Part 3: The Challenge

Law and Order: SVU is the intellectual property of Dick Wolf. The use of the characters, settings, and plotlines is not malicious. This is a work of fiction.

Nick Amaro slammed the phone down, a satisfied look on his face. "You just don't get that from a cell phone," he mumbled, rubbing a hand across his forehead.

"No luck, I take it?" Rollins questioned, shooting him an unreadable look.

Nick shook his head. "No one's seen him since...since he left. His wife said he told her he was working, Doc Warner told us he called in sick." He swiveled his chair around and looked at Olivia. "You think he's involved?"

Olivia folded her arms. "I didn't, not until his disappearing act, which looks..."

She was interrupted when Elliot came storming into the room. "What did Fin and Amaro get from the girl's mother?"

"Well, hello to you, too," Fin snapped, shooting him a glare.

"Yeah, hi," Elliot hissed, "Just tell me what ya got."

Fin rolled his eyes. "So far, she copped to lying to the NJDF, but she did say that Goren was her baby-daddy," he slapped a hung photo on the cork-board behind him. "She claims this guy gave her the idea to defraud the foundation."

Elliot cursed under his breath. "Shit, Liv, you were right." He looked at her. "Where is he?"

"No one has heard from him since he left, around ten-thirty last night," Rollins said, sitting on the edge of Nick's desk. She glanced at him and smiled.

Elliot looked at them and grinned. They reminded him of himself and Olivia, when they were too afraid to fall in love, but not afraid enough to stop it. "Okay, we got a BOLO out?"

"Of course," Fin scoffed. "Put an APB out on his car, and put all the city offices on alert. If he shows up anywhere, we'll know." He folded his arms. "What'd you get outta Goren?"

"Well, after the test results came back, he completely broke down," Elliot said, bumping hips with Olivia to get her to move over. He settled against the empty desk, beside her, and reveled in the contact for a moment before speaking. "She wasn't really his daughter."

Olivia shook her head. "This woman has no soul," she said, gritting her teeth. "Lying about your kid's health to squeeze some money out of people is one thing, but to lie to someone about being a father..."

"Yeah," Elliot cut her off, nodding. "That kinda blows." He eyed her for a moment, shook his head in disgust, and shook off the bad memory. "I felt so bad for him, I took his full statement, on record. He wants to press charges." He looked at Olivia again. "He did have her on his policy, so we can bring her in on..."

"Insurance fraud," she said, nodding. "Only if they put a claim through."

He smirked. He leaned closer to her. "Why do you think I said you could bring her in?"

She laughed, shaking her head, and moved away from him before the urge to kiss him became too great to ignore. "How did she file...oh, you've got to be kidding me. He put through false claims? Is he asking to have his license taken away?"

Elliot stood up straight. "Guess so," he said. "According to Goren's records, his insurance issued Rudnick's private practice a check for three grand. It was cashed three days ago."

"The day Valerie was killed," Olivia said, her eyes narrowing the harder she thought about it. "Maybe she was supposed to split the cash with him, she didn't..."

"He took his payment another way," Amaro said. "Want me to go tell Warner she has to re-work the entire..."

"Yeah," Olivia said, nodding. "Fin take Rollins. Bring in Sarah Bramson." She looked at Elliot, hearing the shuffling of papers and feet as her detectives went off to complete their given tasks. "You think Rudnick was her father?"

"Liv," Elliot sighed, brushing his hand along her cheek, "Stop worrying about finding her father, and worry about finding her rapist and killer." He gave her a soft smile. "I know you...you think it's important, but...if she lied to Goren, who knows how many guys out there think Valerie was..."

"Oh, my God, El," she snapped, shooting up. "You're right! That could be a long list! Any one of those guys would have a reason to..."

"Excuse me," a wavering voice called from the doorway. "I...believe you're..." the man paused to cough. "I believe you're looking for me."

Elliot turned and looked sharply at Doctor Carl Rudnick, a medical examiner and private physician in the city. "Yeah," he said, looking back at Olivia. "No one's here, so...should we..."

