*************

Chapter Three

*************

In a town famous for oddities, they were still a most 
unlikely party of three: the ex-husband, the ex-brother and 
Scully who had never met the dead woman but perhaps knew more 
about her than either of the two men.  

Scully and Jack Milgram each had black coffee, mostly 
untouched, while Ruben's emptied packets of cream and sugar 
littered the table in front of them.  Ruben liked coffee only 
in theory, Scully had said more than once.  The closer it got 
to coffee ice cream, the happier he was; Scully often teased 
that he should just order the mocha latte full fat whipped 
cream with sprinkles girly drink since that's what he really 
wanted anyway.  Ruben always retorted that real men didn't 
order sprinkles on their coffee.

"I did some checking on my own," Milgram said, "and they had 
another murder last month that showed a number of 
similarities.  A woman about Sam's age, alone in her motel 
room, strangled not beaten, with nothing else disturbed and 
no signs of struggle or forced entry.  Case is cold already 
but this might get it back on the fire.  I'm going to push 
for Bureau involvement and see if I can't get things moving."

"I don't understand what she was doing here in the first 
place," Ruben said.

"Yeah, well, she hadn't been herself in some time.  She used 
to be the perfect mom.  The kids were clean, well-dressed, 
and happy.  She lived for them.  Then a few months ago they 
start coming back to me wearing the same clothes I sent them 
off in.  I ask them, 'how's your mom?' and they make excuses 
for her.  She's busy, she's tired.  I showed up there once to 
pick them up and they were parked in front of the Godfather, 
Samantha nowhere to be found.  She arrived ten minutes later 
saying she just had to run to the store but she'd told a 
neighbor to look in on them."

"She's a single mom now," Ruben said.  "Things maybe aren't 
so easy for her.  If you hadn't have left..."

"She didn't have any groceries with her," Milgram 
interrupted.  "If she went to the store, where were the 
damned groceries?"

"That's why you were trying to take the kids from her?  Over 
some missing groceries?"

"Ruben," Scully said, laying a hand on his arm.  He shook her 
off.

"No, my parents told me the whole story.  He's the one who 
was cheating.  He's the one who ran out on her, and then he 
wanted the kids too.  No wonder she was going out of her 
mind."

"You don't know what you're talking about.  Your parents 
heard only what Sam wanted to tell them, and she was probably 
feeding them the same line of bull I was getting."  He stood 
abruptly, chair skidding over the faux tile floor.  "Excuse 
me, Agent Scully, but I need some air."

He had his cigarettes out before he'd cleared the door, and 
she watched as he paced and smoked along the outside of the 
storefront.  Ruben sat back, nearly upending their table, and 
ran both hands through his hair.  "Annie loved those kids, 
Dana.  She never would have done anything to hurt them, and 
it would have killed her if Jack took them away."

She thought of waking up in a burn unit with singed eyebrows 
and no memory of the people who had gone up in flames around 
her.  "You said yourself you hadn't talked to her in a 
while," she said to Ruben.  "It's possible she was going 
through something you didn't understand."

"No.  No, I won't believe that.  You didn't know her.  She 
would never hurt her kids."

Her cell phone rang and when she saw the ID read LV Coroner 
she turned her back to Ruben to answer it.  "This is Scully."

"Agent Scully, this is Dr. Bartleby.  I have the results of 
the PCR test you requested.  Samples show a twenty-seven 
percent of alleles in common."

"Wait, did you say a twenty-seven percent match?"

"I ran it twice.  Then I ran them both through CODIS and came 
up empty.  Now do you want to tell me what the hell is going 
on here?"

"I will," she said.  "But there is someone else I have to 
tell first."

*******

Mulder clicked through the computerized file on Michael 
Caufield, forcing himself to pay attention.  This was his job 
now, reading other people's field reports to determine which 
of these yahoos might pose a risk to national security.  Most 
of the information was collected by junior agents but frankly 
he thought they got the better end of the deal.  At least 
they got to leave the building on occasion.

