"Hello, Ma'am." Grace smiled happily when she saw that Olivia was calling her.
"Hi, baby girl. Are you at home right now?" Olivia asked, sitting at her desk with her cell phone pressed to her ear, although she had already used the SubFinder app to confirm that Grace was indeed at home, or at least her cell phone was.
"Yes, Ma'am, I am just watching TV while I wait for the laundry to get done washing before I go down and switch it over." Grace replied.
"Leave the laundry where it is for now, we'll collect it later. Right now I need you to listen to me very carefully and do everything I say exactly as I say it. Can you do that, my baby?"
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace replied, suddenly fearful.
"That's my good girl. First, I want you to go to the door and lock it, and then go around and lock all of our windows. I'll stay on the phone with you while you do that."
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace got up from the couch and went to do as she was told with her phone still pressed to her ear, "Everything is locked, Ma'am."
"Good girl. I want you to go to the bedroom and get dressed in whatever clothes you choose and put shoes on. I am sending Don to come and pick you up. I don't want you to open the door to anyone except him. Do you remember the special knock I taught you?"
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace said honestly.
"Don't open the door unless and until you hear that knock. You are going to stay with Don and Eileen for the rest of the day until I come get you later tonight. While you're there, I want you to be a good girl; be respectful and do as you're told, and I will be there to pick you up as soon as I can."
"What's happening, Ma'am?" Grace whimpered fearfully, and Olivia sighed.
"Melissa escaped from Rikers, sweetheart." Olivia explained gently, and immediately heard a thump on the other end of the line, "Grace? Are you still there, my baby?"
"I'm scared, Ma'am." Grace choked on a sob from where she had collapsed on the floor and began to shake.
"I know you're scared, honey, you have every right to be. Do you remember the instructions I gave you? Can you repeat them to me?"
"Get dressed in the clothes I want… put shoes on… wait for Don to come and don't open the door until I hear the special knock… be respectful and obedient until you come to get me."
"Such a good girl. I love you, baby, that's why I'm doing this. I love you and I will always keep you safe. I have to go back to work now. Follow my instructions and wait for Don to pick you up. I will be there to get you tonight."
"Yes, Ma'am. I love you." Grace replied. With her phone in her hand, she laid on the floor frozen in fear for several long minutes, and then she was able to get up and go to the bedroom to obey her Mistress's orders. When she was dressed, she sat on the couch to wait for Don to come. It seemed like forever, but finally she heard the special rhythmic knock Olivia had taught her and she hesitantly opened the door just a crack and peeked out, seeing Don on the other side of the door.
"I'm here, sweetheart, are you ready to come with me?" Don spoke kindly to the frightened submissive.
"Yes, sir." Grace hesitantly slipped out the door into the hallway and Don immediately put his arm around her protectively as he led her through the building and down to his car. On the drive back to his apartment, Don allowed Grace to fiddle with the radio to try and put her at ease.
"All right, Amanda and her girls are in safe hands, and Grace is in safe hands. This doesn't make any sense, Bellevue Prison Ward is for those who are mentally incompetent to assist in their own defense, there's no reason to put in an order to transfer Melissa Steele there. Where are we on this?"
"Nowhere good. According to the paperwork from Rikers, Melissa's transfer order was given by Sergeant Mustafa." Churlish reported.
"Nabeel? He's always been a cool dude with us, he's helped us out on hundreds of cases. How'd he get tangled up in this mess?" Fin asked.
"He also knew Alex, and he knows Amanda and the names of her girls, and he knows the rest of us, and he knows perfectly well how to get his hands on any cell phone number he wants. Pick him up and bring him in for questioning." Olivia ordered.
"My husband is sick in bed. He was attacked by one of those animals at Rikers. Whatever you think he did, he did not do." Bashira Mustafa defended her husband to the detectives on her doorstep.
"He isn't under arrest, Ma'am, we just need to talk to him. If he needs to stay in bed, we don't even need to take him down to our precinct. If we could just come in for a few minutes, we'll ask our questions and get out of your hair." Nick explained.
"Top of the stairs, second door on the left." Bashira conceded with a sigh.
"I made the rookie mistake of turning my back for one second and an inmate came at me with a sharpened end of a toothbrush. My wife worries, but the doctor assures me I'll be good as new and back on the job in three weeks." Nabeel spoke from where he lay in his bed with his shirt open and a bandage wrapped around his chest.
"Well, we certainly wish you the best, Nabeel. We won't stay long, we just need to confirm that this is your signature." Fin handed Nabeel the transfer order with his name on it.
"This isn't my signature. Hand me my wallet, I will show you." Nabeel pointed to the bedside table.
Fin picked up the wallet and handed it over. Nabeel rooted through it and pulled out both his ID card, and his passport for good measure. The detectives studied the signatures on both of them and confirmed that they did not match the signature on the transfer order.
"Someone forged my signature. I don't even know Melissa Steele, she wasn't assigned to my cell block. The only reason I recognize the name is because I enjoy reading her father's books. It's a shame what happened to that poor child." Nabeel said.
"Don't worry, Nabeel, we'll get this all straightened out one way or another. When you're better, we'll gather all the guys together for beer and poker." Nick said.
