Fritz woke up early and was out the door before Brenda woke up. Bobby headed out early too, trying to get his project underway. Brenda woke up, fed Joel and took Hunter for a quick walk before she headed into to work. She informed her team about the stabbing and the missing boy. She sent Tommy and Jackie to help find the punks who left the guard to die. Brenda and Gabriel went looking for any signs of the boy. She canvassed the parks.

Gabriel called Eliza. "Hey, I have a question for you?"

"Shoot."

"If you had an 8 year boy who wasn't yours."

"Like, if I kidnapped him?"

"Maybe, or you adopted him through surrupticious means, like an underground adoption agency and you were hiding him in plain sight, where would you take him during the day?"

"What do you mean?"

"You can't enroll him in school because he has no papers and he might tell someone who he is, but you aren't the type to leave him locked up. What would you do?"

"I would probably take him somewhere that you would expect to see lots of kids, so he wouldn't stick out, like an amusement park, or the beach or the zoo."

"Thanks. That really helped." Gabriel tried all three places. He sent the boy's photo to every amusement park within 50 miles. He tried the beaches and the zoos. No oen remembered seeing him that day."

The Neighborhoods

Jackie and Tommy talked to people all morning. No one remembered a boy with a hummingbird tattoo, but many teens said there was an abandoned lot where people that age would hang out, do other things. Jackie and Tommy wanted to check it out, but they didn't look like teens. They called the Chief. "Hey, do you know a teenager whom we could borrow?"

"We have a lead on a hangout spot and we need a teen to try and fit in and see if anyone knows anything."

Brenda thought of Rusty. "I would need to ask Captain Raydor for permission to take him out of school"

"We'll call her Chief."

"Well, allright but be careful."

They of course didn't call Sharon at all and went to his high school. They pretended to be Sharon's niece and nephew and called him out of class, saying Aunt Sharon was in the hospital. Rusty ran out, "Is she all right?"

"Oh we made it up."

"What! Who the hell are you guys?"

"Relax. We work for Chief Johnson. We need you to help us. We think we have a lead on the teens who stabbed the guard. Wanna make friends with some hoodlums?"

Rusty figured, why not? They went to the abandoned lot, but first, they messed up Rusty's clothes and bought him a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

He went in alone, smoking as he walked through the lot. There was a group of kids sitting around a trashcan fire.

"Who are you?" a man growled at him.

"I'm Harley," Rusty lied. "I heard there was a guy here who had good shit."

"What did you want to buy?" The girl was intrigued. White teens would pay a lot of money for junk shit.

"I heard there was a guy who carried Molly. I don't know his name. My friend got some good shit from him, said he had a bird tattoo on his neck."

"Xavier has Molly, and he's been holding out. That bitch." One guy was pissed off.

"Is he coming today?"

"Probably not today, or tomorrow. I heard he's lying low for a while."

"That's too bad. My friends woult have probably bought a lot."

"I know where you can find him," the girl said.

The guys looked at her crossly, but she didn't care. She was hoping for a finder's fee.

If you go to the red house about a quarer mile, that way. The paint is old and the shutters are falling apart. He stays there sometimes."

He smiled and thanked her.

"Can I bum a cigarette?"

He gave her one and got ready to leave.

"Hey, I got some grass. You want some."

Rusty didn't want to give himself away. "Can I get a dimebag?" Rusty paid and then he left.

He reported back to Jackie and Tommy. They called the Chief who tipped off Major Crimes. Central found the house. A woman lived their with her neice. The woman had a 20 year old nephew named Xavier.

They set up surveillance, waiting for the boy to come to the house. He came back on Thursday at about 3AM. They used thermal imaging to figure out who else was where. They saw a person sleeping on the 2nd floor and another person in the attic. Major Crimes and Central joined forces. They had officers waiting in the woods behind the house and officers parked on both sides of house about three houses away.

