“Frank? Could you come in for a few minutes, please?” Fenton asked his eldest son, who was just walking past the half-open door of Fenton’s study.

“Sure,” the dark-haired teenager replied, stopping in mid-step and pushing the door a little wider.

“Close it, if you would, and sit down.”

Frank closed the door and pulled one of the spare chairs closer to the desk before sitting down in it. This was hardly the first time he’d been in his father’s private study; Fenton usually called his sons in when he had a case to discuss with them. Normally, being in here gave Frank a feeling of anticipation, but now he found himself feeling a little uneasy. The emotion must have been visible on his face, for the first thing his father said was, “Relax, it’s not a mystery.”

“Oh?” Frank tried to squash his relief, but he didn’t think he was all that successful at it.

“Correction; there is something I’ve been called to work on, but it’s extremely high-security work, so I can’t ask you boys to assist this time. But what I wanted to talk with you about is Joe.”

Frank nodded slowly, and his relief evaporated. “Okay.”

“Your mother and I are concerned about him. He hasn’t been himself at all for the last week- not since he got out of the hospital. We realize,” Fenton paused, choosing his words carefully. “We do understand that he went through a traumatic experience, but it’s just not at all like him to be so quiet and withdrawn.”

Frank nodded again, his expression serious. Joe had been completely unlike his usual cheerful, impulsive self these past eight days. He wasn’t exactly moping, but he smiled less than usual and laughed seldom. Frank had never expected a day to come when he’d wish to hear his brother say something smartalecky or make a bad joke, but now he’d give a lot to see the mischievous sparkle return to Joe’s eyes. “Nothing we’ve ever worked on has affected him so much,” he agreed.

“Your mother thinks that it might not be just the experience he had,” Fenton said slowly. “She thinks there might be some other reason for this, this melancholy. I’m not sure whether I agree with her or not, but I guess there is a chance that something may be contributing to it, something he hasn’t confided yet. What we do agree on completely, though, is that a change might be in order.”

“A change of what sort?”

“Well, we had been hoping, and planning, to take a real vacation together, as a family- it’s been quite a while since we’ve done that. We wanted to take a trip to the beach for a week or so. Unfortunately, the bookstore has been so short-handed that your mother can’t get away until next month, and of course now I’ve got this situation to look into.”

“Aunt Gertrude has never really been a beach person,” Frank remarked with a half-smile.

“This is very true,” his father agreed ruefully. “So it would just be the two of you going. We’d rather not wait a month just to have something else come up at the last minute.”

Frank considered that for a moment, then smiled. “It would be nice to all go together, but this sounds good, too.” His smile faded a little. “I just hope we don’t manage our usual trick of landing nose-deep in something weird, ten minutes after our arrival!” He wasn’t sure how he himself felt about the possibility of investigating, but he was very sure that Joe wasn’t up to it right now.

“I’m sure if you concentrate, you can keep your investigative instincts quiet,” Fenton assured him. Then he leaned back in his chair. “There is one thing I’d like to ask you to do, though, Frank. You and Joe have always been able to work well together; you’re much closer than most siblings. If you find that Joe’s willing to confide a bit in you- no, wait now, hear me out,” he said quickly as Frank started to protest. “I’m not going to ask you to betray a confidence, particularly not from your brother. The trust between you is part of what makes you such a good working team. All I’m asking is- IF the opportunity arises- that you remind him that your mother and I would like to... well, to help him, if we can.”

Frank hesitated for a long moment, relieved that his father wasn’t asking him to betray Joe’s confidences, but unsure how to explain that he already knew Joe wasn’t going to confide in Fenton and Laura. No, he decided quickly. It would just have to keep until he got back. “Well, I’ll try,” he answered at last, doubtfully. “If he won’t do it on his own, he’s not likely to at my urging- but I’ll try.”

“That’s all I ask.” Fenton lifted a pen from his desk and turned it over in his fingers several times, looking more ill-at-ease than his son had seen in a long time. “I hope...” Fenton looked at his eldest for a moment, and shook his head. “I hope we haven’t inadvertently done anything to make him feel cut off. Or you, Frank.”

“No,” Frank replied immediately. “No, Dad, nothing like that- at least, not for me, and I don’t think it’s true for Joe, either-”

“It’s times like these that I wish my work had not kept me away home so much.” Fenton spoke so quietly that Frank wasn’t sure he was even supposed to hear the comment. But Fenton went on, in that same, soft, sad voice: “So often I haven’t been around...I suppose it was inevitable that you two would turn to each other. Especially since you started working together. I’m very proud of you both, but I often feel that I’ve missed a great deal of your lives.”

Frank stared at his father. It was true that Fenton was often away from home, true that he could seldom go into detail about his work, certainly true that his family worried when he was gone, but it was necessary. It went with the job. “Dad,” he said at last, hesitantly, “Joe and I have always thought ourselves real lucky- and so have some of our friends. Some of them can’t stand the sight of their parents, and others would do a lot to get something as simple as ‘good job’ out of ‘em.”

There was a strange little silence, but just as Fenton was about to speak, someone tapped on the study door. “Come in.”

The door opened and Joe poked his head in. “Hi, Dad, have- oh, there you are, Frank. I was looking for you, the girls are here.” Joe glanced curiously from his father to his brother.

“We were just discussing a vacation,” Fenton explained. “It was supposed to be a sort of surprise, but unfortunately that didn’t quite work. Talk it over and let your mother and me know if you want to do it, all right?”

“Sure thing,” Frank agreed, rising. “I’ll tell you all about it later,” he added to Joe. “Let’s not keep the ladies waiting.”

Joe looked a little amused as he closed the door. “We’re probably going to have to take a vote about dinner,” he volunteered as they descended the steps. “Callie wants Italian, Iola wants Chinese, and I sorta think I could do both.”

“Either,” Frank corrected him.

“No, both, one after the other. I’m hungry.”

“You sound like Chet. Hmmm...you know, there’s always sushi-”

“Forget it!”

“So what were you and Dad discussing?”

It was nearly eleven p.m. Frank was trying to beat the computer at chess, while Joe was sitting cross-legged on the floor with a sketchpad and a pencil. This was a new hobby he’d taken up lately, although he’d allowed no one to see what he called his ‘doodlings’ so far.

It had been a very pleasant evening; the vote had been taken and the result had, surprisingly, been for Mexican. After dinner the foursome had checked out the Mall theater, but none of the movies currently playing had much appeal, so they had gone to hang out at the food court instead. That was where most of the high-schoolers went when there was nothing more exciting going on, and it was not unusual to run into a good quarter of the school there. Joe had brightened considerably during the evening, but after they had seen Callie and Iola home, he had quieted down again.

“Well, like he said, a vacation,” Frank replied. “To the beach. For a week or so, he said.”

“And?”

“Hm?”

“Come off it, Frank, quit trying to keep me in suspense,” Joe said in disgust.

Frank turned so that he was sitting sideways, grinning down at Joe, and draped an elbow over the back of the chair. “It was supposed to be a surprise, I guess; we all pack up and go one day next week, but it’s not going to work out that way. Dad’s got something top secret to deal with, and Mom’s not going to be able to get away from work for a month.”

Joe frowned. “But then-”

“So if you and I want to go, it’s cool, but it’ll just be us.”

“Oh!” Joe looked surprised for a moment, then smiled. “Yeah, I can’t see Auntie enjoying a trip like that, not if Mom and Dad weren’t there. Besides, I heard her talking on the phone this afternoon about going up to Maine. Where it is cool,” he finished, his smile becoming a grin.

“Myself, I prefer the beach. Fewer mosquitoes, and no bears,” Frank mentioned.

“Yes, but there’s no jellyfish in Maine,” Joe replied, giving a little grimace. Gertrude had never liked the sand and salt water to begin with, but after she had been stung by a jellyfish, she’d vowed that she’d never go near a beach again. “At least, not in the lakes.”

“True. So, interested?”

Joe considered, tapping his pencil against the cover of his sketchpad. Then he looked up at his brother thoughtfully. A frown slowly crossed his face. “Okay, spill it,” he said softly.

“What?”

“Spill it. What’s this really about?”

Frank sat still, once again struck by how acute and accurate his brother’s intuition had become. Then he met Joe’s gaze and shrugged. “It’s something they wanted to do. Now they can’t, but they still want us to-”

“Frank, stop it,” Joe said wearily. “There’s more to this than you’re telling me.”

Frank shrugged again. “It’s about a change of pace, Joe. They wanted to have some family time. Since that won’t work, they want us to get some good out of it.”

“And they want this so badly that they’ll send us now and not wait till they can come along?”

“I mentioned that myself. But you know how many vacations we never got to take at all, just because we tried to wait till everyone could go on ‘em.” Frank debated for a moment, then added, “I don’t say that’s the whole reason- I know they’re worried about you-”

“Ahh. There we are.” Joe looked down at the sketchbook, pencil clenched in his fist.

“Not nearly as worried as they should be, but since you won’t let me tell them anything,” Frank said sharply, and stopped as Joe looked up again, his expression indefinable. “What?”

“What, yourself? What do you mean, not as worried as they should be? Are you still- yeah, of course you are.”

‘These conversations,’ Frank thought grimly, ‘just keep getting more and more surreal. Every time I try to talk to him about how he’s changed-’ “I’m what?” he asked aloud. “If you mean I’ve been deputized to find out what’s bugging you and pass it along, you’re way off base. In fact, Dad made a point of saying, in so many words, that I shouldn’t do that, because it would destroy your trust in me.”

Joe’s grip on the pencil loosened to the point where Frank thought he was going to drop it. “I’m glad you told me that, but that wasn’t what I meant. I meant, you’re still afraid I’m going to drop into some depression or something. Maybe even-” Joe shut his mouth on the word; Frank stared at him, eyes suddenly very wide.

“How- how did you guess that?” There was no point denying it, now that it was out in the open- now that he’d given himself away with that remark about his parent’s worry levels.

“I didn’t guess it, I just...I feel it, Frank. I don’t know how or why, but I feel it. I’m not trying to, it just- it happens sometimes. Sometimes it’s..it’s as if you’d just said it, like right out loud, but mostly it’s just...” Joe shook his head, struggling for words. “I just know,” he finished, frustrated.

“Well...you always have had a strong intuition, but jeez, brother, this is getting a little odd.” More than a little, if he was honest about it, and he wasn’t at all sure ‘odd’ was the word either, but Frank didn’t think this was the time to debate vocabulary.

Joe carefully set the sketchbook aside, got to his feet, and then sat down on the side of Frank’s bed. “You never did tell me how you found me.” His blue-eyed gaze was intense and Frank found himself taken aback once again.

“What does that...?” Frank trailed off, remembering with uncommon clarity the dream, or vision, or whatever it had been.

“It’s important,” Joe urged him.

Frank, baffled, shrugged and replied, “Okay... I’d just come home from the station. Collig told me to get some rest before I tried looking for you, but I couldn’t sleep- I was trying to think where you were. Where I should search. And I was staring out the window...and I...saw you.” Frank frowned. “Sort of. And you said- ‘Find me.’ So I asked where you were, and you told me. And the next thing I knew, I was blinking at the moon and wondering what the heck had happened, but I knew I had to look where you told me.” He looked at Joe, who was still regarding him steadily. “I figured I was dreaming, but-”

“No,” Joe answered, quite matter-of-factly. “Same thing happened to me. I saw you. And then you saw me, and you were very surprised. And you asked me where I was, and for a minute I couldn’t remember. And then I thought, ‘Starmail,’ and tried to tell you, but I was stuttering all over the place-” Joe shrugged. “I’m lucky you made sense of it.”

“What are you saying?” Frank asked, dazed. “We- we heard what the other was thinking?”

“Seems like.” Joe sighed.

“But-”

“I know, it’s impossible, but there’s no other explanation for it, is there?”

Frank struggled with that for a while. There was an air of complete unreality about the whole idea, the entire conversation was totally bizarre. And yet, he was quite plainly sitting in his computer chair, in his own room, talking with his brother about something utterly impossible. It ran contrary to all logic, but there was simply no denying what had happened. Finally, he took a deep breath and asked in his turn, “So why is that so important?”

“Because now I...I hear things sometimes, but mostly I just get- I don’t know how to explain it, just, I can tell how people are feeling, and sort of what they’re thinking about. Not always- it was kind of accidental at first, but now I have to concentrate on it, mostly. But once in a while it happens by itself, mainly when someone’s feeling really- intense about something.”

A chill went down Frank’s back. So this was the reason Joe had withdrawn. He’d been trying to puzzle out this...this weird thought-transference. And it sounded like it wasn’t just a one-time thing, nor something that would occur only when one of them was in desperate danger.

What did it mean, then? Joe could hear people’s thoughts. ‘When he concentrates,’ Frank reminded himself. How much did he hear? How hard did he have to concentrate? Was Frank always going to be wondering if his brother was snooping in his mind, picking up his thoughts and feelings, spying on people, maybe even planting things in their heads without their knowledge?

Then he looked over at Joe...who was watching him with anxious blue eyes. Who very plainly hadn’t ‘heard’ any of Frank’s confused and unkind paranoia. Who knew the value of privacy... and suddenly Frank felt ashamed of himself.

The computer beeped; Frank turned, startled, and realized that he’d run out of time in which to make his move on the chessboard. Default loss; he switched the machine off and turned back to his brother, whose gaze was now on the carpet. “Well,” he began slowly, taking a deep breath, “it’s a sort of a surprise, but I guess it shouldn’t be. We always have kidded about reading each other’s minds, and half the time I know what you’re thinking without either of us saying anything. Vice versa, too. We’ve probably been doing this all along, but just haven’t realized it.” Frank felt himself calming as he worked through this rationalization; it was completely true, and it did make a sort of weird sense.

Joe looked up, his eyes wide. “Then you- you don’t...mind?”

“I... well, I guess there’s some thoughts I’d sooner keep to myself,” Frank admitted. “But I trust you, Joe. You’ve never gone and pried around in my room, so you wouldn’t go prying around in my mind, either.” He paused as Joe nodded vigorously, then added, “Maybe there’s some way to keep you from hearing the- what’d you say, ‘intense’ stuff? That’s something we can work on, maybe, during our vacation. We should have privacy enough, at least.”

Joe let out a sigh of relief, a smile lighting his eyes. “Sounds like a good idea. I really would like to find some way to do that; for one thing, it’s really uncomfortable, and for another, it gives me the worst headaches.” A brief pause, and then the younger boy added in a rush, “I wanted to tell you about it before, but I was afraid it’d freak you out.”

“Let me guess, you thought I’d-” Frank paused briefly, gauging the likely reaction. “You thought I’d want to get as far away, and stay as far away from you as possible, so you wouldn’t always be overhearing me.”

Joe’s smile froze, and then he laughed. “That was it. That was it, Frank. Word for word. I think I’m not the only one overhearing around here.”

“Word for word?” Frank stared at him in astonishment. He’d known he’d be pretty much on target, but this was- crazy!

“Uh huh.” Joe leaned forward suddenly, his eyes narrowing. Frank gave him a puzzled look, and then blinked as a sudden certainty seemed to strike him. “Did you get that?” Joe asked, sitting straight again.

“Yeah,” Frank answered. “I think so.” He’d certainly gotten a very strong feeling, one of reassurance.

“So...?”

“Um, it wasn’t very specific.” What was Joe trying to reassure him about? Not that he didn’t appreciate it...

Joe nodded. “I wasn’t trying to be specific, just...” He shrugged. “I have been depressed,” he admitted. “I’ve been- not myself. But I’m not gonna do anything stupid. Things aren’t great, but they sure aren’t that bad. And anyway, I’m-” He took a breath, sighed, and went on, “-truthfully, I’m probably too scared to try it in any case, but in this particular one, I’m just too stubborn. I fought too hard to hang on, so I’m not going to- let go.”

Frank stood up from the chair, dropped down on the bed beside Joe, and slid an arm around his brother’s shoulders. “Good,” he said gently. “I guess I’ve been overreacting again, but you have had it rough, and it’s been worrying me.”

Joe nodded, leaning against Frank’s side. The brothers were quiet for a while, both lost in thoughts of what they were calling the Starmail case.

“So,” Frank broke the silence eventually, “shall we tell Dad it’s a go?”

Joe gave himself a little shake. “Yeah, I think it would be good.” Then he sat up with a thoughtful expression. “I wonder... I wonder if we could bring the girls along?”

Frank’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Good luck getting that past the parents.”

“Mom and Dad-”

“I don’t mean them; I mean the Shaws and the Mortons.” Frank rumpled Joe’s blond hair and then released him. “Don’t get your hopes up.”

“Thank you for making a mop out of me, and I will hope anyway. You never know.” Joe stood up from the bed.

“You’re ever so welcome. And while I admit it may not be impossible to persuade them, it’s improbable enough that even Holmes wouldn’t bother. Still, I’ll be interested in hearing about this, just to learn what the reactions were,” Frank teased.

“Whose side are you on, anyway?” Joe demanded, folding his arms on his chest and trying to look indignant.

“Oh, I’m just an interested neutral party. Don’t forget your doodling.”

“Oops, I almost did forget. Thanks. G’night, mister neutral party.”

“Good night, mister eternal hope,” Frank retorted, grinning as Joe pulled the door closed behind him. Now that was more like the brother he remembered! His grin faded, though, as he reviewed their conversation. ‘Impossible or not, I guess I better believe in it,’ he thought, mystified. ‘It’s either that or believe we’re both going crazy, and I don’t think we’re doing that...but whoever would’ve expected ESP to show up between us?’

But on second thought, Frank reconsidered. What he’d said about them communicating without words was true. True, a good deal of it was reading body language; they knew each other so well that they could interpret the least little gestures accurately. But given that, it shouldn’t be so surprising that they’d hear each other thinking. No, he decided; the only surprising part was that there was such a thing as ESP, not that they seemed to possess it.

Feeling a good deal better about the situation, Frank settled into bed and went to sleep.

Joe carefully put the sketchbook into its accustomed place, dropped the pencil into his desk drawer, then sat down on his bed and looked around his room with a wry smile. He’d spent much of the previous day cleaning it; Frank had taken one look and pretended to think he’d walked into the wrong house. “When things start sticking to my feet, I know it’s time for a change,” Joe had explained, rolling his eyes at the teasing. It still wasn’t as tidy as Frank’s own room, but then Joe didn’t feel that there was just one right place for everything.

