"So how's Grandpa?" were Voight's first words when he and Olivia reentered their motel room.
Jackie handed him back his phone and answered, "He's doing alright, he asked how I was doing."
"Naturally."
"He said he wants me to come home."
"That's what we all want," Voight told her.
"Roger was with him, so he put him on the phone, he sounds like he's going out of his mind," Jackie added.
"What'd you tell him?" Voight asked.
"I told him I'd be back when my work was done," she said.
Voight turned to Olivia and said light heartedly, "Isn't it cute the way she tries to sound serious?"
"I am serious, Voight," Jackie told him.
"I know you are, but this is serious too," he pointed out, "When this goes down, I don't want to see you anywhere near that room upstairs, you got that?"
"Why?" she asked, "You think I'm going to compromise this case? I handed you this damn case."
"And you're too personally involved," Voight told her, "If I catch you setting one toe in the door, I'm busting your ass all the way back to Chicago." He waved one index finger back and forth to gesture to them and he asked her, "Do you understand the words coming out of my mouth?"
"So what the hell am I supposed to do while you're playing White Hat?" Jackie asked.
"You stay by the car," Voight said, "You can come along when we escort Mr. Garson to the precinct."
Jackie looked to him, then Olivia, then back to Voight and she told him, "This sucks, Voight."
"I know it does," he replied, seeing past this immediate situation and instead seeing the far bigger picture she was actually referring to.
"Jackie," Olivia told her, "You have to let us handle this."
"It was my case first, before either of you two knew anything about it," the girl remarked.
"You're not authorized to handle it," Olivia said, "We are."
"And that makes it right? The only reason you're doing anything about it is because you had to find me in the first place."
"We are not having this discussion again right now," Voight told her, "We need to be ready to move as soon as we hear anything upstairs."
"You think he is going to attack someone tonight?" Jackie asked.
"Positive," he answered.
She cocked her head to one side and said smugly, "Then I guess it's a good thing I decided to take matters into my own hands in the first place and ran away."
"That one's hard to debate, much as I hate it," Voight told her.
Waiting…got to love it. Olivia kept looking to the ceiling waiting for the first sound of anything, she couldn't even hear Garson walking around up there. She kept checking her watch and thought more than once that this might actually be the stakeout that sent her right over the edge. There was a reason most cops in SVU only lasted 2 years, she'd already put in more than 14, she didn't want to leave the job but she often suspected it would be the end of her, be her final undoing. There had already been plenty of close calls on that one: Victor Paul Gitano, infiltrating for the FBI, Sealview, Alex Cabot being shot right in front of her, Elliot having to shoot Jenna Fox in the squad room and his decision not to return to SVU following the shooting. So, many, times, so many times it would've been so easy to just turn in her gun and badge and walk away from it all, but what about the next day?
"You alright, Detective?" Voight asked as he crossed the room and sat down across from her.
"Uh, yeah," she answered absentmindedly, "Just thinking."
Voight sat back and held his arms far to the sides in a gesture of grandeur and said, "Hey, you have my brain, let the picking commence."
His remark drew a small laugh out of her, but she shook it off and told him, "I don't know…you ever think about where you go when you can't do this job anymore?'
"Hasn't come up lately," Voight told her nonchalantly.
"Do you ever wonder about…what options you had, and if it's too late to go back to them?" she asked.
"I've been a cop all my life," Voight said, "That was my option."
"I know," Olivia nodded in agreement, "I just can't help wondering…if I'd be better off transferring to another department."
"Like what, homicide?" Voight asked.
"I have enough of those already in my present department," she told him, and shook her head, "Ironic…Munch left Baltimore and homicide to come to New York and work SVU…several years ago we had a case with an elderly piano teacher who sexually abused his young boy students…he videotaped every session, we confiscated them, had to watch through all of them."
"That would make the business end of a service revolving appetizing to anybody," Voight noted.
"Munch stayed up all night watching them, come morning he swore he was going to go back to homicide, said the dead victims were easier to deal with than the live ones."
Voight shook his head slightly, "Neither one's easier. You get a victim out of their misery, you get the family that's just stepping into it. Or you get one not out of their misery, and that's exactly what they are from here on out."
She looked at him and said, "Jackie told me that you've gotten a lot of heat in Chicago from the brass…they…think you're a dirty cop?"