His cell phone rang from inside the jacket he had draped over 
the back of his chair.  He removed it, only to fumble when he 
saw the glowing little box on the front read D. Scully.  The 
phone hit the floor and spun off under his desk.

"Shit," Mulder muttered as it continued to ring.  He flailed 
around with one arm until he made contact, and his answer was 
breathless, "Hello?"

"Mulder?" She sounded unsure, despite the fact that she had 
called him.

"Uh, yeah," he replied as he sank back down into his chair.  
He managed to upend a container of pencils in the process.

"It's me.  I mean, it's Scully.  Is this a bad time?"

"No, no, of course not."  He felt out-of-time, actually, 
floating and strange.  His mouth went dry and his heart 
hammered against his breastbone.  "What, uh, what's up, 
Scully?"

"You changed your phone number.  I had to got through the 
Bureau to get the new one."

"You always did know how to find me."

"Mulder, don't know quite how to say this.  I'm in Las Vegas 
and there's a case here that I'm afraid may involve you."

"An X-file?"

"I'm not entirely sure yet.  A woman has been murdered but 
the cause of death looks straightforward at the moment.  
However, I have my suspicions about whether that will hold up 
with closer examination."

"Well, give me the details.  Maybe I can help."

"I'd rather not talk on the phone."

"You want me to get a secure line?"

"No."  She hesitated for what seemed like a million years.  
"I think you should come out here, Mulder."

"Come...to you?"

"I wouldn't ask if I didn't think it was important."

"No, I know.  It's just that, well, I don't know if you ever 
heard but I'm not actually on the X-files."

"Oh?"

So many layers in one small word.  Go ahead, he thought, let 
me have it.

But instead she said.  "It doesn't matter.  Your interest in 
this case is potentially more personal than professional 
anyway."

"You can't tell me anything more?  I don't hear from you in 
two years and then all of a sudden you ask me to jump on a 
plane, no questions asked."

"The fact that it's been two years and I am the one making 
this phone call should tell you how important this is."

"Can I get a hint at least?  This dead woman, does she have a 
name?"

There was a long pause on the other end.  "She's identified 
as Samantha Milgram."

"Her name is Samantha?"

"Just get here when you can, okay?  I'll explain everything 
then."

"All right, I'll be there as soon as I can."  

They never said good-bye.  Mulder was already in motion, 
shutting down his computer with one hand as he grabbed his 
suit coat with the other.

Diana and Spender were coming in the main doors, back from 
whatever adventure did not include him, and Diana stopped him 
with a touch on the arm.  "You look like you're in a hurry."

"I'm going out of town," he said as he pulled free.  Spender 
watched the whole interaction with bored eyes.

"Where?" she asked.  "Do you have some kind of assignment?"

"Vegas.  It's not for work."

"Don't tell me you've taken up gambling."

He thought of how many Samanthas he had chased in his 
lifetime and considered the odds.  "Something like that."

She grabbed hold of him again.  "Well, if you wait a bit, 
maybe I can arrange to go with you.  I have a little vacation 
time saved up."

"No."  He broke her grasp and headed for the door.  "This is 
something I need to do alone."

******

Dot knew several of the girls working out of the Foxy Lady so 
odds were good she'd find a familiar face even at six in the 
evening.  She should be home putting dinner on the table but 
when Scotty said their missing rich woman had a job stripping 
in the sleaziest joint in town, well, Dot had to see that for 
herself.

The Foxy Lady hadn't changed since the eighties, with its 
blue lights, brass bars and black vinyl seating.  It was 
perpetually dark in the windowless lounge where a scattered 
group of men watched Marcy Cravitz play peek-a-boo with her 
underwear.

Dot took a seat at the bar and placed a twenty where Marcy 
could see it.  Sure enough, the girl came dancing her way.  
"Hey, Dot, haven't seen you around here in a while." 

