Chapter Two

At Quantico, Mulder threw the car into "park" with an angry 
jerk; rush hour traffic had been bumper-to-bumper the whole 
way down, and the rain changing over to heavy, wet snow had 
not helped matters.  Their gray day had toughened into a 
cold, dark night.

Scully pulled her coat closed, steeling herself before she 
opened the door.  Outside, the wind hit her in the face as 
the ground lurched beneath her.  Her vision went black.

With a gasp, Scully caught herself on the car door.  She 
blinked rapidly and hung on for dear life.  When she could 
see again, Mulder was standing over her.

"You okay, Scully?" Snowflakes dotted his hair.

She nodded.  "I just stood up too fast."

Mulder's brow furrowed as he studied her.  "You sure?"

"Yeah," she said, slamming the car door for emphasis.  "I'm 
fine."

He must have decided to believe her, because he picked up the 
pace towards the building.  Scully hurried through the snow 
to catch up with him.  

"Grenier's on the third floor now," he said inside as he hit 
the button for the elevator.  "NCAVC."

The doors slid open and Scully followed him in.  They leaned 
against opposite walls.  "He still hunts these men," she 
said, "even after what happened with Carl Quentin."

Mulder eyed her.  "I don't see you hanging up your badge," he 
said.  

"It's different for me."

"How?"

"I don't work for NCAVC," she said.  She paused.  "I also 
don't have a child."

Mulder shrugged as the elevator bell dinged.  "It's all 
Adam's ever known.  After you've nailed guys like Quentin, 
you can't exactly go back to pushing paper."  He glanced down 
at her as they walked the hall.  "Besides, when the kidnapper 
issues you a private invitation, you don't exactly have a 
choice about whether to get involved."

Scully waited for him to push open the door to the National 
Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime. "So if Pittsfield 
hadn't contacted you," she said, "If someone had just phone 
in a tip that he was alive, you wouldn't want to work the 
case?"

Mulder held the door for her.  "We'll never know, will we?"

"I don't see Grenier," Scully said as she surveyed the desks.  

Mulder fished out his cell phone.  "Adam?" he said a moment 
later.  "Yeah, we're here.  Downstairs?  Okay, got it."

Scully raised her eyebrows.

"He recorded part of Pittsfield's webcam performance and the 
lab's working on it downstairs," Mulder explained as he 
headed for the door again.

Downstairs, Grenier loomed over a mild-mannered looking young 
black man as they stared at a computer screen.  "What about 
that one?" Grenier was saying.

"Sorry, we can blow it up all you want," the man replied.  
"He positioned the camera so you can't see the plates."

Grenier looked up as Scully and Mulder entered the room.  
"Nothing," he told them tersely.  "We can't get a god damn 
thing."

Mulder moved to stand next to Grenier, and Scully felt like 
she was five years old again, standing behind older siblings 
at a parade and unable to see a thing.  "You got the girl," 
Mulder observed.  "That's something."

Scully peered between the shoulders and saw the child blowing 
kisses for the camera again.

"That's when I started recording," Grenier explained.  "I 
didn't know who it was until I saw Lily."

Mulder chewed his nail and stared at the screen. "No leaves 
on the trees," he said.  "It's not the South."

Scully spotted a battered looking folder on the nearest 
table.  She swiped and opened to the top page, which featured 
a class picture of Lily Ann Tucker, age 6.  Lily wore a red 
jumper and smiled big for the camera.  Scully found herself 
smiling sadly back.

Mulder and Grenier were right: the girl in the picture bore 
an eerie similarity to the child on the computer camera.

"Adam!" A woman's voice, loud and sharp, caused Scully nearly 
to drop the folder.  She turned and saw Amelia Russell coming 
into the room with her daughter in her arms.

"What is it?" Adam asked, rushing towards them. "Is Natalie 
okay?"

"She's fine.  I just didn't have anyone to leave her with."

"Dad-dee!" exclaimed the toddler with delight as she reached 
for her father.  Grenier hoisted her into his arms and she 
rewarded him with a pat on the cheek.

"What are you doing here?" Grenier asked.

"Pittsfield," Amelia said.  "He's back. He sent me a link to 
a webcam, and--" She stopped as she saw the computer screen 
behind her ex-husband.  "You got it too."

"We all did," Mulder said.

Amelia joined them by the computer. "Hi," she said, rubbing 
Mulder's shoulder.  "Long time, no see.  How are you doing?"

"Until a few hours ago, I was fine."

Amelia nodded and turned to Scully.  "Dana," she said, 
squeezing her hard. 

Scully squeezed back just as hard.  They weren't friends.  
They did not go shopping together or chat on the phone.  Dark 
where Scully was fair, tall where she was short and exuberant 
while she was quiet, Amelia Russell didn't have much in 
common with Scully other than the fact they both had seen 
Mulder naked.  

