"Mr. Tompkins," Cragen said as he entered the interview room and addressed the young man pacing nervously around the table, "I'm going to be taking over this interview for Detectives Benson and Stabler."

"Where'd they go?" he asked suspiciously.

"It's a busy night, they've got other people to interview," he answered, "My name's Donald Cragen, I'm the captain here."

"Oh sure, Toni told me about you too, Alopecia," David said.

Cragen did a double take and replied, "Oh really?"

"She told me that you're a hardass who for the most part just tries to do the right thing," David said as he sat down at the table.

"For the most part?" Cragen asked.

"Yeah, she said that being a captain, you're a desk man now so you don't ever have to go out and talk to the victims or see what's been done to them, and it's probably been 10 years since you walked the beat with a partner like these other guys do. She says the good thing about being a desk man is that you get to order everybody else around to do all the dirty work, bad thing about it is when hell fires down from your superiors, you're the one getting a bite taking out of your ass."

Cragen let that go and said only, "She's very opinionated."

"She's more than that," David said.

"Yeah, I'm sure she is," Cragen remarked, "I just need to clear up a couple of things…how old was Toni when she was staying with you?"

"16."

"How old were you?"

"19."

"And how old was your partner, Nick?"

"18."

Three strikes and he was out. There wasn't anything here that Cragen could use to charge anybody with anything.

"Can you think of anybody who would want to set Toni up for a rape?" he asked.

"No…look, I know we all got enemies, but I honestly don't recall anyone ever being out to get her," David answered.

Cragen nodded and said, "Alright, you can go now. I want to thank you for coming in and trying to assist us."

David wasn't so easy to brush off, he glared at Cragen and said, "I know what you people think about people like us, you think we're a bunch of freaks and perverts who do it with anything with moves. Some of us were, some still are, but most of us are actually pretty normal…as normal as you can be when you've been bought, sold, traded, exploited and passed around like we all were. You go through a few years of that, you cope anyway that you know how, and when you're a kid you don't know a lot of ways to do that, and when you don't have any reliable adult figures in your life it doesn't help any. We've done the best that we can, most of us made it backwards from the edge of the cliff, but Toni?" he shook his head grimly, "She always could've gone either way, I don't know that it's any better now."

Explaining things to Kellerman had proved more exhausting than Toni would've thought, by the time she got through telling him everything she knew, they were both laying on top of the bed in his room and nearly asleep, but still she talked and she told him everything.

"You do what it takes in this world to survive," she said as she sat up and looked at him laying next to her, his eyes tired but open and focused on her, and she continued, "To survive, means different things to different people. To me it meant not freezing to death in the winter, not starving to death…to other people…to everybody else it just meant having somebody that they could touch and know that it was real. When you're on the streets, you have to be damn careful about who you let yourself get involved with. We all knew that. It's very easy to get mixed up with all the crazies, there's a ton of them out there and a lot of them seem very normal at first. If it's not street drugs, then it's psycho drugs, or it's not having the drugs, crazies are a dime a dozen and they all have different reasons for being."

"I can imagine," Mike said.

"It's hard not to get involved with someone who's on some type of drugs," Toni told him, "Everybody looking for a way out, even if it's just in their minds, something to numb them, dull them out, make them forget, or make them feel good, it's understandable, it's a hard temptation to resist."

"But you managed," he noted.

"Somebody had to be the clear headed one of the bunch," she replied, "I drank, but not enough to lose it, not enough to forget…it didn't matter because there's not enough booze in the world to make me ever forget what happened, what those people did to me. I'd been used all my life from the time I was 10 years old, no matter how much you want to forget that, you never do." She looked at him and said, "Don't misunderstand, most of the people I slept with after that point were alright, I liked them, I just didn't want to be there, I didn't like sleeping with them. I was just lucky none of the guys I ever shacked up with were meth heads, you know how that goes, they take the crystal meth and then they become a bunch of hophead Energizer bunnies, just keep going and going and going and going, hours on end without having to rest, I wouldn't have survived that. They were usually so gone by the time we were in bed that, before I blacked out, if they managed to make it one time they were doing well. Of course it's different with the women."

