Hi guys I am so sorry that I haven't updated sooner, I've been in the hospital but thankfully I'm out now and back to writing. I just want to take a minute to say a sincere thank you for all the reviews you're giving me. I definitely didn't expect to have this many! You're all wonderful and thank you so much. I've made this chapter a bit longer to make up for the delay (sorry again!) please let me know what you think of it :)
Olivia had been dismayed to find out that the sketch artist was a man, but she was grateful that she had the time to sit in with Amanda and make sure she was okay.
The brunette knocked softly on the interview room door, "Amanda it's Olivia, is it okay if we come in?"
Only when she got an affirmative response did Olivia open the door. She was careful to go in first and introduce the sketch artist, even though he was one SVU had worked with before.
"This is Michael," Olivia said softly, closing the door behind them.
"Yeah I remember," Amanda replied, her eyes briefly flicking up to look at the man.
Olivia pulled a chair round to Amanda's side of the table but before she sat down she asked if the blonde wanted her to stay.
"Please. If you don't mind," Amanda said timidly.
"Okay," Michael said, "let's start with some basics, was he Caucasian, Hispanic?"
"He was white... wait," Amanda said, "there's a photo of us, on my phone,"
"Where's your phone?" Olivia asked, she hadn't remembered Amanda having a bag at the hospital and it hadn't been logged into evidence.
"In my bag," Amanda said, before a puzzled look crossed her face, "where's my damn bag?"
"You didn't have it when you were at the hospital," Olivia said gently, knowing that Amanda's bag was either in the possession of the perp, or had been stolen. The best case scenario was that it had been found in the alley and not put in the evidence of yet but Olivia knew that that was the least likely of all the possibilities.
"I must have dropped it when…" the blonde paused, and Olivia saw the colour drain from her face, "It's got my keys and drivers licence in it," she panicked, "what if he has it?"
"Amanda it's okay. I'll get two uniforms to go over to your apartment and check it out," Olivia soothed. She could tell that Amanda was starting to panic and she gently took Amanda's hand in her own, hoping that the contact would provide some comfort.
"If he knows where I live I…I can't deal with this," Amanda sighed, putting her head in her hands. Olivia shot a glance to the sketch artists, who, to his credit was sitting quietly and minding his own business.
"We don't know that he does, it just might not have been put on the evidence log yet, I'll put in a call to CSU and get them to double check,"
"We both know the likelihood of that happening is zero," Amanda gave a bitter laugh.
Olivia's heart sank, she knew that was true. Sure, mistakes happened, but usually not when they were investigation a crime against one of their own, the dedication was second to none. She gave Amanda's hand a small squeeze, but the blonde pulled out of her grasp, wrapping her arms around herself defensively. Olivia sighed, it was hard enough to get Amanda to cooperate anyway, let alone when she was shutting down.
"Wait," Olivia said, remembering back to something she had read in the initial report, "the couple that found you, do you remember them being in the alley with you?"
"No, I just remember waking up in the hospital, why?" Amanda asked quietly.
"The EMT's reported that they didn't hang around for long, they seemed pretty anxious to leave, the only left their names after some heavy persuasion,"
"You think they have it?" Amanda asked, her face brightening slightly.
"It's a possibility," Olivia said, "Fin and Nick are on their way to interview them will you be okay for a minute while I call them?"
Amanda nodded hesitantly, her arms still wrapped around herself, "It's brown leather, there's a rip on the bottom and a key ring with my initial on it. Um… Olivia," she said quietly, "Could you still get someone to check my apartment?" Amanda asked, her face burning with embarrassment at how pathetic she sounded.
Olivia flashed Amanda a reassuring smile, "Of course. I'll just be a minute alright."
"Harry Persino, open up," Nick shouted, as he knocked on the apartment door for the third time.
"Maybe they're not home?" Fin said, shrugging his shoulders.
"Where would you be after a night of hard partying?" Nick asked.
"Fair point," Fin conceded, "wait, did you hear that?"
Nick and Fin both put their ears to the apartment door; there was definitely a shuffling sound.