But Carl Quentin had made them sisters under the skin.

"How are you?" Amelia asked in the middle of the hug.

"Fine," said Scully, drawing back.  Amelia frowned at her.

"You look tired."

"So do you."  

Amelia smiled.  "That one," she said, jerking her thumb at 
Natalie, "keeps me hopping from one end of the day to the 
other."

Scully glanced to where Mulder was making faces at the little 
girl.  Natalie alternately smiled at him and hid her face in 
Grenier's neck.  Grenier kissed his daughter's dark curls.  

"You remember Mulder," he said encouragingly.

Natalie wiggled and batted her charcoal lashes at Mulder.  
"Mul-der," she purred in agreement, and reached for his tie.

"You see, Scully?" he said as Natalie examined him.  
"*Someone* likes my holiday tie."

"Yes, you've reached your target audience," Scully replied.  
"Good work."

Mulder made another face, this one for Scully, and Natalie 
giggled.

Amelia drifted closer to the computer screen, where the tech 
was working on clarifying a still image.  "That's Lily," 
Amelia said. "She hasn't aged a day. How is that possible?"

"Maybe the camera wasn't live," Grenier suggested.  "Maybe 
it's a tape from sixteen years ago that he has repackaged to 
make it seem live."

"I don't think so," said the tech slowly.  "These images are 
definitely digital; this kind of technology wasn't available 
on the streets sixteen years ago."

Scully stepped forward with the old folder in her hands.  
"There's a way you can tell if it's her," she said.  "Print 
out the image from the webcam and have a forensic 
anthropologist compare it with Lily's old picture.  That 
should at least give us a better idea of what's going on 
here."

"Good idea," Mulder agreed.  He squinted at the screen.  "Can 
you get any closer in on the Starbucks across the street?"

"We tried," Grenier said.  "You can't get an address."  
Natalie wriggled in an effort to get down but Grenier held 
tight.

"The window," Mulder said, pointing.  "Can we zoom in on 
that?"

"The flier," said Scully immediately, and Mulder nodded.

"If we can at least get a phone number from it, we'll know 
the area code."

The tech zoomed in on the white flyer hanging in the 
Starbucks' window.

LOST DOG, it read.

"White miniature poodle, age 4.  Missing since December 14, 
answers to the name 'Pippin.'

"Please call Megan at 410-555-3919."

"Four-one-oh," Mulder said. "That's Baltimore.  He's here.  
How many Starbucks can there be in Baltimore?"

Scully ignored the fact that he was looking at her when he 
asked the question.

"There's one on every god-damned corner," Grenier answered.  
He kissed Natalie on the cheek and handed her back to Amelia.  
"We can get the addresses on the way."

Scully's adrenaline kicked in, abating some of her fatigue.  
"I'll start calling now."

Natalie fussed and Amelia jiggled her.  "Let me know what you 
find, okay?" Amelia said with the tone of someone still not 
quite used to being left out of the action.

Grenier ruffled his daughter's hair with one hand as he 
grabbed his coat with the other.  "Will do, and next time if 
you need someone to leave her with, try Penelope.  She'd be 
happy to watch her."

"When Penelope's old enough to baby sit, I'll ask her," 
Amelia answered lightly.

"Not funny," Grenier said.  He shrugged into his heavy winter 
coat.  "I'll call."

"You'd better." Amelia kissed Natalie's forehead.  "Say bye-
bye to daddy."

Natalie whimpered and her eyes filled with tears.  "Daddy," 
she said, stretching out her arms.

"I'll call," Grenier called back again as he followed Mulder 
and Scully to the door.

At the elevator, Scully had the phone to her ear, on hold 
with some barista.  Mulder looked Grenier up and down.

"Penelope?" he asked.

"I've been seeing her for months now.  She's a perfectly 
lovely young woman," Grenier answered stiffly.

"Young being the operative word?" 

Scully focused her attention on the floor.

"She's an adult!" Grenier said as the elevator bell rang.  
"Amelia just doesn't like leaving Natalie with anyone who 
isn't a blood relative."

"Uh-huh," Scully said into the phone.  Mulder held the 
elevator.  "Do you have a flier in your window for a lost 
dog?  Okay, and where are you located?"

She hung up and met Mulder's expectant gaze.  "First try," 
she said.  "Starbucks on Elliot Avenue has a lost poodle 
flier hanging in the window."

Mulder hit the button as she stepped in, and the ground began 
sinking beneath her feet.  Grenier and Mulder talked 
excitedly about the best course of action, their voices 
bouncing hard in the tiny space.

Scully leaned against the wall and peeked once more at the 
photo inside the worn folder.  Lily Ann Tucker had been 
growing a pair of new front teeth.  