The blond boy sighed, running a hand absently through his disarranged hair. “You chickened out again, J,” he told himself. Or had he? He’d meant to do it; to open the sketchbook and let his brother see what he’d been drawing- trying to draw, at any rate- but before he could, Frank had brought up this vacation, and then-

‘He must be more worried than I thought. He can’t really think I’d commit suicide or something over this!’ Joe shook his head; now, suddenly, he understood why his parents and aunt had been acting the way they had been lately. Ever since he’d gotten out of the hospital, the three adults had been so solicitous, so protective, so...smothering! The sense of concern he’d been feeling from them lately was not passing with time; quite the opposite, it seemed to be getting more intense.

Joe had more or less expected a certain amount of concern from his mother and aunt. Laura tried not to overreact, but she did worry a great deal about her sons’ safety. Gertrude worried as well, although she covered most of her concern under a brisk, sometimes even sharp, manner. Laura kept telling Joe to be careful and inquiring if everything was all right. And Gertrude had begun to insist on knowing where he was going and when he’d be back, every time he left the house.

Their father wasn’t usually the worrying type, but then Fenton was well accustomed to the dangers involved in unriddling a mystery. But even so, he’d been urging Joe to take things easy lately.

It really was sheer irony, Joe mused, that Frank, who was usually so protective of his little brother, had taken a rather different stance than usual; he had been around, but he hadn’t been hovering all the time, wearing a worried expression. He hadn’t treated Joe as if he were suddenly more fragile than the good goblets. Instead, Frank had seemed to sense how stifled Joe felt by his parents’ concern, and had urged him into getting out and doing things. The dinner with their girlfriends tonight was just one example of several things they’d done this week.

And maybe Frank had sensed it, considering the- what had he called it? Thought transference? Surely there was a simpler word for it. Telepathy, or something like that. ‘At least we dealt with that,’ Joe consoled himself. He hadn’t planned to talk about the thoughts tonight; in fact, he hadn’t been too sure if he should bring that up at all, ever. He had wanted to, definitely, but he’d also been extremely apprehensive about how Frank would take it. If it had caused his brother to turn away from him...

‘You can quit fretting about it, J; it didn’t,’ he reminded himself. In fact, it seemed Frank had the ability as well, which sure explained how Frank seemed to know every time the nightmare came. Joe had assumed that Frank had heard him cry out, since their rooms weren’t all that far apart, but evidently not.

The nightmare...

‘Never mind that. Just think about the vacation and go to sleep,’ Joe ordered himself. A beach vacation- and just him and Frank. Not that trips weren’t pleasant with the entire family, but this time, he liked the idea of leaving the family- and their worries- behind for a while. Focusing his thoughts on breakers, on hot sand and cold water, on bright sun and salty breezes, Joe finally drifted off.

It was hot, hot beyond bearing, but there was nothing to do except bear it.

Joe lay on his side, feeling the heat like some terrible pressure that kept him from standing. He dragged himself up onto one arm and stared around, trying to see something in the darkness. There were people nearby, he knew, although he couldn’t see them. Men trying to find him, to hurt him. But there was water out there too, somewhere. He had to get to the water- if he could just find it. His throat was afire with thirst, his need for water overpowering.

He struggled to his knees, tried to get up, and fell, landing hard on the dusty wood. It was the trailer, he could see bits of light now. A shudder of fear gripped him. The heat was terrible, growing worse every time he moved, but even so he dragged himself to the side and peered out through one of the little holes.

There was the parking lot. There were the Starmail employees, leaving the building, hurrying to their cars. If he could just get their attention-! But if he made any noise, the men would find him. Where were they? Inside or outside? Joe was trembling now, almost in a panic- most of the employees had gone. Suddenly frantic, he tried to cry out, but his voice was weak with thirst. Lifting his hands, he clenched his fists and strove to pound on the wall, but no one could hear his feeble thumping.

No one except the men. The voices stopped, then grew sharp and angry, and louder. They were coming for him! Terrified, Joe tried again, shouting for help, slamming his fists on the wall. Still no one heard, no one even glanced at the trailer. And then the men were there, grabbing him, forcing his hands behind his back; the metal of the handcuffs was razor-sharp, cutting deep gashes in his skin. The chain was looped around his neck, it was cutting off his breath. He couldn’t fight, couldn’t move.

A voice was calling him, and after a second he recognized it. Frank! Frank was in the parking lot, looking for him, calling him, but he couldn’t answer. He had no breath left, no strength; the chain was too tight, the men too strong, the heat too merciless...

“Joe! Joe, wake up. You’re having a nightmare, wake up.”

Joe sat up with a gasp and clutched desperately at the familiar shape beside him. “Frank,” he choked, and felt his brother’s arms go around him.

“Easy. Easy, brother,” Frank whispered. “It’s over, the dream’s over. It didn’t happen.”

Joe didn’t try to answer; he knew he couldn’t. He sucked in deep breaths of night-cool air, trying to calm down, trying to stop shaking...trying hard to check the tears streaking his face.

“The same one?” Frank asked softly, and Joe managed to nod. Frank’s embrace loosened a little, just long enough to flick on the lamp sitting on the night table. Joe blinked, his eyes seeking the familiarity of his own room, and he felt some of the tension ease out of him at the sight of the desk, dresser, and chair. But much more comforting was the strong grip that held him so securely.

Gradually, Joe felt his breathing settle, found that he was no longer quivering with fear. Reluctantly, he made to sit up; Frank released him, but kept an arm around his shoulders. “Sorry-” the younger teen started.

“None of that,” Frank cut him off gently. “Nothing to be sorry for.” A handful of tissues was pressed into his hand; Joe wearily wiped his eyes and then blew his nose.

“Thanks... Frank, I...” Joe had no idea how to say what he wanted to say, so he stopped trying and just reached up to squeeze Frank’s hand. And felt his brother’s arm tighten in response.

“I really don’t understand why you don’t want me telling Mom and Dad about this dream you keep having,” Frank said after a few minutes.

Joe sighed. He’d been having the same nightmare ever since he got home from the hospital. Oh, not every night, not even every other night- but often enough to call it recurrent. And every time he had it, Frank knew, and came in to wake him- and comfort him. After the third time, he’d suggested that Joe tell their parents, but Joe had been completely against the idea, and had persuaded Frank- reluctantly- to keep quiet about it.

“Because they’re worried enough as it is. They’d probably want me to go see a shrink or something, get depression counseling. But I already know what’s causing it, and I already know that it’ll pass in time- I don’t need someone else to tell me that.” Joe paused, struggling to explain something that he didn’t quite have words for.

“Well, you don’t know that they’d go that far,” Frank put in.

“True, but even so, they’d just keep trying to protect me- and you know how I feel about that.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed ruefully. “I certainly do. And I have to admit, they’re overdoing it a bit this time.”

“A bit, right.” Joe sighed. “When you say they’re going overboard...”

Frank chuckled softly. “It’s my right, as the elder, to be as overbearingly overprotective as I- hey, keep your elbow to yourself!” Then he grew serious. “But, Joe, you could at least tell them, explain to them. They want to help you.”

“I know.” Joe rested his head against Frank’s shoulder. “I know, but they can’t. Yeah, they’d try, they really would. But they wouldn’t understand. Even Dad wouldn’t. They just can’t comprehend why this one particular thing, out of all the things that have ever happened, is affecting me like this.” Joe paused, lifted his head, looked squarely at his brother. “They weren’t there. But you were. You’ve helped me deal, because you were there, you saw.”

Frank just looked back at him, his expression unfathomable.

“You saw that I was scared pretty near senseless, and you didn’t try to talk sense into me- well, that one bit- but you didn’t try to remind me that we’ve dealt with worse, because that was irrelevant. You didn’t tell me that I was all right, ‘cause I wasn’t. You didn’t say, ‘don’t be scared’, because you knew it wouldn’t do any good. You just said you’d get me out of it, and then-” Joe shrugged. “You did. And you stuck close, which I really needed right then.”

Frank nodded slowly, and then he sighed. “It’s weird...after I told Mom and Aunt G you were safe, Auntie said she knew I’d find you. Dad said the same thing, that he was sure I... how’d he put it... something like, had it covered. Mom didn’t exactly say it, but she sure seemed to agree. I think I was the only one who had any worries on that score.”

“I knew you’d figure it out, sooner or later,” Joe replied. “But the ‘sooner or later’ part was giving me a lot of doubts. I was all out of ‘later’, and I didn’t have much ‘sooner’ left, either.” He managed to keep his voice calm, but it took some effort.

Frank’s hand tightened on his shoulder. “I should have been with you,” he murmured.

“Don’t,” Joe told him. “Don’t start the shoulds and the ifs. It’s just as likely that if you’d been with me, we’d both still be in that thing.”

Frank hesitated, then nodded again. “That’s as good a guess as anything else,” he admitted. Silence fell between them for a while, but eventually Joe caught his brother stifling a yawn.

“Go on back to bed,” he suggested, patting Frank’s arm.

“You sure?”

“Yeah, I’m okay now.”

Frank’s arm left Joe’s shoulders; he rose, clicked off the light, and walked to the door. “It is good to walk in here without tripping over something,” he remarked from the doorway. “‘Night.”

“Good night, and- Frank-”

Frank turned, a smile crossing his face.

“Thanks, brother,” Joe said softly.

“Anytime. And I mean that.” Frank closed the door after him.

“I know,” Joe whispered. He took a deep breath, let out a long sigh, then lay down again and closed his eyes. Had anyone been in the room to observe five minutes later, they would have seen that a faint smile remained on the boy’s lips even after he had fallen into a sound sleep.

“Are we finally ready?” Joe asked impatiently, leaning on the side of the car as Frank tossed the last bag into the back seat and closed the door.

“Unless you’ve forgotten something, we are,” Frank answered.

Joe straightened up. “I know I have,” he admitted ruefully. “I just won’t find out what it is till we get there.” Joe’s attitude towards packing was much like his attitude towards many other things; hurry up and get it done.

“Let’s hope it’s something you can easily replace, then,” Frank remarked, shaking his head. “If you’d just be a little more methodical, you wouldn’t have to worry about it.”

“You say this every time we pack to go somewhere,” Joe pointed out, moving toward the house.

“Yes, it’s obviously going in one ear and out the other,” Frank sighed. Joe decided to ignore that, and hurried through the front door.

“Mom? We’re ready to leave,” he called. A minute later, Laura hastened down the steps and Gertrude came out from the kitchen to say farewell.

“Have a good time, boys, and stay in touch, all right?” their mother said, embracing each in turn.

“We will,” Joe assured her, knowing she was still concerned about him.

“And try to keep out of trouble,” Gertrude suggested sternly.

“We certainly intend to do that,” Frank agreed. “Say hi, or bye, to Dad for us when he calls?”

“Of course, dear,” Laura smiled. Fenton had received a phone call at about six in the morning, the result of which was that he had departed very hastily about fifteen minutes later. Laura, long accustomed to this sort of thing, knew he wouldn’t leave that way unless it was extremely important, and she also knew her husband would let her know what was going on as soon as he possibly could. But she was still a little disappointed that he hadn’t been home to say farewell to Frank and Joe.

“Got everything?” she asked as the four of them went out the front door and walked over to the boys’ car.

“Probably not,” Frank answered, grinning at his brother, who gave him a look. “But we’ll get by.”

Laura smiled. “Well, then, off you go! Bring us back a pretty seashell or something, since we can’t go with you.”

“Sure thing!” Joe promised, hopping into the passenger seat.

The women waved as the car backed out of the driveway and watched until it turned the corner at the end of the street. “He’ll be fine, Laura. Frank will look out for him.”

“He always does,” Laura agreed, and the two women went back into the house.

“This is great!” Joe said decisively as he lugged his suitcase in through the cottage door and down the narrow hall.

“Why particularly is it great?” Frank asked from behind him.

“Reason one, it’s fifty yards from the ocean. Reason two, it has air conditioning,” Joe explained, dropping his suitcase in the tiny living-dining-kitchen area and nodding at the a/c vent nearby. “And reason three, it’s a separate little place, not just some room in a larger hotel.”

“And that’s good because?”

“Privacy! And no noisy neighbors,” Joe explained.

“The point about privacy is a good one,” Frank conceded. “But I’ve got you for a neighbor, and I wouldn’t call you a quiet one!”

Ordinarily, such a remark would have brought a clever retort to Joe’s lips. After all, it wasn’t as if he snored; he was just inclined to talk in his sleep on occasion. This time, however, he just cast his eyes upward, shook his head, and heaved on the handle of his suitcase again. “Looks like we have two bedrooms,” he remarked, glancing around. “So I’ll have this one-” he started for the door- “and you can have the other.”

“You would take the closest one,” Frank grumbled.

“You should have packed lighter.” Joe dropped the suitcase again, took in the two single beds, the dresser, and the two floor lamps, one on either side of the room. Then he went out to the car for his duffel bag.

“Look who’s talking- I only brought one bag,” Frank remarked as Joe came back in.

“Yes, but yours weighs more than my two put together,” Joe told him with a grin. The grin faded, however, as he dropped the bag on the bed and took another look around the place. So- they were here. Now what? He felt his spirits sinking despite his resolve to enjoy the vacation.

“Well,” he heard Frank saying from outside the door, “you may’ve been the first to claim a room, but...” His brother’s voice trailed off, and after a minute resumed again, inside the room. “Okay, never mind that.”

“Huh?” Joe blinked; Frank was pulling his suitcase into the room, looking with some amusement at the beds.

“Thought so. Didn’t you wonder why there’s two beds in here?”

Joe blinked again; he was feeling a little slow on the uptake. “No,” he started.

“One bedroom,” Frank explained, lifting a finger. “And one bathroom.” He lifted another finger.

“Ohh,” Joe answered, and for some reason his spirits lifted a little. “Well, looks like you get the noisy neighbor after all.”

“Looks like. At least I can kick him outta bed, if I need to,” Frank replied cheerfully. Joe laughed, taken by surprise. “I suppose I ought to unpack,” Frank went on musingly. And then he grinned. “But I don’t feel like it! I’m going out on the beach!” He turned and left the room; Joe felt his mouth drop open in surprise and followed his brother without thinking. He watched from the porch as Frank started for the beach, then paused, turning to look back at him.

“And what are you going to do?” It almost sounded like a challenge.

“I...haven’t decided yet,” Joe answered slowly. His brother, not unpacking the second they arrived? What was wrong with him?

Frank regarded him for a moment, then grinned, his eyes lighting up. “So, come with me. C’mon,” he repeated, gesturing as Joe hesitated.

Slowly, Joe smiled. A walk along the beach in the late afternoon- well, why not? Certainly better than hanging around inside and feeling low. “You did remember a door key, didn’t you?” he asked.

Frank nodded, patting his pocket. Joe closed the door tightly, then trotted down the porch steps and hurried to catch up with his brother.

The boys did have to climb over a small hill of sand to get down to the water, but it wasn’t anything like the enormous dunes they’d seen on the drive in. Once on the beach, Joe looked around in some surprise. “Wonder where everyone is?”

“Probably up in the more populated area,” Frank answered, nodding down the coastline. Several miles away, barely visible from where the boys stood, were numerous black, moving dots.

“Ah, yeah.” Joe started walking, but after about twenty paces he stopped, frowning down at his feet. “Hang on a sec,” he requested, crouching down. He quickly pulled off both shoes and socks, stuffed the socks into the toes of the shoes, tied the laces together, and then stood, draping the sneakers over his shoulder.

“Good thinking,” Frank remarked, and quickly did the same. “Ouch,” he added after a moment. “Hot on the toes. Let’s walk near the water.” They veered down towards the water’s edge, walking side by side on the cool, wet-packed sand. For a while they were both quiet, just taking in the sights and sounds of the ocean. A small airplane buzzed by, about half a mile out to sea, with a big banner streaming from its tail. The message was too far away to be seen clearly, though.

“Joe?” Frank asked at last, glancing over.

“Yeah?”

“What’s bugging you?”

“I dunno...” Joe kicked at the sand. “I guess I wish Dad had been there when we left. I know he’s got to work and all, but it’s like we hardly ever see him anymore. Unless he needs some help on a case.” He looked over quickly. “I’m not trying to sound like a jerk about it, I just wish he could stop being a detective for a while. Like he would when we were kids. Remember? He’d take us to the park, or to a baseball game, or the Fair...”

“I remember,” Frank said quietly. “We had a lot of fun.”

“And I used to be able to tell him anything, anything at all. But I feel like I can’t do that anymore.” Joe tilted his head as he walked and the wind blew his hair into his eyes. He brushed it back unthinkingly. “I guess I talk to you now,” he added with a half-smile.

“You do, and I talk right back at you,” Frank agreed, smiling too. But his smile faded away as he gave Joe a thoughtful look. “Maybe when we get back we should...kinda corner him and let him know how we’re feeling about it.”

“We?” Joe repeated, his brows lifting in surprise.

“We. Us. Both,” Frank amplified. “Yes, he has gotten very busy lately- tell you the truth, I think he should be the one on vacation. He and Mom, because she was a little subdued today, too. I’ve got a theory on it, actually; I think that he’s gotten too good.”

“Too good, how?”

“Too good as an investigator. Someone wants the best, they call our Dad- and who doesn’t want the best? So he’s got a bunch of people all wanting him to help them out, and since it’s what he does for a living, it’s really not such a bad thing. I mean, better than if no one wanted his help, right? It’s just getting to be too much, taking all of his time.”

“Well, right...so we....what, lay it on the line that he’s got to choose between his job and his family? Stop taking cases and pay more attention to Mom, ‘cause she’s probably feeling lonely?” Joe snorted, pushing his hair back again. “I expect we’d be sent to our rooms without dinner for a few months if we tried that,” he finished sarcastically. Their father was a fairly easygoing man, but he certainly wouldn’t appreciate that sort of attitude from his sons.

“No, we lay it on the line that his family is missing him, and let his own conscience take over from there,” Frank clarified. “Of course, it’s probably partly our own fault,” he added a few yards later.

“Because we didn’t mention it sooner?”

“Because of that, since Dad’s not a mind-reader-” Both of the boys were silent for a moment at this remark. “But,” Frank continued, a few paces later, “also because we showed so much interest in being detectives ourselves. If he hadn’t been training us, he probably wouldn’t’ve gotten as wrapped up in it as he is.” He glanced at Joe’s dubious face. “Think about it, Joe- we’ve given him a lot of help. Speeded up his solve rate, and probably enhanced it a great deal.”

“Speeded up, yes, he closes them faster when we help, but enhanced?” Joe frowned.

“Greater accuracy.”

“Oh.” Joe’s frown didn’t fade. “But it works both ways, Frank. If he hadn’t been investigating so much, we wouldn’t’ve gotten so interested, wanting to know what he was doing all the time.”