"Yeah I know what you mean there," Mike said.

"But I'll tell you something else, Mike," Toni said, "I never could understand how anybody could sell themselves for a living…it's not that I'm so opposed to it, I just don't understand it, you take on so many clients a night, have to have sex with every single one of them, how do you stay in a mood for that long? Believe me, I've thought about it, and the idea of making some quick money isn't enough to keep the arousal going, I don't think any body was meant to take all that punishment in one night, night after night for years on end like the ones that actually manage to stay alive do."

Kellerman shrugged and said, "I guess there's a lot to be said for faking it."

Toni snorted and said as she collapsed on the bed beside him, "You can't fake that much, no matter how well the job pays. But I guess it all depends on what the customer wants, if they want submissive, passive, etc. then it's probably easy to do it without any feelings towards the job at hand."

Kellerman propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her and said, "Alright, so let me ask you a question. Back at the hospital you mentioned that you don't lay around like a zombie anymore, so for you never having enjoyed anybody you were with, when was it you were supposed to have had this great sexual awakening?"

Toni laughed, but didn't get a chance to explain because a few seconds later the door opened as Fin and Munch came in.

"What did you do to Ricky?" Toni asked as she got up from the bed.

"Nothing, just sat him down for a friendly chat is all," Munch told her.

"John, we never slept together," Toni said.

"Yeah I know, he said the same thing, but I'm intrigued how with that in mind he could know that you do have a mark on your breast…of course Da Vinci showed us his rough draft of you au natural. Toni you were 15 years old when you posed for him."

"I know math," Toni sniped, "I also know it well enough to know this is six years later so you couldn't do anything to him even if you wanted to."

"Law's changed over the years," Fin told her, "Five years ain't the magic number anymore."

"I don't want to," Munch told her, "I did at first but I believe him, and, I also believe that he's only here because you called him, to warn him about what was going on."

"Somebody had to do it," Toni replied, "And you weren't going to."

"We can't," Fin told her, "And you know that."

"But I can," she said, "I'm not a cop so I can tell anybody anything I want and that includes telling my old boyfriends to be careful. Trust me, the way these guys got around the block, that's going to set off a chain reaction. Has there been any word from Elliot or Olivia yet?"

"Nothing new," Munch shook his head, "I don't know what they're up to."

It had been an exhausting night and it showed no signs of letting up anytime soon. Elliot and Olivia were on their third interview for the night, this one was a blonde woman in her mid 20s named Kelsey Channing who made Elliot feel just a little sick to his stomach when he saw how much she reminded him of his daughter Kathleen if she were a few years older.

"Oh yeah, I remember Toni," she said with an almost dreamy look in he eyes, "Poor thing, she was so cute."

"How did you know her?" Olivia asked.

"We shared an apartment for a few weeks," she answered, "She moved in with me after she left Mike Gerritsen, and then she left me when she moved in with Allison Crane."

"You all knew each other?" Elliot asked.

"Oh sure, we were all friends," Kelsey explained, then she got a sheepish look on her face and said, "I know it sounds bad, but you had to be there, maybe you'd understand it then."

"How do you remember Toni?" Olivia asked.

"Well it's kind of hard not to," she answered, "Poor dear, always so miserable. I had…a bit of a drug problem back then, nothing hardcore mind you, just something to string out and try to forget…I always told her she ought to try it but she never would. She said that it was more important that she remembered all the crap she'd been through, than to try and forget it because she might forget something important along with it. I could never figure out why she'd want to remember, that always stuck with me, I guess you could say it haunted me knowing that there was someone out there who would want to face the day sober, knowing what it would bring."

"But you're clean now?" Olivia asked.

