‘There, that’s it,’ Frank Hardy decided, stuffing the last pair of socks into the duffel bag and zipping the top shut. ‘The thing’s half-empty, but I won’t need anything more, it’s only two days.’ Lifting the bag from his bed, he carried it down the hall to the living room and set it by the door. ‘Now all I need to do is wait for Joe to wake up and pack...that could take a while, maybe I should use some of Chet’s ‘aromatherapy’ on him.’ The dark-haired youth smiled as he remembered how Chet had woken Joe by holding a plate of food under his nose, but his smile faded quickly at the rest of the memory.

It was Saturday morning, August eighth. Frank had just finished preparing for a visit to Akilana, the telepath, who had invited her students to come up and see her. Both Hardys had agreed it would be a good idea; quite aside from seeing their friend and Teacher again, they were both eager to get away from the city for a while. There had been too much happening in Bayport lately!

Frank frowned as he recalled the chain of events: first their old friend had nearly killed Joe, half-drowning him in the Mortons’ pond before Frank, Chet, Tony and Jesse could intervene. That had led directly to telling the gang about their telepathy, and the various reactions to the disclosure had been mainly negative. Phil remained intrigued, but the rest still seemed ill-at-ease with the idea of the Hardys being able to hear thoughts.

Then- the very next night- Biff had taken Joe hostage, pretending he’d come to apologize but all the time waiting for the Hardys to drop their guard. Frank shivered at the memory of the hunting knife that had drawn blood from his brother’s throat while Frank stood helpless, desperately trying to talk Biff out of his frenzied demands to get the Euphoria dealer released from prison.

The news of Biff’s arrest had been greeted with weary resignation by most of Bayport- one more good boy gone bad was nothing particularly new, even if he was well-known- but Frank suspected the gang had taken it very hard. Already uneasy about the Hardys’ sending and angry with Biff for his drastic personality changes, they had to have been appalled at the discovery that Biff had been addicted to and dealt the potent nerve-stimulant Euphoria.

‘Of course, if I’d been in touch with anyone, I wouldn’t be just ‘suspecting’ all that,’ the nineteen-year-old mused dryly. ‘Haven’t heard from anyone since the Fourth...either they’re still uneasy because of the sending or they’re blaming us because we were the ones who got Biff arrested. Or both. Either way, they’re keeping their distance until they come to terms with everything.’

Frank had felt rather resentful of his friends’ attitudes at first, but as time passed he changed his mind somewhat. True, Biff was responsible for his own actions, but willingly or not, the young detectives had been at the center of that storm. It would be hard for their friends not to assign them some blame for it, and harder yet not to feel nervous about the telepathy.

‘Hopefully by the time we get back, they’ll have calmed down a bit and be ready to talk about it,’ Frank told himself, trying to think positively. Then he started violently as a loud ring cut through the silence of the apartment. “Who in the world,” he muttered as he hurried out to the living room, “is calling at eight-thirty? And why doesn’t the phone ever wake Joe up? Must be nice to have selective hearing! Well, maybe it’s some of the gang-” With this hopeful thought, Frank picked up the receiver. “Hello?”

“Hello, yes, I’m looking for Frank or Joe Hardy,” said the woman at the other end. She sounded frazzled, which seemed rather odd at that hour of the morning.

“This is Frank Hardy,” the youth replied politely.

“Oh- this is Brenda from Seven Oaks.”

Seven Oaks. Frank felt a chill run through him. “Our aunt?” he asked anxiously. “Is she all right?”

Ten minutes later, Frank put the phone down quietly and went down the hall to his brother’s room. Rather than stand and gaze at his brother till he woke- his most frequent method of waking Joe- Frank sat down on the bed and gently shook the younger boy. “Joe. Joe, wake up.”

“Huh?” Joe rolled onto his back and blinked sleepily. He had been to the Hair Cuttery the day before and his now-short blond hair was wildly tousled. “Wha’s up? W’time is it?”

“Nearly nine. I wouldn’t’ve woken you, but we just had a phone call.”

Joe sat up and rubbed his eyes. “That doesn’t sound good,” he murmured. “What’s happened?”

“Brenda at Seven Oaks-”

“Seven Oaks?” Joe interrupted, his sleepy blue eyes going wide. “Gertrude?”

Frank shook his head. “She’s not in very good shape, but...” He took a deep breath. “Alistair.”

“Oh no,” Joe whispered, shaking his head ever so slightly. “Oh, not...” He didn’t finish, but bit down on his lower lip, his brow wrinkling in bewilderment and dismay. Frank reached over to squeeze Joe’s shoulder; Joe had known the old man a good deal better than he had and Frank had known the loss would hit him harder. After a moment, Joe let out a resigned sigh and looked a question at him.

“She said his liver and kidneys finally gave out,” Frank answered the silent query. “He went in his sleep. They were surprised, he’d started to rally a little.”

Joe nodded, his eyes closing briefly. Then he looked over at Frank and sighed heavily, pushing away the covers. “We better get over there. She’ll be really upset,” he said quietly. Frank nodded and stood up. Neither of them mentioned that their weekend excursion to see Akilana was going to have to be delayed; they both knew it, and it seemed tactless to say so out loud.

“I don’t even think she knows we’re here.”

Joe Hardy shook his head ever so slightly at the remark his brother had just sent to him. “She knows,” he replied silently, his gaze never leaving the blank face of the old woman sitting in the chair opposite him.

“How can you tell?” Frank inquired. His mental voice was curious but also a touch caustic. Joe ignored the tone because he could sense Frank's underlying anxiety.

“If you said our presence isn’t doing her much good, you’d be right,” he answered obliquely. “Not much of anything could do her a lot of good right now. But she knows we’re here, and it’s better than if we weren’t here.” Joe felt his brother’s skepticism and added coolly, “If you’d rather not believe me, that’s up to you.”

“You sound about the way I feel,” Frank muttered wordlessly.

Joe restrained his sharp retort, realizing that Frank was correct. They were both on edge, feeling this new loss, worried about their aunt- and in Joe’s case, guiltily resenting the loss of their weekend. He wasn’t sure whether Frank was feeling that aspect or not- hadn’t quite dared to ask- but it seemed likely.

It shocked Joe to feel that resentment, for he’d been genuinely fond of old Alistair and felt undeniable loss at his passing. And it was very hard on Gertrude, losing the love she’d found so lately. But even though he knew his presence was helping a little, Joe did not want to be at Seven Oaks. He had geared himself mentally to see and talk to his Teacher, to share his uncertainty over the holes that persisted in his memory. Frank’s thirteenth birthday, for example; according to Frank, that had been a most memorable day, but Joe could not bring so much of a flicker of it to mind. He even wondered if perhaps Akilana could somehow stimulate his brain, stir out the last of his missing memories.

He also wanted to relieve his lingering uneasiness and fear over Biff Hooper’s actions. While he intellectually understood his friend’s behavior, emotionally it was causing him a lot of bad moments. Worse than the ugly memory and the new disturbance of his sleep, though, was that every time Joe mentioned how he felt about the incidents, Frank brought up the Euphoria as a sort of excuse for what Biff had done. Disgusted and annoyed by his brother’s obvious sympathy for Biff's addiction, Joe had stopped talking about Biff altogether and was struggling not to feel betrayed by Frank's attitude. True, Frank had first-hand experience with the addiction- and there was no denying it was a brutal experience- but Joe felt that if anyone deserved his brother’s sympathy, he did. The problem was, he was ashamed of his frequent impulses to tell Frank so.

