who looked away. He cleared his
throat. "No, not much. Just what we were told on the
phone last night."

Bertelli sighed. "Then you pretty much have the latest.
We are trying to nail down the specifics of Callahan's
movements last night, but so far it's been hard. She seems
to have been somewhat of a loner."

"That's not news," commented Jacobsen from his post by the
wall. "All the vics were pretty isolated."

Scully began flipping through one of the folders. "What
about other characteristics linking the victims?"

"Well, they all lived in the Cambridge area," Bertelli
said. "All were youngish white women, but beyond that there
don't seem to be any other physical similarities. Two were
jobless at the time of their deaths, and the others had
working class positions like temping and waiting tables."

Mulder swallowed with difficulty. When he had known her,
Elizabeth had dreamed of being a painter. He did not know
much about art, but she had seemed to him to have an
amazing raw talent. Her canvases always contained two
pictures, one obvious and the other hidden underneath in
the background. He had thought they were just clever
optical illusions. By the time he understood the real
meaning behind her work, it had been too late.

"The biggest link so far is Dempsey's," Bertelli finished.
"It's a bar on Mass Ave, and three of the six victims were
there on the night of their death."

"What about the other three?" Scully asked, glancing down
at the files in her lap.

"Elizabeth we don't know about yet. The other two we just
don't know about. No one can recall if they were at the
bar that night, but Anne Hingham had definitely been there
in the past. Laurie Scofield is still an unknown."

"I assume you've looked at the employees and the regulars,"
Mulder said, glancing at Jacobsen. The man scowled.

"No, we local yokels just sit around on our asses and wait
for the FBI to tell us what it all means."

Bertelli frowned, and the Chief got up from his chair.
"That's enough, Sergeant," he admonished Jacobsen. "I know
we're all a little tense around here now, but we will
maintain a civil atmosphere."

Jacobsen held up his palms. "Hey, I'm civil. I'm just
waiting for the big insights we're supposed to get from
these people."

"Rob, please. We've talked about this," said Bertelli
quietly.

"Yeah, and my opinion hasn't changed." He pushed away from
the wall and crossed to where Mulder and Scully sat. "No
offense, but I've seen this profiling shit before, and I
think it's complete bunk. So maybe he has issues with his
Mommy or he wasn't potty-trained right. Who really gives a
fuck? I know everything I need to know about this psycho
from watching his handiwork for the past nine months, so
you'll pardon me if I skip psychoanalysis and spend my time
on an actual investigation."

"That hasn't been working very well for you so far, has
it?" retorted Mulder mildly, and Jacobsen glared at him.

"Screw this," he muttered, stalking out of the office and
slamming the door behind him. Bertelli gave a small, tight
smile of apology.

"This has been a tough case," she said. "For all of us.
But Rob has been taking it particularly hard."

"You don't have to explain," Scully assured her gently.
"I'm sure the situation has been stressful on everyone
involved."

Mulder watched the exchange between the two women with
interest, each playing peacemaker with just a few simple
words. He wondered suddenly how many times he'd left
Scully in Bertelli's role--offering the awkward explanation
for his abrupt and arrogant departure. "Yes, it's fine," he
added abruptly, rising from his chair. "Jacobsen's right
anyway, that profiles alone do not catch killers. They can
only point you in the right direction."

The Chief sighed. "We sure as hell could use some pointing
right about now."

Scully got up then, too. "I'd like to get a look at the
body, if that's possible," she murmured. Mulder stopped
short, glancing down at her and trying to read her
expression, but she was refusing to meet his eyes again.

"Of course," Englehart answered, rising also. "Bertelli or
Jacobsen can take you down to the morgue right now."

Mulder looked up. "And I'd like to talk to the bartender
at Dempsey's."

"Joseph King," Bertelli said as they walked toward the
door. She cocked her head at Mulder. "We've spoken to him
several times before."

"Well, I'd like the chance to question him myself."

They reached the elevator, and Bertelli hit the button.
"I'm not trying to second-guess you," she assured him. "I
just think it's interesting that you would start with him."

Mulder shrugged. "You want to know what goes on in a bar,
you talk to the guy pouring the drinks."

"Especially when he has a record for assault," agreed
Bertelli lightly.

Beside him, Scully inhaled sharply. "With a knife?"

Bertelli nodded once, her expression grim. "With a knife."

XxXxX


Scully removed her leather gloves as she walked down the
hallway toward the M.E.'s basement office. The door was
partially open, and the light was on. She knocked gently.

"Oh, hello." A slender woman in a white coat turned from
her desk. Her blond hair was pinned in a neat bun, and
gold, wire-rimmed glasses perched on the end of her nose.
Her hand was cold when Scully shook it. "Haley Atkins,"
she said with a small smile. "You must be the doctor from
the FBI."

"Dana Scully."

"It's very nice to meet you. Chief Englehart said you
would be coming by to see about Elizabeth Callahan."

Scully's stomach turned over, but she managed to nod.
"Yes, that's right."

"I just finished her about an hour ago myself," Dr. Atkins
said, retrieving a chart from her desk. She scanned it
once. "Cause of death was massive blood loss due to
multiple incisions on the torso."

"May I see your notes?"

"Of course."

Scully was impressed that her hands did not tremble as she
accepted the charts. At the top was printed "ELIZABETH
CALLAHAN" in neat, bold letters. You can do this, she
coached herself mentally. Focus on the facts.

It was easier said than done.

She could feel her breathing become shallow as all the
words seemed to run together on the page...
Leftclaviclepuncturedliverseverehemorrageseventytwodegrees.

At the bottom of the second page was Dr. Atkin's final
assessment: Thirty-seven knife wounds in total.

Scully abruptly lowered the chart, taking several deep
breaths to fight her rising nausea. "Is there a water
fountain nearby?" she asked.

"Right around the corner. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Scully murmured as she left the room and
hurried down the hall. After several sips of cool water,
she leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed,
feeling slightly less ill. What a fine impression she must
be making by falling apart before she even examined the
body.

Elizabeth's body. Mulder's wife.

She covered her face with her hands and took another slow,
deep breath. Youcandothisyoucandothis. With measured
steps she made her way back to Dr. Atkins' office.
"Everything all right?" queried the other woman in a
concerned voice.

Scully felt herself color slightly. In the course of her
career, she had undoubtedly seen and survived things that
would have given Dr. Atkins nightmares for the rest of her
life, but at this point she was willing to have the other
woman believe her problem was a weak stomach rather than
spill the truth. She felt a renewed sense of anger at
Mulder for putting her in such a terrible position in the
first place. Never once had he stopped to ask her if she
would mind cutting up his dead wife. "Yes, thank you, I'm
fine. It's just been a long night."

Dr. Atkins nodded. "I understand completely. Would you
like another moment to rest up, or would you like to see
her now?"

"Yes, please, if you'll just show me where."

At that moment, a tall thin man with huge black eyes
appeared in the doorway. Scully jumped a bit because he
had made no noise on his approach. "I have the samples
ready to take to the lab," he said in a gravelly voice.

"Thank you, Howard. Could you get out the Callahan body
before you go, please?"

He nodded, and left as silently as he had arrived. "An
assistant?" asked Scully.

"Yes, Howard is my technician. He doesn't have a lot to
say, but he's been great about reducing the workload around
here. If you need anything in terms of lab tests and such,
just ask him and he'll help you out."

"Hmmm," Scully replied noncommittally, and squinted down
the hall to where he had disappeared. Maybe she would ask.
But maybe not.

XxXxX

In the main autopsy room, Howard removed Elizabeth Callahan
from her refrigerated chamber and placed her on a silver
autopsy table. He lowered the sheet until she lay naked,
stark white and staring under the bright florescent lights.

Smoothing her hair back in a rhythmic caress, he stood over
her for a long moment. Then he shook his head. He had
heard that they brought in a fancy doctor from the FBI to
see about the murders. That must be the redhead in Dr.
Atkins' office. Who would have thought there would be two
female pathologists?

The new lady seemed nice. Pretty, too. Not as pretty as
Dr. Atkins, but still...

He patted Elizabeth one last time and sighed. He wondered
what he would say if anyone ever thought to ask *him* about
the deaths.

Hopefully, no one ever would.

XxXxX

She seemed more naked than any body Scully had ever
encountered before.

Logically, of course, this was not possible, but she felt
it was true all the same. Elizabeth was whiter, somehow.
Or maybe more still. Whatever it was, the effect was
nerve-jangling, and for the first time Scully felt a little
like a voyeur.

She set her tape recorder aside for a moment and approached
the woman slowly. Yes, she could see it now. All the
Mulder hooks were there--long hair with legs to match,
sculpted cheekbones and ample breasts. Alive, Elizabeth
Callahan had no doubt been a beautiful woman.

Now she was covered with gaping lines that stood out
sharply against her pale skin. Her lips were cracked and
devoid of color, and her nipples had shriveled to grayish-
blue stubs. Death had spared none of her earlier charms.

Scully snapped on her gloves but made no move to actually
touch the body. "Who are you?" she whispered over the dead
woman. "Why did he hide you for so long?"

Elizabeth answered her with the perfect silence of the
dead.

Scully closed her eyes and swallowed hard against the lump
in her throat. Out of all the women in the world, Mulder
had picked this one to marry. But then something had gone
terribly wrong.

It was time to find out what.

