Chapter Ten: Call

16th Precinct

Manhattan SVU

11:57 P.M., March 15, 2006

Elliot rubbed his tired eyes and took another gulp of coffee. It was nearing midnight and none of them had found even the faintest hint of a lead on Veronica's true identity. Munch and Fin had already taken their turns in the crib, and he knew that when they returned, they would urge Olivia and him to grab thirty, too. What they didn't know, and he wouldn't tell them, was that, even though it was nearly midnight, he was still too spooked to sleep.

He slumped back in his chair and stuck his pen in his mouth. His eyes blurred on the page he was reading as he became lost in thought. Those drawings were too real. He'd never seen anything more true to life. It was as if each of them was a moment in time, frozen on the page. And he couldn't figure out why, when she seemed to know how pissed off he still was at his dad for dying before they could settle things, she would choose to put his birth date on the crate in the drawing just before the one that showed his own death.

The ringing of a telephone invaded his thoughts. Jumping, he pulled the pen from his mouth and grabbed the receiver.

"Stabler, SVU."

"Detective Stabler, this is Madeline Burris. Do you remember me?" The woman sounded frantic.

"Yes, of course I do," he assured her. They'd closed the Burris case not a month ago. Madeline and her husband Ted were going through a nasty divorce. Madeline had gotten full custody of their daughter, Nikki, because of Ted's drinking and depression. Elliot had sympathized with Ted a little, realizing the guy's problems were only getting worse because of the divorce and loss of contact with his child, but he knew, just like Madeline, that he had to put Nikki's well-being first. When Ted had abducted the child and ran 'all the way' back to his mother's house on Staten Island, he'd arrested the guy, counseled him to get treatment, and pushed Casey to show some leniency as long as he stayed sober.

"Elliot, you can't leave!" Veronica called across the squad room as she came flying out of the hall that led back to the area where they had been holding her.

"Ted's drunk. He showed up with a gun and took Nikki. I didn't know who else to call!" Madeline said urgently on the other end of the phone line.

Snatching a tablet out of his desk, he started taking notes. He jotted down the time on the phone's digital clock, 11:58, knowing he would need it for his case file later.

"Did you call 911?" he asked.

"No, not yet."

"Please, send someone else," Veronica pleaded in a desperate whisper.

"Ok, Mrs. Burris, Madeline, don't hang up," he said urgently, making eye contact with Olivia. When she nodded, he told Madeline, "I've got someone doing that now. Are you at your house?"

"Yes."

He looked to a passing officer and gestured for the young man to take Veronica away. She started to struggle, but Elliot ignored her now that she was out of his line of vision. He nodded to Liv, and she placed a call, craning her neck to read the information he was scrawling down for her to relay to the dispatcher.

"And do you know where he took Nikki?"

"Well, you know, the warehouse where he used to work is just down the street. He didn't start drinking until they closed down. I saw him carry her in there."

"Elliot, no!" Veronica shouted as Huang came into the room and a junior detective moved to help him and the officer restrain her.

Standing up, Elliot pushed his chair in. "Ok, Madeline, don't follow them. I'm on my way, and someone will be right there to secure the warehouse. You understand? Just go inside and lock the door!"

When he was convinced she would do as he told her, he tossed the receiver in the cradle, snatched his jacket off the back of the chair, and headed out the door, Olivia trailing just a step behind him.

"Elliot! Someone else can go!" Veronica called, breaking away from the three men who were struggling to restrain her without hurting her. She ran across the squad room and grabbed him by the wrist.

"I'll get the sedan," Olivia said, striding past them, confident that her partner would disentangle himself in a moment and catch up.

"It doesn't have to be you!" Veronica insisted.

"Yes it does," he told her, peeling her fingers from his arm as Huang and the junior detective pulled her away from him. "The guy knows me."

Abandoned Warehouse

Long Island City, Queens

12:14 A.M., March 16, 2006

"Ted, it's Elliot Stabler, remember me?"

He and Olivia were crouched outside on a loading dock, ready to enter the warehouse.

"What do you want?" the desperate man shouted over the sobbing of his terrified daughter. "You're gonna put me in jail again!"

"Nobody wants to do that, Ted. We just want you to get some help," Elliot called calmly.

There was an abandoned truck backed up to the dock on his left, and a grocery cart beside the door that he would have to maneuver around to enter the building. He didn't want to bump into the cart. It could make enough noise to startle Ted, and it was never a good idea to startle a distraught drunk with a gun.

"I haven't seen her in three months. Three months! And I came by tonight, just to read her a bedtime story, you know, and that bitch wouldn't let me in!"

