"What're we thinking now?" Cragen asked when the detectives returned to the squad room.

"I don't know," Olivia shook her head.

"Obviously Clancy didn't put David in that dumpster or they would've definitely been able to identify that," Munch said.

"He picked David up at school, he would've still been wearing his uniform, he would've had his schoolbooks with him," Elliot said.

"But the only things missing from the house were Clancy's things," Olivia replied.

"Maybe that's it," Fin thought, and explained, "Mrs. Gonzalez knows that house like the back of her hand, she said none of David's stuff was missing, none of his clothes, but he wore his uniform to school that day."

"So Clancy kills Moll then goes shopping?" Elliot asked.

"It would explain part of time gap," Cragen said. "He knows what David wears so he'd know what to get so the kid couldn't be identified by his clothes. Warner figures Clancy killed Moll around 9 A.M., Clancy doesn't pick David up until 3, so he's got 6 hours to kill, and what does he do?"

"Kills the dad, packs a lunch, packs up all his crap, wipes as many of his fingerprints off everything he can remember to, tosses his cell phone, disables the tracking device on the car, goes out, gets a change of clothes for David, then goes to the school to pick him up," Elliot counted it off on his fingers and concluded, "that's still a wide window of opportunity."

"Why did he wait so long?" Cragen asked.

"Why take David to school, then come back and kill Moll?" Olivia asked.

"Well Skoda and Huang couldn't agree on much about this guy but they both agree he doesn't show any warning signs of being a child abuser," Elliot said, "George thinks it's a parental fantasy Clancy took to the next level, Skoda thinks it's one of the time honored kidnapping plots instead, in either case, the immediate plan doesn't seem to involve harming David…if you were going to kill a kid's dad, would you do it with him in the house?"

"So for the kid's sake he pretends it's just another day, drops him off, comes back, shoots the dad, then starts packing to get the hell out of Dodge," Cragen said, "but then why wait until school lets out to get the kid? Everybody there already thought Clancy was David's dad, he could've come back early and said there was a family emergency. He could've gotten a 4-5 hour head start instead of just beating us out of there by 10 minutes."

"Maybe he just wanted David to have one more normal day with his friends," Elliot said.

"But he had to know Mrs. Gonzalez would come to clean that day," Cragen replied. "He'd been there for 4 years, she'd been there for 3, he had to know her schedule, it's only a natural assumption once a murder's reported that the police will scramble to find his son."

"And yet there was still an estimated 45 minutes from the time she found the body to when Elliot and Liv went to the school," Munch said.

Something just occurred to Olivia. "You don't think he was watching us, do you?"

"No way," Cragen shook his head, "nobody has balls with that much brass."

"The real question is where the hell they been since yesterday afternoon?" Fin wanted to know. "It takes less than an hour to drive from here to Queens, so why'd he burn David's stuff this morning?"

"And where the hell were they all night?" Munch asked. "Just laying low somewhere? Hiding in plain sight?"

"Still leaves the question where are they going?" Olivia asked.

"He removed all his stuff from the house to make it look like he was never there, now he's torched everything David had once he left the house, like both of them just disappeared into thin air," Elliot said.

"At least we know it's not up in smoke," Munch added.

"Not yet anyway," Cragen replied.

The phone at Elliot's desk rang and he answered it while the other detectives talked amongst themselves. When he hung up he announced for the whole squad to hear, "We got something!"

"What is it?" Cragen asked.

"Somebody got security cam footage of a man matching Clancy's description at a motel checking out this morning in Albany, unis are rushing it over now for us to check."

"This SOB's making good time now," Fin said.


The uniform cop explained to the SVU detectives while they waited for TARU to get the image up on the monitor, "We've been checking every security cam between here and the county line, turns out this old biddy across from the motel had a camera installed because she wanted to keep an eye on all the unsavory characters checking in at the no-tell motel here, calls it her duty as a good citizen."

"This time she may be right," Elliot said.

"Couldn't get the plate number off the car but it's the same make and model on the BOLO, it's got to be them."

