"What the hell were you playing at?" Cragen demanded of Cassandra once the team returned to the station.

"I was following a lead," she replied. "My partner and I questioned Mark Watson six months ago in connection with a rape homicide. When I saw his name in the crime report, it jumped out at me. I went to his apartment and his friend Terry…"

"Save it," Cragen held up his hand, "I'm not really interested in the whys and wherefores. I don't know about Brooklyn but here in Manhattan, we work as a team. No-one, I repeat, no-one goes off on their own. You could have been killed."

"Let's not pretend that my personal safety is what you're really concerned with Captain," Cassandra replied.

"Excuse me?"

"I'm not stupid, I know I'm not wanted here, not by you and certainly not by your detectives," she thought back to the painful encounter she had had with them at Mark Watson's apartment, "And God knows, I didn't ask to be put on this investigation. But I'm here and everybody's just going to have to deal with it."

Cragen stepped out from behind his desk and eyeballed her, "Detective Whelan, I don't care how you speak to your superiors in your own precinct. I don't even care how you speak to your own father, but you do not, speak to me in that manner. While you're here, you'll give me the respect my rank demands. Do you understand?"

Cassandra sighed heavily, "Yes sir."

"Good, I'm glad we understand each other. Now I suggest you go out there and you apologise to the others, because you're going to need their trust and loyalty during the course of this investigation." He opened his door, "And don't think you're going to get any special favours," he added, "You may be Senator Whelan's daughter, but in here, you're just another detective, got it?"

Cassandra nodded, and left the office, suitably chastised. When she walked back into the squad room, a silence descended, and she knew they had been discussing her. "If anybody's got anything to say, they should say it to my face," she challenged them.

"Don't tempt me," Munch said from his desk,

"Look, I'm sorry, ok? I was trying to help you guys. Believe it or not, that's all I'm here to do."

"Yeah right," Elliot said, "that and spy for Daddy."

"I'm nobody's spy," Cassandra retorted, "I'm a cop just like the rest of you."

"So why did Daddy put you in here then?" Munch asked, "He think you're going to crack the core of crime in New York and give him some dazzling insight that he can take to the voters on election day?"

"I don't control what my father does."

"No, you just do what he tells you," Munch continued.

Cassandra walked over to his desk, "You know something Detective? I really couldn't give a shit what you think about me. I'm here to do a job and nothing else. The sooner you accept that and let me get on with it, the sooner I can be out of your hair and back to my own comfy desk in Brooklyn, ok?"

"Fine by me," Munch replied, "Just don't expect any favours."

Cragen came back out of his office holding a sheet of paper, "I just got a call from the port authorities. They stopped Mark Watson and Laquisha Thomson just before they got on a plane to Paris. They're holding them at the airport for us."

"Finally," Olivia stood up, "some good news."

"I want all of you over there. Olivia, you and Elliot take Watson, Munch, Fin, you two talk to Laquisha. You…" he gestured to Cassandra, "Tag along in the Laquisha interview."

"Great," Munch groaned. "That's all we need."

SSSSSS

"So Mark," Olivia said, as she and Elliot entered the room where Watson was being held, "You thinking of skipping the country?"

"I know my rights," he said stubbornly, "and I don't have to say jack shit to you people."

"You're right, you don't," Olivia continued, "But you'd better, seeing as you're looking good for Felicity Charles' murder."

"I didn't touch the bitch," Mark scowled.

"But you were with her at the party last night," Elliot confirmed.

Mark shrugged, "I might have seen her there."

"Witnesses say you were pretty tight all night. In fact, one witness puts you leaving the party with Felicity."

"So?"

"So, that means you were the last person to see her alive," Olivia said, "What happened, Mark? You take her somewhere to have sex, she backed out, you got angry…"

"No."

"But you did have sex with her."

"There any point in me denying it?"

"Not once we match your DNA," Elliot said, "You should have used a condom."

Mark sighed, "We went for a drive. Felicity was angry with Samantha."

"Samantha Baxter."

"Yeah. Felicity said Samantha was flirting with her boyfriend, Ricky."

"You and Ricky work security together?" Olivia asked.

