A/N: Hopefully, everything will start making a little more sense after this chapter and the next one...and that's about it for now.

"Elliot, do you have any idea what time it is?"

The voice on the other side of the line was more than just a little bit annoyed, and before Elliot could actually say anything, Jordan Adair went on.

"It's three in the morning," she said. "On a Tuesday. You and I are both due at work in exactly five hours. What do you want?"

"Where are you, Jordan?" Elliot asked in reply. She sighed.

"I'm still at work," she admitted. "But that doesn't excuse you. I could have been at home."

"If you were at home, you wouldn't have answered your cell phone," Elliot said dryly. "Listen, Jordan, I know it's early, or late…whatever…I need your help."

"Of course you do. What'd you do, get into it with Tucker again?"

"No, I haven't actually had him in my face about something lately, which is a miracle in itself. I need to know something about David Bennett."

"Oh." Jordan trailed off for a moment, and sighed. "Elliot, I hate to tell you this, I really do, but I'm not actually supposed to talk to you about him."

"He's a potential suspect in a murder down in Baltimore, Jordan. Don't give me the song-and-dance routine about confidentiality. That flew out the window when Kari Applegate turned up dead."

He could almost see the color draining from Jordan's face as silence fell on the other side of the line. It took a long moment for her to say anything, but he waited anyway.

"She's dead?" she asked, and then, "Is Baltimore sure it's really her?"

"Munch called me himself," Elliot replied. "I wouldn't be asking you to help me if I wasn't sure."

"I know. I'm just…We were hoping…" Jordan trailed off for a moment, and sighed again. "Never mind. What do you need to know about Bennett?"

"I need to know if he's had any time off within the past two weeks," said Elliot. "Munch called me again after Baltimore's medical examiner finished the autopsy; Applegate had been dead for at least four days, but there were signs that she'd been tortured."

"I didn't need to know that," Jordan muttered, and then, "Hold on a second; department servers are acting up again."

A few minutes passed, and then she spoke again. "Yeah, he's been off for the past two weeks. He just came back yesterday."

"Do you know what shift he's working right now?"

"He's on the midnight to noon shift. You've got nine hours left. Need me to call Lautner and find out where he's at?"

"Would you?" Elliot got to his feet from where he was sitting at Erin's kitchen table, and went towards the garage door, slipping his shoes on as he reached for his keys. "I'm going to try and find Olivia; we're going to pick him up."

"Try not to let on that IAD's looking at him, and whatever you do, don't tell him how you found out where he was," said Jordan. "I mean it. You screw my case, I'm coming after you."

"I wouldn't do that to you, and neither would Olivia," said Elliot. "We'll be careful."

As he spoke, he got to his feet from where he'd been sitting in the darkness at Erin's kitchen table, and walked towards the garage door, slipping his shoes on as he reached for his keys.

"Let me know what Lautner tells you," he said. "If Bennett's anywhere in Queens, we'll find him."

"So let me get this straight," said Jordan. "You're going to come all the way from Staten Island to Manhattan to pick up your partner, and then you're going to search all of Queens for this guy?"

"Borough hopping in the middle of the night isn't exactly new, Jordan. We've both done it before."

"Well, I'm coming with you. Find Benson and I'll meet you at the one-six."

"Fine. While you're at it, call Bowman, Camden and McKendrie, too; they'll help us."

"I'll do that. They'll probably meet us down at the four-nine; we'll start from there. Keep your phone on."

A click told Elliot that he'd been hung up on; not two seconds later, it rang again. He spared a glance for the caller ID and flipped it open.

"Liv, I'm coming into Manhattan," he said by way of greeting. "Did Munch get a hold of you?"

"Yeah, he did," said Olivia. "I was just about to tell you what he told me. Did he ask you to find David Bennett?"

"That's why I'm coming to Manhattan. Baltimore thinks he could be the one who killed Kari Applegate. Do you know if anyone's let her husband know yet?"

"Fin and I did, right after Munch got a hold of me. What else did Munch tell you?"

