Mulder, sitting in sweater and jeans at his desk in his home office, was back to clipping newspaper stories of strange events—this one just happened to be a strange event in which he’d been caught up. The events of just twenty-four hours before seemed distant now, with only the scuffs and bruises on his face proof that anything unusual had really happened.
“Mulder…”
He turned and saw the woman he loved framed in the doorway, a gentle vision in a brown sweater and skirt.
“What’s up, Doc?” he asked, playful but careful—they’d been through so much in recent days.
She stepped inside his cluttered, obsessive space, arms folded to herself as if still cold, though the house was toasty. “Father Joe,” she said quietly, “is dead.”
He sat there stunned for a moment, until she nodded to underscore the truth of her words and said, “He was clearly a very sick man.”
Mulder had dropped his scissors but the story about “Dr. Frankenstein” was almost clipped, and he tore it out the rest of the way.
“Did you read this?” he asked, rising, brandishing the clipping. “The FBI’s official statement claims disgraced priest Joseph Crissman was an accomplice in all this…not a word about consulting on the case, nothing about his psychic connection.”
Her eyebrows went up. “He’s dead, Mulder. Gone. He may well have been an accomplice. We’ll never really know the truth.”
“I know, Scully,” he said, coming over to her. “And so do you.”
“But I don’t.”
“Oh? Well, I can prove it—he died of bone-marrow cancer, right? Same as the man who Dr. Frankenstein was giving a new body.”
“Mulder…”
“And what time did you pull the tubes from Cheryl Cunningham’s neck? What time did you cut off the blood supply to Franz Tomczeszyn’s head?”
Her head tilted, her wary expression telling him she knew exactly where he was headed.
“Because that’s when Father Joe died, Scully. Get me the death certificate and I’ll show you—then I’m going to take it and shove…show it to the FBI.”
Her smile was too sad, too weary, to really be a smile at all. “You really think they’ll take your call? Oh, Skinner would—but he’d be overruled, wouldn’t he?”
Mulder began to say something, then realized there wasn’t really a valid response—Scully was very likely right.
She touched his sleeve. “Let it go, Mulder.”
He shook his head. “It’s an injustice to the man’s name. Father Joe saved that woman. We both know it.”
This time just one eyebrow went up. “What reputation did he have to save? Considering his crimes against those young boys, who’s really going to care?”
“I care. And I think you care, too.”
She frowned.
“Scully, Father Joe is why Cheryl Cunningham is alive.”
“Mulder—you’re the reason that woman is alive.” She shrugged. “And I guess I am, too. And Skinner—no matter what you believe about Father Joe, that was the rescue team.”
He studied her Madonna’s face; she was hiding things behind it. “You said you believed him, too.”
She sighed, then carefully said, “I wanted to believe. And, yes, you’re right, I did believe him. And I acted on that belief.”
They had started this particular discussion a couple of times over the last twenty-four hours, and this was where it had always broken down.
But he tried anyway: “Why won’t you just tell me what Father Joe said to you?”
Scully sighed again. Rolled her eyes. Then, finally if grudgingly, she said, “He told me…don’t give up.”
Mulder didn’t know what to say. He understood at once that the ex-priest’s words had not just been about the Monica Bannan case, but also another case, Scully’s case, the Fearon boy.
And he knew precisely the dilemma she faced.
“And I didn’t give up, Mulder, and it saved your life.” She swallowed. “But I put that child through hell, and I’ve got another surgery scheduled this morning, after I did some very fast talking with his parents…and do you know why? Because I believed God was telling me to.”
Mulder said nothing; he could see how this was weighing on her.
She said, “I believed God was talking to me, Mulder, through a pedophile priest, no less—a man who violated God’s most sacred trust.”
And she rolled her eyes again, shaking her head, as if she couldn’t believe her own gullibility.
“But doesn’t it make sense, Scully?” He put a hand on her shoulder. “If Father Joe was seeking redemption, how better than to help save Christian’s life? What if Father Joe was forgiven? What if his prayers were answered, after all?”
