August 17, 2021
"I understand how frustrated you must feel -"
"Oh, I don't think you do, Lieutenant," Olivia fired back with some heat. Who the fuck did that man think he was, saying he understood her, when it wasn't his child who had been taken, when it wasn't his world that was ending? How could anyone possibly understand it who had not experienced it themselves? The soul-shaking terror, the helplessness, the desperation coursing through her now, the desperation of a mother whose child had been taken from her, the desperation of a long time cop who had worked too many kidnapping cases to believe for one second the old tired line about "everything's going to be all right"; no, she thought, there was no way he understood her.
"I know that you're upset," the Lieutenant tried again, "but you cannot run this investigation, Captain."
She'd been doing a pretty damn good job of it so far, whatever the up-jumped Lieutenant from Missing Persons thought. Brian was sitting in the principal's office with Noah on his lap - there was no place for a DA's investigator on this operation, and Olivia wanted one of them to have their eyes on their son at all times - and Olivia had set up a command center in the parking lot. A mobile TARU van was on site, and they had pulled the security footage from the school's cameras, found the man who'd taken Mia. He was driving a black-and-white, albeit one with fake numbers, and wearing the uniform, looked every inch the cop, and Mia appeared to have gone with him willingly, believing just as the school administration had believed that Olivia had sent him to fetch her child. It was hardly the first time a uni had come for one of her children, and no one had suspected a thing. They had the guy's face now, though, and Olivia had begun directing the flood of cops who'd showed up to help, had laid out a grid search from the back of the TARU van and started pulling street cam footage from every major intersection, trying to track the fake uni's whereabouts. It was slow going, and every second brought her closer to calamity, and the Lieutenant wanted her to stop.
There was no way in hell she was gonna do that.
"She's my child," Olivia hissed at him. Fin was standing just behind her, arms crossed over his chest; she could feel him at her back, ready and waiting to step into the fray, to fight her battles. Her battles were his, and his were hers; they were brothers-in-arms, and she knew he felt Mia's loss as keenly as she did, knew that like her he would stop at nothing to bring her girl home.
"And anybody can direct a grid search," the Lieutenant told her. "Your information is more valuable to us than your leadership right now, Captain. What I need from you now is to get your husband -"
"He's not my husband -"
"Whoever he is, and join us in the mobile command unit. We need to interview you both. Whoever took Mia, this was clearly a targeted attack. This isn't some random guy snatching the first kid he saw; he wanted your kid. We need both of you to answer some questions, see if we can narrow down a list of possibles."
"You know how long that list is gonna be?" Fin piped up. "Come on, she's been doing this work more than twenty years, man. You really expect her to remember every prick with a grudge?"
"No," the Lieutenant answered. "And that's why I've ordered your case files delivered to Missing Persons. My people are going over them now. Anybody with a grudge, we'll find 'em, but you can make that job easier by telling us anybody who stands out. Please, Captain. We're trying to help you."
The thing was, she knew he right. As much as it galled her, as much as the last fucking thing she wanted to do right now was surrender what little control she retained over the situation, Olivia knew he was right. A kidnapped child's parents had no business in the middle of the investigation, and would be more useful as witnesses than anything else. There were things only Olivia knew, horrors only she remembered, and as personal as this felt, as much as it felt like this had been done to her, there was every possibility it was someone with a grudge against Brian who had taken Mia, someone whose name she'd never heard. The only way to get that information to the people who needed it most was for her to relent, and talk.
"Fine," she said. "Fin, will you go get Brian?"
There was no way Brian would consent to an interview if he didn't know she had done the same; sending Fin was the best way to let Bri know that she wanted him to talk to Missing Persons.
"Thank you, Captain," the Lieutenant said earnestly. "We'll want to interview you both separately. You've done a good job getting the search going, everybody knows what they're doing now, and this thing is moving. I'll interview you myself, if that's all right."
"Yeah," she started to say, "yeah, that's-"
"Liv!" a voice boomed out from across the parking lot, and she looked away from the Lieutenant sharply, watched in confusion as Elliot came racing towards her, Ayanna Bell hot on his heels. He was wearing his badge on a chain around his neck, was holding it out in front of him to let the horde of cops around him know that he was one of them, that he belonged, and they parted before him like the sea before Moses, leaving a wide path leading straight to her, the expression on his face - one of fury, one of terror - enough to dissuade anyone who might have thought about stopping him.
"Elliot," she breathed his name, confused. It felt like a dream, somehow; there had been so many times, over the years, when she had been scared and lonesome, when she had been lost, when she had longed, with everything she had, to see his face, and he had never come. For ten years, each time she wanted him most he was nowhere to be found, and it was hard to accept that he was here now, hard to believe that this was real, that he had, without her asking, come running to her aid.
But he was here, running to her, and he did not stop when he drew close; he crashed straight into her, pulled her in close with one of his hands tangled in her hair, and it shocked her to core when she let him. Let him, let him hold her, sank into the solid, heavy warmth of him with something almost - not quite, not entirely, but almost - like relief. There was the beat of his heart, loud as thunder in her ear when she buried her face in his chest, there were his arms, strong as steel wrapped around her, there was the truth of him, come to save her, just like she'd always wanted him to.
"We're gonna find her, Liv," he swore harshly, earnestly. "I swear to God, we're gonna find her."