"3 years, 8 months and 26 days," Kelsey nodded, "Toni always said the problem with her was if she took drugs to forget, eventually nothing would work on her anymore…and one day I realized it wasn't working on me anymore either…you'd never think you could get tired of it but eventually I guess I did."

"What were you trying to forget?" Elliot asked.

"My father," Kelsey laughed nervously, "I don't know if that makes it better or worse than what Toni went through because it wasn't with everybody who came in the door, but my father…" she shook her head, "What do you do? Well what I did was run away…and…Toni was always deep, philosophical, she was always asking did it make a person gay to just have sex with someone, or did it only count if you were in love with them? People think it's a choice…"

"And did Toni?"

Kelsey nodded, "Sort of…she always said that sometimes it was a choice to sleep with other girls…said if you think about it, it makes sense…guys don't have any clue what they're doing when it comes to women, so you'd want to be with someone who did…also, if you'd been repeatedly hurt by men, you might try women because they can't do it as much or aren't as likely too…simple reason is they aren't as likely to penetrate you to make themselves feel good."

"And Toni?" Olivia asked.

Kelsey got an uncertain look on her face as she recalled, "Toni thought that it only counted if you loved the person you were sleeping with and if it mattered what sex they were…that said, she didn't love anybody."

"What about you?"

Kelsey fidgeted and said with a nervous giggle, "I liked her…maybe I loved her, but I was never sure, but I know she didn't love me, I was alright with that, I was used to guys doing it all the time. But like she said, I picked her because she was a girl and things were different, physically anyway."

A thought occurred to Olivia and she asked Kelsey, "When you and Toni were sleeping together, did she have any preferences? Did the lighting have to be a certain way or, did she stay covered up?"

"Oh yeah," Kelsey laughed as she recalled, "Poor Toni…see she had hit puberty early, and as if that ugly duckling stage isn't awkward enough, when she grew she shot up a few inches, and became a size larger, it wasn't anything she could help, that's just the size of her body frame, she wasn't meant to be a skinny person. But when you're a kid you don't know that kind of stuff, so she was very self conscious, you know the works; thought her butt was too big, thought her breasts should've been smaller, thought her legs were too fat, all that stuff. She was embarrassed to death when she got undressed, she'd always have the covers pulled up, wanted the lights down as low as possible, didn't want anyone to see her."

"Makes it hard to get intimate, doesn't it?" Elliot asked.

Kelsey laughed again and said, "Oh yeah…she'd just lay in bed and let you do pretty much whatever you wanted to her, within reason of course."

"What's within reason?" Olivia asked.

"It's hard to explain, as long as you didn't come off as being dominant then it wasn't too bad, but she thought most things were."

"And even when it was dark in the room, she never took advantage of that?" Olivia asked.

"No," Kelsey answered, "You could tell she really just didn't want to be there, and it never mattered who she was with, it was always the same."

"But you never let that stop you," Elliot noted.

Kelsey scowled at him and said, "I never get rough with anybody, and I don't do dominance…if you can't love then you don't survive, and we look for it any way we can find it, but mostly the only love we knew growing up was through sex. Toni shut everyone and everything out and wouldn't let anything get to her, I just tried to get through to her so she'd know it was alright. And when nothing worked, I stopped, shortly after that she moved out and in with someone else, but nothing changed. I always felt sorry for her."

"Have you found out anything yet?" Cragen asked when they exited the interview room.

"Yeah," Elliot answered, "I'm scared to death to let Dickie and Lizzie out of the house even more than I already was."

"Well everybody we talked to had similar stories about Toni," Olivia told Cragen, "But they don't quite match so I doubt anybody's putting them up to it."

"So what did they say?" Cragen asked.

"Well their stories were all consistent, Toni was unresponsive during sex, never wanted anybody to see her, always had to have the lights down or out," Olivia said, "We called Huang down for his opinion."

"About what?" Cragen asked.