"Mr Persino," Nick shouted, knocking again loudly on the door, "it's the police, open up,"
"Oh for Christ's sake," came a muttering from behind the closed door. There was the click of two locks, and then door opened. The safety chain was still on but the detectives could see the bloodshot eyes of the man they believed was Harry Persino.
"Mr Persino, I'm detective Amaro, this is detective Tutuola," Nick introduced them, showing his badge through the gap in the door.
"If this is about that chick from last night, I aint interested," he said, moving to close the door but Fin was too quick and shoved his foot in the gap to stop it from closing. He was so angry that Persino had referred to Amanda as 'that chick' and he could tell from his bloodshot eyes that he was more than just hungover.
"Doesn't matter if you're interested or not, we've got some questions about last night, and also about some property that went missing from that alleyway," Fin insisted.
Persino laughed and attempted once more to shut the door, "nah I don't think so,"
"Wrong answer big guy, we'll be back with a warrant to search for the missing property," Fin bluffed, hoping that the witness didn't know that they didn't have enough probable cause for a warrant, "We can call the ADA right now, and I'm pretty sure that when we're ripping your place apart we'll find a lot more than what we came for…can you smell that detective Amaro?"
With the door being open for so long, the smell of marijuana had wafted out from the apartment into the hallway, and both Nick and Fin knew that there would probably be more than just weed hidden in the apartment.
"I sure do detective," Nick replied, pulling out his phone, "just give me 5 minutes to talk to the ADA,"
Persino swore, then let out a long breath, "Gina baby get some clothes on we have company," he shouted, presumably to his girlfriend.
"Just some questions and the purse right?" Persino asked, narrowing his eyes at the detectives. He was backed into a corner and he knew it.
"Yeah that's right," Fin confirmed. He slid his foot back just enough so that Persino could slide the chain off and open the door.
Walking into the apartment Fin noticed Amanda's bag straight away. He checked the silver key ring hanging off the side of the bag just to make sure. It was in the shape of an 'A' just as Olivia had described to him on the phone. He let out a sigh of relief when he looked inside to see her wallet, key and most importantly her phone still present. He tapped out a quick text to let Olivia know they had recovered it.
"Yo I never touched that," Persino said, holding his hands up.
"Well how did it get in your apartment?" Nick asked, shooting him a disbelieving look.
"I swear to God that wasn't me, I called the damn ambulance man, I'm a hero,"
"But you didn't call the cops or stick around?" Nick questioned, "Some hero,"
"Why were you so anxious to leave? The EMT's said you didn't even want to give your names, is that because you stole her purse?" Fin asked angrily, squaring up to Persino. Nick touched him lightly on the shoulder, a small reminder to not get too worked up.
"I was holding, alright. I didn't wanna get searched. Just pills though, and I swear it wasn't me who took the purse, that was Gina," he babbled.
"Gina Montero, your girlfriend?" Nick asked, remembering the name from the EMT's report.
"Yeah," Persino said, "Gina get out here," he yelled in the direction of the hallway.
"Why you gotta yell all the time?" Gina said, walking into the living room, "you let the cops in, what are you stupid?" she said viciously. Turning back to Fin and Nick and seeing the bag in Fin's hands she shrugged her shoulders, "so I might have taken the bag, I didn't know it belonged to her,"
"Yeah and I line dance every Saturday morning," Fin retorted.
Gina sighed, "Okay, fine. So Harry and me we're going to the alley, to, you know," she said, with a suggestive smirk in Nick's direction. "And I trip over something and when I look down I see it's this woman you know and she was real beat up and her clothes all ripped and stuff, so I told Harry to phone 911 and I zipped her pants back up, to like give her back some of her dignity or whatever and then I saw the bag, and I just took it. It's not like I grabbed it off her, it was just lying there,"
"You stole from a woman who couldn't defend herself, you're despicable," Fin shouted.
"She could have been lying there for hours if it wasn't for us, we helped her," Gina protested.