"We'll be the judge of that," Olivia said.

"Okay, it's ready," Morales told them.

The detectives swarmed in around him and watched as the night vision footage played on the screen. The time stamp was 6:30 A.M, one of the doors to the downstairs rooms opened and a man walked out carrying something in his arms, he walked over to the black car on the screen, put whatever he was holding in the backseat, then got in the driver's seat and pulled out.

"Can you enhance that image and replay it?" Olivia asked.

"Sure," Morales answered.

When he played the video again, the picture was much clearer. The door to room 3 opened and John Clancy walked out dressed in a T-shirt, camouflage pants, white sneakers, and was carrying a 12 year old boy in his arms. David was dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and jacket, and dark sneakers.

"That kid doesn't look like 100 pounds soaking wet," Fin realized.

"And he's completely out cold," Olivia said, "look at that, he never moves."

"Our friend John must've drugged him," Munch said.

"Why is the question," Elliot commented, starting to feel sick.

They watched as the rest of the footage played, Clancy opened the door behind the driver's seat, laid David across the backseat, closed the door, then got in the front seat and drove off.

"He didn't take anything else out to the car," Olivia realized.

Elliot turned to the uniform and asked, "Get CSU tossing the room?"

The young officer looked embarrassed as he answered, "We had to be sure it was the right guy first."

"Well now you know, get CSU on it," Fin said.

"Let's go check that room ourselves and see if maybe Clancy left anything behind," Elliot said.


CSU was already on the scene by the time the SVU detectives arrived, the first thing Elliot noticed that made his stomach turn was that there was only one bed in the room.

"Find anything?" he swallowed the acid in the back of his throat.

One of the CSU women told him, "No fluids on the bed, no bloodstains anywhere, though there's a trace of water around the drain of the bathtub, two damp towels, and a new bar of soap freshly used probably last night."

"So somebody took a bath," Olivia said, "anything in the trash?"

The woman scoffed and picked up the wastebasket to show blackened debris inside that had been doused with water before the basket could melt.

"He's still not taking any chances," Elliot said.

"What do you think he burnt?" Olivia asked.

"Some of it looks like it was plastic," Fin said, "he couldn't have been burning that in here."

"Probably set it outside while it burnt, then brought it in after he doused it," the CSU woman said.

"Okay," Munch said as he entered the room with the front desk register, "Clancy signed in last night under the name of Nathan Ellis, and get this, the night clerk said he gave him this room because he was not aware that Mr. Clancy was traveling with any children."

The night clerk of which Munch spoke appeared in the doorway behind him, a scruffy looking man in his 50s who looked like it had been a week since he bathed and a decade since he was without a cigarette.

"You're serious?" Elliot asked.

"Hey, a guy says he's traveling alone, why shouldn't I take him at his word?" the man asked as he tossed his cigarette on the pavement outside.

"You didn't see a 12 year old boy with him?" Olivia asked.

"What he does once I give him the key ain't none of my concern," he said.

"Did you even watch him go in?" Olivia asked accusingly.

"Oh that'd be real good for business if I start spying on the customers," he replied.

"Did he leave his room at any time last night?" Elliot asked.

"A couple times, he paid for the whole night in advance, so what did I care?" the clerk asked.

"Yeah, why would you?" Munch replied sarcastically. "You can go now, you've been useless enough."

"Well, now what?" Elliot asked. "There's nothing here to go on."

"Except that we know David's still alive," Olivia replied.

"How many sandwiches does a loaf of bread make?" Munch asked.

"Nine," Elliot answered automatically, many years of helping Kathy pack their kids' lunches coming back to him. "Ten if you use the heels."

"Meaning between yesterday afternoon and this morning, they probably went through most or all of them," Munch said.

"So maybe they finally stop off somewhere to eat along the way," Fin realized what his partner was getting at.

"Let's start canvassing all the places in this vicinity that serve breakfast and start showing pictures," Elliot said.


After checking 10 diners that served breakfast, they struck gold.