"Sure, at Pete's Protectors."

"You known him long?"

Ricky shrugged, "Couple of months."

"Was Samantha flirting with him?" Elliot asked.

"She was all over him, man. Felicity was so mad, I thought she was going to kill her. She got lucky just getting a black eye."

"Why didn't Ricky leave the party with her?"

"We get paid by the hour. If we're not there, we don't get paid. Ricky said he couldn't afford to miss out."

"But you could?" Olivia queried.

"Ricky's got student debts. I do all right."

"So, what happened?"

"Felicity told me to drive, so I did. We must have gone around in circles for hours. I stopped under the bridge and she started coming onto me. She said it would serve Ricky right if she got a good time from someone else."

"So you had sex with her." Mark nodded, "Then you bashed her skull in."

"No! After we did it, she started to cry. Said she felt dirty. She jumped out of the car and she ran. I got out after her, but she was gone. I wasn't going to spend my night chasing her around, so I got back in the car and drove off."

"You left her out there alone?" Olivia demanded.

"She wasn't my problem."

SSSSSS

"Laquisha Thomson," Munch read out from the file he was holding, "Twenty four years old…fourteen prostitution raps. Busy girl."

"I don't do that stuff no more," Laquisha protested, "I got a job."

"Oh yeah, doing what?"

"I work in a grocery store."

"Which one?"

"Mr Hassan's on 88th Street."

"How long you been banging Mark?" Fin asked.

"Few weeks."

"Where you meet him?"

"In a bar."

"Which bar?"

"I don't know! It really matter?"

"What happened last night?"

"He showed up at my place around three this morning. Said he'd booked us a holiday to France. Said I should pack quickly cause we had to get the plane." Laquisha picked at one of her nails, "I ain't never been to France."

"My heart's bleeding," Munch replied insincerely, "You didn't think it was suspicious?"

"Why should I?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because one of the girls at the party ended up dead last night?"

"Mark didn't have nothing to do with that!" Laquisha protested.

"You know that for a fact?" Fin demanded.

"Yeah, I do."

"If he didn't do it Laquisha, who did?" Cassandra asked from the corner of the room.

"How the hell should I know?" she retorted, "I look psychic to you?"

"You look like a lot of things to me, but psychic? No."

"You dissing me, bitch?" Laquisha got to her feet and glared at Cassandra.

"No-one's dissing you," Fin put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down in the seat, "We just wanna know what happened."

"I told you, I don't know!"

"You get anything?" Olivia asked, as they reconvened outside in the corridor.

"Nothing," Fin replied, "Claimed she didn't know anything but said Mark wasn't responsible."

"They all say that," Cassandra said.

"Maybe if you hadn't got her rattled, she might have said more," Fin turned on her.

"Maybe if you had tried a bit harder, she might have said more," Cassandra retorted hotly, "Jesus, it was like watching Abbot and Costello."

"You got a better way of doing things?" Munch said, "Cause from where I was standing you kept your pretty mouth shut for most of that interrogation."

"You were doing so well, it felt wrong to stop you," she replied acerbically.

"Ok, ok," Elliot said, "this is getting us nowhere." His mobile rang and he turned away to answer it.

"Watson admitted taking Felicity away from the party and having sex with her, but he says she consented and then ran off shortly afterwards." Olivia said, "Warner only identified one sample of semen."

"Your ME definitely said she was raped?" Cassandra asked.

"No, we lied," Fin replied.

"So we can arrest him for the rape at least, if not the murder," Munch said, "It's gotta be a start."

"No, it's not," Elliot came back to the fold, "That was Cragen. He says we've got to cut both Mark and Laquisha loose."

"What?" Olivia demanded, "But he's admitted to having sex with her."

"I know, but the order's come from on high."

"The brass don't think he's good for it?" Munch asked.

"It's not the brass," Elliot looked at Cassandra, "Seems Senator Whelan doesn't think he's good for it."

SSSSSS

"Senator Whelan please." Cassandra paced while talking into her cell, "It's his daughter."

"I don't believe this," Munch said, "Not only is he determined to force his family on us, now he reckons he's an expert on forensic evidence."

