Thanks for the input so far. I'd really like some more after this chapter to see how you like the direction I'm taking with Lewis ...
34.
Amanda had actually called everyone in, even Barba showed up a little later.
'You called us all in on a Sunday for a lewdness mis-D?' Cragen asked her incredulously.
'There's more,okay.' Amanda maintained. 'The perp, William Lewis, if that's his real name, he's got no ID, he's unemployed, he says he lives at a half-way house in Brooklyn ...'
'So he has a record,' Liv said.
Amanda told them he should, but she couldn't find anything because she couldn't run his prints. They were all burned off. 'Both hands, fresh. He claims it's a kitchen accident.'
She believed this man would not have stopped at flashing and was proud that her dog had chased the perp.
'Captain, I got a feeling about this guy,' Amanda said.
Cragen got that but he wouldn't let her interrogate him herself. He sent in Nick and Olivia because he wanted fresh eyes. Amanda and Fin could interview the girls while Cragen attended to Alice Parker, the lady who had taken a picture of the flasher in the act.
Cragen seemed quite taken with Ms. Parker, who told him she had seen their perp in the park before. She thought he was a predator.
Amanda was right. The guy was a creep. He was putting on an innocent act but there was something very wrong with him. Olivia got very disturbing vibes from him. He even called her out on her 'attitude' while questioning him and finally asked for an attorney.
'This guy's a piece of work,' Olivia said when they left the interrogation room.
'Good call Amanda,' Nick added.
...
Barba tried to get Lewis to plead guilty in exchange for time served so they could get his DNA, but he declined. Since Barba had just been willing to let him walk, no bail was set and the case was held over for trial. Barba encouraged them to keep digging to give him more ammo against Lewis. The next news they got was horrible. Alice Parker had been tortured and raped violently. She told Olivia it was Lewis. He had been in her apartment with a gun. He had tied her up and had burned her and then had done indescribable things to her. Tortured her for eighteen hours at gunpoint. They found pans on the stove with keys and hangers, and lots of sigaret buds. She had been raped, burned and branded.
...
Elliot tried to get her to calm down but Olivia was running on overdrive. She had hardly eaten any of her dinner. Amanda's gut had been so right. She was pacing in her apartment. That poor woman. Fin and Amanda were on a stake-out and she could only hope they would find him soon. The evidence in Ms. Parker's apartment was overwhelming and he was looking at hard time.
'Liv, would you just sit down for a minute?' Elliot pleaded, although he knew she wouldn't calm down. The case was getting to her and she wouldn't stop until it was over. He remembered how they used to go at it together but he was a bystander now. He could make suggestions but he wasn't on the case. They were supposed to be at the house but Olivia would be on call continuously now and wanted to stay close while she still could. This case was their number one priority now. Cragen was livid that the kind lady had been brutalized and had his best detectives working around the clock.
'If you want your old job back, now would be a good time El,' Olivia told him. It was supposed to be a joke but she wasn't smiling as she flopped next to him on the couch. 'You know, once we don't have these apartments anymore, I think it will be back to the cribs for cases like this.'
'And you'd like me to join you there, of course,' Elliot grinned and she finally smiled a real smile. She kissed his nose and he pulled her in for a hug. Just then, her phone rang and she jumped up to answer it.
'They got him!' she said, and he knew she was leaving again.
...
He was so smug. She wanted to wipe that cocky grin off his face. And now he wanted sympathy for his poor living conditions. Fat chance.
'What you did to her, you're lucky I didn't kick your teeth in,' she hissed in his face.
'What I did ... you should be so lucky someone did that to you,' Lewis said quietly.
Nick jumped in, angry, but Olivia smiled and told him it was okay. She was getting him to talk.
'I wanna hear this,' she said. 'I should be so lucky. How?'
She sat down close to him and let him tell her all the gory details. He managed to keep it all hypothetical though, it wasn't a confession. She was getting to him but he was getting to her also. Reading her, probing her with his sick mind. He told him she might want to know how at the beginning, the lady had begged for her life, but by the morning time, she was begging him to take her out of her misery.
'Which one do you think I enjoyed more?' he asked her just before his young attorney came in and dismissed them.
While Lewis faked a suicide attempt to avoid a lineup and was granted a psychological evaluation to see if he was fit to stand trial, Amanda finally succeeded in getting Lewis' records. He had managed to avoid conviction at every turn, however horrendous his crimes were. He surprised them when he told the judge that he wanted a trial and was remanded until then.