"No offense, but I already got what you're selling."

Marcy leaned down to retrieve the twenty, showing off her big 
tits and her platinum wig.  Dot tried not to notice the 
needle marks on the girl's arm.  "How's Benji?"

"He's good.  He took a wipeout on his bike last month and 
broke his arm.  He's driving me crazy about when the cast 
comes off."

"Poor baby!"  She raised a leg and gave Dot a money shot she 
hadn't really needed.

The bald fat man from the corner looked up from his cigarette 
and sports page. "Hey, I don't pay you for talking!"

Marcy gave a shrug, what can you do, but Dot flashed her 
another twenty.  "I could use your help.  You on break any 
time soon?"

The girl cast an eye toward the fat man.  "He's supposed to 
let me off at six-thirty when Kim gets in, but she's been 
showing up late."

"I can hang around."  Forty for Marcy plus the overtime she'd 
owe the sitter.  Good thing the man with the fancy car paid 
well.  "Meet me at the McDonald's down the street."

Benji might forgive her if she showed up with a happy meal.

McDonald's made rotten coffee but she needed a reason to take 
up space in the corner booth.  She washed it down with an 
apple pie that had been nuked nearly to death.  

Marcy didn't show until nearly seven.  The wig was gone, 
revealing her naturally stringy brown hair, but the thick 
makeup remained. "You want anything to eat?" Dot asked her as 
she slid into the booth.

"Here?  No way.  Fat and calories in this stuff is like 
poison."

This time Dot did look pointedly at the needle marks.  "If 
you say so."

"Don't you start with me too."

"I didn't say anything.  Look, I need to know if you 
recognize this woman.  We heard she might be working at the 
Foxy Lady.  Have you seen her before?"

Marcy barely needed a glance.  "Cheryl?  Yeah, I've seen her.  
She works weekends sometimes.  Not real friendly.  Why, 
what's she in some kind of trouble?"

"You tell me.  When's the last time you saw her?"

"God, I don't know.  Couple of weeks ago, I guess.  Like I 
said, we're real close.  She's kind of a tight ass, acts like 
she's better than the rest of us."

"Man came into my office saying he was her husband and he's 
looking for her."

"Husband?  She never said anything about being married.  I 
didn't see no wedding ring."

"He says her name is Stephanie Jameson.  Does that name sound 
familiar?"

"Nah, I never heard it before.  A husband, seriously?  I 
can't imagine being married and still working in that dump.  
You get a man to get out, you know what I'm saying?  What's 
he like?"

"Older guy, well-dressed, about six feet tall.  Likes his 
cigarettes."

"A smoker?  No kidding.  Funny you should say that.  There 
was a guy who used to come in and watch Cheryl dance.  Kind 
of creepy if you ask me, but he seemed real into her.  I 
never saw the guy without a cigarette.  The other girls and I 
used to call him Old Smokey.  Cheryl didn't seem to mind him, 
though.  In fact, Shaniqua told me she saw them talking in 
the back alley one night.  Said Old Smokey seemed to be 
trying to close the deal."

So the missing wife story was a line of bull, but that didn't 
explain the picture of the woman with expensive pearls and a 
nice sweater set.  From the sound of things, Old Smokey had a 
pretty good idea of where to look for Stephanie Jameson, but 
for some reason hadn't pointed her in the right direction.  


Or then again maybe he had.  He was paying her too much money 
for it to be a wild goose chase, so wherever this woman was, 
she had to be long gone from the Foxy Lady.

"If she married that guy, good luck to her," Marcy said with 
a shudder.  "I still say there are easier ways to earn a 
quick buck."

******

On the plane, Mulder sat in the back and waited for takeoff.  
The other passengers were still boarding, jostling each other 
with overstuffed luggage.  He took out his phone and called 
up her name again just to make sure it was true.

