Rescue Me

Chapter Four

"This city never ceases to surprise me. You've got your fancy, celebrity mansions in one area. Then there's your nice and friendly neighborhoods and then you've got the slums of Los Angeles," Rivers snickered.

"Right," I agreed.

"You've got something on your mind, Sergeant?"

I sighed, "I'm just thinking about Sam, I really don't know what I would do if he escaped-"

"Now I'm going to stop you right there, you can't think like that. It's going to be okay."

"Thank you for the reassurance."

I pulled into the empty parking lot of the Red Chains Club. Deserted in the sunlight, but the drunks crowd and fill it after the sun goes down. They're like vampires, except they don't drink blood and stuff...

"Here we are, do you want to start off the interrogation or should I?" Lieutenant asked.

"Well, considering we've never been here, I'll let you do the honors of interrogating and I will wait outside because I am willing to bet the owner's going to make a run for it," I sighed, what's the use of running if you didn't do anything wrong? I've been working long enough to know if you're not familiar with the owners, then it's probably best not to trust them.

"Smart plan," he said.

"Good luck," I replied, "I'll be waiting out here, if the owner tries to escape, you know what to do."

"Yeah," he answered, taking in a file with Crystal's picture, her alive one and postmortem one.

I waited outside and checked my iphone for the time and found two missed calls from Michael and one from Victor, whereas the time flashed nine fifteen. I promised I would call back after Lieutenant Rivers was done interrogating whoever owned this dump and then call Michael after that since both calls were probably related to work. I put my phone away and a quiet couple minutes passed by. These were interrupted by the static of my radio followed by the Lieutenant saying that it was "all clear"which meant that he wanted me inside to help interrogate.

I entered the club, and it matched the parking lot, empty. I walked over to the bar and joined Lieutenant. He was interrogating a Hispanic, female bartender there who was cleaning the counter and some glasses. She had dark black hair and brown eyes. She wore a tank top with skinny jeans and a casual, leather jacket. When I walked over she looked me up and down and I flashed my badge at her.

"Carly Houston, SVU, I'm with this guy," I motioned my head in the Lieutenant's direction.

"Sergeant, I was just telling this nice, young lady about Crystal," Ace explained.

I saw on the counter both pictures of Crystal laid out for the bartender to see.

"So, do you remember seeing this girl or not?" I asked, looking back at the girl.

"I ain't no narc," she spat back, "I got a job to do."

I glanced over at Rivers, "well, sweetheart, no one's stopping you from doing your job here. All we want to do is talk, now did you see this girl in your club or not?" I asked again.

She set down the glass and finally made eye contact with us, "look, I can't be seen talking with no cops, not good for business."

Lieutenant scoffed, "right, because this place is so busy. If you know something, and you're not telling us, that's called obstruction of justice and you could go to jail for that, you hear? And if we find out that you are hiding something from us, the Lieutenant and Sergeant of the SVU I might add, it's not going to end well for you. This is your last chance, do you remember seeing this girl? Did she leave with anyone?"

The girl crossed her arms and held her head away from the photos, "I haven't seen her," she replied.

"Well, why don't you take another look," I challenged, moving the file a little closer.

There was a short pause and then she finally broke, "fine, maybe I saw her a couple nights ago with some guy."

I reached for my notepad which was in my back pocket and a pen that was in the inside of my jacket. I was ready to write anything she said down.

"Can you describe this guy?" Lieutenant questioned.

"Yeah, he was a white guy, kinda geeky, wore glasses. He was about as tall as you," she said to me, "I dunno his eye color, it was too dark that night, we only had black lights up. When he got here, he started comin' up to and harassing her and stuff. I almost had to call security to remove him. He left after she rejected him for the twentieth time. I think the girl stumbled out of her around one or two A.M. but she was really out of it."

I finished writing down the rest of the details, and looked up when I was done.

"Is that all you remember about him?" Ace asked.

"Yeah."

He nodded back, "alright, thank you for your cooperation."

I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not, but he grabbed the file and started towards the door. I turned and walked with him.

"Hey, wait," she stopped us, "you're gonna catch this guy, right? You're gonna make sure he doesn't come after anyone else, or me?"

I turned back around, "we're going to try ma'am," I pulled out my card which had my name and number on there and slid it on the counter, "don't hesitate to call me if you see him or remember something."

After that, Rivers and I exited the bar. I checked my phone for the time which read ten o' clock.

"Anything?" asked Lieutenant.

"Oh, just a few missed calls from Michael, I think he wants some help with a case or something. I should probably stop by and see what he wants. Do you mind if I drive you back to the precinct and then head over to his office?"

"That's fine," he replied, getting into my vehicle.

I got in the driver's seat and put the key in the ignition. I started the car, backed out of the parking lot and started towards the precinct.

***

(A/N: I hope you enjoyed this chapter. If you did please be sure to comment, vote, and/or share! Thanks!~Andrea)