Chapter Five

Red Mesa Motel
Farmington, NM
Room 6
Tuesday, 7:40 pm

"It's a forgery because it can't be anything else." The initial shock had worn off, yielding to common sense and a certain amount of shame that she'd fallen for so obvious a ruse, if only for a moment.

"You don't think there's any possibility that you were actually here?" He was sitting on the other bed, facing her.

"No, Mulder. There's no possibility that I was here." She made her voice confident and steady in hope of somehow erasing her first reaction from his mind. The last thing he needed now was more uncertainty.

Mulder studied the wall behind her, his voice as faraway as his eyes. "Then, maybe I wasn't here, either."

She had considered that. The flight manifest only proved that a Fox Mulder had boarded. It would have been a simple matter to fake a photo ID and impersonate him. The question that kept coming back to her was 'Why?'.

His question had been rhetorical, but she would answer it anyway. "Maybe you weren't."

That snapped his focus back to her. "Did you suspect this all along? Is that why you didn't want me to come?"

"No," she said honestly. "I had every reason to believe that you came out here over the weekend, and that whatever happened to you happened here. Nothing we've learned proves otherwise."

He nodded faintly; acknowledging, not accepting. "We have to keep looking."

The set of his jaw was as familiar to her as her own reflection. "We will keep looking, Mulder, but the rules haven't changed. You have to promise me that--"

"I know, I know. Let you take the lead." He stood and held out his hand to help her up. When she was on her feet, he gestured expansively toward the door. "I'm right behind you."

The parking lot across the highway was no longer empty. A battered pickup truck that might once have been blue sat in front, and a late model station wagon was parked in the shade alongside the building. Mulder tromped up the wooden steps ahead of her and held the door. Scully preceded him into the bar's dim, cool interior.

There was a woman behind the bar, and two customers perched on tall stools. Mulder and Scully stood just inside the door for a moment, then walked the length of the room, threading through a maze of empty tables to the row of booths along the far wall. The bartender was washing glasses in the sink and glanced up as they passed. "I'll be with you in a sec."

Mulder slid into the seat facing the door. "I'm guessing that's not Willis." He tilted his head toward the bartender.

"Maybe he comes in later." She checked her watch. "Shift change at eight o'clock?" It was five of eight.

As if in answer, the front door opened to admit a tall man wearing a cowboy hat that made him even taller. "Thought I was gonna be late again, didn't ya?"

The bartender looked up. "Not on my bingo night, buddy. You know better," she chuckled. "Now get that skinny behind over here so I can make the lightning round."

"That has to be him," Mulder breathed, already rising from his seat.

Scully grabbed his hand, and he sat back down. Before she could remind him of his promise, the departing bartender called across the room. "You folks need anything 'fore I take off? Willis here won't get to ya 'til you're ready to dry up and blow away."

Willis chuckled at the playful dig as he walked around behind the bar.

Mulder cleared his throat and called back, "Just a couple of beers."

"Comin' right up!" She came around the end of the bar and crossed to their booth carrying two long-necked brown bottles in her right hand. The fingers of her left were speared into a couple of pilsner glasses. She plunked them down on the well-worn wood table. "Those are on the house cuz you had to wait." She flashed Mulder a blinding smile that made her weathered face look ten years younger. "You're welcome back here anytime, sweetie." And with that, she spun on her heel and headed for the door.

"You've made a conquest," Scully turned back to tease Mulder, but his attention was on the new bartender, eyes narrowed in concentration. "Do you recognize him?"

Mulder swung his gaze back to hers. "I don't think so." He picked up his beer and took a long drink.

"It's important that you don't say anything to lead him, Mulder. We need his honest reaction. No prompting."

"And what if he doesn't react?"

Scully took a sip from her glass. "Let's not anticipate, okay?" He looked back toward the bar, and she could feel his legs jiggling under the table from the tension. She sipped her beer and waited.

Less than ten minutes later, the two customers at the bar got up to leave. True to the woman's warning, their bartender had yet to glance their way.

Scully's heart rate tripled as Willis bantered with the departing customers. A moment later, the door closed behind them, and it was just the three of them. Across the table, she heard Mulder's breathing quicken.

"You folks ready for another round?" Willis called from behind the bar.

Mulder held up his bottle, his eyes riveted on Scully's.

"Be right there." A cooler door slid open, bottles tinkled together, and Willis was on his way to their booth.

Mulder and Scully kept their eyes on each other as the footsteps approached, halted briefly, then sped up. They both turned to find the man coming toward them in long, menacing strides that brought both of them to their feet. Mulder stepped forward holding up his right hand and putting himself between Scully and the advancing man. "Just hold it right there."