“That’s why I say it’s ‘partly’ our doing,” Frank reminded him patiently. Joe nodded, and another silence fell between them for a while. The sun was setting behind the dunes, casting long shadows over the beach. The tide was going out, leaving a great expanse of gleaming pale-brown sand, scattered with shells and seaweed and the occasional jellyfish. The sky above the sea was gradually turning darker blue, edging toward purple at the horizon. A soft wind blew from the swelling waves, blowing wet salt air inland. The sound of the waves was a rush and ebb that was rhythmically soothing.

“Having mentioned mind-reading...why didn’t you tell Mom and Dad about the weird thought-thing we did?” Frank asked after the boys had walked about a hundred yards more.

Joe blinked, surprised at the sudden question. “Why didn’t you? I heard what you told Dad at the hospital, saying it was a hunch, and I wondered about it then.”

“I wasn’t sure you wanted me to. And I still wasn’t sure it’d really happened. I thought I was dreaming.”

“I thought I was delirious,” Joe agreed. “At first.” He stopped, crouched, and picked up a beautiful little spiral shell. The smooth exterior of it was pale creamy yellow; the wide mouth was rosy orange. Joe brushed the sand off, shook it to make sure there was nothing hostile inside, and then put it in his pocket.

“Later, I guess I didn’t think they’d believe me,” he continued after he started walking again. “At the worst, they’d start thinking I was losing touch with reality. And anyway, I had no idea, then, if it was a one-shot thing or not. Imagine telling someone, ‘well, I just transferred my thoughts into Frank’s head-’ or heck, maybe it was vice versa?- and then not being able to explain how I did it, or what it was, and then-” Joe stopped for a breath.

“-Finding you suddenly couldn’t do it anymore, when they asked you to prove it,” Frank finished.

“Right.”

“So now that we know it wasn’t a dream, and that it isn’t a one-time thing...” Frank let the remark trail off, but the question hung in the humid air.

“Well, I’m still not sure they’d believe it,” Joe answered skeptically. “But...think about this a second; what if they did believe us?”

“Isn’t that what we want?”

“But how do you think they’ll react?” Joe stopped walking and gave Frank a troubled look. “Will they think it’s a good thing, or not? It definitely isn’t a...a ‘normal’ thing, is it?”

Frank had stopped, too, and was frowning at the sand as he turned that over in his mind. “No,” he agreed after a moment. “It isn’t exactly normal. You’re right, they might get pretty uneasy about it.”

“Uneasy wasn’t quite what I had in mind,” Joe sighed, and started walking again. Frank followed. “But I guess it’s close enough. I don’t think we should tell anyone, though; people don’t like what they don’t understand.”

“That’s unfortunately true,” Frank muttered. “No, we’ll definitely keep this close. ‘Freak’ isn’t a label I particularly care to tolerate. Especially-” He cut himself off, but Joe knew what he’d been about to say.

“Especially from our own parents. Yeah.” Joe shook his head. “Even if it is the truth,” he added bitterly.

“In most cases,” Frank replied mildly, “being able to do something that the general majority can’t makes you ‘talented’, not a freak. So, you and I aren’t freaks; we just have a talent for ESP.” Joe started to smile, but when he looked over, he saw that Frank was serious.

“Sort of splitting hairs, aren’t you?” he asked.

“Not really. It’s just that ESP, genuine, verifiable ESP, is seen as an impossibility. So anyone who’s got it is either pulling a hoax, or is in possession of a very unusual ability. And what you just said- how people don’t like what they don’t understand? That’s the only real difference between calling someone a freak and calling them talented. People don’t get scared of musicians or artists, so those people are talented. But they do get scared of people who claim to read minds, among other things, so they slap a nasty label on it and keep their distance.”

“A question of...what, acceptability?” Joe asked, frowning as he tried to put the whole thing into a nutshell.

“No, more a question of threat. Not neccesarily a physical or immediate threat, but at least a potential one,” Frank explained.

“Oh.” Joe nodded. “Got it. We might not actually do something- but maybe we would, certainly we could, so we’re a threat.” He shook his head and rolled his eyes at the darkening sky. “The fact that we wouldn’t want to would have nothing to do with it, of course.”

“Oh, of course not, we have the ability and so we automatically have the desire,” Frank agreed, matching Joe’s sarcasm. The brothers exchanged sour smiles, and then Frank stopped and looked around. “Do you think we’ve gone far enough yet?”

Joe paused as well, surprised to see how far they had walked. The dots on the shoreline in the distance had become discernable human figures. “We should probably get back and call Mom,” he remarked with a sudden twinge of guilt.

“Good thought.” The boys both turned right around and started back toward their cottage. “And dinner would be another good idea, don’t you think?”

“I’m surprised you haven’t heard my stomach growling yet,” Joe replied, grinning.

“I’ve had the waves in my ear the whole time,” Frank pointed out. Then he slapped his forehead lightly with his palm. “Sheesh!”

“That looks like fun; can I play?”

“We forgot to get any food!” Frank exclaimed, ignoring Joe’s query.

Joe’s eyes widened. “We did! Now this is an oversight of catastrophic proportions.”

Frank ignored that, too. “Lucky there’s that shopping center nearby. We can go there, I saw a grocery as we went past it.”

“Works for me,” Joe said agreeably.

“Now I know why they say, ‘you should never go shopping when you’re hungry’,” Frank told Joe as they carried the last few grocery bags into the little kitchen. “They mean you, specifically. I think we bought half the store.”

“Yeah, hopefully it’ll last till tomorrow night,” Joe answered, pulling things out of the plastic bags. “What do you want to eat?”

“We’ve gone from having no choices to having a few too many.” Frank regarded the increasingly crowded counter and began to put things into the cupboards and refrigerator. “Something simple, so it’ll be done faster,” he added.

“Good thinking. Too bad there’s no microwave.”

“Too bad you didn’t remember that before you bought microwave popcorn!”

“Oh, well, I’ll take it home with me,” Joe shrugged. “How’s a BLT sound?”

Frank’s stomach rumbled. “Sounds fantastic. I’ll find a frying pan.” He began a search of the floor-level cabinets, crouching to open the doors and peer inside.

“We do need to call Mom,” Joe reminded him. “Ow!” he yelled a second later, as Frank inadvertently clobbered him in the shin with the edge of a cabinet door.

“Oh, sorry! I meant to open the other side.”

“Well, let me get out of the way first. You’re lucky I didn’t drop the milk on your head, Frank.” Joe limped over to the refrigerator, opened the door and put the gallon of milk inside.

“They say a milk bath is very relaxing, but I’m glad I didn’t get to try it,” Frank remarked, standing up with a frying pan in his hand.

“I’m getting out of this dangerous place,” Joe said. “I’ll call Mom.”

“All right, but if you leave me with all the cooking, you’ll have an LT, not a BLT,” Frank warned with a grin.

“I am duly threatened,” Joe replied, and went into the living-room area. There was a coffee table, two small sofas, and an end table with a lamp and a telephone. “These people must be either very cheap or very old fashioned.”

“Why?” Frank’s voice drifted out from the kitchen.

“The phone is a rotary dial.”

Frank poked his head out. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Joe dialed, shaking his head. “Hello? Hey, Mom, it’s us. Well, actually, it’s me. Trip was fine, not a lot of traffic, we made pretty good time. No, nothing adventurous. Very unusual, we’ve been here for a couple hours now and nothing suspicious has happened. We’ll have to check it out.” Joe laughed. “Oh, and I already found your seashell. Yeah, I don’t know what kind it is, but it’s very pretty.”

Bacon was beginning to sizzle in the kitchen.

“Well, we did discover one oversight; we got to the place and then remembered that there are things like grocery stores that need to be stopped at, so...yes. Just got back from that. Haven’t gotten to the unpacking yet... I know, isn’t that astounding? He never does that.”

“Except that I did, so obviously I do,” Frank remarked from the kitchen.

“He’s being logical at me,” Joe sighed. Then he laughed again. “Sure, hang on. Your turn,” he told Frank, extending the phone. Frank came out and took the receiver, nodding at the kitchen. Joe took the hint and went in to keep the bacon from burning, pleased to note that there was enough in the pan for both of them. He went to the refrigerator and took out a tomato, then looked around until he found a cutting board and a sharp knife. He could hear Frank talking, but concentrated on slicing evenly.

A few minutes later, Frank came back in and got out the lettuce and mayonnaise. “All’s well at home, except that Mom hasn’t heard from Dad yet.”

“Hmmmm,” Joe muttered, squinting at the tomato. “Not unusual, especially for something top secret.” He suddenly put down the knife and turned off the electricity under the frying pan. “I’d say this is just exactly ready.”

“Looks like it, smells like it... where’s the bread?”

“In the breadbox. Of all the peculiar places,” Joe answered, tentatively picking out the pieces of bacon and dropping them onto a paper towel to dry. Less than five minutes later, both boys were seated at the table, sandwiches and milk before them, eating ravenously. They finished in record time, and not a crumb escaped.

“And only one pot to clean up,” Joe remarked as he stretched his arms, still seated at the table. “That’s the best part.” Rising, he took the plate he’d put his sandwich on and his empty milk glass into the kitchen. “Well, blast it!”

“What?”

“All that shopping and we didn’t get any dishwasher soap.”

Frank was grinning as he came through the door, also carrying a plate and glass. “We’re not very organized today! Never mind, it means we don’t have to do the dishes tonight.”

“A good side to everything, I suppose.” Despite this, though, the boys did rinse both their dishes and the frying pan- “Just so we don’t have to take a chisel to it tomorrow,” as Joe put it. Deprived of his popcorn, he took a popsicle from the freezer and went outside to eat it. Frank followed a few minutes later, and sat on the steps; Joe perched on the railing that enclosed all but the steps of the porch, leaning against a support beam.

The sun had set behind the cottage and the afterglow lit the sky in rich shades of blue, red, purple and pink. The clouds looked as though they’d been spun from pure silver. Seabirds were flocking not far away, their bodies and wings dark, graceful forms against the evening light. The shadows of the dunes stretched across the beach and into water the color of navy velvet. The wind had ceased almost completely, and the waves were quiet now; they seemed edged in white lace, the foam bright against the darkness. The boys watched, silent, almost enspelled, silhouettes against the dusk.

The spell was broken by the arrival of the mosquitoes. After slapping three of the insects off his arms, Joe decided a screen door would be just the thing. Frank, sitting lower to the ground, had less trouble- until Joe went inside, leaving him as the only remaining target. After another ten minutes or so, he gave up and went in, too.

“Time I got around to unpacking,” he mused as he went into the bedroom. Then he stopped short. “This has to be a first, you unpacked before me.”

“It’s definitely been an unusual day,” Joe agreed, although that wasn’t quite what Frank had said. “I took two drawers, you can have the other two,” he added, pushing his suitcase under the bed and standing up.

“Thanks, it should all just about fit.” Frank got busy and didn’t notice when his brother sat down on the bed, leaned against the wall, tucked the pillow behind his back, and opened his sketchbook. It wasn’t until he came back from putting some things in the bathroom that he saw what Joe was up to. “I’m getting very curious about that,” he hinted.

Joe hesitated, considering. Then, with an inward clenching of nerves, he flipped a few pages back and found a picture that was both reasonably recognizable and not likely to set Frank worrying again. It was a sketch of their mother, smiling, and though it wasn’t as good as he’d’ve liked, it really wasn’t too bad. Turning the pad around, he held it so Frank could see it.

Frank exclaimed in surprise and came to sit on the side of the bed. “Joe, that’s great!” he said, examining the sketch more closely.

“I couldn’t get it quite right, but I guess it’s close enough,” Joe answered quietly.

“You should show Mom, I think she’d be pleased. And it might not hurt to offer something that might just explain why you’ve been sorta wrapped up and quiet lately,” Frank suggested.

Joe considered that. Then he shook his head. Not telling his parents something was one thing, but offering an excuse that really didn’t have anything to do with the problem felt too much like telling a lie.

Frank regarded him for a moment, then shrugged, and looked back at the picture. “Is it just me, or does she look a little worried?”

“She’s been that a lot lately.”

“True.” Frank looked at it for a few more moments, then gave Joe a questioning glance. Joe hesitated again, feeling the inquiry: any more?

“You used to keep a journal, didn’t you?”

“Yeah...not for a long time, though.” Frank’s expression turned thoughtful.

“And when you did, you didn’t just write down the good stuff, right?”

“Well, no.” Frank looked like he knew where this was going; he glanced at the sketchpad with some uncertainty. “In fact, a lot of different stuff found it’s way into there. Some of it less pleasant than the rest.”

Joe nodded and tapped his sketchbook lightly with his pencil. “Sure you want to see?” Now it was Frank’s turn to hesitate. “Remember,” Joe added. “This is...recent.”

“You really sure you want to show it to me?” Frank sounded very tentative suddenly.

Joe looked at the notebook. “Actually, yeah, I just haven’t had the guts,” he admitted, and bit his lip in annoyance as he felt himself turn bright red. Frank looked a little taken aback at this, and a strange silence fell. ‘Well,’ Joe thought to himself, ‘if I’ve got the guts to say that, maybe-’ He took a breath, dropped the pencil on the bed, flipped the pages back to the beginning, and offered the sketchbook.

Frank looked more as if he’d been offered a live snake than a notebook, but he reached up, took it, and turned to sit so that the light was better. Joe, still feeling the heat in his face, pulled the pillow down and then lay down on the bed, gazing at the ceiling and wondering if this was a big mistake.

Frank shifted his position until the light fell directly on the notebook. Then he pushed the cover back, half afraid of what he’d find, but also intensely curious.

The first thing he noticed was that there was only one picture per page. The first several pages were taken up with sketches of men- ‘Nasty-looking brutes,’ Frank said to himself, frowning. These must be the men that Collig had picked up, the smugglers. Frank gazed at them for a while, his trained eye noticing details. A scar on the face of one, a crooked nose on another. It was a surprise to the older teen just how well done the sketches were; he’d had no idea Joe could draw so well.

Turning the page, he stifled a gasp. The muzzle of a .22 pointed up at him from the page. ‘Damn thing looks as big as a cannon,’ Frank thought, and shivered at the notion of his brother staring into that deadly circle of metal.

Page followed page. Some of the images were seemingly innocuous: Starmail trucks, the underground parking lot. One scene was actually very pleasant; the view of the Hardys’ back yard. Frank figured his brother must have made that one not long after he got home from the hospital. There was another that looked rather ordinary; Fenton in his study, as seen through the mostly closed door, but in light of their conversation earlier, it made Frank wince. It was as though Joe was saying he felt excluded, cut off.

But some of the sketches were downright disturbing. The one that made Frank’s hands shake was one of the interior of the truck; the bar across the width of it, the chain dangling down...and a skeleton, coated in dust, lying beneath it. Another one gave him a deep chill; it was the interior of the truck again. Light was beaming in through some holes in the walls. Frank was about to pass it by when he realized something was subtly wrong with the truck wall. Looking closer, he thought he saw a face- and then realized that the holes were actually eyes in that face. ‘An illusion,’ he thought absently, and then his heart turned over. ‘Our thought-sharing,’ he corrected himself, shivering as he saw the misty face was his own.

He passed the one of their mother again and took a closer look, seeing the sketch with new perspective. She did indeed look worried, despite her customary smile. There were only a few pictures after that; one was Iola, looking very pretty and innocent. Frank flipped the page and found the one underneath mostly blank, but it looked like a porch. The beach house? Slowly, feeling a little shaken, he closed the cover and sat looking at the manufacterer’s logo. Finally he turned to look at Joe.

Joe was staring at the ceiling, but he obviously wasn’t looking at it. “Earth to Joe,” Frank said after a minute, and Joe started. “Where should I put it?”

“Oh- just- on the floor.” The younger Hardy was again turning rather red and his quick look at Frank was a shy one.

“I had no idea you were so good at drawing,” was all Frank could think to say at first. He leaned over and carefully put the sketchpad on the floor beside the dresser.

“I never really gave it much of a try before.”

“I guess you sometimes put down whatever’s bugging you, and other times things that sort of catch your eye?”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“What made you decide to draw instead of write?” Frank asked, and then made a face at himself. “Not to sound like a shrink or anything,” he added quickly.

Joe surprised him by laughing softly. “You don’t.” His expression sobered. “I’m not completely sure. I guess I could have written it down, but I tried it, and I just couldn’t think what to write. I’m...not very good at putting feelings into words.” Joe folded his hands behind his head. “Drawing it,” he went on slowly, “is like taking it out of my head and putting it somewhere else, where it can’t bother me. At least...not as much.”

Frank felt himself relax a little, and his brother smiled ruefully up at him. “I felt that. Stop worrying, Frank, I already told you not to fret about...that. It’s not dragging me down; just the opposite, it helps.”

“I’m glad it does,” Frank answered seriously. “Better in there than-” he brushed his hand lightly against Joe’s temple “-in here.”

“Yeah, I don’t have that kind of room.” Joe took in a deep breath and let it out as a sigh.

“Tired?”

“Kinda. All that driving.”

“True enough.” Frank got up from the bed. “I’m going to shower and then I think I will sleep.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.” Joe sat up as Frank left the room, towel in hand.

When Frank returned to the room, scrubbing at his wet hair with the towel, Joe was busily drawing again, frowning in concentration. “It’s weird how this works,” he remarked. “Sometimes I do better when I’m alert, but other times I actually do better when I’m tired.” He looked up and grinned at Frank. “Find me some logic in that, would you?”

“Well, since it’s you doing it, it was bound not to be logical,” Frank returned, sitting down on his own bed.

“I guess that makes sense. Sort of.” Joe scowled at his efforts once more, shrugged, closed the sketchbook and stood up. “Did you leave me any hot water?”

“A few drops.”

“So kind, so generous. Remind me to put ice down your back one morning.”

“Oh, absolutely. Right at the top of my priority list,” Frank retorted as his brother departed for the bathroom.

Half an hour later, a few pale streaks of moonlight peeked through the shaded window, illuminating the two figures peacefully asleep in the darkened bedroom.

“So, we have dish soap, we have trash can liners, and plastic bags. What else?”

Frank frowned, thinking. “I’m sure we’re still forgetting something, but I can’t think what,” he said at last. “Let’s go check out. We can always come back if we really have to.”

“You fellows setting up housekeeping, or what?” the clerk inquired as they stepped up to her. It was the same lady who had rung them up for the ton of groceries the previous day, a round matron of about fifty-five, with graying brown hair, tanned skin, and pleasant brown eyes.

