Agt. Mulder ordered a pre-dawn forensic excavation of a site in Bosher’s Run Park, in Manassas County, Virginia. Earlier that night he had dreamed that a red dot of light had led him to that park and shown him a young blonde girl sinking into the ground. On awakening, Agt. Mulder drove to the park and discovered an area identical to the area in his dream. He then called for the excavation.

After Agt. Scully arrived at the site, agents unearthed a skeleton. Over the other agents’ protest, Agt. Mulder began handling the skeleton. Mulder said that he recognized the M.O. of John Lee Roche, who had confessed to the murders of thirteen girls. Roche had always removed a heart-shaped piece of fabric from the clothing of his victims, and a heart-shaped piece had indeed been removed from the pajamas in which this skeleton was found.

Later, in the X-Files office, Agts. Mulder and Scully reviewed Roche’s case file. In that case, Agt. Mulder had developed an accurate profile of the killer, projecting himself imaginatively into the killer’s mind. Roche, a traveling vacuum-cleaner salesman, had chosen his victims while on sales trips throughout the Northeast. Roche had confessed to thirteen murders, the earliest in 1979. Because the heart-shaped trophies had never been found and counted, Agt. Mulder had never been fully satisfied with Roche’s confession.

In the autopsy bay, Agts. Mulder and Scully examined the skeleton, identified by Agt. Scully’s missing-persons search, as that of Addie Sparks, of King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, who disappeared in 1975. Agts. Mulder and Scully traveled to the home of Addie Sparks’s father, Frank Sparks, in Norristown, Pennsylvania. They showed Frank Sparks a swatch of fabric with an embroidered dollar-sign, found with the skeleton. Frank Sparks identified it as belonging to Addie Sparks. Leaving Frank Sparks’s house, Agt. Mulder recalled a white El Camino from his dream. He suggested that since Roche was a traveling salesman, the fabric hearts might be in Roche’s car, which had been sold at auction and thus put out of Roche’s reach.

In Holyville, Delaware, Agts. Mulder and Scully located Roche’s El Camino. Agt. Mulder cut open the seat but did not find the hearts. Agt. Mulder then remembered the words "Mad Hat," which had also appeared in his dream. He removed the camper shell from storage, broke into it, and discovered a copy of Alice in Wonderland. Sixteen fabric hearts were pressed between the pages. Agts. Mulder and Scully concluded that Roche had killed two more victims.

At Lorton Reformatory in Lorton, Virginia, Agts. Mulder and Scully interviewed Roche in a gym where Roche was shooting baskets. Roche agreed to tell the agents the whereabouts of the remaining victims if Agt. Mulder shot a basket from where he stood. Agt. Mulder did so successfully. Roche then stated that he would only give the agents information if they brought him the fabric hearts.

That night, in his office, Agt. Mulder dreamed that the red dot was leading him into his childhood home on Martha’s Vineyard. In the dream, Agt. Mulder re-lived the night on which his sister, Samantha Mulder, disappeared. In the dream, while Watergate news was being reported on television, Agt. Mulder and Samantha Mulder played a strategy board game and argued; Agt. Mulder’s parents were visiting with neighbors. The lights went out abruptly and the house shook. Blinding white light filled the windows. The front door opened, admitting Roche. Roche chased Samantha Mulder, who yelled for help. Agt. Mulder awakened from the dream, still at his desk.

Agt. Mulder interviewed Roche in the Lorton Reformatory visitation room. Agt. Mulder asked Roche to state his whereabouts on November 27, 1973, the night Samantha Mulder was abducted. Roche replied that he had sold an Electrovac Princess vacuum to Agt. Mulder’s father on Martha’s Vineyard. He added that if Agt. Mulder turned in the fabric hearts, he would reveal more. Agt. Mulder then struck Roche. Roche complained to the prison guard, who responded that he had not witnessed the blow. Agt. Scully, entering the visitation room, pointedly told Agt. Mulder that she had seen the blow. Outside the visitation room, Agt. Scully tried to persuade Agt. Mulder that Roche was manipulating him. Agt. Mulder insisted that he must find out whether or not Roche had abducted Samantha Mulder. Before Agt. Mulder rushed off, Agt. Scully tried to convince him that Roche's testimony of abducting Mulder's sister was probably fabricated, due to the fact that all prisoners have access to the internet in the Criminal Library. Agt. Scully speculated that Roche could have found background information on Agt. Mulder, and created his false story of Samantha Mulder's abduction through careful plotting and research.

Agt. Mulder visited his mother at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut. His mother could not identify either of the two fabric hearts. When Agt. Mulder asked whether his father had bought her a vacuum cleaner, Mrs. Mulder directed him to one under the basement stairs. Agt. Mulder identified the vacuum as an Electrovac Princess.

When Agt. Mulder returned to Bureau Headquarters, he learned that he had been denied access to Roche by Assistant Director Walter Skinner. In A. D. Skinner’s office, Agt. Mulder complained. A. D. Skinner heatedly reminded Agt. Mulder that Agt. Mulder had been videotaped striking a prisoner. Agt. Scully informed A. D. Skinner and Agt. Mulder that she had confirmed Roche’s 1973 trip to Martha’s Vineyard and that it was possible that Roche had indeed abducted Samantha Mulder. Reminded by Agt. Scully that Roche might also give them information about other victims, A. D. Skinner reluctantly agreed to allow Agts. Mulder and Scully to interview Roche again.

