Title: Walter and Mariel: 3. Crescendo
Author: Mary Mastrangelo
Series: Walter and Mariel
Rated: PG-13
Disclaimer: Mulder, Scully, Skinner and Co. belong to Chris Carter and 1013 Productions. Used without permission and without intention to infringe copyright. All characters and backgrounds not already established on the show are my own. Dr. Mariel Fraser-Skinner is my creation and may not be used without permission.

Summary: When the agents of a shadow conspiracy attempt to involve Skinner's own wife in their deadly games, Skinner enlists Mulder's and Scully's help. But Mariel Skinner must face the possibility that she knows more than she realizes about the deadly plans, and the unexpected awaits with a final twist of fate.

This is a Walter and Mariel story, so be prepared for romance and a mystery. At this point in time, the Skinners have been married for about four months. As always, please let me know what you think.

A Washington, D.C. suburb
early evening

Her back was wet against the leather upholstery. She could feel the sweat trickling down her neck, pooling under the sweep of hair that lay limply on her shoulders. Those soft waves hadn't been limp this morning, and her linen suit had been crisp and smooth.

Mariel Skinner hated days like this: sticky, humid, brassy. Right now the car's air conditioner seemed to be blowing warm air, of all things, and she reached over disgustedly to shut it off. On top of the physical discomfort, Mariel was nervous about the upcoming evening.

Home at last, she put the car away and locked the garage before crossing the flagstone path to the front porch. Unlocking the walnut-paneled door, she noticed that the foyer light was on. The glow through the floral-patterned stained glass panels that flanked the door was soft and welcoming.

--- I can face a stage full of musicians with a filled thousand-seat auditorium at my back without a qualm --- she thought, setting her satchel on the foyer table. --- But I've got butterflies thinking of tonight. --- Putting the quivers resolutely aside, she walked across the parquet floor to the staircase and headed up.

Closing the master-bedroom door, she smiled at her husband as he came out of the bathroom wearing only his pants. "Hi."

Walter Skinner smiled, too, and went over to her for a hug. "Hi, yourself," he replied after a nuzzle. "I saved you some warm water if you want a shower before we go."

Mariel sank onto the bed, letting the purse fall off her shoulder. "I don't know," she said, unfastening her peacock-blue suit jacket. "Maybe I'll just go stand in the refrigerator instead."

Pulling a shirt out of the dresser, Walter chuckled. "You should have been downtown. Our air conditioning unit was down again."

She looked over with a quick smile. "Right. And if there was a blizzard the heater would be off."

"Exactly."

She leaned over to unfasten her shoes. Walter draped his shirt over the headboard and knelt on the rug in front of her. "Let me, honey," he said, and undid the straps. Pulling off her jacket, Mariel sighed, beginning to relax as his strong hands drew off the low-heeled leather shoes before massaging her toes, instep and ankles. She knew that sharing such a mundane chore as shoe-removing was his way of getting back in touch with her, so to speak, after a day of physical and mental separation for both of them at work.

After a moment, she drew his head into her lap, bending over to kiss his temple as he slid his arms around her waist. He rubbed his cheek against her abdomen, wishing that he was touching her soft skin instead of a slightly damp, slightly scratchy linen skirt. --- Plenty of time later --- he consoled himself with a smile, and kissed her thighs before looking up.

"Since we have to leave in less than an hour, I'd better let you get that bath." He reached for the buttons of her ivory blouse, easily unfastening each one. Mariel watched him, feeling a warmth that had nothing to do with the temperature outdoors. His large hands could be so gentle...like now...and for a moment she wished that their evening was free.

"Mariel..." She looked up at his voice. "You'd better scoot. I'm getting too many ideas right now."

Laughing, she slipped aside and stood up. "And we wouldn't want the Director calling here to ask why we're late."

Mariel sometimes found it hard to reconcile this man who loved her and teased her and played ridiculous word games with her, with the Walter Skinner who had such a hard-nosed reputation at the Bureau. Actually, she thought, stepping out of the shower, from what she'd overheard that time when she picked him up for lunch, "hard-nosed" was the polite way of putting it.

Slipping into her undergarments after patting herself dry, Mariel went into the closet to choose a dress. After a brief search, she decided on a turquoise silk with a handkerchief hem, deep scoop neck and off-the-shoulder fitted wrist-length sleeves. She pulled it over her head, smoothing the folds into place. There, just right. The dress flowed over her figure, accentuating the curves without making a spectacle of her tall, strong body.

Walter called from the bedroom, "Honey, do you need me to zip or button anything? It's getting late."

"Almost done," she called back, hurrying into the bathroom for a touch of powder and blush and a drift of cologne at her pulses. Her hair was immune to fussing, and she brushed it into silky, shining waves. "Coming." Step into her shoes, and she was ready.

Walter was pulling on the tux jacket and Mariel watched with a smile. The formal clothes accented his body, making him appear taller and more muscular, if that was possible. "You look wonderful," she said, and he looked up, for a moment almost staring at the sight of his wife in that dress. Then he smiled, a slow, easy grin.

"Even in this monkey suit?" he asked, his eyes drifting lazily over her.

"Um-hm-m-m," she affirmed, stepping close. In her heels, she was nearly eye-to-eye with him, and would have to reach up only a little for her lips to brush his mouth. So she did that, and smiled.

"Let's go, Mrs. S.," Walter said with his own smile. "My imagination is working again."

"I'm ready," she replied. "When we get back home, I'll tell you what *I* thought about." In the Car outside a Washington, D.C. Hotel
later
The Hotel, immediately after

Walter Skinner hated these monkey-suit affairs, as he called them. He'd been to his share of the things during his career, and as far as he was concerned, they were all the same. Rent a ballroom in an expansive, expensive hotel, cater the food, arrange for a bar, hire a band, and be sure there were enough bathrooms on the ground floor. The only difference tonight was that this would be his first official Bureau function with Mariel at his side.

While they waited in the short line for the valet parking, Walter looked at Mariel. Even in the dark car he could see the warm flush in her cheeks and noticed that she was playing with her beaded evening purse, working the clasp open and shut. He reached over to close a big, warm hand upon hers.

"Hey, sweetheart," he teased, "we can't afford a new handbag right now."

She clasped his hand, raising it palm-up to her lips for a little kiss. "Walt," she said, "I'm no good at these things. I'm a lousy politician."

"The politicking is my job, honey," he said ruefully. "But remember that benefit concert last month? You were relaxed and drew everybody right along."

"That was music, Walt," she replied. "You know: my profession, my livelihood. I know all about that." She paused as the doorman let her out, and then waited for Walter to join her. Pocketing the valet ticket, he offered his arm.

"I think you knew everybody there, too," he continued the conversation as she accepted his arm.

"That happens when you teach music in the same town for fifteen years," she smiled, then leaned close to his ear. "But I'm no good at these 'do's' where people stay too late and drink too much," she whispered as they entered the lobby.

He looked over, surprised her with a kiss beneath her ear. "Some people do overstay and drink too much," he acknowledged, smiling at her little blush. --- Don't expect me to keep my hands to myself, love, just because we're at an official function --- he thought. --- But I won't embarrass either of us. --- "But don't let me prejudice you. You may have a good time."

Soon they found the ballroom entrance. Overlooking a lighted garden and pool area, the rectangular room was laid out much as Skinner expected. A long head table to the right, round tables seating eight to ten people surrounding a parquet dance floor, and by the far wall near the doors to the patio, the band and an open bar. Yes, they were all the same. He shook his head.

A number of people were here already, talking together, finding their places at table, going out to sit by the pool. Walter looked around, then drew Mariel along toward a couple getting settled at the front table. "Time for our first duty, honey," he said.

Mariel had met the Director and his wife before. They'd been able to come briefly to the wedding reception, and she recalled that, in that personal context, they were warm and gracious people. Tonight, the two couples talked pleasant inconsequentials for a moment before each had to continue the duty rounds.

Wondering if Scully had arrived yet, Fox Mulder paused just inside the ballroom door. The place was getting pretty full, he saw, and Scully's diminutive figure would not be easy to spot amid the shifting knots of agents, spouses and dates. Ah, there she was, standing near the band talking with a tall, dark-haired woman. Just before he reached them after a shoulder-bumping, sideways-shifting weave through the crowd, the tall woman apparently excused herself and moved off the other way.

Mulder smiled as Scully caught his eye. She was wearing a coppery-gold dress that hinted at nice curves without actually revealing any. Just right for a professional, no-nonsense special agent, Mulder thought with an inward chuckle. She looked pretty, anyway.

"I see you made it," Scully said, leaning forward some so he could hear.

"Why wouldn't I, Scully?" he returned, guiding her away from the bar with a hand beneath her elbow. "You know how I look forward to the possibility of getting into an argument with some half-loaded agent."

"Not a chance," Scully smiled. "Did you find your seat?"

"Don't tell me there are nametags on the tables?" he grinned. --- What next: --- he thought. --- A 'let's-get-acquainted' dance? ---

"Yes, and we are over there." She gestured with her head. "With Housland and Forbes." The last came with a stifled chuckle.

"Great," Mulder muttered. "Between Housland trying to hit me up for loans and Forbes recounting in minute detail his last furniture refinishing job, we're going to have an interesting evening."

Scully patted his shoulder in commiseration. "I can think of worse things to put up with, Mulder. At least you'll get a free meal." The Hotel Ballroom
later

By the time they sat down for dinner, Mariel had to admit that Walter was right. So far, she was enjoying herself. Agents and spouses alike had been friendly and accepting, although she was just cynical enough to realize that her status as the Assistant Director's wife probably predicated some of that acceptance.

--- Oh, heck --- she thought. --- Just have some fun, Mari. --- Dinner and dancing with the deliciously sexy man whose name she shared sounded just right. She almost laughed at herself. --- Where on earth did that come from? --- She hadn't even had a drink yet.

Seated beside Mariel, Walter noticed that she was fighting a smile. "What's funny, Mrs. S.?" Walter's low, dark voice warmed her ear as he leaned close from his place.

"Nothing, Mr. S." She struggled for a straight face, then shivered a little when the warmth at her ear became a lingering kiss. "Walt, not here," she murmured, acutely conscious of the people now dining around them.

He turned her face, smiling. "Oh, all right. But I suspect that everyone here has seen a man kiss his wife before."

With a sparkle of her own, she laid her hand on his thigh under the tablecloth and very slowly slid her fingertips upward. "And I suppose they've seen a man's face when his wife does this?" she whispered with a tiny smile.

Blessing his own self-control --- who'd have thought that the self-discipline required during our times of abstinence would come in handy right now? --- he thought and whispered, mouth teasing her ear, "Be careful what you do, Mrs. S. I have a very good memory."

Mingled anticipation and sudden embarrassment brought warmth to her cheeks, and she tucked her hand back in her own lap, turning back to her plate of chicken and asparagus. --- I have a good memory, too, Mr. S. --- she thought. --- And an imagination I'm still learning how to use. ---

Mulder wondered when the dancing would begin. Not that he was particularly anxious to dance -- except maybe with Scully -- but the music and extra moving bodies would give him an excuse to get away from this table. Scully herself was immersed in conversation with Agent Housland's fiancee about wall frescoes in ancient Pompeii -- some of which appeared to be fairly risque', from what he overheard -- and Forbes had gone to find a men's room.

Dinner had been good, anyway. Feeling comfortably full, Mulder reached for a pitcher to refill his water glass, and paused, his eye caught by a movement. He looked over the shoulders and around the heads of people at the next table nearer the door, then shrugged mentally. Just someone else doing the rounds, he decided.

"Looks like the official first dance has started," Scully murmured at his shoulder, and Mulder looked around. Yes, the band was playing a quietly upbeat swing-style tune, and he saw the Director moving out to the dance floor with Skinner's wife. Shortly afterward Skinner himself appeared, escorting the Director's wife. Midway through the dance other couples began drifting out.

"I guess turnabout's fair play," Mulder whispered, earning an exasperated look from his partner. "Care for a dance, Agent Scully?"

Walter Skinner decided that this evening's dinner-dance had gone fairly smoothly so far. No one was visibly drunk, no one had as yet picked a fight or gotten into a loud argument, no date had changed partners midstream. A nice quiet evening, he thought with an inward laugh. --- Just right for a man of my advancing years. --- Looking around, he saw Mariel dancing with Agent Fuller, and decided that it was time to reclaim his wife for a while.

She settled into his arms without jarring the rhythm of the music, and kissed his earlobe. "Hi," she said softly, gently drawing the lobe into her mouth.

A little startled, and frankly delighted, Walter said, "Hey, what's that for?"

She pulled back to a more normal dance position, cheeks pink. "I don't know. I thought I'd try it."

Walter slid his right hand down to the small of her back, pulling her a little closer and into a smooth turn. "Try it again anytime," he encouraged her before concentrating on the music again. He liked the feel of Mariel's silk dress, liked how his hand could slip so effortlessly over the fabric, stroking the skin beneath in a smooth, gliding caress. --- I'm glad this is a 'safe' time --- he thought, unconsciously using her terminology. --- I want you so much. ---

For her part, Mariel felt unusually warm, and wondered if she looked flushed. She wasn't really tired yet, and knew she wasn't feverish. The only thing left was that she must be...well, a little bit excited. Still secure in his arms, she turned her head an inch or so to study the texture of his skin along his jaw and ear, and the way his brown hair grew down around that ear. 'What's left of my hair,' he would probably say. She smiled and rested her cheek down on his shoulder.

Afterward, Walter seated Mariel again and excused himself. Glad to sit for a while, Mariel watched the dancers and listened with half an ear to the passing conversations as people circulated around the table. She was about to stand up to get some ice water from the bar when she realized someone was next to her, leaning down to speak.

"Excuse me, Mrs. Skinner." A man's voice, quiet and pleasantly modulated. She looked up.

He was in his sixties, perhaps, lean and greying, his face rather heavily lined around mouth and eyes. He wore a nicely tailored dark grey suit rather than a tux. She didn't recognize him.

"Yes?"

...The man had never seen her from so close before. Lovely, fragrant, eyes level and clear. Yes, every inch the Assistant Director's wife...."May I have this dance?"

"Very well."

He escorted her properly to the floor, holding her lightly at a formal distance. He was a good dancer, she realized after a moment, and took no liberties with his hands. She was starting to speak when he said, " Mrs. Skinner, I haven't had the chance to congratulate you on your recent marriage. The Assistant Director is a very fortunate man."

"Thank you for the good wishes. You are...?"

"Simply someone who...deals with your husband, Mrs. Skinner." His mouth smiled, but his eyes remained closed off. "I must say that he's doing a fine job. The assistant directorship requires someone with his honesty, tenacity and ethical compass."

Pleasant as it was to hear praise of her husband's qualities, Mariel realized that her dance partner was leading up to something. A favor requested? Some special consideration for a friend or relative? She waited.

... --- She's quick. Perhaps I shouldn't even attempt subterfuge. --- ..."And these qualities made your husband an excellent special agent as well. You didn't know him then. I could tell you stories..."

Suddenly uncomfortable, Mariel backed away from him, bumping another couple. She stepped quickly off the floor to face this man. "If you know my husband," she said coolly, "then you know where to reach him if you have business to discuss."

"Certainly I know," the man replied. "But in this case I needed to talk to you."

"I can't help you with Bureau business. Excuse me." Before she turned away, Mariel heard a quiet chuckle.

"We'll talk again," the man said, and moved off into the dancers. Outside the Ballroom, a moment before

Mulder and Scully were standing in the corridor when Skinner returned to the ballroom. They appeared to be arguing, heads close, voices low and intense. Scully was flipping through a small notebook pointing out various pages when the AD paused beside them. As Scully closed the notebook quickly, Skinner wondered what was on the pages.

"Leaving so early?" he asked mildly.

"No, sir," Mulder returned. "Just need a bit of air." Beside her partner, Scully smiled noncommittally.

"I see." Wondering if he'd inadvertently interrupted something important, Skinner continued into the ballroom. Using the advantage of his height to scan the room, he saw Mariel dancing with...Walter Skinner recognized the man, and felt as though someone had dumped an ice bucket down his shirt: frozen and shocked with it. Then the shock gave way to rage, at the man, and at himself for being a fool.

Not caring who he bumped, Skinner pushed through the people around the dance floor. He didn't see the man leave, but Mariel was alone when he reached her. Taking her arm firmly, he steered her toward the patio doors. She went without a verbal protest, although her eyes were startled.

Outside, he led her past the pool, brushing by an embracing couple who jumped apart in surprise and hurried back inside. He stopped by a gate leading to the river walk and stepped into shadows, drawing her with him. Hands on her upper arms to hold her facing him, he said quietly, "Mariel, what did he say to you?"

"Walt, what...? He said nothing, really. Social pleasantries."

His grip tightened a little. "I want you to repeat those 'pleasantries' verbatim, if you can."

Mariel couldn't see Walter very well, close as she was, but clearly sensed his tension in the firm clasp on her arms. But knowing that she would never feel his strength in anger -- he wasn't even remotely that kind of man -- she replied calmly. After the completely verbatim recital, she reached up to his cheek. He relaxed to her touch, and let his hands slide to her waist to hug her close.

"All right," he said, finding her ear beneath the silky waves to whisper into. "And, that was it?"

"Yes. But I did sense..."

She paused for so long that he lifted her face a little, meeting her eyes. The ornamental light behind her frosted a blue-green glow on her rich mahogany hair. "What did you sense?" he asked.

"That he wasn't just passing the time of day." She bit her lip, eyes momentarily vacant in thought. "He was going to ask something of me. I felt that clearly."

"I see." Walter stood for a long moment in thought, stroking her hair now as he held her against his breast. There were still some things he could do, some arrangements he could make. There was no way in hell that they were going to make Mariel a part of the game.

She looked puzzled and worried, so he leaned down so his mouth could warm hers in a long, sweet kiss. Her hands pressed the back of his neck, holding him there as her tongue stroked his gently. --- Oh, gosh --- she thought. --- I *am* a little excited. ---

"All right," he said finally, smiling at her flushed cheeks, "let's make our excuses."

They had a cherry-wood bedroom suite, and a king-sized four-poster bed with a canopy. They'd laughed about that canopy in the furniture store, Mariel saying that it would look fine with mosquito netting and Walter countering with the proposal to install track lighting and a home theater system up there. They'd gotten a strange look from the salesman, and Mariel's stomach hurt from squeezing back the giggles.

Walter had drawn the line at satin sheets, though, saying that there'd be enough moving around in the bed without the sheets turning it into a toboggan run. So she bought the softest weave percale that was available instead, in pretty pastel floral patterns. The comforter was a white dotted swiss, light but warm.

But now Mariel turned restlessly in their bed, not really asleep and not quite awake. Reaching out a hand, she touched only cold sheets instead of a warm, nicely-muscled body. Disappointment woke her completely: no strong arms to cradle her; no drowsy, sweet kisses to ease her back into sleep.

She pushed back the covers. The bedroom was dark but for the spill of light under the door leading to the small adjoining study. Not bothering about a robe, Mariel padded over the hardwood floor to open the study door. Walter was there, sitting in the leather recliner, laptop balanced on his knees. He'd adjusted the chair back enough for comfort but not enough to encourage sleep.

He didn't look up as she approached, but moved his legs aside on the elevated hassock to give her room to sit down. She did, scooting her bottom against his calf. "Is everything o.k.?" she asked, resting a hand on one knee.

"Yes. I'm almost finished." He hadn't intended to take so long making these arrangements, and smiled up briefly. "I thought you were asleep."

"No," she replied quietly. "I can't sleep if you're not there."

That simple, honest statement touched him almost painfully. "I'm done now," he said, and logged off, folding down the screen.

She looked up at him, her fingertips drawing patterns on his thigh before her hand clenched unexpectedly. "Walter, I..." She floundered to a stop.

He looked at her fully, and lifted her chin. Knowing that when she used his full name with that tone of voice she was deadly serious about something, he said, "Mariel, I'm here and I'm listening."

"I was thinking, about tonight and that man. Walter, was he a part of that deal you told me you'd made? Remember, on the night you proposed you told me."

"I remember." --- I can live with it if you can --- he'd said that night. "It's possible, honey."

Her clenched hand still didn't relax. "Please...don't shut me out," she whispered.

--- And that's the first step, isn't it? --- he thought savagely at *them*. --- To make my wife feel that I'm closing myself away from her. --- Keeping his voice level and calm, he said, "I am never going to shut you out, Mariel. But I think that you understand law enforcement enough to know that sometimes people can't be told everything."

She nodded. "I know my uncle used, shall we say, judicious editing in what he told the family." Mariel leaned over to settle gently against his body, head on his flat belly. "I can live with that kind of editing as long as I know your heart is still mine." --- Gosh, that sounds corny --- she thought, feeling her cheeks warm. --- But...but it's what I feel. ---

Walter stroked her hair, fingers twining and playing with the shredded-silk strands. "It's yours," he said, voice dark velvet. "It'll be yours fifty years from now. My heart, and everything else, too," he smiled, one fingertip tracing her lips.

She smiled with him and sat up, kissing the fingertip. "Me, too," she whispered. Then, eyes a little shy, Mariel leaned down again and slowly, but very thoroughly, kissed the swelling hardness between his thighs. Surprised, but heart beating hard enough to bruise his ribs, he sat still until he could no longer bear his feelings.

"Love," he murmured, lifting her, "wait a little."

"Don't you...don't you want me to do that?" Uncertain, and suddenly painfully embarrassed, Mariel stood up quickly. "I...I'm sorry, Walt..."

His instincts as husband and lover kicked into high gear. He stood, too, and took her in his arms, bending his head close. She closed her eyes instinctively when his face neared hers, and he pressed his mouth upon one eye. He took his time, feeling the contours of the firm, yet yielding eyeball beneath the lid, exploring the shape with soft lips. Then the other eye...the arch of the brows...the curve of the cheekbones...the line of jaw and temple, forehead, nose and chin...And at last her mouth: quivering, warm, wet to the smooth stroke of his tongue.

"I want to go slow," he breathed.

She inhaled that breath, felt it swell to a flame inside her. "Please, take me to bed," she managed between kisses, a little frightened by the surge of desire within her.

"At your service, Mrs. S.," Walter chuckled, and carried her into the bedroom.

Sheltered in the bed, secure beneath this beloved man, Mariel exchanged warm kisses and caresses with him, until his slow, deliberate lovemaking eased her need a little, calmed her into a deep, luxurious sweetness that went on and on until she was half-delirious with it. The velvet of his voice grew rough against her throat as he whispered, "Sweet love...you make me feel so strong...."

At last almost frantic, excited beyond endurance by his words and his voice and his body given in love and passion, she hugged him hard, gasped, "More, love...please, more!"

Sweating and almost inarticulate now, he groaned, "No....I'll hurt you."

Mariel clung tightly, mouth and body eager and deliciously seductive. "You won't....I'm strong, too."

And she was. Tall, sturdy, mated so beautifully to the powerful man in her arms, she drew him on, gave of herself and took from him until she cried out his name, her body arching hard against him in ecstasy . He was only a moment behind her, and stifled his own rough groan in the honeyed depths of her mouth.

It was a long time before man and wife were aware of anything besides the complete physical and emotional pleasure of their shared passion. Finally Walter rolled onto his back, arms embracing Mariel's shoulders and hips to keep them united as they turned. Limp as wet string, she lay atop him, his body her couch, his breast her pillow.

"I love you," she whispered.

"Ditto," he murmured, and felt her body quiver as she giggled.

"Great. Word games now?" she murmured sleepily.

"No game," he said softly, lips against her hair. "I love you." In a moment he blinked drowsily, realized her breathing was slow and even, her eyes closed and her body heavy upon his. --- I put her to sleep --- he thought, delighted and sleepy himself. --- I'll have to remember how I did that. ---

Settling her comfortably at his side, he pulled the covers up and gathered her into his arms. Soon he slept, his soft breathing mingling with hers. Unknown location, unknown time

...The man spoke quietly into the phone. "Perhaps I took a chance going to the dinner, but I think you'll agree that it paid off....Yes, she's curious now, I think. It shouldn't be long until the next contact....Of course I'll keep you informed...."

Replacing the receiver, the man sat quietly, then poured a small amount of Scotch into his glass. Naturally, what he chose to inform the other about was his own decision, after all....