She opened her eyes again and reached for the tape
recorder. Her finger poised on the buttons, she murmured,
"Whatever happened between you and Mulder...whatever he did
or you did, I don't know. But I do know that you didn't
deserve this."

Three hours later, Dr. Atkins had disappeared somewhere,
and Scully was scribbling some notes when her cell phone
rang, startling her in the dimly lit office.

"It's me, Scully."

"Mulder." She was too worn out to say much else.

There was a long pause on the other end of the phone. "Was
it...did you..." He stopped and started again in a low
whisper. "Are you okay, Scully?"

Now he finally asks, she thought, but did not have the
energy to put much anger into the sentiment. "I'm fine,"
she lied, because it was easier than trying to come up with
words to describe how she really felt. She sat up a little
straighter in her chair. "Mulder..."

He was quiet, but she could hear him breathing. God, how
to put this?

"Mulder, there were old scars. Scars on her wrists."

"Yes."

She rubbed her fingers at her temple. "These scars were
lengthwise up the arm, Mulder. She really meant it."

"I know she did, Scully...I'm the one who found her."

XxXxX

End Chapter Two.


XxXxX

Chapter Three

xXxXx

It was dark when Scully finally left the Cambridge morgue,
night having greedily claimed half of the afternoon hours
for its own. She waited in the freezing rain with only a
briefcase full of dead women to shield her from the gnawing
wind. Her taxi arrived ten minutes late, on a wave of icy
slush that splashed onto the sidewalk and caught her
squarely across her knees.

Damp and chilled, she huddled on the far side of the vinyl
seat, not paying any attention to the passing scenery. Her
feet were frozen inside her boots, and her fingers were
white and stiff. She cupped her hands over her mouth and
blew gently to try to warm them.

It was the kind of bone-deep cold that always reminded her
of the cancer, when she had lost so much weight it was
impossible to ever be really warm. She had spent months
with hands as cold as the dead themselves. Months of
autopsies performed by the woman with a backstage pass, she
thought wearily. Surrounded by death from the inside out.

Elizabeth's white face passed through her mind, and Scully
shivered.

Mulder's wife had had her own kind of macabre dress
rehearsal. Even if he had found her relatively quickly,
the large cuts on her arms must have given her an up-close
and personal look at her own death. Eight years later,
death had finally looked back.

Still huddled deep inside her coat, Scully leaned her head
back against the seat and dreamed of a long shower with the
setting turned all the way to "H". Thousands of prickly
hot needles on her skin, driving away the numbness. Her
joints ached with fatigue.

She shifted slightly on the seat, trying to get
comfortable, and her hand brushed something sharp.
Squinting in the darkness, she peered down to see what was
there.

It was a rip.

No, not a rip. A cut.

Someone had taken a knife to the cheap, black vinyl,
splitting it open about three inches so that the foam
stuffing pushed through the covering. Scully fingered the
sharp edges around the hole, thinking suddenly of
Elizabeth's killer.

You want to know, too, don't you? she mused silently. You
want to know what it feels like when everything stops.

With a jerk, she yanked her hand back into her lap, shaking
slightly. She blinked rapidly in surprise. Where the hell
had that come from? The taxi suddenly lurched to a halt in
front of the hotel.

"Ten dollar, sixty," said the man in front without turning
around. She hastily shoved some money at the driver and
tried to push aside the voice from her head, but it
followed her as she hurried into the bright warmth of the
lobby.

Distracted as she was, it was not surprising that she
failed to notice the figure watching her from the bench
near the windows.

XxXxX

I did not expect that they would send a woman.

When I first heard they were bringing in the FBI, I
pictured a couple of Ken dolls in pin-stripe suits with
sunglasses. It was even kind of exciting to learn that I
rated an honest-to-God profiler. But Englehart's press
conference never said anything about a woman.

I should know because I was there.

It was kind of amusing to watch the reporters heckling away
at him like a pack of crows as he sweated out their
questions under the bright camera lights. Blind as he was,
I doubt he could have noticed me in the back. I used to go
to every one of his daily soirées in the Cambridge PD press
room, but lately I've had to scale back my outings.

Mistakes are for other people, that's what Father always
said. The day Helen died, he yelled at her for leaving her
new bike in the driveway. Stupidstupidstupid. I can still
see his face, purple from screaming, and how he carried on
so long that Momma had to bring the inhaler from the
bedroom.

It was stupid of me to take so many of the women from
Dempsey's. Convenience is nice, but it can also make you
lazy. The next time I will have to be more careful.

If I were really smart, I would get my ass out of this
hotel before I am recognized. It's a foolish risk to be
here, and I cannot afford stupidity right now.

She looks tired as she checks into her room. Pale and
cold, like the women are when I am finished with them. I
watch as she picks up her bags and heads for the elevators
without even a glance in my direction.

In my pocket, the knife is sharp against my thumb.

XxXxX

Mulder entered the hotel elevator carrying a large portion
of green curried beef and an even greater helping of guilt.
Scully had sounded so tired on the phone, her voice laced
with the same traces of painful exhaustion he had heard in
the New York hospital room only a few weeks ago. Thirty-
six hours with no sleep was probably not what the doctors
had in mind when they had suggested she ease her way back
into work.

Hell of a welcome back party you've thrown here, he
congratulated himself. Good show.

But the guilt was not because he was sorry about bringing
her along on the case. Quite the opposite--it was because
he was *not* sorry. He had made Elizabeth so many promises
he never kept, and this was his absolute last chance to get
it right. In the end, he just hoped Scully would be able
to forgive him for it.

Reaching her door, he knocked gently, just in case she was
sleeping. She answered within a few seconds, wearing
flannel pajama bottoms and an over-sized gray sweatshirt
from the University of Maryland that nearly swallowed her
whole. It felt like days since he had touched her. "Hi,"
he said awkwardly, holding up the bag. "I thought you
might like some dinner."

She eyed the bag for a second and then nodded, widening the
door so he could enter. "I was just making some tea."

Brushing the worst of the rain from his coat, he stepped
into her brightly-lit room. The six victims' files were
spread in semi-circle across her bed, and the sight of them
pricked his conscience again. Clearly he was not the only
one pushing himself hard on this case. Dripping icy water
onto the rug, he watched her silently gather the folders
into one neat pile and set them aside. Elizabeth was on
top.

When she had finished, she turned and frowned at him with
disapproval. "Mulder, you're soaking wet."

He glanced down at himself sheepishly. Not wanting to
presume anything, he had not even taken off his coat.
"Yeah. The rain has really picked up outside."

"Well, there¹s a clean towel in the bathroom," she said,
taking the bag of food from his hands. "Just hang it up
when you're done, all right?" He nodded dumbly. It was
not an effusive welcome, but he noticed that she set out
both paper plates for dinner.

He rubbed his hair until it stood on end and then dabbed at
the wet trails of water on the back of his neck.
Dutifully, he hung the wet towel next to hers before
returning to the round table, where Scully was busy doling
out equal portions of the curry with a plastic spoon. He
approached her hesitantly, stopping just inches behind her
back. She stilled instantly but did not turn around.

He touched her shoulder with three fingers. "Scully, about
today...I'm sorry. I know I should have explained
better..."

She bowed her head and shuddered slightly under his touch.
"Not yet, Mulder, okay? Let's just eat first."

"Okay," he agreed softly, hoping that it really would be.

They ate his peace offering in relative silence, since all
topics at hand led back to the same terrible place. When
at last the dishes had been cleared away, she rose with her
mug in hand, heading back toward the hot-plate. She turned
to him. "Would you like some more tea?"

He gave a wry smile and fingered the rim of his own mug.
"For this conversation? I think my tea better be fifty
proof."

Scully's eyebrows lifted a touch. "Not the worst idea
you've ever had," she replied after a beat, and she
retrieved a miniature bottle of brandy from the nearby
wooden cabinet. Apparently Scully also felt the need for a
little false courage tonight.

Not to mention distance.

She took her tea and brandy over to the bed, where she
curled up with her back against the headboard, about as far
away as she could get from him and still be in the same
room. He felt a moment of overwhelming relief. It would
be easier this way, to tell the story without having to
look her in the eyes. Scully's eyes never lied.

But after a moment he moved to the small settee across from
the bed. His willful blindness had nearly killed
Elizabeth; he was not going to look away now.

Scully sat motionless on the bed, staring into her mug and
not saying a word while the heater delivered its own
clanking monologue. When finally he could not bear it any
longer, he asked her, "What are you thinking?"

She gave a tiny shake of her head, her eyes still on her
tea. "I just..."

"You just what?" he prompted when she trailed off.

She sighed. "I thought I knew you, Mulder."

He scooted forward on his perch. "Scully, you do know me!
You know me better than anyone in the world."

"Well, apparently that's not saying very much." Her eyes
met his, translucent with pain, and his insides tore open
like wet tissue paper.

"You're wrong, Scully," he insisted unsteadily. "It means
everything. At least to me it does."

She lowered the mug from her lips to frown at him. "It
means everything to me, too, Mulder. Why else do you think
it hurts so damn much?"

He flinched at her sharp words, fingers tightening around
the warm porcelain. "And I'm sorry for that, really I am."
She went back to staring at her tea, and he sighed. "Maybe
you're right. Maybe I should have told you that I was
married before. But Scully...what happened with Elizabeth,
it was all in the past. It has nothing to do with us."

