CHAPTER 2

Fin raced to Liv's position in the front of the van to find her wide-eyed and visibly shaking. He turned to see what had caused such a reaction, choking back a gasp himself. The back of the van was darkened thanks to a black fabric that covered the windows, floors, and ceiling; the only light afforded to them came from the windshield. The low light that passed over Olivia's shoulder accented the sharp features of the body before her. At first glance it could have been taken for a morbidly placed mannequin; further time showed that she was not that lucky.

"Oh my God," Olivia whispered shaking, her voice hoarse from screaming. She reached over to touch the body, not quite believing that the body of Brian Cassidy, former 1-6 detective as well as her former lover, in front of her was real. He was clothed in a typical earth toned suit and was bound, she knew, even though she could not see behind his body.

Brian was positioned on his knees, his arms and legs tied behind him to maintain the awkward pose. His neck had fallen to the right, slightly leaned forward. His face was already growing pale, his body slowly going into rigor. His glazed eyes echoed the pain that Olivia felt in her heart. She too, guiltily, felt the pain of death, as if she had suffered as well. While she felt for Brian, as she would any person who had died in the manner he had, she also sighed in relief. A distant part of her brain told her that her immediate feelings were due to the fact that she was over taxed and unable to appropriately respond to the issue at hand- her heart on the other hand took over, wagging its moral finger at her, telling her she was selfishly glad it wasn't the man she was currently sleeping with, Elliot Stabler.

"Liv," Fin said, interrupting her internal battle, "Look at his mouth."

"What?" Olivia questioned, still trying to shake her head out of its philosophizing and back into the situation at hand. Fin pointed redundantly at Cassidy's lips, which were slightly parted in an oddly manipulated manner. Olivia, out of force of habit, reached into her coat to retrieve a latex glove, snapping it into place. She reached forward, eyes squinting out of both curiosity and lack of light, as her body's movement blocked the best lighting from the front of the van. As her fingers reached his lips she paused for a moment, absentmindedly noting the subtle intimacy of the gesture. She checked her emotions and continued onward, her touch moving from questionable caress to professional detachment.

"What the fuck," she whispered out loud, not necessarily directed towards Fin, but more as an observational reaction.

"What, Liv," Fin asked exasperatedly, as she was blocking any solid view he had of her actions. He tried to move in forward to get a glimpse of what she was reacting to.

"There's something here, I think," Liv said, her voice trailing off as she reached into Cassidy's mouth grasping for a possible foreign object. Striking gold, she successfully pulled out what looked to be a wadded up piece of paper wedged in between Cassidy's tongue and the roof of his mouth.

She pulled her body back out into the front seat, away from the corpse, trying to carefully untangle the page. As she smoothed the last of the paper out her mind finally processed the words that were precisely written, centered in perfect cursive across the lined paper:

Olivia,

I have provided you with a little blast from your past. I hope you enjoy this little taste of what is to come. I do miss you, Detective Benson, as clichéd as that may sound, and eagerly await our future time together. You never told me how much of a screamer your little boy toy Elliot could be though. I appreciated that most welcome of surprises. I hope you realize that this is your punishment for breaking the most sacred of rules. I am slightly disappointed in you, Olivia, tisk, tisk, sleeping with your barely divorced partner, naively thinking that he could ever want you for longer than a rebound. The boys at One PP do frown on that sort of behavior. I cannot wait to see the kind of things your guilt will paint across you. I look forward even more so to your penance.

Yours,

Richard

Olivia pulled the incriminating piece of evidence to her chest in vain, knowing that she could not get it past Fin, or better, let White get it past Forensics. Taking his cue from her verbal unresponsiveness, Fin gingerly reached over to pull the paper from Olivia's white knuckled grip. He passed a hand over his head, expelling a deep breath as he finished reading the note.

"Don't," Olivia said her voice hitching, interrupting Fin's attempt at speech, "I can't do this. I can't. It's all my fault. Me. I knew it would happen, everything I love…" her voice broke as her words turned into tears. She did not attempt to hide the tears that began to fall at a faster pace down her cheeks. Instead she began to rub her temples with her hands, slowly at first, and then furiously, her movements not giving her their intended relief, but a sense of overwhelming anxiety.

"Hey now, baby girl, this isn't you," Fin said soothingly, trying to calm her from her point of near hyperventilation. "This fucker is sick, he's just playin' with you. We'll find Stabler." He patted her shoulder in an attempt to pacify her long enough to head back to the car to call for Forensics and back up.

Olivia nodded, a part of her seeing through his words and actions, knowing she would be giving him the same bullshit talk if he were in his shoes. But he would never have been stupid enough to do what you did. Her conscience taunted her, confining her to what White had said, putting her propensity to guilt into gear.

Taking her nod as a green light to leave her with the van Fin jogged off to the Impala for the radio.

Olivia turned her body sideways in the van, unable to look back at Cassidy again, her guilt slowly manifesting itself into self deprecating hatred, as well as mentally lifting her from awareness of her surroundings. She rubbed her hands over her face, closing her eyes, wishing to be back in her apartment, no, THEIR apartment, her head shaking as she mentally corrected herself. Her closed eyes served as a temporary theater screen, playing back the night before Elliot went missing.

"Come back here," Elliot demanded, taunting her, naked but for a light top sheet, from her disheveled bed. She hesitated from the doorway, teetering on the edge of her desire to rejoin him in bed or to take a shower and attempt to go to sleep.

"We both have to go in for six tomorrow, well this morning, Elliot! It's already three and you know I need to make a solid try at sleep or else not even Munch's coffee will keep me awake for our stakeout," she said, trying to rationalize her step back towards the bathroom to both herself and Elliot.

"Fine," he sighed with a telling smirk in his mouth and a twinkle in his blue eyes, knowing this battle was not going to be won as she did make a solid point, "but your ass is mine when we wrap up tomorrow night."

Olivia eyes opened as she mentally slapped herself out of her flashback for thinking they had the luxury of thoughts like that, of thinking that they were guaranteed to be back where they were after eighteen hours on the job. Anything could happen at any given moment, to either of them, and she had- no, they both had- forgotten that. Her body facing the passenger door her arms fell to her knees, bending to allow her hands to hold the weight of her head. Her actions were stopped mid-motion as a smooth, low voice breathed close to her ear.

"You did take your time getting here," Richard White whispered with a sense of triumph over his delicate and complicated plan. Olivia had no time to react, her senses still on overload; her body lethargic in its actions. She barely even felt the needle slip into her neck right before she passed, almost willingly, into blackness.