Chapter 3 – Seek and ye shall find
Casey wasn't happy, Amy had stood her up when they were supposed to be having dinner, she hadn't been at the office when she'd called, the guys sounded a little worried about her saying that she'd stormed off for some reason, and she hadn't answered her mobile something unusual in itself, the phone could ring at three in the morning and Amy would answer it happily and fast. She'd even called the apartment and had been informed that Amy had moved out a few days ago, Casey had thought that Amy would have told her something like that. She'd been calling her cell all night and had decided to call in at the 1-6 to see if her sister was there and demand an explanation first thing in the morning.
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Precinct
"Where's Amy?" Casey asked spotting her sister's empty desk, her anger turning to concern Amy as a rule was never late for work and she never called in sick.
"She left yesterday afternoon we haven't been able to reach her since, we hoped you might know." Olivia replied sounding worried. Casey shrugged her shoulders, seeing Olivia's expression made her worry more.
"She stood me up last night, not answered any of my calls and apparently she's moved of the apartment." Casey sat down in Amy's chair.
"She told me that much yesterday, she didn't tell me where she's moved to though, I didn't think to ask I just presumed you'd know, I mean you know about her and Jack splitting up don't you?" Casey's shocked expression answered Olivia's question, Elliot too was shocked but then again he didn't like to be involved with their chats about boyfriends and clothes and periods, he liked being around them but he didn't want to be one of the 'girls'.
"So she ran off because she's broken up with her boyfriend and she's homeless, that should make it easier for us to get hold of her." Elliot sighed, at that point Munch walked past with a copy of the picture of the suspect and similarly to Amy the previous day Casey's hand instantly covered her mouth before they buried her face.
"What?" Elliot asked completely confused as to what was going on. Before he could say anything else Casey had began calling round her family.
"Hey Daddy, I know this is a strange question but when did have you seen Amy recently?" Casey said smiling somewhat, Elliot had to stop himself from commenting on 'daddy'. "Oh, no reason I just want to speak to her about work stuff… … … Ok I'll speak to you soon, love you." Casey hung up, "They haven't seen or heard from her for almost a month believe it or not. How did she look when you last saw her?" Casey asked about to dial another number before the detectives could question her.
"If I'd have been in her way yesterday I think she would have definitely knocked me down hard." Elliot replied a note of concern now in his voice, he didn't like the look in Casey's eyes and Olivia was evidently becoming worried.
"Sophie hey how are you? … … … … … I'm great I'm just wondering if Amy was there, her mobile's off and I really need to speak to her about this case I'm working on………… No Daddy said the same thing … … … … … No nothings wrong…………Sure I'll get her to call you when I see her … … … … Ok bye." Casey shook her head.
"Should we try the rest of your siblings or put out an APB? Which would be faster?" Elliot asked as Casey went to call someone else. She held up her hand to silence him as someone picked up on the other end.
"Hey Jack, Casey Novak here, do you have any idea where my sister is or where she's now living?" There was a slight pause. "Ok, I'll try there thanks." Casey hung up.
"You and Amy reacted in an identical way when you laid eyes on that picture there's something you should tell us." Olivia said but Casey didn't answer her eyes told the two detectives all they needed to know.
"We need to find Amy before she does something stupid." Casey responded standing up and heading to the door quickly followed by Olivia and Elliot.
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They tried the rape crisis centre and numerous bars but they turned up nothing, they called old colleagues and family members but there was still no sign of her. At about 5:30pm Casey received the call they'd all been waiting for and she rushed over to her twin brothers apartment, a man the exact same height as Casey but with the same hair and eye colour as Amy opened the door and he looked to be in a mess.
"Where is she?" Casey asked desperately looking round the room for signs of her sister.
"In the spare room, she's not good Casey. It's him isn't it?" Cody Novak asked solemnly.
"Yeah, what's happened to her, what's she done Cody?" Casey replied struggling to keep her voice down his expression was making her panic.