"Yes, they were here," the middle aged waitress told the detectives as she looked at the pictures of Clancy and David.

"You're sure?" Olivia asked.

"Oh yes," she answered. "We open at 5, breakfast crowd doesn't really get going until 6:30, they came in around 6."

"You're positive it was them," Olivia asked.

"Definitely, the dad had eggs, bacon, toast, and sausages, and the boy had chocolate chip pancakes and strawberry milk."

"Strawberry milk?" Munch asked in a somewhat disgusted tone.

"It's not a big seller but we do offer it," she told him. "That poor boy, looked like he just woke up…looked like he'd been crying too. His dad said they'd had to have his dog put down yesterday, and his son was still torn up about it."

"You have no idea," Munch murmured.

"Did the dad seem anxious about anything or mention where they were going?" Olivia asked.

"No…they didn't stay long, the kind of customers we like, come in, eat, pay, and get out, not like a bunch of inconsiderate people who take up the table for an hour to chat."

Elliot spotted a payphone towards the back and he asked, "He make any calls?"

"No," she shook her head. "Seemed like a nice man, he gave me a big tip. The whole meal was $40, he gave me a $100 bill and told me to keep the change."

"What time did they leave?" Fin asked.

"About 6:30."

"Did you happen to see which way they were heading?" Elliot asked.

"Yes actually, that time of day the headlights shine right through the windows, damn near blind you, they were heading east when they left."


"So we know David's still alive," Olivia said.

"And as far as we can tell, not harmed yet," Munch added. "CSU didn't find any semen in the motel room, a very rare occurrence under the best circumstances, they must've just changed the sheets for the first time in a year."

"The longer this search goes on, the harder it's going to be to keep the press from getting wind of it," Cragen said, "every cop east of that diner has been put on alert about our situation."

"Well he's already starting to slip," Elliot said, "he got caught on video, he went to a public place where 20 people could've seen him."

"So if we're lucky he'll just keep making mistakes until we catch him," Cragen replied, "but I just hope it doesn't come at the expense of that boy's life. Run that alias he used at the motel and see if anything pops up with it."


Skoda sat down at Olivia's desk as she brought him up to speed on the investigation.

"We pulled Moll's files from the company and pored over them, there are no red flags anywhere in his record, we are still trying to figure out what the motive could be here, I know you and Huang didn't agree on Clancy's mindset in this crime the other day, but I was hoping you could take another look and see if anything else sticks out."

"Olivia," Skoda told her, "George is a brilliant doctor, and I'm not questioning his integrity, I just don't happen to agree with his theory on why Clancy took the boy."

"Why not?" Olivia asked.

"Because I don't believe Clancy is suffering from any kind of delusions or hallucinations."

"But I don't understand why."

"Because you don't have to be delusional to commit murder and abduction," Skoda explained.

"I know, Huang said you think it's a motive more 'reality based', like what?"

"Well ransom's out, and based on his MRIs and everything else in his file, it doesn't seem likely he took the kid for sexual purposes, most abductions are custodial based…are we sure there's no other family that could be petitioning to get David?"

Olivia shook her head. "The housekeeper was adamant that Mrs. Moll told her they had no other family."

"Then the next theory is with so many threats against the family, that John went over to the dark side, it's possible in theory but I don't think it holds much merit."

"Any particular reason?"

"It's more cold hard facts than actual psychiatry, as smart as he is, he's not smarter than the people that trained him, and since he shows no signs of being a sociopath he's probably aware of that, wherever he's going, he's trying to get it done before his time runs out," Skoda said, "the ball's in his court now but with the company's resources they will eventually find him, and he has to know that."

"Does that threaten David's life?" Olivia asked.

"I can't say with certainty but I don't think killing the boy has even occurred to him," Skoda answered.

"So if he didn't turn the boy over to one of the people threatening the doctor, what's left?" Olivia asked.

Skoda shrugged and answered, "I don't think he has any delusional disorder that tells him that David's really his son. I think he's very aware of what the facts are, but he's probably looking at them in a different yet still very rational way."

