Disclaimer: Own no one in the World of Wolf. Original characters, I'll own up to.

Chapter 12 - Faults

Anita Van Buren hadn't realized that Erin McCoy would be so beautiful. Danielle Melnick wasn't the least bit surprised. Then again, the other woman knew the girl's mother.

"May we come in?" Anita asked.

Erin nodded, motioning both women to enter the brownstone she called home. "Look, if my mother sent you-."

"She didn't," Danielle said. "Your father's condition has worsened, Erin."

"That's not my fault." She indicated the couches for them to sit on as she vanished into the kitchen.

Anita had to admit that Jack's little girl had indeed grown up. Looking around the apartment, Anita saw things that she and her husband couldn't afford with their combined salary. One item on the glass bookcase caught her attention - a small, wooden toy boat. She knew that boat anywhere, its rightful place once behind the owner's desk, framed by the picture window, as it sat atop a sea of clutter.

"No one's saying it is," Anita said, accepting the refreshments from their hostess. "It's just…Erin, him hearing your voice can do him a lot of good."

Erin shook her head. "No. Last time I spoke to him, I told him exactly what I felt. Look what that did to him."

Anita smiled sadly. "It was something you needed to do, something he wanted you to do."

"Sick son-of-a-,"

"Don't you dare call your father that!" Danielle said. "Sick, yes, but what would you expect? The other part? Don't you dare."

Anita had to hand it to the defense attorney, as if the face-to-face confrontation was what she wanted all along for this purpose. Anita learned a lot about the relationship between Danielle and Jack during the evening drive. In some ways, she couldn't help but wonder what a dynamic, if not volatile couple they'd make had they ever married.

"That wasn't what I meant," Erin said. "It's just…"

This time, Anita offered assistance, "It's just that seeing 'Hang-'em-High-McCoy' in such a state of despair isn't normal or expected, right?"

Erin nodded. "We're not your ideal daughter-father pairing, all right?"

Danielle laughed. "That doesn't exist anywhere, except in the movies. But, he's supported you no matter what, Erin. Whatever you needed or wanted, he came through. We're only asking for a phone call, since another face-to-face is out of the question for you."

Anita had to admit, Danielle had the guilt part down perfectly; she was glad she wasn't on the receiving end of it. "I'm going to tell you that for him, just seeing you was what kept him from completely…giving up," Anita said. At least, that's what she got from Lennie during one of his visits as Jack was with Skoda. "You're right. His work took up more time than it should have. But, dear, that's what fathers tend to do when they're determined to provide everything under the sun for their children. It's not like society allows them to play both parts properly like us mothers."

Danielle took over. "Now I know your mother's called you and she agrees that this behavior is pathetic, even for you."

"My mother hasn't even seen him, so who is she to talk? And she lives closer to him than I do!"

Anita stirred her tea, thinking about the minimal contact from his siblings as well. But that was neither here nor there. Lennie said he didn't blame them, being the first born in his family, also. It was an insecurity issue, he said. She thought it was something else but pushed the thought away, for now.

"He needs to see you, Erin!" Danielle had dropped the niceties.

Erin scoffed. "Why not bring in his latest tramp of a lady friend, huh? I'm not going to hurt him again. To me, he's dead."

Danielle had a confused look on her face as Anita bit back a chuckle. "Wendy Douglas?" Anita said. "You must have seen them that day at the café…She's the woman whose life he saved. She's the one who saved his life." She paused, but no long enough to let Danielle start up again. "Look, if I thought a tape recording from you would do it, I'd ask. He's buried you because in his mind, you've been murdered. You've buried him because…" Anita wasn't going to fill in the blank for Erin.

"I can't," Erin said.

Danielle stood up, angry. "You can't, or you won't?" She walked out the door as Anita offered to help clean away the dishes.

"Just go," Erin said.

Anita shook her head. "Sweetheart-."

"Only my parents call me that!"

"Fair enough," Anita said holding her hands up in an apology. "Erin, help heal one of them. Your mother's visited him once and it didn't do anything. I've visited him and have had little effect." She put a hand on Erin's. "He needs to know his daughter is all right."

----------------

"So, she's dead?" Levka Reardon said as he sat back down on the milk crate in his rented room.

"I'm sorry," Benson said. "Your younger siblings are safe. They're with Child Protective Services."

Stabler sat across from the young man, who was probably only a few years senior to Sasha, but looked a good ten years older. "She said it was time for you to 'Come home,'" Eliot said.

Levka nodded knowingly. "She would. I'm too late."

"Not for the others," Olivia said. "They've been asking for you. They need you."

Eliot cleared his throat. What he had to tell the young man next was going to be hard enough not to have Olivia there, too. Selfishly, he didn't want his partner to leave him now. "There were some other things she wanted you to know, too, Levka" he said. Glancing over his shoulder to his partner, he was impressed and relieved to see an all-too-familiar mask cross over her face.

"The man who was held captive with her did everything he could to try and save her. Instead, he could only offer her final words to you.

"She forgives you and hopes you'd understand her reason for doing what she did. She had faith in you and knew you'd find a way to protect the family. She did what she had to do to-."

"To provide for them, I know," Levka said. "She was taught too well, knew how to be provocative and innocent all at once. She," he began as he took out a soiled handkerchief from his pocket, "she said that she'd find a 'Daddy' to save us and properly care for us. Someone out there existed and she'd find him. Our 'damn daddy's' little girl was going to find the real deal." He paused, sneaking a look at the badges. "I should have killed the old man when I first had a chance."

