(Same disclaimer as Part I)
RATED R

INTO THE GRAVE
by Gerry Hill (GHill52695@aol.com)

Part IV

Skinner arrived back at the apartment a little later and went
immediately to the spare bedroom to apprise Mulder of what was
happening.  He stood in the room for a moment, looking down at the
sleeping agent, noticing the dampness on his cheeks.  It occurred
to him that he had never seen anyone cry in their sleep before.  He
decided to force Mulder to take some time off when this stressful
case was over.  He and Scully both needed a break.

Mulder woke up with a gasp when Skinner turned on the lamp,
illuminating the dark bedroom.  He lay blinking in the glare as his
supervisor began telling him what he had discovered in his
interview with the campaign manager.

"Scully was right; Garrett is a real creep, to use her words.  My
description of him would have been a little stronger, like 'lying
slimeball son-of-a-bitch.'"

"You thought he was lying about Sanders' alibi?" Mulder asked.

"I'm positive he's lying about anything I asked him.  Are all
campaign managers as unscrupulous as this guy?" Skinner wondered.

Mulder sat quietly in thought for a few moments, then said, "I
wonder if, by lying, he was giving Sanders or himself an alibi?  Or
maybe both."

Skinner raised an eyebrow in question, and Mulder went on, "When I
examined Sanders for any scratches on his body, I found none.  The
killer had to have been marked by Mrs. Sanders' fingernails because
of the forensic evidence.  Now I'm wondering if Garrett wasn't the
killer, protecting his boss and his career by getting rid of Mrs.
Sanders."

"But why?"

"What if Mrs. Sanders found out that the good Senator had murdered
his first wife, and she decided to go public and/or to run?"

Skinner pondered that, and said, "I'll get some people started on
digging up that old case and see what we can find out."

"Sir...there's something else you should know.  The daughter,
Rachel; her body is concealed under the floor in the last stall in
the horse barn."

Skinner looked stunned at that information.  "Mulder, there's no
way you could know that unless..."

Mulder sadly shook his head.  "No, I didn't kill her.  Just take my
word for it; she's there."

"I'm not leaving here until you tell me how you came by that
information, Agent Mulder," he said, with a grim expression.

So Mulder told him the whole story, leaving nothing out.  A ghost
story told in all seriousness by an otherwise highly intelligent
man.

Skinner was silent for a long moment, then startled Mulder when his
fist crashed down on the nightstand by the bed.

"Why isn't anything ever easy where you and Agent Scully are
concerned?  How the hell am I supposed to sell a story like that? 
We'd all be committed!"

He had gotten to his feet and was pacing back and forth,
unconsciously imitating Mulder's previous actions.  Mulder's eyes
were dark with unreadable thoughts as he watched Skinner move
across the room.  Finally the pacing slowed and his supervisor once
again sank into the chair near the bed.

Skinner sighed, then said, "I can't help but remember how you stood
up for me when I was seeing the vision of that old woman, and I was
accused of murder.  I know there are strange things out there and
in our own minds which aren't explainable by science.  I guess what
I'm trying to say is that I can't dismiss your story out of hand,
Mulder."

"Now if you can only convince Scully, sir," his agent said with a
grin.

"I doubt that it would be possible, even if she saw it with her own
eyes.  And I'm not saying that I wholly believe it, either.  Now
try and get some rest while we follow up on all these avenues of
investigation.  There's absolutely nothing you can do right now,
understand?"

Reluctantly, Mulder nodded his head, and Skinner left him to his
thoughts.

----------------

At 9:00 that evening, Scully decided to check herself out of the
hospital and go home.  She could lie around there as well as in the
hospital.  The doctor gave her a little static, but was too busy to
argue for very long.  She had tried to call Skinner's number
several times, but kept getting a busy signal.  Scully finally
called a cab and arrived home close to 10:00 pm.

