Sorry, this chapter took so long, I wrote the majority of it then didn't like it. Pretty sure I rewrote this chapter like three times.
Hope you guys enjoy!
The next morning Olivia woke up to her alarm buzzing on the nightstand. Her thoughts began to wonder about the first time their feelings became aware to one another. It was the beginning of their short but deep relationship. She quickly silenced the intruding object and swung her feet over the side of the bed. Making her way towards the bathroom Olivia grabbed her phone off the charger and double checked to make sure she hadn't slept through any calls.
Her morning routine was made up of a quick shower, getting ready for work, making breakfast, then getting Evam ready for his day as well. After finishing the eggs and bacon she made her way into Evan's room to wake him up. Olivia softly sat on the edge of the bed and ran her hand through the boy's brown wavy locks.
"Good morning, my love," she said sweetly, "it's time to wake up." He groaned in response but opened his bright blue eyes. Evan rolled over onto his back as his mother smiled down at him. "Time to get up buddy, breakfast is ready for you." He yawned and sat up ready for the day.
Evan became more alert and loud as the morning went on and before long they were on their way to Evan's daycare. The cold wind gushed past them as they walked down the sidewalk. After dropping him off with promises of seeing him later she headed to work. The squad room was only half occupied by the time Olivia made it up the steps to the 1-6.
"Goodmorning," she said to Fin as Olivia poured herself a cup of coffee.
"Morning, Liv," he replied and they exchanged a smile. Later that morning, Carisi and Amanda came back from interviewing Hunt's wife, Sheila.
"She wasn't home and the manager said he hadn't seen her since last night," Rollins said as she and Sonny stood in Olivia's office.
"Even the doorman said she left around 10 pm and then never made it back," Carisi stated in agreeance.
"Does the place have security cameras?"
"We checked the footage, and we have a girl coming in the same time a girl named Elise signed in downstairs to visit her, but she leaves after about an hour. Then later we see Mrs. Hunt leaving the building, but never coming back in until around 4 AM," Amanda says looking at her notes.
"We left our card with the doorman and told him to give us a call when she shows, so far no word," Carisi says putting one hand on his hip.
Olivia took off her glasses and pinched her nose, "Okay, so go back and see if Mrs. Hunt is on any of the surveillance video surrounding the building. See if we can get anything from that, maybe she found out about the affair and wanted to get revenge. Keep in mind she is now a suspect." The two detectives nodded and got to work leaving Olivia in her office.
Sometime later Carisi knocked lightly on the open door before walking in to address his Sargent. "Okay, so I got I was looking around at the neighborhood and a block from the murder is another security company, Rollins and I were gonna go check to see if they had cameras around the building, maybe caught the perp walking away from the scene?"
"That's great, Carisi, take Amanda and you two go check it out and let me know what you find," Olivia said. Carisi nodded and walked back into the bullpen.
"I just spoke with Rollins on the phone, she said that the office is more than willing to let us have the outside footage to the building. The secretary said supposedly their manager is aware of the situation and Rollins is waiting on the tapes to get them to TARU," Olivia slides her phone into her back pocket as she and Fin looked at the board trying to piece together everything.
"Okay, so besides that here is what we have so far," Fin hangs up a picture of Sheila Hunt and writes her name beneath it for clarification. The two began going over the information they currently had on hand. Eventually, Rollins and Carisi make it back to the squad room just as Amaro returned from TARU. They quickly begin to piece together the evidence onto the board to get a clear view of everything involved.
"Okay so TARU printed out faces on the security footage during the time frame of the murder," Amaro said looking over the file. "Only three people were caught on this footage, but the images came from three blocks down. Hopefully, the new footage gives us something more solid to work with." He began sifting through the photos in the folder before placing them on the table for the others to look at.
"Facial recognition came up with three names from the DMV database; Joshua Kohl, Heather Meadows, and Quinn Goth. Kohl came back with a misdemeanor drug offense, but other than that that's all we got." He dropped the folder onto the table next to photos and looked around to the detectives. Amaro ran his hand along his chin trying to ponder up an idea of some sort. The tension was thick surrounding the table as they all were confused on how to connect the dots with Sheila still MIA.
Carisi's phone began to ring and he stepped off to the side.
"So let's run Hunt's financials to see if Sheila bought anything the night of the murder or anytime after that. Amaro, get her phone records then take Fin and you two go down and visit Mr. Hunt again, see if he's seen his wife."
Sonny strode back in "We may not have to do that, doorman just called, Sheila showed back up." Everyone in the room straightened to attention.
"Ok Rollins, Carisi go bring her in," the two nodded and quickly headed out the squad room. "Nick, Fin get her financials and phone records and let me know what you find," Benson spoke with authority feeling relieved they finally found a break.