"Like what?" Olivia asked.

"The general impression everybody's given is that John was placed in a surrogate father role…what's the extent of the responsibilities he had involving David? We know he was the one taking him to school and getting him every day, what else? Prior to this year, David stayed home because he didn't go to school, and Clancy stayed at home too because his priority was keeping David safe while Dr. Moll was at work. He had private tutors, Clancy and the housekeeper made sure all the tutoring sessions were conducted in their sight so they could keep an eye on things. When David did attend school, Clancy was the one there if he brought friends home, he would've been the one doing things with the boys. The housekeeper also said that Dr. Moll would be out of town frequently, again, Clancy would've been the one at home with David. This went on continuously for 4 long years, consider what all entails from that."

Olivia tried, and she thought she was starting to see the big picture.

"If David has a problem, who does he go to?" Skoda asked. "John Clancy. If he has a question, who does he ask? Clancy. If he wants to go anywhere, he goes with Clancy. Reality still holds, Clancy knows that he's not David's father, but it starts to appear to him that the doctor is neglecting his son. It's not unreasonable in that psyche that he would start to think he could give David a better life than he currently has, he's got the money and the means to go anywhere and take the boy with him. It wouldn't necessarily be living like a father and son, but just continuing their relationship as it already exists."

"But why kill the doctor?" Olivia asked.

"It's possible Steven Moll found out about Clancy's plans, they get into an argument, Moll threatens to expose Clancy to the company, he wouldn't be arrested but his career would definitely be ruined and he would lose all access to David. Possibly Clancy just loses it and in a fit of rage, he shoots Moll."

"But he had to know the body would be discovered, he had to know that somebody would put it together," Olivia said.

"Trying to dispose of the body would be timely, messy, and interfere with his plans," Skoda said. "He figured he could get David and get to wherever he was going before anybody could catch him."

"But he still waited six hours before getting David at school, what sense does that make?" Olivia asked.

"Playing it cool, he acts like nothing's wrong, school doesn't suspect a thing, they'd be among the first people to talk to police if they thought something was up. Probably after picking him up, he says Moll's had to go out of town on business, they're going on a trip, buys him a few hours of not having to explain anything."

"And after that?" Olivia asked.

Skoda shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Olivia thought about that for a minute and told him, "They were spotted on a security camera outside a motel, we think he drugged David."

"Were any of the doctor's meds missing?"

"We had to wait for Warner to tell us he was taking anything," Olivia said, "there weren't any pills in the house."

"Well that's very unusual for a doctor," Skoda replied. "Still, I've seen the photos of the house, aside from David's room the whole place was meticulous, nothing was out of place, it's possible he didn't bring them home. It definitely would've been a responsible move when David was younger, no matter what you tell some kids, they are still going to swallow pills if they get a chance."

"Painkillers and sleeping pills," Olivia said, "either one of which could've been used to knock David out."

"Prescription strength?"

"Some, there were others Warner said were probably something over the counter."

"It's unlikely Clancy would be taking any sleeping pills but not impossible, but he could've been taking something himself and given it to David," Skoda said.

"Emil, do you think he would hurt David?" Olivia wanted to know.

Skoda sighed and answered, "I can't guarantee anything, but I don't think so, not on any conscious level anyway."

Olivia paused for a moment before saying, "There's another possibility I wanted to get your professional opinion on. Do you think it's possible he kidnapped David to…do you have any idea how many men first meet their wives when they're barely teenagers?"

"You're asking if Clancy could be grooming David for a lover when he's older…that's a different mindset than a pedophile, and a harder question to answer," Skoda told her. "As you said, it's not uncommon, it's a known fact most men fall in lust with women when they're in high school, some fall in love with them at that same age, some younger than that, most don't wait for it to become legal but some do, and we don't demonize the ones that do."

"It's still disgusting," Olivia said.

"Love is very complex, sometimes you just know and it doesn't matter how old two people are…and I'm well aware that that has been twisted, distorted and exploited to death by child molesters who justify their actions, but it doesn't stop it from being true for other people. It's possible, but without further information on both of them, I can't assert any opinion on that."

