It seemed like a normal Monday morning when Olivia was walking to work. She stopped at the local coffee stand on the corner of the street to get some fresh coffee for her colleagues and herself and then continued on her way. Olivia was feeling very content. She'd had a couple of good weeks and everything just seemed to be going so nice and easy lately.
In the past few months the friendship between Elliot and Olivia hadn't been the best. They had been having argument after argument and the tension in the squadroom had been through the roof. But three weeks ago they'd had a very rough case involving a young girl who was being tortured and raped by one of her former teachers. The teacher had also been a teacher of Maureen, Elliot's oldest daughter. So Elliot took the case especially hard. After Elliot had had a talk with Maureen and was reassured nothing had happened to her, he had come to Olivia's apartment to talk about the case. They had talked almost all night and when Elliot left to go back home he had apologized to Olivia for being rude and stubborn the last couple of months. It turned out things weren't going well between him and Kathy and that Kathy was staying at her parents house, while the kids were with Elliot. So he had been very busy and it had been overwhelming. He had taken it out on Olivia whilst she hadn't done anything wrong. They had had a good evening and had forgiven each other for all the things that were said and done the last few months.
As Olivia was walking into the precinct this morning she greeted the doorman as always. "Good morning detective Benson." He said as he gave her a nod. Olivia took the elevator up to the fifth floor and walked into the squadroom of the special victims unit. When she walked in all of her colleagues were already there. She handed out the coffees she bought for everyone while she greeted them and then took her coat off to sit down at her desk. Across from her desk Elliot sat at his desk. He smiled at her as he took a sip of his coffee. "Morning Liv." She smiled back. "Morning El." And then they both went to work, although paperwork wasn't their favorite thing about the job.
As Olivia was working through her paperwork she was thinking about the night before. Kathleen, the second oldest daughter of Elliot, had invited a friend over for dinner. But seeing as Elliot isn't such a good cook he had send Olivia a message in the morning asking if she knew a simple recipe he could cook for his kids and the friend of Kathleen. She had send him a simple recipe for lasagna but not five minutes later he had called her for more explanation about the recipe. It was then that Olivia had offered to come and cook dinner for him and his family. She had thought Elliot would be his stubborn self and decline her offer, but he took her by surprise and said that he would really appreciate it if she would come over. And so she did.
She had really enjoyed the night and had a lovely dinner at Elliot's place. She was a bit afraid that the kids might not like it that she came over, but hey had all been very nice. The relationship between her and Elliot's kids had always been good, but now that Kathy wasn't home Olivia was afraid they might think she was trying to replace Kathy. Which of course wasn't what Olivia was trying to do at all. She was just trying to be a good friend to Elliot. Although she would be lying to herself if she said she didn't want to be more than friends with Elliot. But as long as Elliot was with Kathy Olivia was never going to mention anything about it, to anyone.
Olivia awoke from her daydream when she heard their captain, Donald Cragen, announcing that they had a new case. The whole team gathered around the computer and the big screen to get briefed about the new case. Elliot and Olivia had been partners for a bit more than ten years and when they had a big case they often worked together with the other detectives Odafin Tutuola (they just call him Fin) and John Munch. This seemed to be a big case because captain Cragen had called all of them to the briefing.
Captain Cragen told the team a 32 year old woman, living in New York City, had gone missing a few days ago. This Monday morning she'd been found, deceased, floating in the Harlem river. They had found a lot of evidence that indicated she had been severely abused and raped. The reason why they were all being put on the case was because the Special Victims Unit from New Jersey had similar cases over the last few months and they seem to be linked to this one. The woman all seemed to be between the ages of 30 and 40 years old. They were all females with brown hair and brown eyes. Another thing they had in common is that all the woman seemed to have a successful career. They were professors, lawyers, influencers and business woman.
Two detectives from the Special Victims Unit of New Jersey would work this case with them and they would arrive in the afternoon. They agreed that Olivia and Elliot would go and take a look at the crime scene while John and Fin would look into the cases in New Jersey to see what they were dealing with.
Olivia walked to the car with Elliot and got in the car on the passenger side. The light feeling she had in the morning had long gone. She couldn't help but feel like this was going to be a very difficult case once again. She had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach. Before they drove away to go to the crime scene she shared a look with Elliot and from that one look she could tell he thought the same about the case as she did.