Sanchez gave the signal. They knocked on the door and waited. When there was no answer, they took out the door with a battering ram and swarmed the place. Officers went through every room, guns drawn. Xavier jumped out the window, but he was tackled by the officers waiting in the woods. The girl sleeping was the niece and the woman in the attic was the girl in the video. Everyone got hauled to the station.

The girl the boy wouldn't talk. The niece ran her mouth. X- which is what she called her cousin just started dated Eva about a month ago. She thought Eva was trouble, but X didn't listen. Her ex, Marco was really mad about it. He sent nasty sent messages to her phone. He was always threatening them and stuff. They got into a fight about two weeks ago. After the mall thing, Eva hid in the attic and X skipped town. He apparently ran out of money and came home to get some more before he left town again. Their aunt was working the graveyard shift at the convenience store. She knew he was in trouble, but she didn't ask why. She doesn't like knowing details.

Fritz wanted to interview the couple. "They won't talk," Sharon told him. "Not about the stabbing. Maybe they'll talk about the boy."

"Do you think they even know him?"

"Maybe they saw him."

Fritz went to talk to X. He said nothing. Fritz didn't want to waste his time, so he went to talk to Eva. "I didn't do nothing," she shouted. "Why have I been here for over an hour?"

"I'm not here for what you did. I'm here for him." Fritz showed her a picture of Damien.

"I didn't do nothing to the boy. I didn't even know he was standing there."

"What did you see?"

"He was there, all by himself in the corner. When I ran away, he was still there. Later, I saw this woman grab him."

"Can you describe her?"

"I can draw her. I take art classes." Fritz got her a pencil and paper. She produced a sketch of a woman with small beady eyes, big cheeks and a flat nose. She had crooked teeth.

"You noticed her teeth?"

"It looked like she didn't go to the dentist as a kid."

Agent Howard circulated the sketch through the FBI and gave it to every government agency in the state. He was afaid to use the media. They might find her that way, but she might panic and hurt the boy. He took the image to the mall and asked the store owners. A man remembered her. She bought two pretzel dogs and argued with him over the price. She didn't realize how high California's sales tax was.

They finally had a lead. She just got to California. Howard sent her sketch to the authorities in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Nevada. She must have gotten the boy here through another state. He finally got a match.

Sherri Thompson, age 34 originally from Ohio, had speeding tickets in Oregon she didn't pay. He called the FBI office out there, and they promised to send everything they could find ASAP.

He finally had some hope.

Prosecutor's Office

Brenda sat in her office, drinking some coffee. She was proud of her team. They found the house. Now, to find this woman. Brenda watched her husband's interview with Eva. Maybe she was right. I'm a woman, who grew up poor, in Ohio, Brenda thought to herself. How do I end up in California with a stranger's child? Maybe, I bought him from the mother? That doesn't make any sense. He's not a baby. He would know who he was. Maybe I stole him, but how and why? "Maybe I'm sterile," Brenda said aloud.

"Am I interrupting?"

Brenda just noticed there was someone her office. She looked up to see a woman.

"I could come back."

"No sit down. You are?"

"I'm Sue Humphries."

"Sue, Thank you for coming in."

"I don't know if this is a good idea."

"You're not alone. I record this conversation, okay?"

Sue nooded and took a deep breath and began her story. Her voice was low and it was hard to hear but Brenda listened carefully. She wrote it out, and Sue signed the statement when she was done.

"You don't think I'm going to get in trouble do you? If Branson finds out..."

"Don't worry about him anymore. We'll take care of this." Brenda meant that too. She just needed to find this boy first.

Sue thanked her and she left.

Brenda went back to thinking. Sterile didn't really add up. Why not just steal a newborn? Why steal an 8 year old? Brenda didn't know. Brenda went home and the question bothered her. In the middle of the night, she thought of something.

She called Fritz.

He was still working and to ignore the call. He wasn't coming home tonight, but maybe she neeed something.. He answered, "Hello."

"Do you think you could put me in contact with the FBI's psychologist, their profiler?"

"Can this wait I'm..."