By the end of the day, Sheila had confessed to murdering her soon-to-be ex-husband's lover and was sitting in a jail cell at Rikers awaiting arraignment. The detectives had been content to going back to their normal routines now that this case had been over with. Although this case was closed, didn't mean their work was done. The squad had several other open investigations to work on, as well as trial preps and files to update. These detectives had their fair share of overtime logged from various glimpses of the evil that walked the Earth.
Olivia was sitting in her office going over paperwork to give to Barba for an upcoming trial and combing through her emails to get caught up. Mostly DD5s to sign and meetings to set up with people who requested her attention. Duties of the job mainly were signatures, overseeing investigations, and making sure all the ducks were in the pong at least. She hears Amanda approach the door and looks up meet the blonde's eyes.
"Desk Sargeant called said that a man downstairs received a threatening letter and wanted to speak to Cragen, but…" Amanda trailed off letting the obvious be unsaid. "He said he knew him professionally or something. Didn't give a name."
"Okay, you and Fin go over it with him and then update me on if it's our jurisdiction or not. I'll call in a favor if he really is a friend of Cragen's." Amanda nodded and walked back out into the bullpen.
Finishing up some paperwork she stood up from her desk to give it to Fin. When she approached his desk Olivia placed the file on the tray in the corner.
"I don't want that," he smirked at her.
"Well too bad," she smirked back.
"How was dinner last night?"
"Uh, it was good. Evan and I made spaghetti and then he tried to talk me into a puppy." He laughed.
"And how'd that go for him?"
"It didn't," she stated with a smile.
"Oh c'mon Liv let the kid have a puppy," Carisi threw out from his desk.
Olivia turned to look at him. "Then you can come over to take care of the puppy and Evan, I bet it'd be a real pleasure." Carisi raised his hands in mock surrender and laughed.
"Okay, good point," he said.
"That's what I thought," Olivia said before turning back to Fin to discuss business.
"Someone's supposedly coming in to give us a letter, says he's a friend of Cragen's, you and Amanda are going to talk to him, get the details, and see if we can do anything. If not I'll see if we can call in a favor with someone who has jurisdiction."
"We got it, don't worry, Liv," he smiled at her.
"I never do," she laughed as she walked back into her office. Olivia had barely made it through the door when she heard it.
"Hi, you must be Amanda, the desk Sargent said you may be able to help," Olivia froze at the voice. It couldn't be him, there was no way he would show his face here, not after how he left things.
"Yes, I'm Detective Rollins, my partner and I can speak to you in here," she said as she started to walk over to one of the rooms.
"Um, yes is the Captain in? I was hoping to speak with him," she panicked. It was him.
"Well, unfortunately, Captain Cragen has retired, but if you step back here we can talk in a room with my partner. We can go over the problem."
"God, help us all," she heard Fin say from outside her office. "Elliot freaking Stabler, what're you doing?" She is simply standing behind the only slightly closed door, lurking at the conversation about to happen. She watches the men shake hands and suddenly the room freezes as everyone becomes aware of who exactly this guy is.
Amanda walks over to the pair to keep her partner in check during the exchange knowing how loyal he was to Benson. He had been there for her in the subsequent departure of her lover and partner. Hell, he had been there when her water broke, he had a right to be upset right now as well.
Olivia can tell Elliot does not exactly know what the think of Fin's reaction. She takes in his appearance, he's aged since she last saw him. She knows she has too, but there's something off. His stance has softened since the last time she saw him, a few wrinkles are etched in his face, and facial hair has now grown across his upper lip and on his chin. The short, cropped hairstyle he had then is still there.
She continues to watch him until they disappear into the door to an interrogation room, the one with the viewing window inside her office. Well played, Fin, well played. She watches as Elliot takes in the room, but then takes a seat at the table. Olivia also watches as Fin excuses himself and quickly walks to the opposite door from where they entered and exits into her office.
When he closes the door Fin quickly realizes how frazzled Olivia is.
"Liv-," he begins.
"Fin, please, give me a second." He nods and just watches as she leans her hands against the sill of the window. He watches as she takes in a deep breath, straightens, and looks over at him. "Okay, what?"
"Are you okay?"
She scoffs as she crosses her arms over her chest looking through the window at the uninvited guest.
"He doesn't know you're here."
"Don't tell him."
"Olivia, he deserves-"
"No! He deserves nothing from me. He left not me," she's facing him now.
"You tried so long to contact him, he's here now-"
"It's too late. He's too late. So please, go see what the hell he's here for."
Fin opens his mouth to say something but closes it. She flips on the switch on the speaker but her eyes are staring a hole through the glass, watching as he takes out a bag containing the letter out of his pocket handing it to Amanda. Fin retreats back into the interview room as Amanda is reading the letter and takes a seat next to her. Rollins passes the letter to Fin and makes a quick glance to Olivia.
