Chapter 3

"Elliot." Cragen motioned him over as soon as he stepped through the door.

"Please tell me we have something." Elliot's voice cracked as he spoke, but the look on his captain's face was grim.

"Munch. Fin. Over here, now." Through his own sorrow, he looked into his senior detective's eyes and saw raw panic and fear. "Elliot, come here." He softened his voice and led them all over to the board. "All right, now that we're all here, what have we got?"

Fin reached over and taped the first photo on the board. "Victim's name is Leslie Carlton. Young couple out for a late night stroll through the park called it in. She was raped, beaten, and strangled. Several small cuts on her neck and chest inflicted pre-mortem. Warner puts time of death sometime between midnight and 2 am. She hadn't been there long when they found her. Murder weapon was a belt found at the scene."

"But why strangle her? He has a knife. Why not just use that?" Cragen furrowed his brow in confusion.

"Maybe there are two do-ers." Munch suggested casually.

"Or maybe he's trying to make a statement." Fin paused momentarily. "Melinda just called with the results from the prints she lifted off of it. Two sets of prints. First set is the victims. Looks like she tried to pull away. Second set of prints was a hit in the system." He hesitated. "Elliot was right. They're Liv's."

"What else?" Cragen turned to Munch, as if pleading for more answers.

"Sorry Cap, I ran the MO through VICAP and came up with nothing."

"Nothing from the couple who found her either. We can start canvassing the neighborhood in another couple of hours," Fin offered.

"This guy wasn't afraid of getting caught. He left the body someplace out in the open. He can't be a first timer. Elliot…" Cragen hesitated, not wanting to voice the words out loud. "When's the last time you saw Olivia?"

Elliot looked up slowly. "Friday night. We left the house about eight and went to Maloney's for drinks. I left at about ten to go home. I…I tried to offer her a ride home. She wouldn't take it. Said she was going to finish her drink and wanted to walk home. I…I was supposed to call her today." He paused realizing what time it was… "Well yesterday. We had plans last night, and I told her I'd call her when Elizabeth and Dicky left." He stopped as he realized how dangerously close he was to breaking down in front of his colleagues. "I didn't…I never called her. If I had called her, I would have known."

"Elliot, it's not your fault." Munch touched a hand to his shoulder.

He shook it off as if it had burnt him. "I was supposed to protect her!"

"Elliot, you weren't working a case. Do you know how many times we've all let our guard down off the clock? Besides, we all know what Liv's like. If she didn't want a ride, she sure as hell wasn't going to let you give her one. Now blaming yourself is not going to help anyone here." Cragen's voice was gentle, but firm. "All right, Munch, I need you to find out anything you can on our victim. Find out who this girl is and where she came from. And start going over any recent parolees. See if you can find anyone who has a grudge against Olivia. Fin…call the lab and CSU to see if Warner has anything new to report. I'm going to wake up the doc and get Huang started on a profile. We're going to need every bit of help we can get."

"Captain, what about me? I'm not sitting this one out." Elliot looked up, a flash of anger pushing the desperation back momentarily.

"No one expects you to, Elliot. Now, you all have your orders. If you get anything--anything at all, notify me immediately. Go." As everyone else scrambled to get back to work, Cragen turned back to Elliot.

"Elliot, my office."

Wordlessly, Elliot followed his captain. When the door closed behind him, he spoke. "Captain, I'm fine. I can handle this."

"You're not fine, Elliot. But right now I can't afford to lose you. You need to keep your emotions in check because as soon as you start to lose it, I'm pulling you out." He eyed him for a moment. "Now, I want you working with Fin. As soon as you get the report from the ME and CSU, I want you two camped outside Maloney's. See if you can find out when Olivia left, and if she was alone. And Elliot…" Cragen hesitated. "We're going to find her."

The soft footsteps faded away and the room was filled with silence. When Olivia finally dared to raise her head, her eyes were dry. She surveyed her surroundings carefully as she struggled to make sense of the situation. She didn't know what had happened or how she had ended up here. The lapse in her memory was almost as bad as the situation itself. For a moment she wondered how he had managed to take advantage of her. Unless…her breath caught in her throat as a sudden thought occurred to her. What if she had come here on her own? What was left of her clothing was torn, but she couldn't remember how it had gotten that way.

Had she been drunk…had she had sex? And if so, had it begun as a consensual liaison? Maybe she had led him on, even encouraged him. She couldn't remember saying "no." Olivia felt herself drowning in tears of self doubt. She shook her head contemptuously as if to clear away the emotions swirling around her.

