"Liv. Liv. Olivia!"

Olivia jerked out of her day dream to look across her desk at her partner, Elliot, who was watching her with a careful, slightly concerned gaze. "Are you ok?"

The dark haired, chocolate eyed detective nodded as she sat back in her seat and let out a long, slow breath trying to shake the last, slippery fingers of her day dream from her mind.

"Are you sure? You seemed pretty far away. What were you thinking about?" Asked the well-seasoned male detective that's been Olivia's partner for years.

Olivia thought back to her day dream and did her best not to blush. Lately there's been only one thing and one person that's occupied her every day dream and fantasy. Judge Elizabeth Donnelly. And the dreams usually involved them being naked and contorted into various positions. The older, tall, lean blonde has occupied Olivia Benson's every thought for the past three months and it's gotten to be very distracting. Anytime her mind becomes idle Elizabeth's face seems to materialize in her mind's eye and she finds herself going all dreamy eyed with longing. And she wasn't even sure why she was suddenly hung up on the woman. She's worked with Elizabeth for years and now all of a sudden she wants to blush when the woman's near and has to resist the urge to lean in and sniff her wonderful perfume. She was head over heels for the woman and she didn't have a clue as to why or even when it happened!

"Liv!" Elliot called to his partner again, frowning as he did so. He, too, has noticed that Liv's seemed pretty off lately but she won't give him any hints as to why. Whenever he asks what's wrong she either changes the subject or just blows him off. "Are you sick or something? Do you need to see a doctor?"

Liv was saved from having to answer their boss Captain Don Craigen appeared by their desks. "Get your jackets your two. I have an assignment for you."

"You sure this is the place?" Olivia asked as she stepped out of the black unmarked sedan onto the side walk and looked up at the old, red brick apartment building located in a shadier part of Manhattan. They were supposed to be picking up a key witness to a murder case that the department had stashed away to ensure her safety. Why'd they stashed her here Olivia wondered. This place was in no way safe.

Elliot walked up beside his partner and surveyed the neighborhood. He, too, seemed unhappy and confused about the arrangements that had been made for this witness. Checking his phone for the address the captain sent them he nodded. "Yeah this is the place."

"The department could've done better." Olivia said with a shake of her head as they walked up the five steps to the front door. After scanning the names on the buzzers she pressed the one beside the name Castle. A few moments later the sound of static came over the intercom before a female voice obviously heavy with sleep drifted out over the static. "Hello?"

"Hello, I'm Detective Benson and my partner Detective Stabler." Olivia spoke back into the intercom. A moment later the door buzzed open and Olivia and Elliot stepped inside. The hallway was reasonably lite and spacious. Directly in front of them were a set stairs, to the right was a hallway that lead to the first level apartments and to the left an old elevator that had an out of order sign taped to the tarnished doors.

"Looks like we're taking the stairs." Elliot said as he headed for the steep steps.

Olivia shook her head, making her shoulder length brown hair bounce around a bit as she followed her partner up. Luckily for them their witness was only on the third level. The door was marked 3C and was made of some very weak looking wood, dragging a look of disapproval from both detectives. Why would the department house an important witness in such an unsafe dump? If they were out of usable safe houses surely they could've sprung for a hotel or something, anything better than this place. The two detectives shared a look before Olivia reached out to knock on the door.

"Who is it?" Called out a female voice sounding a lot more alert then she had over the intercom.

"Detective Benson and Stabler." Olivia answered.

"Hold your badges up to the peephole." The voice demanded sounding like she didn't really believe they were who they said they were.

Olivia held her badge up first then Elliot held up his. They were used to reactions like this so it didn't bother them. After a few moments a series of clicks and jingling chains could be heard before door opened up to reveal the owner of the voice. She was 26, about 5'4 with midnight black hair drawn up into a ponytail and odd purple eyes that had to be contacts. She wore a light violet colored tank top and grey shorts that were sleep wrinkled. Her feet were bare, her toes painted to match the color of her eyes.

