Tracker Season 3 Episode 14 Recap: Who Took Alex?

By
Rebecca Murray
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Tracker Season 3 Episode 14 Recap
Jon Beavers as James and Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw in ‘Tracker’ season 3 episode 14 (Photo: Colin Bentley © 2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc)

A classroom’s field trip to a Milwaukee museum is interrupted by a siren as CBS’s Tracker season three, episode 14 begins. A teacher, Mr. Brooks, rushes back inside to try and find one of the students. Apparently, he doesn’t find the child since this is Colter’s missing person’s case of the week.

(The following is a recap of season three, episode 14 – “The Field Trip” – and there are spoilers.)

Sara (Elyse Levesque) and James Clark (Jon Beavers) desperately need Colter’s help finding their eight-year-old son Alex, who’s been missing for five hours. There’s a huge police presence at the museum, and Alex’s mom confirms the police initially assumed Alex wandered off. Sara and James believe Alex was taken, and James is angry at the cops for not appearing to be doing enough to help.

Colter (Justin Hartley) introduces himself to Detective Monroe (Luvia Petersen) and she’s willing to accept his help. They’re working on interviewing anyone who might have seen anything, and there aren’t any security cameras in the area where Alex was last seen. Plus, they don’t know who pulled the alarm.

James and Colter retrace Alex’s steps, and the exhibit manager lets Colter and James into a staff area that leads to the loading dock. The door was locked to the area, but if Alex was with a staff person, they would have had access.

Colter scans the loading dock and learns the police didn’t search this area. He spots a cleaning cart, and underneath is a sticker with the school mascot that kids are given during field trips. Colter believes the person who took Alex might be an employee who knows the camera locations and learns Sylvia Sloane was the custodian working that morning. Sylvia left right after the fire alarm, and Randy (Chris Lee) learns she has a few drug charges. More importantly, Sylvia had a psychotic break, and her husband divorced her and got custody of their two boys.

Colter reluctantly agrees to let James tag along on his visit to Sylvia’s place. James is a talker and confesses he’s worried he’s not doing a good enough job raising Alex. They arrive at Sylvia’s place and Colter orders James to stay in the truck. Colter heads around back of the house and, of course, James gets out of the truck just as Sylvia (Brittany Willacy) and a man jog up. James demands to know where Alex is and she has no idea what he’s talking about.

James gets into it with Sylvia’s friend, Mike (Keon Lyn), and punches him in the face. Mike’s a much better fighter and Sylvia tries to pull him off James. Colter helps and gets Mike to back off, and Sylvia orders him to go inside while they clear things up. Colter shows her a photo of Alex, and Sylvia seems stunned that they think she could have taken James’ son. Sylvia claims she was a stay-at-home mom when her husband divorced her and tried to take their kids. She got angry, threw a brick through his window, and lost in court. Now, she’s working hard to make money to fight her ex for their boys.

After everyone calms down, Sylvia says she thinks she saw Alex with his teacher and describes Mr. Brooks perfectly. Mr. Brooks told her they were lost and asked to use the employee exit. She opened the exit and they left.

Tracker Season 3 Episode 14 Recap
Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw in ‘Tracker’ season 3 episode 14 (Photo: Colin Bentley © 2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc)

James apologizes profusely, confused about why Mr. Brooks would have taken Alex. He used to tutor him after school, and James has his address, which isn’t far away. Colter has James hang out there while he heads to Brooks’ place. This time James agrees.

It’s nighttime when Colter arrives at Brooks’ apartment and lets himself in. Lights are on inside and Colter looks around and spots Brooks’ computer. Alex’s mom’s Facebook page is on it, and next to the laptop are drawings Alex made. One is of Alex and Brooks titled My Special Friend.

Colter takes a photo of Alex’s drawing of a house with a yellow door.

Detective Monroe arrives and Colter fills her in on what he’s learned. She interviewed Brooks this morning, and now she has an alert out for his car. Colter believes the alarm went off and since Alex is sensitive to sounds, Brooks told him he could take him somewhere safe. After taking him somewhere, Brooks went back inside and pretended he couldn’t find Alex.

