Walking into her office Olivia dropped her bag by the side of her desk, before noticing the doughnuts and coffee on her desk. There was a note on the box;
'So you are a fully functioning Captain. El x'.
Smiling, she flopped down in her chair, taking a sip of the coffee, which was surprisingly still hot. It was only 9:30 and after the morning she had had, she already wished the day was over. Leaning back in her seat she reached for the box of doughnuts, opening it. There were 5 of her favourite hazelnut crème and one classic 'Homer' doughnut like all the cops eat in every stereotypical cop show.
Taking a bite of one of the hazelnut crème she sighed, it was not the healthiest of breakfasts but it would have to do. Looking up she smiled.
"I can see you lurking Detective" she smiled looking up watching Elliot hovering at her door.
"I just wanted to check how your meeting went and pick up this" he grinned,as he walked in and pulled the strawberry sprinkle doughnut from the box, biting into it.
"Thanks for the coffee," she smiled, "It was just what I needed."
"I thought it might be" he grinned "How did your meeting go?"
"Well it was with …" she shrugged. "he was moaning at how long we were taking over this case."
"You also left this on the side" he said softly, holding up the charm bracelet he had given her 12 hours earlier.
"I umm, " she paused. "I didn't want it to get lost," she said softly.
"Or does it have something to do with my mini shield and what happened with William Lewis?" he asked.
"Who…who told you?" she asked, walking round her desk, shutting the door to her office.
"Fin might have said something but we did also have newspapers in Rome." he smiled. "Plus there is always Google"
Sitting down on the leather couch she had in the office she tried not to look at him. "Elliot," she said softly.
"Why didn't you tell me?" he asked, sitting next to her.
Blinking back the tears she swallowed hard, "Because you left. You were not here for me when I needed you. When you came back, you never asked about anything that had happened in my life. Then with everything that had happened with Kathy and Wheatley, the last thing you needed was me trauma dumping everything from the last 10 years on you, and I had put it out of my mind. Mostly." she said, turning away from his gaze.
"Liv," he said softly, lifting her chin so she had no choice but to look into his eyes. Moving his hand he brushed a tear from her cheek.
Leaning into his hand she found herself getting lost in his eyes. Resting her head against his she closed her eyes as she felt him brush away tears she didn't know were falling.
"Will you tell me now?" he asked softly
"Not here" she whispered.
Hearing a knock on the door Olivia looked up to see Rollins standing at the door.
"I'm not disturbing am I, cuz I can come back" she said pointing back into the squad.
"It's fine," Olivia replied, wiping her eyes. "What's up?" she asked.
"We have another vic" Amanda said. "18 year old found in the Ramble, she fits the profile of the other girls and there was a dance bag found near by"
Leaning back on the sofa Olivia sighed this was just what they needed especially with McGrath on their backs over them not even having a suspect. The only person of interest they had had a watertight alibi that he was out of the state at a family funeral for the time period of all the murders.
"They are taking her to Mercy"
"She is alive?" Liv asked surprised this guy had so far killed 5 girls without a second thought
"Just. A couple of Tourists found her with a head wound barely conscious whoever it was really did a number on her" Amanda said
"Right. Give me a minute" Olivia smiled.
"Sure" Amanda said, pulling the door closed behind her.
Turning to face Elliot she sighed "I best go" she said softly.
"Of course," Elliot smiled, standing."See you later?" he said, placing her bracelet on the table in front of them.
"Sure," she smiled, watching as he headed out.
Reaching for the table she picked up the softly she undid the clip carefully putting the bracelet on and redid the clip, before heading out into the squad.
"So what do we have on this new Vic?" Liv asked.
"Not much," Amanda said. "18 year old Kiera Smith was found in the Ramble at 9:30 this morning. It looks like she has been there all night. She is en route to Mercy now. It looks like she was in from Philadelphia"
"Right." Liv said "Amanda, you and I will go to the hospital. Fin, Velasco go to the scene to see what's happening with the canvas. We need to get this Bastard before he strikes again" she said.
Walking into the hospital Olivia walked up to the triage desk.
"Captain Benson," she said, showing her badge to the nurse at the computer. "We are looking for Kiera Smith. She was found at the Ramble."
"I'll get you the doctor" the nurse said, turning and walking over to a doctor on the other side of the desk.
"Captain" the doctor walked up to them both "I am Dr Carmichael. You are asking about Ms Smith"
"Yeah. How is she doing?"
"She was pretty beat up. Fractured skull, ribs, pelvis ankle, ruptured spleen, punctured lung. We have had to put her into an induced coma to reduce the swelling on her brain" Carmichael said, leading them across the ward to a side room.
