This is the last part of the "everything and nothing" trilogy.
You don't have to read the other two (but you are more than welcome to).
Amanda now works in homicide, she and Nick are together and are expecting a little bundle of joy.
Just a little warning, this is not an easy case, nothing graphic, but the case itself might be hard.
But Nick and Amanda will get a happy ending.
And of course I don't own SVU and the characters from the show.
Not everyone has the stomach for it.
That was what Liv told him when he joined SVU. It didn't take him long to realize why. The cases were always tough, always painful and always stayed with you. Especially when children were involved. Having children only made it so much harder.
He loved being a father, but couldn't deny that sometimes he felt like he wasn't doing the best job. He missed years from Gil's childhood, and the fact he didn't know about him didn't ease his guilt. It was the opposite with Zara, he was there when she was a child, but he was missing her growing up.
And now he was about to be a father again, any day now, as Amanda was already past her due date. The thought made him smile, seeing Amanda frowning a bit this morning, she was getting impatient. The pregnancy was uneventful, all the test results were fine and Amanda felt good. She still worked hard as usual, but was extra careful.
She actually seemed calmer being pregnant, as if things got easier for her somehow. Nick couldn't explain it, there was just something about her. Like the other day, when she was lying in bed, reading a book with her hand on her belly. He just had to be there with her, lie next to her, look at her.
"What?" she asked him.
"You look happy"
"Well, I am" she had that daring smile of hers, the one that made his heart melt, and she took his hand and put it on her belly to feel the baby kick. He was happy too.
But reality always pulled him back in. like now, standing in the park, in front of Mary Lind, she was crying, trying to tell them what happened.
"Mrs. Lind" Liv said "I know this is hard, but we need you tell us everything you remember"
She nodded and looked around the park "I looked away for just a moment, Bobby was in the stroller and Dana was standing next to it, and when I looked again they were gone, somebody took them" she started crying again.
"Do you have a picture on your phone?" Nick asked.
She didn't say anything but gave him her phone. He found the photos and showed them to Liv.
"I'm going to make sure every officer in the city has this. We will do everything to find your kids" Liv said.
Nick's phone rang, it was Amanda, he looked at Liv, she nodded and took Mary's phone from him.
"Hey" he answered the phone after he moved away from them "everything alright?"
"Did you forget?" she asked him, he could hear her smiling though.
"Forget? Oh, damn" of course, she had a doctors appointment. He didn't miss any of them before, but he couldn't leave.
"You've got something?"
"Yeah, I really can't leave, it's…"
"That's fine Nick, I'll text you when I'm done"
He heard a commotion somewhere behind him and turned around to see a man running to Mary "I've got to go" he said.
"Alright, bye Nick" she said and he hang up.
He figured it was her husband as he hugged her and held on to her hand.
"What are you doing to find our children?" he asked Liv when Nick joined them, he sounded angry, but what father wouldn't be?
"Mr. Lind" she answered "we have the best detectives working on it, I will have an officer escort you to the station"
"Just please find them" Mary begged.
Liv called one of the officers to take the Linds to the precinct.
"Everything ok?" she asked Nick, wondering if the call he got was about the baby.
"Yeah" he nodded "she said anything else?" he referred to Mary.
"No, she feels really guilty, kept on saying she looked away only for a moment"
"And the husband?"
"Came here straight from work, we'll talk to them again at the station, I think they are too shaken up right now"
"Detectives!" an officer called "you got to come see this" they headed to her direction, she was standing a few feet from them, next to a big tree.
There was a stroller on the ground, Nick and Liv looked at each other "I'll get SCU" Nick said.
Back at the station Liv was sitting in front of the Linds in her office. Nick and Fin were going over the statements and photos from the park.
"Do you go to the park everyday?" she asked Mary.
"Yes, but not to the same place everyday"
"And did you notice anything different today or even in the past days?"
"What do you mean?" Mr. Lind asked.