“Oh, no, just vacationing.”

“Ohh. Down in those honeymoon cottages, then?”

“Honeymoon?” Joe repeated, looking a little startled. Frank blinked, surprised as well.

“Well, they used to be,” the woman explained. Joe noticed her name tag: Doris. “It’s gotten kind of run down over there, but it used to be a really popular honeymooner’s area. The privacy, you know. But then the big hotels came in and lured everyone away.”

Both of the boys turned a bit pink at the remark about privacy. “I guess it’s been tough on the owner,” Joe mused. “If I was on a honeymoon, I sure wouldn’t stay over there. I won’t say it’s a dump, but it isn’t exactly romantic. And it’s old- they’ve still got rotary phones in there.”

Doris laughed. “It’s been years since I’ve seen one of those- I bet some people have forgotten how to use them. Your total is seven fifty-three.” Frank handed her a ten and got his change. “Don’t know if you’ve heard, being down at that quiet end of things, but there’s a carnival in town tonight.”

Joe, who was picking up the plastic bag, turned a suddenly excited glance on Frank.

“We hadn’t heard, but thanks for letting us know- one of us is wild about roller coasters,” Frank answered, knowing full well what they’d be doing that night. Not that he was about to object, they hadn’t been to a carnival in at least a year.

“We’ve got ‘em,” Doris said with a smile. “Two, and a bunch of other whirligigs that I don’t dare set foot on. Have a good day.”

“Thanks,” Frank answered, and the boys went out of the store. “Sheesh, who turned up the heat?” he complained as he got into the car. Joe ignored that. He had picked up a flyer from a pile of them outside the store and was reading it as they departed.

“It’s in town for the next three days,” he said excitedly. “And it’s big! The two coasters, Gremlin and Monster...the Scrambler, the Turnover, the Salt and Pepper- now why,” he interrupted himself, “do they always put up a Ferris Wheel? Just what the heck is so exciting about going around and around at about five miles per hour?”

“It’s the height, none of the other rides are that tall,” Frank explained.

“The roller coasters are- they’re higher, in fact,” Joe argued.

“Well, true. Okay, they just do it because it’s traditional,” Frank joked.

“Time to break with tradition, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t. Think the carnival folks will?”

Joe reached over and punched his brother in the arm.

“Hey!” Frank exclaimed. “Not when I’m driving!”

“Oh.” Joe looked suddenly penitent. “Sorry, wasn’t thinking.”

“That’s not news- shit!” Frank shouted suddenly, and slammed on the brakes as a sports car suddenly wove in front of him. For a moment both the boys were sure they’d impact, but then the driver of the sports car, having apparently made whatever point he was trying to, sped up to about 85 miles per hour and was soon out of sight.

Frank swore for a few seconds. Neither he nor Joe generally used bad language; their parents didn’t care for it, and the teens had found that constant cussing was more boring than effective. But when a situation merited it, both of them had discovered they could get quite creative in this respect.

Joe listened with interest to his brother’s brief but colorful commentary, then remarked, “I wish Chet was here, he always has something descriptive for loons like those. Remember his ‘galloping gooseberries!’?”

Frank threw Joe a rather startled glance, and then laughed, relaxing visibly. “I’d forgotten that one. What do you think he’d say to this?”

“Probably something clever, like...who’s driving that thing, an escaped gorilla?” Joe responded irrepressibly.

“Gorilla?” Frank shook his head, trying not to grin.

“Seriously, the guy I saw- passenger seat- did bear a rather striking resemblance to a great ape. Not much chin, not much forehead, plenty of nose.”

“College students,” Frank muttered.

“Oh, c’mon, there’s enough bad drivers in general without trying to blame a particular age group,” Joe said seriously. “Especially at the beach. And Spring Break is long over anyway.”

This time, Frank’s look was downright surprised. “I guess that’s true, I should know better than to stereotype,” he admitted after a moment. “Anyway, enough about them. What else is up with the carnival?”

“Let’s see, I was up to Ferris Wheel... Moonbounce, Octopus...some kiddie rides. Bumper cars.”

“Sounds more like Paramount’s King’s Dominion than a carnival.”

“Well, but no water rides. And no Rebel Yell or Anaconda or Shockwave-”

“All right, all right, so what else?”

Joe grinned. “The games booths, of course. Says ‘hundreds of prizes to win’ so there’s probably going to be quite a few of those. Hmm. There’s a long list of which ‘refretchments’ are going to be offered.”

“You mean refreshments.”

“Judging from all the high-speed rides, ‘retch’ is probably more accurate.”

“Joe! Don’t be-” Frank paused in mid-thought.

“Sick?” Joe concluded brightly.

“Gross!”

Joe laughed. “Close enough!”

“You just wait,” Frank promised. “When we get back, I am going to get you.”

“IF you can catch me, big brother!”

“And when I catch you, not if, you’re going straight into the ocean.”

“Oh, that won’t be so bad, not as hot as it is,” Joe replied mildly.

True to his word, as soon as Frank halted the car under the pine tree outside their cottage, he was out of the seat and around the car. However, Joe was almost as fast, and was about five steps away from the car before his brother got to the passenger door. The next few minutes was a race down the beach; finally Frank, with a last burst of speed, caught up with Joe and got a good grip on his arm. Skidding in the sand, he halted, flung his brother over one shoulder, and ignored the thumps on his back and arms long enough to wade out knee deep and drop Joe into the water.

This, of course, started a whole new battle as a drenched Joe now tried to dunk Frank; it ended with both boys completely soaked and laughing breathlessly.

“See, I told you I’d catch you,” Frank panted, wading out of the water and plunking himself down on the sand.

“I can’t believe...you did! I was always...faster than you!” Joe gasped; standing ankle deep in the surf, he bent over a minute to ease his breathing, then slowly sloshed out and flopped down beside his brother.

“Where have you been?” Frank exclaimed. “Last school year- the hundred yard dash- I beat your time!”

“I had a cold that week, remember?”

“Oh, that’s right.” Frank shoved his wet hair away from his eyes, reflecting that Joe was probably right about being the better athlete. “Well, I’m not hot anymore,” he remarked after a minute.

“Me, either.” Joe lay back in the sand, tucking his hands behind his head and staring up at the sky with a look of contentment.

“You’re getting all sandy.”

“Oh. Yeah. Oh well, I’ll just rinse off when I get up.”

“I could always assist you again,” Frank teased, looking down at him.

Joe laughed softly. “I’ll pass, thanks.”

The two of them were quiet for a while, resting and enjoying the pretty day, but eventually they both heard Joe’s stomach growl and knew that this meant it was lunchtime. Frank got up and watched in amusement as Joe walked back into the ocean to wash off. Not really such a bad idea, he decided, since he wasn’t having much luck brushing the sand off his jeans, and he walked into the water too.

The boys spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, knowing they’d probably be up pretty late at the carnival. Frank had a fleeting notion of bringing up the thought-transference, but decided not to. He didn’t really feel like being that serious; it was too nice seeing Joe in a good mood, after all this time, to risk bringing his spirits down.

Several hours later, as the sun was beginning to edge towards the western horizon, they got into their car and drove off in the direction of the carnival grounds. Parking was difficult to find; the place was completely jammed with people.

“There’s our targets,” a man said quietly from his hiding place.

“Where?” a second man asked him, frowning at the crowd.

“Walking past the dunk tanks. Dark-hair’s got bluejeans on, other one is- there, him, stepping up to throw.”

“You’re positive?”

“I’d know that blond punk a mile away,” the first man said in grim tones. “And I bet it was the other one, his brother, who got him out of the ‘situation’ me and the guys left him in.” As he turned to speak to his companion, a stray flicker of light gleamed in his eyes.

“You’re not gonna do it now, are you?”

“No. We’re to keep an eye on ‘em for now, see where they go when they leave. Find out where they’re staying...” The man’s voice trailed off ominously.

“How’d you spot ‘em?” the second man inquired after a while. “So many people here, I thought it was going to be impossible.”

“Just watched the gates, like I told you,” the first man replied. “It’s a lot easier to pick out someone when they come in through the ticket-takers; it always bottlenecks there, gives you more time to recognize people.”

The second man grunted. “Looks like we’re gonna be waiting for a long time,” he grumbled after a while. “Those kids do not look like they’re gonna leave early.”

“This is great!”

Joe was plainly enjoying himself, Frank thought with a grin. He wasn’t quite doing the kid-in-the-candy-store routine, but he was almost as hyper as some of the young kids darting through the crowd.

Frank was pretty hyper too, for that matter; they’d already hit three rides and were now standing in line for the smaller of the two roller coasters. “I don’t know why I let you talk me into this,” he remarked, looking at the huge steel tracks with a touch of trepidation. He had agreed to do this ride once, but he’d made up his mind that he was not going to back down on the bigger one.

“Once you’ve done this one, the other won’t seem so bad,” Joe commented. Frank shook his head.

“That’s not going to work. And neither is your chicken routine, so don’t even try it. Nor,” he added as Joe opened his mouth, “the spoilsport one.”

“That doesn’t leave me much to work with,” Joe mused. “I’ll have to give this some thought.”

Frank laughed. “Think all you want, but you won’t think me onto that Monster. This Gremlin is bad enough.”

“Don’t do coasters, huh?” a voice asked from behind him. Frank turned and to see an Asian boy of about thirteen.

“Not as a regular habit, no, although I do make an exception once in a while. I just never got a liking for going upside down, and it seems that’s about all they do nowadays.”

“That’s true, it is a lotta loops on most of the big ones. Except for the Thrill Dragster at Cedar Point, which hardly needs them!”

“You’ve been on the Dragster?” Joe burst out. “What was it like? I’ve been wishing for a ride on that since I heard about it!”

“Oh, man, it’s like nothing else. You feel like you’re blasting off from Earth,” the boy answered with a huge grin, gesturing as he went on. “Almost straight up into the air, over a hundred miles an hour, wwhhooosh over the top, and you’re weightless then, I can tell you! You’re still going up, and the coaster’s going down. It’s the most incredible rush; everything else seems tame after that.”

“Sounds more like a traffic accident than any coaster I’d want to ride,” Frank muttered. A middle-aged woman in front of him, who’d clearly been listening, turned with a smile.

“I’m with you,” she agreed. “A hundred miles an hour is a bit much for me. I like loops, though. I remember when stand-up coasters were the big thing. And after that it was the opposite; suspended ones, with your feet dangling in the air. The technology just keeps reaching new peaks of adrenaline.”

Frank glanced at Joe and his new friend, who were now having a very animated conversation about all the roller coasters they’d ridden, and smiled. ‘You’d think you got enough adrenaline in our line of work,’ he thought. ‘But then, this is a lot less dangerous.’ He had a feeling that Joe had caught that, for he glanced up, gave a wry smile, and then turned back to the Asian lad. “Sooner or later, they’re probably going to work their way full circle,” he suggested to the woman. “Back to the big wooden ones- just for the novelty.”

“You could be right- novelty or nostalgia. But it would be better if they didn’t, or at least if they made them safer.”

“Yeah,” the Asian boy agreed. “My Dad told me that people used to come off those wood ones with black eyes and bloody noses, and even fractures every now and then.”

“I might consider passing on that-” Joe started.

“You mean like the old Cyclone?” another boy, this one about Joe’s age, but chunky and with black hair, piped up. “The one that went down and then slammed to the right, right at the bottom?”

“That was one of them,” the Asian boy nodded.

“Ouch,” Frank remarked. “I’d definitely pass on that. Hey, I think it’s almost our turn.” Indeed, the bunch moved forward to find themselves in between the rails that aligned with the coaster seats.

“Cool, we’re gonna be at the back!” the black-haired boy exulted.

‘Wonderful,’ Frank thought with considerable irony.

“Best place to be, you get all the whiplash,” the Asian boy agreed, hopping up and down a bit as they waited.

It was only a few minutes before the cars clacked into the station again; the safety bars released and the previous passengers unfastened their harnesses and slid out, most in some state of dishevelment. Then the gate in front of the next lot opened and the riders hurried in to take their seats. Frank slid in next to his brother, strapped on the safety harness, pulled the bar tightly down, and then gripped it with slightly sweaty hands. The attendant checked everyone’s harness and bar, then went back to his stand and activated the controls; the coaster glided away from the station, rails clicking lightly underneath.

Around a curve, and there was the hill that led to the first drop, rearing up as high as any mountain. The coaster latched on to the conveyer mechanism and began its slow ascent. Frank let go the bar long enough to surreptitiously wipe his sweating hands, then took a firmer grip. Glancing over, he shook his head slightly at the grin on Joe’s face.

Halfway up...three-quarters...the peak was almost on them. The front of the coaster reached the top and slid over and the rest of it followed with a rush and a roar! Frank followed his standard roller-coaster procedure and closed his eyes.

Somewhere between the second hill and the third loop, Frank felt something give under his hands. Wrenching his eyes open, he stared in horror as the bolts holding the bar to the car wall jingled and rattled. ‘I’m never getting on another roller-coaster again in my life,’ he thought, amazed at his sudden clarity. ‘Assuming, of course, that I get off this one alive.’ Prying his hand free from the bar, he froze as they spun through another loop, then grabbed Joe’s shoulder.

“What?” Joe hollered over the roar of the track and the gale-force wind.

Frank didn’t think he could yell loud enough to be heard at the moment, so he reached down and shook the increasingly loosened bar.

“Holy shit,” Joe said, in such a quiet voice that Frank concluded he’d heard the thought and not the words. “Hang on to your harness- and try not to let the bar break off entirely. It could kill somebody if it got loose now.”

‘It could kill us if-’ Frank lost track of his silent remark as they spun through another loop, this one doing a double twist in the middle. ‘-if the harness is in the same shape as this bar,’ he concluded when they were right-side up again.

“Almost done!” Joe shouted encouragingly, clutching his own harness with one hand and the loose bar with the other. A second later, one end of the bar came free entirely and rattled hard against the floor as they went through the last spin.

Then it was over; they were slowing, pulling into the station, and easing to a halt. Frank didn’t even try to get out as everyone else unbuckled and scurried out; he had about all he could do to make himself let go of the harness.

“What’s the holdup?” the attendant asked impatiently, hurrying down to their car.

“Big problem,” Joe answered, after a glance at Frank. He held up the end of the bar and the man gasped.

“How- what-?”

“And it’s rusty, too,” Joe remarked on further inspection. “I think you guys better shut this down and do an overhaul, huh?”

Frank undid his harness and leaned over to look at the other side. “That one’s not quite as bad,” he noted, observing in passing that while his voice was steady, his hands were shaking, “but if it had come out completely...”

The attendant went pale, then turned to the assembled passengers, who were starting to grumble. “The Gremlin is closed!” Turning, he trotted back to the technician stand and repeated into the microphone, “The Gremlin is closed, as of right now, due to a safety malfunction! Please exit the area! The Gremlin will be closed for the rest of the evening. We apologize for the inconvenience, but the safety of the riders must take priority. Please exit the station now.”

“Sounds like a fine idea,” Frank muttered as he pulled himself onto the opposite side and started down the ramp. Joe, who had already hopped out, was waiting for him, and gave him an intent look.

“You okay?”

“In a few. You?”

“It was exciting, I must say,” Joe decided, sounding judicious. “But I don’t think I’d want to do it again.” He laid a hand on Frank’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

Frank managed a smile, feeling his nerves start to unknot. “Neck-deep in trouble, as usual.”

“That’s us, all right. It was obviously not...” Joe paused. “Not personal,” he concluded.

“Not unless you’ve been annoying the rust-fairy lately, no.”

Joe laughed and gave Frank’s shoulder a pat before letting go. “Shall we try something a little safer? I somehow don’t quite feel like trying out The Monster right now.”

“Let’s check out some of those booths,” Frank suggested.

Several hours later, the two men who had been intently observing the unsuspecting Hardys all evening watched as the boys climbed into their car and pulled from their parking spot onto the main road.

“About freaking time,” the first man growled. “C’mon. We’ll follow along.” The two of them emerged from hiding, ran down to their vehicle, and were in pursuit a few minutes later.

“They must be in one of those little cabins,” the second man remarked. “So what will we do, wait till they’re asleep and take ‘em then?”

“No. The Boss gave me explicit orders; we rig a parabolic mike and transmit back to him. He wants to decide for himself how to take ‘em out. Keep your eyes peeled, if we miss them turning off, we’ll have to go house-to-house.”

Joe opened the cottage door and stepped out on the porch, letting the door swing shut behind him. The moon was nearing full and its silver light made the beach and ocean look somewhat unreal. Stepping forward, he seated himself on the porch railing, facing the calm, silvery-black sea. Several minutes later he heard the cottage door creak open as Frank came out, and glanced over as his brother came up to stand beside him.

“Pretty night.”

“Yeah. Peaceful. What time is it?” Joe inquired.

“Almost eleven.”

“Mom wasn’t worried or anything?”

“More wondering than worried. Sounded a little sorry to have missed the carnival. Glad we’re enjoying it, she said.”

Joe heard the wryly amused note in Frank’s voice and remarked, “I gather you didn’t do a full disclosure?”

“Not entirely, no. Didn’t seem necessary.”

Joe nodded, looking over again, then slid his arm around Frank’s bare shoulders. “You sure you’re okay?” He knew his brother’s tendency to brood.

Frank was quiet a moment, then leaned briefly against Joe’s side. “Yeah, I’m okay. We probably were perfectly safe with just the harnesses- although, given the situation, I couldn’t help wondering about that, too. Still,” he added, “it’s going to be a long time before you talk me onto another coaster!”

Joe nodded. His own enthusiasm for the wild rides had taken a minor drop tonight; his brother’s enthusiasm had never been anywhere near his own. Joe knew he’d be a little more nervous than usual the next time he hopped into a coaster; he doubted Frank would set foot in one again. “I won’t bug you about it. I know you mainly ride those things to humor me.” He felt a twinge of guilt over that; he also knew that he got over-persistant sometimes and that Frank often gave in just to hush him up, when anyone else would have told him to take a hike.

Frank glanced up. “I appreciate that,” he said quietly. They were silent for several minutes, and then Frank chuckled. “We did good at those booths.”

Joe grinned, suddenly feeling smug. “We did! They didn’t expect anyone with such good aim to show up, did they?”

“Sure they did- otherwise they wouldn’t’ve misaligned the skeet guns the way they did. What they figured was that no one would be able to compensate properly.”

“A point,” Joe conceded. Both of them had been taught how to shoot by sight as well as by scope by their father, though neither of them much cared to handle firearms. “At least the girls will know we didn’t forget about them, not when we bring our prizes home.” He grinned again at the thought of Iola’s face when he presented her with the stuffed animals.