She was silent for a long minute. "It scares me that you
might actually believe that, Mulder."

He leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. Didn't she
understand? He *had* to believe it. It was the only way
he could bring himself to share her bed at night. "I just
wanted it to be different this time," he murmured at the
ceiling.

"Well, you got your wish," she answered darkly. "This sure
as hell feels different to me."

He jerked upright. "What do you mean, 'different'?"

"I mean two days ago, I thought you had never been married.
Now I know you were. To me, that is a big difference."

He shook his head. "It's just one thing, Scully. A
stupid, awful mistake I made a long time ago. But it's a
mistake that has been there since I first met
you...nothing's different now. It doesn't change who I am
or how I feel about you."

She exhaled in exasperation, setting her mug on the night
stand. "You really don't get it, do you? I don't care
that you were married before."

Now he was confused. "I don't..."

"Okay, that's not completely true," she amended,
interrupting him. "Yes, I care. A lot. But I care more
that you kept it from me, Mulder. Here I was, just
trusting that if there was anything important like this,
you would tell me about it. Instead, I find out you were
deliberately hiding this marriage from me, and now I can't
stop wondering what other secrets might be waiting out
there for me."

He rubbed his hand over his eyes in frustration. "Scully,
I told you there's nothing else."

"You say it was just a mistake that doesn't matter," she
continued in a carefully controlled voice. "But your
actions speak otherwise, Mulder. Your purposeful silence
about your marriage spells out its importance more clearly
than words ever could."

"I didn't have the words to explain it," he answered
simply.

She gave him a sad, reproachful look, tears threatening in
her eyes. "You might have tried," she whispered painfully.
"For me, you might have tried."

"Scully..." He half-rose from his seat, needing to comfort
her, but she stopped him with a vehement shake of her head.

"No." Her chin trembled, and she clapped a hand over her
mouth, looking away from him.

He slowly sank back into the chair. "I'm so sorry,
Scully."

She nodded a little, still not looking at him. "I know you
are, but I think it's for the wrong reasons."

"Tell me what I can do," he urged her. "Tell me how to
make it better."

She made a sound that was part sniffle, part laugh. "Don't
you think I would if I knew? I can't give you the magic
words, Mulder. You can't just find the right phrase or
gesture and expect it will all go away."

"I know, I know." He leaned heavily back in his seat.
God, he was tired. His eyes felt like they had been
vacuumed dry, but to sleep meant going back to his own
empty room, where the solitary bed would remind him just
how completely he had fucked up. "I guess...I guess we
should just try to get past this case," he said after a
long silence.

Scully shifted on the bed so that her arms looped around
her knees. "It would be a start," she agreed softly.
"Especially for you."

He looked at her sharply, meeting her calm gaze with some
surprise. Then he half-smiled. "You see? Better than
anyone, Scully...that's how well you know me."

She seemed to hug herself tighter. "Sometimes," she
allowed. "But it doesn't take a clinical degree to
understand that you and Elizabeth parted under pretty
emotional circumstances."

"Everything with Elizabeth was emotional--the highest highs
dissolving into the lowest lows. At first, the roller
coaster ride was exciting, but after awhile..." He
shrugged. "I just needed to get off."

Scully hesitated. "Is that when she..."

"No. Well, maybe." He sighed and drained the last of his
tea in one fiery gulp. "It's complicated." Scully waited
patiently while he tried to figure out where to begin the
story. "She needed me," he said finally. "She needed me
in a way no one had before or ever has since. And I guess
that in my way I needed her, too."

"Needed her how?" Scully asked softly, her chin on her
knees.

He considered for a moment. "Elizabeth had this sweet,
gentle quality to her...naive almost, but with an inner
sadness that gave her depth. When we met again, I was
spending my time working cases just like this one, where I
got to see all the ways people found to exploit and torture
one another. Every day was a new variety of evil wearing a
human face." His mouth twitched in a self-deprecating
smile. "That sort of stuff becomes hard on the psyche
after awhile."

"Of course it does."

He nodded. "Yeah, well anyway, Liz was a direct contrast
to the shit I dealt with on the job. Plus she had known
Samantha. It wasn't very often I found someone I could
talk to about her." He rose from his seat and began slowly
pacing the room. "I guess you could say that for a short
time, Liz and I filled a hole in each other's lives."
Stopping short, he shoved his hands in his pockets. "Or
maybe I'm just kidding myself to think we were ever really
happy."

Scully was watching him silently, and he squirmed under her
gaze, resuming his random trips across the carpet. When he
did not make any attempt to continue the story, she asked,
"What happened in the end, Mulder? Why did she try to kill
herself?"

Ah, the million dollar question. He had come up with so
many answers to it over the years. Which one would Scully
want to hear? He stopped pacing to stand near the round
table, where he fiddled absently with a left-over paper
napkin. "She asked me to stay that night," he said finally.
"But then she always asked me to stay. It was almost to
the point that I hated going home because I knew eventually
I was going to have to leave again and hurt her. But that
February, I thought we had been doing a little better. Liz
was painting again, and I was busy surveilling this guy who
was suspected of murdering three teenage boys. Henry
Finklestein, that was his name. Funny, the parts you
remember...

"Anyway, the Finklestein case was actually in town, and I
thought that would make her happier, you know? For awhile,
I even made it home for dinner a couple of nights a week."

"Did she ever try to talk to you about why she wanted you
home so badly?"

"If she did, I wasn't listening hard enough." He sighed,
pushing the napkin around on the smooth table-top with one
finger. "I knew it made her unhappy and nervous to be
alone. She was always sad whenever I had leave town, but I
never thought..." He broke off suddenly and snapped his
hand away from the table. "I suggested she get a dog."

The words hung heavy in the air for a long time. Finally
he ambled back to his original seat and slumped down with
his eyes closed. "We busted Finklestein that
night...caught him in his apartment with a fifteen year old
runaway. Some of the guys wanted to go out to the bars and
celebrate, but I figured I should get back to Liz. The
apartment was totally dark when I got home. At first I
just thought she was sleeping." He shook his head faintly.
"Took me at least five minutes to find her."

"I'm sorry, Mulder."

He barely heard her, still picturing the stark white
bathroom and a tub full of bloody water. And Liz...pale as
the walls surrounding her, with her dark hair wet and
clinging to her head. "There was so much blood," he
whispered. "I thought she was already dead."

"But she wasn't," Scully pointed out gently. "You saved
her."

He shook his head. "No, I just stopped her from dying."

"Mulder, you..."

"I should have known, Scully." He sat up with a jerk,
trapping her under the force of his own anger. "Seven
years of psychology classes...seven fucking years and I
never saw what was coming! I had no problem climbing
inside the heads of the worst kind of sociopaths,
predicting their every goddamn move, but I couldn't read my
own wife! What the fuck does that say about me?"

Scully was silent.

"Yeah, that's what I thought," he said bitterly.

"You loved her," Scully murmured after a minute. "It's
often hard to see the people we love clearly."

"Well, Liz would have been better off without my kind of
love. I nearly destroyed her."

"No, Mulder," she corrected quietly. "She nearly destroyed
herself."

"While I stood by without doing a damn thing. Same
difference."

Scully was quiet again for a few minutes. Then she asked,
"Is that when it ended?"

He ran a hand through his hair and nodded. "Pretty much.
Her father showed up at the hospital to ream me out over
what happened to his daughter. He didn't have much to say
that I wasn't already saying to myself."

"Let me guess...he was the one who pushed for the divorce."

"You win the washer-dryer," he answered wearily. "Alan
Callahan had the lawyers in before the next night. Only he
didn't want to stop at divorce. He went all the way up to
an annulment."

"Did you talk to Elizabeth at all? What did she want?"

"She was pretty sedated when I saw her, but we spoke for a
few minutes." He dropped his eyes to the floor. "She kept
apologizing to me, can you imagine that? Said she was
sorry for disappointing me."

Scully considered for a minute. "It sounds like she was
very troubled."

"She was," he sighed. "And not all of it was me. I knew
that even then. The doctors told me it wasn't her first
attempt--she'd swallowed a bunch of pills in college, but
her roommate found her and called the paramedics." He
blinked several times to keep the tears away. "I wish I'd
known earlier," he continued in a hushed voice. "Maybe
then..." He broke off with a shake of his head. "I don't
know. I guess there are a whole lot of maybes."

"You aren't responsible for what happened, Mulder."

He rubbed his shaking hands together and managed a small
smile. "But I'm not completely blameless, Scully. I
should have paid more attention to her. I should have
known something was very wrong."

Scully uncurled from her position and moved to sit on the
end of the bed, facing him. "Mulder, tell me the
truth...why didn't you mention any of this to me before?"

Why, indeed? He thought for a long moment. "I guess...I
guess I felt that if I never talked about it, then it would
be like it never really happened. Erased, just like the
legal papers said."

"Except it did happen."

He dropped his head in acknowledgment. "Yes."

Scully took a deep breath. "Mulder, I think you should
know..."

He looked up. "What?"

"When I did the exam today, I found abrasions on her wrists
and ankles, probably caused by a nylon rope. She
struggled, Mulder, right up until the end. Whatever
choices she made eight years ago, Elizabeth did not want
this kind of death."

He held her eyes for a long time. This was pure Scully,
emotionally generous even when he had given her no reason
to be. He nearly started shaking.