"Yeah then you helped yourself," Fin replied angrily, "I should arrest you,"
"You said you just wanted the bag," Persino piped up, you can't arrest her,"
"Fin come on, we've got the bag, let someone else interview them later if the ADA needs more we've got the basics," Nick said quietly. He and Amanda weren't the best of friends, but he knew how serious Cragen had been about not compromising the case. The last thing they needed was to scare the witnesses off.
Fin shook his head and stormed out of the apartment.
"Don't leave town," Nick warned the pair in front of him, "we'll probably need you again,"
"Yeah whatever," Gina said with a flippant wave of her hand.
As Nick exited the apartment and closed the door behind him, he could hear Persino and Gina arguing, and he wasn't ashamed to admit it made him smile just a little bit.
"Come on let's get this phone to CSU, the quicker we have the photo of this bastard the quicker we can make an ID," Nick said, as he and Fin walked towards the elevator.
"Yeah, th-that's him," Amanda shivered, as the sketch artist showed her the final rendering of her attacker. Initially when Olivia had told her that her bag had been found with the witnesses she had fought against even trying to work with the artist but as the brunette detective had explained, they didn't know what the quality of the photo of on the phone was like, and it was important that they covered all the bases.
Amanda had been sipping water during the 45 minutes it had taken to get the drawing just right, but it hadn't helped to soothe the burning sensation in her throat from the bile that kept threatening to rise up and make her sick. She couldn't help remembering how his hands had grasped her wrists or the weight of him as he laid on top of her. The memories were hazy, but they were definitely there.
She was barely aware of Olivia having a conversation with the sketch artist or of him leaving, Amanda just knew that the room had suddenly become unbearably small, it was too hot and she couldn't breathe. She couldn't breathe because he was on top of her, pinning her down with his entire body.
"Amanda."
Amanda heard a voice calling her name that sounded far away, muffled, as if she were underwater and she flinched away violently as she felt him touch her shoulder. She flinched so violently that her entire body went rigid with pain and she snapped out of whatever place she had been in. She realised that it wasn't him who had touched her shoulder, but Olivia, who was crouched down in front of her with a concerned look on her face.
"It's okay," Olivia soothed, "you're safe."
Amanda buried her head in her hands while shame burned in her cheeks. She couldn't believe she kept panicking like this, she wished she had her emotions under control. Peeking out from behind her fingers, all Amanda could see in Olivia's eyes was empathy, not judgement, not even pity, and she knew then that what Olivia had said in the hospital was true. She'd let the nurse call Olivia and not one of the guys, because she did get it. That knowledge however still didn't make it easy for her to be so vulnerable in front of Olivia, Amanda wasn't used to being vulnerable in front of anyone.
"You wanna get out of here?" Olivia asked, sensing that Amanda was just about done with being in a police station.
Still catching her breath, Amanda simply nodded. It would be good to get some fresh air.
When Olivia pulled up outside Amanda's apartment block she could see the hesitation in the blonde's body language.
"The unis came and checked out your apartment, and spoke to the super, there's been no suspicious activity at all," Olivia reassured her.
"I know it's stupid," Amanda said, shaking her head, "I just…"
"It's alright, better safe than sorry huh?" Olivia smiled, "I've got your pain meds in my bag, I think you're due some," the brunette said as she saw the pain and effort on Amanda's face from getting out of the car.
"Yeah, thanks," Amanda said, slightly relieved when Olivia got out of the car and walked with her to the entrance of the building. She didn't really want to be on her own, but Amanda also didn't want to keep asking Olivia to do things for her, she'd already done so much.
"You need to get a key?" Olivia asked as they walked to the elevator.
"No I had a spare at work," Amanda replied, holding up the small silver key. Olivia realised that Amanda must have retrieved it out of her desk while she had been talking to Cragen.
Despite knowing that the apartment was safe, Olivia's hand instinctively went to the gun at her hip as Amanda unlocked the door. Amanda let out a sigh of relief when she saw that the apartment was exactly as she had left it, including the empty vodka bottle on the coffee table. She cringed as she saw it, knowing that Olivia would see it too.