Scully had left quickly for Utah, for which he was grateful, 
but the traces she left behind disappeared much more slowly.  
He'd had her voice on his answering machine for three months 
before he'd accidentally deleted it. Handwritten Post It 
notes -- Mulder, sign this before Skinner has us banished to 
a sub-basement office -- cropped up among his files.

That first winter, Diana had picked at the arm of his black 
wool coat.  "You have a bit of lint," she'd said, and he'd 
turned just in time to watch a red strand of hair sail into 
the breeze.

And now, suddenly, here she was again, D. Scully, 555-201-
5973.

He shut his eyes and probed for the memory. It was waiting, 
loose and worn, like a much-loved novel.  No matter how many 
times he replayed it, the ending was always the same...

He is back home with his lonely furniture and a wizened 
tomato slowly decaying in the fridge.  It's so hot the air 
forgets to move.  His T-shirt sticks like a second skin and 
it doesn't seem possible that he nearly froze to death on the 
far end of the world.

Scully saved him after he had rescued her; or maybe it is the 
other way around, he is never sure where to start the running 
tab.

They live in a semi-permanent state of déjà vu; stakeouts and 
small towns, all ordinary except for the man-beast-deadly-
virus-shape-shifting alien treachery taking place in the 
background.  Villains perish as evidence disappears and 
Mulder and Scully always end up right where they started, 
case solved but nothing explained.

So he's not surprised to see her come walking right out of 
his memory, with the same untucked shirt and deadened look in 
her eyes.  Only this time he has no one to blame but himself.

"The door was open," she says, a hint of disapproval in her 
voice, as if a single locked door made a damn bit of 
difference.

"The A/C is out and I'm trying to get a breeze," he answers 
with a gesture toward the open windows, where the limp 
curtains made mockery of his plans.  "Hottest day of the year 
so far and of course this building has no air conditioning.  
This place is a dump, Scully.  I should move."

She chuffs a dark laugh because she knows he never will.  
She's still standing near the door, poised for flight, and a 
trickle of sweat runs down the back of his neck.  "Mulder, 
I..."

He sits up abruptly to cut her off.  He stopped her once and 
it's just possible fate will intervene again.  "I have cold 
beer in the kitchen.  You want a beer, Scully?"  If she's 
drinking, she can't say the words.

She closes her mouth and then shrugs.  "Why the hell not?"  
She slips out of her shoes, becoming one Scully smaller, and 
follows him silently to the kitchen.

The lights are off to keep the heat down and he decides to 
leave them that way.  He uses the counter edge to pop open 
her beer, the lid skittering into his microwave and 
ricocheting to the floor.  When Scully doesn't pick it up, he 
knows he is in trouble.  Her mind is already elsewhere, a 
place he cannot follow.  He stoops to retrieve the cap and 
then presses the jagged teeth into the soft flesh of his 
thumb.

"Where were you today?" she asks around a swallow of beer.  
"You disappeared on me."

This is almost funny, coming from her, the woman who has 
several times vanished on him like the magician's rabbit; he 
knows if they go on like this one day he will not be able to 
abra-cadabra her back into existence again.

"Baseball," he tells her, because it's not a lie.  "Yankees-
Orioles.  The guys bought tickets a few weeks ago to try to 
cheer me up."

"I thought you looked as though you'd gotten some sun."

He touches the rim of his pinkened ear.  In the dark, he 
can't see the freezer burns that still marked her face. "The 
Yanks won, seven to two.  Seven, coincidentally, is also the 
number of hotdogs that Frohike ate."

"You missed an interesting staff meeting, interesting enough 
that I suspect you knew the agenda ahead of time."  The light 
streaming in street lamp catches part of her hair, a flash of 
red in his otherwise black-and-white kitchen.  "I don't think 
this was so much a jaunt to the ballpark as a Fox Mulder 
staged protest.  You must have known this was coming but you 
never said a word.  Were you ever going to tell me?"

She sounds defeated, not angry.  "I just found out for sure 
this morning."

"From Diana."

