A/N: If you googled 'California Highway Patrol unicorn' and read the article, you'll see that I've pretty much exhausted the original prompt. I had too much fun it to let go, though, so I turned it over to the plot bunnies to see what they came up with. This is the result.

Monday afternoon:

"Where was the party?" Steve asked, pulling up a map of Oahu on the screen. "That might help us narrow down the horse's location."

"Manoa Valley, but let me do that while you call the FBI," Danny offered. "You have more weight to throw around with the feds than a lowly Jersey cop."

Steve acquiesced with a shrug, figuring he'd gotten the easier assignment.

Ten minutes later, Steve wasn't so sure it was the easier assignment.

Twenty minutes later, he was quite sure he'd picked the tougher of the two items.

Forty minutes later, he gave up and emerged from the office with one hand on his hip and the other raking his hair.

"Well?" Danny asked as he bounced impatiently on his heels. "Took you long enough. I've got coordinates for the party and a well-defined search area for the horse. How'd you do on your end?"

Steve shook his head and huffed in frustration. "I'll tell you, Danny, something about this case isn't adding up."

"How so?"

"The FBI field office says they haven't conducted any raids in the past week, especially not at a little girl's birthday party. And they've never heard of a Mr. Ma."

"Okay…" Horse momentarily forgotten, Danny approached the smart table and started throwing out ideas. "What are we looking at, then? Some kind of high-end K&R? The perps dress as FBI, take the guy…"

"But there's been no ransom call," Steve pointed out. "The family is under the impression that he's been arrested, but HPD has no reports filed and…" Steve brushed a thumb over his eyebrow as he tried to digest the next piece of information he'd been given, "my contact at the FBI ran Ma's name. The search turned up nothing in their databases, but a wider search netted a hit on a classified file from a JSOC database."

"What are you getting at?"

Steve hesitated. This was a whole new can of worms and he wasn't sure he liked where it was headed. "I smell CIA or NSA. This has their sneaky signature written all over it. After Doris… well…" Steve stopped.

"You think your mother is involved?"

"No. I don't think so. But who knows," he shrugged, "this is Doris we're talking about."

Seeing his partner becoming agitated, Danny held a hand up. "Stop. Just stop and think for a second, babe. We can't field balls that aren't in our court. If Doris is involved, fine. We'll find out sooner or later and deal with that situation when it comes."

"Danny, I can't just ignore-"

"We can, however," Danny continued, "do something about Ma's family and that horse. Let's focus our efforts there." Danny felt Steve gradually relax until the ex-SEAL finally heaved a sighed and tore himself away from the computer screen. "Okay, big guy?"

"Yeah. Yeah, okay." He gave a curt nod as he accepted the decision. "You're right, Danno."

Danny grinned. "I'm sorry, did you just say that I'm right?"

"Don't get used to it."

…

It turned out that while S had been on the phone with the FBI, Danny had come up with a solid plan of attack involving more than just a plan to find the horse. Once in the car, Danny laid out the steps of the mission, beginning with an interview of the wife and daughter of Mr. Ma. His original purpose was to narrow the search area and get an idea for which direction the horse had taken, but now the interview held extra significance.

Fifteen minutes later, the Camaro pulled up to a bright house on Tantalus ridge overlooking Manoa valley.

"Nice place," Danny commented as they surveyed the property from the truck. It was expansive by local standards- nearly half an acre of green grass and elegant eucalyptus trees surrounded the traditional, white home, which was hidden from the road by a white fence bordered with red hibiscus. "What does Mr. Ma do again?"

"Computer technician. Supposedly." Steve was beginning to doubt the alleged profession, but he would let it stand for now until he could learn more. Leading the way along the volcanic flagstone path, he rang the doorbell.

The door opened a fraction of an inch and a short, Chinese-looking woman peeked out.

"Mrs. Ma?" Steve lifted his badge to the door. "I'm Commander McGarrett, I'm with Five-0. This is my partner, Detective Williams. Can we talk to you for a minute?"

The woman opened the door a few inches more but made no move to invite them in. "The FBI told me to not talk to anyone."

Steve raised an eyebrow at Danny.

"This isn't about your husband's case," Danny quickly interjected. "This is about the 'unicorn' at your daughter's birthday party. We've been asked to find it. That's all."

"Oh."

