Author's note: Chapters 1-20 or 21 were written before I saw the Season 3 premiere. Also, I wrote a few chapters of this fic before I found out that there was a desktop in the Eppes home.

I looked at myself in the mirror. My prosthetic eye looked almost like my real one. Charlie had seen to that, insisting on buying it for me. I planned to pay him back. Thankfully, I had just gotten my PI license a few months ago. Again, I checked my clothes, as I was about to meet a client.

Soon, I was out the door. My client, a Mr. Vincent Fullerton, wanted to locate his runaway daughter. It was nice to get a case that didn't involve following some jackass who was getting some on the side. Fullerton was a good friend of a client from my last case, which involved worker's comp fraud. We met at a bar.

"Thank you for coming Mr. Eppes" We shook hands before sitting down. The place was rather dim and had an 'Alaskan gold rush' them to it with moose heads, servers dress like prospectors, and a couple of fake 'saloon girls'.

"Let's get down to business. Here is the note she left." He gave it to me.

The note said

"I've decided to live a new kind of life so I'm going. Don't worry about me."

"The cops had their handwriting expert take a look at it" he explained.

"So it is her writing?"

"yes"

"Did you notice any strange behavior in the days or weeks before her disappearance? Any new friends or boyfriends?"

"No new friends" he shook his head. "But her school work had been slipping."

"I see"

He continued" here is are numbers and addresses of all her friends. They might know something"

"Thank you" I said. "Do you have any pictures?"

"Yeah, here they are" he gave them to me. "I just hope she's okay"

"I'll do the best I can to find her" I told him, not wanting to think about what often happens to runaways.

We talked some more, and agreed to him paying me twenty grand a week, plus expenses. Then, we said our goodbyes. However, I had one more thought.

"Could you tell someone at the school that you've hired me? That way, the teachers will be more willing to talk" I with a sigh realized that I didn't have the badge that could open doors.

"Of course. I'll also alert the parents of her friends"

"Thanks."

Around four, I started to go to the various friend's houses. The first friend's name was Kathy. I knocked on the door.

"Who is it?"

"Don Eppes, Private Investigator. I was hired to find Elizabeth Fullerton"

She opened the door. "Her father called a while back to let me know. He says that you used to be in the F.B.I"

"Yeah I was"

"Come in"

I was lead into a large living room with leather couches, and wooden flooring.

"Kathy is upstairs. Let me go get her" She excused herself. Soon, the two returned.

"I already talked to the cops" she told me. Hmmm

"Mr. Eppes used to be in the F.B.I. He might pick up on something they missed.

Gingerly, she sat down.

"So...how long have you known Elizabeth?"

"Three years."

"Did she seem different before her disappearance?"

"She seemed to care less about school."

"Any complaints about her dad?"

"The usual stuff" she shrugged.

"Any new friends?"

"No" she shook her head. I wished that the mom would go to another part of the house or something, but it looked like she wasn't going to budge. "But she spent less time with me and her other friends"

"I see."

After a bit, I left, and went on to the next friend, Sue. Thankfully, she was home alone, except for a little brother.

"Did she seem different before her disappearance?" I asked.

"She started to care less about everything like school and her friends" she said. We were at the dining room while she separated grapes and cut an apple for the little boy.

"Do you think she maybe had a boyfriend on the sly?" I asked, hoping that without a parent, she'd be willing to admit that. Maybe some jerk had convinced her to leave home.

"It would be possible, I mean, she had her own car." she answered. "You think a boyfriend made her run away?"

"It's been known to happen" I told her.

"You should know...Mr. Fullerton said that you used to be an F.B.I agent. Why did you quit? Sounds like a cool job!"

"I lost an eye in the line of duty"

"Oh...I'm sorry" she served the 'salad' the the boy..

"At least it wasn't both of them" I shrugged it off.

"Good point" she said. "Are you going to interview her other friends?"

"Yeah. I've already talked to Kathy" I then had a thought "Do you know of any chatrooms Elizabeth liked to go to?"

"Not really" then she seemed to be remembering something "She used myspace! I just remembered because I haven't used my in a while"

"Here's my email" I wrote it down for her. "Send me a link of her personal page."

"Will do"

"You could like investigate the 'friends' on her personal site"

"That's the plan" I told her.

I talked to the rest of the friends on the list. None of them hadanything new.