“Trophies,” Frank corrected, and they both laughed. “So what are you going to do tomorrow?”

“I was thinking of doing some snorkeling, actually. Brought the mask and everything, might as well use it- didn’t the weather people say it was going to be even hotter tomorrow?”

“Up around a hundred, yes. Good day to stay in the water. I didn’t bring mine, though,” Frank answered.

“You can borrow mine if you want.”

“Might take you up on that.” Frank stood up straight. “I’m getting eaten by bugs here,” he complained.

“Shoulda kept your shirt on.”

“Too humid.” Frank slipped out from under Joe’s arm and headed for the door.

Joe sat on the railing for a few minutes more, enjoying the quiet night- even if it was a little humid. The sound of the breakers against the shore was almost hypnotic. After a bit, though, he noticed he was feeling rather empty around his middle. It had been quite a while since they’d eaten. Hopping down from the railing, he went inside and wandered over to the kitchen. It really was a shame that there was no microwave, he thought again. He had a most distinct wish for popcorn, but had to settle for something else. A sandwich, he decided at last, and assembled a fairly large one.

“Having your midnight snack early?” Frank came out of the bathroom and paused in the bedroom doorway as Joe carried his sandwich to the table and sat down.

“Uh-huh. It’s been a while since dinner. I’m surprised you’re not hungry too.”

“I’m mainly tired. Gonna turn in. You’ll be up a while longer, I guess?”

“Yeah, I still feel pretty bouncy.”

“I told you not to get that Jolt,” Frank chided, referring to the famous cola that advertised ‘all the sugar and twice the caffeine’ of a regular soda.

“Be glad it was only a cup or so, not the entire bottle, or I’d probably be sticking to the ceiling,” Joe answered light-heartedly. Frank laughed.

“That makes for a very interesting mental picture,” he teased. “Aunt G would have a fit.”

Joe imagined himself sticking to the ceiling and his aunt scolding him about leaving footprints, and nearly choked on his mouthful of sandwich. “Thank you,” he said sarcastically when he got his breath back.

“Most welcome. Want anything from the bedroom? ‘Cause if you wake me up...”

“I’d rather disturb a hibernating grizzly.” Joe stood up from the table and hurried into the room; he came out with a book and his drawing materials. “Not sure which one’s going to get my attention,” he explained.

Frank raised a brow. “Very sensible. Do you feel okay?”

Joe gave him a dirty look, unable to do anything else without dropping one or the other of the items he was holding. “And you call me the smartass?”

“Yup!” Frank grinned and tousled Joe’s hair. “’Night.”

Goodnight, you!” Joe waited for the door to close before letting his own smile show. He’d never admit it, but he didn’t object nearly as much to being teased as he pretended to. ‘I probably don’t need to admit it,’ he thought. ‘The days he doesn’t tease me are the days I know something’s seriously wrong.’ Sitting down at the table to finish his sandwich, Joe gave that a bit of a ponder while he ate. It was something he hadn’t thought much about in a very long time.

Some people, he knew, teased their siblings and friends mercilessly. He’d heard the biting, cruel comments and seen the flashes of pain on the faces of those who were the brunt of it. He had never really understood why anyone would deliberately do that to someone they claimed to care about. Maybe it was some sort of inferiority thing; those sorts of people used words like weapons in their attempts to make themselves seem somehow superior. All he knew was that the automatic disclaimers, “Just kidding, just teasing,” did nothing to erase the hurt.

‘As well as Frank and I know each other, it probably would be simplicity itself to hurt each other. I know all his weaknesses, and he knows all mine.’ Joe pushed his empty plate away and found himself looking at the sketchbook. ‘But we wouldn’t ever do that to each other. It’s not that we don’t get mad at each other- though we haven’t really argued since Finals week, when we were both so stressed out- it’s just that when we do, we stay on topic. Most people don’t; they drag in anything that will give them the advantage.’

The truth was, their version of teasing was just a way they showed affection. They both enjoyed the back-and-forth, and if the competition of wits got too sharp, or if one of the jokes cut deeper than it should, it all stopped. It was understood between them that hurting each other wasn’t in any way funny.

‘I suppose some of it could be due to working together,’ Joe mused, opening his sketchpad and flipping through the pages. ‘After all the times I’ve worried about him getting hurt, it would be worse than senseless to do the job myself, even if it was only verbal.’ Joe paused in his thoughts, then shook his head. ‘Nothing ‘only’ about it. Sometimes words hurt more than anything else. But we didn’t do any of the cruel stuff when we were younger, either, so it’s not just that.’

Joe had always looked up to his big brother. Always tagged along after him, certain that Frank was the best brother in the world, secure in the knowledge that Frank would not call him a pest or make him go play by himself. Even in their early teens, when most siblings fought at least several times a week, they’d gotten along together very well.

‘Similar interests, but opposite personalities. I wonder how we managed that? I guess some opposites just work perfectly together, and we were lucky enough to be two of them.’ Joe regarded the sketch he was working on, picked up his pencil, and bent over the paper. All thoughts of teasing and arguments and opposites gradually faded from his mind as he concentrated on his sketch.

“Finished,” Frank assured Joe, dropping the snorkel, mask and flippers on the sand and sitting down on his towel. “And thanks for the loan. I saw a ray.”

“A manta ray? Where?”

Frank raised a dripping arm and pointed off to the left. “About fifty yards out. But he saw me too, and scooted off in a big hurry.”

Joe made a moue of disappointment, then scooped up the equipment from the sand. “I’ll try off to the right, then; maybe he veered that way.”

It was about ten o’clock in the morning; the brothers had come down to the beach about forty-five minutes ago and Frank had decided to take Joe up on his offer of borrowing the snorkel equipment.

“Good luck. And be careful, there’s a couple rocks out there and the tow’s pretty strong around them.” Frank shook the water off his hands and picked up his book, sliding further under the umbrella that sheltered their things from the fierce sun.

“I will,” Joe assured him, and waded into the water. He adjusted the mask and breathing tube, then proceeded out to his waist before dropping the flippers into the water. He waited for them to settle to the bottom, then slid his feet in and dove forward. The cool water felt wonderful.

Joe always enjoyed snorkeling. It was fascinating, being able to peek into the world of water this way. True, sea-snorkeling was a bit more likely to get one a tubeful of water, if the waves were rough, but since one had to stay fairly close to the surface anyway, that was never a major problem.

The tow was indeed strong today, Joe noticed as he went further out. He could hardly see the seabed now, but there were a few fish zipping around, and several jellyfish that he avoided easily. One particularly large speciman was actively swimming, not merely being pushed and pulled by the tide. Then Joe saw the looming shapes of the rocks, about twenty yards ahead of him. It was deep over there; there was a rather abrupt drop off. Joe headed over, curious to see what might be in the area.

Sunlight spearing down through the water made dancing patterns around the tide-smoothed rocks. It was almost like swimming through a rainbow; a constantly flexing one. Peering downwards again, Joe saw that the sunlight was swallowed up by the darkness of the depths. ‘Must’ve been some kind of volcanic action around here, long ago,’ he thought, running a hand over the ancient rock. Then he decided to move on; the waves breaking around the rock were sending spray down his snorkel, and the undertow was gradually pulling him past the outcrop, out to sea.

It was as he turned to his left that Joe thought he caught movement from the corner of his eye. Turning back, he looked at the rock- and started in surprise as a hand grabbed his arm! A second hand reached over in front of him and yanked the mask and breathing tube from his face.

Taken completely off-guard, Joe held his breath and struggled against the strong grip that was holding him. He caught a vague glimpse of a figure in black wetsuit above him- just a second before something snarled his arms and body. ‘A net!’ he realized as the cords dug into his skin, pinning his arms and hindering his legs. The grip on his arm was suddenly released, and two wet-suited figures with oxygen tanks disappeared into the depths of the water.

Joe pulled hard against the net, but quickly found it was no use. Whoever had thrown it had managed to tangle it somehow so that there were no loose ends. Badly in need of air, Joe kicked hard with his flippers and found himself moving upwards. His head broke the surface and he gasped in a breath, but a wave caught him face-on and pushed him under again. Again he kicked, and this time managed two breaths before he sank again.

‘Calm, J- keep calm, keep your head on straight,’ he told himself grimly. ‘Keep kicking- get back up and yell. Frank’s right there-’ He kicked again, and then to his horror, he felt hands plucking at his ankles. The flippers slid from his feet. Deprived of these, Joe found himself sinking more quickly than he should have. He struggled against the cords despite knowing it was futile, and felt something bang against his foot, something hard and heavy. ‘Weights! The edges are weighted!’

At this realization, panic threatened to overwhelm the boy. He was about to drown, unable even to cry out for help- help that was less than fifty yards away.

Unless-

Joe shut his eyes, quit struggling, focused every ounce of his strength on holding his breath- and thought with all his will of Frank. His brother...was sitting on his towel... reading his book- “Frank, help me!”

It was as sudden as a bolt of lightning. One second Frank was sitting on his towel, mostly dry now, poring over his book. The next second he was jolted by a sudden, shocking burst of fear/desperation/pain. “Frank, help me!” Joe’s voice cried frantically in his mind’s ear.

The book dropped from Frank’s hands; he was on his feet and in the water without even thinking about it. He didn’t wonder where Joe was- he knew, as surely as he knew where he himself was. “Hang on, I’m coming! What’s wrong?” he added, even as he dove forward into the waves, pulling himself through the water as fast as his body would take him.

A vivid impression of immobility, of airlessness, of being pulled downward. “Net. Weighted. Caught,” was the sum of the reply. A reply that sounded much weaker than the initial cry.

There, there was the figure, not moving, drifting down into the cold depths. Frank’s eyes couldn’t see it, but his mind knew it was there; he sucked in a breath and dove down, down, his hands reaching out. Here; his hands touched skin, and tight cords. Reversing, Frank felt the drag of the heavy net as he strove back to the surface. It seemed like an age before he broke through to the air; he quickly lifted Joe up beside him and held him steady as Joe gasped in air.

Frank was panting himself after the exertion; looking around to see how far they were from shore, he was startled to see that the rock was now behind him. The strong tide was dragging them both out to sea. With some effort, he swam to the rock and found a crevice to hold on to until he got his wind back. Then he hauled himself onto the rounded top and pulled his brother up after him.

Joe was plainly exhausted; his eyes were closed and he sat where Frank had pulled him. His head was bowed, shoulders slumped, and he was still breathing hard. The net wrapped around him had pinned his arms to his sides; Frank studied the thing for a few moments, trying to find the loose ends. “There, I think this...” he muttered half-aloud. A few moments of tugging revealed that the ends of the net had actually been tied together at the small of Joe’s back. Frank untied the ends and soon managed to pull the whole thing away. Then he put his arm around his brother and let out a long sigh. With his other hand he clutched at the rock, bracing himself as the waves broke around them.

“Thanks,” Joe gasped, leaning into Frank’s arm. His eyes were still closed.

“What happened?” Frank asked.

“Two- skin divers. One grabbed me and- pulled off- my mask,” Joe explained between breaths. “Other one- had the net.” He opened his eyes, winced, and closed them again.

“You okay?”

“Headache,” Joe murmured.

‘That’s no surprise,’ Frank thought. Oxygen deprivation tended to do that.

“I got- a couple breaths before they pulled off my flippers-”

“Pulled them off?” Frank repeated. Flippers did have a nasty habit of working loose sometimes.

“Hands, on my ankles.” Joe shuddered. “Didn’t know if you’d hear me or not, but...”

Frank closed his eyes for a moment, thinking of the struggle so close by that he’d been utterly unaware of. “I sure did. Plain as day,” he replied, repressing a shiver of his own.

The two boys were very quiet for a while. The top of the rock was not under water, but the waves that smacked against it reached past their waists. Spray flew around them like rain.

“We probably better get back to shore,” Joe said at last, slowly straightening up. “Tide’s still coming in, it’ll probably get pretty rough right here soon.”

Frank nodded, then bit his lip as he regarded the distance from the rock to the beach. It looked a lot farther away from here than it had when he’d been standing safely on the sand! “You sure-?” he asked Joe, concern in his eyes as he looked at his weary brother. Joe turned half-around and gazed at the yards of open water.

“I can do it,” he said at last.

“If you need a hand...”

“If I do, believe me, you’ll hear about it.” With an attempt at a smile, he slid down off the rock and pushed off. Frank waited for him to get clear, then followed. ‘It really isn’t that far,’ he tried to reassure himself. But he noticed that Joe was swimming much more slowly than usual, and made sure not to get ahead of him. Just in case.

It took a good deal longer to get to shore than it had to leave it; the undertow was slowing them both down considerably. After nearly ten minutes of hard swimming, Frank finally felt his feet touch the sand. Standing, he found himself chest-deep and called out, “Drop your feet!” to Joe, who was still doggedly swimming ahead of him. Joe did so, and the two of them waded through the shallower water.

Frank had almost caught up with Joe as the water dropped to about knee-level, but suddenly he saw Joe stumble and then fall forward. The coming wave swept over him, covering him in water. Alarmed, Frank ran to the spot and reached into the churning water; as the wave rolled back, he found Joe’s arm and pulled him upwards. Joe was on his hands and knees, fighting the pull of the tide. With Frank’s help he struggled to his feet, panting for breath, then coughed hard several times.

“Easy,” Frank said worriedly, draping his brother’s arm around his own shoulders, then putting his free arm around Joe’s waist. “C’mon, almost there. Just a few more steps. Lean on me.” Joe obeyed, staggering a little as they left the water and moved over the hot sand to the towels and umbrella. “Here you go...” Frank eased his brother to the sand and then crouched beside him. Joe slowly crumpled onto his towel and lay still, his breathing heavy. Another fit of coughing took him, and then he quieted.

“Swallowed some water?”

Joe nodded slightly, his eyes closed again. Frank could see him shaking and knew it wasn’t from cold- not with the sun beating down the way it was. Settling himself into the sand, he reached over and began to smooth Joe’s wet hair out of his face. Under his touch, Joe slowly relaxed. His expression grew calm and his shivering stopped. “Putting me to sleep,” he said weakly, a faint smile touching his lips.

Frank smiled in return. It was an old trick of his, one he’d often used to soothe his brother when they were small. Whenever Joe had been particularly restless or scared, Frank would stroke his hair for a while and the younger boy would gradually calm down and drift off. “Still works, does it?” he asked.

“Mm-hmm.”

“You don’t look like you’d object to a nap.”

“Sounds wonderful,” the younger teen murmured.

“Go right ahead, then,” Frank suggested. He didn’t need to suggest it, he realized a few minutes later. Joe was sound asleep, breathing easily.

Frank quietly stood up and went back to his own towel, but although he picked up his book and brushed the sand off it, he didn’t feel very interested in reading. ‘Two men in wetsuits, with oxygen tanks,’ he thought, frowning. Skin divers, from the sound of it, but why would any skin divers want to yank off his brother’s snorkel gear, wind him up in a net so securely that he couldn’t move, and leave him to drown? It was the sort of thing he might expect if they were working on a particularly dangerous case, but there was no apparent reason for someone to attack either of them now.

Perhaps, Frank concluded after musing for a while, the two divers had been out for revenge. He and his brother had gotten many criminals behind bars, and quite a few of them would doubtless be willing to go to great lengths to get even. It was either that, or a case of completely mistaken identity.

‘Now how,’ he wondered suddenly, ‘did they know to be out there today? Maybe they were expecting someone else- but that seems awful unlikely. These cottages are so few and far between, they would’ve had to have very careful directions of where exactly to wait. So they probably are targeting us. But they didn’t go after me...was it because I wasn’t close enough to the rock, or is it just Joe’s turn right now?’

Frank turned it over in his head for a long time, but the only conclusion he really reached was that they had better check their cottage and the surrounding area for some sort of listening device, though he rather doubted they’d find one. ‘After all, we stood on the porch and talked about what we were going to do; anyone nearby could have overheard. And there won’t be much in the way of footprints or tire tracks, not in this soft sand.’ He shivered a little in spite of himself; he and Joe had long known that when certain people got out of jail, they would not be at all pleased and might try to track the brothers down. But this was the first time anyone had actually tried it, assuming his theory was right.

‘We’re going to have to be careful,’ he thought, and then sighed. ‘So much for a vacation. And so soon after this wretched Starmail thing, too. I hope it doesn’t shake him up even more.’

“Joe...”

Joe Hardy slowly opened his eyes to see who was calling him, blinked against the strong sunlight, and then blinked again as he recognized who was beside him. “What is it, Frank?”

“I thought it might be time to get back into the air conditioning,” his brother explained. “It’s about one o’clock, and it’s at least a hundred degrees out here.”

Joe slowly sat up, feeling very groggy. He glanced around, wincing at the brightness of the sun that gleamed on the white sand and glittered on the rushing waves. Frank was crouching beside him in the shade of the umbrella. He didn’t look like he’d been back in the water very recently, for his hair was only slightly damp. “How long’ve I been asleep?”

“Just about two hours. I’m surprised that cavern you call your stomach didn’t wake you up, I could hear it complaining from about ten feet away,” Frank told him with a smile.

“Hmmm,” Joe responded, slowly getting to his feet and picking up the towel he’d been lying on. He shook it a few times to get the sand off, then stopped and lifted his free hand to his forehead, feeling his temples pound with every movement.

“What’s wrong?” Frank sounded concerned now.

“Headache.”

“Still? That’s a little odd.”

“Probably the heat. Or,” Joe added, managing a smile, “hunger.”

Frank nodded and picked up his own towel. “We can leave the umbrella for later, I doubt anyone will take it,” he remarked. “Watch your feet, the sand’s really hot.”

“Sneakers,” Joe murmured, looking around for his. Finding them, he crammed his feet in and then trudged towards the cottage.

The cooler air inside the little house revived the younger boy considerably, and the lunch he consumed took the lingering concern from Frank’s eyes. But although he did feel much more alert, the headache didn’t subside, and Joe finally went into the bathroom to dig around in their belongings for some pain-killer.

Frank noticed, of course, but didn’t say anything about it. Instead, the two of them sprawled on the small sofas in the living-room area and Frank shared his suspicions about the skin divers and their net.

“Revenge, huh? Well, we knew it would happen sooner or later, but how they knew to find us here is a fair puzzle,” Joe said equably when Frank was finished.

“I thought we might do a look around for bugs, or for anything suspicious if it comes to that. Though I don’t expect we’ll find footprints.”

“Doesn’t matter, we left the casting stuff at home,” his brother pointed out.