Sighing, the blond youth drew his attention back to his aunt and studied the pallor of her drawn, lined face. She seemed completely blank on the surface, but he could distantly sense her roiling emotions, held in check by her will- a stronger will than he’d realized she still possessed. Didn’t she know that repression was what had caused her strokes? ‘Of course she does, they explained it to her ages ago.’ Maybe was she trying to give herself a fatal stroke by deliberately holding everything in? After all her talk last week about being ‘ready to leave’, Joe rather suspected that was the answer. That was why she wasn’t responding to them; it would break her concentration and let her emotions spill out.

He wished he knew what to do. He wished he knew what there was to do, aside from lending his physical presence. But they’d already tried talking to her, tried to get her to talk to them, tried to make her respond in one way or another. None of it had worked. If all they could do was not give up and leave her by herself, that was what they’d do.

“You doing okay?”

The quiet question made Joe Hardy lift his gaze from the television and blink at the figure standing in the hall doorway. Frank had a dark blue bath towel in his hand; he was clearly on his way to the bathroom for a shower.

“I guess,” Joe replied with a shrug.

“You’ve been awfully quiet this afternoon.” Frank paused. “Sorry if I sounded sharp while we were at Seven Oaks. I hate feeling helpless.”

Joe smiled wryly. “Me, too. And it did seem like we were pretty much unnecessary.”

“You said us being there helped.”

“A little bit,” Joe clarified. “But-” he shrugged, striving for words. “It sounds awful, but I don’t think- I mean, she didn’t- after what she told us- oh, I don’t know what I’m trying to say.”

“Sorta feel like it’s not much use to try and help her?”

Joe nodded, grimacing. “She as much as admitted she doesn’t want to keep living after he dies- died- and...well, do we try to persuade her out of it, or not? We talked about that already,” he added, referring to their recent discussion on the Sleuth.

“Yeah, and we didn’t really get anywhere. It’s a tough situation; even if we try to persuade her, I don’t think it’ll do any good,” Frank responded, leaning a shoulder against the wall and folding his arms around the towel. “But at the same time, it doesn’t feel right to just let her go. I’m not convinced she’s making the right choice...but it is her choice to make, not ours.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. “Bad spot to be stuck in, for all three of us.”

“Yeah.”

There was a brief silence, broken only by the television. Joe looked at the black box for a moment, then picked up the remote that was lying beside him and hit the power button. He sighed as he dropped the remote back on the couch cushion, got up, and wandered aimlessly to the far wall, pausing to stare at a picture hanging there but not really seeing it. It had been a long time since he’d felt so cooped-up and restless, but at the same time he was weary- too weary to go out on a walk or do anything else that might burn some of his restlessness. Besides, it was after eight and the sun was nearly set. He wouldn’t get back until well after dark, and Joe wasn’t sure that was a good idea. Especially not when he was this distracted.

“There was a message while we were gone,” Frank said suddenly. “Con called about Biff- I listened to it while you were in the shower. He’s still pretty unstable, so it’s going to be a while before there’s any progress on getting him a trial. His information’s been very valuable, though. They’ve already reeled in a lot of the Midwestern dealers and users.”

“Good, at least there was some positive aspect to the whole rotten business,” Joe muttered, frowning at the picture. Frank was obviously trying to shift to a less troubling subject, but Joe wished his brother had picked a different one.

“Yes. His sentence’ll probably be reduced a bit for that- he’ll be looking at five to seven years.”

“That much?” Joe glanced back at his brother, pleased, but trying not to show it. He’d expected his erstwhile friend to get away with a slap on the wrist.

“Uh-huh. Because it’s not just drug charges,” Frank reminded him.

“True. I’m not complaining, just a little surprised. I know how soft they can be on first-time offenders.” Joe turned back to the picture; it was one that had hung in the dining room of their house for years and he knew it by heart.

Frank paused, obviously taken aback by Joe’s response. “Con says he’s exhibiting a lot of remorse,” he ventured.

Joe shrugged, scowling again at Frank’s obvious attempt to get him to lighten up on Biff. “I’m not interested, Frank. He showed remorse before, and it lasted only as long as it took to betray us all over again.”

“Well, the Euphoria-”

“Shut up.” The bitter words were out before Joe could censor them, but he bit his lip and didn’t try to retract his rudeness.

A heartbeat of silence, then a shocked, “What?” from Frank. Joe didn’t reply, and a moment later his brother demanded, “What’s wrong? And don’t tell me ‘nothing’; you don’t talk like that unless there’s a big problem.”

“Frank, I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t want to hear any more of your excuses for that- that...” Joe struggled for a word, then blurted, “that traitor!”

There was the soft sound of bare feet moving quickly over carpet, and then hands landed on Joe’s shoulders, turning him around to face Frank. Joe had a moment to register bewilderment and irritation in his older brother’s dark eyes before Frank was repeating, “Traitor? Excuses?” in a disbelieving tone.

“That’s what you’re doing, Frank, you’re making excuses for him! It wasn’t his fault, it was all the drug’s influence, he was out of control- I swear, you have more sympathy for him wrecking his life than you-” Joe stopped in mid-word, cursing himself. Frank’s hands tightened and he shook his head slowly, still looking rather stunned- and no longer remotely irritated.

“Joe, that’s not true,” he said softly. “I do feel sorta bad for him, because I know what it’s like- and it was worse for him than for me. But there’s no way in the world I could feel more sympathy for him than for you, kid brother. He put you through hell, twice, and-”

“Well, I sure couldn’t prove it by the way you’ve been sticking up for him all week!” Joe snapped. He started to say more, but clamped his mouth shut on the words, feeling annoyed at himself. He wanted to say more, to be harsher, to bruise his brother’s feelings as his own were bruised. But every time he was tempted, every time he began to search his mind for cruel and bitter remarks, he remembered all the kindness and caring and patience Frank had shown him during the weeks of the amnesia; all the nights of bad dreams that Frank driven the fear from. And he remembered how Frank had needed Joe’s reassurance so frequently when he was recovering from the Euphoria himself; all the sending between them, all the panic attacks Joe had eased for the older boy.

He couldn’t hurt Frank on purpose, not after these last three months had bound them so close to each other. It would be like sticking his verbal knives into his own psyche.

“Joe...” Frank seemed to hesitate briefly and then his arms went around the angry youth. Joe couldn’t bring himself to fight off the hug; he was angry enough to not really want to be hugged, but he was also unhappy enough to want the reassurance. So he stood still, unable to respond one way or the other. “I’m awful sorry if I seemed indifferent,” his brother murmured. “I’m not, honest. I know being under the influence of Euphoria is no excuse for what he did to you- it’s not like he was hallucinating or delirious or something. He knew what he was doing.”

“Yeah, he was trying to kill me,” the blond boy whispered, and felt a biting moment of shame for being so weak and frightened, for needing his brother’s sympathy. Was that all Frank was doing, soothing a scared child?

“I nearly went into a panic right in this room,” Frank continued quietly. “All I could think was that I was about to lose you and there wasn’t a damned thing I could do. If I’d had a weapon...but I didn’t, so I reminded myself that whatever happened to you was going to happen to me, just a minute or two later. That I wouldn’t have to be alone. It didn’t help much,” he added bitterly, “but at least it kept me from doing something stupid- like fainting from fear just when you needed me to be alert and think fast.” He paused, taking a breath and releasing Joe enough to look at him again; Joe met the gaze with less reluctance.

“But you have been acting like he wasn’t really responsible for what he was doing,” the blond boy persisted, feeling less angry but more unsure. “I mean, every time I talked about it- you never said this before,” he concluded with a vague gesture. “You just kept saying it was the Euphoria.”