So, I went home, and decided to find out just who Elizabeth was hanging with on myspace .The internet is a great hiding place for perverts.

I got myself an account on myspace, as a young woman named Gigi Mann. My plan was to start talking to her myspace 'friends.'. That list was displayed on her page.

She had about fifty 'friends'. Thirty of them were male. I really wished I could access her account to see who she talked with the most. So, I called her father, and asked to see her room. He agreed and gave me his addressMaybe she had the password written somewhere, or there could be some other useful information.

I knocked on a cherry wood door when I arrived. He soon let me in, and gave me the promised check.Then the man led me to her room.

"Take as long as you need" he said, then left. After some searching, I found a diary. After skimming through it, I found a very important passage.

"Brian is my favorite myspace friend. He's smart, and has a great sense of humor. He's been telling me about this new lifestyle he has adopted. Says that he's been learning a lot from Morlock, his mentor and advisor. "Life is about Power' he tells me. The elements can work in your favor'

'Could this be a cult?" I wondered, but continued to read. Another passage lent an important clue.

"I finally got to meet Brian. He's cuter than his picture. We ata Carl's junior. He told me lots of stuff about Morlock and himself.

With the father's permission, I took the diary home. Then, I checked out Brian's profile, and his 'friends'. After that, I wrote him an introductory note writing what I thought he wanted to read. Then I continued to read the diary. Brian seduced this poor young girl, then got her interested in what appeared to be some cult called 'The Exalted. From the looks of it, it was a local one. Why hadn't I heard of it? I called Megan.

"Reeves?"

"Hey Megan!"

"Hey Don! How is it going?" she asked. Megan still blamed herself for what happened to my eye. I'm still haunted by the look in her eyes when she first saw me with the eye patch. I've tried to tell her that it wasn't her fault. Risk is part of the job. Even a great agent like her can't eliminate it one hundred percent. I remember one time, when I ran into her while following a cheating husband; I could sense the pity in her, David and Colby.

"Fine...I was wondering, have you ever heard of a cult called The Exalted?"

"No...,but I could ask around, and check our databases" she offered.

"Thanks!"

"Is this for a client?"

"I've been hired to find a runaway, and I think she might have joined that cult"

"I see"

After a bit, we both hung up. I checked my email, and it turns out that someone had sent me a private message. Could it be Brian? To my delight it was.

"Hey Gigi! How are ya? You seem like a smart, wonderful girl" the message began. I rolled my eyes. "It's cool how you are open to all things such as auras, spirits, and magical energy. You seem to have great taste in music. I'm sorry to hear that you find your parents to be annoying. Anyway, I gotta get to work. I'll talk to ya soon!

Brian"

In my next message, I wrote:

"Thanks for replying so soon! Where do you work? Is it somewhere cool? I hope so! I'm stuck at Starbucks with an asshole assistant manager. What's also annoying is how complicated people get with their orders. They want only two percent, soy, light on this, light on the other, heavy on that, argg! I want more than this in my life! Well, I gotta go, my mom wants to use the phone"

"How's it going?" Dad asked as he sat down with a cup of tea.

"Well, I found the guy who got her to run away. I'm pretending to be a young woman on a site my client's daughter used to meet people.

"I've heard about cops doing that" Dad nodded.

"I asked him where he works. Hopefully, he'll give me an answer"

"Good Luck!"

The next day, Dad let me use the computer in his office to check for messages because Charlie had taken his laptop to work and we didn't have a desktop at home. Dealing with the loss of my eye had been hard on Him. When he first saw me in the hospital with the patch, his eyes were pained, though he tried to cover it up by making jokes about pirates. Like Megan, Charlie felt guilt as well, as he had been working closely with us on the case.

"You should get yourself a computer." Dad suggested as we both sat around his desk. "You've gotten a few clients and its tax deductible"

"I haven't got time." I told him, as I checked for messages, but there weren't any. Then, I called Megan.

"I checked and the F.B.I hasn't really investigated a cult called the Exalted" she told me.

"Could you call the Juvenile division of the LAPD? Maybe they've dealt with it?"I requested. I'd do it myself, but they corporate more with Megan. God I missed that badge!

"Sure"

"Thanks!"

Soon, we hung up.

Dad asked.

"What did Megan say?"

"The F.B.I has no records or anything on that cult. She agreed to call the juvenile division of the L.A.P.D, though" I said, and again checked for messages. There was a new one from Brian.

TBC