Part 3

XXXXX

April 8, 2000
12:15 AM
Jessica Lawrence's apartment
Scarsdale, NY

Mulder was arranging papers in small piles on the soft gray carpeting 
of Jessica's living room when Karen let herself into the apartment. He 
looked up and saw her balancing the keys, a carafe of coffee and a tray 
of sandwiches.

"I'd help you but I'm boxed in by my own printouts," he said from his 
spot on the floor.

"No, don't be silly. I can handle it. Where's Agent Scully?"

He colored slightly, "She's out trying to find a Starbuck's."

"Oh, I'm sorry. I should have come sooner. Actually, I didn't think 
you'd still be here. But, then I heard you moving around—the walls are 
pretty thin—and I thought you might be hungry."

"There's nothing to be sorry about. We can never have too much coffee 
and the food is definitely appreciated."

She set them down on the table and sat on the couch near where he was 
organizing his papers.

"You sure have a lot of paper there."

"Yes, Jessica's computer is a treasure trove. We found the original 
connection between Jessica and the other two women."

"You mean, they had one, aside from the dreams?"

"It looks like it. They all belonged to the same Yahoo group: 
Dreamedy."

"Dreamedy?" Karen frowned.

"Yes, and I quote from the group's home page,
'Whether comedy or tragedy
If it's a dream you're wondrin' about
We provide the remedy
Right here at 
Dreamedy.'
Ain't poetry grand?"

"If you say so," Karen shrugged. Mulder laughed.

"That was Agent Scully's reaction, too. Jessica never told you about 
this group?"

"No, but there would be no reason for her to do so. I mean, she told me 
a lot about her dreams but I didn't ask for details about her on-line 
life. I know she loves the computer, loves the net and isn't 
necessarily shy about on-line friendships. That's about it."

"Well, we've been reading the message archives from the past year. One 
thread, last September, centered around the members' worst nightmares. 
Almost everyone contributed to this one. Long narratives on what they 
dreamed. Two of the descriptions definitely sounded like Grace and 
Tina's. I just have to confirm it with them but didn't want to wake 
them at this hour of the night."

Karen's face fell a bit. "So, you think Jessica forgot she read these 
descriptions and just let them play out in her dreams? That she doesn't 
really have any psychic connection?"

"I didn't say that. I found her dream journal entries on this. First of 
all, she had these dreams at the times the women were actually 
kidnapped. That's a psychic connection right there. Even if she read 
their descriptions word for word in September, why would she have those 
dreams in November and February, on the exact same dates of their 
abductions? And second, she has a lot more details—small little things 
that, again, I have to check with Tina and Grace about—but, there 
doesn't seem to be anything random about them."

Karen smiled again. "You know, Agent Mulder, this is really so 
refreshing. You have no idea how happy I am that you are not only 
listening without trying to get me professional help, but you're 
actually supporting my theory. I mean, I want Jessie back and I don't 
think anything should stand in the way. Even if something truly weird 
could help us find her."

"Actually, I do have an idea," They heard a knock on the door. "Ah, 
that will be Scully with the coffee."

Karen had already leaped up and answered the door. A pissed-off Scully 
stood there, coffee-less.

"Everything is closed. I thought this was the city that never slept."

"That's New York City itself. The state has plenty of drowsy moments. I 
brought coffee, Agent Scully."

Scully smiled and closed her eyes tightly for a moment, "Bless you," 
she walked over to the table while Karen ran into the kitchen for mugs. 
She came out and put them on the table and Scully began to pour. "For a 
while there, all the reading about sleep and dreams was putting me 
under. This is much appreciated, Ms. Noyes."

"Karen, please."

"Karen. Do you think you could stay with us for a little while?  We are 
almost done with the printouts of the dream journal and the copies of 
some of the letters from the Yahoo list we think might be pertinent to 
the case. But I found a file on the computer I'd like to skim through 
again and talk to you about.  If you have the energy for it tonight, 
that is."

"Absolutely."

Scully nodded, took a sip of her coffee and went to the computer, as 
Mulder started putting each pile of paper in a separate manila folder 
and marking each one.

XXXXX

12:35 AM 
Undisclosed location	

Jessica looked toward one of the windows. They had probably been 
boarded up at the time of the fire, which she thought might have been a 
while ago. Perhaps they wouldn't be that hard to break through.

There was really only one way to find out.

Jessica took off her running shoe and smacked the back of it against 
the glass until it broke. She cleared the larger pieces with her hands—
placing them neatly on the floor. Cool air reached through the ½ inch 
crack between boards. April in New York was still chilly. Still, if she 
got too cold, 'home base' could be changed to another room.