"When I got home I could hear her crying, I called to her but there was no response, I could see the bathroom light was on so I went to see if she was in there, there was blood everywhere; at first I thought she'd tried to kill herself because there was just so much blood, I've never seen anything like it and I never want to again. She was in a state, she was completely naked but she didn't seem to notice that I was there. I didn't have a clue as to what to do or say, I thought I should call someone but I didn't know who. I don't know why but I just sat on the floor next to her, that's when she realised that I was there. She said that she tried to scrub them off but she couldn't, I asked what then she pointed to her hip and her calf. They were in a mess, she'd been using wire wool on them for I don't know how long, that's where all the blood came from. I asked her why she'd done it all she said was to stop him getting her again, then she started shivering, I passed her a towel and she wrapped it round herself. We must have been sat there for about half an hour before I suggested her getting cleaned up, I wasn't sure whether or not to take her to the hospital. I thought they might have admitted her for psychiatric observation and I didn't want to be the one to do that. She tried to stand up and I helped her, she looked at her leg and started crying again 'I'm sorry' she cried, I told her everything was ok and gave her a hug. She seemed to get a little bit back to normal then, she said she wanted to clean herself up so I left her to sort herself out. Ten minutes later she came limping out of the bathroom in her pyjamas, she looked so fragile all I wanted to do was pick her up and carry her onto the sofa." He said his voice a little shaky he felt helpless, he'd called her doctor friend Leo who'd bandaged her up properly and given her a sleeping tablet and suggested that they speak to her in the morning. It was when she was sound asleep that he checked his machine and heard 4 worried ones from Casey, that's when he'd called her. Casey decided that she needed to be with her sister so informed Cody that she would be staying the night to make sure Amy was ok, he wasn't surprised but he made her promise to not tell their parents what was going off, the last thing Amy needed was the entire family fussing over her. However Casey still felt that she needed to tell the detectives what was going off, if only to tell them where Amy was.
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Precinct
"So what's going off?" Don Cragen asked the two detectives when they began to fill him in on Amy's location, he wasn't happy about having his newest detective go AWOL.
"Our suspect is the guy who raped Amy, that's why she ran off and that's why she's not going to be in for a few days. Casey's just called us and said that seeing his face again has really gotten to her, and doesn't think that she can cope with being here and seeing it. Even Casey looked bad when she saw the image, imagine what it must have been like for Amy to go come face to face with the image that's haunted her for half her life." Elliot replied a note of concern in his voice that mirrored the concern in Olivia's eyes.
"I agree, this makes it all the more important for us to get the guy, Elliot pull the file on Amy's rape see what it tells us." Cragen nodded his thoughts going out to Amy.
"They obviously knew who he was, his name, where he lived, Amy once told me her brother punched him and then he moved out of town." Olivia recalled.
"Then I think you should ask the family for all the information they can recall, try Casey or the brother she's with at the moment, if we get a name we can at least try to get a warrant." Cragen ordered.
"But he got off because there was a lack of evidence in Amy's case and the defence could argue personal vendetta for the Novak family." Fin piped up saying what everyone was thinking.
"Doesn't matter, an id is an id no matter who it's from; it gives us a basis to start from at least. I'll help Elliot go through the file." Munch added.
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"I don't know how I'm going to ask Casey." Olivia sighed recalling how weary the ADA had sounded over the phone.
"You'll figure it out Liv, you always do. I'm not looking forward to going through the file on the case." Elliot tried to reassure his partner.
"She'd been scrubbing at her tattoo and her birth mark with wire wool, she didn't even have the tattoo back then, and Casey didn't even know she had one until today. She's going to have to relive it all again, and this time it'll be worse than it was with the Della Reeves case, this time we're chasing the guy who raped her and who's beaten and attacked more women in the city and who knows where else. I can't begin to imagine what must be going through her head. How are we even supposed to do this?" Olivia sat down with a heavy sigh and Elliot knelt down by her side.
"The right thing to say is like every other case we've worked together but I can't, it's going to be tough but compared to Amy we've got the easiest job in the world. And you know what, I think you should hold off asking Casey the name of the guy until we've gone through the file, it may delay the case but she's exactly where she needs to be right now, Casey needs to be able to concentrate on making sure Amy's ok. So how about you give Munch and I a hand tracking down the case file?" Elliot suggested his hand on her knee.
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The team spent most of the evening trying to locate the case files, in the end they were told they'd have to wait until the morning for them. So home they all went but all of them had difficulty getting a good night's sleep.
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