[Insert witty comment about how I don't own Law and Order: SVU.]
Her heels clicked on the marble floor of the classy hotel, her silky hair swinging around behind her. She wore a classy suit, feminine but powerful. She was a no-holds-barred and a take no prisoners sort of gal, out to seize and legally manipulate in any way possible without getting into trouble within the law and code of conduct with her line of work. Thinking about it, that would be ironic, knowing the law forwards and backwards, better than the back of her hand and reciting and using it to her advantage easier than breathing, eating, sleeping, or anything else humans need to survive. But justice was as essential as those things to her, even more so. Sure, it made social encounters short and not-so-sweet and relationships practically nonexistent since one disastrous one a long time ago that hurt too much to mention with a perfect man and a less than ideal situation.
She was, for lack of a less cheesy phrase, bad to the bone, working for good, using anything she needed. Once she was involved, she was totally intrigued, and once she was in she was all in, jumping in the deep end, adding a flip just for kicks, and no room or tolerance for kiddy pools. It was her way or the highway, and usually rightfully so. The stubborn and tough exterior of her demeanor came with the package. The petite, spitfire package that was Casey Novak.
Clutching her color-coded, sensible papers tightly to her chest, and having her briefcase swing on her delicate wrist along with a bracelet for the sake of pure pizzazz, she made her was up the stairs to room 414 to join Olivia, Elliot, and a girl she'd never heard of before. Not that that would be a problem. She'd never been awkward with people, and was only really unlikeable in the courtroom, interrogation room or with people she found especially suspicious or disgusting, none of which she thought she would see in Erin, even from the extremely brief analysis she'd received from Elliot regarding the situation.
"Well my eyes must be betraying me, because I do believe that they spy a certain Casey Novak," Elliot said casually, leaning in the chair, hands behind his back and tired for configuring and analyzing the situation and annoyingly small amount of facts they had and overwhelmingly abundant speculations as Casey helped herself in through the door of the hotel where they were papers, folders, envelopes, and an open laptop laying the center of the madness. Surrounding the large quantities and various qualities of the selection of mess where the three, now four, members of the team. Olivia looked up, as Elliot did, happy for the temporary relief from her caged in thoughts, and Erin peered up as well, trying to forget about where she would be, where she really should be.
Of course, 'should' was probably the wrong word. She was doing what she initially came here to do, right? What she thought at the beginning she would be doing at around this time. But things had changed; it didn't take a lot of pondering to figure out why or how. She should, as a contestant of course, be downstairs right now, with everyone she's met and everything she's been living as. She thinks all of these things, but instead she just swallows them back, putting on a poker face and focusing. Focusing in on something bigger than selfish high school reasons, bigger than herself or even her career.
"You better believe it, because I'm no hallucination. It is I, in the flesh," Casey announced with a signature devious smile, flipping back her smartly straightened hair behind her shoulder, and, though too proud to ever admit it, glad she was back in the company of Olivia and Elliot. Sure, they found sometimes, or a lot, but at the end of the day they really were like a family and though not officially a partner, she was included into that pack-minded 'protect their own' sort of deal.
"Well, well, well, if it isn't Casey Novak," Olivia said, finally catching up and snapping out of her own thoughts.
"Indeed," she said, setting her clip board on the coffee table. "All right, so what do you need me to do, why'd you call me over here? I mean Captain told me the main point, obviously, but usually I just pop up around trial time."
"We think we have a suspect, but we need you to interview a different suspect that we don't think is the main person and will most likely need your help in the courtroom, but still might be involved in some way," Olivia explained.
"Well thank you for that extremely vague and horrendously under detailed syllabus, but I'm going to need a little more than that to go off of. Unless of course you really called me here to join your little slumber party and help paint nails, in which that case I'm sorry I forgot the extra butter popcorn and my sleeping bag."
"Sadly it's slightly a more serious extent than just forgetting high calorie snacks; we think we really may be on to something."
"Which is good, but I do admit I'm a little disappointed you didn't just miss me so much and made an excuse to hang out."
"I'm so sorry to deflate your ghastly oversized ego, Case, but they aren't paying you for nothing so let's get to work," Elliot said, playfully punching her lightly on the arm.
"They don't pay me enough to put up with you that's for sure, but you're right, I want to get this started, so let's go with names first. Who do you want me to talk to exactly?" Casey asked while picking up her clipboard and pen, ready to painstakingly take
"Name's Madeline Anderson, a contestant around Alice's, the girl that was killed, age."
"And why exactly do we think she's even involved."
"First of all she's competitive, obsessively so, and her family isn't much better. I heard her and her mother bickering through the doorway about what they were going to do about the situation, obviously dropping hints that they were involved with something that happened," Olivia explained continuing on to tell exactly what she heard as best she could, angry she didn't think to turn her recorder on, a tool she had on her in the cases like these, but forgetting in the spur of the moment.