Frank’s serious expression altered and his steady gaze faltered. “No, I didn’t say it, did I? Stupid. I’ve been having trouble sleeping, thinking about it, but I didn’t tell you- and I should’ve. I guess I was trying to keep from thinking about it at all. It’s been haunting me. And I didn’t want to bring it up to you because- well, you were pretty shook up. I guess I was trying not to make you feel worse by talking about how totally petrified and- and helpless I was feeling.”

‘Trying to protect me,’ Joe mused to himself, his resentment easing further. That was pretty typical of Frank. “I guess I could’ve been more direct, too, but...” He sighed. “I really didn’t want to go and ask you to stop thinking about Biff and feel sorry for me instead. I don’t want anyone feeling sorry for me; I just don’t want anyone feeling sorry for him, either.” He grimaced. “That sounds horrible.”

“Joe, you totally deserved sympathy,” his brother replied firmly. “I know,” he added as Joe began to protest. “You didn’t ask for it. But you did deserve it. As for Biff- I don’t feel sorry that he’s in jail, and I’m not going to forgive him for nearly killing you, brother. He’s where he is now because he made his own choices- the drug didn’t make them for him. What’s haunting me is was what he said about thinking the withdrawal would kill him, so he didn’t have anything to lose. That I understand; I knew it wasn’t going to kill me, but even so it was terrifying, going through all those symptoms. And I had you to help me,” he added gently. “If I hadn’t, I don’t know what I would’ve done.”

“Well, you wouldn’t’ve tried to murder anyone,” Joe muttered.

“No, definitely not! Joe...” Frank’s hand lifted and touched Joe’s chin, guiding his eyes upwards. “I’m sorry I didn’t make clear what exactly I was feeling and thinking. You feel Biff’s a traitor; I do too, but if you thought I was sympathizing with him...that would put me right in his category as another traitor. And a worse one.”

Joe nodded slowly. “I’ve been trying not to think that,” he replied, suddenly very weary. “Kept reminding myself how you told him off after- after the pond. You- Frank, you know I can’t forgive him, don’t you?”

“Yeah. Me, either.”

“I was afraid you would. Afraid you’d try to be friendly with him again when he got out of jail.”

Frank’s eyes went wide and he gave Joe a slight shake. “Get that nonsense out of your head right this minute!” he ordered. “I told him he didn’t get any more chances, and I meant it. You think I’d forgive someone who nearly-?”

“I didn’t think so, I was only afraid of it,” Joe interrupted morosely.

“There is no way in the world- I could never even consider forgiving anyone who tried to kill you and then took you hostage. Especially not a friend who turned on you- on both of us- like that!” the older boy declared vehemently. “Somebody we both trusted, thought we knew well enough...” He trailed off with a scowl, muttered, “Traitor of the worst kind,” then released his grip on Joe’s shoulders and guided him back to the sofa. “Sit down, you’re all pale,” he suggested more calmly.

Joe obeyed, and felt distinctly relieved when Frank sat down beside him. His nagging fear of the past days felt quite foolish now, but there was a much lighter feeling inside him where his repressed anger had sat. “I’m okay, I’m just kind of tired,” he assured his brother after a moment.

“Feeling better, though, I hope?” Frank looked a little anxious, and Joe nodded.

“Yeah. Yeah, a lot. Thanks, Frank- I guess I needed to talk more than I thought I did.”

“Guess we both did. I couldn’t figure why you were being so quiet, so I decided to take a page from your book and not wait for you to come and tell me.” Frank ran a hand through his hair in a distracted motion.

“I’m glad you did,” Joe replied softly, feeling just a touch of heat in his face. “It worked.”

“Well- not as well as I hoped it would, but maybe I’ll get better at it.”

Joe looked up in surprise and found Frank was regarding him seriously. “Get better?” he repeated curiously.

“I don’t think I ever realized how much nerve it takes to go and ask someone what’s wrong- especially when you have a feeling you’re the cause of it all. But I’m going to try and make a point of doing it more often, bro. It isn’t right for me to wait around for you to come and tell me you’ve got something on your mind.”

Joe blinked at him. “You’re pretty good about knowing when I’m bugged about something.”

“Yeah, but I’m not as good as you are about asking what’s up.”

“Hey, I gotta be better at something...but if you want to try, feel free, I won’t complain,” Joe smiled, feeling better than he had for almost a week. Then, noticing how uneven his seat was, he shifted to one side and pulled a dark blue towel out from under his hip. Holding it up, he remarked, “You lost this, I think?”

“I didn’t lose it, you hid it from me,” Frank replied, his brown eyes losing their worry and sparkling with amusement.

“Oh, sure, blame me!” Joe put some surprised indignation into his voice and tried not to grin.

“You know I’m absent-minded enough to shower without a towel handy and then wander around the place looking for it...”

Joe’s gave him a wary look. “Remind me to always make sure there’s plenty of towels on hand!” he said in mock horror, and received a light cuff across the side of his head in retaliation. Then Frank stood up, plucked the towel from Joe’s hand, and started across the room. Halfway to the door, he paused and turned back.

“You’re okay?”

Joe nodded.

“You sure? ‘Cause if you still feel like I’ve...betrayed you...”

Touched by his brother’s uncertain tone, Joe got up from the couch and crossed the room, pausing as he reached Frank. He felt the towel land on his feet as he hugged his brother tightly and Frank returned the embrace. “I know it’s your job to worry about me, but that’s one worry you can let go of. I know you’re on my side,” he murmured.

Frank Hardy became aware that someone shaking him and telling him to wake up. He squinted up into the familiar but unusually pale face of his brother, sat up, then frowned a little at the digital clock on the nightstand beside the bed. Almost three-thirty am. And his overhead light was on; had he forgotten to turn it off, or had Joe turned it on? “What’s wrong?” he asked sleepily.

“You didn't hear the phone?” Joe asked in return.

“Phone? No.” Frank ran a hand over his face, trying to shake off a sense of unreality. He’d been having a very unpleasant dream that he could no longer remember; only the unhappy feeling lingered. Then he remembered their argument earlier that afternoon. Joe had been upset with him. But they'd talked it out, he recalled with a sudden sense of relief. Everything was okay now, so why did Joe look so troubled? Had he had a nightmare? “What's wrong? Who called?”

Joe didn’t answer at once, just sighed and made a little ‘scoot over’ gesture; Frank obeyed, shifting to his left to make room. Joe sat down beside him, absently pulling a fold of the blanket over his bare knees and feet. Frank noticed in passing that his brother was wearing his usual summer-night outfit of a plain white t-shirt and gray boxers.

“The phone rang just a few minutes ago- it was Mrs. Bradley,” the younger boy replied at last. “The director from Seven Oaks,” he added as Frank tried to bring a Mrs. Bradley to mind.

“Seven...” Frank paused, suddenly cold. “It’s her this time.” There was no other reason for Seven Oaks’ director to call at such an hour. And it had to mean- “She...died.”

Joe nodded bleakly. He said nothing; it wasn’t necessary. Frank took a deep breath and reached over to grip his brother’s hand.

“When?”

“About half an hour ago. They’re not positive yet, but they think it was another stroke.”

“It would make sense. Well, I guess it makes the question of talking her out of giving up pretty moot,” the older boy mused vaguely, an odd fear making his hands quiver. Joe nodded again.

“Yeah.”

For a moment the two teens regarded each other. “It’s us now,” Frank realized quietly, breaking the brief silence. “Just us.”

“Just us,” Joe echoed in a whisper, and tears glittered in his eyes. “Frank- I- I think I’m scared.”