"Well the part about the lights matches with Bierce's story about his attack, but Toni would never let him see what she looked like, if she was going to rape somebody then I think she would make sure they weren't going to wake up early and see her, or since they're already being sodomized, I think she would be behind them at all times so they'd never see her face or her body," Elliot answered.

Huang came out of another interview room and pulled the door closed behind him.

"What do you make of it, doc?" Cragen asked.

"Based on what everybody had to say about Toni, she doesn't look good for these attacks," he said.

"David was right about something, rape is about power, and the men who resort to rape to get it are usually ones who feel otherwise powerless in their everyday lives, making somebody else as helpless as they feel is what boosts their own self esteem," Elliot said.

"This is true," Huang told him, "But Toni doesn't match that profile."

"Well why not?" Cragen asked, "She was rendered powerless for several years of her life when she was being pimped out as a child. I'd think anybody in that position would want to strike back."

Huang shook his head, "Not for Toni, to her, just getting away from the abuse was power enough, that was all she ever wanted. Based on the interviews I've conducted with her over the years, we know that Toni is not a malicious person by nature and only retaliates against people when they attack first. Her logic isn't distorted, she knows who is and isn't responsible, so she wouldn't be inflicting pain on every red haired male she comes across with the delusion that she's punishing them all for the actions of another person at another time and place. Several times during her years on the streets, Toni was put in a position to be dominant and take power over someone else when she was sleeping with them, and she never took it, she didn't want it, she doesn't equate power and sex as belonging together, they're oil and water to her."

"So how're we going to find out who the woman is that is making that equation?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know but personally I don't feel too comfortable using this as evidence in our case even just by character witness testimony," Cragen told them, "We've had eight people come in to talk in Toni's defense, you know what any lawyer worth his weight in slime is going to do with that, they'll make her out to be a whore, she'll had no credibility upon entering the courtroom."

"Captain," Elliot started to say.

"The reasons why won't matter, nobody on that jury is going to understand the logic that went through these kids' heads when they were shacking up," Cragen told them.

"They might," Elliot replied, "Toni told me that one of the guys she used to sleep with is now a bailiff at the courthouse."

Huang took it upon himself to explain to Cragen, "Street kids don't always come from the streets and don't always stay there either, some of them do get out and go on to lead otherwise normal productive lives, you may be surprised just how many people in a courtroom would be able to relate with what they had to go through."

Elliot noticed Olivia looked like she had a pulsating migraine and he asked her, "You alright?"

Olivia nodded weakly and mumbled some response but she turned and stepped quickly down the hallway and into the ladies room. Elliot followed her in and saw her hovered over one of the sinks with the cold water running. She splashed some of it on her face and rinsed her mouth out.

"You okay, Liv?" he asked.

"I just feel sick," Olivia said as she shut the water off, "Remember what Toni said the night before she ran off?"

"Her telling Cragen to kiss her? Yeah I'll never forget that," Elliot commented.

"No, when Cragen told her that we don't get to pick the vic, she said the hell we don't, and she's right…she's a victim but we're treating her like a perp, everything we've done tonight has just been towards building a case against her."

"I don't like it either, Liv, but we've got to do everything we can to eliminate her as a suspect, that's the only way when this goes to trial the defense isn't going to eat us and her for breakfast, you know that," Elliot said.

"I still don't like it," Olivia told him, "I'm going to call Munch and see what he's found out."

Munch closed his phone and bit the inside of his cheeks as he turned around, and he asked Toni, "Is that friend of yours Ricky still here?"

"Should be," she answered, "Why?"

Munch turned to Fin and said, "I think we've been lied to, my friend, let's go pay Ricky another visit."

"What's going on?" Toni asked.

"You stay here," Munch told her, "I don't want either of you helping the other get their story straight, Mike, if you have to, sit on her, don't let her leave."

Mike grunted and said, "That's an unusual request, but alright."

