Roadside Assistance 3, repost

[Polly Moller]

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Roadside Assistance, part 3. Copyrighted all to heck by Polly Moller.
go ahead and print out copies with the copyright on them...
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Daylight, and the smell of coffee, woke me in the morning. I
heard Agent Mulder's voice, distantly, and remembered the previous
day's events. He was talking on the phone, already at work.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed. I was still in my
clothes, and they were rumpled beyond recognition. I reminded myself
that I couldn't stagger out into the kitchen in a robe on this particular
morning.

I turned the light on and stood before the mirror, considering.
He couldn't stay here forever. Eventually he would need me to drive him
somewhere, so with that in mind I chose purple drawstring pants and
a black turtleneck against the cold. The slept-in black vest was too
wrinkly to wear so I reluctantly dug my black silk conducting vest
out of the closet.

After brushing my hair out I shuffled into the kitchen. I
passed the office doorway and saw my guest, in black jeans and a blue
collared shirt, with his feet in street-hikers up on the desk, talking
on his mobile phone. He had his sleeves rolled up again, and his left
wrist was bisected by a watch with a large round face. I headed for
the coffee, still too sleepy to make out his words. His voice followed
me in the background, interrupting itself rhythmically like a pattern
on silk.

The coffeepot was half full. As I stood pouring myself a
cup Mulder finished his conversation and appeared in the doorway.
"Good morning, Doctor."

My shield was still a little shaky from sleep. Still, I
could sense how genuinely pleased he was to see me. There was no
trace of the embarrassment he had felt the night before, before I
fell asleep over the bills; it had been erased by sleep and his
morning's work. I felt a twinge in my stomach that was either
resentful or hungry, I couldn't tell which.

"Good morning." I yawningly indicated the coffee. "You've
had some?"

"Yeah." He seemed amused by my groggy state. "Want me
to wait on the report till you've had your caffeine?"

"No, no, go ahead." I sat down at the kitchen table, and
opened the blinds on the window at my elbow. It was still very
grey outside, and the potholes in the driveway were full of water
from the storm. My car's hood was strewn with redwood needles and
twigs. A perfect morning for a stroll, with cool air comforting
the face. Plenty of coffee, and a good book.

"Car rental employees describe Alex Hawk as six-two,
late twenties, brown hair, reading glasses," Mulder began. "I've
faxed them the photo, and I'm expecting their call any minute."

I nodded and took a few deep swallows of coffee. My head
was beginning to clear, and that description certainly sounded like
Will.

"Scully talked to Will's roommate, Rick Ancheta," he
continued, lowering himself into a chair opposite me. "This guy
says that Will avoided him for about a week. At the same time,
he began to miss class. Will, that is. One day all Will's stuff
was gone. He left behind an envelope containing some money he
owned Rick, but no note of explanation."

"I remember Rick," I remarked sleepily. "He came to
Thanksgiving dinner at our parents' place year before last."
Mulder was smiling indulgently at my sleepiness again, so I
changed the subject. "This was the end of October?"

"Yes. As yet we don't know what he was doing between
that time, and December 5th. Assuming Alex Hawk is Will."

"Alexander is our dad's name," I pointed out. "It's
possible."

The mobile phone shrilled. "Mulder." He blinked once.
"You're positive."

I knew what this meant. I was waking up fast.

"Thanks very much." My guest turned his eyes to me as he
put the phone down on the table. "The car rental clerk recognizes
Will as Alex Hawk. He was at the San Francisco airport at the
beginning of this month."

I licked my lips slowly. "Is he still here?"

"The rental car was returned two days later."

"So, did he fly out?"

"Not under the name Alex Hawk." Mulder glanced at the
cup in my hands. "More coffee?"

"Yes, thanks."

He took the cup from me and stepped to the counter to
refill it. "Scully checked out Jason."

There was silence. My brain understood, but my heart was
a little uncomfortable with it. It was almost as though Jason
were a suspect. I heard a vague clinking sound of stirring in
the background.

"No record," my guest continued, handing me back my cup.
I looked at the coffee--he'd added milk while I was preoccupied.
It looked like just the right amount, too, by the color. "Duly
licensed private investigator. Registered Green Party member."