"Who better?" she questioned with a smirk. She followed Elliot over to Rudnick, and then watched as he led the way into the next room. Turning, she snapped her fingers at a uniformed officer and gestured for him to follow, too. She told the cop to wait in the viewing room, just in case a problem arose. She stepped into the interrogation room after Elliot, closed the door and turned, and then said, "Coming in voluntarily, looks good for you." She pressed her lips together as she sat down across from the bedraggled man. "Unfortunately, everything else looks pretty bad."

Rudnick nodded. "I know I shouldn't have...I know what it could've cost me, and when the girl turned up dead, ended up on my slab...I knew you'd be coming for me as soon as you dug a little deeper."

Elliot rested his chin in his hand. "Ya don't say," he mused. "And you thought running would, what, make us stop looking?"

Rudnick sighed. "I wasn't running, I was...I was trying to find..." he stopped. "Well, it doesn't matter now. I didn't kill her. Let's make that clear right off the bat." He licked his lips and folded his hands. "Sarah came to me...do you want to record this? Take notes? I want this to be my official statement."

"You haven't been arrested," Olivia said, "But you know you're entitled to a lawyer, don't you?"

Rudnick nodded. "I don't need one, Detec...Captain, is it?"

Olivia took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. "For now," she said with a curt nod.

"I know my rights, and I know that by doing what I've done, I've given up those rights," Rudnick said. "So do what you have to do."

Elliot got out of his metal folding chair, walked over to the wall, and he hit a tiny red button. "All right," he said, walking back to the table. He sat. He stared at Rudnick. "Go ahead."

Rudnick cleared his throat. "Sarah came to me about three years ago," he began. "She told me her daughter had coughing fits and seizures in the middle of the night, she wanted me to give her something to help her sleep. Well, being a doctor with some kind of morals, well, I used to...anyway, I did a full blood panel on her. She was perfectly healthy." He rubbed his chin for a moment. "Sarah...told me that if I gave her a prescription anyway, she would give me half of whatever she managed to sell..."

"Drugs," Olivia interrupted. "This started with drugs?"

Rudnick nodded. "Sleeping pills, but then she wanted pain killers, and then...insulin and Provigil."

Elliot looked at Olivia, the name sparking a memory of a long-forgotten case. His head snapped back to Rudnick. "You actually gave her..."

"At two-hundred-dollars a pill, Sergeant, can you honestly blame me?" Rudnick shouted. "It's not like that child was actually taking any of the stuff! She sold it to those rich, prep-school bastards who were already addicted to it!" He took a breath. "I know it doesn't...it's still not right, but it's how I justified..." he paused. "When the drugs weren't...enough, I guess...she told me she notified the girl's father...told him some cock-and-bull story about her having Leukemia, said she'd get him to put her on his insurance." He coughed again, looked at Elliot, and then at Olivia, and saw the severe expressions on their faces. He understood, now, why people confessed so quickly when they were in the room. "With all of the prescriptions in her records, any claim would have been...viable."

Elliot leaned back and crossed his arms. "You're the one that gave the NJDF her medical records. Well, the ones you, uh, doctored, pardon the pun."

Rudnick shot him an unamused look. "Yeah," he said. "She gave me half of whatever they sent her. When she found Goren...I didn't make the connection, but I put through a false claim, but it all appeared legitimate, for three in-office intravenous antibiotic and dialysis sessions. When the check came back, it was made out to me, I endorsed it, cashed it, gave her half and sent the rest...this won't make you think any more of me, but I donated it to the NJDF."

"That was big of you," Olivia scoffed. "This little girl...who you, yourself, have seen was completely healthy, is dead. She was raped, and killed, her innocence and her life ripped away from her!"

"I know!" Rudnick yelled right back. His nostrils flared, and his chest heaved, but he calmed and shook his head in apology. "When I went out to the scene, I knew...I knew right away who she was, and I knew I'd be connected to her, eventually." He dropped what looked like a laptop case onto the table, rifled through it for a moment, and pulled out a thick file. "It's all here. Every forged record, falsified report, copies of prescriptions...this is what I went to find, why you...why I wasn't available when you..."

Olivia held up a hand. "I get it," she said, turning down the corners of her mouth and nodding. "This was...the easiest interrogation..." she shook her head in disbelief as she stood up. "Thank you." She took the file from him.

