Cragen came out of his office as he saw Elliot and Olivia walk back into the squad room. He'd forced himself to stay calm as Eckerson had come in without her half an hour before, held his tongue as Eckerson had requested to change partners. Cragen would have been glad to grant the Marshal's request and get things at SVU back to normal, but Terry Paige had destroyed normal for a lot of people. Cragen preferred to think of the disruption caused in his own life, the worry for his detectives that was nagging him; the ruin of Paige's victims' lives was too profound to think about at the moment.

Walking over to his detectives, he interrupted their conversation, "Okay, people, now that you're all back, let's see what we got."

Elliot shrugged. "Same as we've had all night, Cap, four missing girls that fit Paige's type, one dead."

It was obviously the first time Olivia had heard about the three new potential victims that Paige might have kidnapped. "That's not his MO. He's always taken one girl at a time and dumped that body before grabbing a new one. And he's gone weeks between grabs. Do we really think he's stockpiling girls now?"

"He just escaped from prison. He knew we'd be on him, so he had his buddy take a few girls so he wouldn't have to go out while he was hiding from us." Elliot continued looking at her as he discreetly stood in front of the board, his right hand slipping behind him to remove the note found with Nicole Martin's body. Cragen chose not to say anything. She didn't need to see it just yet.

Olivia had moved on without noticing her partner's action. "Oh, good, we can now confirm he's been planning this thing for weeks. Now I feel better."

"Hey, at least now we got proof Paige ain't workin' alone," Fin said. "We also know he has somewhere that he stashes 'em and does the deed, so we figured he might be keepin' 'em all there. The crime lab got some stuff under Martin's fingernails that they identified as fertilizer."

"So Paige kept her at his 'farmhouse'?" Olivia scoffed, frustrated. "They didn't find an address by any chance, did they?"

"No," Munch began, looking at her from his desk, "But given that Paige just got out this morning and had only a few hours to rape and murder Martin and dump her body behind the library, his hideout must be somewhere close to the city, if not in it."

Olivia didn't respond, so Cragen took the opportunity to distract her. "Did Cassandra Roberts have anything for us?"

She collected herself and, pulling her eyes from the three unfamiliar photos on the board, ran down the facts she and Eckerson had obtained during their interview with Nicole Martin's roommate. "Cassie was pretty upset. It took us a while to calm her down enough to get anything out of her. She and Nicole went to a club in the Village on Saturday night. Cassie went home early, Nicole stayed with some other friends. When Cassie couldn't track her down on Sunday, she reported Nicole missing, and hadn't seen her or heard from her since."

Cragen experienced a distinct sense of déjà vu as Olivia sat on her desk next to Eckerson, who squeezed her shoulder. He shook off the feeling as he made a conclusion, "So do we think that Martin was grabbed somewhere in the Village on Saturday night or Sunday morning?"

"That's what it looks like."

"Right, so how does that look against our other potentials?" He turned to the detectives who had visited Missing Persons. Elliot glanced over at Munch and Fin, as if telling them he would speak, before he stepped forward.

"Well, we did a search at Missing Persons for missing college girls with brown eyes and brown hair and we came up with four missing in the past week, including our vic." He moved over to the board, pointing at each girl's picture as he related the details of the cases. "Melissa Carpenter, junior at NYU, lives at home and mother reported her missing on Monday, but hasn't seen her since Friday. Sarah Obertello, sophomore at NYU, missing since Friday, no name on who filed the report. And Marina Vasquez, junior at Fordham, missing since Sunday according to her roommate." He paused and looked at Olivia. "And the background's already been done on Nicole Martin, junior at Columbia, reported missing by her roommate on Sunday, found dead today."

"They all got snatched over the weekend," Fin clarified. "No way Paige coulda pulled that off."

"Agreed, but until we get some solid physical evidence, I don't want anyone outside this room knowing that we're looking for an accomplice." Cragen thought for a moment. "Well, no one but Healey and the crime lab, I guess. The press is having enough fun with this story already, and I don't want to give them anything else."

Elliot inclined his head as he spoke. "It's probably also to our advantage that Paige doesn't know that we know he's got help. If he doesn't know we're looking for another guy..."

Eckerson interrupted, "Paige isn't stupid. He knows we're gonna track down the Missing Persons reports and find out, at the very least, that Martin disappeared before he escaped."

"Paige doesn't even know that Martin was reported missing." Elliot stared at Eckerson, getting directly in his face, challenging him. Cragen had the distinct impression that Elliot was using his customary act from the interrogation room to intimidate the Marshal, but didn't take the chance.

Stepping between the two men, he said, "I think Paige is going to figure out that we know about the accomplice at some point, if he hasn't already, so let's treat this like he does know."

"Fine." Elliot sat at his own desk, continuing to glare at Eckerson, who had maintained his position next to Olivia.

Cragen steered the discussion back to the case. "We do have some new information, but I don't know how helpful it's gonna be."

"So we've heard from the ME?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah, Warner sent the autopsy report over. Preliminary testing of the fluids in Nicole Martin indicate a positive match for Paige, and only one sample present. Facial lacs are also an exact match. There's also a slight change in the cause of death."

"She told us it was the same as the others – throat slit, choked on blood."

"Yeah, but the autopsy revealed something new." He hung a photograph of Martin's neck wound on the board and read directly from the report in his hand, "'The throat was cut, but the laceration was not deep enough to cut the trachea. Lacerations on the side of the neck indicate that the external carotid artery and jugular vein were severed, causing the victim to exsanguinate.'"

"He's getting more sadistic." Olivia's voice had gotten very quiet. "It takes a hell of a lot longer to bleed to death than choke."

"Let's just try to focus on catching him. We have contact info for the people who filed the Missing Persons reports on two of our new potentials, so Elliot and Fin, you can take the Carpenter girl's mother and Olivia, you and Eckerson talk to Marina Vasquez's roommate."

"Does that mean I get to take a whip and wooden chair into the steel cage to try to train Healey while everyone else does police work?"

Cragen worked to hold back a smile as he said, "No, John, you and Healey will be tracking down whoever filed the report on Sarah Obertello."

"So I take it we're going to talk to these people tomorrow then?" Eckerson asked, glancing at his watch. "Although, with college students..."

"That's what we've got to go on, so, yeah. Weather permitting, of course. Speaking of this snow, I suggest that you all get out of here before you're trapped in the station for the night." Cragen felt a swell of pride as nobody got up to leave. "Right, well, it's almost midnight, and I doubt we're going to get much done tonight with so little to go on. This isn't going to get any easier tomorrow, so I want everyone to catch a few in the crib. If anyone's still up at 2, I'll kick your ass before I tuck you in myself."

Munch, standing and stretching, quipped, "Gee, and I was gonna ask to borrow the car tomorrow."

Cragen smiled and walked over to pour himself a cup of coffee. As he passed by Elliot's desk on his way back to his office, he heard Olivia say, "Elliot, let me see the note."

"It's not important. No clues, no new info. You don't need to see it." Cragen admired Elliot's desire to shield his partner, but wondered if Elliot had thought his plan through. Concealing evidence from a fellow detective wasn't normally interpreted as a noble gesture.

Olivia apparently felt the same way. "I don't need to see it? Since when am I restricted to seeing only certain pieces of evidence? I'm working this case, same as you. Show me the damn note."

Cragen saw Elliot hand the note to Olivia, and rushed into his office before he could see her response. He'd seen enough of her alarmed and frustrated expressions for one day.