⋆° დ ༄ RISKY BUSINESS
chapter fifty three. the song of gregory williams yates.
special victims unit crossover event.

"Greg Yates escaped custody last night in upstate New York after killing two state troopers, two ConElectric workers and a camper, and shooting Sergeant Dodds, who will make a full recovery, thank god" Dawson annonces, standing next to the white board.

"And Yates?" Adam questions.

"Pennsylvania troopers found a pick up truck abandoned on a state road, State forensics lifted Yates' prints and a motorist there IDd Yates pretending to have car trouble, and knocking him out to take his car" Jay says, as Maxine paces back and forth behind her desk.

"He repeated the pattern in Ohio and Indiana. The last vehicle brought him to the Illinois border" Antonio states, "crime lab confirms Yates' prints, but there's no leads after that"

"Yeah, except one" Hank says, walking over to the white board and points to the note that Yates had left, "Maxine. The reason Yates is here"

"No" Maxine says then shrugs, "he's just trying to get in our heads. We put out a BOLO investigative alert and Amber alerts on the vehicle. Troopers are watching every highway coming into Chicago"

"New York SVU is questioning Carl Rudnick, the guy Yates escaped with, who's back in custody." Dawson informs the group, "Lieutenant Benson will be in touch when they have anything to report"

"Well, till then I want us on every transient hotel, shelter, food bank in the city" Hank orders, "remember this guy will kill or maim to get what he wants. And flag the credit cards of the vehicle owners. See if there was a safe haven he used last time he was here. Now let's get on it"

Hank walks back into his office and jay walks over to his partner and asks, "how's your knee?"

"It's okay" Maxine said then looks at the doubt in jays eyes, "I'm fine, really"

"Okay, I'm gonna run with the carjack victims. See if he grabbed any phones"

"Max, Antonio come on in here" Voight says, walking to his door, then walks back over to his desk as Bishop and Dawson follow, where they see Olivia Benson on the screen.

"So, Rudnick said that Yates befriended a guard who slipped him contraband phones. We found this in his cell" Olivia says, holding up an evidence bag with a cell phone in it, "with a search triangulating a Chicago neighborhood. I'm texting you a screenshot that we recovered"

"You got it?" Voight asks Antonio. Dawson takes out his phone to see a message from Olivia and looks at the screenshot and says, "south loop. Around sixteenth and Indiana"

"That's near your house" Voight says to Maxine.

Maxine sighed and said, "that doesn't mean anything"

"Maxine.."

"Hank" Platt says, stopping at the door frame of Voights office, "Burgess and Roman just made notification of a triple homicide all in one apartment building, a fourth woman hanging on. All female. All nurses. This sounds like your guy"

"Fin and I are on the next flight out" Liv says before Hank closes his laptop.

"You ride with me" Hank tells his daughter. Maxine goes to grab her coat and puts her phone to her ear to call Maverick.

"Hey baby"

"Hi. I need you to do me a huge favor"

"Okay?"

"Stay out of the house until we catch Yates. Just stay at your club or something. I don't need you getting hurt...or worse"

"Yeah, okay. Whatever you want"

"I love you, Mav"

"I love you too, Maxine"

🪩🪩🪩

"A meter reader called it in" Burgess tells Hank, Maxine, Erin and Jay as she leads them to the crime scene, "he knocks, and the door pushed opened to this. Uh, best we can figure, the first victim opened the door, he pushed in and knocked her down"

"Hmm. What's this?" Voight questions, pointing to the floor where the blood is smeared and a piece of the victim's scalp was lauded out.

"pieces of scalp covered with partial hair. So he must have dragged her. And there is, uh, multiple dents in the floor where he slammed her into it"

"Roommate was in the shower?" Jay asks.

"Tub. We think the first victim threw a vase to warn her friend, but too late. She must have heard her friend, got out of the tub, and locked the door" Burgess informs them.

Maxine takes another look at the first victim and sighs.

"Hank, you're gonna wanna see this" Al says.

