While Mike and Danny, along with the FBI, were still actively pursuing each and every lead, the investigation into the Masquerade Group had cooled. One by one they were working through each of Chester Ford's past employers, trying to find something that would lead them to his current whereabouts or give them any clue as to his involvement with the Group. Danny was just grateful that they had not struck again in the weeks that had passed.

Unlike their search for the men responsible for Mary's abduction, Danny and Mary's quest for a normal life together seemed to be moving full speed ahead. Danny's condo had sold fairly quickly and he and Mary had been looking for a house for the past month. They'd looked at over twenty houses, but everything they found was either too big, too small, too expensive or needed too much work. Mary had grown increasingly disheartened after each meeting with the realtor, but tonight Danny was on a mission.

While Mary slept peacefully in the next room, Danny rummaged through the neatly organized folders which contained printouts of all the houses Mary had come across in her internet searches. Grabbing the folder that contained the houses they'd already seen he pulled out the papers and made himself comfortable on the couch. One by one he reviewed each of the homes—paying special attention to the various notes Mary had made on each page. He agreed with all of her assessments, but his interest was peaked when he reached the last listing. It was one of the first houses they'd looked at and almost every inch of the page was covered in Mary's handwriting.

She'd made note of everything they liked about the house. Danny smiled when he saw the phrase "golf course frontage" circled multiple times and his name written out to the side. Mary had meticulously scribbled about everything from the Viking appliances in the kitchen to the school district. She'd also highlighted the price and drawn a tiny character face with a sad frown. Now Danny remembered why they hadn't inquired further about the property. It had been one of the homes they looked at before they'd actually sat down and figured out how much house they could afford. The price tag was quite a bit above what they could afford on their current salaries.

Danny stared at the paper. It was obvious that Mary loved this house and had spent a considerable amount of time looking at the printout. Danny had loved the house too, but he'd forgotten about it since he'd left the bulk of the decision to Mary. They'd yet to find anything else that compared to this property and if the price was the only thing keeping Mary from being happy then Danny was determined to do something about it.

He quickly picked up the phone and dialed a now familiar number hoping that she was still awake. "Hey, Karen. Can you check on a house for me--MLS#562899. Is it still on the market?"

"Danny, it's 10 o'clock at night and you want me to check a listing?"

"Yeah, if it's still on the market I want to put in an offer." That got the real estate agent's attention and he heard her busily entering numbers on her keyboard.

"Oh, I remember this one. It was out of your price range…and apparently it was out of a lot of people's price range. They've re-listed it at a lower price, but it's still higher than what you and Mary were looking for."

"That's okay. Get the paperwork ready and I'll call you in the morning. Oh, and don't tell Mary anything. I want it to be a surprise."

"You got it, Danny."

Danny quickly disconnected the call and scrolled through the numbers on his cell phone until he found the next one he needed. An irritated voice picked up on the third ring.

"Yeah?"

"Hey, Stan. It's Danny McCoy. I need you to crunch some numbers for me."

---
The next night Mary waited patiently outside Mystique for Danny to finish his shift. He had been busy all day and she'd barely seen him since he'd rushed out of the apartment this morning. Mary finally saw him coming down the stairs into the lobby and her face lit up.

"Hey, beautiful," Danny said as he leaned down to kiss her hello—his hand coming to rest on the growing swell of her stomach.

"Hi," Mary responded before she let Danny lead her through the casino towards the main exit. "So, are you going to tell me what this big surprise is?"

"Nope, you'll just have to wait and see." Danny gave her another quick kiss as he took his keys from the kid at the valet and helped Mary into the passenger seat.

Twenty minutes later, he was helping a now-blindfolded Mary carefully step out of the car and guiding her up a cobblestone drive until he thought she was in the perfect position to view her surprise.

"Are you ready?"

"YES! Just get this stupid thing off of me," Mary sounded exasperated, but Danny could still hear the amusement in her tone.

As soon as he removed the scarf around her head, Mary had to shade her eyes from the bright Las Vegas sun which was just setting in the western sky. It took her a moment to adjust to the light, but once she did Mary still thought she must be seeing things.

"What are we doing here?"

Danny couldn't contain his excitement as he ran back to the car and produced a small metal placard with the word SOLD printed neatly in bold letters. Sliding it effortlessly into the groove at the top of the "For Sale" sign, he turned back to Mary—his face beaming. "This was the one you liked, right? 'Cause I already signed the contract—we close next week."