"I'll hold you to that, my friend." Nabeel said with a tired smile.
"I don't wanna play poker with you; you cheat." Fin said as he followed Nick out of the room.
"Well, if someone forged Nabeel's signature, then that leaves us back at square one. Any other ideas? I'm open to anything at this point." Olivia said, leaning against a vacant desk facing the rest of her detectives in the bullpen.
"Huh." Elliot said, looking at his computer screen.
"What?" Olivia asked.
"Maybe nothing, but maybe something. This is strange, I'm looking at Melissa Steele's bank information and there was a transfer of money just before she was arrested to an offshore account in Quebec."
"Why is that strange? Plenty of people have offshore accounts." Churlish pointed out.
"But they don't usually transfer ten million dollars into a dead person's account. The account in Quebec is in the name of Laura Bryce." Elliot replied.
"We haven't been able to locate any next of kin for Laura Bryce, and the only living next of kin we were able to locate for Kelli Ming is a twin brother that she hadn't spoken to since they were in college." Kat said.
"When we located all of those video tapes Melissa filmed, there were none with Laura Bryce's name on them, but when I spoke with Melissa after that she implied that tapes of Laura Bryce do exist somewhere." Olivia mused.
"Should we go back and search the house again? Maybe we missed something." Nick said.
"The only thing we didn't do to that place was rip off the walls and floors, we turned that place upside down." Fin said.
"You're a genius, Fin." Olivia turned and walked to her office.
"What did I say?" Fin asked.
Meanwhile, Grace was cuddled on Eileen's lap while the older woman rocked and comforted her. By now Grace had been staying with Don and Eileen for several hours, and while they had been treating her very well and in fact even spoiling her a bit more than they probably should, the later in the day it got the more Grace missed Olivia, and now that it was almost time for dinner she was fearful that her Mistress wasn't going to come for her at all. Eileen looked up when Don walked through the door carrying two pizza boxes.
"Dinner is served." Don announced.
"Come along, dear, you'll feel much better once we put some food in your belly. If you finish your plate like a good girl, I have fresh baked snickerdoodles. No cherries this time." Eileen smiled kindly.
"Yes, Ma'am." Grace sighed, reluctantly getting up from Eileen's lap.
"I got two kinds, Meat Lover's and Supreme. Liv told me you like both. Which one do you want, little one?" Don said.
"Supreme, please, Sir." Grace requested politely as she dropped to her knees at his feet so that she could be fed.
After dinner, Grace was rewarded with two snickerdoodles and then she cuddled on Don's lap while the three of them watched TV for a while. Halfway through a World War 2 documentary that Don found fascinating, he noticed Grace staring at the clock with tears streaming down her pretty face and he discreetly elbowed Eileen. When she noticed Grace's tears, she turned off the TV.
"I promise Liv is going to come back for you, baby girl. She's just working, and detectives sometimes have to work crazy hours. As soon as she is finished with what she has to do, she will come pick you up, I promise you that. Liv loves you, she would never abandon you. She didn't send you to us to punish you, she sent you here to keep you safe." Don explained kindly, gently stroking Grace's long brown hair.
"I'm sorry, Sir, I don't mean to be ungrateful." Grace whimpered, wiping away her tears only to make room for new ones.
"You aren't being ungrateful, darling, you're just being human, and there's no shame in that." Eileen said kindly, "You've been a very good girl today, and you've been very brave while all of these frightening things are happening."
"This is all my fault, and now you're stuck with me! I'm sorry!" Grace broke down completely, leaning into Don's chest.
"Now, you listen to me, little girl. None of this is your fault, you were a victim in this situation and it's never the victim's fault. The fault lies solely with the perpetrator and nowhere else." Don scolded.
"But if I hadn't run away, none of this would be happening!" Grace sobbed.
"Running away was the safe and smart thing to do. If you hadn't run away, you could very easily be dead right now, and if that were to happen, Melissa would just move on to her next victim, and the one after that, and the one after that. I was the Captain of my squad for a long time, in my experience perpetrators almost never just stop at one, and from what I understand you weren't even the first. If anything, your running away was a good thing because it put Melissa behind bars. She's escaped for the time being, but I promise you that she will be behind bars again. My daughter is very good at her job, she isn't going to rest until Melissa has been found and you are completely safe. Once Olivia sets her mind to something, that girl is like a dog with a bone. The stories I could tell you." Don chuckled.
"Sorry to drag you guys back here again." Olivia looked up to see O'Halloran and his team approaching as she and her squad waited outside of the house.
"No problem, Captain. Where would you like us to start?" O'Halloran asked.
"We need to scan and see if there are any hollow spaces under any of the floors or behind any of the walls. Start upstairs and work your way down to the basement." Olivia instructed.
"On it. Let's roll, guys." O'Halloran and his team disappeared inside the house with Olivia and her squad following behind.
"This place gives me the creeps." Fin observed.
"You and me both." Kat agreed.
"Captain, we've got something!" O'Halloran called out about an hour later from the kitchen.
"What have we got?" Olivia asked as she hurried in with her squad on her heels.
"The cameras haven't picked up any hollow spaces in the walls. But the last time we were all here, nobody noticed this." O'Halloran pointed to a trap door in the kitchen floor.