So much for the rules. Scully moved to Mulder's side.

Willis halted so abruptly that one of the beer bottles slipped from his fingers and crashed to the floor at his feet. The noise made them all jump, and Scully saw Mulder's hand go automatically to his right hip, reaching unknowingly for the weapon that wasn't there.

Willis' eyes followed Mulder's reflexive movement, and his hands came up defensively. "Hey, take it easy, okay? I'm just glad to see you."

Mulder didn't relax his stance an iota.

The man turned to Scully. "What'd I do?"

"You startled us," she told him. Mulder took his cue from her calm delivery and lowered his arm to his side.

Willis dropped his hands in response, the remaining bottle dangling all but forgotten from his right. "Sorry. I thought you said you'd come back to see me before you left. Then, I go in to work Sunday night and you're gone. I thought maybe something happened to you out there."

Scully searched her mind for a cover story, one she now realized should have been agreed upon before they came in here. Mulder, thankfully, appeared to be waiting for her to take the lead. The only thing she knew for certain was that revealing their ignorance was not an option. "We need to talk, Willis. Pull up a chair." She slid back into the booth.

The man stepped over the broken bottle and did as she asked, keeping a wary eye on Mulder who was still on his feet. "Mulder, sit down." He did, but not until she nailed him with a look.

Willis turned his chair around backward and rested his arms on the back, a casual pose that didn't quite match his darting gaze. He seemed to be trying to watch both of them at once.

"What did you think might have happened?" She asked him finally.

He spread the fingers of both hands without taking them from the chair back. "The same thing that happened to Eric?" He turned back to Mulder. "I thought that's what you were trying to find out."

Scully started to answer for him, but Mulder didn't need any help. "What do you think happened to him?"

"Well, Jeezus, if I knew that... " He gave a helpless shrug. "When we talked before, it seemed like you already had a pretty damn good idea. I don't get it."

Scully stepped in. "Thinking that you know what you're looking for can sometimes hamper an investigation. What we need to do is step back and take a fresh look. We need you to go back to the beginning and tell it all one more time."

Willis gave her a blank look. "What?"

"It's important," she prodded.

He looked at Mulder, then back at her, finally nodding. "Okay, if you think it will help." He puffed out a breath. "Eric showed up on my doorstep about three weeks ago, so freaked out that it took two beers to settle him down enough to tell me what he was doing there at four in the morning. He said two guys had been following him and he needed a place to hide out."

"Did he know the men?" Scully asked. At his incredulous look, she added, "I'll be asking you questions that you've probably answered before. Please bear with me, okay?"

He sighed heavily and nodded. "He said they just showed up at the college. San Juan College, in town. He was taking some classes that sent him out digging in the desert every weekend. That's how he found the ring those guys were asking him about."

"A ring, as in jewelry? Something valuable?"

"I don't think so, but I never saw it. All he said was, it was made out of something weird. Some metal that changed color when he picked it up."

Not even Mulder would come halfway across the country for a mood ring. This was looking less and less like the lead she'd hoped it was. "So, he found a ring in desert that changed color, and somehow decided that these men wanted it. How would they know he had it?"

Willis lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Who knows? He said he showed it around at the college; talked to his professor about it. It wasn't a secret."

She added the professor to her mental list of potential interviews. "Do you know the professor's name, or the name of the course?"

"No," he dragged the word out wearily, "he never said."

Sensing her window of opportunity slipping shut, she smiled reassuringly. "Just a few more questions. Did you go to the police at all?"

Willis snorted. "Yeah. They made two phone calls and told me to forget it. Eric's boss said he'd gotten a call from him the week before saying he'd be gone for awhile. They called his landlord and found he'd moved out. End of story."

It was hard not to sigh in frustration. "And what makes you believe that your friend didn't leave of his own accord?"

He squinted at her. "I'm not following."

"You said the police investigated and found evidence that your friend had left his job and moved from his apartment. I'm asking why you don't accept that."

The puzzled frown deepened. "You're putting me on."

Scully suddenly wished that she knew the man's last name, because calling him by his first name felt wrong under the circumstances. "No, I'm afraid not. Nothing you've told me so far indicates anything but a voluntary--"

"Okay, what the hell's really going on here?" He seemed ready to rise out of the chair with outrage. "Last Saturday, you guys were as concerned as me! What the hell happened?"

His reaction wasn't entirely unexpected, but it took her a moment to process what he was saying. When she did, her mouth went dry. Either he was the most convincing liar she'd come across in a long time, or...

