A/N: trigger warning - some details of crime scene and injuries, as well as flashbacks from previous assaults.
Amanda kept her word and, over the next few days, managed to stay out of trouble. She allowed Liv or the boys to take the lead when it came to interrogations or chasing down perps. It killed her that she had to take a step back, but she knew it was the right thing to do, both for her peace of mind, and Olivia's.
The following week at work brought in a horrific case that turned everyone's stomachs, not just Amanda's currently oversensitive one. A bunch of kids had skipped school and broken into an abandoned warehouse near the East River apparently on a dare, but none of them had been prepared for what they would find inside. The body of a young woman, dressed like a prostitute, had been tied to an old table inside the building.
Olivia had been the one to catch the case. By the time she arrived, the CSU team were busy collecting evidence and photographing the scene. She watched as two of the ME's technicians zipped up a black body bag on the gurney, they paused when she approached, letting her see the bruised and beaten face of the young woman.
As Liv glanced down at the poor girl, she did a double take. Aside from the bruising, she had flawless olive skin, high cheekbones and a strong jaw. The hair on her head, though matted with dried blood, was thick, and a rich dark brown colour. Olivia was looking at an uncanny likeness of herself, only twenty-something years younger. Her vision seemed to cloud over as she remembered her own face in the mirror, just under two years previously. It had been in a similar state. Her heart stumbled as she tried to keep herself grounded and in the present; determined not to slip back to that most terrifying time. With a great effort, she turned away from the girl, turning to face the rest of the crime scene, and the ME herself.
"Melinda, what have we got?" Liv asked, her mouth set in a grim line.
"It's a bad one, Olivia," Melinda replied with an apology in her tone. "Looks like a working girl that got worked over by a john, no ID on the body. She's a real mess. I'll run her prints through AFIS, see if anything pops. There's not much I can tell you, except that liver temp indicates she's been dead for around 8 hours. I won't know for certain what the cause of death was until I can perform the autopsy. I have time today so come over to my office later and I'll let you know what I find."
"Thanks, Mel." Liv put a hand on her old friend's shoulder as she moved past her towards the CSU captain.
"Morales, anything that can help us nail this guy?" She asked him by way of greeting.
"Not much, I'm afraid," he responded, doubtfully. "A few shoeprints, although they could be from the kids that broke in. We will check them against the kids' shoes for elimination. There are a few cigarette butts that look fresh so we have bagged those to see if we can lift any prints or DNA from them."
Olivia nodded thoughtfully, "you think they are definitely from our killer?" She asked.
Morales looked a little nauseated. "You didn't see the body, did you?"
"I saw her face, other than that, no, why?" Liv was confused.
"She was covered in burn marks, most likely from cigarettes, hence the significance of the butts."
Liv paled, swallowing convulsively, "right." She said in a clipped tone, trying to mask the fact that her voice was shaking and phantom pinpoints of pain pricked at the skin of her torso. Subtly taking a deep, steadying breath and clearing her throat, she added, "thanks Ruben, keep me posted, will you?"
The man flashed her a brief confirmatory smile and nod, before returning his attention to the clipboard in his hands.
Turning away from Morales, the brunette surveyed the scene. Her gaze landed on the table where the girl had been tied. It was a steel top, warped with age and years of heavy use, covered with rust spots. She could see where the thick coating of dust had been disturbed by the girl's body, and worse, crusted red-brown pools that were definitely not rust.
Moving closer to inspect it, she saw the largest of these was at one end of the table, matted with strands of long dark hair. Her stomach lurched unpleasantly at the sight of the congealed blood. He must have hit her head pretty hard to bleed that much, she thought grimly to herself.
She got an uneasy sense of déjà vu as she watched a crime scene tech carefully remove a short, knotted piece of rope from one of the table legs and place it carefully in an evidence bag. Her mind flashed back to a year ago, to the top of that abandoned grainary. The cold April wind cutting through the large, glassless windows, biting at her through her thin sweater. Looking down at her own white-knuckled fingers clutching the edge of the table, her right hand cuffed, the other tied with thin rope to the table leg, unable to move.
"Hey, Liv," a loud voice startled the lieutenant out of her own reverie, and she jumped violently, her head snapping towards the source of the noise. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw Morales walking towards her. She gave him a weak smile, to show she was listening, and she could tell by the man's unworried expression that he was unaware he had interrupted a minor meltdown.
"Glad I caught you." He passed her a piece of paper. "These are the names of the kids who found the body, I need your guys to track them down and get their shoes. It might be worth talking to them anyway, in case they saw anything."
Clearing her throat, praying her voice remained steady, she replied quickly, "I'll get Fin on it," she turned on her heel and headed back to her car before he could drag her into a conversation. Once behind the wheel, she gripped it tightly and let out a long slow breath, and then started the engine. There wasn't much she could do from the scene, so with one last sweeping look around the desolate place, she set off back to the precinct.