Mariel Skinner walked down the rows, passing out the photocopied sheets in small stacks to the first chair musician of each section. Grinning to herself at the gradually swelling volume of comments as each person took the proper copies, she made her way around the string bass players back to the podium.

"O.K.," she said, stepping up onto the small platform. "I can tell you're all thrilled, so let's tune up and get right to it."

While the vocalizations subsided and the, to her, cheerful cacophony of tuning-up began to pour through the auditorium, she laid out her conductor's score and adjusted the small podium light. As her hands moved to the familiar task, she was free to enjoy the touch on her cheek of the rose she'd pinned to her collar: a dew-moist, red sweetheart rose from her grandmother's rosebush that she'd planted in the yard after the honeymoon. The rose that she'd found in the Waterford crystal vase on the bedside table when she awoke this morning. She knew vase and rose hadn't been on the nightstand the night before, so Walter must have put them there.

She vaguely recalled when he'd left that morning. It was a sleep-fogged memory of a touch and a kiss with the faint taste of minty toothpaste, the scent of aftershave and the slightly rough feel of his suitcoat against her bare skin. And when she'd waked completely a little later, the taste of his mouth still warm in hers, the rose was there. Fascinated again by the multiple facets of the man she married, she gave the rose a final stroke with her cheek.

When all the musicians were facing her with instruments held at rest, she began the lecture/rehearsal. "One important structural point about Richard Wagner's operas is his use of the human voice as an additional orchestral color. The orchestra often is not used simply to accompany the solo voice, as is the case in many operas of the Classical period. The solo voice, especially the soprano voice, sometimes melds with the orchestra timbres to the point of becoming almost indistinguishable on its own." She smiled. "Of course, it takes a strong voice and great breath control to be heard at all over a one hundred-plus piece orchestra playing fortissimo, so that's probably where the jokes about Wagnerian sopranos being, shall we say, corpulent, big-busted women came from."

When some of the students laughed, she knew they were listening, at any rate. She went on, "For an example of Wagner's vocal coloration, look at measure 235...."

Although it was officially lunch time, Walter Skinner did not feel like eating. He wanted to move, to get out of this close, stale office where the air conditioning was still well and truly not working. And after the decidedly bitter tone of his last two appointments, his mind needed a shaking-out as much as his body did. Deciding, he pulled his gym bag out of the bottom desk drawer and left his office, checking out with his secretary on the way.

Downstairs, the men's locker room smelled of sweat, old gym shoes and disinfectant. Skinner nodded greetings to the few people there, and went to his locker to change into swim trunks. He didn't swim that often, preferring to jog or work with weights instead, but today he wanted the touch of the cool water and the movement of his muscles sliding through that coolness. --- Not as relaxing as Mariel's backrubs --- he thought --- but good for now. ---

Three or four people were doing laps in the pool when he arrived, setting his towel on a bench. Easing down a ladder, he smiled inwardly at a sudden memory of himself as a child, running off the edge of the "Y" pool for the first of innumerable cannonball dives. He'd loved doing that: the flap of small feet on the roughened cement edging; the surge of his wet body through the humid indoor-pool air; the final huge, satisfying splash as he landed with stinging force in the chlorine-laden water. Now, a grown man falling into the rhythm of his swim, he wondered if he could still muster up that sheer joy of living.

--- Well, you're hardly a fossil --- he thought. --- And Mariel deserves all the joy you can bring to your life and hers. --- If only the present situation didn't weigh so heavily on him. He didn't like some of the contingencies he'd been considering.

A half-hour later, pleasantly winded and body loose and relaxed from the exercise, Skinner pulled himself out of the pool at the deep end. Wiping water from his eyes, he turned toward the voice that spoke from his left.

"Afternoon, sir." Even Fox Mulder's quiet voice echoed in here.

"Agent Mulder," Skinner greeted, nodding. He hadn't realized Mulder was one of the other lap swimmers.

"I didn't know you liked to use the pool," Mulder remarked, tossing his own towel around his shoulders.

"Not that much," Skinner confessed. "Rather hot for anything else today."

"You should bring Mrs. Skinner along sometime," Mulder smiled. "Introduce her to our 'recreational amenities' down here." His words half-ironic and half-serious, the younger man toweled his hair briefly, then paused. The boss's stern scowl startled Mulder a little, as did his muttered voice.

"I don't think so...."

Mulder realized the AD wasn't actually talking to him, but perhaps answering a question that was in his own mind. Sincerely hoping that nothing had gone wrong already in Skinner's marriage -- Mulder liked Mariel, thought that if any man and woman were a fine match it was her and Skinner -- Mulder said quietly, "Sir, you can chew me out for overstepping if you want, but, is everything all right?"

The older man looked over in surprise, ready with a reproof for Mulder's audacity, but stopped. In a sense, Mulder, and Scully, too, had been involved with him and Mariel from the beginning. First, in their professional capacity, and later, almost as friends. --- If you ask a man to stand up for you at your wedding --- Skinner thought --- you've admitted him into your life a little, haven't you? --- The big man breathed deeply and said, almost inaudibly because of the echoes, "They want to make her a part of the game, Agent Mulder. I can't allow that."

Mulder's lips firmed in a hard line. It was worse then he thought, then.

Mariel sat down beside the young 'cellist, taking the instrument to brace it between her knees. She tightened the tuning peg, then bowed a scale sequence on the single string. The student winced at the sloppy dissonances as the peg slipped yet again.

"Ouch! See what I mean?"

"Now that's a loose peg," Mariel smiled, laying down the bow. "I'm afraid we'll have to tell Mr. Chase another 'cello has gone the way of all flesh, so to speak."

"Sooner you than me," the young woman giggled. "He won't yell at you."

"What makes you think he doesn't?" Mariel winked.

While she put the 'cello back in the instrument room and attached a repair notice tag to the peg, Mariel heard the girl walk up to the door. "Dr. Fraser, you want me to wait for you? It's pretty foggy out there."

"Fog?" Mariel wondered, locking the instrument room.

"Yeah. My boyfriend's outside, so we could walk to your car with you, if you want." Sandy-brown hair flipped behind a shoulder as she shrugged. "What with that guy who's been around, I mean."

Mariel looked up in surprise from the small table where her "take-home" items were stacked. "What 'guy', Joanie?" she asked, concerned.

Joanie shrugged again, wide blue eyes uncertain. "I don't know. I just heard someone in history class mention it."

Frowning, the older woman shouldered her purse. Unfortunately, some predators considered college campuses to be good places to scout out victims, and, also unfortunately, there'd been a couple of incidents of attempted rape over at Georgetown in the past month. --- I hope the scum hasn't moved here, now --- she thought.

Joanie went on, "My girlfriend in history said she'd heard somebody's been cruising around, like checking things out and looking at people. I guess the campus cops made him move on, but it sounds weird."

"I agree." The two women went out the backstage entrance door, and Mariel nodded to Joanie's waiting boyfriend as she locked the door. " 'Evening, Gabe."

"Hi. Escort duty reporting," the boy grinned, and the trio headed for the parking lot. Mariel's Car, Later

It was indeed foggy: a close, thick fog laying over the road like dirty foam. Mariel drove defensively, alert and amazed at the number of drivers who didn't slow down for the weather conditions. When the car phone rang, she clicked it into the speaker mode rather than be distracted by holding a handset.

"Yes?"

"Hi, honey." Walter's voice both filled and warmed the car.

"Hi, yourself. What's up?" she replied, hoping that he enjoyed the sound of her voice as much as she did his.

"Too much, I'm afraid. I'm going to be late getting home."

"Late late, or should I wait up for you?"

His voice darkened. "Not too late, I hope. Please do wait for me."

"All right." She shook herself a little, realizing that his voice was distracting her a bit too much for safe driving. "When you start out, be careful, Walt. The fog's pretty bad."

"It is?" He sounded startled. "Maybe I should look out windows more often," he finished dryly.

She laughed. "That's an idea. See you later, then."

"Yes. I love you."

"Ditto," she said, smiling at his answering laugh.

"Stay warm for me, love," he whispered then.

"Yes," she whispered back, "warm and ready." --- Good grief --- she thought --- That's enough of *that*, or I'll have he car into a siderail. --- He was laughing softly when she closed the connection.

By the time she got home, her hot cheeks felt cooler. She wondered how many years they'd have to be married before Walter's voice would stop knocking her composure out of kilter like that. --- If I'm lucky, it'll never happen --- she thought, getting out her house key.

Perhaps she was distracted by her thoughts, perhaps she wouldn't have noticed in any case. The man sitting on the porch swing watched her, his breathing quiet. ... She really is lovely, but that's not a consideration here.... When she reached toward the door handle, he spoke.

"Good evening, Mrs. Skinner."

Mariel had never screamed in her life, but her body froze, muscles yanking her painfully into place. Then she shoved the key into its slot. The only thing that kept her from hurrying inside was the fact that she recognized his voice. Smooth, well-modulated, the voice of the man at the dinner dance. The one Walter had been angry about. What the hell...?

"What do you want?" she asked, pulling herself up straight to her full height. She wasn't a startled woman now, but a cool, composed woman aware of her own abilities and strengths. Besides, she'd dealt with too many unruly adolescents during her teaching career to be intimidated.

The man chuckled to himself. ... Oh, yes, every inch the AD's wife. ... "What I want is to ask you a quesiton, Mrs. Skinner. That's harmless, isn't it?"

She rather doubted that, but looked at him expressionlessly. "I think you should leave before my husband comes home," she said coolly, eyes fully on his. She didn't understand why she wasn't physically afraid of this man any more.

He returned her look just as coolly. "Didn't he tell you that he'd be late? How remiss of him."

Then she knew that the fear was of a different kind. --- Dear God --- the thought was a prayer --- I'm no good at cat and mouse games. And, something is going on here that I don't understand. ---

The man drew out cigarettes and a lighter. "Do you mind if I smoke, Mrs. Skinner?"

Mind games, she realized. First a veiled hint that he knew more about Walt's business than was appropriate, then a turn to the old-fashioned courtesy of requesting a woman's permission to smoke in front of her. She could feel her spine tightening, holding her body stiffly upright. "If you don't leave now, I'm going to go in and call the police," she said, cold now and angry.

He stood up, realizing that it was time to step away. "Very well." At the foot of the porch stairs he turned once more. "But I want you to know that you have nothing to fear from me." Then he was gone, and Mariel let herself into her house without another glance.

... I can wait a while longer, Mrs. Skinner.... he thought as he walked, hearing the door close hard behind him. ... I think the reward will be worth the wait. ...

She needed time to think, to calm down. Mariel went methodically about her chores focusing on the mundane while her heartbeat slowed. Turn on light; put purse here; carry mail to coffee table; walk into kitchen to check dinner supplies. By the time she set out vegetables and chicken for stir-fry, her breathing and heart rate were almost normal.

She leaned her forehead on the refrigerator door a moment, then straightened. Walt would have to know about the man, Mariel knew. Such incidents were part of his business, his expertise, so to speak. He would know what to do, especially if the man was connected to the Bureau in some way, as he seemed to be. Chopping vegetables automatically while she thought, she set the wok on the stovetop and added oil. She'd wait until Walt got home before actually cooking anything. Stir-fry wouldn't take long.

Mariel knew she wasn't going to tell him about the incident tonight. He'd arrive home tired, possibly additionally stressed by driving defensively in the fog, and -- if she knew him, which she did -- hungry because he hadn't eaten lunch. She would remedy all of that. Tomorrow was plenty of time to give him additional worries.

She was starting to get angry all over again by the presumption of the man, by his daring to interfere with their lives. No, anger would cloud her thoughts. --- Take it easy, Mari --- she thought. --- You need some Mozart....And your husband. ---

Walter arrived in the middle of a Mozart French horn concerto, and Mariel stood up from the couch to hug him. His topcoat felt moist and damp from fog, but his body was delightfully warm. "Hey, there," he greeted, laughing a little. "Shouldn't I take off my coat first?"

She helped him pull it off and hung it in the foyer closet while he put away his briefcase. "Stir-fry o.k.?" she asked, taking his hand to lead him toward the kitchen.

"Sure." He squeezed her hand, raised it for a kiss. "I'll go wash up."

He wanted to forget the day for a while, and just be a man sharing the evening with his wife. Worry wouldn't change anything, and he knew that as long as Mariel had no dealings with him, the man would have nothing to hold over her. --- She isn't in the game and doesn't even know the rules --- Walter remembered what he'd told the man months before, words that were accepted at the time. So, why now? Why the sudden push for her involvement, however peripherally?

Walter realized his mind was on the treadmill again. --- No, take it easy. Don't burden Mariel with this now. --- He finished his wash and started to peel off his Bureau clothes.

Downstairs, Mariel poured ice water, laid out silver and napkins, toasty-crusted bread and butter. When she heard steps in the hall she called, "Soup's on," and looked up. He'd changed to t-shirt and jeans, she saw. She'd put on a sleeveless shirt and sweat pants, so at least they matched for casualness.

She filled a plate for him and set it at his place before dishing up her own portion. He pulled out her chair, kissing the top of her head as she sat down. "Looks good," he remarked, pouring water for her.

"So eat, already," she smiled. "Want me to turn off the CD?"

"No, it's fine."

They ate in peaceful silence with Mozart in the background. After a while, Walter looked almost wistfully at his empty plate. "Is there any more?"

"Yep," she replied, pushing her chair back.

He laid a hand on her knee before she could stand. "Honey, you don't have to jump up and wait on me. I think I'm old enough to find the stove by myself."

"O.K.," she laughed, then winked. "While you're up, take my plate, too."

After dinner Walter rinsed the dishes and Mariel stacked them in the dishwasher. "Anything else you have to do down here?" he asked as she started the washer cycling.

"No," she considered. "Guess nothing that can't wait."

He hugged her waist on the way out of the kitchen, drawing her hip against his as they walked. "I'm going up for a shower, then. Join me?"

Blushing, she looked at him and caught the teasing sparkle. "Maybe later," she returned, deliberately arch, and he laughed. She loved hearing that deep-toned laugh that so often ended in a low chuckle that made her feel tight inside. It was happening again now.

Once in the bedroom, Mariel remembered the laundry. Gathering towels and spare sheets, she dumped them in the basket by the closet. She heard the shower turn on in the bathroom and opened the door. "Anything for the laundry?" she called, closing the door behind her.

"Taken care of." Walter's voice echoed a little from behind the shower curtain. "I was hamper-trained a long time ago, hon'."

Mariel opened the wicker lid. He was right, of course. Well, she might as well add her own clothes; the old sweat pants could use a freshening.

Behind her, Walter pushed back the curtain to say something, then paused, eyes drawn irresistibly to the sight of his wife taking off her blouse. Letting his hands rest at his sides, the warm shower water running down his big frame, he just watched while she dropped the garment into the hamper and leaned against the wall for balance as she pulled off the sweats. He felt warm and wonderful inside seeing her go about the ordinary task of undressing: his wife, companion, lover and friend, all in one lovely bundle. And, so importantly, *his*. He knew that with every breath, knew that she trusted him with everything that she was, and he hoped she realized that he was just as completely hers.

When she was down to panties and bra, he said, as if he'd just poked his head out of the shower, "Hey, as long as you're doing that, why don't you join me? Plenty of room in here."

"All right," she replied softly. "Be there soon."

When she was "down to her altogether," as her grandmother used to say, Mariel paused. She didn't like the way she looked in the relatively bright bathroom lighting. Maybe she was a little self-conscious still, but she thought that the light emphasized the spray of freckles across the back of her shoulders, the small mole at her waist, and the tiny sprinkle of skin tags between her breasts. --- Mari --- she reminded herself forcefully --- he doesn't care. He loves *you*, not some centerfold fantasy. ---

She pushed the shower curtain aside and he was ready with a strong hand to steady her as she stepped into the tub. The soft yellow tiles on the shower wall and the bright geometric patterns in the curtain were a little muted now with steam, and he reached around her to adjust the spray.

"Here, stand still, honey," he said gently and picked up the soap. "I'll do this side."

In a moment, his soap-slick hands slid effortlessly across her shoulders, her arms and back, massaging and kneading the muscles deeply. She pulled in a quick breath, then relaxed, feeling her body loosen under the expert touch. And yet, his touch wasn't deliberately erotic, and she realized that he was an adult man simply taking care of his wife, helping her to be comfortable in her own body. Realized, too, that he would be doing this when they needed grab rails to get out of the shower and matching walkers to help them move into the bedroom.

She was glad that her brief tears could be disguised by the shower spray. --- I love you so much --- she thought, saying out loud, but very softly, "That feels good, Walt. You do a nice backrub."

"Thank you." He chuckled. "If I didn't know some things you liked by now, I'd be a pretty hopeless husband."

She laughed, too. " 'Hopeless' you aren't, sweetheart."

"Glad you think so. Turn around now."

She did, the spray tingling against the small of her back. He held her shoulders, leaned her backwards a little, saying, "Don't breathe." She felt the wet warmth soak her hair, funneling down her face and breasts until he drew her forward after a second. When she blinked the water away she smelled the delicate floral scent of her shampoo as he squeezed some into his palm.

"Hibiscus?" he wondered, breathing deeply.

"Frangi-pani."

"Whatever." He smiled and began to work the shampoo through her hair. She clasped her hands behind his neck for balance and support and closed her eyes. Walter watched her face as his hands moved, noticing how the touch softened and relaxed her expression. His smile reached all the way inside, then, and he thought --- You'll be *thoroughly* relaxed by the time I'm finished, little love. ---

After the second lathering up, Mariel sighed. "How did you learn to give such a nice shampoo?" Even when the words were out, she realized that she didn't want to know the answer.

Walter was nothing if not intuitive about her feelings. "I used to shampoo my mom in the kitchen sink," he replied gently, "when her arthritis acted up. There," he finished, "all clean."

She turned off the water, felt a fluffy towel drape across her shoulders. He patted her tenderly through the towel, then turned her around again. Brown eyes on grey, water still dripping down their breasts, stomachs and thighs, he took the towel to just as tenderly dry the front of her. Helping her step out onto the bathmat, he patted her bottom and said, "Scoot along, little girl. I'll be there soon."

She scooted, and curled up in bed, nestling comfortably down onto the pillow. The sheets felt cool and smooth against her bare skin, and she realized she didn't usually come to bed without a nightgown. Well, what the heck. She closed her eyes.

Finally, the mattress sagged as Walter lay down, and when he was settled on his back, Mariel wiggled close, bracing on left elbow and right hand against the mattress by his left shoulder. Her breasts brushed his chest as she leaned closer, seeing him smile with his eyes closed.

"Hey," she murmured, hoping she didn't sound as shaky as she felt inside, "now that we're in bed, want to...fool around a little?"

The deep brown eyes opened lazily, their gaze matching his now lazy smile. "Oh, I don't know," he considered tantalizingly. "What's your definition of 'fooling around,' Mrs. S.?"

Her gaze caressing his strong-featured face, she leaned down more, wondering if he could feel her heartbeat. Almost dizzy with it herself, she kissed his mouth, her tongue tenderly urging his lips open. He resisted her sweet advances until they both were aching for more, then let his lips part, enjoying the gentle suction that drew his tongue smoothly into her warm mouth.

"M-m-m," he murmured soon, rolling her over. "A very good definition, Mrs. S. Let me add to the discussion." He did, his body strong yet exquisitely gentle as all the love they'd shared this evening, all the teasing and caring and quiet laughter found expression now in physical love: deep, intense, live-giving and love-affirming. After a long time they clung together. He could feel her trembling, her body still shaken by her response, and he soothed her easily, smoothing his mouth across hers.

"M-m-m," she unconsciously echoed his own murmur finally, still a little shaky. "I love the way you fool around." When she felt his lips begin a little exploring trip, her voice changed, deepened. "I feel so beautiful in your arms...so desired."

"You are those things," he whispered back. "And a lot more that I don't have the vocabulary to express."

She gasped, "Then...go on expressing it like...like this." The gasp became a sob. "Love, oh love...!"

Afterward, feeling as satisfied as he knew Mariel was, Walter kissed his wife to sleep. --- Morning is time enough to tell me what's wrong, love --- he thought, settling his head down close to hers. --- I know you too well not to realize when you're troubled. But I had to be sure you knew that I love you. ---

....He was angry now, but was careful not to express it. He didn't like being pushed or hurried, and thought that he had enough experience with human nature to know that some things couldn't be rushed. Like love....

.... --- What do you know of that? --- he asked himself savagely. --- Your time passed years ago. --- He couldn't remember the taste of Lorene's mouth anymore, barely remembered the feel of her skin. Yet something held him back still, the memory of a promise, perhaps.

....He lifted the phone. After the long-distance connection was made, he said only, "It's almost set," and hung up. The next step was out of his hands, and he was glad of that, he realized....

Ellie Martin made it a point to groom Sidewinder before 7 a.m. That time fit her day better, and come Summer, the early hour often beat out the worst of the heat. This morning the big gelding was jumpy, and Ellie had a time of it getting him to settle down. She started glancing over her shoulder more often, though, as she finished her chores with feed and water. She trusted the horse's instincts: he had a lot of his grand-dam, old Susabell, in him, and she could scent a mountain lion like no horse Ellie had ever seen.

Of course, what with the suburbs getting closer all the time, and this very street now relatively filled with houses, Ellie Martin hadn't seen a lion in years. Not since she first went out with the desert rescue teams twenty-some years ago. Ralph, rest his soul, hadn't approved of the rescue work, or at least of the danger it involved for her.

She pushed her hat back now, easing the grip of the sweatband. Not ten miles away, the Superstition Mountains loomed, stark, forbidding, steep-sloped sides clothed with cactus and chaparral. Once an Apache stronghold, now all too often a lure for the fools who came out here without proper clothing or even enough water. She'd packed enough of them off the mountain on old Susabell in her day. Funny how that old legend of the Lost Dutchman's Mine still drew people to search over a mountain other folks had searched for nearly 100 years.

She figured that the stories of gold hidden somewhere up there probably would never die. --- Heck fire --- she thought on her way back to the house --- I passed on the stories myself. --- Nieces and nephews who packed themselves out here to see "old Aunt Ellie" always got that tale.

In the kitchen, Ellie poured herself a glass of water, looking fondly at the gallery of photos she'd arranged on sills and atop appliances through the room. She could follow the relatives through the pictures even if they didn't visit that often. She did the gallery tour while she drank the water and set out her breakfast, and gave a fond pat to the latest in her collection: a wedding picture of her second-oldest niece.

And she's gotten herself some looker, Ellie thought roguishly. Damn if they didn't look great together: her niece tall, dark-haired, grey-eyed and *that man* -- Ellie italicized in her thoughts -- big and strong with deep brown eyes. He looked like he could boss a bunch of roustabouts without any trouble. Of course, little Mari probably knocked his heart for a loop. Ellie had always believed her favorite niece would find the right man someday, and he'd be grateful for her as long as he lived. Chuckling to herself, Ellie caught her toast when it popped up and sat down to eat.

"This is the street, right?"

"Yeah." The swarthy-skinned man looked up from the map, squinting. Hardly ten o'clock and already hot. The street wasn't as isolated as he'd thought it would be, what with a town named Apache Junction. It had kind of a rural feeling, though, he decided, with big lots, long, low houses surrounded by gravel yards or artfully-maintained cactus gardens, and pipe horse corrals. "It's the end house."

After the driver parked facing the way they'd come, the other man made sure the I.D. matched his face and got out of the car. --- Damn, how do people live here? --- He was breaking a sweat after walking no more than ten feet. He rang the doorbell and waited.

Ellie switched off the vacuum cleaner and listened. When the doorbell sounded again, she realized she'd heard right the first time. Looking through the peephole, she saw the foreshortened image of a youngish man in a suit. Shrugging, she glanced down at the 30-gauge propped by the sill and opened the door.

"Excuse me," the man said, quiet-voiced with a slight twang to it. " Mrs. Eleanor Martin?"

"Yes?"

He held up an I.D. badge in a folding wallet. "Federal Agent, ma'am. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if I may."

She let him in, noticing the car parked on the street. --- They run in pairs, then, out here --- she thought. --- Smart. --- "Have a seat," she said, sitting herself in a chair near the window, the 30-gauge to her right.

The man noticed her positioning, and added some points to his initial estimation. This might not be so easy, after all. "I have some questions about a hit and run accident near here," he said.

