One week later.
Mulder sat at his desk, staring wearily at the case file in front of him. He had been there all night, searching through numerous files trying to find some reference to Ira or Evan Chandler. He'd drawn a blank. He rubbed his chin, which now had six days worth of beard on it. He hadn't been home since the day he received the last note. When he was at home he felt useless, even though he wasn't much more use at work it gave him something else to think about.
Stiffly he stood from his chair and walked across the room; he needed to stretch his legs. He walked over to Scully's desk. It was just how she'd left it. An autopsy report lay open with a pen on top of it. A half empty cup of coffee sat next to the keyboard, her lipstick still on the rim. When he closed his eyes he could imagine her sitting there, writing notes on her autopsy report, telling him off every now and then for throwing pencils at the ceiling instead of doing the work he was supposed to. He could still smell her perfume in the room, even though she hadn't been in there for over a week now.
He had to admit that he missed her being there. His mind flicked back to her abduction. It had been sort of like this then. Except then he had no idea how much she meant to him. He did now. She was his best friend, the only person he could trust. And this bastard had taken her away from him.
The loud ringing of the phone made him jump. He grabbed the phone on Scully's desk before it could ring again.
"Special Agent Fox Mulder?" He spoke into the receiver. He looked up to see Skinner enter the room. He nodded to acknowledge his presence.
"Agent Mulder." The voice on other end the line was distorted. "Long time no see. How've you been?"
"Who is this?" Mulder motioned to Skinner to pick up the other phone. He put the receiver to his ear and listened in.
"Oh I think you know who this is."
"Evan?"
"Nice to know you remember me," he replied.
"What do you want?" Mulder kept his voice calm and even, a complete opposite to how he was feeling inside. He could've quite easily ripped that guys head off, had he been there at that precise moment.
"What I want is you to be sorry for what you did," he spat. The tone of his voice had changed completely now. It was angry, near shouting, and full of malice.
"What did I do? If you don't tell me how can I be sorry?"
"You don't know!" He bellowed down the phone. "You always were a self centered prick. You can't even remember what you did to me. To my brother. Maybe I'll have to remind Agent Scully then."
"I swear if you touch her I'll kill you." Mulder's cool exterior evaporated. There was silence at the other end, broken suddenly by a loud thump and a slight cry of pain. "What have you done to her?"
"Now are you going to remember?" He spoke again.
"Let me talk to her." Mulder tried to regain his composure.
"Why?"
"I want to make sure she's ok." Silence again, then a voice saying something incoherent.
"Hello?" It was Scully. Mulder's heart lifted slightly. She sounded weary.
"Scully it's me. Are you ok?"
"I'm ok."
"Has he hurt you?" She didn't answer. "Scully? Are you still there?"
"Mulder listen to me." She spoke quickly, urgency evident in her voice. "He wants to get you back for what you did to his brother. You arrested him for murd…" Her voice was abruptly cut off and Mulder winced as he heard the dull thud of fist against flesh.
"She still tries to help you, even if that means being punished. She's too loyal, you don't deserve her. And people don't get things they don't deserve." Then the line went dead.
"Dammit!" Mulder slammed his fist into the filing cabinet. He looked over at Skinner who was making another phone call.
"Ok. Call me as soon as you've got it. Thank you." He turned to Mulder. "I got the Gunmen to put a bug in your phone. We figured he was going to try and contact you sooner or later. They're going to call me back once they have a trace on the number. We'll find her Mulder."
He moved across the room to another filing cabinet and scanned the labels. He pulled open a drawer with 'VCU' written on it and began flicking through them.
"Mulder what are you doing?"
"What Scully said before he cut her off, about me arresting Ira Chandler for murder, it made me remember a case I worked in the VCU. A man murdered his wife and her lover after finding them in bed together. He was sentenced to death by lethal injection. I need to find the case file for it." After a few more minutes of frenzied searching he pulled a file from the drawer and flipped it open. He scanned it for a few minutes before turning to face Skinner. "That's it. He wants to punish me because he thinks I'm to blame for his brother's death. God I should've thought of this sooner." He threw the file across the room and it slammed into the door.
"Mulder calm down," Skinner said, crossing the room to where Mulder stood.
"Sir how am I supposed to calm down? That psycho is holding Scully against her will doing God knows what to her and you want me to calm down?"
"Yes. None of this is helping us find her. All we can do for now is wait for the Gunmen to get back to us on the trace." Mulder said nothing, but crossed the room and sat down in his chair. He was helpless, and he hated that. He just hoped Evan wasn't hurting Scully. If he were, Mulder would make sure he didn't live to regret it.