Chapter 1

He arrived on the scene, which was alive with cop cars and milling witnesses. The lights of the squads lit up the dark stone buildings with a crazy flashing glow. Uniformed officers were putting up crime scene tape, trying to bring order to the scene - he couldn't tell who were witnesses and who were spectators. He approached the tape, flashing his badge at one of the officers who was noting down information. "Stabler, SVU. Where's the vic?"

"Inside," the officer replied. "She's sitting in one of the booths. Officer Wilson's keeping an eye on her."

"Anybody else hurt?"

"Nope."

As Stabler turned to go inside, the man muttered, "Good luck."

"What do you mean?" he asked, turning back.

The officer shrugged. "Well… Just that she's a real piece of work - that one."

"How so?"

"She hasn't said boo to anyone since I got here. No cooperation on anything. Hates us. I had to put Wilson on her just to keep her here 'til you showed up, because it looked like she was going to do a disappearing act. Cold as ice, that one is."

He was an older cop, Stabler saw, in his fifties and probably close to retirement - still in uniform, still working a beat, never made Sergeant - the sort of cop who never distinguished himself. Not a bad cop, just a cop doing his job and no more. "She's just been assaulted." His words came out harshly, as he'd intended, to the cop whose nametag read O'Hallaran. He made a mental note of the name.

"Yeah, and we never would have found out about it from her." He shook his head. "It was them that told us." He gestured at the milling witnesses. "She's a piece of work. You'll see."

O'Hallaran turned back to the police barricade and grabbed what looked to Stabler like an overzealous journalist working the crime beat and escorted him roughly back through the barricade.

Stabler turned back to the diner. He hoped this officer Wilson had been more compassionate. It was hard enough to deal with victims of sexual assault without them being treated in a ham-fisted manner by some codger cop counting days 'til his pension kicked in.

He opened the door to the diner and looked inside, immediately annoyed. An important rule in working sex crimes was not to leave the victim alone. An officer stood near the door, watching out the window. The woman Stabler presumed was the victim was sitting alone in a booth halfway across the diner. The nametag on the tall black officer near the door read Wilson. There wasn't anything he could do about it now, but he made a mental note to inform the duty officer that these guys were in need of a refresher on victim handling. He presented himself to Wilson. "Stabler, SVU. That her?"

"Yep."

"Then what are you doing over here?" he said, the tone in his voice obvious, but he kept his voice low, so it wouldn't carry.

"Look, Detective. I know the drill, and I tried, man. But she told me to take a hike." He shrugged in a 'so what could I do' sort of way.

"I don't care what she says, you never leave a victim alone." He glared at the man.

"Well, you're here now," Wilson said. "I'd better go help with the rest of the witnesses."

"Yeah, go," Stabler said, watching him exit the diner. He turned toward the young woman.

She sat in one of the rust-colored vinyl booths, a cigarette clenched tight between her lips. Aside from a slight tremor of her hand as she removed the cigarette for exhalation, she didn't look like she'd been assaulted. Of course, Stabler reminded himself, not all victims act the same. Still, she didn't have that fearful, devastated look that many of the victims he met in the course of his job had. Not that she looked exactly normal, he thought as he approached. Her eyes seemed older than they should be, and they had no expression. Some kind of shock leading to apathetic affect maybe, he considered.

He introduced himself and sat down in the booth opposite her. She didn't reply or make any acknowledgement of him, just took another puff of the cigarette.

"Can you tell us what happened, miss, uh, Veronica." He called her by the name written in curlicue script lettering on her somewhat faded diner top. The uniformed officers hadn't yet gotten the full names of everyone involved, and he was a bit embarrassed that he didn't know her last name yet. The uniforms could have at least gotten that, he thought, fuming silently.

She snorted and finally looked at him. "Not Veronica. The uniform fit. Place is too cheap to buy anything new." She gestured dismissively at the rather grungy and rundown little diner around them.

"So your name is…"

"Lynn"

"Lynn what?"

For a moment he thought he saw something in her eyes. Hesitation? Confusion?