"They might have found out where Kathy is. He's going to call me back when they get a warrant to go into the building; he thinks they could have it by the end of the week."

Four more days now. On the other side of the line, Olivia sighed, and ran a tired hand over her face before taking the cup of coffee that Fin held out to her. "Do they want us down there?"

"Munch says they'll wait for us if they can, but if it turns out they have to move without us, they won't," said Elliot. "He couldn't tell me much more than that. What'd you and Fin get from the MCS?"

"Names," said Olivia. "There were three other guys besides Kathleen's ex-boyfriend who went with Garret to storm your place. We're trying to track them down now."

Elliot pulled open the door to his car and sighed. "That leaves Fin on his own if you come with me," he said. "Was there anyone else in the squad room when you went back?"

"Actually, yeah," said Olivia. "Cassidy was there. He just came off an undercover run, some small group Narcotics has been trying to bust for a while. He heard about what happened and came down to help."

"Where is he now?"

"We're all here in the squad room now. Did you find out anything about Bennett?"

"Yeah. He's been off for the past two weeks and only just showed up back here in New York yesterday; he's on the midnight to noon shift. Jordan's going to call Mark Lautner and find out where he'd be."

"You just said you were coming into Manhattan, though."

"Yeah, to get you. Give Fin and Brian the heads up; we're probably going to need them to come with us."

"I'll do that. We'll be outside the precinct when you get here."

They were. Olivia slid into the passenger's side of Elliot's car and they drove off, with Fin and Brian right behind them in an unmarked squad car.

"So, they really think Bennett might have killed his own partner?" Olivia asked, and Elliot nodded.

"Yeah," he said. "What else did Tony tell you when you talked to him?"

"He said Garret talked to Bennett for a while after Kathy told him and Applegate that there wasn't anything wrong," Olivia replied. "Then he told us that Garret didn't really know what he was going to do until Rob Lautner called Maureen and Garret made her tell him that you guys had relatives from Baltimore visiting."

"Munch was right, then, we are working interstate. Did Garret mention any plans, or was that all Tony told you?"

"He said that Garret kept repeating how they were going to go back to where it all began, and that this time 'she' was going to burn, but he didn't know who Garret was talking about." A sick feeling settled over Olivia as she trailed off. "He meant Kathy, didn't he?"

"Probably," said Elliot. "I don't want to think about it. I just want to find Bennett."

"What exactly are you planning to do if and when we do find him?"

"I don't know, but he isn't going to like it. Internal Affairs is still looking at him, too, so we're going to have to be careful not to let that slip when we talk to him."

"We're going to need to talk to the Feds if it turns out Munch and the Baltimore lot can't get that warrant."

"Forget the Feds. They might have to stay in the loop because this is interstate, but their involvement ended the minute they tried to pin Munch as a suspect."

This wasn't exactly true, but Olivia decided not to point this out. Instead, she cast a sideways look at her partner and waited; when he said nothing more, she picked up where she'd left off.

"Fine," she said. "We'll only go back to them if Baltimore can't get the warrant. In the meantime, how do you propose we go about keeping Bennett from find out about IAD?"

"They've already talked to him, but he doesn't know they're looking at him for anything specific," said Elliot. "Jordan knows he's a suspect in Applegate's murder."

"But we're not asking him about that," said Olivia, and Elliot nodded.

"No. You and I are have other things to ask him about. What time is it now?"

"It's four-thirty. We're going to find him, Elliot, there's only so many places he can be while he's on shift."

"That's never really stopped anyone before. Just because he's on shift doesn't mean that he's where he's supposed to be."

"You sound like you're speaking from personal experience."

"You can't tell me you stayed where you were supposed to be the entire time you were on shift as a uniform, Liv."

"Sure I can. Whether or not you believe it is up to you."

Elliot looked over at her as they came to a stoplight and shook his head. "I wonder about you sometimes, y'know that?"

"I can say the same for you," Olivia said mildly. "What would be the fun in this if we didn't wonder?"

The light turned green and they moved forward again. Olivia's cell phone rang; she pulled it out of her pocket and flipped it open. "You guys hear something?"