In the Lorton Prison visitation room, Agt. Mulder showed Roche two tagged and bagged fabric hearts. Roche implied that one had belonged to Samantha Mulder. Agt. Scully demanded that Roche prove that he had killed Samantha Mulder. Roche then accurately described the scene of Samantha’s abduction. Roche prompted Agt. Mulder to choose one of the hearts, saying he would give the agents only the location of the body from which that fabric had been taken. Agt. Mulder chose one of the hearts. Upon finding the location Roche described, in Forks of Cacapon, West Virginia, Agt. Mulder began digging. Agts. Mulder and Scully unearthed the skeleton of a young female.

In the autopsy bay, Agt. Mulder noted that while Samantha Mulder had broken her left collarbone, the skeleton’s collarbone was intact. Agt. Scully agreed that the victim was not Samantha Mulder. Roche, again interviewed in the Lorton Prison visitation room, offered to lead Agt. Mulder to Samantha Mulder’s grave. When Roche intimated that he was eager to see the look on Agt. Mulder’s face when Agt. Mulder found Samantha Mulder’s body, Agt. Scully sharply rejected Roche’s proposal. Outside the visitation room, Agt. Scully urged Agt. Mulder not to have Roche released. Later, from his home, and unbeknownst to Agt. Scully, Agt. Mulder called the United States District Court and convinced a judge to issue a removal order for Roche.

Agt. Mulder and Roche flew from Washington, D.C., to Boston, Massachusetts, and then traveled to Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. Roche traveled in handcuffs. During the Washington-Boston flight, Roche spoke to a little girl and her mother while he was on his way to the bathroom. Agt. Mulder took Roche to a house in West Tisbury on Martha’s Vineyard. Roche claimed to remember the house and again described the scene of Samantha’s abduction. Agt. Mulder informed Roche that they were in fact in a different house, thus proving that Roche was lying. Agt. Mulder expressed his belief that when he had imaginatively projected himself into Roche’s mind, Roche had been able to pilfer Agt. Mulder’s thoughts and memories. Roche taunted Agt. Mulder about Agt. Mulder’s interest in extraterrestrial life and suggested that Agt. Mulder used that interest to retreat from painful realities.

In his office at Bureau headquarters, A. D. Skinner reprimanded Agt. Scully. In a motel room, with Roche handcuffed and apparently asleep, Agt. Mulder dreamed that he heard Samantha Mulder calling for help. In the dream, he left the motel and found Samantha Mulder in the El Camino with camper shell attached. Agt. Mulder pulled Samantha Mulder from the car and embraced her while the red dot spelled out the word "bye"; Samantha Mulder then disappeared. On awakening, Agt. Mulder discovered that it was morning. He was handcuffed, and Roche had disappeared. Agt. Scully and A. D. Skinner were banging on his motel room door. Roche, who was not in the motel room, had apparently fled, taking Agt. Mulder’s badge, phone, and gun. A. D. Skinner reprimanded Agt. Mulder. Agt. Mulder stated his belief that while sleeping he had let Roche go. Agt. Mulder then remembered the child to whom Roche had spoken on the flight from Washington. Agt. Mulder called the airline for a passenger manifest for that flight and learned that Roche, posing as Agt. Mulder, had called earlier and received the same information. The child was identified as Caitlin Ross.

Agts. Mulder and Scully and A. D. Skinner arrived at Caitlin Ross’s day care center to find that the day care operator had released Caitlin Ross to Roche, who had been posing as Agt. Mulder. Roche’s case file listed Roche’s former Boston address as 9809 Alice Road. Agt. Mulder, Agt. Scully, and A. D. Skinner, accompanied by local agents, proceeded to that address. They failed to find Roche. Leaving the other agents, Agt. Mulder climbed the wall of a nearby parking lot full of disused electric transit buses. He entered the lot. Hearing a child scream, Agt. Mulder drew his gun and identified from the slight motion of its electric mast that one of the buses was occupied. Agt. Mulder entered the bus and found Roche and Caitlin Ross. Caitlin Ross was apparently unhurt. Roche pointed Agt. Mulder’s gun at Caitlin Ross and threatened to kill her. Agt. Mulder instructed Caitlin Ross to close her eyes and count. A. D. Skinner and Agt. Scully then arrived at the bus. Roche reminded Agt. Mulder that Agt. Mulder would need Roche in order to determine the identity of the last victim. He added that the last victim might be Samantha Mulder. Agt. Mulder then shot Roche, killing him.

In X-Files office, Agt. Scully reported to Agt. Mulder that the fabric in the last heart had been manufactured between 1969 and 1974 but that further information was not forthcoming. Agt. Scully tried to console Agt. Mulder by telling him that the last victim was not Samantha, but another victim. She reassured him that they would find his sister, and suggested Agt. Mulder go home and get some sleep. Agt. Mulder placed the fabric heart in his drawer.

The status of the remaining victim is still unknown. The case remains open.