Their key witness was Ms. Parker. And then she died. Melinda ruled it a heart attack. Lewis wouldn't take a deal and his young attorney told Barba 'Mr. Lewis believes that detective Benson and SVU have a vendetta against him.' He was getting to her again and he knew it.
...
The trial was a disaster. She couldn't believe he was walking again. The DNA had been compromised and the judge declared a mistrial. His legal aid attorney had actually posted his bail so he was out. Amanda wanted to go out and shoot him but Fin reassured them he would take her out for a drink in stead.
'Liv?' he asked her.
'Ah, rain check. I've barely been home this week,' she replied. Some quality time with Elliot would really do her some good.
'Well, go home. Stay there, two days,' Cragen ordered. 'You show up for work, I'll have you arrested.'
She smiled and complied. There was nothing they could do now anyway.
...
Elliot knew the Lewis case was getting to Olivia and he wanted to help her get her mind off things for a while. He had switched shifts with a co-worker, promising he would make it up to him. Olivia had not been home much so she had not noticed he had taken an earlier shift. He would be off work early and planned on surprising her at their new house. Some of the new furniture had already been delivered there and the curtains had also just arrived. He went out to get two sets of bed linen, four fluffy pillows, and a huge all-seasons comforter. He also bought several scented candles and headed to their new house. Their new home.
...
The apartment was dark when Olivia got home, and she switched on the light in the kitchen. She had just set her purse, keys and phone on the counter when she heard a noise in the living room area. She walked into the darkened room slowly and then heard his voice.
'Welcome home, detective Benson.'
She froze. All of her detective instincts were screaming at her to do something but she was frozen in place. This was not happening. That man was not here, in her apartment.
'I see you were planning on moving without telling me. Now that's not nice, is it?'
His gun was pointed at her forehead and he stepped closer to her. She knew what this man was capable of and her mind was racing. How did he get in here? Why hadn't she reached for her gun when she heard a noise? Nobody was supposed to be there, Elliot was working. She should have had her gun ready.
She had just dropped her things on the kitchen counter, including her phone. Lewis had come even closer and traced her jawline with his gun, daring her to make a move. She felt she was slowly starting to panic. She still looked unfazed on the outside but her guts were in knots. She knew he wasn't going to kill her right away. She was his prey and he was going to do to her what he had done to those other women, unless she could talk him out of it. She took a breath to speak but his hand moved fast and his gun came crashing down on her skull. Everything went black.
...
Elliot got everything ready. The living room was now almost completely furnished, except for Olivia's white couch that was still in her apartment. They had also moved most of her kitchenware already, since they usually ate at his place or ordered in. He put all the curtains in place and prepared their bedroom for their first night. Olivia had opted for wall-to-wall carpeting in the bedroom, a soft, fluffy kind and he could see them have a lot of fun there, on the bed as well as off the bed. He was planning on taking her out to dinner and then surprise her with a visit to the house to spend the night there for the first time.
...
Her head was throbbing and she was keeping her eyes closed. She tried to move but couldn't. Slowly, she opened her eyes. What was going on? Where was she and why couldn't she move? A hard thump next to her head startled her.
'Hey! There she is!' she heard a man say. 'Big beautiful brown eyes. So beautiful.' She blinked a few times, trying to open her eyes wider, and trying desperately to understand what position she was in, literally and figuratively. She turned her head to look up. It was Lewis ... He kept talking to her while she took in her surroundings. She was in her apartment, tied up and with duct tape across her mouth. Suddenly Lewis lifted her up and she noticed she was tied to a chair. One of her own chairs. She felt woozy, like she had too much to drink, and her head hurt like hell. Lewis offered to take the tape off her mouth and she nodded but he pushed her gun in her face, warning her not to scream or he would shove it down her throat. She spat in his face as soon as the tape was off. She told him to just shoot her but that would be the end game, Lewis said.
'We've got a lot of shock and awe to go before we do that,' he told her. Her stomach lurched when she saw him wipe off her saliva from his face and lick it from his own fingers. This was not happening. She would get out of here and he would be put away for good this time. He sat across from her and grabbed her face, forcing her mouth open. Just when he was going to pour some vodka down her throat, her phone rang. She knew it was Elliot and she prayed he would know something was off if she didn't pick up. Lewis let it go to voicemail and she told him it was probably her boyfriend and he should be on his way to her place.
'Boyfriend huh?'
'Yes.'
'Does he have keys?'
'Yes he does.'