Hank tells Erin and Jay to stay with the first two vics as he and Maxine follow Al. Jay and Erin walked towards the bathroom where the second victim is followed by Kim.

"He broke the door down, slammed her into the wall in several places" Burgess states, "there is defensive bruising on her arms, multiple lacerations on her knuckles. She put up a good fight"

Jay feels the water and says, "it's still warm"

"The roommates on the way to med. this one must not have heard anything downstairs. Back doors open" Roman says, as Al, Hank and Maxine walk into the room, "we think he heard the meter reader and bolted before he could finish off the roomate"

"So, the thing is boss, uh, all the purses were emptied, all the jewelry boxes were gone through." Adam says.

"We'll, that's not his MO" Hank says.

"Well , there's more than that" Al says and Hank walks around to the other side of the desk where the victim was to see her hand cut off, "this isn't him either. No victim shows any sign of sexual assault."

"It's nurses. It's blunt force trauma. This is yates" Maxine states.

"Well, this cuts neat. Precise, like a doctor would do. She might be right" Hank says, standing up from his kneeling position, "well, what's happening on the third floor?"

"It's clear, no sign of foul play and the tenant, Nellie Carr, she isn't there" Roman answers.

"Well, maybe she heard. seen something" Al suggests.

"We gotta find her. Let's get an all call message going for this Nellie Carr" Voight orders, "Roman, get a list of what's missing, every item and somebody get me a print that can put yates here"

"Me and halstead should probably follow the ambo, see if the victim comes out that we can ID" Atwater says.

"I'll go with you" Maxine says.

"No. You and I are heading back to the 21st, we're gonna find that third floor tenant" Hank says.

"You're benching me" Maxine says as she and Hank walk outside.

"I'm keeping you safe"

"We just left a scene with three dead nurses. I'm not the one you need to worry about"

"Maxine, he's baiting you"

"No, he's not" Max says, stopping them, "he's using me to get under your skin. And it's working"

"You make one mistake with yates, you're dead. You get that?"

"If he wanted me, he would have had me in upstate New York"

"Well, he's not getting a second chance" Voight says, as they continue walking. Maxine looks at her ringing phone to see her mother calling, "it's Dylan. I don't know what she wants from me. I told her I didn't want that type of relationship with her. Do you two still even talk?"

"Not since I met Camille"

"Hank, if I'm bait. Let me be bait. I can draw him in. Let me do my job. This is what I'm good at" Maxine says as they stop at the car.

"Get in the car"

🪩🪩🪩

Jay and Kevin are talking with two ladies who are students of Nellie Carr, Yates' intended victim, who just went missing.

"Do you remember what he talked about?" Jay asks.

"He was showing us a photo of Professor Carr on his phone" one of the girls said.

"Wait, Carr? Nellie Carr?"

"he said she was his college girlfriend and he was in town for the week"

"She was covering a class. I told him she was on her way to the parking lot." The other girl said.

"Thank you" Jay says, as he and Kevin start to walk away, "so he was looking for Nellie Carr this whole time. First at the apartments, then here"

"But she's 40-something with red hair. It doesn't make any sense" Kevin states.

"Well, neither does the MO from this morning. And Everyone who IDd him said he was specifically looking for her"

"Hey guys" Dawson calls out to Kevin and Jay who head over to him who had been looking through the car Yates had been using, "there's a note left in the car Yates drove here"

Jay leans forward a bit to see the note that says, "'too bad you're at the station, Maxine. You're missing all the fun'. What the hell is going on?"

🪩🪩🪩

"I've got an investigative alert out on yates and Nellie" Maxine says, taping Nellie's picture to the whiteboard, "her car, cellphone and credit cards"

"Alright, I want uniformed door to door through that campus. Get recruits if you have too" hank orders.

"We gotta figure out what connection is between yates and Nellie. I need his working files, I need.."

"I pulled it" Platt says, walking over to hank and Maxine and handing the detective a file, "we're setting up a hotline right now. So blue is for sightings already called in, green is for places we know he's been, and red is for former crime sites with photos and intel on each victim. Also, there's a list of other hospitals he might target" then she hands Commander Crowley, who had just walked into the unit, a paper, "and this is the hotline phone number for the news"

"Thanks Trudy. Commander?" Hank says.