Willis turned his glare in Mulder's direction. "And you talked to Eric yourself. He called you from my house, so I heard what he told you."

Mulder's level voice was aimed at Willis, but his eyes were locked with hers. "Willis, could you give us a moment?"

The man made a disgusted sound and stood up, sending his chair skidding backward. "You two are worse than the cops." He stomped back to the bar.

Mulder's expression was unreadable. "You were here."

"Mulder, I remember every moment of last weekend. And even if I didn't trust my own memory, I have a witness. I spent most of Sunday with my mother."

"Call her."

She shook her head, keeping her voice as low and intense as his. "Mulder, the man has been paid off-- or threatened-- into concocting this story. Someone's gone to a great deal of trouble to keep our focus here. While we spin our wheels chasing lies, whoever did this to you is destroying the evidence elsewhere. We're being diverted." It was the only rational explanation.

"Call your mother, and then we'll know for certain."

Her mother would think she'd lost her mind, but it seemed the only way to prove it to him. "All right." She pulled out her cell phone and punched in the number.

Maggie answered on the first ring, sounding half asleep, and Scully abruptly realized that it was after ten o'clock back home. "Hi, mom. I'm sorry, did I wake you?"

"No, sweetheart. I was reading. Is everything all right?"

In bed, obviously. Scully could hear Maggie's bedside clock ticking. It was an old brass wind-up alarm that had sat next to her parents' bed for as long as she could remember. "Everything's fine. I just need a favor." She had a cover story in mind for the call, but no clue how she would broach the subject of Sunday without worrying her.

"Of course. What do you need?" Sheets rustled as she sat up.

"I had to go out of town unexpectedly, and I forgot about a package that's coming tomorrow. Could you stop by my apartment and bring it inside? I don't want to leave it out in the hallway until I get back." There would be no package for her to bring in, of course, but that could easily be explained later. She was searching for a segue to her real question when Maggie innocently brought the universe to a grinding halt.

"You're still in New Mexico, then?"

It must have showed in her face, because Mulder leaned across the table as if he expected her to topple from her seat. "Y-yes."

Maggie yawned in her ear. "Do you know yet when you'll be home? We could reschedule dinner for next Sunday, if you'll be back. You could bring Fox."

"A few more days, I think." Her voice was surprisingly steady. "I'll call you."

Another yawn. "Okay, sweetheart. Tell Fox I said hello, and ask him about dinner."

"I will, mom. And thanks. Good night." She clicked off and laid the phone on the table.

"Scully?"

She shook her head slowly, trying to grasp what she knew he'd already guessed.

"It's true, isn't it?" He phrased it as a question, but there was no doubt in his eyes.

And now, there was none in hers. "I wasn't with her last Sunday."

Mulder sagged back in his seat. "Then we're back to square one." In his case, it was literally true.

She was gathering her thoughts as she spoke. "I wouldn't have come here with you unless there was more to it than we just heard." There were several reasons why she was so certain of that statement, none of which she was going to share right now. "So we have to assume that Willis wasn't our only source of information."

"He said I talked to his friend."

"Yes, but he also said he heard everything the man said to you."

Mulder glanced toward the bar. "Then, maybe he has more to tell us." He got up and headed across the room before she could get her legs under her.

Willis watched them sullenly. "You got any more questions, I'm fresh out of answers." He bit the words off, his voice still tight with anger.

Mulder looked down at her when she reached his side, a question in his eyes. Scully nodded, and he turned back to Willis. "Has anything odd happened around here lately, other than your friend's disappearance?"

Willis snorted. "Buddy, this is ground zero for 'odd'. Lights in the sky, UFO nuts, unexplained blackouts-- people, not electricity, haunted ruins. You name it and--" He stopped dead, the anger draining from his face. "Jeezus, it happened to you, didn't it?" He turned stunned eyes on Scully. "That's why you're acting like you never heard any of this before."

There was a genuineness to the man's shock that overrode seven years of experience. "Yes."

"Jeezus." He looked at Mulder. "Then, Eric's still out there."

So were two days worth of her memories, and all of Mulder's. She pulled up a stool and sat down. "If he is, we'll find him, but we're going to need your help."

"I owe the guy my life. Anything you want, you got it."

Mulder settled in the stool next to hers. "Now that you know the situation, we can drop the pretense. Let's start with Eric's last name."

"And yours," Scully added.

Willis nodded. "Mine's Jordan. Eric's is Hosteen. He said you were friends of his grandfather."

* * *

Continued in Chapter 6

Special thanks to Sally Bahnsen for saving this chapter's life... and my sanity. <g>