He hesitates to confirm, but eventually nods.  "They told her 
she would be getting the X-files appointment, so she gave me 
a courtesy call."

"How nice of her.  Did she also tell you the division has 
been structured so that it falls under the direction of Alvin 
Kersh now?  Skinner's out."

"What?" 

"Ah, so she didn't tell you everything.  Apparently someone 
upstairs was not happy with the amount of latitude granted us 
under Skinner, and they believe Kersh will run a tighter 
ship.  They are keeping two agents within the division, 
however, although I'm quite sure you know that part."

He flushes and is glad for the cover of darkness.  "Diana did 
mention."

"The short list includes both you and Jeffrey Spender.  
You're an obvious choice, of course, but I couldn't figure 
how Spender merited inclusion given his meager experience and 
relative lack of interest in the subject matter.  I wondered 
if maybe he was Kersh's nominee, or perhaps a choice dictated 
from on-high.  Imagine my surprise when I talked to Skinner 
after the meeting."

"Scully, listen..."

She raises her voice, cutting him off.  "Skinner said the 
list was your idea.  You specifically recommended for Spender 
and against me.  Skinner was guessing that Spender is just a 
straw man to make sure you get the assignment.  Is that why 
you left me off, Mulder?  Afraid of a little competition?  
Only one agent can win the X-files raffle and it had better 
be you, is that it?"

"I did it for your own good."

"Pardon me if I don't recall putting you in charge of my 
life."

"You made it pretty clear you were willing to risk your life, 
but that doesn't mean I have to let you.  I don't want to 
stand around and watch you die."

"Then maybe your name is the one that should be left off the 
list.  You don't get to make my career decisions for me, 
Mulder.  You have no right."

At his age, Mulder's father had two kids, two houses, a wife 
and a high-powered job.  Mulder has the X-files and Scully.  
To keep one he has to lose the other and there is only one 
choice he can make.

"There is no guarantee I'll get the slot," he says, "and then 
maintaining the work gets seriously complicated.  No budget, 
no protection from Skinner, no following cases on FBI time.  
We'd be just shy of committing treason again."

"We've done it before."

"And remember what happened then."  He still has nightmares 
about the cable car ride up Skyland Mountain, can feel the 
paint chipping away under his nails as he struggles to hold 
on.  "I won't go down that road again, Scully.  I can't."

"You're saying I'm a liability to you.  Thanks very much.  
What happened to 'Scully, I can't do this job without you?'  
You have her now so that makes me expendable?"  

An ache starts in his throat, forcing him to swallow several 
times.  "No, of course not."

"I felt like a fool at that meeting, Mulder.  I was 
practically fired in public view and to find out you're the 
one behind it allŠ You stabbed me in the back today and the 
worst part is you still think you're doing me a favor." 

She turns and stalks out, leaving him to scramble after her.  
"Scully, wait."

"Go to hell."  She is shoving her feet back into her shoes.

"You don't understand." He tries to grab her but she breaks 
free and starts for the door.

"I understand perfectly!  You screwed me to get what you 
want.  Men do it to women all the time, but I never expected 
to get that from you."

She opens the door but he reaches over her head to slam it 
shut again, leaving her trapped, tense and angry.

"Let me go."

"Listen to me."  He has to say it to the top of her head.  
She will not turn around.  "I am sorry it had to be this way.  
I shouldn't have let you walk into that meeting unprepared, 
but I am not sorry for protecting you.  You don't have the 
sense to get out when the getting's good, so yeah, I am going 
to go ahead and make that decision for you."

"God, you are so damned arrogant sometimes!  Why is my life 
so much more precious than yours?" She wiggles around to look 
him in the eye.  "The risk is okay for you but not for me?"

"I'm not the one they've abducted!  Not once, but twice.  The 
cancer, the chip in your neck, now this latest adventure in 
Antarctica -- how many chances do you want to give them?  
Don't you ever just want to say 'enough'?"

