A/N: Keeping this note brief so I can update before it gets too much later. Just wanted to say thank you for the chapter 2 reviews, and I hope you like chapter 3! For the people asking about my posting schedule: I'm going to try and bump it up to two chapters a week, probably Mondays and Thursdays. I don't want to make any promises, since my RL schedule keeps getting in the way, but that's what I'm aiming for. Especially since the cliffhanger chapters are upon us. On that note . . . happy reading. }:}
Chapter 3. Creep
. . .
According to Melville, hell was an idea first born on an undigested apple dumpling, but on that Saturday afternoon in late May, on a day just like any other, Amanda Rollins-Benson learned that hell was an uneaten bag of warm bagels.
Everyone had requested a different flavor and a corresponding schmear to go with it: Noah wanted blueberry with whipped cream cheese only, claiming regular cream cheese made him barf; Jesse thought it over extensively, and still decided on chocolate chip—the only flavor she seemed to believe existed, no matter the form it was eaten in—and Nutella; Matilda would nibble on a plain, like a prisoner subsisting on bread and water, perhaps with a thin layer of butter, perhaps not; and Carisi, bless his little New York City heart, sure could go for an everything with lox, cream cheese, capers, tomato and cucumber (but hold the onion), if it wasn't too much trouble.
Amanda had stared at their late Saturday morning guest for so long, Olivia intervened before any blood could be shed. Carisi was doing them a favor, after all, stopping by on his day off to review a case involving several elderly victims in a nursing home. And he did volunteer to watch the kids so Olivia could accompany Amanda to the bagel shop and help keep the order straight. Rather than take offense at the implication that she wouldn't be able to remember a simple list—which, honestly, she'd already forgotten halfway out the door—she jumped at the chance to be alone with her wife.
Alone in a city of eight million people, that is. But other than a few stolen moments at work, and a couple of late-night rendezvous in the living room, she and Olivia hadn't spent time together without a child in tow since Samantha was born. No, scratch that—Amanda had carried their baby around inside her for nine months prior to that, even. It had been a whole damn year since she'd gotten Olivia all to herself.
No wonder she was horny as hell. And no wonder she somehow still missed the woman she woke up next to every morning.
Two months of marriage wasn't enough time before beginning a pregnancy. Amanda had known that when she expressed interest in the idea last year on her birthday, while she sat across from Olivia in what was to become their favorite sweets shop; had known, the instant she saw the quietly hopeful spark in her new bride's warm brown eyes, that she would agree to anything if it put that look of wonder and boundless love on Olivia's face.
She didn't regret the decision to have Samantha—not for one second—and she understood the urgency. Neither she or her wife were getting any younger, and the longer they waited to have another child, the more difficult it would have been, the greater the likelihood of complications. Amanda didn't mind that the big decisions moved at warp speed for them; that was how she'd made decisions all her life. No sense slowing down now, especially when you were past forty and just starting a family.
But occasionally the old Amanda, the one whose jealousy and impulsive behavior she'd spent the last year in therapy trying to suppress, still made an appearance. That Amanda wanted the undivided attention Olivia had promised the night before. And they had fooled around a little that morning, after the kids drifted out to watch cartoons in the living room, and Olivia turned the bassinet away from the bed.
"Even if she did wake up, you really think she's gonna know what we're doing?" Amanda had asked, hands clasped behind her head on the pillow, a smirk on her lips. She'd stretched out her foot, plucking at the hem of Olivia's rumpled camisole with dexterous toes, attempting to drag the captain back down beside her.
"I'll know," Olivia replied, then turned to shuck off Amanda's pajama bottoms in one fell swoop. Her face was buried firmly between Amanda's thighs when Carisi texted to say he was on his way up from downstairs. They might have gotten to finish if he'd waited just a few more seconds to drop by unexpectedly. Once a cockblock, always a cockblock, Amanda supposed.
She had been tempted to reach out and stick a sock on the doorknob, after a glimpse through the front door peephole, but Olivia was already wandering from the bedroom, yawning, hair in slight disarray, a groggy Samantha nodding against her shoulder. Sonny was oblivious to what he had interrupted, despite Amanda's braless, cheerless state and Olivia's compulsive wiping at her mouth with the inside of her collar.
Amanda came dangerously close to strangling the ADA with her bare hands. She would have had the strength, too—all that pent up sexual frustration. It was the first time she hadn't climaxed while Olivia went down on her, and now she understood the captain's frustration at being on the cusp but denied release. Olivia must have the self-control of a Buddhist monk not to have murdered someone every time she felt like this.
That was how they ended up making out in the stairwell of their building for ten minutes, when they should have been walking the five blocks to the bagel shop. Not for homicidal reasons, but because Amanda had led her unsuspecting wife by the hand away from the elevator (they didn't have a very good track record with those) and cornered her on the landing between floors three and four.
Olivia smelled vaguely of breast milk—they both seemed to be swimming in it these days—and the coffee she'd sipped as Sonny shuffled paperwork around on the dining room table, using his pen as a pointer on the more graphic portions of each written statement, lest the children overhear. She had looked so sleepy, so obliviously sexy squinting at the pages from behind the reading glasses she fished out of her purse, Amanda could hardly concentrate on Carisi's yammering.