"I should have told you," he whispered tightly. "I'm
sorry."

She reached for his hands and squeezed. "I know," she
murmured, leaning over so that their foreheads nearly
touched. He could feel her breathing. "It's just going to
take time, Mulder. You can't make it better all in one
night."

He managed a tired nod. "I know that, I do. I just..."
He broke off in frustration, pulling his hands free. "I
just want you to know how sorry I am."

"Mulder, listen to me." Reluctantly, he met her eyes. "I
know you want me to be okay again, and I know you want to
take away the hurt. But my feelings are my responsibility,
not yours. It's not up to you to change how I feel."

He was quiet for a long time, thinking about what she had
said. She touched his knee gently. "And Mulder..." He
looked up at her. "You weren't responsible for Elizabeth's
feelings, either. Think about that for awhile, would you?"

He smiled weakly. "I'll try."

"Good." She withdrew her hands and glanced in the
direction of the victims' files. "What did you get out of
the bartender? Anything?"

Joe King. He had almost forgotten about him. "He was off
the night of Liz's murder, apparently at a gym in Newton
between eight and ten p.m. No alibi after that." He
scratched the back of his head. "I can tell you that he
was less than thrilled to be interviewed again. His
portion of the conversation can be summed up this way: He
didn't do 'no murders', all cops are pigs, and we can go to
hell."

"Sounds like a real charmer."

"Yeah, that's my problem with him, too. He's an angry guy,
there's no question. From the special glares he gave
Bertelli, I'd even say he has a particular resentment of
women...at least women in authority."

"But the victims weren't powerful women," Scully
interrupted. "They were shy and vulnerable, lonely even."

He sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. "Well, you could
argue that he was displacing his anger onto more manageable
targets, but that's not how I read the murders. Our killer
puts the clothes back on the women before dumping the
bodies--he cares about them. Maybe he even sees himself as
rescuing them from their loneliness, I don't know."

"Almost like he identifies with them," Scully mused to
herself.

Mulder looked at her with some surprise. "I wouldn't have
phrased it quite like that, but yeah, I think maybe
something about their isolation strikes a chord with him.
Probably he was a loner growing up."

Scully opened her mouth to say something, and then quickly
shut again. "What?" he asked her. She shook her head.

"I was just wondering...when you do profiles, do you really
get to think like the killer?"

"You mean like do I hear his voice in my head?" She
nodded. "Sometimes, yeah." He studied her carefully.
"Why do you ask?"

"No special reason. Just curious about the process, that's
all."

Scully had always been a bad liar, and on two days with no
sleep she was even worse than usual. Her eyes were trained
on the bedspread, where she was picking at imaginary lint.
But he decided not to call her on the fib; after all, he
was in no position to be demanding absolute honesty from
anyone. "What about the victims' files? Did you find
anything else of interest there?"

"If you're asking if I found anything to connect the women
other than what Bertelli and Jacobsen told us this morning,
the answer is no. That bar, Dempsey's, seems to be the
only substantive link." She hesitated. "There was one
other thing, though."

"What?"

"All the women were drugged with barbiturates before they
were killed."

"So they were unconscious during the murders?"

She shook her head. "No, Dr. Atkins seems to think they
were awake, and I tend to agree. There wasn't that much of
the drug left in their systems, which suggests that they
were given a pretty mild dose."

"Injection marks?"

"None that I saw. If they were picked up at the bar, it's
possible the killer slipped the drug in their drink."

He leaned back on the settee and started at the ceiling.
"That's interesting. It means that the killer wanted them
unconscious for the trip back from the bar to the murder
site, but awake for the actual murder. It could be he
doesn't have the physical strength to abduct the women on
his own."

"Or he's trying to spare them any extra fear."

Again, her observation made him sit up and take notice.
"What makes you say that?"

She looked uncomfortable. "Well, it's like you said,
Mulder...he identifies with the women...he can feel their
pain."

"I didn't say that, Scully. You did."

"I did?" She frowned. "Oh."

He got up from his chair and moved to sit next to her on
the bed. "Scully, is there something you'd like to tell
me? Was there something else in the files that bothered
you?"

"Of course not," she bristled. "Other than what I told
you, there was nothing else that stuck out as important."
She stood abruptly. "It's really late, and we could both
use some sleep. Why don't we just resume this conversation
over breakfast?"

He regarded her from his place on the bed. "Scully, are
you sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine, Mulder," she said, annoyed. "I'm just tired."

He blinked at her another moment, searching her face for
the real reason he was being suddenly dismissed. For once,
he could not read any indication of what she was thinking.
He rose slowly and gathered his coat. She herded him
gently toward the door. He paused before opening it. "I'm
in room 1521 if you need me."

She nodded. "Okay."

He hesitated a moment before leaning down to kiss her
lightly on the forehead. "Night, Scully."

The look on her face made him think she might grab him and
hold on tight, but the moment passed and she only nodded
again. "Good night, Mulder. I'll see you tomorrow."

Outside in the hallway, he stared at her door for a few
minutes and then decided to go have one last drink at the
bar. If he waited until he was too exhausted to stand, it
might be possible to ignore the overwhelming silence of his
hotel room.

The dimly lit hotel bar was nearly empty when he walked in
and selected a stool. Strains of canned jazz played from
the overhead speakers. "Give me whatever you have on tap,"
he told the man in the green vest as he grabbed a handful
of peanuts from the dish. The beer appeared in front of
him almost immediately. He downed half of it on the first
drink.

"Is this seat taken?" A female voice floated from behind
his shoulder.

He turned, half-expecting Scully even though his brain had
already concluded the voice was not right. Instead, it was
Detective Bertelli. "Uh, no," he stammered, moving his
damp napkin over. "Please, sit down."

"Thanks. Don't mind if I do." And she took the seat next
to him.

XxXxX

End Chapter Three




XxXxX

Chapter Four

XxXxX


Detective Bertelli ordered a gin and tonic with orange, not
lime. She sipped it twice before giving him a sideways
glance. "You know, I have half a mind to haul your ass
down to the station and arrest you."

Mulder's blood-shot eyes flickered over her once. "Is that
your standard opening line?" he asked, dead pan. "Because
if it is, you might have better luck at Leather Leon's up
the street."

She gave him a humorless smile. "No, I save it for smart-
assed FBI agents who lie to me about their relationship to
my homicide victim."

Oh. He swallowed the rest of his beer, watching as the
remnants of foam slid back down the inside of the glass.
He was not sure he had the strength for another Elizabeth
discussion that evening, with his emotions still in tatters
after his talk with Scully. "I plead temporary insanity,"
he said finally.

Bertelli sighed and leaned her elbow on the bar, facing
him. "You shouldn't be anywhere near this case, Agent
Mulder, and you damn well know it. What the hell were you
thinking, accepting this assignment? If Englehart knew
about this..."

The mention of the Chief's name irritated him. "Hey,
Englehart was the one who yanked my chain, not the other
way around! I never asked for this assignment."

"Yeah, but you didn't exactly say 'no', either, did you?"

He turned away and began tracing the smooth rim of his
glass with one finger. "I couldn't," he answered thickly,
shaking his head to himself. "I couldn't walk away this
time."

She stared at him hard for a minute, then nodded. "You're
right...I don't think I could have left it alone, either."
She paused. "You still should have told us."

"Sorry," he replied, even though they both knew he wasn't.
"There really isn't much to tell. Liz and I were married
for a little over a year, and I haven't seen or spoken to
her since 1991."

"When she tried to kill herself."

He stiffened and nodded tightly. "Yeah."

Detective Bertelli sipped her drink in silence, as if lost
in thought. Then she tilted her head at him. "Does it
bother you?" she asked softly. "Does it bother you to
think like the guy who killed her?"

He made a sound that was somewhere between bitter laugh and
choking cough. "It always bothers me."

"Then why do you do it?" Her eyes were huge and dark in
the dim light. He held her gaze steadily.

"Why do you?"

She squirmed a bit on her stool, sitting upright again and
rubbing the edge of her cocktail napkin with one
fingernail. "It's not the same thing. I just interview
the suspects, I don't try to read their minds."

"Oh no?" he asked mildly. "I think it is the same. I
think that since this case started, you've become a
different person. Maybe not on the outside so much--just a
little lost weight, dark rings around the eyes--but on the
inside you're jittery and tense. Irritable. You don't
talk to your friends anymore, because they don't
understand. They want to discuss their families and
politics and the last episode of 'ER'. Maybe they ask
about the case out of morbid curiosity, but you know better
than to tell them about the horrible things you've seen.
You don't want to give your nightmares to anyone else.

"You live on scorched coffee and stale pastries from the
precinct basement. It makes your stomach hurt to eat that
crap, but if you don't get the caffeine you start to shake,
and then your partner might think you can't handle
yourself.

"You have pictures of the victims in your house. Not taped
to the wall, but somewhere you can see them often. Maybe
stacked on your dresser. The sound of the phone in the
middle of the night makes your bones rattle, because you
know it means they've found another one, cut up and left in
the snow.

"And the worst part is that you remember back to when they
found the second one--Laurie Scofield, wasn't it? Yeah,
when they found her, you were excited at first...a serial
murderer in town, and he was all yours. You had caught the
big one, the case that was going to make you famous." He
paused. "How do you feel about seeing your name in the
papers now, Detective?"

