6.
Officer Desmond Callahan nodded a little to Olivia as he exited the bathroom for the third time in as many hours, his long, young face a bit sheepish beneath his hat. He was a rookie and clearly, between Detective Stabler's instructions and the rumors swirling at 1 PP, he had no idea what to think of Detective Benson. She could have laughed, if she'd felt like it.
"Thanks," he said. "I'm right downstairs. If you need anything."
He took a minute to wait for her to answer, but she wasn't sure what she was supposed to say. He closed the door gently behind him, and Olivia waited until she heard the elevator ding before she got up and shifted the deadbolt and slid the chain lock into place. She was flummoxed by Elliot's logic in ordering a protective detail—why would a man who had managed so impeccably to frame her bother trying to do her physical harm?—but Callahan and his predecessor, Officer Lydia Damrosch, were easy enough to handle, sweet rookie kids slightly awestruck to find themselves so close to the scandal that was rocking the NYPD, and Olivia would do anything to ease the mind of the one person still willing to fight for her. On top of that, it had been years since she hadn't had a gun in easy reach, and it was a relief to know that there was a weapon, even in someone else's hands, that could be readily used in her defense.
Oh, hell. She was terrified. The last two days had been inconceivable enough that any threat seemed credible, and Olivia was so accustomed to being a cop that she had no idea how civilians negotiated danger. It flashed across her mind that she should ask Alex, and then just as quickly came the response that if Alex had anything to say to her, anything at all, she would have answered her call last night.
For a split second, the emptiness of her apartment threatened to swallow her whole. Comparing it to the damp cell in the Tombs, to the prospect of the rest of her life crowded into a ten-by-ten room, was cold but necessary comfort.
Exhaling a sigh, Olivia settled herself back on the couch and reopened the well-thumbed case file, which John Munch had visited her to deliver late last night. "We could all use your eyes on this," Munch had said evenly. Olivia understood the risk he was taking for her, that presumably all of the squad, including Cragen, must have agreed to it, and she'd tried to stop her hands from shaking as she took it from him.
Sadly, she was finding it didn't tell her much. Elliot and Fin's current runaround—Lawrence Jasinski, the Death Knights' attempt on Brady Harrison's life—was all strictly off the record, the official file stopping dead after her arrest. But for the DNA, the case against her was circumstantial, nothing a lawyer like Trevor Langan wouldn't have been able to pick apart.
She jumped at another knock at the door. "Sorry," Callahan's voice said softly from the hallway. "I, uh …"
Chuckling with relief, Olivia released the locks to allow the young officer entrance. "Christ, Callahan," she said.
He shrugged. "Lot of coffee."
"You learn," she said, smiling. "After your first couple stakeouts, you'll figure out what you can drink. Don't worry."
All she got was a confused look in return. Callahan slipped into the bathroom as the smile slipped from Olivia's face. She'd thought she was a veteran on the force talking to a young, impressionable rookie. She'd forgotten, for a second, that she was a killer.
Olivia locked the door behind Callahan as he left, then ducked into her room to check her cell phone, almost reflexively. Nothing. Still nothing. She tossed the phone aside and returned to the sofa.
The fourth nightmare last night had been the worst, Lowell Harris hurling her battered, naked body against the rusty cell door in the Tombs, forcing himself against her and into her as the bars scraped at her back, then tossing her to the floor and pitching her from slumber. Panicked, sweating, not fully awake or coherent, she had called Alex without even a second of forethought, and when she was shifted to voice mail she spent thirty seconds trying to regain control of her breath before sobbing, "I'm sorry," and hurling the phone to the floor as though it had rejected her.
Olivia hadn't heard from Elliot since the previous evening; she could only assume that meant he was on the trail of a promising lead, which made her hopeful in spite of herself. Munch, delivering the file, had hinted as much himself last night—they were investigating a lab, he'd promised, and she would know as soon as they knew more. Fin had been with Elliot through the grueling searches of the past day, and Munch seemed to think that even Melinda Warner, Melinda who had first brought Olivia under suspicion (no, that wasn't fair, Olivia chided herself—the test results were as they were), had discovered something that could help Olivia's case.
Maybe.
But her thoughts flew magnetically back to Alex, like iron filings.
Since Olivia told her about Sealview, Alex had been solicitous about her lover's boundaries, stopping if Olivia hesitated, gone if Olivia said go. Their arguments at work remained fierce, culminating in the Sherman case, but Olivia couldn't help but wonder if some of the energy between them had transferred to work.
She was right, she knew, to keep Alex out of all of this—she couldn't bear the thought of living out her life in prison knowing that Alex had needlessly undercut her future for Olivia's sake—but Olivia wished that just for a few more minutes, just for last night or just for today, she could hear her lover's voice, feel the length of Alex against her. Just another night or two when she would have some buffer against her nightmares. A night or two when she wouldn't have to fight on her own.
Olivia was so sick, and so tired.
So tired.
She forced herself to open the case file again, leaning it against her knees, in the hope of unearthing some relevant detail that her colleagues had missed.
Another knock on the door interrupted her. "Callahan!" she shouted in exasperation just as, in the other room, her phone began to ring.