Some nights it felt good to be a vigilante. Some nights you got there before things got bloody, solved the case, and saved lives. Those were the nights that reminded Daniel Dreiberg why he was Night owl. This was not one of those nights. It had been nearly a week since Night owl and Rorschach had started investigating a particularly strange missing child case, and in that time they had barely managed to scrape up anything that even resembled a lead from the bowels of the city's underworld. The missing child in question eight year old girl. Lilly Anderson disappeared in the middle of the night without a trace. There was no sign of breaking and entering, no ransom note, and no valuables were touched. Her mother and father tucked her in that night at around 8:10 pm, and her mother came back to wake her for school at 7:00 am only to find her daughter gone, as if she had vanished into thin air. Taking all of this into consideration one could reasonably assume that Lilly could have run away from home of her own free will. At least that was Daniel's first guess, but upon Mr. and Mrs. Anderson insisted otherwise. Nite owl sighed as he remembered the desperate and tired looks their faces held all throughout the inquisition.
-5 days earlier-
"Listen,...the cops are making her out to be some kind of a runaway, hell you probably think so too, but i'm telling you right now that we know that Lilly didn't just run off" Mr. Anderson paused before continuing. "Lilly couldn't have run away, she didn't even take anything with her. She's a smart girl if she was going to run away she would at least take something with her, besides….." he paused once more and for a second it looked like he wasn't going to be able to continue. he quickly composed himself and went on for the sake of his daughter. "She looked so happy that night" The look in Mr. Anderson's face as he said this was that of pure misery. Mrs anderson must have noticed her husband was at the end of his rope because she cut in immediately. "Why would such a happy little girl, just decide to run off like like that without even taking anything with her? she didn't seem upset at all that night or the day before. she was happier than usual. a-and now are little girl is out there alone and scared, and no one is even treating this kidnapping case!" She looked as though she was on the verge of tears. Night Owl was about to try to console the grieving parents, when his partner spoke up. "will do what we scum who took your daughter." he got up to leave and turned to his partner. "Let's go Night owl." night owl nodded and followed Rorschach out of the house and into the dark streets.
-Present day-
Since then Night owl and Rorschach have visited the usual places, and talked to (beat up) the usual suspects, but its seemed that no matter how many fingers they broke they weren't coming any closer to finding the truth. That night they were accepting Happy Harry's, for the third time (much to harry's continued dismay). "Aargh!" Rorschach punched a nearby brick wall. he was not handling the lack of progress well. "calm down buddy, you can't afford to beat yourself up like this." "Can't afford not to Daniel. child, all alone, might be dead!" "I know Rorschach, but punching a wall isn't going to help. were both doing the best we can. The important thing is to keep a level head and try to work with what we have" Rorschach loosened slightly but was obviously still fuming. Night owl continued. " i've been thinking, it's possible that whoever were looking for doesn't have any ties to the criminal fraternity. He might not even have a criminal record for all we know." Rorschach considered this. Daniel may be right. whoever took Lilly Anderson may not have a record, at all. On the outside he may appear to be a normal even friendly man. He pictured it in his head. He's a good citizen. He gets to work on time and keeps his home kleen. to those around him he seems nice if not a bit shy. he may even do volunteer work around the area. On the outside he is all those things but secretly he's just a pedophile who decided to act on those urges. He saw a girl he liked, in this case Lilly, and planned his attack finally abducting her when the time was right. Daniel and Rorschach looked into each other's eyes, and though they didn't exchange any spoken words they knew they had reached an understanding. Night owl was the first to speak up. "If that's the case were gonna have a hell of a time finding this guy." Rorschach hurm'd in agreement. with a whole new grasp on the type of suspect they would be looking for they hurried down the alley way in which they had been conversing and headed up a ladder in pursuit of the rooftop where archie was being temporarily stored. as they headed towards the trusty owl ship a mysterious figure watched from a distance unnoticed by the two masked vigilantes. he smiled softly as he watched the ship take off. " naughty, naughty" he chuckled and slipped away into the darkness as though he hadn't ever been there at all.