A/N: You thought I'd forgotten, didn't you? Heheheheheh!

Seriously, I've been working under some crushing deadlines lately, so I haven't hadas much time as I would have liked to work on this. But rest assured it will be finished.

I would like to thank those who were kind enough to write reviews. As always, they're much appreciated.

"Yeah, got it," Elliot said into the phone. "Thanks a lot."

He got up and walked over to Cragen's office. Although the door was open, Elliot still knocked on the doorframe.

"Come in," Cragen called.

The captain sat at his desk as Elliot strode into the office. "Got a hit on our would-be kidnapper, Captain," he said. "He's Eugene Foreman, an ex-con who did time for armed robbery, and kidnapping."

"Was the kidnapping related to the robbery?" Cragen asked.

Elliot nodded as he consulted the fax. "Seems the robbery went bust, so our boy abducted a bank teller and used her as a hostage. Didn't kill her. Turned her loose on the highway, before he was finally stopped in Pennsylvania by the State Police. He did twenty years in Attica, before he got out on good behavior."

"Too bad he didn't keep behaving himself after he got out," Cragen commented. "I just got off the horn with the FDNY. They've revised their verdict on the fire we've had. It's now arson."

"No shit?" Elliot asked, stunned.

"No shit," Cragen said.

Casey appeared at the doorway and shook her head in exasperation. "Why is it every office I step into today there's somebody in it who's literally talking shit?"

"Bad day, Casey?" Cragen jokingly asked, as she entered and placed a file on his desk.

"You could say it's been a shitty day," she said, sardonically. "I rechecked Beauchamp's financials, and he's still broke, so he can't be funding any of this. But we finally got a break on another front." Casey tapped the file that she placed on Cragen's desk. "That's all the information you need on Samuel Childs, the man who has been a frequent visitor to Beauchamp at Rikers Island…including his address."

"Fantastic," Cragen said, as he handed the file to Elliot. "You and Olivia can take this one."

"What about Foreman?" Elliot asked.

"He's not going anywhere," Cragen replied. "It'll do him some good to simmer under guard in the hospital for a little while longer. Besides, if this Childs is in fact Beauchamp's contact for the hit, then I want you to run him down A.S.A.P. "

"Who's Foreman?" Casey asked.

"The would-be kidnapper who Olivia shot," Elliot replied. "We got a hit back on his fingerprints. He served 20 in Attica for robbery and kidnapping."

"Nice guy," Casey said. "Did I hear you two talking about arson before I just entered?"

"The FDNY arson squad discovered that the electrical outlet that caused the fire in the evidence room had in fact been rigged with a special device," Cragen told her. "So, it is indeed arson. Wasn't Munch talking about arsonist theories before? He'll have a field day when he hears about this!"
"You know, for once, I think John might be entitled to his conspiracy theories," Casey said. "Because this entire day is turning out to be filled with way too many coincidences for my taste."

"Like the fact that our evidence room goes up in smoke, destroying the Beauchamp tapes," Elliot said, "and just a few hours later, somebody makes a grab for Linda and Lily Beauchamp?"

"And all of this occurs just a few days before I'm due to try Beauchamp in court," Casey added. "There's obviously a deliberate attempt here to take all of my evidence--even my two main witnesses--away from me before the Beauchamp trial even begins!"

"Will you ask the judge to delay the trial?" Cragen asked.

"I'm considering it," Casey said wearily. "But since we've got a couple of days before the trial starts, I want to hold off before I take that option." She shook her head in disgust. "You know, when I spoke with Beauchamp earlier, he all but let it slip that he was involved in this."

"Really?" Elliot said. "What did he say?"

"He said he had nothing to do with the kidnapping of Lily and Linda," Casey told them. "But the thing is, I only mentioned that Lily was abducted, I never said anything about Linda almost being kidnapped as well. When I confronted him about it, Beauchamp looked shaken, like I caught him in a lie."

"That son of a bitch," Elliot said softly, as he and Cragen exchanged a knowing look. "We really gotta nail that bastard to the wall."

"Start with finding Childs," Cragen said.

"We're on it, Cap," Elliot said as he started walking out the office.

"Good hunting," Casey said morosely.

Elliot paused to give the woman he loved a perplexed look. The last time anyone said 'good hunting' to him was back in the Marines, when he and his squad were going out on a recon patrol in the Iraqi desert during Desert Storm.

'Something's eating her,' Elliot realized, as he noted how she stood in the office gazing solemnly at the floor.

"Casey, can I speak with you for a minute?" Elliot said.

"Yeah, sure," Casey said, snapping herself out of her funk. "Be right back, Don."

When they stepped out into the squad room, Elliot tossed the Samuel Childs folder onto Olivia's desk. "We've got Samuel Childs' address, Liv," he said. "Why don't we go pay him a visit?"

"By all means," Olivia said, as she jumped up from her desk and eagerly got her coat.

Before Elliot did the same, he turned to Casey and whispered, "You all right?"

