Part 5

XXXXX

Undisclosed Location
April 8, 2000
6 PM

Someone was in the house. She had heard the noise of breaking boards 
coming from downstairs hours ago. After that, silence. The board she 
had managed to remove lay on the floor in pieces. Her foot was sore 
from kicking at it. Her heart was sore after seeing absolutely nothing 
but land to her left and right; not another house or human in sight.

Jessica felt her breath hitch as the panic began to rise. Whoever was 
downstairs, she wished he would stay there. Or leave. 

She grabbed the box of Power Bars and dumped them out. She put the 
cardboard over her face and tried to breathe into it. 

Calm. Calm. Nothing good could come through panicking.

She felt her stomach clench as she heard footsteps walking up the 
stairs.

She was about to meet her kidnapper.

XXXXX

Theresa Spector's House
Staten Island, NY
6:02 PM

When Mulder and Scully arrived at Todd Spector's house, all they found 
was a nosy neighbor who virtually ran out of her home to talk to them. 
She had seen Todd leave, before dawn, with a suitcase. He hadn't seen 
her as she looked through her bedroom window. She was up early making 
sure her husband got off to work on time and heard Todd's screen door 
open and close a few times. That, apparently, was a rarity. Todd was 
quiet. She never really saw him coming or going on any kind of regular 
basis.
 
After briefly searching the home for evidence, all they found in the 
museum-like atmosphere was a messy upstairs bedroom where Todd, 
apparently, "lived." The rest of the house looked like it hadn't 
changed much since it's former owner died. Nothing was out of place but 
everything was covered in dust.

They confiscated his laptop as evidence and moved on to the next 
address on their list: the one belonging to Todd's ex-wife.
 
"I had to give up," the former Mrs. Todd Spector informed Mulder and 
Scully shortly after they sat down in her small, toy-cluttered living 
room. Jonathan Spector, her son, was down for a nap. "You can only live 
with someone like that for so long before you feel as if he's sucking 
you down with him, you know?"

"Well," Mulder said with a smile. "Actually, we'd like you to tell us 
anything you can. How about starting at the beginning of your 
relationship?"

"Okay. I met Todd in high school and we went on to college together. He 
was cute and big in a nice, beefy kind of way. He was a wrestling 
champ. He actually was good enough to get into the Olympic trials. But, 
that was just about the time when anti-doping came into the Olympic 
spotlight, and his coach had pretty much been supplying him with 
steroids for years. At any rate, sometime during the trials, drug 
testing began and he bowed out before they tested him. He knew he'd be 
discovered and didn't want his family to suffer through the scandal. Of 
course, his dad was still alive and didn't understand at all. He was a 
rather boorish man. He felt that there was no bigger scandal than 
dropping out of the competition. He always talked about getting someone 
else to switch urine or blood or whatever. In other words, cheat and 
take victory any way you can. At any rate, Todd came back feeling like 
a disappointment to his family. 

He thought of waiting for the next Olympics. But when he went off the 
steroids, all the muscle went to fat. That was okay by me. I didn't 
care. He was a sweet guy, you know? And by that time, I loved him for 
him, not as a champion athlete. Besides, I was just glad he was off the 
steroids. They had already done some damage to his heart and his mood. 
He had a tendency to get depressed. 

Anyway, after graduation, he got a job in computers before they became 
the everyday pieces of equipment they are today. We got married. For 
many years, we were not able to have a baby. And then I got pregnant, 
and our troubles began. Todd was jealous. Before Jonathan was even 
born, Todd was jealous of him. He felt he wasn't getting enough 
attention. He suddenly worried about his appearance. Somehow, he got 
hold of steroids again. Somehow," she scoffed at her own words. "The 
man could get anything from anyone. He had contacts all over the world 
thanks to his trusty computer. Even though the steroids had done such 
bad things to his body, he was still convinced they would suddenly turn 
him into the athlete he was in high school and college and I'd suddenly 
pay more attention to him than the little unborn baby I had waited for 
so long.  So, he took them. He also started lifting weights and working 
out. And getting nasty. Not physically nasty or anything, but just very 
whiny about the baby and how I never needed him for anything but sperm. 
Stupid things like that. I hear paranoia and mood swings are kind of 
part of the whole drug package. Maybe. Maybe not. He always had an 
overly quiet personality that leaned toward depression. After Jonathan 
was born, things got even sillier." Theresa looked around a little and 
reddened, before leaning into Scully. "I was . . . nursing Jonathan and 
Todd felt—well, only he should get that privilege—and I mean that quite 
literally. I'm just not used to that kind of thing."