Unfortunately, Olivia had taken the glasses off and changed out of her fluttery camisole and capri bottoms before leaving the apartment. But thank the Lord for thin white t-shirts that clung to every contour, the ghost of a bra and bronze skin visible just beneath, and stretchy black yoga pants that contained more curves than the Himalayas. Comfy weekend attire was Amanda's favorite part of her wife's wardrobe, especially the weightless slip-on tennis shoes that put them at the same height, thanks to Amanda's chunky sneakers.
"Sweetheart, I love you, but those things on your feet are godawful," Olivia observed, the first time Amanda had worn the fat-heeled Skechers.
"What, they make me feel like a Spice Girl. I'm Peach Spice."
They also gave Amanda the perfect height boost to walk Olivia backwards, until her well-accentuated rear bumped against the handrail that bordered the landing wall, and clamp a hand to the rail at either side of her waist, ensnaring her for a deep, lingering kiss. Around the time they got married, Olivia had loosened her rules about public displays of affection; they were still largely off limits in the precinct, and she swatted away anything that approached her inner thigh while she was driving, but empty stairwells, stalled elevators, and cars parked on abandoned piers were all fair game. And Amanda loved to play.
"Our children are going to wonder where their brunch is," Olivia murmured, wrist raised for a glance behind Amanda's head at her watch, as Amanda peppered more kisses along her jawline. "And Carisi."
Pausing with both hands up Olivia's shirt, breasts squeezed gently together, enhancing the cleavage at the low V-neck mere inches from her lips, Amanda frowned. "Please don't say that name while I'm this close to your tits." She gazed longingly at the sumptuous mounds cupped in her palms, mouth watering at the thought of what she'd like to do with them. But the moment had passed, the mental image of Dominick Carisi making love to his bagel and lox a definite mood killer. Olivia probably wouldn't let her past second base in the stairwell, anyway.
"Sorry. I meant the ADA in our apartment," Olivia amended, easing back to look Amanda in the eye. Her lips quirked into a wry smile when Amanda heaved a wistful sigh, gradually releasing her breasts like she was stacking wine glasses and didn't want the precarious tower to come crashing down. "Better?"
"Not really, no." Amanda screwed on a moody pout, but it didn't last very long. After a quick glance above and below to ensure they were indeed alone, Olivia caught her t-shirt by the hem and flipped it up, exposing her bra and chest fully, with a taunting little shimmy of the shoulders. She grinned widely at Amanda's surprised expression and whipped the shirt back into place just in time, a latch clicking open on one of the other landings. Company coming.
"That oughta tide you over," Olivia said, plucking up Amanda's hand and leading her toward the stairs, "at least until we get Sammie down for a nap and crank up the cartoons."
"My Lord, woman, you are a shameless hussy," Amanda teased, keeping her voice low, in case they met up with the other tenet on the last few flights down. But Olivia's giggles drowned out the sound of footsteps, and whichever neighbor had happened into the seldom used stairwell never crossed their path. Must have been an upstairs occupant.
Moments later, they emerged from their apartment building and into an ideal New York City spring day, so mild and refreshing you could almost smell the flowers over the engine exhaust, almost hear the birds chirping over the swearing cabbies and honking horns. It was sunny enough for Olivia to slip off her unzipped hoodie and tie it around her waist.
Ever since Amanda's prowess at braiding hair revealed itself, Olivia had requested a different style braid at least once a week. Truthfully, it was just an excuse for Amanda to play with her hair, a fact they were both aware of, and one they both used to its full advantage. Today, she had only wanted a loose side plait, which bobbed on her shoulder as they walked, the fringe at the end curled against one breast like a sleeping cat. Her hair was longer than ever, and Amanda could have spent the better part of the weekend running her fingers through it. Had done so on past occasions, as a matter of fact.
But Carisi needed his damn nasty fish bagel.
Sighing, she fitted her hand into Olivia's, falling into step with her wife's long, easy stride. Her own legs had to work a little faster than their regular clipped pace to keep up, but she didn't mind. She was glad Olivia didn't tailor her steps for anyone, including Amanda herself. The captain had tried to make herself smaller for Amanda in the past—tried to just grit her teeth and "take it"—and it always ended badly. Olivia Benson wasn't meant to follow any path but her own.
Together they exuded confidence as they strolled hand in hand to the first crosswalk. Nothing could have prepared Amanda for her move to the city all those years ago, not even her time in Atlanta; part of her present day surefootedness on the overcrowded streets and sidewalks of Manhattan, she owed to Olivia. The older woman's poise and agility in the urban setting were something to behold. She might not be a dancer, but her movement throughout the city was as well-choreographed as any ballet. Amanda had learned from watching her, emulating what she saw, the way she and Kim used to teach themselves the dance moves from music videos. "Rhythm Nation," "Vogue," "Cold Hearted," "Smooth Criminal"—none compared to her city girl.
Pride at walking alongside such a woman, the wedding band on her finger proof that they belonged to each other (and proof that Amanda always settled her debts; she'd worked her ass off to pay Olivia back for that ring, despite the captain's reluctance to accept the money), might have had a little something to do with Amanda's cocky strut as well.
They turned a lot of heads when they were in public, even among native New Yorkers, who tended toward the jaded seen-it-all side of the spectrum. Olivia attributed it to Amanda's fair and delicate beauty, but Amanda disagreed—this city devoured fair and delicate. Gobbled it up and spat it out like a barn owl with a mouse. It was the fierce beauty, the inner strength and indomitable spirit, that survived in a place like this. That's why people looked at them so often. And it originated from Olivia.
"Whoa! Watch out!"