"I got the superintendent and the mayor on the phone. News affairs is sending someone for an update, and I've got a press conference set for a public safety alert. New York SVU is en route?"

"Yeah, they're on their way. Hey, detective bishop can help gather information for the press. She'll be here" Hank says as he and crowley walk away and Maxine scoffs.

"Shouldn't she be home? She's too personally invested in this case"

"The safest place for bishop is right here, in my station"

"Can I help you, detective?" Trudy asks Maxine who was looking at the victim board.

"You didnt put Nadia's picture up here with all the other past victims. Nadia isn't up there"

"Her name is up there. I thought maybe a photograph..."

"She should be up there with everybody else"

"Absolutely. I'll fix it. Sorry"

~~~

"I got a hit" Mouse says, sitting at his desk as Hank and Maxine walk over to him, "yeah, one of the nurses phone cards is being used a mile outside their neighborhood."

"Alright, ping the cell, text the address to Atwater" hank says.

"I will but a second credit card turned up at a Best Buy outside humboldt park."

"And one of the nurses bracelets just showed up at a pawn shop. They texted a photo of the woman there too" Roman says, showing them the photo.

"He's passing the stuff around. Let's go" Max says, turning towards Voight.

"Max"

"It would be just like him to be in one of these places. Let me do something"

"He's playing us"

"Fine then let's send uniforms and pin the maps and triangulate his location. Hank.."

"Sergeant, the front desk just called up" Burgess says, standing up, "a package was delivered for detective bishop by a homeless woman who ID'd yates as the one who paid her to drop it off. It's a big box"

"Alright, get out of the building" Hank says, then looks at Mouse, "call the bomb squad. Get everyone out of the building now"

~~~

"We x rayed it. It's not a bomb. Your people are safe" a member from the bomb squad says as everyone takes a deep breath, "but you're gonna want to check this out"

The team and some uniform officers stand around the package that's sitting on the hood of a truck and Maxine says, "it's addressed to me"

Max takes her pocket knife and cuts open the package to find a hand holding a note, then she takes out the note to read it, "'why don't you answer the phone when your mother calls'"

Maxine takes out her ringing phone which is a video chat from Dylan's contact.

"He knows she opened the box. He's here, watching us" commander Crowley states, "fan out! Now. Go, go, go"

"That means, this morning it wasn't Dylan who called, it was Yates" Max states.

"Yeah, he must have spoofed you" Mouse says, "called from his phone, made it look like your moms."

"Just answer it" Voight says.

Max answers the video call and Yates' face pops up who says, "detective Bishop. Do you know Nellie Carr?" Yates questions, zooming the camera out to fit both his and Nellie's faces on it, "Nellie. Nurse Nellie. Hey, that is the wonderful detective bishop. Do you...are those dark circles under your eyes?" Yates continues on, "tsk. Couldn't sleep?"

"You've been keeping me busy. You have my attention now. What do you need?" Max asks.

"Hmm" Yates chuckles, "gosh, what do I need?"

"Where is he?" Voight questions Mouse, who's on the phone.

"I'm on with Bishops carrier" Mouse tells Voight then tells the person over the phone, "Real time, loss of life, exigency circumstances emergency. I need information on a call connected to one of our phones."

"Do you want the concern of the city? You got that. You want the whole district to sit up? Look, see" Maxine says, facing the camera at the district with all the officers outside, "you did this. But you keep sending notes to me. So why don't you tell me where you are. I'll come to you"

"Oh, you know where I am"

"Why don't you pretend I'm not that clever and tell me anyway" Max says.

"And ruin all the fun?"

"Then tell me why you killed those four nurses, when what you really wanted was Nellie?"

"You are trying to get me to confess with witnesses present. You are recording me without my permission and me without a lawyer present. Shame on you detective"

"Okay. Okay. Then why me? Why are you leaving all the notes for me?"