Her eyes well up.  "Of course, yes.  A thousand times.  But 
Mulder, I wanted to be the one to say it."

He touches her cheek below the fiery red marks.  "The thing 
is, Scully, I knew you never would."

She leaves without a word, warm skin slipping away from his 
hand, and he doesn't chase, doesn't watch; instead he leans 
his head against the door and listens to the sound of her 
footsteps grow quieter with the distance.

"Sir, you need to turn that off now," said the flight 
attendant, rousing him from the past.

He closed his phone and tucked it into his shirt pocket, 
where it sat warm against his heart. 

****

She found Ruben on their tiny balcony with the warm breeze in 
his face and a scotch on the rocks slowly melting its glass.  
He was leaning over the edge, staring out at the neon jungle, 
and did not seem to hear her approach.

"Mind if I join you?" she asked, and he startled, the ice 
clinking against his glass.

"You?  Anytime."  He extended his arm and she settled into 
his side.  The sun had set long ago but it was still very 
hot, too hot for snuggling, so she pulled back after a 
moment.

Mulder's plane was going to land in a few hours and there was 
no way she wanted Ruben unprepared.  But once again she had a 
rock-hard conversation and no opening to chisel her way in.

"Thinking about Annie?" she asked him quietly, and he shook 
his head.

"Actually I was thinking about Raymond Sanchez."

The murdered little boy back in Utah, the case they had 
worked together. 

"It's been almost two years and there's still no one to 
answer for that boy's death.  We don't even have any leads.  
What if that happens with Annie?  What if they never catch 
the guy?"

Scully considered her answer for a long time.  "I can't lie 
and say it's not a possibility.  We both know it happens.  
And not knowing is agonizing.  I waited more than a year to 
find the man who shot my sister and there were times I was 
sure it was never going to happen.  But we did eventually 
catch him.  The cops care, Ruben, I promise you.  They won't 
forget and they won't stop trying to solve this case."

"I guess you would know," he replied, looking into his drink.  
"You're the one who worked all those cold cases, right?"

She bit her lip.  This was one of his fundamental 
misconceptions about her history that she had never desired 
to correct.  But a big correction was coming, at a speed of 
approximately five hundred and twenty-eight miles per hour.

"Ruben..."

"I was just thinking maybe Jack is right about getting you 
involved with the case.  I mean, at least you know every 
angle to look for.  You can make sure the local guys aren't 
missing anything.  I know you busted guys years after the 
fact but I've gotta think that it's easier to catch them now 
when the trail is still warm."

"Ruben, about that.  My job wasn't specifically to 
investigate cold cases, although many of them were classified 
that way.  We took on unusual cases -- those that had failed 
to be resolved by traditional investigation."

"Like what kind of cases?  Special victims?"

She followed the intense beam of light from the top of the 
Luxor to the night sky.  "In a way.  They were cases with 
possible paranormal involvement."

"What?  You mean like UFOs and ghosts?"

"In a manner of speaking, but the reality was much more 
complicated."

"Are you kidding me?  I can't believe you'd waste ten minutes 
on that stuff, let alone years.  Aliens don't kill people; 
people kill people."

"And more often than not, we ended up with a person behind 
bars, but along the way, we uncovered elements in each case 
that were difficult to explain with traditional science."

He was looking at her like she was a new person.

"My partner was a man named Fox Mulder.  He lobbied the 
Bureau to establish the X-files division shortly before I 
came on board.  The root of his interests was intensely 
personal. When he was twelve, Mulder's little sister was 
abducted from their family home one night when the children 
were alone."

She hesitated.  She didn't want to lay Mulder bare quite yet.  
She would make him sound like a fruitcake and herself crazy 
by association.

"Mulder founded the X-files as way to pursue all avenues of 
investigation into his sister's disappearance."

Ruben took a deep breath. "And I feel for the guy, believe 
me.  That sounds awful.  But it wasn't an alien or a ghost 
who took that girl.  Surely you must have pointed that out to 
him."