Scully looked up, momentarily putting aside her irritation with herself, and letting Mulder’s passion touch her. “Why would they have been? So many prayers go unanswered…Why would God choose a sinner like Father Joe?”
He shrugged. “Maybe because…he didn’t give up…?”
“Riiiight,” she breathed. The doubting half smirk was one Mulder had seen many times. “Try and prove that one, Mulder.”
Even after all he’d seen over the years, Mulder remained unconvinced he could, that anyone could. She was right.
“Anyway,” she sighed, “I’m due at the hospital.”
Soon, in her coat and boots, valise in hand, Scully was heading out under a sunnier sky into every bit as much snow to their rented sedan, as Mulder in just sweater and jeans watched from the stoop.
“Scully!” he called.
About to get in the car, she turned toward him.
“Why would he say it?” Mulder stepped down from the stoop and walked over to her, breath steaming in the chill. “‘Don’t give up’? Why would Father Joe say such a thing to you, Scully, who showed him such contempt?”
“It was clearly about you, Mulder. About hanging in and saving that woman.”
“But he didn’t say it to me, and he had plenty of opportunities. It was to you. Why to you, Scully?”
She shook her head, shrugged. “Really, I have no idea.”
He gave her a sly smile. “If Father Joe were the devil, why say the opposite of what the devil would say? The devil would send you down a blind alley, not to where some poor woman could be rescued.”
That seemed to give her pause. This she hadn’t considered…
Mulder pressed on: “Maybe that’s the answer—what God wants. And not just about me or even about the boy or even you, Scully. But all of us.”
“What…what do you mean?”
“Don’t give up.”
That seemed to hit her hard, hearing Father Joe’s words coming from Mulder; but he could see, as he’d seen so many times, her rational mind kick in and bat back the emotions.
“Please, Mulder,” she said, hardly able to look at him. “This is hard enough.”
“I know.”
He put his arms around her. Held her.
“If you have any doubt, Scully,” he whispered, “don’t do it. Call off the surgery this morning.”
She looked up at Mulder, her face revealing the agony she was working through, to make that decision. But she wasn’t avoiding his gaze; she was looking right at him, with love and trust and even hope.
“But either way,” he said, brushing hair from her face, “let’s get out of here.”
She squinted at him, like she hadn’t heard right. “Where?”
“Imagine an island with lots of white beach. Imagine lots of blue ocean. You in a swimsuit, and…”
“You in a red Speedo?”
“I may still have that somewhere. Just us in a little boat with all that blue and all that sand and we’re brown as berries ’cause we’re out of the cold and dark and into the warm and light. As far away from the darkness as you and I can get.”
She was smiling but it was tinged with sadness. “I don’t think you can get away from the darkness, Mulder. I think it finds you.”
“I
think you’re right,” he said. Then he smiled. “But let it try.”
And he kissed her.
She nodded bravely, touched his face, then he let go of her and watched as she got in the car and drove off.
Don’t give up, he thought. Don’t give up.
Our Lady of Sorrows Hospital
Richmond, Virginia
January 13
Dana Scully, in lab coat and scrubs, studied the medical chart intently as she moved down the corridor. When she glanced up, she saw Father Ybarra at the far end, talking to Christian’s parents. She could only imagine that the administrator was making an eleventh-hour effort to talk the Fearons out of going along with her plan of action, after she had worked so long and hard to convince them.
Father Ybarra was not regarding her with a benign expression. Nor, for that matter, were the Fearons. They seemed to expect her to stop and talk, but the time for stopping and talking was past, and Scully, not slowing, said only, “Mr. and Mrs. Fearon. Father…”
The priest and the parents nodded, but if any of them had second thoughts, none was expressed as she blew by.
Scully, at the doorway to the operating room, paused and said back to them, pleasantly, “Excuse me,” and went in.
The OR was buzzing with activity, nurses readying the room—and young Christian—for surgery. Again the boy’s shaved head was affixed within the harsh-looking traction device.
