Chapter Six: The Search

Elliot and Olivia got to the hospital and headed straight for Callie's room. When they got there they looked through her hospital room door and saw that she was watching TV. They opened the door and walked in, Callie's attention immediately turning away from the television and focusing on who had come through the door.

"Hi Olivia" Callie said with a smile

"Hi sweetheart" she replied as she walked up next to Callie's bed.

Callie's eyes got really big when she saw Olivia's face.

"Did the bad men do that to you?" she asked looking up at the detective

"Well one bad man did" she told the little girl

"Are you okay?" Callie asked

"I'm fine sweetie. Elliot and I wanted to ask you a few more questions, if that's okay"

Callie looked from Olivia to Elliot, who was now standing beside Olivia.

"Okay"

Elliot got two chairs that were at the foot of the bed and brought them over for him and Olivia to sit at. But when he did Callie noticed the back of his head.

"Elliot you got hurt too?" the little girl questioned

"Yeah but I'm okay. You don't need to worry about us, okay" he told her with a smile

"But I don't want you to get hurt because of me" she told them

"Sweetie it's not your fault" Olivia told her reaching her hand out to Callie and taking her smaller hand in her own.

"Callie can you tell us how long those men have hung around with your mom?" Elliot asked

"I don't know"

"Well have they always been around?" he asked

Callie thought long and hard before she looked up at Elliot and smiled,

"Only my mom's boyfriend has been around forever. The other men I met when I was five"

"Okay so they have been around for about a year" Olivia said, mainly to Elliot

He nodded and then looked back over at Callie,

"Do you think they were a friend of your mom's? Or her boyfriend?"

"I don't know" she answered sadly

"That's okay sweetie, you did great" Olivia told her as she squeezed her hand

"So how are you feeling?" Elliot asked, changing the subject

"Better. My tummy doesn't hurt as bad"

"That's good. Looks like your getting better pretty fast" he told her with a smile

"Are you going to find my mom before I get out of the hospital" she asked both of them

Olivia and Elliot looked at each other before Olivia looked down at the little girl,

"We are going to try"

"I don't want to go to the place where bad little girls go"

"What?" asked Olivia confused

"I've been there before and I don't want to go back" Callie said as she began to cry

"Oh sweetie, it's okay" Olivia told her as she moved from the chair to sitting on the bed with Callie.

As soon as she sat down on the bed Callie threw her arms around Olivia's neck and cried into her chest.

"Don't make me go there"

"Sweetie you have to tell me what place this is"

"Mommy told me I was bad last time and that's why I was took there"

"Baby I need you to tell me what it was like" Olivia asked gently as she rocked the little girl back and forth in her bed.

The little girl cried for a little longer before she described the place to Olivia.

"There were other little girls there. They came and got me from my house"

"Who did?" asked Olivia

"The people with the badges. They told me that mommy didn't want me anymore so I had to go there with the other girls"

"Hey sweetheart, were you home alone when the people came to get you?" asked Elliot who was still sitting in the chair beside the bed.

"Uh-huh"

"How long had you been there by yourself?" he asked

"I don't know"

"Was it longer than a day?" he asked

"I think so"

Elliot looked at Olivia and motioned to his phone, to which she just nodded. He got up to walk to the door, but turned back to Olivia and Callie,

"You did great Callie. You're a very brave little girl"

Before leaving the room he took one last look at his partner and the little girl that she was rocking back and forth and smiled. Then he went out into the hall to call the Captain to find out if Callie had ever been in some type of group home.

Elliot talked to the Captain for about fifteen minutes before he was told that Callie had been taken to a group home for girls when she was almost five years old. The neighbors had called the police after they hadn't seen Anna Blake in three days. The police checked up on it the next day and found Callie in the apartment by herself so they took her to the group home where she stayed for almost three weeks before they found her mother. Actually Anna Blake had contacted them when she arrived back at her apartment one night and couldn't find Callie. Social Services didn't want to return the little girl to her mother, but the mother told them that she had hired a babysitter to take care of Callie for a month while she was out of town. After checking out that story they found that she was telling the truth and that she had payed a woman in advance for babysitting, but the woman only showed up one time right before Anna left and then the woman left the little girl alone and took off with the money.

After Elliot had hung up with the Captain he thought about what Callie had said. She had said that bad little girls go there. He was guessing that Anna Blake got someone to pose as a babysitter so that she had an alibi as to why she would have left her five year old daughter alone. Then when the police took her to Social Services Anna Blake found out and got angry. She probably told Callie she was a bad little girl and that's why she had left her and why she was taken to the group home.

Elliot walked back over to the door to Callie's hospital room and looked through the glass window to check on his partner and the little girl. He saw that Olivia was still holding Callie but that she was now sitting more comfortably on the bed with her back up against the wall. It looked like Callie might have fallen asleep in Olivia's arms and Elliot couldn't help but smile at them.