“Yeah.” Frank looked a little sour and Joe understood; Frank had really hoped to avoid anything mysterious- any ‘trouble’- on this trip.

“Stands to reason that anyone who was after a revenge job would wait till we were pretty well isolated.”

“So you think he- they- tailed us from Bayport?” Frank mused. “That’s a possibility. Sure would explain how they knew where we were staying.”

“And they must’ve heard me talking about snorkeling-” Joe paused, frowning. “I expect my snorkel’s halfway to the U.K. by now,” he grumbled. “But if they heard, they could either rent the skin diving equipment, or haul their own suits out of storage. I’d kinda bet on the first one, though.”

“We can check out any diving shops,” Frank agreed. “Though there’s probably quite a number around here.”

Joe nodded, still frowning, and then looked at his brother for a moment. “You were in before me,” he said slowly.

“I thought about that. Maybe I just wasn’t in the right place. Or they weren’t set up.”

“Or,” Joe prompted, knowing that Frank was thinking exactly what he himself was thinking.

“Or, yes. It might be your turn at the moment.”

Joe tried not to shiver, but couldn’t quite help it. He’d been the target of assassin attempts before, the most memorable of which had involved a company that had been trying to blow up a satellite. He had inadvertently witnessed the exchange that sealed the case, and had nearly ended up buried alive when the company sent people to silence him. “I guess we’ll just have to be careful,” he murmured. “I think we don’t want to tell Mom about this, not when she’s already concerned.”

Frank nodded. “Once it cools down a bit, we can go out and check around. I still don’t think the roller-coaster had anything to do with it, though.”

“No. Who could’ve known we’d get in that particular car?” Joe tried to stretch his legs out on the sofa, but it wasn’t long enough, so he propped his ankles up on the armrest instead. That, however, turned out to be fairly uncomfortable after a few minutes. “I’m going in the bedroom,” he declared, standing up. “At least I can stretch out on the bed without getting leg cramps. When d’you think it’s going to be cool enough to poke around outside?”

“Probably not until five or so.” Frank picked up his book from the battered coffee table, wedged himself into a corner of the sofa, and started trying to find his place again. “How’s your head?”

Joe went into the bedroom and flopped on the bed in his usual posture, feet at the pillow. He propped himself up on his elbows, put his chin in his hands, and remarked through the open doorway, “The aspirin is helping.” A moment later he added thoughtfully, “I wonder if it is the heat.”

Frank looked over curiously. “Oh?”

“It just occurred to me that it might have something to do with the- the thought transference.”

“Telepathy,” Frank corrected almost absently, “is a much simpler word. And it might, at that.” He closed the book, a frown crossing his face. “Come to think of it, I did have a bit of a headache after that...not now, though.”

“Hmmmmm...define ‘that.’ ”

“The first time,” Frank answered rather briefly.

“The first time,” Joe repeated to himself very quietly. “Starmail, you mean,” he went on, a little louder. “I don’t remember if I had a headache after that or not. I’m not sure I would’ve noticed if I did. I wish,” he added after a moment, “that we had some accurate terms for all this. ‘Telepathy’ is all fine and well, but how do you talk about it if you don’t know what you’re really doing?”

“More to the point, how do you do it if you don’t know what you’re doing?”

Joe stared out the door for a moment. “I think it’s safe to say we’ve figured that out.”

“You have, maybe. I don’t have a clue.” Joe’s eyes sparkled suddenly, but before he could say anything, Frank added quickly, “About telepathy, that is.”

Joe grinned, then sobered a bit. “All I know for sure is, it does take concentration. Which would explain the headaches. Might be it’ll get easier after some practice.” Then he shook his head, and winced slightly at the injudicious movement. “Doesn’t make sense! Try this,” he invited. “First I notice I’m...whatever, overhearing stuff. So I- hell, I don’t know what I did, but the end result is now I have to think about hearing stuff, instead of having it just happen.”

Frank abandoned the book and came into the bedroom, flopping down on his own bed and staring up at the ceiling. “Sounds sort of like putting up a filter,” he remarked after a moment. “Keeping stuff out that you’d rather not overhear. But it also sounds like the ...hearing and the, well, talking, are very different.”

“That’s true. Hearing really doesn’t take any effort, but talking...maybe,” Joe said suddenly, struck by a thought, “maybe when I talk, I have to get through the other person’s filter.”

“Who else have you tried this on?” Frank asked curiously.

“Well, no one, yet, but I meant as a general thing.”

“I dunno. I’d be more inclined to say you might have to drop your own filter in order to- to contact someone else.”

“Y’know what? We need to find someone who knows about all this,” Joe said with a sigh. “And who’s willing to explain, because we’re just taking shots in the dark here.”

Frank nodded slowly. “You’re right, but it’s not going to be easy. I suspect there are telepaths out there somewhere- would almost have to be, ‘cause we can’t be the first or only people to have discovered it. But finding one?”

“I wonder...” Joe fell silent, his gaze going fixed on the dark-wood wall before him. ‘There might,’ he thought. ‘There might just be a way to find someone.’ But it would have to wait until the headache went away, and that didn’t feel like it was going to happen for a while. Joe sighed and folded his arms, then laid his aching head down and closed his eyes.

“Time to wake up.”

“Uh?” Joe lifted his head and realized that he had an awful crick in his neck. “Owww.” Reaching up, he rubbed at it with one hand. “Did I fall asleep again?”

“Yup.” Frank was sitting on the side of Joe’s bed. He’d changed his swim trunks for a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.

“This is becoming a habit.” Joe turned on his side and rolled his head a few times to see if that would help. It didn’t.

“I was tempted to let you sleep, but then I thought of what you’d do to me if I went out checking on my own, and decided discretion was the better part of common sense,” Frank explained. Joe dropped down flat on the bed and laughed.

“Very wise, grasshopper,” he replied after a minute, still grinning. “You are learning well. What time is it now, anyway? I feel like it’s only been a minute or two since I started feeling dozy.”

“A little after five. I think I drifted off a bit myself.”

“Sun,” Joe said cryptically, sitting up. To Frank’s credit, he understood the reference.

“Yeah, hot sunlight like we had today will take it out of you. We’ve got some time before the sun goes down, if you want to change and-or eat something. I did both.”

“Oh, is that why I smell fried chicken?”

“That might have something to do with it, yes. I even left you a little. There’s some rice, too.”

“I must have been out of it, not to wake up with that aroma floating around,” Joe said ruefully, standing up and stretching his shoulders. “Hm,” he added after a moment. “The headache’s gone.”

“Well, that’s good.” Frank followed behind as Joe made a beeline for the kitchen.

“I think I traded it for a cricked neck. Oh well, could be worse; I could have both.” Joe helped himself to the chicken and rice. Both were still warm enough to be tasty. “I can hear Auntie now,” he remarked through a mouthful of chicken.

“Yes, she’d be saying, ‘Joe Hardy, don’t talk with food in your mouth! I thought you knew better. You young people, you have no manners!’ ” Frank answered, sitting down at the end of the table with a glass of milk and several chocolate chip cookies.

Joe rolled his eyes. “I was thinking more in terms of her, ‘it’s not a proper meal without a salad’ speech,” he retorted after finishing his mouthful.

“Oh, that one. I figured rice was close enough. It grows in fields,” Frank said, deliberately ignoring the holes in this argument. “Hey!” he added sharply, swatting his brother’s hand. “Forget it! These are mine- you finish your dinner like a good boy and then we’ll talk about dessert.”

Joe pulled his hand away from Frank’s cookies with a sly smile. “Almost,” he remarked.

“Almost isn’t good enough. Keep your greedy paws to yourself.”

Joe made a face, then turned his attention back to his plate. Finishing quickly, he took his plate into the kitchen and returned with a cookie in each hand- and the cookie bag tucked under his arm. Standing in the doorway between the kitchen and dining area, he looked triumphantly at Frank, who pretended not to notice this provocation.

About fifteen minutes later, * the boys had put their fun and games aside. Joe had changed into regular clothes and the two of them were carefully searching the interior of their cottage for hidden bugs and microphones. They were not surprised to find no trace of anything unusual.

“Outside,” Frank decided after a while.

“I suppose we’ll have to go climbing on the roof?” Not that Joe particularly minded, having no fear at all of heights, but people on roofs tended to be visible from long distances, which was not always desirable.

“Possibly. Might as well be thorough, but I’m not entirely sure how we’ll get up there.” Frank shrugged. “Let’s check at ground level first.”

A careful examination of the walls revealed a lot of dirt and mold, some insects, and a considerable quantity of cracking and peeling paint. The most unusual thing the brothers found was a small black bat hanging upside-down from the gutter. But there was not a trace of a listening device. “Not much around in the way of cover,” Joe remarked, turning his back to the house and scanning the area. Frank nodded; it was all fairly wide open, with only a few stunted saplings here and there.

“No, but we may as well see if there’s any tire tracks or footprints.” It was Joe’s turn to nod; both of them knew it was probably useless, but ‘probably’ wasn’t good enough for either of them.

“Anything?” Frank asked after a while.

“Well, there’s this one big gouge right there,” Joe said dubiously, pointing to it. “But it looks like we caused it ourselves- it’s right behind our car.” Frank walked over the soft sand and frowned at the spot.

“It’s old, but I can’t tell how old. Probably from when we backed out.” He shrugged. “Of course, someone could have pulled in right behind our car and listened with a parabolic microphone, but if they made this when they left, we should have heard it.”

“Yeah.” Joe rose to his feet, pausing to brush the sand from his legs. He’d been kneeling a few steps away from the gouge in question. “So do we try the roof?”

Frank looked up at the cottage roof for a moment. It wasn’t very high, but it was very steep. “I don’t think we’ll find anything, but if you really want to-”

“Might as well.” Joe looked around. “If we can get up there, that is.”

“We?”

“That’s what I said, we.” Joe looked at his brother. “Oh, I get it. All right, you can play the part of the ladder, since you want to keep your feet on the ground.”

Frank braced himself against the side of the cottage and bent his knees slightly. “Mind the bat,” he said as he gave Joe a leg up.

“Uh, yeah. Wouldn’t care to turn into a vampire.” Joe grasped the gutter to steady himself as he slowly stood up on his brother’s shoulders.

“I was thinking more of rabies,” Frank said seriously.

“Oh! Yes, good point.” Joe scrambled onto the roof and crouched there. “Man, it’s slippery up here. There’s moss growing between the shingles.”

“Be careful-”

“Don’t worry, I have no plans to start tap-dancing.” Frank was being overprotective again, Joe thought with a sigh as he moved cautiously across the steep roof. The pitch was almost at a forty-five degree angle. “Nothing, nothing, nothing...and nothing,” he murmured, scanning each and every shingle, each clump of moss. “I’ll check the other side,” he said over the edge to Frank, who had moved back from the wall and was watching him closely.

Frank looked like he was about to say something, but Joe didn’t wait to hear it; he just moved up the roof to the peak, went over the side, and studied the downslope. The evening sun was in his eyes, which required him to squint a bit and lean closer to the roof to check out the shingles thoroughly.

It happened as he reached the lowest row of shingles. His foot skidded slightly, his weight shifted, and before he knew what was happening, Joe slid right off the roof. It was so quick and unexpected that he didn’t even have time to cry out in surprise. He landed solidly on his feet in the sand, but the unstable surface made him lose his balance and he fell hard on his rear.

“Are you hurt?” Frank was beside him in a second, his voice alarmed.

“My ankles are kind of tingly,” Joe admitted. He didn’t look up, but sat brushing flecks of sand and moss from his clothes. “No harm done, though. The sand’s pretty soft.”

He heard Frank sigh, as much from exasperation as relief, and when he did look up, feeling quite sheepish, Frank was standing beside him with his arms folded on his chest. “If that’s your version of being careful, I’d truly hate to see the reckless one,” Frank said dryly. “Lucky you landed on your feet and not your head.”

“Oh well, you know I have a thick skull,” Joe offered, trying to lighten Frank’s mood. It didn’t work; Frank just rolled his eyes and scowled.

“It’s really not funny, Joe.”

“Don’t worry so much!” Joe stood up briskly and felt a dull ache in his tailbone. So he had a bruise; big deal. “I’m fine, except for my pride, and now we know the roof’s not bugged. On the whole, a plus.”

“Don’t worry?” Frank repeated, his voice lifting. Then he stopped, shrugged, and turned away. “Fine, I won’t.” His footsteps sounded lightly on the wooden porch and a moment later, Joe heard the screen door close.

“Here we go again,” he grumbled. Walking around to the front, he called, “I’m going to get the umbrella off the beach before someone decides it’s been abandoned.”

There was no answer from within. Joe cast his eyes up again, gave a brief shake to his head, and walked down toward the water. Finding the umbrella still standing where they’d left it, he pulled it out of the sand and closed it. “He always does this,” he grouched aloud, putting the umbrella on the ground and sitting down next to it. “First he worries too much, and then when I tell him he’s getting overprotective, he gets mad and tries to pretend that he won’t ever care what I do again. Why can’t there ever be something in the middle?” The teen sighed; as much as he disliked someone- anyone- overprotecting him, he did know that Frank’s caution had saved them both from injury many times, and he always felt guilty after he complained about it.

“If he’d be just a little more reasonable about it- I don’t go getting all mad at him when he tells me I need to settle down. I don’t always cool down, I guess, but I don’t turn around and take it out on him, either,” he tried to rationalize, but it didn’t reduce his sense of guilt. Joe hated to admit it, even deep in his own mind, but he was more than a little afraid that someday, somehow, his brother would decide to give it up as a lost cause and quit looking out for him altogether. Never mind that the idea was about as sensible as the thought of Frank tying feathers to his arms and taking a leap off a cliff in an attempt to fly; it still haunted his younger brother sometimes.

“And when I go back in there, he’ll be like he always is when he’s mad at me- cold and hard as ice. And distant. He won’t ignore me if I say something, but he won’t start any conversations, he won’t smile...” Joe drew his legs up to his chest, wrapped his arms around his knees, and stared disconsolately at the evening sky. “He probably won’t even say goodnight.”

“I’d never heard that umbrellas were much good at conversation,” commented a voice. Joe felt himself turn crimson as he realized Frank was standing a few paces behind him.

“Not really, no,” he answered, keeping his gaze forward. “I’d rather talk to a person, myself. But that’s not always an option, so I take what I can get.”

There was a silence; out of the corner of his eye, Joe saw his brother move forward, lean down, and shove the umbrella away. Then he crouched where the umbrella had lain and regarded Joe thoughtfully. Joe couldn’t think of a thing to say. He wondered just how long Frank had been standing behind him, and what had brought him down to the beach in the first place, but he couldn’t find a way to inquire.

Frank seemed almost as lost for words as Joe was; the silence stretched for several minutes. Finally Frank picked up a seashell, tossed it toward the ocean, and said quietly, “D’you know why I get mad at you, when you say not to worry?”

“I know why you worry, but I don’t know why you get mad about it, no.”

“Why do I worry, then?”

Joe looked down at the sand. “You don’t want me to get hurt- or to get you hurt, either.”

“Because...?”

Joe was silent, but he looked up and gave his brother a look compounded of shyness and apology.

“So you’ve figured out that I care about you?” Frank’s tone was affectionate, which Joe had not expected.

“I’ve know that for a long time,” he answered in a near whisper. “For about as long as I’ve known that I care about you.”

Frank smiled a little, surprising Joe again. But what he said was, “It makes me mad because, when you say ‘don’t worry’, what I hear is ‘stop caring about me’. And that’s...painful.”

Joe stared, his mouth dropping open. “What?” he asked incredulously. “Frank, I never-”

“Never said it, no. I know that. And I don’t imagine you mean it, either, but that’s how it makes me feel. I know I overdo it sometimes, but even so, when you say it...it’s as if-” Frank paused and shoved a hand through his hair. “It’s like you’re pushing me away,” he finished softly.

Joe closed his eyes and dropped his head down on his knees for a moment. Then he took a deep breath and sat up, shifting so that he was sitting cross-legged. “I always feel so guilty, when I tell you not to worry,” he confessed. “And it- scares me a little, when you get mad about it. I have this terrible feeling that one day I’ll say that, and you’ll decide that it’s high time you took my advice- for good.” He blushed again as he said it; it was always so hard to talk about how he felt! But this- this was too important. It needed saying.

He wasn’t too surprised, when he glanced over, to see Frank looking as shocked as he himself had felt a few minutes ago. “Joe, I- that’s- never!”

Joe lifted his hands, dropped them helplessly to his sides. “I can’t help it. No more than you can. You feel how you feel, right?”

Frank nodded slowly. Then he looked out at the darkening water. “I- whenever I get mad- I never thought you really noticed.”

“Just go on about my merry way, huh?” Joe murmured, the slight touch of contempt in his voice directed at himself. “No. I notice. And I wait. And when you finally start smiling again, I know things’re getting back to normal.”

Silence. The waves broke on the shore. The brothers avoided each others’ eyes; neither of them very comfortable with the conversation, but both glad that it was occurring. It wasn’t that they weren’t used to confiding in each other; it was that they weren’t used to speaking about their own relationship. The closeness between them was a matter of understanding, not of discussion.

‘Maybe it was time we actually talked about it,’ Joe was thinking. ‘Maybe we’d’ve talked about it sooner, if we weren’t always so busy running around...we’ve been going under a lotta false assumptions, from the sound of it, and it sure is good to know the truth. Even if it is kind of embarrassing.’ He’d inadvertently picked up a few emotions from his brother; mainly a certain shyness and a fair amount of shock. But no anger. So either Frank was hiding it very well, or he just wasn’t mad anymore...

“Hey,” Frank said softly, but the suddenness took Joe off-guard and he glanced over in surprise. Frank had seated himself on the sand, and now he extended one hand. “Get over here,” he whispered, his voice not quite under complete control.

Joe hesitated for just a fraction of a second, then scootched over beside his brother and gladly returned the embrace he received.

“What a day,” Frank said after a few minutes, lifting his forehead from Joe’s shoulder and looking over at the just-risen moon. He sounded a little peculiar, and Joe wondered for a minute if-

And then he heard a quiet sniff, and knew.

“Yeah,” he agreed softly, keeping the amazement from his voice with some difficulty. “A lot’s happened. Seems more like three days.”

“At least.” Frank took a breath and let it out, trying to sound like an ordinary sigh, but he didn’t pull it off too well.

Joe felt like he ought to do something, or say something, but he couldn’t figure out just what the something ought to be. Glancing over, he saw that Frank had turned his head to look at the sky; silver light glowed on his face, and glittered slightly on one particular streak. But aside from that- “You look wiped out, even by moonlight,” Joe told him. Frank looked over and smiled his wry half-smile.

