Charles Grant - Whirlwind

A few minutes of washing, holding onto the basin while ripples of nausea and dizziness settled, and getting that hair back into place, and he felt even better. Hungry, even. He was about to give Scully a call to meet him for a late breakfast when he spotted a note taped to the mirror over the low dressing table in the front room. It was a reminder that she had an autopsy to perform, and a warning not to do anything on his own. She hoped to be back by noon, or shortly after.

Taking care to move without jarring anything loose inside his skull, he finished dressing and stepped outside.

The sky was blindingly blue, the sun simply blinding, and the heat hadn't changed, although it might have been, relatively, a bit cooler than yesterday. None of it did his head any good, and he hurried to the restaurant and the safety of the indoors.

A simple breakfast eaten in solitude allowed him to get past the muted throbbing behind his brow, to go over what had happened the night before.

Not that he needed much reminding. The humiliation of the lump was bad enough.

What had happened was, he had ignored all his instincts and had opened that damn door. What had made him do it, he couldn't figure out. It had been more than simple curiosity, and until the end of the episode, he didn't recall feeling all that threatened.

So… why?

He ordered a second tall glass of orange juice and sipped it while he watched the other guests come and go, wind through the courtyard, take pictures of each other beneath the cottonwood. In the white sun they had no idea what he had seen yesterday in that weed-infested yard; or if they did, they weren't going to let it ruin their day. A tale to tell when they got home, nothing more, a whole lot less.

The glass was empty when he remembered something else — that the noise he had heard by the river had reminded him of something. He concentrated, and scowled in defeat when he couldn't give it a name. He did bring back the feeling, however, and it made him put the glass down and take a deep calming breath.

Above and in that hissing was the whispering.

she is special, mr. mulder.

His spine stiffened.

she hears the wind.

He was on his feet before he realized he had even left his seat, and that he hadn't yet received his check. Luckily, the waiter spotted him and came right over. Mulder signed it, added a large Hp and an effusive verbal thanks that startled the young man, and did his best not to run from the room to the lobby reception desk. There were no messages from Scully, and none from Sheriff Sparrow, who had said, Mulder recalled, that he would be back sometime this morning to ask some questions about last night.

He wondered if he could convince the man that he hadn't been delirious at all.

The wind.

Not wanting to confine himself to his room again, he strolled deliberately slowly around the courtyard, for all the world like a tourist who couldn't think of a damn thing to do. When he couldn't stand it anymore, he veered into the passageway to the back garden. Except for a woman standing near the center, he was alone.

The wind.

As he passed her, heading for the place where he'd been struck, he heard a noise. A familiar noise. One that made him stop, that made his headache return.

"Are you all right?"

The woman, a short Hispanic woman in a maid's uniform, looked up at him, not really concerned; she was only being polite because she had to. Behind her he saw a wheeled cart stacked with fresh linens and towels.

He nodded, and stared at her hands when the noise started again.

"Hey," she said, both a question and a warning.

"I'm sorry." He added a smile to the apology and moved on, forcing himself not to look back. A moment later he heard the cart's wheels roll quickly across the stone. Obviously she thought he was nuts. Maybe he was. The sound he had just heard was an emery board being drawn across her nail. Almost like sandpaper.

At the bench where he had been last night, he looked toward the spot where he had heard the hissing, the whispers.

He didn't have to go there now to know what he would find, but he went anyway. A justification, a confirmation. He hadn't seen it on the riverbank where Paulie Deven had been killed, but he had seen it yesterday, in Donna Falkner's backyard. He just hadn't known what he had been looking at.

It didn't take long.

At the place where the grass met the underbrush, he stopped and rose up slightly on his toes. The growth wasn't so dense that he couldn't get in there; he didn't need to. He could see well enough from where he stood.

About ten feet away was an open spot, a scar.

The branches of the brush at its rim were either snapped off or had their bark worn through. Stretching his neck allowed him a glimpse of the ground, and the debris that covered it.

He grinned.

"Agent Mulder!"

Sheriff Sparrow came into the garden, and Mulder answered him with a gesture that he'd be there in a second. One more scan of the area showed him everything he needed to see, and he rubbed his hands briskly as he returned to the garden path.

"Sheriff, do you think you can get hold of Nick Lanaya?"

"I suppose so. What do you need?"

Scully, he thought as he headed for the sheriff, you're going to hate what I know.

You're going to hate it a lot.

There were no chairs in the lobby. The only place to sit was a thick wood bench beside the fountain. Mulder waited while Sparrow used the desk phone to reach Lanaya, hoping that Scully would return soon. He didn't want to leave without her, but he felt a need to move fast, before someone else died.

After last night, he had more than an unpleasant feeling that he knew who that target was.

Sparrow sat beside him, hat and sunglasses off, rubbing his eyes, "I left a message. There's only a couple of phones out there. Portable jobs like you have. Half the time they're left behind." He leaned back against the fountain's broad lip. "So you want to tell me what’s going on, or is this going to be one of those need-to-know bullshit things?"

Mulder shook his head. "No need-to-know, Sheriff. Scully and I are going to need all the help we can get." He checked the time, wondering aloud how long his partner would be.

"She's done, and on her way," the man said wryly.

"How do you know that?"

"I read minds, Mulder." The jerk of a thumb toward the reception desk. "Plus, I called."

Close, Mulder thought; not quite, but close enough.

"Half an hour, maybe a little more." The sheriff rocked to nudge Mulder with a shoulder. "I can't read minds that good."

Mulder debated. No matter how many times he told it, there would be arguments and counter-suggestions, especially from Scully. He decided it would be best to get it out in one session rather than have to keep repeating himself.

It would also give him time to convince himself more thoroughly that he was right.

At his hesitation, the sheriff took off his hat and dropped it beside him on the bench. He took a notepad from his breast pocket, and a pen whose tip had been chewed close to chipping. "Okay. So how about you tell me about last night? You fired a gun, Mulder. FBI or not, that needs some explanation."

Grateful for the change of subject, Mulder complied readily. He took the man through his movements step by step from the time he entered the garden until he had been struck. Sparrow asked few questions. A clarification here, a doubt there. When Mulder was done, the man put the notepad away, fixed the pen to his pocket, and scratched his forehead.

"Basically, what you're telling me is that you shot at a shadow."

"No, Sheriff. I shot at something that was definitely no shadow."

"So what was it?"

Mulder smiled and stood. "Patience is a virtue, Sheriff Sparrow."