"Yeah," she said--a too quickly for Elliot's taste. Then Casey discreetly nodded at Olivia and added, "How's she taking this?"

"Badly," Elliot answered. "Which is to be expected, seeing how close she is with Lily."

"Lily," Casey said, her voice almost a sob. "Oh, Christ, Elliot, I hope she's all right. I hope she's not…." Unable to say what she dreaded the most, Casey shook her head, as her eyes welled up with tears. "Just find her, all right?"

Elliot affectionately squeezed her shoulder. "We will. I swear. Don't you dare give up on her, you hear me?"

Casey nodded as she squeezed his hand in return.

"You ready, El?" Olivia called. She stood with her coat on, waiting impatiently by the door of the squad room.

"Yep. Let's go meet Mr. Childs," Elliot said, as he threw his coat on and walked through the doorway with his partner.

"Is Casey all right?" Olivia asked.

"It's been a rough day," Elliot replied, "for all of us."

"Ain't that the frigging truth," Olivia muttered.

The address for Samuel Childs was located on the West Side of Manhattan, in an area that was better known as 'Hell's Kitchen'. Childs' address was located in what must have been one of the last rental apartment buildings in the area.

Elliot pressed the button for Childs' apartment repeatedly, yet there was no answer. "Not home, I guess."

"Abducting little girls must be a pretty hectic schedule," Olivia said sourly.

A man dressed in worker's overalls came up from beneath the steps that Elliot and Olivia stood on. He gave the detectives a curious glance. "You guys here to see somebody in the building?"

"Yeah," Elliot replied, holding up his shield. "I'm Elliot Stabler, she's Olivia Benson. We're NYPD. We're looking for a Mr. Samuel Childs."

"He lives here," the man said. "But he's rarely home. I'm Denny Regalia, the maintenance man."

"Hey Denny," Olivia said by way of greeting. "Would you know when Mr. Childs will be back?"

"Don't know," Denny said with a frown. "That's the problem with Mr. Childs, he's never really around here much."

"Has he been any trouble?" Elliot asked.

"On the contrary, he's been anything but trouble. He always pays the rent on time, and is never noisy. But it's just…." Denny shook his head again, as if not sure he should say what he wanted to say. "Well, about a week ago, there was a burst pipe in his apartment, it was causing some extensive flooding damage, and so I go in and fix it. And once in there I notice that there's no bed in the bedroom! And the kitchen, there's a fine layer of dust on the counters, you know? There's nobody living there at all. I mean, why's he paying the rent on a place where he's not staying?"

"Could he still be in the process of moving in?" Olivia asked.

"He's been a resident here for just over a year, now," Denny said. "How long does it take a guy to move into a place? I gotta say, it's been making me pretty suspicious already. And now you guys want to talk to him. Can I ask why?"

"We're investigating the kidnapping this afternoon of Lily Beauchamp," Elliot said. "And there are just some questions we'd like to ask Mr. Childs, that's all."

"Aw, man," Denny said with a sad shake of his head. "I've been hearing about that on the radio all day. What a shame!" He did a double-take when he glanced at Olivia. "Wait, didn't you say your name was Benson? Oh yeah! They were talking about you, the lady cop named Benson who traded gunfire with the kidnappers! You know they're calling you Dirty Harriet? You rock really hard, Benson!"

Olivia gazed uneasily at the ground. "Yeah, well, if I were half as good as they say, then Lily wouldn't have been abducted at all. You think you could you show us inside Childs' apartment?"

"Yeah," Denny said happily, "sure thing!"

Elliot grabbed her arm. "Whoa, Liv, hold on! We were just supposed to talk to him, remember? We don't have a search warrant for his place."

"What if Childs' is holding Lily captive inside?" Olivia harshly asked. "What if she's tied up in there right now?"

"Oh man…." Denny whispered, looking horrified.

"Believe me, I want to look the place over as much as you do," Elliot calmly told her. "But we've got to be careful how we get in there, or any evidence we find will be thrown out of court. You know that."

"How are the pipes holding up in Childs' apartment?" Olivia abruptly asked Denny. "Is that repair job holding up all right?"

He gave her an odd look. "Uh, well, I've been meaning to check up on the repair work, but I didn't get the chance yet."

"Don't let us stop you, Denny!" Olivia cheerfully said. "You go right ahead and check the pipes in Childs' apartment. Oh, by the way, is it ok if my partner and I wait for Childs inside the building?"

"Sure!" Denny said. "C'mon inside!"

Elliot nodded when he realized what she was doing: arranging in a roundabout way so that they could search Childs' apartment. They could reasonably enter Childs' premises if the apartment door was left open by Denny while he was working inside.

As they stepped inside the lobby, Elliot whispered into Olivia's ear: "Way to go…Dirty Harriet."

Olivia just shot him an outraged look over her shoulder that said, 'I'll get you for that, Stabler!'

But Elliot didn't care; whatever retribution Olivia sought against him in the future was well worth the look on her face right now.

