She sensed him behind her without turning. His hand brushed her elbow as he settled in beside her. He followed her eyes to the one way window. "How's it going in there?" He asked.

"It's going slow. Not sure we are going to get anything helpful." She felt his eyes on her, but she kept her focus on the interview room. "They already got Marcus' statement. He said he had no idea anything happened until morning, and he didn't hear anything unusual that night."

"Kinda what we expected to hear," Elliot admitted, and focused his eyes on the father-son pair sitting at the table.

They both listened as Bruno and Fin continued their questioning, starting in on Lucas.

Bruno stood, holding the file in his hands, reviewing notes as he lightly paced behind where Fin sat, "you've got a lot of school disciplinary notes. What's going on at school?"

The boy opened his mouth to say something but the lawyer held out his hand, stopping him. "He doesn't need to answer that."

Elliot grunted. "Has it been like this the whole time?"

"Yep." She shook her head in disbelief. "The whole damn time."

The sound of coughing drew their attention back to the interrogation room.

Marcus seems stuck in a mild coughing fit.

Bruno glanced up from the file, "Can I get you some water…?" The question didn't seem sincere, but a polite reflex.

Marcus coughed some more and swallowed. "Yeah, thanks."

Bruno shut the file in an exaggerated motion. He glanced at the pair before handing Fin the file. "Be right back…" he muttered and headed towards the door.

He left and the door clicked behind him. Once the door shut he let out a groan. "I'm not sure why they even bothered coming in. That lawyer won't let them answer anything even mildly relevant."

"Let's just get a baseline statement. Honestly, we just need something we can compare statements to later," Olivia pinched the bridge of her nose. This was going to be a headache.

"Well I gotta go get our friend in there some water." Bruno didn't even try to hide his eye roll.

"Where's Captain Benson?"

Olivia's head turned at the sound of her name. She internally groaned when she realized it was Marcus asking.

"She's got other matters to attend to." Fin answered vaguely. Thank God.

"Made quite an impression there." She could feel Elliot's smirk, as well as a hint of jealousy.

She turned and took a step towards him. He had folded his arms, and was leaning against the wall, just watching her. She had a love-hate relationship with Elliot's jealousy. For some reason she felt the need to lean into it a bit.

"I can't help it if I make that kind of impression." There was just something so enticing about pushing his buttons. "He's not the first single dad to approach me in the pick up line…" it was actually true, but usually it annoyed her more than anything.

She watched his jaw clench a little, and she felt a little satisfied. This time he stepped towards her, "Is that so?" His voice held an edgy flirtation. "How many did you go out with?"

She almost laughed. He could be so unintentionally transparent. It was like the time he asked her how many boyfriends she had in his absence. The question had inherent intention to it.

She faced the glass again, "None." She admitted. "I don't exactly have time for any of that." She also hated to admit it, but the real reason was that none of them were him.

She felt him step into her space. "Did you want to," his voice was low, and maybe a little more vulnerable than she ever remembered it being.

"Um…" she stuttered. "I…I…"

She felt his hand on her hip. And his lips were incredibly close to her ear. "It's a simple yes or no question Olivia."

Damn. He always left her breathless when he used her full name like that. "No."

His hand tugged on her hip, and their sides were pressed tightly together. His lips were brushing her ear with every word, and she couldn't breathe. "Why not?"

Holy hell. She had to remind herself about five times that she was at work and this wasn't anywhere close to appropriate. "El…" She kept her eyes on the glass. She couldn't face him. If she faced him she knew she would kiss him, and that was not happening here. "I can't do this right now."

She expected him to withdraw, but he didn't. He stayed still, crowded up in her space. "I think I know the answer…" he whispered.

Her hand flew to the compass necklace dangling off her neck. She fiddled with it anxiously. Of course he knew the answer. Everyone knew the answer. Even her ex-boyfriends knew the answer. It was so damn obvious, and so not appropriate right now.

She reluctantly took a step away. "Not now El. I can't." She finally faced him, "I can't do this right now."

His face fell slightly, but he recovered quickly. He took a step towards her again, and grabbed her hand. "Sorry. I know it's not…I'm just…"

He didn't have to explain. He was nervous. Being in the precinct right now was uncomfortable. He told her so last night. This weird segue was probably some weird attempt to ease his nerves at being at the precinct. She could appreciate that.

"It's okay El." She caught his sad eyes. "Really." She bit her lip. "I want to talk about it. I really do," she admitted. "Just…"

"Not now." He finished. "I know," he let out a nervous breath. "Is it weird I'd rather have this conversation than the one I need to tackle later?"