The boy’s eyes found Scully’s as she entered, and momentarily she was stopped in her tracks. She watched as the anesthesiologist began to ready the child, then she turned to the scrub sink. Once again, fear took hold, as before when Christian faced the first of these procedures; more would be at stake, as the risk grew higher.
She could not meet the eyes of her OR team, who were now set and waiting. Snapping on the latex gloves, she moved to the operating table and again met Christian’s gaze.
The boy in the ghastly traction device could not have looked more frail or vulnerable or, for that matter, innocent. His eyes, however, held hers with unblinking maturity, meeting her gaze fearlessly.
Staring down at the boy, frozen, transfixed, she did not sense the OR team exchanging subtle, nervous glances.
Polite if tentative, a nurse asked, “Are you ready to begin, Dr. Scully?”
A voice in her mind said: Don’t give up.
Not Father Joe, however—Mulder. Mulder’s voice.
An image flashed through her mind of the couple tanned in a little boat lazily gliding on blue water under a sunny sky near a white beach. She almost smiled.
Then Dana Scully met the boy’s gaze with a fearlessness equal to his own.
“Yes,” she said to her team. “Let’s begin.”
The Truth Is in Here
I would like to thank Frank Spotnitz for taking time during the production of The X-Files: I Want to Believe to field questions and provide extensive materials. He was unfailingly prompt, friendly, and supportive. In addition to dealing with my queries on an almost daily basis, Frank provided wardrobe breakdowns, location information, and a cast list, all extremely helpful, since I was writing the novel at the same time the film was being shot.
Key among those Frank put me in touch with was Academy Award–winning film editor Richard Harris, who despite his duties on the ongoing production spent several hours on the phone, guiding me through a crucial sequence with skill, patience, and humor.
I would also like to thank Debbie Olshan of 20th Century Fox and Sarah Durand of HarperCollins for entrusting this novel to me. Also my agent, Dominick Abel; and my wife, Barbara Collins, for her editorial assistance.
Finally, thanks to series creator Chris Carter and (again) Frank Spotnitz, coauthors of the screenplay, for allowing me to be a part of X-Files, long after this fan thought such an opportunity would present itself.
About the Author
MAX ALLAN COLLINS was hailed in 2004 by Publishers Weekly as “a new breed of writer.” A frequent Mystery Writers of America “Edgar” nominee, he has earned an unprecedented fourteen Private Eye Writers of America “Shamus” nominations for his historical thrillers, winning for True Detective and Stolen Away.
His graphic novel Road to Perdition is the basis of the Academy Award–winning film starring Tom Hanks and directed by Sam Mendes. His comics credits include the syndicated strip Dick Tracy; his own Ms. Tree; Batman; and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, for which he has also written video games and a USA Today–best-selling series of novels.
An independent filmmaker in the Midwest, he has written and directed such features as the Lifetime movie Mommy and the recent DVD release Eliot Ness: An Untouchable Life. His produced screenplays include the HBO World Premiere The Expert and the current The Last Lullaby, based on his acclaimed novel The Last Quarry.
His other credits include film criticism, short fiction, songwriting, trading-card sets, and movie/TV tie-in novels, among them the national bestsellers Saving Private Ryan, Air Force One, and American Gangster.
Collins lives in Muscatine, Iowa, with his wife, writer Barbara Collins.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.
Praise for MAX ALLAN COLLINS
“A master.”
Chicago Magazine
“No one can twist you through a maze with the intensity and suspense of Max Allan Collins.”
Clive Cussler
“Collins is a consummate storyteller.”
Booklist
“Nobody writes this stuff better than Max Allan Collins…. A fine writer.”
John Lutz, author of Single White Female
“Among the finest crime writers working today.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
“Collins is in a class by himself.”
S.J. Rozan, author of Absent Friends
By Max Allan Collins
THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE
ROAD TO PURGATORY
ROAD TO PARADISE
As Patrick Culhane
BLACK HATS
RED SKY IN MORNING
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE X-FILES: I WANT TO BELIEVE. Copyright © 2008 by Twentieth Century Fox. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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