"All true," I replied. Taking a swallow of coffee, I
found he'd added sugar too, in just the right proportion. He
evidently had impressive powers of memory. "Such detail." The
investigative detail was what I would expect from somebody in
Mulder's position. Jason could find those things out too, with a good
enough pretext.

"You didn't tell me he was a former member of MUFON," he
added, regarding me curiously. "And a former field investigator
for said UFO Network."

"It was a long time ago," I shrugged. "And they never
gave him anything to investigate. They snubbed him at meetings
too."

"Such organizations are famous for their paranoia," Agent
Mulder remarked.

"They don't release names of members to the public, either.
How did you find this out?" I was frowning.

"I'm not the public," he responded abstractedly. He paused,
and I could sense he was through with this topic. "I need to meet
Jason, and see if Will contacted him at the beginning of the month."

"We need to go to San Francisco?"

He nodded. His eyes seemed definitely green in the morning
light. "Your intuitive contribution is welcome."

"Okay. I should eat first, though. Would you like anything?"
I got up from the table and approached the refrigerator. Toast,
maybe. That wouldn't take long.

"Really?" He paused. "There's no end to Santa Cruz
hospitality."

He was remembering, now. I could tell by the cloudiness that
came over him. I opened the fridge and pulled out a loaf of bread
by the plastic sack it was in. "Nor, it would seem, to Massachusetts
gratitude." I shut the refrigerator door and looked him in the eyes.
"Thank you for covering me up when I fell asleep."

That had the desired effect. Discomfort made him look away.
I wondered why I _wanted_ him to feel uncomfortable. He seemed to
be looking past me when he said, "I was way out of line last night.
I'm sorry."

He wasn't referring to covering me with a blanket. I let
the loaf of bread swing in my hand in the silence. There was only
one thing I could honestly say at that point, so I said it. "You
were, but I was flattered." Saying it seemed to bring to mind the
full truth of the statement. _Goddess,_ I thought to myself. _If I
were inclined, he'd be pretty damned attractive._ I could feel myself
beginning to blush, and said hurriedly, "I'm not angry with you, so
don't worry about it."

He turned his eyes back to me, and I backed away from the
fridge to lean on the counter. He seemed preoccupied, and the pre-
dominant feeling I sensed was wistfulness. I just had to know more
specifics on that. "What are you thinking?"

He raised one eyebrow. "You don't know?" I pinned him with
a reproachful look, and he made a dismissing gesture at the air.
"I was thinking how we both did these inconvenient things, and now
here I am in your house and you're feeding me."

I pulled two slices of bread out of the bag and put them
in the toaster. "You're in the middle of your vacation." I pushed
the lever down and the slices descended. I watched the toaster's
internal wires start to glow. "And you're investigating something."
It _was_ inconvenient. I wondered, too, if he were breaking any
rules by helping me.

I sensed his movement as he rose from his chair and took a
few slow steps toward me."The person who comes to my rescue has an
FBI brother who's gone missing." I turned to look at him standing
in the middle of the kitchen floor. "There can't be a number big
enough for the odds on that."

I imagined his eye contact skills were invaluable when he
interrogated suspects. Had anyone ever been able to look away
under that gaze? "It was intended that I rescue you," I told him.

"You believe that?"

I nodded. "Uh-huh. What do you believe?"

He blinked, and smiled a little. "Everything I can."

*

The drive to the City was relatively quiet. Agent Mulder admired
the scenery while I navigated Mount Hermon Road through Scotts Valley,
and began the Highway 17 trip in the San Jose direction. Staring at
the road, I tried to get my feelings in order.

Mulder had shrugged on his long dark coat over the jeans and
shirt outfit he was wearing. After retrieving my keys, my jacket,
and my five-inch Special Forces blade in its sheath, from the bedroom,
I'd looked at him and sensed he'd added his weapon to the ensemble,
somewhere under the coat. I didn't say anything. After all, I also
had a concealed weapon that day.

I was beginning to believe that Will had not left San Francisco.
The feeling was wishful, mostly. I needed a lot closer proximity for
my shield to work. I could also accept the possibility that Will
had contacted Jason, rather than me, for help, but why would Jason
keep that from me? More to the point, _how_ could he have kept it
from me? I would have sensed something--it was a very heavy thing
to try to hide.

Agent Mulder seemed to be thinking along the same lines.
"Have you sensed anything from Jason?" he asked, as we reached the
Summit.

