Chapter Text
A car with New York plates pulled up to a small house in a town called Dennisville. It was a small town in the middle of New Hampshire, just far away from civilization that a newcomer would raise a few eyebrows, but not far enough for it to be implausible that one could come here to get away.
It was around 7 am. The car was a black SUV with tilted windows. The people inside didn’t talk. There were three men, all wearing suits, and a woman. The men pulled the woman out of the car as if she were a prisoner. Maybe she was. No one would ever ask, and no one would ever know.
The men led the woman inside the house. It was a white house with a small porch and a backyard just a little bit bigger. Men didn’t like giving much.
The woman dreaded the moment the men would turn on the lights in the house. Light meant seeing, being seen. She didn’t want to see. Didn’t want to be seen. She didn’t want much of anything, but she wanted to stay in the darkness. It allowed her to imagine, allowed her to believe for a minute longer that maybe she will not die today.
The men turned on the lights. She didn’t know their names. Now she knew their faces. She wished she didn’t. They were sickeningly normal. You could look at them and not remember a thing. But she would remember. Not that it would matter. But she would remember for as long as she lived. Every muscle, every hair on their faces, was now imprinted in her memory.
One of the men reached for the woman’s hands. She’d almost forgotten they’d been handcuffed. He pulled out a key from his pocket. Unlocked the cuffs. She didn’t move, didn’t dare. She didn’t want to die. He motioned for her to sit on the couch. She didn’t even know it was there until she carefully trailed his hand with her eyes, afraid to make a movement. Afraid to seem like a threat.
She sat down. The men remained standing. In another life she would have scoffed at this, would have told them their tactics were too obvious. But in this life their tactics worked. Another man pulled out an envelope. Tossed it onto her lap. Told her to open it.
She did, careful not to make any sudden movements. In another life she would have laughed at her own fear. But in this life she pulled out a social security card. A driver’s license. A credit card. In the name of Emily Franklin. She held a breath.
“Don’t try anything. Or what they say on the news will become the truth. And not only about you.”
The men turned around and left. Just like that. Emily. She didn’t exactly like the name. But she did like having her heart beating and all of her blood inside her and not on some sidewalk. She could live with Emily if it meant she could live.
And then she thought of his words. What were they saying on the news?
The woman turned on the small TV.
“Breaking news. ADA Alexandra Cabot died in NSA custody tonight after being arrested on the federal charges of aiding and abetting a terrorist organization. Reports state that the death was caused by a violent altercation with an unnamed cellmate. Cause and time of death were not disclosed.”
—
It all started with a murder. In a way, it always did. It was a rainy Thursday, just shy of 11 PM when Olivia and Elliot arrived at the scene. Melinda was already there, kneeling beside a woman’s body. The victim couldn’t have been more than 30. She was, no doubt, beautiful one day. Now her face was swollen, bruised, unrecognizable. A gunshot wound in the middle of her forehead reminded the detectives too much of the drug-related murders they’ve been seeing more and more of each day.
“She was certainly raped,” Melinda said from her position on the ground. “Can’t say for sure, but my bet is on multiple perps. COD was the gunshot wound, she lived through the torture.”
Olivia’s face contorted in a second of disgust. It was always bad when they were alive and conscious for it. Which was most of the time.
“Estimated time of death?” Elliot asked, looking around. Looking for anything out of place, maybe the murder weapon? That was when he noticed the other body.
“Around 2 hours for both. They’re fresh. And you might wanna know, I don’t think we’ll find any semen. There are traces of condom lubricant.”
Both detectives sighed. It was always helpful to have DNA. Cabot always liked some hard proof for a trial, and they were almost certain they wouldn’t find the gun anywhere near here. They were about 90% sure this was about drugs. And those murders were rarely solved. It would be another cold case, another rapist free to walk.
“What about the guy? COD on him?” Elliot asked, approaching the second body.
Melinda looked at him almost dismissively. “Bled out, 3 gunshot wounds to the chest. No torture there. He was probably just at the wrong place at the wrong time, maybe a good samaritan.”
Olivia and Elliot shared a look. Sometimes this job just sucked.
Olivia pulled on a latex glove and crouched down beside Melinda. The first thing in her sight was a garbage bin. It broke her heart a little bit. Why did drug lords choose to have those who crossed them killed in such god awful places? To show the others their place, a voice that sounded too much like Huang said in her head. But still, she couldn’t quite wrap her head around it. A garbage bin being the last thing a person ever sees. Pain being the last thing a person ever feels. Was this woman terrified? Or had she resigned to the inevitable, had she accepted death? Did she know she was doomed from the moment she walked into this alley? Or did she think she was safe, walking in her neighborhood, maybe to a store?