He decided to give Olivia a few more minutes, so he went down the hall to the break room and got two cups of coffee, one for him and one for Olivia. Then he went back to Callie's room and opened the door as quietly as he could. He smiled at Olivia, who returned the smile, before slowly getting up off of the bed and then turning and laying Callie down in the bed. Elliot watched as Olivia pulled the covers up over Callie and kissed her goodnight. Then she turned and followed Elliot out the door.

"Thought you could use this" he said handing her the cup of coffee he had gotten her.

"Thanks" Olivia answered taking the cup from him

"So what should we do?" he asked her as they turned and walked down the hallway to the elevator.

"I suppose we could call Munch and Fin and see what they got" she suggested as they stepped into the elevator along with four other people.

Elliot just nodded as the elevator opened on another floor and two more people got in, causing one man to get shoved into the side of Olivia, which caused her to lose her balance and turn, falling into Elliot's chest, spilling both of their coffee's on both of their shirts.

"Oww, ow, hot" Olivia yelped along with Elliot, as they both grabbed their shirts and tried to pull the material away from their skin.

"I'm so sorry" said the man who had bumped into Olivia

"It's okay not your fault" Elliot told the man as the elevator finally made it to the ground floor.

Elliot and Olivia both got off of the elevator and ran into the nearest restrooms, both stripping away their shirts and soaking them under the water at the bathroom sinks. Some ten minutes later Olivia came out of the restroom and saw Elliot waiting for her. When he saw her he couldn't help but smile. She had put her wet shirt back on and had her jacket pulled around her, to try and hide the fact that her shirt was soaked.

"Shut up" she glared at him

"Hey it's a good look for you Liv" he laughed as they walked out of the hospital and to their car.

"Yeah well it's not fair for you. All you had to do was take off your dress shirt and leave your tank on" she said as they got to their car

"Hey men's tanks are called beaters" he told her as he unlocked the car, "Besides my beater is wet also, see" he said opening his jacket and showing her the big wet circle around his chest"

"Yeah well yours doesn't reveal as much"

"Who said that was a bad thing" he smiled as they got in

"Elliot Stabler I'm going to pretend you didn't say that" she laughed as they both buckled up

They decided to stop by the precinct, where they both had an extra shirt in their lockers. They changed and then Elliot made a call to Munch who told him that they had already been to two of the guys apartments, but there was no sign that anyone had been there in a few days. Elliot told Munch that he and Olivia would check out Andrew McKay's apartment while Munch and Fin stopped by Thomas Staton's apartment.

Olivia and Elliot arrived at the apartment complex where Andy McKay supposedly lived. They both looked at each other before they got out of the car and walked up to the door.

"Wow, this place is nice" commented Olivia

"Yeah and there's probably a nice price to it" Elliot added

They rang some different people in the complex to try and get someone to let them in. After going through about five people one man finally buzzed them in.

"It's pretty hard to get in here too" said Olivia

Elliot nodded as they walked up to the elevator. They got in and went up to the fourth floor, which is the floor Andy was supposed to live. They got out of the elevator and walked down the hallway until they found Apartment 423. Elliot knocked and waited for any kind of response from the other side. He knocked again before saying,

"Andrew McKay it's the police, open up, we have a warrant to search the apartment"

When they still received no answer Elliot looked at Olivia who nodded her head and stepped back so that Elliot could step back and kick open the door. Once he did they went inside with their guns drawn, but found nobody. But as they looked around they could tell that someone hadn't been there in a few days. They began to search for anything that might be useful in finding Anna Blake or any of the other men who were most likely involved in her disappearance. As Elliot was looking through the closet he pulled down a shoe box and found a bag of cocaine inside.

"Liv check this out" he said stepping out of the closet where she could see him. He held up the bag and she just smiled.

"Well jail time definitely didn't change him" she said

"Yeah and I'm betting that something went wrong somewhere and that's why he hasn't come back to his apartment. Because I doubt this guy would leave drugs around when he knew the police would most likely search his place"

Olivia didn't respond to anything Elliot had said and he thought that was a little strange so he stepped out of the bedroom and into the living room where he saw that Olivia had the couch turned over and had another large stash of cocaine in her hand. She turned when she heard Elliot behind her.

"Well I'm guessing he is definitely still selling the stuff" she said still kneeling, taking her knife and cutting the whole bottom of the sofa. As she did nothing but bags of cocaine fell out onto the floor.

"Yeah this guy was definitely still in the game" Elliot agreed

After collecting all of the evidence needed Elliot and Olivia returned to the precinct to compare notes to Munch and Fin. Munch and Fin revealed that they found nothing unusual at any of the apartments, except a stash of child pornography on Thomas Staton's computer. They had searched John Master's apartment but found nothing, not even a trace that Anna Blake had ever been there, but that to all four detectives seemed strange.

While they were all sitting at their desks trying to figure out what to do next Elliot was going through all of the men's files again, to see if they missed something.

"He has house on Staton Island" Elliot said out loud

"What?" Fin questioned from his own desk

"John Mastershas a house on Staton Island" he told the other three detectives as he looked intently at the file.

He then looked across his desk at Olivia and the look on her face told him she was ready to check it out.

