Part Thirty-One

If the world stopped turning, Olivia wouldn't have noticed. Her own world had already stopped. Her brain was frozen, having stopped processing immediately upon hearing Fin's words. If she hadn't already been sitting down, her legs would have folded under her.

Kimberly Phillips. A woman murdered in her bed was bad enough. A woman murdered in place of herself was bad enough, even with the fact that the woman was likely going to die anyway. But unlike countless other murder victims she'd dealt with over the years, Kimberly Phillips wasn't a faceless, nameless person who'd never existed in Olivia's mind before she was dead. Rather than learning about the woman from surviving friends and family, hearing about her life from coworkers and neighbors, Olivia had met the woman, she'd talked to her. Olivia had needed her help.

She'd promised Kimberly that she would be safe, that she would be protected.

But ten years had gone by.

And she'd assumed Kimberly was safe.

The same as she'd assumed she was safe.

Her brain started moving again, trying to put together pieces that didn't seem to fit. She looked at Fin, who didn't appear to be ready to announce that he was just pulling her leg. She looked at Cragen, who didn't appear to understand the words himself. "How the hell did he get out?"

Fin shrugged, his understanding of the history likely limited to Munch's recounting of purely factual and possibly inaccurate information. The case was a decade old. "Munch was going to look into that, but I'll go-"

Cragen stood up, cutting Fin off. "No, I'll call the DA. That bastard never should have gotten released." He moved around his desk, grabbing the phone and slamming his fingers into the keys.

Olivia found her way to her unsteady feet, feeling Fin's hand on the small of her back as he ushered her through the door. It wouldn't have bothered her normally, but under the circumstances, with the new information she was trying to understand, she missed Elliot. His presence was always comforting, more so when she was upset. Instead she looked over at Fin, fighting the urge to shrug off his support. She forced a smile, or at least she tried. She wasn't at all convinced that she succeeded.

His smile, however, didn't appear forced. His eyes found hers and he shrugged a bit nervously. "Glad to see you back in one piece, Liv." He walked with her to her desk, his eyes moving away when he spoke again. "We hoped you were all right, but-"

She was glad that his hands weren't on her anymore. "But what?"

Fin took a step back. "But all we had was a dead body and the two of you missing." Another step landed him at his own desk before he continued. "And Elliot's prints in your apartment."

Elliot had hardly spent much time in her apartment, but between the stress of fighting with him and watching him getting beaten up and the terror of learning about a dead woman in her bed and the identity of her attacker Olivia had more or less forgotten about that evening. That evening when he'd demanded her cooperation and took it upon himself to protect her against her will. That evening when he'd carefully, faithfully acted as her partner, after she'd been so thoughtless and cruel to turn on him. She'd wanted to castrate him while he'd been concerned about the tape hurting her lips.

Her hand moved to her lips, feeling them, remembering how perfectly they'd fit against Elliot's, missing him more acutely at that moment. God, she was a fucking bitch. She'd hurt him. And he was still trying to protect her from someone she should have known all along was a real threat.

She glared at Fin, turning her anger and guilt and hatred outward. "And you bastards thought he would hurt me? What the fuck is wrong with you?" Her fist smashed down on her desk. She wanted to do more than hurl words at Fin. She wanted to hit someone. She wanted to hit herself. Elliot was lying on a stretcher somewhere because he'd protected her.

She didn't want to hit someone. She wanted to hug someone. And that someone wasn't Fin.

"Fuck, Liv, you're the one who turned us onto Elliot as a suspect."

She jumped to her feet, feeling an itch she suspected Elliot often had, anticipating someone would cross an invisible line so she could feel justified in pummeling him. "I did no such thing!" Even as the words came out, she knew they weren't true. But the guilt she felt for turning on her partner was too much. She couldn't let herself admit it. She couldn't let someone else call her on it.

Fin looked surprised, but not particularly concerned. "That's what Cragen said." He sized her up for a moment, as if wondering why she was so mad. "You didn't say anything to the contrary. And then you were gone and his prints were in your bedroom."

A sharp, cold fear gripped her, thinking that somehow Fin, and maybe everyone, knew what had happened up in that cabin. Maybe that was the real reason they'd been staring. She hadn't looked in a mirror, for all she knew there were fucking hickeys all over her neck from the night before.