Snatched right from her yard during the day, the file said. 

Scully shivered.  Amelia was right: you couldn't let go for 
one minute.

The elevator bottomed out and Scully snapped the file closed 
again, but not before she had seen Lily Ann Tucker's mother's 
statement typed at the bottom.

"I blinked," it said, "and she was gone."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

The snow thickened, blowing straight against their windshield 
so it seemed to Scully as if they were traveling into 
hyperspace.  "Looks like it'll be a white Christmas," Mulder 
commented.

Christmas was five days away; the snow would be brown by 
then.

"Turn left up here," Scully said as she squinted at her map 
in the dim light of passing streetlamps.  

"Lily never saw snow, did you know that?  Her mom told me 
they were going to take her to Montana that year to visit 
cousins.  She never made it."

"Mulder, that little girl on the camera can't be Lily.  It's 
not possible."

He shook his head.  "After all these years, you can still say 
that with such certainty."

"What would you have me do?  Lie?  Pittsfield looked quite a 
bit older compared to the photos in this folder.  Are you 
suggesting he has a child-sized time machine?"

The car fish-tailed as Mulder took the corner too fast.  "It 
looks *exactly* like her, Scully."

"The resemblance is striking, I agree.  But you and I both 
know these men often choose victims who are physically 
similar."

He took his eyes from the road long enough to frown at her.  
She sighed.

"Okay, I'll admit in this case the physical attributes are 
extraordinarily similar.  It still makes more logical sense 
than Lily not aging a day in sixteen years."  She wrestled 
the map as it tried to slip from her lap. "Turn left at the 
light."

"Pittsfield kidnapped her because he thought she was the 
reincarnation of Christ," Mulder said. 

"What?"

"That's what he said.  He said Christ was returning as a 
little girl this time, and that God designated him as the 
girl's caretaker.  He claimed he alone would recognize her as 
the child of God."

"Mulder, please don't tell me you think he's right."

Silence.

"Mulder..."

"No, okay?  I don't think that Lily Tucker is the 
reincarnation of Jesus Christ.  But maybe she is special in 
some way that Pittsfield picked up on."

Scully wiped the steam from her window.  "Turn here," she 
said.  "This is Elliot."

Mulder slowed down to a cruise as they drove along the 
avenue.  The headlights of Grenier's SUV shone bright in 
their review mirror.  "There," Mulder said. "That's the 
Starbucks."

"I recognize that tree," Scully replied.  "This is the 
place."

Mulder took a handicap spot, and they both leapt from the 
car.  Grenier waved from down the sidewalk, hailing them 
through the snow.  Mulder pointed toward the building 
opposite the Starbucks. It was a drug store.

"I don't see a camera," Scully said, a little breathless.  
They craned their necks to study the overhang above the drug 
store.

"It was here. If it's not here now, it's because Pittsfield 
moved it."

"What've you got?" Grenier asked as he joined them.

"It's gone."  Mulder tried the door to the real estate office 
above the drugstore, but it was locked.  "He must have taken 
it down hours ago."

Grenier headed for the drugstore.  "Someone must have seen 
something," he said, yanking the door wide.  

Mulder twisted in place to look up and down the street.  
Scully followed his gaze, shielding her eyes from the snow, 
but saw no one.

"Why here?  It doesn't make sense." Mulder muttered as he 
paced around the area.  "He must have set up here for a 
reason."

"Pretty busy street overall," Scully observed.  "The large 
number of stores means there's a good chance he would have 
been spotted."

Mulder did not seem to hear her.  He was starting across the 
street towards Starbucks.  Scully's stomach, normally one to 
welcome a nonfat vanilla latte, flipped at the thought of 
coffee.

"Mulder?" she called.  He did not turn around.  After another 
moment's hesitation, Scully followed him.

"This is the lost dog poster," Mulder said, tapping the 
window.

"So?"

Mulder leaned down and squinted at it.  "There's two of them, 
see?  There's a second flier behind this one."  

Scully brushed flakes from her hair as she followed him 
inside.  Mulder made a beeline for the flier.  

"It's not the same thing," he said, examining it.  "Not two 
copies.  These are two different images."

He carefully removed the piece of paper taped behind the lost 
dog flier.  Scully moved to see.

"Oh my God," she breathed.

LOST, it said.  And underneath was a picture of Natalie.

"Call Amelia," Mulder ordered as they started to run.  "Now."

Scully had her phone out, dialing in the snow.  She felt the 
pavement pound against her feet.

The poster in Mulder's hand grew wet and started to smear.  
Grenier's hulking figure emerged from the drugstore.

As the phone rang through in Scully's ear, Mulder began 
screaming.

"Adam... Adam!  It's Natalie.  He's come for Natalie!"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

End chapter two.

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