Disclaimer: Everything Law & Order related belongs to Dick Wolf and company, as in the show idea and known characters. But I do own the abstract created characters and plot line.
A/N: Shellster regrets to inform her faithful reviewers and readers that the end is near! Only a few chapters left…sorry…but it has to end. But on a happy Shellster note, today was the last day of the fall semester! Yeah! Its over! I can breathe…but more importantly I can write. Totally sweet!
Wolfwood11: Thanks for replying, dude. You've have some nice little theories formulated. Have you've been taking notes:) But I'm going to blow one of your theories out of the water…er…in chapter nine the sex of the hit is revealed. That's all I'm giving ya! Thanks for taking the time to tell me your hunch. I loved it, it is very much appreciated.
Thanks to everyone who reviewed!
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Four days later Elliot was released from St. Marks, two days after that he was permitted to return to work, with Cragen's blessing of course.
But he did cherish the personal recovery time even if it was under sour circumstances, he loved spending it with his children and Kathy.
As for Cate Monty, she was again presumed dead.
An urban legend erupted as a joke among the Boys in Blue that soon some necking teenagers or fishing twelve year olds would find her body bloated, bleached, beached and riddled with bullets. They just had to wait.
She turned silent.
Was it the end of the heinous deaths?
No one knew.
Work continued, side cases were handed out and investigated while they waited for Cate to make her next move or show up as a corpse.
Six days turned to seven, seven to ten, and still nothing happened.
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The Forty-Eighth Day
September 19, 2005 Monday
"Ten days." Andrew called over the sounds of the city as he and Nadia slathered their hotdogs with chunky condiments, "She must be dead."
"You really think so?" Nadia asked balancing the thin paper and crispy food.
Andrew merely nodded, eyeing the textured relish.
Nadia shrugged, "I wonder when it will stop raining? For real."
He looked up at the gray, threatening clouds, "Soon hopefully."
Then he felt it, that feeling were the back of your neck feels most vulnerable, that feeling that mingles with the inkling that someone is watching you.
It was enough to make him stop admiring his custom hotdog and search for the person staring at him; he ignored Nadia's continued conversation to cut his eyes across the street.
His blue eyes darted from face to face, person to person seeking anything suspicious, seeking her.
"What are you looking at?" Nadia questioned pulling him back from his thoughts.
"What? Oh nothing."
She's dead.
Has to be.
Yeah she is…Right?
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"We have DNA—"
"No."
"We know you did it."
"No I—"
"Yes you did. You raped those little girls!"
"No I didn't! I want my lawyer, now!"
Elliot held back, lowering his hackles and leashing the 'bad cop', It's over for now.
"Fine, wait here." He muttered getting up and leaving suspected rapist Paul St. Croix alone.
Olivia met him in the hall outside the interrogation room handing him a chilled bottle of water.
"Thanks." He murmured cracking the bottle's cap and sipping carefully.
"Cragen's calling in St. Croix's lawyer." She briefed as the two walked toward their own desks.
He shrugged, "He's guilty as sin and he knows it."
"Yeah, DNA, witnesses and several victims, he's going down and he knows it." Olivia professionally agreed.
Elliot pulled his desk chair out and gingerly sat down still quietly slurping at the hydrating liquid.
They both started the slow paperwork on St. Croix; the ball was in his lawyer's court for the time being. Nothing more they could do on that case, for the time being.
The late afternoon slowly dwindled into early evening as the shifts started changing.
Cragen as usual stayed late burning the midnight oil so to speak; Nadia escaped twenty minutes earlier with John and Fin.
Andrew left ten minutes ago, whereas Elliot and Olivia just squared away the rest of St. Croix's paperwork; his arraignment was in a day, something to look forward to.
"Where are you parked today?" He asked as he powered down his laptop.
"Level two." Olivia responded unlocking her bottom desk drawer and removed her purse.
"Oh, well I'll walk you anyway." Elliot replied pulling on his jacket.
She rolled her eyes and he didn't notice, "'K."
They left the office with high sprits with the St. Croix case under wraps for the moment, bid Cragen goodnight and stood in the elevator in silence.
The need for constant conversation between the two was unnecessary, besides they were both exhausted.
"Have you thought of a name yet?" Elliot asked quietly.
"No."
"You haven't told Cragen either, have you."