"I know it sounds ridiculous.  That's what I thought too at 
first."

"At first!  You're saying you believe this crap?  ET is going 
around snatching children from their homes?"

"Listen to me.  Mulder may not have been one hundred percent 
right but he wasn't entirely wrong either.  Alien or not, 
there are forces at work outside the government conducting 
secretive medical testing."

He glared at her and swallowed the rest of his scotch.  "I 
don't know why you are spouting this off at me right now.  I 
really don't have the energy to deal with crazy shit at the 
moment, Dana.  Please help me understand where all this is 
suddenly coming from."

She backed off.  Give him something more concrete, she told 
herself.  That's how you always approached this stuff.

"Mulder's sister's name was Samantha," she said.  

Ruben was a smart man.  His mind didn't leap like Mulder's 
but a couple of scotches didn't even slow it down.  "The 
morgue, when you said you recognized her..."

"I've seen pictures."  She hedged her bets, not mentioning 
the clones.

"You said she was little when she disappeared.  You've seen 
pictures of a little girl!  Just because the name is the 
same, that doesn't mean anything."

"I had the lab run a DNA test."

"No," he said, already denying it.  

"It's a match, Ruben."

"That's crazy!  She's not his sister.  Annie wasn't abducted 
by aliens or ghosts or the Bogeyman.  She had parents who 
beat her like a drum and that's why the state took her away.  
If this Mulder guy is her family, why the hell didn't he help 
her?  She can't have been that hard to find."

"He was a child when she vanished," she said, ignoring the 
rest of it.  "And he's been looking for her most of his 
life."

"And you think you've found her.  Well, I think you're wrong.  
Run the test again."

Scully said nothing, and he crunched an ice cube.

"Wait a second, you've already told him, haven't you?  That 
was the reason for all your secret phone calls today."

"He's on his way.  It was the only fair thing to do."

"Fair!  What the hell in this situation is fair?"  He 
clutched the glass as though he intended to throw it over the 
edge but then stopped himself.  "I don't care what the DNA 
says.  She's nothing to him.  Her name was Samantha Ann 
Milgram and she lived in Los Angeles with her two children.  
She had a mother and a father in Denver who took her in and 
loved her like she was their own.  What happened before that 
is irrelevant."

"Not to her.  Samantha wanted answers."

"And look where it got her!  She's in the morgue with half 
her face missing, and now you're telling me some FBI guy is 
going to come in here and talk aliens.  I don't believe in 
aliens, but I'm damn sure if they existed, they would have 
more sophisticated ways of killing a person than beating them 
to death."

"You wanted my professional opinion on this case," she said. 
"And here it is.  The local police may be able to give you 
answers about how she died.  But Mulder is the only one who 
can give you answers as to why." 

******

Diana was alone in her office when the phone rang, disturbing 
the quiet.  She knew who it was before even answering.  "What 
did you find?" she asked, prepared to take notes.

"The sheets in Vegas don't show much.  You've got three 
missing persons and two unsolved homicides in the last 
twenty-four hours."

"Give me the homicides."

"One's vehicular manslaughter, a hit-and-run.  The victim's 
name is Harry Posner.  The other is a woman beaten to death 
in a motel room.  Victim is ID'ed as Samantha Milgram."

Diana stopped writing.  "Fax me what you have on the Milgram 
case.  I want the pictures first."

"You got it."

She paced by the machine, waiting.  The picture was slow 
coming through but she knew before it was half done who it 
was. 

She used her cell phone to call the number he'd given her for 
emergency purposes only.  Of course it was just a voice mail 
box with no identified party attached.  At this point, she 
didn't care.

"Mulder's gone to Vegas," she said.  "I just got the 
information on the Samantha Milgram case.  Just what the hell 
have you done now?"

*******

End chapter three.  Continued in chapter four.

Thanks as ever to Amanda for proofing.

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