UNDISCLOSED LOCATION
WESTERLEIGH, STATEN ISLAND
Before her path had ever crossed with the SVU, the life of Alexandra Caroline Cabot had always been refreshingly normal.
It was very true that people said the Cabots of Manhattan had 'more money than God,' and it was even true the mass ubiquitous 'they' had named the Cabots as as a power family of the city's most social elite, but Alex had never let that inflate her ego. She also wouldn't let the fact that she'd come into three massive inheritances by the age of thirty-five inflate her ego, either. Alex's parents had always kept her feet planted firmly on planet earth, so it was an easy choice for her to go into law. For her, that was normal.
The SVU had turned her life on its head. There were too many ways to count, but Alex would always be grateful. Nothing had prepared her the horrors she'd faced because of the job, though, but she was proud of herself that she'd always come out on top. However, even with all of her crazy stories under her belt, she was experiencing for herself a scenario that nothing at all had ever prepared her for.
Abduction.
"Come on, Diana." Alex looked at her big rounded middle and gave it a rub. "Let mommy know that you're with it. You can do it."
Alex was rewarded with a big, strong kick, and she wept tears of relief. After being nabbed in the alleyway, and then being driven away in a van with an unconscious Trevor Langan beside her, Alex had noticed that baby Diana had stopped moving. Fear had seized her heart because she just knew that she wouldn't be able to handle the loss of another child.
But Diana didn't let her mother down.
"Oh, there's a good girl." Alex rubbed her middle again as she felt a steady stream of kicks and nudges. "You were only having a little snooze, weren't you?"
Diana just kept kicking.
Pleased that the baby was okay, Alex finally afforded herself a look around. She was in what was once a distribution center of some kind, but it had long since been abandoned. Everything was covered in a thin layer of dust, and the feeling in the air was very eerie. On the opposite end of the room, the main door banged open. Alex nearly jumped out of her skin, but all the same, she gave her visitors her best look of death.
"What is this, Garrett?" she hissed at him. "It's been forever, and then you stalk me, and you kidnap my friend and me? Where did you take him? He has a family!"
"He's around. Good thing he's got company."
"Excuse me? Who else have you taken?"
Garrett ignored this and began to close the gap between them. "This sure has been an exciting day so far. I'm just getting warmed up."
"If you kill my friend," said Alex in a warning tone. "It's just as big a crime as killing a cop!"
"I have no interest in something as horrible as murder."
"No?" Alex indicated Garret's tall musclebound companion. "Then why the backup? Too scared to talk to a pregnant woman alone?"
"Oh, don't mind Misha—he's here to make sure that you cooperate with me."
"About what?" Alex began backing up when she saw that Garrett was too close for her liking. "Don't you take another step."
Garrett ignored this, too, and kept advancing until they were less than a foot apart. Alex immediately spat at his feet, in hopes of establishing a boundary.
Garrett spoke in a deadly calm. "You want to know why we're here?"
"YES!"
"Fine. 'Lorelei Knight,' huh? Let's try these words: 'I know who you are,' Alex Cabot."
Her heart both jumped and sank. "How?"
"I have my ways, but with you back in my life, we can be together again—bumping into each other was just meant to be."
Now Alex felt like she was going to throw up. "You caused a scene in public, and we were only 'together' because you failed to mention that I was party to an actual affair! Plus, I have a fiancée, a baby on the way, and still more children in my family than I could have ever dreamed of!"
"Then does that mean you regret being with me?"
Alex hesitated. She didn't know how to answer the question because she'd only ever seen Garrett as a person to have sex with, and as the person she'd lay beside when they were done. That being said, if they hadn't been in an affair and if the baby had survived, she still wouldn't have been able marry Garrett if he'd proposed. Her heart had always belonged to Olivia. A future with Garrett would have never worked—they would more than likely have ended up in a divorce, anyway.
Garrett carried on. "Just imagine how things would have been if you hadn't left: we would go some place warm, and we could have a house, in the countryside. There would be lots of animals, and lots of kids, too."
"No." she finally said.
"Excuse me?"
"I said no to that imagining. I already have a very happy life with someone who I just know is looking for me by now, and besides, I already carried your child, but there was a miscarriage."
SLAP! "Then it doesn't count!"
Alex held a hand to her stinging cheek and tried not to cry as she remembered those brief weeks. Nine of the happiest, most joy-filled weeks during darkest hours of her life.
"Yeah, well, it still matters to me!" she shot back.
"What about the baby that's on the inside right now?"
"I'm due in April, but that's all you're getting."
Garrett smirked. "Perfect."
"What is?"
"This is December, and April is the fourth month in the calendar year—by then, we'll have disappeared so completely that not even your future-intended will be able to find us. For now, you and I are going to talk about how you're one of those Cabots—the same family that's ruled New York City's upper crust for decades." Garrett crossed his arms. "Money like that means you don't have to work a day in your life, so I've decided that you're to be my wife, and we're going to use the Cabot riches to disappear."
"I will never give you anything else of mine!" sneered Alex.
Frustrated, Garrett finally backed up and looked to Misha. "You know what to do."
Misha saluted. "Yes, boss."
And before Alex could so much as protest, Misha placed a bag over her head and was forcing her out of the room.
16th PRECINT
966 WEST 88th STREET
MANHATTAN
After getting back from Staten Island, Olivia was pleasantly surprised to see that Judge Donnelley was hard at work with all of the other detectives. She found out from Amanda when she pulled her aside to fill her in on what had happened while she'd been away that she had actually cleared her schedule so that she could stay to help as long as she could. Clearly, she was as invested in this as the rest of them.