Amanda's reverie was cut abruptly and breathlessly short when an arm shot out, blocking her path and colliding with her breastbone. Before she could comprehend why Olivia had just clotheslined her, a flash of yellow zipped past, hot and hulking, leaving behind a gust of warm, sulfuric air that snatched at her breath and blew her hair back in long streamers. The last time she had felt three-thousand pounds of steel breeze by her like that was when Tad Orion tried to run her and Olivia down in a stolen Mercedes in the Catskills.
"Geez," she said, staring dazedly after the speeding cab that had almost been her demise. It had plowed through the red light without even slowing down, inches from taking Amanda with it as she started across the street. "Crazy sumbitch nearly wiped me out. D'you see that?"
"Kinda hard to miss." Olivia glanced pointedly at her extended arm, still braced against Amanda's collarbone. She lowered it a moment later and resumed holding Amanda's hand, leading the way into the crosswalk with the hesitation of someone encountering a mud puddle, rather than someone who had just saved her spouse from certain death. She'd become an expert at last-minute rescues, due in large part to their children—specifically Jesse, who didn't just stroll blindly towards danger, but ran full speed ahead.
A few of the saves were truly magnificent to behold: the one-armed catch as Jesse plummeted headfirst from a tree branch taller than Olivia herself; the hawklike swoop to grab the back of Jesse's overall straps and haul her away from the edge of a subway platform; the gasp and lunge that prevented countless heavy objects, including a stuffed bookcase, a set of expensive china, and the flatscreen at home, from toppling onto the adventurous little girl's head. Olivia had honed her reflexes on the worst scum in the city, and they were still no match for the six-year-old kamikaze known as Jesse Eileen Rollins-Benson.
Neither, apparently, was Amanda. Her wife already seemed to have forgotten the homicidal taxi by the time they cleared the opposite curb. But then:
"You okay, love?" Olivia cast a sidelong glance in Amanda's direction, gave her hand a faint squeeze. Per their therapists' requests, they had been working on affording each other space and not doting quite so intently on their spouse. (Well, Olivia was working on it. Amanda made a halfhearted attempt once or twice, then went right back to fretting over the least sign of discomfort or unhappiness from the captain.)
Olivia's startle response had calmed considerably in the months after insemination. In fact, it was around the time of Samantha's first kick that Amanda noticed a change in her wife's anxiety level, as if that tiny fluttering beneath the palm Amanda grabbed and pressed to her belly had soothed Olivia's deepest, most ingrained fears. An affirmation of life, and proof that Olivia could bring something of absolute purity and good into the world. This child would never question whether she was wanted, loved, cherished. This child would never wonder if she was a monster.
"Yeah, I'm okay," said Amanda, massaging circles on the back of Olivia's hand with her thumb. She wouldn't wish PTSD on anyone, least of all her captain, but she did miss taking care of Olivia and feeling needed. And though loathe to admit it, she missed being fussed over by the other woman as well. She'd gotten used to being pampered and pacified for nine months; now all the Pampers and pacifiers belonged to Sammie Grace.
As they should. And Amanda was immensely proud of the strides Olivia had made in her recovery; wouldn't begrudge her that for one moment. Still, it was probably a good idea for Amanda to jot down in her journal a few of the less noble feelings she'd wrestled with recently—jealousy, fear of being replaced, desire for attention—and discuss them with Dr. Hanover next session.
"You sure?" Olivia lifted her sunglasses and propped them on top of her head, studying Amanda a bit more closely. She hadn't worn any makeup for this outing, and her freckles ran amok on her cheeks and nose, cinnamon brown in the late spring sun. The lone freckle on her upper lip reminded Amanda of a wayward speck of chocolate syrup, and she had the sudden urge to lick it off. "You're awfully quiet over there. Something you need to talk about?"
Without any forewarning from her brain, Amanda heard her lips inquire, "How'd you get that scar?" She had no idea what brought the question on, only that, with both sides of Olivia's hair gathered into the braid and the sun shining down on her forehead, the jagged blemish gleamed noticeably.
Amanda knew the story behind every one of her wife's scars, except for that intricate silvery zigzag. There was the caterpillar shape on Olivia's right palm, courtesy of Amanda's pocket knife, and the pinched skin at the web of her left thumb—courtesy of a kitchen knife and Amanda's mother; the little divot in her forearm, just under the left elbow, from being stabbed by an intruder, years before Amanda's transfer to SVU; a crease down the middle of her shoulder, as if it had been poorly ironed post-op; the thin white stripe across her neck from Calvin Arliss' razor; and a deep furrow low on her abdomen, from an emergency appendectomy at the age of ten. And those were just the impressions left by a blade.
Most of the visible scars for which William Lewis was responsible, a mosaic confined almost entirely to the upper body (the lower region, his pièce de résistance, had been branded in other ways), were from cigarettes. Four altogether, focused on Olivia's breasts. Amanda hardly saw the puckered white flesh anymore—one looked like a perfect bullseye, an outer ring still visible around the inner dot where the tip had pressed the longest—and she had done her best not to stare or avert her eyes too often in the beginning, when she and Olivia were new and tentative in their lovemaking.
The two that really infuriated Amanda and made her wish she could resurrect Lewis, just to have the pleasure of killing him again, were the spiky teeth of a house key, concealed between Olivia's cleavage, and the serpentine length of wire hanger that slithered along one hip. That snakelike mark bothered Amanda the most. It hadn't been administered through clothing (too distinct), which meant Lewis had Olivia's pants down at some other point, besides in the bathroom. That part of the story had been left out, and Amanda hadn't pushed, though Lord knew she wanted to.