"You've got to be able to do something," Olivia said to Alex Cabot, who had joined them back at the station, "How can he do this?"

"By bending the ear of everyone high up in the judicial system," Alex replied grimly, "He's got a lot of clout."

"But he admitted having sex with Felicity," Olivia persisted, "He said she consented, but Warner said it was definitely rape. The evidence is conclusive."

"The DA doesn't agree."

"What more do they want?"

"The Senator's opinion is that we can't nail Watson for the rape and the murder, then prosecuting for rape alone isn't worth it." Alex replied.

"Even though Watson still committed a crime?" Munch said, "He still raped her even if he didn't kill her."

"The Senate Committee are of the opinion that one person did both acts."

"Based on what?" Olivia declared.

"Based on the fact they think it incredibly unlikely that Mark Watson viciously raped Felicity Charles and then some other random maniac found her and murdered her."

"Watson could have been working with someone, Ricky Brown perhaps," Olivia said, "Watson rapes her, and then lets Ricky finish the job."

"There's no evidence linking Ricky Brown to the scene," Alex reminded her, "All you have is the DNA taken from Felicity which we know will match to Mark Watson. There are no fingerprints on the brick and no fibres on her clothes. The only person in the frame is Watson. For the rape."

"So it's all or nothing?" Munch asked.

"I'm afraid so."

Fin walked over to where Cassandra was still hanging on the phone, "Daddy doesn't want to talk to you, huh?"

She glared at him, "Don't start with me."

"Or what? Daddy's gonna come get me?"

"Why do you hate me so much?" she retorted, "What have I ever done to you?"

Fin had no answer. It was true, she had never done anything to him personally, just royally pissed him off with her lone gunman act and her family connections. At the end of the day, however, she couldn't really help who her father was. He knew that better than most.

"Sorry," he said, before ambling back to his desk.

Cassandra, stunned by the apology, momentarily forgot she was holding and initially missed her father coming onto the line. "Daddy? It's me. What the hell's going on?" She paused, "You can't just pass judgement like that! Mark Watson…yes I realise that but…he admitted that he had sex with her. His DNA is a match, we can get…Daddy, I…hello? Hello?" She pulled the phone away from her ear, "Son of a bitch."

"He stop your trust fund?" Munch asked as she tossed her phone onto the desk.

"He hung up on me."

"Oh my, what a shame."

"Give it a rest, will you please? I'm on your side here. We should be able to convict Watson for the rape."

"Well, we're not going to thanks to Daddy."

Cassandra chose to ignore Munch's comment as Cragen approached, "What now?"

"We still have no idea where Ricky Brown is," Olivia said, more for Alex's benefit than Cassandra's. "No sightings of him at his apartment, at the stables, at the security firm…"

"He's just disappeared into thin air," Elliot finished for her.

"You don't have anything concrete on Brown," Alex said, "Aside from the fact that he was supposedly Felicity's boyfriend and he was at the party, there's nothing that would warrant anything more than simply questioning him."

"What about the college?" Munch said, "Someone there might know where he is."

"Good idea," Cragen said, "Munch, you and Elliot go down there. Talk to his tutors, see if you can maybe find some of these other 'cool' people that Tiffany Lewis was talking about."

"Right," Munch said.

"What can we do about Mark?" Olivia asked.

"Nothing," Cragen replied, "For now, we have to let him go."

"What if he tries to skip the country again?"

"Well, lucky for us, we can confiscate his passport," Alex said, "So he won't be going anywhere."

"Fin, I want you and Cassandra to have another run at Samantha Baxter. Tell her we know how she got that bruise and see if she can give you anything more about what happened after Felicity left the party. Maybe Ricky Brown said something to her, maybe she knows whether Felicity intended to have sex with Watson."

Cassandra looked at Fin and ventured a small smile which he returned.

"What about me?" Olivia asked.

"I want you to talk to Huang, see if we can maybe get a profiler's angle on this. It might help in the long run," Cragen replied.

"I'm on it."

Munch leaned in close to Cassandra as he walked past, "That's H-U-A-N-G, just in case you want to take notes for Daddy."