"Was there anyone else in that room from what you could hear?"
"Yes, there were people working on the hair and make-up. I can't remember their names, but I can remember the ravaging ladies yelling at them."
"Do you think they could be good witnesses? If they were treated that badly, wouldn't this be a good way to get revenge."
"Possibly."
"No," Erin interrupts, speaking for the first time.
"Dear God, I barely even saw you there. I'm Casey, by the way."
"I kind of figured that out," Erin said with a light chuckle.
"Anyway, why do you say no? Wouldn't it make sense to want to get back at someone who treats you like crap?"
"To normal people maybe, but these are pageant families. They're a pack of rabid animals in more ways than one."
"Interesting metaphor, but I'll role with it. But I disagree. I see people betray others for a living. Don't take this personally but I think I have a little more experience with psychology in the workplace than you do," she said, the pain at remembering Charlie doubling for the general statement, the hurt showing in her eyes not going unnoticed by Olivia. Knowing comfort would be rejected; Olivia let this go, but put on a sympathetic smile anyway, if Casey did happen to glance over in her direction.
"I don't mean to be rude, but you obviously haven't seen a pageant in the works. The structures are much different than real life. You're safer with your workers than your equals for that reason alone, betrayal. Their help can always have something to blackmail with, but they'll stay quiet as long as you do what they want, which usually involves hush money. But if you're talking about you're equals they'll throw you away just so they want watch you decompose. They don't want you're money, and you can't buy them off, so it usually ends in backstabbing. It's sad, but it's true."
Casey took a deep breath. "Well I'm not totally convinced, but you are smart, I'll give you that much. You have a fresh perspective, a new take on things, and I think you have a future in something like this."
Olivia and Elliot's eyes widened slightly at the sight of Casey Novak showing human emotion, not aware she was capable of knocking herself down a notch, and admitting someone else was right. Erin seemed to sense this as well and her eyebrows shot up slightly, though there was no way she could have known initially.
"So what are you saying? You supposedly have this sound suspect in mind, so let's hear it," Casey said, crossing her arms and preparing to listen closely.
"I don't know how he's related, but I'm almost positive Saul has a part in this. Think about it, why would he and Madeline ever come into contact except at meal times?"
"Technically we did see them at a meal time together," Olivia interruptedly joked.
Erin gave her a playful glare and continued. "Madeline's mom is another prime suspicion. She had plenty of motives for her daughter to win and her obvious hatred towards the Jones.' And Mrs. Jones herself."
"Her own mother?" Elliot asked.
"Yes. She had practically no sympathy or mourning period and went about her business as usual."
"But why would she want her obviously successful child gone? That just doesn't make sense unless she had partiality towards another."
"Which, I can tell you, she doesn't. She has a lack of parenting skills in general," Olivia added thinking back to her daughter's run in with an eating disorder and her general dissociation for the fact of anything concerning her kids in general. And yet, somehow she felt Erin was right. Her instinct told her something was…off…about the Jones woman. There wasn't overwhelming evidence, just instinct, which was sometimes more important. Olivia thought this would be one of those times, but would the evidence? Would her coworkers? Would a jury and a judge? They needed some serious dirt, and they needed it fast.
She needed to talk about this with Elliot and Casey, possibly in private. She knew Erin was a strong kid, but this was hard and confusing work, her fatigue was really starting to get the best for her and she really did need a break, though she knew she'd never admit it to even herself.
"So where does the status of our alter egos lie?" Erin asked, biting her lip.
Elliot and Olivia looked to one another.
"Let's keep it up for awhile longer, until we're absolutely sure we won't need them. Once we're in the outs there's no turning back, so you're Juliet until further notice. Speaking of that, maybe you should go downstairs and watch the competition at least, make some excuse up about a stomach bug or something, and maybe you can scratch this round. If we want to keep it up we need to maintain our normalcy."
Erin nodded and walked outside, grabbing her cell phone off the dresser and having changed clothes earlier from her runway dress. She showed a small smile as she stepped into the hallway. She knew where she was going and what she would do. But it wasn't downstairs and certainly not to watch the competition. It was something more interesting, more secret, more important, and potentially much more dangerous. But she had to, and she wanted to be the one to do it no matter what the cost. And so she braced herself, smiled at the best possible outcome, and took the first step toward justice.
The End. JUST KIDDING! Totally kidding guys, just thought I'd be evil and leave you with a cliffhanger. Yeah, that's right! I brought Casey back. And probably could have done a better job writing her, but let me just say, she's sort of a difficult character to write (and rewrite again and again…), but she's one of my favorites so I couldn't resist. Sorry I haven't updated in awhile, just getting back into the swing of school and stuff, so please don't shoot me. You know the drill! Review and tell me how much you adore me! Just kidding, tell me what you actually thought, because I like to hear regardless. Thanks for the reviews thus far! They mean the world to me! *Swoons!* =)