Elliot was going to be her salvation. She always answered his calls. Thank God he lived across the street. He'd be there any minute. But Lewis didn't need to know that so she tried to talk him down while he played back Elliot's message on her phone. She suggested he could still walk away and they could pretend he had never been there. He pulled her top down a bit and she winced at the contact. Why was her skin on fire? He had burned her with cigarettes while she was unconsious? Those burns would be pretty hard to pretend away, he told her.
Lewis had finished listening to Elliot's message and played it back for her while stroking her hair. She was disgusted by his touch and listened intently to Elliot's message.
'Hey honey, you don't have your phone on you? Listen, I'd like to take you out to dinner tonight to get your mind off things for a while. How 'bout it, pick you up at seven? Call me back? Love you.'
'Aaw, how cute. He loves you. You always pick up your phone?'
'I do.'
'So how do we keep him from getting worried? I have less time with you here than I thought, so we are going to make the most of it!'
She sighed, trying not to think of all the things this monster had planned for her. He should let her call Elliot back but she knew he wouldn't. It would be too easy to convey to him that there was something wrong. Maybe he would let her text him in stead.
'Let me send him a text message,' she said flatly.
He patted her head gently but suddenly grabbed her face and squeezed it.
'Sure,' he hissed in her face. 'And you'll just send him some secret code that will make him come over even faster. Not a chance sweetheart!'
'Okay, so you type it,' she tried again. He let go of her face and she took a few deep breaths while he contemplated her suggestion. She and Elliot were so in sync that even the slightest hint would make him realize something was off. Her mind was racing. Think Benson, think! Then it came to her in a moment of absolute clarity.
'If you tell him I'll meet him at the restaurant, he won't come here for a while.'
It sounded logical, she knew it. Unless you're practically neighbors. Then it would be anything but logical. She was glad some of her wits were coming back even if she still felt like she was tipsy. She could see Lewis mulling over her words. He was buying it and she tried to keep a straight face. She closed her eyes, pretending to be in pain, so her eyes wouldn't betray the slight feeling of victory she was experiencing. She knew she wasn't there yet. If Elliot wasn't home right now, it might still take some time for him to get to her.
'Hmmmm,' she heard Lewis hum. 'Not bad. What's the catch?'
She felt her chin start to tremble involuntarily and she immediately decided she would play the worried girlfriend card.
'No catch Lewis,' she sighed. 'Just get it over with. It's me you want to hurt, not him.'
She had him. He believed her and she felt tears of relief well up in her eyes.
'You really love the guy that much huh?'
He sounded annoyed and for a few seconds she worried he might not send the text after all and just lash out at her again. She turned her face away from him but he pulled her hair to make her look at him again.
'Here's what I am going to text him,' he told her, while typing on her phone. 'Just tying up some loose ends. No need to pick me up. Text me the address and I'll meet you there around 7.30 ok?' He stared at her to gauge her reaction. She didn't give him any. It was 5.30 pm and he would think they had over two hours before Elliot would notice she wasn't meeting him at the restaurant. He was probably thinking about all the things he could do to her in two hours. Lewis hit the send button and she squeezed her eyes shut again. She knew he was still going to hurt her.
...
Elliot frowned. First she wasn't answering her phone and now this text? He had just left the house and was on his way back to Manhattan. No need to pick her up? As if that would be a gigantic detour. Something was off. He tried calling her again but it went to voicemail again. He didn't leave another message. Maybe the sound was off because she was still working? No, she always had the sound on. This wasn't like Olivia. He shook his head. He couldn't shake off the feeling of unrest that had come over him. He pulled over and texted her the address of the restaurant, adding he would meet her there. He wouldn't of course and drove on a bit faster. He was going straight to her apartment but he felt he needed to play along with her text message, just in case ... he shook his head again. She was fine. She had to be.
...
Lewis was forcing her to drink pure vodka again, hitting her in the face each time she wouldn't swallow. He added some pills too. No wonder she was feeling woozy. Her phone beeped and he walked over to the side table to pick it up. He grinned when he read Elliot's message.
'You like Italian food? It's a classy place. Pity you'll never get there.'
She hung her head, pretending defeat but realizing Elliot had gotten the message. He was coming. She would be okay. He was on his way. Suddenly Lewis yanked her head back by her hair. She felt his hot breath on her lips when he told her,
'I will have some fun with you first. And once your boy toy does show up, we'll have some fun with him as well. Now, let's move this party to the bedroom.'
...
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