"No. But I am soon."
Elliot nodded, "Don't wait too long."
She was too tired to argue and let the conversation drop by not responding again.
He glanced over at her silence and got the hint.
The elevator chimed at the passing floors, soft like clock work until they reached level two.
The fingerprint stained doors spread opened to reveal the nearly deserted parking garage and was just in time to fill the elevator with the terrible sound of glass shattering.
The partners instinctively thought the same thing; car wreck.
Olivia was the first to rush out, Elliot at her heels.
She faltered first at what she saw and nearly fell backward, thankfully Elliot caught her.
Six cars remained in the massive garage, one of them Olivia's dented Impala. They were all scattered about the parking slots.
What was unique about the level two of the garage was that it had a small gated patio area, jutting out over the city, dotted with a few small picnic tables.
It had started raining again, sopping the concrete and the plastic glazed picnic tables, running off into the multiple drains.
Parked a few slots back from the gated patio was a dated black Charger with an opened door, rocking violently with a smashed windshield.
It wasn't a car wreck, quite contraire; no it wasn't most definitely two people engaged in combat.
They didn't know who was fighting and cursing at one another so viciously, shaking the vehicle so wildly and didn't care. They were police officers and it was their duty to keep the peace.
The sound of a body being drug off the hood coalesced with the sounds of Elliot and Olivia quick paced footsteps.
Heavy echoes filled the atmosphere bouncing off the concrete structure, and then would fade out along the patio.
"Break it up!" Elliot yelled still not knowing who was fighting.
The more dominate fighter at the moment, drug the lesser one off the hood and along the floor toward the gated patio, slinging the other over the gated fence, jumping over after the other.
Violence filled the small world, combined with screams and smashing fists.
Blood sprayed and clashed against the falling rain drops.
Elliot jumped over the fence first whereas Olivia sided stepped to the gate emerging from the dry over hang to the sopping patio, soaking almost immediately.
Elliot bit his lip as he pulled the one of the fighters from his or her entanglement with the other; Olivia found her place and restrained the other.
All that happened during the next few seconds was pulling, with Elliot and Olivia trying to contain the situation.
"Let me go!" Andrew screamed slinging blood from his bleeding nose under Olivia's death grip. She nearly did out of shock; he was the last person she expected to find herself restraining.
What's going on? She questioned nervously then looked toward Elliot trying to see who he was holding, she gasped when she saw who was twisted in his grasp.
Cate Monty.
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"No! Damnit, Stabler! You don't understand! Let me go!" Cate hollered and withered in Elliot's purchase.
He had no idea who he was holding up until that second and didn't expect it to be Cate Monty, the woman he presumed dead.
Elliot refused to let his clutch weaken as she flexed constantly. She was like holding a snake, a constant convulsing muscle; she wreaked havoc on his joints.
"Olivia, I'm fine. Please let me go." Andrew said calmly, when she didn't he coaxed her again, "I'm glad you two came here when you did. She attacked me." Andrew spat toward Cate who absorbed everything he said over the rain and stopped struggling against Elliot so she could focus on him.
"Lair!" Cate yelled stooping drastically. Elliot followed her bend, swaying like a sapling.
"She hid in the backseat of my car and attempted to strangle me." Apparently that was enough for Olivia to let him go. He straitened up, shifting his jacket and wiped the streaming blood away from his nose.
"No! You don't understand! He'll kill you!" Cate screamed over the rain.
"Shut-up, you stupid bitch." Andrew cursed wiping the rain out of his dirty blonde hair, shaking the stringy clumps.
"One of you help me cuff her." Elliot called as Cate became more violent, wrenching harder in his sticky yet slippery hands.
No! I'm too close! Cate wailed within, at the last second she slung her head backwards connecting with Elliot's nose, one of the most sensitive parts of the human body.
The pain was too great, he let go.
Olivia witnessed at that moment what Elliot lamented to her and Cragen in the hospital. He was right, she had never seen anyone move that fast either.
Cate crouched and twisted quickly relieving Elliot of his firearm before he could stop her, shoving quick bare hands beneath his jacket, around his belt, unsnapping the holster and gaining the upper hand.
Andrew saw his only chance and grabbed Olivia before she could react; groping for his own firearm and shoving his forearm around her neck, then harshly crushed the barrel of the gun against her temple.