Wearily she made her way up to the door, unlocked it, and felt on
the wall for the light switch.  A gasp was the only sound she made
as a strong hand closed over her wrist and pulled her into the dark
apartment.  Then a fist crashed into her face and she fell once
more into total blackness.

-----------------

While Mulder was hopefully sleeping or at least resting, Skinner
had Garcia, Lt. Carver, and VonBelk go out to the Senator's to
search the horse barn, specifically, the last stall.  Officially,
the search for the missing daughter was continuing, and they had a
right to be on the crime scene without a warrant.

"Have the medical examiner and forensics send someone out there to
meet you.  I have a feeling that you're going to need them.  Also
coordinate this with Detective Fontanova, and the Senator's staff. 
Do it by the regs."

Skinner could do nothing but wait, then, and settled down on the
couch and tried to relax.  It was after midnight, and he should
have been tired, but he was too wound up.  He found himself
wondering about Mulder's "ghost," and quickly pushed away a stray
thought that the physical evidence pointed directly to Mulder, that
the daughter did resemble photos he had seen of Mulder's sister,
that he had no alibi for the time of the murder, and if the child
were found where he told them she was buried...

Dammit!  He would not believe that Fox Mulder had been responsible
for anything like the horrors involved with this case.  He knew him
too well.  While flaky at times, as well as pig-headed,
egotistical, and short-tempered, he was also kind, unselfish,
loyal, extremely intelligent, and untiring in his constant search
for the truth.  No, he would never lose it to the degree the
murderer in this case had done.  But if someone else were the
killer, he would have to accept the "ghost" story.   

He was surprised to find that he had dozed off, and Mulder was now
sitting in the overstuffed chair opposite him, head back, eyes
closed.  He looked at the clock on the wall and realized it had
been four hours since Garcia had led the group out to look for the
body.  The sound of the key in the lock came to his ears then, and
he rose to his feet expectantly.  He had told them not to
telephone, but to come back to the apartment in order to report any
progress.

He could see from their faces that they had found the girl.

Garcia said, "My God, she was beaten, raped and stabbed, just like
her mother."  He was still shaken, and went out to stand on the
balcony, his back to the room.  VonBelk didn't say a word, just
stood there with a paler face than usual.  Lt. Carver pushed into
the room, however and confronted Mulder, who was still slouched in
the chair.  She was so upset, she was shaking.

"Listen to me, you bastard.  I believe that you brutally raped that
woman and then stabbed her to death.  I believe that you went into
the daughter's room and saw the resemblance to your sister and you
took her.  She fought you, so you beat and raped and killed her,
too.  Then you concealed her body in the barn before you ran.  You
are going to prison where I sincerely hope you get treated the same
way you treated Mrs. Sanders and her daughter, you son of a bitch!" 
She was practically spitting in his face by the time she finished.

Mulder hadn't moved a muscle since she began her impassioned
diatribe; his elbows were on the arms of the chair, his fingers
tented together and resting on his mouth, and his eyes were dark
and unreadable, never leaving Lt. Carver's face as she spoke her
mind.

Finally he rose to his feet, which forced Lt. Carver to back up a
few steps.  He didn't say a word, but went into the bedroom to
retrieve his suit coat.  When he returned, he told Skinner, "She's
about to get me sent back to jail.  Before that can happen, I'm
going out to the Senator's place.  I might be able to find proof of
his involvement and get a lead on the murderer.  Most of all, I
need to see that Scully is OK first.  I haven't been able to reach
her on the phone.  She released herself from the hospital hours ago
to go home.  The recorder is on at the apartment, and her cel phone
just rings."

Skinner shook his head.  "Mulder, you know you have to lie low
right now.  I'll have someone check on her."

Mulder was becoming increasingly agitated.  "I'm telling you, if
they were trying to kill me, they were also trying to get rid of
Scully.  They think I'm out of the way; they're going to go for her
and finish the job."

Skinner was trying to reason with him.  "Mulder, they want everyone
to think you killed Mrs. Sanders.  With you supposedly dead, the
whole thing would eventually be dropped.  Why would they care what
happens to Agent Scully?"

