I own no one but my own people

If there was one thing Ed Tucker was good at, it was hiding his nerves. All day long he dealt with people who had been taught how to get inside people's heads to pull out their deepest secrets, who had resources to find out everything about him, who had been trained to put themselves in dangerous situations and come out on top.

That's why he always appeared so hard and cold hearted to the cops he interviewed. He HAD to show them he wasn't afraid of what he knew they could do to him or they would walk all over him. That was one of the first things he taught his agents to do and it was the first thing he had been trained to do when he joined the bureau.

But now an hour after Olivia had called him to tell him that a man he could never forgot no matter how hard he tried had come back to his city, there was fear etched in his hard features and his blue eyes were ablaze with fright as he pulled up to the 1-6.

Tucker took several deep breaths before he stepped out of the car holding onto the original file from eighteen years ago, forcing his usually icy expression on his face to hide whatever sense of dread he was feeling about this case. Smoothing out his already wrinkle free suit, he took a deep breath and walked in to the precinct

After almost twenty years in IAB the dirty looks from the officers and detectives didn't faze him at all and he could ignore them as easily as he could ignore an annoying chirping bird so he made his way up to the bullpen without incident.

He looked up at the case board and froze for a moment as his eyes fell on Williams face. That unfeeling dark coldness giving Tucker an uncomfortable shudder that settled deep in his bones that he already knew he wouldn't be able to shake until this guy was behind bars.

He also saw that none of the victims from New York had been hung up on the case board meaning they didn't know his secret yet and the reason why this man terrified him to no end.

Taking a deep shaking breath, he forced himself to walk towards the group.

"What do we got on this guy?" Tucker asked the second he was in ear shot of the small squad. All four Detectives and Olivia turned towards him, and while the Detectives could see nothing but his usual iciness, Olivia could see past his mask.

Tucker was terrified of this guy. As hard as he was trying to hide it, she had been around him long enough out of the suit to know him well enough to know when he was hiding something. In this case it was him trying desperately to appear unfazed in front of the squad he was supposed to police.

"We don't need IAB's help," Nick told him none too kindly with a sharp glare.

"Ain't that right," Amanda muttered as she crossed her arms in front of her.

"Yeah because I begged to help you guys out," Tucker shot back with a dark look. He wasn't in any mood to deal with this Us VS Them crap cops threw at him every other day. Especially not when they had a guy like Williams to find, knowing every second he was out there someone's daughter, mother, wife... either one could be his next victim. "You asked for my help, not the other way around."

"This is no different than asking a cop who worked on a case earlier for help," Olivia told her squad as she looked disapprovingly at the small group. "We all want the same thing, Thomas Williams off the street."

"Yeah but Sarge... He's IAB," Carisi added like Olivia had been unaware of that particular fact.

"And right now he is the most knowledgeable person in the room when it comes to this case," Olivia snapped. "We listen to him and maybe we can catch this guy before another woman is raped and murdered. Is that okay with everyone or do you guys want to continue the pissing contest instead of finding a killer?"

She waited for any of them to talk back to her but thankfully none of them did so she just took a deep breath and motioned to Tucker. "You're up, Lieutenant."

He gave her a curt nod as appreciation. "Thank you, Sergeant."

When they first began sleeping together Olivia thought it would be difficult to work alongside him or that it would be awkward but Tucker had made it remotely clear their first night that work was work and after work was after work. Even when they were alone together during the work day she was 'Sergeant Benson'.

Olivia had found that out one night when the precinct was alone and he came by to get the jacket of a patrolman that had been dealing. She had tried flirting with him with a small hope that they might get a little dirty on her desk.

"I'm still on the clock, Sergeant, and I'm here on business," Tucker told her with a look like she had gone absolutely insane. "That is the only way this is going to work; work is work, after is after… We can't mix those up."

Olivia agreed that the cloak and dagger routine was best and handed him the jacket without further incident. Later that night Tucker showed up at her apartment and didn't even give her a chance to speak before he was on her. She might not have had sex on her desk that night but she did get an earth shattering orgasm after he took her up against her bedroom wall that night as repentance.

Tucker cleared his throat as he pointed to the mug shot of Williams. "Thomas Williams was a patrolman from 94-97," he began. "Dead last in physical at the academy, barely passed the written exams and had to repeat most of them, and slid by the skin of his teeth on psych… But his father had been the NYPD Golden Child before he was recruited by FBI so the academy didn't want to turn away the son of a legend so after graduation he was sent off to Queens's evidence collection where the worst he could do is slap the wrong label on a box. But he told his father he got into Manhattan Homicide."

Amaro raised his brow. "You have to be number one in every single field to even be considered for that gig and they never take people right out of the academy, his dad didn't buy that crap did he?"

"Williams had been lying to his dad from the beginning, claiming that he was acing all his exams and that he was number one in physical… Your kid tells you they're the best you don't wanna question it."