"When did you receive this?"
"This morning, someone taped it to my door. I put the envelope into a bag," he said passing over the other plastic bag from his coat. "Maybe you'll get fingerprints, but I'm not sure." Fin finishes reading the letter and stares at Olivia through the glass. She can tell it's not good.
"Is this the only contact?" Fin looks at the glass a second longer then looks over at Elliot.
"Um, well last week someone started calling and hanging up at random times. I thought it was just some stupid teenagers, so I switched the number three days ago." Elliot looked defeated almost. He wasn't the hard ass detective he was when he left here. Olivia sat behind the glass carefully watching every move he made.
"Do you understand what the letter means?"
"Not every part, but I got the bigger message. Whoever this is, is not my biggest fan."
"Could it be someone you put away years ago?" Amanda questions.
"I mean its possible, we pissed off a lot of people," her breathing almost stops when she says 'we'. "I wonder if Olivia got one," he whispers to himself, but she can hear him and feels her legs try to give out from under her.
"Does anyone keep contact with her? I haven't talked to her in years." Yea, years… almost four. Amanda turns to look at Fin who is looking at Elliot with an underlying disgust. Amanda had seen that face before and knew that it was only a matter of time. Most people couldn't understand the emotion on his face, but she could and so could Olivia.
Finally, he looks at Amanda, they share a glance then look back to Elliot.
"Yea, I do." Fin spits.
"Thank God, can you check in with her? Make sure she's okay? I would call her, but I don't think she wants to hear from me." He looks down at his hands.
"Why's that?" FIn asks innocently. She catches her breath when Fin speaks. Olivia begins to panic as Elliot freezes. Without thinking she knocks on the window twice to signal Fin he was crossing a line. All eyes are now looking at the window and she shivers when she feels the icy blue ones on her. He can't see her, but she feels as if he staring right through her.
Breaking the awkward silence Amanda stands with the letter and walks into Benson's office. She closes the door and Olivia can barely take her eyes off the window as Rollins hands her the bag. She looks down at it and begins to read.
If you follow the yellow brick road
You will find the city of dreams
But only this brick road is of concrete
You will never find your dreams
Only despair
Sargent, Stabler
Have you counted the ducks lately?
Maybe you should
One could go missing under the water
Then only five would remain
Such a shame
Good luck
She could see the paper moving and quickly realized her hand was shaking. With wide eyes, she looked up to Rollins.
"How…" Olivia can't even form the words. It's like someone is standing on her chest.
"You should call Lucy." That catches her attention and she quickly snaps out of her trance. She walks behind her desk and picks up the phone. Amanda walks back into the room and hands the letter back to Fin. "Have you called your children?"
"Yes, I called them when I got it. Kathy is taking the kids to Florida to visit her Aunt until this is cleared up. I refuse to take any more chances."
"Did you and Kathy have any more kids after Eli?" Fin presses.
"No, we divorced almost a year before I left the force, she's remarried. But that wouldn't stop someone from coming after her I guess." Suddenly Fin realizes that he thinks that six represents Kathy and their kids together. He really didn't know about Evan. He never even listened to the voicemails Olivia left for him.
"Well, we'll admit this into evidence and check to see if anyone with a grudge against you has been recently paroled or let out. Is there anyone off the top of your head that would have it out for you?" Amanda says picking up the bagged envelope as well.
Elliot raises his tired eyes to meet the young detective's. "The list goes on forever."
Both Fin and Amanda are standing in Olivia's office by the time she gets off the phone to put a detail on Lucy and Evan.
"Where are they?"
"They were at the indoor playground by the house, but they're taking a cab home as we speak. Patrol should get there when they do." Fin nodded still silent from the events at hand.
"Liv, maybe you should go home, sit with Evan," Amanda suggested knowing the worried mother wouldn't get anything done. Olivia nods but never gives a verbal response. The room is silent for a minute while Olivia walks over to her desk picking up the picture of her son.
"Does he know I'm here?"
"No," Fin shakes his head. "He doesn't even know you still work here."
She slowly nods taking in everything that's going on. "I should go home, I'll wait until Lucy gets back then go stay with him. Can you guys handle the house?"
Fin takes a step forward, "Of course, Liv, we've got this covered. You go home and make sure the little guy is okay."
Olivia turns from the photo to look him in the eye and for the first time, they realize she has silent tears slowly coming down her face. She quickly wipes them away and rushes past them to the bathroom. She is certain by the way her stomach is churning she is going to be sick. The door slams open and she barely drops to her knees before she gets sick. She barely registers the door opening and Amanda holding back her hair to keep it falling into the sickness she's expelling.