"Baker." She took another hard pull on the cigarette. It was nearing the filter, and practiced fingers prepared another for lighting as she inhaled the last of the current one.

"Miss Baker, can you tell us what happened?" He leaned in just a bit and tried to look comforting.

Because he was a police detective, and a tall, broad-shouldered man, Elliot knew he sometimes came across as intimidating. This was to his benefit when dealing with suspects, but sometimes it made things harder with the victims. Sometimes victims responded better to his partner, a woman. It was the one disadvantage he felt that he had, although he believed his experience negated it for the most part. He was proud of how often and how well he could relate to the victims and give them comfort and reassurance. In any case, his partner hadn't arrived yet, although he suspected she was on her way. Even the prospects of a hot date wouldn't keep her from answering a page. At the thought of his partner on her date, he felt that familiar twinge and got angry with himself. He had no right to be jealous - they were just partners.

Lynn Baker lit the new cigarette from the old one, hand still shaking slightly, then looked for someplace to put out the stub. With a shrug, she ground the cigarette butt into the faded vinyl tablecloth. The hot end of ash melted a hole and the smell of burning plastic wafted into the air around them.

"I don't have anything to say."

Certainly hostile, he thought. Some victims were. It was something that the shrinks called misplaced aggression. She had no control over what happened to her and she was directing that anger and loss of control toward those trying to help her. He'd seen it before. "You're a witness to an armed robbery." He deliberately didn't mention the assault.

"So, you've got them." She gestured at the window. "They witnessed it too. You don't need me."

"I do need you. I want to put these guys away for what they did, but I need your help."

"So if I talk to you, then you'll leave me alone?"

He smiled a little and gave a shrug that he hoped would look something like a confirmation to her. Anything to get her talking, even just about the robbery, would be helpful. Once a victim started to talk, it often seemed to get easier for them.

She sighed. "They came in with guns and robbed the place. Dino gave them the money from the till. They yelled and screamed and made everyone put their wallets in a bag. Then they left." She shrugged, exhaling another lungful of smoke that wafted into his face.

Succinct, he thought somewhat sarcastically, trying to not wince outwardly. The uniformed officers had reported a lot more from the other witnesses. Which was why he, an SVU detective, was here. He nodded. "Uh huh. Anything else?"

Another shrug. More smoking. No talking. He knew that sometimes it was difficult to get victims to talk, having worked with so many of them over the years. Still, it always was slightly irritating when they didn't want to help him help themselves. They were the ones needing justice, and he was the one dispensing it. Was cooperation too much to ask?

He reminded himself that while this was his thousandth-something case, for each of the victims he encountered, it was generally their first. There was a fine-line of how hard to push. He'd accidentally crossed it on occasion, but mostly he knew just how far to go - how much a particular individual could handle. He stared at Lynn Baker, keeping his gaze steady, sizing her up - trying to determine how strong she was - how much he could push. She looked calm and collected, other than the nicotine fix she was relying on. She didn't look bruised or beaten on the parts of her that he could see, and he could tell she hadn't been crying. She seemed, as officer O'Hallaran had told him, cold.

Probably a defense-mechanism, he thought. Shock maybe. With some victims it didn't really register what had happened to them, at least at first. Normally it wasn't a great sign because when they finally felt the full effect they were devastated.

She wasn't looking at him, but he kept looking at her. Watching her. Seeing her narrow face and soft colored brown hair. The points of her collar-bones could be seen in the vee of her uniform top. She was thin, he thought, not that wiry thinness that belied a toned musculature, but she was what he'd describe as "slight" if he had to pick a word. Her face remained impassive and cold, and her hazel eyes would not meet his. This was like a staring contest, except he was the only one doing the staring. He tried to look strong and reassuring. Solid. Someone she could rely on to tell her story to.

After what seemed like an hour, but was probably only a couple minutes, she finally looked up at him, just for a moment. He said gently, "The call to 911 said that someone was assaulted."

A shrug and the slight narrowing of eyes was her only response.

Elliot continued to press. "The cook told the responding officer that one of the men raped you."

"Dino should keep his fucking mouth shut!" Her eyes flared as she suddenly glared at him. Her voice was loud, ringing out through the quiet empty diner.