"This month has been bad," I admitted. "I've been really
solidly booked with holiday concerts, and end-of-quarter stuff like
writing evaluations, and submitting them. My new music group is
going on tour in spring and I've been making travel plans. I
think I only saw him once this month." I swallowed hard in
consternation. The pain was beginning to show in my voice, even
to show up on my own shield. "When I did see him, it was about a
week and a half ago."

"How did he seem then?"

"Stressed out," I remembered. We were beginning the winding
downhill drive. A tanker truck appeared up ahead, flashing a warning
of its slow progress. I signalled and went around it. "A student
had gotten hurt in class, landed on an ankle wrong. The parents had
itchy lawsuit fingers." I spotted another truck and stayed in the
left lane until I was past it, then moved over. "He came down to
Santa Cruz, and we had dinner out. He talked for hours, and I
listened. He was afraid he'd lose students and word would get
around." I sighed. "It's possible whatever I sensed, I attributed
to that situation."

"Possible," my passenger murmured. His mind was elsewhere.

"That problem went away," I added, mostly to myself.
"Thank Goddess. When we see him today..." I trailed off. I
didn't like the feeling of investigating my own true love in
my brother's disappearance. And I hadn't even called him the
night before, like I'd meant to. Instead I'd had Agent Mulder
giving me Massachusetts gratitude. I pulled myself away from
the memory of how close he'd stood. Such thoughts should not be
in the mind of one trying to drive Highway 17.

Coming around a steep downhill turn, I saw the yellow
sign that read WRECK AHEAD flashing its lights. I slowed down
and cast my intuition ahead. I picked up the nebulous signature
of a wreck that had already been cleared, and relaxed a little.

"He isn't a suspect," Mulder reminded me. "We just need
to find out what he knows."

We passed some spent flares and a scattering of glass.
I took down my shield until we were well past it. "I know," I
replied. "You aren't even working right now, are you?"

"Not officially," he said absently.

I bit my lip. The courteous thing, at that point, would
have been to acknowledge how awkward the situation was and offer
to relieve him of the entanglement. I felt, however, that he didn't
want me to do that. I sensed nothing from his side of the car but
the feeling of his mind racing; no resentment, no apprehension. He
really wanted to find Will, and he was not thinking about what he
would do in a few days, when he was supposed to meet his partner
in Los Angeles.

"Tell me about your partner," I said. It seemed logical
for me to wonder about her, from the context. "She must be a
stern lecturer, to get a nickname like Skullwoman."

My passenger grinned. The admiration, and affection, that
I sensed from him were impressive. They apparently did work well
together. "I've never heard her lecture...at least not in the
academic sense," he began ironically. I chuckled. "She's a
medical doctor, a forensics specialist. She has red hair, like
you, only yours is a little longer." He paused, and out of the
corner of my eye I saw him frowning a little as he looked at me.
"I would say you've got about six inches on her, though."

I imagined a five-foot-two, redheaded FBI agent. I
imagined the two of them together, Scully only coming up to
Mulder's collarbone or thereabouts. "So, federal law is enforced
by really tall people, and really short people?" I couldn't
help myself.

"You know, it's unwise to annoy the FBI," Mulder
deadpanned in response. "I did notice you've got a _copy_ of
Microsoft Word on your hard disk."

I giggled. "Okay, okay, I take it back." The road was
levelling into the flat stretch that would connect with Highway
280, and take us to San Francisco. I relaxed myself into the
seat of the car, untensing my back. I laid my right hand in
my lap and gripped the bottom of the steering wheel with my
left. "We're about a third of the way there. It'll be another
hour and a half or so."

"I'll count out-of-state license plates," Mulder remarked.

*

The sun came out for a while between Palo Alto and South
San Francisco, but the fog descended quickly as we approached the
City. Highway 280 turned into 19th Avenue, a main street on the
east side of the Sunset District. We drove past San Francisco
State University, where I'd done my undergraduate work, and Stern
Grove, where the Symphony performed outdoor concerts in the summer.
Since there are no left turns allowed off 19th, I had to go around
a block to reach Taraval Street on the left side.