Hit and run? The only hit and run she knew anything about was kind of a third-hand account thing that had happened when her brother Frank and his family visited her just before he died. And that was...

"I know the government's inefficient, but asking questions now about something from twenty-some years ago seems pretty silly."

"Slow inter-office mail," the man remarked. "Tell me anyway."

Ellie didn't rush about this. "There used to be more federal land around here. That where it happened?"

Hearing the question, the man stopped his perusal of the living room. ... It might not be in plain sight, but you'll know it when you see it. ... --- What kind of description is that? --- he thought, exasperated, and said aloud, "We have an interest in the incident, ma'am."

'We...' --- Hm-m-m, interesting. --- "Nothing to tell. A couple of kids joyriding hit some fellow. By the time they got the nerve to tell someone, there was no body, or so I heard." Ellie deliberately fixed the man's gaze. "A lion probably dragged the poor soul off. Lots of mountain lions around here then." She wasn't about to tell anybody that her own young kin also had been nearby when it happened, bringing home a lamed Susabell after a barebacking accident.

"I see." After a few more minutes, the man concluded the questions and made a semi-graceful exit, leaving Ellie Martin frowning in speculation. Then the woman went to the phone in the kitchen and looked up the number of the Phoenix field office of the F.B.I.

"Federal Agent," she muttered before the line was picked up. "Then I'm Cleopatra....Hello, yes. Let me talk to Grant Sanders, please. Tell him it's Ellie."

"We'll have to come back tonight," the man said to his companion in the car. "She's a sharp old lady. Talked to me with a shotgun practically in her lap."

The other barked a laugh. "You got a way with women, all right. Tonight it is." Walter and Mariel's Home, Mid-Morning

Walter was angry, certainly. Mariel knew all the signs: thinned lips, brown eyes fractionally narrowed behind the glasses, jaw muscles pulled tight. He mastered it almost immediately, but its heat still darkened his voice. "You mean that...S.O.B. was sitting right on our porch last night? Just waiting?"

"Yes."

Walter went on pulling implements out of the gardening shed in the back yard, leaning rake, hoe and shovel by the door. A wheelbarrow came next, and she put everything else into that. They'd originally planned to clear the yard some today, and Mariel was grateful that the chore was still on.

And she'd felt so good when she got dressed this morning, warm and languid and thoroughly relaxed from what they both had taken to calling "breakfast in bed." The extent of her own still-blossoming sensual delight in her husband was both surprising and a little embarrassing to her. --- And, of course, --- she thought --- he doesn't complain about it one bit. --- But she knew she had to tell him about the encounter, mood-shattering as the recitation would be.

"What's strange, Walt," she went on as they reached the stand of old willows, "is that after I got past the first shock, I wasn't afraid that he'd hurt me physically."

That was some measure of relief, anyway. "Honey," he said, pulling the shovel out of the pile in the wheelbarrow, "I want you to think back. Is there anything strange or unusual that's happened to you? Unexplainable occurrences, odd coincidences, that sort of thing."

She stared, pushing the wide-brimmed hat back a bit. "Good grief, no, honey," she said, then laughed. "You think I'm a clandestine writer for some science-fiction show?"

Walter Skinner realized that he would have to decide how much he could tell his wife about...well, things. --- Oh, dear God --- he prayed as a terrible realization numbed him --- *I* can't be the one to make her part of the game. Please, I've found so much with her....I finally have a life that I love and I want.... ---

He pushed the shovel into the dirt near the willow roots. "I have to think about this, Mariel."

"O.K.," she acquiesced softly. "In the meantime, I'll go attack the weeds."

It was childishly easy getting in here, the man thought as he moved cautiously through the dark living room. The pencil flash illuminated no more than an inch or so by his feet, at least enough to keep him from kicking into anything. He couldn't have the old lady coming out here with her shotgun.

So far, nothing showed, however. Not even a rock collection to sort through. Maybe his --- no, don't call him *friend* --- assistant outdoors was having better luck. He ghosted himself toward the kitchen door and out into the back yard. He could just make out the pipe corral about twenty yards away. The horse was loose out there, circling like he was getting spooked. Smells of hay, manure, and sweaty animal stung his nose.

He aimed the flash toward the mountain and flicked it once. The other man came out of the tack shed, and he went to meet him. "Nothing in the house."

"Nothing out here, so far." The taller man kept glancing back. "Damn horse makes me nervous. Let's finish this."

When they turned, both men cut close to the corral. The looming figures and approaching scents were enough to set the already jumpy gelding into motion. The big horse kicked the fence solidly, steel-shod hooves on the pipe making a sharp ringing sound. Again and again, kicks and snorting whinnies echoed in the yard.

"Damn!" Startled, both men angled toward the house in time to see the back door open not ten feet away. A figure stepped through, shotgun at the ready in case of coyotes, to check on the frantic horse.

"What the hell are you doing?" A woman's voice, startled and angry.

The shorter man did what he usually did when confronted by a person with a gun. He brought out his own weapon and fired first....

The sound of the silenced shot did not carry far through the cool desert night, but far enough to send the already spooked Sidewinder into a fresh frenzy. Kicking the corral rails, the gelding neighed repeatedly, sharply, his iron-shod hooves frantically churning the dirt as the big animal plunged through the corral. Ellie heard the horse through a shock of pain like a hot branding iron piercing her body. The shotgun slid from her hands as she stumbled sideways off the little back step, landing in a limp heap on the desert soil.

--- This is my home --- she thought, struggling to see, to get up again. --- They can't do this here...now... --- Ellie Martin's thoughts blanked out at last under a slow wave of darkness.

Reholstering his weapon, the shooter grabbed the other man's arm, shoving him past Ellie's prone body. "Damn! That horse'll have the neighborhood here in a minute."

"Is she alive?" the taller man whispered harshly, stumbling over the shotgun before impaling his hand on the prickly-pear cactus by the side fence. Cursing, himself, he jerked back quickly.

"I don't know. It doesn't matter." --- What matters, --- he thought as the pair skirted the side of the house that faced away from the street --- is that we failed here. --- Nothing to bring back, no proof or final closing of the incident. And that was exactly why he wasn't going back.

THe two men reached their car, which was drawn up under a stand of young cottonwoods at the far end of the road. The clear air carried the sounds of a door closing and footsteps crunching over a gravel yard. The neighbors, he figured, coming to see why Ellie Martin didn't quiet her excited horse. --- From what I've seen so far --- the shooter thought --- the neighbors will bring their guns along, too. --- He shoved his companion toward the car, pulling out his keys. "Let's move."

When he started it, the engine sounded as loud to him as an F-14 passing overhead. He didn't turn on the headlights until he was near the main road leading to Phoenix.

"What if the old lady dies out there?"

The driver looked over disgustedly at the interruption of his thoughts. "What of it? She's gotten plenty of time in already." --- If you don't know we've got other things to worry about now --- he thought --- you don't belong in this game. --- He, himself, was already making his contingency plans.

The car 'phone was ringing when they came out of church.

Although Walter Skinner was not Catholic, he considered that it would be boorish behavior for him to laze around the house reading the paper or catching up on his sleep while Mariel attended Mass alone. During the four-some months of their marriage, he'd managed to escort her to church on most of the Sundays, barring genuine emergencies at the Bureau. Now he realized that he rather enjoyed going, and not just because it meant spending more time with his wife. He was beginning to get something out of the ceremony, and Mariel patiently explained what was going on.

Now, leaving after the service, she walked close to his left side, her right arm around his waist held just high enough to give him unimpeded access to his weapon if necessary in the split-second before she could drop her arm. It was becoming natural for her to consider things like that before she hugged her husband.

She was so close to him, right hip pressing his left side, fingers of her right hand light but warm against his ribcage even through his suit jacket, and he could smell her delicate floral-spice cologne. The feel and the scent and the sheer, warm life of her reminded him forcefully of all that he'd missed for so many years. He understood now that he'd been deeply lonely for most of his adult life, and had compensated with work and frequent exercise sessions. Of course, the hard work had brought him to his present position, and the exercise had given him a body that many younger men might envy. But nothing and no one had given him love and complete trust until Mariel found and embraced his heart.

As they threaded their way through other parishioners and exiting cars, Walter pressed a kiss against her temple and met her smiling upward glance. He was beginning to look forward to the prospect of a nice brunch in bed when he paused in mid-stride, dark eyes momentarily vacant in listening.

"That's our 'phone, hon'," he announced, and drew her along into a jog the last several yards. Opening the passenger door, he continued around to his own place while Mariel got into the car and activated the 'phone speaker. Closing his door, he said, "This is Skinner."

"Walter? Is this...Walter?" A woman's voice, somewhat distorted over the speaker, but not enough so to disguise the husky, heavy tone.

"Who is this?" he replied, puzzled. He didn't recognize this voice. Mariel shifted in the seat beside him, opening her mouth as if to say something, but the caller spoke again before she could.

"It's Fran. Fran Carpenter. Is Mariel there?"

Walter said, "Just a minute," and muted the speaker. He looked questioningly at Mariel, who smiled.

"She's one of my cousins, Walt," Mariel said, and he nodded. --- Your cousin, all right --- he thought --- but how did she get our car 'phone number? --- He reached over the pull the seat harness across himself and started the car. "Want to take it on the handset?"

Mariel leaned over to warm his cheek with her lips for a second, then said, "The speaker's fine, as long as it won't distract you while you drive." Pushing the speaker back on, she said toward the 'phone, "Frances, long time, no hear." Her pleased smile was obvious in her voice.

"Mari," Frances went on, "my mom's in the hospital. It's pretty bad, but the doctor thinks she'll make it."

"Thank goodness for that," Mariel said gently. "Was it her heart?"

"It was a bullet in the guts, that's what it was," Frances' voice grated, angry now and harsh.

Walter was not deliberately listening, but those words brought his head around quickly to meet Mariel's wide, startled eyes. She gasped, "Fran, what happened?"

"We're not sure. Mom hasn't been able to talk yet, and the police are still going over her place. Ed Thronehill next door -- you remember him? -- found her by the back door. From the look of the corral, Sidewinder was throwing a fit and Ed went to see what was going on."

"Maybe Aunt Ellie surprised a burglar," Mariel surmised, frowning. She stared unseeingly through the windshield, her mind not registering the familiar scenery along the road home from church.

"Maybe." After a long, static-hissing pause, Frances continued. "I'll keep you on top of this, Mari. Sorry for spoiling your Sunday morning."

"Fiddle, there's no question of that, Fran. Are you o.k.? Need me to do anything for you?"

"I'll make it, and, no. Just keep Mom in your paryers, and I'll get back to you when I know more."

"O.K. Chin up."

Frances cut the connection abruptly, and Mariel sighed. "How come in times like this people end up talking in cliche's?" she muttered, realizing she was holding Walter's hand tightly. Mariel didn't know who had reached out for whom, but she was glad of his firm fingers entwining with hers.

"I guess it's a defense mechanism, honey," he remarked, giving a final strong squeeze before returning his grip to the steering wheel. "A cushion against shock."

"I suppose."

Walter drove in silence for a while, before glancing at his still quiet wife. "Mariel," he said softly, "are you all right with this?"

She didn't reply, and he steered the car onto the shoulder of the lane and stopped. He reached over to her shoulder with an easy touch. "Answer me, honey," he said, putting a bit of his AD's tone into the words.

"Yes," she said finally. "I was just remembering the last time I saw Aunt Ellie." Mariel laid her hand upon his. "Remember, when we landed in Phoenix on our honeymoon I remarked that I'd last been there as a child visiting my aunt?"

"Yes." He did recall that statement, although other memories of their honeymoon were much more vivid to him than was the passing remark about a seldom-visited relative.

"Well, this is the aunt I was talking about."

Maybe she was all right with this, but Walter eased her head to his shoulder all the same. She nestled into the hug for a moment, then looked up. "Let's go on home, Walt," she said. "We both need some lunch."

"I'm with you on that," he smiled. --- And maybe we can have it in bed --- he thought. --- We need that, too. --- He put the car in gear again and continued home.

The man sat in the bus depot, slouchy and just seedy enough to be inconspicuous rather than eye-catching. He had enough money to go quite a way, what with his own cash and the money in his late associate's wallet. He couldn't risk using a credit card and didn't want to fly. A nice, quiet bus tour of the open southwest was safer.

His erstwhile companion probably wouldn't be found until the sun and the predators had done their work. He didn't care in any case; he was on his own, now. --- I wonder how far I'll get before *he* finds me --- the swarthy-skinned man thought. --- Maybe far enough to give me time to pick up something about him on the way. ---

Mariel had barely dished up two plates before the telephone rang. She heard Walter answer it, and when he didn't call for her felt herself exhale again. Good. It wasn't more bad news then. She continued with setting out lunch.

Soon Walter came into the kitchen. He looked with regret at the fruit salad, blueberry muffins and chicken-vegetable casserole on the table and said, "Honey, I have to take a call up in the study. I don't know how long I'll be."

Bureau business, she knew. "All right. I can warm lunch up later if you're too long."

He nodded, and then looked at the dishes again. "Let's have some dessert, too," he said with a slow smile.

Mariel headed for the refrigerator. "O.K. There's pineapple sherbet, and I think some pie from the other day...." She broke off when he came over to her, trailing his fingertips down her arm to finally take her hand in both of his.

"That isn't what I meant," he said, holding her grey eyes with his. His eyes were dark and glowing now, as if the banked fire inside was beginning to swell, and she understood.

She tried to laugh through the breathless feeling in her chest. "Oh, right. Now I'm a dinner course, Mr. S.?"

"As far as I'm concerned, Mrs. S.," he said, raising both her hands to his breast, "you're the entire banquet."

She lifted her face to meet his kiss, and after a sweet, pleasurable moment she murmured, "I think I can remember to have dessert ready now."

"I like mine warm," he whispered, his hands gentle and slow.

Her reply was barely a breath of sound. "Warm and ready...."

Only the reality of the awaited 'phone call drew them apart then, and he winked. "Don't go away." Her delighted smile was all the answer he needed.

Once upstairs for the awaited call, Walter shut the study door, turned on the desk lamp and waited. When the specified five minutes had passed, the telephone rang and he answered at once.

"Skinner here....Yes, Grant, how are you?...We're both well, thank you....No, I don't know anything about that. We didn't assign anyone special from this end....Hell, I think you know I'd inform you, yes....I agree, and I'll tell you when I find out....I'm not sure. I don't want to raise any eyebrows over here....Thanks. Give our best to Jenny and the crew....Goodbye."

Walter had known the AIC of the Phoenix office for years. Sanders was a good man, but since he passed up a couple of promotions so his kids could finish school in the same community, he'd probably never advance now. Still, this was an odd request, and Walter Skinner figured he'd have to play a few hunches.

He was good at playing hunches, but right now he wasn't pleased by the fact that his intuition was practically jumping up and down. Shaking his head, he turned off the lights in the study and went downstairs to the lunch he hoped was still warm, and the "dessert" he knew always would be warm and delicious and always just for him. --- As I'm just for her --- he thought, a little humbly. Time enough for questions tomorrow.

...Buses crashed on highways all the time, after all, the man decided. Strange how such a fortuitous incident had been genuinely unplanned and unexpected: desert thunderstorms answered to no man's control. Now there really was no other option but to contact the lovely Mrs. Skinner again. Pouring another finger of Scotch, he realized with some surprise that he was looking foward to the prospect....

S.A.I.C. Grant Sanders left his car at the far end of the lot, electing to loosen up with a walk to the hospital building. Buildings, actually, counting the adjacent wings and continuing construction. Once inside, he located the right annex on the main "you-are-here" map and took the elevator up.

Frances Carpenter was just coming out of the room as he walked toward it, and she waited as he approached. Sanders took out his I.D., and Frances glanced from the photo to the man. "Yes, Agent Sanders?" she said, coolly.

"Your mother's doctor telephoned me this morning, Mrs. Carpenter. He said I could speak to her."

Frances nodded, face tight with worry and...Sanders caught it after a second: fear. "I've got to get some rest. Don't you wear her out, mister."

--- As if I could do that --- Sanders thought. Ellie Martin's vitality on desert rescues had often shamed a few of his young agents. "I have only a few questions, Mrs. Carpenter."

"So get them asked. I'll return in an hour."

At a less painful time, he might have grinned and replied, "Yes, ma'am," like an Academy rookie. But Sanders didn't know Ellie's daughter very well, and of course such levity was out of place now.

Ellie Martin was alone in the double room. Creamy-beige walls, blinds drawn against the southward-facing light, blue and beige curtain that separated the beds drawn back against the wall; it would be the clone of any hospital room but for the crucifix over Ellie's bed. She lay with head slightly elevated, eyes closed, an oxygen tube in her nose.

Sanders moved quietly to the bed. " Mrs. Martin? Can you answer a few questions?"

She opened her eyes briefly. When she was sure of who it was, she said, "Shoot, Grant....So to speak...."

He did grin, then, but covered it by clearing his throat. He couldn't have her thinking he was amused by all of this. The grin was for a lady who'd smoothed his way with the desert when he was first assigned to Phoenix. "Did you see the shooter, Ellie?"

"No." She kept her eyes closed. "Just...a shape."

"Any voices?"

"No."

"Anything odd or memorable -- a smell, maybe?"

"Just my horse...."

Sanders took Ellie through the incident briefly with few results. Burglars caught before breaking in, then, and startled into shooting? It was the most likely explanation, probably, unless something else showed from the house and yard search.

Was it just his own intuition that linked the shooter with the visitors Ellie had told him about on Saturday afternoon? Sanders recognized coincidence as a factor of life, but right now it was a stretch for him to assume that Ellie's two visitors were completely unconnected with the shooting.

He'd sent no agents to her house, and so far his checks with the other federal agencies in town were negative. And his call yesterday to AD Skinner established that his old friend hadn't had to send agents out on some emergency without first contacting him as the Phoenix S.A.I.C. On his way back to the office, Sanders phoned for the latest report from the Phoenix police. It would be on his desk when he arrived.

Since Mariel's first class didn't meet until early afternoon, after breakfast she decided to correct some homework from the music theory students. Walter had already left for work, so she sat alone at the big kitchen table, manuscript paper in stacks, felt pen in hand. But after a while, she discovered that her concentration was wandering. Usually she enjoyed the "inventive" ways the students found to orchestrate the given popular tune in the styles of Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler and Hindemith. But now it was hard not to think about her aunt, and speculate as to what might have happened.

Although her family had never returned to Phoenix after her dad's death and her mom's eventual remarriage, Mariel remembered Ellie Martin as a short, lanky, peppery woman with a flash of a smile and no patience with people who underestimated the desert. She, herself, had very nearly done just that, Mariel recalled, on that family visit nearly 25 years ago....

..."We've got to get our behinds home before Mom skins us."

Sunburned, sweaty, and scratched from chaparral and sumac, 11-year-old Mariel Fraser sighed and wiped her hands roughly on her jeans before picking up the reins again. Old Susabell gamely moved forward in answer to the light tug on those reins, but the mare's right foreleg barely took her weight. Mariel flashed back, "Well, if you hadn't stopped to poke into every cranny up here, Susie wouldn't of caught her leg and we'd be home now."

Mariel's cousin Frances shut up at that, but still kicked rocks forcefully as they made their way down the last slopes. "The gold's up here," the younger girl muttered. "We coulda found it."

"Sheesh! That lost mine stuff is just a story, Fran." Mariel rested a hand on the mare's neck; the skin felt warm and wet. "She's all wet, Fran. Do horses get fevers?"

"I don't know." Frances stopped, bracing against the downward slope, and pointed. "We're close now. Just around that hump of hill and a mile, maybe."

"I can't even see the hill you're pointing at," Mariel said, shifting the rifle sling a little.

This desert night was moonless but, even with daylight not completely faded, there were more stars than Mariel had ever seen before. It was a heart-lifting display, and she paused a moment to take it all in. After a minute she looked back down and did see the indicated hill. They continued down carefully.

Scraping shoes, rattling rocks and Susie's faltering hoofbeats seemed to echo their sounds off the mass of mountain behind the girls and the lame horse. Soon Mariel saw the widely scattered house lights on the flat ahead, and heard distant car sounds.

"Finally," Frances said gustily. "Mom probably has the whole town looking for us now."

Susabell moved suddenly, restless beside the girls. The mare's head was up, nostrils snorting the air, and Frances looked around anxiously. "She smells something," the young girl whispered. "A lion, maybe?"

"I...I don't know." Mariel loosened the sling, pulling the rifle into easier reach. Her eyes scraped anxiously over the last slope ahead of them, toward where the old mare's ears were pricked. Then Mariel grabbed her cousin's shoulder. "Didn't that cactus just move?" she whispered shortly.

"Don't be a..." The answering whisper broke off to a gasp. "Gosh, it did! A coyote?"

"No." The tall, sturdy, grey-eyed girl pressed the reins into her cousin's hands. "Take her," she ordered and unslung the .22. Afraid of the noise alerting...whatever, she didn't cock the weapon yet, but held it ready.

Frances pressed the mare's big head close. She was shivering. Mariel whispered, "It's a man wearing a knapsack, I think."

The distant car noises were getting louder, she realized, and stared in the direction of the blacktop road leading through town. Car headlights, she saw, the beams flooding white light before the car that was coming fast. Too fast for the narrow road.

Fran grabbed Susabell's headstall as the noise built, grating loudly as if the driver was stripping the gears. "More crazy hotrodders! They think no one lives out here?"

"Look," Mariel gasped. It *was* a man with a pack, she saw now in the approaching headlights, and he was walking head down as if he neither saw nor heard the onrushing car. No one had a chance to scream as the car struck the man without even the grating scream of brakes or skidding tires. Fran dug her face into Susie's neck as the man was slammed through the desert night into the sumac clump one hundred feet down the road.

Swallowing repeatedly, gulping back the taste of vomit, Mariel watched the car's lights suddenly die as it continued without stopping or even slowing. She started to run, but Frances grabbed her arm, hissing, "Don't go over there. He's gotta be dead. What can you do?" Voice quivering, Fran gulped some herself and managed, "Maybe you can...run home and...tell Mom."

Mariel pressed Susie into halting motion again, squinting over her shoulder. "I can't leave you and Susie out here." She realized she was sweating and shaking in the cool night. "Remember those cat tracks?"

"Oh, golly." Fran clutched a handful of mane, unconsciously trying to urge Susabell faster. "Well...well, Susie'll smell the lion first."

"And what then?" Mariel asked, angry and frightened. --- They didn't stop --- she thought. --- They drove right on to leave him dying there. --- "You're a kid and Susie's lame. The lion will get so full on you two that he'll sleep for days."

"You're a kid, too," Fran glared, reaction still making her voice shake.

"I'm the one who can shoot," Mariel said, settling it. "Let's just hurry. Maybe he'll...hang on 'till we tell your mom." --- Come on, God --- she prayed --- let him make it...No one should die like that. ---

The two frightened girls and the faltering mare went on across the road, toward the nearest lights. Another mile, maybe? --- Susie, move it, please.... ---

Above them the stars flamed, brilliant in the black night. Mariel looked over her shoulder again. --- Hang on --- she thought toward the man who might even now be broken and dead. --- We're hurrying and praying, too. --- Her gaze moved up to the stars...and they were moving.

Mariel stared and blinked several times. Yes, two stars were moving: bright steady red points as far apart from her perspective as her arms held at full span, moving as a unit and connected by a glowing band of white light. Silent, slow, somehow majestic, the lights moved toward the mountain, swung to parallel the road. Yanking her eyes away, Mariel grabbed her cousin's hand and stumbled a little. --- Please, just get us home. --- She pressed her arm against her face as light flared behind her back, an unnatural sunrise that sent Susie into a plunging, squealing lunge, dragging both girls along.

The light was gone in less than a second. It took Mariel and her cousin considerably longer to calm themselves and the mare. --- What for gosh sakes was that? --- End Flashback

Mariel Skinner looked up from the kitchen table and the partially-corrected music theory homework, wondering what had drawn her thoughts back to the present. Oh, the doorbell. She got up to go see who was there.

...He'd debated with himself for longer than he might have thought would be necessary to make this decision. After the failure in Arizona his own contacts were pressing him, but he refused to have his hand forced. He knew that he, alone, would have to deal with the consequences of any decision, and he was prepared to act only after due deliberation.