It was a stupid fucking promise to make, and one he never would have dared give to anyone else, but she knew that he believed it. Somewhere deep down, even beneath the layers of cop and the years of heartbreaks he'd endured, there was a part of him that would not stop until he found her baby girl. She knew it.
"I'm so glad you're here," she breathed in response, because she was, was so desperately grateful for the reassuring weight of his presence that she could hardly speak.
Beside them the Lieutenant cleared his throat uncomfortably and Elliot and Olivia broke apart, though Elliot stole a moment to duck his head, to look into her eyes, checking, she knew, to see if she was ok, trying to reassure her.
"Can I get an introduction?" The Lieutenant asked impatiently.
"Detective Elliot Stabler, OCCB," Elliot said grimly, turning his attention to the man. "Sergeant Bell," he added, jerking a finger over his shoulder towards his boss.
"What's your interest here, Detective?" the Lieutenant asked.
The guy had to ask. He had a missing kid, and her parents weren't together, and some guy he didn't recognize had just coming up and embraced the kid's mother; he had to ask, had to know if Liv or Brian were romantically involved with anyone, had to know everyone who was part of the kids' lives, who might have had had an interest. He had to ask, but it still stirred up something like anger in her, something rageful and defensive, something that did not want - had not ever wanted - to explain what Elliot Stabler meant to her.
"I'm a friend-"
"He's my partner -"
They spoke at the same time, Elliot and Olivia, and exchanged a sheepish glance with one another.
"We were partners on the job for over a decade," Olivia explained, realizing a beat too late how it sounded when she called Elliot partner. Captains didn't have partners on the job, and Elliot had taken her in his arms in front of God and everyone.
"That's good," the Lieutenant said. "Maybe Detective Stabler remembers some perps who might have been gunning for you."
"Not any that are still alive," Elliot said grimly.
"I've been thinking about that," Ayanna piped up then, and Olivia jumped a little; she'd forgotten the Sergeant was there at all. "I'm sure you're gonna interview the parents and I'm sure you're gonna pull the case files and I don't want to add to the load of shit I'm sure you're about to wade through, but you might want to look at one of OCCB's active cases."
"What?" Olivia and Elliot chorused in unison, each as confused as the other.
What is she talking about? Olivia wondered. Sure, SVU had pitched in on the Albanian operation a few times, helped out before that when Elliot found the little girl in the drug den and again when it turned out that one of the Albanians was running girls, but no attention had been drawn to SVU's involvement; the Albanians had no reason to hate her.
Did they?
"Richard Wheatley," Ayanna said grimly.
"Sarge," Elliot started to protest, to disagree, but she shot him a dark look and he fell silent. Elliot was many things, but he was first and foremost a good solider.
"Wheatley has a personal vendetta against Detective Stabler," Ayanna told the Lieutenant. "He has made threats against people close to Elliot before. And he knows…"
She left it hanging, the question of what Wheatley knew. There was no need for her to explain, not to Elliot and Olivia at least. If Ayanna felt Wheatley was worth mentioning, if she said he knows, there was only thing she could mean. Wheatley knew that Olivia mattered, to Elliot. Wheatley knew that a shot fired at her would cut Elliot to the bone. But how did he know? And how did Ayanna know? Just what had Wheatley done, what had he said, that would make her think of him now?
"Jesus," Elliot said softly. "I didn't…I didn't think…"
"He said it in the interview room, Elliot," Ayanna told him, not unkindly. "Wheatley knows Captain Benson matters to you. And he's got an axe to grind."
"All right," the Lieutenant said. "Here's what we're gonna do."
He raised his fingers to his lips and whistled between them once, sharply, loudly, and all of his people looked his way, their heads snapping towards him like dogs called to heel.
"Briggs and Loughlin!" he yelled, and two older men broke away from the pack, came jogging up at once.
"Sergeant, Detective, I want you to go with Detective Briggs here," he said, gesturing towards one of the men. "You're gonna tell him everything you know about this Wheatley character and why he might be looking at Captain Benson. Loughlin, I want you to take Mr. Cassidy -"
Fin and Brian had finally emerged from the school, were walking towards the place where Olivia stood with Noah clinging tight to Brian's hand.
"My son stays with my Sergeant," Olivia said sharply, loud enough for Fin to hear.
"That's fine," the Lieutenant told her. "If you'll come with me, we'll get these interviews started. The sooner everybody starts talking," he added, pitching his voice loud enough for Brian to hear, "the sooner we find your girl, ok?"
It was the way things had to be. It felt like a gigantic waste of time to Olivia, but she had no other choice; they needed information, and the interviews were the only way to get it. The Lieutenant's plan was a solid one, and he was right to split them all up, but she hated it, still, hated the thought of being separated from Elliot, from Brian, from Noah, when she needed the ones she loved around her most.
" 's gonna be ok, Liv," Elliot said suddenly, reaching out to squeeze her shoulder once, hard, the way he often did when he was trying to reassure her.
She looked up at him for a moment, into his face, that face that was as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. Looked into his eyes, so bright and blue; Noah had eyes just like his, and that thought had always hurt her before, but now she found it comforting. Elliot was here, and there was nothing she could not do with him beside her.
But what about Wheatley? She let the Lieutenant lead her away, watched everyone peeling off in different directions, watched Fin take Noah's hand and lead him slowly back into the school, her heart aching with every step her son took away from her. What exactly had Wheatley said, to make Ayanna suspect him? What had Elliot said to the man, about her? What didn't she know?
So much, she thought. There was so much she didn't know, and there was no fucking time.