She clenched her hands on top of the bar, her breathing
shallow as she turned to stare at him in wonder and horror.
"My God," she whispered, "can you do that to just anyone?"

He did not reply, instead fixing his gaze on the empty beer
glass in front of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he
saw Bertelli down the rest of her drink in one gulp. Then
she withdrew a pack of cigarettes from her suit pocket and
held them up. "Do you mind if I...?"

He shook his head. "Of course not."

"I was trying to quit when this whole thing got started,"
she said after she had taken a few shaky puffs. Her mouth
twitched in self-deprecation. "But then you probably
already knew that, too, didn't you?"

Despite himself, he was amused. "Mind Reading 101," he
said, tapping the side of his head with one finger. "You
learn stuff like that on the first day."

She blinked in surprise, then laughed. "I'm beginning to
think my partner was right about you FBI people having a
low opinion of the locals' brain power.

He smiled, too. "There were three unopened packs of gum on
your desk, and I saw you smoking this afternoon in the
station parking lot. Not exactly a hard conclusion to
reach."

She stretched over him for the ash tray and tapped her
cigarette gently into it. "Okay, so I believe you've got a
good read on people. What have you figured out about the
killer?"

Mulder rubbed his face with his hands, trying to call to
mind what he had learned during the day. Instead, he heard
Scully's voice..."When you do profiles...do you actually
think like the killer?" The words haunted him as he
mentally flipped through the photos of the dead women.
His stomach began to quiver.

"Agent Mulder?" Bertelli was watching him curiously.

"He's invisible," he stated abruptly.

"Excuse me?"

"The killer. People don't tend to notice him, even in a
small crowd. His face is the kind that's gone from your
mind within minutes of meeting him, and part of him likes
it that way. It's what allows him to take the women with a
hundred witnesses around and yet never be seen."

"Terrific," groused Bertelli sourly. "So how the hell do
we catch him?"

Mulder was quiet for a minute. "I'd like to see any
reports you have on people who have come forward as
possible witnesses."

She snorted. "I can assure you we've checked every one
that seemed even remotely connected with this case.
There's nothing there."

"Except maybe the killer."

"What?" She gaped at him. "You think he would actually
walk into the station and file a report?"

Mulder gave a wry smile. "He'd have to be insane, now
wouldn't he?"

Bertelli shut her mouth with a snap. Then she nodded.
"Okay, point taken. But you really think he's been inside?
I thought that kind of crap only happened on TV and in the
movies."

"I don't know for sure," he answered, "but it's a strong
possibility. Killers like this are often obsessed with
their own investigation, and sometimes they even want to
talk directly to the cops on the case."

A strange look passed over Bertelli's face. "Why on earth
would they want to do that?"

He shrugged. "It's frustrating to commit the perfect crime
and not be able to have anyone to share it with. Who
better to appreciate their hard work than the cops who find
the body? The killer feels superior to the lead detective-
-after all, he's stumped him good so far--but he also
desperately wants validation from him. It's your classic
love/hate relationship."

Bertelli's gaze skittered away, and he suspected she was
remembering what he had said about her being secretly
thrilled to catch the case. "I'm the lead detective," she
whispered after a long minute. "Do you think he's ever
come to talk to me?"

"I think it's worth looking into," he replied softly, not
wanting to shake her up any further. "And remember that
it's just a theory."

"But if he did come, how would I know if it's him?" she
persisted.

He sighed. "You might not. But sometimes he'll ask more
questions than he answers, wanting to know about your
progress on the case, if you have any prime suspects...he
might ask to see pictures of the victims."

"That's sick." She shook her head. "I just can't believe
that the guy would have the balls to come right into the
station."

"It often happens that way. When the case gets solved, the
killer turns out to be closer that anyone would have ever
dreamed possible."

She gave a breathless laugh that was tinged with anxiety.
"Then maybe I should take a hard look at Jacobsen."

"Your partner?" Mulder shook his head. "He's bottling a
lot of stuff right now, but I wouldn't corner him in the
investigation room quite yet."

"Can you imagine that?" Bertelli asked dryly. "If he was
the perp, I'd go down as the stupidest cop in history."

"But think of the money you would make from the movie
rights," he pointed out, and she chuckled with real humor.

"I can't believe we're even talking about this, let alone
laughing," she remarked. "It's positively ghoulish."

"Hey, defense mechanisms aren't always a bad thing. If the
guy doing these murders had chosen black humor over black
rage, we wouldn't be here right now." He rubbed his face
with his hands. "I'll tell you this, though-- if I don't
get some sleep now, I'll be drowning more than my sorrows
in this beer."

Bertelli's warm fingers circled over his wrist. "You're
sure I can't talk you into another? It's only a little
after nine." She leaned a tad closer, and he caught a
whiff of her perfume. It made him want to find Scully and
wrap himself around her.

"Uh, thanks, but I'm dead on my feet. Another time." He
reached into his pocket for some money.

"Sure," she answered hollowly, retreating back into her own
space. "Another time." Her eyes narrowed slightly, and
she added, "Maybe Agent Scully could join us."

Mulder froze for a microsecond, his hand hesitating just an
instant as he tossed the bills on the bar, but he knew it
was enough to give him away. Suddenly uneasy, he turned to
her. "It's not what you think..."

"Oh, please." She waved a hand at him. "Don't even
bother. You're not the only one around here who can read
the obvious. It doesn't matter, anyway."

That's where you're wrong, he thought. It matters more
than anything in the world.

Bertelli was still staring at him. "Scully didn't know
about Elizabeth, did she?" He didn't answer, but she did
not need him to. "Yeah, something was definitely off
between you two back in Englehart's office. I just didn't
know what it was until now." She folded her arms across
her chest. "I was wrong about you, Agent Mulder."

This remark stopped him cold. "What do you mean?"

"I thought you must be the staunchest person on this team,
with nerves of steel if you could work your ex-wife's
homicide." She retrieved her overcoat from the stool
behind her and rose to her feet. "It seems I picked the
wrong agent."

Her words followed Mulder up into his quiet room, where he
lay under the stiff sheets and dreamt that Scully was dead.
The doctor broke the news with a long, solemn face and a
tangle of cold, gray wires. "It was her nerves that did
it," he said, dropping the mess into Mulder's lap. Like
snakes, they came writhing to life, sliding up his body
until they wrapped tightly around his neck.

XxXxX

He's gone now, but the pounding in my chest has not
stopped. I close my eyes and tell it go away, because I
can't do the cutting now. It's too soon after Elizabeth.

But inside, I can feel the blood pushing to get out, my
heart pumping it closer and closer to the surface of my
skin until I feel that I might burst right here in the bar.
The image of red streaks running down the walls only feeds
my hunger.

How exciting it would be to take one right here, right out
from under them while they were sleeping. I touch the
knife to make sure it's still there. It is.

Sometimes after he had been angry, Father would bring me
and Helen a treat to make nice again. Helen always forgave
him right away, hugging him around his prickly neck and
planting big, wet kisses on his cheek.

One day instead of candy, he brought us oranges from the
store where he worked. "These are special oranges," he
told us with a smile. "They've got a secret inside." We
peeled them fast, right there on the front porch. The skin
fell away, and we saw the inside sections were dark red.
"Blood oranges," said Father, rubbing his hands together at
the surprise. Helen was horrified, but not me.

I ate them both.

Blood oranges, with the red secret inside. Just cut them
open and you'll see.

There is a woman smoking in the rear corner booth who looks
a little bit like Helen might have, if she had been allowed
to grow up. Dark hair and wide-set eyes. So small you
could fit five of her on one side of the black leather
booth.

I think I'll go and introduce myself.

XxXxX

End Chapter Four.

XxXxX

Chapter Five

XxXxX

Mulder left the room with his tie on crooked because he
could not wait any longer to see her. Even though the
disturbing dream had faded with the gray light of dawn, it
left him still with the hazy memory of her coffin and a
sickening feeling that there was much more at risk than he
had originally realized.

Downstairs in the breakfast room, the smell of black coffee
and muffins reminded him of his words to Bertelli the
evening before, making his nose quiver and his insides roil
in acid. He rubbed his stomach uncomfortably and scanned
the quiet room for Scully, spotting her small form easily
amidst the bulky businessmen.

She was sitting motionless in front of a giant window, her
hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee, her eyes
unfocused, as if she were lost deep in thought.

He exhaled deeply.

The dream of her death still floated around in his head as
his feet propelled him automatically over the thin carpet
to her table. In her black suit, Scully was a stark
contrast to the brilliant morning sun pouring through the
gauze curtains at her back. He wondered if she had dreamed
of death last night as well.

She glanced up sharply at his approach, and he slid into
the seat across from her.

"Hey," he murmured, his eyes probing her for any lingering
distress from the evening before. But like the winter that
had crystallized overnight, Scully was pale and frozen on
the outside, her ice chip eyes giving no hint of what lay
beneath the surface. She did not give him a verbal
greeting, but pulled back her plate so that he had a full
half of the shiny, black table.

He placed his palms on the smooth top and stretched his
fingers out to give her coffee cup a gentle, stroking
caress. The lukewarm porcelain was a poor substitute for
the soft skin of her wrist, but he knew better than to
reach for her right then. He glanced around the breakfast
room and then down at the half-eaten bagel on her plate.
"Hey, this is the VCS budget we're on here, Scully," he
told her with an affectionate, worried smile. "You're
allowed to go all the way up and have a croissant."