Denny walked down the hallway on the first floor and knocked loudly on a door to their right. "Super!" he called, as he opened the door. "I'm checking the repair work on the pipes, Mr. Childs! Mr. Childs?"
Now that they had their legal excuse to enter, Elliot grabbed Denny and pulled him away from the door as he and Olivia removed their guns from their holsters. Holding his Glock out in front of him, Elliot entered the apartment first, with Olivia close behind.

It was a small apartment, with just a single bedroom, living room and a kitchen. It didn't take them long to search the place, and while they didn't find Lily, they also didn't find anything else--there was no sign of life in the apartment, save for a few packages that were by the door; they were from Amazon dot com.

"LILY!" Olivia shouted. "Lily, it's Olivia! If you're here, let me know, honey!"

Elliot held his breath as he opened a closet door in the hallway of the apartment. He released the breath as a sigh of relief when he saw there was no little girl bound and gagged--or worse, dead--inside. The closet was just as empty as the rest of the apartment. Elliot quickly saw why Denny had been so suspicious of its tenant: the apartment was just as barren and lifeless as he said. There was even a layer of dust on the kitchen counter top.

"Nobody in the bedroom," Olivia reported, as she joined him in the kitchen. "No bed, either."

"This place is just a mail drop," he told Olivia as they re-holstered their guns. "It's an address for Childs to use when he visits Beauchamp in jail."

Olivia excused herself when her cell phone rang. "Yeah, Benson."

'This plan has been well-thought out,' Elliot thought, as he slowly gazed around the apartment. 'And it's very well funded. But Beauchamp's flat broke, and his family has disowned him; so if Beauchamp isn't financing this little operation, then who is? Is this Childs guy really behind all of this, and if so, why? Who is he to Beauchamp? Just a friend? Or something more?'

"That was Cragen," Olivia said, as she shut off her cell. "He heard back from Munch and Fin. They found Marcus Sewell, dead. He was shot execution-style in the head." She dismally shook her head. "Another lead shot to hell…."

Elliot nodded, but not in agreement with Olivia. "Yeah, of course, it makes perfect sense," he said quietly.

Olivia stared at him as if he were crazy. "What?"

"Think about it, Liv," Elliot said, "how did we find out that Lily was in danger?"

"From Hector," she said, puzzled.

"And how did Hector find out?"

"Because Marcus Sewell was…" Olivia paused when it hit her. "Oh course, Sewell was bragging about this job just before he got out of prison!"

"And nobody likes a guy who runs his mouth," Elliot said, "especially a bunch of criminals who are about to pull a job."

"That's why Sewell was killed," Olivia said. "His bragging was putting this whole thing in jeopardy. If we can match the bullet that killed Sewell to Foreman's gun, then we might have something else to dangle over him. To force him to tell us where Lily--"

Denny stuck his head into the apartment and yelled, "Hey, it's Childs! He's coming!"

Elliot and Olivia ran into the hallway, where they saw a man clad in a business suit walking up to the apartment door. He had started asking Denny what was going on, but stopped when he saw Elliot and Olivia.

"Who are you?" he nervously asked.

The man didn't look anything like the photo ID they got from Rikers. The Samuel Childs in the picture was a big, burly guy, while this fellow was short and lean--with his round, gold glasses giving him a meek, owl-like appearance.

Elliot and Olivia flashed him their detective shields. "Benson and Stabler, NYPD," Elliot said, as he and Olivia stepped out from the apartment. He turned to Denny and asked, "Is this Samuel Childs?"

"Yeah," Denny said. "That's him."

Elliot exchanged a brief puzzled look with Olivia. There was something strange going on here.

The man's dark brown eyes grew wide with alarm behind his glasses. "Why do you want to know?"

"We're investigating the kidnapping of Lily Beauchamp," Olivia said.

"Are you Samuel Childs?"

In response, the man just turned around and started running down the hallway.

Elliot, who just knew that this moron was going to try and make a break for it, broke into a mad dash right behind him. He grabbed the man by the back of his collar with both hands and flung him right into the wall.

"Don't hurt me!" the man screeched. "Please don't hurt me!"

"Keep your hands where I can see them and shut up!" Elliot snarled. He patted the man down, but he had no weapons. Then he produced his handcuffs and used them to secure the man's wrists behind his back as Olivia read him his rights.

When Olivia was finished reading him his Miranda Rights, Elliot spun the man around and said, "Why did you run?"

"I'm not Childs!" the man frantically said. "I'm not Samuel Childs!"

"He's lying!" Denny said. "He is Childs!"

"You sure?" Olivia asked him.

"Sure I am!" Denny insisted. "He pays the rent every month with a check signed with his name: Samuel Childs."

"I don't know what he's talking about!" Childs cried.

Elliot grabbed Childs by the arm and began to haul him towards the front door. "All right, come on. We'll settle this at the precinct. We'll also have a nice little talk about the whereabouts of Lily Beauchamp."

"Oh, jeez," the man who pretended to be Childs moaned. "The dragon lady won't be happy to hear about this!"

To Be Continued...