AN: This is the last of "this version" of Rollisi, unless I get requests for more (I'm sure I could drag this series out forever!). There will be a bunch of chapters for this story, though!
"...happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you. Happy birthday, dear Jesse, happy birthday to you!"
The chorus of voices filled the Long Island City apartment, which wasn't huge but it was larger than the place Amanda had lived in four months ago. The change was prompted by Sonny's recovery period: he had only planned to stay at Amanda's place for two weeks, but two weeks turned to three and three to four, then his belongings started creeping onto shelves and inside drawers, like he had lived there all along. Amanda couldn't even recall specifically asking Sonny to move in with her - it just happened, as if it simply should have been. With twice as many possessions and Jesse out of a crib, in September Amanda and Sonny made the joint decision to pack up her old place in exchange for a bigger walk-up. The two-bedroom was only three blocks away, in her same neighborhood, but it was still a welcomed change for Amanda. Her old apartment had too many ghosts: she never mentioned it to Sonny, but sometimes she swore she saw Jeff bleeding on that living room floor or woke up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night, terrified that Kim had cleaned the place out again.
That Sunday afternoon, everyone had gathered for Jesse's third birthday party. Audrey, Kim, Liv, Noah, Lucy and Fin joined several of Amanda's girlfriends and their children, as well as Sonny's parents. Beth Anne had been in town for Christmas two weeks earlier but had left shortly after the holiday, which was an immense relief to Amanda. She could only tolerate her mother in small doses.
"C'mon, Jess, blow out the candles," Sonny coaxed the little girl from over Amanda's shoulder.
Amanda adjusted Jesse on her lap as she said, "I'll help you, ready? One, two, three..."
The candles on the garishly bright purple cake went out in one exhale, mostly Amanda's, but everybody cheered anyway. Jesse appeared very pleased with herself.
"I wanna lick the candles!" Noah shouted excitedly from Amanda's side. "Please," he added as an afterthought.
"I wanna rose!" Jesse whined, wiggling in her mother's lap, which then prompted the other kids to eagerly put in their requests for corner pieces and frosting flowers.
Controlled chaos ensued as the cake was cut and distributed, then presents were opened. Frannie chased around discarded wrapping paper and boxes while Jesse eagerly moved from gift to gift. The grand finale was a toddler-sized bicycle that Amanda had purchased her, complete with a basket on the front and streamers from the handles. Jesse had seen it in the window of a store months ago and had obsessed about it ever since.
The new toys provided hours of entertainment, which allowed the adults to drink and socialize while supervising the occasional petty squabble between children. Eventually, as afternoon melted into evening, guests began to make their exit. Once the last of the people trickled out, Jesse was crashing from too much stimulation and threatening a colossal tantrum. Anxious to avoid any hysterics after an otherwise wonderful day, Amanda hastily put her to bed while Sonny cleaned up the remnants of the party. When she emerged from Jesse's room, she found him perched on one of the bar stools lined along kitchen counter, sticking a fork in the last remaining piece of cake. The apartment was quiet now, the lights dim and the furniture all back in their rightful places.
"Ooh, gimme some of that," Amanda said excitedly to Sonny. She hadn't managed to snag a piece during the day.
His fork stopped halfway to his mouth. "What d'we say?"
She rolled her eyes and grabbed a lingering plastic fork, which she promptly dug into the cake in front of him. "You wanna know what the best part of today was?"
"Huh?"
"My mom went back to Atlanta before it happened," Amanda told him with a coy smirk.
"Real sweet, 'Manda," he remarked sarcastically.
"What, did you miss her?"
"She's always been nice to me," Sonny replied proudly.
She gave a little snort of laughter as she licked frosting off of her fork. "Don't flatter yourself, she's nice to any man."
Sonny heaved a dramatic sigh, leaning back in his chair. He looked over at her with a raised eyebrow. "You are the most hard-headed person I know."
A grin broke across Amanda's features, like she took it as a compliment. With a little wave of her fork in his direction, she said, "that's why you love me, though, isn't it?"
His long arm stretched across her shoulders, pulling her in close to him. "Somethin' like that, yeah."
"All three vics are in their early thirties. They're all pretty, professional brunettes," Amanda told the squad as she hung up photos of the women she was describing.
"So he has a type," Fin said.
Amanda went on, "it's more than that, Fin. The stuff he does to them after he strangles them... he cleans them up. He poses them. He does their nails, brushes their hair."
"Weird," Fin concluded.
"Red nail polish," Liv added. "All of them."
"Classic," Sonny joked.
"I don't care if he gives them a French manicure. We have got to find this guy," Chief Dodds said sternly, arms folded across his chest as he eyed the bulletin board Amanda stood in front of. "Three rapes and two murders in less than four months. We've been running around like chickens with our heads cut off and not a single lead. This is unacceptable."
Amanda resisted the urge to roll her eyes, although she knew Liv would understand it if she did. As if they didn't know it was bad.
"Two murders? This last one survived?" Sonny asked curiously from his position perched on the edge of the table.
"Laura Gray, thirty one years old. She is barely alive," Amanda explained grimly, pointing to the woman's photograph. "Like the others, she was strangled. She's in a coma. She was found last night, incapacitated in her own bath tub, only when the water started leakin' into the apartment downstairs." She continued eagerly before Dodds could protest, "I've been going through all of these girls' personal lives - family, friendships, romantic partners, colleagues... I'm doing the same with Laura. I have a feeling this guy knows them personally, somehow."