Amaro nodded in agreement and Tucker took a deep breath before he continued. "Williams was able to dupe him until his father came down from Washington to take him out for lunch and he found out Homicide never even heard of him. That same day, Williams' girlfriend broke up with him, yes there was abuse but she never reported anything, and he found out we were investigating him for selling pieces of evidence back to the highest bidder. That night he raped and tortured Anna Morose then murdered her with his own service revolver."

"So why didn't you just pick him up when you found out who he was?" Rollins said with a shrug as Tucker pinned up her picture on the case board. "He doesn't sound like he'd have a lot of friends to cover for him."

"Because by the time we got the firearm forensics and Homicide decided to let us know it was a cop doing the murders he was in the wind and you're wrong, he did have one friend. James Holmes; he and Williams were roommates in the academy. Williams would feed him some lie about returning pieces of evidence to the crime victims and he'd eat it up, give him the addresses. We didn't find this out until after his… after his third victim."

Olivia could have sworn she saw the makings of tears in Tuckers eyes but they were gone before she could be sure. "There was one piece of evidence he left in his apartment, a handwritten note to IAB." The Lieutenant reached in the box and pulled out a handwritten note and pinned it to the case board. "'It was wrong of me to do that to that poor woman'," he read out loud, "'I was stressed and angry and needed to take it out on that poor woman. I'm better now and will never again harm another woman so there is no reason to go after me. If you leave me alone, I'll leave them alone.'."

"Did you?" Carisi asked. "Leave the guy alone I mean."

Tucker pursed his lips for a moment and hung another victim picture along with another letter up on the case board. "I convinced my CO to put the crime, the letter, his name, and photo in the newspaper with the headline, 'IAB manhunt continues despite killer's pleas'. Next day Lindsay Ellis was found, same MO this time the note was addressed directly to me. 'I told you, Agent Tucker, to leave me alone. You stressed me out and another woman is dead because of you," he read this time not from the board but from memory. "'I'm not a violent person, only under stress which you caused me by putting this in the newspaper do I feel the need to commit these types of crimes. Now leave me alone, or you'll regret it."

There was no hiding it now, now it was obvious that this was getting to him. Olivia sat down on the edge of the desk and watched as his lip tremble and tears gathered in his blue eyes. "Tucker, you okay?" Olivia asked softly as she watched him. He cleared his throat and turned from them, quickly wiping his eyes. "Yeah I'm fine, Sergeant." He took a deep breath and turned back to them. "Sorry it's just been a while since I thought about this case… But I called a press conference that day, told him I wasn't giving up, that I would find him, and I offered a ten thousand dollar reward of my own money for whoever gave information leading to his arrest."

Carisi let out a soft whistle. "That was bold. You didn't worry about making him angrier?"

"I was new to the agency; I wanted to prove my skills and show that no matter what I wouldn't let cops get away with any kind of crime… even if it meant another murder."

Tucker slowly reached into the file with a trembling hand like whatever was in there would bite him. His lip trembled as he pulled out another victim picture. He looked at the photo for a long moment before he hung the last picture up. In life she would have been beautiful. She had dark brown hair pulled into a pony tail matted with blood and her dark brown eyes were wide open in fright. Her face was littered with cuts and bruises. "His last… his last victim was found on a Central Park Bench. No clothes, no dignity, no protection. He wanted people to see her."

Carisi shrugged as he nodded at the picture. "What was so special about this victim? I mean he tried to hide the others, even the ones in Chicago he tried hiding. Why did he want this one out in the open?"

Tucker swallowed hard as he looked up at the photo of the victim. "Carrie… Carrie Tucker was special because she was my wife. He wanted to punish me for not letting the case go, let me know how it felt to have everything out in the open. She was six months pregnant."

Olivia eyes went wide with shock. Tucker never mentioned that he had been married much less that his wife had been murdered by the same man he had been hunting. He told her that he hadn't really dated anyone since he joined IAB but she had assumed it was because of the job.

He turned and met her sympathetic look. If she hadn't of been looking she would have missed the slight shake of his head, silently telling her not to break in front of her squad. They'd talk about this later but not now in front of everyone.

Amaro's hard face finally broke and his arms dropped to his side. None of them had any clue this had happened.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Lieutenant," Rollins told him rather awkwardly. "None of us had any clue-."

"Yeah well now you do," he interrupted rather sharply stopping her half assed apology. He took a deep breath and turned away from the case board, unable to look at the picture of the woman he once loved. "There was another note this time, written in her blood next to her. 'I told you not to go after me, Agent Tucker'," he spat like the whole sentence was one foul curse word. "'Now you know how serious I was'. Holmes came to us that day, said he had no clue what Williams was doing before this and that he gave him another address of another girl an hour before he came to us; the address belonged to my mother; Angela Tucker."

"Oh Jesus," Olivia whispered. "Tucker…"

"We got to her house just as Williams started to tie her up," he explained. "He didn't do anything to her. We arrested him, booked him, and thought that would be the end of it. But he made a shiv, killed a CO walked out the front gate from there I'm assuming he moved to Chicago because he never attacked another person in New York."

