Disclaimer: If I had one wish it would be to own the X Files but alas I do not.
Suspects
Mulder and Scully were on their way to interview possible suspects but had decided to first stop at Agent Wells apartment. Mulder had cherry picked cases that involved various suspects and had given them to Scully to read in the car.
Scully had informed Mulder of her conversation with the Deputy Director and he reacted exactly how she expected, with righteous anger and then an insistence that they continue what they were doing.
He had been slightly surprised when his petite partner had agreed with him but was too riled up to wonder about it.
Scully had surprised herself by going along so easily. This case was bothering her. Whenever she thought of Agent Wells she felt a sense of pity. Based on everything she had seen and heard the woman seemed to live a sad life. Scully had heard the other agents talking about her and despite many trying to sound sorry about her death they all were not too sad to see her go. Most of the talk sounded more like gossip than grieving.
Except for her partner that is. Agent Thornton was beside herself with grief and full of dramatics. Although most of the dramatics seemed to garner attention rather than true grief. Scully had never met Agent Wells when she was alive and had never met her partner until this case but she was curious about the dynamic of their partnership.
Scully had always been unemotional and strait forward so dealing with a woman so filled with over the top shows of sadness caused her slight irritation. It also made her wonder more about Gina Thornton herself and her relationship with her partner. The woman had, of course, claimed the two were close and never fought and did the whole song and dance about what a saint Traci was but to Scully it all felt so put on.
She had not shared these thoughts with Mulder yet knowing that he was forming his own theories. At the end of the day they would recap and go over all scenarios.
Scully looked again at the files in her lap and tried to flip through them again but still came up with nothing that helped her. She kept getting stuck looking at the picture of Agent Wells that was paper clipped to the top file.
"Mulder, what do we know about Agent Thornton?" Scully asked.
Mulder, of course, had been stuck in his own thoughts about the case and was confused by the question. "I haven't looked into her too much yet. Why?"
"I don't know. A hunch I guess. I think she knows more than she is saying. I don't know it could be nothing…"
"Well she was much more social than her partner. Wells would spend most of her time with her current flame or sit around pining for him while Thornton would be out having drinks with co-workers."
"Is she in a serious relationship?"
"I don't know. Her information is in the box in the back somewhere if you want it."
Scully turned and spotted the box along with all of the other things they had tossed haphazardly into the backseat.
Scully turned around in her seat and leaned far into the backseat.
"Woah! Scully! A little warning would be nice!" Mulder said startled by her sudden movement. Usually he would be the one preforming shotgun acrobatics on a hunch. He was slightly concerned about his partner and curious about why this case was having such an affect on her.
She heaved the box with her back to the front seat and sat it on her lap. Scully proceeded to flip through the files looking for the right one.
Finding the personnel file on Agent Thornton she opened it up and began reading. Thornton was 33, unmarried, with no children. She came from a large family and grew up in a nice small town in South Carolina. The file did not give much information, which disappointed Scully. What she really wanted was personal information that would not be in this file.
She sighed.
"What are you looking for Scully?" Mulder asked upon hearing her sigh.
"I don't know. More personal stuff I guess about her relationships and her life."
"Well we can get more on that later by talking to co-workers and friends."
"Agent Wells had a habit of sleeping with men who were taken what if one of those men was dating her partner?"
"That would be a good reason to be pissed at somebody."
"Mulder, why did Traci feel the need to be with married men? Why not find men who are free? I'm sure she had offers but I don't think she was interested in any single men."
"Well she had low self-esteem. Being able to steal away men from other women gave her a sense of control of superiority. It made her feel better about herself. She grew up rich but went to a boarding school most of her life, her mom died when she was young. Probably a screwed up relationship with her father."
Scully didn't respond but just looked out the window again wondering about the woman who caused so much pain to herself and others.
"What is it about this woman that is bothering you?" Mulder asked.
"I don't know. She just seems so sad."
"We've had sadder cases."
"Yeah I guess. She just tried so hard to make these connections but always in the wrong places. She always ended up alone."
"I can tell you she probably has a lot of women who would love to see her dead."
"True. Sometimes I think of how much every moment causes a chain reaction. What happened to her that made her live like this? What was she looking for?"
"How 'bout we find out." He said as he pulled into the driveway of a estate that held acres of land and a large white mansion.
The estate of Richard Lander was huge despite the fact that he'd spent the better part of the last five years in prison for blackmail, extortion, forgery, and currency schemes.
Agent Wells had played a significant role in bringing him to justice. His case was one of the first of her career in White-collar crimes. Lander was a man with many resources he no doubt could have access to whatever it was that killed Traci Wells.
The stop however did not yield anything of use. Mulder and Scully were both uninterested anyways. Mulder had a feeling it was something bigger but Scully had a feeling it was something less obvious.
The next few names on the list were pretty useless as well. They had been driving around and interviewing for ten hours by the time Scully finally told Mulder she'd had enough for the day. She wanted to eat, shower, and sleep for days.
"Won't it be better if we start fresh tomorrow with new eyes? We've been in the car all day and have found nothing." She said as she rubbed her forehead in an attempt to get rid of her never-ending headache.