"Radio car on Staten Island picked up one of the kids we were looking for." On the other side of the line, Brian Cassidy looked down at the note he'd taken after the voice had come across the radio and continued. "He was outside the commissioner's place when the call came in."

"Are you sure it was the commissioner's place?" Olivia asked. Elliot turned to look at her; she waved him off, motioning towards the road and went on. "Was anyone hurt?"

"No. Call came after a few windows got broken. Commissioner's at headquarters and his wife got called in on a case her lot picked up, but he's got an unmarked squad car sitting outside the place now." Brian trailed off for a moment, and then, "Isn't that where Elliot's kids are?"

"Yeah, it is," said Olivia. "I need you to find out who's in that squad car and make sure they stay there."

"Fin's already taking care of it," said Brian, and sure enough, in the background, Olivia could hear the other detective's voice, talking to someone who she couldn't identify. "We'll let you know as soon as we get anything."

There was a click, and Olivia knew that he'd hung up. She flipped her own phone closed and turned to look at Elliot, whose face gave away nothing, but the white-knuckled grip he had on the steering wheel gave away everything.

"There's an unmarked squad car sitting outside your aunt's place now," she said. "No one was hurt; the call came in after one of the guys we were looking for earlier smashed a few windows."

"Someone knew my kids were there," said Elliot, unable to keep his voice from shaking. "I didn't tell anyone but the squad; besides us, no one but Jordan and the Major Case Squad knows where they are."

This left but two possibilities, and disturbing ones at that. Neither of them wanted to think that anyone had let slip, but then, the only thing that could have happened other than that was that someone had been following Elliot around.

"You haven't noticed anyone following you, have you?" Olivia asked finally. Elliot shook his head, and made the turn that would take them to the four-nine.

"No. I haven't noticed anyone," he said. "But that's gotta be the only way this could have happened."
"This unmarked squad car, d'you have any idea who y would have been asked to sit outside her place?"

"No, but whoever it is, they'd better damn well stay there."

They had reached the four-nine. As they pulled into the back parking lot, they could see that Fin and Brian were right behind them. Five figures stepped out of the shadows cast by the light coming from the precinct's back entrance.

"We were starting to think you'd gotten lost," Jordan remarked. "How are we going to do this?"

"I'm gonna have to stay here; if Bennett drops by the precinct again, it'll look strange if I'm not at the desk," said Mark. "If he turns up here, I"ll find a reason to keep him around."

"The rest of us are going out with you and your lot." Allison McKendrie took off the department baseball cap that she was wearing, and went on. "If Mark stays here, that leaves eight of us to look for Bennett."

"All right then…" Elliot trailed off and sighed. "I don't suppose you've figured out who's going with whom, then?"

"Allison's coming with me." Lindsay Camden replied, "And Jordan's going with Dave."

It was settled. Now all they had to do was find Bennett, bring him in and hope that they could get some kind of answer out of him.

"Something wrong?" Jordan asked, pulling Elliot back out of his thoughts. He glanced over at her.

"Radio car on Staten Island picked up one of the guys we were looking for outside my aunt's house. They're holding him at the one-two-eight, but he scared the hell out of my kids when he broke a few windows," he replied. "I'm probably going to be on and off the phone with them, so if you call and I don't answer…"

"Don't worry about it. We'll find another way to coordinate." Dave Bowman glanced at his watch and looked up again. "It's now five in the morning. We've got seven hours to find Bennett before he has a chance to disappear."

Seven hours wasn't really that long. They'd have to make the entire time count for something if they expected to get anywhere, but Queens wasn't exactly small by any means. None of the eight cops who were going out on the search were really expecting to find Bennett at all, but at the same time, they had not yet let go of the hope that they would.

"Well, what the hell are we waiting for, then?" Brian broke the silence that had fallen between the nine standing there, and when none of them answered, he continued. "Let's get out there already."

"He lied straight through his teeth. There's no way in hell that kidnapping went as smoothly as he said it did."

