Chapter 4

                                    

                                          
 4
                          

                          

                          
 It wasn’t quite dark when Scully pulled into her parking spot in front of her apartment building.
                          
She unlocked her door and pushed it open, switching the overhead light on.
                          
“Vicki?” She called. She waited a moment. No response. “Vicki? It’s Dana. Are you here, Vicki?”
                          
The apartment felt ominously empty.
                          
“Vicki?” Scully headed toward the bedroom. It was empty, but she noticed that Vicki’s suitcase lay open at the foot of the bed. The girl had moved her belongings from her hotel room, then. But where was she now? Was she in danger? Was she in C.G.B.’s clutches? God, she could have been abducted by aliens, for all Scully knew.
                          
“Vicki?” Scully called again, although she realized by this point that she was completely alone.
                          
“Okay. Don’t panic.” She spoke aloud, needing the comfort of her own voice in the empty apartment.
                          
She would call Mulder and explain to him that Vicki was missing. No, on second thought, it would be better to call Skinner. He would be easier to talk to about any matter concerning Vicki Gray, at least at the moment.
                          
Dana Scully was reaching for the receiver of the telephone on the little end table beside the living room couch when she heard the lock in her front door turn.
                          
“Vicki?” She called out cautiously. “Is that you?”
                          
“Yeah,” Vicki Gray’s voice responded. The door inched open slowly, as though being pushed open by foot. Vicki entered the apartment with Scully’s spare key on its ring dangling from her mouth, and a heavy looking paper grocery bag hanging from each hand.
                          
“You’re safe,” Scully breathed. “Where were you? Didn’t Skinner tell you to stay here?”
                          
“I just walked to the store,” Vicki replied. “I was thinking about cooking dinner for you tonight.”
                          
“You should have left a note. I thought…”
                          
“You thought C.G.B.’d gotten hold of me, didn’t you?”
                          
“I didn’t know what to think.” Scully wasn’t sure she liked the girl’s ability to read minds or emotions, or whatever it was she was reading. “You should have left a note.”
                          
“Yeah, I guess I should have,” Vicki apologized. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about it. Like I said, I just went to the store. Besides, I made sure I wasn’t being followed or anything.”
                          
“Good. Just stay here in the apartment from now on, okay? Can you do that?”
                          
“Yeah, I guess. Sorry. You’re not a vegetarian, are you, Dana?”
                          
“No. Why?”
                          
“How do baked pork chops sound for dinner?”
                          
“Great. I’ll help.”
                          
“I told you, I’m gonna cook dinner for you tonight.”
                          
“Let’s cook dinner together.”
                          
“Okay. That works.”
                          
Outside, the large black car that had followed Vicki Gray to and from the grocery store at a discreet distance cruised slowly past Dana Scully’s apartment complex.
                          
The rear window was rolled down just a crack, and a thin blue-gray wisp of cigarette smoke wafted from it.
                          
“So, she’s under Agent Scully’s protection,” C.G.B. Spender mused to himself.