Olivia Benson was placing photos on the board, battered woman with lifeless eyes and swollen faces. Six photos side by side as she wrote their names above. The room grew quiet as everyone watched.
"Fifteen years ago a woman was taken at a mall outside of Miami. 72 hours later her body was discovered. There was evidence that she had received beauty treatments, a manicure, a makeover, before she was sexually assaulted and strangled. Two years later another body was found outside of San Fransisco. Same MO. There have been four more cases since, each in different states, but the connection wasn't found until we had a victim in New York."
Sergeant Benson gestured at the last photo, "Chantil Jefferson. Twenty-two years old."
It lay on the room a heavy moment. A girl too young.
"We've run down every angle we can think of. But there has been next to no forensic evidence and what we have found has been wildly inconsistent. The nail polish or make up used, even the style with which it was applied, it's never the same. Six murders, that we know of, and we don't even have a suspect."
"How can we help?" Olinsky asked what they all wanted to know, and Voight stepped up.
"In one of the last cases a burner phone was used at the location the body was found that coincided with the time the ME determined the body had been dumped. They were able to trace it to the supplier. They couldn't get an identity of the buyer but they were able to confirm that a second burner phone was sold at the time of purchase. Sergeant Benson and her team have been monitoring the number and last night the phone was switched on, and used. In Chicago."
Lana felt something cold touch her chest.
"He's in my city," Voight's finger jabbed at the board, voice low and too calm, the type of steady they had all learned not to trust. "And I want him off my streets."
"So what's the plan," Antonio stood, hands on the back of his chair, gaze on the photos of the women.
"Based on what we have pieced together, each woman was taken from a mall, shortly after a public disturbance, usually with a significant other. In each case the woman leaves alone after the argument and never makes it home. They are usually dead within forty eight hours of disappearing." Benson explained.
"So he'll be watching malls." Olinksy stated, his hand clenching and relaxing around the pen he held, posture easy but it was clear in his eyes that his mind was working. "We narrow down where he'll be, and send Erin in, stage a fight and take him down when he tries to take her."
"If he hasn't found one already, "Attwater added, and Voight shook his head.
"He'll be playing a waiting game. His MO in choosing a victim is pretty specific. It might take him a while to find one he likes."
"What, women who get into fights with their man at the mall? I see it happen all the time." Jay interjected, and Olivia raised a hand.
"Yes but from what we've seen, it's more specific than that. Each victim has been a woman of color, taken after an argument with a white male."
Erin shook her head, "Why. That doesn't make any sense."
Olivia shrugged, "We don't know. Certainly something will come up in his psychiatric profile once we catch him to explain, but right now we're in the dark. Olinski had a good idea about staging a fight and seeing if he takes the bait, but unfortunately Erin, you don't fit the profile."
"Yeah, neither does Burgess." Attwater muttered. And Lana sat waiting for them all to realize the obvious.
When it didn't come, she cleared her throat.
"I'll do it."
Antonio sent her a surprised glance. "Go in the field? You aren't trained for it."
"She is," Voight spoke before Lana could, interrupting, and high brow raises swept the room. Benson spared a look at Voight, who hadn't taken his eyes off of Lana.
"We don't have time to find someone else. I fit the profile, let me do it." She stared Voight down. He was the only one who knew she wasn't supposed to be in the field, and he wasn't the type to care. Not with what this man was planning hanging over them.
Sergeant Benson seemed about to agree, and Voight touched her arm.
"A word," he shot the rest of them a look, resting on Lana a second longer. "find this guy's location. We need to know where to set this up."
Olivia followed Voight into his office and closed the door.
"What is it?" She watched Voight face her.
"Milani can do it. But she's not cleared for active duty. If we're gonna do this by the book," and his look said he knew full well she wouldn't have it any other way, "She won't be going in as a tactical officer. And she's not gonna be armed."
Olivia thought before she responded, a trait he respected, and he waited.
"Well ideally we would find someone else, but she's right. We don't have the time. But are you willing to send her in?"
There was something in the way Voight looked at her that she hadn't been expecting. She'd grown familiar with the moments when he was prepping to be defensive, but why now?
"Why wouldn't I be," he shrugged, and Olivia looked at him confused.
"You'd be sending one of your team in unarmed. That's a call you have to make."
Something relented and hardened in Voight's gaze all at once. "If she's willing, she's going in."
Olivia knew Voight well enough by now to know that was the end of that.
Lana was running the number of the burner phone Voight had given her, trying to get a last known location. Trying not to repeatedly glance at Voight's door
She wasn't the only one. Ruzek leaned forward in his chair and nodded at Voight's office.
"So what do you think. Have they or haven't they?" he spoke it low to Attwater but Olinsky smacked him on the back of the head.
"Is that really what your focus should be on right now?" He looked at all of them with that pent up impatience that came from years on the job. "We gotta find this guy."
