PART 1

"Mom, can we go home now?"

"In a minute, Hanson. I promise." Georgina Lewis put an arm around her son's shoulder and drew him into her lap. "I just need to tell the police officer what I saw, okay?"

"You mean how the bad man tried to take Elian?" The seven year old boy looked up at Detective Rollins and put his thumb into his mouth. Being at the police department, and seeing all these people in uniforms, and even "bad guys" in handcuffs was exciting, but also tiring for him.

Rollins smiled down at him briefly.

"Anyway," Georgina continued, "I had told Hanson to wait for me in the schoolyard where the teachers could see him. But when I came, he was still inside in the restroom – I didn't know that, though, so I looked around and saw the kidnapping. Or the almost-kidnapping. Well, it all happened pretty fast."

"Do you know the vic… Do you know the boy?"

"Elian Desmond? He's in Hanson's…"

"Is he all right?" another female voice interrupted her.

Rollins turned around and saw young woman standing there. Her hand clutched the strap of a satchel bag so tightly that her knuckles had turned white. She was dressed in a tight black mini skirt and a turquoise leather jacket with a white top underneath that was sheer enough to reveal the lace pattern of her lilac bra. A hand with lilac-coloured finger nails run through her brunette pixie haircut. She was strikingly skinny – slender wrists, tiny waist, and a bony cleavage that made her appear much younger and more child-like than she probably was. Still, she couldn't be older than in her early twenties, Rollins guessed.

There was also something oddly familiar about her – the way her almost black eyes pierced into the detective's own…

"Elian? How is he? Where is he?" the girl asked again, leaning a little forward towards Rollins.

"You're his…"

"I'm Lola Desmond, Elian's mother," the stranger explained, her voice trembling impatiently now. "Now, can I see my son, please?"

"I wanted to finish my picture in arts class today, but I couldn't. I have to do it tomorrow, the teacher said." Elian blinked a few times, and watched Detective Benson with rounded eyes as she handed him a glass of milk. "Thank you," he said politely. He had overcome the first shock remarkably fast, and now calmly told Olivia about his day at school, stubbornly avoiding to mention how his day had ended, though.

"What did you draw, Elian?" Olivia asked. She was sitting on the colourful carpet with her little companion. It was a room they had particularly furnished for children with toys and child-sized chairs and tables. Elian, though, had chosen to sit on the carpet – not saying a word at first – and had started playing with a toy car in silence.

Olivia, however, had been able to make him talk easily, as she had started asking him idle question about his favourite games, or his family and friends at school. Quiet frequently, he demanded for his mother to come, though, and after a while, he grew slightly anxious again.

"I painted the sea. And birds. And parrots. My mommy likes them," he growled.

"Was your mommy supposed to pick you up from school?"

He shrugged.

"Doesn't she pick you up usually?"

"Sometimes."

"And other times?"

"Johnny."

"Who's Johnny?"

"Mommy's going to marry him. He's her financy."

"You mean fiancé?" Benson chuckled. "So you like Johnny, Elian?"

The little boy nodded enthusiastically, and the tension in his mimic muscles eased. "When he picks me up, we always go to the park or the movies or the mall first. And he always buys pizza or burgers. But my mom doesn't like that – she says it's not good for me. So we keep it a secret." As he grinned, he exposed a gap in between his front teeth.

"Elian!"

The boy jumped to his feet as he heard his name, and ran towards the young woman who had just opened the door.

"Mommy! Mommy!" he cried out. His mother knelt down and he fell into her arms, clinging to her tightly.

Rollins was standing in the doorframe, raising her eyebrows as Olivia's gaze met hers.

"Are you okay? Are you hurt?" Elian's mother asked him as she held him at arm's length to check if any visible harm had been done to her son.

He started to cry and sob then, hugging his mom once more and she rubbed his trembling back. "Hush, it's okay. I'm here – nothing's gonna happen. I promise. I'm here. It's okay," she whispered to him. "I'm never going to let anything happen to you."

"Lola Desmond," Olivia repeated the name pensively.

"Rings a bell?" Rollins asked.

"Indeed, it does," the other detective admitted and sat down at her desk. The two women had decided to give mother and son some privacy, so Elian could calm down. "Her name has been on the New York Times' Bestseller List for several months now." She opened her laptop and tipped the name into her search engine. "She wrote – I quote – 'a provocative requiem to the abuse she endured as a child and young teenager, leaving her readers with a feeling in between nauseating humour and fascinating authenticity…' and so on and so on."

"So she's a writer?" Rollins asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest as she took a look at the laptop herself over her colleague's shoulder.

"Not only… She's also a model, one of Arthur Banckroft's favourite sources of inspirations," Olivia read on.

"Doesn't he usually photograph his "muses" at least half-naked?" As a response to Rollins' comment, a black and white picture appeared, showing a topless Lola Desmond who had turned her back to the beholder and looked over her shoulder with piercing, dark eyes. "How old is she?"

