Goren rolled over in his bed, and listened. Shit…his phone…he'd left it…damn it! He jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. "Goren."

"Why are you out of breath? No, wait…forget I asked."

"It's not what you think, Eames," he said with a smile. "I left my phone in the living room."

"And that's why I had to call three times? You do not sleep that soundly, Goren."

"No, really…" He sighed. "I'm not awake enough for this." He glanced at the clock. "Four twenty-two. Is this what you mean by bright and early?"

"Not quite. I just got a call from Deakins."

"Aw, no…"

"Yeah. Stabler and Benson will meet us at the scene."

He closed his eyes. "Great. You, uh, want to pick me up outside the deli?"

"Sure. Tell Stephanie I said hi."

He smiled at her teasing. "Bye, Eames."

He snapped the phone closed and went back to the bedroom to get dressed.

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He handed Eames her coffee and Danish as he climbed in to the car. "Any idea what we've got?"

"No. Deakins didn't give me anything but the address. I'm not like you, Bobby. I don't wake up with an insatiable need to know every detail. I'm lucky I remember to put my pants on this early in the morning."

He raised his eyebrows and looked at her, but he was smart enough to stay quiet. Antagonizing his partner was never a smart way to start the day, especially when it started so early.

They pulled up to the scene; the CSU team was already there. Goren got out of the car, looking around. "No," he groaned. "No…I, uh, I know this place." She watched him as he walked around the car, hand on his head. "It's another cop's kid, Eames. I, uh…Barry Solomon…he…he was m-my partner, uh, my last partner, in...Narcotics."

Great, she thought. It was bad enough that this bastard was selecting cop's kids. Now it was personal.

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The door opened as they came up the walk and a tall, thin man came out onto the porch. He was about four inches shorter than Goren and not as broad. His face was drawn and pale. "Bobby? Bobby Goren?"

Goren accepted his outstretched hand and stepped into the man's embrace. "Hey, Barry. I'm sorry, man. This is my partner, Alex Eames. Eames, this is Barry Solomon."

Solomon shook her hand. "I've heard a lot about you. Come on in."

He led them into the house, to the living room. Goren was anxious to get to the child's room, but he decided it was best to wait for Benson and Stabler. So he paced around the living room while Eames began the questions. "What happened, Detective Solomon?"

"I came home about midnight, ate dinner…the usual."

"Did you check on your daughter before you went to bed?"

"Yeah. I checked on all the kids, just like I do every night."

"Where's your wife?"

Solomon shook his head. "Gone. Took off with some damn lawyer two years ago. Left me and the kids."

"What woke you up?" Goren asked from across the room. He knew what would happen if Barry went off on what his wife had done to him, and this wasn't the time or the place.

"The dog did. I heard him barking, and he ain't a barker, so I figured someone broke in. He didn't break in, man. He fuckin' broke out."

Eames asked, "How old is your daughter?"

"F-four," he answered, his voice breaking.

They heard voices at the front door and Eames got up to meet the SVU detectives. Stabler looked at her. "Did you guys fly here?"

She just shook her head. "Little girl, four years old, just like Christin and Tiffany. And a cop's daughter."

"You been to her room yet?"

"Not yet. Uh, Bobby knows the dad. An old partner."

Stabler shook his head. "That's no small group."

Benson elbowed him. "Please, Elliot."

They met Goren at the living room doorway. "Uh, someone should stay here…with him."

Stabler shrugged. "He's your friend."

"Nice try, Stabler," Eames said as she laid a hand on Goren's arm. "Go on. I'll stay here with him."

He met her eyes, all the thanks she needed. Stabler and Benson followed him up the stairs. When they got to the upper level, he pointed at the closed doors. "Master bedroom…here…bathroom…and four other bedrooms."

"How many kids?" Benson asked.

"Five. Uh, Lydia…was the youngest, the only girl. Her room is here…closest to her dad's."

He had already gloved and he opened the door.

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Solomon was leaning forward in his chair, a glass of gin in his hand. "How could somebody do this to a little girl?"

"I don't think we'll ever figure that out. Where's your dog, detective?"

"I put him in the basement when I called in the mur…." He started shaking again and took a drink.

"Your daughter was the youngest?"

"Yes. Her name is Lydia. Matt is the oldest. He's 16. Then the twins, Harry and Dennis. They're 12. Lance is 8."