As the woman hesitated, Danny pressed his advantage. "We think you or your daughter might be able to help use locate it. Were you at the party, too?"

Mrs. Ma shook her head. "No, I was here all morning. Mai said she wanted Szechuan- real Szechuan- so I stayed home to cook." She opened the door wide and finally gestured for them to enter. "I'll get her. She's just upstairs."

Once she was gone, Danny leaned toward Steve. "How do we do this without spooking her?" he whispered. "Whoever these 'FBI' agents are, they've got her scared."

"You handle the girl- you're good at that. I'll poke around, see what I can find," Steve returned.

"Yeah, well don't break anything," Danny huffed. "You are good at that."

…

A few minutes later, a petite girl with dark hair and rich, brown eyes descended the stairs. From the slight puffiness and damp lashes, Danny guessed that she had been crying and immediately felt a protective sympathy toward the girl. "Hi Mai," he said, smiling as he crouched down, "I'm Detective Williams, but you can call me Danny. My partner and I are looking for a missing unicorn. We heard you might be able to help us."

Mai looked uncertainly behind Danny. Danny stole a glance at Steve who, although he had tried to back up and stay out of the way, still clearly towered over everyone else in the room.

Seeing this, Danny gestured toward the living room. "Why don't we sit down, and you can tell me all about your birthday party and this unicorn you got to ride. Do you think you can help us find it?"

Mai nodded hesitantly and allowed her mother to guide her into the sunny living room and climbed onto the couch by the open window. Danny quietly shoed Steve away, gesturing for him to remain out of sight while he and Mai talked. After making sure that his partner understood, Danny settled himself onto the opposite seat and smiled at the little girl.

"So you turned eight yesterday?" he asked.

Mai nodded.

"Do you like unicorns?"

Mai nodded again.

"How many unicorns were at your party?"

Mai thought for a second and then held up five fingers on one hand and one finger on the other. For a moment, Danny worried that she was one of those very quiet children who wouldn't speak. After the traumatic events of yesterday afternoon, he was impressed with the fact that she was communicating with him at all.

But Mai surprised him by adding, "But they aren't really unicorns."

"Oh really?" Danny couldn't help a smile as he remembered Grace at this age. So serious, wanting so desperately to be a 'mature adult,' as Grace had put it. "So what are they?" he asked.

"Well," she stated solemnly, "they're just horses that are dressed up like unicorns. Real unicorns don't exist, but it's still fun to pretend." She tapped her bare feet together and looked expectantly up at her mother. "You won't tell Daddy, right? He thinks I still believe they're real. I don't want to hurt his feelings."

Danny gave Mai a wink. "Your secret is safe with me." His partner had disappeared from the room, which meant he needed to keep the conversation rolling and the mother distracted. He pulled out a notebook. "So, Mai: can you tell me who was at this princess party of yours? Who did you invite?" As he spoke, he glanced up at the mother, indicating with a nod that she would be needed to fill in the blanks.

"Uh, Emma and Ella and Macey and Lily and Anna and Reagan, but that's just because I had to cause she's our neighbor, and Tracy and Yang and… I think that's it. Oh, and Jordy. But her full name is Jordan."

Danny glanced up from his list at Mrs. Ma, who smiled. "I can get you a list of last names, Detective."

"Great, thanks." Danny moved on to the next question in his notes. "Okay, Mai, can you tell me what happened with the horse?"

"Uh-huh. It was before we had birthday cake because Mommy didn't want us to get upset stomach from riding cause it's bouncy." Mai began to tap her feet together again. "Some people had to wait turns, but because I'm the birthday girl, I could go as much as I wanted and I didn't have to wait turns. I rode the big, brown horse first, I think his name was Dodson, but then I wanted to ride the pretty white one. It's called a Quarter Horse. The guy said she was called Lilith, but I called her Lilly"

"Where were you riding?" Danny interrupted. "At a stable? A ring? A field?"

"A big field with a fence around it. I was on my second ride when all these big trucks pulled up and a bunch of guys in black clothes jumped out. A bunch of the girls started screaming cause they were scared and their horses started running everywhere. Daddy was on the horse next to me cause I wanted him to ride with me, but he made me get off my horse so I wouldn't get hurt. I think my horse was scared because Macey, who was riding beside me, started crying, and she cries really loud. She's only seven and seven-year-olds are super loud criers."

Danny tried not to smile. "So what happened next?"

