I own nothing.
Elliot was right about Lionel Sachet.
The probation officer found his apartment deserted. His ankle tracer lay mostly intact on the floor, along with the blowtorch, strips of an insulated heat shield, and homemade battery pack Sachet had used to remove it without disabling the transponder.
Maureen hadn't had to glance twice at the photo lineup before IDing him. The man really was striking looking – handsome, even. Luminous green eyes, a largish nose, well-carved cheekbones, and shaggy brown hair that would actually be stylish if it didn't accentuate his caged-animal expression.
But they couldn't find him.
There was a delay on getting information from the case's most important clue, the package Sachet had left in the girls' dorm room. X-rays revealed several tubes of liquid inside it, and a bomb squad had to be called in. The box was taken to a lab outside the city, where it turned out to contain, carefully foam-wrapped, three small sealed vials:
One of blood.
One of salt water.
And one with a note curled picturesquely into a little scroll: a message in a bottle.
In perfect handwriting, it read,
Eight years ago you took me apart. Now I need part of you to make myself whole.
I have decided, however, that eight years in prison is not quite a fair exchange for eighteen years of fatherhood. I give you my blood and tears in payment for the blood and tears of your daughter.
You will hear from me soon.
It was covered in Sachet's fingerprints; he hadn't made any effort to hide his identity.
Elliot crumpled his faxed copy of the note in disgust. It was ten at night. He and Olivia had made no headway; no one had seen Sachet come or go from the university, and there was no record of him having any residence other than the small apartment he rented upon his release from prison.
They had pulled Elliot's old files on Sachet, and searched the suburban home on the outskirts of Queens where he had first been arrested, but it was now owned by a yuppie couple with a baby. There was no sign that the basement (Sachet's torture chamber) had been used for anything other than storage in years.
Even the package was a dead end. The paper and tubes were purchased near the abandoned apartment.They gave no indication of where Sachet could have gone.
Cragen called in Huang for insight, but his analysis was less than comforting. As he spoke, an enlarged portrait of Janey Christopher's heart-shaped face smiled down on the team from the squad room bulletin board.
"If Sachet couldn't return to his original setting, he'll have tried to recreate it. You're looking for a house with a basement, in the suburbs, just like last time. Look for similar yard decorations, the same colors of paint; he's detail oriented and needs consistency. He works in an unvarying pattern. All the earlier victims were tortured and killed in the same way, on the same timescale. For him to get off on the attacks, the pattern can't change. It's part of his perfection maintenance complex.
"When you interrupted his routine with the last victim," this to Elliot, "he was probably left with an overpowering need to finish what he started. His psychosis is severe enough that a perceived imbalance or disruption in his sexual habits could have caused impotence, or an onset of obsession, or rage. There was no way he could NOT rape again. He's a junkie; it takes sexual violence to make him feel normal. I think he's starting again by completing his last crime. That's what the "you took part of me, I need part of you now" is about. Since he can't use Siabhon Monohan again, he turned to the next obvious choice: the daughter of the man who interrupted him eight years ago."
"What about the 'blood and tears'?" Olivia asked. "That's new. He used to operate entirely in secret. Why lead us on now?"
"My guess: the theatrics are his way of easing his own humiliation. He's an extreme narcissist. He hates public embarrassment more than anything; for eight years he's been stewing over the shame of being caught and hauled in naked, plus whatever indignities he suffered in prison. Now he needs to reassure himself of control by toying with the man who beat him."
Elliot, who had listened with cold concentration, asked, "You think he'll contact me again?"
"Undoubtedly. But you can't wait for it. If he is symbolically finishing off the victim that escaped, you're on an accelerated timescale. He could kill her in days, rather than weeks."
Elliot straightened, trying to look more alert. "I'll check on his cellmates at Sing Sing, see if he had any friends who own homes in the suburbs."
Olivia knew he was exhausted. She also knew he wouldn't go home until Lionel Sachet was dead or behind bars.
The most pressing complication in this case was the fact that SVU couldn't drop its other investigations to pursue it. Elliot, though collected and rational, had not turned his brain from Lionel Sachet since this morning, and they all knew that wasn't going to change until the case was closed. Cragen knew better than to order him to ease up, but Munch and Fin would be shouldering a huge caseload until Janey Christopher was rescued. And the team couldn't afford to lose Elliot for long. He was the veteran, their rock, the best of them.