She frowned at the bagel. "I'm not very hungry."

"Scully, you've got to..."

Leaning forward abruptly, she cut him off. "Where were you
last night, Mulder?"

"What?" He jerked upright, sending a nearby butter knife
clattering to the ground.

She regarded him with a level gaze. "I tried calling you,
Mulder. Once around eight, and then again at eight-thirty.
I even tried your cell phone, but you weren't answering.
Where were you?"

He had not lied, not this time, but he flushed a bit
anyway. "I couldn't sleep so I went to the bar for awhile."

Her lips parted in horror. "Mulder, you didn't go over to
Dempsey's by yourself, did you?"

"No, no," he assured her quickly. "Just down here. I had
a beer and went back up." The waitress appeared with his
coffee then, and Scully watched his face throughout the
pouring, obviously trying to discern if he was telling her
the whole truth.

And obviously, he wasn't.

He sighed and leaned back in his chair. "Detective
Bertelli dropped by to see me," he said when they were
alone again. "We had a quick chat."

Scully's eyes narrowed. "Why you? Why not both of us?"

His mind flashed back to the feel of Bertelli's hand on his
arm, enticing him to stay. He shook his head to clear it,
keeping his eyes trained on the table as he said, "She,
uh...she found out about me and Elizabeth."

Scully sighed. "Oh, Mulder. Did you really think she
wouldn't?" The trace of hurt in her words made him twist
uncomfortably in his chair, reminding him of his lie and
their unfinished conversation. He gave a rueful shrug.

"It's like the psychologists always say, Scully. Denial is
not just a river in Egypt." He paused. "At least Bertelli
agreed that my marriage to Elizabeth doesn't have much
bearing on this case." Scully's lower lip twitched, and he
could feel her biting back the words, "That's no excuse."
No excuse. Well, of course not. There never had been, not
for him. No excuse when he was a paralyzed twelve year-old
unable to get the damn gun, no excuse when he was a trained
psychologist unable to see his wife dying inside every day,
and no excuse when he was a hot-shot FBI agent unable to
reach Skyland Mountain fast enough to save his partner from
unmitigated horrors.

No, he did not make excuses, he made corrections. That was
why they were here, after all, when justice was the only
thing he had left to give.

He leaned forward again toward Scully, wondering whether he
would ever be able to give her a similar gift. "Why were
you calling last night?" he asked softly.

She blinked, apparently just remembering there had been a
reason she had wanted to reach him. "About the victims..."
She took a deep breath and met his eyes. "There was one
other woman who had attempted suicide before the murder.
Kimberly Gallagher."

He chewed his lower lip, trying to put the image of
Elizabeth's blood red bath out of his mind and concentrate
on the facts. "The wrists again?"

Scully nodded. "According to Dr. Atkins, her scars were
more recent than Elizabeth's, perhaps a year or so old."

"Well, I guess it fits pretty with the overall image of the
victims. Maybe this is the link we've been looking for.
You think there might have been other attempts that we
don't know about?"

"We'll know by this afternoon. I already asked to see the
medical and psychiatric histories of all the victims. It
probably wouldn't hurt to questions their families again,
either."

He nodded distractedly, still thinking about this latest
twist. A killer who carved his victims. Scars on the
wrists. No, something was not quite right...

Just then, Scully pushed her sleeve up to check her watch.
"We should probably--" she began, but stopped short when he
reached out to grab her.

"When was Kimberly killed?" he asked quickly.

A puzzled wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows. "She was
the fourth victim, found on December sixteenth. Why?"

"Long sleeves, Scully. See?" He held her wrist with one
hand and used the other to push up her cuff. "Both the
women were killed in the thick of winter, when their scars
would not have been visible to most people. If the killer
was specifically targeting suicidal women, he would have
needed some way the to get a look at their arms."

Scully dropped her eyes, her arm going limp as her pulse
fluttered beneath his fingers. "Scully?" He squeezed her
gently, but she pulled her arm away and hid it in her lap.
Lines creased her forehead, and she screwed her eyes
closed. "Scully, what is it?"

She shook her head faintly, as if replying to words only
she could hear. "I don't think he needs to see them," she
whispered finally, the words small and strange, as if pried
from deep inside. He felt the hair stand up on the back of
his neck as he strained across the table closer to her.

"What do you mean he doesn't need to see them?"

"I mean..." She broke off and opened her eyes, drawing in
a deep breath as she met his gaze. "I think he just
knows."

"Knows?" he repeated hoarsely, his eyes wide. She nodded
slowly.

"Yes."

His heart pounded its way into his throat. He licked his
lips, not sure he wanted an answer to his next question but
decided to ask it anyway. "And you, Scully?" he questioned
softly. "How do you know?"

She turned away. With the seconds measured out by the
throbbing in his fingertips, he waited.

And waited.

And waited.

Her fingers skimmed the edge of the table several times,
her eyes still focused on her plate. At last, she opened
her mouth to speak. "Mulder, I..."

His cell phone rang. Their eyes locked for a fraction of a
second before he moved reluctantly to answer it. He had
just flipped it open when hers called softly from the coat
on her chair, and their eyes met again with unwelcome
understanding; he turned in his chair, head down.

"Mulder," he said curtly into the phone, and then listened
in silence to the news he already knew.

There had been another murder.

XxXxX

The freezing rain had been pushed out overnight by a
blustering cold front that blanketed the city of Cambridge
under a thick layer of ice. The sun shone brightly
against a cloudless sky, bouncing blinding white lasers off
each encrusted object. Scully kept her head bowed against
the rushing wind as they crunched their way toward the
latest murder scene, where the usual gruesome circus was
already underway.

Mount Auburn Cemetery, normally dreary and quiescent in the
winter months, was abuzz with color and motion.

Six black and white units were parked inside the iron gate
with their lights flashing dizzily around the graveyard,
while outside a curious crowd jostled one another for a
better view. Yellow police tape was strung about like
party streamers, and dozens of uniformed officers traipsed
around the perimeter.

At least the victim is spared this, Scully thought, feeling
slightly sick as she took in surrounding cacophony. It was
almost enough to wake the dead.

Their identification granted them access to the inner
circle, where Englehart, Bertelli and Jacobsen stood over a
slender, dark-haired woman who lay unblinking in the snow.
Englehart, in the midst of a tirade, barely acknowledged
their arrival.

"People in this town are scared shitless, and they're angry
as hell. Who can blame them? This animal has been
slashing women for nine months now, and we've still got our
thumbs up our asses! Not one piece of forensics, not one
eyeball witness. Seven dead women and no one has seen a
goddamn thing!" He turned away in disgust, kicking the
snow at his feet. "May as well put out a warrant for the
Invisible Fucking Man."

His detectives turned away, digging at the snow with their
boots, saying nothing.

Scully followed Bertelli's gaze to Mulder, but he was
oblivious to her attention. He stood transfixed at the
dead woman's feet, his eyes wide and his face ashen gray,
as if he had been cast in stone by the terrible sight.
Jacobsen noticed, too. He smirked. "Hey, man, you're not
going to puke, are you?"

Mulder did not answer. He swallowed convulsively but did
not even look up. Even the rookies stopped their jawing to
snicker behind their notebooks, and Scully frowned in their
direction before taking a protective step closer to him.

"Mulder, are you okay?" she asked gently, in a voice too
low to be heard by anyone else.

He nodded automatically, his eyes still locked on the woman
in the blood-stained shirt. There were ice crystals on her
eyelashes. Scully felt her heart clench with sympathetic
pain as she watched him take in every detail of the ugly
scene. She shifted position slightly to block out the
prying eyes. With everything else that had happened, it
was easy to forget he had lost someone he'd once loved.

"Mulder..." She touched his arm lightly.

"Huh?" He jumped at the contact, blinking rapidly, as if
trying to focus on her face. She tightened her fingers on
his sleeve.

"Mulder, it looks like he got in through the smaller gate
over there," she said calmly, nodding toward the area of
fence taped off in the distance. "Why don't you go check
it out?"

He glanced distractedly at the point of entry, then nodded.
Rolling his shoulders back once, he seemed to regain a
little bit of his color. He lowered his eyes once more to
the dead woman. "Check her wrists, will you, Scully?" he
murmured. "The sooner we know, the better.

She nodded and watched closely as he loped off toward the
back gate. Turing around again, she found the uniformed
rookies still gaping with barely-contained amusement,
obviously relishing the sight of a seasoned agent becoming
unglued at the sight of blood.

She fixed them with an icy glare and walked slowly around
the body. Their smiles faded at her approach.

Hands on her hips, she pulled back her overcoat so that her
identification was clearly visible. "Those reporters over
there by the trees," she demanded evenly, "are they
supposed to be inside the gates?" The younger, blonder one
craned his neck around to see.

"Uh, no, Ma'am."

She paused significantly. "Then might I suggest you attend
to your own job before you start evaluating others?"

"Yes, Ma'am," they muttered together, nudging their caps
lower over their eyes before trotting off toward the rogue
photographers, already shouting orders. Shaking her head,
Scully moved back to the where the body lay.

Jacobsen hovered nearby, looking uncomfortable. He touched
her arm. "Hey, Bertelli filled me in about your partner,"
he said awkwardly. "Sorry if I was out of line." She
looked up at him silently, letting him squirm a little
longer. "I've, uh...I've got an ex-wife myself. No major
love lost there, but I wouldn't want anything bad to happen
to her, know what I'm saying?"

