We didn't hear anything else from Collins until April faded into May. This time, however, we were ready: we had enlisted TARU to help us trace the call. All we had to do was keep him on the phone long enough to get an accurate, if not exact location. That was the easy part. The hard part was keeping Collins' remarks from ticking us off too much.
When the phone rang, I reached for it, pressing the button that would allow all of us to talk to him. Seconds later, his voice filled the squad room.
"Well, well, well. Looks like the lot of you have finally managed to get a clue." Collins' voice was flat, to the point of being cold, but not one of us cared.
"Even numbers aren't working for you anymore," I told him. "Number twelve got away."
"I'm well aware of that, Detective, but tell me something. Do you really think that anything she told you will be able to help?"
And there was his first mistake: all of the other girls he'd taken had been from families new to the city. Samantha Marshburn had been Manhattan-born and Brooklyn-raised.
"As a matter of fact, we do," said Abby, before I could retort. "Walker's already down for this, Collins, and you aren't that far behind."
"ASA Williams, I hardly believe that you really think that," said Collins, sounding amused. "I've gotten away with this before."
"But you won't get away with it again," said Elliot, "Your last victim here will testify if this goes to trial, not to mention the fact that she can ID you."
"Well, then, Detective Stabler, I suggest that if you wish this to actually result in something, that you and Detective Munch keep yourselves out of the interrogation room if and when you find me and bring me in," Collins said flatly. "Rumor has it that you've got quite the temper on you."
None of us said anything. How Collins had received that particular bit of information was beyond us, but he had it, and though it was irrelevant, it left us quite disgruntled.
"You're gonna find that out the hard way if you keep jerking us around," Elliot said finally.
"Is that a threat, Detective?" Collins asked, his tone suddenly icy.
"Depends on how you want to read it," Olivia replied, just as coldly. "You'd be better off if you'd let yourself admit you're not as perfect as you think you are."
"I will admit to nothing of the sort, Detective Benson, and I highly suggest that you don't get your hopes up." Collins paused and then continued. "I'm assuming that the lot of you have no ID for your eleventh victim?"
"You know damn well we don't," Kay replied bluntly, "Why don't you just tell us who she is?"
"Because that would make it much too easy for the lot of you and that is something I don't wish to do," said Collins.
At this point, Morales, who was sitting closest to me, motioned that the trace was completed, thankfully having the sense not to say anything out loud.
"Thirteen is an unlucky number," I pointed out finally, "What are you going to do now?"
"That, Detective," said Collins, "Would be for me to know and you to find out. I'll let you get back to your work." A clicking sound told us that we'd been hung up on; silence fell and lingered. A few minutes later, Morales spoke.
"The calls bounced off of three different towers," he said, motioning to the computer screen in front of him. "All of them were in the business district."
"Anything specific?" Fin asked. Morales shook his head.
"Trace wouldn't go that far on a cell phone," he said. "That's all I can tell you."
"That's all we need." I rose to my feet and reached for the keys sitting on my desk. "Let's go."
Surprisingly enough, we found ourselves in the general location Morales had given us within the hour…not that it helped. When we got there, we found that the area Collins had been in when he'd called was nothing more than a bunch of warehouses. He could have been in any one of them; there had to be at least twenty, if not more.
"Damn it." Kay swore, running an exasperated hand through her hair as she looked around. "We're never going to find him."
"Yes," I countered, "We will. We just have to split up. You come with me. Olivia, you go with Fin; Elliot, you go with Tim." With this, I grabbed Kay's hand and took off, letting go only when I was sure she'd be able to keep up with me.
"For God's sake, John, there's got to be at least twenty-five of these things here, if not more!" Kay exclaimed. "We should've waited for backup!"
"Screw backup," I replied. "We don't have time for it. Collins might not have acted like it, but I think he might already have number thirteen. Kay made a face but continued running after me, sliding to a halt after the sixth warehouse we passed.
"What?" I asked, stopping to turn and look at her. She made a shushing motion at me.
"Listen," she said. "You hear that?" Muffled sounds of things hitting the floor drifted towards us, and then the voices of people who were obviously loading whatever was falling onto something.
"It's nothing," I told her, "They probably work there, let's go; we're wasting time." We took off again at a dead run, which, for some reason, I found oddly amusing. I had told Fin years ago that I didn't do this sort of thing anymore because I was old and it was tiring…but I didn't feel tired….or old, for that matter.