“Do we have an ID on either of them?” Olivia asked, her voice casual. This was all part of the drill, the questions on her tongue, the questions in her head, the never ending grief for those who fell victim to the cruelty of others. She didn’t know how not to feel, but sometimes wished she did. Sometimes she wished she could not wonder, not fear. Not know as much as she did.
“Yes, actually. The guy had a driver’s license. John Clayton. The woman’s a Jane Doe, her wallet is missing. I think whoever did this was here for her only, the guy was collateral.”
No one liked this kind of conclusion. Not that anyone liked murder as is, but collateral damage always hurt in a different way. Made them think about the choices they make every day, every minute. Walk into a wrong alley and you’re dead. Easy as that.
“When will you have the autopsy results?” Elliot crouched down beside Melinda.
Olivia couldn’t take her eyes off of the woman’s fingers. Perfectly manicured. A well-done French, clearly expensive, probably performed by one of those Russian women who could do it with their eyes closed and got paid accordingly. Her gaze then lingered on her palm as Melinda raised it to get a sample of blood that stuck under a fingernail. Her hands were perfect. Taken care of. This wasn’t a woman who did manual labor, this was one who used skincare daily.
“Do you want a rush on them? This seems as straight as it comes.”
Olivia shrugged. “Whenever you can. If you have something more urgent, this can wait.” This was most likely a drug-related homicide after all, no matter the victim’s nails. And if there was a serial killer victim or a dead little girl, they should take priority. But in the back of her mind Olivia couldn’t quite shake the feeling of something not adding up.
—-
The next day, Alex Cabot sat in her office reviewing the files for an upcoming trial. It was an easy one, they had DNA, the perp’s prints on the murder weapon, three eyewitnesses and a motive. It would be an in and out, easy as that. The perp didn’t plead it out out of sheer narcissism, despite his public defender’s best efforts.
Alex’s hands, soft and steady, gripped the paper lightly. She could never read off a list laying down in front of her, she needed to hold it in some way. Even if it meant just brushing the paper with her fingers. It was something she’d been doing ever since she was little, grabbing onto the books, holding them close so that her father wouldn’t pull them out of her hands to throw at the wall.
As Alex was reading into the file, her eye caught her phone lighting up with a message. She looked over. While she didn’t usually read texts while prepping, this was her work phone. It could always be the squad asking for an emergency warrant of Jack telling her to come into his office for whatever reason. She opened the text. Despite her expectations, it was just a quick “Caught another possible drug-related. Might need phone records warrants later,” from Benson.
She sighed. She was getting sick of these drug lords going on sprees. Not that it was hard to convict them, every jury seemed to know a dealer when they saw one. No, it was the sheer number of them. She didn’t know if they were cleaning house or had a budget cut, but the number of drug-related homicides had risen to some unholy levels. Almost half of her cases were drug-related, and she wasn’t a Vice ADA, she worked sex crimes.
However annoying, this was the reality, and so Alex texted back an “I got you” and put her phone away. She needed to prep for the trial. It would be a shame to let the man walk with such strong evidence purely because of her forgetting some detail. And she certainly shouldn’t look at Olivia’s picture on her contact information. No, she needed to get that out of her head. Murderers and rapists wouldn’t convict themselves, and her silly crush was nothing more than exactly that.
—-
Olivia closed the crime scene report with a loud smack. This was getting annoying. There were no leads and Melinda got caught up in some high-profile autopsy. They didn’t even know who the victim was, for god’s sake.
“I’m sick of this. Do we have anything on the male vic?”
She looked over at Elliot who’d just leaned back in his seat. He looked a little uncomfortable, which wasn’t exactly rare but still unnerved an already on-edge Olivia.
“John Clayton worked for the DoD.” He stated it with such an expression that Olivia couldn’t hold a smile. It was an expression she knew well. It said ‘I’m about to punch a wall if we don’t go do something.’ She could relate. They spent the day looking over the CSU reports and waiting on Melinda to even start the autopsy.
“What do you say we go talk to his co-workers?” Her tone left no room for discussion. Elliot got up from his desk, grabbed his coat from his chair and looked back at Cragen’s office. “We’ll call him if something interesting comes up,” Olivia said to him. Cragen was off to meet Cabot to prep his testimony for an upcoming trial.
The two left the precinct and got into a car. Clayton’s office was about an hour’s drive from here. Elliot got behind the wheel and Olivia pulled out a map. “Is it weird that our good samaritan lives an hour away from the crime scene? Doesn’t make much sense, does it?”
Elliot contemplated it, starting the car. “Might be a coincidence. But my gut’s telling me it’s not.”