Devil's Advocate (The X-Files: Origins #2)(63)

“I’ll tell him I got dropped off at the corner,” she said. “Really, I’m good.”

At the door, Ethan said, “What do we do with all this? With those visions, with the file? I mean, we both think that somebody’s out there pretending to be an angel and killing people. We know it, but we can’t prove anything. So what do we do?”

Dana leaned her shoulder against the door frame. She was still holding Ethan’s hand, and she looked down at it, at the way their fingers intertwined. It felt good. Safe. And something more than that. The moment stalled, though, because Dana felt like she should say something and, clearly, so did Ethan. Neither of them seemed to know what, though.

Ethan nodded. “What about what that lady Corinda said? What do you think about that?”

“I don’t know what to think. I mean, I can’t believe I know anyone who would do something like this.”

“They’d have to know some things,” he said. “They’d have to know the religious stuff. They’d have to know about cars. It can’t be easy to fake all those accidents so well the cops think they are accidents.”

“And he has to know about anatomy.”

“Why?” asked Ethan. Then he said, “Oh, right. To be able to make the other injuries look like they happened in accidents.”

“He’s smart,” she said.

“He’s an animal.”

“Sure,” said Dana, “but animals can be smart.”

Ethan looked past her out into the night. “Sure you won’t let me walk home with you?”

She smiled. “I’m sure.”

Then, without thinking about it, she stood on tiptoes and kissed him. Neither of them expected it to happen, but it happened anyway. Dana suddenly realized what she was doing and immediately backed away, shocked, embarrassed beyond words, her hand rising to hide her mouth.

“Ethan, I’m … I mean I—” she began, but before she could get anything else out, he bent forward and kissed her.

One-millionth of Dana’s mind tried to make her back away. The rest of her leaned in. She was no expert on the subject of kissing, but she was pretty sure this was a very good one, and it lasted a good, long while.

When they finally stepped back, they grinned at each other as if the world were a happy place and they weren’t dealing with murder, conspiracies, and horror.

“Well,” said Dana breathlessly, “I guess there’s that.”

“Um, yeah,” he said.

They stood there, awkward and uncertain. Then they kissed again. And again. Afterward, Ethan looked dazed and glassy-eyed. That made her laugh. It also made her feel warm inside.

“Bye,” she said, and then she was gone into the night. When she looked back from halfway down the block, Ethan was standing exactly where she’d left him. That made her smile, too.





CHAPTER 56

Scully Residence

10:17 P.M.

The porch light was on, and she moved toward it like a lost ship drawn to a lighthouse beacon.

The day had gone from frightening to surreal to broken, and Dana didn’t quite know who she was. Or what she was. After leaving Ethan’s, she had been happy for almost three blocks, but then the dizziness came back, and with it came her doubts and all the various fears that seemed to define her life here in Craiger. Those fears brought with them a strange, huge, complicated depression that settled heavily on her shoulders and made each step as difficult as if she were wading through mud. All the happiness leaked away.

Nothing about her seemed to fit right anymore. Ever since they’d moved here from San Diego, Dana felt like she was losing the connection with her own identity. She used to be an orderly person. Good in school, always on time, didn’t run with the wild crowd, went to church. Prayed. All of that.

Now she was having psycho dreams, hunting a mass murderer, going on mind trips, and beating the crap out of people.

Was this still her? Still Dana Katherine Scully?

Or was Sunlight right, and she was transforming into someone and something else? If so … what?

The porch light was rich and warm and safe-looking. Then she paused when she saw a figure sitting there.

“Dad…,” she murmured.

She stood a hundred feet away, in a pool of shadows beneath a big tree across from the old church, watching her father. Dad was a big man. Blocky and hard, with a bullet head on a bull neck. He looked as tough as he was. But now she saw him in an unguarded moment. Dad was sitting on the porch swing, head bent as he read a book. Not being tough. Not being Captain William Scully of the United States Navy. Not being anything except a middle-aged man relaxing on a spring evening. Wearing a soft flannel shirt. The red-and-black one that he liked so much. It was old and worn, and Dana knew every place where it had been patched and stitched, and she knew that Dad wouldn’t let Mom throw it out. Not that shirt. It was familiar, and he loved wearing it when he wanted to step out of the skin of his job and responsibilities. He was wearing that shirt in so many of Dana’s best memories. Family camping trips. The day Dad taught her how to ride a bicycle, and when he’d taken her to the ice cream shop at the big old hotel in Coronado after she’d broken her arm falling out of a tree. He’d been wearing it the day they brought Charlie home from the hospital as a tiny baby. He’d worn it the first night they’d started reading Moby-Dick together when Dana was nine.