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Lionel was gone for hours, and by the time he returned Janey's lips were dry and cracked; her throat ached with thirst, aggravated by the dehydration her broken bones caused as they swelled up with blood. The last thing she had had to drink was the bitter, soapy water from yesterday which made her sick. She hadn't eaten since Lionel kidnapped her.

Should she ask him for food and water? Every other time she had spoken to him, she had quickly regretted it.

How long could a person live without water? Two days? Three?

She knew Lionel was back by the odd sounds she could hear upstairs – heavy pounding and scraping, like he was moving furniture. It went on for quite a while before he finally appeared. His hair was disheveled. As he met Janey's gaze, he ran his fingers through it self-consciously.

"He is very close," Lionel said, eyes blazing. "It is entirely possible he will find us."

"My father?" Janey tried to ask, but the words came out as a dry croak.

It worried her that Lionel didn't seem upset that Mr. Stabler was tracking him down. What she at first thought was agitation now looked like…excitement. A little grin was actually playing at the sides of his mouth. And he wasn't interested in Janey; he walked right past her to a dark corner of the basement, where he fiddled with something metallic – probably the gun.

Though she had planned to hold out longer, the knowledge that relief was potentially not far away weakened Janey's resolve. Licking her lips carefully, she whispered, "Can I please have something to drink?"

Lionel dropped whatever he was playing with; it clattered to the ground, making Janey flinch. A bullet bounced loudlyon the floor by his feet; he picked it up carefully, but did not turn around.

"You know this scratch you gave me," he said slowly, rubbing the side of his face, "could easily become infected. The human mouth teems with dangerous bacteria."

Her heart sank. The man was going to let her die. He was merciless – insane.

"Please, just a little water."

"NO!" he snapped. Then he inhaled sharply.

Both immediately realized he had lost a point in the dignity game; he had never let out a one-word exclamation in all their time together. For the first time, he had failed to form a complete sentence.

To Janey this was only interesting. But Lionel's reaction was extreme. His hands shook. A keening began in his throat; it grew louder and louder until it tore out as a bellow, and he grabbed his head with both hands as if trying to contain the sound.

He stumbled towards Janey, veering sharply to the left and running into the wall beside her. Without thinking, she tried to pull away from him, and her wrists sent lances of electric pain down her arms. She shrieked in agony.

Lionel collapsed beside her on the wall…crying? Like a sick child, he curled up around his dry sobs.

After the pain dissipated Janey could only watch in disbelief. How crazy was this man? Would she ever push a button that didn't send him into some kind of mad fit?

"It's okay…" she said uncertainly. "It's okay, it doesn't matter, you're smart, you're allowed to mess up. Did you know I'm an English major? So I know your speech is perfect, I can tell. I can hear it." On the last sentence her voice crackled, and she coughed harshly.

Lionel's head snapped up. "You said you wanted something to drink." His voice was cold, hateful. "I will give you a drink."

Janey's heart began thundering in dread. Lionel ran out of sight and came back with a nearly full bottle of Windex. It glowed improbably blue in the light of the single bulb of the basement as he unscrewed the cap and brought the bottle to her face. She immediately recognized its smell as being the same as the tainted water he had given her earlier.

Except now it wasn't diluted.

"You wanted a drink. Drink this," Lionel said. Teeth bared in rage, he looked like an animal. He shoved the lip of the bottle against her lips; some of the blue liquid splashed out onto her chapped sores, where it burned wickedly. Janey shut her mouth and eyes tight, and turned her face as far into the wall as she could.

"DRINK IT!"

"NO!"

Janey didn't know if Windex would kill her, but she knew her body couldn't handle even a mild poison right now. God, she wanted water; as Lionel shoved the bottle opening against her closed lips she had to fight her body's desperate instinct to drink.

He grabbed her jaw in one large hand and forced her to face him; he squeezed both sides of her face, forcing her teeth apart. The Windex splashed into her mouth; some went down her throat, tasting of fire, and she choked, wondering if this was how she was going to die.

Above them there was a crash. Lionel spun away, staring up at the ceiling in astonishment. Behind him Janey vomited blue. In the silences between her gasps they could hear heavy footsteps above their heads, and muted voices.

Lionel's green eyes brightened with delight. "He is here, Maureen. He is here for you and for me."

Writhing on the floor, Janey tried to scream, but again her voice failed her at the critical moment. Her "help" came out as a pathetically shrill whisper; it also brought up more of the Windex, burning her eyes and nasal passages. Lionel didn't even try to restrain her; there was no way the police upstairs – if it was the police – could possibly hear her.

"Will he find us?" Lionel asked. "Will he save you, Maureen?" An almost innocent smile broke across his face; he looked like a little kid waiting for Santa to come down the chimney. "Oh, let him come."

He ran his fingers through his hair automatically and quietly moved up the stairs until he was out of sight. Janey waited, listening to pacing footsteps above her for what seemed like a long time.

She continued to try to scream, but her voice was gone. And she dimly realized that she was now really, really sick. In trouble sick. Chills shook her; her stomach felt full of nails; her head was reeling and her eyes couldn't focus. She realized that between her wounds, dehydration, and the poisoning, she would die if she didn't get water soon.

Then, to her horror, the footsteps stopped. A door closed.

They were gone. They hadn't found her.