“And you aren’t?” he inquired, sounding a good deal calmer.

“No. Remember, I had a nice long nap this afternoon. Two of ‘em, actually.”

“Oh, yes. Well, I’m ready to head back inside, and it might not be a bad idea if you collected your loyal confidant there-” Frank nodded at the umbrella and Joe grinned “-and came back too.” As he spoke, he slowly released Joe.

“I suppose so. Mosquitoes are one thing, but there does seem to be some hostility in the area.” Joe got to his feet, picked up the umbrella, rested it on his shoulder, then turned and offered his hand. Frank took it and Joe hauled him to his feet. Side by side, the brothers climbed over the sandy hill and walked back to the cottage.

Frank paused on the steps as Joe put the base of the umbrella on the ground and leaned it against the porch railing. Then he went on in, taking a deep breath of the cool, unhumid air inside the cottage. Joe was right; he was wiped out. It was early still, but Frank was more than ready to go to bed.

Joe stood in the doorway as Frank pulled off his shirt, drew the covers aside, dropped onto the bed, and then pulled the covers up again. The air conditioning made both a sheet and a blanket necessary when sleeping. “I guess you’ll be up and about till the crack of dawn, hm?” Frank inquired.

“Probably not quite that late.” Joe smiled and flicked off the light switch. “Not if we want to go looking around for skin-diving renters before it’s hot enough to melt.”

‘Oh, yeah,’ Frank thought. He’d almost forgotten about that plan. “True,” he agreed aloud. Joe walked into the room, picked up a few things, and then paused beside the bed.

“Night,” he said with a smile.

“Good night.” Frank watched him leave, watched the door swing closed, and then turned on his side in the bed, the events of the day whirling through his mind.

‘What a day,’ he thought again. He felt as though he’d been riding a yo-yo, plunging between one extreme and another. A perfectly tranquil morning broken by the divers’ attempt to kill Joe. The concern of the day gradually replaced with calm. The camaraderie of the evening disturbed by their quarrel, and then restored by their talk...

Frank felt himself blushing for his emotional response to that talk. It was not at all like him to find tears in his eyes, and he wondered if Joe had noticed. Probably so, but at least he hadn’t said anything. Not that he was all that likely to tease about it, considering the circumstances, but since he hadn’t mentioned it, it might just mean he understood.

‘I’m glad I went out there,’ Frank thought. He almost hadn’t; after all, he’d just finished telling that exasperating, reckless brother of his that, fine, he wouldn’t worry anymore. It was a bluff, of course; the longest Frank had ever * managed not to worry about Joe was perhaps five days straight. And that had been long before they got into investigations.

But exasperating or not, he had to give Joe a lot of credit for his courage. Frank had long held an admiration for his younger brother, ever since they were little kids. Joe had stood up to the bullies and been the champion of many more timid children who had been picked on in school. He’d never let anyone back him down- except his older brother.

Frank smiled to himself in the dark, remembering the long-past times. No matter how furious Joe got, no matter what the provocation involved, if Frank ever stepped in or told him to cool down, Joe would do it. Not easily, not altogether willingly; his temper was hot and difficult to extinguish, but he’d always managed to restrain himself if Frank suggested it. No one else could say that, not even their father.

‘I wonder why?’ Frank mused, as he often had before. ‘Maybe someday I’ll get around to asking him...but knowing him, he’ll be reluctant to answer!’ For someone who felt so much - hot-tempered, impulsive, always ready to take a dare, generous to a fault, with his intuitive understanding of what any situation would do to a person’s reactions- Joe was always extremely reluctant to talk about how he felt, or how something affected him. It was a peculiar contradiction of his nature that he showed so many emotions, yet didn’t care to talk about them.

‘I suppose that’s not really so different from me keeping a cool exterior, but being able- well, more able than he is- to admit how I’m feeling about something. Like tonight. Telling him I care about him- that wasn’t so hard, but I know how hard it was for him to say it back to me. I guess it was really important to him.’ Frank’s smile turned gentle; that was what had brought the unexpected tears into his eyes. ‘I always knew it, but jeez! it was good to actually hear it for a change. And I wouldn’t even have gone out there at all, except I started wondering if anyone might be trying to listen in on us tonight.’ His smile faded. ‘Definitely not a good time to be out alone.’ Then he yawned; his eyelids were getting heavy.

Frank turned over on his back again and gazed at the moonlight peeking over the top edge of the window, feeling half-mesmerized by the fluttering light. A breeze had risen and the tree limbs were shifting in the wind, causing patterns to move on the wall and ceiling. ‘As well as we know each other, it’s amazing that we always manage to take each other by surprise,’ he thought drowsily. ‘This vacation’s sure doing a good job of giving us some talk-time, at least...keep us in synch so we work better together...’ It was the last thought he remembered before he fell asleep.

Something woke Frank with a jolt; he came alert at once and sat straight up in bed. “What was that?!” he exclaimed.

“That-” Joe started to reply from the other side of the room, but he was interrupted by a tremendous crash of thunder. Frank started violently.

“-was the lightning,” Joe explained calmly as the rumbles echoed and died.

“Good grief!” In the aftermath of the thunder, Frank could hear the surf crashing against the shore. The wind had risen considerably, and howled around the cottage. “Good thing you got the umbrella, or it probably would be washed away. Or blown.”

“Sounds like it, doesn’t it? I heard the thunder start up about half an hour ago, but I guess the front is moving pretty slowly.”

“They usually do on the coast. Conflicting currents between the land and the sea,” Frank agreed, lying back down. Another brilliant white-blue light flared, and a second later the thunder boomed again.

“Well, I don’t think we’ll be sleeping for a while,” Joe said philosophically.

“Probably not. But maybe it won’t be so hot tomorrow, either.”

“That would be good.”

The boys were quiet for a while, watching the bright flares of light and listening to the thunder. “It’s getting stronger,” Joe said after a while. “I’ve never seen so much lightning so fast before, there’s a bolt about every two seconds.”

“I know, and it looks- and sounds- like a lot of it is hitting the ground,” Frank answered, feeling slightly anxious about that aspect.

“Probably most of it’s hitting the sea; it’s the biggest thing out there, and it’s a good conductor.”

“True. Still, I- yikes!”

Joe sat up quickly as a sizzling crackle heralded a new explosion of thunder. “Yeesh! Okay, that was a little close.”

Frank sat up too, feeling adrenaline race along his nerves. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard lightning before! Let’s get into the living room- and let’s unplug a few things, yeah?”

“Good thinking. Don’t turn the light on!” Joe said suddenly. “Use your flashlight.”

“Equally good thinking.” Frank fumbled in one of the drawers and, aided by the next blast of lightning, found and switched on the flashlight.

“Where is it...there.” Joe got out of bed. “I unplugged the lamp on this side.”

Frank swung the flashlight beam around and his shoulders inadvertently tensed at another powerful bang of thunder. There was the light, there was the cord. As he pulled it out, little sparks seemed to dance from the socket. “Did you see-?”

CRASH!

“Uh, I sure did.” Joe sounded a little shaken. “Must’ve been that last bolt of lightning. C’mon...” He opened the bedroom door and the two of them hurried into the living room area. A few tense moments passed as they hunted out all the electrical equipment and unplugged it. When this had been accomplished, Frank sat down on a sofa, feeling more than a little reluctant to go back into the bedroom. Joe didn’t seem to be having that apprehension; he went back in and stood looking out the window.

“This is better than fireworks,” he remarked after a while. “I’m counting the lightning bolts, and- yearg!!”

“Joe!” Frank turned sharply to see his brother skip back a few steps from the window.

“Whoa. Now that-”

Another tremendous crash that set the floor to shaking.

“That one was too close, even for me,” Joe confessed, turning toward the bedroom doorway. Then he stopped. “Frank...”

“Why don’t I like the sound of that?”

“I hear something.”

Joe sounded so uneasy that Frank got up without another word and went to the bedroom doorway. “Tornado sirens,” he said grimly after a moment.

“I was afraid of that. I guess this place doesn’t have a storm cellar...” Joe was looking all around the cabin, and then he shook his head- Frank could see in the lightning almost as well as he could by lamp-light. “Let’s just hope it’s not in this general area.”

“Since there’s nowhere to really take cover, we better got down to the floor. The closer to the ground, the better,” Frank suggested.

“Isn’t there something about lying down in a bathtub?”

“That only works when there’s a tub in your bathroom, and I dunno if you’re aware-” Frank smiled in spite of himself “-but all we have is a shower.”

Joe gave him a rather sheepish look, then pulled a cushion off the sofa, placed it on the floor and sat on it. “I forgot.”

“I noticed.” Frank pulled down the other cushion and sat down on Joe’s left.

“It’s late, after all.”

“Speaking of that, what time is it?”

“Bring your flashlight over here.” Joe lifted his arm and Frank shone the light on it. “A little after midnight.”

“When’d you come in to bed, anyway?” Frank asked, trying to distract them both from the sirens. The thunder drowned it out from time to time, but in the brief lulls they could still hear the eerie wail.

“About eleven, maybe eleven-fifteen. I was just drifting off when I heard the first rumbles. Jeez, all right already!” Joe added, directing his words upward as another tremendous crash shook the cottage.

“You talk to the most unusual things,” Frank told him. “If the storm took a while to get here, it stands to reason it’ll sit over us for a while too. ‘Specially if it’s big enough to spawn a tornado. Telling it to move along isn’t too likely to help.”

“You never know, it can’t hurt.” Joe sounded downright flippant, but sitting as close as he was, Frank could feel his brother’s tension. “And anyway-”

“Shhh.”

“What?”

Instead of answering, Frank lifted the flashlight and aimed it at the ceiling. Both of the teens stared up at the rafters, which were quivering. “Wind’s picked up.”

“Yeah.” Joe sounded a little worried. A strange scraping, clattering sound began to make itself heard.

“I think we’re losing some shingles,” Frank said quietly, and felt his brother’s hand grip his arm. The two sat very still, listening intently, and soon heard, under the scraping sound, a low, rumbling roar.

“Here it comes,” Joe whispered, his grip on Frank’s arm tightening.

“Lie down on the floor.” Frank suited action to words and Joe obeyed immediately, sprawling alongside him. Frank couldn’t tell which of them was more scared. They were both shaking.

The roar rose- not higher, if anything it was deeper and lower, but it was incredibly loud. The roof, the windows, the furniture rattled, it felt as if the entire house would shake apart. Frank found himself thinking of ‘The Wizard of Oz’ and wondering if a house really could take flight. More likely, though, it would just collapse and bury them in rubble! But going outside would have been even more dangerous than staying inside, he reminded himself. ‘Stay calm...it sounds like it’s right on top of us, but the windows haven’t gone, so it’s got to be some ways away yet,’ he told himself.

And then the terrible growl was ebbing, the sound moving away and finally dying into the distance. The wind still gusted, the lightning still flared and thunder crashed, but that, Frank thought, was tame in comparison to the killer winds. Slowly, still shaking, he sat up. “It’s gone,” he said in a voice that wasn’t nearly as quivery as one might expect.

Joe, still lying on the floor, let out an explosive sigh. “I’ve always wondered what a tornado was like, but I never expected to find out. How’s the roof?”

Frank turned the flashlight upwards. “Still there. Looks more or less the same as it did this morning.”

“Good.” Joe sat up and leaned back against the cushionless sofa, then jumped violently at another blast of thunder. “Well, my nerves are all ragged,” he remarked, rubbing his hands over his arms.

“Mine too. I wish I had some earplugs,” Frank muttered.

“Sounds like a good idea,” Joe agreed, and then laughed. “No pun intended.”

“Oh, just for a change, eh?” Frank grinned, still a little shaky. He could tell Joe was trying to give him a dirty look, but since the lightning had abated somewhat, it wasn’t very effective.

It was about fifteen more minutes before the worst of the storm finally moved on. Another few minutes passed before Frank suggested it had quieted down enough to try getting back to sleep. Joe was agreeable, but between the last gasps of the storm, which went on for a good while, and their own tension, it was almost two in the morning before either of them fell asleep again.

“Well, where first?” Joe gazed down at the unhelpfully long list of diving shops located in the area and scowled.

“The closest,” was the curt answer. Both of the boys had slept late and been reluctant to get out of bed; only Joe’s persistent nudging had gotten Frank up and about and as a result the older boy was rather surly.

‘That was very helpful,’ Joe thought sarcastically, but he didn’t say it aloud. Doing so would only start a fight, and that would definitely not be helpful.

The Hardys were sitting in their car in the local library’s parking lot, looking through a town directory. Sighing, Joe pulled out the map and began cross-referencing the list, which had the addresses, to the web of streets. Finally he shrugged. “Looks like there’s at least one on every block,” he told Frank.

“Ah, the methodical approach.” Frank started the car and drove out of the parking lot.

Two hours later, Frank sat back down in the driver’s seat, rubbed at his forehead, and said wearily, “Lunch.” It sounded like a fantastic idea to Joe; they were both hot, tired and hungry. He pointed at the restaurant across the street from where they were currently parked. Frank looked, nodded, and shut off the car’s engine.

The blast of air-conditioning as they entered the restaurant was welcome, the smell of seafood even more so. Since it was after one p.m., the place was crowded and they had to wait a while to get a table. The service was a bit slow, but the quality of food more than made up for that. Hot rolls, followed by chowder, and then the entrees, a delicious mix of ‘surf and turf’. Famished, they set to and both of them were nearly finished by the time they slowed down enough to talk.

“How many more do we have left?” Frank asked at last, peeling the shell from a steamed shrimp.

“Just two.” Joe paused in the act of lifting a forkful of fish and tweaked a bone out of the morsel.

“Only two? I was expecting more like twenty.” Frank pushed his hair, damp with sweat, away from his forehead and took a long drink of soda. Joe was glad to see some of his brother’s good humor returning; Frank still wasn’t smiling, but he had lost his irked expression of the morning.

“We’re more efficient than that,” he answered, and that did get him a smile.

“Efficient at wasting time, you mean,” Frank’s smile turned wry. “Since most of ‘em rent for the day, not by the hour.”

“True- but most of the renters are groups, with an instructor,” Joe pointed out. “Serious divers have their own equipment, and only take it in for repairs.”

“There were plenty of pairs, though.” Frank shrugged. “Still, eliminating the flashy wetsuits was a good idea. That did knock the list down quite a bit.”

Joe nodded, then pulled another fishbone out of his meal. “Plain black- and I am pretty sure it was two guys.”

“But not positive, so we’ll just keep the male-female pairs on the list.”

Joe nodded again; Frank had written down the names of all the customers who had only rented two diving suits. The proprietors had been somewhat curious about this, but only one had inquired what was up. Rather than spin an involved cover story, Frank had made evasive remarks about diving magazines and names he thought he recognized. None of the store owners had been unfriendly or suspicious, Joe mused. That was something of a first- maybe being so close to the beach had something to do with it.

“Ready to go?”

Joe pulled his attention back to the situation at hand, noticing in passing that business had quieted down considerably in the restaurant. “Yep. Two more, and then back for a swim- and a rest,” he suggested, standing.

“I’ll take the nap first, I think,” he heard Frank mutter as he went to pay.

The day had grown even hotter while they’d been inside- or maybe it only felt that way because they were leaving the air conditioning behind. They both took very tenative seats in the car which, despite being parked in the shade, was hotter than an oven. Joe pulled out the map while Frank turned on the car and switched the air conditioner to high. “I keep feeling like I’m forgetting something, something important.”

Joe, bending over the map again, glanced over. “Think about something else- you know how it is. The more you try to concentrate on something, the harder it is to catch.”

“Catch-” Frank repeated, and then he slapped his hand down hard on the side of the door. Joe blinked at him. “Of course, that was it!”

“What?”

Frank took a breath, and then said resignedly, “The net. We left it out on the rock.”

Joe sat up straight. “It might still-”

“After last night’s storm?”

“Um. Well...maybe not, after all, but it won’t hurt to look.”

“Even if it is, it might just have been stolen, not bought.” Frank was getting pessimistic.

“Maybe, but fishing nets aren’t cheap, so if it was stolen, someone might report it. And if it was sold, we could get a name, or at least a description, and then-”

“Cross reference to the diving pairs,” Frank finished, brightening.

“Exactly.”

“So what’re we waiting for?”

Joe looked at him. “I dunno about you, but I’m waiting for the chauffeur to start driving,” he answered impishly. And then he laughed at Frank’s exasperated look.

The two final diving stores were fairly small and dilapidated and neither had had many customers the day before. Frank added a pair of names to his list, Joe thanked the owners, and the two of them made tracks back to the cottage to look for the net.

“You know what they say about swimming after a meal,” Frank remarked as Joe led the way down to the water.

“An hour, I know, but I never believed it,” Joe replied. “Anyway, it’s been forty-five minutes- close enough.”

Frank made no further remark as Joe splashed into the surf, just followed along behind.

The undertow was not so bad today, Joe noticed as he started to swim. And the water was cooler- probably from the rain of the previous night. Their hopes that it would be a less hot and humid day, however, had been sadly dashed; it wasn’t over a hundred, but it was well over ninety. The swim was exactly what Joe had been wanting.

Unfortunately, the Hardys were due for a disappointment. Even from several yards away, it was pretty clear that the net had not remained on the rock. Still, in the interests of certainty, Joe swam right up to the rock and then slowly circled around it.

“Nothing,” he heard Frank remark, and finished his circle to see his brother treading water nearby.

“Nope,” he agreed, and accidentally took a mouthful of sea water. Spitting it out, he grimaced at the bitter-salt taste.

“I wonder,” Frank mused, swimming closer in order to be heard over the waves, “if it-”

Joe didn’t hear the rest. Uneasy at being so near the place he’d been attacked before, he was glancing around the area and had just spotted something he didn’t like the looks of. Frowning, he stared, but it was gone- no, there it was! “Get up on the rock!” he shouted, cutting Frank off in mid word.

“Huh?”

Joe hauled himself out of the water and pulled his feet out of the water. “Get out of the water! Hurry!” He pointed at the disturbance in the water; a gray fin-tip could just be seen, moving in their direction. “It’s a shark!”

Frank needed no further urging; he too scrambled onto the rock and stared with worried eyes at the fin. It was headed right toward them. The boys held their breath as it cruised within several feet of the rock and then vanished into the water again. “Great...it’ll be between us and the beach,” he panted.