"I've been thinking a lot about Cain and Abel, you know? If they were the only descendants of Adam and Eve, and Cain killed Abel. Well you know what that means, don't you?"

"They're pinging his phone right now" mouse says.

"We're all descendants of a murderer" Yates chuckles, "I will see you soon, detective"

Yates ends the call and Mouse yells, "what? No..damn it! Powered down. They lost him"

"Mouse, how does he know where she is or what we've been doing?" Jay asks.

"I-your phone. Let me see your phone" mouse says as Max gives it to him and he checks something out then a second later he covers the phone with his hands, "detective Bishops phone, it's using five times the regular data. That means.."

"It's spyware" Jay says.

"Yeah. Okay, he's been listening in on conversations. He's probably been reading texts, emails, and can turn on the camera in the car, and in the bullpen"

"But how would he have access to it? When?"

"When we went to the jail we had to surrender our phones." Max says.

"The corrupt guard" Antonio breathes out.

Maxine takes her phone back from Mouse to replay the last part of the video then shows the group, "I know where he is. He's in my house. this pictures at my place"

"Let's go" Voight orders. Maxine takes out her phone to call Maverick but he doesn't answer, "Mav, baby. Come on. Answer, damn it"

🪩🪩🪩

The team slowly walk into Maxine's house with their long guns.

"Sarg" Kevin shouts, as he and Antonio walk into Maxine's bedroom to see a chair held up against the closet door and when they open it they find Nellie Carr.

"Where's Yates? Where'd he go?" Antonio questions.

"I don't know! He's not out there?" Nellie asks, ropes tied around her ankles and wrists.

"He left you alone?" Voight asks.

"He said to stay inside. He said, if I left he'd be outside waiting to kill me. Is he gone?"

Antonio helps a terrified Nellie out of the closet. Adam walks over to his best friend and says, "is Maverick here?"

"No and he's still not answering his phone"

"Listen to me, he's okay. He's probably just busy with work or something"

"Yeah"

🪩🪩🪩

"well look what the cat dragged in" Antonio says, walking to his desk seeing Fin walk onto the unit.

"Chicago, Chicago" Fin jokes, walking up the stairs with Olivia behind him, "now why we gotta keep coming here? You can't catch these bad guys on your own?"

"We wouldn't have too if New York could keep killers in their jails" Adam teases, as the two shake hands.

"wow, the loud mouth teenager."

Olivia walks over to Maxine and says, "I've been getting updates on you. You okay?" And max nods her head.

~~~

Olivia and Erin walked out of the break room from talking with Nellie onto the bullpen where everyone is gathered at their desks and looking at the white boards when Liv says, "Penelope Williams was searched on one of the phones from Yates' cell"

"Then why would he let her go?" Antonio asks.

"To send a message to Maxine. Yates' first note said 'I'll see you at home'. He asked Nellie about her home. He went to Maxine's house. Her home. Where was Yates born?"

"North Carolina" Antonio says.

"Let's find out for sure" Hank says.

~~~

Maxine is sitting at her desk on her computer when Adam says, "hey boss?"

"Yeah" Voight says as he and Olivia leave his office.

"So, Nellie grew up Penelope Williams to, uh, parents Susan and Michael Williams here in Chicago. And the thing is, um, they also had a son by the name of Gregory."

"Yates is Nellie's brother" Maxine says. Antonio covers the receiver of his desk phone and says, "Nellie's mother is downstairs. Susan Baldwin"

"Alright, Max and Jay as soon as she's seen Nellie, go interview her" Hank says, "Run his name through DCFS. Do a national check too. Anything you can get."

~~~

"Greg was a difficult baby. He was off from the beginning." Susan Baldwin says, sitting in interrogation with Maxine and Jay, "and once he got language he said terrible things. He became obsessed with fire and set one in our basement by the time he was four years old. It wasn't an accident"

Jay and Max looked at each other as the woman continued on, "when I became pregnant with Nellie, small animals would turn up dead inside the house. We were terrified of him. Terrified for the new baby. We decided that Michael should take Greg on one of his hauls and.."

"Put him up for adoption in another state. North Carolina" Max says.

"A pastor agreed to place him. Our marriage didn't last much longer after that"

"Are you in touch with Greg's father?" Jay asks.

"No. Nellie is. Michaels on the road most weeks but...this Greg Yates that's wanted for all of these awful things..."