Frank wrapped his arms around his brother; Joe leaned into the embrace. “I'm scared too,” he admitted. “But it’ll be all right,” he added, feeling inane. “We’re together, just like we always have been.”

“I don’t really- exactly- miss her,” Joe admitted after a moment. “But she was...she was there, you know? I mean, we didn’t have to like her or anything, but we could go see her if we wanted. Talk to her. And- and she was starting to be pretty easy to get along with.” He sighed, his forehead dropping to rest on Frank’s shoulder.

“It’s a shock,” Frank remarked rather pointlessly. “Even when you half-expect it, or even totally expect it, it’s so sudden. I don’t really miss her either, at least not yet. But it does feel like something being taken away and not being able to get it back.”

Joe nodded and another silence fell over the room. After a while, he freed himself from Frank’s embrace; Frank, who had begun to feel comfortably drowsy as he held his brother and listened to Joe’s quiet breathing, blinked himself back to semi-wakefulness. The clock beside him now read quarter to four. “I am surprised I didn’t hear the phone,” he mused.

“You’re usually the one to hear it,” Joe agreed, standing up. Then he sat back down with a strange mix of sigh and groan. “I don’t think I can sleep,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. “Too much on my mind.”

“I know how you feel,” Frank murmured, leaning back against his headboard. “Is that why you heard the phone? You were still awake?” he asked suddenly, the thought just occurring to him. Joe looked a little startled, then nodded. “How come?”

“Thinking about Alistair,” the eighteen-year-old replied gloomily.

Frank pulled the pillow down from where it lay bunched against the headboard. “Lie down and rest,” he urged. “Even if you don’t actually sleep, it’ll help.”

Joe hesitated, giving him a grateful glance, then lay down, adjusting the pillow under his head. Then he got up again, shaking his head, and turned off the light. Frank lay down as well, waiting as his brother returned and made himself comfortable. Then he turned onto his side and laid his hand on Joe’s shoulder. Joe’s hand touched his a second later, and pressed gently. “Thanks,” the younger Hardy said softly.

“I don’t wanna by myself right now, either,” Frank assured him, knowing what the thanks was for. “Go to sleep, kiddo.” He wondered, though, if he’d be able to follow his own advice.

“Joe...c’mon, Joe, up and at ‘em.”

Joe Hardy muttered something rebellious about not getting up and turned over, feeling the bed shift under him. A hand shook his shoulder gently.

“Wake up, kiddo. It’s eight o’clock, we need to get over to Seven Oaks.”

‘Seven Oaks? Alistair? That was yesterday-’ Then Joe remembered. Gertrude. He rolled over and lay blinking up at his pale, weary-looking older brother. ‘Frank must have been up for a while,’ he thought blearily, for his brother was already dressed in tan shorts and a cream shirt. Not too casual, but then, today wouldn’t be a casual day. “Okay,” he muttered, untangling himself from the covers and sitting up.

“I’ll be in the kitchen,” Frank told him, and left the room. Frank’s room, Joe realized with a moment of bewilderment. What was he- oh yes. The phone call from Mrs. Bradley; waking Frank with the news; his brother urging him to lie down and rest. Joe had known it would be crowded- it always was- but he’d been unable to face the thought of returning to his own room and lying there, awake and alone, until the sun rose. He hadn’t expected to sleep, but it had been good to lie quietly, his tired eyes closed, and feel the presence of his brother beside him. Obviously he had managed to sleep, but he distinctly remembered opening his eyes long enough to see the clock turn to five a.m.

Joe took the time to pull Frank’s bed back into shape before going into his own room to dress. He picked out a pair of dark blue shorts and a blue and white striped shirt and slowly put them on, wincing at the ache that was starting in his head. It seemed to get worse when he bent over or stood up too quickly; classic stress and lack of sleep, he concluded, rubbing his pounding temples. He’d gained plenty of experience with those in his years of working on investigations! Then he sat down to pull on his socks and shoes.

When he finished dressing, Joe fought the urge to curl up on the bed and go back to sleep; instead, he made himself get up and walk out to the bathroom and proceed with his usual morning routine. The cold water did wake him up a bit when he washed his face, and the bottle of aspirins was handy in the linen closet. Having done what he needed, he headed out to the kitchen.

Frank was standing at the stove, still looking tired, but clearly in better shape than Joe was. He glanced over as Joe came in and frowned. “You’re wiped out.”

“Uh-huh.” Joe leaned against the counter, squinting against the bright July sunshine that was blazing in through the window and hoping the aspirin would get to work soon. “When’d you get up?”

“Around seven. Got the sunrise right in my face,” Frank explained, and turned back to the frying pan where the eggs were scrambling. “Forgot to pull the shades down yesterday. Want to stick some bread in the toaster?”

“Sure. What’d you put in ‘em this time?” Joe meant the eggs; Frank was always coming up with new and unusual things to add to their ‘omelets’, as he called them.

“Just the usual, some ham, a little cheese. No green peppers, there was only one left and it’s too soft to use. I threw it out.”

“Hmm.” Joe put the bread into the four-slice toaster, then opened the refrigerator. “Strawberry or grape?”

“Grape. You did sleep some, didn’t you? ‘Cause if you’d rather stay put, I can go over by myself-”

“I’m going with you.” Joe straightened up, the jar of grape jelly in his hand. “I’m not staying home by myself, not today, not even to sleep.” He took the jelly out to the table, then added as he re-entered the kitchen, “I wouldn’t sleep anyway, I’d be thinking too much and I’d probably freak myself out.”

Frank glanced over again and nodded. “We’ll try to make it quick, though. I don’t fancy hanging around there all day, trying to settle ten thousand tiny details.”

“Yeah,” Joe was beginning, when the toast popped up and he started violently. “You wouldn’t think I’d be so jumpy on three hours of sleep,” he complained, getting down a plate to put the slices on.

“Brother, I’ve seen you as nervous as a cat after one hour of sleep out of twenty-eight,” Frank replied kindly.

“The circumstances are pretty different, though. Like, no one’s threatening to shoot me,” Joe pointed out. He knew why he was nervous, though, and he knew Frank was aware of it too. He was trying not to think about the fact that it was just the two of them now. It was weird, how huge a hole someone could leave in your life, even if they hadn’t really been a part of it for a long time. And it was plain old frightening to realize that the two of them- two teenaged guys- were all that was left of their family; that they had to make their own livings without the support and guidance of parents or aunt.

“The eggs are ready,” Frank said quietly into the brief silence, and Joe got down two more plates, handing one to his brother and keeping the other for himself. ‘We’ve got each other,’ he reminded himself. ‘We look out for each other. And we have friends. More friends than we ever had family, and who care about us more than she did.’ With that thought he was able to relax somewhat, and hardly started at all when a fork accidentally got knocked onto the floor, making a loud clatter.

On arriving at Seven Oaks, Joe Hardy was quickly overwhelmed by the number of decisions that needed to be made in preparation for his aunt’s funeral. It was something he had known before, this oppressive weight of decisions that only the surviving family could make, but he had blocked it from his mind with surprising ease.

It might have been easier had he been less exhausted; as it was, Joe felt totally unequal to the task, though he strove to do what he could. He didn’t want his brother shouldering the whole burden. He was grateful to find that one of the decisions had already been made for them: Seven Oaks was affiliated with a funeral home, a not unusual situation for such an establishment, and Gertrude’s body had been taken there as soon as the Hardy boys had been notified of her death. But there remained such uneasy questions as what to clothe her in, what sort of coffin to have, what time and day to hold the funeral, and the service particulars. In fact, the service was another subset of decisions in itself. Who should speak; whether to have flowers; if so, what kind; what sort of music. Very privately, Joe likened the whole process to a wedding; it seemed to be as much about making a statement as about the ceremony itself.