Last but not least were the slit on Olivia's left eyelid, incurred during a sorority volleyball match gone awry, and the mystery scar on her forehead. Amanda had hoped the story of the latter would be offered up someday without prompting. But a year in, she still didn't know where the fault-line in her wife's otherwise smooth brow had come from. She probably should have gone on waiting for Olivia to bring it up in her own time. They just didn't have much of that anymore—their own time.
"This one?" Olivia touched the scar as if there were several to choose from in that particular area. She frowned at first, stroking the seamed skin with her fingertip, hesitating like she needed to think the answer over, the memory buried deep. "Childhood accident," she said eventually, her voice almost too soft to be heard above the street noise. It appeared she might leave it at that, but when they stopped at another crosswalk, she spoke again. "I was three. Fell into the bathroom mirror and got a big piece of glass embedded in my forehead. My mother said it looked like someone threw a tomahawk at me."
She chopped the side of her hand towards her forehead and made the noise. Pffwt.
Just as Amanda was thinking that it didn't sound too awful or unusual—she had scars from similar childhood mishaps; Jesse got it honestly—another thought occurred to her, and this one was terrible. "Tell me she didn't do that to you, Liv. Please. Otherwise . . . "
Otherwise what, Amanda couldn't finish. She would like to have slapped Serena Benson across her damn alky face for the pain she'd put Olivia through, whether the woman had rape trauma syndrome or not. Being traumatized was no excuse for neglecting an innocent child, and it sure as hell wasn't an excuse for abusing that child. Olivia still downplayed the mistreatment, refusing to call them beatings ("She usually only slapped me or, you know . . . grabbed me, or something"—this, while demonstrating with a hand clamped roughly around a bicep), attempted murder ("She didn't know what she was doing, I don't think she would have really hurt me"), or sexual abuse ("Not all of them came after me, and she tried to stop most of the ones who did").
Most, but not all. Amanda would never forget the matter-of-fact way Olivia described being forced, at fifteen, to give her mother's latest one night stand a handjob in the middle of their kitchen, only for Serena to walk in, see the assault, thank her weeping child, and lead the scumbag molester back to her bed to finish fucking him.
Would that Serena Benson have slammed her three-year-old daughter face-first into a mirror, resulting in a tomahawk-sized chunk of glass slicing the baby's head open and scarring her for life? You bet your fucking ass she would.
"No," Olivia said at once, though the lengthy pause that immediately followed piqued Amanda's curiosity—and her suspicion. "She didn't do it. But . . . she left me alone in the bathtub. I got out and climbed onto the sink to play in the medicine cabinet. That's how I slipped and fell into the glass."
"Why the hell'd she leave you by yourself in the tub?" Amanda asked in a peevish tone. She was determined to be pissed off at Serena, even if the woman hadn't harmed her daughter on purpose. That time, Amanda thought to herself, darkly. What kind of mother left a toddler alone in the bath, anyway? That was how most accidental drownings occurred in the home.
Then again, maybe that was the idea. If the kid happened to die—well, Serena would no longer be stuck raising her rapist's baby, now would she?
Amanda forced away the ugly thoughts, hoping Olivia couldn't read them all over her face. If the captain had never made the connection—that the same woman who had sat on her chest, strangling her until she started to lose consciousness; chased her with a deadly weapon, threatening to never let anyone else have her; almost burnt the apartment down with Olivia inside, asleep—if Olivia had never realized that same woman might have wanted her to just die, Amanda would do whatever it took to keep her from figuring it out.
"I don't know." Olivia turned her face aside, gazing across the street at something unseen. In some ways, she had more difficulty talking about her mother than sharing the details of her multiple assaults. The wounds were just too deep. Amanda understood because she had the same problem. "I've always assumed she was drunk. She did that a lot. Started drinking and forgot where I was. That I needed her."
This time it was Amanda's hand that went up, stopping Olivia from entering the crosswalk too soon. Though not a close call like the cab a moment ago, Amanda held tight to her wife as several cars and a van whizzed by. She nuzzled gently at the bonnet of dark brown hair created by Olivia's side braid. "Sorry, baby. I shouldn't have brought it up," she murmured, pressing a kiss to the ear buried under all that hair. "Just been curious."
"It's okay." Olivia turned to peck Amanda on the tip of the nose, so lightly it almost made her sneeze. When the sensation and the subsequent blinking had passed, she found Olivia smiling warmly over at her. "I've got everything I need now. And it's not going anywhere."
"Damn straight I ain't." Amanda grinned and guided Olivia into the crosswalk and past the line of cars waiting for the light to change. Releasing Olivia's hand, she spun around on her heel and began jogging backwards in front of her wife, encouraging a brisker pace, but really just showing off. "Well, just to get some bagels. But you're coming with me. Get those long legs moving, city girl. Hup two three four."
. . .
Three blocks later, the marching count had faded—though their steps were still fairly uniform and military—and Amanda trotted ahead to sweep open the door to the aptly named shop Bagels Bagels Bagels. She ushered Olivia inside with another sweeping gesture that earned an eye roll and a whispered accusation ("Dork") as the captain glided by on those gloriously long legs, her subtle bittersweet scent wafting behind her. Amanda followed after it like that randy cartoon skunk Pepé Le Pew tailing an especially fragrant feline.