Scully nodded. "There were some rumors going on about a fire in your 
home?"

"Rumors. Yes. I suppose there were. Probably started by my mother who 
could never keep anything to herself. Listen, this sort of has to be 
off the record because I can't possibly pay back my half of what we 
received from the insurance for rebuilding on the property. And I never 
had proof, anyway. Todd was becoming increasingly depressed and moody 
as Jonathan began to coo and crawl and do all the cute things babies 
do. One night, there was a fire.  He woke me up and immediately began 
to carry me out of the house. He was going to go back for the baby but 
I wouldn't let him leave without him. I pounded on his shoulder a bit 
and then he dropped me, ran to the nursery and grabbed the baby—like it 
had been his idea all along. Then, he got us all out of the house and 
called 911 from his phone in the car. He kept going on and on about how 
he saved his family and then got really angry with me for not showing 
him  "due" appreciation. But, how could I? I don't know if he truly 
would have left Jonathan in there to die, but I do know that his son 
was not his top priority. I think his top priority was being some kind 
of hero to me. Kind of living out a fairy tale or something by rescuing 
the damsel in distress and forgetting about the damsel's baby. The fire 
inspectors never found any proof. They put the whole thing down to 
faulty wiring but Todd had the knowledge to rig that. We stayed 
together with his mother for a while but he was getting more and more 
moody, more and more resentful of the baby and I just couldn't deal 
with it anymore."

"How did he lose his job? We just have an odd notation of 
'unprofessional behavior.'"

"Yes. That began while I was still pregnant. He would just get furious 
over things. If a vending machine didn't work, he'd more or less attack 
it. I think the straw that broke the camel's back was when he couldn't 
get a computer to do what he wanted it to and he basically ran his fist 
through the monitor. That's when they let him go."

"You said you didn't feel he was a violent person," Scully said.

"And he's not. Not toward people. He needed to take out his aggression 
on something and he used inanimate objects to do it."

"And what is your relationship like now?" Mulder asked.

"Now? I try to stay away from him. He doesn't do anything but give me 
the cold shoulder anyway, but every once in a while he kicks up a fuss 
about his right to see Jonathan. Jonathan is a happy little 3-year old. 
When he meets with him, Todd basically does nothing but plop Jonathan 
in front of the tv with cheese doodles and stories of how bad mommy 
is."

"Did he ever mention a woman named Jessica Lawrence to you?"

"No."

"Was he unusually attached to memories of his childhood?"

"I guess so. He always brought up his boyhood days in the Bronx but I 
didn't think too much about it. I talked a lot about my childhood in 
New Rochelle. Childhood can seem idyllic in retrospect. I guess he 
could have fixated on it later. That kind of seems like something he 
might have done after I left. Since he blamed the baby and all. Maybe 
he needed to go back and once again be the 'boy' everyone loved."

Mulder looked at Scully. Civilians were getting better and better at 
pop psychology.

They thanked Theresa Spector for her time and left the house. Mulder 
stopped on the front porch.

"How about a small detour on our way back to the hotel?"

"The Bronx?"

"The Bronx."

XXXXX	

Daly Avenue, Bronx, NY
7:30 PM

In a little over an hour, Mulder and Scully were making their way 
through split-personality streets that were architecturally 
interesting. Some had brand new buildings, some had stream-cleaned, 
renovated pre-war apartment houses, and nearly all the streets had some 
greenery nearby. The borough was a little less 'gray' than they 
expected.

When they found Daly Avenue, they found themselves on one of the 
refurbished blocks. They got out of the car and started walking down 
the street.

"There doesn't seem to be a 2064 anymore, Mulder. That was Todd's old 
building. Let's try 2070. That was Jessica's building," Scully said, 
reading the address from her notebook.