"Why's that?" Stabler asked. "He wants us to catch the guys who hurt you. Don't you want them to pay for what they did?"

She was no longer meeting his gaze. Her eyes looked up and away. He could tell by her increased rate of blinking that she wasn't quite as cold as she was trying to appear. Still, she said nothing. That hard look was edging back in around the corners. Another cigarette was produced from the packet. As she lifted it to her mouth to light it, he reached forward and touched her hand lightly - this was a bit of a risk, he knew. Normally he'd never initiate physical contact with a victim, but a shock was what he was looking for.

She flinched slightly at the unexpected contact, but she didn't pull away. She looked at him again. He held her gaze, noticing that her eyes were surprisingly pale. "Talk to me. Please," he said simply. Then he pulled his own hand back, noticing that for a moment, she left hers there.

"I want to leave. Now."

There was something not quite right about this whole scenario, he thought. He'd dealt with women who didn't want to admit they'd been raped. Many felt too vulnerable to admit what had happened. Or ashamed. Not that they should feel ashamed, he knew, but they did. Society's a bitch, he thought. On the other hand, looking at Lynn Baker's eyes, he knew instantly that she wouldn't give a crap what others thought. So he didn't understand why she wasn't talking. She didn't look all that scared or traumatized either, for someone who'd been raped at gunpoint in front of a dozen witnesses.

"Not until you tell me what happened." He tried his most serious expression. This was a bigger push, he knew, and another risk. She didn't have to tell him squat. That was her right. He knew if he alienated her, she might shut down even further. But he felt that hard edge of hers needed something to blunt it. His own hard edge, perhaps.

"It won't change anything." She shook her head, squinting as she took him in, perhaps trying to judge his resolve. And resolve was something that Stabler knew he had in abundance.

He reached out toward her again, this time careful not to actually touch her. He rested his hand close to hers, leaning in what he hoped would be a comforting but firm gesture. He looked at Lynn closely. The eyes were still hardened to his gaze, and she had that slight puckering around the lips that smokers often got. Her brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail, only a few strands escaping. He estimated her age at mid-twenties, but he didn't get the feeling that those years were easy ones.

"Lynn, you've got to talk about it. It'll eat you up if you don't. We need to get this guy, make him pay for hurting you… stopping him from hurting anyone else ever again."

She remained silent for a long time. He couldn't tell if she were thinking or if she was simply sinking into a sort of catatonia - some victims did, to try to suppress the pain. Finally after another deep drag on the cigarette, she said, "You aren't going to let me out of here until I tell you, are you?"

Blunt and to the point, he observed. He smiled grimly. "Nope."

And so she began to talk, in a quiet voice with little audible emotion. The story didn't pour our like it did with so many victims, but it dribbled out - like a faucet turned on just enough for a slow and steady trickle. And Elliot listened, as he did so well and so often, absorbing the information, trying to soak it all in without judgment, keeping his face impassive and comforting, but most of all trying to keep his anger at what wrongs could be done to a fellow human in tight check.

Lynn Baker had been working her regular shift at the diner that evening when the two armed men had burst in. The regular customers, most from the SRO building down the street, along with a few strangers who had somehow wandered into the place despite the decrepit atmosphere, had been forced at gunpoint to move to one side of the diner, away from the door and windows. Dino, the short order cook and night manager, had been forced to empty the till into the waiting bag one of the men held.

"They went around to all the customers for their wallets and jewelry. Not that any of those cheap bastards have much. You should see how they tip me for busting my ass to bring them coffee refills all damn night." More pulls on the cigarette and she looked through the window at several diner customers who were still being interviewed by uniformed officers outside.

They certainly didn't look like a flush crowd, Elliot agreed silently. Most were wearing tatty clothes and some looked like they may not have bathed in a while.

She shifted in her seat, and the cigarette remained still in her hand. He could see the muscles in her jaw tighten.

"Then one of them came up behind me and grabbed me. Had his arm around my throat. Asked me where my purse was."

Elliot said nothing. She wasn't in need of prompting, he knew. She just needed some space and time to get through it.

