A few days later, we decided that the only way to find Collins was to stop waiting for Walker to change his mind about talking and go out there and try to find him ourselves. We probably should have gone that way in the first place, but we hadn't, and now…now, we were paying for it. February had faded into March; there had been another murder, and the seven of us had split up. Abby, Kay and I had been assigned to handling any and all of the calls that came in relating to the case. Elliot, Fin, Olivia and Tim had gone in search of Collins.
"Number nine." Abby shook her head in disgust as we crossed the tape and headed over towards where Melinda was, bent over yet another child's body. She heard out footsteps and turned to face us as we stopped just short of her, shaking her head.
"She's about seven," she said heavily. "Cause of death is a gunshot wound to the head."
He hadn't been so violent the first time around, or even with the earlier murders this time. Evidence had shown us that the previous eight had all been drugged with something before he did anything to them. I doubted that we'd find that with this one. Collins had called this one in; he'd sounded annoyed and it was evident that he was only just starting to get pissed off about the fact that we'd nailed Walker. And that irritation was only just starting to be taken out on innocent victims. Our thirteenth note was clasped in this one's hands; Kay slipped a pair of gloves on and bent down to retrieve it, sighing as she straightened.
"Who wants to do the honors?" she asked mildly, and Abby shook her head.
"I'm about ready to be sick as it is," she said. I rolled my eyes in her direction and took the envelope from Kay's hands.
"Here goes nothing," I said. The sound of the envelope tearing seemed to echo, even with the noise around us. I pulled the note from inside and unfolded it before starting to read.
"Well. It seems you all are a lot better at this than I anticipated. Detective Howard, I must congratulate you on your arrest of Kyle Walker. How does it feel that you are this much closer to nailing the man who shot two of your colleagues? But I digress. I must admit that I am quite annoyed by Walker's capture, can you tell? Detectives, you are doing this to yourselves, I'm afraid. The murders will continue to go on until you catch me, which, honestly I doubt is going to happen. Detective Munch, I must admit that sending your wife back home to Baltimore was a good move, but just so you know: the murder police can't protect her, or your daughter, forever."
"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Suddenly, Abby looked more than slightly frightened. "You don't think he went back to Baltimore?"
"I wouldn't put it past him," said Kay. She pulled the note from my hands and folded it again, shoving it into her pocket before looking at me. "He's baiting you. Just ignore it."
Ignore it. How the hell did she expect me to ignore it? I was half-tempted to take the note back from her and just do away with it so I wouldn't have to face it, but she turned away from me before I could.
"There should be another note," Abby said finally, changing the subject as a wry smirk crossed her face. "Thirteen is an unlucky number."
She walked off in search of another envelope; Kay and I exchanged glances before following.
We ended up going over the entire crime scene twice before finally giving up; there was no fourteenth envelope to be found. It seemed that Collins had finally slipped, and though it hadn't really gotten us anywhere, it was of some comfort. Now we knew for sure that he wasn't as perfect as he thought he was.
"CSU didn't happen to find an ID, did they?" Kay asked finally, and I shook my head.
"They'd have said something if they had," I said. "Looks like we're doing this the hard way, again."
Abby looked at her watch and sighed. "We should probably head back to the precinct," she said. "We might be able to catch up with the others."
"You really think they found anything?" I asked. "It's only been a few hours since we split up." Abby shrugged.
"You never know," she said. "Let's just go. Not like we have anything better to do, anyway."
She started walking off again, in the direction from which we had come in the first place. Kay and I remained where we were, knowing she'd wait for us: I had the keys; it wasn't like she could go anywhere.
"What if he did go back to Baltimore?" I asked as we stood there. "We can't do anything to him if he did."
"He's bluffing," said Kay. "Trying to throw us off. He's in New York, he's just getting desperate."
"What makes you so sure?" I demanded as we started after Abby. "For God's sake, Kay, he just threatened my family…"
"So I'll get a hold of my shift and put two of my best on Rowan and Rose and two more on Kai. No one is going to hurt them."
"I'm starting to think I'd feel better if they were here."
"That'd only make it easier for something to happen." Kay stopped in her tracks and turned, nearly causing me to fall over her as she continued, an amused look crossing her face. "They're fine where they are."
"If something happens to any one of them, it's on your head," I told her. "I mean it, Kay."
"I never said you didn't, nor would I," Kay replied. "Collins is just trying to scare you because he knows you're the only one it's going to work with."
"Well, there's a comforting thought," I muttered sarcastically. "I'm supposed to just sit here and let him mess with my head?"
"You're supposed to ignore him," said Kay. "We're not going to get anywhere if you don't."
"Ignore it," she says," I replied acidly. "How the hell am I supposed to ignore something like that?"
She didn't answer, not that I'd really expected her to. If she thought this particular theory of hers was going to fly with me, she had another thing coming. There was no way in hell I was going to ignore it, or let it go. At least, not until we had Collins in handcuffs. Abby came into view just as Kay opened her mouth to speak again, holding another envelope in her hands.
"He was here," she said quietly. "I didn't…I didn't see him or anything, but this…this definitely wasn't on the windshield when we got here."
This time, Kay grabbed the note before I could move, tearing the envelope open and drawing out our fourteenth note. Her hands were shaking, not that I could really blame her for it.