Now he waited on the doorstep, aware that this would be the final link in this particular chain. --- Still, --- he thought --- I'm sorry you had to be involved. --- The door opened, and he said quietly, "Good morning, Mrs. Skinner."...

Walter Skinner was tired and in need of a twilight jog when he arrived home that evening. He pulled his car up beside Mariel's, glad that she'd beaten him home. Although he certainly didn't expect his wife to take on all the household chores, tonight he rather hoped she would have dinner already cooking.

He closed the front door behind him, realizing the house was quiet. No sound of Mozart from the CD player; no footsteps, water running, or soft singing from the kitchen or upstairs. Instincts tingling, Walter set his case down and drew his weapon to the ready. He went through the ground floor rooms quickly, then softly climbed the stairs.

Less than five minutes later, he knew that Mariel was not in the house. Heart beating painfully hard but face cold and stern, Walter went outside to search the yard. A few moments later, he was relieved to find the yard empty. He'd steeled himself against the horrible vision of finding her limp, broken body crammed under the rose hedge. Thank God that hadn't happened. He could imagine few other sights that might drive him more quickly to homicide.

--- You're overreacting --- he told himself sternly, breathing deeply to quiet the burning in his lungs. Mariel probably got a ride from a friend at the college and they were late getting back. She would come in at any moment and laugh at the sight of her husband searching their own home with a drawn gun.

Inside again, picking up the kitchen phone, he dialed her office number. When the answering machine activated, he said, "Pick up, honey. It's me."...Nothing.... --- Two more hard breaths, mister --- he instructed himself, and dialed the department secretary.

"Arts and Music," a woman's voice said after several rings.

"Dr. Fraser, please."

"I'm sorry, she missed her classes today. We had to find a sub at short notice, and..."

Walter cut her off. "Thank you." Heart and body turning coldly to steel, Walter Skinner dialed one more number. This time a man's voice answered.

"Mulder."

"Agent Mulder, I need you and Agent Scully at my house. My wife..." His voice choked on the sentence and he cleared his throat roughly. "Mariel is gone."...

Unwilling to slam the receiver into his caller's ear, Fox Mulder hung up the 'phone normally, then leaned his hands on his desk with a bitter inward curse. Though the pain had been somewhat muted by passing years, as well as numbed and deadened by work and daily responsibilities, he'd lived with the reality of his sister's abduction long enough not to wish such grief on any other human being. At least the boss had sounded in control: voice tight and hard, but even. Good. He'd need that control now.

Mulder's call found Scully at home. "Mulder, is something wrong?" Scully asked with concern. "Here, let me turn the stove off...." Footsteps, pots shifting, a refrigerator door closing in the background, and she was back. "What is it?"

He said, "Scully, meet me at the Skinners' place. I'll explain when we don't have to use the phone."

"Skinner...I'm on my way, Mulder."

Scully's thoughts were in a quandry the entire drive. She'd been to the boss's home a few times, at Mariel's invitation, and she and Mulder had had dinner there a couple of weeks ago. But she knew that this was no spur-of-the-moment social gathering. A call from the AD this late in the evening requesting their official presence left Scully feeling chilled.

Scully parked finally beside Mulder's car, which was pulled up near the garage. Mulder opened her door and said, "Come on, Scully. I don't like the sound of this."

"What's happening? I can't walk into Skinner's house cold like this." Scully hurried beside Mulder on the way up the flagstone path.

Mulder kept it coolly professional. "He thinks his wife's been kidnapped."

Scully hoped she wasn't gaping as she trotted beside her partner up the porch stairs. Mulder knocked once before trying the door, which swung inward immediately. Skinner's voice seemed to reverberate in the silent house as the two agents entered. He was on the kitchen 'phone, Scully realized, just finishing the call.

The AD looked up at his two agents and replaced the 'phone. "Thank you for coming so quickly," he said, uninflected voice as emotionless as his face.

--- He's shutting himself down --- Mulder thought --- so he can deal with this. ---

"I called every hospital and trauma center within a hundred-mile radius," Skinner went on. "No one answering to Mariel's description has been admitted in the last 24 hours."

"Did you try the police stations yet?" Mulder asked, knowing it had to be said.

For a second, the big man's look alone would have exploded nitroglycerine. Then Skinner closed down again. "Not yet. Check me on this, please. I don't want to miss anything because I'm too close here." He recounted everything he'd done since arriving home, and Scully nodded to herself. He hadn't missed anything; she'd never thought he might.

"Sir," Scully said, "could Mrs. Skinner have been called away unexpectedly on a family emergency?"

Skinner glanced down at the kitchen table before answering. From the looks of the pens, stacks of music manuscript paper, and a neatly-arranged pile of work marked in places with Mariel's handwriting, it appeared as if she'd been correcting homework. --- God --- he thought with a prayer --- if all looks so normal... --- "It's possible, Agent Scully," he said aloud. "But she would have left me a message at work, or at the least, a note here at home. There was nothing."

Even as he spoke, he considered it further. The only emergency in her family he knew of was her aunt's mysterious shooting. Might Mariel's cousin -- Frances Carpenter, wasn't it? -- have called with a request so urgent that his wife would have literally dropped everything and left? --- One more check to make, mister --- he told himself, and looked up, realizing Scully had spoken.

"Excuse me?"

"Sir," Scully repeated, "does Mrs. Skinner smoke?"

"No," the AD replied, an ugly certainty beginning to form in his mind. "No, she doesn't."

Mulder held out a latex-gloved hand. "This was by the porch swing," he said, showing Skinner a handful of clear cellophane. It looked like the wrapping of a cigarette pack, which a habitual smoker might peel off and discard without even being aware of his actions. Someone who'd sat on the porch swing once before....

"...May I come in, Mrs. Skinner?"

Mariel looked the man right in the eye. Since they were of a height, she could face him squarely. "No," she said, closing the door behind her. "Whatever you came to say, say it out here."

"Of course." He gestured to the porch swing. "Won't you join me?"

Feeling again from him that strange dichotomy of courtesy and veiled menace, Mariel sat slowly on the end of the swing, shifting to set her left elbow on the armrest. He sat similarly at the opposite end, crossing his legs loosely.

He could tell she wasn't afraid of him. Her breathing was even, if a little accelerated; her eyes cool and level; her posture poised, easy. No, not afraid, but prepared....

" Mrs. Skinner, I told you once that you had nothing to fear from me," he said, pulling cigarettes from his coat pocket. He raised them with a questioning look and drew out a lighter only after she nodded once. "You still don't, you know."

"You also said you had a question to ask me."

He nodded, studying the smooth curve of her neck where it blended with her shoulder, covering the look by lighting the cigarette. For a split second he wondered if Mariel's skin felt like Lorene's once had felt beneath his lips: warm, velvety, yielding. --- Don't be a damned fool. --- he cursed himself --- She's *dead*; you couldn't help her. Gone now, for always. --- Without a hint of the internal turmoil showing in voice or face, he said, "Yes."

"Then meet me in my husband's office tomorrow and ask it in front of him."

His smile for a moment was genuine. --- If Skinner doesn't realize who he's got, here --- he thought --- then *he's* a fool. --- "I really don't think I'll do that, Mrs. Skinner," he replied, amusement in his voice.

"Then we're through talking."

He continued conversationally, "A man in your husband's position has many problems to face and worries to shoulder." Smoke hazing his face, he drew another lungful. "Heart attacks are common among executive-level men of his age, Mrs. Skinner. And the terrible drivers on the Beltway cause many accidents. I'm sure you read about them every day."

Mariel had never dealt with a man like this, but realized she must show no fear to him. Drawing on her years of self-discipline, she kept her eyes coldly on his, her body still but tensed. "Only a coward threatens a man second-hand in front of his wife," she said evenly. "If you have a quarrel with my husband, why don't you take it to him honestly instead of trying to come through me?"

He relaxed back some more, enjoying this. "I have no quarrel with AD Skinner right now, and as to threats, I'm merely stating the realities of life in this modern, stress-filled age. You can't deny realities, can you?"

--- It looks like I have --- Mariel thought --- if this is the kind of man Walt has to contend with. --- No, that was too harsh, she realized. She simply hadn't been exposed to such people before, not directly, face-to-face like this. And certainly not with the feeling that whatever she might or might not say or do, this man would try to turn it against her husband.

"Besides," he went on, leaning forward to rest elbows on knees, "my question is harmless -- just a necessary clarification on an old matter long since resolved." His deeply-lined face relaxed a little in a smile. "I'll even tell you part of the answer. 23 years ago, you witnessed a hit-and-run accident in a small town near Phoenix, Arizona. I simply need to know what happened to the man who was hit."

Mariel said coolly, "I should think that police accident records would go back 23 years, even in small Arizona towns."

"Of course they do, Mrs. Skinner," he replied smoothly. "But official records sometimes aren't much help." The man was careful not to show his growing admiration for this AD's wife: she was holding up her end very well so far. Of course, there could be only one conclusion.

Mariel frowned. On the face of it, the question did seem innocuous. She really did not know what had happened to the accident victim, but even if she did, what harm could come from telling this man? Especially if, as he said, the matter had been resolved years ago. Of course, that was presuming he was telling the truth, a presumption she was not prepared to make. Also, if the matter *were* resolved, why was it suddenly so important to interrupt their lives so frequently to find whatever answer he was looking for?

"I don't know what happened," she said then. "I simply heard secondhand that no body was recovered, but that fact should have been on the police records."

"It was."

She glanced at her wristwatch and stood up. "I have no more time to fence with you," she said, "and I really know nothing more about it."

"I see." He stood up, too, and moved a step nearer. Eyes the color of the smoke he breathed, he said, "Then perhaps you'll come with me to show me exactly where this incident took place. I wouldn't ask unless it was of great importance."

Realizing she couldn't show any weakness, Mariel didn't retreat a step, even though he was close enough now for her to smell the acrid tang of cigarette smoke on his clothes, and the stale reek of it on his breath. "Don't be ridiculous," she said coldly, head high. "I'm not going anywhere with a man I've known for less than half an hour, who's managed to threaten me or my husband several times already."

He smiled, a smile that sucked every bit of warmth from her body. "Think about it a moment, Mrs. Skinner. And while you do, please remember that a woman needs her husband to be healthy and strong to give her children, or, indeed, any other...human pleasure, doesn't she?"

Eyes widening, remembering suddenly the "accidents" that had happened to Walter and herself during their courtship, Mariel swallowed against a surge of mingled anger and shock. "You cowardly bastard," she whispered, trembling now and more afraid than she'd ever been. --- Oh, Walt...Dear God, take care of him, please.... --- But her voice was still cold and even, and she faced the man with all the advantage she could muster from her height and strong body.

Still smiling, he asked, "Shall we go?" and courteously gestured the way....

Through white voile curtains, sunlight glowed softly, gradually strengthening, brightening the room. Smooth polished hardwood floors glistened, warm red highlights from cherry-wood furniture gleamed in the warming light. The man lying fully clothed but for his shoes on the canopy bed turned his head away from the light, pressing his dark eyes shut with a rough, sudden gesture of his hands.

Scully had practically ordered him to bed, even threatening to forcibly sedate him if he refused to rest willingly. Mulder had supported his partner with quiet strength.

"Sir, you called us in on this," Mulder had said evenly. "Let us do our jobs." The hazel-eyed man stepped closer then, voice lowered. "When we find her, she'll need you strong." Skinner nodded slowly, then, realizing the younger man was right.

But he knew he wouldn't sleep, although it had been nearly 30 hours since he'd last done so. He could feel his muscles quivering in tiny jerks with his exhaustion, an exhaustion that was further fueled by tension, anger, self-disgust and fear for his wife.

That was the most unbearable part of this nightmare: the visions which his imagination, heated by his years of experience in law enforcement, threw into his mind's eye of Mariel lying bound or broken somewhere, subjected to indignities he wouldn't allow himself to verbalize. --- Cut it out --- he ordered himself. --- Get control, mister. ---

He rolled over, pushing his face into the pillow. The stubble darkening his jaw caught at the delicate fabric of the pillowcase. He sighed, inhaling as deeply as he could and letting the air slip out again, letting his chest fall and his diaphragm muscles squeeze out the last gasp of air. When normal breathing returned, he felt more relaxed, a little looser, perhaps. --- I should sleep --- he thought. --- Scully and Mulder are right....But, why didn't I anticipate that he'd come back here? I'm supposed to be a professional. What other contingencies have I missed? ---

Self-recrimination wouldn't help, either, he knew. His two best agents were coordinating search procedures; teams had been dispersed to the airports to interview ticket agents; others were canvassing bus stations. He, himself, following his intuition, had talked to Grant Sanders in Phoenix, but his friend hadn't reported back yet. Everything they could do, was being done.

Walter rolled over again, and for the first time since he lay down, looked at the other side of the bed. It was empty. But in a moment, he remembered the first time he and Mariel had shared this bed, and despite the pain of the present situation, a smile relaxed his face. His eyelids fell and his breathing eased into sleep.

...He couldn't remember his house ever being so cluttered. Boxes took up corners and lined the kitchen hallway. Pieces of furniture braced the walls and spilled onto the front porch. Piles of books overflowed the bookcases. Trying to ignore the part of the chaos he wasn't working on at the moment, he stacked another armload of those books and took them upstairs.

Mariel was in the living room, sorting the clothes that could be stored for the remainder of the season. Now that the little mob of cousins and friends from the college had left, she could see just how much her relatives and friends accomplished. Walt had been upset at first with so many people who were still strangers to him circulating through his house, but he relaxed to it after a while and let them help. Six hours later, the move was done: Mariel's household goods were now officially ensconced in Walter's home.

A couple dozen hugs later, she and Walter were alone again...but for the furniture van she saw just turning down their lane. "Walt," she called from the foot of the stairs, "I think the bedroom's here."

Upstairs, he heard her call, but went on arranging the study. He'd about made room for her things when he heard her voice down the hall: "My fiance' will take care of that." He smiled. At this time three days from now she would be saying: "My husband..." He went to show the delivery men the way.

It didn't take long, really, to set up the bedroom and assemble the canopy bed. When it was done, and the delivery men started on the rest of the order, Walter drew Mariel away from her sorting and led her up the stairs, his arm comfortably around her waist. "Come see," he said. "I think it looks good."

She looked around the bedroom approvingly. "It sure does," she smiled. "That wood grain is beautiful in here."

Walter peeled the plastic mattress cover off, and Mariel stretched out on the newly-arranged bed. A little grin teasing his mouth, Walter picked up one of the new pillows and tossed it gently at her. Mariel caught it on the fly and put it under her head. "The mattress is great," she said, rolling over. "Come try your side."

He raised an eyebrow. "I did that at the store."

"Not properly," she replied. "Stretch out and pretend you're going to sleep." She curled onto her side, as if showing what she meant.

"O.K.," he acquiesced softly, wondering if she realized how much his heartbeat had accelerated in the past couple minutes. He knew her actions weren't a come-on, and yet...Then he knew how to handle this, and bit the inside of his lip so she wouldn't be alerted by his grin.

Stepping out of his shoes, he joined her. It was a good mattress, just firm enough, and certainly big enough for their two long frames. Hm-m-m...he realized that if he did relax any, he might doze off. The day had been pretty busy so far.

"I can't pretend I'm going to sleep like this," he said, looking at her.

On her side facing him, mahogany hair cascading over the pillow and long-lashed eyes softly closed, Mariel was a deliciously tempting sight to Walter: relaxed, lovely, lying just where he wanted her to spend every night. "Why not?" she asked then, propping herself up on her left elbow.

"Because *this* is the right way to sleep," he smiled. Sliding one arm under her shoulders and the other around her hips, he pulled her across the slippery mattress to rest against his chest. She gave a surprised little giggle, and in one motion hooked her ankle behind his knee and levered him onto his back.

"How about this?" she chuckled, pinning him.

He laughed, and the battle was joined. He reveled in her strength, enjoying the pull and play of her muscles against his in this playful wrestling match. He exerted his own strength just enough to afford her a good tussle, and realized she was holding her own very well.

Their laughter and little pants blended, until he jerked suddenly to a feathery, fluttering touch below his ear. "Hey," he managed between gasps, "no fair tickling."

"You think I was raised with brothers without learning some tricks?" she laughed, then blurted a startled squeal when his easy flip ended her up on her back.

"Fair's fair, Dr. Fraser," Walter grinned, finding beneath her ear the same little spot she'd sweetly assaulted on him. But after a second he said, "That's *really* no fair. You're not ticklish."

"Not there," she giggled, finding a fresh place on his back to tickle. "And where I am ticklish, you, Walter Skinner, are not going to discover until Saturday night."

"Is that so?" he growled softly. A final little twist, and capture was accomplished. She lay flat on her back beneath him, legs, hips and torso pinned under his body as he stretched completely upon her. Elbows braced beside her shoulders to take the weight off her chest, he twisted his fingers through her hair and smiled slowly. Her cheeks were pink, skin slightly moist with exertion, breath moist and warm against his face. "Don't you know better than to give me a challenge like that?" he whispered silkily, eyes alight.

She smiled back. It was wonderful to have him let go like this, to laugh and play and tease her so delightfully. Dark eyes warm, firm lips nearly upon hers, his weight pressing her body into the slightly-yielding mattress, his hands in her hair tugging slightly, tilting her head so her throat was open to him....Mariel picked her moment and gave his chin a tiny nip with white, even teeth.

He jumped and started to laugh again before closing his own teeth around her earlobe, teasing and tugging at it gently. And just then, from behind his back came a man's voice, saying, "Um, Mr. Skinner, excuse me....Er...I need the signature."

The young delivery driver was standing in the bedroom door, trying desperately to look everywhere but at the bed while holding his clipboard out at arm's length. Mariel had to bury her face into Walter's throat to stifle her laughter, and Walter slid off her body, standing up nonchalantly. His years of practicing a poker-faced expression stood him in good stead as he sauntered over to the driver, signed on the clipboard and handed it back.

"Everything's unpacked," the young man managed, still flushed.

"Then that'll be all," Walter said coolly, and closed the bedroom door.

Alone, Mariel sat up, finally mastering herself, although she had a side stitch from laughing. A few minutes later, Walter came back in and found her still sitting on the bed, smoothing her hair and adjusting her rumpled blouse.

"Now he's gone," the big man said, sitting next to her.

"Walt," she chuckled, "what that must have looked like!"

"I hope it looked like we were having fun," he smiled.

Her eyes widened a second. "Yes," she murmured, touching his shoulder almost shyly. "I think we were." Then she grinned. "And I think we both won, too."

"I know we did, Dr. Fraser," he agreed with a wink, and brought her hand to his cheek.... End Flashback

Scully closed the bedroom door slowly, whispering over her shoulder, "He's asleep."

Behind her in the hallway, Mulder said, "Good. I think you should take a turn, Scully."

"Not a chance, Mulder," the auburn-haired woman said, turning back toward the stairs. "I'm still good for a while."

Back on the ground floor, Scully looked around unseeingly while her partner answered the 'phone yet again. Scully was as angry as she'd been for a long time. It was one thing for that S.O.B. of a smoker to involve her and Mulder in his dealings, but when he dragged in the innocent, the untrained, he was over the line and she was sure he knew that. Scully swallowed. Missy...and now her own boss's new bride. Damn.

Mulder hung up, and she shook herself to attention. "Forbes has a possible I.D.," Mulder said, "from a private jet terminal out at National."

Scully looked over the notes Mulder had scribbled during the call. "The description sounds like them," she agreed. "Did Forbes get the flight plan?"

"Yeah. He's faxing it here."

The two agents climbed the stairs again, to enter Skinner's study by the hall door. The AD had given them his personal fax number some months ago. Soon the copy arrived, and Mulder studied it. "It's for Phoenix," he remarked, holding the sheet so Scully could see it.

"He's not hiding much, is he?" Scully frowned.

"No," Mulder agreed. "And that's what bothers me."

Sitting on the edge of the desk, Scully encouraged, "Go on, Mulder."

"Nothing has been behind-the-scenes on this one, Scully," Mulder continued, perching up beside her. "Cancerman approaches Mrs. Skinner at the dinner-dance in front of half the Bureau's D.C. staff. Then he goes to the Skinners's house, knowing she'd tell her husband about it. Finally, he goes to the house again and, by all the evidence, somehow convinces Skinner's wife to go with him to Phoenix."

"I'd call that last part kidnapping, Mulder," Scully said dryly.

"Right, but why? He doesn't seem to care that everything points to him and that we've known it all along." Mulder's hazel eyes held Scully's gaze. "What's so important out there that he'd risk so much for it?"

"And how is Mariel Skinner connected?" Scully said very slowly. Mulder continued to look at her as she sighed. "We may have to ask Skinner some questions about his wife that he may not want to answer."...

The Desert Near Apache Junction, Arizona
Night

The truck moved without lights over the old cattle guard, the guard's corrugated metal bouncing the pickup briefly. The driver stared hard through the windshield while his passenger flicked a pencil flash over the hand-written map in his lap. "More east," the passenger said, verifying a landmark. "There's good ones over that way."

Soon the driver pulled up just off the now-unused cattle track and turned off the engine. "Yeah, I see it," he said with satisfaction. "Let's get to it."

Both men pulled shovels out of the pickup bed and approached the stand of cactus. Yeah, that one was just right. The young saguaro was about four feet tall, plump from the recent rain, and perfectly shaped like a rather slender barrel.

"This one'll bring some good money," the passenger remarked. He pushed his shovel into the soil near the root line while the driver cleared away rocks and chaparral to give enough open space for a drag line.

"Just hurry up," the driver answered. "And watch the roots."

They dug quickly in a circle around the cactus until one man paused in the downstroke, shovel only about six inches deep into the soil. He poked it down again a foot beyond the first spot and again the shovel thudded against an object. "There's something under here," the passenger grunted, looking toward his companion.

"The roots, stupid," the other snorted. "Don't damage them."

"Doesn't feel like roots," he replied, and scraped at the top layer of soil.

"Never mind. We gotta get this plant out before..."

A strangled curse cut him off. Glaring, the driver reached out to shove his companion roughly. "Shut up and..." Then he saw what the other had uncovered, and spit out some curses himself.

He couldn't even tell if it was a man or a woman under there. The sun-blackened body, partially devoured by predators, lay in a trench barely deep enough to hold it below the desert surface. He hadn't seen a sight quite so horrible since 'Nam.

"Damn, I'm outta here." The passenger hastily scraped some dirt back over the body, then bolted for the pickup. For once, the other man agreed that profit should take a back seat to self-preservation. Throwing the shovels back into the truck, the two men departed rather more quickly than they'd arrived.

But just leaving the body out there nagged at the driver. Whoever it was deserved some kind of decent burial. So after he dropped off his still -jumpy companion, the driver stopped at a gas station off the highway to use the pay 'phone. He called the anonymous tipster number and talked briefly to the police operator.

Well, he wouldn't make any money tonight, but maybe he'd helped that poor soul to sleep easier. Hanging up, the man returned to his truck and drove away.

Sometimes Grant Sanders regretted the relatively small staff at the Phoenix field office. But he was good at getting cooperation from the local police, and this time they seemed eager to help. So far, though, nothing showed.

Neither Ellie Martin nor her daughter had sent for Mariel Skinner. Ellie was at home, now, to finish her recuperation, and Sanders had not been happy about adding the burden of her niece's abduction to the old lady. But Ellie had nothing to add that might help.

He'd sent people to the airport after Agent Mulder's call informed him of the flight plan the D.C. agents found. Since some people had selective memories when the police or the F.B.I. came around asking questions, Sanders also checked passenger lists. Of course it was unlikely that the kidnapper had used their real names, but people made obvious and stupid mistakes sometimes. --- Especially --- he thought --- if a man is not used to being checked in his actions. ---

His secretary's buzz from the outer office interrupted his thoughts. "Yes, Peggy?" he replied to the intercom.

"Coroner's office, sir, line 2."

--- Please, no --- he thought. --- For Walter's sake. --- Praying that this wasn't a body I.D., Sanders took the call. "Sanders."

"Grant, hello, Dr. Peters, chief coroner."

"Yes, Dr. Peters."

"I've got a body here you might be interested in. Police brought him in this morning."

Sanders felt his breath rush out. "Doctor, you're sure of the sex?"

