At the hospital, we found Kat waiting outside the woman’s room. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Terry asked me to come." "Terry?" "The woman in there. They're doing some tests, so they asked me to wait out here. They won't let you all go into question her." "I’ll stay here," I volunteered. I could keep an eye on Kat that way. "What can you tell us about Ms. Terry?" Harris asked. "It will save time with her to make things easier for her." Kat nodded. "She's a friend. Her husband was the one to report her missing. She's been gone for a few weeks." "Why weren't we notified?" Harris asked. Kat shrugged. "I'm not a cop. If I had to guess, it's because she doesn't live in this town." The nurse came out. "Two of you can go in. We don't want her to overdo it." "Roy and I will go. One federal and local," Harris decided. "Oh good." Kat rolled her eyes. "The sourpuss and the grouch." Roy grinned. "She puts up with you. She can handle us." Kat raised an eyebrow, but Roy slipped into the room before she could say anything. Harris followed. Brandt excused himself to find coffee and I watched Kat watch him go. "Things not working out with Morisis?" I asked. She looked at me in surprise. "There's a waiting room this way." I followed. "Problems with Morisis?" I asked again. "I thought you two were doing well." "Morisis, Jonan, is good but…" "But what?" "He wants to meet." "That's usually how it goes." "He said that before." "No, that was Cobra," I reminded her. "I know, but that doesn't help. I'm afraid to meet him and he thinks I don't trust him." "Did you tell him why?" "Yes. I don't think he'll do anything, once bitten…" "Funny, you strike me as the type that likes biting." She backhanded me in the arm. "You know I'm a knight, right?" I asked. She rolled her eyes. "Who doesn't?" "So you know I'm sworn to protect Oberon’s subjects." "Yeah, but I'm Unseelie." "Oberon still considers Unseelie as his subjects. He was king of all elves. He let Tatiana leave to give her space, so they could cool down work things out." "That worked well." Kat snorted. "True, but he still kept phantasms and her domain to the intended constructs." "He did? I thought she did that." "She did some. He helped. He didn't want her hurt. Nor does he want his subjects hurt. I'm part of that protection. Agree to meet with Morisis. I’ll keep an eye on you." Kat raised an eyebrow. "You would?" "Sure. Text him now so you can find a time that works for all of us." She nodded and made the arrangements. They planned to meet at a local bakery for lunch. I'd already be there at another table. "Does he know you're not human?" I asked. “Or me?" "No. One step at a time." "Then I'll use a glamour." "Thanks." I pulled a candy bar from my pocket. "Want one?" "No." I ate it and another. "You okay?" "Rough morning trying to find what happened to Terry." "You over-exerted yourself again?" I nodded. "To the point of vomiting." "Ouch. I haven't done that in years." "I had been good for a long time, but these cases are tough." "Why do it?" "When I was a knight, I felt like I was home. It fit me more than being a vintner. Since our people disappeared, I’ve felt lost. I've enlisted a few times during the wars, and that's helped. But I've been afraid to keep that up and risk being found. Now, I'm afraid of what they'd do to me. Acting as a consultant for the police helps. Humans are my people too, now." "That's so Seelie of you." "What about you? You’re a killer. What you do to help?" "I beta-test first-person shooters." "From home, that's why you're always in chat." I guessed. "If I can work from home, I don't need a constant glamour." "That's cool. I can relate." Kat snorted. "A cap and glasses and you can hide without a glamour." "Makeup doesn’t help?" "No. It looks fake." "People freak out because I'm so pale. They think I'm sick. I had a job as a personal assistant to a blind man so I could have a break. But his kids would come to visit without calling first. I was almost caught a few times." "That could be a problem." "It turned out my boss knew I wasn't human and had figured it out early on. He played along for over a year. He gave it away when he heard his daughter come in and I didn't." "I was a caregiver for an old lady once. I didn't worry about using glamour. Her family didn't believe anything she said because they thought she was senile. She just got confused sometimes. Her family was jerks to her." "And you allowed that?" Kat's smile made me shiver. Brandt found us then. "Terry wants to talk with you two." "I kept entertained." Kat stood and hiked up her pants. I raised an eyebrow. "They’re not my pants. I was in the middle of something when the