I parked the car at the curb on Taraval. It was unnerving
to absorb the atmosphere of the neighborhood--the comfortably chilly
air, the muted daylight through the fog; to see up ahead the still-new
sign reading _Jade Mantis Academy_, while beside me a stranger made
ready to question my fiance'. It was interesting to sense Mulder
descending into a very collected state, putting himself in order, it
seemed. We both got out of the car, and turning my head I discovered
that he had pulled himself up to his full height. He was actually a
little taller than Jason. His demeanor read of containment and
professionalism.

We walked uphill toward the Academy storefront, and I felt
his eyes on me. "Is he there?" he asked quietly.

"Yes," I responded, just as quietly. I could feel Jason's
presence up ahead, inside the school.

Mulder said nothing as we approached the front door. The
storefront windows were papered from the inside with Chinese art
and writing. The front door, with its bells, jingled pleasantly
as I opened it, and I called out as we entered, "Hi love, it's me."

"Mari?" Jason's answer came immediately, surprised and
happy. Agent Mulder and I entered the school's foyer, a large
linoleumed room with an assortment of chairs and sofas for parents
and visitors. I led the way through the doorway to the main teaching
room, huge and lined on one side with mirrors. I saw both our
reflections. A tiny office opned immediately to our right, and Jason
was standing behind his desk. A computer monitor lit the office
dimly. He had gotten up as if to walk to meet me; now he saw
Agent Mulder, and his exuberance dissolved, replaced first by
discomfort, then the same air of containment Mulder had.

"Jason, this is Agent Mulder of the FBI," I announced with
all my confidence. Jason stepped out of the office into the
teaching room, and the two of them stood facing each other. Jason's
shoulder-blade length hair, wiry and brown mixed with silver, was
tied back in a ponytail with one of my black velvet scrunchies.
(_I must have left one behind_, I thought distractedly.) He was
wearing his black Chinese-style martial arts jacket with white
collar and cuffs. His chin lifted as he regarded Mulder.

"Jason Demnos," Jason introduced himself evenly, offering
his right hand. After the handshake, "May I see some ID?"

I resolved not to show my embarrassment. Jason didn't
know Mulder. It was a perfectly reasonable question.

The ID was produced and displayed silently. Nonchalantly
each of them held the other's gaze. I began uncomfortably, "I
met him yesterday. He believes Will's disappearance should be
looked into."

"You met him yesterday." Jason's voice betrayed nothing,
besides mild interest, but I sensed a large amount of suspicion.
He went on in a placating fashion, almost apologetically. "Agent
Mulder, Will hasn't disappeared. He just hasn't written to any
of us in a long time. There isn't anything to worry about."

"Will Stevenson dropped out of the FBI Academy," Mulder
stated flatly. "He also flew here to San Francisco on the fifth
of December. Did he contact you at that time?"

I put my hands in my pockets to keep them from shaking. I
sensed no surprise from Jason; it was clear he already knew both
these things. He answered, though, as though they were news.
"That's very strange."

"Is there anything you can tell me about what might have
motivated these actions?" Mulder's question only had the slightest
upward swing at the end; it was more like a statement of fact with
some of the words rearranged.

There was a minute puase in which I felt a little more
tension around Jason, and I clenched my hands in my pockets. Jason
knew where Will was. I was sure of it, and he had no intention of
telling me or Agent Mulder. "He hasn't written or called in
months. I really can't offer any explanation."

_He's lying_, I whispered inwardly. I wanted to say it
out loud but I didn't interrupt.

"Prior to this silence, Will Stevenson reported contact
with certain officials," Mulder continued. His containment was
impressively complete. The demeanor about him was as tranquil
as a dark lake at night. "This contact is cause for concern.
It's possible foul play is involved."

There was another pause. The buildup of static I felt
came from me, myself. Jason had never lied to me before, ever,
and now he was. Not only that, he was lying to me about my
brother. I felt an embarrassing urge to rush forward and beg
Jason to tell me where Will was. I wanted to press close to him
and take my shield down. Nothing had ever felt so wrong as this--
not to be trusted by him.

Breathing deeply to steady myself, I felt a movement in
the distance. It was as though someone had materialized suddenly
in the back of the school, maybe in the the storeroom where all the
practice mats were; it was a far-off presence in my shield. I
realized this was someone waking from sleep.

"Jason?" I began. "Who's in the back of the school?"