Holding his eyes with her own, Scully kept her tone
neutral. "Then you must understand how much Agent Mulder
would prefer that everyone remain focused on the task at
hand."

He grimaced at her gentle rebuke. "Yeah, I get it.
Sorry."

She moved past him to crouch down by the dead woman,
neither accepting nor rejecting his apology. "Okay to
touch her?" she asked without looking up.

"Yeah, she's been snapped from all angles by now."

Exchanging her black leather gloves for latex, Scully
gently picked up the woman's arm. It was cold and stiff,
her hand tinged blue and encased inside a plastic bag.
Scully raised the sleeve a few inches and tilted the
woman's wrist toward the light.

No scars.

She let out a slow breath and replaced the arm in the snow.
"Any identification yet?" she asked as she pulled back the
V-neck on the woman's blouse, revealing the edge of a long,
deep cut.

Jacobsen moved around until he stood at the woman's head
and flipped open his notebook. "According to her driver's
license, the victim's name is Marianne Maubry, age thirty-
two. Her address is listed as Metuchen, New Jersey. We
don't know yet what she was doing up here."

"She's not a local?" Scully glanced up in surprise.
Bertelli had reappeared to stand with Jacobsen.

"It appears not," she answered, holding up a plastic
evidence bag. She withdrew a small, black leather purse.
"We found this not three feet from the body, cash and cards
all untouched. Her wallet had this plastic thing inside,
and Jacobsen thought it looked like a hotel key."

Scully squinted at the gray rectangle in Bertelli's hands,
then rose slowly to her feet. "May I see that?"

Bertelli handed it over. "If it is a hotel passkey, we can
probably get the name from her recent credit card
purchases."

Scully stared at the maroon striped key for a moment before
closing her fingers over it tightly. "That won't be
necessary," she answered, surprised by how calm she
sounded. She held out the card to Bertelli. "It's the
Charleston Hotel."

The other woman understood the reference immediately and
gave a choking cough. "Your hotel?" she managed hoarsely.
Scully nodded, digging through her pockets for her own key,
a direct match to Marianne Maubry's. The plastic glinted
mockingly at them in the sun.

"Wait a second," said Jacobsen, glancing between the two
women with confusion. "You're saying the perp took Maubry
from your hotel last night?"

"It's not possible," moaned Bertelli, shaking her head.
She turned haunted eyes on Scully. "You were there, Mulder
was there, I was there...how could this have happened?"

"We don't know he took her from the hotel," Scully said,
but the words were a lie. She knew.

Bertelli was still shaking her head, her hands clenched in
frustration. "If he was there, I would have known, dammit!
After all this time, I would have *known*!" She spun
around angrily and stalked off toward the main gate.

Jacobsen squinted in the direction she had gone, then
turned his eyes to Scully. He searched her face
assessingly. "Would you have known?" he whispered. She
blinked twice, startled.

"What?"

Jacobsen did not answer. He looked her up and down slowly
and then left her alone with the body, the ice breaking
under his feet as he wove between the headstones into the
distance.

XxXxX

End Chapter Five.



XxXxX

Chapter Six

XxXxX

"Scully!" Shivering, she turned to the sound of Mulder
calling her name. He waved her over to the gate.

"Did you find something?" she asked when she reached him.

"No footprints, that's for sure. This guy is good, Scully.
See the pine branch leaning against the gate here? He
used it like a broom to erase his tracks in the snow."
Mulder pointed at the swishing marks that had frozen
fossil-like on the ground overnight. "There's not one
usable print."

"What about outside the gate?"

He shook his head. "Too much foot traffic from
pedestrians." He stepped through the narrow gate to the
slushy sidewalk, and she followed him. "Any prints he
might left have been obliterated. We are going to look
into the tire tracks over here, though. And there is one
other thing..." He crossed in front of her to the curb.

"What is it?"

"Imagine that I'm the killer. I've pulled up as close as I
can to the gate which would be about...here." He stood six
feet from the gate. "Marianne would likely be in the
trunk, so I'd have to go into the street to get her out."
Moving to the back of the imaginary car, he pantomimed
opening the trunk. "Not wanting to leave any prints on the
body, I pull my gloves out of my coat pocket."

Scully walked around to where he stood. "And?"

"And maybe I'm like other people--I have lots of junk in my
pockets. Loose change, ticket stubs..." He withdrew a
plastic evidence bag from his overcoat. "...a match book."

"You found that here?" she asked, moving closer for a
better look.

"And you'll never guess where it's from."

"Dempsey's." The gruff voice came from behind them, and
Mulder and Scully turned in unison to face Chief Englehart,
who had materialized on the sidewalk. He held out his hand
with a frown. "Let me see that."

They waited in silence as he studied the red cover with the
black lettering. After a minute, he raised blood-shot eyes
and scowled, thrusting the bag back at Mulder. "This is
the last one he get gets, do you hear me? The very last
one."

Scully turned her face into the wind, looking back through
the iron bars to where Marianne Maubry was being zipped
into a black plastic bag for transport. Within seconds,
she disappeared from view entirely.

XxXxX

Walking down the dark halls of the Cambridge morgue, Scully
tried to tell herself that it would be better today, when
the body awaiting her was not Mulder's wife...when she
would not be slicing skin that he had once caressed.
Marianne Maubry was a blessed stranger, no different the
countless victims she had examined in the past.

Except...

She inhaled sharply at the onset of sudden nausea, halting
halfway down the corridor. Closing her eyes, she leaned
weakly against the cool wall. Right from your hotel,
whispered a voice in her head. Her eyes flew open as she
recognized it as belonging to Detective Bertelli.

*I would have known*

Would she? Scully took several, calming breaths and turned
corridor from the square windows of door to the autopsy
room, casting an eerie shine on the black floor. Slowly,
she followed the path up and into the bright room.

Haley Atkins was already inside. So was Marianne Maubry.

"I hope you don't mind that I got started," Dr. Atkins
said, switching off her tape recorder. "Englehart was
climbing all over my people by nine thirty this morning.
Poor Howard really got an earful."

Scully shook her head, actually glad that she had been
spared the unveiling of Marianne's terrible wounds. Easier
to take them in all at once. She draped her coat over a
nearby chair and pulled out some fresh scrubs from the
cabinet. "Anything notable so far?" she asked as she
joined Dr. Atkins by the autopsy bay. The other woman
shrugged.

"It's the definitely the same killer, if that counts as
notable. Twenty eight cuts in all. I'm guessing that the
extent of the blood loss will show that her heart was still
beating through most of it."

"Mmm," replied Scully, circling around the body to the
other side. There was something familiar about the
patterns of the cuts, something that had been nagging at
her before, but she could not figure out what it was.
Perhaps it's the victims' photos blurring together, she
mused. He probably cuts them the same way every time.

Dr. Atkins cleared her throat, pulling Scully out of her
thoughts. "I, uh...I heard what you did at the crime scene
today." Scully glanced at her, puzzled. "With those
rookies?" Dr. Atkins clarified. "Steve and Jake, the guys
who brought her in said you really put them in their
place."

Scully hesitated. "I wouldn't put it that way."

"I would," replied Atkins solemnly. "And thank you." She
smiled a bit. "I've wanted to give them a piece of my mind
for a long time now."

Inwardly, Scully felt a twinge of guilt. If it had been
anyone other than Mulder, she doubted she would have
stepped in. "I just think people should show a little more
compassion," she murmured finally. Marianne Maubry had not
been Mulder's wife, but she had been someone's daughter,
someone's friend. She deserved better.

Dr. Atkins smiled again. "Exactly."

And then with as much care as possible, the two women
commenced the autopsy. It was three hours before they had
catalogued every cut and sampled every smear. Scully
accepted a chair with relief as Dr. Atkins went to make a
phone call in her office. A few minutes later, Howard
entered the room.

"Dr. Atkins said you had some samples to send to lab?"

Scully made an effort to hide her fatigue, giving him a
tight smile. "Yes, thanks. They're right here on the
table." She indicated a sealed Styrofoam box containing
the evidence they had collected.

"I need your signature here," he said, handing her a pink
form. He stood patiently while she scanned the content.
As she added her name to the bottom, he cleared his throat.
"That other woman, Elizabeth...you knew her?"

Her head snapped up. "Who told you that?" she demanded
curtly.

He blinked at her with wide dark eyes, apparently unfazed
by the sudden change in her demeanor. "Uh, no one really.
I just heard some guys talking about it in the hall. They
said she was your partner's wife."

"Ex-wife, yes. But I never met her." She gave him back
his form, but he did not move to leave; she frowned. "Was
there something else?"

He hesitated, the paper crinkling in his hands. "I can
tell you're a good doctor. You care about the women, just
like Dr. Atkins does." He broke off and looked at the
floor for a minute. For some reason, Scully felt her heart
start to pound as he raised his head. His eyes bore
straight through hers. "Sometimes...sometimes you can care
too much."

Her mouth dry, Scully was unable to respond. They stared
at each other for several seconds, the clock ticking
loudly, until her cell phone rang across the room. She
snapped abruptly out of her fog and licked her parched
lips. "Excuse me," she murmured, passing him with her eyes
lowered. He picked up the box of evidence and turned to
watch her as she answered the call.

