Part 2

XXXXX

Hoover Building
3:15 PM

That afternoon was spent on the phone. Both Mulder and Scully engaged 
in one phone call after the other, punctuated by long periods of time 
when one or the other was put on hold. At some point, they both were on 
hold at the same time.

“Vivaldi," Mulder called across the room.

“Jailhouse Rock,” Scully replied.

“We should switch phones.”

"It's the Muzak version."

Mulder faked a shudder.

Finally, it was time to compare notes.

“The Scarsdale PD received a phone call from a Michael Powers at 7:45 
on the 4th. The gym Jessica uses is in a relatively small strip mall. 
There is the gym, a Chinese restaurant, a beauty salon and a Hallmark 
store. That’s about it. Mr. Powers is a personal trainer at the gym and 
he was going out for his dinner break. His car was next to Jessica’s 
and, as he was getting in, he noticed the bags sticking out from under 
her car. He took them and went back to the gym, where he and the office 
manager opened them. Guests sign in and out of the gym and Jessica had 
signed out nearly an hour before, after a 30 minute workout. They 
called her apartment, received no answer and then called the police."  
Scully said.

“Didn’t the police think this was a little strange?”

“Absolutely. They also called her number and, when she didn’t respond, 
dispatched a car to her apartment. They met Karen in the hallway when 
she came out to see who was ‘making a commotion’ in front of Jessie’s 
door. She retrieved her spare keys, they did a quick walkthrough of the 
apartment, and determined that she had not come home after she left for 
the gym. So, they went back that night and the next morning and 
questioned the storeowners and some of the clientele."

“No one saw anything,” Mulder said.

“Not a thing. They didn’t hear anything, either. No screams. No car 
alarms.”

“And they came to the conclusion that it wasn’t an abduction because no 
one saw it?”

“No. They came to that conclusion because at 5:05 she had sent an email 
to her boss saying she needed emergency leave for at least a week--
possibly two—since she just found out her father was gravely ill and 
not expected to live. Her sister would be picking her up and taking her 
to the airport so they could fly out to California and spend his final 
days with him. They effectively closed the case right there.”

“But the abandoned bags, and even the workout, make no sense, given 
those circumstances."

“No, they don't. Unless you take into account another ‘abduction’ at 
their precinct. It was also a woman in her thirties and a case where 
they went completely by the book and called in the Bureau. A case that 
was solved in about five minutes flat and was absolutely not an 
abduction, even though there were witnesses swearing they saw the woman 
being dragged away from her car. What they actually saw was a woman who 
had no regrets leaving her husband and kids behind to go off with a new 
boyfriend, but was drawing the line at leaving her Lexus.”

Mulder gave a good-natured chuckle, “Women and their cars.”

“In any case, they were looking for an excuse not to call us in and 
have egg on their collective faces again, and they found it with that 
email, even if they were left with a few loose ends.”

“They didn’t share the information with Karen.”

“She’s not immediate family and they just gave her the standard ‘the 
investigation is ongoing’ response.”

“Why do I sense there is still a good deal of egg about to be used as a 
facial mask?” Mulder asked.

“Because they never actually called to confirm that Jessica was, 
indeed, in California. When I called them, they sounded as if they were 
giving the case about as much priority as they would to finding 
anyone’s lost property. One simple phone call to Karen—a phone call I 
made, by the way—would have done the trick. Jessica’s parents have been 
dead for years and she never had any siblings. So, as of a few moments 
ago, the closed case is wide-open.”

“Good thing I made shuttle reservations in between phone calls,” he 
looked at his watch. “We actually better hurry. The plane is taking off 
in a couple of hours.”

“Pack light?”

Mulder let out a small sigh. “I hope so.”

XXXXX

3:30 PM
Summit, New Jersey

Grace Del Vecchio glanced at her phone and frowned. She supposed 
pissing off the FBI was not the smartest move she ever made but, 
really, how could she *know* this man was really a Fed? It’s not like 
anyone paid all that much attention to her case while it was happening 
and she couldn’t imagine why they’d decide to do so three months later.

Still, she agreed to meet with this Mulder-person at the FBI field 
office in Newark. Why not? If he could get past security, she’d assume 
he was legit. She smiled at her own cynicism. When had she become so 
jaded? Probably about the time she woke up in the Atlantic Ocean, in 
freaking February, no less.

In a way, she hoped this Mulder was the real deal. She wanted to talk 
to someone who was actually listening. Not so much about the abduction 
itself but about her rescuer. Something about that whole scenario just 
never sat well with her. Nope. It never sat well at all.

XXXXX

Plane en route to NY
6:45 PM

Scully put down the file of newspaper articles Mulder had printed for 
her. ”Jessica certainly was determined to find these people. Neither 
one of these cases garnered national press coverage.”

“They ended quickly and with good outcomes. Not on the press’s top ten 
list. But, thanks to the joys of the internet—and choosing the right 
search terms—she tracked them down.”