Lana's gaze stayed fixed on her computer. Even when the door opened and Olivia came out, she didn't glance up. It wasn't until a phone number pinged as being in use, and they had an address that she shot to her feet.
"Voight. I've got him."
Voight barely broke stride. "Alright, let's roll out. Erin, get Olivia, she should be prepping the other player." His gaze landed on Lana. "You're with me."
She met the officer she would be going in with, an easy going patrolman that fit the part. He was handsome when he smiled and was eager to impress, willing to do just about anything to get in Intelligence's good graces. They were wired up, quick and efficient and before she knew it she was sitting in the passenger seat of Voight's car.
He didn't speak, not until they cleared the garage and were on the highway, then he glanced her way.
"You're simple bait, Milani. Stage a fight, walk away, and let him take you. The instant he does we move in. You won't be armed so be careful and stay on the comms."
Lana nodded, eyes watching the lines of the road. "I can handle myself."
Voight shook his head. "You aren't here to handle yourself. You're here to do your part and let us do the take down. Anything you do that you aren't cleared for could jeopardize this case."
Lana's brow rose before she could quite catch it, and he shot her a look before his gaze returned to the road.
"You got something to say?"
Lana shrugged. "You aren't usually so... by the book." she kept her tone casual but she was aware of the way he frowned.
"Benson is."
She hummed, a noncommittal, placating reply.
Voight was a force that didn't stop for anything. Anything, it seemed, except Sergeant Olivia Benson. He was willing to play this her way just to keep her happy, and Ruzek's poorly timed question of 'have they are haven't they' was suddenly taking up a good portion of Lana's mind.
Sergeant Benson was stationed in New York. If they were doing long distance was it an open relationship? Did she know? That Voight got his fill on the side?
Maybe Lana should feel guilty. She wasn't the type to mess with another woman's man. She had suspected there had been something with him and Erin at first, but it had seemed more like a past relationship. She hadn't known Voight had someone now. There was no way she could have. It was simple and impersonal but somehow before now, it hadn't felt cheap.
She hadn't felt cheap.
But if Voight was using her behind the back of a woman like Sergeant Benson, who was beautiful and so freaking put together she was intimidating and calming all in the same stance, Lana felt like nothing more than a discarded tissue.
The car stopped abruptly, and Lana tugged the tightened seatbelt away from her chest with a grunt.
Voight was looking at her and he did not look pleased.
"I don't know where your head's at Milani but if it's not on this case there is no point in me sending you in there."
Lana swallowed a retort, eyeing the parking lot he had stopped on the outskirts of. Maybe they should have sent her in with Voight, and not the pretty boy from patrol. Staging an argument with the man would have been effortless at this point.
She would have even enjoyed it.
"I'm ready, sir."
He regarded her a hard second before relenting.
"Then get out."
Her door was closing before he spoke again.
"And be careful."
Lana threaded her fingers through those of a man she had just met, leaned against his arm and told herself to look natural. The mall was busy, foot traffic moving in and out. They had narrowed down where the suspect was staking out to within 100 meters, right around the food court. But there were a lot of people here. They had no physical description, nothing but an approximate location and an victim profiling to go off of. They were going to have to make a big scene or risk not getting noticed at all.
"What do you think, babe, you hungry?"
Officer Rodney slid an arm around her shoulders, tugged her close with the kind of smirk that he knew was attractive and Lana pressed into his side with a smile.
From inside the van, Antonio scoffed at the surveillance feed, "He didn't waste any time getting close to her."
"Would you?" Ruzek muttered. If she wasn't so standoffish he might have looked her way more than a time or two.
"Are you two gonna focus?" Voight's voice cracked through the comm's and Ruzek straightened.
"Nothing is standing out to us yet."
They had fed into the mall's security and were checking the crowds for any suspicious persons. Any one of them could be their man. Antonio had learned early on the job that a lot of the time the guilty never really looked the part.
Voight and Olinsky walked the crowd. Erin and Jay were strolling opposite of Lana and Rodney, looking half deep into an all day shopping spree and Jay was stuck carrying the bags.
Voight took the escalator to the second level, leaned over the balcony and kept Lana in his peripherals below.
She was a natural, blending in with the crowd, into the officer's side. They were basically on top of eachother once they chose a seat in the food court.
Lana took a tug on her drink, and her voice sounded right in Voight's ear, low and just a little breathless.
"You ready?"
Voight resisted the urge to readjust his comm's.
"In position." he snapped, "Make it good."
Lana laughed at something Rodney had said, playing with her straw as she glanced down at her phone.
A second later she shot to her feet.
"How could you?!"
It was sharp and loud and heads turned as Lana stood over a pale faced Rodney, a white knuckled grip on the phone she shoved in his face.
"How, how could I what babe?"