"The guys in the black clothes came to Daddy and asked him some questions. My horse was running away from Macey, so I tried to stay with Daddy, but they handcuffed him and took him away and put him in one of the trucks. Then one guy told me I had to go find my mommy, but Mommy wasn't there." At this, Mrs. Ma curled an arm protectively around her daughter's shoulder.

Danny nodded as he tried to condense the girl's long-winded explanation into Cliff Notes on the paper. "What happened to the other horses?"

"The horse wranglers got them. Or most of them, I guess. Some were out of the fence and running for the street, and they were chasing them."

After several more questions, Danny decided that he had exhausted all of the information that the 8-year-old had available. His few cautious inquiries about her father's arrest had been neatly redirected by Mai's mother, sparing- or preventing- the little girl from answering. Standing, he thanked Mai and accepted a small piece of paper from Mrs. Ma containing the full names and contact information for the attendees. Tucking it into his pocket, he nodded to Steve who had reappeared in the back of the room. As they left the house, Danny passed Mrs. Ma his card. "Please call if Mai can think of anything else," he said, then waved goodbye to the little girl with a smile.

Once they were safely back in the car, he turned to Steve. "Well?"

Steve shook his head in annoyance. "Nothing," he said as he took his frustrations out on the steering wheel, taking the next turn harder than necessary. "Normal house, normal decorations, normal family photos…"

"Whatever he was arrested for, maybe it's not at the house?" Danny suggested as he braced himself automatically in the seat for the steep, curvy drive down to the city.

"Maybe."

They drove down the ridge in silence. Danny took the opportunity of their elevation on the ridge to enjoy the view of the sun setting behind the skyscrapers of downtown Honolulu, a sight that he never ceased to enjoy. New Jersey sunsets were all fine and well, but a Hawaiian sunset was a whole other beast. Once they were back in the concrete jungle of downtown, he sighed. "Okay, what now?"

"You follow up with the horse rental company," Steve ordered. "See who was working that day, get their statements, figure out who saw the horse last and where it was headed."

"And what will you be doing?"

Steve grimaced. "I'm going to look into Mr. Ma. Did you notice he took his wife's last name?"

"Really?" Danny hadn't noticed at all. "How do you know?"

"Ma is a Chinese last name. From the photographs, Daniel Ma is white."

"So what do you figure? Maybe he was running from his past, and his past finally caught up with him?"

Steve thought back to the hit in the JSOC database that his brief initial search had netted. "I'm thinking there's more to this guy's background than meets the eye."

Danny nodded. "You're probably right but, since this isn't a high-profile murder investigation, do you mind if we call it a night? I don't feel like working overtime to find a missing horse. Plus, Amber called and-"

"Say no more," Steve grinned.

…

It was late when Steve finally finished sifting through the information gleaned from multiple database searches and a few favors pulled with his old Navy connections. Mr. Ma was not Mr. Daniel Ma at all, but Russian-born Daniil Krupin, a Cold War defector who had settled in Hawaii in the 1980's. Beyond that, information was scarce or classified- Steve found a host of documents that he had no access to at the moment- so he turned to the princess party company, hoping for a lead on the runaway horse.

Instead of finding the missing animal, however, his search of the company and its employees turned up an alarming number of past arrests for drug-related charges, and Steve began to suspect that the company might be a front for other 'parties' that were not princess-themed at all. He printed off some of the information to show Danny the next morning.

Finally, he pulled up a map of Oahu, focusing on the Manoa Valley area, and began to plot his own search grid for Lilith the horse. Danny had done the same task earlier, of course, but Steve knew the area well and thought he might have a better idea of where the creature was headed. It was a dull chore, but they had, after all, been originally tasked with finding the unicorn, and until the evidence directed them elsewhere, they were obligated to make the search their first priority. The fact that the unicorn had led them to a Soviet ex-spy and a possible drug ring was just a happy coincidence.

Long after Danny had gone home, Steve finally shut down the computers and locked up the office. Perhaps it was because the parking lot was dark and empty, or perhaps he was just exhausted, but Steve failed to notice that anything was wrong until he slid into the front seat of his truck and started the engine. He had just buckled his seatbelt when something hard and cold burrowed into his side.

Steve froze.

"Evening, Commander," came a quiet voice from the back seat. "Place your hands on the steering wheel where I can see them. We're going to have a little chat."