"I know what it's like, Ted," Elliot sympathized. "I get to see my kids two weekends a month and every other Wednesday. It's not easy, but this is a bad idea."

"Elliot!" Olivia whispered. He glanced at her and she pointed to the logo on the wall behind him. It was the Price Chopper circle of stars and axe.

"What do you want to do?" she whispered.

He frowned at her, knowing what she was referring to, unable to think of anything else himself, and he whispered back, "We can't leave her in there with him."

"I want to report my wife for neglect," Ted whined. "She didn't even give Nikki a bath tonight. She just put her to bed in her overalls!"

"We can discuss that as soon as you let Nikki go and put the gun down, Ted," Elliot called to him agreeably.

"There are other cops here," Liv reminded him.

"But we have a relationship with him."

"She's my kid too, and I have a right to see her!"

"I know that, Ted," Elliot shouted back, "but not to endanger her. Let her come out, and we can talk."

"You just try to take her away from me!" he dared them.

"Ow! Daddy!"

When he heard the child cry out, Elliot looked at his partner. "Let's go."

They crept into the building, quiet as mice. It was full of abandoned crates and shipping containers. When they reached a division in the aisles, he used hand signals to direct her around behind Ted while he continued up the passage. She frowned at him, reluctant to leave him, but they couldn't argue now, so she had to obey.

"Ted? Ted, listen to me," Elliot called calmly as he crept up on the area from which the man's voice seemed to originate. "Ted. Nobody wants to keep you from seeing Nikki. We just want you to get help so she won't have to be afraid of you anymore."

"No! You want to put me in jail so Madeline can run away with her."

"That's not true, Ted," Elliot called. "Trust me. I'm a father, too, I would never try to keep you from your daughter, but I'm not gonna let you hurt her, Ted."

The only light came through the filthy windows from the police cars parked outside, but Elliot was close enough to see the silhouettes of Ted and his daughter, and once in a while, when they turned a certain way, he could see their faces. Ted was deranged, and Nikki was terrified and obviously in pain. He was dragging her around by one of the straps on her bib overalls, but one of her curly brown pigtails had gotten caught up in his fist, too.

"Just go away and leave me alone!"

Suddenly there was a loud screech and a flutter of wings as an owl that had built its nest in the warehouse decided it was tired of the yelling and took off for its evening hunt. Ted started screaming incoherently and fired off three shots in the general direction of the disturbance, Nikki squealed in terror. Elliot quickly advanced, pressing himself as flat as possible to the crates on the right side of the aisle.

He finally got to the open area where he expected Ted to be, but everything was still. Dreading what he might find, he advanced slowly another foot or two and was surprised to discover that no one was there anymore. One more step, and there was the crack of gunfire, and the wooden container where his head had just been exploded into a million splinters. He hit the ground with a grunt. There was another shot, Ted yelled, Nikki screamed. Olivia ordered the child to run.

He heard other cops swarming the place, someone mirandizing Ted, Nikki crying for her mommy. Olivia called his name.

Suddenly, he realized the back of his head stung like bees were attacking it. Reaching up to assess the damage, he hissed when something sharp jabbed his palm, groaned when his hand came away wet and with the metallic smell of blood. Then he realized that what had happened. The splinters from the crate exploding inches from his head had embedded themselves in his scalp.

"Elliot!" Olivia's tone was more strident, veering into panic.

"Over here," he called, his voice weaker than he expected.

She was by his side in an instant, fussing and fretting over him, helping him sit up.

"Watch the head," he warned her as she reached out toward him, about to cradle the back of his skull to prevent him from whacking it on the crate as he sat back. She put her arm around his shoulders instead.

"What's wrong with it?" she asked.

"Ted's last shot hit the crate right behind me. Now I have chunks of it in my scalp."

Olivia hissed in sympathy. "Ouch."

"Yeah."

She shined her flashlight up to survey the damage to the crate and whistled. Then she played the beam further along the wood.

"Well, I'll be damned," she gasped.

"What?"

"See for yourself."

"Can't you tell me? I'm wounded here."

She held out a hand to help him up and said, "You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

Allowing her to pull him to his feet for the second time that evening, he stood and turned to see what she thought was so astonishing. There, stenciled on the side of the crate, where his head was when Ted fired at him, instead of where it might have been if he hadn't taken that last step forward before the shots, were the numbers 071833.

They looked at each other, too amazed to show any expression. Then, Olivia pulled his arm around her shoulders, wrapped her arm around his waist, and led him out the waiting ambulance, to have his head examined.