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In the bitter heart of a brutal winter, women are inexplicably vanishing in rural Virginia. The only clues to the bizarre disappearances are grotesque remains?human remains?that are turning up in snow banks along the highway. And a disgraced priest has begun to experience strange and disturbing visions possibly connected with a terrible secret.

EXCERPT

The X-Files: I Want to Believe
Chapter One

Rural Virginia
January 6

The day had been so overcast, Monica Bannan barely noticed dusk settling in, the last cold light of day doing its best to hold on to the somber colors of winter, and failing. Skeletal trees and occasional farm buildings were black shapes against a darkening sky, but Monica found them comforting, soothing, not forbidding, much less foreboding. Only when her car's headlights came on automatically did she realize that darkness was upon her.

The heater purred and she was almost too warm in the hooded sweatshirt, down vest, and sweats. Her curly blonde hair, however, combed back, damp (from her swim on the way home from work), would freeze out in that chill wind. But it would be only a few steps from her carport to her warm house. She could risk it.

With no makeup on, and her prominent nose, Monica looked almost plain, though she really was quite attractive?in her youth she had even done some fashion modeling. Now, approaching thirty, she was one of that army of professional women who worked for the government in nearby Washington, D.C.

She'd had a typically long, not particularly memorable day, and looked forward to a quiet evening in front of her TV with the fireplace going behind her and Ranger, her German shepherd-ish mutt, curled up beside her on the couch, big head in her lap.

The little housing development loomed ahead, dark boxy shapes in the descending night. The snow had stopped mid-afternoon but the roads were still slick enough, with patches of black ice, for her to take the turn into the settlement of small houses with extracaution.

Soon, however, without incident, she was pulling into the driveway and up into the carport beside her single-story clapboard house, its lights mostly off. Had her eyes been on her rearview mirror, she would have seen the bulky figure passing behind her, blushed red in her brake lights, ever so briefly.

But she did not.

She switched off the ignition, her medical ID bracelet swinging to strike the dashboard lightly, and she was about to go in?her things in the trunk could wait?when she heard Ranger going nuts in there.

By all rights she should have kept the animal outside?hadn't she gone to the trouble of putting in a doghouse in back? But with this cold, this awful goddamn arctic cold, how could she do such a thing to the only male in her life right now?

So Ranger was in there, yapping his head off, but it took a moment for her to realize that this was not a display of welcome-home affection, rather a vicious growl-tinged round of barking of a sort usually reserved only for cats and squirrels.

Monica opened her car door and stepped out, yelling, "Ranger! Be a good boy! Settle down in there! It's just me . . ."

But she had not even started toward the nearby house when she saw something that contradicted her: footsteps in the snow.......

In the bitter heart of a brutal winter, women are inexplicably vanishing in rural Virginia. The only clues to the bizarre disappearances are grotesque remains-human remains-that are turning up in snow banks along the highway. And a disgraced priest has begun to experience strange and disturbing visions possibly connected with a terrible secret. But are the images haunting a fallen man of God to be trusted . . . . or are they the deadly lies of a twisted mind?It is a case right out of the X-Files. But the FBI suspended its investigations into the paranormal years ago. Ex-agents Fox Mulder and Dr. Dana Scully are the best team for the job, but they have no desire to revisit the past. Still, the truth about these horrific crimes is out there . . . . and only Mulder and Scully can uncover it.