"Where are the boys?"

"I had Matt take them to my parents' place out on Long Island."

"Do you know how he got in?"

He shook his head. "No."

"We'll need to look in the basement."

He set down his drink. "Sure. Come on."

She followed him down the hall to the basement door. He opened it, and a large German Shepherd came up the stairs. "Easy, King," he said. The dog sniffed Eames pants' leg and followed them down the stairs. She walked around the basement, stopping in the doorway to a small room where the boiler and hot water heater were. "Over here…"

There was a round piece of glass cut from the pane of the room's sole window lying on the floor in front of the boiler. "Let's get CSU down here."

"Oh, my God," he muttered, staring at the glass. "The bastard came in down here."

She nodded. "Probably before you came home. He waited until you went to bed before…" She stopped. "Sorry."

His face was grim. He looked at her, eyes dark with grief and anger. "You know this bastard."

"I wish we did. We've been on his trail for the last few days."

"Son of a bitch. And Goren…"

"He's working on it."

He started up the steps, stopping halfway up and turning. "How long you been his partner?"

"Five years."

"Damn." He called the dog and continued up the steps. Eames found a stray CSU tech and told him the point of entry was again in the basement. They started back into the living room, watching people going up and down the stairs. Without warning, King barked once and ran up the stairs. "King!" Solomon called.

Goren was on his way down the stairs when the dog bounded up to him. He stopped and leaned down. "Hey, King."

Solomon looked at Eames. "I swear this guy always came over just to see the dog."

Goren came the rest of the way down the stairs. "Well, I wasn't coming to see you."

Solomon quickly became serious when he saw the haunted look on Goren's face. "What did you see, Bobby?"

Stabler and Benson came around from behind him and stood near Eames, but Goren addressed his old partner. "You…" He was shaking his head. "You don't want to know. Dr. Rodgers, our M.E...she...she's up there now." He tilted his head to look into his friend's face. "She'll be gentle."

Solomon slowly shook his head and walked from the doorway into the living room. He sat down on the couch, the big shepherd walking to him and resting his head in his master's lap. Goren watched him. Solomon was swallowing his grief as best he could, trying to act like just another responding officer, trying to distance himself, forget that it was his little girl upstairs, lying in a pool of her own blood.

Eames took her partner's arm and led him into the hallway, Stabler and Benson following. Stabler looked back into the living room, at the man talking to his dog as if his daughter was not dead. His nature was to suspect everyone, especially men, and the fact that this guy was a friend of Goren's made him less sympathetic than usual. "He's not acting much like a bereaved father," he commented.

Goren crossed his arms and glared at him. "Oh? And what's a bereaved father supposed to act like, Stabler? You work Special Victims. You know there's no pat answer to how a person grieves. Come on. You've got kids, don't you? He's living a parent's worst nightmare. No one knows how they'll react if that ever happens, and what happened to his little girl is unthinkable. Right now he's in denial, which is the first stage of grief. I know Barry. It's gonna hit him and he's gonna explode, but not now, not tonight. Tonight he's gonna be a cop. Tomorrow he'll be her father."

Eames felt for him. He knew this little girl and her family. And she knew how hard this had to be for him. Benson sensed the same, and she wondered if her partner was just pushing buttons, looking for the chink in Goren's armor. "Elliot, enough," she said softly to him.

It was time to switch gears, so Eames asked what she had drawn them out in the hall to ask them. "What did you find upstairs?"

Goren shook his head, angry eyes still fixed on Stabler. "Same as the last two."

"Fibers in her mouth, ligature marks, a killing blow to the head," Benson described.

"Just like Goren said about the first two, this little girl did not die easy," Stabler added.

"What about the cologne? Was that here, too?"

Stabler nodded toward Goren, who had stepped away from the group and was walking toward the far end of the hallway. "You'd have to ask him," he said. "I didn't smell anything but they don't pay me enough to go around sniffing dead bodies."

"Eames?"

She looked at him. He was standing by the basement door, and she nodded in answer to his unspoken question. "Yes. Point of entry was down there. CSU is already on it."

He nodded and walked toward the kitchen, then turned and headed back toward the basement. Eames watched him. He wasn't pacing with his usual energy, but he was pacing. And his mind was far away. She spoke his name, and he came crashing back. "Uh…" He raised a finger. "King…"

"The dog?"