"Are you humming 'What's New Pussycat?'" Olivia asked with a wry little smile as they stood near the cash register, watching their order being plucked from a buffet of carbs and yeast. The baby-faced boy wielding the tongs chattered them playfully at Olivia through the glass windshield before selecting her whole wheat bagel, which would promptly be toasted and smeared with peanut butter and grape jelly at home. Amanda's Asiago bagel came next, topping off the bulging paper sack, its warm aroma already making her mouth water.
"Yup." Amanda scrounged in the pocket of her Adidas three-stripes, withdrawing her debit card and putting up a hand to stay Olivia, who was patting down the hoodie around her waist, trying to locate her own pocketed plastic. "Keep your money, brunch is on me. Pussycat."
"Okay, Tom Jones." Olivia gave a small snort and started to say something else, but fell silent instead, her smile slipping as she glanced at something behind Amanda. She looked as if she'd just been made by a perp, and she let her gaze drift to one side before turning slowly to the counter, facing the same direction as Amanda.
"What's wrong?"
"Don't look," Olivia said sharply, when Amanda tried to steal a peek over her shoulder. "There's a guy in the corner who keeps watching us. Your eight o'clock. Really tall, Leave It to Beaver haircut, serial killer eyes. He's creeping me out."
Hands thrust into her pockets, Amanda pretended to study the bagel shop's interior with great interest, as if there were an art installment on the walls, rather than the knotty pine paneling that covered every surface. She did everything except whistle nonchalantly as she angled herself tick-tick-tick toward six . . . seven . . . eight o'clock and dropped her gaze onto the man stationed there. Not her stealthiest work, but it was her day off.
He was very tall, that was a fact. Six-four or -five, from the looks of him. He was also very young, Amanda thought, probably not much more than twenty. The Beaver Cleaver hair didn't help. His eyes, which lingered on Olivia's back for a moment, then cut straight to Amanda so suddenly she almost gasped and looked away, were deep-set and penetrating, the irises not quite symmetrical, one lagging behind the other. They reminded her of a doll whose open and shut eyelids got stuck in different positions. When a slow smile unfurled on his prominent, rubbery lips, she felt the hair at the back of her neck stand up. Serial killer indeed.
But he was just a kid, and his smile was friendly enough, if somewhat unsettling in its execution. A lazy eye and weird facial expressions didn't mean someone was a bad person. As a matter of fact, many of the most heinous criminals looked like perfectly normal people. This kid might be a bit strange, but he was probably harmless. Yet another gawker who recognized the strength and power Olivia exuded, even while dressed down and looking forty at most. You could take the girl out of the precinct, but you couldn't take the precinct out of the girl.
"Aww, he's kinda cute, in a Hannibal Lecter sort of way." Amanda hooked a protective arm behind Olivia's back nonetheless, keeping her close. She didn't stiffen or shake anymore, the way she had after Orion; after the bank robbery. After Henry Mesner. Still, it would have been better if Amanda hadn't followed up with, "He probably just wants to eat your liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti."
Later, she would recall quoting that line and despise herself for it, for making light of Olivia's discomfort. Now though, she nudged her wife's hip, trying to draw out a smile, or at least chase away the dark cloud that had passed over the other woman's features. The darkest thing on Olivia's face since their daughter's birth had been the smudges under her eyes from not getting enough sleep. Samantha was finally on a schedule now, and her mommy's eyes had never been more vibrant. Almost no zoning out in the past year. No night terrors, either.
"I'm serious. He's—" At the sound of the bells tinkling above the shop door, Olivia glanced back and breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Leaving. Good." She forced a short, scornful laugh and shook her head as if disgusted with herself for overreacting. "Sorry. Guess I'm being paranoid. He really was staring at us, though."
If anyone had the right to be paranoid about watchful young men, it was Olivia. She'd been stalked by two of them, one of whom sexually assaulted her and tried to slit her throat, the other forcing her vehicle into oncoming traffic. Calvin Arliss was almost four years in his grave, and last year they had gotten word that Henry Mesner was arrested at the Canadian border, where he fled after another failed murder attempt—this one on his mother and younger sister.
Truthfully, Amanda had been relieved by that news as well. She didn't expect Henry to return and try to finish off Olivia, not if he had any kind of brain in his demented head, but it was better knowing he was behind bars. It freed Olivia from constantly having to look over her shoulder, and it freed Amanda from having to track down the little bastard herself. That was the least she could have done, since she was off visiting petty acts of revenge on Olivia's rapist ex-fiancé Daniel while the captain was being hunted.
That experience—along with the nightmare in Calvin and Amelia's kill room—and getting shot in the stomach by twenty-something Makiah Washington had made Amanda somewhat wary of college-aged kids for a while, too. If she'd let herself, she could have become anxious to the point of being frightened by young men in bagel shops. So she hadn't let herself.
"You don't need to be sorry," Amanda said to Olivia, accepting her debit card back from the kid behind the counter. He was a high schooler and too wet behind the ears to be a threat. He still had his baby fat, and he called Amanda "ma'am" when he thanked her and handed over the bagels. "Guy gave me the creeps, too. But that's the beauty of living in this big overpopulated city of yours. We'll never have to see his ugly mug ever again."