"You all right?" I asked, turning back to face Kay; she nodded and we continued on. After what seemed like an eternity, a voice came over the two-way radio in her hands. We slid to a halt so that she could reply.
"Yeah, we're here, what've you got?" she said, trying to catch her breath as she spoke. Olivia's voice came back, drifting towards us as we stood there.
"Where are you?" she asked.
Kay frowned, turning around to get an exact location to give, but there was nothing to indicate anything and she sighed. "Looks like we're in the middle of this place."
"Good." Olivia paused for a few seconds and then went on. "Fin and I are on the left side…I think we might've found him."
"We're on our way." This time, it was Kay who took off running; I followed her and soon, we found Olivia and Fin. Elliot and Tim showed up a few minutes later, and silence fell between the six of us.
"What makes you think they're in there?" Tim asked finally, quietly, so as not to give away our presence.
"We came around the back way," said Olivia. "Saw a car with Maryland plates, figured it was him."
That was enough for me. I had half a mind to just walk in there, but I couldn't exactly do that with everyone watching me. We fell silent again and listened; five minutes passed before we heard an all-too-familiar voice drifting towards us.
"If you're lucky, you'll come out of here alive." I saw Elliot visibly stiffen out of the corner of my eye, but he didn't move. A few seconds later, the sound of a child's sobbing reached us.
"There's got to be a way to get in from back there," I said, and Olivia nodded.
"There is," she said. "You and Kay take that entrance; Elliot, Tim, you go in from the side, and Fin and I will move in from the front."
That pretty much settled it. Kay started walking towards the back, and I followed her. When we saw the entrance that Olivia had specified, we stopped.
"Five months," I said. "Five. And we're only just now finding this basket case." Kay shook her head.
"We're lucky." she said. "If he'd kept on killing girls, we'd have at least eighteen, maybe nineteen dead by now."
I gave an involuntary shudder at this: she was right, and I knew it. Even so, we remained where we were, listening, waiting for the right moment to go in. Finally, Elliot's voice came over the radio Kay was still holding onto.
"I've had enough of this," he said bluntly, "We need to go in."
"Fine," I said. "Kay and I will head in first; he's least likely to notice us since we're in back."
No reply came. I took this to mean that the others were all right with this. Kay had already started slowly opening the back door. Collins' voice was made that much clearer, and it was all I could do to keep myself from walking in there and shooting him with no questions asked. Kay's hand on my shoulder kept me from doing so.
"You walk in there like that, he's more likely to see you," she said quietly. "Let me go in first."
"Have you lost your mind?" I demanded. "You're not going in there first." I had the feeling that this protest was coming from the memory of her being the first one to go in when Gordon Pratt had ambushed us, but it made no difference. She could protest all she wanted, she wasn't going in first.
I walked in slowly, careful to make sure that my footsteps didn't make any sound. Kay followed, looking apprehensive. Both of us already had our guns drawn and ready. We looked across the warehouse to find Elliot and Tim already coming in from the side. Olivia and Fin were the only ones who had still not entered, which was just as well, seeing as Collins was facing that way. His victim stood in front of him, wide-eyed and frightened, tears streaming down her face. He was yelling at her to shut up.
"Bastard," Kay muttered. Her mouth was close to my ear, more to make sure that I was the only one who could hear her than anything else. I said nothing, but wholeheartedly agreed with this remark. My hands were shaking, which wasn't a good thing, considering that I was holding a gun, but I had passed the point of caring what happened to me a long time ago. I shifted, and one of the boxes hiding Kay and me from view fell with a resounding crash. Collins jumped, turning in the direction of the sound, and saw us. His eyes narrowed dangerously.
"Well, if it isn't the cavalry come to save the day," he said sarcastically. He shoved the girl backwards to get her out of the way; she fell backwards, only to be caught by Tim, who was standing closest to where they were, and taken quickly outside. A few minutes later, Fin reappeared in his place.
"Your game is up, Collins," said Elliot, stepping out from where he'd been standing. "There's no way out of this."
"Oh, but there is, Detective," Collins replied bluntly. He bent and drew a gun from the bag beside his feet, putting it to his head. "I could always take the easy way out of this."
"But you won't," said Kay. "You didn't the first time, and you won't now. That's not how you work."
