You know, I'm beginning to think that perhaps I have taken the wrong course of action. My goal was to discover a time, before I became a cop, when I felt like I was searching for something. Before I was a cop being the key element of that sentence. Yet, I can't seem to go far enough back. Who I am is so attached to my being a police officer that I don't think I can ever separate the two. I've tried, I really have, but it seems as if I have failed. All these sleepless nights and long hours... you think I would come up with something. Something. But no.

No, I have lived a lifetime as a cop, solved a thousand cases, let a couple thousand more slip through my fingers and that's all I can remember.

No, I have lived a whole other lifetime as an ordinary citizen, walked to school innumerable times, walked home even more and I can't remember a damned thing.

The ride back to the precinct was quiet. I hadn't told Elliot that Anthony had said Eisenberger touched him, but I think Elliot knew. My anger from earlier had dissipated and I began to regret my actions. I had blown the interview, but pride would not allow me to apologize. In the silence of the car that was punctuated by the now falling rain, I had the feeling that he wouldn't hold it against me, but at the same time, one never really knew.

We walked into the squad room, a defeated look about us, to find that no one else had returned yet. It wasn't surprising considering Rosen and McElroy had to drive up to Westchester and Olivia and Fin had to drive out to Queens. I hoped that Rosen had not encountered what we had upon visiting Patricia Weiss.

I sat down at my desk and began to write down all the information I had gathered from Anthony and Elliot disappeared somewhere. Fifteen minutes later, I knew where he had gone when Cragen called me into his office.

"Elliot tells me that you jumped the gun while interviewing Eisenberger."

I chose not to respond.

"John, I've trusted you with this case, but if your feelings-"

"Captain, my feelings concerning Joann and her family really have nothing to do with this. There are two boys who have one week to live. I'm not about to sit on my ass and wait until their bodies show up somewhere."

"I don't expect you to, but you're just too close to this case. As I said, I've trusted you this far, and I'd like this case to remain yours. But you've got one more chance. Screw up another interview or anything else and I'm assigning the case to Fin. Got it?"

I tried my best to glare at him, but failed as I realized that he had been nothing but understanding. He was giving me a second chance when I didn't really deserve one. "Yes, Captain."

He nodded and I dismissed myself. At the door, I turned around. "You think we can get Huang in here?"

"I'll call."

I shut the door behind me.

Not long after that, Olivia and Fin walked in, also looking tired and battered and I mentally cursed. Wasn't having two boys missing enough? All these other boys were coming out of the woodwork, all molested.

"What did you guys find out?" Olivia asked, sitting at her desk.

Elliot looked up, then leaned back in his chair, a pen between his fingers. "Eisenberger said to talk to his lawyer so we went to the girlfriend, Patricia Weiss, also his receptionist. She gave him an alibi, but she's the only one who can say where he was. Munch talked to the kid."

"Anthony, he's seven-years old. He said that sometimes his mother goes out and Eisenberger watches him. Says that Eisenberger touched him." I didn't need to say where, we all know. "What'd you get?"

"Piechocki's one snide son of a bitch, I'll tell you that," Fin answered, clearly disgusted.

"He fixes one of his neighbor's cars for a small fee. Name is Gabrielle Kolbert. She lives alone with her eleven-year old son, Taylor. Husband was killed on 9/11. Piechocki helped Taylor a lot with his father's death."

I snorted. "A little too much in the wrong way."

"Yeah. But I couldn't get him to say anything. That boy's been abused for years, he's not going to open up. Gonna need Huang on this one."

"I just talked to Cragen and he said he was gonna call him. S'pose he'll be here soon."

Fin glanced at his watch. "At ten o'clock?"

"Those boys are in hell. You wanna leave 'em there a little longer?"

He held up a hand and I turned around to face Olivia and Elliot.

"The neighbor know if Piechocki was around Sunday night?"

"Naw, she can't remember if he was around or not," Fin said.

"At Joann's apartment before, anything turn up in canvassing?" I asked, thinking suddenly of her.

"Nope. No one in the next building saw anyone going up the fire escape, or going down."

"What is this? A blind community living in that building? They didn't see anything Sunday night, they didn't see anything tonight. Fucking morons." I took a deep breath. "CSU?"

"There's no fingerprints, no fibers either. Leads them to think he used latex gloves, maybe leather."

"Smart son of a bitch."

We all fell into silence and I removed my glasses, pressing my hands against my face, trying to ward off the headache I felt beginning. My hands were cold, and the cold always helped my headaches. Eyes closed, I could see snapshots of the boys and various environments in which they could now be hanging onto life. Hour and a half until Wednesday. Ninety-seven and a half hours until Sunday. Four days. We could get the bastard in four days, right? Sure, sure.

"So, what can I help you with?" Huang asked as he walked into the squad room.

I looked up and slipped my glasses back on. "Guy took two boys in the middle of the night. He came back today and left a note with this." I fished Zack's necklace out of my pocket. It should be in an evidence bag, but I left to meet up with Olivia at Rikers without thinking about it. "Wondering what your take on the guy is."

"He's enjoying the power he wields over these boys lives, for starters."

"Oh, and the note was written in a code."

"What time did he come to leave it?"

"Joann went out to the store around five, came back and the window was open in the boys' room and the note and necklace were on Zack's bed."

"How old are the boys?"

"Robbie is seven and Zack, ten."

"What's the family situation like?"

"Joann's a single mom, father left after Robbie was born. Her father died a couple years back. Mother died when she was in high school. Joann was raped by her boss while staying late one night a few months back. More than one person, including Joann and the school counselor, has said that the boys seemed to have handled that well. No abnormal behavior."

"And the boss?"

"He's in jail. But he claims he doesn't have anything to do with the boys."

"I don't think he did it," Fin added. "Seemed to be just a scum bag who wanted some ass and chose Joann. Relatively vulnerable woman tryin' to support her kids, had to stay late for some overtime so he figured why not? Don't think he's got the balls to kidnap a couple kids and hold them for a week. Or get someone else to do it."

Huang nodded. "Like I said, he enjoys the fact that he can kill them at any moment and you wouldn't know. He's a smart man and thinks that he can outplay you. Hence the note written in code. He wants to see you squirm."

"So we lookin' for someone doing a menial job or..."

"It could be either one. Most likely a menial worker, yes. And the confidence... he came back in late afternoon, people coming home from work around that time, kids home from school, he risked it. That suggests he's done this before. Maybe here, maybe somewhere else, but it's not his first time. And chances are, those boys didn't make it either."

Or maybe the answer lies in Baltimore. Maybe there I would find whatever it is I'm looking for. Lord knows I'm not finding it here. I've been through so many things already and I can't think of anything else. Nothing monumental, nothing truly memorable. Is that a bad thing? I can't think of anything more. That seems wrong to me. Maybe I'm not trying hard enough. Maybe my winning streak (God, I miss Kay and all those guys) doesn't extend to my personal life. Only applies to cases that come across my desk.

It's going to be Wednesday in an hour. That's the third day of seven. That's the third day I'll have been trying to remember. Trying to find that thing.

And I'm beginning to think that I have seven days not only to find those boys, but to find myself.