Olivia cast a skeptical glance out the glass storefront they were headed towards, and though her feet didn't falter, there was a momentary hesitation to continue on. It was the same reluctant behavior Noah sometimes displayed when he felt uncertain about approaching family cuddle sessions comprised entirely of girls. It tore at Amanda's heart then, and it tore at her heart now, to see Olivia conflicted about the simple act of walking outside into the sunshine. The captain had made great strides in her recovery, it was true. But every once in a while, she needed a bit of coaxing, a bit of reassurance. Maybe even a little of the brash (and occasionally unfounded) confidence Amanda had in generous supply.
She switched the bag of bagels to her opposite arm, cradling it like a fat, delicious baby against her hip, and linked arms with Olivia on the other side, escorting her to the door. A small, grateful smile turned up the corners of Olivia's mouth, and she followed willingly, hugging Amanda's arm to her chest. "You're right," she said, leaning into Amanda's side as they exited the shop and began the lazy trek back to the apartment, neither in the mood to rush it. "How'd you get so smart, little pretty?"
"Welp, way I figure, learned 'most everything I know from my city girl." Amanda affected her best cowboy strut, which wasn't easy in sneakers and track pants, but she made it work. Just needed the right amount of bounce in the knees, the faintest turnout of the toes. All that was missing were the chaps and spurs. "And she's one smart cookie."
"Chocolate chip or Oreo?"
The sly question put a grin on Amanda's face and an extra spring in her step. Oreos had become a favorite post-coital snack and subject of major debate for the two of them. Olivia started it, often requesting the sandwich cookies whenever Amanda padded out to the kitchen, ravenous after an energetic roll in the sack. Now Amanda craved them as well, and found she couldn't eat them without feeling slightly amorous.
But the real issue—the one that saw them bickering like a couple of old ladies, each certain hers was the superior recipe—was how to eat them: Olivia insisted they should be dunked in milk, which she then nursed from the cookie, wafers and cream dissolving to a chocolaty mash on her tongue; Amanda swore by twisting off the top, licking up every ounce of filling, and consuming the leftover wafers last, one at a time. "Hey, save some of that for me," Olivia had remarked once, while Amanda laved a cookie clean with the determination of Frannie and a spoonful of peanut butter. The captain hadn't been referring to the Oreo.
"Oh, definitely Oreo," Amanda said now, dropping her voice to a seductive purr. She winked at her wife, who gave an appreciative hum of laughter and again hugged tight to her arm. "She's chock full of all kindsa good stuff."
"Charmer." Olivia stated it like an accusation, but craned her neck to stamp a kiss on Amanda's cheek when they stopped at yet another crosswalk. She eased back and gazed softly at Amanda, immeasurable fondness gleaming in her warm brown eyes. "You know how much I love you, right?"
"'Course I do. What's not to love?"
If Amanda had known those were the last words she would speak to Olivia—her captain, her perfect, fierce, loving, compassionate city girl—before their entire world was ripped apart; if she'd suspected in the least that the van parked half-assed on the curb as they approached the second crosswalk held horrors untold, curated specifically for herself and for her wife; if she had ever dreamed that, sitting in a cell in Sealview Correctional, Sondra Vaughn was smiling at an engagement photo of her and Olivia, to whom the prisoner whispered, "Happy anniversary, Captain," Amanda might have chosen a better goodbye.
If she had known.
It started with the sunglasses. Olivia bent to pick them up when they fell from their perch atop her head and cracked against the sidewalk. Though not prescription, they were an expensive pair—dark aviators that made her look twice as badass and effortlessly sexy. "Shoot," she muttered, losing a few cool points, but none of her cuteness, with the mild oath. (Her New Year's resolution was to stop swearing in front of the children. Jesse had gotten several time outs at school earlier in the year for exclaiming dammit during spelling tests.) "Darn it, shoot."
"If you insist," said a male voice, barely rising above the volume of normal conversation, but clearly audible over the Saturday traffic. It sounded a bit like Calvin Arliss; that creepy little fucker had always seemed to be speaking from the bottom of a well, his voice at once hollow and resounding. But the Mangler was dead.
This was the guy from the bagel shop, and his off-center eyes once again struck Amanda as odd, even a little deranged, as he stepped from the shadows of some scaffolding on the corner, aimed a gun at her, and fired.
These assholes never give me a chance to react, she thought, watching the bullet arc toward her like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Except it wasn't a bullet, she realized at the last second, noting that there were two glints of silver advancing, something that resembled fishing line trailing behind them, and instead of a deafening bang, she'd heard a crisp snap, like a twig breaking underfoot. And then her legs were the twigs, buckling beneath her as the prongs from the gun pierced her side and hip, stinging her through the useless layers of t-shirt and track pants that were her only protection.
It's a Taser, not a gun, her brain relayed an instant before the real pain began. That knowledge was cold comfort as her central nervous system turned against her, muscles contracting so violently she pitched forward, clenched as tightly as a noose with a body kicking and twitching at the end. She would have smacked face-first against the pavement
(See? Jesse gets it honest)
and probably knocked out a few teeth, if not for Olivia and her lightning reflexes.
Dropping her sunglasses for a second time, the captain's hands shot forward to catch Amanda, a hairsbreadth away from colliding with the ground. "Oh my God," she said, her voice jittery in Amanda's ears, but whether it was the convulsions or the electric crackle from the Taser was hard to say. A definite schism of terror ran through the reflexive statement, like a crack opening up the earth—normally so solid and steady—during an earthquake.
Olivia was scared, and Amanda was in too much agony to care.