"I told him to go fuck himself." She said the words with the harsh inflection that she probably used on the perp, Elliot thought, or maybe like she wanted to say it to him for making her relive it. Her gaze was harsh and she was looking right at him as she said the words.

She looked away then and took a deep breath. "He had the gun under my chin." She gave another audible breath. "Then he laughed. He said, 'Fuck myself? Did you hear that? Bitch told me to fuck myself." She rubbed the place on her chin where Elliot suspected the gun barrel had been pressed. He could see a scrape there, and predicted a bruise would be appearing shortly.

"He said he was going to teach me a lesson. Called me a bitch again. Told the other guy to keep an eye on things."

Her voice had flat and a little strange, Elliot thought. Her recounting of the events revealed little of the terror and trauma she'd surely been subjected to. Even the slight hand-tremor was gone now. The cigarette had burned down so a long ash was hanging absurdly from the butt clasped in between her fingers.

"And then?"

"And then he raped me." She was looking at him again, and her eyes were hard and matter-of-fact, looking directly into his.

He waited, but it seemed that was all that was immediately forthcoming.

"Lynn, I need to know what happened in order to do my job," he said. "I know it's difficult." He was starting to feel a little bit uncomfortable under her hardened gaze now. That was a new one. It was like she was sizing him up, making a measure of him. He willed himself not to look away, not to show his discomfort.

With a sudden motion she tossed the cigarette to the floor. "He forced me against the counter, pushed my skirt up, tore my underwear off and raped me." She gave him a look that was almost accusatory. "Is that what you wanted to hear?"

"I just want to hear what happened."

"Uh huh."

"Look, I'm just doing my job. My job is to catch this guy. I'm on your side."

"Well, I'm not going to go into all the details so you can get your kicks. The guy raped me. Then they left." She reached for the cigarette pack again and busied herself with lighting up.

Further information about her assault did not appear to be forthcoming. Elliot tried not to let his internal sigh show. Maybe Olivia could get through to her better than him. He'd done the best he could. At least he'd gotten a basic statement. "Can you describe the men?"

She thought for a minute and then divulged a litany of descriptive elements that could have matched a great proportion of the men in the city. Average height, average build, moderately dark complexion - white or biracial or possibly Hispanic. Nothing distinguishing - no visible scars of tattoos. No particular accent.

Elliot noted the details. He'd compare them with the other witness descriptions later.

She stood abruptly. "I'm going home now." She edged out of the booth.

Elliot jumped up and headed her off at the doorway, seeing that a couple of the unis outside had also seen the sudden movement and were looking in at them. "No. You need to go to the hospital."

"I'm fine. I don't need a doctor."

Elliot was getting a bit tired of dealing with one Miss Lynn Baker. He was normally very patient with the victims he dealt with in his line of work, but there were limits. "You might be injured. You should get checked out."

She snorted. "Oh come on. He just raped me. I'm not going to drop over dead."

Sometimes victims went for shock value, Elliot knew. It was part of the anger and discomfort they felt at being violated - a way of making the outside observer feel a little bit of what they were feeling. And it was working. He'd never heard the words "just" and "raped" come from a victim before. From suspects, sure, but not from a victim.

She didn't seem impressed by his arguments about the need to collect evidence, either. "Why bother, you're never going to get him. And you've got plenty of evidence here -" she gestured around to where the Crime Scene Unit officers had begun to process. Elliot noticed one of the techs working with a small clump of light-colored fabric that he suspected was her panties.

"I just want to go."

"After."

"Now."

"I'm sorry, I can't let you do that," he said. It was a bluff, he knew. He had no right to force her to be examined. But maybe she wouldn't realize. Sometimes all it took was a little prodding. "We need that evidence. And you need to be checked out for injuries."

"I'm not injured. He put his pee pee in my hoo hoo, he didn't shoot me or hit me over the head. I'll be fine."

Another attempt at shock value. And again successful. More words he'd not heard from a victim before. Maybe that old cop O'Hallaran did have her number - she was a cold one. But she was still a victim. Still in need of justice, whether she wanted it or not. And those guys might hurt someone else. Making this case could save other women from being assaulted. Other women who would be more like the victims he normally dealt with - the devastated and frightened ones, the ones that clung to him for help and reassurance and made him feel proud of doing this job.