"When will she be awake?" Amanda asked.
"Time will tell. She needs time to heal." Carmichael said "But if you can find her parents they really should be here"
"we are trying to track them down but she was visiting from Philly"
"The sooner they get here the better" he said softly. "Excuse me I have other patients"
Stopping outside the room Olivia looked in. Even though she was 18, Kiera barely looked 15 behind all the wires and tubes keeping her alive.
"We have to find him." she sighed, turning to walk out .
Sitting in the car Olivia drummed her fingers against the steering wheel staring at the traffic in front of them. It was gridlocked with no way round.
"So did you have a good night?" Amanda asked.
" Yeah," Liv smiled, "we went to Lucarelli's. That new Italian place up off Broadway."
"I have heard about that place. Sounds nice" Amanda smiled.
"It was. He gave me this" Liv replied, pulling her sleeve up revealing the bracelet. "It was our 25th anniversary of being partners" she smiled.
"That's beautiful," Amanda said, looking at all the charms.
"Yeah" Olivia forced a smile.
"What's wrong?" Amanda asked, turning to her friend.
Moving the charms around till the shield was visible. "He sent me his mini shield after he left. This one just looks like it and well…."
"It was on your gun and Lewis."
"Yeah" Olivia half smiled.
"How much does Stabler know?"
"Fin told him some stuff and he said he got New York papers when he was in Rome. He also apparently googled me."
"Are you going to tell him?" Amanda asked.
"I don't know," Liv sighed. "There is so much that has happened in the last 12 years and I don't want to trauma dump all my crap on him. I mean it's an awful lot to deal with. William Lewis, Johnny D, Shelia , everything that happened with Cassidy and Tucker. It's just too much."
"It might help" Rollins said "keeping secrets is never really a good idea, even if they are painful ones"
"I know but what if its too much for him,after all he has been through. I can't lose him again. It hurt too much last time"
"Stabler is tough, and we have all seen our fair share of crap on the job. Its the nature of SVU." Amanda said.
The traffic started moving again, once they were moving it didn't take too long to arrive back at the precinct.
"How's the girl?" Fin asked as they walked in.
"In a coma," Liv said. " Whoever is harming these girls really did a number on her. Did you guys find anything at the scene? she asked.
"It's the ramble so there was lots of crap in the bushes. The duffle bag she was found with looked like it had been set on fire, there were remnants of some shoes in there CSU are processing that now. Other than that there was not much. The people who found her had gone, thankfully they had left their hotel details with the park police. They must still be exploring, we left details with the front desk for them to call us"
Sighing, Olivia looked at the crime board and the pictures of the 6 girls. She wanted this son of a bitch behind bars before he could do anymore damage. "Do we have any information on Kiera's parents yet?"
"Philly PD have managed to track them down, they are on the first available flight into La Guardia this evening." Fin said.
"Good. So do we have anything on the timeline of where she was."
"TARAU are tracking her cell." Fin said "we should know soon"
"See if they can speed it up please" Liv sighed. "I have to go call McGrath and let him know whats going on." she said. "Amanda, See if Kiera was on any of these chat rooms like the other girls. Do we have their full chat history yet?"
"Still Waiting for TARAU to send them through. I have put in another request." she said.
Walking in to her office she sighed flopping down in to her seat, considering her earlier conversation with McGrath, she was dreading having to tell him that had another victim all be it this one was still alive, for the moment.
Dropping her phone onto the desk she let out a frustrated sigh, McGrath had basically questioned if SVU could actually work this case or if the Homicide unit at Manhattan North would be better equipped to solve this case. she just felt like she wanted to scream but she needed to remain calm.
"You look like you could do with one of these." Amanda smiled walking in, holding out a coffee. " or a double vodka. but we were all out so its only coffee. McGrath by any chance?"
"He wants to hand the case to Homicide at Manhattan North. He said as much this morning that we are not working fast enough on this case. Do we have anything else?"
"Yeah, that was my second reason for coming in. So Kiera was on the chat rooms and TARAU have finally sent through all the chat records so we found another person all the girls were talking with. TARAU Traced the IP address to an apartment belonging to the school. They wont give us the tenancy agreements but from the looks of the messages it does look like whoever has the account did arranged to meet the girls before they died."
"So we are finally getting somewhere" Olivia smiled. "I will call Carisi and see if we have enough to get a warrant to get the names of the tenants along with to search the apartment" she said, picking up the phone.
Thankfully by that evening, they had managed to get a subpoena to get the tenancy agreements for the apartment but they needed more information for the warrant to actually connect the tenants to the victims, but it was work they could do in the morning. She just hoped they could stop this sick son of a bitch before he hurt somebody else.