He nodded. "I…come on."

As always, she followed him, wondering where that brain of his was taking him now. "Barry," he said as he came into the room, followed by the other three cops. "You said King woke you up, barking."

"That's right."

"Where was he?"

"In the twins' room."

"And when you let him out, what did he do?"

"He went nuts outside Lydia's door, and then he ran downstairs. He was running from the basement door to the front door and back."

"Did you let him outside?"

"No. I didn't know what the hell was going on, until I went in to make sure Lyd was ok."

Benson and Stabler, like every other cop Goren had ever worked with, except Eames, were left in his dust. They had no idea what he was getting to. Stabler muttered, "Does he think the dog did it?"

Goren didn't hear him. He was focused on Solomon. "Then you put him in the basement?"

"Right, when I called 911. I didn't want him in the way."

"Uh, that game I taught King…"

"What about it?"

"Do the boys still play it with him?"

"Yeah. They love it."

Goren looked at Eames, Benson and Stabler. "I…I taught King to play cops and robbers."

Eames shook her head with a small smile. "Only you, Bobby."

"What? He liked it."

"You liked it," Solomon interjected.

"Yeah, well…" He resumed his pacing, his mind racing a mile a minute. Eames saw the energy that had returned to his movements.

Solomon looked at Eames. "Does that still mean what it used to?"

Eames nodded and looked at Stabler and Benson. "He's got an idea."

Benson asked, "Is he going to share it?"

She nodded. "As soon as he figures it out."

Goren continued his restless pacing while they watched. Eames could sense his energy. He was excited about something. Benson leaned toward her. "Any idea what he's thinking?"

"Maybe." She was so used to following his convoluted logic and making the leaps that connected the dots, she had a good idea what he was thinking. But she would wait for him to fill in the blanks.

Goren stopped pacing and looked at his old partner. "Can I borrow King while you…uh, take care of things? I'll take good care of him."

Solomon looked from Goren to Eames and then to Benson and Stabler. "Ok. Sure. Then I won't have to board him at the kennel."

"Great. Thanks, Barry."

"What's going through that head of yours?" Solomon asked.

"Just trying to find justice for Lydia and two other little girls."

"Well, if anyone can do it…" He trailed off again and looked around the living room to find his gin. He got up and picked it up from the windowsill. "This is a nice, safe neighborhood. Things like this just don't happen here."

"That's what the last two families thought, too."

He looked at Goren. Same old Bobby, all the tact of a child who didn't know any better. "Get this son of a bitch, Bobby. If you never find another perp in your life, get this one."

Goren nodded. "We will."

Solomon's eyes followed him as he left the room. He looked at Eames. "We? What'd you do to him? He was never a team player."

"You think he's a team player?" Stabler asked.

Solomon looked at him. "You don't know him, detective, do you?"

Benson shook her head. "And he doesn't want to."

"I worked Narcotics with him the last two years he was there. Never knew a cop like him, and never will again." He looked at Stabler. "You know another undercover cop with a 100 per cent solve and conviction rate? I don't."

He finished his gin and sighed heavily, looking at Eames. "This happens to other people, Eames. What the hell are we supposed to do when it happens to us?"

The question hung in the air because no one had an answer to it.

----------------------------------------------

Goren stood in the front yard, watching the ambulance pull away. His fists were clenched and every muscle in his body was taut. Beside him, King whimpered and nosed his hand. He patted the dog's head. "I know."

He turned and went back inside, where Eames, Benson and Stabler were finishing up with the CSU techs. Eames looked at him with worried eyes. "Where's Barry?" he asked.

"In the kitchen."

She watched him walk down the hallway. Benson leaned toward her. "Is he ok?"

"I'm not sure."

Goren sat down in the chair opposite his old partner at the kitchen table. Solomon looked up at him. "She's on her way to the mor…M.E.'s office?"

"Yeah. Are you going out to your folks'?" He nodded. "You want a lift?"

"All the way out to Long Island?"

"It's not a problem."

"And if your partner objects?"

"She won't."

Solomon finally nodded. "All right. Thanks, Bobby."

He nodded and got up. Solomon watched him head out of the room. He was a lot calmer than he'd been when they were partners. He could see that same energy Bobby had always had…it was just…under control. Bobby was under control. He looked down at his hands, which were shaking. He closed his eyes and buried his face in those shaking hands.