"Quit it." He said angrily. "Don't you dare make light of it. Do you know how many women get raped every year in this city? What they go through? How hard it is for most of them to get justice? I won't let you throw that chance away. We need that evidence. And you need counseling, lady." He stood firm at the doorway, blocking her from leaving as he counted down from ten, backwards, silently. He'd give himself that long to maintain his bluff. When he got to three, he started to feel nervous.

He'd just reached one, when she said, "You're not going to leave me alone until I agree to it, are you." It was more a statement than a real question.

He gave her that same grim smile as before. "Nope." He watched as she closed her eyes and shrugged, acquiescing.

On their way out of the diner, he noticed his partner, detective Olivia Benson, had arrived at the scene, wearing what looked like a nice cocktail dress under her coat. That sudden feeling he refused to call jealousy flared from the ember he carried around in the pit of his stomach. Easy boy, he told himself. After all, she was here, wasn't she? Must have left her date at dinner, he thought with a feeling of satisfaction that was immediately quashed by his own conscience. She deserves to be happy, doesn't she? It's not like you and her… He pushed those feelings back down, hoping they'd never resurface.

Stabler began walking Lynn to the waiting ambulance. "While the paramedics get you situated, do you mind if I go let my partner know what's going on?"

She shrugged with a look that told him she definitely preferred his absence to his presence.

As they passed Wilson, he ordered, "Come and sit with her. I'll be back in just a minute."

His partner was interviewing what he thought must be the cook, Dino. The man, in his fifties with a sunken chest and greasy hair covered with a hairnet, was cursing as he walked up.

"Thanks for coming." Elliot told her as Dino's swearing eased off. "I could have handled it, but thanks."

"No problem." She nodded toward the witness, "This is Dino Carelli, he cooks and manages the place at night. Mr. Carelli, this is my partner, Detective Stabler."

"She all right?" Dino said, nodding toward the ambulance, where Lynn could be seen sitting inside, although Stabler noticed that it didn't look as if the paramedics or Wilson were having much luck with her, either. Wilson waved at him, trying to hurry him.

"I think so. We're going to the hospital now. Did you see what happened Mr. uh, Carelli?"

The small Italian man exploded. "See it? He fucking did her not six feet from me!" As officers and witnesses turned to look at him, he lowered his voice again. "The other one had a gun pointed at me, or I'd have taken his head clean off, the effing bastard." He huffed loudly. "He was a cool one. Said he was going to do her, and he sure did. Pushed her over the counter right there in front of everybody. Grunting like a pig, that gun at her head, finger tight on the trigger. I thought maybe he'd pull it when he… well, you know."

Detective Benson was making notes. Elliot glanced over at the ambulance. He shouldn't be leaving a victim for too long.

"Liv, I've got to get her to the hospital now - St. Lukes. Come by when you're done here, OK?"

"Want me to come with you?"

"Nah, I've got it covered. Stay here and get the rest of the statements. Make sure the lab guys don't screw up." He turned. "Thanks, Mr. Carelli. Please, whatever you can remember, it will help us catch these guys." Seeing the look on the manager's face, he had no doubts that Mr. Carelli was going to do his best to aid their investigation. He smiled. It made a nice change from the open hostility he left sitting in the back of the ambulance.

The trip to the hospital was relatively quiet aside from Lynn refusing to let the paramedic so much as strap a blood pressure cuff on her. "Look," she said when Elliot had tried to intervene. "I agreed to come so you could get your precious evidence. When we get to the hospital, I'll give the doctor a nice long look at my snatch, OK? But tell these toe rags to leave me the hell alone."

He couldn't figure her out. While it was certainly true that victims reacted differently to being assaulted, it was also true that he'd not yet experienced any rape victim with the attitude or bearing of Miss Lynn Baker. Perhaps she was holding her emotions so tightly in check that it made her come across like this, he thought, as he watched one of the paramedics snatch a cigarette from her hand as she was about to light it.

