Twenty Nine: Olivia
"Benson! My office!" Oh man. I make an 'oh shit' face at Elliot.
"Who doesn't love to start a Monday morning like that?" He mimics my expression and laughs quietly until he hears Cregan step into the room. His expression changes to a little boy who's about to be caught being bad. I suppress a laugh until Cregan zeros in on me.
"Olivia, now." I book into the office.
"Do I need to take you off of Cabot's case?" Oh Jesus. My worst fear is now on the table.
"No way Captain. You can't take me off. I know I can handle myself." I'm trying so hard to sound calm but I'm panicking.
"Well if you want to stay on it, you need to keep the rest of us in the loop. I understand your feelings for Alex, but that doesn't mean you're working on this case alone. You went to Sing Sing and didn't tell me?" Oh yeah, meant to tell him about that.
"You're right; I should've let you know. I've calmed down a lot about it all."
"Well things are going to heat back up if we get the real info out of Dominic about his partner. What are you going to do then? What are you going to do if we find this guy? I can't have you running off alone, facing him and then blowing his brains out." He has a good point. I hadn't thought that far ahead. All I've been concerned about is finding the bastard and keeping Alex together.
"Now, I get a lot of this with Elliot and there are times I let him make the call but I don't know if I can trust you to tell me if this becomes too much." I'm offended for a second then realize he's right. I'm way too stubborn, I wouldn't back down. Even if he tells me to, there's no way I can now.
"I understand Captain." He eyeballs me and softens his voice.
"Olivia, are you seeing Alex?" Oh Jesus, wasn't ready for that. I just look at him. I don't know if I have the guts to lie to him. Would Alex want me to lie? Would Alex care if I told him? Elliot figured it out on his own, but that's Elliot. He can tell if I'm lying about what I ate for breakfast. How the hell did the Captain know?
"What makes you ask that?" He gives me a look as if to say, 'do you really think I'm that stupid?'
"I've been around a long time Olivia, I think I can still recognize that look people give each other," I look down and fidget with my fingernails, embarrassed, "…no matter how hard the people try to suppress it." I look up and he's smiling at me and I half laugh. I feel relieved that he doesn't care about the fact that we are co-workers. I was sure I'd be in trouble for that one.
"Sorry, I was just hoping no one would notice… for now anyway." I confess.
"Well, I won't say anything but I don't think Cabot will stay you're dirty little secret forever." The statement makes me laugh out loud, mostly because it's true and a little bit because Cregan just called Cabot my 'dirty little secret'. Man, she'll just love that.
"That's true, but for now I was just trying to keep it quiet. As for the case, I don't think anyone could be better for it. I'm totally dedicated to it and besides, you know as well as I do that if you take me off, I'll keep looking anyway. Might as well pay me for my efforts," I laugh at my arrogance and so does he.
"Well, I'll tell you… I gave this a lot of thought before I called you in. I basically came up with the same thing. I know you too well to think you'd ever let someone else be in charge of putting away Cabot's perp. But please do me a favor and stick with Elliot. He knows you better than anyone and I'll trust him to tell me if things are getting out of hand. You can't battle this alone, okay?" I nod and silently curse whoever, knowing I'll have to have a babysitter on this case. Even though I know it's completely appropriate.
"I guess I'll fill in Elliot with the info I've gotten so far, today." I stand to leave but Cregan tells me to wait. He opens his draw and places my gun and badge on his desk.
"You're off ass duty. I won't write you up for the locker room discovery or your visit to Sing Sing… but let's play it straight for the rest of this okay?"
"Thank you Captain, this means a lot. I can get so much more done out there in the field."
"So go do it." He brushes me off like it's no big deal but I know he could get in trouble for letting me off desk assignment early. I head out of the office.
"You grounded?" Elliot asks, his eyes never leaving his computer screen.
"Actually no… even though I probably should be. Cregan let me off ass duty actually." His eyes open wide as he looks at me, then smiles.
"Wow. That was defiantly unexpected! What did he say?" Elliot gives me his full attention. Even though he won't ever admit it out loud, he loves gossip.
I lean closer to his desk to try and keep others from over hearing. "He knows about me and Alex."
"Oh man, was he mad?"
"No, surprisingly enough. He apparently came to terms with the fact that I was not going to let this case go to anyone, whether I was on it or not… so he let me stay on and even gave back my badge so I could go out in the field and get the job done faster."
"That's generous… even for him." He takes a sip from his second coffee of the morning and waits for me to go on.
"You're on the case too now. You're my babysitter." I make a face at him. He laughs into his cup.
"You know that's not true. We just get the job done, you know?" He can try to deflect it all he wants, but we both know he's my mental monitor. "So what do I need to know?"
"Well I went to see this girl Hallie Sullivan at Sing Sing the other day. That's kind of why I got in trouble in the first place. I didn't tell Cregan." He's giving me a confused look and before he even has to ask I jump the gun. "Remember the book I found the key in? Hallie is the one who gave Dom the book."
"Oh yeah, okay. I remember that. Didn't she give him a letter too? Something about hanging in there or he'll end up in Rikers? I guess she called that." He wracks his brain trying to re-familiarize himself with the case.
"Yeah, I tried talking to her about those things but she wasn't very helpful. Apparently she has a history of being a pathological liar so I don't know what's real and what's not." I say in a defeating tone.
"Did she tell you some crazy story or something?" He asks, pulling out his notepad to jot down the info I was giving him. He smoothes his hand over his tie and looks up at my contemplative look.
"Well… she said she was going to marry Dom but she didn't have a ring and her fellow inmate said her story about that changes daily. When I asked her about Dom's problem, she said he didn't have one. When I confronted her about the letter she said he was just an alcoholic. I was just getting no where but I checked the visitor log and saw that Dominic stopped by to visit her a few months before. He must have told her to shut up. It's the only visit on the record... besides me." I rub the back of my neck and log on to the prison records for Hallie.
"Has anyone talked to Dom lately? I mean, he gave us that fake address for Gary so someone should have called him on that. He knew we weren't going to find Gary. I think we need to go pay a visit to Rikers. Maybe we should take Wong." I'm listening to Elliot speak as I surf Hallie's priors. I see Cregan's door fling open and he beelines to us.
"What is it? What's going on?" I see the distress on his face and my heart skips a heat. Elliot sees it too, his blue eyes focused hard on Cregan's distraught face.
"It's Dominic Clark," my heart stops, I hold my breath, "during the transfer to the lower security facility placement, he escaped." He looks at me and I close my gapping mouth and stand. "Olivia, we got every cop out there on it right now."
"I've got to see Alex." I state as if there were no other option in the world.
"Liv, you might now want to tell her just yet. We don't want her to panic." Elliot suggests.
"She should be aware though! What if he goes after her?" I silently curse myself for letting Alex make that deal with Dom for Gary's whereabouts; especially since the address was a dead end.
"Why don't you just call her Liv, see how she's doing and tell her to be safe. You don't have to lie to her just… I don't know." Elliot tries to think of an honest approach to deceive Alex but he's having trouble. He does have a point though. I don't want Alex to have a mental breakdown but I don't want her oblivious either.
I pick up the phone as Cregan tells Elliot that we need to go back and visit Hallie, see if she knows where he's headed. I shake my head angrily that Dom is out in the city somewhere.
"Hello?" Alex's voice comes over the phone loud and clear. She's been organizing her case load all day, preparing to return to work tomorrow.
"Hey Alex, it's me." I say, trying desperately to mask the shaking of my voice. She doesn't miss a beat.
"Liv, is something wrong?" She sounds so worried. Now that I have her here, I don't know if I have the heart to tell her, even though I know I have to.