Mulder agitatedly ran his hand through his hair as he kept up the
pacing, forgetting about his broken little finger.  He winced and
quickly moved his hand away from his head.  "A United States
Senator would have access to our backgrounds and history with the
Bureau.  He would know that I would tell Scully my theories and
that she wouldn't believe that I killed his wife and daughter. 
Once I was 'dead', she would go after the murderer, both for
vengeance and to clear my name."

Skinner picked up the telephone and punched in a number, but
apparently didn't get an answer.  He tried another number before
looking at Mulder in resignation.

"All right.  Take Garcia with you."

With a growled curse, Mulder moved toward the door, hollering at
VonBelk to go to Scully's apartment and check it out.  He and
Garcia would go to Senator Sanders' place, since his instincts were
telling him that's where she would be.

Lt. Carver was loudly objecting to this scenario, insisting that
Mulder was going back to jail after she called the judge and her
supervisor.  Skinner held his hand up and said, "We'll go with him. 
If Scully turns out to be fine and we don't dig up anything to
implicate the Senator in this, you can arrange for the re-arrest."

From the opened door, Mulder asked Skinner to get some backup out
to Sanders' estate.  Skinner replied, "Lt. Carver and I are going
to follow you out there as your backup.  Let's keep as low a
profile as possible, under the circumstances."

-------------------

When Scully regained consciousness she was only aware of the
enervating pain radiating throughout her head.  Then other pains
became evident as she was jostled around on a lumpy, hard and
uncomfortable surface.  She realized that she was lying in the
trunk of a car, on some kind of plastic sheet.  Her mouth was taped
shut, and tape was wound around her wrists at her back.  An
unreasoning, overwhelming panic assaulted her senses as she thought
that Duane Barry once again had taken her captive.  She wasn't sane
for a few moments, screaming behind the tape, terrified of being
subjected to god-knew-what kind of testing again.  But she couldn't
stay conscious, although she tried, and found herself sliding back
down into darkness, whimpering in fear.

The car finally stopped and rough hands pulled her out of the trunk
and onto the ground.  Her body was next tossed over broad
shoulders, and she was carried inside.

The cessation of movement brought Scully around.  She was lying on
a bed with her wrists still bound behind her and her mouth taped. 
With a chill, she suddenly knew where she was; Elizabeth Sanders'
bed, where she had been raped and murdered.  She could see the
yellow crime scene tape on the carpet over near the door.  The
bloody sheets had been taken to the police lab, but she was lying
on the gory mattress.

There were angry voices in the hall, and she recognized the
Senator's as one of them.  They were arguing about bringing her
here, without setting up an alibi for their whereabouts first. 
"Why didn't you just take care of her there?"  "Aw, where's the fun
in that?"  With a wave of fear washing over her, she heard the
voices coming closer.  They were entering the bedroom.

George Garrett and Senator Sanders approached the bed, and Garrett
ran his hand up Scully's thigh, under her skirt, and his fingers
busied themselves investigating, moving, probing...
Scully stiffened and made a sound of protest, and Garrett laughed. 
He opened Scully's jacket and ripped her blouse apart with his
hands.  Then her bra flew open with a flick of his fingers on the
clasp.  He gazed at her now-exposed breasts admiringly, then pulled
her shoes off and threw them aside.

Scully looked desperately at the Senator, but he was standing with
a heavy look on his face, lips parted, eagerly watching Garrett as
he went about his violation of the lovely red-headed woman.

Her skirt and half-slip came off next, then her pantyhose and
panties.  Now essentially naked, she was trembling with what would
come next.  A breeze blew across her exposed body and she shivered.

She closed her eyes as she felt the bed dip with Garrett's added
weight.  He was kneeling between her legs and she prepared herself
to fight him as best she could.  When nothing happened for a
minute, she opened her eyes again and nearly choked in terror at
what she saw in the room.  The two men were transfixed and staring
with horror at the apparition moving slowly toward them.