~~~

"So serial killers often kill the same person over and over again" Lieutenant Benson states to the group in the bullpen, "Susan is a brunette. She has brown eyes. She would've been 25 when Michael took him to North Carolina"

"But he's been in Chicago before. He could have looked for her at any point" Dawson says.

"Michael and Susan Williams, they're pretty common names. But she remarried and changed her name. It might've taken him time to find that new name." fin states.

"Time he had plenty of, in jail" Jay says.

"But he's had a cell phone before and it's been 40 years since they gave him up, so what.." Erin says.

"Back at the hospital, Rudnick said that Yates was obsessed with one thing, revenge" Olivia says.

"If Yates wanted revenge on anyone, it would be Rudnick. Rudnick killed yates' fiancée" Jay says.

"Yates' pregnant fiancée" Maxine states, "she was pregnant when she was killed"

"Just like Yates' mother was with Nellie when they gave him away" Liv says.

"And that triggered something inside him" Fin says.

"And when he couldn't find them on his own, he went through Nellie. He's come here to finish 'em off. That's his end game" Voight adds.

"But what if it's more than that? I mean, if you look at his movements, he's frenzied" Olivia says, "I don't think that he expects to make it out of here alive"

"Neither do I" Max states, "if the pregnancy led him back here to his mother..."

~~~

Voight walks into the locker room to see Maxine pacing back and forth, "I had him. I had him in the woods. If I didn't stop for that little girl. If I kept moving through that cabin, those four nurses would be alive right now"

"Max, don't do this to yourself" Hank says.

"That's reason number two." Maxine says, then goes to open her locker where there was a picture of her, Erin and Nadia, "that's reason number 1"

"You're not going out, Maxine"

"Why not?"

"This is exactly what he wants. Get in your head, throw you off your game."

"How can I be off my game if you won't even let me in it?"

"And how am I supposed to put you out there? You can't even keep your cool with me"

Maxine sighs and says, "I wanna be the one to bring him in, Hank"

"You wanna be the one to get in the confrontation with him, and that's not being good police"

"That is not where my head is at right now. You have my word"

"I don't believe you. You're staying here" Hank says before walking away. Max slams her locker shut and follows after him along and they walk down to the roll up to see everyone vest up and get their guns ready.

"Look, for what it's worth. If I was your sergeant. I would've done the same thing" Olivia tells Max, "we'll get him"

~~~

After getting another video call from Yates from Nellie's mothers phone, Maxine runs onto the unit, where Mouse was so he could trace the call.

After getting the address, Mouse runs to the closed door of the break room and puts the sticky note on the door to show Maxine that reads '34th and Sangamon'.

🪩🪩🪩

Maxine speeds to the address as she's on the walkie with Voight who says, "stand down. You are not going in alone, you hear me? That's an order"

"He'll kill Michael Williams if I don't show up" Max says.

"That's what he wants you to think"

"It's 34th and Sangamon, Hank. It's his childhood home. I'm almost there"

"34th? I'm five minutes away. Max, you are not meeting him alone, you hear me? Maxine!"

"You know i can't do that." Max says, turning the walkie off.

Once Maxine stops at the house, she gets out of the car, quietly closing the door and drawing her weapons and flashlight, slowly walking towards the front door of the house.

Maxine looks into the small window of the door but sees nothing then she slowly enters the abandoned house, clearing it when she hears a thud coming from the second floor.

the detective makes her way upstairs and down the hall and up in a room where Yates is standing behind his father who is sitting in a chair with a rope tied around his neck and hangs next to a hole in the floor.

"Detective Bishop. So good to see you again"

"Let him go" Maxine demands. Yates scoffs and says, "I could but I am the only thing holding him up"

"Let me call an ambulance for him then it'll just be you and me. Just like you wanted" Maxine says, taking her phone out.