She pushed against each board, punched each one, smacked each one with 
her shoe. Nothing. 

She stood for a moment breathing the cold night air. It helped push the 
smells of the house into the background. The world was out there. 
Freedom was out there.

She needed to be out there.
 
XXXXX

Jessica's Apartment
12:45 AM

"There is a file marked 'Todd' on Jessica's hard drive. Do you know 
anything about this?" Mulder asked Karen.

"Todd?  Yes, I know all about Todd."

"From the little I read, they had an email relationship, of sorts," 
Scully said.

"Well, yes, I guess you could say so. He was a little wacky and maybe 
she overreacted. I don't know."

"Well, there seems to have been some concern over potential stalking. 
She saved quite a large file of email messages from him she seems to 
have forwarded from work," Scully said. "A few seem a little overly 
intense but I guess, not knowing the person behind them, I can't judge 
accurately. Did you ever meet him?"

"No. Jessie barely had contact with him as an adult. She met him again 
at some sort of family wedding. Her cousin invited him because he was 
the godson of someone or other. It was no big deal. She invited half 
the world. There were almost 400 guests."

"How did you get blackballed?" Mulder asked.

"I didn't. I was on vacation. Hawaii or the dull wedding of a near-
stranger. It wasn't the most difficult choice of my life."

Mulder smiled in response.

"Anyway. I don't think they did more than say 'hi,' and then a few 
months down the line, he writes to her. She writes back. For the first 
few letters, everything was fairly casual. Gossiping about the good old 
days on Daly Avenue. Hey, I grew up in Queens. I know old 
neighborhoods, but Jessie drove me down old Daly Avenue once. What they 
were waxing poetic about is beyond me. That place was a shit-hole. 
Pardon my French."

Scully nodded in amused acknowledgement.

"So, as I was saying, it was very casual. Then, he started talking 
about what he had been doing all those years since he moved. 
Unbeknownst to him, Jessie had mentioned him to her aunt, who had 
talked about him with some of the old biddies that used to live on that 
block. They all had moved away decades ago but managed to know all 
kinds of personal details about everyone and had a pretty strong 
grapevine going.

Jessie knew Todd had been some sort of wrestling champ in high school 
and college. I think he even made it to the Olympics, but didn't win 
any medals or anything. Then, he got married, had a son, and things 
went south. His house burned down, and there were rumors floating 
around about that one. He lost his job. His wife took his kid and left. 
And he moved back into what was his grandmother's house. She's dead, 
though. So, he lives alone."

"What kind of rumors?" Mulder asked.

"That he might have torched the place himself. But, you know, old 
biddies, as I said. It made for a juicy story. Jessie said he was very 
honest in his writing.  He told her she might have heard rumors and he 
would appreciate it if she didn't believe all she heard. And he said he 
had problems with depression and had some major heart ailments and 
stuff from past steroid use. All kinds of things like that. He also 
talked about custody problems with his ex-wife. For some reason, she 
didn't want him to see his kid at all. Of course, he made it sound like 
it was all her fault but there are always two sides to the story. 
Jessie sort of gave him the benefit of the doubt but understood that."

"So, she knew a lot about him."

"Yes. He was emailing her several times a day."

"And she was answering?"

"Yes. I mean, it was almost like a coffee break from work, you know. 
Anyway, then things got weird. And it was one of those moments where—if 
I had the guy in front of me—I'd probably say, 'Dude, you just signed 
your own death certificate.'"

"Why?

"Because he started getting very poetic about her looks, her 
personality . . . all that stuff. He had done that a little since the 
very first letter but she sort of put it down to his b.s.ing her. Now, 
he was really turning up the crapometer. And, while Jess is pretty; she 
doesn't particularly think so. I actually think she felt he was either 
making fun of her in some way or trying to manipulate her. But, anyway, 
she put that aside. In another email or two, he asked her out. And 
that's where I had my 'dude' moment. The guy had the right approach in 
his first email to her. It was casual and nice. Just two old 
acquaintances reminiscing. If he had approached her about meeting and 
going out in the same way, she would have gone. But he said something 
about her letters giving him the strength to take a chance on love 
again and how it would be an honor to escort Her Gorgeous-ity to dinner 
at the Plaza, followed by a play and a chartered helicopter tour around 
Manhattan. I mean, it was overkill. Come on, a helicopter?

The last relationship she was in? You know how her computer is non-
password protected? Well, it wouldn't be if she were still with Kevin. 
She would have had to lock him out of everything because he was such a 
control freak. She dumped him after only a few months. Too father-
figure-ish for her. Not to get Freudian or anything but her dad had 
such control over her mother's life, that when he died, her mom didn't 
even know what to buy to make for dinner. She wasn't sure what foods 
she liked. She only cooked after consulting what he wanted. Even though 
she loved both parents desperately, she never wanted to repeat their 
mistakes in her own life."