Randy discovers Brooks’ car is parked on Alex’s street. Colter heads there and sees Sara getting ready to leave to pick up James from the hospital. She’s confused about why Brooks’ car would be out front, and Colter asks about another neighbor. Sara describes her neighbor, Noah, as having similar looks to Brooks. He’s been teaching Alex to play chess.

Colter thinks it wasn’t Brooks but Noah who took Alex. The house Alex drew had a yellow door, like Noah’s, and Brooks must have looked through Alex’s art after he disappeared and found the house with the yellow door.

Colter approaches Noah’s place, gun drawn, and notices there’s been a struggle inside. He breaks the glass door and enters, with Sara close behind him. The chess board is turned over, and Brooks’ phone is on the floor. Colter believes Brooks confronted Noah and was injured. Ice cream on the counter and a game indicate Noah was taking care of Alex, so he probably hasn’t hurt him.

Colter and Sara look around upstairs and find a telescope set up looking directly into Alex’s room. Noah got Alex and his parents to trust him and then took Alex. Colter promises he will find him.

Randy checks out Noah and finds he has a sketchy record and was reported for hanging out outside of a preschool. His phone’s off so that doesn’t help, but Colter spots a digital photo frame and Randy hacks into it. There’s a photo of Noah at a cabin and the metadata shows it’s in a local marsh where there’s only one cabin. And that cabin is owned by Noah’s father.

Meanwhile, Noah’s watching cartoons at the cabin with Noah. He wants to call his mom, but Noah claims she’s still at work. Noah warns Alex to stay inside and keep watching cartoons while he steps outside and pulls Brooks from the trunk of his car. Brooks briefly manages to fight him off before Noah hits him with an axe in the stomach.

Alex watches the fight from the porch and runs off into the woods. Noah chases after him with the bloody axe.

Tracker Season 3 Episode 14 Recap
Justin Hartley as Colter Shaw in ‘Tracker’ season 3 episode 14 (Photo: Sergei Bachlakov © 2026 CBS Broadcasting, Inc)

Colter finds Brooks still alive but injured. He gives Brooks his phone and has him call 9-1-1 while he chases after Alex and Noah. Colter hears Noah screaming Alex’s name and follows his voice.

Noah spots Alex hiding behind a tree, and Colter hears whimpering as he approaches. Colter leaps out and knocks down Noah, holding him at gunpoint as he orders Alex to turn away. Colter’s on the verge of shooting him but instead kicks him hard enough to break a few ribs.

Colter assures Noah he’s safe and that his parents are on their way. Detective Monroe and backup arrive along with an ambulance. Colter holds Alex until his parents arrive and the family is finally reunited.

Catching up on Reenie (Fiona Rene), and she’s visiting Kurtis Lauper, a possible witness in Miranda’s case. He refuses to help and seems scared and frustrated about the lawsuit against the huge property group. Reenie won’t take no for an answer, and he finally agrees to talk. Lauper, the former project manager at a housing development, confesses that his breath started getting short when he was moving dirt there. Then he noticed they were using contaminated products instead of approved insulation. He hands over a stack of evidence he’s compiled and confirms he never agreed to take their money, so they made him look crazy. He was even committed by his ex-wife.

Lauper refuses to allow Reenie to take the files. She assures him she’s on his side, he doesn’t need to fight alone anymore, and she will make the company pay.

Reenie meets with Maxine (Kathleen Robertson), who brought her on to the case, and confirms Lauper provided important information that goes beyond just a company cutting corners. There’s a case to be made for wrongful death, witness intimidation, and obstruction of justice. Reenie believes Lauper is telling the truth, and Maxine agrees to trust her gut.

Episode 14 ends with Colter visiting Brooks at the hospital and he’s upset with himself for not calling the police sooner. He went to see Alex’s parents to talk about Alex’s drawings in class and that’s when he saw the yellow door. Colter compliments his instincts and assures him he’s very brave.

James runs into Colter in the hospital hallway and hands over the reward. The family’s doing well, and it’s all thanks to Colter. James apologizes for his behavior and reveals he’s going to spend more time with his son. Colter reminds him he has a second chance with his son, something not many parents get.

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