Phoebe was arriving late Sunday night. They had planned the trip months ago, after he realized they had spring break at the same time.
“Why? You don’t trust me?” Mulder clenched his jaw. Based on this conversation, the answer was obvious.
His father scoffed, “Give me a break. You’re a seventeen-year-old with a stack of Playboy magazines stashed under your bed.”
“I’ll be eighteen in October. Or did you forget again?” Mulder shot back. Last year his dad had called him a day late to wish him happy birthday. “I can write it down if that will make it easier to remember.”
Instead of apologizing for being a crappy parent, Bill Mulder pulled out the big guns. “Maybe I should call Phoebe’s parents and tell them she can’t come?” He reached for the phone on the nightstand.
As much as Mulder wanted to call his father’s bluff, he knew his dad would go through with it. And knowing Phoebe, her parents probably didn’t know much about the trip. So, for once, Mulder kept his mouth shut. He couldn’t screw up his chance to see Phoebe. He missed the hell out of her.
“No smart comment?” his dad asked, reveling in the lame victory.
There’s the Bill Mulder I know. Cold, distant, and condescending.
“Just let her come.” Mulder forced out the words through gritted teeth. “Please.”
“Sleep on the sofa and don’t make me regret trusting you.”
“No problem.” Mulder almost laughed. His dad didn’t even know basic things about him—like the fact that he already spent every night on the sofa.
Mulder retreated to the living room, turned on the TV set, and slumped on a stiff leather armchair. A little background noise would drown out his dad’s annoying voice if he ended up on one of his secret phone calls that Mulder didn’t give a crap about.
Two more months until graduation, and I’m outta here.
Then he could go back to living with his mom until August, when he left for college. If he figured out where he was going by then.
A newscaster’s voice droned on in the background. Mulder wasn’t really listening until he heard the words missing girl. He jerked forward and sat on the edge of the chair, listening.
“Sarah Lowe vanished from her home just before nine o’clock last night,” the reporter said as a photo popped up in the corner of the screen. A little girl with big brown eyes and crooked dirty-blond pigtails, wearing zip-up pajamas with elephants on them, smiled back at him. She looked around the same age as Samantha when she disappeared.
Mulder’s skin went cold.
The newscast switched to another feed. A woman with puffy eyes and the same shade of dirty-blond hair as Sarah stood at a podium between her husband and the DC police chief, clutching a wad of tissues.
“Sarah was playing in the living room, and the power went out,” Mrs. Lowe said between ragged sobs. “So I went down to the basement to check the breaker. I would’ve taken Sarah with me, but she hates it down there. She gets scared. She was only alone for two minutes.” Her breath hitched and she dissolved into tears again. Sarah’s dad put his arm around his wife’s shoulders and tried to console her.
Mulder remembered his mother had the same desperate look right after Samantha was taken.
The police chief turned to Sarah’s mom. “If this is too difficult—”
“I can do it,” Mrs. Lowe said, and looked straight into the camera. “When I came back, Sarah was gone and the front door was wide open.”
Mulder’s stomach lurched and he almost puked.
The power went out and the front door was open. Just like when Samantha was taken. The details were so similar.
Sarah’s photo appeared on the TV screen again, and the police chief took over. “Sarah Lowe has blond hair and brown eyes, and a small scar above her right eyebrow.”
Mulder focused on the photo: Sarah’s happy-kid grin, minus a front tooth. The dimple in her left cheek. Gray elephants marching across her white pajamas, except for the brown one above the top of the zipper. Mulder leaned closer and realized it wasn’t an elephant at all. It was a brown stain, shaped sort of like a hippo.
“The search is ongoing. If anyone has information related to Sarah Lowe’s disappearance, please call the tip line.”
Mulder stood in front of the TV set in a daze. He didn’t even remember getting up from the chair. All he could think about was Samantha and Sarah Lowe, gray elephants and a brown hippo-shaped spot—and two front doors—both hanging wide open. He was still standing there when his dad walked into the living room and turned off the television.
“Didn’t you hear me calling you?” His father’s harsh tone yanked Mulder back to reality.
Did you hear about the missing little girl? That was what Mulder wanted to ask, but he settled on “Obviously not.”