There was also the rather unpleasant duty of informing Gertrude’s friends and acquaintances. That turned out to be more easily handled than Joe had expected; just as he was resigning himself to hours of telephoning, Frank very sensibly made a call to Liz Webling and got her to agree to run a small article in the Bayport Times, if her father approved. It would save the boys from phoning half the city’s social organizations, and it would probably be of interest to all Bayport. Most of the citizens had encountered the Hardys’ aunt at one time or another.

After some discussion, the boys decided to have the funeral on Wednesday, the same day that Alistair would be buried, but in the afternoon while Alistair’s funeral would be in the morning. It was sort of symbolic, as Joe told Frank; they had died within the same twenty-four hour span, Alistair first...it seemed right to say goodbye the same way.

There was little to choose from in the way of clothing, since all of Gertrude’s best things had been lost in the fire that destroyed their old home. She’d bought some new clothes, via catalogue, after she was admitted to Seven Oaks, but they were all very casual, everyday things. None of them seemed fitting for her burial.

Fortunately, one of the nurses was able to provide the Hardys with the name of a business that could help them. The trip to this store took over an hour; the place was nearby, but the boys took quite a while to decide on a suitable dress. Neither of them was quite sure what constituted ‘appropriate’ and everything seemed to be either too frilly or too severe; too plain or not plain enough. However, they finally located one that they both felt would work; it strongly resembled a dress they’d often seen their aunt wear on Sundays.

It was amazing, Joe thought somewhat vaguely as they were driving back to Seven Oaks with the dress in a box on his knees, the sort of ‘specialty stores’ that one didn’t even imagine the existence of.

“We’re actually fairly lucky,” Frank remarked as he pulled into the parking lot and shut off the engine. “They’re pretty accustomed to this kind of thing...makes it easier on us.”

“I guess,” Joe sighed. He didn’t really agree, for even with the help and advice they were getting, the actual decisions remained entirely their own. What he wanted was for someone else to take over entirely, but he didn’t voice that thought as he got out of the car and steadied himself against the door. The heat of the day was oppressive and he was so tired that he felt lightheaded. The aspirin he’d taken before breakfast had only lasted a few hours and his head was again pounding. “It’s weird,” he added, staring at the building. “I think it’s ‘cause I’m so tired, but I still can’t feel much at all.”

“Probably that’s it,” Frank agreed, joining him as he walked slowly towards the front doors. “I’m not feeling much, either- I’d just like to go home and take a nap. Soon as we clear up the question of what church and which minister, we’ll call it enough for today and do just that. Unless,” he added with a hint of a smile, “you want lunch first.”

“Not hungry,” Joe muttered, rubbing his temples with one hand as Frank considerately held the door for him.

It was another hour and a half before the question of ‘which church and which minister’ was settled, at which point Frank made another quick call to Liz to update her on the situation. Joe listened with his eyes closed, slumped in a comfortable reclining armchair in Mrs. Bradley’s private office.

“Well, we haven’t heard that aspect yet,” he heard his brother say. “The autopsy isn’t complete. Should I have the coroner call you when they know?” There was a brief silence; Frank said ‘uh-huh’ a few times, and then agreed to ‘do it that way’. Then he said, “Right, three p.m. at Congregational on Falen Lane. That’s where she usually attended church. No, not sure about the flowers/donations thing yet, we’ll let you know that when we’ve got the autopsy results. Okay, thanks Liz,” and hung up again.

“Cause of death,” Joe remarked, guessing the topic of the conversation. He and Frank were alone in the office at the moment; the Seven Oaks director was away dealing with some recalcitrant patient elsewhere in the building. Joe was halfway to drifting off, the black-plush-covered chair was so cozy. Frank was standing near the window behind the desk, where afternoon sunlight was shining on a patch of the burgundy carpet and the rich dark wood of the window-frame.

“Yes. Liz said that coroners rarely consent to speak to the press, so we’ll have to call her again if we want the cause of death put in.”

“It’ll save a lot of explanations,” Joe said dully, forcing his eyes open. Everything looked dark and blurred and unreal, except for the blindingly bright window behind Frank. “And we should put in something about how she never fully recovered from the last one; that will save some explanations of why she dropped out of all her friends’ lives so thoroughly.”

“Do we mention the depression?” Frank wondered, turning his back to the window in order to face Joe.

“Might as well- though people will probably think it was due to the strokes, not from any pre-existing condition, so we might want to clarify that. Separate the two,” Joe answered wearily, letting his eyes drift shut again. “We could suggest that donations go to a depression treatment fund, if there is such a thing,” he mused, frowning.

“Let’s get out of here,” his brother said abruptly. “We can worry about wording and flowers and music tomorrow; we’ve done enough today. The coroner’ll call the cell phone, so we won’t need to worry about missing that. And I think donations should go here, they do enough in the way of research and treatment to need it, and they took good care of her.”

“Sounds like a fine idea,” Joe agreed, leaving the soft chair with regret and wincing at the way his head throbbed when he stood upright. “Both of ‘em.”

“Hungry yet?”

“No.”

“Me, either.”

Joe followed as Frank led the way out to the oven-like car, climbed in, and nearly fell asleep on the short drive home. When they reached the dark underground parking lot, he gave serious thought to stretching out on the backseat of the car and sleeping there; not the most comfortable plan, but one requiring much less effort than ascending three flights of stairs. In the end he did make it up the stairs, with Frank’s assistance, but he didn’t get as far as his bedroom. Instead he dropped onto the couch, muttering a grateful, “Thank you,” to his brother when Frank brought him two aspirins and a glass of water.

The smell of something delicious woke Joe from his exhausted sleep. He lay still a moment, taking in the tempting odor of some kind of meat cooking, then shifted drowsily, his eyes still closed. Sudden vertigo made his head spin and there was abruptly nothing under him. Then he landed on something with a heavy thump and opened disoriented eyes to find that he’d just fallen from the sofa to the living-room floor. “Owww,” he complained, quickly discovering that, padding or no padding, his elbow and knee had not appreciated their landing on the carpet.

“Joe! Are you okay?” Frank appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, knelt beside him and helped him sit up.

“Yeah. Forgot where I was and tried to turn over,” the blond boy answered sheepishly, and yawned widely. He shoved himself up onto the sofa and sat there as Frank rose to his feet. “How long have I been out of it? Did you sleep any? What’s cooking? It smells good.”

“One thing at a time,” Frank smiled. He looked less tired, Joe noted. “You’ve been asleep for almost three hours, I slept for two and a half, and what’s cooking is- well, it’s cooked already, I’m just heating it up from last night. The rest of the pork chops and baked potatoes, and mushrooms since we finished all the corn on the cob.”

Joe swallowed as his stomach rumbled fiercely. “It sounds as good as it smells- is it ready?” As Frank opened his mouth to reply, the microwave dinged. “I’ll take that as a yes,” the younger Hardy continued, and his brother smiled again.

“Very accurate call. C’mon and dig in.”

Joe did so, adding a handful of baby carrots to his plate from the bag of them in the refrigerator. They made good snacks, and he was always hoping the carotene would help his eyes be less sensitive to bright lights.

The meal was a good one. The pork chops were juicy and tender, the potatoes just right, and though the mushrooms were from a can instead of fresh, Joe wasn’t picky enough to care. In fact, he had often thought that canned ones were tastier than fresh ones. “You’re turning into a good cook,” he remarked to his brother, who was busily chewing. Frank turned somewhat pink at the compliment and smiled. “Did anyone call?” the younger boy added after a moment.