"Danny, what… how?" Mary stuttered, "Danny, this house was too expensive."

"I talked to Stan and we figured it all out. I sold some of the stocks my dad had so we could put more money down and get the payment where we needed it to be."

"Danny, you shouldn't have done that," Mary was still flabbergasted and she couldn't seem to take her eyes off the front of the house.

"Why not?"

"Because that's your money," she argued incredulously, thinking it was the most obvious reason in the world.

"Mary," Danny stepped forward and took both her hands in his. "Everything I have is yours too. We weren't ever going to find anything else because this is supposed to be our house. I know you felt it when we looked at it the first time."

Mary nodded her head as her eyes filled with tears. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely. Besides, McCoy Construction is doing well and we've still got the money from the sale of my dad's house. We're going to be just fine."

"So," he said, holding up a set of keys, "you want to check it out again."

"How did you get the keys already?"

"I have my ways," Danny responded slyly as he pulled Mary by the hand towards the front door. She waited for him to unlock the house, nervously wringing her hands with excitement. Just when she thought they were ready to head inside, Danny stopped her.

"What's wrong?" she asked, confused.

"Nothing, I just…before we go inside I want to ask you something."

She could tell that whatever Danny wanted to say was very important to him so she nodded her head indicating he should go on.

"I love you…you know that. And we're getting ready to start this whole new life together and I've never been happier. But there's something else I need to make the rest of our lives complete." Danny reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the tiny velvet box Mary had seen all those weeks ago. She'd been patiently waiting for him to ask and with each passing day her fear that perhaps Danny was uncertain had grown.

"I need you to be my wife."

"Oh, Danny…," Mary's eyes sparkled with unshed tears as she watched him open the box and lower himself to one knee.

"I've been waiting for the perfect moment to ask you this, but it just occurred to me that our lives are just a neverending stream of perfect moments, so…Mary Elizabeth Connell, will you marry me?"

Mary let her hand rest on the side of Danny's face before bending to take him by the elbow and pull him to his feet. She leaned up to place a soft, tender kiss to his lips before pulling back and meeting his questioning gaze, "I thought you'd never ask."

Danny smiled, carefully slipping the ring onto her finger before scooping her up and crossing the threshold into their new home.

---

"Hey, Mike," Mitch called across the security room. "There's a Dawson Reser with Software Solutions on the phone for you."

"Thanks, man," Mike jogged to his desk and picked up the phone.

"Mr. Reser. Thank you so much for returning my call."

"No problem, Mr. Cannon. I figured when you said it involved Chester that it was serious. What's he done now?"

"What makes you think he's done something?"

"Because he was nothing but a trouble maker from day one—brilliant programmer, but totally out of his mind."

"I can't go into a lot of detail, Mr. Reser, but we have reason to believe he authored a virus that was used to infect the computers here at the Montecito. Do you have any idea how we can get in contact with Mr. Ford?"

"No, I haven't heard from him since I fired him two years ago."

"If you don't mind me asking, what kind of trouble was he into?"

"Mainly, he used company resources to create his own software—a type of hacking software that is highly illegal. We also found out he was using client servers for unauthorized storage. Those two things combined with the inordinate amount of time he spent playing online games…"

"Wait, what? What kind of games?"

"He was involved in some sort of role playing game. You know, people all over the world link up and can play against each other. When we started monitoring his usage we found that he was spending hours online involved in this game."

On a hunch, Mike asked, "Do you have any idea what game it was?"

"Not off the top of my head…hold on…I pulled his file when I got your message so let me take a look." There was silence for several moments as Mike waited for Mr. Reser to thumb through Chester's personnel file.

"Here it is. The game was called Masquerade… some sort of role playing game."

Mike was struck speechless. Could it be that easy?

"Mr. Cannon? Are you still there?"

"Yeah," Mike whispered. "Is there anyway you can send me all the information you have regarding his online activities during the time he worked for you."

"I usually don't give out information in personnel files, Mr. Cannon…"

Mike opened his mouth to argue, but luckily he didn't have to.

"Look…I can't stand this guy. He was an arrogant punk who thought that rules didn't apply to him. I probably should have notified the FBI when I figured out what he was up to, but we were right in the middle of a major project and I didn't want to risk them shutting me down to investigate. If this will help you get him for whatever he's done now then it's all yours."

Mike breathed a sigh of relief and sent a silent prayer that this was the break they needed to catch these guys and stop them for good.