"Anything that seemed out of the ordinary, or even felt like it"
"I don't know" Mary answered, frustrated with herself "I don't think so. Felt?"
"Well" Liv tried to explain "sometimes we may not notice but our mind does, so we feel there's something…"
"Really?" Mr. Lind got up, raising his voice "this is how you're planning to find my children? If she felt something? Maybe you should get a psychic too"
"Eric, please…"
"Mr. Lind" Liv stood up too "I've been working here for many years, you need to understand that I want to find Dana and Bobby, but no matter how much experience I've got, I need your help"
He seemed to calm down a bit "I'm sorry" he apologized and sat next to his wife.
"I don't remember anything strange" Mary said "and I didn't feel anything either, not that I can remember"
"Ok" Liv nodded "is there anybody you know that might have a grudge against you, that would want to hurt you in any way?"
Eric seemed to get angry again but stopped himself and shook his head "no, I mean, I work at the bank so sure maybe some people are mad at me but to do this? Because I didn't approve a loan?"
"We have to check everything out" she told him.
"I'll call my office and get you the names"
"So how's Amanda doing?" Fin asked Nick, they had to take a coffee break "when's that baby of yours going to get here?"
Nick chuckled "I don't know Fin" he smiled "the due date passed but Amanda texted me that everything's fine, she went to her doctor earlier"
"She must be getting impatient"
"Getting? You know her"
"Well, I don't care if the baby's a bit late, just don't forget I get to be the godfather, teach the kid some tricks"
Nick looked at Fin with a questioning look which made Fin laugh "don't worry, only the good tricks I know"
"That's what I'm worried about" he answered as he got back to his desk.
When they got back Nick looked at the map they had on the board "so if this is where she last saw them" he pointed on the location "and this is where we found the stroller" he pointed at the other location "then whoever took them was fast"
"Yeah" Fin said "most of the baby things are still in there, maybe he had a way to get them out of there?"
"No one saw anything, and from the little security videos we have there's nothing out of the ordinary"
"This is weird man" Fin looked at the map again "I mean, two kids, if you walk in the park with two kids just like that, they are probably crying…"
"Unless it's someone they know" Nick pointed.
"So he takes them just like that? If he knows them he'd probably planned it"
"You've got a point, if it was a stranger why would he take the two of them, it would just be hard for him to get away"
"So he was ready, he knew where they were, probably had everything ready, maybe a stroller, for Bobby?"
Their conversation was interrupted by an officer who handed them an envelope from the lab. These were the photos they took in the lab before processing everything, the stroller and everything in it, a blanket, bottle, a few toys.
"No baby bag" Nick said.
"Huh?"
"Diapers, clothes, I don't think I saw it" he looked at the other photos they had.
"Maybe he didn't have everything he needed" Fin said "maybe we should show it to them"
Nick nodded and went to Liv's office.
"I'm sorry to interrupt" he said and handed the photos to Liv "did you have a baby bag with you?" he asked Mary.
"Yes, yes, of course" she said.
"We didn't find it" Liv said after she went over the photos "we found a stroller with somethings in it" she handed them the photos. She could see from their faces they recognized everything.
"That's his blanket, he won't go to sleep without it" Mary's eyes were tearing up and Eric put his arm around her, he had tears in his eyes too "I'll call my office and get you the names" he said and walked out of the office.
"Why would someone do this?" Mary asked.
"Mary, why don't you tell me about your day, everything you did today"
"Well, the kids got up early and we made breakfast" she smiled at the memory of Bobby playing with his toys in the kitchen and Dana making a mess "then Eric joined us and we all ate together, after that he went to work and we played in the house before going to the park, oh, I updated my blog"
"Blog?" Nick asked.
"I have a parenting blog, it's like a hobby" she explained.
"Why don't you write the address" Liv gave her a piece of paper and a pen "we'll need to check it out"
Nick knew he wasn't going home anytime soon so he went to the bunks to talk to Amanda in private.
"Hey" she answered her phone and he could hear her smile.
