Part 2

- CENTRAL PARK -
- THE RAMBLES -
- 6.15 AM -

Hunched over the woman looking almost like a lion at the belly of a gazelle, he watched a woman run past. With a pang of regret, he knew that their precious bond and time together was over. He took the delicate silver bracelet from her porcelain wrist and placed into a velvet jewelers bag before pocketing the trophy.

Walking down the path, he greeted the morning joggers. He felt invincible as they greeted him in turn. Silly sheep, knew nothing.

He had possessed her. Watched the light fade from her eyes. Guided her to the next level. He felt proud to have been able to give the whore that gift.

On his way down East 79th Street, he saw his next beneficiary. She was on her way to the Park. He would meet her again tomorrow. Find out where she lived and what she did during the day.

It would take time, but so had the others, and he could relive their purification whenever he wanted.

- SVU SQUAD ROOM -
- MARCH 30 9AM -

She walked into the squad room half an hour late. Cragen was already giving out assignments for the day. She took off her coat and sat down.

"Sorry I'm late. What's happening?"

"You'll want to put that coat back on. We have a D.B in Central Park," Cragen said. "Rape, homicide."

Olivia sighed as she stood and pulled her coat back on. Elliot looked at her as they headed for an unmarked squad car.

"You alright?"

She unlocked the driver's side and slid behind the wheel. "Sure, didn't get much sleep is all."

Her partner for over five years, Elliot thought there was something more wrong than just not getting enough sleep, but he knew that pressing her about it would be counter productive.

- CENTRAL PARK -
- CRIME SCENE -

They arrived at the scene of the crime, to be greeted by the M.E. Melinda Warner. She led them to the dead body, which was under a hastily erected blue tarp, to keep the rain from washing away any more evidence. The weather had turned into a dreary New York spring day and it had been raining for most of the morning.

As they neared, Olivia felt the oppression of the day press in on her. The rain sounded like muffled gunfire on the tarp and the air quality had worsened as the humidity rose. Condensation bellowed from the lips of the people involved in finding out who this pitiable woman was and why someone had felt it necessary to kill her.

Warner started summating what she knew. "She's about 25. Looks like she was attacked while out running. We had a similar case a month ago. Personally I would say there's a serial killer who's beginning to escalate. I'll have to get her back to the autopsy room, but I can tell you now with almost one hundred per cent certainty that there'll be no traces of semen. He will have used a foreign object. I'll be able to give you a definite after the autopsy."

Warner lifted the sheet that had so far kept the victim's dignity. Pointing to the numerous stab wounds that were concentrated in the breast and genital area, the ME continued. "She has over 100 small stab wounds same as the other vic and like the other vic, no single wound was deep enough to kill her. The lack of blood around some of the wounds show that they occurred near death. Blood loss didn't effect her death; that came from ligature strangulation." She pointed to the young woman's neck. "As you can see, the ligature is still around her throat. Common twine, sold at every hardware store, supermarket and corner store in the country. Totally untraceable. No ID on her, hopefully we'll be able to identify her when someone files a missing persons report. I dare say she'll be missed before too long."

The coroner covered the body back up and signalled for the morgue attendants to take her away, as the CSU searched for any trace evidence surrounding the scene.

"Thanks. We'll get started trying to ID her," Elliot said. Olivia had started walking towards their car. Elliot ran to catch up.

"You sure you're alright? It's not the case is it?" he asked as they got into the car.

"I'm fine. As for the case, I'll never be less upset than the first time I saw a D.B. Nah, I was just thinking about the MO. Warner said there'd been one about a month ago. You remember it?"

Elliot thought for a while, going through the catalogue of gruesome crimes he'd seen in the last month or so. "I don't know Liv. There's nothing that's jumping out at me."

"Yeah, but think. There was no semen or body fluids. She was raped with a foreign object, then strangled. I know Warner's right, I've seen that exact same MO before."

As they pulled into the precinct lot Olivia's cell phone started chirping. "Benson…Hi Ed." She smiled. "No, you're not interrupting…Sure we're still on for tonight. I should be finished by at least 9. Yeah, 10 would be fine… Sure, thank you…love you too… Bye."

Elliot raised an eyebrow. "Getting pretty serious huh?"

"Don't know," she said as they got out of the car. "He called me early this morning just to thank me for last night."

Smiling Elliot said, "And what was there to thank you for?"

Giving his arm a friendly punch Olivia replied, "Don't be dirty. He's a perfect gentleman."

"Where's the fun in that? Besides, is he blind? Been how long now?"

"A month, and I didn't say he hasn't tried, I've been burned too many times. Gonna take a little more than a month for him to get me into bed."

They had just entered the bullpen, when Olivia turned to him. "What did you mean by 'is he blind'?"

Elliot lowered his voice. "Come on Liv, you're a gorgeous woman."

Her eyes widened. "Elliot!"

As they sat at their desks facing each other. Elliot said, "What? I'm a normal red-blooded male and I'm not dead. Any man straight or gay for that matter can see that you're a very desirable, sexy woman." His voice had dropped to a low whisper.

"Elliot, Kathy's only been dead for a year," she replied in an equally low whisper.

"That's right, coming up on thirteen months and I won't lie, sometimes it still hurts A LOT. But I'm not planning on being celibate for the rest of my life either. It's not what Kathy would have wanted. I've grieved and I'm going to start living again. Anyway, I'm giving my partner a compliment is all."

"Okay," she said slightly mollified. "Thanks for the compliment." She finished the conversation and turned to her computer. Bringing up the Police Database she typed in picquering and victims and waited for the results.