She had been tasered before, upon joining the police force. It was a requirement, a rite of passage of sorts, for the newest officers welcomed into the Atlanta Police Department to be tasered, and later in the same endurance test, pepper sprayed in the face. The goal was to give rookies a better understanding of the effect disarming agents had on the human body and to prepare them for the event, should a suspect ever use those agents against them. Amanda had actually laughed back then, giving a rowdy war whoop and slaps on the back to her fellow recruits, as they wiped tears and snot from their tomato-red faces and flung it from hands that still tremored like an old drunk's. It was a good lesson, one she never forgot.
But nothing prepared you for the mind-numbing, bone-rattling pain when a stranger came out of nowhere and shot an electrical current through your body for five excruciating seconds.
And in that five seconds, an eternity. Amanda saw it unfold around her as if it happened underwater, a dreamy, stop-motion ballet. Olivia lowered her heavily to the ground ("Amanda! What the hell are you doing? Stop it!"), half falling and half dropping to her knees on the sidewalk, from the sudden dead weight in her arms. She gazed down from above, features twisted in concern and confusion, a golden aura behind her, turning the tips of her hair amber.
Out of the scrambled thoughts that went through Amanda's glitching hard-drive of a brain, there emerged one clear, coherent line of code—She looks like an angel—and then it was lost. Another upheaval of pain, her insides trying to migrate to her outsides. (How long could five seconds last?) Forever, said the kid with the Taser and the serial killer eyes, but it came out, "Sorry, Cap, boss's orders."
A shrill whistle followed, and that's when the second man rolled back the slider door and alit from the van. He reminded Amanda of a panther descending a tree branch—the sinewy, crouching movements, the plodding boots that belied his speed. She could see him slinking ever closer, his flinty eyes focused solely on Olivia, whose back was to him.
The captain never saw him coming. She was too busy shielding Amanda's head from the concrete below and yelling at the first assailant. But Amanda saw it all: his platinum fauxhawk and face full of metal (industrial piercings in both ears, barbells in his eyebrow, a labret, a septum ring), the teardrop tattoo on his cheek and the riot of ink that spilled from his neck and on down both muscular arms, his silver tooth that glinted dully when he grinned at her and wielded the syringe. He was directly behind Olivia now, so close he could reach out and stroke the braid on her shoulder. Instead, he aligned the needle with the exposed side of her neck—
Oh my God, Liv, turn around, Amanda screamed with everything she had in her, but the only sound her lips produced was a faint gurgle, drowned out by the sizzling Taser.
—and jammed it in, depressing the plunger to the hilt, whatever substance it contained disappearing into Olivia's bloodstream. At first the captain merely grimaced and put a hand to her neck, as if she'd just been stung by a bee. She tried to turn then, to look up at the man holding the syringe, but something was very wrong. Her hand flopped uselessly into her lap, fingertips glancing across Amanda's brow, and she slumped sideways, her upper body boneless and drooping, head lolling against one shoulder as though her neck was made of rubber.
Stroke, Amanda thought, paralyzed by fear and the stun gun. Someone had taken a hit out on them, and this was the last thing she would see before they died: her wife's wide, terrified eyes looking to her for help she couldn't give.
But that didn't make sense. Why tase one cop in broad daylight and drug the other into a stroke? Hitmen didn't work that way. They shot you with real bullets from real guns until you were real fucking dead.
No, it wasn't a hit, Amanda discovered, when the electrical pulses finally—blessedly—reached their predetermined limit, relinquishing her hijacked muscles. Not a hit, but an abduction, and her body was too weak to do anything besides lie there as the men took Olivia by the arms and yanked her backwards, ejecting Amanda's head from her lap to thump against the pavement.
"Liv. No," Amanda cried feebly, trying to lift a hand, stretch it out towards the retreating figures who flanked Olivia, dragging her by the underarms like soldiers removing a wounded brother from the battlefield.
The captain's eyes were open and staring when she was lifted into the van, but her body remained flaccid, her lips slightly parted and wordless. Fully awake, unblinking, breathing, yet offering no resistance. Amanda mentally ticked off a list of drugs she knew could induce such a state: ketamine, maybe—although an injection of that probably would have rendered Olivia unconscious; succinylcholine, but oh Jesus if they gave her that, she wouldn't be able to breathe. It froze everything, including respiration, which was why anesthesiologists administered it in unison with a sedative and careful monitoring of the airway, so the patient (or the victims, which were what had familiarized Amanda with the drug) didn't panic, didn't lie there suffocating and unable to move, to scream.
Did these men know enough to help Olivia breathe? Did they care? Surely they wouldn't go through the trouble of abducting her, just to watch her turn blue and expire on the floor of some shitty old van, would they?
Actually, the van was in good shape, better than most of the undercover vans Amanda had worked in; sleek black with tinted windows, same as the Feebs used. No major distinguishing marks, and the nose was pointed away from Amanda, the license plate out of view. All she could see was Olivia being dumped onto the cargo mat in back of the van, much like the deer carcasses she'd watched her father and his hunting buddies sling into the beds of their pickup trucks, amid the empty beer cans and fishing tackle, during smoky crisp autumns in Loganville. We're having venison tonight, boys.
"Liv." Amanda managed to reach out this time, her arm abnormally heavy and her hand trembling like one of those autumn leaves that the neighbors raked up and burned, filling the woods with a scorched smell she could taste in the meat when she ate her daddy's latest kill. (Some people claimed the animal's fear yielded a distinct flavor. A desirable flavor.)