She squeezed his hand. "We talked about this…" she gave him a reassuring smile. "You got this Stabler."

He opened his mouth to say something else, but Bruno came back in and he let go of her hand.

"Churlish says she's got something she wants you to see," Bruno said, before diving back into the interrogation room, water bottle in hand.

"Uh, I'll go see what that's about," she nodded her head towards the squad room. "Mind watching this for me?" She gestured to the interview.

"Yeah. Whatever Churlish's got has to be more informative than this.

"No kidding," she said under her breath as she headed to the squad room.

She found Churlish at her desk with Velasco standing behind her with his arms folded, shaking his head incredulously.

That piqued her curiosity. "What'd you find?"

"Well, first of all we found out Churlish is a genius.." Velasco praised.

"Maybe not a genius, but I noticed something odd when the Moores were here last time." She explained further. "While Velasco talked to them I noticed the son's earlobes are different than his dads." Olivia inadvertently lifted an eyebrow, not sure of the significance. "Okay. I know it's a weird thing to notice, but the kid has attached earlobes. It's a super recessive trait…" Olivia was pretty sure she knew what Churlish was getting at but she waited for her to continue her explanation. "The dads earlobes are not attached."

"He might not be Lucas' father," Olivia concluded.

"I thought it might be a possibility." Churlish confirmed. "I had no idea if Lucas' mom had that recessive trait or not, or if he was adopted or something. But it really bugged me, and then I remembered that Stabler said Slootmakers' deep dive showed some pretty janky stuff." Olivia didn't know Elliot had Jet run a deep background check. She made a mental note to ask him about that later.

"Anyway. On a hunch I snagged their drink bottles and swabbed them. The DNA came back and…" she pointed at her computer screen.

"Not a match?" Olivia leaned in closer. Sure enough, the strands were completely different. No common alleles.

"And before you ask," Churlish interjected, "I looked into it, and there is no adoption record. And I know there are other explanations, but…"

"Lucas is not his biological son, and you're sure you compared the right samples?" The last thing they needed was a mix up.

"Positive," Churlish affirmed.

"I mean, there are other possible explanations, but we definitely need clarification on that…"

Marcus's wife could have had an affair. There were other explanations, but this felt significant. "Run Lucas' picture through NCMEC. Make sure to include age progression filters." She shook her head in disbelief, "Good work Churlish."

"Thanks Cap." She smiled to herself.

Olivia thought for a moment before asking, "We ran Marcus through facial recognition right?"

"Yes. We came up dry." Churlish affirmed.

"Okay. Velasco?" His head popped up to attention. "Run Mr. Moore's DNA profile through all the databases. It's a stretch, but maybe he got hung up on something."

He moved to his desk. "On it Cap. Churlish? Send me that profile."

"Comin' your way," she said. She turned back to Olivia, "I'll let you know if NCMEC turns anything up."

Olivia nodded, "The second you find anything, come find me." This guy's identity came up fishy and his kid isn't biologically his. It didn't take a genius to figure out that something was definitely off.

She headed back to interrogation where Elliot stood, arms folded, completely focused on the men behind the glass.

"Anything interesting?" She asked, not at all hopeful.

"Nothing."

"Not surprising, really ...but," Elliot's focus completely shifted onto her. "Here's a fun surprise." She gestured towards the Moores. "Lucas is not his biological kid. No adoption record…no shared DNA. Nothing."

Elliot's eyes widened. "No way. So is Churlish?"

"Running the kid through NCMEC? Yeah. She's running it now."

Elliot shook his head in disbelief, "I had Jet do a deep dive Marcus."

"Churlish said Jet pulled some odd information?"

"Marcus Moore didn't exist until 10 years ago…"

"Damn," Olivia muttered. "That's definitely something." She knocked on the one way glass. They needed to pull Lucas and change up their line of questioning. Marcus may have had a story prepared concerning the events of the camp out, but there was no way he was prepared for this.

Fin approached the pair. "What's goin' on?"

"Turns out," Olivia still couldn't believe this weird turn of events, "Marcus isn't that boy's biological father."

"Nah. Seriously?" Fin was floored.

"Let's pull Lucas. His "dad" has some questions he needs to answer."

"Got it, Cap." He opened the door and his eyes met Liv's. She knew he was thinking the same thing as she was. This case just kept getting stranger and stranger. God only knew where this development might lead. One thing was sure, this was bigger than two kids lost in the woods.