The front and inner door of the brownstone was open. Mulder and Scully 
had to squeeze past a couch that was currently being moved through the 
front door.

"Could you tell us where the superintendent is?" Mulder asked one of 
the muscular young men moving the couch.

"Apartment 1. Something wrong?" he asked, taking in the agent's formal 
appearance.

"No. Not at all. We just have some questions for him."

"About someone in here? Cause I don't want to be movin' in no hotbed of 
crime. I got kids."

"No. This is ancient history," Mulder said with what he hoped was a 
reassuring grin. The last thing he needed was for the landlord to sue 
the FBI for a lost source of income.

"Good. Can't be too careful nowadays."

Mulder made his way around the furniture and went down a long hallway.

"I was kind of hoping for an abandoned building," he told Scully.

"So was I."

"I don't think she's here at all."

"It doesn't seem likely, does it?"

He knocked on the door to apartment 1 and flashed his badge. In a few 
moments, he was let into an elderly Russian woman's apartment. 

"My husband is Super here. Vell, not really. Ve own building. Bose of 
us. But most people don't know that. He's downtown now. Vis his 
buddies. I can help."

"How long have you owned the building?" Scully asked.

"Not too long. Four years. That's it."

"Well, we actually just have a few questions. Are all the apartments 
filled?"

"Yes. We have vaiting list. No waycancies for couple of years at 
least."

Mulder took over the questioning. "Is there a storage area, perhaps in 
the basement, or any kind of maintenance room?"

"There is furnace downstairs. For oil—to heat the house. It's wery old 
and big."

"Have you been down there lately?"

"Sure. I need to bleed it vonce a veek."

"Uh-huh," Mulder said, not knowing exactly what that meant but not 
feeling the need to ask. "So, there is really no place for anyone to 
hide. Maybe an old dumb waiter shaft?"

"Nah. Those ver boarded up years ago. All have been painted over so 
many times, you'd never get them to open vizout making hole in vall."

Mulder pulled out Jessica and Todd's pictures. "Have you ever seen 
these people before?"

"No. Vait. Let me get my glasses," she scooted into the kitchen and was 
back again in a moment. "Him. Yes. Only him. He's next on apartment 
vaiting list. The Ortiz family is moving out, he vill be coming in vis 
new vife."

"When did he get on your list? You said it was a couple of years wait," 
Scully said.

The old woman blushed. "Vell, not too long ago. He pay three month 
deposit in advance."

She pulled out a ledger. "'Mr. and Mrs. Todd Spector. Due to move in 
May 1st. ' He pay for apartment in early March."

As they walked down the stairs of the brownstone, Scully turned to 
Mulder.

"Everything did come full circle, Mulder. But he's not holding her 
here. He's planning on bringing her here as his wife and start a new 
life where their lives began."

"Well, we know one thing with almost total certainty. He's not planning 
on hurting her.  If anything, I'd say he's planning his biggest 
'rescue.'"

XXXXX	

Undisclosed location
8 PM

The kidnapper was toying with her. She had heard his footsteps just 
outside her door a few hours before and then he went back down the 
stairs. Now, she heard them again. 

Home base. Jessica had crouched down in the corner she considered home 
base, after quickly placing remnants of the board against the window. 
Hopefully, the kidnapper wouldn't realize she had knocked it out.

Oh, who was she kidding? He probably had more important things on his 
mind: torture, rape, murder. 

What was that children's book? She couldn't remember. The one where the 
girl got really, really tiny. Maybe she could make herself so small, no 
one would know she was there.

The door opened with a bang.

"Jessie. Thank God."

She opened her eyes. That voice was vaguely familiar. The man before 
her was vaguely familiar, too. Aw, shit.

"Todd?"

"Yes, I've come to rescue you."

She felt her shoulders relax a bit, but she also had a vague feeling of 
unease.

Rescue. Todd.

What was he doing there?

He was reaching out a hand to her. 

She didn't want to take his hand. A few months before, he had been 
bragging about possibly stalking her during the coming summer. He had 
talked about life and love and second chances to make correct 
decisions. That didn't make sense. What second chances? They were 
children when last they met. They didn't make decisions that had any 
kind of outcome on the adults they became. That didn't make any sense 
and this didn't, either.