“And they do seem to fit her dreams—at least the way Karen related 
them.”

“Yes, but we’ll be able to tell more when we see her dream journal.”

Scully leaned forward a bit in her chair. “So, did you reach both 
women?”

He smiled at the memory of those conversations. “Yes. They were like 
night and day.”

“In what way?”

“Well, Tina Price, the first victim, was very open and . . . well, once 
she got started, it was hard to get her to stop talking. Grace Del 
Vecchio, on the other hand, wouldn’t talk over the phone at all. I had 
to agree to meet her tomorrow at the NJ field office. Possibly, after a 
lie detector test, DNA typing and whatever else she can think of to 
confirm my identity, she might deign to give me an interview.”

“You know you love a challenge.”

He looked at her with a smile that reached his eyes and made them seem 
a shade warmer.

“Depends on who issues it.” He leaned back against the headrest and got 
down to business. “Okay. Tina’s story. She’s a 42-year old nurse, 
living alone in Missouri. She got up to go to work, left her house, and 
as she turned back to lock her front door, she felt a sharp pinch. The 
next thing she knew, she was alone in a basement apartment with no 
windows and a locked door.  She was kept there for two days with no 
contact with her kidnapper and was rescued after a few smoke bombs were 
set off in the hallway outside the door to this apartment. Apparently, 
a passerby saw the smoke coming through the door leading from the 
basement to the outside of the house, went inside and kicked open the 
door.”

“They never found the kidnapper?”

“No. And there seems to be no apparent motive. One moment, it was a 
normal day, the next—as she put it—she was trapped in a nightmare. Only 
this one had a happy ending when her knight in shining armor arrived.”

“You could have saved me a lot of reading, Mulder. So far, you’ve told 
me very little I haven’t found in the newspaper articles.”

“You have anything better to do up here, Scully?”

The comeback to his question was almost out of her mouth when she 
thought better of it. Their relationship, though drastically changed, 
was just not like that.

“Anyway, it wasn’t just the recounting of facts. It was the way she 
said things. She mentioned the nightmare aspect more than once. She 
meant it quite literally, to her way of thinking. Tina’s had a 
recurring dream of being trapped in a fire with no way out.”

“So, you must have already come to the conclusion that Jessica channels 
other people’s dreams.”

“You would think so, wouldn’t you? But I’m reserving judgment until I 
read the journals. Scientific proof is my life.”

She didn’t hide her smirk. He believed it all right.

“The second odd thing is that knight in shining armor bit. She seemed 
to be in the middle of some projected Stockholm Syndrome. Instead of 
falling for her captor, she fell for her rescuer, even though she had 
very little contact with him.”

“Well, that’s kind of natural, don’t you think?”

“Yes, but what the papers don’t say is the man disappeared right after 
he rescued Tina. He carried her out of the building—which was *not* 
actually on fire—laid her down in the backyard and left. It’s believed 
he then made an anonymous phone call to the police to let them know her 
whereabouts and that’s about it. She never even had a good look at 
him.”

“You think he’s someone with something to hide?”

“Or someone whose armor may be a bit tarnished.”

XXXXX

8:30 PM
Undisclosed location

Jessica clicked off the flashlight. She had quickly scanned the room 
and then turned it off to save the batteries. She didn’t think she 
could bear not having the use of the portable light, even if it was 
only for a few seconds at a time. Her imagination didn’t have to take 
giant leaps. In the dark, she heard noises: things scrabbling across 
the floor. The first night, her skin crawled continuously. Now, it just 
crawled when something was actually crawling across it.

She shuddered and got up. She paced a little. She knew she wouldn’t 
trip over anything unless a rodent suddenly crossed her path but she 
didn’t want to wander too far from the corner she considered home base.

She had been wrong. This was close to her worst nightmare but not 
actually the same. Many, many times she had dreamed about being alone 
in her old apartment—the one on Daly Avenue she had grown up in.

It had been a nice railroad-style apartment in a very old brownstone. 
Small rooms branched off of a long hallway that ran the length of the 
house. Old fashioned, but interesting. But her family had stayed in the 
decaying neighborhood too long. Landlords were already setting fires to 
their own buildings to collect insurance. The teenaged Jessica had 
watched as building after building had been abandoned. The scariest 
sight had been seeing her grandparents' old basement apartment two 
years after they had been forced to move and the building had been 
abandoned. The metal sheets that the city used to block off the windows 
and doors, to decrease squatting and illicit drug use, had been torn 
off one window. The room where so many Christmas Eve gatherings had 
been celebrated was now piled nearly floor to ceiling with rubble.

Ironically, the nightmares about Daly Avenue only started after both 
her parents were gone. She was alone in the apartment with no way out. 
What had been a symbol for all that was cozy and welcoming now stood 
for the deserted and threatening. But this wasn’t Daly Avenue. And she 
wasn’t as helpless as she was in her dream.

She just needed to think and explore her options.

There had to be a way out.

End Part 2