"Status quo, typical SNAFU of the job," he answered, "Do what you gotta for the job, right?"
"Right," Olivia agreed reluctantly, "They say 'bring us the bad guys, make them think you're one of them, but make the department look good while you do it', they should try it sometime."
"You kidding?" Voight asked, "They'd be dead 2 minutes on the job."
Their conversation was quickly halted by the sound of a struggle coming through the ceiling.
"Let's go!" Voight said as he jumped out of the chair and pulled out his gun.
"Right behind you!" Olivia called as she followed him out the door.
Voight charged up the stairs and came to the door next to Garson's where the noises were coming from and kicked it in. Upon entering the room he saw Garson restraining a woman who was pinned facedown on the bed, but in the struggle several things in the room had been broken, including one lamp, a mirror, and part of the plaster in the wall.
"Let her go!" Voight ordered the man at gunpoint, "Get up, get your hands up!"
Garson stood up and raised his hands but in two quick steps he rushed Voight and tried to get the gun away from him. The two men fought, Voight lost his grip on the gun but managed to drop it out of Garson's reach, and the two men were deadlocked each trying to subdue the other. Garson kneed Voight in the groin, Voight doubled over against Garson but didn't let go of him. Instead he rushed Garson and knocked the man against the wall, hard.
"NYPD, show me your hands!" Olivia charged into the room with her gun drawn.
The two men continued to struggle and each tried to throw the other off of him, Voight maintained a death grip on Garson and charged him again, but this time Garson charged back against him, and instead of hitting the wall again, the two men rammed the window and went through it.
"Voight!" Olivia yelled as she watched the Chicago cop crash through the window as it shattered into a million pieces, she saw the two men take a header off the balcony and they disappeared from sight.
"Voight! Oh my God!" Olivia ran over to the window and looked down to the ground but couldn't see the men. She went back to the woman on the bed and asked her, "Are you alright?"
"I-I think so," she answered shakily.
"Alright, stay here," she told her, and headed for the door.
She got her cell phone out and hit 911, and as soon as the dispatcher started speaking she told them as she headed down the stairs, "This is Manhattan SVU, I need a bus at…" and the words died on her lips as she reached the bottom of the stairs and saw that Voight and Garson were nowhere to be found.
"Alright, now explain to me again, Detective Benson," Lieutenant Murphy said, once everybody had gathered at the motel and gotten filled in on what was happening, "Why you were assisting a Chicago officer on a case 1500 miles out of his jurisdiction, without informing anybody in your department about what you were doing?"
"Yeah, Liv, why didn't you tell us what was going on?" Fin asked.
"It was an unofficial case, it wasn't sex crimes," she answered.
"Exactly the point," Murphy told her, "It's not sex crimes, why did you choose to get involved?"
"Because I've worked with Voight before," she answered, "And he saved my life, I owed him one."
"And this one might just cost you your badge," Murphy told her, "Getting involved on a case you have no business to, failing to report in, failure to let the rest of the squad in on your actions."
"Look!" Olivia told Murphy, fed up with his attitude for one night, "We can get into this pissing contest later about who's wrong, right now we have a violent rapist on the loose, and a missing police officer, both of which have to be injured from the fall, and…" the color drained out of Olivia's face, "Oh my God, Jackie!" It just dawned on Benson that she hadn't seen the girl since she and Voight hotfooted it out of the motel room. "Great, that makes three missing persons."
Rollins came down the motel stairs and said, "Our victim is Nancy Mullins, 23, she's been staying in the room next door to Garson's for a week, she went out to get some ice and he blindsided her and dragged her back in the room, she was assaulted but he didn't have time to rape her yet. His 'kit' of choice is still unused."
"Well she's going to the hospital all the same," Murphy said, "You ride with her, get a statement." He turned back to Olivia, "As for you, Detective…"
"Voight brought this to me for a reason, Murphy," Olivia told him, "Because he trusts me. Now I have to help him." She pointed over to where the cars were parked and told her superior, "I don't know how they got out of here so fast, but Garson's car is gone and so is Voight's rental, we get the GPS technicians' asses out of bed and have them get a readout on where both of the cars are and then we'll know what's going on. Is that alright with you, Murphy?"
The lieutenant stared her down for a minute, before turning to the other SVU detectives and said to them, "Everybody clear? Good, let's roll out."