Story of My Life

Chapter Three

Part One

"We have to find her. Like, right now."

Amanda couldn't stand that they were all lingering, discussing theories and engaging in wild speculation while Olivia was out there, probably tied up in a hotel room, going through God-knows-what.

Elliot looked like he was trying very hard to contain his anger by pinching his lips. But Amanda couldn't tell if this was any different than his natural state, and so she ignored the sulking. Apparently, he couldn't bottle it up any longer. "You think?"

Amanda wanted to smack the sarcasm right off his pouting face. But she spun to face him. "Look, Stabler, this man is dangerous. Not only did he kidnap, drug, beat and rape his victim, but most likely he went back after her after she escaped and disappeared her." Her voice grew softer. "And if he has Olivia now, that means Jessica is probably dead. Which means—"

"I know what it means." Elliot spun hard to face her. "You think I don't know that? But how are we even going to find this guy? There are literally thousands of hotels nearby, hundreds of thousands of rooms."

Fin cut in. "First of all, are we even sure the cop took her?"

Elliot and Amanda demanded in unison, "Yes!"

Fin threw his hands up. "Okay, then."

Kat said, "The truck in the picture isn't his, and the owner has no ties to him. He gave us that to throw us off. So we have no idea what vehicle he's driving. It's not his own car, which is parked in a garage in Manhattan."

Carisi got off the elevator then, and Amanda's heart lifted at the thought that he had dropped his duties at the DA's office to help with the search. "I just got back from the bar. No witnesses so far. And no video footage, of course."

Amanda sighed. "This guy's good, he's a cop. He knew to find a bar that wouldn't have a camera."

Elliot pointed at a map with the location of the bar noted by a pin. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean that there isn't a camera somewhere else on that street."

"Yeah, I'm ahead of you," said Carisi. "I've hit three of the four businesses, I'm waiting to hear from the one across the street. It's a church. Preacher's supposed to call me any time now."

"Great," said Amanda. They all had jobs to do, and they began to scatter, but Carisi held back.

"You okay?"

"No. This is Liv we're searching for." She looked away, hoping to hide the tears starting to well up.

Carisi rested a hand on her shoulder. "We'll find her, okay?"

"We have to. I—we—can't lose her again. Last time was hard enough, and this time—" She shook her head. "We've gotten to know each other a lot better over the years. We're closer now. I don't think I could handle it if something horrible happened to her."

Sonny consoled her the best that she could, but it was a bandaid on the invisible wound gaping in Amanda's heart. She didn't think she could explain the extent of her pain, because she didn't understand it herself. It went beyond just concern for a boss, or a co-worker, or even a friend. And she thought if she told Sonny how deep her feelings went for Olivia, feelings she was just now discovering in her absence, he might take offense. And so she kept her angst to herself and buried herself in her work, her one job now to find the one person whose absence could bring her to her knees.

Part Two

"Please, I really need to go to the bathroom."

Clark spit out his toothpaste and wiped down his leathery face. "You know the rules. Twice a day. It's a huge ordeal, babe."

"I know." She hated the timidness in her own voice. "I just really have to go. I can't help it. Please."

He came over and unhooked her from the bed, but shackled her hands and feet together, so she had to shuffle. On top of that, he kept a gun pointed at her the entire time she was doing her business. Not to mention the fact that she was too weak from all the drugs and stress to put up a fight, even if she saw an opportunity.

She had made it through five days with him. She wasn't absolutely sure it was five days, because it was a hotel, and the light-blocking curtains kept her from knowing if it was day or night, and he didn't sleep at regular times. But she heard a lot more noise at certain times of the day, and she was pretty sure that was during the morning.

She was pretty sure he was having his way with her more than once a day, because it had been way more than five times now, and she had a bad feeling that he was about ready for more. He gave her just enough time in between to come down from her hallucinations and sleep for a few hours, and then he would dose her with more and wait about an hour for her to start tripping.