Elizabeth Sanders stood about ten feet from the group, wearing the
beautiful, long white negligee Scully had seen lying shredded and
bloody on the floor at the crime scene.  The only difference now
was that it was whole and clean.  She looked lovely, but her gaze
was full of pain and hauntingly sad.

Her husband whispered, "You're dead."

She slowly nodded and said, "You can't hurt me anymore."  Her eyes
turned to Garrett, who was visibly shaking next to Scully.

"But I can hurt you both.  I can kill you both."  She said this
with a chilling sweetness, then disappeared before their horrified
eyes.

Sanders started screaming to the empty air, "George raped and
murdered you, Beth!  I didn't have anything to do with it!  Please! 
I love you!"  He fell onto his knees, wildly looking around, his
breath coming in gasps.  Scully thought he might have a heart
attack.

Her attention on the Senator was cruelly interrupted when Garrett's
hand smashed against her jaw, whipping her head in the opposite
direction.  She saw a million flashes of light, and the pain in her
head was even worse than before.  She could vaguely hear a voice
telling her that she was to blame for the bitch coming back.  It
sounded insane.

Forcing her eyelids open a little, she saw that Garrett very likely
had gone mad.  His eyes glittered, his face was red, spittle fell
from the corner of his mouth unnoticed.  He still knelt over her,
and she saw that he was fumbling with his belt.

Scully tried to lift her knees and put her feet against his body,
intending to shove him as hard as she could, and hope for the best. 
But in her position and with him as close to her as he was, she
couldn't manage it.

And then Elizabeth invaded her body.  All at once, a coolness
spread through Scully, and someone else's thoughts were
uncomfortably mixing with hers.  Scully found herself opening her
mouth and speaking, but the words and voice weren't her own.

"George, I'm sending you to hell.  You murdered my little girl."

He scrambled backward on the bed, letting out one blood-curdling
shriek after another.  Without taking his eyes from
Scully/Elizabeth, his feet hit the floor and he backed away from
the bed, still emitting his hair-raising shrieks.

Scully felt the spirit leave her, and then all hell broke loose. 
Lamps, books, telephone; anything not fastened down flew at
Garrett, most of it making a solid hit on his body before falling
to the floor.  He ran from the room and tore down the stairs like
a madman.  In the den he frantically grabbed a hunting rifle from
the gun rack on the wall and began firing wildly.

The Senator had seen and heard all this, and was now truly having
a heart attack.  He lay on his side on the floor, clutching his
chest with both hands, his face a mask of horror and pain.

At this point, Mulder and his entourage arrived at the house.

They heard the rifle-shots begin as they started to get out of the
car.  Garcia, Skinner and Carver dropped behind the open doors of
the car for the protection they afforded, but Mulder went charging
up to the house with his weapon in his hand.  Skinner saw his pain-
in-the-butt agent take off and yelled, "Mulder!  What the hell are
you doing?"

Since it was obvious what he was doing, Mulder didn't bother to
answer.  He stood to one side of the front door, then broke out the
sidelight window with several blows from his gun.  He reached
through the opening and turned the deadlock and doorlatch.  So far
so good, he thought.  By that time, Skinner, Carver and Garcia had
reached his side, and they went in together.

And stopped dead, since Garrett was standing in front of them, a
rifle pointed in their midst.  He was smiling and completely
insane.

Garcia did what he was taught to do; he yelled, "Federal agents! 
Drop your weapon!  Drop it now!  Put your hands in the air!"

Garrett moved the barrel of the rifle ever so slightly toward
Garcia and his finger tightened on the trigger.  The rifle discharged
into the floor, however, when the chandelier hanging
over the entry hall came crashing down directly on his head.  They
all distinctly felt a soft breeze rush past them through the door.

Mulder didn't waste a second on the obviously dead man; he took the
stairs two at a time with only one concern on his mind.  He called,
"Scully!" as he reached the upper hallway, and then decided to
check the master bedroom first.