"Scully."

"Hey, Scully, it's me. Apparently the noon news conference
was a disaster. Englehart's even popped a blood vessel in
his eye, but he refusing to go to the hospital. We're all
supposed meet in his office in an hour to review the latest
evidence."

Turning her back to Howard, Scully lowered her voice. "I
hate to say this, Mulder, but it's going to be an awfully
short meeting. We didn't find anything new on Marianne
Maubry."

"I'll second that." He paused. "I get the impression that
Englehart's got something up his sleeve."

"Any idea what?"

"Not a one. But the way he's been acting, it could be
we're calling in the National Guard to storm the gates of
Dempsey's bar."

The matchbook. She had almost forgotten. With a sigh, she
rubbed her forehead. "An hour, then?"

"Bring your fatigues."

She clicked off the phone and turned around to find Howard
had left. Fine by me, she thought, repressing a shiver.
What had he said again? Sometimes you can care too much?

She made a mental note to have Dr. Atkins deal with Howard
and the lab samples from then on. There was something
about the way he looked at her...like Jimmy Ranovski in the
eighth grade. Always watching, with eyes that never
changed expression. Jimmy had been sent away that year for
setting fire to the boys' locker room.

As she took her seat, she wondered idly what had happened
to him after that.

"That's odd," she murmured a moment later, picking up
papers on the counter in search of her pen. "It was here
just a second ago..."

XxXxX

Howard placed her pen under his nose and inhaled deeply.
It smelled of plastic and latex, just like the ones that
Dr. Atkins always used.

He went to his office and opened the top drawer on his file
cabinet. In the back, behind the folders, was a gray metal
box. He unlocked it and added his latest treasure. It fit
nicely next to the one from last night.

Picking it up, he smiled faintly at the maroon lettering.

"Charleston Hotel."

XxXxX

It was still stiflingly hot inside Chief Englehart's
office, causing his face to flush nearly as red as his
right eyeball. He leaned forward on his desk, bracing
himself on his arms as he scowled at the agents and
officers collected in front of him.

"What I hear you all telling me is that we don't have
anything new. Is that correct?"

Bertelli and Jacobsen shared a long, uncomfortable look
with Mulder and Scully. No one wanted to be the one to say
it out loud. At last, Jacobsen cleared his throat. "Well,
there's the match book..."

"That's not new!" hissed Englehart. "We've had our eye on
that goddamn place for six months now. Why the hell hasn't
anything come of it? If you all think the bartender is
guilty, get his ass in here, for Chrissakes!"

"It's the same story as before, Sir," Bertelli said
reluctantly. "On paper, Joe King is a terrific suspect,
but we've questioned him three times now and even searched
his house. There's nothing concrete that links him to any
of the murders. Short of round-the-clock surveillance, I
don't know what more we can do."

"If that's what it's going to take, then that's what I'll
authorize. I would like something--anything--to tell
Maubry's parent when they arrive here tomorrow from L.A."

"Just give me ten minutes alone with him, Chief."
Jacobsen's tone was angry and grim. "If he's the perp,
I'll get you your confession."

Englehart rubbed his ruddy cheeks and sighed. "I'd almost
like to step into the box with him myself, but there is no
way on God's Sweet Earth that I'm going to let this one get
tossed on a 10-17." He shook his head. "No, we do this
one by the book."

Mulder, chewing thoughtfully on a toothpick, moved from
where he was leaning against the wall. "I might have a
suggestion."

The Chief threw his hands in the air. "By all means.
Let's hear it."

"He's feeling bolder now and more confident. Maybe we can
use his arrogance to our advantage."

"And just how do we do that?" Englehart crossed beefy arms
over his chest.

"I don't know if Joe King is the guy or not, but if he is,
he might be willing to talk under the right circumstances.
Maybe brag a little about what he's done." He glanced at
Jacobsen and Bertelli. "You're not going to get anything
by charging in there like the last reel of a John Wayne
movie. He's just going to answer aggression with
aggression."

Bertelli looked skeptical. "You want us to *sweet talk*
him into a confession."

Mulder's mouth twitched in a near-smile. "Something like
that. I would suggest wiring up someone and sending them
into Dempsey's near closing to engage him in a little
conversation. With a couple of drinks under his belt, he
just might let something slip."

"Anyone?" Jacobsen's eyes lit up as the gears started
turning.

Mulder shook his head. "Not you. Someone he hasn't had
dealings with before...someone less threatening."

"Well, that leaves me out on both counts," Bertelli sighed.
"King always looks like he wants to take my head off."

Scully, quiet until this point, put her folders aside.
This is what I've come for, she thought, ignoring the
pounding of her heart. Bertelli's voice echoed in her head
once more: "I would have known."

Will I? Scully wondered as she turned her eyes to Mulder.
He recognized her intent immediately and opened his mouth
to protest. She cut him off.

"I'll do it. Where do we start?"

XxXxX

End Chapter Six.


XxXxX

Chapter Seven

XxXxX

The stairway down to the morgue was dark and smelled like
most old municipal buildings, a mixture of dust and cheap
floor wax. At nine p.m., the heat had been turned off for
several hours, so Mulder protectively pulled the large warm
paper bag he carried into his side, shielding it from the
drafty air. He was practically underground by the time he
reached the morgue, but its basement location was not
surprising. He had learned a long time ago that this was
where people put the things they did not want to think
about too hard.

Me, Scully, and the dead guys, he thought with bitter humor
as he eyed the line of gurneys in the corridor. Out of
sight, out of mind.

He walked down the hall to where light shone through the
autopsy room doors. Pushing one open, he poked his head
inside. A petite woman with a blonde bun and librarian's
glasses turned from the counter. She frowned at him,
looking pointedly at his bag. "I'm sorry, but there's no
food allowed in here."

He shifted so he held the bag in his other hand, outside
the autopsy room. "I was just looking for Agent Scully.
Is she still around here some place?"

The woman's face softened a bit and she nodded. "Down the
hall around the corner," she said, laying her pen aside and
stepping closer to him. "You must be Agent Mulder. The
Profiler, right?"

Amused by her wide-eyed interest, he ducked his head a bit
and smiled. "Do I look like I have my own Saturday night
series?"

The woman wrinkled her forehead in confusion, and he
suppressed a sigh. Someone with a life, he thought
ruefully. He tried again. "I've done some profiling, yes,
but I'm here to help with the investigation in whatever
capacity I can, Dr..." He trailed off when he realized he
was not sure of her name.

"Atkins," she supplied quickly. "Cambridge M.E. I've done
all the examinations on the victims."

"Scully mentioned. She said you do good work."

Instead of appearing pleased by the compliment, Dr. Atkins
pulled a face. "I'm glad to hear that somebody thinks so,"
she murmured. "Chief Englehart has been less than thrilled
with my reports on this case. I think that's probably why-
-" She halted abruptly and looked at the floor.

"Why he asked for an FBI pathologist?" Mulder guessed. She
nodded, her eyes reluctantly meeting his once more. "Hey,
don't kid yourself about why he asked us in here. He'd
love it if we could nail this guy, but mainly it's
something to distract the media. It's not your fault that
you couldn't find anything in the autopsies."

"Isn't it?" she asked in an odd voice. "Seems to me that
there's always enough blame to go around." Mulder shifted
uncomfortably, his eyes sliding to the stainless steel
drawers on the far wall. She caught him looking. "I'm
sorry for your loss."

He jerked from his thoughts, meeting her steady gaze.
"What?"

"Elizabeth." She turned slightly to glance at the shiny
refrigerated chambers. "I heard she was your wife."

"Was, yeah," he agreed, already retreating further behind
the door, bumping awkwardly against its mate in the
process. "It was a long time ago, so..." He cleared his
throat. "So now I just want to help...her and the
others..."

Dr. Atkins inclined her head slightly. "As do we all."

He groped for the words that would let him end the
conversation gracefully and was reminded of the bag in his
hand. Glancing down the dim corridor, he asked, "You,
uh...you said Scully was down this way?"

"Around the corner on the left, room three. You can't miss
her."

"Thanks," he muttered, and then breathed a sigh of relief
as the door swung closed on the autopsy room.

He turned the corner and walked down the echoing hall until
he reached a partially open door labeled "003". "Scully?"
he murmured, pushing the door open with his palm, but there
was no reply. "Scully?" He stepped a little further
inside, and stopped short when he finally caught sight of
her.

She was slumped sound asleep at the desk with her head
pillowed on her arm, nose buried in her white lab coat and
glasses curled under her fingers. Her hair was almost
unnaturally red under the glare of bright desk lamp,
contrasting sharply with the gray shadows cloaking the rest
of the room. Photos of the dead women were spread in
disarray across the desktop.

Oh, Scully. He swallowed the lump his throat. What are
you doing?

Crossing the small room quietly, he set the bag on a nearby
plastic chair and gently touched her shoulder. "Scully."

She sat up with a gasp, pulling away from him as photos
went sliding off the desk from all angles. "Jesus,
Mulder!" She glared at him, breathing hard, and then bent
to retrieve the pictures. He crouched next to her to help.

"Sorry," he murmured, stacking a set of now-gritty photos
back on her desk. "I didn't mean to scare you." She
nodded distractedly, and he watched as she busied herself
by rearranging the pictures, making sure the edges were
carefully lined up and back in order. By the time she met
his gaze, all her edges had