Flat on her back in the van, Olivia didn't move a muscle, her eyes fixed so raptly on the ceiling she appeared to be having a vision of God. In her head, Amanda heard her Grandmama Brooks plunking away at the church organ and singing in a sweet birdlike trill: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord. And then Olivia was gone, swallowed up by the dark van when the guy with all the metal in his face and ink on his body flashed her another grin and slammed the door.
"Help," Amanda said hoarsely. It felt like she was on her dozenth rep of an intense push-up routine—military, not the modified kind for girls—but she managed to rise onto her elbows and hold up her head about as well as her three-month-old daughter could have done.
There were a handful of bystanders on the opposite curb, a couple with their cell phones out, aimed at the vehicle that lunged forward and made a sharp U-turn in the middle of the street. A disgruntled cry arose from the crowd when the van bumped onto the curb, nearly sideswiping the looky-loos in front. Amanda caught a glimpse of the burly driver (shaved head, small goatee, big muscles) and the last few digits of the license plate (86J) as the man cranked the steering wheel like he was changing course on a ship, and sped away in a screech of tires and hot rubber. Another haphazard turn at the end of the street, and the van roared out of sight.
Thirty-one years of searching for Olivia; nine more years of Amanda with her head up her ass, not realizing how in love she was with her sometimes-partner turned boss; a year of living together that felt as if it had always been, like Amanda was finally home; another year and a marriage that felt like the truest, most right decision she had ever or would ever make—all of this, and she had just lost Olivia in an instant.
People were milling around Amanda now, asking if she was hurt, if she needed an ambulance or the police. Where were you fuckers ten seconds ago? she wanted to shout at them, but heard herself inquiring about the license plate instead. "Did anybody see the rest? Please, anybody?"
Someone thought it was a "U," not a "J." Someone else swore the "8" was really a "B." The woman who helped Amanda to her feet and steadied her while she swayed said that, yes, she would be willing to come down to the precinct so TARU could take a look at the footage captured on her phone.
"What's that?" Amanda asked, staring at the hoodie the same woman handed over, as if she'd never seen such an article of clothing in her entire life. Maybe this lady thought Amanda was shivering because she was cold, rather than from the fifty-thousand volts that had been delivered by the barbs she pinched from her flesh, or from watching her wife be snatched up right in front of her and not doing a damn thing to stop it.
"It fell off the lady when they threw her in the van," said the woman, whose voice was deceptively young and tinged with a slight British accent. Her face, when Amanda finally glanced at it, belonged to a much older woman, and it was creased with deep sympathy. Amanda hadn't realized the woman was still keeping her upright, a hand at her back. "Is she a friend of yours?"
Something about that hand made Amanda feel like she might scream or cry—or both. But she couldn't fall apart, not while time was so important. Not while Liv needed her. (The first few hours were the most crucial in any abduction, not just the ones involving children; beyond that, she couldn't let herself think about time length or likely scenarios.) She accepted the sweatshirt, clutching it to her and vaguely noting the heft in one of the pockets. Olivia's cell phone. They wouldn't be able to track her with it. Amanda hugged the hoodie tighter, praying that, wherever the men were taking Olivia, it would be someplace warm.
"She's my wife," Amanda said in a thin, broken whisper, and sank to the ground, sitting down hard on the sidewalk. She was aware it should hurt, but her body felt numb and displaced, like a lip or gums given a shot of Novocain at the dentist. Even the inside of her skull felt as if it had been clanged like a bell. "M-my wife . . . "
From her pocket, she dug out her cell phone, located Fin's number among her contacts, and thumbed the telephone icon beneath his name. She missed the first time, and tried again, repeating the words "My wife" under her breath, over and over, while the call rang through.
"What happened to the man who was with you?" she asked suddenly, of the Good Samaritan who had helped her and who was now gathering up Olivia's cracked sunglasses and the bag of bagels, placing them beside Amanda on the sidewalk. There had been a man standing next to the woman in the crowd, filming the van's getaway, Amanda was sure of it. He might have captured something that this lady's camera missed.
"What man?" asked the woman, a bit dubious, as if she suspected Amanda of hitting her head during the fall. It was thumping at the back, where it had kissed the pavement when Olivia was ripped away from her, but Amanda knew what she'd seen. The guy had been sporting a red MAGA cap, that's why she noticed him. No one wore that shit anymore. "I'm not with anyone else, miss."
"Hey, Rollins. What up?" Fin's voice, oddly chipper for the sergeant on a working weekend, interrupted Amanda before she could reply to the older woman. He sounded like he had just finished chuckling at a joke. It was jarring, finding that humor still existed in the world. "Call to gloat about having a day off?"
"They took her, Fin," Amanda blurted, barely getting the words out around the sob that immediately followed. "They took Liv."
The bagels were warm against Amanda's leg as she did her best to explain what had happened. Like laughter, the smell of fresh baked bread, normally a comforting, homey fragrance, seemed profane at a time such as this. Vaguely, she wondered if Olivia would ever get to eat bagels again. If they would ever get to walk down the street again, holding hands in the sunshine. Laughing and loving.
Fifteen minutes later, when Fin whipped his Crown Vic up to the curb, lights and sirens awhirl, Amanda was still hugging Olivia's hoodie to her chest, trying to hold onto every last ounce of her wife's warmth and scent contained in its folds.
. . .