"Yes, of course." Peters sounded as if the S.A.I.C. had asked if he was sure of his wife's name. "Male Caucasian, 25 to 35. Apparently some cactus rustlers found the body last night and left an anonymous tip."

"Why should I be interested, doctor?"

Sanders heard a keyboard clicking in the background, and a couple of beeps. "Well, the Martin thing," Peters said. "There was an unmatched blood and tissue sample taken off a cactus spine from a plant near Mrs. Martin's body."

"That's right." Sanders remembered the pride the young forensics woman had shown in her discovery of the sample. For a still-probationary agent, it was a fine addition to her record.

"Well, it's unmatched no longer. It belongs to the John Doe I have here."

Very interesting. One man placed in Ellie's back yard, anyway. "Cause of death?" Sanders asked.

"Strangulation by garrote," Peters said, as matter-of-factly as if he was stating his shirt size. "Poor grade of wire -- rust left embedded in the skin."

After a few more minutes of technicalities, Sanders said, "Send me a copy of your final report, please. I have a feeling it'll tie in with something else we're looking into."

"Sure thing." Peters had no problem with helping out, officially or otherwise. "Gotta go. More measuring to do."

After hanging up, Sanders looked thoughtfully at the snow globe his youngest daughter gave him, then picked up the object from the desk and shook it gently. He watched the artificial snow swirl around the miniature F.B.I. headquarters inside, set the globe back by Nancy's picture, and stood up to leave.

Mariel Skinner had stared out the little passenger window for so long that she could have quoted the number of rivets in the airplane wing. She ignored the conversations in the small cabin and didn't look around when the attractive hostess asked if she wanted a drink. She tried not to think of her last airplane trip, but for a moment yielded to the escape those thoughts offered.

...Walter leaning close to point out the capital sights as the plane climbed to cruising altitude....Playing checkers with him on the travel board one of her cousins gave her as a joke....His hands adjusting her seat belt and loosening her blouse collar when she got sleepy....His firm, warm lips gently tasting hers when she fell asleep with her head on his shoulder....

--- No --- she thought. --- This isn't helping. --- She had to focus on what was happening now, and figure out what to do, how to get through it. But she was troubled also by the thought that she might have been able to avoid going with this man. She wasn't a trained agent, but still...

That wasn't helping, either, she knew. She was here, now, and for now, Walt was safe. That was important.

"You really should eat, Mrs. Skinner," the man's voice spoke pleasantly from the seat beside hers. "The rosemary chicken is excellent."

She ignored him. She was hungry, and part of her realized that she had to stay strong to be able to capitalize on any chances that might arise, but she couldn't give him the satisfaction of eating right after he suggested it. So she leaned her head against the seat and went on looking out the window.

The small private jet had seats for twelve in the single passenger compartment. This afternoon there were only six people aboard, aside from the pilot, co-pilot and hostess. None of the others had even looked twice when the smoker came up the access stairs escorting Mariel. Escorting with a hand at her waist and a 9-mm discreetly out of sight.

He hoped he wouldn't have to resort to tasteless threats with the weapon. It would be so unnecessary. A simple confirmation once they arrived, and she could take the next flight back to D.C. Back to her husband.

The smoker glanced at her as he ate. "You know," he remarked, still pleasantly, "you don't have to be quiet the entire trip."

Mariel turned her head slowly, and fixed him with the look she used to quell a stageful of recalcitrant teenagers. Her voice was dry ice. "I'll say this once. I have no desire to talk to you, or to know any more about you than what I know already: which is nothing."

She was magnificent. A slow smile spread over his face and he nodded. "Very well, Mrs. Skinner." He cut another piece of chicken, paused to spread more butter on his roll. "We'll have strictly a business arrangement, then." --- As if it could have been anything else. ---

It was fully dark when they arrived in Phoenix. Mariel concentrated her focus on immediate, must-accomplish details: pick up purse, walk out of plane, place one foot in front of the other, inhale and exhale, block out the feel of the greying smoker's hand under her elbow guiding and keeping her in check. He stopped her at the entrance to one of the gift stores.

"We'll go in. You purchase the toilet articles you'll need for overnight."

"I have no money, you know," she said coldly without looking at him. Except for the emergency twenty-dollar bill folded into her compact, she had neither money nor identification in her purse. He'd taken her credit card, driver's license, college I.D. card, and anything else she could use to prove who she was.

"I do," he replied coolly, and steered her past the bolo ties, turquoise jewelry and grade-"B" paperback novels.

Ten minutes later Mariel and the Cigarette Smoking Man arrived at the taxi line. He guided her into the back of one, spoke to the driver, and climbed in beside her. The cab was cold and smelled of stale smoke. --- Just like *him* --- she thought. --- I'll probably smell of it, too, soon. --- She closed her eyes tightly, biting the inside of her lip. --- Please, God, help me with this. I'm afraid. ---

After a ride of scarcely three minutes, the taxi stopped in front of a hotel. Leaning close, the grey-eyed man murmured, "Ladies first, Mrs. Skinner." Tightening his grip on her elbow, he finished, "Remember that your husband got home safely tonight, at least."

Mariel Skinner had never hated a person before, but she realized she was beginning to hate this man. She stepped out of the cab and he was right behind her, still clasping her arm. The hotel lobby was just a lobby, she saw, with check-in desk and scattered chairs and tables. Unpretentious, unassuming and completely forgettable.

In the elevator she realized that she hadn't even noticed what hotel this was. --- Great --- she scolded herself. --- Keep your eyes open, girl. Didn't you pick up anything from Uncle Jack about being an alert witness? ---

The elevator stopped on the fifth floor, and Mariel took care to notice the exit signs. Down the hall, turn right...The man opened the proper door and gestured her into the room. He closed the door and flicked a light switch.

Facing him, Mariel drew a hard breath and waited, tense but prepared. If he tried to touch her, he would learn a few things that she didn't think he really wanted to know. As if reading her mind, he smiled a little and pointed to a chair.

"Please, sit down, Mrs. Skinner. I want to outline our activities for tomorrow."

She sat slowly, not relaxing her guard. He sat, too, on the end of the bed and lighted a cigarette without asking her permission as he'd done the first times he spoke to her. She realized that this omission of the token courtesy meant that the gloves were off, now. The game was beginning in earnest.

After a few moments, she stared. "Twenty-three years is a long time -- what if I can't find the place, or the land has changed, or houses are there now?"

He flicked ashes into the palm of one hand, never looking away from her. "Then I'll just have to send you home early, won't I?" he said, smiling slightly. He watched her closely, taking in the widening grey eyes, the sudden hard throb of the pulsebeat in her throat. Yes, she was quick. He wasn't going to tell her, however, that her conclusions were wrong. If not wrong, at least...mistaken.

--- He couldn't have missed that --- she thought. Certainly he would have considered the possibility of housing or commercial development on the land. They didn't need to come out here to verify whether the land was still the same.

He finally opened the briefcase he'd brought with him from the airplane and reached inside. "Hold this, please," he instructed, handing her a dark strap. It felt like heavy nylon webbing and had a small LED display readout panel and a locking mechanism.

Mariel stared at the thing, but took it. Then he stood up, pulling a small key from a breast pocket. "This is your key to the door connecting the suites here," he said, handing it to her. She stifled a wince when his fingers brushed hers.

He sat down again and continued, "Now, put that strap on."

"What?"

"Put it around your ankle."

It was becoming harder for her to conceal the growing fear. "What is it, and why should I wear it?"

He sighed. " Mrs. Skinner, I need to know your whereabouts tonight, and I am not going to behave so tastelessly as to handcuff you to your bed." He pointed to the display. "This will activate an alarm on my wristwatch if you go beyond a certain radius." His smile broadened. "I don't think I'll tell you what that distance is. Remember," he finished, voice dark and silky, "in this day and age, reaching your husband is just a matter of a telephone call or an e-mail message."

Tight with mingled fear and rage, Mariel crossed her legs, pushed up the pant leg and wrapped the strap around her ankle. The ends met with a tiny clicking sound.

"There. You'll find that you can't get it off." He stood again and walked to the connecting door. Looking back, he found her standing, too: tall, straight, her eyes glacier-hard and cold. --- If I didn't know you were a one-man woman --- he thought suddenly --- I wouldn't let you sleep alone tonight. --- Amused by the thought, he said, "Good night, Mrs. Skinner. Pleasant dreams."...

Movement jarred through the darkness, pulling at him, dragging him back toward wakefulness. His shoulder was moving: being shaken, he realized, and a voice was becoming intelligible. "Sir...sir?"

Walter Skinner sat up quickly, knocking the hand away from his shoulder and swinging his legs off the bed. Groggy and a little disoriented from the heavy sleep, he dragged his palms over his face, massaging his eyes and temples. The voice was relentless.

"Sir, are you awake enough to understand me?"

"Yes," Skinner grunted, looking up. "What is it, Mulder?" Damn...Momentarily ignoring the younger man, the AD went to the bathroom to soak a washcloth in cold water, soaking then scrubbing his face and neck. Mulder must have followed him, for the other man's voice came again from the bathroom door.

"Sir, we've got them."

Skinner's brown eyes jerked up. Drying his face quickly, he listened as Mulder went on. "We have two positive I.D.s from Phoenix: one from a gift shop employee at the airport, the other from a cab driver."

"Mariel..."

He must have spoken aloud unknowingly, because Mulder nodded. "Yes, Mrs. Skinner and...the smoker, sir."

"So," Skinner murmured coldly, "the son of a bitch is still with her."

"Maybe he doesn't trust anyone else on this one."

Skinner returned Mulder's speculative gaze for a moment, then went to the walk-in closet to drag out a change of clothes. "Agent Mulder," Skinner said from behind the closet door while he pulled on the clothes, "get us on the next flight out. I'll authorize the travel vouchers when we get back," he finished dryly, emerging in dark slacks and a pin-stripe shirt. Other clothes were on his arm and a light bag in his hand.

" 'Us'? " Mulder queried on his way out the door.

"Yes. You, Agent Scully and myself."

"Sir, maybe it would be better if you..."

Skinner unzipped the bag with a sudden hard jerk. "My God, Mulder," he grated, giving way for a moment to the pain. "Do you think I'm going to sit in my office shoving papers around my desk while my wife..." He bit off the rest, turned away a moment to regain control. When he spoke again his voice was uninflected, cool. "Agent Mulder, what I said was not a reflection upon yours or Agent Scully's abilities."

--- I know --- Mulder thought with compassion. --- What you said was a reflection of the fact that you're a human being who's deeply worried about the person who may be the only woman you ever loved. --- "Tickets. For three," Mulder confirmed aloud and left the room.

Skinner finished packing the bag, shaving quickly before finally stuffing in the last few toilet articles. He didn't care about order or neatness right now. Then he stood leaning with palms flat on the mattress, breathing deeply as he took a moment to let the brief flare of anger completely slide away. He regretted snapping at Mulder -- after all, he'd had a little rest and goodness knew when Mulder, or Scully, either, had napped last. There might be time for that anger later. And, perhaps, time to remember the promise he'd made that morning nearly six months ago....

Dipping water from the basin, gently soothing her eyes and face in the coolness, Mariel Skinner decided that whoever extolled the cleansing, therapeutic effects of a good cry were out of their minds. All she got from it was a headache, burning eyes, and the aching realization that the man she loved was several time zones away. Tension, lingering fear and an uncomfortable hotel mattress had made her night miserable, and waking to the memory of the man on the other side of the communicating door made her stomach sour and tight. How long could she run on nerve and prayer?

--- As long as I have to --- she thought grimly. --- Just.. please, God, I need my husband. --- But, wouldn't having him here just put him in even more danger?

A knock sounded from the adjoining door, then the metallic rattle of a key in the lock. She closed the bathroom door with a quick shove and threw the thumb latch. Back against the door, she heard the man's voice.

"When you decide to come out, Mrs. Skinner, there's a change of clothes on the bed." Then, of all things, she heard him chuckle. "I have some things to attend to, so you needn't worry about me standing here hoping you'll come out in a towel. Ten minutes, Mrs. Skinner," he finished, voice hard now. "I'll be back."

She waited five minutes before coming out. Yes, there were the clothes. Putting on the light teeshirt that was on the bed, she stepped into the jeans and pulled them up. Damn, another example of the "skinny is beautiful" clothes-sizing mentality. She could barely zip the jeans, let alone breathe in them. She'd have to leave the button undone and pull the shirttail out. Even then the garment pinched painfully, and she yanked the zipper down a couple more inches. Blast it, let her hips hold the damn pants up.

The struggle with the uncomfortable clothing reminded her forcefully of her big-boned, wide-hipped figure. Somehow, on top of the rest of this nightmare, the reality of walking around with unzipped jeans because the size was too small eroded her self-control down to a painful little sob. Then she grabbed a handful of tissues from the nightstand dispenser and quickly dried her face. The last thing she wanted was for this man to see her crying.

He unlocked the hall door while she was still tying her shoes. "Ready, Mrs. Skinner?" he asked, picking up her purse from the dresser to hand to her. He was in jeans, too, she saw, and didn't bother to wonder where he'd gotten these clothes.

"Yes." She took the purse, carefully not touching his hand, and raised her chin. "I want this strap off my ankle."

He smiled. "Not yet. Think of it as a fashion statement for now." Glancing at his watch, he remarked, "We have time for breakfast before we go."

Breakfast in the small coffee shop on the ground floor was stiff and silent. Mariel had trouble finishing her oatmeal even though she realized that she couldn't continue just being hungry. Smoking lazily, he sat across from her watching her eat. Finally she couldn't make herself swallow any more and pushed her chair back abruptly.

He looked over, movements still lazy. "Finished so soon? You'll be hungry." But he stood up with her, and soon they left the hotel.

Stepping out of the air-conditioned lobby, Mariel felt as though she had just leaned into an oven, the desert heat planting a metallic mask over her face. Her companion grasped her elbow and angled her into the hotel's side parking lot. He turned down the third lane and stopped beside a white four-wheel drive truck.

"Get in," he instructed her. She obeyed stiffly, realizing that she didn't want to know where this truck had come from, either. When she was seated he reached up, leaned over and pulled the seat harness down and across her body, securing it snugly over her breasts and hips. Utterly still, breathing shallowly, she stared straight ahead at the sun glare on the glass. Despite her light breaths, she could smell the cigarettes that now warred with some citrusy aftershave. It was a nauseating combination and she was thankful when he moved back a little, resting a hand on the dashboard.

"I trust you'll give me no reason to further restrain you, Mrs. Skinner," he said.

She didn't reply or move. Chuckling inwardly, he closed the passenger door and went to his side. AD Skinner's wife was stubborn and proud, he realized, just as Lorene had been. Lorene...proud, stubborn, beautiful, and at the last as passionate and greedy for pleasure as any man could ever want to find in a woman. At least, as much as *he* had ever wanted....

The street was not crowded. Abandoned motels lined this road, Mariel saw: windows boarded, swimming pools empty and cracked, buildings and parking lots surrounded with lopsided chain-link fences. There was something unnerving about the sight of these dilapidated shells, their neon vacancy signs broken with tubing hanging loose, asphalt lots pot-holed and weed-encrusted. Mariel shuddered, cold from more than the chill blast from the truck's air conditioner. Life had moved on from this street, leaving dry husks behind.

In self-defense, perhaps, she began to think of the accident she'd witnesses 23 years ago. After her mind replayed the scene twice, she sighed, unconsciously playing with the snap of the shoulder bag in her lap. An unknown victim, a hit-and-run car whose make and model she could not identify even at the time, a body never found....

"The knapsack," she said aloud suddenly, remembering. "You're looking for that, aren't you?"

Concentrating on merging with other east-bound traffic on the freeway, the smoker said nothing. Then he smiled, pushing in the dashboard cigarette lighter. "Whatever do you mean?" She caught the amusement in his quiet voice and clenched her jaw. He went on, " Mrs. Skinner, whatever I'm looking for can wait a little while longer." He sucked in the smoke, let it trickle out with his words. "We have to pay a call on someone first. You may even enjoy the little visit." A Street in Phoenix, Arizona
Late-Morning

"Yeah, this is where it was." The cab driver leaned forward from the back seat to point straight ahead, unwittingly jabbing an elbow into Grant Sanders's left bicep. "Sorry," the cabbie muttered, and Sanders signaled his own driver to slow down. Working past traffic, the agency sedan finally reached the curb.

Sanders looked coolly at the middle-aged, corpulent man who was still hunched forward from the back seat. "Are you sure?"

Shifting the gum wad into his other cheek with an expert tongue flick, the man said, "Well, yeah. This is the address on my logs. Funny," he considered, "it didn't look like this last night."

Sanders got out of the car and approached the fence. Six-foot tall chain-link, it stretched across the parking lot and around the perimeter of the five-story building. The lower-story windows were boarded over, trash and dead weeds cluttered the empty pool. The hotel looked like many others on this road, abandoned several years ago awaiting redevelopment plans that never materialized.

The cab driver got out, too, and crossed the sidewalk. "Hell, Agent Sanders, I woulda tried to talk them out of getting out here if it'd looked like this."

Sanders continued to visually scan the area, looking for whatever didn't fit. The cabbie tugged his shirt down to cover more bare belly and continued, "There weren't many lights on, but, I figured, ambience, you know. I sure never saw any fence."

"Construction fences like this can be put up quickly," Sanders remarked. This one didn't look new, however. Even so, the fence argued more possible local involvement in this case than he liked to think about. He looked at the cabbie again.

"Could your log entry have been altered?"

"I guess. Anything can get altered nowadays, right?" He shifted, uncomfortable under Sanders's appraising stare. "But I've hacked in this town for near 30 years. I guess I know where the streets are. This is it."

Yes...this was it. Sanders knew that Walter Skinner was on his way out from D.C. by now, and he didn't want to give his old friend only empty reports of leads that had evaporated. The S.A.I.C. himself felt an odd sense of urgency, as if they were working against a timetable. Or a deadline.

--- This is not the time to worry about deadlines --- he reminded himself. Every abduction case had its own built-in deadline. --- Decide on the next step and do it. --- And then pray that whatever he did had been fast enough....

Grant Sanders stood near the debarkation lounge, watching through the wall-to-wall windows as the jet completed its taxi maneuver, the forward door mating at last to the concertina walkway that lead into the terminal. He waited until the airline agent opened the lobby door before moving forward. There was Skinner, Sanders saw, exiting with the first group of passengers, his carry-on bag slung over one shoulder.

Two people were with the AD: an attractive auburn-haired woman and a tall, loose-limbed man who walked as if he still wasn't used to moving his legs under him. No joke, Sanders knew, getting muscles working properly again after five hours jammed in a crowded jetliner.

Sanders raised a hand, but Skinner was walking toward him already. The Phoenix S.A.I.C. wished that he had better news for his friend, but at least it wasn't the worst news that one man could bring to another.

"Grant," Skinner greeted his friend, offering a hard handshake.

"Walter," Sanders said, "I won't insult you by asking how you are."

"No," Skinner replied. "I think you know already. How *I* am isn't important anyway, right now." The big man gestured his two companions forward. "S.A.I.C. Sanders, Special Agents Mulder and Scully."

After a couple of quick nods and handshakes, Sanders led the little group toward the moving walkways. "Walter," he said quietly, "I have a few more things for you now."

"All right." Skinner could feel the ache starting in his shoulders as his muscles tensed involuntarily, tightening as if preparing for a blow. He reached up to knead his neck briefly with hard fingers. As the knots loosened a little, he had to consciously force aside his sudden mental image of Mariel's warm, strong fingers working like that against his skin, pleasing and relaxing him with the single touch. --- No --- he thought. --- Stay focused, mister. --- "Let's have it," he finished firmly.

As the walkway carried them through the terminal, Sanders passed Skinner a notebook. "This is a log abstract of everything we have so far," the S.A.I.C. said just loudly enough for his three companions to hear. "It all seems to center around a hit-and-run accident 23 years ago," he continued as three pairs of eyes scanned the log briefly, then lifted to his gaze as if all were controlled by the same mind.

Skinner asked, "But what has my wife to do with that?"

"Tell me this, first," Sanders said. "How often has Mrs. Skinner been in Phoenix?"

"She was here with me on our honeymoon trip," Skinner replied, his deep voice deliberately empty of any warmth, of any reflected sense of good memories. Beside him, eyes back on the log he still held angled for her and Mulder to read, Scully realized how difficult this was for her supervisor. Discussing his spouse as if her abduction was just another case to be solved, while at the same time repressing any personal feelings or memories, had to be painful in the extreme for this private man.

"Before that...as far as I know, she was here only once, visiting with her family." Skinner stepped off the walkway, automatically regaining his balance before stepping onto the next moving segment. "Grant, she couldn't have been more than twelve years old then, if she was even that old."

"I've talked to Eleanor Martin -- her Aunt Ellie -- several times about this, Walter. The exact conversations are in the log..."

Skinner interrupted coldly, "I'm not questioning your methods or abilities here, Grant. You know that. And you can tell me the logic chain later. Now, where is the connection to my wife?"

Sanders looked back at his old friend, ignoring the other man's tone. Goodness knew that he, himself, would demand instant answers and manners or protocol be damned if his Jenny was missing. He continued as if his sentence had never been cut off.

"...and Mrs. Martin said her brother's family stayed over in her house on that visit. The hit-and-run happened during that time, and your Mariel witnessed it. You can read the police report of the accident in my car."

Mulder spoke up. "According to this log, those fake federal agents at the Martin home asked about the accident, too."

"Yes. And that very night Mrs. Martin surprised prowlers and was shot."

They'd reached the sidewalk outside the baggage area now, and Skinner tightened involuntarily as the stifling heat seared his exposed skin. Inhaling was like breathing in a blast furnace. He heard Scully gasp slightly and Mulder muttered something unintelligible. --- How can people live here in the Summer? --- he thought, then, desolately: --- Mariel is so uncomfortable in the heat. My sweet love... ---

Mulder gasped, "Is it always like this in Summer?"

"No." Sanders looked around, focusing finally above the parking structure to the east. "It's really humid today, but this year started getting hot early: over 100 degrees in April. *That's* what worries me, now." He raised his arm and the others looked along his pointing finger.

A little north of east, dark cumulus clouds piled and boiled in the distance, white flashes spitting across the sky between the cloud masses. Scully felt a tingle as of static crawling across her skin, but that was impossible. Surely the electricity in that storm couldn't affect her at this distance.

"Looks like one hell of a storm building," Mulder remarked, trying for lightness. Skinner shot him a look that would melt diamond, and the younger man shut up. Too late, Mulder realized that his boss's wife possibly could be nearer that storm than they were. --- Watch your mouth, Mulder --- he admonished himself, and joined the others in the car.

It was strange how much her spirits lifted once she was out in the desert. Sitting in the bucket seat of the four-wheel drive truck, Mariel Skinner could see the mountains approaching, or seeming to as the driver continued east. She remembered how she'd been entranced by this desert 20-odd years ago: fascinated by the swiftly-changing colors of the land as the sun mounted hotly, then descended again into flaming red-gold evenings; the harsh, piled boulders and crags of the hills unexpectedly softened by low brushwood and punctuated by towering saguaro cacti; the fuzzy, almost furry-looking haze of sunlight shining through thick needles of cholla; and the blazing, overarching starfields of night. She remembered the smell of the air after the sudden, violent rainstorms, the heavy, musty odor of wet creosote bushes blotting out other smells.

And she remembered her aunt's delighted grin when she told the young Mariel that the desert cast its own spells for some people, and no matter where they went, it would be their home. A grown woman now, matured by experience and love, Mariel thought she finally knew what Aunt Ellie had meant. She didn't feel like a stranger here. Perhaps now she could take her chance.

Cigarette smoke drifted across her field of vision, obscuring the mountain. She turned her head away, but couldn't escape the acrid, searing odor. --- Even his skin must stink of it --- she thought, and rolled down the passenger window with a jerk.

"You know, Mrs. Skinner, doing that rather ruins the effect of the air conditioning." He sounded relaxed, even amused.

"Your smoke is foul," she said shortly.

He laughed, surprising her. "I see you can still speak in sentences when you want to. Very good." Then he sobered, cold grey eyes flicking back to the road. "We'll turn off soon."

In fact, he took the next exit, and Mariel took careful mental notes of street signs, stoplights and turnings. As a child, she'd never thought to attend to directions during car trips, considering, reasonably enough, that navigation was an adult duty. The smoker drove through town and finally turned down a blacktop, two-lane road leading to a day campground.