Olivia hadn't seen Amanda's apartment since she'd had to get all new furniture and appliances. Well if you could call them new. They appeared to be a mismatched set of things that somehow looked like they all belonged. The couch which dominated the living room had the puffiest cushions Olivia had ever seen and was covered with a patterned throw. As she walked in further Olivia could see through to the kitchen. There was a fridge/freezer, a coffee machine and a microwave. She guessed that Amanda hadn't gotten around to replacing the oven yet.
"Welcome to casa Rollins," Amanda said, forcing a smile, "It's nothin' grand but it does me just fine,"
"It's lovely," Olivia smiled.
"Do you want some coffee?" Amanda asked, moving towards to kitchen. Olivia didn't miss the grimace of pain on Amanda's face at even the simple act of walking and she reached into her purse for the painkillers.
"It's okay, I'll do it," Olivia said, "sit down and I'll get you a glass of water and you can take these.
Amanda, in too much pain and too tired to argue, walked over to the sofa while Olivia went into the kitchen. Even though she knew Olivia had already seen it, Amanda moved the empty bottle off of the coffee table and to the side of the sofa, out of sight. She sat down on the sofa, enjoying a relatively pain free moment as she sank down into the soft cushions.
It didn't take long for Olivia to find a glass, and the coffee in Amanda's small kitchen. It also didn't take her long to figure out that the blonde had next to no food in her apartment. There were some instant noodles in one cupboard, some mouldy bread on the counter and a corkboard full of takeaway menus. She also noticed the food and water bowl in the corner by the table and realised she hadn't seen or heard Frannie since they'd got in.
Olivia poured Amanda a glass of water and went back into the living room, "Where's Frannie?" she asked, as she handed over the water and pain killers. She wouldn't say it out loud, but Amanda looked absolutely exhausted. Olivia wasn't sure she looked any better herself.
"Doggy day care," Amanda said, before swallowing the pills and for a second Olivia thought she was joking. "I'm being serious," she explained, seeing the look on Olivia's face, "when we're getting slammed or really busy with court it's not fair to leave her here on her own. It's like day care but for dogs. I've been at the precinct so much the past week she's been boarding there."
"I could go and pick her up for you? I bet she's missing her mom," Olivia offered, wondering if Amanda would feel safer if she had Frannie here with her.
"Thank you but it's probably best if she stays for a couple of days, I'm not gonna be able to give her the walks she needs," Amanda explained.
Olivia shook her head, she hadn't even thought of that, "I'm sorry, I just thought…"
"It's okay," Amanda said sadly, "I know."
The smell of fresh coffee filtered through to the living room and pulled Olivia's attention back to the kitchen. By the time she came back to the living room with two steaming mugs of coffee Amanda had switched on the TV and had settled on the end of the sofa as comfortably as she could. A rerun of an old quiz show was on and Amanda's eyes were looking at the flickering screen but Olivia knew she wasn't watching it. She also knew from the way that Amanda had positioned herself, leaving space for Olivia to sit, that the blonde wanted her to stay but didn't know how to ask. Olivia understood that; feeling vulnerable is one thing, but admitting it is another thing entirely.
Olivia set the mug down on the table by Amanda and settled on the other end of the couch and tried to get interested in the quiz show, but like Amanda, she wasn't really watching it. She knew Amanda didn't want to talk right now, the way she was turned away slightly and the silent nod when she'd put the coffee on the table told her that much. But Olivia wished she would talk, she knew how harmful it was to keep things festering inside. Maybe she'd try once Amanda had rested a bit, they'd both slept terribly.
Before the show had even finished, Olivia looked over and saw that Amanda's eyes had closed and her breathing was steady and even. She was grateful that the blonde had been able to drop off relatively quickly, she definitely needed the sleep. Draining the last of her coffee, Olivia stood up and tucked the throw from her side of the sofa around Amanda.
She took her mug and Amanda's untouched coffee into the kitchen. Olivia had had every intention of calling the precinct and finding out how Fin and Nick were getting on with the case but she glanced back and saw Amanda asleep on the sofa, the caffeine had done absolutely nothing for her and she was exhausted. Olivia left the mugs in the sink and went back to the sofa, this time curling up into the soft cushions and letting sleep claim her.