"My sister just sent me the sonogram. You got her pregnant?!"
Voight's attention was trained on the crowd, anyone showing too much interest, but he heard the chuckle cut short over the comm's. They hadn't known what Lana was gonna pull to start this fight, but someone was enjoying it.
Rodney was squirming now. "Babe, I thought she was on the pill!"
The perfect low blow to an already irate woman.
Lana's face turned cold. That sudden rage in that terrifying moment before it exploded and Ruzek was tapping Antonio's arm repeatedly.
"She's gonna go for the drink."
Antonio rolled his eyes, "Oh she is not going to go for the-"
Lana's hand shot out. She hadn't even thought of it before Rusick's comments hit the comms but Rodney's eyes widened in very real surprise before she upended her sprite all over him.
"I hope you're very happy together."
Lana sniffed, then turned on her heel and stomped away. She passed the couple at the table nearby, the man went to toss Rodney a couple napkins when his wife slapped his hand.
"Oh don't you dare."
A group of teens were watching her storm off, whispering and giggling over their phones. No one moved to follow her and she had to resist the overwhelming urge to look around, check to see if their guy had taken the bait. It crept like a shiver up the back of her neck, and she forcibly kept her head down, stayed in character.
"I got you, Milani, just keep going." Voight's voice was in her ear, rough and strangely calming. She folding her arms over her stomach and rushed out into the parking garage, away from the crowds.
She was nearing Rodney's car, swiping at her eyes and looking like she just wanted to get out of there when Voight spotted a man crossing the parking lot towards Lana. He started feeding details into his comms, far enough back to be out of notice. Tall, clean shaven. Late 40's. Approaching Milani with intent.
The man called out as he neared. "Scuse me. Sorry to bother you. But you alright?"
Lani glanced up, blinking in surprise. His smile was wide and charming. Everything about him seemed easy going, and Lana felt her skin crawl.
"Y- yeah," she wiped at her cheeks, looking embarrassed. "Do I know you?"
"No, I just saw what happened back there." He placed a hand over his chest. "I'm sorry, mami, that wasn't right."
Lani shrugged a little like it didn't matter, like she was trying to brush it off but couldn't quite do it. "Well, it happens, what are ya gonna do?"
She couldn't see Voight, or anyone from her team. For a second she wondered if she was really alone down here, with a man who may have murdered six women.
I got you, Milani. Just keep moving. It replayed in her mind, clear and firm, and Milani gave the man a small smile.
"It was kind of you to check on me."
And she turned her back to him.
Jay and Erin were in position, ducked behind cars ready to flank him on either side. Voight watched Milani give the man the opportunity he needed, and silently he began to move in.
She sensed the movement but let him grab her. An arm around the throat, a hand sickeningly warm against her mouth. His voice was in her ear, a wavering edge as his charming facade grew unsteady.
She knew it wasn't real, that she was getting them what they needed to take this monster down once and for all and find justice families had been waiting on for over a decade, but as he drug her feet backward across that pavement everything within her screamed to fight back. She swallowed it down. She couldn't jeopardize this case.
"I'm gonna make sure you're treated how you deserve."
Voight stuck his gun at the base of his skull. "You're gonna let her go."
The man snarled, in a way that felt inhuman and twisted hard, shoving Milani as he tried to run. He didn't make it two feet before Erin and Jay cut him off.
Milani stumbled, hands connecting with her shoulders as Voight stepped in to break her fall.
She was trembling, pent up adrenaline in a body that hadn't been allowed to act and their gazes locked. She felt the press of his fingertips on her arms, saw his lips part a fraction as he took a breath.
Voight was aware. Of his team cuffing their suspect against the pavement. Erin reading him his rights. The sounds of traffic outside on the streets. The sounds of quickened breath that matched the tremors beneath his hands.
She wasn't frightened. It wasn't fear burning in the back of her eye. She wanted to press, and give, and find a release for the aggression that pulsed beneath her skin. Her first time out doing the job she loved and she hadn't been allowed to do anything.
Barely a moment had passed, not long enough for anyone to notice, but it was long enough for Voight to realize.
He hadn't known he wanted this.
She was so distant, so separate on the job what they did basically compartmentalized itself. He didn't know that he had been looking for this, to find it in her eye, an acknowledgment, a need for what he could give her.
They'd gone in with no strings, unattached so they would be unaffected, and it had worked for weeks. But as they stood in the middle of a blasted crime scene, just a half beat too long to be natural, he faced the ridiculous truth.
He wanted to affect her.
He wanted to look into her eye and catch that something looking back at him. The underlying tension that would not leave her gaze.
His comms crackled in his ear. "Hank, tell me we got him."
Olivia Benson's voice came through the channel, and just like that the fire in her eyes shuttered and died.
She stepped back, brushed herself off, and with one dark look at the man in cuffs, she walked away.