Olivia's breath caught in her throat when she heard the words leave Nick's mouth. She wasn't sure how to react. It seemed as if it was all starting again.
Once had been more than enough. Neither Olivia nor anyone else ever needed to feel the wrath of someone like William Lewis. No on needed to feel the burning tip of a cigarette against their skin or a metal hanger branding them or a bottle of vodka being shoved in their mouth, the substance being forced down their throat. Olivia knew all about it and she would do anything to stop another beast from attacking.
"Olivia? Hey, Liv?" Fin's voice suddenly sounded through the office.
The sergeant left her own thoughts and rejoined her detectives. "I'm sorry. Umm… So who is this guy? What do we know?"
Nick stared at his C.O. He knew she would have a hard time keeping herself in the present with this case. All of it was too similar to her incident with Lewis to not bring back her hated flashbacks.
"All we know is his name is Jack Sutton. He's thirty-nine and has a rap sheet a mile long, everything from assault to robbery." Nick said.
"But he's like Lewis." Amanda interjected. "He always gets off with an easy sentence or no jail time at all."
Olivia sighed. She knew they were up against another charming animal. "So you said you had a current residence? What are we waiting for? Someone should be over there right now."
"We already sent a couple of uniforms over there." Fin told her.
All of a sudden there was a ringing from Nick's pocket where his phone was. He quickly pulled it out and tapped the answer button, hoping the call would be a good one. But everyone in the room watched as his expression quickly changed and it was obvious that the news he was receiving was not good.
He hung up and looked around at all of his colleagues looking at him. "That was one of the uniforms that we sent over there." Nick started. "Sutton was home when they entered but he left down the fire escape and drove off in a car before they could get to him."
"So they got nothing?" Amanda asked.
"Nope." Nick replied.
"Great." Amanda huffed. "Looks like we're back to square one."
Olivia simply shook her head, knowing that it would be a difficult and time consuming case, not to mention everything else that would personally haunt her.
Nearly two weeks and three more cases later, and the team was still trying to catch the sick predator.
It was almost worse than Lewis, Olivia thought. This time around she knew exactly what was happening to the victims she had an understanding that no one else on her squad had. And this guy was almost better than Lewis at escaping the grasp of the justice system, something Olivia never thought was possible.
While her flashbacks had started to come back a little more frequently than she liked, Liv had to keep her focus on the case. They needed to get the bastard off the streets.
"Where was the last place he was seen?" Nick asked as the team sat around the table sitting in front of the case board, searching for some tiny clue as to where their suspect could be.
"There's nothing after his apartment." Amanda answered him. "He went back briefly, when his neighbor reported seeing him and since then there hasn't been anything."
"And we have no phone records? Emails? Nothing?" Olivia asked. She knew what the answer was, but they had to think through everything.
"Absolutely nothing. He's made no contact with anyone since his first attack." Fin sounded irritated as he relayed the fact.
"There has to be something. Somewhere he slipped up and left us something." Liv was beyond ideas.
"Yes there has to be something and you all better be finding it quickly." The voice took the team by surprise and they all turned to see Chief Dodds standing feet away from them, his signature scowl on his face.
"Chief." Olivia was shocked and certainly not happy about the man's visit. "What can we do for you?'
"I think you probably know what I'm here for." He was always snarky, never a very pleasant person to deal with.
"My office?" Olivia knew as sergeant that everything was on her shoulders, but sometimes she just didn't want to deal with all the responsibility of being Commanding Officer. It was especially bad when Dodds was involved.
The pair walked in, Olivia closing the door behind her and Dodds wasted no time in starting his reprimand. "Is there some reason you and your team still have yet to catch this guy? He's been a suspect for almost two weeks now and you have gotten nowhere."
Olivia had to stop herself from rolling her eyes at how aggravating his comments were. "We're working on it, but there's not really anywhere to go. We've been here until 11, 12 every night working on finding something, but this guy is good."
"Well you better being working quickly, before this gets out of hand with the press. So far nothing has leaked, but so help me if something ends up in the paper." Dodds threatened.
"We won't let that happen. We'll have this figured out, you have my word." Olivia promised, even though she wasn't sure it was one she could keep.
"I want something soon, sergeant." Dodds seemed more serious than ever.
"I know." Olivia assured him. "And we will work until we can get this guy in our custody."
"I'm glad to hear that." Dodds told her. "But for tonight, you and your team can head home. Get some rest and be prepared to work your asses off until we have Sutton."
"Of course. Thank you, sir." Olivia was more grateful than he even realized to actually be able to go home and get some sleep.
Ten minutes after Dodds had left; Amanda, Fin, Nick, and Olivia were all walking out of the precinct to their respectable cars or whatever form of transportation they used. Each one of them relieved to be going home.
After Liv was buckled in and had started her car, her phone went off the, the sound notifying her that she had a new text message. She reached into her purse in the passenger seat and pulled out her phone. Surprisingly enough the message was from Brian. It was him asking if he could come over and pick up some more of his stuff from the apartment.
Her hand immediately went to her bump, which starting to be harder and harder for her to hide, but every time she thought of him the only thing she could think about was the one thing left between them. And, even though Liv wanted to go home and relax, she was willing to let him come over and she texted him back a simple yes. She just wanted all of his things out, so they would stop reminding her of what might have been.
Olivia arrived home twenty minutes later; the exhaustion she had been trying to avoid had hit her like a ton of bricks as she had driven home from the precinct.
The stairs to her apartment made Liv feel as if she was climbing a mountain. She was slowly, but surely, starting to feel the effects of her pregnancy and she knew that sixteen hours day were not going to cut it for very much longer. But for now she was just focused on getting Brian his stuff and getting in to her warm bed, sleeping for as long as she possibly could.
Olivia pushed her key into the lock, but a noise coming from inside distracted her. She hadn't seen Brian's car, but he was probably parked in front of the building so she wouldn't have noticed it. Or she was simply being paranoid, which had been normal lately with her reoccurring flashbacks.
However, as soon as she opened the door, Olivia knew it wasn't her paranoia that caused her to hear the noise, no, nothing like that.
The noise had been caused by what she considered her worst nightmare, a nightmare she had already lived through and never thought she would have to try and survive again. Too bad she was horribly wrong.
"Welcome home again, Sergeant Benson. How nice it is to finally meet you." The man was none other than Jack Sutton, standing in front of her with a grin almost identical to that of William Lewis.
A chill ran its way through her whole body. The voice of the man made her sick to her stomach and she instantly planted her hands on her unborn child, as if she was trying to protect them.
"What do you say we get to know each other a little better?" The tone of his voice was cocky and it dripped with a sense of control.
But Olivia didn't reply, she had no time to. Before she knew what was happening, the man was grabbing her, a gun in his hand pressed against the middle of her back. He pulled her into her own bedroom, swinging her with all of his strength onto the bed.
He leaned over her, caressing her cheek with the gun, just as Lewis had, as if they were lovers, Olivia winced at the touch and let out a small whimper.
"You're not scared are you?" He laughed at her. "We haven't even started, you have no idea what it means to fear me yet."
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