"Hey, I wanted to say I won't make it home tonight"
"I figured, heard about the AMBER alert"
"Yeah" he sounded a bit distant.
"How're you doing?" she was concerned, cases involving children were always tough for him.
"You know how it is" he said "what did the doctor say?" He asked, wanting to change the subject.
"Everything's fine, baby's kicking. She said that she doesn't want to induce yet, we'll wait a few more days and see"
He took a deep breath "take care of yourself, ok?"
"Of course" she smiled "you too"
"I love you Amanda"
"I love you too Nick, oh, he sends his love too" she said as she felt the baby kick.
Thinking about it now, Amanda realized that the day she fell in love with the baby was when she found out it was a boy.
She remembered it like it was yesterday. She was waiting for Nick outside the clinic and when he showed up he apologized for being late but she told him she got there just five minutes ago. She smiled at him, he was cute when he was sorry.
Lying on the bed in the exam room Amanda felt a little anxious, what if there's something wrong with the baby? There are so many things that can happen. The gel on her stomach felt cold but Nick's hand felt warm around hers.
When they were asked if they wanted to know the sex of the baby she answered yes without thinking about it, they didn't talk about it, but she felt like she had to know.
"Well you see here?" Amanda couldn't see what she was talking about but she nodded anyway "it's a boy"
A boy. She was so exited she didn't even hear it when she was told the exam was over.
"Amanda" Nick looked at her "she said you can get up"
When they were out of the clinic Nick pulled Amanda into a hug "you should see the look you have on your face" he whispered in her ear.
She wanted to give him a different look but didn't want to pull away from him.
"You have this gorgeous smile and your eyes…" he kissed her forehead.
"A boy" Amanda whispered as she finally pulled away from him, but they were still standing very close to each other.
"A boy" Nick nodded, he had a huge smile on his face too.
Suddenly it became more real. She could say 'he' instead of 'it' or 'the baby', she could imagine him, imagine herself holding him.
She also couldn't deny that she felt a little relived that it wasn't a girl. The women in her family all had something, and maybe a boy would turn out more like Nick. She knew it didn't make sense, but it made her feel calmer anyway.
Now, sitting at her desk going through some paperwork, she got that overwhelming feeling that everything is going to change soon, everything will be different. But even though she was scared she knew she was going to be fine. She just wanted to meet him already.
"I got nothing" Fin said when he got back, he was checking the list of names Mr. Lind gave them "most of them have an alibi and the ones who don't" he sat down on his chair "no way they could pull something like this, and no way they paid someone"
"Well I'm checking her blog" Nick said "there's a lot of information in here, I mean check this out" Fin got up and looked at the screen "it's the post from this morning, it says exactly where they were going"
"We should ask TARU to take a look, maybe they can tell us who read it" He suggested.
"Anything?" Liv asked as Fin and Nick walked into her office.
"So we were going through Mary's blog" Fin answered "TARU got us help with the IPs, and I still don't really get how it works, but looks at this" he handed her a report.
"What am I looking at?"
"In her last post she wrote where they were going today" Nick explained "so we compared these IP addresses to other entries and comments. There's one that stands out" he showed her the line on the report "every time she wrote something whoever owns this IP address read it, and more then once"
"And let's be honest" Fin added "it's not that interesting"
"I know it's a long shot" Nick said "but this could be the way he knew they were at the park, this feels like it was planned"
Olivia sighed "I'll call Barba" she said "maybe he could convince a judge to give us a warrant"
Liv was at the Linds's apartment, it was getting late and she could see they were both tired, but she lso knew they'd probably get very little, if any, sleep. There was an officer there all of the time, they had a trace on their phone in case someone calls with a ransom demand.
"Does the name Andrew Baker sounds familiar?" she asked, that was the name Fin and Nick gave her after they got the warrant, missing kids made judges easier to persuade.
"I don't know who that is" Eric said.