"No smoking!" the man yelled, pointing to the sign posted.

"Fuck you," she spat.

"Calm down." Elliot said, holding up his hands at both of them. "Let's just get there, OK?"

He ended up leaving her on her own with the medical staff once they'd arrived at the hospital - "I said I'd let the doctor look, not you. Get the hell out!" - and was waiting when his partner arrived.

"How is she, El?" Olivia asked, looking inquiringly at him. She sat down. He noticed her dress again. It was black and the fabric looked silky. He suppressed the urge to graze his knuckles across the bit that had flopped over the side of the chair. Nobody would have seen, but he would have known that he did it. He clasped his hands in his lap to control the impulse.

Hers was a question that he didn't know how to answer. He shrugged. How was she? Uncommunicative, uncooperative, and cold as ice was what he wanted to say, but he held back. It wasn't fair to judge her reactions so soon after her assault, he told himself. "The doctor's in there now," he said, instead. "She didn't want me in the room," he added, then wished he hadn't, thinking that the words came out a bit defensively. He saw Olivia nod in an understanding fashion. It happened sometimes - women victims not wanting male detectives too close. But he was pretty sure his partner would have had her presence rebuffed as well, woman or not.

"So what else did Carelli say?" he asked, to keep things moving away from the non-cooperative state of his complaining witness.

"Sounded pretty bad." Benson reported. "The guy pushed her forward over the counter in front of everyone, ripped off her underwear and raped her with the gun, calling her a bitch and threatening to shoot her. Then he put the gun barrel in her mouth and told her to suck it. Made her give them all a show and threatened to shoot the back of her head off. Then he pushed her over the counter raped her vaginally." She sighed. "After, he told the other guy it was his turn. He might have raped her as well but there was a siren down the street. They both bolted."

"Siren?"

"Just a squad going by en route to a big accident down on Amsterdam. No calls came in on the robbery or rape until after the perps were gone."

"Sounds pretty brutal," Elliot said. Definitely a lot more than Lynn's statement alluded to. Not that any rape wasn't a brutal thing, something he knew too well.

Benson looked curiously at him. "Does Carelli's story differ from what she told you? There were close to a dozen witnesses and the statements on the assault are pretty consistent."

Stabler shook his head. "She didn't give much detail. She's a tough one. Won't talk. Finally admitted the guy raped her, probably just told me enough to get me off her back. It was all I could do to get her to agree to the rape kit." He didn't mention his somewhat coercive bluff to his partner.

He nodded at the doorway and they both stood as a doctor came through into the waiting area. "Detectives?"

"Yes, that's us. How is she, Doctor?" Stabler asked.

The doctor, a middle-aged balding man, gestured for them to sit. "Physically she's going to be all right. She has a few injuries. There's some bruising, as you might expect, and some tearing from assault with some kind of object -" He paused, looking inquiringly at them.

"Gun barrel." Benson supplied.

Elliot had worked with Olivia long enough that he could hear nuances that others couldn't. He heard the surprise in her voice that Lynn hadn't told the doctor this about her assault. Elliot, however, was not surprised. He wondered if the victim had said anything at all during the exam.

"I see. Yes, a gun barrel is consistent with the internal injuries. We did the rape kit, a full STD panel, and she asked for the morning after drug. I think she'll heal all right from the physical injuries, just needs some time to rest. But, uh, there's something else…" The doctor trailed off.

"What is it?"

The doctor sat down, looking weary, on a chair next to Benson, his face dark and troubled. "It's clear that she has suffered long-term abuse."

Benson blinked, "What kind of abuse?"

"There are signs pointing to both physical and sexual abuse."

"Bingo." Elliot thought, not saying the word out loud. Abuse might explain more than a few things about Lynn Baker.

"What signs? What did she say?" Benson asked,.

"She's got a lot of scarring. Actually, she didn't say anything - wouldn't confirm it. Hardly said a word through the whole exam. When I asked her about the scarring, she told me to hurry up with whatever swabs I needed and get my nose out of her… uh, her cunt." The doctor said the word hurriedly, as if uncomfortable with the sound of it.