"I'm twenty-three." The girl in question had appeared in front of Olivia's desk, surveying the detective with a stern expression on her face. Elian was standing next to his mother, holding her hand. "Making me seventeen when I became a mother," she went on. "If you want to know anything about me, you can also ask."

"We're sorry," Olivia replied calmly.

"Elian," Amanda said, "Why don't we go and play for a little longer, so your mom and Detective Benson can talk?"

The boy looked up at his mother for reassurance, and she smiled down at him. "It'll be just a minute, champ, okay?"

"Okay," he agreed hesitantly.

"Take a seat," Olivia offered.

"Thanks." Lola didn't follow the invitation, though, but remained standing and crossed her arms in front of her chest. "So, you bother to tell me who tried to kidnap my son?"

"That's a question we have to find the answer to together. A passer-by managed to free your son from out of the kidnapper's arms, but the man escaped in his van. We have the license number of the car. The vehicle has been reported stolen in Manhattan a week ago." She eyed the young woman with suspicion, not being able foretell Lola's reaction to the news.

"So he's still out there? Where's the man who saved Elian?"

"He's just helping us creating a sketch of the kidnapper. He said it was a middle-aged man, might be Hispanic."

Lola bit her bottom lip and nodded slowly. "Okay. What are you going to do then?"

"Did you notice anything lately? Someone following you or Elian? Something unusual?"

"No. Nothing."

"Is there anyone you can think of who would…"

"Of course!" She rolled her eyes and eventually sat down. "Of course there is! I get crazy fan mail all the time. People who want to meet me and want to do things with me I'm too shy to mention – and I'm someone who posed naked when she was only fourteen. Last week, someone send me an e-mail, writing about how cute my son was, and describing with very plastic details how he'd like to make me another one. But nothing seriously ever happened, and none of these perverted jerks ever threatened my son personally. If they did, I wouldn't have let him out of sight for only a minute, I swear!"

"Do you pick him up from school usually?"

"Of course I do! Or I take care someone else does. Johnny, my boyfriend, was supposed to get him today. I don't know why he didn't show up. I've already tried to call him, but he hasn't answered yet." She sighed deeply. "And before you ask: Yes, he's reliable, he has never let me down with Elian before."

"What about Elian's father?" Olivia went on, ignoring the slightly aggressive attitude of the young mother.

"Didn't my wikipedia article reveal that scandalous fact?" Lola snapped, crossing her legs and arms in synchronism. "His father was Seth Polanszki – or Seth J. as he is known to some people."

"The rock star?" Olivia raised her eyebrows. The man had been vaguely familiar to her since the teenaged daughter of a domestic-violence victim had fancied the man and talked about almost nothing else to Olivia. But that had been years ago! How am I able to remember such minor facts, she wondered for a moment.

"I wouldn't call him a star exactly – maybe he would have been today if he hadn't died of an overdose four years ago. But he decided to blow away his mind," Lola stated coldly. "We met at a crappy youth facility in Frisco when he was fifteen and I was thirteen. He always had a melody in his head, and I did the texting. When he went to New York, he asked me to come, too, and be his songwriter. A few of the songs I wrote for him caught the attention of a journalist, and he offered me to publish short stories on his blog. The stories kind of hit a nerve or something… And that's how I became an author."

"That is impressive," Olivia said genuinely.

Lola shrugged. "It's just… The only thing I was always good at, you know."

"Writing?"

"Crashing conventions. Doing what everyone else is afraid of – saying things no one wants to admit to himself. It's probably because I have learned early in my life that my dignity is worth nothing if I don't earn it myself." She gazed directly into Olivia's eyes as she finished the sentence, and the look made the detective's stomach feel cold as ice for a few seconds.

"What about your boyfriend? Does he get along with Elian?"

"He adores Elian. I know this is probably what all the beaten-down single mothers say about their relationships, too… But I think Johnny loves Elian as if he were his own child."

"You think?"

"Well, my dad was a drug-addicted jerk who didn't give a damn about me – and Elian's biological father was so self-absorbed that there was no space for a child in his life either. I don't have a very clear idea of how a functional father-child-relationship should be, so I can only speculate… But Johnny loves Elian, and he takes very good care of him. Besides, I would never let anyone into my son's life if I weren't a hundred percent sure that person wouldn't do him any harm."

Olivia believed her. The way Lola clenched her hands into fists as she spoke of protecting her child, how her backbone straightened that moment - like a lioness about to jump at the enemy – and how she met Olivia's gaze directly… All these tiny gestures told the detective all she needed to see that the younger woman honestly meant what she said.

"I can't help you right now," Lola eventually said. "There is no one in particular whom I can think of… who might want to hurt Elian and me."

"I need these e-mails and fan letters you mentioned," Olivia went on.

"Of course."

"But I think you should take Elian home now. It's been a hard day."

Lola chuckled drily as she got up. "It's been hell…"