Part 5   
      
   XXXXX   
      
   Undisclosed Location   
   April 8, 2000   
   6 PM   
      
   Someone was in the house. She had heard the noise of breaking boards   
   coming from downstairs hours ago. After that, silence. The board she   
   had managed to remove lay on the floor in pieces. Her foot was sore   
   from kicking at it. Her heart was sore after seeing absolutely nothing   
   but land to her left and right; not another house or human in sight.   
      
   Jessica felt her breath hitch as the panic began to rise. Whoever was   
   downstairs, she wished he would stay there. Or leave.   
      
   She grabbed the box of Power Bars and dumped them out. She put the   
   cardboard over her face and tried to breathe into it.   
      
   Calm. Calm. Nothing good could come through panicking.   
      
   She felt her stomach clench as she heard footsteps walking up the   
   stairs.   
      
   She was about to meet her kidnapper.   
      
   XXXXX   
      
   Theresa Spector's House   
   Staten Island, NY   
   6:02 PM   
      
   When Mulder and Scully arrived at Todd Spector's house, all they found   
   was a nosy neighbor who virtually ran out of her home to talk to them.   
   She had seen Todd leave, before dawn, with a suitcase. He hadn't seen   
   her as she looked through her bedroom window. She was up early making   
   sure her husband got off to work on time and heard Todd's screen door   
   open and close a few times. That, apparently, was a rarity. Todd was   
   quiet. She never really saw him coming or going on any kind of regular   
   basis.   
      
   After briefly searching the home for evidence, all they found in the   
   museum-like atmosphere was a messy upstairs bedroom where Todd,   
   apparently, "lived." The rest of the house looked like it hadn't   
   changed much since it's former owner died. Nothing was out of place but   
   everything was covered in dust.   
      
   They confiscated his laptop as evidence and moved on to the next   
   address on their list: the one belonging to Todd's ex-wife.   
      
   "I had to give up," the former Mrs. Todd Spector informed Mulder and   
   Scully shortly after they sat down in her small, toy-cluttered living   
   room. Jonathan Spector, her son, was down for a nap. "You can only live   
   with someone like that for so long before you feel as if he's sucking   
   you down with him, you know?"   
      
   "Well," Mulder said with a smile. "Actually, we'd like you to tell us   
   anything you can. How about starting at the beginning of your   
   relationship?"   
      
   "Okay. I met Todd in high school and we went on to college together. He   
   was cute and big in a nice, beefy kind of way. He was a wrestling   
   champ. He actually was good enough to get into the Olympic trials. But,   
   that was just about the time when anti-doping came into the Olympic   
   spotlight, and his coach had pretty much been supplying him with   
   steroids for years. At any rate, sometime during the trials, drug   
   testing began and he bowed out before they tested him. He knew he'd be   
   discovered and didn't want his family to suffer through the scandal. Of   
   course, his dad was still alive and didn't understand at all. He was a   
   rather boorish man. He felt that there was no bigger scandal than   
   dropping out of the competition. He always talked about getting someone   
   else to switch urine or blood or whatever. In other words, cheat and   
   take victory any way you can. At any rate, Todd came back feeling like   
   a disappointment to his family.   
      
   He thought of waiting for the next Olympics. But when he went off the   
   steroids, all the muscle went to fat. That was okay by me. I didn't   
   care. He was a sweet guy, you know? And by that time, I loved him for   
   him, not as a champion athlete. Besides, I was just glad he was off the   
   steroids. They had already done some damage to his heart and his mood.   
   He had a tendency to get depressed.   
      
   Anyway, after graduation, he got a job in computers before they became   
   the everyday pieces of equipment they are today. We got married. For   
   many years, we were not able to have a baby. And then I got pregnant,   
   and our troubles began. Todd was jealous. Before Jonathan was even   
   born, Todd was jealous of him. He felt he wasn't getting enough   
   attention. He suddenly worried about his appearance. Somehow, he got   
   hold of steroids again. Somehow," she scoffed at her own words. "The   
   man could get anything from anyone. He had contacts all over the world   
   thanks to his trusty computer. Even though the steroids had done such   
   bad things to his body, he was still convinced they would suddenly turn   
   him into the athlete he was in high school and college and I'd suddenly   
   pay more attention to him than the little unborn baby I had waited for   
   so long.  So, he took them. He also started lifting weights and working   
   out. And getting nasty. Not physically nasty or anything, but just very   
   whiny about the baby and how I never needed him for anything but sperm.   
   Stupid things like that. I hear paranoia and mood swings are kind of   
   part of the whole drug package. Maybe. Maybe not. He always had an   
   overly quiet personality that leaned toward depression. After Jonathan   
   was born, things got even sillier." Theresa looked around a little and   
   reddened, before leaning into Scully. "I was . . . nursing Jonathan and   
   Todd felt—well, only he should get that privilege—and I mean that quite   
   literally. I'm just not used to that kind of thing."   
      
   Scully nodded. "There were some rumors going on about a fire in your   
   home?"   
      
   "Rumors. Yes. I suppose there were. Probably started by my mother who   
   could never keep anything to herself. Listen, this sort of has to be   
   off the record because I can't possibly pay back my half of what we   
   received from the insurance for rebuilding on the property. And I never   
   had proof, anyway. Todd was becoming increasingly depressed and moody   
   as Jonathan began to coo and crawl and do all the cute things babies   
   do. One night, there was a fire.  He woke me up and immediately began   
   to carry me out of the house. He was going to go back for the baby but   
   I wouldn't let him leave without him. I pounded on his shoulder a bit   
   and then he dropped me, ran to the nursery and grabbed the baby—like it   
   had been his idea all along. Then, he got us all out of the house and   
   called 911 from his phone in the car. He kept going on and on about how   
   he saved his family and then got really angry with me for not showing   
   him  "due" appreciation. But, how could I? I don't know if he truly   
   would have left Jonathan in there to die, but I do know that his son   
   was not his top priority. I think his top priority was being some kind   
   of hero to me. Kind of living out a fairy tale or something by rescuing   
   the damsel in distress and forgetting about the damsel's baby. The fire   
   inspectors never found any proof. They put the whole thing down to   
   faulty wiring but Todd had the knowledge to rig that. We stayed   
   together with his mother for a while but he was getting more and more   
   moody, more and more resentful of the baby and I just couldn't deal   
   with it anymore."   
      
   "How did he lose his job? We just have an odd notation of   
   'unprofessional behavior.'"   
      
   "Yes. That began while I was still pregnant. He would just get furious   
   over things. If a vending machine didn't work, he'd more or less attack   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)