- A cheating couple run off together, and disappear into thin air leaving the jilted older wife, who used to date Captain Ross, to try and pick up the pieces. Soon, the deserted wife becomes a suspect.
- Young lovers Woody Sage and Avery Hubert, both married to spouses twice their age, run away together and vanish mysteriously before reaching their destination. Kathy Jarrow Sage, a former police detective and old flame of Captain Ross, reports her husband's disappearance and asks Major Case to help locate him. Detectives Goren's and Eames' first impression is a carjacking gone bad, but they soon figure out that he was not only alone, but the carjacking might just be a cover to buy time. When Avery's parents, who were expecting her and Woody, report them missing, Goren and Eames investigate the possibility that, even though the two left together under their own steam, they may have met with foul-play. Avery's violent husband, Roy, looks good for the crime, but looks can be deceiving.—Lynne Boris Johnston
- A young couple goes at it in a utility closet. He promises her it's going to be like this from now on. So, sex only in utility closets? He preps for something, gathering money and clothes.
Another man punches out a mirror. (But it's Eric Roberts, so that could be mean anything.)
The young couple are in a car, he presents her with their new identities on passports. Then he, Woody, takes all her jewelry and leaves her in the car in a bad part of town. He changes their license plate.
The young man's wife calls him at 2 a.m., wondering where he is. Later that night, the woman, a true crime writer, Kathy Jarrow, is thanked at a gala for her $2 million donation to the New York police academy. Captain Ross claps for her on the dais. She stops mid-speech after looking at her cell phone. She collapses, telling Ross she can't find her husband.
Back at the office, Goren and Eames are called in to work Kathy's case. Goren's not thrilled that they're being asked to work a case for a friend of Ross'. She was a cop before she became a crime writer. She says her much younger 23-year-old husband Woody is a personal trailer. She says he was driving his second anniversary present, a 2008 Range Rover. They say they're going to track its GPS. There have been some car jackings around town. Geames leave and Captain Ross and Kathy have a wordless "memories"-type moment.
Geames check the GPS route. He went to the Bronx. "Bonfire of the Vanities" territory, Ross calls it. Because he's literate like that.
The GPS tracker went off in a worse part of town. They head there to check it out. There are signs of a car chop shop everywhere. Goren finds Woody's license plate in gravel by the river. They decide to track his stops backward.
A convenience store owner doesn't remember him until they threaten him with health code violation for having a cat. He says he saw the guy get out and leave a woman in the car. She honked the horn until he came back. No one else was in the car.
Goren thinks Woody ran off with his other woman and a car jacking is a cover story. Eames says they should confirm that before they tell the captain.
They visit Woody's gym. They ask about his wife. The woman at the gym mentions Avery, who lives with her husband Roy. She says Roy doesn't have a clue and Woody gives Avery a ride home every night.
Eames gets a text from CSU (because you know they aren't sending one to Goren): the only prints on the plate were Woody's.
At a boat party, Roy (Eric Roberts), seems to be coping fine with his wife's disappearance, picking up young girls, Eric Roberts-style.
At her house, Kathy finds their $5,000 in emergency cash is missing. Ross keeps her company. She tries not to feel dumb. She says she was trying to get pregnant.
She tells Ross to tell his detective's she's sorry. "I always get it wrong, don't I Danny? Chase the bad ones and let the good ones get away," she says, in case you doubted they had history.
Ross tries to call Geames off the case, but they're starting to get suspicious. ATM footage of Avery making a withdrawal shows her freaked out. Her parents say she hasn't arrived in Maine where she was expected.
They visit Roy. He says Avery's visiting her parents. He knows about her affair. He's unconcerned that he hasn't heard from her. Goren accuses Roy of having done something to his wife. He admits he lied, that she ran off with her trainer. There's a message on the machine. Goren notices his cut hand, which he got working his anger issues out on the mirror.
Avery's parents were expecting Woody with her, they'd met him before and thought she was separated from Roy, whose first wife took out a restraining order on him.