She gasped.
Her face filled with shock, then betrayal.
Cate removed the safety before Andrew even had his barrel to Olivia's head.
She leveled the firearm and Elliot slowly regained his ground, watching in horror as the overwhelming event unfolded before his eyes.
Nothing happened for what seemed like an eon.
Only the rain pattered around them, yet everything felt so still.
"Drop it." Andrew ordered to Cate.
"Showing your true colors, Andrew?" Cate countered.
"Do you want her blood on your hands too?" He demanded shoving the barrel harder against Olivia's head, she choked some.
"Tell them who you are, Andrew."
"Shut-up."
"What's a matter Andrew, the world falling apart around you?"
"I told you to drop it!"
"Tell them who you are!"
"Their cops! Their too fuckin' stupid to figure it out for themselves! It doesn't matter now!" Andrew was becoming more hostile pressing harder against Olivia's head causing her to wince, Elliot wanted to kill him.
"You bastard." Elliot whispered ignoring his throbbing nose, Andrew cut his eyes toward him then back at Cate.
"Stabler…meet the coward that shot you at the pier. Meet the coward that shot me three times! Meet the fuck who poisoned me in the hospital! Meet Jon Rice." Cate hissed passionately, twitching her head like a bird at each hostile comment.
"You? You shot me. It was you? You're the leak. You tampered with the files!" Elliot yelled in realization, Andrew stepped back pulling Olivia with him.
The evidence was most certainly stacked against him; it was too much for Elliot and Olivia not to infer.
"Yeah, I tampered with the files, but I'm not the leak. What are you going to do about it? None of you idiot fucks even knew." Jon spat at Elliot grinding the barrel into Olivia's head, she still hadn't spoken once.
Elliot took another step and Jon held Olivia tighter, "Cate, drop the gun, now." He said through gnashed teeth.
She hated doing this, she really did, but she couldn't stand the thought of Olivia being killed because of her.
Cate crouched carefully and set the gun on the wet concrete.
"Now kick it off the building." He ordered, she glanced at Elliot who nodded, slowly she harshly nudged the gun aside.
It skittered on the small flaws in the concrete then sailed off the side of the building beneath the high fence and fell fast to the busy street below.
"Stabler," Jon called, Elliot looked back at him. "Put your hands on your head and sit over there."
He did as Jon asked.
"Do the same thing." Jon directed at Cate, she followed the orders, her eyes never leaving Jon's.
Jon looked smug, but hair-triggered at the same time.
Elliot locked eyes with Olivia, wishing so badly he could speak to her; the fear in her eyes was evident, then it changed, it shifted to something he rarely saw, but knew she was capable of.
Olivia wasn't going to play hostage or human shield anymore; she went for her holstered gun.
Time slowed, as it usually does when one's watching fragile life linger between the two possibilities; continued living and unknown death.
Olivia managed to reach for her firearm, but her fingertips merely glazed the grainy hilt, before Jon smashed the butt of his gun against the side of her head and shoved her aside.
The world faded to black for Olivia Benson, dark, cold and collapsing.
She fell on the nearest picnic table, pulverizing her face against the bench and thoroughly banging and bruising her body.
Seconds later Olivia was lying on the wet concrete on her side, facing away from Jon, Elliot and Cate.
Elliot and Cate reacted in unison during the momentary distraction; neither expected Jon to recover so quickly nor anticipated the gunshot.
The force of the bullet launched Cate flat on her back causing her to veer some. The terrible feeling of having 'the wind knocked out of her' as her father would say, clinched her body.
Cate wheezed hard and saw spots for a moment, peppered on the dreary sky above her.
Then the familiar feeling of a gunshot wound registered in her mind, but the endorphins kicked in numbing the sensation of pain, but she knew it was there.
I should be used to this by now, she thought depressingly as heavier drops of rain pelted her face.
Elliot was spread.
He was like a deer in the headlights, totally powerless to aid his partner lying a few feet away and impotent to Cate who was inhaling wetly and convulsing from the gunshot.
The deep red mixed with the rain rolling toward the nearest drain concreted into the patio deck.
"Step back, now." Jon ordered to Elliot leveling the gun at him. A bolt of lighting streaked the sky behind him, the thunder followed.