hospital called." "And you're still worried about Morisis?" I followed her. "I was helping a friend clean and spilled something on my pants. My friend was washing them." "Where's Terry's husband?" "On his way home. His boss had been nice and let him have time off, but he needed him for a trip to meet a new client. He's on a flight home now." "Any kids?" "With a friend." Kat hugged Terry and introduced me. "You helped with those other cases," Terry said to me. "You tracked that missing girl. You need to track these kids." "Kids? Robin and Julie?" "I don't know. He called them Lisa and Joe. He wouldn't let them say otherwise. He called me Marissa." "Who’s that?" "I have no idea." I showed her the pictures of the kids and she agreed that was them. "Did he have to burn on his face?" I asked. "Yes, how did you know?" "Did he look like this?" I showed her my copy of the sketch I had made. "Yeah. Where did you get that?" "A friend of Julie's saw him and was able to help me create the image." "Got a pencil?" I pulled one from my bag. She glanced at it. "Nice choice." She started to fill in where the burn was. "You’re an artist too?" She nodded. "I do backgrounds for games. I work for the same company as Kat." "Are you part of the chat group too?" Terry shook her head. "I've got two kids and a husband that travels. I don't have time. Do you know Kat from there?" "This is Whiteknight that I mentioned," Kat said. "A knight is what those kids need, not those two bozos. I thought good cop, bad cop meant a nice one and a nasty one, not a quiet one and an idiot." "I'll talk to them," I promised. "And I am helping to look for the kids too. What can you tell us?" "He's crazy. Like I said, he kept insisting I was Marissa. If I tried to correct him, he'd get angry and lock me in the basement. He said I wasn’t well. He's one to talk. He said I'd been sick and would get confused. He said the same thing to the children. I convinced him not to put them in the basement that I'd put them to bed instead, that it would be healthier for sick kids. As I did, I did tell the kids to play along, that he wouldn't hurt us if we did what he said and we’d find a way to escape. "Then he noticed I was getting dark roots. He got angry, saying I wasn’t a Marissa. I was an imposter trying to steal her life. He beat me and drugged me. The next thing I knew, I was here." "You don't remember being at the forest preserve?" Kat asked. Terry shook her head. "What about how you got where you were?" "No. My husband had taken the kids out for the day. I was behind in my work and needed some quiet time. I work better in an empty house than in a busy office. I went out for a quick lunch and saw the exact scene I needed so I pulled out my phone to take a picture of it so I could draw it later. That's the last I remember." "Where was this?" "The Park Time Mall." "Do you think the recreation spell would help?" Kat asked me. "After all this time, in a mall? I’d see more in a kaleidoscope." "Do you have any idea of what town you were in?" I asked. "No. I tried to see the mail, but he hid it from me, and he wouldn't let us outside. I know the house faced west." "Thanksgiving was last week. Did you celebrate it?" Kat asked. "We did, if you could call it that." "What about Christmas decorations? Did you decorate at all?" I understood Kat’s line of questioning. Decorations would help us recognize the house. "A little. There was a tree and he put a couple of strings of white lights outside." "You couldn’t go out, but could you see out a window?" I asked. "Some." "Were there neighbors? Did they decorate? Did anything stand out? Unique decorations or house that overdid it?" "One house left them on all night. They had all blue lights. And I don't know how far it was, but I could see a huge evergreen that had been decorated." "Possibly a City Hall or church," Kat guessed. "No. It was a family home. He complained they were showing off." She drew on the back of the sketch. "This is what the star looks like." It wasn't your average tree topper but a large three-dimensional construct that would look like a six-pointed star from many angles, likely custom-made. "This will help," I said. "Sean, you need to find those kids. With me gone, they're likely to stop cooperating. He hadn’t hurt them yet, but he's crazy. Who knows what he'll do?" "We’re working on it." I moved to pat her hand. "Don't heal her," Kat warned me in Elvish. "The hospital staff wants things consistent." "I won't. I was just checking her." I switched back to English. "You should probably rest," I told Terry. She nodded. Kat said she'd sit with her. I went to find the others in the waiting room and reported what happened.