A girl, she thought, can’t be too careful.
Cover your ass.
Cut your losses.
And something else:
Travel light.
She picked up the bag at her feet, made sure Leonard’s disks were inside, then zipped it closed and reached for her coat. A cab to Philly would be expensive, but she considered it an investment. God knows there were plenty of private businesses out there, not necessarily in this country, who would be more than willing to learn what she knew.
She checked the bag again, recognizing her nervousness, and reminded herself that somehow, between here and the airport, she’d have to lose the gun.
“Okay,” she said, and smiled at the room. “Okay.”
At the moment she didn’t give a damn for Madeline Vincent. The woman would have to learn to fend for herself. For what little time she had left.
She hadn’t taken two steps when someone knocked on the door.
Mulder swore and slapped the steering wheel angrily when storm-slowed traffic finally forced his speed down.
Dana didn’t scold. She had been infected by his urgency as well, to the extent that she lowered her window and tried to see if there was a way he could pass again on the right. Parked cars lined the curbs, however, for as far as she could see, and she didn’t see suggesting he use the sidewalk as a lane.
If she did, he’d do it.
“Two blocks,” she told him. “Just two blocks.”
Equally frustrating was the lack of communication between here and the others. If she had a radio, she could have called ahead to Hawks and double-checked on Webber, and on Silber’s being at the apartment.
She sighed and opened her bag, to be sure her weapon was loaded and ready.
Her hand touched something else.
Oh God, she thought, and debated for nearly a full minute before making up her mind.
The drum of rain on the roof forced her to raise her voice: “Mulder—”
“I wish I could fly,” he said, glaring at the windshield as if that would give his vision a better chance. As it was, the rain was so hard, with the wind blowing now, that it seemed as if the street had been invaded by drifting fog.
“Mulder, listen.”
He nodded. “Okay. Sorry.”
“The shooter.”
“What? Now?” He shook his head, and raised his hand to use the horn, changed his mind and throttled the steering wheel instead.
“Yes. Now.” She tossed a sprig of pine onto the dashboard, and waited for him to see it. When he looked, she said, “It was caught under the car. Hank’s car. I found it when we were at Elly’s.”
He was bewildered and lifted a shoulder. “So?”
“So Mrs. Radnor only spoke with Licia for five or ten minutes. So Licia has been fighting you every inch of this investigation. So Hank and I are the only ones who have used that car, and I know damn well I didn’t hit or run over any tree.” She stopped. Looked outside. “Hawks said they found the spot where the shooter had backed off the road into the woods. It wasn’t a clear area.” Her hands danced an apology over her lap. “I didn’t read her notes, Mulder. She said she had them, I even watched her put them in her briefcase… but I didn’t read them. And she didn’t bring them to your room.”
“Scully—”
“I screwed up.” Her hands again. “Damnit, I screwed up.”
“Nope,” he said, rocking back and forth, body English for the car. “If I was dead, then you would have screwed up.” She saw the grin. “Then I’d have to haunt you.”
“Mulder, that’s not funny.”
“But you don’t believe in ghosts and goblins.”
Hail bounced off the hood.
She jumped when a car honked behind them.
“So,” he said, “what do we do?”
“We take care of business,” she said without hesitation. “And when that’s done, we take care of more business.”
He nodded, groaned when traffic came to a complete halt, and finally unsnapped his seat belt. “Take the car.”
She reached out to grab his arm, but she was too late. “Mulder!”
He stood in the middle of the street, rain dripping into his eyes. He pointed. “I can’t wait, Scully. I can’t. Just…” He flapped the hand helplessly. “Just come after me as fast as you can.”
He was gone, the cars behind discovered their horns, and she slid awkwardly into the driver’s seat, all the while watching him race to the sidewalk and around the next corner.
If there were any rules left in the book that he hadn’t broken, she couldn’t think of them.
All she could think of was, watch your back, Mulder. For God’s sake, watch your back.
TWENTY-THREE
He knew he must have looked like a fool, racing headlong through the rain, one hand held loosely over his head in feeble protection against the hail that, so far, was no larger than a pea. That didn’t stop it from stinging, however, and stinging badly.
He bolted across the street, veering sharply when a minivan nearly clipped him on his blind side. He skidded, fell into a parked car, and used it to propel him onto the sidewalk again. The hail stopped. The rain didn’t.
He didn’t want to, but he had to slow up — his side had begun to pull, and he couldn’t help thinking that something had torn in there.
Hang on, Elly, he thought; hang on.
At the next intersection, he paused under a tree, half bent over, hands hard on his hips, and took precious seconds to get his bearings, and his breath back. Another block west, he thought, swallowed hard, and tried to run, snarling when he couldn’t do much better than a fast trot.
A winter-raised section of concrete made him swerve onto a lawn, where he slid on the wet grass and went down on his hands and knees. It felt good, not moving, and it took him a moment to get back on his feet.
He had no choice but to run now, forcing the pain in his side to another place, one that didn’t bother him, one he knew would exact a great price when he couldn’t concentrate any longer.
The wind pushed a curtain of water into his eyes. He slapped it away angrily without missing a step as he charged off the curb and across the tarmac to the other side. He figured Scully, with her luck, would beat him there anyway, but at least now he was moving, doing something instead of cursing traffic and feeling helpless.
Reaching the next corner seemed to take hours, and when he stopped, he almost panicked.
This wasn’t right; he was on the wrong street.
Strings of mist like ghosts moved slowly through the rain; a storm drain overflowed, creating a shallow pond across the intersection.
This wasn’t right, and he didn’t know which way to go.
Then he saw the park across the way and up the block, the benches and ball field obscured by the rain. His lips parted — it wasn’t quite a grin — and he moved on, his face turned toward the houses he passed to keep his vision clear.
The police car was gone.
The lamp was out in Elly’s window.
He slowed as he approached the front walk, slipping his left hand into his pocket to wrap around his gun. Front or back? Wait for Scully, or do the stupid thing and go in on his own?
He had no realistic alternative.
He reached the front walk just as a horn honked several times in quick succession. Turning as he ran, he saw Scully bump the pink Cadillac up over the curb and practically throw herself into the street.
Sometimes you just live right, he thought, and waved her around to the back, ran up the steps and stopped with his hand on the knob.
The wind shrieked overhead.
Something rattled down a drainpipe.
He fought his lungs into calming, then stepped into the foyer. Slowly now, knowing he wouldn’t be able to give Scully enough time, he sidled to the door and put an ear to the damp wood.