"We still have a couple names left." He responded not moving his eyes from the road.
"Yes and doing both tonight will take another five hours."
Mulder thought it over and glanced at his partner who he could tell was exhausted, "Alright but you owe me."
Scully looked at him flatly, "We'll see."
Mulder drove to Scully's apartment as directed and tried to ignore the impulse to follow her up knowing she would tell him to go. He was pretty sure he could convince her otherwise but also didn't want to deal with her wrath when she was fully rested.
"Thank you." She smiled at him and took his hand and squeezed. She got her bag from the back of the car and went inside.
He watched her go with a sigh.
Mulder had known that sleeping with Scully would make things more complicated but he had not anticipated how much stronger the urge to be with her always would be.
For years Mulder had wanted to spend every minute with Scully but it was different now. Now the visions in his imagination and dreams were real. The stakes also felt higher there was a sense of irrational panic that he would feel watching her walk away. There had been times when they'd parted and everything seemed fine only to have one or both of them separated and in danger.
One important reason it had taken so long for them to move to this phase was how much harder it would make losing the other. It added a whole new dimension to that potential loss. As if losing Scully would not be painful enough before.
He put the car in drive and headed back to his own apartment knowing it would be a mostly sleepless night.
In the morning the agents made their way to their basement office separately. Scully walked in to find coffee and a danish sitting on the desk and her dashing partner leaning on it reading an open file.
"Hey! So I found out a bit more last night about Gina Thornton…" He turned to start shuffling through papers.
"Mulder, did you sleep at all?" Scully asked.
"Very little. She has siblings all over but one sister is living right here in D.C. based on phone records they seem close."
Scully took a sip of her coffee, "I assume you got a warrant for those records.", she said eye brow raised in question.
"She made these calls in the office, free game. I think that I can finish talking to the two suspects we didn't get to last night and you can go see her sister."
She lowered the papers from his face, "That sounds fine. Thank you for the coffee and breakfast."
"Kind of a lame thank you." Mulder said with a raised eye brow.
Scully looked around as if they were being watched and it made Mulder give a small smile. She leaned in to give him a small kiss but pulled away before he could get ahold of her.
She smiled at him coyly, "Nice try."
"Worth it. Finish up your breakfast we got a case to solve!" He said with renewed energy practically jumping off the desk and toward the door. Scully smiled, shook her head, and followed.
Layla Breys was the sister of Gina Thornton. She was 35, married, with three children. She was a short round pleasant woman who smiled and let Scully in the door.
"Would you like anything to drink Agent Scully?" She offered and gestured toward the couch where Dana took her seat.
"No, thank you."
Layla took a seat opposite her and asked, "So what can I do for you? Does this have to do with Traci? Gina has been a mess over what happened."
"Yes I just have some routine questions about your sister."
"Oh, um, sure. But why?"
"We are interviewing the families of all those close to her. Since it is about the death of one of our own we are going the extra mile." It was a small lie.
"Of course. Anything I can do to help."
"When was the last time you saw your sister before Traci's death?"
"Hummm…. I saw her last Wednesday. We went out to lunch."
"Was there anything strange about her behavior? Or did she indicate that anything was wrong?"
"No she was normal… Well she was having man troubles but who isn't?"
Scully smiled slightly at the woman, "She was seeing someone?"
"Yes an older man I think. She was expecting a ring but instead he broke up with her."
"Do you know the man's name?"
"Ummm… Frank. His last name was something rich sounding I remember teasing her about being a gold digger…. Maxwell! Frank Maxwell!"
Scully wrote down the name, "Thank you. Do you know why he broke it off?"
"No, Gina didn't really want to talk about it. She will get around to telling me eventually after some time passes."
"Do you remember the last time you saw Traci?"
"I don't know the exact date but a couple weeks ago I went to their office to visit Gina over her lunch."
"And she seemed fine to you?"
"Yeah she was fine, acting normal."
"What was your sisters relationship like with her partner?"
"They were friends but not very close outside of work. Gina is a social butterfly, always out on the town. That wasn't really Traci's style."
"Do you know of any problems they had?"
"No they seemed to get along fine. There would be days where Gina would be frustrated with her professionally but that was always having to do with differences of opinion about work."
"Well thank you very much Mrs. Breys. I will call you if I have any more questions." Scully said as she stood.
As soon as she was out the door she pulled out her cell.
"Mulder." The familiar voice said across the line.
"Mulder, it's me. I got some information from the sister: She said that a few days before the Traci's death Gina's boyfriend broke up with her. Her sister didn't seem to know why and if she did she didn't say. What is the name of the last suspect on your list?"
"Frank Maxwell."
"That's the man Gina was seeing! I thought it sounded familiar."
"I just got done with the second to last guy on the list. He's been out of the country at some Tibetan rehab thing so he's clear. I was just about to head to Maxwell's. Want to come with?"
"Yeah. How far are you from the office?"
"About an hour."
"Alright I will grab us some lunch on my way back and you can pick me up."
"Sounds good. See you soon babe."
The line went dead and Mulder laughed to himself as he pictured his partner's eye roll.