The door to the captain's office in the Major Case squad room was closed, but in all honesty, Mike wouldn't have been surprised if anyone in the squad room that early could hear him straight through it.

"Captain, I know what we promised him, but I think we made a mistake," he said, picking up where he'd left off. "He wasn't telling us something. He and his friends are nothing but a bunch of corner boys looking to make a quick buck off anything. This didn't happen as easily as Tony Martin told us it did."

"I'm surprised SVU didn't pick up on it," Jimmy remarked. "Though I can't really say I blame them, given the circumstances. It's been two months, Mike. They've been waiting for answers, and now they finally have them…or at least, they think they do."

"You know as well as I do that it doesn't work that easily," said Mike.

"It doesn't ever work that easily. Kathleen opened that door because she didn't know what was waiting behind it, and now Martin's lying to cover his ass."

"Then you need to talk to Carver and Novak. Get them to go back on what they've offered. The deal was based on whether or not Martin told us the truth," Jimmy replied. A frustrated look crossed Mike's face and he shook his head.

"I can't," he said. "I don't have any real proof that he was lying. It's just a feeling right now, but…something isn't right, Captain. Garret didn't do this on the spur of the moment. He had to have planned it."

"What makes you say that?"

"He sent Elliot and the rest of SVU on a wild goose chase across all five boroughs, and now Baltimore's coming up with evidence that Garret has Kathy down in Maryland." Mike trailed off and shook his head again. "Never mind the fact that he kept the entire family tied up everywhere he went…where'd he get the supplies to do that? And the places where he kept them…unless he owned them, which I highly doubt, he'd have had to pay to use them."

A dark scowl crossed his face as he went on. "Martin knew exactly what he was doing. He gave us enough details to make us believe him, and now he's out on bail, and there's no way for us to find him."

"His mother's a cop. The only reason he was released on bail is because he was supposed to go and stay with her."

"Hell of a lot of good that's going to do us if Mom's all too willing to believe whatever her little boy tells her."

The phone on Jimmy's desk rang, and he held up a hand, indicating that Mike should wait before he answered it. "What?"

"Don't 'what' me," Erin replied. "I got home from getting called in on a case my lot picked up, and there's an unmarked squad car sitting outside the house and broken windows. What the hell is going on over there?"

"D'you know who did it?" Jimmy asked, startled by this news. Erin gave an exasperated sigh.

"Yeah, I know who it was; he's sitting in a holding cell in my precinct, afraid he's gonna have to deal with me," she said.
"The uniforms who brought him in say he matches the description of one of the kids SVU was looking for."

"He wouldn't have happened to run into Tony Martin at any point tonight, would he?" Jimmy asked.

"I don't know," said Erin, "I haven't talked to him yet; I'm still at home, the kids are a wreck."

"Is the unmarked squad car still there?"

"Yeah, it's still here; you think I'm gonna let them leave with people trying to get at my nephew's kids after all this? How long have you and I been partners now?"

"Too long. Have you heard anything from any of your detectives?"

"No. They're about as pissed off as I am. Kid asked for a lawyer, we can't touch him until said lawyer gets there."

"Lovely. Any idea when that's supposed to happen?"

"I haven't heard anything yet, but that kid's not leaving that holding cell unless I take him or you do. I'm waiting for Elliot to get back from wherever the hell he disappeared to. You wouldn't have any idea where that is, would you?"

"No, I don't know where he went…Did he leave a note?"

"I think the theory of leaving notes has been lost on him. His kids have no idea where he is, either…" There was a paused, and then, "Jimmy, I'm going to call you back. Elizabeth's got her father on her cell phone. I'll let you know if anything comes up."

A click told him that he'd been hung up on; he put the phone back on the receiver and looked at Mike.

"Two uniforms from the one-two-eight picked up a kid breaking windows at Erin's place," he said. "Matches a description SVU put out for someone they were looking to talk to."

"One of Tony Martin's friends?" Mike asked in reply.

"I don't know. That's why you and I are going to Staten Island to find out. Jimmy took his coat from the back of his desk chair and pulled it on as he continued. "With any luck, we might actually get the truth this time around."