Olivia spoke up. "But then, you'd be in jail, not him."

Levka shrugged his shoulders. "So? Sasha wouldn't have had to search the streets for a 'daddy' savior, huh."

Eliot felt his chest tighten. Of what little he heard on that tape, 'daddy' was fairly clear. "The guy tried," Eliot said, needing to finish what he had to say while he could. "He regrets having survived, whereas your sister-."

"I'm not mad at the guy. Sasha would have done what she thought…. It sounds like she did find him after all. Thank him for me, would you?" He looked from one detective to the other then back again. "Are there…were there any items she had?"

Eliot shook his head. "Just her words, I'm afraid."

Levka sighed. "That's better than nothing," he said.

------

"Eliot? Are you all right?" Olivia asked once they were back on the road.

He laughed. "Hell of a question to ask, don't you think? Everything fell into a neat, nasty collection of overwhelming facts to Jack's fall, that's all."

Olivia stared at him while they waited at a stop light. "What happened in the interrogation room?" She suspected she knew why their victim would confide in her partner. To try and open up to a woman about what happened invited too much pain, even if he already knew how strong they were. She didn't take the slight personally. "Is all of that what you told him true?"

Eliot nodded slowly, fingers hooking around the support bar on the car frame. "That was part of it. I mean, I told Levka all of his part."

Olivia hadn't expected this turnaround from her partner, first disliking McCoy's part, and now… "There's something else," she said. Boy, did she feel dumb saying that aloud. Of course there was 'something else' when one counted the anger from the others on the team, the verbal beating from Cragen, the pressure from Casey and, oh yeah, the search for the other pervs they dealt with daily.

"Do you know if McCoy's got kids?" he asked.

That was it. They reviewed the facts they could find about the victim's family, and one daughter was listed for Jack. No one had paid attention to it really, thinking it had no bearing on the case at all. Had she been thinking, Olivia would have pointed out that common fact to Eliot sooner if that's what it took to get him out of a funk. "A daughter. why?"

"How old?"

Olivia had to think about that. "In her late twenties, early thirties I think. Why?"

"They close?"

This wasn't fair, she thought. These were questions easily answered by Briscoe, and she said as much.

"Fine," he said, "after I talk to Munch."

There was the other change of dynamics, Olivia thought. She and Fin had talked about it a couple of times, neither one coming up with a satisfying explanation. "Fine," she said.

------------

Fontana looked at the financial reports Green had on his desk. Never mind the fact that the Italian had agreed with Logan about the obsessive factor, what lay before him was clear evidence that Green had crossed a line – again. "What is this supposed to mean, beside you getting kicked off the force, that is?"

"Don't you see it? It's the link between Barnes and-."

"Ed," Fontana said, "we've gone over this too many times now. There's no clear evidence suggesting that Leland's behind it. Remember the restraining order filed against you the last time-?"

Ed shook his head. "Someone had to arrange all of this somehow. The owner of the building, for example, that's Barnes' right? How else do you keep someone hidden that long without raising suspicion?"

"If I knew the answer to that, we wouldn't have a Missing Persons division, now would we? There are hundreds of abandoned buildings in New York, and the only people who pay attention to which ones are worth knowing about are usually the homeless. Let this angle go. There was no conspiracy established by Leland to win round two, got it?"

Disgusted, Ed gathered the papers. "We know without a doubt what Bruner's motive was."

"Really?" To Joe, the motive was too obvious to believe, yet not a good idea to take for granted. "If that's the case, why would he have escaped from prison with a rapist and an arsonist, life sentences to go around? The last two guys never dealt with McCoy in court, so…"

"We still have two others. One of them will know."

Fontana sighed. As many times as he watched the tapes, keeping copies for himself to find suggestions to make to TARU, he was no closer to identifying the last two. It was a wolf tattoo on Marolf's forearm that helped Fontana last time. It helped, yet didn't help when Munch confirmed it for him.

As for the last two men, one seemed all too aware of the cameras while the skinny guy was clueless to them. Had any of the other five been as oblivious about the cameras, Fontana wondered? That seemed to be the case with the recording from what was most likely the restroom.

Joe had returned to the site at least half a dozen times, twice as many if he counted the times Cassady insisted on joining. The building wasn't entirely destroyed, but it wasn't easier to find hints as to the lay of the place. It was Cassady's idea to get the blueprints for the place, but even then, Joe couldn't clearly see where McCoy might have been held.

He thought back to when he had a particularly frustrating afternoon and muttered something about taking McCoy out to the site. Cassady's response was unexpected. Taking McCoy back would mean taking him back in more ways than one and perhaps it wasn't the best of ideas, she said.

"Don't you have an appointment with Logan in IR Two now?" Fontana asked, changing subjects. If he didn't push Green back to the path he should be on, it would be a trade-off of McCoy for Green and that would never do for Joe. "If he's the guy you want to get answers from, then go get them."

On paper, Keegan was harmless – petty theft in a couple of bodegas. If anything, Fontana thought, it would be an uphill battle to leap from that to kidnapping and murder. Watching the skinny guy in the interrogation room with Logan and Green, Fontana had suspicions of his own.