She'd seen many such places: a large parking lot with an RV dump station, cinder-block restrooms, rubberized trash drums mounted off the ground to discourage rodents, and a handful of picnic tables under wood-lattice canopies. He found a parking place away from the van and pickup that were already in the lot. Getting out, he walked around to the passenger side of his vehicle, watching Mariel through the windshield all the way. Then he opened the door and stepped back a couple of paces.

"Time to go for a walk, Mrs. Skinner," he said, and smiled.

Mariel shuddered inwardly at that travesty of a friendly expression and swung her long legs out of the truck, stepping down easily. She gestured with her head toward the restrooms, hoping her face wasn't flaming. "I need to use that," she said shortly, determined to use as few words as possible with him.

"Of course." He gestured her along ahead of him.

The restroom smelled of urine and stale disinfectants, and she decided it would be better not to wonder what liquids had wet the concrete floor in little scattered puddles. The stalls were just as distasteful, but since the only other choice was a chaparral bush along the trail she picked the cleanest stall and sighed. The very thought of even loosening her clothes outdoors while *that* person was anywhere nearby made her gag a little.

--- Naturally the place has no soap --- she thought sourly a few minutes later. Rinsing her hands thoroughly, she glanced up at the overhead louvered window. No, an active chipmunk might squeeze through there, but nothing bigger. There was no way to leave a note, either: she didn't even have lipstick to scribble something on the dirty mirror. Of course, any note probably would be disregarded as a prank, she realized, a joke by someone who enjoyed alarming other people.

There had to be something that she could do....

Outside, he waited for her. He half-sat on a picnic table, smoking quietly, lazily watching the smoke drift before his eyes. He could feel the sweat on his body now, and watched the heat haze create imaginary water pools at the far range of his vision. There she was, coming out of the restroom.

He knew that she was beginning to get her equilibrium back: still frightened, perhaps, but no longer feeling so helpless. He chuckled to himself, holding the smoke in his lungs for a long time before exhaling slowly. Her newly-rediscovered strength wouldn't last, of course. He'd see to that. Sliding off the table, steps crunching across the sandy ground, he approached to clasp her right elbow.

"Take your hand away," Mariel said coldly, looking through him as if he were transparent.

He ignored her, shifting his thumb to squeeze the sensitive joint warningly. Then he pointed toward the mountain. "Does this lay of the land look familiar, Mrs. Skinner?"

She shook herself away from the pain of that squeeze. The mountain looked to be about five miles away, but the heat haze made it hard to judge distance. Stark and forbidding, the old Apache stronghold still held menace for the unwary. "No," she answered briefly, deliberately not showing the hurt.

"I suppose not," the smoker returned agreeably, leading her down the marked nature-walk path by the water fountain. "You originally approached the mountain from the other side of that outcropping, as I recall."

She looked automatically, squinting against the haze toward the bare rock spur that thrust out from the mountain's bulk. The far side of it appeared to slope more gently, and something in her memory stirred.

His smooth voice stilled the memory momentarily. "This way, please." A barred gate with a sign forbidding trespassers blocked the path twenty yards ahead. Barbed-wire fencing led off from the gate, enclosing the lower mountain slopes. Part of the fence had collapsed, and he stepped over the sunken wires, drawing her through after him. Around one more bend in the path, he paused.

"Ah, just in time."

Just ahead of them under a thick clump of palo verde trees was a double-wide horse trailer hooked to a jeep. Two men came around the trailer to let the ramp down and one went inside. Shortly, the man lead out a tall, sturdy-looking sorrel mare.

Despite herself, Mariel's eyes brightened. It had been years since she'd ridden, but perhaps it was like riding a bicycle: once learned, never forgotten. And with a decent horse under her, she would have more options for planning.

The smoker watched the men unload and saddle the animals. Drawing Mariel along, he walked over to run an appreciative hand over the mare's arched neck. "This one looks just perfect for you," he remarked over his shoulder before turning to face her completely.

" Mrs. Skinner," he continued, moving close enough to her to be able to study the texture of her skin, "please don't try to make any side arrangements with these men. They don't speak English, and I'm absolutely certain that you don't speak their language." He seemed amused, and his chill grey eyes drifted slowly from Mariel's eyes to her mouth and slowly back. A stab of disgust tightened her body even as she stared straight ahead and through him as if he were made of glass.

--- You have no idea of how beautiful you are --- he thought irrelevantly. For a moment, his smile was as chill as his eyes. He said, apparently apropos of nothing, "Your aunt has a wedding picture of you and the assistant director on her kitchen counter. Please don't do anything that might lead to my sending someone to get it."

Coolly, giving nothing away by facial expressions or breathing, Mariel spat in his face. They both stood frozen a moment, eye to eye, close enough almost to taste each other's breath. When he moved at last it was merely to wipe his face and laugh softly.

"Rather indelicate of you, Mrs. Skinner, but honest, at any rate. Please mount your horse now."

Trembling with reaction, she turned quickly away from him toward the mare that the stableman had lead up to her. Left foot in the stirrup, her weight was on her right foot for a second before she could swing her right leg over. At that balanced instant, a hot, stabbing pain like a scorpion sting lanced through her ankle, numbing her leg. The leg gave way beneath her, and only her left-handed grip on the saddle horn kept her from collapsing under the horse. She felt the tall mare brace her body against this human's sudden shift of weight. Mariel let go then and fell the rest of the way.

Leg still useless beneath her, she looked almost frantically for the scorpion, but saw nothing on the ground but dirt, bits of tree bark and small rocks. "What the hell...?" she gasped.

The smoker knelt beside her, flexing her leg from under her body. "Are you all right?"

"I don't' know...."

He said, "You'll be fine in a minute," and reached over to press one of the triple stems on his wristwatch. "I didn't intend to hurt you, Mrs. Skinner, but I had to show you that your little 'ankle bracelet' is not just a tracking device." He pulled her up, not bothering to be gentle. "Now that you know, we'll be on our way. Your husband will be arriving in a few more hours."...

It was a ride of only a few miles to the Phoenix field office, but the time spent in Sanders's car seemed to stretch interminably for Walter Skinner. Adding to the pain of his aching anxiety was the fact that he was physically restless after hours spent sitting in the jetliner's narrow seat, his stiffness only briefly relieved then by walks up the aisle. His body needed the release of the intense physical movement of a hard workout, but he knew he had to deny himself for however long it would take...to bring his love back.

He closed his eyes for a moment, opened them again to see the passing buildings and pedestrians along the road to the office. Dear God, his love....The woman who embraced his heart and soul with the same warmth and fervor as she embraced his body in the yielding that made them utterly one.

He had fallen so naturally into the rhythm of life with her since their marriage that he felt now as if part of himself was missing. He had thought that couples needed to live together through years of shared joys and sorrows to achieve the intimacy he already felt for Mariel and with her. He was thankful that it hadn't taken them years, yet that same closeness made the present nightmare that much harder for him to bear.

The chime of a cell 'phone interrupted his reverie, and he looked over toward Sanders as the other man took a hand off the steering wheel to answer. "Sanders....Yes, I know....Peggy, we don't have time for that, now....All right -- sit on him untill we get there....Yes, literally, if you have to....Fine....Thanks." Sanders set the 'phone down, shaking his head. "Damn, we don't need that now."

Skinner looked a question at his friend, who shrugged, eyes troubled. "Our resident informant," Sanders said. "But he's given us some good tips, mostly about drug-running, so I can't just brush him off."

From the back seat, Mulder spoke up. "Sir, he claims to know something about Mrs. Skinner?"

The AD frowned. How could this person possibly have such information, or even know the Phoenix field office was investigating the kidnapping? Still frowning, Skinner shook his head mutely, and Sanders said, "We'll see, Agent Mulder."

The Phoenix field office almost could pass for the one in Atlanta, except for two things. One of those things was the beautifully arranged cactus garden planted beside the secretary's desk in the waiting room. The other was the person sitting there, apparently waiting for Sanders to arrive. Coming in the door behind his partner, Mulder glanced at the man and murmured near Scully's ear, "I didn't know that Byers followed us here."

Scully blinked. The man now rising from a chair by the planter bore an almost eerie resemblance to the Lone Gunman, down to the expensive-looking shoes. --- Maybe there are more clones around than we suspect. --- Scully shook herself inwardly, immediately dismissing the errant thought.

The man was pulling out and unfolding something that looked like a survey map, and Sanders raised a hand. "I'll get to your information in a few minutes. Please wait."

"All right, but this is really quite urgent, Agent Sanders." The man had a clear basso voice that would have the music director of the Metropolitan Opera begging him to sign a contract.

Mulder said, "Perhaps Agent Scully and I can speak to him."

Skinner nodded automatically, then glanced to his old friend for the S.A.I.C.'s approval. This was his jurisdiction, after all, and his informant, so to speak. "Fine," Sanders said, and then in a quieter voice, "We'll talk in my office, Walter."

When the inner door was closed behind them, Skinner heaved his travel bag to the floor in a sudden, almost rough gesture. It was becoming harder for him to keep his temper in check, and even necessary delays in their progress grated on him. Letting a full breath expand his chest, he said, "Grant, I've thought about this." --- Brilliant remark --- he thought sourly, then shook out of it. "Check me on this. If the kidnapper wanted information about the accident, he could access the police reports and any pertinent newspaper articles. He could pinpoint the location on any large-scale map; a survey or Interior Department map, maybe."

Sanders took up the thread, prodding the other man's logic chain. "But he doesn't do these things; at least, he doesn't stop with them. He resorts to kidnapping. Why?"

Skinner focused unseeingly on the American flag in the corner of the office. He let his thoughts form into words, speaking them slowly as they came. "Because he needs something my wife has, or he thinks she has. Not just information, or he wouldn't think he needed to abduct her." He swung away from the flag, back toward Sanders. "He needs her to...find something, to show him something," Skinner continued, sharply now. "Something he requires her actual presence for."

"Walter," Sanders broke in, "that would explain why the other witness never was contacted."

Skinner looked at Sanders unbelievingly. "Grant," he returned dryly, "I'd say that Mrs. Martin getting a bullet in the abdomen required someone contacting her."

"No," the S.A.I.C. corrected. "Not your wife's aunt. She wasn't the other witness. Her daughter was."

"Mariel's cousin..." Skinner remembered then: Frances Carpenter, the voice on his car 'phone that Sunday morning. "That's it, then," he decided, sure of his deduction, "if no one got to Mrs. Carpenter."

Sanders knew exactly what was coming next, and sighed. "Walter," he affirmed, "we have an all-terrain vehicle that's always prepared and equipped for desert rescue work."

Just for a moment, Skinner's eyes warmed a little. "How'd you know I was going to demand a search? Old memories, maybe?"

"Maybe so."

For a second, both men saw each other as brand-new agents, green but determined and courageous. Then the years and the realities flowed back, and Skinner clapped a hand briefly on his friend's shoulder.

"All right. But I...I feel that there's not much time."

"Walter, even with proper teams and canine units, it takes searchers days to cover the Superstitions -- that's the mountain near the accident scene. And there's this." Sanders motioned for Skinner to join him, and pointed out the window.

The cumulus clouds were nearly black now, spreading and boiling over more than half the sky. The mass was visibly moving in the upper-atmosphere winds and lightning seared the air repeatedly, reflecting within the clouds. Sanders went on, "You haven't seen desert lightning and rain storms, Walter. They can be...devastating." He, himself, had seen a flood torrent from the hills wash away a highway bridge, carrying a highway patrolman who was in his car on that bridge to his death. But he wasn't going to tell Skinner that story. The man had enough pain to shoulder without adding that kind of picture to his mental vision.

"Dear God...." Skinner breathed as he stared at the storm. He'd forgotten *that* reality, insulated as they'd been for a while in the air-conditioned office. Fighting a fear so deep that it left him almost nauseated, he whispered, "How can we find her in time?"

The saddle leather felt warm through her pants, the stirrups snug against the soles of her shoes. Mariel Skinner settled into the saddle as firmly as she could, gathering the reins in her left hand. She gave the leathers a little experimental tug, and the mare obediently moved backward a pace. At least the horse didn't seem to be an iron-mouthed stable nag.

The dark stableman finished fastening the packed saddlebags behind her. Then he looked up and said something to her. Because of her music studies, she knew Italian and was conversant in French and German, but this man's language seemed to have no recognizable roots. Harsh and sibilant, it both grated on and soothed the ear at the same time. "I don't understand you," she said.

Apparently amused, the smoker translated. "He said that you have a nice seat, Mrs. Skinner."

Realizing that the man had complimented her stance in the saddle rather than the attractiveness of her backside, Mariel looked the smoker straight in the eye and said coolly, "Please thank him for his kind assessment of my skills at equitation."

The lean, greying man looked right back at her a moment, then laughed aloud with a surprisingly full sound. Subsiding into a chuckle, he said, "I'll do that." --- Damn --- he thought. --- She's wonderful. It *really* is too bad that she's a one-man woman. ---

When he turned away toward the back of the horse trailer, Mariel sighed inaudibly and reached down to massage her right calf. All the feeling had returned to her leg, but it was still sore. She knew that he was relying on the fact that she couldn't walk or control the mare properly with a numb right leg, to say nothing of the initial pain factor, and so would have one more limitation on her ability to thwart his plans. Whatever those plans were.

He joined her again, holding up a wide-brimmed hat. "Here," he said, taking the mare's bridle in the other hand. "You're going to sunburn. There's zinc oxide in the saddlebag if you need that."

There it was again: the strange juxtaposition of courtesy and ruthlessness she'd sensed from him before. Not fifteen minutes ago he'd quite literally felled her in that demonstration of the ankle strap's mechanism. Now he was offering her protection against the discomforts of sunburn. --- I don't want to know anything about this man, or why he behaves like this. --- she thought, and took the hat.

After speaking quietly to the other two men for a few minutes, he mounted his own horse, a rangy dark bay gelding, and guided the animal up to Mariel's horse. He looked to be comfortable in the saddle, sitting his horse with a loose, balanced ease. He said, "We'll skirt that outcropping that I pointed out earlier, Mrs. Skinner, then go down to the area where you and your cousin were 23 years ago."

She stared at him, then looked down at her mount's long mane, reaching automatically to smooth the tangles there. Had he involved Frances in this, too? Or was that sentence just another little reminder that he knew things he had no business knowing, and so might anticipate other people's actions?

Mariel was tired. Her skin was prickling with sweat, her eyes dry and strained from squinting. Her teeshirt was clinging embarrassingly to her damp body, and she felt as if she couldn't get a full breath. --- It's humid out --- she thought. --- That's...not a good sign. ---

The smoker brought his horse nearer, and reached out a hand. For a sickening moment, she thought he was going to touch her, but he rested that hand lazily on the mare's rump instead. --- But I'm still ready --- she thought --- to give you quite a shock if you try it. ---

"When we get there," he remarked, his now lazy eyes moving over her face and throat, "I'll give you what answers I can." Pausing, he focused on her eyes again, shadowed as they were under the hat brim: cold grey eyes that looked through him as if he didn't exist. --- As, of course --- he thought --- I don't, for her. --- "You're the final link, Mrs. Skinner," he finished softly. "...And the end of the chain."

He swatted the mare's rump gently, then urged his mount into motion. "Let's go."...

After his boss and S.A.I.C. Sanders left the waiting room, Mulder extended a hand. "I'm Agent Mulder," he remarked, "and this is Agent Scully."

The man returned the handshake and nod. "I'm..." he started to say, then shrugged. "My name doesn't matter. Agent Sanders knows who I am."

The man's blue eyes weren't like Byers's eyes, Scully noted. The informant swept his gaze over her, not dismissively, but as if calculating how much help she would be. That kind of look from a man usually put Scully's back up a little, but she realized that this was no time to let personalities abrade any possible cooperation here.

"I'm not going to call you 'Mr. X,' " Mulder said dryly. "We already deal with one of *those*."

"Fair enough," the other man conceded. "Then call me Joe." He resumed unfolding the map he'd drawn from an inner jacket pocket when the agents first entered the office. Then he stopped, and looked appraisingly at the two partners. "I suppose that since Sanders trusts you, I can, too," he decided aloud. "But if any word of my description, or of the surveillance techniques I employ, or any other personal information gets to the 'gentlemen' who run the drugs here, I hope you realize what my life will be worth."

Scully nodded. "The phrase 'not worth a plugged nickel' would probably be accurate in that case," she said levelly.

Joe snorted. "Not even worth that much, Agent Scully. Let's get to it." He carried the map over to the cactus garden and, without any hesitation, impaled one corner of the paper on an upthrust prickly pear cactus spine. He handed the other corner to Mulder, who shrugged and copied the gesture, choosing a young saguaro spine for his thumbtack. The map now fully, if unusually, unfurled was an intricately-detailed topographical map. Joe produced a pen and used it as a pointer as he began to talk.

"Sanders probably told you I, shall we say, follow the drug trade. I have some tracking equipment that I used when I was with A.P.R.O., and..."

Mulder interrupted, "A.P.R.O.? The Aerial Phenomenon Research Organization?" Beside him, Scully sighed. Leave it to Mulder to put a name to any acronym thrown at him. Her partner went on, "I didn't know they were still in business."

"That's not our concern now, is it?" Hearing the cold, almost condescending voice, Scully decided that Joe might resemble their Lone Gunman, but his personality was way off. "Anyway," the informant went on, "earlier today I picked up a signal on a waveband similar to the alerting signals that the secondary runners use. You know -- 'Here I am, make your drop.' I triangulated the signal...here."

He laid the pen on the map and Mulder and Scully bent over some to see. Without knowing the territory, Mulder saw that the spot marked was not far off a secondary road and almost within the foothills of the mountains. --- The Superstitions, right? --- Mulder thought. --- Quite a name for a mountain. ---

Joe continued, "I was figuring that I'd have another little tip for Sanders when I realized the strange part: the signal didn't stop." The pen moved across the map, never touching, but pausing briefly to indicate other triangulation marks. "At least, it picked up again erratically here, here, and here. It wasn't a light plane or helicopter, since it moved too slowly."

Scully frowned, glancing at Mulder. She didn't see what all this had to do with Mrs. Skinner's kidnapping, but she noticed that her partner was following the story closely. Had he picked up on something she missed?

"Slow enough to be a person on foot?" Mulder asked.

"Yes," Joe replied. "Or on horseback." He chewed on the pen a moment. "That's what's strange. The people I...follow...wouldn't use a mounted or hiking courier -- too much chance of detection, and the runner would be in the area too long."

"Where's the last confirmed location?" Mulder asked, leaning closer to the map.

"Here." Joe drew the pen along a faint line that ran away from the mountain. "See this line?" he asked, unnecessarily as two pairs of eyes immediately focused on it. "This marks the location of an old blacktop secondary road that used to branch off past Apache Junction before the freeway went in." The pen stopped. "Right here."

Mulder's eyes dragged over the map, searching. Yes...there: houses within three miles of the latest penpoint. "Excuse us a minute," he said then, drawing Scully toward the outer door.

"Mulder," she whispered, "what is going on? Where's the point I missed?"

"Scully, the implant in your neck: wasn't it also a kind of tracker?"

Taken aback by the unexpected question, Scully pressed her lips together, swallowing a touch of renewed fear at the reminder of her own mystery. "I'm not sure....It would make sense, though, if it were." Clear blue eyes searched Mulder's face. "Why?"

He clasped her upper arms, briefly, in a strength-lending squeeze. "You know the one about the leopard and his spots?" he queried, his eyes drawing hers. "Maybe they really don't change."

Leaving her blinking, trying to assimilate his hasty, almost telegraphic words, Mulder hurried to Sanders's office door and knocked quickly. He pushed the door open without waiting, to see the S.A.I.C. and his own boss by the window. Despite Mulder's hurry, his eyes were riveted by the smoldering storm framed by the window, and he swallowed. --- Less time than I thought. Damn... ---

"Excuse me....Sir, you have to hear this."

Easing his buttocks in the saddle, the smoker looked over at the quiet woman who rode beside him. They'd stopped several times for water, and once for a little food -- dried fruit and high-carbohydrate trail mix -- but both people were beginning to feel the strain of the ride. He knew there was no genuine danger for them: he'd calculated times and distances perfectly, and his two helpers in the jeep were near enough to afford any necessary help.

Although she was uncomfortable, Mariel still found some measure of enjoyment in this overland trail ride, despite her ... unpleasant .. companion. There were good things here. The slightly musty smell of the air as the hot sun drew scents from the foliage was oddly invigorating. Overhead, a pair of hawks circled, their keening cries echoing sharply off the rocks. Ahead, a roadrunner pelted across the trail. The bird paused for a second in its dash, with long-necked head and slender long tail held high, then disappeared into the sumac.

Mariel's mount, thankfully, had proven to be a good one. The mare had a smooth-strided walk and a soft mouth that responded easily to the reins. She didn't balk, or stop unexpectedly to bury her nose in some likely-looking bush.

Mariel had let her thoughts drift more than once during this ride, and realized that she was doing it again now. --- *You* should be riding beside me now, Walt. --- she thought. --- On Sidewinder, maybe. ---

...He'd look so good up on that big horse. They could stop under those cottonwoods up ahead, spread out a blanket, lie together in the shade. Perhaps talk about the family they wanted, perhaps even take steps toward creating that family. Concentrating, she could almost feel her husband's mouth warm on her skin, and his hands firm upon her hips as he clasped her and eased her body beneath his, gently but irresistibly preparing her for...

She broke out of the fantasy, biting her lip painfully. The salty tang of her own sweat on her upper lip dragged her forcibly back to reality. She had to acknowledge that she missed Walter very much: these months of marriage had begun to accustom her to the sweet natural rhythms of love. The closeness and the disagreements, the times to embrace and to refrain from embracing. --- But you're not going to get back to him by dreaming --- she scolded herself. --- There's got to be an end to this nightmare, so wake up. ---

The sweat taste still on her tongue stimulated her thirst, and she reached back for the canteen. As she unscrewed the lid, the man who actually was riding beside her spoke up.

"Don't gulp it, Mrs. Skinner," he instructed.

She wouldn't have in any case, and replaced the canteen lid after one mouthful. The smoker watched her, his gaze lingering for an instant on lips still moist from that swallow. "We should be at our destination in, say, another 45 minutes," he remarked coolly, looking ahead again.

"Then what?" Mariel asked, voice clipped.

"Ah! Curiosity finally getting the better of you?" he smiled.

"No." She didn't bother looking at him. "You promised me answers."

"I said I'd give you what answers I could," he corrected, leaning over slightly to stroke his horse's neck. "It'll have to wait in any case...until we get there."

"Where?"

He pointed. "Just the other side of that spur. Do you recognize it?"

Blinking against the warm, stinging sweat, she looked. The formation was vaguely familiar, as a specific shape might be if a person had seen it from only one side before. It was the same one he'd pointed out before they started the ride, but it didn't look any closer to Mariel. She knew, however, that visual distance perception could be difficult because of tricks of the heat and the air currents.

It was almost precisely 45 minutes later when Mariel drew rein on her own, halting her mare just at the top of a long, sweeping slope of land. Mariel wasn't looking down, though, but directly east and a little north, her eyes pulled almost painfully to the skyscape now visible beyond the mountain's previously obscuring bulk.

--- *That's* why it's so humid --- she thought, swallowing. Why the sweat wouldn't dry on her skin and why her lungs wouldn't fill to a complete breath. Storm clouds -- high-piled, black and lightning-filled -- still several miles away but visibly moving, dominated the horizon.

With a scrape of hoofs against rock, the smoker's horse halted beside Mariel, nipping playfully at her mare's neck. "There's still time," the man said after an appraising look. "But we should get to it immediately."

"What is it, Mulder?" Skinner heard the apprehension-born anger in his own voice, but did not apologize. Mulder didn't flinch in the least, simply pointing over his shoulder as he said, "The informant, sir. I think he's got something."

Joe was standing stiffly beside Scully, fidgeting with his pen as he waited with the auburn-haired agent. When Mulder and the other two men joined them, he said sharply, "I can't be here too long, you know, Agent Sanders."

Skinner impaled the man with a look that would have intimidated Adolf Hitler. "Shut up, mister," the AD said. "Go over it again...for me this time."