Joe could feel his heart racing. This vacation was definitely not turning out the way it ought! No one would come down this way for days, and even if they did, there was no boat. ‘Maybe the pilot of that advertising plane,’ he thought with a faint tug of hope. But even if they could attract his attention, there was little likelyhood that any help would come from it. It looked like their choices were either to stay put for an indefinite time, or try to race a shark to the beach, which was a forgone conclusion.

“There,” he heard Frank murmur beside him. The fin had resurfaced again, farther away, but moving inland. “Wait a minute,” Frank said suddenly.

“What?” Joe pulled his gaze away and saw his brother’s perplexed expression. And then, suddenly, Frank grinned.

“It’s not a shark- it’s that manta ray. Look.” Frank pointed; Joe, taken aback, stared across the water again. “It’s his ‘wing’ tips, about six feet apart.”

Joe felt the color climb into his face as he stared at the pointed fins. Sure enough, there were two of them, far too close to each other and moving too precisely to be sharks in formation. “Oh,” was all he could think of, his face growing even redder as his brother started to laugh. “Well, it looked-”

“Your identification of the local wildlife leaves something to be desired,” Frank teased.

“Okay, okay,” Joe grouched. He glanced once more at the fins, only to note that they had vanished. He was about to slide back into the water when Frank’s hand stopped him.

“Be careful,” Frank said gravely. “The Loch Ness monster could be anywhere in the vicinity.”

That one took a minute to sink in; then Joe leaned over and flung a mighty splash of water at Frank, who was laughing again. Frank dodged and shoved off from the rock.

“All right!” Joe half-shouted. “All right,” he repeated more calmly. “So I overreacted a little. It happened kind of fast.” He frowned into the water. “Since the way is clear, and since that stupid net is probably full fathoms five, I guess we might as well go back in.” He slipped into the water and swam for shore; when he got there, he didn’t wait for Frank but went right for the cottage, pausing only to scoop up his towel as he went. He wasn’t in the mood for any more teasing, and at this moment he wasn’t willing to admit that being by that rock had made him tense enough to make a silly mistake.

Frank followed behind, apparently untroubled by Joe’s pique, but at least he didn’t make any more wisecracks. ‘Probably,’ Joe thought sourly, ‘because he’s not sure I’ll hear him.’ “Scratch one bright idea,” he complained as he sat down on the porch steps to dry off. He didn’t really want to go into the cottage yet; the air conditioning would be on, and wet as he was, it would give him chills within a minute.

“As I was saying before all the, uh, excitement,” Frank remarked, “we could consider diving for it.”

Joe thought about that for a minute. “We could,” he agreed reluctantly. “Except we don’t know how deep it is there, we don’t know how far the net was pulled by the waves before it hit bottom-”

“True, but at least we know we won’t need to worry about Jaws paying a visit.” Frank grinned again.

“Just couldn’t resist, could you,” Joe said bitterly. “No, you’re right, we needn’t worry about that, but you’ll excuse me if I worry a little about, say, other divers making an appearence.” With that he got up, grabbed his towel from the rail, and stalked into the cottage, air conditioning forgotten. He remembered a minute later, though, when the cold blast gave him goosebumps and set his teeth chattering. He hurried into the bedroom, drying off as he went, and quickly dug out clean clothes. He was debating whether or not to put his shoes back on when Frank appeared in the doorway.

“Joe, I’m sorry.” Simply, almost gently. “I didn’t realize how insensitive I was being.”

Joe looked over, and at the sight of his brother’s contrite expression, at the sound of the apologetic words, he felt his anger draining away. The teasing- well, that was deliberate, yes, but the unkindness was not. He let out a little sigh, found a reasonably sincere smile and nodded briefly. The jibes still stung a little, but they didn’t actually hurt- not now.

Frank relaxed visibly- or at least, visibly to Joe’s eye- and came into the room, rubbing at his arms with his own towel. He didn’t say anything as he, too, pulled on fresh clothes, but when he was done, he sat beside Joe instead of sitting on his own bed. Joe knew exactly what would be next, so he was not surprised when his brother’s hand landed lightly on his arm in a cautious test of his temper. He was, however, quite surprised to get a strong feeling of guilt/self-reproach/apology. He wasn’t sure if Frank was doing it deliberately or not, but it didn’t really matter. Joe couldn’t quite bring himself to say ‘no big deal’ so he did the next best thing and, turning to Frank, said calmly, “Forgiven. And I’m sorry too, I shouldn’t’ve snapped like that.”

Frank’s smile was a mix of relief and affection, and his casual, “Don’t worry about it,” only sounded nonchalant.

“I think the next item on your agenda was a nap?”

“That was it, yes.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me, too.” Joe watched as his brother moved to his own bed and flopped down on his back, then stretched out as well. He woke up when the air conditioning went on again, but only long enough to pull the sheet up.

“Vacations never last long enough!”

Frank Hardy looked across the room and tried not to grin, but it was no use. Joe was glaring into his suitcase as though he held it personally responsible for the passing of time. “I don’t know what you’re complaining about, it’s not like we’re going back to school or something. There’s still another week left of June,” he replied, stretching a little as he spoke. He’d been lying on the bed watching his brother pack, always an amusing sight. Joe could be organized when he tried, but packing wasn’t worth the expenditure of his patience.

“Well, I know, but I still think it didn’t last long enough. And I really hate going back with this...thing hanging over us.” Joe’s light-hearted complaint abruptly turned serious.

“That,” Frank agreed, his grin fading. “I hate to leave that unsolved too, but we just don’t have anything to work with, even if we did have the time.” He almost added that they might find themselves having both time and clues after they got home again, but changed his mind.

“We might get both, if they follow us home.” Joe dropped a last handful of random clothing into his suitcase, closed the lid, zipped it, and hauled it down onto the floor. “Well, it’s all dirty anyway,” he added, seeing Frank’s grin reappear. Then he dropped onto the bed, deliberately bouncing a few times.

“This is not a trampoline,” Frank pointed out with mock-sternness.

“Never said it was.” Joe sprawled on his side, then cast a peculiar glance in Frank’s direction. “I think we’d better try it.”

“Excuse me?”

“My idea. Before we go, I think-”

“I’m still not sure that idea is a good one,” Frank cut in, sitting up quickly. “I mean, I agree, it’s probably the only way to find a genuine telepath, but how do you know you’ll recognize one if you run across him or her? And you have no idea if there’s some kind of limitations or not- what if you go too far and...” Frank shivered at the thought of Joe literally losing his mind, sending his thoughts so far from his body that he got lost and couldn’t find his way back.

“That seems very unlikely,” Joe answered calmly. “And I’m not going to go very far, just around the town there. There’s fewer people, and they’re scattered, which’ll make it easier than going up the coast to the city and trying to sort through all of them.”

Frank was silent. Joe had plainly made his decision and no protests of his were likely to change that stubborn mind. Besides, they did need to find someone who could tell them what they were doing and teach them how to do it properly. “I wish I could help,” he said at last.

“I wish I could show you how to help,” Joe agreed. “But-” he shrugged, lay down on the bed, and closed his eyes.

Frank waited, wishing he knew how long to wait, how long before he should get worried, whether or not to interrupt. If he broke in at the wrong time, he could cause a disaster; if he didn’t, he might let one happen. He didn’t even know whether he should monitor Joe’s breathing and pulse. If something went wrong with this mental search, would Joe’s body reflect it or not?

Time ticked by. Five minutes. Ten. Fifteen. Half an hour. Joe’s breathing remained even, his face calm, even relaxed.

And then, quite suddenly, his eyes flew open and he gasped. Frank, already tense with worry, jumped at the unexpectedness of it and then leaned forward quickly. His brother groaned, his face suddenly twisting in pain; his eyes slammed shut again. His arm came up and draped across his eyes and forehead. “Ohhh... My head...”

‘The headache,’ Frank thought. ‘Why didn’t we remember the headache?’ He’d only experienced the headache briefly, but it had been persistant and painful enough to make him wonder if telepathy was worth it. Joe’s headaches had been far worse, lasting longer and evidently causing more pain.

“There...there’s a...telepath.” Joe sounded as though he was dragging the words up from some deep pit, as though every syllable was making his head pound worse. “Nearby. She...she said...come and see her. In the- in...”

“Joe?” Frank couldn’t hold back his worried whisper.

Joe’s arm slid down. His eyes opened, widened. “In...the morning,” he said slowly, and now his voice was incredulous. “She’s...it’s gone!” He sat up, startling Frank again. “She took it away! She made the headache go away!”

Frank became aware that his mouth was open, and closed it. The two of them stared at each other for a long moment, and then they both started to grin. “You did it. You did it! You found a telepath!”

“I told you it was a good idea!” Joe beamed with satisfaction. “I should’ve done it sooner, we didn’t leave ourselves a lot of time.”

“We can always come back, if we really need to,” Frank pointed out. All his tension was easing and he felt almost giddy with relief. “When tomorrow, what time?”

“As long as the sun’s up, it doesn’t matter, she’ll be expecting us,” Joe assured him.

The telepath’s name was Akilana.

Her house was even farther from the city than the boys’ rented cottage. Frank had wondered about that as Joe told him which roads to take, hoping they were going the right way, but then remembered how he’d known exactly where Joe was and decided there must be something similar at work here.

The place turned out not to be far from where they were staying, but it was even more inaccessible than their own remote cottage. They left the paved road and traveled for about five minutes over a gravelled dirt track before the place came into view. The sea was only a few hundred feet away and there were no dunes, only a few rolling hills. When they pulled up outside the long, low house, there was a black-haired woman sitting in a porch swing, clearly awaiting them. She stilled the swing and got up as they left the car and crossed the sand to meet her.

Akilana was not tall, but she held herself as straight as a spear. Her age was impossible to guess; all that Frank could say with certainty was that she was past twenty. Her skin was rich brown, almost copper, and Frank realized with a touch of surprise that she was Native American. Her long black hair flew loose in the sea wind; her eyes were black and sharp, and there was an intensity in her gaze that Frank had never encountered before. This woman knew things that very few people did.

“Welcome,” she said mildly, looking from one Hardy to the other. “Ah,” she added, her gaze fixing on Joe. “My searcher. Come inside.” She opened a sliding glass door and led them into a room that practically epitomized ‘serenity’. “This is where I work and meditate,” she explained. “And teach.”

Joe took a seat on the sofa; Frank sat down beside him and looked around. There were a few wooden chairs with cushions. A glass-topped table before them had a large cobalt-blue sphere on it; it gave the impression of a ball of light resting in midair. There were many windows, most looking out at the sea, a few giving a view of the long stretch of beach. There was a small unobtrusive end table with a lamp on it, a corner cabinet with some not-too-readily identified objects, and a bookcase that held both books and knicknacks. The walls were mostly bare, though there was a sort of pattern of leaves, twigs, and flowers on one. It was impossible to say where the feeling of serenity came from; Frank wondered with a smile if the woman had consulted a ‘feng shui’ expert or if it was all her own doing. “Probably the latter,” he thought, looking into her eyes.

Akilana left the room; a moment later she returned with a tray. There were three glasses on it. She placed it on the table and took one, inviting the boys with a gesture. Frank sipped; ice water with something in it, something slightly sweet. He wondered what it was.

“Chamomile,” Akilana said quietly, seating herself in a chair across from them. “Just a touch, for the flavor, not for the sedative.” Her gaze shifted from him to Joe, then back again. “So. You have found me and you are welcome here. Few find me, and fewer are welcomed. You have questions; I am a teacher. Ask what you will.” She smiled and Frank found himself smiling back.

Joe leaned forward and set his glass on the table. “I have so many questions, I don’t even know where to start,” he admitted.

“At the beginning.” A definite twinkle of mischief lit the teacher’s eyes. “You know that you are telepathic; when did it begin, and how?”

Frank took another sip of the cold, sweet water and then sat holding the glass, listening as his brother explained. Akilana listened too, her head slightly lowered, her eyes never leaving the cobalt sphere on the table.

“I feared it was so. Those who do not find their talent in their youth usually find it through a trauma, and you two are far older than most of my students,” she said at last, looking up. “But that is often the way of the strongest ones. You have a great strength in you, warrior. And you, guardian,” she added, turning to look at Frank. “You will be a formidable one when you have mastered your shields.”

Frank glanced at Joe, who was glancing right back at him.

“Is he not a warrior? Does he not go eagerly to a battle?” Akilana asked Frank. “And he-” Now she turned to Joe. “He will battle, but not so eagerly. His greater strength is in protection, in caution.”

‘She’s got us pegged,’ Frank thought, nodding. ‘Though I never thought of it that way before.’ “Shields?” he asked aloud.

Akilana seemed to ignore this. “What you do is most properly called ‘sending’. You send out your thoughts, and another receives them. That which you speak of as a ‘filter’, that is the shield, the walls with which you protect your thoughts from the untrustworthy, or with which you maintain your privacy. Yours-” looking at Joe- “are well formed, though not as strong as they will be, and I showed you yesterday that you must make an opening in them for the thoughts to go through. It is much simpler than trying to press your sending through a wall.”

Joe smiled a little. “The headaches,” he said to Frank. “You were right about that.”

“Yes.” Akilana turned to Frank. “Your shields are so strong that you have managed to reach outward only in fragments. I think that anyone who tried to send to you, aside from your brother, would not be heard. That is partly because of the bond between you and partly because, just now, his sending is stronger than your blocking. I cannot tell now if that may change.”

“What about...other people?” Joe asked slowly.

“It is not wise to let many people know of the gift. If you feel a hesitation within you to confide in someone, heed it and be still. Silence is a better protection than explanations,” Akilana said gravely. “There are not many of us- no more than fifty in this state. I know all of them, but I am the only one who does. It is for safety’s sake, although I think that in this era we need not fear public execution.” The woman sounded almost bitter, but then she sighed. “People are so fearful, but they have some reason to be. There are those who have the gift, whom I do not count with our fifty, because they are outcast. They use their gifts to cause harm. Some are only nuisances; some are dangerous. The most dangerous are they who would take the life of a telepath in order to steal their gift, their strength.”

“You mean...you mean this is...transferrable?” Frank asked in surprise.

“Minds can be stolen,” Akilana agreed, rather cryptically. “Thus, the need for a strong shield and a large measure of caution. Experiment freely, but be wary of whom you touch or trust. It is well that there are two of you, you will find more practice than most. And do not worry about going too far to find your way back; the mind knows its home.”

Frank sat still for a long time, turning that over in his mind, getting comfortable with it. A mix of freedom and caution, responsibility and privelage...like just about anything else in life.

“What is that for?” Joe asked curiously, looking at the blue-glass orb.

“It is a focusing device, for my students. It helps them to concentrate, without distractions. It also aids me when I have a great need for power, though that is not often.”

Both the boys were silent again for a while. Frank gradually became aware of the glass in his hand and set it down on the table. “How exactly does one...send?” he asked.

“Clear your mind of distractions. Focus your thoughts on the one you wish to contact and the message you will be giving them. Make certain you have an opening in your shields, to avoid the pain.” Akilana paused.

“It...sounds simple,” Frank said hesitantly.

“It is, but not the first few times,” Akilana agreed. “It is a matter of practice. I think I need not remind you to be gentle, no matter how urgent the message. Minds have been scarred and burned by brutal thoughts. They can be healed, but it is better not to have been harmed in the first place.”

“Burned?” Joe asked.

The woman considered for a moment. “Damaged in some way. Some few have been burned away entirely, leaving the telepath physically well but taking their gift from them. Others have suffered physical damage to their minds or bodies.”

“That’s...”

“That,” Akilana said softly, “is the work of the outcasts. Or of a terrible accident.” Another silence fell.

“If there’s such a thing as telepathy, are the other ESP gifts true too?” Joe inquired, changing the subject.

“Some send thoughts, some send feelings, some send a mixture of both; the sense of feelings is called empathy but I never felt the need to divide it from telepathy,” Akilana answered thoughtfully. “It all reaches the same mind. And you can have empathy without having telepathy, which simply makes things confusing. Other gifts, though...I have heard of them. Kinesis, moving things without touching them. I’ve known of two who could do that. Clairvoyance is more burden than gift, since the visions one sees may or may not be preventable. There was one who could look into the past- postcognition. A lighter gift than forseeing. And the mediums between the worlds- there are several of those. They can tell where spiritual energy resides, and sometimes the dead will answer them.”

“I don’t think I’ll try that,” Frank murmured, surpressing a shiver.

“Poltergeists?” Joe asked, ignoring him.

“I have never encountered one, but one of my students has. It was rather disturbing for her. She found a medium who persuaded the troubled spirit to cease causing damage, but she could not convince him to move on to the next life. There are those who say that a poltergeist is simply a kinetic who has not mastered his or her power; I suppose that may be so, but the mediums I have spoken to insist that it is a soul that no longer lives, not one that is living but out of control.” Akilana reflected for a moment.

“There are levels,” she mused. “The physical level, we all see. The realm of thoughts and feelings, * where telepaths find themselves. And the level past that, where the soul rests.” Her gaze turned to Joe, then to Frank. “I think you two are not far from the third level.”

That did not sound entirely encouraging to Frank. “You don’t mean we’re...?”

“I do not speak of death,” Akilana said patiently. “I speak of your souls. People interact on the first two planes, of physical speech and mental sending, but few go to the depths of the spirit and create a true bond there. I think you two may, but I am not clairvoyant, for which thank the Creator.” She smiled, then added, “It will be confusing at first.”

“It is,” Joe answered ruefully. “Sometimes I can’t tell if I’m hearing something with my ears or with my mind.”

“It will grow easier soon,” Akilana told him with a faint smile. “When you reach the third level, if you do, you will not at first know whether you are feeling a touch on your body’s hand, or a touch on your soul’s hand. Still, it takes only practice to tell.”

‘So she’s done it herself,’ Frank mused. The wind was rising, he noticed suddenly. Clouds were streaming in from the ocean and blotting out the sunshine. “We should probably go,” he said regretfully. “We’ve got to get home.”

Akilana nodded. “If you find yourselves with more questions, you may certainly reach up to me,” she said, rising.

“Can we...” Joe hesitated as he stood up, looking surprisingly shy. Frank knew what he was wanting to ask, and found himself feeling similarly timid. Akilana glanced at them again and smiled, and suddenly Frank wasn’t so sure that she was over twenty after all.

“Of course you may visit me. I will know when to expect you,” she replied, taking Joe’s hand in her left and Frank’s in her right. “Be well, Warrior, Guardian.”

After a moment, Frank felt his hand released. He and his brother turned, reluctantly, stepping out of the serene room and back into the windy summer day.

There was a totally uncharacteristic silence between the brothers, all the way back to Bayport.