Once back at the station, Liv handed the list to Amanda, quietly asking her to find these kids on social media, so that Fin and Carisi could go out and speak to them. Rollins looked at her lieutenant with concern. None of her usual fire was there and when she did manage to catch Liv's eye briefly, she did not like what she saw. Olivia looked haunted, an expression that reminded Amanda forcefully of those first few cases when Olivia returned to work after Lewis.
Before she could ask Olivia if she was okay, the lieutenant strode away towards her office, closing the door firmly behind her – a clear signal that she did not want to be disturbed.
"Do you think she's alright?" Amanda asked, frowning, her eyes not leaving the closed office door.
Carisi, who was sitting next to her, already scouring through the crime scene photos, responded. "Huh?" He looked blankly at her, "is who alright?"
Shaking her head and rolling her eyes at her oblivious colleague, she muttered, "never mind." Then, louder, she asked, "what have we got?" as she leaned in to look at the pictures over his shoulder, blanching at the sight before her.
The young woman in the photograph, who looked no older than twenty, had been stripped of most of her already limited clothing, and bound to a rusty old workbench with rope and duct tape. There was barely an inch of her exposed flesh that wasn't bruised, cut, or burned.
Meanwhile, inside the office, Olivia pressed her palms heavily into the wooden surface of her desk. She watched as her knuckles and fingertips turned white under the pressure. She was drawing in long, shaky breaths in an attempt to stop the rising panic, as unwanted memories washed over her. Tied to a chair in the middle of her own ransacked living room, her vision blurred as she tried to focus on something, anything. The dry, hot feeling in her mouth, unable to take a cooling breath of air because the duct tape sealed it shut. The pain lancing through her body if she moved even a little, her left temple feeling like someone took a hatchet to it. And the smell… the sting of alcohol in her nostrils, the sickly-sweet odour of that damn energy drink he loved so much, and the burning smell. Burnt clothing. Burnt hair. Burnt flesh. Her own flesh. And cigarettes…
She watched as he stalked towards her, the glowing remnants of his last cigarette secure between his fingers. Determined not to show weakness in front of him, she glared at his face, her expression one that had reduced grown men to tears in the interrogation room. Where she was in charge. Where she had the power. She had no power here, and he knew it. His only reaction was a leering grin as he surveyed her body, thoughtfully, like an artist deciding where to lay his next brush stroke. His eyes lit up suddenly, and he moved closer his hand outstretched, pulling her top down to reveal her ample cleavage. She felt the tip of the lit butt hovering millimetres above her skin, the heat emanating from it as he drew out the process, the anticipation almost as bad as the pain that was to follow.
*Knock knock knock*
The sharp rapping against her office door jolted her out of the painful memory with a sharp gasp. Gathering herself quickly, she called, "Come in," but it came out in barely a whisper, her throat tight with emotion. Clearing it, she sat down in her chair and pulled papers towards her, pretending to look busy and tried again. This time, it was loud enough for the knocker to hear.
The door burst open and Carisi strode through it, staring down at the papers in his hands as he said excitedly, "Lieu, you are not gonna believe this! We got the preliminary report back on the dead pro from this morning. Prints ID her as Marcy Jenkins. Ran away from home in Allentown, Pennsylvania about two years ago, when she was only fifteen."
The young detective seemed oblivious to his boss' predicament. Either she was really good at hiding her emotions or he was too caught up in the case. Likely, it was a bit of both, but she managed to force herself to focus as he continued. "She was reported missing by her mom and half-brother when she didn't come home from school one day. They never found any trace of her, and only one friend could tell the Allentown cops that she went off in search of her dad, but didn't know where."
"Get in contact with the family," Liv instructed firmly, keeping her voice even. "I want them up here and find out what they know about her father. I want you to track him down and see if she ever found him."
With a nod of ascent, Carisi left the office. As the door clicked shut, Olivia slumped in her chair, letting out a deep sigh. It was a long time since she'd had such an intense flashback. These days, she only had the occasional nightmare about William Lewis and the four days he had spent torturing and tormenting her.
Olivia stayed shut up in her office for the remainder of the day, not feeling ready for much interaction with her colleagues after her troubling morning. Thankfully she was left undisturbed until around 3pm, when she received a call from the ME's office, telling her Melinda had finished with the body, if Olivia was free to come down and talk to them about their findings. She agreed, though reluctantly, and left the precinct, making her way downtown to the OCME.
Amanda watched the lieutenant stride across the squad room and out the door. It was obvious to her that something was troubling the older woman, but Amanda did not want to push her if she didn't want to talk. The blonde had glimpsed her boss through her office windows several times throughout the day. Liv appeared to be working quietly by herself, but on more than one occasion, Amanda had noticed the brunette simply staring off into the middle distance. Not wanting to draw undue attention to it, Amanda resolved to speak to Liv at home later, if Olivia didn't bring it up herself first, that is.