She couldn't understand why he thought she would feel more loving toward him on the drug. Maybe it was ecstasy, which was supposed to create loving feelings in people. But apparently nobody had informed him that it had the opposite effect on someone who was having their body ravaged by a complete stranger repeatedly while being bound to the bed.

Not to mention, the honeymoon was now over. No more sickly sweet compliments and gentle pampering. Last time he'd lost his temper had been in the middle of her last sexual assault. He was being rough, and she was already sore and tired and had accidentally shouted out in pain.

He had paused only long enough to grab her by her face. "I said, no shouting."

"Sorry. I'm sorry."

He'd struck her so hard that she yelped, and he got up off her and got the gag, shoving it deep into her mouth and leaving her choking for breath. And then he'd gone right back to violating her, and even seemed to enjoy it.

At that point, she'd broken out of her terror long enough to allow her anger to break through. No wonder you can't get a wife any other way. But she couldn't say the words even if she had the courage to, with a cloth stuffed so far into her mouth. In her drugged-up state, she imagined all sorts of heinous variations of that gag—a wet sea slug stuffed into her mouth, water pouring down her throat, a machine that literally sucked the air out of her lungs.

When he was finished and she had sufficiently come down to recognize reality, she was pissed. A comment from him while he was removing the gag set her off. "If you hadn't yelled out, I wouldn't have to shove that thing in your mouth. It's very unattractive."

Her voice was hoarse, but she managed to say, "If you hadn't been so rough, I wouldn't have had to yell."

His eyes blazed with sudden rage. "Rough? You think that was rough? After everything I do for you?" He punctuated his words with a fist to her diaphragm, which knocked the wind out of her. "I'll show you rough."

With that, he pummeled her, landing blows in her stomach and breasts, which hurt like hell. He was always reluctant to hit her in the face, because he said he wanted to "keep her pretty."

She coughed and wheezed so hard after that, she thought maybe he'd punctured a lung. But eventually she recovered, and he pampered her hard then, bringing "gifts" of a sponge bath, wine, chocolate. He began to massage her neck, and then stopped in the middle. "What?" he said, genuinely confused. "What's that face for? You don't forgive me for being hard on you? I'm trying…"

Knowing better than to make him angry again, she thought long and hard before deciding some honesty might soften him. "I miss my son."

Tears began to roll then, and she couldn't even wipe them away. He didn't either, just let them flow right off her face and onto the pillow. But he didn't yell, or start punching her again. "Nothing I can do about that."

In between sniffles, she said, "You could let me go. I promise I wouldn't say anything. I'd give you plenty of time to get away before contacting anyone."

His brow lowered. "But no, you're my wife. Why would I do that? I have to keep you safe. If I let you go, you'll die."

There it was again—death, staring her in the face. Was this how it would end? With him pummeling her to death in a fit of rage? Or would he strangle her? Or just take her out in the woods and shoot her? She thought about Noah if that happened—he had nobody else. At least she knew Amanda would take on the role of family if she was gone, and she'd left him a decent inheritance. But to lose his mother—the thought made her cry harder, and she had to stop.

Now she was on her way to the bathroom, her legs barely able to hold her up. Her muscles had grown so weak from inactivity that she didn't think she could fight him off even if she was unbound. She heard a noise in the hallway, and just as she had many times before, she thought about screaming. It may only take one time for someone to draw attention to management or the police, but so many things could go wrong in the meantime. The person could ignore her screams, or management could ignore reports of it, because this hotel was so seedy she was sure it wouldn't be the first time someone had yelled out. And then he would be able to drag her out of here before she could be rescued, and she'd be dead. She wasn't ready to die.

Her hopes that he would leave to get food at some point had shattered yesterday when she guessed he finally felt comfortable opening up to her about his plans. "I made the mistake last time of leaving. So this time I stocked up on food, so we won't have to leave so quickly. And when we do, I'm taking you with me, and we'll find someplace else."

