Agent of Chaos (The X-Files: Origins #1)(15)

“What pajamas?” Gimble asked.

“We need to call Phoebe.” Mulder wandered to the kitchen.

At the mention of a girl’s name, Gimble scrambled after him. “Who’s Phoebe?”

Mulder reached for the black rotary phone on the wall. “My best friend back home.”

“Your best friend is a girl? And you never mentioned her before? Is she pretty?” Gimble’s questions barely registered with Mulder.

“She’ll help,” he said, hoping the person he trusted most in the world could tell him what to do next. Or talk him out of what he was already thinking about doing.

“I should get on the phone in the other room. Since I’m your right-hand man on this,” Gimble suggested. When Mulder didn’t argue, his friend bolted out of the kitchen.

Mulder dialed Phoebe’s number, and the line crackled when Gimble picked up the other extension. “Hello?”

“It’s still ringing.”

Under normal circumstances, Mulder wouldn’t have let Gimble join the call, but he was in his head, as Phoebe called it—his thoughts focused on one thing.

“Hello?” Phoebe picked up on the fourth ring. Her voice usually calmed Mulder, but tonight it only made him anxious to see her.

“I need your help,” he blurted out.

“What’s wrong?” Her tone switched to all business.

“Someone is abducting kids in the DC area. A boy turned up dead, and a little girl is still missing.” Mulder was talking too fast, but he had to get it all out. “The girl is eight years old, Phoebe.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“I know what you’re going to say…,” Mulder barreled ahead.

“Don’t get involved, Fox.”

“But I’m already involved. I saw the boy’s body—”

“You what?” Phoebe flipped out. “Do I even want to know how you managed that?”

“He was jogging by the cemetery when they found the kid,” Gimble said, ignoring the fact that Mulder hadn’t introduced him or mentioned he was on the line. “It’s not like he broke into the morgue or anything weird.”

“What a relief.” Phoebe laid on the sarcasm. “And who are you?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry.” Gimble cleared his throat. “This is Gimble, Mulder’s best friend.”

She snorted. “Let’s get one thing straight. I’m Fox’s best friend.”

“How come she gets to call you Fox?”

“Gimble!” Mulder snapped.

“Are you the guy who plays D and D?” Phoebe asked.

“That’s me.” Gimble could barely contain his excitement. “So Mulder told you about me? Did he tell you that I have sixteen experience points?”

“Gimble!” Mulder yelled.

“Sorry,” Gimble mumbled. “Tell her about the dead bird.”

“Dead birds?” Phoebe’s tone switched from What have you gotten yourself into this time? to What the hell is going on and how do I stop it?

“Bird,” Gimble said. “There was only one.”

“Gimble!” Phoebe and Mulder shouted at the same time.

“I’ll be quiet now.”

Mulder took a deep breath. “It’s a long story, and I swear I’ll fill you in on every detail. But right now I need your advice.”

“Whatever it is, don’t do it,” Phoebe said immediately.

“Are you going to listen or not?” Once Mulder explained that the kidnappings were connected, he knew she would understand.

“Talk.” One word. That was all she gave him.

He had to stay calm or Phoebe would think he was fixating, as she called it. “The girl who disappeared was wearing a pair of white zip-up pajamas with gray elephants on them. When they showed her photo on TV, I noticed a brown stain above the top of the zipper. It was shaped like a hippo.”

“A hippo?” She was losing her patience. “Is this what you guys do together? Run around and solve mysteries?”

“Umm…” Gimble cleared his throat. “I wasn’t actually there. So, technically, Mulder was solving it on his own.”

“Do you want to hear about the pajamas on the dead body or not?” Mulder asked. Phoebe and Gimble stopped talking, and he picked up where he’d left off. “When they unzipped the body bag at the cemetery, the boy they found was wearing the same pajamas.”

Phoebe sighed. “Do you know how many—”

“Not pajamas with the same pattern. I mean the exact same pair of pajamas. The stain was there, right above the zipper.”

“It could be a—” she began.

“Don’t say ‘coincidence,’ because we both know you don’t believe in them, either.”

“She and the Major would get along,” Gimble said, working his way back into the conversation.

“Who—?” Phoebe stopped herself. “I’m not going to ask.”

Why was she making this so hard? She never doubted him when it came to important things. He tried to stay calm, but panic surged through his veins in fits and bursts, like electricity in a downed telephone wire. “Phoebe, listen to me. You know I only need to see something once to remember it perfectly.”