CHAPTER 1

The man held a gun in his hand, pointing it straight at them. Olivia cursed herself, knowing it was all her fault. Beside her, Elliot had his gun trained on the man.

Suddenly the man broke into a smile and lowered his gun. 'Laura?'

Olivia felt a chill. 'No, I'm Olivia...'

He ignored her. 'Laura!' He ran towards her. 'Laura!'

Elliot shot him.

'The defence has decided to go with the idea that you two somehow planted the evidence recovered from the house,' explained Alex. 'It's nonsense, but he's going to try and discredit both of you. Elliot, you're going to have to justify the use of force.'

Elliot sat up. 'But-'

'Elliot, I don't need to know how justified it was. But you do need to be able to show the jury that you were right to take the shot. You two weren't the primary detectives on this case, so you won't have to testify much on the investigation, only on the reasons for going to the house that day and for what happened there. Do you understand?'

They nodded.

'Most of all, you need to be able to present a united front. Your stories must support each other. Any gaps or weaknesses will be exploited. Olivia, I know you have other things on your mind right now, but it is crucial that you're completely on the ball for this one. MacBride is good, and he knows how to make you undermine each other.'

'Detective Benson, would you explain to the court how your unit identified the defendant as a suspect?'

Olivia swallowed nervously. 'Well, we looked into some of the details given by witnesses, and it led us to-'

McBride held up a hand to stop her, and fixed her in a stern glare. 'No, Detective, start from the beginning.'

'What've we got here?' asked Elliot, climbing out of the car.

'Young female, early twenties, broken neck and abrasions to the face and body,' replied Fin. 'Warner's preparing to take her to the lab now.'

The girl lay on her back in the middle of the pavement, her clothes torn and her bag beside her.

'Not a robbery,' observed Olivia, looking through the bag. 'Her phone, wallet, credit cards are all still here.'

'Maybe the guy got scared off by someone,' suggested Elliot.

'The street was full of people when it happened,' said Fin. 'If he'd get spooked by a witness, he'd have picked somewhere more secluded.'

Olivia abruptly stood, turned and walked further down the street. She leant against the wall, breathing heavily and brushing her fringe off her forehead.

'What's up with her?' asked Fin.

'God knows,' replied Elliot. 'She's been in a weird mood all day. Did the witnesses have anything to say?'

'The usual contradictory descriptions,' said Fin, 'but apparently he saw this girl and just grabbed her, she tried to fight him off and then suddenly she was dead on the street and he was running.'

'And no one tried to follow him?'

'They all figured someone else would do it,' said Fin, rolling his eyes. 'Old lady down there had something interesting to say, though. Apparently the guy was yelling 'Laura, Laura!' over and over again.

'Ex-boyfriend?' suggested Elliot. 'It's pretty intimate, killing by breaking someone's neck like that. Suggests some kind of connection between them before the attack.'

'The girl's name is Christine,' said Olivia, kneeling beside her and looking through her wallet. 'No Lauras on her IDs or cards.' She moved aside to allow the techs to move the body.

'Wait, Liv, do you remember a similar case like this over on 3rd last month?' asked Elliot. 'That girl from Manhattan Tech?'

'There was no mention of any Laura, though,' objected Olivia.

'Doesn't mean anything, it was a busy street, easy to miss something like that in the noise and chaos,' said Fin. 'I'll go check out if there are any similar cases.'

Olivia opened her mouth to say something, then glanced over at the techs. The girl's head lolled as they moved her into the bag. Olivia gagged, ran into the nearby alley and threw up.

'Come on, Liv, ought to be used to this by now,' Fin teased.

She smiled weakly. 'I know, right?'

'Liv's a bit of a sensitive soul,' said Elliot, cracking a smile. 'Fin, you're the primary on this, go with Warner and start from there. Me and Liv will go back to the precinct and start looking into possible connections.' He smiled. 'Throw up in my car, Benson, and there'll be hell to pay.'

'Ha ha,' said Olivia sarcastically, climbing into the passenger seat. 'I feel fine now, thanks for your concern.'

'And what happened once you got back to the precinct with Detective Stabler?'

'We looked for other cases, and turned up seven more. All brunette females, early twenties, seemingly attacked at random in the street.'

MacBride smiled at her. 'But there's nothing to conclusively connect my client to these crimes, is there?'

'At least two other witnesses recalled hearing someone shouting 'Laura, Laura!' replied Olivia. 'Then, we identified a girl who had been attacked, but had survived. Her boyfriend was due to meet her and had been waiting further up the street. He saw the attack and intervened, but not before the girl suffered a broken collarbone and fractured ribs.'

'And what did that tell you?'

'She scratched him,' replied Olivia. 'She had his skin under her nails. We compared it to a saliva smear on the chin of Christine Langton. It was a match. The girl who survived was able to give us a detailed description of the suspect, and told us that she remembered him screaming 'Laura, Laura!' at her insistently, even after she repeated that that was not her name and that he was mistaken. Then we ran the DNA, and it brought up the name of one Matthew Moloney, who had been arrested the week before on charges of breaking and entering, and released on bail. We showed the picture to the girl. She identified him.'

'But that isn't exactly conclusive,' said MacBride. 'She had been severely injured, traumatised. Who knows how much she could really remember?'

'Objection!' shouted Alex, jumping to her feet.

'Withdrawn,' said MacBride. 'But Detective, remind me again when exactly you received the full DNA results on the saliva taken from Christine Langton?'

'Approximately one week after the attack,' replied Olivia.

'But wasn't that after you had decided to arrest my client, had in fact entered his house and entered into a confrontation resulting in his serious injury and near death?'

'Yes,' conceded Olivia, 'but we had more than enough evidence without the DNA-'

'Thank you, Detective, that's enough,' interrupted MacBride.