"I think I have an idea about Sherri. If I can figure out why she took him, we can figure out where she is."

"She wanted to be a mother. She's probably sterile. Why else take a child?"

"Why an 8 year old stranger? Most women would steal a newborn, not an 8 year old who could identify her and knows who he is."

"I have no idea."

"Exactly, why we need a profiler?"

"I'll make the call first thing in the morning."

Brenda got a call from Dr. Jamison's office on Friday morning. She went to meet him there.

"Chief Johnson, please sit down."

"Thank you for your time."

"Thank you. You're here for an FBI case. You and your husband must be close. Not to many wives would be running leads for him."

Brenda got right to the chase. "What kind of woman kidnaps a young boy?"

"Maybe she can't have children."

"Why not take a newborn? Who steals an 8 year old?"

"It's not very logical, but the kidnapping was well thought out. Everyone thought it was the mother or the boyfriend, and she seems to be a total stranger." Dr. Jamison paused for a moment. "I have two ideas on this. Either she lost a boy when he was eight or she had a miscarrage/lost a baby eight years ago. She's using Damien to fill a void, to replace someone she lost, someone she can't protect anymore. With Damien, she gets a second chance."

Brenda wrote it down. "Where would she hide him?"

"She would try and recreate the circumstances where she lost the first child, a similar house or location."

"Thanks, Doctor." Brenda was on her way. She and her team looked for any sign of Sherri's baby. It wasn't easy at first. She didn't have him in a hospital. She was from a small town in Cleveland. Jackie suggested midwives. They found one who remembered Sherri. She had a beautiful baby boy in January of 2005. She handwrote a birth certificate, Donald Thompson, no listed father. Brenda, then looked through the death records. He died in April of SIDS. They called the doctor. He cited HIPPA and said he needed a warrant. Brenda wasn't having it. "Look, Sherri snapped. She kidnapped an eight year old trying to replace her dead baby, if we don't find her soon, she might snap and kill him. Then, you can call the poor boy's family and explain why you needed a warrant for a dead baby's records."

"Okay! Okay." He did not have the energy to deal with this woman.

The baby appeared to have died of a seizure. He showed no obvious signs of bruising or suffocation.

"Could he have been shaken?"

"I suppose. I'm no coroner, but I didn't see anything suspicious. The mother had medical issues, so maybe the boy did too."

"The mother?"

"She has NES, non-epileptic seizures."

"What causes that?"

"Usually stress from an underlying mental illness."

"Thank you, Doctor. Thank you, very much."

Brenda sent a request to every psychiatrist in the area where the boy was born. She said the woman may have been a patient of theirs, was wanted for kidnapping a young boy, and they needed any informationt that could help locate her or assess her mental state.

She then called her husband and relayed everything she had learned. "So this woman is mentally ill."

"And she gets seizures when she's stressed out. Maybe she had one after the stabbing."

"You're a genious Brenda." Fritz hung up the phone and rushed to get a hold of the hospitals.

Brenda now knew what it was like to be blown off for work, but she was rarely looking for a missing boy. Brenda sighed and got back to work.

The Hospital

The guard was full of laughs and smiles. He was just glad to be alive. Sykes came to visit him again. His transfusion took. The hospital wanted to watch his vitals one more day.

She was amazed that he was so upbeat. He was quite a character. She got him a pen and paper, so he could write a letter to his family.

Major Crimes

The squad couldn't find Marco anywhere. He seemed to be long gone. They tried his apartment, but his landlord evicted him out for not paying rent. He had no girlfriend, and they tried his friends, but he wasn't there. They used surveillance in case they were lying, but he didn't show up.

If only they could lure him back some how. They needed to know more about him, where could he be hiding.

Mercy Hospital had a report of a woman who had a seizure Monday evening. The paramedics were dispatched but the woman didn't want to come in for treatment. They called the paramedics who remembered seeing a boy. They got the address.

The FBI got a tactical team together, and sent a surveillance van. There was no one there yet, but hopefully she would return soon.