"A 'feeling'?" Dodds repeatedly skeptically, shaking his head. "Not good enough."
"Rollins has been on this case since the first attack, Chief. All of the families and friends have been immensely cooperative with her. If we're lucky, Laura wakes up and remembers something," Liv insisted.
Carisi added, "If she wakes up. We all know what happens to the brain when it's deprived of oxygen-"
"Yes, Dr. Carisi, thank you," Liv interrupted curtly, clearly very aware of the chief's judgmental stare. She looked around at Fin, Amanda and Sonny. "No vacation, no leave, nothing until we get somewhere with this. I don't care about OT. And I expect you all to play nice with Homicide - we're all on the same team here."
Everyone nodded obediently.
"And: nice work, Rollins," Liv concluded before walking away.
Despite the gruesome context of the compliment, Amanda smiled like a child getting praise from a parent.
It was three in the morning and she couldn't sleep. Amanda had tried, but after an hour of tossing and turning, she couldn't stand to stew in her frustration any longer, especially not with Sonny snoring contentedly beside her. She tip-toed out into the living room, turned on a single light and pulled paperwork from her purse. She spread the files of the three victims across the coffee table, their glossy photos smiling up at her.
Cara Gerber, thirty years old, a paralegal at Alston and Bird law firm. She played tennis and volunteered with the ASPCA. Sydney Ryan, thirty-two years old, a child psychologist at New York Presbytarian Hospital. Originally from Charleston, South Carolina, she was bright and social with a twin brother named Gabriel. Then there was Laura, trapped somewhere between life and death, a pharmaceutical representative with record sales that year. Her tearful mother told Amanda about Laura's cat, Lily, and how years ago her talented daughter had gotten a scholarship to art school.
Amanda pulled the crime scene photos out next, her brow furrowing as she looked at them. They were all remarkably devoid of blood, almost nothing out of place. They looked like mannequins: Cara posed provocatively on her bed, Sydney gazing dead-eyed into her mirror at her vanity, Laura draped carefully in her bathtub, oblivious to the rising water. All of them had dark bruises staining the flesh of their neck, the marks standing out brightly against young skin. Amanda knew that this was personal, she just wasn't sure how she was so certain. Yes, it was Criminology 101: death by strangulation often indicated a kind of intensity that could only be explained by an intimate relationship gone wrong. Who, though, would clean and pose these bodies after he had so cruelly drained the life from them? The strange tenderness in brushing their hair and painting their nails was a sharp contrast to the brutish way he killed them. Was the grim display for the shock value of whoever discovered them, or for the attacker himself? Did he take photographs or little souvenirs from the victims, did he get off on looking back at his special form of brutality? Or was the thrill over once the deed was done?
"What the hell are you doin'?"
Startled, she looked up to see Sonny standing in the living room, hair disheveled, hands in the pockets of his old, gray Mets hoodie.
"I'm working," Amanda explained.
"At three in the mornin'?" he asked incredulously.
"I can't sleep."
"I think that typically means you should work less."
"Don't start that."
"Start what?"
"That... coddling thing that you do," Amanda clarified with a dismissive wave of her hand.
Sonny gave her a pointed look.
"Sorry, I just..." She leaned back into the cushions of the couch, her nose scrunched. "I want to figure this out."
He dropped down next to her, rubbing his eyes. "I get it, Amanda, I do," he assured her. "It's not lookin' good."
"Liv's counting on me..." she mumbled.
"You don't have to try so hard with her, y'know. The past's the past."
She wordlessly chewed the skin around her thumb nail; she didn't necessarily believe him.
"C'mon. Y'know how you don't like wet towels on the bed? Well, I just decided I don't like dead people on the coffee table," Sonny said firmly, leaning forward and gathering up the photos to put them back in their folder. He stood up and looked at her expectantly. "Let's go."
Amanda crossed her arms over her chest but didn't protest. Begrudgingly, she stood up from the couch and padded back to the dark bedroom. Back underneath the sheets, she resisted the urge to check her phone on her nightstand. She watched Sonny peel off his sweatshirt and toss it carelessly to the side before he was next to her in the white t-shirt he originally fell asleep in. Soon his body was close to hers as he kissed her. She expected a quick peck, a non-verbal 'goodnight,' but it was much too intense for Amanda to roll over and ignore. She pulled his lean frame atop of hers, beginning a frenzy of wandering hands and discarded clothing.
"Is this why you wanted me to come to bed?" she mumbled playfully, only receiving a huff of laughter in response.
His chest now bare, Amanda's fingertips grazed over the skin there. She encountered the two circular bumps of scar tissue separated only by inches, the remnants of the two bullets that had torn through him that summer. Her own gunshot scar had faded by now, but even in the dark she knew that his were still a deep purple-red. It had been months since Sonny had been injured, but she felt a sudden swell of affection for him anyway, remembering how terrified she had been to lose him.
After a heated exchange of words people only uttered in fervor, after the coil of desire in her stomach had been sprung, their skin sticky with one another's sweat and his breath rapid and warm in the crook of her neck, Amanda felt her eyelids grow heavy.