Frank shook his head. “Don’t think so, there’s nothing on the answering machine. But I haven’t checked the voicemail yet- might just not have heard it go off. I left it on the table,” he added in explanation. “And we both know you could sleep through something as minor as a cellphone beep with no difficulty.”

“That’s true.” Joe turned his attention back to the cleaning of his plate and didn’t stop until he’d had a generous second helping of everything. “Since you cooked, I’ll clean,” he declared, standing up from his chair and carrying his plate into the kitchen.

When Joe emerged from the kitchen half an hour later, musing over whether to have dessert now or wait a bit and have it later, he was a bit surprised to see his brother standing by the table and staring blankly into space. He started to ask what was wrong, hesitated, then shrugged mentally and said, “Frank?” As he’d expected, his brother twitched in surprise at the sound of his name. Then he turned to Joe, who frowned a little at the older boy’s peculiar expression.

“I was thinking,” Frank said slowly. “It’s July...I was thinking what she said a few days ago about Dad telling her to get ready to go.”

Joe’s frown deepened. “You think she knew it was going to happen?” he asked. That was the impression he’d gotten at the time. Some people did feel their deaths coming, apparently.

“It’s not that, exactly.” Frank took a deep breath. “Last year...it was on the ninth that we got the call that Dad had pneumonia, and-”

Joe flinched. “Yes,” he said curtly, feeling his hands start to tremble. “We went in to the hospital with her and she got all vicious when we were talking about- about the life-support.”

Frank nodded. “Today is the ninth,” he said gently.

There was a long, long silence in the apartment. Joe stood very still, stunned, trying to make sense of the thoughts that fluttered through his mind. “You’re sure,” he stated at last, rather pointlessly. “I wasn’t keeping track of time then,” he added in explanation.

“I was doing all that writing,” Frank reminded him. “Stuck dates on everything.”

“Oh, right- yeah, I remember you saying how much it was making your wrist hurt, writing so much.” Joe shook his head, still feeling dazed. “What, you think she- arranged it somehow, on purpose, or something?”

“No,” Frank murmured thoughtfully, moving to sit down in one of the wooden dining chairs. He leaned an elbow on the tabletop and rested his chin on his hand. “No, but I don’t think it’s unrelated. She knew the date was getting close, and maybe it stirred up all her feelings all over again.”

“I can certainly understand that,” Joe whispered, bracing one hand against the table and leaning on it. A year ago- all of a sudden he remembered standing in the hospital room, looking down at his father, at the ventilator that was forcing air in and out of his lifeless body... Joe slowly sank into the chair, taking a deep, shuddering breath. The memory wasn’t as terrible as it had been, but it was still agonizingly sharp, cutting him with its helpless terror.

Something touched his hand and he jumped, then looked into his brother’s sorrowful dark eyes. “It still hurts-”

“I’m sorry, Joe...but I think it always will.”

Joe nodded absently, other memories resurfacing. His brother had been his mainstay, his comforter, his...guardian. Guarded him from his feelings of failure and guilt, defended him from their aunt’s cruelty. “Boy, she was a monster, then,” he mused aloud.

“She was.”

“But she was hurting, just like we were. And lonely, and afraid...”

“And depressed.”

“You’d never have known it, but I guess it was there.” Joe looked over again with a sigh. “I still don’t miss her, Frank. Maybe I’m still a little in shock, but- I don’t think so. I just don’t feel much of anything- well, unnerved, but I think that’s more from thinking about us than thinking about her.”

“I don’t miss her either, so don’t feel bad,” Frank agreed, releasing his hand. “Actually, not missing her is an improvement. For a while there I wished she would die- I mean, after Dad was gone. I would’ve called it good news. I’m glad I don’t feel as much now, it’s better than burning up with so much hate.”

“Definitely,” agreed Joe, his eyes widening at this unexpected confession. “Seems kinda weird, to not have any of her possessions around to deal with,” he added, changing the subject slightly. “Just those books...I guess we can get rid of them now.”

“We can take ‘em to the used bookstore,” Frank suggested.

Joe looked away in an attempt to hide the trembling that swept him at the thought. It would mean going to the bookstore where their mother had worked; it would mean driving on the same stretch of road where the tractor-trailers had forced them over the verge. It would mean passing that repaired guard-rail. He couldn’t do it, especially not now. The memories would break him apart if he had to see that place again, nearly a year later.

“We don’t have to do it right away,” his brother’s voice said into his thoughts, and Frank’s hand squeezed his again. “No rush, it’s not like they’re taking up space or anything.”

Joe took what felt like his first deep breath in nearly an hour; he managed a quick, weak smile and nodded. Frank understood. The blond boy drew in another breath, words of gratitude crowding his mind, but he got no farther than, “Frank-” before the cellphone rang, shattering the tense air and making both of them leap up from their chairs.

“As we suspected,” Frank Hardy told his brother, hitting the off button on their cellphone. “A very major stroke. Her blood-pressure must’ve been sky-high.”

“Which explains why it was at night,” Joe murmured, looking up from the table, where he was sitting with his chin propped on his hand. “She probably skipped her evening ‘pressure medication.”

“That was the next bit, yeah. They found the tablets in the trash can.” Frank sighed and started dialing numbers again before he realized the phone was still off. Rolling his eyes at himself, he switched it back on and carefully dialed the number that would get him Liz Webling’s business phone. She sounded a little distracted when she answered, but sharpened to attention when he told her the autopsy results.

“So,” she said thoughtfully when he’d finished explaining. “I’ll put down that the emotional impact of losing her friend, plus her depression, plus the...unhappy memories, all contributed to this last stroke. Then I’ll point out that she’d been hiding the depression for years, which apparently contributed to her general health decline, and finally I’ll suggest that if your all’s home hadn’t been burned up by that- I can’t use cuss words in the article, unfortunately- that fraternity group-”

“I think I’d leave that last part out, Liz,” Frank interrupted, suddenly realizing where this could lead. “We haven’t caught them yet, we’ve only got the fraternity president. If the rest of ‘em happen to read the article and realize we’re still looking for them, they’ll be that much harder to root out. And anyway, it would influence people, which would mean it’d take longer to get impartial jurors later on. We’d really like to avoid that; long trials are a pain in the neck.”

“Hmmm.” Liz sounded a little disappointed. “All right, how about this: the death of her friend, Mr. McAngus, and her unhappy memories of the previous year, combined with her depression, contributed to this third stroke. The depression, which she apparently suffered for most of her adult life, went undiagnosed until after the loss of the family home, the circumstances of which triggered the second stroke and left her in the care of Seven Oaks. It was this that left her requiring intensive counseling for the depression and physical therapy for her paralysis, and despite her efforts, she never did regain full mobility or speech ability.’ That work?”

Frank mused for a moment, wondering if Liz had picked up on his feeling of indifference. Probably so; she was part of their group and had heard, if not all that went on between the Hardy boys and their aunt, at least a good deal of it. She wasn’t lacking sympathy, but she obviously didn’t expect him to be very upset, either. “That should be okay,” he agreed, suddenly realizing he hadn’t answered her yet. “As long as you don’t go into the circumstances in any depth. Refer your readers to the articles you did at the time.”

“I know my job,” Liz answered sweetly. “Should I say that there’s no new information about the arson, or just not say anything at all?”