Toni followed Munch toward the door screaming at him the entire time, and when they were gone she turned to Mike and asked him, "Is this what you guys always do to a perp? Totally leave him in the dark about what the hell's going on?"

Mike felt bad for her, he didn't believe for one minute that this woman attacked him, or anybody else and he said, "I'm sure they know what they're doing, Toni."

"You lied to us, Ricky," Munch said as he circled around the man.

"What about?"

"Why would Toni agree to pose naked for you, when it's common knowledge among those who knew her intimately that she hated being seen undressed?" Munch asked.

"To sleep with, sure," Ricky said.

"And how would you know that?"

"Trust me, word gets around," he answered, "Yeah, she was uncomfortable with it, but she was a good friend and helped me out. I never did any pictures of her totally nude, she was always covered, and I pointed out to her that it was a sketch, not a snapshot, so anything she was uncomfortable with being seen, as an artist I could correct it. So long as the whole world and his brother wasn't seeing her with all the imperfections she thought she had, that made it easier for her too."

"So let me ask you a question," Munch said, "She did this to help you, what did she get in return?"

"I knew that she wouldn't stay long, and she'd need some help when she was off on her own again. So when I sold her pictures, I gave her a share of the money, it was only fair. Trust me, if she could get a job doing it professionally, she'd make a bundle."

"Well what makes her so special?" Fin asked.

"Most of the girls I knew were users, and you know what they look like? They snort all day and drink all night, but they never eat anything in between, just skin and bones, that's not an appealing look no matter how much they tried to sell heroin chic in the 90s. Toni gave me something to work with because hers was a fuller figure."

"Funny how she doesn't seem to agree with that opinion," Munch commented.

"She's just modest, always been that way," Ricky told him, "She appreciates a nice body when she sees it, she just doesn't see the same thing in the mirror."

"Did she ever talk to you about her sexual experiences?" Munch asked.

"A little, for us it was just small talk."

"She ever talk about anybody she particularly liked?"

Ricky shook his head, "She never liked anybody she slept with, for whatever reason, just couldn't enjoy herself." He held his hand up and said, "Anybody ever says she wanted it and is just trying to make trouble, they're lying. I happen to know that Toni's only idea of great sex is by herself."

"Well she's been trying to land my ex-partner for the last few days, so something must've happened to change that opinion," Munch told him, "The question is what?"

"The only reason they're talking to him," Toni told Mike, "Is because they think I did this."

"I don't think that's it, Toni," Mike tried to assure her.

"They're not talking to Ricky, or any of my other old flames to try and get insight about the woman who really assaulted you and those other guys, they're still trying to build a case for that guy Richard Bierce. You know what? I hope they do arrest me for it, every defendant has a right to face their accuser in court and I want that, I want to see this guy and stare him dead in the eye before I strangle him."

Mike put his hand on Toni's shoulder and rubbed it comfortingly as he said, "Look Toni, I'll admit I don't know Munch's new partner Fin, and I haven't seen John for several years, but he seems to know you pretty well and I just don't believe that he'd think that about you."

"Then why is he doing this?" Toni asked, "Some wise guy comes up with a story and everybody focuses on that instead of the three real victims there are in this case. I don't get it, Mike, what the hell is going on?"

Mike grabbed her and pulled her towards him and before she could do anything, he kissed her. She pulled back from him and asked, "What did you do that for?"

"Remember what you said last night about needing someone?" he asked, "Well, I'm here now…at least you know you always got one person on your side, sometimes that's enough…is it here?"

Toni looked him in the eyes and her visible emotions gave away nothing, but she wrapped her arms around him and said, "It's enough for now."

"That's all I needed to know," Mike replied as he pulled her close to him again, "Don't worry, Toni, they're not going to let anything happen to you, and I'm going to personally see to it."

"I just wish we could find the bitch responsible for this whole thing and get it over with," Toni sighed.

"Me too," Mike said as he thought back to the night in question, his foggy memory starting to become a little clearer now as he started to recall his attack.