Unreasonable Doubt

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Chapter 3: Goes Nowhere, 'Cept Around and Around

"Looks like you've had a long night," Rollins commented by way of a greeting. She was a good twenty minutes early for her shift, but Nick and Olivia looked like they'd been there for hours.

Nick's face was taut. "Our guy hit another victim last night. Laura Issac, twenty-five, low-level supervisor in a marketing firm. Same profile, same MO."

"She managed to give us a partial plate off the car in addition to a manufacturer," Olivia added, "four out of six, but I don't know how much help that'll be. In four of the Atlanta cases, they were able to track down a probable match for the car, and three of them were stolen and one was rented with a bogus ID, and Laura's description of the car doesn't match the one Allison gave of the car he was using to abduct her. I've got a uni running down every car matching the description and the partial plate that's registered to a rental company or that's been reported stolen; here's hoping we get lucky and there's some trace evidence left if we do find it."

"That's awfully close together," Fin remarked, coming in just behind his partner. "Is he escalating?"

"There wasn't a clear pattern in the time between cases," Nick replied, looking at the Atlanta file to confirm what he was saying. "Atlanta guessed he seeks out the victims, stalks them long enough to know their routine, and then waits to catch them alone before tampering with the car. There's no specific timeline."

"Where's Blaine?" Fin queried.

Not here, thank God, Amanda thought. She hadn't seen him yet that morning and she was unbelievably grateful for that respite, tiny though it was.

Olivia shrugged. "I called him when the call came in, but he said he thought we could handle it and he'd be in at the regular time. I get not wanting to step on our toes but he's taking it to the opposite extreme. I know you said he didn't usually do interviews, but was he this hands-off in Atlanta?"

"What?" It took Rollins a second to realize the question was directed at her. "Uh, yeah, kind of. I mean, he had to do more of the grunt work, but I don't think I ever saw him with a victim."

"Strange way to handle a case," Fin remarked.

"Maybe he's just not comfortable with victims," Nick suggested. "SVU takes a special kind of detective, and he's not SVU, just an officer who happened to be handed a serial rape case."

"Fair enough," Olivia conceded.

xxxxxxxxx

"Sure, that's one of ours," the rental agent replied.

"Can you tell me if it was on your lot last night between 9PM and midnight?" Olivia asked. They'd decided to run down the five matching rental cars first before trying to deal with the stolen ones, and she and Munch had gone out to this lot to check on this particular car.

"Sure can." He pressed a few buttons. "No, sorry. It was taken out the day before yesterday and returned early this morning."

"Is it here now?" she asked eagerly. Could we have caught a break, finally?

"Yes, but I can't let you have it, it hasn't been cleaned yet."

"You're taking it out of service," Olivia told him authoritatively. "No one is to touch that car until our own technicians get here. That car is now a crime scene."

"I think I'd better get my supervisor."

"Fine, do that, but make damn sure your guys don't touch that car in the meantime, and we need to speak to anyone who might have already touched it."

The supervisor was on the floor quickly. "You think a crime was committed using one of our cars?"

"It's looking likely. Your employee told you what we expect?"

"I may be able to go a step further," he replied. "Last year, we had an issue with some of our cars not being returned in a timely fashion or at all, so we installed GPS trackers. We save the data for forty-eight hours."

"Big Brother is alive and well," Munch commented under his breath, but loud enough for the other three to hear.

"Shut up, John," Olivia chided with a great deal of affection. "At least that'll tell us for sure if we're on the right track."

xxxxxxxxx

"I thought for sure we'd caught a break when the car hadn't been cleaned," Olivia groaned, "but CSU went over it for three hours, and all the evidence we found matched the exclusionaries from the rental lot staff. The only thing we know for sure is that this is the right car."

"This guy's better than we thought," Blaine commented. "In all the other cases, the rental cars had been cleaned and the stolen cars had been torched. We always thought that if we could just get one closer to the time of the crime, we might be able to break the case. But it looks like he cleaned up after himself first, just in case."

"I'm not giving up yet," Olivia said firmly, in the voice she always reserved for the cases that really got to her. "We'll get him."

"Taking this one personally?" Blaine inquired.

"Damn right I am. My boyfriend has a daughter that fits this profile."

Don't tell him that! Amanda wanted to scream. What if he decides she needs a lesson like he thought I did? She hadn't been worried for Olivia because Olivia was older and higher up the chain of command than she was or than any of the White Knight's victims.

She forced herself to calm down. The girl's in Pennsylvania, how's he even going to find her? Elliot Stabler's other two daughters were still in school, so Amanda knew she had to mean Maureen. You're letting him get to you.

xxxxxxxxx

A ring on the buzzer woke Amanda from a sound sleep. She checked her phone to make sure she hadn't slept through a call. She hadn't.

So someone's coming to my apartment without calling first. Neighbor that needs to be buzzed in? She pressed the button to open the communication line.

"Hello, Amanda."

Her heart almost stopped. No. "What - do we have another lead on the case?"

"No. I just wanted to stop by and say hello."

"I'm not letting you in." It took every bit of strength she had to get that defiant statement out, and even so her voice shook.

"Fine. Goodnight, Amanda."

She collapsed to the floor, her legs no longer having the strength to hold her up. She was shaking, too tired and worked up to even cry.

I can't do this anymore.

Short, I know, but I needed everything in this chapter to set up the next one.

The chapter title is from the Shawn Mullins song "Never Gonna Get Out of This Town". Shawn is one of my favorite artists and with him being an Atlanta man himself it seemed fitting to use it here. It applies both to the investigation and Rollins' personal situation.

Please review.