“Well, there is new information, we’re just not putting it out there,” Frank explained, frowning internally. “So don’t say anything. People know us, they know that the investigations we don’t talk about are the on-going ones. And maybe the rest of the frat will be lulled into a sense of security when neither they nor their dictator got mentioned.”

“Dictator?”

Frank had a feeling that Liz’s eyebrows had just risen in surprise. “Haven’t you heard me call him that before?”

“If I had, I forgot,” the girl admitted. “Okay...oh, and you said something about donations?”

“Oh, yeah. To the Seven Oaks Center, if people are feeling inclined,” Frank recalled. “They do a lot of depression research and treatment, and they’re non-profit anyway.”

“Got it. And you’ll let me know when I can write about this dictator and his crew?”

“Only if you promise not to use the word dictator in your article,” the young detective countered. “Certain people might get after one- or both- of us for slander.”

“Well, all right, it’s a deal. I’ll have this out in the morning, Frank. You two take care.” Liz’s ‘professional’ voice softened on the last remark.

“Thanks, Liz.” Frank clicked off the phone and placed it on the table, rubbing his ear. “That is enough telephoning for one day,” he declared, looking at Joe. Then he blinked in surprise, only now registering the bowl of ice cream that sat in front of his brother. He hadn’t seen Joe get up or return to the table. “That looks like a good idea.”

“I do seem to have those on occasion,” Joe responded mildly. Frank smiled and went to fetch his own dessert. When he came out of the kitchen, carrying his bowl, Joe glanced up and remarked, “She’s not as indifferent as she makes out to be.”

“Huh?” Frank paused with his spoon in the air.

“Liz.”

“Oh. Yeah, I know. She gets into reporter mode and you’d think she was completely unsympathetic, but she’s not, not really. Besides, she knows how many problems we had with Gertrude.” Frank shrugged, digging in to his ice cream. “I’m just glad she sounded like herself- she was very surprised to hear from me, the first time I called, and seemed pretty uneasy.”

“They’re avoiding us, aren’t they?” Joe neither looked nor sounded surprised. Frank nodded in reply.

“They do seem to be, yeah. They’ll get over it, though- I hope. Y’know, Joe, you were right when you said this indifference isn’t going to wear off,” he added quietly. “I was just thinking about it again while I was talking to Liz, and the only thing I feel is- when I remember Auntie saying recently that she felt jealous of Mom and Dad- I do feel a little sorry for her then.”

“A little bit,” Joe agreed, scraping his bowl. “It is a shame she didn’t get to have a family of her own...though I can’t see her being a good mother. Though, who knows, it might’ve mellowed her a little. Anyway, I figure she intimidated a lot of potential ‘gentleman friends’. But she didn’t have to be that way. Abrasive,” he clarified, putting his spoon down.

Frank thought about that for a moment or two. “She got kind of stuck, I guess. Decided to be exactly who she wanted to be and didn’t know how to make changes when she realized she wasn’t happy.”

“And took it out on us and Mom, and even on Dad once in a while. But especially Mom and us,” Joe grumbled.

“Yeah, Dad pretty well kept her in check,” Frank had to agree, through a mouthful of vanilla fudge swirl. “But when he wasn’t home...I guess that’s ‘cause she was raised to feel that men, like Granddad and Dad, were head of the household.”

“And of course we didn’t count, being mere children,” Joe snorted. Then he gave himself a little shake and stood up, picking up his bowl. “She had her good points, though,” he conceded. “No one’s ever all bad, even if that’s all they’re showing you of themself.” He went into the kitchen, then came out empty-handed and said, “I’m going to shower. I sweated too much today.”

“All right, I’ll make sure not to start the dishwasher.”

“How kind and thoughtful of you.” Joe grinned briefly and disappeared around the corner. A few minutes later, there was the sound of water gushing through the pipes as the shower went on.

Frank remained at the table, listening to the shower run, eating his ice cream and musing. His thoughts lingered on his aunt for a while, recalling how she’d so often come to visit, and finally come to stay. How she’d cooked and baked and cleaned- and scolded and fussed and given orders. She’d been a part of the family, but he’d never really given her much thought before; she’d been an afterthought while most of his awareness centered on his parents and brother. He had, he supposed, taken her for granted while never fully accepting her. When she was around, he’d remembered her and been polite, as was expected; when she wasn’t, he had often forgotten about her until she was drawn to his attention again. Usually she herself had done the attention-getting, either with one of her interminable scolds or with her rather brittle and dry attempts at humor. Or with the way she fussed...

In retrospect, it seemed blindingly obvious that she’d been trying to take over their family because she hadn’t one of her own. She’d tried to mother him and Joe, but they would have none of it; she’d tried to influence their father in his attitude towards them, but Dad had never let her sway his judgement. She’d certainly tried to dominate their mother, but Mom had possessed far too strong a will to tolerate such nonsense.

She’d had such stringent, old-fashioned notions! The times she’d been raised in had dictated certain attitudes and behaviors, and she had never conceded that times changed and behaviors changed with them. It was sheer good fortune that Dad had not been so deeply influenced, being so much younger; or if he had been influenced, he’d been flexible enough to change.

‘And all the time she was jealous...she wanted to be like Mom, to have what Mom had: a husband and family, a home of her own. And she never bothered to tell anyone, just went all sour and hateful about it. Especially after Mom died.’

Frank’s thoughts shifted to the terrible night when his aunt had accused their mother of infidelity, had declared Joe was illegitimate, and had gone on to blame Joe for warping Frank’s mind and causing Laura’s death. He’d hit her that night, the only time he’d ever done what he’d often felt a fleeting temptation to do. Bad enough she indulged in her favoritism of Frank, without deliberately causing his brother so much misery. Sure, her depression had played a big role, but-

The young detective closed his eyes and shook his head, gritting his teeth and pushing the memory from his mind. There was no changing it, and no sense letting it make him angry now. It was far too late for recriminations. ‘Besides,’ Frank told himself, ‘it wasn’t just her depression talking; it was Stuart’s influence, too. He manipulated her pretty severely.’ The thought eased his mind considerably- enough, in fact, that he regretted his anger. That one hadn’t really been her fault, though it had certainly seemed so at the time.

‘And even if it had been true, that Joe was my half-brother, it wouldn’t’ve mattered one bit. At least, not to me. I wonder if it would have mattered to Joe? It would’ve when we were younger. He always got so annoyed with people who asked if we were really brothers, just because we didn’t look much alike. He’s changed a lot since then, though.’

In fact, Joe had changed a good deal in just the last year, but exactly how was hard to pin down. He was less hotheaded and controlled his temper better, but not with complete success. He still jumped into situations and discussions, though not as often as he used to. He’d become more responsible; he’d always shown initiative, but now he not only did things without being asked, he didn’t call attention to them to get credit or praise. And he’d definitely become more protective of Frank, which was the most noticeable change from Frank’s point of view.

The young sleuth sighed unconsciously, his eyes going to the hall where the sound of running water could still be heard. He hoped Joe really had been able to forgive him for being so confounded oblivious to his feelings about Biff; it would be just like Joe to still be feeling bad inside, but hiding it so as to not make Frank feel guilty. Still, he had discussed his feelings without reserve, which was something Joe simply didn’t do when he was upset or angry- so likely it really was all right between them.

‘He was pretty subdued today, and he hardly smiled at all, but I’m sure that’s because he was so tired,’ Frank told himself, rising to go put his bowl in the dishwasher. ‘And there’s not much to smile about this week anyway. He really was fond of Alistair, got to be missing the old fellow. Poor old guy- I sure hope his family shows up for the funeral, at the very least.’