There was silence for nearly a full second while both men
took in what I had said. Jason was racking his brain, I could tell,
for an answer to this loaded question. Mulder turned his head to
give me a questioning look, but only briefly. He took off at a
run toward the closed door at the other end of the teaching room.
He was a lot faster runner than I expected, somehow, but Jason, who
ran after him immediately, got to the door first and blocked his
way.

I followed them, perusing what I was sensing: Jason
believed he was protecting someone from Agent Mulder. Agent
Mulder, anxious, probably to know whether or not the presence
I sensed was Will. And on the other side of the door, the
presence, now fully awake and alert to the sound of running
footsteps, was now in sharper focus. It was indeed my brother
Will.

Jason's stance was widening and although he did not raise
his arms in any stereotypical martial arts fashion, I knew he was
very ready to defend that door. Agent Mulder stood before him,
his long coat still swinging a little from the run. He didn't look
undecided, but he was. I took the opportunity to yell as loud as
I could, "HAWK! Is that you? It's Mari."

Will, in the distance, snapped to attention and froze,
but he didn't answer. "Will, answer me!" I yelled, louder.
"Who are you hiding from?"

"Will?" Agent Mulder joined in, and his raised voice was
unexpectedly raspy. I'd become used to his quiet, husky
murmuring. "It's Agent Mulder from the Bureau, I'm here to
help you."

I could clearly sense some incredulity from behind the
wall. I couldn't tell exactly what he was thinking, but I wondered
if he thought Mulder was wasting the Bureau's money again. "Jason,
let me talk to him!" I called out. Jason didn't move.

Will, in the distance, began moving. A few seconds later
he disappeared from my shield. "Agent Mulder, he's gone. He's
run out the back." My voice cracked. I cast my intuition around
and felt nothing. Mulder and Jason were still standing still and
quiet, eyeing each other.

I turned and ran out the front door, since the two opponents
in the current stare-down contest were blocking the door to the
storeroom. The front door jangled shut behind me and I looked
frantically right and left. A group of elderly Asian passers-by
looked at me apprehensively as they walked by. I sprinted around
the corner onto a cross street, straining my eyes for any sign
of Will.

I didn't see him, but somebody came running at me suddenly
from behind a dumpster. I caught a glimpse of somebody stocky in
a windbreaker, and got an impression that he was chasing someone,
before we collided head-on and he knocked me down. I caught myself
with my forearms, but the impact was enough to throw me a little.
I heard somebody else running up behind me, getting close, and rolled
sideways as fast as I could, putting the dumpster between me and
whatever was coming. Reaching behind me, I found the hilt of my
blade at my belt and made ready to pull it out.

The runner appeared from behind the dumpster, pausing to
look around, and I relaxed. It was Agent Mulder, and he didn't
immediately spot me sitting on the ground. "Over here," I called
out.

"Mari. Are you okay?" He bent one knee and reached out to
help me up. We clasped hands in the double-wrist grip, and I made
sure I did all the lifting of my weight with my legs. I felt the
symbolism was important. Letting go of his hands, I pulled my
jacket straight on my shoulders and wondered if, under other
circumstances, I might have found an excuse to stay in that grip
a little longer. "What happened?"

"Somebody knocked me down," I explained. I pointed at
the alley around the corner from the dumpster. "It was some guy
in a windbreaker. He came running by here real fast."

Mulder took a few steps toward the alley. It was really only
the backs of the buildings on that block of Taraval, since there was
a vacant concrete lot behind them. There was no sign of anyone
running across the expanse of cracked concrete. The traffic on
19th Avenue was visible in the distance to our left. The next
street south, Ulloa, was residential, so the next structures
straight ahead, after the vacant lot, were people's back fences.

"You didn't see Will." He sounded preoccupied, scanning
the backs of the buildings on Ulloa for movement.

"No." I kept the frustration out of my voice. I had to
be as focused as Mulder was, for as long as I could manage. I
didn't know how long that would be. Will was definitely in
trouble. I found I was holding my lower lip between my teeth.

Mulder turned around to face me, and stepped closer when
he saw my expression. I was apparently not doing quite enough to
hide my concern. "Are you all right?"

I nodded, and let go of my lip with my teeth. "Just give
me a second, okay?"