"No, he'll be dead. Long before they get here. Put that away" Yates says, "then you shoot me and he goes over"

Yates moves the chair closer to the hole and Michael whimpers and Max yells, "stop. Stop."

Max puts her gun away and Yates says, "this is it"

"Have a seat" Yates says and Maxine slowly walks over to the rocking chair and sits, "Gillian Hale was a nursing student. But what she really wanted to be was a surgeon. A helper. Do you know who suffers the most? Helpers because right up until that moment when you snap their neck, they really believe in the goodness of people. She thought that I would spare her because she was three months pregnant. And that...that is why I picked her. A pregnant nurse as my first victim. Mmmm...the symmetry. You did want this from the beginning, right detective?"

Hank pulls up to the house and quickly gets out, running into the house.

"Now my first pair. Oh that...that was electric. Lisa and uh oh, Rebecca. They fought for each other so hard, but in the end...because you know, you can't keep a woman alive for days. Oh suffering, it's such an underrated art, isn't it? But you know, who suffered the most beautifully of them all?" yates then shows Maxine the picture he stole from her house of her, Nadia and Erin, "poor Nadia. Look, we are so similar, you and I. Damaged by a terrible mother. A father who abandoned us when...oh, he could have saved us. And we tried to over come, didn't we? to become healers but turns out fixing people doesn't pave over what you're born with"

"Then what do you want? Why am I here?" Maxine asks, anger in her eyes.

"An execution always needs one thing. A witness"

"No no!" Michael yells as Yates pushes him through the hole in the wall. Maxine stands up, and fires her gun.

"We're killers and at the end of the day, what is more liberating than killing someone? Bad begets bad. Begets bad. And you my lovely, get to tell this story"

"Don't move, you hear me? Stay where you are" Maxine warns and Yates just keeps walking closer.

"You write my name down in a police report. You talk to the press you, testify in court. You are my balladeer. Singing the song of Gregory Williams yates, over and over and over..."

"I said don't move!"

"You put me away. Take me in. Take me. Take me!" Yates yells, lunging at Maxine who shoots him.

Hank runs into the room to see Maxine looking down into the hole in the floor to see Yates dead on the floor with a gunshot wound to his head. Hank slowly takes Maxine gun from him.

🪩🪩🪩

Maxine walks down the sidewalk past the line of people who were waiting to get into the club and says, "hey spenc" to the bodyguard.

"Hey Maxine" he says, letting her inside.

Maxine walks over to the bar to a bartender she recognized and says, "hey Danny. He in his office?"

"Yeah, should be"

"Thanks" she says, walking through the crowd of people and over to the door that says private. She opens it and walks up the stairs to another door and knocks.

"Come in"

Maxine walks in and says, "hey"

Maverick looks over at his fiancé and smiles, "hi baby"

"Why haven't you been answering your phone?"

"I'm sorry. I've been drowning in paper work I just put my phone on silent"

"I was worried. I thought something happened to you" Maxine said walking over to the taller man and who was sitting at his desk. Maverick turns his chair around to face the detective and places his hands on her hips, "I'm sorry, baby. I promise I won't ignore any of your calls again"

"Okay" she whispers.

"I got something that will make you feel better"

"Yeah? Like that?"

"You see that present over there, sitting on my coffee table?"

Maxine looks to her right and says, "yeah"

"It's for you"

"Mav, you didn't have to get me anything"

Maverick takes ahold of Maxine's hand and stands up, guiding her over to the table and says, "but I did. And when I saw it. I knew it was for you"

Maxine smiles and goes to open it to see the most perfect leather jacket she has ever seen. She looks up at Maverick in shock, "This is beautiful. This is really for me?"

"Yes and you deserve it" Maverick said then looks down to see her tearing up, "baby, what's wrong?"

"No one's ever done this for me before. I love you so much" she sniffles. Maverick cups her cheeks and leans in for a kiss, "you deserve the world, my love. Okay? And I will give it to you"

authors note;

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