Chapter Text
Night had barely fallen when Olivia walked through the precinct. The sharp clack of her heels meant she was on a mission. Amanda and Sonny watched their lieutenant come through and go into her office, before calling Fin in. “What do you think that’s about?” Sonny asked, turning to Amanda.
Amanda shrugged, swiveling in her chair. “Something’s up that’s for sure,” she answered. “But it could be anything.” It didn’t last long before Fin came back out and went back to his desk. Sonny leaned, to ask what was going on; he couldn’t help himself, before Olivia said “We got an assault victim. Carisi, Rollins get on it” from her doorway. She gave out the address and turned to go back in her office. Amanda looked at Sonny before they pulled their coats on. So much for finding out what was going on.
Three weeks passed, no suspect was found for the assault, and Sonny and Amanda forgot about Liv talking with Fin. That is until a cloudy night, in the middle of the week when she mentioned another assault. Amanda looked up from her case file. “Is there something we’re missing here?” she asked, looking at Olivia. Sonny stared at Amanda, ready to interrupt, because this could go south so fast when Olivia asked, shifting to lean on the desk, “You think you’re being kept out of the loop?”
“Yeah I do,” Amanda answered, leaning on her arms, on her desk. “This is the fifth assault in a convenience store this month where the person was pistol whipped but nothing was taken. Obviously there’s a pattern here and if there’s more to this, I think we have a right to know.” Sonny turned to Liv, waiting for her to respond.
Olivia sighed. “We’re keeping an eye on this pattern because if it escalates it could match the pattern of a man we put away ten years ago. His name is Sam Franco and he pulled off a lot of small scale robberies before literally going postal at the post office where he used to work. We caught him after he went after my old partner and he’s been in jail until three weeks ago when he was let out for finishing his sentence,” she explained.
“So you think this is his handiwork?” Amanda asked.
“It’s possible,” Olivia answered. “But the security tapes were all missing and the only description given was a man wearing a ski mask, so it’s hard to tell right now.”
“Which is why we’re sitting on it, until he breaks pattern,” Sonny said.
Olivia nodded. “Hopefully we can get him before he does something worse than get his trigger finger working,” she muttered, walking over to mark something on the whiteboard, which was dealing with another case.
Two weeks after that, Amanda cornered Sonny in the break room, a file tucked under her hand. Sonny set the chair he was sitting in down, as he had tipped it back. “What is that?” he asked slowly, eyeing the folder.
“The case file on Sam Franco,” Amanda replied, sitting down and opening it.
“Why? What else do we need to know Amanda?” Sonny asked, leaning on the table, reaching for the file.
“Hey!” Amanda exclaimed, pulling the file back. “There’s lots to find out, why else do you think Fin and the Lieutenant have a knowing whisper when they talk about this guy? Don’t you want to be in on that?”
“We could just ask them,” Sonny stated.
Amanda shook her head. “They would have said somethin’ if they wanted us to know. This is the only way.”
“Ok,” Sonny said slowly, getting up. Amanda stared at him. “Scooch over.” He sat back down next to her and they read over the file.
Amanda frowned, as they finished and Sonny thought that was the end of it. “What?” Sonny asked, glancing at her.
“Something’s missin’”, Amanda answered, flipping through the file.
“We read it from front to back, what could…?” Sonny started to ask. Amanda flipped back a few pages.
“There,” she said, pointing to the middle of the report. “Read this part again.” She waited, watching Sonny’s eyes flick back and forth before he eventually looked back at her, hoping it was clear he didn’t get what she was doing. “What state was detective Stabler in when they found him?” she asked.
Sonny shook his head. “He was…,” He looked back at the file, “It doesn’t say.”
“And look who wrote up the report,” Amanda said, flipping to the last page. Sonny read the name, and then glanced at Amanda again. “I think we deserve a real answer from the lieutenant,” she said.
Amanda walked to Olivia’s door, Sonny in tow. Amanda knocked, waited for Olivia to answer, and then opened the door. “What happened between your old partner and Franco that you left out of the report?” Amanda asked. Olivia looked up from her paperwork.
“Sorry?” she asked, confused.
“We were reading the file on Franco, to get a full understanding on him but it seems like something was left out, particularly what happened between Franco and your partner. We were wondering if you could fill us in,” Sonny explained. Olivia set her pen down.
“This stays off the record,” she told them. “There’s no need adding it anyway, it’s over and done with. While we were tracking Franco down, he ditched the car and took detective Stabler to a storage unit that he owned. Once there, he raped my partner for almost two hours, calling him names and verbally degrading him. The only reason given was because he could. After talking with detective Stabler in the hospital, we summarized that Franco escalated because he had an opportunity to get a high amount of power. My partner suffered only minor injuries, but I didn’t put his rape in the report because everyone on the squad already knew. Detective Stabler valued his pride, so to spare him any further humiliation, I left it out.”
“So part of Franco’s evolved MO was being attracted to someone like your partner?” Sonny asked. Olivia shook her head.
“Franco had hostages of all kinds before, but not one that was a cop, not one that put up such a fight,” she explained. “He’s not above hurting anyone who gets in his way, so I want everyone to be careful if we have to confront him.”
As Amanda and Sonny left, Amanda muttered, “That was easy.”
“What’s she going to do, lie to us?” Sonny asked, as they sat back down. “She probably wanted to keep it secret until she felt the need to tell us herself.” He shrugged. “We just got to it before she did.”
Amanda sighed and nodded. “Let’s just hope we get Franco before he hurts someone.”