"Now he's back with eight more bodies under his belt," Olivia sighed as she stood up from the desk.

"That's just in Chicago. We have no idea where else he struck," Carisi said rather discouragingly. "Seventeen years is a long time to not kill then all of a sudden go on a rampage."

Olivia shook her head. "Not if the killings are triggered by stress. He may have lived a quiet stress free life in Chicago under a new identity, something happened to him and he finally snapped."

"His girlfriend went to the cops to report him for abuse," Rollins read from the Chicago notes in the file. "He'd been living off of welfare and social security fraud for twelve years, no one ever caught on."

"That must have been the trigger. Rollins, Amaro, hunt down Angela Tucker, re-interview her and give her protection if she's had ANY threats made against her," Olivia instructed them. "Carisi, I need you to get a hold of JFK, see if you can get any security tapes from last night that showed where Williams was going. If he took a cab, then track down the cabbie and talk to him but I want this guy found NOW. Tucker I need to see you in my office."

Without another word she made her way into her office with Tucker following close behind. She shut and locked the door behind him before closing the shades on the door and window and the moment she was alone she wrapped her arms around him and after a moment he followed, burying his face in her hair, his 'work is work' creed out the window.

"Ed, why didn't you tell me about your wife, about your mother, your child…?" she whispered softly.

"I haven't talked about Carrie in years," he breathed, not letting her go. "It's too painful."

"You should have told me," Olivia sighed a she pulled away just slightly. He still had his arms wrapped around her. "I could have helped."

"We looked for him for over a year, Olivia." Tucker finally pulled away from her and leaned against the wall. "His own father even tried helping us catch him but nothing. I had to move on, focus on the job. Occasionally I'll look into the case but… it's a dark few days when I dive back into it." He took a shaky breath and shrugged haplessly. "But… I know you're on the case now and you're gonna find him and get justice for her."

Olivia offered him a sad sort of smile. "I will. I promise. And Ed, this guy that came over from Chicago is one of the best I swear to God. Voight will get this guy."

Tucker shook his head. "No, I don't want him on this case. I did some digging on him last night," he explained when he saw the confusion in her eyes. "He is WAY too dirty. He accepts bribes, he's had numerous complaints from suspects about being down right sadistic to them, he went to jail… he's even been accused of murder and attempted murder."

"So have I," she responded a tad bit harsher then she intended. "By you, remember?"

"That was different. Your DNA was on the knife, anyone would have thought you were guilty." Olivia rolled her eyes and Tucker just shrugged. "But like I said, I don't want him around this case. What if he takes a bribe from Williams to let him go?"

"Voight wouldn't do that. Why were you looking him up anyway?"

"You said he was gonna be working with you, as Internal Affairs I have a right to know what the visiting officers to my city act like."

"You mean you were checking up on me," said Olivia rather dryly.

"Can you blame me? The guy's a mobster thug with a badge."

"He's a good cop and even if he wasn't I can take care of myself AND I can take care of my squad." She walked back up to him and lowered her voice considerably. "I don't want this over protective jealous boyfriend thing that's happening here, Ed," she said softly. "Especially when we aren't even dating." Olivia ignored the hurt look on his face. "I really do not appreciate it, it isn't cute, it's not romantic, and it just upsets me so please stop?"

Tucker looked her over for a moment before he sighed and nodded. "Fine. Fine, I'll leave it alone. But I still don't want him handling this case. If he pulls some crap that William's lawyer can use to overturn a conviction-."

"He won't listen to me so you're gonna have to tell him that. And in any case he won't mess up. He knows how it works with me."

"For his sake I hope so."

Olivia let out a soft breath before she draped her arms around his neck "So… are we okay?" she asked, her voice barely above soft whisper.

Tucker put his hands on her hips and pulled her in closer, giving her that crooked smile that melted her heart, his blue eyes soft and sweet. "What do you think?" he asked his voice as soft as he could make it.

Olivia grinned at the IAB Lieutenant. "I think yes?"

"You think correct, Sergeant."

He gave her a quick kiss but pulled away before they could get to into it, the fact that her squad was right outside not escaping either of them. Olivia took a deep breath and smoothed out her shirt and hair, much like she had done before Tucker had showed up to hide the fact she had been with another man just hours before he showed up, before she went over and unlocked her door.

"You're welcome to hang around, Lieutenant," she told him as she leaned against her door frame. "If not, the second anything breaks you'll be the first to know."

"Thanks, Sergeant, but I actually have court in an hour. I'll stop by afterwards though."

The two bid one another goodbye and Tucker walked out, looking just as icy and unemotional as he had when he walked in.

Carisi watched him walk out and shook his head as Olivia walked over to the group of desks. "Can you imagine the poor sap he goes home too every night?" the young Detective said with a laugh. "Being stuck with a robot in bed?"

Olivia just held back a smirk and pointed to the phone. "Just call JFK." Turning away, she chuckled and shook her head as she went back into her office and shut the door.

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