"I'm betting at this moment that you're thinking I've forgotten the even numbers thing. Well, I hate to disappoint you, but I haven't; rather, I am still quite convinced that the number thirteen is quite unlucky. For that matter, so is the number nine, but no worry. I doubt you'll be finding me anytime soon. It's nice to know that you're looking, though. I've heard the news, but seven is an odd number, Detectives, and the odds right now are against you. Three of you investigating murders while four of you try to find me? Interesting strategy. I hope that for your sanity, it actually leads you somewhere."
"I'd love to know how he got this note here without anyone noticing," Abby muttered as Kay finished reading. "The crowd wasn't that big this time…we should have seen him."
"Unless he's found another lackey. I wouldn't put it past him to have done so when we got Walker," said Kay. She looked in my direction and sighed. "What say you?"
"He's probably using someone else. Someone he can manipulate into taking the fall, like he did to Walker," I said. "Problem is, you knew Walker from the first time; if Collins has someone new, we're not going to be able to identify them."
Silence fell. I'd made a valid point, and both of them knew it. Fourteen notes and nine murders. Three more and it would make four for the month of March. And we still had three weeks left.
"Maybe we should try going over the files again…" Abby started, but Kay cut her off.
"We've already done that at least twenty times," she said, running a tired hand through her hair. "I doubt there's anything more we can get from them."
I knew why she was so agitated. In all the years I'd known her, she had never once not closed a case, even after she'd been shot; the first thing she'd done upon returning was close one of Pembleton's cases…single-handedly. The first Charm Bracelet murders had probably stuck with her as long as they'd stuck with me: they were the only cases that she hadn't officially closed, or helped to close.
"Why don't we just head back to the precinct?" I asked, carefully avoiding Abby's gaze. "The others are more likely to have something."
They didn't. They'd been everywhere they could possibly think of, and they hadn't found anything. The fact that the radio was on and two afternoon talk show hosts were talking about the case didn't exactly help.
"…but if they haven't gotten anywhere by now, then maybe it's time for the NYPD to bring another unit in…"
"…why would they do that? They're the Special Victims Unit, sex crimes are supposed to be their field, no one else's. It's hardly the department's fault they can't get themselves together enough to solve this."
Elliot scowled and flipped the radio off, looking this close to picking it up and throwing it across the room. The others looked the same way. Abby sat on the edge of my desk and picked up one of the pens sitting there, twirling it between her fingers as she stared off into nothingness. I knew the look that had crossed her face all too well; she was up to something. And if she decided she wanted to do it, then there wasn't going to be any talking her out of it. Luckily, when she spoke, she wasn't spouting off one of her ideas.
"What happened to all the files from this time around?" she asked. I motioned to my top desk drawer; she leaned over and pulled it open, yanking out all eight of the files before getting up and stalking off towards the interview room.
"And what exactly does she think she's going to do with those?" Olivia asked. I shrugged.
"Hell if I know," I replied. "If I did, I'd tell you." I had the feeling, though, even as I said this, that Abby was going over all of those files, yet again, to check for similarities. I doubted she'd find any. Collins had pretty much made sure of that, but we never knew. It would have been easy for us to have missed a slip he made earlier on in the 'game', if there had been any.
"You realize that he could be in any one of the boroughs?" Elliot asked finally, breaking into my thoughts. "We haven't even covered half of Manhattan yet. It could take weeks to find him."
Weeks that we didn't have. Or rather, weeks that we had, but didn't want to waste waiting for another clue to come with another child's murder. I picked up the pen that Abby had left behind and started twirling it between my own fingers, leaning back in my seat as I thought.
"Everyone we've ever canvassed in relation to this claimed they didn't know anything," she said. "The only way it's not going to take weeks for us to find him is if someone comes forward."
She was right. All of us knew it, too: we just didn't want to admit it. Admitting it, in a way, would be signifying defeat. We had no way of getting the information we needed out of people we'd canvassed, even if they did know something. If as far as they were concerned, they didn't know anything, then they weren't going to say anything, no matter how many times we asked.
"We found two more notes," said Kay. She pulled the one I'd wanted to take away from her out of her pocket and handed it to Tim, who was sitting closest to her; he looked it over before looking at me.
"You read this?" he asked. I nodded wordlessly, suddenly not trusting myself to say any more than I already had. Tim frowned and handed the note over to Fin, who was a few feet away from him. The note Abby had found upon reaching the car at the crime scene was in my pocket; I took it out and handed it over to Elliot.
"Fourteen of them, now," I said. "Nine murders. Difference is an odd number…think he noticed?"
"Probably not," said Olivia, taking the note as Elliot handed it over to her. "But if he did, he'll probably try and leave another note just to even it out."
As if on cue, a younger, uniformed officer walked into the squad room with an envelope in hand, looking quite nervous.
"Someone just handed me this…told me to take it to SVU," she said. Tim reached out and took the envelope from her, frowning slightly as he looked at her.
"Can you describe him?" he asked slowly, and the uniform nodded, looking more nervous than she had when she'd first walked in.
"A few inches shorter than you, maybe 190…he was wearing a hat and glasses; I didn't really see his face." came the reply.
"All right, thanks." Tim sounded a lot calmer than the rest of us probably felt; as the uniform left, he turned to face Kay and me.
"You two all right?" he asked. Both of us shook our heads. The person that the uniform had described….we'd heard that description before. The last time we'd heard it, though, had been right before Meldrick and I had been shot. It had come from a frightened twelve-year-old who had somehow managed to escape her captor and run for the first squad car she saw.
Brandon Collins had just been inside our precinct. And because no one had recognized him, he had slipped away unnoticed.