TITLE: By the Numbers AUTHOR: Forte E-MAIL: Bjm1352@aol.com URL: http://www.thebasementoffice.com/ RATING: R CATEGORY: VA SUMMARY: An experiment. ARCHIVE: Gossamer and Ephemeral OK; anywhere else please ask first. DISCLAIMER: They belong to CC, 1013, and FOX; *definitely* not me. FEEDBACK: Would make my day! THANKS: To Audrey Roget and mountainphile for stellar beta. ==== By the Numbers ==== "One large pizza, half mushroom and green pepper, half sausage and pepperoni. I'll pick it up." ==== "Two kinds of meat, Mulder? That will take a few years off your life." There was a joke to be made about the kind of meat he wanted her to be eating, but it would be too easy. Instead, he hunched over her coffee table and pulled a hot slice from the pie. "A giant sinkhole could open up tomorrow, swallowing the Hoover Building and us with it. Live a little, Scully." Out of the corner of his eye he caught her smiling. ==== "Three female victims, each of whom was kidnapped at gunpoint from an ATM machine," Scully read, "and each found dead within 24 hours with her throat slashed. By the jaggedness of the cuts, the assailant used some kind of small saw or serrated knife." "And from the case notes," Mulder added, pushing aside the empty pizza box, "it would appear that our wannabe butcher has a thing for women with red nail polish on their hands." Scully passed him a grainy photo from an ATM surveillance camera, showing only a corner of a scraggly, dark-bearded face. "This is the only photo they've been able to get. Not much to go on." She moved to flip a page in her file folder, but was stilled by Mulder's touch on her hand. She looked at him in surprise, then saw that he was holding out her fingers, stroking his thumb over one of her bare nails. "Just checking," he muttered. ==== "Four witnesses heard the woman screaming, but the perp managed to get away," the DC detective told Scully. She held her cell phone in one hand and scribbled notes on a legal pad for Mulder to read with the other, underlining "VICTIM GOT AWAY" as the detective explained how the woman had elbowed her attacker in the nose and run from the ATM. ==== Five minutes later they were in Scully's car, heading toward the scene of the attack on the other side of the city. "He's rattled," Mulder said. "He'll be looking for another woman with red nail polish, and he won't want to wait long." ==== Six blocks away from the crime scene, Scully suddenly turned onto a side street and parked in front of a fire hydrant. Mulder looked at her quizzically. "A bearded man just walked into that apartment building," she explained, cocking her head toward the building on the corner as she pulled the key from the ignition. "His head was down but he looked like he might have been holding a bloody tissue to his nose." "You're good, G-woman." They entered the building's lobby; both elevators were going up. They watched as, almost simultaneously, one stopped on the second floor and the other on the fourth. "I've got the 4th floor," Mulder said, as they headed for the stairwell. "I've got the second," his partner replied. Mulder took the stairs two at a time, bursting into the hallway of the fourth floor in moments, weapon drawn. An elderly woman with a walker stood at the nearest apartment door, hand poised to put her key in the lock. With no one else in the arrow-straight hallway, he replaced his weapon and pulled out his badge. "Ma'am, did you just come up on the elevator?" He flipped open the badge as the woman turned to face him, wide-eyed. "Y-yes, yes I did." "Was there a man with a beard on the elevator with you?" he asked quietly, bending down toward her. The woman blinked in surprise. "Why yes, Mr. Alexander was on the elevator, too. Is something wrong? Is he in some kind of trouble?" "I just need to speak to him, ma'am. Did he get off on this floor when you did?" "Yes, of course, this is the floor he lives on." "Where did he go when he got off the elevator?" The woman blinked again, her face paling. "Into his apartment." She pointed behind him. "427." Mulder turned and sprinted to the end of the hall to 427. He drew his weapon and pounded on the door, calling "Mr. Alexander?" When the only sound that came from inside the apartment was that of a window opening, he threw himself at the door, breaking it in. "Federal Agent! Hands where I can see them!" Mulder found himself in the room with a rotund old man with a neatly trimmed white beard and cane, who looked far more like Santa Claus than like the suspect in the ATM photo. He stood by the open window, his cane clattering to the floor as his hands flew up into the air at the sight of the Mulder's gun. "I'm a Federal Agent," Mulder repeated. "Is there anyone else here?" "N-no," the man stammered. "I've lived alone since my wife passed away three years ago." Mulder holstered his weapon, sighing, and picked up the old man's cane. "You can put your hands down now, Mr. Alexander." As the man did so, and Mulder handed him his cane, his eyes caught sight through the window of Scully's car down on the street -- just as it pulled away from the curb. A dark-haired man was at the wheel, and he caught just a glimpse of Scully's hair as she lay across the back seat. ==== Seven thirty-two p.m., ten minutes after the suspect had roared away in Scully's car, the senior DC police officer approached Mulder, his face pale. "One of my men found this," he said grimly. "Must have fallen out of the guy's pocket." The evidence bag he held out contained a half-empty bottle of bright red nail polish, a line of dried polish trailing down the front of the bottle. "And I just got a call from the station. The woman who was attacked tonight? No polish on her nails." Oh, fuck, Mulder thought. Fuck fuck FUCK. The perp wasn't targeting women with red nail polish at all -- he was putting the polish on them himself after he'd abducted them. But now he was missing that vital ingredient in his ritual. The question was: did he apply the polish before he killed his victims, or after? "Phone book," Mulder barked. "We need to call every local drugstore and convenience store NOW!" ==== Eight of DC's finest joined Mulder as they descended on the tiny parking lot behind District Pharmacy. A dark-haired bearded man, his nose obviously swollen, was just exiting the store through the back door. "FREEZE! HANDS IN THE AIR!" The suspect tossed a bag to the ground and tried to run, but was tackled and handcuffed behind his back by three of the officers. Mulder pulled him to his feet. "WHERE IS SHE?" The suspect stared back at him, eyes wide. His mouth opened and closed like a fish, but no sound emerged. Mulder patted him down roughly and pulled keys he recognized as Scully's from the suspect's pocket. He pointed the car's remote control at the parking lot, pressed the button, and followed the car's chirping noise to the corner of the parking lot. He popped open the trunk to find his unconscious partner, blood trickling from a cut at her temple. "Call an ambulance!" he yelled at the nearest officer, then leaned into the trunk and checked for a pulse at Scully's carotid artery. Strong. Thank God. ==== "... nine millimeter GLOCK," the detective read from the inventory of the suspect's belongings, "a serrated steak knife, and one brand-spanking new unopened bottle of red nail polish." He looked at the FBI agents on the other side of the table, gazing at them over the top edge of his eyeglasses. "That was a bit closer than we like to cut it, Agents." He made a sour face, then added, "No pun intended." "No kidding," Mulder muttered. He felt Scully take his hand under the table and squeeze. He squeezed back, being careful to not press too hard. He knew she had sat on his left so he wouldn't have to look at the ugly bruise on the other side of her face. ==== "Ten percent of all first dates end in bed." "Is that so?" A faux cough punctuated Mulder's grin. "No, but it sounded plausible. Besides, I thought it would turn you on if I threw around some statistics." Scully yawned. "How about we road-test that theory in the morning, G-man." She leaned back, switched off the bedside lamp, then curled up next to him, her head over his heart and her hand splayed across his chest. "Good night, Mulder." "Good night, Scully." He lifted her hand from his chest, kissed the tip of each still-unmanicured finger, and fell asleep with his hand tucked around hers. END ==== Author's note: "By the Numbers"... get it? :-) It was an experiment. Did it work for you? Thanks for reading!