"Andrew?" Mary asked and Eric looked at her "I knew an Andrew Baker in college but I haven't been in touch with him for years"
"How well did you know him?"
"We dated for a while" Mary answered "but it was a long time ago"
"You think he's behind this?" Eric asked.
"We don't know, we are doing everything we can to find them"
Andrew Baker was a graphic designer, he had no record, no parking tickets, he was just an average guy. But they already knew that meant nothing in SVU.
He was working from home so they drove to his apartment to talk to him.
"Detectives?" he asked after they introduced themselves "how can I help you?" he asked and let them walk through the door into his apartment.
"Mr. Baker, do you know Mary Lind?" Nick asked, Andrew gestured on his couch and the sat down.
"Mary Lind? I'm not sure that I do" he looked at them but then added "wait, of course I do, she wasn't Lind when I knew her. We were together in college"
"I'm afraid we have some bad news, her two kids are missing" Andrew seemed worried by Nick's words "your name came up in the investigation, so we just want to ask a few questions"
"Of course, anything I can do to help"
"Have you been in contact with Mary or her children?" Fin asked.
"Oh, I'm afraid last time I saw Mary was in college, about maybe 5 years ago"
"And did you try to contact her?" Fin asked, looking at him.
"No, we broke up and that was it"
"So not at all then?"
"Are you implying something?" he sounded a bit defensive.
"We're just wondering, you've never tried to reach out, even through the internet or…"
"Wait" he stopped Nick in the middle of the sentence "I think I know what you are talking about, it's a bit embarrassing, but I guess you've heard worst"
"What is it?" Fin asked.
"I read her blog, but you know how it is today, with all the social networks out there, you want to know what some people are up to, and I was curious about her. That's it"
"So you read her blog a couple of times?" Nick asked and stood up.
"A couple, maybe more" he looked at Fin and then at Nick, who was now standing behind him.
"And yesterday morning?" Fin asked.
"Maybe" Nick felt like his answer was a little daring, he had a bad feeling about him, and from the look in Fin's eyes he knew it wasn't just him.
"You know" Andrew stood up abruptly "I would love to help, but it feels all you want to know is how many times I've read that blog" he turned to look at Nick "and that's not illegal" he stopped talking for a moment and then added "I think you should go"
Fin got up and followed Nick to the door. Outside the apartment they looked at each other again.
"I don't like this guy" Fin shook his hear a little.
"I agree" Nick said as they walked to the street.
"How stupid do you think he is?" Fin asked, Nick wasn't sure what he meant by that but then Fin pointed at the trash cans close to the apartment.
"Age before beauty" Nick looked at Fin "and since you are both of them I think you should get the honors"
Fin Chuckled "get in there Nick"
Doing what he was told he climbed over it with a smile, but it was wiped the second he could stand in there. Fin didn't need to hear it and he took his phone to call Olivia.
CSU couldn't help much, trash cans weren't good at preserving evidence, but they did take some pictures of the bag and took it to the lab.
Meanwhile Fin went back to Andrew's apartment and asked him to come to the station, he told him that if he didn't come with him now he would be arrested soon. Andrew didn't say anything and just walked after Fin.
"I don't think they are in the apartment" Nick shared his thought with Liv once she was at the scene "it looks small"
"Even if they are not there I asked SCU to go through every inch of it, the warrant should be here soon" she told him "stay with them and I'll drive back to the station"
About an hour later Nick was back at the precinct. As he suspected the children weren't at the apartment and SCU didn't find anything that could help them. They took his computer but it was going to take some time to go through it.
He learned from Fin that Andrew didn't say a word and was now sitting in the interrogation room. The Linds were also at the station, and Liv was talking to them at her office.
"What the hell does he want?" Fin asked, but Nick didn't answer.
"Why are you asking about Andrew again?" Mary asked, her eyes were red and it was clear she didn't get much rest last night.
"Mary" Olivia's voice was soft "I really need you to think harder, if there is anything that…"
"What are you saying?" Mr. Lind's voice was loud but he looked as tired as his wife "she told you everything she knows" he looked at Mary and she started sobbing "Mary?" he asked.