Her eyes widened as she slumped back in her seat. She didn't want people to know. She didn't want to face the rumors. It wasn't that she was embarrassed; she didn't think there was anything at all to be ashamed of in their relationship. She knew it was real, it was a love built on a long friendship and even longer attraction. But she wasn't ready for her coworkers to know, for people to talk about her behind her back, for people to think that it had always been going on, for people to think she'd been the other woman in a doomed marriage. A marriage that Elliot hadn't bothered to tell anyone was over.

Fin took a step closer, but she didn't even notice until he spoke. "Liv, you sure you're all right?"

His voice made her jump in her chair, her heart beating wildly as she tried to nonchalantly cover her neck with her hands. "What are you looking at?"

His eyes narrowed, fixing on her hands as though he could see through them. "Something wrong with your neck?"

"No!" There was definitely something wrong with her. She couldn't help but wonder why she hadn't checked for evidence of their tumble in the sheets. And then she remembered that when she'd had access to a mirror, she hadn't had any plans to face her prying, nosy fellow detectives. She shrugged half-heartedly, sure that nothing she said would convince Fin that he hadn't seen some proof. "I must have done something in bed-"

She squeezed her eyes closed, momentarily assailed by memories, so vivid they seemed like pictures, of being in bed with Elliot. Her cheeks reddened as she continued, trying to stumble through enough words that Fin would stop staring at her for signs of guilt the way her mother always had when she came home. "I slept wrong or something."

There hadn't been a damn thing wrong with the way she'd slept. The only thing wrong was that Elliot seemed to think it had been wrong.

Fin's gaze held hers, his eyes narrowing in the slightest tell of distrust. "Ok, sure." He stepped back, falling into his own seat. "Whatever you say."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Everything in her told her to drop it, to distract him before he found out something specific, but she never would have let a comment like that slide if she hadn't been trying to hide something and so felt like she had to respond.

"Nothing, Liv." He flipped open a file on his desk, skimming it quickly before he typed something on his computer. He looked up after a moment, his eyes meeting hers once again. "Like I said, I'm just glad you're not out there with some psycho holding you prisoner."

"Elliot is not some psycho and he wasn't holding me prisoner." Her hands were braced on her desk, ready to shove her chair back so she could attack in defense of her partner.

Rather than backing off, Fin shook his head, smiling like he thought something was funny. "I wasn't talking about your partner. I was talking about the murdering psycho who left the dead woman in your bed." He stood up, waving a sticky at her where she could see a scribbled series of numbers. "I'm going downstairs to get the file. Be back in a bit."

Feeling stupid for drawing attention to what she was trying to hide, to her desperate need to protect both Elliot and their secret, Olivia looked away. The amount of time it would take Fin to locate the old file was more than welcome. She needed time. She needed to shut up. She needed to get away before she said something dumber than she already had. She wanted to go home. But she couldn't. Home wasn't hers anymore. Even if she could get over having been attacked there by someone far more dangerous and scary than Elliot could ever be, there was no home for her. Not there, not that apartment.

She could never stay there, not knowing that Kimberly had been dragged in there, tortured and murdered, her terrified, knowing eyes falling on Olivia's belongings, praying that the owner would come home in time to rescue her.

She could never stay there, not knowing that he'd been there, again, threatening her, taunting her.

She shook her head, trying to shake out the thoughts of her stuff, her space, her retreat, splattered with blood, littered with crime scene tape. Her eyes moved to Fin, who'd returned while she'd been lost in thought. She tried to speak, but had to clear her throat several times before words would form.

"Fin, give me the file."

He looked, stared, measured, then sighed and stood up. He moved to Munch's desk, wheeling the chair over next to hers, dropping the case file in front of her. "So, Liv, tell me what's not in here."

The lump she'd just evicted from her throat turned into tears that she refused to shed. She shrugged as she bit her lip, determined that she wouldn't cry. "Nothing. Everything's in there."

Fin shook his head, his friendly nudge of her shoulder, his encouraging wink, just making her yearn for Elliot's presence. But Fin, as always, was more perceptive than she ever gave him credit for. "He's going to be fine, Liv."

She averted her eyes, afraid to let him see the spark of hope and fear at his words. "I know, I just-"

He nodded. "He's your partner. I know." He moved his arm around her shoulders, giving her a gentle squeeze. "It's ok." His attention moved back to the file as he opened it to reveal yellowed pages that had once been pristine and white. "There's always something that's not in here, I'm guessing it's something that will explain what's got everyone so jumpy. Tell me about this Richard White."