"Sophie, what'd you get outta the cops?" Nate asked

"Not much, they investigated the similarities with the kidnapping three years ago but no matching suspects, nothing similar in the kid's routine or the family, only link is the trouble at home. They didn't know anything about similar cases around the state."

"Parker, what about the social services?"

"Got copies of all the files, you know it's amazing you can walk in there, look like you belong and no-one bats an eyelid!"

"Parker, anything useful in the files?"

"Abuse reports all came from different hospitals and different doctors, some had no official reporter noted but the handwritten notes all had the same initials: TC."

"Hardison, you get into the Michaels kids' records yet?"

"Yeah, dad's story sounds plausible, all the kids' injuries are consistent with the stories provided at the times, but there are so many hospital visits, most likely cause is abuse."

"The last doctor that treated them before social services got involved, what was the name?"

"Tracey Clark."

"Parker, is there a reported in the Michaels' social services file?"

"No, one of the anonymous ones, but it has the TC notation."

"TC... Tracey Clark... Hardison, do some digging, I want to know everything, who she is, where she's from, where she lives, what kind of toothpaste she uses."

"On it," he replied, his fingers flying over the keys with unnatural speed as the others looked on. "It won't go any faster with you guys staring at me."

"Right, Eliot, Parker, go get some pizza or something."

"Cool," Parker replied jumping up from the sofa, "you think I can get PB & J on a pizza?"

"That's just wrong on so many levels, Parker," Eliot replied as he followed her from the room.

"Sophie," Nate started, "Can I have a word?" he finished, gesturing for her to follow him.

"Sure," she said, following him to his room.

"I'm worried about this one," he confided.

"Why? It looks like the doc did it," she said nonchalantly.

"Yeah, but how do we catch her? I honestly can't think of a plan that doesn't involve getting another kid kidnapped!" Nate replied, sitting on the edge of his bed, his head dropping into his hands, images of Sam once more running through his mind.

"Urgh, I hadn't thought that far ahead," Sophie said quietly.

"There was a reason I didn't want to take this case, it's just not what we do!"

"Then why take it?"

"Eliot took it before I could say no."

"Why?"

"He says he had a 'friend' kidnapped. Watching him with the Stevens' son today, I think it's more likely a little sister or something like that. We know so little about him, about his past; I don't think he can be objective."

"So, we need to come up with a plan that doesn't require Eliot hitting anyone, if possible?"

"Right, and we need to find a way to do it without any more kids getting hurt and we need to figure out what she's actually doing with these kids."

"So, we need to do the impossible," Sophie finished, sitting down beside Nate, wondering how the hell they were going to solve this one, but quietly pleased that Nate had finally shared a concern with her. It was so unlike him to show weakness, to show he wasn't in control, although part of Sophie was worried about it, she was glad he'd finally opened up a little to her.

"Hey guys," Hardison's voice broke the comfortable silence as his head appeared around the door, "so I got something on the doc."

"We'll be right there," Nate replied and turned to Sophie as Hardison disappeared again, "so should I get Hardison to do some digging on Eliot or just leave it and trust him?"

"I really don't know, Nate," Sophie replied with a frown, "I want to trust him, but I want to trust him to tell us what's going on. He might never trust us again if you have Hardison dig into his past. At the same time, his past could jeopardize this job."

"I wish I knew what to do. I'm always the man with the plan, this time, I just don't know."

"We can sleep on it and deal with it tomorrow," she finished with a smile, almost instantly putting Nate at ease.

"Guys, pizza's here!" Parker yelled at them from the hall, breaking the momentary peace they had found. It was time to get back to work.

"Just try it," Parker said with a smile, shoving the slice of pizza in Hardison's face.

"It's disguising, how can you eat that?" he replied, a look of revulsion on his face.

"It's amazing, they go so well together!"

"It's banana and tuna, Parker. They should be nowhere near each other!" Eliot growled at her.

"You're just jealous you didn't think of it!" she replied with the customary Parker pout.