Their food was mostly pre-packaged junk food and meals ready to eat, lots of water, and she figured he could have several weeks-worth of those. He had also told the maid not to come, that he was not to be disturbed, that he was doing important work in this shady hotel room. She had no idea how many days he had paid for, and he never told her when he planned to move them out. She guessed that the next chance she would have for escape was when he moved her, and then she would have to make it or she might be dead.

One thing was for sure—if she didn't get out of here soon, she was going to lose her mind. Between the hallucinogens and the steady barrage of sexual assaults, it was getting harder to distinguish reality from delusion. There were times when she didn't even notice that he'd crawled off her, and in her deranged haze she thought she was being endlessly violated, only to gradually realize that he was off in the shower or sitting silently in a chair, eating. At what point would she permanently lose the ability to tell the difference between real torture and the nightmares invented by her own psyche?

Part Three

After six days, Amanda was beside herself. She had worked nearly non-stop all week, only taking a break when she was about to fall over from lack of sleep. And then she only slept a couple of hours at a time, waking up to a stale cup of coffee, and doing it all over again.

They had hit roadblocks at every turn. They had been able to get footage from the church's camera across the street from the bar, and it had produced results. There had been a white van parked directly in front of the bar, and it had blocked their view of the moment when Clark had taken Olivia outside, but they knew it had to be his by the way he sped off just minutes after Olivia had sent her text.

But the van had been found the next day, empty, and so he had surely dumped it for another vehicle. Olivia's gun and phone had been found nearby in a pile of garbage. Amanda had searched every inch of that van, but it was back to square one after that.

When they had no leads to follow, she couldn't just sit in the squad room and brainstorm for hours. She needed to do something, and so she went from hotel to hotel looking for clues. Chances were high that he was in Chelsea neighborhood or nearby. That's where he lived, that's where the hotel he'd taken the last victim to was. But she'd hit up the cheapest hotels, and now she moved up to the next tier.

This particular hotel was only two stories and granted easy access straight to the parking lot from each room, like the others she had visited. She questioned the cashier at the front desk, but he was no help, citing "privacy of the guests," much like other front register clerks. But she'd found that the best answers had typically come from the maids, and she discretely approached one coming out of a room near her car.

She brandished her phone with a picture pulled up, one with Olivia smiling that wry smile of hers, probably after someone had just made her laugh. She didn't like to pose. "Excuse me, have you seen this woman?"

"No, Ma'am."

"What about this man?"

After examining a picture of Clark, the maid said, "No."

"Have you seen anyone in a uniform?"

The maid shook her head. "Unless you count the numerous calls we make to the police. There's lots of prostitution, homeless, stirring things up."

Amanda nodded. "Have you noticed anything unusual lately? I mean, more unusual than average? Just—anything…off."

Now the maid rewarded Amanda with a nod. "I heard someone shout out late yesterday afternoon, like they were in pain. But it got quiet again right after that, so I let it go. We get lots of that…"

"That's okay. Where was it coming from?"

The maid pointed. "Over in that group of rooms right there. First floor. Probably one of those three, but not that one."

"Great," said Amanda, gearing up to approach each one individually. "Anything else unusual about any of those rooms?"

"Yeah, actually—" Chills travelled down Amanda's spine before the maid could finish. "There's one that has a guy staying in it. He never comes out. I've never seen him leave, and neither has anyone else. Won't let us clean, either. I can only imagine the mess we'll have to—"

"Thank you." Amanda started heading for her car before waiting to hear more. She had to prepare, because he was here, in that room, and she knew it.

She called Fin first. "I'm getting ready to call it in, but I wanted you to know where we are so you can get over here too."

"Thanks for the heads up. Amanda, you need to wait for back-up. None of that cowboy shit. We don't need two of ours taken—"

"Thanks for the warning Fin, gotta go."

"Amanda—"

With that, she hung up, made the call, and got her gun ready. There was no time to waste. He could be hurting her—or worse—right now.