"I haven't seen him since college" she tried to calm down.
"I know" Olivia reassured her "but maybe there was something…" she stopped talking as Mary nodded slightly.
"We were together for two years" she let go of her husband's hand and looked at Olivia "I loved him but at some point I broke up with him" she took a breath before she continued "he wanted things to get more serious, but I didn't and I, I…" she started crying again and Eric hugged her.
"It's ok honey" he whispered.
She looked at him and then at Olivia "I wanted more than that, and I didn't want it with him, but I found out I was pregnant" she looked down now "I had an abortion and I told him about it"
"What did he say?" Olivia asked, she saw Eric was surprised by this and didn't want him to distract her.
"He was upset but not mad" her eyes were back on Olivia now "is that?" she couldn't continue talking and gasped "I'm so sorry" she said to Eric, tears running down her cheeks again.
"I'll be right back" Olivia said, she had to let Fin and Nick know.
Nick walked into the interrogation room, since Fin tried to talk to him earlier they thought it might be best to let him try alone.
"Must have been tough Andrew" Nick said, he didn't want to go round and round, they had no time for that "you were supposed to have a child and then you didn't have it"
Andrew looked at him, at first he didn't say anything, just stared with a blank expression, but after a couple of minutes he smiled, Nick thought it was one of the meanest smiles he'd ever seen.
"I want to talk to her" he said "don't waste your time"
From the look on his face Nick realized he wasn't going to say anything else. He walked out to see Liv waiting.
"Maybe we should let him talk to her" he suggested "he knows she told us, maybe he wants her to apologize"
"Yeah" Liv nodded, she knew they didn't really have a choice but she was worried about Mary, she couldn't stop crying.
Mary agreed the moment Liv told her Andrew wanted to talk to her. Eric wasn't happy about it but Olivia told him that they couldn't waste time. They've been going through everything they had about him, his computer, his financials, but they had nothing.
"Tell him what he wants to hear" Liv briefed her "he wants to know you're sorry but nothing more, don't blame yourself and don't blame him"
"Ok" Mary nodded.
"I'm coming with you" Olivia said.
Andrew smiled again when they walked in, he didn't even look at Liv, he just stared at Mary as she sat down in front of him.
"Where are my children?" she asked.
"Hello Mary" he said "and how are you doing?"
"Please Andrew" she whispered "just tell me where they are"
"Did you ever think about me?" he asked calmly "when you had them? Did you ever think about our baby? My baby?"
She nodded and he spoke again "You did? I don't believe you. I read your blog, do you even know how to be a mother? You need to take care of your children, but you only wanted to get rid of them" he smiled at her "I just helped you out"
"I'm sorry" she said, she was pale and Liv could see how scared she was.
"Just tell us where they are" she tried to say but Andrew didn't even look at her, he kept his eyes on Mary.
"Dana" he said "that's a pretty name, I would have loved to call our daughter like that, now she's mine" Mary had tears in her eyes again "you didn't want her and now she's mine"
"Andrew please" Mary stood up, she tried to be as calm as she could, or at least appear calm, she was certain she would faint any minute "I'm sorry" she told him "I made a mistake" she ignored Olivia's words, she just wanted to know where her children were "I was wrong, I wish I could turn back time, but please, please tell me where they are"
"Ok" he whispered "I'll tell you"
Olivia had a bad feeling but there was no time to over think it, they had an address and they had to check it out.
It was an old warehouse.
Even with the lights on it was dark. There were many boxes and what seemed to be broken doors.
"Dana?" Olivia called, they had five other officers there, along with Nick and Fin.
Nick was at one of the corners, the boxes there were bigger and he opened each one. When he reached the fifth box he felt like he couldn't move, like he couldn't even breathe. He tried calling someone but the words didn't come out for what seemed like a very long time.
He just stared at her.
They were too late.