"Do you think Kevin could have done this?" Mulder asked.

"No. He was pretty serious about finding a 'little woman.' He married 
the next girl he dated after Jessica. I think they are having a baby 
now."

"Okay, then. Back to Todd. Jessica wrote him back after the helicopter 
tour invitation and stopped their email relationship?" Scully asked.

"Not at that point. She wrote and very gently told him that she wasn't 
interested in dating him. Gave him the 'let's just be friends' routine. 
He seemed to back off and then, within the week, he was turning on what 
he felt was the charm again. She told him to stop. He did. Another few 
days passed and he referred to something she had mentioned very briefly 
in one of her first emails. It's a place she likes to go and relax. He 
said maybe they'd 'accidentally' meet there some day. Just like that. 
With 'accidentally' in italics and everything. She got pissed then and 
told him that was it. He was getting too stalker-y for her. He wrote 
and denied everything, she wrote and said they were obviously working 
under two different assumptions about their relationship and continuing 
to write was obviously giving him ideas she never intended for him to 
have. And that was it."

"He never contacted her again?"

"Nope. You know, I guess some folks might consider Jessie a little 
cold. But she's not. She's just fiercely independent and she has never 
fallen in that way. I mean, I think it might be nice if you loved 
someone that much that you'd want to be consumed by their passion, if 
you don't mind me getting all Harlequin on you. But if you don't feel 
that way, and the other person does, it's just smothering."

XXXXX

Staten Island, NY
2 AM

He looked at the information on his computer. Someone was using 
Jessica's computer. Someone was more than using it; they were searching 
it. They had logged onto Dreamedy and were looking through old email.

Damn it. He thought they weren't paying any attention to the case. He 
had been fairly careful not to be seen but she had left the gym a 
little too quickly. It was still light out and he had to work quickly. 
And the injection had dropped her like a sack of potatoes. He could do 
little more than kick her bags under her car and get the two of them 
out of there before someone saw anything.

Shit. He should have taken the time to get those bags out of there. If 
he had, no one would even have noticed that she was gone at this point.

There was nothing left to do. He had to improvise and step up his 
timetable. He went upstairs to pack a small bag.

XXXXX

Marriot Hotel
Scarsdale, NY
3:00 AM

They reached Scully's room first and she paused a moment before 
attempting to put the key card through the slot.

She looked at the files Mulder was loosely holding against his chest.

"What time is your appointment with Grace DelVecchio?" She asked him.

"9:45. I figure I have to leave here about 7:45, in case of traffic."

"You sure you don't want me to come along?"

"No. You didn't talk to her, Scully. She might even be more paranoid 
than I am."

"That's not possible," she said, sliding the files out of his hands and 
clutching them to her own chest.

"Hey, just what do you think you're doing?"

"Leading you not into temptation. I'll read these in the morning. If 
you toddle off to bed right this minute, you might get about three to 
four hours of rest."

"Yes, dear," he said, mockingly.

She stared up at him, feeling a sudden sadness washing over her. There 
were no real casual endearments between them. 

Not for the first time, she wondered why this was harder than she ever 
thought it would be. On the few occasions they decided to share a bed, 
it was not difficult at all. It was pretty much non-stop passion from 
sundown to sun-up. Work was work. Flirting still existed but it was no 
more intense than it had been before. But casual, non-working, non-
intimate moments seemed to take on a tension that wasn't there before. 
Or maybe it was just her perception. Or, maybe . . .

Just maybe .  . .

She really wanted to feel his lips against hers again and needed to 
justify why she just didn't take the man by the collar and pull him 
down to her. She wouldn't, though. She never wanted him to feel she was 
trying to distract him from work.  And the man worked nearly all the 
time. They both did.

"Sweet dreams, Mulder," she said as she looked up at him.

He quickly looked to his left and right and confirmed that they were 
alone in the hallway. He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. They 
were as soft and warm as she remembered. He pulled back and tucked a 
strand of her hair behind her ear. "Nice hallway. No bees," he said, 
his eyes warm and smiling, as he leaned forward and kissed her one more 
time, this time lingering a bit over the inside of her lower lip.

"Night, Scully," he said as he turned and walked down the hall to his 
own room.

It was only when she was alone, with the scent of his after-shave 
lingering on her cheek that she realized she had forgotten all about 
the zip disk in his pocket. Ten to one, he would not been getting three 
to four hours of sleep tonight after all.

End of Part 3