He nearly tripped over the Senator as he barrelled through the
door, and stooped to check his pulse.  Nothing.  The bulging eyes
and terribly twisted facial muscles told him that he hadn't died an
easy death.

He straightened up and glanced around the room, his gaze coming to
rest on the bed.  And then he recognized what it felt like when
your heart stopped.  He knew immediately that it was Scully, even
though the woman had her back to him and was in a curled up in a
fetal position.  Her hands were bound with tape behind her back.  Her
lower body was nude, and the upper garments had been torn aside.
The mattress was covered with soaked-in blood, and he prayed that
it was all old blood, and not new.

Afraid to find her murdered like Elizabeth, he approached the bed
slowly.  He whispered, "Scully?"  There was no response.  He took
his coat off and placed it over her as he drew closer.

Mulder gently brushed her hair away from her face and winced when
he saw the bruises and abrasions.  She still wore a bandage on the
left side of her forehead, probably from the car accident, he
figured.  But a whole new collection of injuries had been inflicted
on the delicate features.  She was breathing, thank God.

Hesitating, but having to know that she didn't have any life-
threatening injuries, he pulled the coat back and checked for
wounds or broken bones.  She seemed to be OK, except he was
terribly afraid of what had been done to her that wasn't
immediately evident.

With his pocket knife, he was gently cutting the tape from her
hands when Skinner entered the room.

"Oh my God," he whispered, when he saw the dead Senator, and beyond
him, Scully.  "An ambulance has already been called, Mulder.  Is
she..."

Mulder's stricken eyes looked over at Skinner, and he said, "She's
alive, but she's unconscious and I can't wake her up."  He removed
the tape from around her wrists as gently as he could, then began
working at pulling the tape from her mouth.

Skinner barely heard Mulder's next words, so he moved closer to the
bed.  "...probably raped her, but I don't know."  He gathered her
into his arms and held her against his body, tears running down his
face.

Skinner was at a loss; he could only try to reassure him that she
would be all right.

Mulder looked at him with a grief-stricken expression, and shook
his head.  "I don't think either one of us will be all right any
more.  I've been a real shit to her lately, ignoring her feelings
and opinions.  It's always because of me that she gets hurt.  I
love Scully; I think I've always loved her.  But I can't tell her,
and it kills me to pretend otherwise."

Although Skinner was not surprised to hear this revelation, he
supposed Mulder was too distraught to realize what he was saying
and to whom.

"Mulder, things will seem better after she's taken care of and
you've had some rest.  I've known for a long time that you love
each other, but I didn't think you knew it yourselves."

Mulder bowed his head and gazed at Scully for a quiet moment, then
murmured, "After this high-profile scandal, you're going to have to
take some action.  I suggest you fire me and transfer Agent Scully
to Quantico.  I can go underground through my sources and keep
searching for my sister.  At least Scully will be safe."

Skinner just stared at his block-head of an agent and finally said,
"For an intelligent man, Mulder, you are the dumbest SOB I've ever
known.  First of all, there are no charges that could be brought
against you anymore in this case; it's obvious that the Senator and
his cohort are the guilty parties.  When all the evidence is in,
we'll probably have a solid case against them.  Secondly, you would
likely kill Scully yourself if you dropped out of sight and left
her.  It would be a slower and much more agonizing death than if
some perp just shot her in the heart, but the result would be the
same.  And last of all, the U. S. Government has entirely too much
invested in you to lose your services before you've reached your
potential with the Bureau."

He could see Mulder's throat work as he tried to respond, but
nothing came out but a sob.  Skinner put a hand on his shoulder and
said, "I hear the ambulance's siren down the road.  We'll talk
about this later.  Let's get Agent Scully taken care of, first. 
Promise me you'll sleep on it?"

A nod satisfied Skinner, and he left to show the EMTs where to find
them.  He glanced back from the doorway, and saw that Mulder had
laid his cheek against Scully's and that the corners of her lips
were slightly turned up in a sweet smile.

THE END