He smiled a little, ruefully, as he took a few steps past
me. Reaching out, he gently squeezed my left shoulder, and I
was struck by the intense sympathy that came from him, before I
took my shield down. Silently I took a deep breath and imagined
the feeling entering me with the air, and felt a little more
relaxed. I stretched my arms out in front of me, lacing my fingers,
which relieved some of the tightness in my shoulders. My shield
came back together.

Mulder called to me from the sidewalk. "The guy ran past
here, right? Did you see if he was chasing Will?"

"I didn't see Will," I reminded him. "I didn't see who
he was chasing. He was just thinking about chasing somebody, in
general."

I followed him as he wandered out to the corner of Taraval.
He had a way of walking as though he were only partly inside his
body. "What's down the street there?" he asked.

"More neighborhood," I shrugged. "Twenty blocks or so.
The ocean, eventually."

He blinked a few times, and his gaze turned toward Taraval.
"We need to see if Will left anything behind in the back of the
school," he informed me. "Anything that might be a clue."

I shivered. I didn't relish confronting Jason again. It
wasn't right to have to _confront_ Jason about anything, actually,
let alone my own brother's safety. Jason had been convinced that
Mulder was a threat to Will. Had the situation gone on, he would
have been willing to do Mulder harm. I pulled my jacket tight
around me--what could I have done, if a fight had broken out?
Could I have stopped it? Would either of them have listened to
me?

Agent Mulder rounded the corner, reached the front door
first and tugged on it. "It's locked," he said.

I cast my intuition forward. "Jason's not in there," I
realized. "He's gone too."

My mind raced as I pulled out my keys. Where had Jason
gone? Did he know where Will had run to? Were they together
somewhere? I poked the key at the lock, and it didn't fit.
I tried again, with no success.

"The locks have been changed," I told Mulder. I stared
distractedly at the keys in my hand. Jason had locked me out.
He hadn't told me about this or offered me new keys. He'd
_meant_ to lock me out.

"Let's go around back," was Mulder's immediate suggestion.
"We look really suspicious right now."

He walked so fast he was almost running. I sensed a lot
of frustration, which was comforting in a way; I wasn't alone.
Passing the dumpster again, and entering the alley, we reached
the back door. I tried my key again without luck.

Wordlessly, Mulder pulled his wallet out, opened it, and
frowned. He selected a credit card and put the wallet back in his
pocket. Holding the card up between us he regarded me with great
seriousness, although I could sense his enjoyment of what he was
about to say. "I don't want to hear about you turning to a life
of crime after this."

I giggled, and gave him a grateful look. It was comforting
and made me very brave about looking into his eyes, knowing he
wouldn't look away. "It's great of you to be funny, Agent Mulder."

"Oh yeah, you can tell, can't you?" He looked disappointed.
"I can't mess with your head so well." Turning to the door, he
bent one knee to better examine the lock.

"You should know that Jason is quite paranoid," I hastened
to say. "There will be an alarm, unless I can get to it in time.
He can't afford a professional service or anything, so there won't
be anybody coming to look around. It'll just be very loud and at
a painful frequency."

"Thanks." He raised his eyebrows. "You know, you can
stop calling me Agent and start calling me Mulder. After all I
keep using your given name."

"Isn't your given name Fox though?"

He pressed his lips together as he manipulated the credit
card. "That's a misprint." I chuckled, and he went on ironically,
"My first name is Special, but that can be kind of awkward, so I
usually go by Agent, which is my middle name."

I sensed some serious discomfort associated with his real
name; he wasn't completely kidding. There was an audible click,
and Mulder got to his feet and struggled with the door, which
finally opened. "Let me in first," I told him quickly. "I need
to turn off the alarm."

He stood aside. Hurrying to the controller on the
left side of the doorway I turned a key, disarming the system.
"Okay, we're safe now." I turned on a light. We were in a
narrow hallway with no windows. A doorway straight ahead
opened onto the garage, and to my right a steep stairway led
upward. I felt Mulder's presence behind me and pointed ahead.
"That's Jason's workshop as well as the garage. The car's in
there, but you don't really need one in the City."

"Lead the way," murmured Mulder. I entered the garage
and flipped on another light. Jason's car, a black Jeep, sat
silently in the middle of the floor. The entire left side of the
garage was a workshop. Mechanical and electronic parts were stored
in plastic drawers. A drawing table had a poster drying on it of
the Chinese character _tai_, done in wide black ink strokes.
Something under the drawing table, visible under its tall legs,
caught my eye.