Mulder wasn't surprised at the boss's voice. He'd long since realized that he never wanted to be the object of Skinner's wrath. Receiving a chewing-out over a problematic field report was one thing; feeling this man's genuine rage would be quite another. --- He's headed for that --- Mulder thought. --- If anything has happened to his wife, heaven help whoever's responsible.... ---

Joe's second recital was brief and pointed. Despite his own cool self-confidence, the informant recognized inborn authority and strength when they were embodied before his eyes. At the end of it, Sanders leaned over his secretary's computer and called up a file.

"Walter," Sanders said excitedly, "that last triangulation is within a half-mile of the accident site. I think we've got them."

"Sir," Mulder affirmed quickly, "it makes sense. He'd want to keep track of Mrs. Skinner, and know where to scoop her up again if she got away. I think he put a tracker on her: a pin, a bracelet, maybe. She may not even know she has it on."

Walter Skinner felt torn inside, dragged painfully between hope and disbelief that they could have found the answer so quickly. To assume that the electronic signals pinpointed Mariel and her kidnapper seemed a stretch of coincidence to him. And yet, he knew that his wife and that...S.O.B....were here, and the 23-years past accident was the *only* link, the only possible connection.

He realized suddenly that they were due this break. The innocent couldn't always be swept aside by the machinations of those who had no conscience and no remorse. Somewhere, sometime, the reckoning had to come.

"Grant," he said briskly, "have that search vehicle brought around. And you...Joe," he went on, dark eyes hard, "I want updates on those locations."

"Mr. Skinner," Joe said acerbically, "I don't keep my monitoring equipment in my pocket." The man held up a hand. "But if Sanders will give me his call signs I'll pass on the latest."

Just as everyone started to move, Sanders's secretary called from her desk. "Sir...Agent Sanders, I pulled up the weather service report. It's been raining in the foothills for about an hour." She bit her lip. "There have been some canal backups already."

"Then let's move," Skinner said, feeling himself shutting down inside. --- God, please.... --- ......

The leather reins were slippery with damp and sweat, and Mariel Skinner pressed them firmly against the saddlehorn as she dismounted. The saddle creaked and shifted slightly, and the mare shuddered her coat, blowing a sharp snort. The man waited for her, his own reins in hand as he stood braced against the slight downward slope.

" Mrs. Skinner," he said, "I want you to retrace the exact path you and your cousin took that night."

She looked around, trying to overlay in her own mind the visual and tactile sense of that evening. She had no doubt that this was where she and Frances had rounded the rock spur 23 years ago, but the land was not the same. Not quite....

The angle of the slope and the ground underfoot were the same, she saw. The seemingly ageless cacti still grew, saguaros stretching strong arms upward, cholla and prickly pear still spreading riotously in impenetrable clumps. But farther down she saw a broad slash in the earth: a deeply furrowed now-dry wash gouged out by years of storm runoff from the hills. Had that wash been there when she was a child, and simply hidden by the darkness?

There was no way to tell, of course, and it didn't matter in any case. Pulling in a breath, she turned to look hard at her companion's grey eyes. His lined face was still as he returned the stare, waiting for words or movement from her.

She said, "Answers, mister. We're here now, and you owe me."

He laughed. " 'Owe' you? I think not." Reaching out to smooth his horse's mane, he continued, "But I will tell you this: whether we succeed here today or not is really irrelevant. The timetable won't be affected by our success or failure."

"Don't play word games with me," she parried. "What are we going to do here? Why did you threaten me, threaten my husband to get me here, abduct me across several state lines to...?"

He interrupted her coldly. "Don't be childish, Mrs. Skinner. If you think back calmly, you'll remember that I made no threats." He reached for his canteen, unscrewing it slowly. "I merely stated realities to you, mentioned the various hazards of life in this modern, stress-filled age." He took a swallow, enjoying the cool, wet feeling as the water slid down his throat. "Remember?"

That was part of the hell of this. She knew that he was right in a strictly legalistic sense. He'd never said to her, "Come with me or I'll have your husband killed." He'd relied on her knowledge of his previous involvement in her and Walter's life to insinuate the threat rather than baldly say it in so many words.

So nothing could be proved besides the fact that she was a gullible fool who'd been expertly played for someone else's ends. A harsh assessment, perhaps, but Mariel realized painfully that it was the truth. Even her understanding of the fact that she had no knowledge of "under-the-counter" affairs, or experience with shady, clandestine agents and their agendas did nothing to soften her own self-criticism.

" Mrs. Skinner," he spoke over her thoughts, "the sooner we finish, the sooner we can go home." He laughed, then, as at a sudden thought. "And I do have a home, much as you might prefer to think that I live under a rock."

She didn't flinch, although she thought she already knew what he'd say to her next sentence. "Am I really going home?" The words were quiet, spoken calmly with high-held head, and they echoed between them.

The man tucked his canteen back into the saddlebag and leaned almost nonchalantly against the saddle leathers. " Mrs. Skinner," he said with a slow, strange smile, "haven't I told you more than once that you have nothing to fear from me?" He wondered if she understood all the nuances of that reply, and whether her agile mind would place overtones on the words that he did not intend.

She felt a slight, cool breeze on her damp cheek and sensed the far-off, felt-rather-than-heard sense of thunder. Her eyes lifted toward the main mass of the hills behind them and she saw that the clouds had enfolded the topmost peaks. Bar-straight, misty lines of darkness poured from those clouds, and she knew that the desert rain was soaking the higher ground now. She remembered the storms here, and rubbed her arms to warm them against the strengthening breeze.

"We don't have much time," she murmured as if to herself, almost preternaturally aware of the approaching storm.

"No, we don't," he agreed, and gestured. "After you."

Mariel moved slowly, almost feeling her way, tugging lightly on the reins to keep the mare close to her left side. Her shoes weren't suitable for walking downhill over sand- and pebble-strewn rock, and she placed her feet carefully. The man beside her moved more loosely.

"Right here," she said, halting and hooking an arm around the mare's neck to ease her right leg a little. "We stopped once here."

"What did you see from here?"

She frowned, drawing the mare's big head down to adjust the animal's headstall, tightening the bridle. "Just the desert, the stars." The mare nuzzled her chest, and she pushed the head away gently.

He fingered his wristwatch and Mariel tensed involuntarily, expecting the sharp, numbing agony to strike at her leg again. But it didn't happen, and she frowned again, trying to see the watch better.

"I want you to take us to where you first saw the...individual who was hit by that car," he instructed, not looking up. He appeared to be making adjustments of some kind to the stems and dials, but she couldn't see any visible results of the manipulation.

"I don't know if I can be that precise," she said.

"Do your best, Mrs. Skinner," he replied, raising his eyes at last. They held a look that she didn't recognize, but one that washed over her like a cold breath from an icy cave. "As you said yourself, we don't have much time."

Scully had seen several rescue vehicles, but none quite like this. The body was reminiscent of a Hum-Vee from the Desert Storm conflict. Large cans holding water and gas were strapped to the rear, a brace of powerful lights surmounted the roofline, and a heavy-duty winch was mounted above the front bumper.

Outward-opening doors at the back let into a cleared space where stretchers, coiled ropes, first-aid supplies and rapelling gear were stored. A weapons rack secured rifles, a flare pistol, and several hand guns of various calibres. The appropriate ammunition was boxed beneath the rack.

There was a lot more in there that her eye missed as she reached back for yet another package that Mulder pushed into her hands. They were finishing the final outfitting touches at an almost literal run, each person trying to beat an unspoken, perhaps unacknowledged, deadline that quickened their breathing and tensed their muscles.

In the front, Sanders finished his tests of the radio, short-wave and telephone devices and jerked a thumbs-up in Skinner's general direction. On the other side of the cab, the AD finished pushing the foot-long hand lanterns under the seat and nodded.

"Clear?" he asked, taking a minute to store his glasses in a zipped inner pocket. They'd be no good to him in the rain, and he could see well enough without them to pass muster.

"Clear," Sanders confirmed. "Joe just checked in: the signal's moved another half-mile nearer the road."

Skinner nodded and jumped lightly down from the cab, trotting to the open rear doors. "We're set," he told Mulder and Scully. "Shut it down back here as soon as you're done."

"That'll be about five minutes, sir," Scully judged after a fast glance at the remaining gear.

"Make it three, Agent Scully," Skinner commanded shortly, and disappeared back around the vehicle.

The two partners hurried, finally climbing into the back themselves and hauling the doors shut. "Done," Mulder called over his shoulder, and hurriedly found a seat as Sanders started the engine.

It sounded and felt to Skinner as if he was inside a tank. The engine vibrated the chassis with a low-pitched rumble. Rain was coming down now in huge, widely-spaced drops that came faster as Sanders pulled onto the road.

"This looks nasty," Mulder muttered near Scully's ear. "Got any good prayers, Scully?" His face and voice were utterly serious.

Scully caught that look and nodded just as seriously. "I've been using them, Mulder," she said.

Skinner said then, "How long, Grant?"

"About a half-hour to Apache Junction," Sanders replied, starting the windshield wipers. "After that...I don't know. The old road might be in pretty bad shape."

Skinner rubbed his temples. He almost resented having to sit here, doing nothing, letting the vehicle carry him to the next place. --- Mariel, please --- he thought. --- You've made it this far. We're close now; we *have* to be close. ---

"Of course," Sanders went on, distracting his thoughts, "that's why we've got this little gal." He gave the dashboard a firm slap. "Besides four-wheel drive, she'll even float if she has to."

Scully closed her eyes for a second. That was *not* what she needed to hear. And...neither did the boss. As a doctor and a woman, Scully realized that Skinner was close to his limit. Even the most disciplined man had his breaking point, and if Mariel was injured, or, God forbid, dead....Scully shook her head briefly.

--- At least --- she thought --- we'll be there for him. --- But after that, Scully didn't know. Having worked to the end of her list of prayers, she started them all over again....

It was difficult to keep her balance now. Mariel was thankful more than once for the sure-footed mare, for she had to catch hold of the animal's mane a couple times or grab the stirrup irons when she slipped. The rain wasn't a downpour -- at least, not here, within a mile or so of the flatland -- but it was steady enough to be chilling, and her clothes were plastered wetly to her body.

At least she still had the hat. The brim sheltered her face from the worst of the drips. Hunger, aching muscles, lingering, caustic fear, and the beginnings of an agonizing, tension-exacerbated headache made thinking almost impossible for her now. At least she knew that the man beside her wasn't faring any better, as far as comfort went.

Mariel desperately wanted this to be over, this person out of her life and out of Walter's life. If there was even much of a life remaining for her to live, she realized drearily. She had no illusions about the smoker's non-answer when she'd asked if she was really going home. --- I just have to be ready --- she thought --- for whatever I can do. ---

"This is it," she said. "This is where I first saw the man."

Her companion looked at her. His face looked older, more drawn. His soaked clothes emphasized his lean build. "No," he said. "The term is 'person,' Mrs. Skinner. Not 'man.' "

She was so tired of these semantic games. Her self-control was severely eroded by now, but she knew she had to save any remaining reserves for whatever last chance she might be granted.

"Where, exactly?" he asked.

"See where the two saguaros look like they're linking arms?" she replied, pointing. "I saw him move between them."

Her eyes narrowed as the sense and "feel" of that night flooded her mind. Two girls who were only children alone in darkness on a desolate mountain, confronted unexpectedly by a man's shadow not 20 yards away. Behind them, the dark, looming hulk of rock; the skittering of small nocturnal creatures; the only-glimpsed but darkly-threatening spoor of mountain lion. Ahead of them, an unknown man...." 'Person,'...not 'man.'...."

Mariel shook out of it. "He went that way," she continued, gesturing, "and ended up down by the road."

"And then what?" Wiping rain from his eyes, the smoker eased his stance to find better footing.

"Then the car hit him," she snapped, willing herself not to mentally hear again the sickening, smashing thud of steel against flesh, or see again the rag-limp shape catapulted through the headlight glare to dump into the sumac clump like discarded garbage.

"Take me to where the body landed," the smoker ordered.

Mariel swung on him, quivering nerves pulled as thinly as overtightened violin strings. "Why? For God's sake, why?" Her hands clenched convulsively around the reins, her nails gouging into the wet leather. "There was no body found, no remains." --- No, no --- she urged herself. --- Easy, don't lose it now. ---

"I know that, Mrs. Skinner," the man said. "The general consensus was that a mountain lion dragged him off."

"Then there's nothing left but bones buried somewhere. That's what lions do, you know," she went on, deliberately harsh. "Eat part of you, bury the rest for later." She was trembling, close to tears from exhaustion, pain, loneliness and fear. Jerking her head away, she pressed her forehead against the mare's wet neck, smelling the animal's soaked hair. The mare nickered softly, shoved her soft nose against Mariel's hip.

"Let's go, Mrs. Skinner," the smoker said. Oddly, his voice was not unkind.

She pulled herself upright, ashamed of giving this man cause for amusement at her expense. He watched her straighten up, saw her spine draw her body up straight and tall. He would never give any sign of it, but what he felt at that moment was not amusement, but admiration. Starting down the hill again, he said, "Tell me one more thing. Did you speak to the ... person?"

Mariel sighed, joining him in the continuing trek. "No. I didn't get anywhere near him."

Five feet farther down the slope, the smoker spoke again. "I have another question, but, knowing you, I think I know the answer already."

She cut him off angrily. "You don't know me, mister, and I don't want you to know me."

He smiled thinly. "Of course not, just as you don't want to know anything about me. After all," he went on, icily, "if you knew me better, I might become a man to you instead of a monster."

Mariel pulled no punches. "A person can be both."

He paused, looking over his shoulder. Rain dripping from the hatbrim obscured her face, but not enough to hide her cool, straightforward eyes. No, she did not hate him, he realized. She pitied him. "Perhaps, Mrs. Skinner," he smiled coldly. "But right now I have to know if you prayed for him."

"What?" Of all the questions he could have thrown at her, that one was the least expected.

"Did you?"

Memory flooded in again.... --- 'Please, God, let him make it....Nobody should have to die like that....' --- "Yes," she replied firmly then. "I did."

He nodded as if he'd known all along. "Truthfully, Mrs. Skinner," he went on, "I'm looking for something, and your prayers, your connection to that person will be a crucial factor if I find it."

"Find what? The knapsack?" Off balance and feeling as if she was trying to reason with a madman, Mariel said, "The pack is not here. Even if the lion didn't drag it off with the body, don't you know what 23 years lying around in the desert does to things?"

He actually laughed, very softly. "I'm well aware, Mrs. Skinner. I also know all about scavengers -- human or otherwise -- rockhounds and treasure hunters." He stopped and for a moment stood still, one hand resting on the seat of his saddle, looking straight down the slope. His voice was as distant as his eyes. "There may be nothing to find, as you say. But I must be sure. For all our sakes."

The road was in better condition than he might have thought, but still Grant Sanders drove by instinct and memory as much as by sight. The rain, paradoxically, was not as heavy here as it had been in Phoenix, but Sanders, glancing frequently toward the mountain, was deeply worried. His years heading the Phoenix office had taught him immense respect for desert storms, and he didn't like what he was seeing in the lowered clouds.

As much to distract himself from the pain as to obtain information about the device, Walter Skinner studied the binoculars he'd pulled down from an overhead storage rack. He realized that if this were another time and place, he would be fascinated by the things. But just now, they were simply another means to the end.

Still, raising them to his eyes, he asked, "Grant, where'd you get these? I don't recognize the configuration or the optics."

Sanders spared the AD a glance from the road. "They're courtesy of Joe," he replied. "The way he talks sometimes, I get the feeling that he's got a warehouse of stuff left over from his A.P.R.O. days."

Skinner caught the mingled smells of sweat and the remnants of Scully's perfume as his two agents pushed forward from the rear of the vehicle. He passed the binoculars back and stared at the windshield wipers as they rhythmically stroked the glass, funneling the rain aside. --- Like second hands pushing time aside --- he thought --- never concerned with how much might be left. ---

"Grant," he said, tone frozen, "how long?"

In reply, Sanders leaned to his right and activated a screen set midway into the dash. A topographical schematic lighted up, and he pointed to a green blinking dot. "That's us," he said. "You can see the mountain behind there, and the red light right..." -- he fiddled a moment with the resolution -- "...right *there* is the trace we're homing on."

If he was interpreting the layout correctly, Skinner judged that they were about five miles from the trace, give or take the windings of the road. He didn't want to decide yet what they could do if this homing trace was a red herring. What other options did they have? --- God, whatever happens --- he prayed --- just...just take care of Mariel. ---

"It's just ahead," Maried gasped, winded from bracing herself forcefully against the long downhill motion. She slid on her bottom the last few feet, the mare sliding beside her, the animal tucked back onto her haunches. The clattering rush dislodged dirt and rocks, making recovery difficult.

The sumacs were taller, fuller now, growing almost to the edge of the wash. Even in the poor visibility afforded by gathering dusk and blackly-overcast skies, she saw the erosion in the old blacktop road where years of runoff had gouged holes and in places literally swept the asphalt away.

The smoker reached her side, descending with no more grace than she herself had used. The man was probably 25 years or more older than she was, but he'd done pretty well so far physically on this odyssey. He, himself, wouldn't have believed that he could go so long without a cigarette, but there it was: his last taste of tobacco had been back at the day-campground.

Leaning tiredly against the mare, Mariel watched the man. He adjusted his wristwatch again, then looped his horse's reins around a convenient ocotillo limb. "Tie your horse, Mrs. Skinner," he instructed. "Then come here."

He wasn't searching as she'd ever seen a search conducted. He seemed to be relying on the multiple dials and stems of the watch for something. "Did you ever hear of 'imprinting' in regard to living creatures, Mrs. Skinner?" he asked, reaching out to pull her over a couple of feet.

She yanked her arm away, still in control but trembling. "Some newly-hatched birds focus on the first living thing they see as their mother," she said shortly.

"Yes. Experiments with certain geese ended with the hatchlings considering themselves to be human, in a way, to the point of being unable to interact properly with other geese." He smiled suddenly. "You were the link, Mrs. Skinner, the 'imprint,' if you will." Taking her arm, he began to quarter the area between the plants and the road, pulling her along with him. "If it's here," he murmured, half to himself, "it should pick up your EEG pattern."

Feeling as though she'd been dumped into the middle of a poorly-written science-fiction movie, Mariel demanded, "What are you talking about?" Her headache had gone from pain to agony now, and although she never had migraines she figured this one was close.

"Power, Mrs. Skinner." The man reached up, drew the back of his wristwatch across her forehead. She stepped back with a gasp, but he only looked at the dials again and made no further move toward her. "If he was dying he had to transfer the ownership, in a manner of speaking."

Mariel looked around the ground in utter confusion. Nothing was there but mud, dead sumac branches, scattered cactus spines and stones. She bent to pick up a lumpy piece of what looked somewhat like granite. "Ownership of what? This is a rock, mister," she grated, throwing it down again. "That's *all.* You kidnapped me just to talk nonsense and go hunting for things that don't exist?"

"I'm not out of my mind, Mrs. Skinner," he said, "and please, use your head. The accident wasn't the only thing you saw that night."

She stared, wiping her eyes a little distractedly. The smell of the wet sumac was burning the delicate tissues, adding one more pain for her bearing. --- God, please --- she thought, suddenly feeling every ounce of the exhaustion --- I want to go home and...and I want my husband. --- Her sudden mental image of Walter's powerful body pressing against hers while his hard, deep kisses sweetly plundered her mouth sent an actual physical shudder through her nerves. --- Mari, don't lose it! Stay alert for a little longer. ---

What *had* she seen? Struggling to remember, to make any kind of sense of this, she jumped slightly under the unexpectedly hard lash of cold rain. The storm center had reached the flats, she realized, and cringed involuntarily when a white flash tore across the cloud mass above them.

There was nothing, the man realized. He had been right all along, as he suspected. He had been assured that the transfer had taken place, and he did not doubt that fact. Even dying, the person would have felt her mind, known she was his final chance. But for whatever reason -- be it passage of time, the vagaries of weather, or simply Divine Providence -- there was nothing now to be found.

He turned back, frowning against the sting of the rain, and approached the woman. For the first time, he took both her arms, feeling the warm skin through the wet, clinging teeshirt, and said to her, "There's one more place to go, Mrs. Skinner...and then it will be over." He smiled, studying her eyes and wet lips and smooth, wet throat. "You've done what I needed you to do."

In that instant, Mariel Skinner realized with utter certainty that she was going to die.

They were close enough now for Mulder to rake the slopes with the binoculars. So far, though, all he saw were drenched, wind pummeled cacti and slick-shiny boulders. The rain was almost brutally hard now, visibly gouging up dirt sprays from the already soaked earth.

"That's it," Sanders said, adding some words that Scully had never heard before. "The trace is gone."

"The interference from the lightning, maybe?" Mulder ventured, swinging the binoculars farther east.

In the seat ahead, Skinner's eyes raked almost painfully from the dashboard schematic to the real-life view past the windshield. Stiffening with a jerk that wrenched every muscle, he literally tore the binoculars from Mulder's hands. --- Please, God, please --- he prayed, as near to desperation as he'd ever been in his life. Dragging his vision past dislodged asphalt chunks up a low rise by the road, he saw it: two obviously-frightened horses tied to a tree. He could be sure of nothing else because of the rain and near-darkness, but surely....

"Grant," he almost shouted, "there! Check me."

While Sanders looked, Mulder and Scully held each other's eyes for a second. This had to be it, Scully knew.

"That's the place," Sanders confirmed. "The road is partly washed away and the trees are bigger, but it checks."

"How close can we get?"

"We'll see." Sanders sounded as grim as everyone else looked as he downshifted the big vehicle, sending it up the slope.

Mariel wrenched back from the smoker's grip. --- No, God, no --- her heart fairly screamed. --- I endured for 34 years before I found Walter's love...this son-of-a-bitch isn't going to take me away from him now! --- All the tension and pain and numbing fear tore loose inside her at once, and she hit the man. Not a ladylike slap with open palm, but a solid, close-fisted blow that jarred him back a couple of paces, dumping him into the bushes.

It took her only seconds to scramble back to the horses and tear the reins loose, a second more to vault up into the saddle. She kicked the mare's ribs, and as the animal bolted past the sumacs Mariel saw the man clamber free of the bushes. Whether it was triggered deliberately or by an accidental catch on a branch as he stood up, the watch activated the ankle strap and Mariel gasped with the pain. Slumping to the right with the sudden loss of feeling in her leg, she tangled her fingers desperately in the mare's mane to keep herself in the saddle.

The mare plunged down into the wash, and they were almost across the wash when the sound of a heavy engine brought Mariel's head around sharply. Headlights poured blindingly across the scene, and she made out men's shouted voices and a woman's hail. Mariel recognized the voices, focusing especially on a rich baritone that caught so blissfully at her heart --- Love, oh love...Here I am! ---

He wasn't foolhardy enough to resist with four weapons trained on him, but the smoker coolly tossed his own 9-mm into the wash. Scully saw it go, and after a brief word to Mulder headed toward the wash.

As Mariel started back across, eager to rejoin the only man she would ever love, the mare balked for the first time, dancing back from the edge of the wash. Her ears were pricked toward the mountain and her nostrils were wide and blowing hard. Alerted without consciously realizing why, Mariel steeled herself against the continuing pain in her leg and looked uphill, following the mare's line of attention.

At the far edge of her vision, almost beyond sight and into precognition, she saw a moving darkness, heard an endless low rumble. Then the darkness became a recognizable wall funneling down the line of the wash. A wall that was the storm run-off from the hills.

Mariel looked quickly across the slope. Everyone was safe on the opposite bank....No. Scully was at the base of the wash, kneeling, her back to the hills, as she searched for something. She didn't know about flash-floods in the desert, but Mariel did.

"Scully," Mariel shouted. "Get back."

Scully's head jerked up and around as she tried to focus on the shout. Realizing she'd probably only confused the other woman, Mariel groaned and urged the mare forward. "Come on, girl," she whispered, "there's time."

Snorting, fighting the reins, the mare finally slid into the wash. When her legs were square under her again, she moved into a canter, hooves digging into wet sand. Mariel could hear the water now, and realized that it was closer than she'd thought.

Scully ran to meet her, jamming something into a pants pocket. "Grab on and swing up," Mariel urged her, even as the mare squealed, spooking at the sudden curling rush of water around her fetlocks. Scully reached up, staggering herself as the sand shifted beneath her feet, and Mariel caught her hand, pulling it to the saddlehorn.