Her thoughts whirled around her and faded into a white haze. Literally. 
She felt herself being momentarily pulled into a state of non-being: 
not life, not death. Then the haze cleared and she once again saw the 
man's thick hand extended toward hers. That way led to non-being. She 
slapped his hand away and he took a small leap backwards in surprise.

"What . . . " he sputtered. "I'm rescuing you. I'm here."

"Why are you here? Where is here?"

"Because you were kidnapped. It's in all the papers."

"And how did you know where to find me if the police obviously 
couldn't?"

"Um . . ."

"You brought me here."

"Of course I didn't. What are you talking about, Jessie?"

"Of course you did. Why was I so freaking stupid that I believed you 
actually faded into the woodwork when I asked you to?"

"Jessie. You are under a lot of stress. Let me take you away from all 
of it."

"I'm not going anywhere with you. You want to rescue me? Open the doors 
to this place and stand back and let me leave with your car. I will 
call for help as soon as I get to the nearest gas station."

"Jessica. You need me. I'm not letting you go alone."

"I told you. I'm not going anywhere with you."

There was anger and confusion in his eyes, but confusion reigned. After 
a few moments, he made a decision.

"I'll come back for you in the morning. I'm sure, after you've gotten 
over the surprise of someone kindly rescuing you, you'll change your 
mind. In the meantime, I will stay here and guard the place. Make sure 
the kidnappers don't return to kill you . . . or worse."

He turned and left, locking the door behind him.


XXXXX

Undisclosed location
9 P.M.

Mama had been right. Jessica was a little nuts.

Who knew she would give him so much trouble? And after he did his two 
trial runs, too. There was no trouble with those two girls at all. In 
fact, they seemed to appreciate his presence when he came in and 
rescued them. They didn't slap his hand away and reject him.

It was such a good plan. Set up a series of kidnappings with Jessica as 
the last victim. The kidnapper struck members of a certain mailing list 
and made them relive their worst nightmares.  Perhaps whoever had 
looked at her computer already figured out that connection. Maybe it 
wasn't such a bad thing after all. Well, except for the fact that he 
hadn't been very careful about hacking into Jessica's computer and 
probably left a trail. That was careless. Still, all was fair in love 
and war and once they were married, no one would question his taking a 
peek at her on-line life.

And they wouldn't suspect him of the other two kidnappings. For 
heaven's sake, Tina lived in Missouri. And even though Grace was much 
nearer, geographically, they still wouldn't suspect him of being 
physically able to drag her out of that water—not with all his physical 
ailments. Still, he had been working out. He was perfectly able. They 
just didn't have to know that.

But it should have been easier with Jessica. She should already be 
snuggled with him somewhere, showing him her appreciation of his rescue 
efforts and getting to know him as an adult, as a man.

The problem was, she was always so independent. She used to walk down 
Daly Avenue, after she lost her baby fat, with her matching outfits, 
oblivious to the world. Hot pants and a tank top or halter. Everything 
fit in all the right places but she didn't seem to give a second 
thought to the effect she might have on those around her. The older 
boys would pass by in cars and shout things at her—compliments, to 
their own minds, and she would just walk on and ignore them. Even 
though he was younger, he wanted to take those boys aside and tell them 
that was not the way to win a lady's heart. It was crude. This was not 
a crude girl. This was a princess who was oblivious to her own beauty.

Mama told him not to do that, or the boys would beat him up.

It was that damned Billie Jean King's fault Jessie was so independent. 
Jessica used to be a fan of tennis and that was when Billie Jean was 
number one on the circuit. The woman couldn't just shut up and play. 
She had to talk about women's lib and equal this and equal that. No 
wonder Jessie was so messed up. You had to watch who your children 
idolized.

Still, even the most spirited of horses could be broken. Not that he 
was comparing Jessie to a horse. He would never do such a thing. And he 
didn't really want to break her spirit.  But she needed some time to 
think. She needed some time to realize she didn't have to go through 
this world alone and not every man was crude. There were some knights 
of old, ready to rescue their fair maidens and give them the lives they 
deserved.

All they wanted in return, was a little appreciation. 

That wasn't too much to ask for, was it?

End of Part 5