Stabler was slightly glad to see someone other than himself experience the discomfort of dealing with Miss Baker. Prior abuse definitely went a long way toward explaining her strange affect with him.

"What kind of scarring?" Benson asked.

"Scarring on her body," the doctor said. "Like she's been beaten badly in the past - back, legs, buttocks, breasts. Scarring on her genitals and internally as well, prior to the incident today. She's been abused, probably for a long time given the extent of the damage."

"Could she just be into rough sex?" Elliot asked.

"I don't think so," the doctor said. "The scars look like they go back quite a while. I think she was probably a kid when it started."

Things began to make even more sense to Stabler. Lynn Baker did have a hardened attitude something like he'd seen with abused kids.

"But she wouldn't say anything about it?" Benson asked.

"Well, we got photos and documented everything." The doctor looked uncomfortable. "She didn't like it. Said I only was supposed to get your evidence and that she didn't agree to anything else. We did what we could, of course."

"I'm sure you did, doc," Stabler said.

"Here's the rape kit." He passed Benson a sealed paper bag marked 'Evidence.' "I've got to get back to the ER, there's a shooting coming in in five minutes. You can go in and talk to her now if you like - it's the third curtain on the left." With that, the doctor hurried out of the room

"Sounds like this one is gonna be a challenge," Olivia said as the doctor departed.

"Yeah." he said, thinking she didn't know the half of it. But maybe now that they knew about the abuse they'd be better able to get the victim's cooperation. Maybe tonight they'd caught not just one case, but two, depending on how long ago her previous abuse had ended. If it had ended, he thought, a feeling of disgust filling him.

"You want me to give her a try?"

While Elliot had doubted that Benson would have much better luck with Lynn Baker than he did, it was worth a try. And maybe now that the examination was over she'd be in a more talkative mood.

"Maybe with a woman…" He shrugged.

Benson nodded. They both proceeded down the short hallway and into the exam area. It was empty.

"Third on the left, he said, right?" Stabler asked, counting out the exam areas.

"Yeah." They looked around, finding only an elderly man on one side, and a vacant bed on the other.

"Nurse!" Stabler called out to a woman hurrying by in scrubs, a piece of technical-looking medical equipment clutched in her hands

She stopped at the sign of Stabler's badge being flashed.

"Where's the patient who was in this room?"

The nurse looked in, surprised. "She was in there a minute ago."

As it turned out, none of the staff had seen Lynn Baker leave. The hospital was searched, but she was not found. Stabler was fuming as they waited for the security tapes. Losing a victim was definitely a no-no. He threw blame at any nearby staff about them not keeping track of their patients. His ranting about the situation was finally stopped mid-sentence by a particularly frazzled nurse who snapped, "She's not a prisoner here, you know. And we aren't guards." As she hurried off to the ambulance bay, he had to admit to himself that she was right. He wasn't really mad at the hospital, he was more angry at himself. He should have made her let him in the room. Or he should have posted an officer outside or something. Hell, that slobby uniform he'd met at the crime scene had known she was a flight risk from the get-go. Where the hell had his own instincts gone, he wondered.

The security tapes from the front door finally arrived and they saw Lynn Baker leaving the building wearing hospital scrubs. She turned left, exited the frame of the grainy camera view, and that was the last the saw of her. At least she left on her own, Elliot thought. While he hadn't really believed one of the diner thugs had come and kidnapped her, it had been a possibility he was not looking forward to considering.

"Well, she said before that she wanted to go home." He turned to Benson. "Maybe that's what she did."

"So where's home?"

Elliot realized that he didn't have her address or any contact information. "Damn it. Uh, we didn't actually get that far." At the look he'd been expecting, he snapped back, "Didn't you get that info from the manager?"

Benson shook her head. "Well, somebody must have it. We'll call in for it."

One of the officers had indeed gotten Lynn's particulars from Carelli. However, the address for Miss Lynn Baker didn't actually exist, unless she lived somewhere under the Hudson. Things got more curious when they found that running her social security number through the computer brought up a Gloria Wachowski from Queens, who had died two years before in a car accident.