"Men change, Detective Howard," Collins told her. "Especially within the span of twenty-four years."
Kay scowled. "It's Lieutenant," she retorted, "And I don't give a damn how much time's passed by, men like you don't change."
"What, pray tell, makes you think that?" Collins asked, twitching his finger on the trigger and making us all jump.
"If you'd changed, you wouldn't have started this again," I said. "You can't tell me you actually think we're going to believe you."
I had the feeling that pushing him like this was going to end up badly, but it didn't appear as if any of us really cared, so long as we weren't the ones who ended up getting hurt. Elliot had started to move forward; Collins eyed him warily, his finger twitching on the trigger again.
"Don't try me, Detective," he said warningly, "I'll do it." Elliot stopped in his tracks and remained where he was, his eyes fixed on the gun in Collins' hands.
"You really think that's going to fix anything?" he asked. "You do this, all you're going to do is make yourself known as a coward. A man who couldn't face up to what he's done."
"Oh, I'm perfectly capable of facing up to it, I just don't wish to. I'm sure you of all people would understand that," came the reply. Elliot ignored him; I, on the other hand, did not.
"You know, if you wanted to do this, you'd have already done it by now," I said. "Are you afraid to die?"
"I am afraid of nothing," Collins retorted, glaring at me as I moved to stand a few feet away from him, gun drawn and ready in case he tried anything.
"If you weren't afraid of anything, then you wouldn't be threatening to kill yourself to get out of this," I said. "You're scared a jury's gonna convict you, because you know exactly what happens to guys like you when they get to prison."
"I know nothing of the sort, Detective. But yes, I do have my worries that a jury might convict." said Collins.
Kay snorted, moving to stand so that she was directly behind him. "Might?" she asked. "They will convict. They'd have to be a bunch of idiots not to."
"Be that as it may, Lieutenant," said Collins, finally deciding to refer to her by her actual rank, "There is always a chance that you will have a doubter among the twelve."
He'd moved the gun to his side. We, however, kept ours aimed at him, still unsure as to whether or not he was going to do anything.
"You come with us willingly, it'll more than likely count for you," said Fin. It was a tactic we'd used many times before, and it had, more often than not, worked. I couldn't help but hope that it would this time, even though I knew it wasn't likely.
"And what makes you so sure about that?" Collins asked, eyeing him warily.
"D.A.'s office tends to offer deals to people who come in willingly," I said, silently adding that there was no way in hell Abby and Casey would even consider it in this case, no matter what District Attorney Branch had to say about it. Collins seemed to mull this over for a moment before shaking his head.
"I'll take my chances," he said. "Odds are it'll come out just like it did before, and I'll walk again."
Cocky bastard. I had half a mind to just shoot him right there, somehow rationalizing this by assuming that if I did, everyone present would say that it was a clean shooting; that Collins had gone for me first. But I knew that if I did, it would bother me until the day I died, so I didn't.
"So what are you going to do?" I asked finally. "You either come out of here in a body bag or in handcuffs. Take your pick."
Dead silence fell. We waited, guns still aimed directly at him, for an answer, but none came. Collins seemed determined to ignore us, even though we were standing right there. He'd closed his eyes and was humming tunelessly to himself as if he thought that when he opened his eyes, we'd be gone again. Only problem was that we wouldn't be.
A single shot fired startled us all; we hadn't expected anything, and therefore hadn't seen anything. Elliot stumbled backwards, clutching his arm; his sleeve was slowly turning red. Collins had moved without any of us noticing, and still had his gun pointed towards Elliot.
Two shots rang out…at least, two shots that I heard. I fell backwards, hitting my head on the cold concrete floor, but somehow managing to stay conscious. The lights above me seemed to be dancing. Before I knew it, I was looking into the faces of twenty-three different girls. All of them were smiling, their eyes filled with a light that none of us had ever had the chance to see.
Kay was standing over me, shouting something into the radio in her hands, something that I couldn't understand. I no longer saw Collins; whether he'd escaped or she'd shot him, I didn't know, and at the moment, I didn't care. All I could hear was the sound of laughter…all I could see were those girls, staring down at me, still smiling, and I knew somehow they'd reached a peace that I never would.
The first two from both times around stood at the ends of the lines…a forever nine-year-old Beverley Wilkins and a forever eight-year-old Makayla Lawrence. I watched as they walked forward, taking each other's hands before reaching for mine.