Cragen entered the squad room. "Olivia, everybody's moving out. Clancy's car was just spotted coming off I-678. State troopers are going to try moving in and forcing him into a pocket, everybody who's not out on call is being brought in to assist."

Olivia looked at Skoda, who merely told her, "Good luck."


The four SVU detectives moved fast in a convoy of both marked and unmarked police cars that raced along with only lights but no sirens. In all Elliot had counted about 20 cop cars all heading in the same direction, everybody keeping in touch with one another through the radios about where they were going and what the plan was. In the time it took for them to catch up with the rest of the police vehicles, Clancy's car had been reported as getting out of the Bronx entirely, had cut across two neighboring districts, taken a shortcut twisting and turning through a series of forgotten back roads, and was tearing through a heavily wooded area. A police chopper was keeping the black car in sight and reporting Clancy's location and movements and pieced together where the police cars were to turn to build up a barricade they could corner Clancy in. An order came over the radio for everybody to kill their lights, as of yet, there was no indication he had any idea the police were following him.

"Where do you think he's going?" Olivia asked.

"Maybe he's got a cabin stashed out in the woods," Elliot said. "Maybe Nathan Ellis wasn't the only alias he has."

Cragen's voice came over the radio, "Everybody else is in place ready to block him and ready to close in. He's a mile ahead, bury the accelerator and hit the lights and sirens, it's time he knew we're coming."

"Got it," Elliot replied as he sped up.

Olivia barely saw the needle on the speedometer climb to 70, the other cars were right alongside and behind them, and after what seemed like only a few seconds, the black car ahead came into view. In response to the lights and sirens, the black car only sped up.

"He can't seriously think he's going to outrun us," Olivia said.

"He's sure as hell going to try," Elliot replied.

"I just hope we're not too late," she said.

They sped up to catch up to Clancy, who was bobbing and weaving all over the place, causing a few patrol cars to knock into each other, Elliot swerved to avoid joining the pileup.

Up ahead they were able to see the black car make a turn and hit the brakes, and it was obvious why, 20 more police cars were coming at it from the other side.

"We got him!" Elliot announced as he stopped the car.

"Let's go!" Olivia threw her door open and hopped out.

Everybody piled out of their cars and approached the black car with guns drawn. One of the officers ordered Clancy to turn off his engine, drop his weapon, and get out of the car nice and slow with his hands up. The lights went off, the driver stuck his hands out the window, then opened the door and slowly got out, and the detectives saw John Clancy face to face for the first time. He was tall, muscular, and dressed in a black T-shirt, blue jeans and boots. The cops nearest him rushed him, tackled him and forced him to the ground. Olivia ran over to the car and called out as she pulled the door fully open, "David?" Nothing. She pulled the door open to the backseat and looked in. "David?" The backseat and the floor were both empty. She called to one of the unis, "Pop the trunk!"

Somebody did, Olivia threw it open and looked in. All the trunk contained was a spare tire, a jack, a tire iron, a toolkit, a spare gas can, an ice scraper, a set of road flares, a fire extinguisher, and a first aid kit. She took everything out just to make sure. Nothing. She slammed the lid shut and told the others, "He's not here!"

"Is there a problem, officers?" John Clancy asked very nonchalantly from his position on the ground.

"Where's David?" Olivia demanded as she stormed over to him.

"Who?" Clancy feigned innocence as he stood up.

"WHERE'S THE KID?" Elliot screamed in his ear.

"I don't have any idea what you're talking about," Clancy answered.

Elliot simultaneously kneed Clancy in the groin and hit him in the head, causing him to collapse on his knees with a pained groan.

"That's enough, Elliot," Cragen told him as he came up to them. He personally took out the handcuffs and advised the man on the ground, "John Clancy, my name is Captain Donald Cragen, and it is my extreme pleasure to place you under arrest for the murder of Steven Moll and the kidnapping of David Moll. You have the right to remain silent, anything you do say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney…"