As Lionel stepped back into the light Janey started to cry. She couldn't help it; the disappointment, the pain, the thirst, it was too much.

She didn't want to die.

Lionel watched her curiously as she sobbed hopelessly, miserably. Still he showed no signs of wanting to ease her suffering.

Instead, he said, with sinister simplicity, "I thought you were a Psychology major."

Janey prayed for unconsciousness that wouldn't come.

"There's nothing here, Elliot," Olivia said firmly. They were in the last house on their search list. It had all their criteria – it was owned by a single older woman (nowhere to be found) who also owned a black SUV; it was in the suburbs and looked strikingly similar to Lionel Sachet's old residence. The only problem was it didn't have a basement. Elliot had knocked over a lamp while trying to move a couch which he thought might be hiding a basement entrance, but there simply wasn't one to be found.

"I'm not sure there's nothing. Where's the owner, Liv?"

"Out of town? I hoped this was it as much as you, but there's no sign Sachet has ever been here. We need to move on."

"Just give me a few more minutes." Olivia was wrong; she hadn't hoped as much as Elliot that they would find Sachet here. He badly wanted, needed this to be the right house; if it wasn't, they were back to nothing. Back to waiting to receive another piece of Janey Christopher's broken body in the mail.

And they were out of time.

Elliot's nerves were straining; in the back of his head, he thought he could hear a cracked, desperate voice whispering "help, help, help," but when he asked Olivia if she could hear anything she gave him a doubtful look. He didn't push it; he didn't need to get thrown off the case for mental instability. And he hadn't been able to find a source direction for the voice; it really was in his head.

Still he didn't want to leave. This was the place. It was right, he could feel it.

"El, it's getting dark. Let's get back to the precinct. You need to sleep before we go any further on this."

Help, help, help. Frantic brown eyes flashed before him.

"Yeah," he conceded finally. He wouldn't sleep, of course. But he needed to get out of this unnerving house before he went crazy. He almost punched the wall before they left, and settled for grinding his teeth viciously instead.

They were out of leads. Janey Christopher was going to die. And when they found her body he was going to have to tell Maureen.

He sat in the driver's seat of the squad car regretfully, not turning it on. He stared at the little suburban home – white with blue trim, one tree in the yard, round window near the roof. It was perfect. Exactly what they had been looking for. Why couldn't it have been the right place?

"This isn't your fault, Elliot," said Olivia. When he didn't react she reached over and turned the keys in the ignition for him. Before taking the wheel he gave her a glance so full of pain that it nearly stopped her heart.

He pulled onto the road with his teeth clenched.

"Remember the Plummer case?" he asked suddenly about an hour into their drive.

Olivia went stone-faced. "Of course I do."

An innocent man she helped put in jail had, when released, started killing rape victims she had saved. They caught him eventually, and Olivia was forced to shoot him. It was an awful experience, and the guilt of it all haunted her still.

"Then you know what this case means to me."

"I don't blame myself for what Eric Plummer-"

"Don't lie to me, Olivia. I know you do."

"It doesn't matter. We just have to do our best, Elliot, like always. You killing yourself is not going to save Janey Christopher."

Elliot grunted, knowing she was right but unable to acknowledge it.

"I need coffee," he said.

He pulled into the next convenience store and Olivia followed him in, with a somewhat resentful silence. He knew he wasn't being fair to her by resisting her good advice and logic; she was an excellent detective and a good friend. She was also right. He would apologize when this case was all over.

They both got large cappuccinos and Elliot reached for his wallet, meaning to pay for both of them. Olivia stared as a strange expression crossed his face, and he began patting himself down.

"My wallet's gone."

"How? We haven't bought anything all day." They hadn't even been around people all day, or had to flash their badges; it was house-hopping from that morning on. "Did you have it when you left?"

"Yeah, I haven't changed coats since yesterday." Frustration was written on his forehead, and in the lines around his mouth. This was not what he needed right now.

"I'll pay," Olivia said quickly.

"I could have sworn I had it, it's always in this pocket…" Elliot dug deeply one last time into his pocket, and froze.

Slowly he drew out his hand; Olivia's jaw dropped. Between his fingers was a small grey bullet.

She met his eyes with horror. All she could get out was "Elliot…"

They both understood, and sprinted out to the car, leaving the coffees on the store counter.

"We had the right house," Elliot said as he pulled out recklessly. "I knew. I knew it, I could feel it. I shouldn't have left."

Olivia called the precinct for backup while he cursed himself. They had been right there. Sachet had been close enough to steal his wallet, to replace it with a cruel message, he had even heard Janey's voice, and like fools they had driven off. God, they'd lost two hours. Sachet could be raping or killing her right now.

His foot was a rock on the accelerator; he drove maniacally, swerving around the other cars without regard for anything but speed.

"Elliot, slow down, you're going to kill us!" cried Olivia.

"Liv," he answered through clenched teeth. "I've got family photos in my wallet. Maureen's picture."

After inhaling sharply, she answered, "God," and he knew she understood.

Janey's life was over the instant Sachet learned she wasn't Elliot's daughter. And he would learn that as soon as he opened Elliot's wallet.

They sped to the suburbs, racing a deadline they both believed had already passed.

A/N: For more information on the Plummer case, watch Episode 45: Wrath (Season 3).