"Let's go check it out" she said

"Fin and I will go get a warrant from Casey and meet you guys up there" said Munch, as he and Fin got up and headed out the door.

"All right let's go" said Elliot as he and Olivia both got up, grabbed their jackets and headed out.

By the time Munch and Fin got to Staton Island Olivia and Elliot had been waiting for them for an hour, at least. They were parked down the street fromJohn's house, so Munch and Fin pulled up behind them and parked their car. They were waiting for their local backup to arrive, which Cragen had gladly called in. Their backup soon arrived and all four detectives had suited up in their bullet proof vests, just in case.

They snuck up to the large two story house as quietly as they could. Elliot and Olivia took the front door with two backup police officers, while Munch and Fin took the back door, along with two other police officers. Elliot knocked and announced it was the police.

"Open up, police, we have a warrant"

When there was no response Elliot busted down the front door as Munch and Fin did the same in the back. Munch and Fin took the downstairs, while Olivia and Elliot took the upstairs. Elliot and Olivia entered all four of the upstairs bedrooms with their guns drawn and the two uniformed officers backing them up. Just before they checked the last bedroom they heard Munch give the all clear downstairs. When Elliot swung open the master bedroom door, no one was prepared for what they saw.

Anna Blake was dangling from the ceiling, a rope around her throat, that was then attached to one of the cedar beams that decorated the ceiling. It looked as though the whole thing was carefully planned out on how she was to be hung. There was a large hook in the side of the beam that the rope went through and then it went across the ceiling and down the wall until the end of the rope was tightly tied to a ring on the window sill. She was left only in her underwear and there were clear bruises and burns all over her body.

Elliot turned back to Olivia who looked like she was going to be sick. Olivia just turned around and walked out of the bedroom and looked over the railing down to the living room where she saw Munch and Fin looking up at her.

"We found Anna Blake" she told them as they looked up at her.

They climbed the stairs and walked to the doorway of the master bedroom and looked in to see Anna Blake hanging from the ceiling. Elliot was still in the bedroom looking around for any clues that would place any of the four men in that bedroom. While he was doing that Fin called CSU to have them come and dust for fingerprints and all the other stuff that they did.

All four of the detectives decided they should wait until CSU got there and did their thing before they did any more snooping. So they all went downstairs and outside into the front yard. Olivia sat down on the front steps, while Fin and Munch walked all the way back out to the street to wait for CSU. Elliot was the last one out of the house after the uniformed officers went to tape off the area, and he saw Olivia sitting on the steps so he sat down beside her.

"You okay?" he asked without looking at her

"What am I going to tell her?" she said still looking straight ahead, out into the street.

"You don't have to tell her anything"

She turned to Elliot her eyes slanted, "I should just let some stranger tell her, is that it"

"No, Liv, it's just...You're getting so attached to her"

"And that's a bad thing" she said looking at him, "She doesn't have anybody else"

"I know that she reminds you of yourself, but-"

"Elliot don't start that crap with me okay" she said angrily as she stood up off the steps and turned around to face him.

"Okay, okay" he said throwing his hands up.

"Look I don't want to argue with you Olivia, I just want to know if you're okay" he said sincerely, looking up at her

Olivia shrugged her shoulders as she looked at the ground, before looking back at Elliot. He saw that she was fighting back the urge to cry and all he wanted was to wrap his arms around her and tell her that everything was going to be alright. But he didn't know if it was.

"I promised her we'd find her mom" she said to Elliot while still looking at the ground.

"Liv, we did everything we could"

"Are you sure about that El, because I'm not" she said as she looked at him

She then walked back over to the steps and sat back down beside him.

"The way her mother was portrayed by other people it's probably better for Callie" Elliot said

"She won't think so, she's only six. When I was six I thought my mom was the best mom in the world." Olivia laughed as she said the last part, "How wrong was I, huh"

Elliot turned to look at Olivia and she had a smile on her face.

"Now when I look back, I think, gosh it would have been better for me if someone would have just taken me away from her" she said, turning to look at Elliot, the tears still evident in her eyes.

"Liv"

"It's no big deal Elliot, I'm fine, my past is in the past. But this little girl, I'm going to make sure she has one hell of a future" she said as she stood up and looked around at all of the nice houses, "I'm going to find the best family for her"

Elliot smiled as he listened to her and watched as she let a small smile escape her lips when she was talking about finding the best family for Callie.

"Isn't that Social Services job" he said with a smile

She turned back around and looked at him before smiling and saying,

"Well yes, but I'm going to make sure that I have the final say"

Elliot let a small laugh escape him and before he could respond CSU had arrived, so it was back to the case and the murder of Anna Blake. It seemed the deeper they dug the worse the case became.

A/N: Hope ya'll enjoyed this chapter and please keep up the great reviews, it always makes me want to write more and try to make each chapter better than the last one. Oh yeah and if you're reading this before the episode "Fault" is aired tonight then all I can say is Oh my gosh I have so been waiting for this episode for a long time, and I am so ready for it to be night time so that I can watch it. Anyways pleeeeeasssse don't forget to review. Thanks!