The wall hit them, catching the mare solidly on the rump and washing her hind legs forward. Off balance, the powerful support of her hind legs swept from under her, the animal squealed in terror and went down, immersed in the wave and carrying her human passengers with her into the darkness....

Walter Skinner knew that he would see the wave that took his wife away from him for as long as he lived. "Mariel!" It had happened in the space of a few heartbeats, and he ran forward, heedless of footing or balance or anything else besides aching desperation. "God...Mariel!"

He was almost into the wash, the water surging barely a foot below him, when something hit him from behind. The solid blindside tackle took the big man completely off his feet, but he rolled with it, face scraping painfully over the sandy soil, and grappled with the man who was shouting at him now.

"Damn it, stop! Stop it," Mulder yelled. "That isn't the way."

Skinner shoved Mulder off, his own words ripping out of him just as savagely. "Mariel's down there, damn you!"

"So is Scully," Mulder almost snarled back. "We can't help them that way. Come on." Rolling to his feet, Mulder ran back to the rescue vehicle.

Skinner turned, but instead of following Mulder, he went to the front of the vehicle where their prisoner was handcuffed to a side mirror. The smoker stood slowly to meet the AD eye to eye as Skinner advanced to within a foot of the other man. Eyes impaling the prisoner's face, Skinner asked, "Do you remember what I told you in my office six months ago?"

The smoker looked back evenly. Skinner's wet face was almost unrecognizable: tight and drawn with rage and pain, skin drained of color, eyes narrowed to slits. The big man's massive chest was working like a blacksmith's bellows.

"Of course I remember," the lean man replied coolly.

"Can you think of any reason why I shouldn't carry out that promise now?" His voice was even, completely uninflected, devoid of any emotion. Somehow, Skinner's iron control was more terrifying than any fit of rage.

The smoker didn't try to brazen anything out. He knew that it was over now, but somehow, he welcomed that thought. "Mr. Skinner," he said quietly, "if your wife is dead, there's no reason why you shouldn't kill me today."

Walter Skinner smiled. It was a smile that the other man had never before seen on a human face, and he knew he would never see it again. "Good," Skinner whispered, voice silky now, utterly cold and utterly chilling. "I'm glad we understand each other."

Mulder came running back with Sanders, and shoved a powerful torch into Skinner's hand. "Come on, sir."

Sanders said, "The wash levels out in about a quarter mile." The S.A.I.C. shoved something at Mulder in his own turn. "Take my cell phone; I'll get the call here. When you find them I can radio for a medevac helicopter." --- If they'll fly in this weather --- he thought grimly, but said only, "On foot will be just as fast in this terrain. Go!"

The smoker watched Skinner and Mulder run past the vehicle and out of his sight. He genuinely regretted this chance of fate, but it was out of his hands now. He would be sorry to read Mrs. Skinner's obituary. Nonchalantly, he pushed the stems of his watch in a certain pattern, and waited patiently for the expected outcome.

She was drowning. The rush of water crammed in gushes down her throat and up her nose; she couldn't cough it up fast enough. Her back was crushed against a long and hard object, and she clawed instinctively for something to catch on to. A woman's voice was yelling above her head, the sound wavering in and out as her ears submerged.

"Damn it, Scully, pull!" Mariel's usually warm mezzo voice was cracked with strain as she hauled at the other woman, fighting to pull her around, to get her back to the torrent. Scully pulled, driven more by self-preservation than conscious thought, and suddenly she flipped around, impelled by the rush of the current.

"Grab it," Mariel shouted again, then tore Scully's hand from the stirrup iron and shoved it into the mare's mane. "Grab here! The saddle's going!"

Buoyed by the air in her big lungs, the mare had shot to the surface after the first drenching submersion, and was swimming strongly now. Reins clutched in the fingers that were tangled in the reddish mane, Mariel tried to guide the animal's big head diagonally across the current. There still could be a chance to live.

But now the saddle was shifting, its girth loosened by the surging water, and Mariel yanked her feet free of the stirrups. She realized she had some control of her right leg -- maybe the water shorted out the ankle strap, or something -- she reasoned only half-coherently, but if she was pulled under with the heavy pack saddle she would drown.

Scully coughed up mucky water, wheezing to breathe with her face mashed against the horse's neck. Then Mariel saw it, visible for a second in the searing sheet lightning: a toppled saguaro, all of 50 feet high, now half-dunked into the wash.

Praying the mare would obey, the tall woman pulled the reins over, before suddenly sliding head-first under the muddy, debris-laden water as the saddle tore free. Sheer physical strength in her musician's hands kept her hand gripping the mane and she clenched her bicep hard, surging up in time to hear the mare squeal as she scented the land, long legs pawing instinctively for purchase.

"Scully, grab it," Mariel choked, spitting out mud. "It's still rooted."

Scully blinked painfully, trying to see what she should grab. "It's a cactus," the agent yelled back.

"Do you care?" Mariel had her arm around the mare's neck now and caught hold of the headstall. She had to keep the animal as steady as possible, and used her own body weight to bear the head down. Scully grabbed, yelping as the spines pierced her fingers, but dragging herself up nevertheless. The huge plant shifted some under her weight, then remained motionless, and Scully twisted back toward Mariel.

"Your hand," the auburn-haired woman called. "I can reach it!"

Mariel knew she was losing her battle with the mare's terror and the strength of the current. "Get higher," she yelled, then gasped as the cactus shifted again, dipping just enough to throw the mare into the spines of its tangled, partially-rotted arms. Squealing with pain and desperate fear, the mare launched herself backward, free of the spines but back ino the main current.

Before the bellowing water caught them both, Mariel heard Scully scream her name. --- Lord, forgive me --- she thought as her head went under and her ears filled. --- Take care of Walter....I love him... ---

Walter Skinner knew that if there was a stage of nauseated fear and terror that went beyond nightmare, he had long since passed that point. He stumbled with Mulder along the bank of the wash, noticing bitterly that the water level was down several feet. Sliding in mushy sand, scraping his legs unheeded on rocks and scratchy plants, he didn't want to think of what snakes, scorpions and other vermin must have been churned up by the flooding. Neither he nor Mulder needed a rattlesnake bite at this point.

Red light flashed over his shoulder, and he jerked around, hand up to shade his eyes. Sunset...he was looking at the sunset. Far away the clouds were melting, draggled hems lifting above the earth to let the last red rays flood over the desert. The storm was over.

Skinner didn't want to look at the detritus of the storm, but knew that he must. The wash was littered with uprooted plants, rusted fence wire, broken trees and, over there, half a telephone pole; the other half could be anywhere by now. Just like...like...

"Listen," Mulder gasped. "It sounds like Scully."

Both men ran toward the sound: a voice calling hoarsely, trailing to a gasp before lifting again. Yes, it *was* Scully, sitting slumped beside a massive, half-uprooted cactus that hung over the wash.

"Scully," Mulder forced out, "are you all right?"

Scratched, caked with drying mud, clothes torn and hair dirt-brown now instead of auburn, Scully said, "I'll be o.k., Mulder."

Skinner knelt beside her, catching her shoulders. His big hands nearly engulfed Scully's slight form. "Where's Mariel? Where's my wife, Scully?" It was all he could do to keep from shouting. Scully felt his hands shaking, and swallowed, unable to meet his eyes.

"Sir, she...she got me up on the cactus so I could climb above the water."

"*Where* -- *is* -- *she*?"

"I don't know." At last Scully lifted compassionate eyes. "The horse panicked and threw them back into the water. I couldn't reach her before..."

"Before what?" Mulder asked when Skinner found himself briefly incapable of forming any words.

"Before she was pulled under."

Skinner pushed himself to his feet. "We're wasting time, Mulder," he said, cold, dead inside. "We'll come back for you, Scully."

She nodded. "I'll be here." Scully shivered, and started again at the beginning of her list of prayers.

A few yards beyond the cactus, Skinner pushed Mulder toward the left bank. "Use your light," he ordered roughly. "Look into and under things." Sliding down the bank, not caring if he ripped or tore his pants, Skinner waded through water that came barely above his knees. The flood must have spent itself quickly, he reasoned. Maybe there was still a chance.

Clambering up the opposite bank, he began poking into piled-up bushes, shining his flash where his arms couldn't reach. The sun was low enough to make shadows, but why did the lowering light have to be so red...so bloody...?

--- Oh, God...I can't even pray anymore --- he thought despairingly, unaware that his every heartbeat was a special prayer. His body seemed numb, he stumbled repeatedly, and blinked back shuddering waves of red-tinged fog that wavered across his vision. Scully could have told him that he was almost spent, very close to the limit of his emotional endurance, even if his strong body still could carry him on.

Mulder's light seemed farther away, and Skinner froze when he saw why. An enormous rock lay dead-center in the wash, splitting the channel two ways, the left and right forks branching off abruptly. The banks were lower there, and he realized that the wash really was leveling out, as Sanders had told them. Anything swept downstream in the current probably would hit that rock before...

The implication of that observation struck him like a mule kick to the stomach. Then Mulder's voice, loud and harsh, tore across the distance between them. "There's a dead horse here."

Skinner was already down into the wash and running, splashing up gouts of dirty water. Mulder's voice came again, cracking into the falsetto for a second. "...and...someone's legs."

Legs....Skinner gasped, feeling a shock as numbing and agonizing as a bullet to his guts. --- *Only* legs...? Oh, God, no, no! --- Forcing away the obscene vision that leered across his mind, Skinner literally leaped up the opposite bank, tearing his eyes away from the limp, sprawled animal that lay there.

Mulder was beside him, blocking his way. "Sir, you'd better let me."

Skinner came within a breath of punching Mulder unconscious, then got some control of himself. "I have to look," Skinner grated. "Damn it, Mulder..."

The tall, lanky man stepped aside. Yes, Skinner did have to see, no matter what. --- I wish I knew how to pray --- the agent thought, watching his supervisor approach the jeans-clad legs that poked out from under a piled clump of washed-out brushwood.

--- Please...please... --- Skinner dropped to his knees, shoving aside the branches and dirt that covered...Yes, yes. Mariel was there, he saw at last, all of her, intact. Almost frantic, he leaned over to press his fingertips high up in the angle of her jaw, at the carotid artery. Nothing...nothing -- then a slow throb against his fingers, the slow, steady rhythm of moving blood. He pressed his face close to hers. He held the sensitive cornea of one eye near her lips, and the delicate membrane warmed to the slow touch of her breath.

"Mulder! Get that medevac...she's alive."

He was afraid to touch her, to move her. He had no idea how broken she might be inside. Her clothes were partially torn away, the jeans ripped away from her hips, her skin scratched and filthy. Instinctively desiring to shield his wife's half-clad body from other eyes, he stripped off his shirt and draped it gently over her. He let one palm rest lightly on her midriff, hoping she might somehow feel its warmth.

"I'm here, honey," he whispered. "You'll be o.k....I love you."

All the stress, all the loneliness and frustration and self-anger and pure rage inside him let go at once, tearing out of him in a single wrenching sob. He didn't care if Mulder heard or saw, and pressed his face hard into his forearm for a moment, tasting the hot salt tears, letting the sob still at last.

Mulder kept his distance, respecting the couple's privacy. He'd tell Skinner later that the dead horse probably had saved Mariel's life. The animal's ribs had been caved in from a crushing blow, and Mulder knew that the rock in the middle of the wash would show bloodstains and horsehair.

Over their heads, the blazing, overarching starfield of night began to spread out with the coming dusk. Soon lights approached, drawing Skinner's gaze, and he looked up eagerly for the medevac helicopter. But there was no sound, and the lights -- widely-spaced red glows connected by a thin band of white light -- continued on their slow, somehow majestic way, vanishing at last over the Superstition Mountains....

She was aware of breathing, of cool air expanding her lungs and slipping out again. Comfortable air, just moist enough to ease her chest. Stirring a little, she felt skin against hers, a hand holding her hand: a man's broad-palmed hand, the long, slightly square-tipped fingers twined with hers.

Opening still-drowsy eyes, she focused on the two hands, her eyes gradually moving up the man's tanned forearm to the well-muscled bicep that merged into broad shoulders. Walter was asleep in a chair drawn up beside her bed -- a hospital bed, she realized after a moment. Jammed awkwardly into a chair that was too small for his large frame, he'd wrapped his fingers firmly with hers so their hands would stay united even in sleep.

Mariel closed her eyes with a deep, slow sigh, then let them drift open again. On the opposite wall, where the patient could focus on it if he or she chose, was a crucifix, and she smiled. Her right hand was sweetly occupied just then, but she crossed herself in her mind with a prayer of thanksgiving. Soon she whispered, "Walter..." and he opened his eyes.

They looked at one another. His brown eyes moved gently over her quiet face, absorbing the look of her: the lines of cheek and chin, throat, shoulders and breast; the clear grey eyes, smooth lips, mahogany-silk hair. --- So beautiful...my sweet love. --- Walter studied her face, memorizing every contour.

She was doing the same, gaze caressing his dark brows, cheekbones, jaw and neck; the tiny crinkles at the edge of his brown eyes; the firm, well-shaped mouth.

Still without speaking, he moved to sit on the edge of the hospital bed, taking her face between his hands. Her lips met his as he lowered his head to her mouth, and they kissed for a long time. Not yet a kiss of passion, but a kiss that bespoke the tender reunion of two souls, the renewal and repledging of one life to another.

Her arms found his neck to hold, his arms pressed her body close. Half-lying, half-sitting on the bed, they shared gentle kisses, little voiceless murmurs of love and tenderness. At last he set her back onto the pillow and rested his forehead upon hers. She lay still, concentrating on the smooth warmth of his skin, the tiny nudge against her cheek as he nuzzled her gently, the slightly coffee-tinged taste of his warm breath.

"Mariel, I love you," he whispered. "You're all right, honey. X-rays, CAT-scan, everything." And no evidence of any sexual assault, he thought, although he didn't say that out loud. He'd been almost painfully glad of those negative results, not because of any problem with his own ego, but because he knew how difficult such an assault would be for Mariel -- honest, sweet, and utterly his -- to deal with.

She smoothed her palm across his stubble-rough cheek, and down his throat to cup the back of his neck. "Is Scully o.k.?" she asked anxiously, gently massaging the tendons in his neck.

He nodded, feeling a shiver of joy at her touch. "Yes. A little perforated by cactus needles, but she'll be fine."

"Everyone else is o.k.?"

"Yes." Lies always tasted bitter on his tongue, necessary as they might seem to be, but he wasn't going to tell her the rest. Not now. "Yes," he amended for his own conscience. "They'll be fine." He wasn't lying about that. Thankfully, Grant would be fine.

If she caught the verbal equivocation, she made no sign. She only held him tighter, and he felt the increased pressure of her breasts against his chest as she inhaled slowly. "What about...the smoker, Walt? What about him?"

Still tender, but with a touch of his AD's tone cooling the words, he replied, "Later, Mariel." To reassure his wife that the coolness was not aimed at her, he brushed a soft kiss across her mouth. "Now, we get you released from here."

That task didn't take long, for a wonder. Mariel's doctor, a short, middle-aged nun whose greenish-blue eyes sparkled as she talked, gave final instructions for follow-up care, signed the release and left them alone so the tall, grey-eyed lady could dress. Although the nun had voluntarily renounced the possibility of human love for the sake of her intense, honest love for God, it always warmed her heart to see a couple like this one. Smiling to herself, she prayed for blessings and peace on them, and continued on her rounds.

Walter had bought a light cotton floral shift for Mariel from the hospital gift shop, and helped her change. When she was ready, he said, "Let's go, honey," and slipped his arm firmly around her waist.

"Home, Walt?" she asked, the longing clear in her voice.

"Not yet." They took the elevator down, standing close to each other. "Your aunt offered us her home for a couple of days, and I took her up on it." When Mariel started to say something, Walter stroked her lips shut with one finger and went on, "She also said to tell you, and I quote: 'Young lady, don't argue.' "

She had to laugh, remembering the young Mariel who had been, if not argumentative, at least what her grandmother called "fiesty."

Aunt Ellie's house was much as Mariel remembered it from her childhood visit. The same wood-slat blinds, the same aluminum awnings over the exterior windows, the same sunporch and outbuildings and corral. Inside, the collections and memories of a lifetime seemed to warm the rather plain, functional decor. Walter locked the door behind them and set down the single bag.

Looking around, Mariel remembered the visit she'd made here so long ago: the quarrels, the laughter, the bedroom crowded with giggling kids, the horses to feed and ride, her aunt and uncle and her own parents to tease and hug. Surrounded by her memories and standing free and safe in a house that had sheltered her once before, Mariel turned almost blindly to Walter, holding out her arms.

"Walt," she whispered, unaware that she was crying until she felt the warm stream on her cheeks. "Come hold me." There was no need for her to "keep it together" anymore.

He came to her, enfolded her in arms that had been empty for too long. They stood together in a firm embrace, two human beings as one: man and wife pressed close, sharing comfort and succor. With her face against his throat, she could feel his steady pulsebeat, and let this rhythmic flow of life ease and soothe her at last. Her own heartbeat against his breast was soothing him as well.

He had already worked through his own tears, and was prepared to offer her all the emotional and physical support that he was capable of giving. Right now, though, he knew both by training and instinct that she needed to talk.

Talking wouldn't change the past, but it would shift things into the open, perhaps make issues easier for both of them to deal with. And he needed to hear these details, to know what his wife had had to endure without his help or protection. He blamed himself, although rationally he knew he was not responsible.

Arms still warm around her, Walter led Mariel to the loveseat that sat beside the sliding glass doors leading to the sunporch. He drew her down with him, took both her hands firmly in his, and said, "All right, honey. Talk to me."

Their eyes held, and he could see the shiny sheen of her tears. "Is this my debriefing, assistant director, sir?" she asked, trying for lightness.

"No. I'll have to ask you to go through an official debriefing after we get home. Right now, I'm simply your husband. Please talk to me."

She did, slowly as she tried to order her thoughts, to talk so that the events of the past few days would make sense to a person who had not been present. Walter listened, never interrupting, sometimes smoothing her cheek, stroking back her hair, squeezing her hands to support her strength. At the end of it, Mariel blinked hard, reached up to lay her palms against his breast.

"I was so frightened, Walt," she said haltingly. "So off-balance. I didn't know what he might do." She wiped warm tears from her cheeks, wishing she wouldn't look like such a child, crying like this. "He made me feel like anything that might happen to you would be my fault."

He lifted her head. "Love, remember, even if I had been hurt, it would have been *his* responsibility and *his* doing, not yours." He thought savagely --- The son-of-a-bitch knows enough about love to use its power against people, but not enough to be bound by it himself. --- Out loud, he asked gently, "Do you know now that it was just a lie, a mind-game to keep you afraid?"

"Yes. Now I know, but...I was running on instinct for so long."

"Your instincts served you pretty well, honey," Walter said, laying his hands on her shoulders and slowly stroking along her collarbone with his thumbs. "You stayed alert, you didn't give up and..." He broke off to a chuckle that grew to a warm, full laugh. "You got one back at him, didn't you?"

She colored, tried to smile. "I guess I did....Walt," she gasped suddenly, remembering. "Is the ankle strap off me?"

Walter nodded. "Mulder has it. I think he'll give it to some analysts he knows."

Mariel whispered, "So it's over?"

It would never be over for Walter Skinner, and in fact this business had far too many loose ends, but he said, "Yes." He leaned close, kissed her very slowly.

--- Over --- she thought, yielding to the deepening kiss. --- It's over, and he's with me again...safe, warm, and... --- She couldn't finish the thought. Instead, she knelt up on the loveseat, all the loneliness and longing beginning to ache inside her now. "Walt," she said, turning him fully toward her. "Just one more thing."

Her eyes were serious, he saw. "What, honey?" he asked, feeling his pulse beating harder now.

She looked at him deeply, said softly but with voice trembling a little, "Please, take me in and make love to me...claim me back."

"Sweetheart, you never left my heart," he murmured. "But, are you sure?" he asked, a little hoarse. "You're sunburned, bruised, probably still worn out, and..." He broke off, swallowing hard. His own longing was swelling inside him, the deep human desire both to share and to receive comfort and love from a beloved spouse. When he went on, his voice was rough-edged with suppressed emotion. "...and the way I feel right now, I don't think I'll be able to stay gentle for you."

She smiled a little tremulously, and whispered, "But I'm big and strong, remember?"

"I sure do," he whispered back, and opened his arms. She practically leaped into his waiting embrace, and bestowed a small storm of kisses on his generous mouth, caressing his shoulders, moving her eager touch down along the line of his backbone. Walter returned the kisses with his own eager strength, struggling to control himself for her. The last days of hell were over now, and she was with him again, wanting him as much as he wanted her.

Soon he lifted her into his arms, whispering, "You'll have to tell me where the bedroom is, honey."

She laughed with sheer joy, hanging on tight. "Down there," she whispered in his ear. "Down the hall."

When he went into the bedroom door with her in his arms, he laughed, too. "Look, love," he managed, and turned so she could see. The covers were turned back on the bed, a yellow saguaro blossom was resting on each pillow, and a tray of cookies and pitcher of sun-tea sat on the nightstand. A card was propped against the tea, and Walter set Mariel down so she could get the note.

Mariel read it out loud. "It says: 'Have fun, sweethearts. Just don't give my old bed a heart attack. Love, Aunt Ellie.' Oh, Walt..."

Walter took the note from her hand and gently unzipped Mariel's dress, sliding it off her shoulders. "Now I see where you get some things, honey," he laughed.

She laughed, too, and started unbuttoning his shirt. She paused right in the middle of the delightful task, looking up at him in sudden embarrassment. "Walt, I just...what with one thing and another," she tried to joke, while fighting an aching disappointment, "I haven't gotten around to taking my temperature and other things the last few days so...we may be taking a chance."

Walter understood. "You mean a chance with life, new life." It wasn't a question.

"Yes," she whispered.

He brought his mouth down to her throat, teased, and kissed, and stroked her skin with his warm, sweetly-rough tongue until she was trembling. "I don't care, love. You need me now, I think, and I need you." He slipped his hands down along her flanks, finally gently but very frankly fondling her velvet-soft skin. "I don't want to be much older when our first arrives, and...and if we start our family this afternoon," he went on in a whisper, mouth teasing hers, "at least the baby will know that Mom and Dad will always take care of each other."

Mariel clung to him tightly, her kisses and his deep and greedy now. "Oh, God...Walt -- I love you so much!"

The last coherent thing he said for quite a while that afternoon was a single word reply: "Ditto."

Mariel knew she would never find words for what happened between them that afternoon. Indeed, she probably would never even remember the words they whispered, the touches and caresses they shared, until, perhaps, a time for such words and touches came again. Exhaustion calmed them both at last, but before he settled her into his arms to sleep, Walter scooted down some to thoroughly kiss low down on her abdomen midway between her hips.

Finding the cradle of her womb, he murmured against the warm-silk skin, "If anyone's in there, I'm your dad."

Mariel didn't try to keep back her tears of love and joy. "It wouldn't happen *that* quick," she whispered, cradling him close.

"Well, just in case," he replied, embracing her to his heart before they both fell asleep, spent and completely happy.

The man sat quietly in the upholstered seat, looking out the small window into darkness. He was glad, actually, that some things had worked out the way they did. He could tell his associates what he knew was the truth: his mission had failed. No one really expected success, of course, but the final proof had to be found, one way or the other.

Privately, he thought that the present outcome was for the best. He didn't know if he could trust *himself* with the power that could have been obtained with success. It didn't matter, though. The timetable wouldn't be affected in any case.

No one had died, at least. His helpers had the good grace to wait until the medevac helicopter had been summoned for Mrs. Skinner and Agent Scully before making their move, and even Sanders would recover, he knew. He knew also that no one would believe that he didn't enjoy seeing people die, but there it was.

As for the other matter, he would have to deal with that himself. It was no concern of the organization, after all. His associates would consider that faculty long-dead in him anyway. He poured another drink of neat scotch, staring at the liquor a moment.

But what a strange chance of fortune that he should end the little desert expedition by falling in love with Assistant Director Skinner's wife.

Swallowing the scotch in one long drink, he realized that sleep would be long in coming for him tonight.... The End -- For Now....