Rudnick coughed again. "You're welcome," he said, and then he looked at Elliot. "So, seeing as I've been cooperative, does this mean I get some sort of deal?"

Elliot chuckled. "You didn't want your lawyer," he shrugged. "But I'm sure the A. D. A will go easy on you. This does...help." He got up, walked back over to the panel on the wall, and shut off the recorder. He knocked on the glass, garnering the uniformed officer's attention, and the door opened almost immediately.

The cop read Rudnick his rights and cuffed his wrists, nodding to Olivia and Elliot on the way out.

"One step closer," Elliot said, holding the door open for Olivia.

She sighed with widened eyes and replied, "To what?"

"Answers," he said leading her back into the squad room. "Justice." He looked around the room, and then pulled her toward her office. "Listen," he said, waiting for her to open the door. He pushed her into the small space, closed the door, and said, "I didn't want to say this in front of everyone else, but...Cragen..."

"Oh, thank God," she interrupted prematurely. She started waving her arms and talking fast, excited to be rid of the job she'd been thrown into. "When? Seriously, I don't know how much more of this I can..."

"He isn't coming back," Elliot said, grabbing her wildly moving hands and holding them still in his. "Baby, he...he's not. I got everyone in the mayor's office up my ass about needing a permanent name on file for this unit, and I don't know how much longer I can give them these bullshit excuses." He leaned against her desk and pulled her close to him. He looked into her eyes and saw the worry and the anxiety, and he kissed her sweetly in an effort to assuage some of it. "Why...why don't you want to do this?"

"It's not that I don't want to," she told him, biting her lip. "I can't. Everyone looks at me funny, like they just expect me to fall on my face, or screw up royally." She let out a pained breath. "Even Fin thinks I'm in way over my head."

"But you're not," he told her, sincerity lacing every word. "You know the shit I've been through at One-P-P? How much flack they all gave me, because as a detective I gave them fucking hell, breaking rules here and policies there." He shook his head and held her hands tighter. "When Tucker, himself, handed me this job, he told me...well, you were there, he said I was the only one who could do it, because I knew how to work the system. I knew what to look for, I knew how to handle people who had no disregard for the rules, because I sure as hell didn't."

She laughed and nodded. "Yeah, you, uh, you were certainly Public Enemy Number One in their eyes." She let herself fall a little further into his arms. "You're doing one helluva job, though. You've cleaned up more shit in the last few months than I think Tucker did in his entire career."

"And look at you," he said, tapping the end of her nose lightly. "They all ask why, why did they give the job to a sympathetic woman, right? Look what you can do, Liv! You're pushing harder, going further, because you've always needed all of the answers. You're stronger, faster, and more intelligent than anyone this entire department has pulled through in the last decade, and you...like me...know how to work the system. We did it, together, for years. You know shortcuts, and you know tricks, and damn it, Liv, you stop at nothing to get justice."

"You make me sound like Wonder Woman," she laughed.

He nodded. "You are," he told her. "To me, you are, and to the victims, you are, and to this unit...you will be. You...you could be." He tugged on her hands and moved them behind his back, and then wrapped his own around her waist. "You and I...we have been proving people wrong for years. They told us we wouldn't last in this unit, and we did. They told you that you'd never be able to handle me as a partner, well look at us now. They all warned me that you'd run when I wanted a commitment, and they warned you that I'd hurt you, and here we are, more in love than two people have the right to be."

"El," she whispered, tears forming in her brown eyes.

"Whatd'ya say, Captain Benson?" he asked, kissing her lips. "You and me, let's prove all those fuckers wrong, one more time."

She looked into his eyes, saw the unyielding faith in them. The faith he had in her. Her heart stopped and, it seemed, the decision had made itself. "On one condition," she said, pulling her left hand back and cupping his face with it. "Stop calling me Captain Benson," she demanded.

He rolled his eyes and let out a harsh huff. "Liv, c'mon, I thought I did a pretty good job convincing..."

"Stabler," she interrupted, kissing him lightly. "It's Captain Stabler."

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Jo

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