"Come in. What's this about?" The woman, whose name was Tasha, asked as she went to sit on her old worn leather couch tucking her feet up under her.

"We were sent to pick you up for court." Elliot asked with a slight frown. "No one contacted you?"

Tasha's oddly gorgeous purple eyes went wide. "What? That was today?" She jumped off the couch and rushed to her bedroom to get some clothes. "They called like two days ago saying they'd send someone to get me when it was time." She called from the bedroom. "But I couldn't remember what day you were supposed to get here." Rushing out of the bedroom into the bathroom she slammed the door and started the shower.

Elliot and Olivia shared a look; this was getting stranger by the minute. Why would the department stash their witness in this dump and not call her to tell her she was being picked up for court that day? Someone was not doing their job and they were going to find out why.

Casey Novak, one of SVU's top A.D.A's, was pacing in her office as she checked her watche for the third time in as many minutes and wondered, not for the first time, where the hell was her witness! Olivia and Elliot should've delivered the woman by now; they were half an hour late and counting! She needed Tasha in her office now so she could brief the woman before the trial started but she was running out of time. She was about to pick up her phone to call the detectives yet again when there was a knock at her door making the red head spin around and look at the wooden door. "Come in!"

Olivia opened the door to her best friend's office and allowed Tasha to walk in first. Olivia could see the irritation in Casey's bright, pale green eyes and knew the woman was less than pleased with something. "Good morning Counselor."

"Good morning." Casey said a bit tensely and smiled at Tasha. "Hello Tasha, nice to see you again."

Tasha smiled at the red haired lawyer. "It's nice to see you as well. Sorry we're late, I'm afraid I wasn't expecting the detectives to show up to bring me to court today."

A puzzled look crossed Casey's face. "I called to remind you yesterday."

"You did. But shortly after you called yesterday some guy called, he said he was your assistant, Mark Jang, John, James….something like that." She shrugged before continuing. "Anyways he called and said that the trial had been pushed back and I didn't need to show up and someone would call me tell me more when they knew more."

The A.D.A and Detectives frowned deeply; there was no way someone should've called Tasha. For one Tasha was supposed to be in witness protection, no one should've known how to get in contact with her. And two, Casey's assistant wasn't a man, it was a woman.

"What the hell is going on?" Casey asked as she turned to look at her detectives.

Olivia shook her head making her long brown hair bounce a little. "I don't know but we're going to find out."

Two things were very clear, one, Tasha couldn't go back to that rundown apartment someone dumped her in and two, there was something major going on.

Back in the squad room things were going from weird to down-right scary. The US Marshal's office had no record of Tasha Castle being entered into the system and no order of protection could be found anywhere. Nor was there a record of the apartment she was assigned to stay in.

"Can someone tell me what's going on?" Liv asked in a frustrated and bewildered tone as she hung up the phone with the Marshalls. "There is no record of Tasha being entered in any system anywhere. No one seems to know anything."

Munch shook his head. "Someone knows something and I bet it's a cover up. Someone doesn't want to get their asses handed to them so they delete everything."

"You can't delete whole paper files. Someone, somewhere, has to have something on the girl." Fin chimed in from his desk beside Munch's.

"Well if they do they're not speaking up." Liv said as she twirled a pen between her thumb and first finger. "Either way we need to get her moved. You should've seen the place she was in! Low security, rundown neighborhood. If anyone finds out she's there she'll be a sitting duck."

"Do we know who took care of the paper work that was supposed to get Tasha in the wit program in the first place?" Elliot asked from where he was refilling his coffee cup with what the prescient joking called coffee.

Munch shook his head. "There's nothing in the system."

"We need to start from the beginning." Olivia said in a thoughtful way. "Who were the lead detectives?"

All four of the Detectives looked at each other, that's when it hit them. None of them worked the case. "Why the hell do we have the case then?"

No one seemed to have an answer.

"Where did this girl and this case come from?" Olivia asked in fascinated and disturbed voice.