She forced the questions to the back of her head, and the cop in her began to focus on what she did know. She searched for something to tell her where she was…some indication of who he was. The room was dimly lit, cold, and damp. It was completely void of any personal touch. A basement, she wondered. She let her eyes wander up to the handcuffs binding her hands to the bed. Bracing herself for the accompanying stab of pain, she brought her arms crashing down against the rail that bound them. She could feel the bed shake under the pressure, but the rails held tight. She tried again…and again…and again. She gritted her teeth, oblivious to the swelling of her wrists, the trickle of blood, or the throbbing pain. She didn't know how long she had been trying when exhaustion and pain gave way. She let her body go limp, and dejectedly slumped against the frame she had tried so hard to break.

"Don't tell me you're tired already." The voice came out of nowhere. She whipped her head around in the semi-darkness, her eyes focusing on the shadows, searching for some movement. She felt the mattress move underneath her, and a warm breath on her skin made the hair on the back of her neck stand up. "I'm just getting started," he whispered. A chill ran down her spine as he sidled up next to her. Then with one single movement, her elbow made contact with the side of his face, and she could hear his sharp intake of breath.

"Get the hell away from me." All her doubts were gone, pushed aside by the absolute fury that overcame her. She was not a victim, and she was not about to let herself become one.

He rubbed the side of his face with one hand. "Feisty, are we? I expected nothing less from you. But you really don't want me to get mad." She let him get close again, and then brought both of her feet crashing into his chest. This time he was prepared. He staggered back only slightly before using all of his weight to pin her down. It wasn't until it was too late that she first saw the light bouncing off of the metallic object in his hand. In a moment, he had the knife to her throat, and she could feel it pressing into her skin.

She stopped fighting and froze instantly.

The knife…she closed her eyes remembering the moment it had torn into her flesh. She remembered the look of panic in Elliot's eyes as he rushed over to her instead of pursuing Gitano to save Ryan.

In a single moment, every nightmare that had kept her awake the past few months came crashing back to her. There was a helplessness in knowing that her senses were still somewhat disoriented, that her arms were trapped above her head. She forced herself to resume breathing. She had survived then, she could survive now. Her inability to fight back physically wouldn't stop her. "What do you want from me?"

"It's not you I want." He gently let the tip of the knife trace a path down her neck and across her chest.

"Then why me? Why stalk me and bring me here?" She took a chance on the last one and was relieved to see the surprise that registered on his face.

"Who said I stalked you?" The recovery was so smooth, she hesitated, wondering if she'd imagined it. She pressed harder.

"Oh, come on. A smart guy like you. You couldn't just pick anyone."

He smiled. "No. But you…you're special."

"That's right. Because I'm a cop…a special victims cop. But then again, you already knew that." She spoke slowly, gauging his reactions carefully. His face remained stoic, but she saw the flicker of acknowledgement in his eyes. "You know I've been dealing with sex crimes for years, but you…you're different."

He seemed intrigued. "I'm not like everyone else. I tried to tell them that."

"And they wouldn't listen." She let sympathy creep into her voice. "So you had to show them." She encouraged him gently--pressing him, pushing him until she was sure he was going to break.

His eyes were locked with hers, and his grip relaxed on the knife. It was the moment she had been waiting for. She tried to roll out away from him, but it was too late. He felt her weight shift underneath him and moved quickly. Her right foot sprung up to defend herself against the blade piercing her skin . She heard a clatter as her foot made contact with the knife. She never saw it hit the floor. A rough hand reached out to grab her, and she pushed with her legs to back away from him. His fingers grasped thin air. His face began to darken, and Olivia felt her control on the situation diminishing.

"You're going to regret that." His face turned another shade darker, and she trembled as cold waves of fear washed over her. She tried to push back further and realized he had completed backed her up against the bed rails. She stared back at him, his face contorted in fury and realized that she was trapped. He used his weight to hold her down as one arm swung in a clean arc, hitting her squarely in the face. After the second blow, the pain barely registered as she twisted her body over to her side to protect herself. She struggled to hold herself up against the crushing blows. As she did, she lost her balance and felt herself start to fall. Both of his arms pushed, and she heard a crack as her head hit the headboard with a blinding force.

Suddenly, everything was spinning out of control. Olivia squeezed her eyes shut and fought back the tears that threatened to spill over. She didn't realize he had the knife again until she felt the searing, numbing pain. "Don't touch me." She braced herself for the next blow. It never came. Instead, she felt him shifting underneath her and realized too late what he was doing. She recoiled as if she'd been slapped. "Please….no." She tried to crawl away, but through the blinding pain, she wasn't sure which direction would lead her away from the hands that clawed at her body. She shrank back as he forced her legs apart, forcing himself upon her. "No….please….no." She tried to fight against him, but her body was screaming in protest, and she was powerless to stop it. Instinctively, her eyes started to flutter shut, and she strained to keep them open. She forced herself to watch, to absorb every detail. She knew, even before she felt him push inside her, that it was too late.