They think the faked car jacking wasn't for Kathy's benefit, it was to elude Roy.
Eames chats with Roy, dropping words like "wife beater" and "murder." He offers his alibi: he was busy having an affair. He won't say with whom. Eames tries to push his buttons, laughing at the idea he could convince anyone to sleep with him. He sort of goes after her, giving them reason to hold him.
Avery's parents in Maine hold a press conference, begging Roy to tell them where she is. Ross watches with Kathy. She wants to know how the investigation is going. He won't say much.
A real classy broad (with belly showing and big gold jewelry) goes to the station to give Roy his booty alibi. It's the ex who took out the restraining order on him. For further proof, Trina pulls out a sex tape - with a ball game in the background proving the date and time weren't faked.
Roy is released, he meets the press, holding his own camcorder to document the reporters.
Avery's brother gets a message from his sister. He says she and Woody eloped and they're fine.
Cut to Kathy, franticly wiring $10,000 to Guadalajara, seeming to be taking the whole being-cheated-on thing well.
Geames go to Avery's parents house to follow up. They're not sure the text her brother received is real.
They track Avery's cell signal to JFK airport and find the phone and the car. The car's been cleaned, but Goren finds beads from Avery's bracelet - with blood on them - in the car.
They discuss with Ross. They think Woody killed Avery because she was getting cold feet about running away. They wonder where he's been holded up for five days. Goren asks if there's any chance Kathy has a beach house she hasn't told them about and is harboring him. Ross tells him he's out of line.
They wonder if Woody is an alias. Ross says he'll talk to Kathy. Eames suggests they do it.
Kathy tells Geames that his parents died when he was young. They notice there are no pictures of his friends or family in their apartment. Goren tells Kathy that they think Woody is on the run after killing Avery. She says that was the "mistake," that he called her two days ago. He said he'd made a mistake, she thought he meant leaving her. She tells them about the money she wired. The alias he used was his real name. His dad's not dead, he's a grifter.
They track his cell phone from JFK. It stopped in Georgia, then went to Mexico City. Then the signal died. Goren notes that no commercial flights go through Georgia, but a shipping service does. Woody mailed his phone to buy himself two days. He's using Kathy to get away.
Back in her apartment, she hums delusional lullabies and puts together the cradle.
Kathy goes to the office for more questions. They ask her why he would ask her to wire money somewhere he wasn't. She says he was trying to humiliate her. She calls him a sociopath. She presents some info she digged up on Woody the day before. She says she loved him and was blinded to any questions she should have asked.
Goren tells Ross that Kathy has been lying to him. Ross says they go way back. He went to her second wedding, to a judge. Eames says his obits are sketchy. Ross tells them in private that he died with a male prostitute, and they covered it up for her sake. Goren feels compels to note both of her past husbands cheated on her and turned up dead. They exhume the judge.
Doc Rodgers does a tox screen and finds a Viagra-like medicine he shouldn't have been taking because he was on high blood pressure meds. Geames lay out how she would have pulled it off as Ross looks deeply disturbed. Finally, he tells them to look more into her whereabouts the night Woody disappeared.
At the scene where they found Woody's license plate, they meet with Kathy. They tell her they found a body and that Avery had told her parents they were going to get married. Kathy says Woody must have cracked under pressure.
Eames says she has a hard time buying the same guy who planned the car jacking story pulled off the mailing the cellphone trick. One's not nearly as refined as the other.
Ross shows up, saying the directions they gave him were bad. Kathy says she didn't have a problem with bad directions because she used her GPS. Eames says the lot is not on GPS. Kathy sniffs out the trick and goes on the defensive, looking to Ross for help. Goren lays out how she did it as she points out the problems she'd have had. She says they don't have a body. Eames says they do: the judge's.
Kathy turns to Ross, who throws her to his detectives. He tells her to go to hell. Ross walks away. Kathy pleads for his help, saying they had it coming because they humiliated her. Goren calls to Ross, but he doesn't want to hear one word.
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