"Why are you here, Jon?" Elliot asked wearily taking step back, his mind cluttered with soaring thoughts of his children, Kathy and Olivia and knowing that this, this moment, this time he was going to die.
Where is my angel now? She's almost dead too.
"On your knees, slowly put your hands on your head." Jon ignored his question.
Like a good dog, like a whipped dog, Elliot did what he was told.
Soaked to the flesh now, Elliot felt the tight strain of his slacks over his knees. He had a quick vision of a memory long forgotten of when he would play catcher at his neighborhood sandlot with his friends.
Always catcher, never the pitcher.
The memory faded as he brought his hands up to his head. He fought the urge to shake with dolor and fear as Jon approached, firearm poised and ready, one round less.
"They'll find you, you know. Cragen, John or Fin or even Nadia. They will kill you for this." Elliot drummed to Jon, staring up at the menacing, dead and violent blue eyes.
"No they won't. Because none of them have any idea of what Jon Rice even looks like." He leveled the firearm pointed directly between Elliot's eyes and started to squeeze the trigger when another gunshot filled the air.
Elliot thought he had been shot for the second time that evening only to see Jon's body forced aside and the abstract burst of blood following.
Who?
He looked to his left seeing Cate sitting up and slumped over on her side, one hand clotting the bullet hole at her left breast the other clutching a Derringer. Thin spirals of gun smoke rushed from the cooling barrel.
"I told him I hated guns." Cate muttered with a soft small smile, it caused Elliot to return one.
"Check your partner." She added trying to stand; she didn't have to ask him twice.
Elliot moved quickly to Olivia's side, moving her lightly onto her back, touching her face softy, she didn't groan in reply, she didn't do anything.
But she was breathing, she had a pulse.
Olivia's face had already started turning a light hue of purple, pinpricks of ruby started beading to the surface, she looked so battered.
Cate had finally found her footing. She walked sorely toward Jon's bleeding body, Derringer still in hand and gushing even more from her chest.
She didn't care, she was far to close to stop now.
"Ah fuck…fuck…fuck…" Jon groused quietly, still holding the firearm. Withering against the small plug of lead lodged in his stomach, inching and eating away at the tender flesh and organs.
I missed, she thought depressingly. She had wanted to hit him higher like his heart, but a stomach wound would cause even more pain.
The whites of his eyes lulled about in his sockets, surging from the suffering. When he saw her approach he tried to raise his firearm only to have Cate quickly tread her foot on his wrist.
He sobbed at the pressure, "You bitch."
"What did you say to me that night, all those years ago? As I was restrained to my bed bleeding, childless, raped and sodomized. 'It's nothing personal, it's—just—business.'" Cate drilled quietly raising her Derringer toward his head, "Same here Jon, its just business."
She would have killed him, really would have, with Elliot's back turned and thoroughly distracted by his partner.
She would have, if Elliot hadn't moved when he did, knocking the Derringer from her grasp, causing it to clatter a few feet away, shoving her aside and landing on top of her.
"No!" Cate mourned under his weight.
He groped for his handcuffs, "Stop moving, Cate!"
"God—No damnit!"
Elliot forced one cuff around her while she jerked and shoved against him, pushing hard.
He's forgotten about Jon! Cate thought seriously.
Forcing harder Cate was able to subdue Elliot, briefly.
One with one hand cuffed, she rattled the bracelet along the abrasive floor as her other hand reached for the discarded Derringer.
Elliot reached the gun first though just as her bloody fingertips caressed the hilt.
She sobbed futility as he gained the upper hand again.
"It's over, Cate." He voiced drawing up to his tallest height, the Derringer leveled at point blank range with Cate in his sights.
She was still sprawled on her stomach, leaning back some now. She looked up at him in almost submission, and all she could do was shake her head in remorse.
Half dead and half loyal, Jon found the sly strength to focus, to try and shoot Cate in back.
I can still make it. I can still be free of Philips, free of the hits, free of all this shit…Free to go back to Nevada…
Jon Rice screamed with primal acoustics, pulling together all of his strength, every last fiber of hate and survival, combining it into his last act.
Cate slung her head back toward the terrifying howl, watching the inhuman and vicious creature rolling to its side, aiming and snapping its fragile ribs in the process.
So this is how I die. Cate thought for a second, unsure of were the thought came from, then it was silenced by the gunshot.
(End Chapter Seventeen)
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