Upon Olivia's attention, the adjudicator even partook with her in a phone conference with the head of the Great Kills police department tell him what was happening. Things went very smoothly, and the chief even agreed to send help out to the park, where Elliot had arrived, to investigate the crime scene. It was good to have some sort of plan in place.
After they hung up, the pair fell quiet, but then Olivia noticed that her associate was deeper in thought than she was. She also had a look on her face that said she wasn't even thinking about the case.
"Elizabeth, what is it?" she said gently.
"Olivia, did you know that I'm a mom?"
"Yes—Alex and Sophia brought it up once. Two sons and a daughter, isn't it? Julian, Silas, and DeLaine?"
"Correct, and my husband's name is Baylor. As far as our kids go, Julian just turned thirty, Silas is twenty-seven, and in February, DeLaine will be twenty-six."
"Wow."
Donnelley smiled at the fascination. "Julian is married to a wonderful woman by name of Harlow, and they have two-year-old girl named August. She's going to be a big sister because Harlow is pregnant with a baby boy, and the due date is exactly a week after mine and Baylor's thirty-first wedding anniversary."
"Wow." Olivia said again. "Your family sounds really beautiful."
"Thank you, and they are. We chose to have kids later than most couples do, but ours were born happy and healthy, so there isn't a single thing we'd change about either of them." Donnelley sat back in her chair. "By the way, I've still been around the block, having adventures, and things like that, outside of the law field."
"Really? Like what?"
"For starters, there was was the time that I got lost just outside of Johannesburg with Baylor."
"Johannesburg?" Olivia said blankly. "As in the city in South Africa?"
"That's the one. Baylor was born there."
Now Olivia was hanging on to every word. "Amazing."
"We've had our ups and downs like every other family, but we've always gotten though it." Donnelley reached across the desk and patted Olivia's hand. "I know that it all seems really dark now, but I promise that it does get better. You are going to see Alex again, and years from now, the two of you are going to look back on all this as yet another of your adventures."
Olivia let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Thank you. Why have you been telling me all this?"
"Because I'm not as cold as the general public makes me out to be, and because like you, I'm a woman in a position of power. I've also been married for quite awhile, and I've had a family for almost just as long." Donnelley gave Olivia's hand another pat, and chose to speak about something cheerful. "What's the name of the baby on the way?"
"Diana Pearl." Olivia said. "Pearls are some of our favorite gemstones, and we had her name picked out before we met Serena Diamond. The baby girls match now."
"That's really special, and I bet they'll be tickled about it when they get older. Why did you choose Diana? It isn't a name you hear much anymore."
"Alex and I named her for Wonder Woman, actually—it turns out that we both read the comic when we were younger, and we both really loved it."
"So you wanted to name your littlest daughter for a hero." Donnelley surmised.
"Uh-huh. Diana means divine, but we also see the name itself as a symbol of strength." Olivia gave another noisy exhale. "Harper is wise beyond her years, and Sophia is as wise, but also fearless when she encounters any kind of obstacle. Melissa is pure joy, and Noah has always been an anchor. Serena shines bright like a star. Diana will be very strong, and she's the blessed little rainbow who holds all of us together—even the grandchildren who haven't been born yet."
Olivia looked to Donnelley, from her side of the desk, only to see her looking back, waiting. It was like she could see into her soul.
So she began the next thought that was on her mind. "May I ask you a favor, Your Honor?"
"Fire away."
"When Alex is back, I'm going to ask her if she would be open to the idea of a small wedding soon, at the courthouse. If she says yes, would you be willing officiate it for us?"
Donnelley gave an answer from the heart. "It would be an honor."
Olivia finally lost her composure altogether, breaking down into the tears she'd been holding back, so Donnelley moved around to her side of the desk and handed her a box of tissues.
"Here you go, Olivia. You need these more than me."
"Thanks."
When she'd cleaned herself up and had stopped crying somewhat, she looked to her friend again.
"Thanks for listening." she said.
"You are very welcome. Do you need anything else?"
Olivia shuffled her feet. "A hug? Please?"
"Of course, Olivia. Come here."
It was times like this when Olivia missed her mother—once they'd both gotten older, and they'd mended their bridges, they had been very close. She had cherished that version of their bond.
For many years after their first encounter with Judge Donnelley, the SVU squad hadn't always gotten along with her, but it had never escaped the lieutenant's notice that she was always helping them out whenever or however she could. In a word, the older woman was the squad godmother, and ever since they'd saved her life, she'd gone so far as to actually become their friend. At the moment, Olivia was discovering that Elizabeth Donnelley had a very warm, welcoming embrace.
They pulled apart after a few moments, which was the precise time that there was a knock on the door.
"Come in!" Olivia called as she brushed out the wrinkles in her shirt.
It was Fin. "Lieutenant, Trevor finished with the sketch artist, and Rollins and Carisi are working on a BOLO and running it through facial recognition."
"Excellent. Did you let Trevor and Maisie go?"
"Yes, and Harper tagged along."
"That's good, Fin. Thanks."
Donnelley cleared her throat, reminding them that she was there, and then spoke directly to Olivia. "I'm going back out there because I still want to see how this ends, and I also want these bastards caught as badly as you do."
"Alright, then. I'll be along in a minute."
She and Fin approved of this answer, so they exited the room, closing the door behind them.
Olivia turned and gazed out of her window at the snowy cityscape, alone with her own thoughts and woes once again.