"Mulder, look, it's a cot." I pointed. "With a blanket."

Mulder took a pen light out of a coat pocket, and leaned
under the drawing table. "Will had something large with him,"
he informed me. "Look here under the cot. There's dust here,
and this space where no dust has fallen. A duffelbag, or
something."

"Do you think he's been here ever since he flew in?" I
asked, bending down on one knee to look. It was a rectangular
shape, a little smudged.

"Either him, or this object. The space where it was
is pretty clean." Mulder shone the pen light's beam back
against the wall. "You think we need to check out that dirty
sock back there?" The beam picked out a white sock crumpled
against the wall.

I chuckled. "Maybe not."

Mulder switched off the flashlight and pulled himself
upright, holding the edge of the drawing table. "Whatever it
was, it was light enough to carry while running. It probably
didn't hold his life's possessions."

I walked over to a closet at the back of the garage,
and opened it. Mixed in with the familiar old clothes were some
newer, larger collared shirts, and a new-looking black blazer.
"Some of these clothes aren't Jason's," I called out to Mulder.
"Look at these high-tops. Jason doesn't wear high-tops." I
pointed at a pair of battered white ones sitting on the floor
of the closet.

The pen light beam reached over my shoulder as Mulder
approached. "The shoulders of the shirts are dusty," he
observed. "He hasn't been wearing them."

"So Jason changed the locks so I wouldn't come in and
find Will here." I put my hands in my pockets so Mulder wouldn't
see them clenched. "I could have come up here any time, to surprise
him, and not been able to get in." I bit my lip. Why hadn't
Jason trusted me? Had he thought I'd do something stupid and
endanger Will? Was there something about Will's predicament that
might have put _me_ in danger, if I'd known about it?

Mulder was not listening very hard; he was already walking
back toward the drawing table, his coat swinging back and forth.
He shone the pen light at the cot again.

"What have you been sensing from Jason?" he asked.

"He lied to you before," I replied. "I'm sure you know
that though. About Will dropping out, and coming here to San
Francisco."

"Yeah. Do you feel that he knows what Will's problem is?"
Mulder was down on one knee, examining the clean spot on the floor
under the cot.

"He felt that you were a threat." I walked slowly across
the garage floor, around the Jeep. "He thought he was protecting
Will from you."

"Me personally, or the FBI?"

"I couldn't tell." I watched as Mulder's right hand moved
slowly toward his mouth in a preoccupied gesture. "What are you
thinking?"

"That mark there." He stood upright slowly. "It's about
the same size as my briefcase."

"I guess he could carry one of those running," I agreed.

"I've had the pleasure of working with a fair amount of
black information," Mulder said ironically. "A lot of my cases
have led me to some. There's considerable danger involved with
passing it around. What I get is usually pretty light. Not too
many pages."

"You're standing here," I pointed out. "It seems it
doesn't _have_ to be dangerous. Why are you worried about Will
getting involved in this?"

"It's always dangerous." He was growing serious, even
grave. "The fact that Will felt he had to run is what worries
me. There is something else going on here that didn't happen
to me." Mulder stepped closer to me, and we stood facing each
other. "You probably know this place is being watched. The man
who knocked you down may not be the only one out there. Whoever
is watching, now knows the two of us are here."

I nodded. "Will wouldn't come back here, would he?"

Mulder shook his head once. "I doubt it. It's also
very likely that the upstairs of this place is bugged, and the
phone line is tapped."

I pulled myself away from the feeling of being watched.
I would not give them any power over me. I could not imagine
mechanical bugs going undetected in any dwelling of Jason's--
they had to be external. "Laser vibration detectors aimed at
the windows?"

Mulder nodded. It was hard not to feel smug, sensing
his increased respect. "No windows down here, so they probably
aren't listening. We can't stay down here forever though."

"What about e-mail?" I asked.

He raised his eyebrows. "Possible."

"There are public terminals here in town," I told him.
"If Will wants to reach me, he'll find one."

"Then let's go up to that office," Mulder agreed.
"Quietly."

I nodded and led the way up the narrow stairs.

*
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Polly Moller * ni...@netcom.com *...yadda yadda yadda...*
Flutist, Conductor, Teacher / Producer, Women's Alternative
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