"No, I'm really not!" he said with a derisive laugh as he shook his head and tucked into his meat feast.

"Just tell me you got something more than smothered in meat or erm," Nate started, glancing at Parker, thinking how to delicately describe her insane pizza topping, "unusual toppings?"

"Yeah, we got boring plain cheese and a ham and pineapple," she replied between bites.

"Great," Nate replied, "Hardison, what'd you find out?"

"So Tracey Clark doesn't exist!" he started.

"What do you mean?" Sophie asked.

"Tracey Clark, born December 3rd 1971, died October 5th 1976, yet someone is using her name and social security number. Whoever it was did a pretty good job of faking it. On the surface, everything is fine. You gotta look hard to find the death certificate."

"How'd she die? We sure it isn't a paperwork error?" Nate queried,

"We're sure; she died in a car accident. Dad was driving, Mom and daughter killed at the scene, father was the only survivor, lots of big newspaper articles on it and everything, it's not a clerical error."

"So, who is this woman?" Parker said with a puzzled frown.

"I have no idea," Hardison replied.

"Well, what do we know about her other than she's a fake?" Eliot enquired.

"That's the thing; Tracey Clark has a thirty three year old death certificate but somehow has still been living her life during that entire time. We got school records, college records, med school records, Facebook, etc etc. She and her dad moved to Texas from Ohio in June of 1977."

"What else do we know about him?" Nate asked as he stared out the window.

"He was an Emergency room doctor in Ohio, left a pretty good practice to move to Texas to be an on-call doctor for rural hospitals, just like Tracey. She was living the high life in Chicago 'til she gave it up ten years ago and came here to do the same thing. Dad gave up practicing and moved out here with Tracey about five years ago"

"So, this guy has a daughter, she dies, but somehow is still living?" Eliot interjects.

"Seems like that," Hardison answers

"Then who is she? Where did she come from?" Eliot demanded.

"I have no idea; I don't even know where to start with this one." Hardison replied.

"Hardison," Nate said quietly, "can you run a search for girls around five years old who went missing between October of 1976 and probably summer of 1977?"

"You think he kidnapped her?" Sophie asked.

"Makes sense," Nate replied. "Dad loses his kid, spends half his time patching up battered and broken kids, has enough one day and takes one of them out of the bad situation, moves them to a small town where no-one knows them and gives her his daughter's identity. Could be what they're doing with these other kids."

"Got two girls the right age, Lucy Mitchell, went missing April 23rd 1977 in Ohio, two towns over from where John Clark lived, never found and Stacy Fletcher, missing since May 15th 1977, a little further away from John's home, but still close enough to drive in a few hours."

"Okay, I get him kidnapping a little girl to replace his daughter," Parker started, "well, sort of anyway, but why is she now doing the same thing?"

"It's a family business," Eliot said quietly. "I bet if we look up missing kids with the same MO around where he practiced in Texas, we'll find loads more cases." He eyes focused on something out the window the others couldn't see as he took a deep breath and continued, "I'm guessing they think they're doing the right thing, taking good kids out of bad situations and finding them loving families who'll take care of them but," his voice suddenly turned from quiet and distant to the hardness the team were only used to hearing when he was squaring up for a fight, "they don't think about the people they leave behind."

"So, what do we do?" Sophie asked.

"What do you mean what do we do?" Eliot asked, "We find their records or something on them and stop it, get as many kids back as we can."

"We need more info before we can do anything," Nate added calmly.

"Well she stays with her dad when she's not working but they got an office that was very cleverly hidden in a shell company, registered in our favorite tax haven. Officially it's a medical consultancy that somehow seems to earn about a million dollars or so a year, but other than that and the address, I got nothing on it."

"Parker, Eliot, head to that office tonight, see what you can find, we'll go over it tomorrow," Nate finished, leaving the room to avoid any further arguments. He knew there were decisions to make and they were not going to be easy. He had to think on his own for a while before facing Eliot again.