With her partner draining himself and time limits encroaching on two sides, Olivia knew she wouldn't be going home for a while either.
"You are beautiful," the man said.
His face was inches from Janey's, and in cold, irrational terror, she kept eye contact, thinking it would somehow hold him back. Her body felt frozen; she couldn't speak.
"May I kiss you?"
Horrified, she tried to shrink away from him, but the wall was unforgiving brick. She pressed her lips together and shook her head frantically, wanting to die.
He raised his eyebrows, absorbing her reaction with total calm. After appearing to think about it for a moment, he slowly backed his face away. He broke the eye contact they had sustained for several minutes.
Janey's relief was so overpowering that she gasped loudly. He watched with fascination as a shudder ran through her whole body, and she finally started to cry.
"Perhaps it will be a comfort to know that your father is looking for you."
My father? Janey had never met her father.
But that's right, she was supposed to be Maureen. Maureen's father was a policeman. This guy…Mr. Stabler must have done something to him, arrested him maybe. Was this about revenge?
Janey wasn't stupid. Even in her frazzled mental state, she realized immediately she would have to play along. This man was out of his mind; if he knew he had the wrong girl she'd be shot dead as quickly as the real Maureen.
"My name is Lionel," he said, rising from his crouching position. From Jamey's perspective, sitting on the floor, he seemed to be unbelievably tall. "I am a friend of your father's."
Again she noticed the weird precision of his speech. It wasn't just the words; his pronunciation was careful, stilted. Like he was acting.
He smiled down at her, taking her in. "You look like him, but you do not have his eyes." Gently, he touched her cheek and wiped away some of her tears. The teardrops on his fingers temporarily mesmerized him. He moved his hand around in the dim light, examining the wet sheen. Then he brought up his fingers and touched his own eyes with her tears.
Just like that morning, when he had pressed her fiercely into the ground, he seemed to remember himself with a jolt. His head snapped around suddenly, like he was surprised to find someone watching him. The smile dropped from his lips.
"You are so lovely, Maureen, that I must take your picture."
When he turned his back, Janey found she could breathe more normally. She tried desperately to think. So far she hadn't said a word, and he hadn't really hurt her. Maybe he was just crazy, not really dangerous. Maybe she could convince him to let her go.
Lionel – that was what he said his name was, right? – was turned slightly away from her, fiddling with a digital camera. The muscles in his back rippled as he moved. His profile stood out sharply against the dark wall.
No longer faced with his hypnotic eyes, Janey was surprised to realize he was handsome. And to her astonishment he brushed his fingers through his hair twice before turning around.
He was vain. Maybe he would respond to compliments.
"You do not have to smile," he said as he raised the camera.
"Your grammar is excellent," she choked out.
He paused. She had surprised him.
"I just…I noticed you don't use contractions and you always speak in complete sentences."
He blinked, apparently nonplussed by the odd comment. A small, genuine smile appeared. "I thank you for noticing."
The camera flashed.
"Look," stammered Janey, "Please, I don't know what you want, but you don't seem like an evil person. And…my dad will do whatever you want. He'll pay, if you want money. If you could let me talk to him, please, I'll tell him you…were nice to me, and he'll do what you want. Just don't hurt me, okay?"
Lionel looked at the ground. He seemed pained. When he walked away and put the camera down on a shelf, she thought she might have succeeded. But then he turned around again and her chest constricted. He was carrying the gun.
"I can not let you talk to your father, my dear." He squatted in front of her. "Unfortunately, before you noticed my excellent grammar, I noticed something about you: You do not want to kiss me. You do not like me. You hurt my feelings."
"I'm sorry," she whispered miserably.
"You are not as sorry as I am. You are so beautiful, Maureen," he touched her hair lightly with his free hand, "that I can not bear the thought of you hating me."
His green eyes shone cruelly. "I hope I can teach you to like me."
He pointed the gun at her face, her teeth, then slowly downwards. The barrel sank into her belly. Janey couldn't hold back tears of panic.
"I already have your tears, darling," he said. "I need something else."
So quickly she didn't even have time to turn her head, he pulled the gun out of her stomach, flipped it around, and slammed the grip across her face. Her nose shattered; her front teeth loosened; blood spilled onto her shirt.
As she sank screaming to the floor, arms still suspended above her head, Lionel left her.
In a few seconds his camera started flashing again.