Would You Rather...

Chapter Five

SVU picked up a case Monday evening, one they thankfully hadn't called him for until the following morning. Still, with as slow as his Monday had been, the call from Liv had been more than welcomed. This early into a case Rafael had little worry about it interfering with his date later that evening.

"Barba, finally." Liv stood when she noticed him enter the bullpen.

The group was gathered around a table discussing an array of victims photos they had placed on a bulletin board.

"Finally? You called ten minutes ago."

His statement garnered a look from Liv, but was otherwise ignored as they jumped into the details of the case. Rafael listened as he examined the board. The abused and then strangled bodies of missing girls from all over the country were turning up on the streets of New York. The one reported last night was the first to turn up in Manhattan, but Brooklyn had had two, Queens one, and Staten Island three.

"You're thinking a serial is using the city as his dumping ground?" Rafael asked after they had exhausted the information they had ready to give him.

"What else could it be? There's too many similarities between each girl, what happened to them, and how they were killed." Rollins replied.

"This'll be a PR nightmare." Rafael huffed, just as his phone rang.

He glanced at it and sighed as Carmen's office number popped up on the screen. Given what he had walked into, he assumed she wasn't calling because he forgot to sign something.

"Barba." He answered.

"I have Mayor Crowley on the line."

"Send him through." Rafael sighed, moving away from the detectives that were still talking so that he could hear better.

The conversation was short, mostly an emphasis that the boroughs needed to work together. Rafael assumed each borough's assigned ADA would be receiving the same call.

"Mayor Crowley wants you to coordinate with the detectives assigned to the case in each borough, as well as with law enforcement in the cities the girls were reported missing in. Find out who spoke to them last, who, if anyone, witnessed their abduction, and anything that might link them to one another. He's hoping to not have to call in the FBI, but if headway isn't made soon, he will."

"Are you making a statement to the press?" Carisi asked.

"The victims aren't locale, so I don't see reason to cause alarm or draw attention to whoever's doing this. It may be best to work the case quietly until we have more to go on."

"And if the press gets wind of it?" Liv side eyed him.

"Then I'll make a statement."

Rafael used Liv's office to make phone calls as she assigned each of the detectives a task. Fin was to touch base with each borough, including the Bronx even though they hadn't had a body reported in their area. Carisi was tasked with contacting the local precincts where each girl was reported missing. Rollins had been assigned to dig into their social media pages, extra circular activities, and anything else she could find that might be a common thread between them. He was relieved to hear that the other ADA's involved agreed with him on the press angle. What good would it do for him not to call a press conference if any one of the others did?

Carisi had just ended a call when Rafael ventured back into the bullpen, his retort after he slammed the phone down drew Rafael's attention and then Alice popped into his head. It was the first moment since he had met her that he realized she hadn't been encompassing his thoughts and he almost laughed. He really benefited from being busy. Of course the reason she popped into his head wasn't because their date was on his mind, or that he wished he could call her... she was there because of her connection to the detective that was grumbling at his desk.