Tuesday was much less of a strain for the Hardys than Monday had been, so far as their energy levels were concerned. Frank slept surprisingly well Monday night despite his afternoon nap, and woke with a grumble when the sound of the phone ringing shattered his sleep. ‘Third day in a row,’ he thought crossly as he went out to answer it. At least it was after eight in the morning, a just-barely decent hour to be calling people. He spoke briefly with the caller, an old friend of Gertrude’s who had just seen the morning paper, and accepted the woman’s condolences.

As he returned the phone to the cradle, Frank regarded the instrument warily; he had a feeling he knew what they were in for today.

Over the next forty minutes there were six more calls: friends and acquaintances conveying how sorry they were for the brothers’ loss. Frank held back his initial retort that they ought to be sorrier for calling so early in the morning, thanked them, and gave up any effort to get more sleep. Joe wandered out of his room a few minutes later, tousle-headed, sleepy-eyed, and disgruntled. “I suppose there’s no point explaining that they’re calling way too early?” he grumbled after hearing the cause of all the telephone activity.

“Not much point to it. Even if I did tell ‘em, it’d be too late; and it wouldn’t stop the next person from calling, either.” Frank shut off the TV- he’d been watching the weather and news- and got up from the sofa. “I’m hungry,” he remarked, and went into the kitchen. “I’ll cook if you’ll take the phone calls, I could use a bit of a break.”

“I’ll do it,” Joe agreed from the other room; “but I think you’ve got the better part of the bargain.”

“Not after seven nearly-identical early-morning conversations, I don’t. I feel like a parrot, saying the same thing over and over,” Frank retorted, frowning into the refrigerator. “Hmmm. French toast?”

“Sounds great.”

Joe did take the next few calls; after he hung up from the third one, he wandered into the kitchen muttering. “Not just a parrot, a hypocritical one. Everyone seems to expect us to be prostrate with grief,” he complained as Frank handed him a plate with three pieces of French toast on it. The older boy nodded, taking the other three pieces and leading the way to the dining room, syrup bottle in his other hand.

“People will believe what they want to believe about a lot of things- including other peoples’ state of mind,” he agreed when he’d gotten settled with his silverware, milk, and the butter.

“That last one- that was Mrs. Thompson- she just told me how brave I was to sound so calm and together. Why’re we bothering to answer the phone anyway?” Joe asked, making liberal use of the syrup. “Can’t we just let the machine get ‘em? They’ll assume we just don’t feel like talking, and that’s true enough.”

“Yeah, but then everyone we don’t talk to today will want to talk to us tomorrow- or later this week,” Frank pointed out, talking between his rapid bites of French toast. He was afraid the phone would ring again before he was done. “If we’ve got to talk to ‘em sooner or later-”

“It might as well be sooner,” Joe agreed with a grimace. “Okay then. Slow down, don’t choke, and we’ll trade off phone duty all day.”

“Great plan.” Frank slowed down as directed. He didn’t feel he was in danger of choking, but he was in danger of finishing first and having to take over the phone-answering again. “You look a lot peppier today,” he remarked after another mouthful.

“I feel a lot better. I think I had some pretty crazy dreams- can’t remember now- but at least I was asleep.” Joe smiled and Frank smiled back, pleased to see some of his brother’s good humor emerging despite the circumstances.

After they finished eating and cleaned up- answering several calls in the meantime- the boys put their heads together to iron out the last details of the service. The rather delicate process of deciding who would deliver an eulogy was interrupted so often that an hour and a half later, they were still considering it. Joe was showing signs of intense frustration, not only with the phone calls but with the potential for offending so many people. For more than half of the callers had inquired whether there would be a chance for them to ‘say a few words’ at the service.

“There’s only one solution,” Frank said at last, decisively. “We’ll tell ‘em all no and offend everyone equally. We’d end up doing nearly that anyway; if we got up there and tried to be honest about what we said, people would be furious. Funerals aren’t times to pull the skeletons out of the closet. But I don’t think you and I could stand to sit through someone else canonizing her, either. We’ll make a list of all the ways she volunteered her time and effort and let the Reverend read it, and that will have to do. Sound good?”

Joe looked up from the paper napkin he’d been tearing into tiny pieces and regarded him for a long moment. “It takes you to think of the obvious solution,” he replied admiringly, a smile spreading over his face. “Sometimes I think you’re a genius.”

Frank felt his face redden, then jumped a foot as the phone rang again. “I’m going to do some violence to that phone before this day is over,” he said grimly.

“Another genius notion,” Joe joked, making the older boy smile wryly as he picked up the phone and greeted Miss Eugenia Lacie, the head of the Botanical Society and one of Gertrude’s closer friends. But Frank’s smile faded quickly, replaced with shock, as Miss Lacie demanded to know who was making false reports to the Bayport Times and when were the Hardys going to have this- this malicious prank retracted. Frank shook his head in amazed disbelief, turning to his brother.

“I assure you, it’s not a false report, Miss Lacie,” he said plainly. Joe’s eyes widened and he got up to hurry into the kitchen. A moment later, Frank heard the quiet click; Miss Lacie, being somewhat hard of hearing, appeared to notice nothing.

“Gertrude cannot possibly be dead,” the elderly woman stated. She was so firm that Frank was stuck for a reply for nearly thirty seconds.

“Miss Lacie, Seven Oaks called us yesterday with the news. We went out there and spoke to the doctors; we even went to the funeral home. There is no mistake and no misunderstanding; I personally called Liz Webling and asked her to run that article you’re referring to,” he replied finally.

The conversation went downhill from there as Miss Lacie reacted with horror, grief and outrage, then insisted the boys sue the Center for malpractice and negligence. Frank responded as politely as he could to the woman’s urgings to take legal action, explaining that no mistakes had been made in Gertrude’s care and that Seven Oaks was one of the best therapy centers in the state, if not the best.

Miss Lacie, only partially mollified, next demanded to know why she had not been informed sooner, and on this point she was particularly adamant. Nothing Frank said placated her; she proceeded to insist that as Gertrude’s closest friend, it was her right to know at once so that she could take charge of the arrangements. The woman’s gall left Frank speechless all over again and he didn’t even attempt to correct her as she rambled on about having so much to do, how well-meaning but incompetent the boys were, and what absolutely must be done between now and the funeral. It wouldn’t do to have it on Wednesday; a correction must be issued with a new date- one that would give her time to make the preparations.

Joe had apparently been stricken as speechless as Frank, but at the remark about changing the date, he snorted audibly. “Miss Lacie, we’re not changing a thing,” he said curtly. “It’s none of your say, you’re not her family. We are. And I’d like to know just what makes you think you’re entitled to preferential treatment, anyway. You were not her best friend; that was Alistair, the man at Seven Oaks who died right before she did, and it was partly grief over his death that contributed to her own stroke. You concern yourself with your own family when the time comes to take charge of a funeral, and leave us to make our own decisions.”

Frank, wide-eyed at his brother’s temerity, listened to the woman’s sputterings and the firm clack of the phone as Joe put it down. Then he found the receiver being plucked from his own hand and returned to the cradle. “Wow,” he said dazedly, looking at his resolute brother with respect. “You certainly put her in her place. Good job!”

Joe smiled grimly. “Thanks. I doubt she’ll call back. Let’s call the Reverend-”

“We’d better make up a list of what she was active in, first- and Joe, let’s put the Botanical Society last.”

“Last is the most important place, Frank- outside of first.”

“Fifth, then,” the dark-haired boy suggested with completely false innocence.

“That’ll work.” Joe returned the innocent look, then grinned gleefully. “Where’s a pen?”

“Pen, right here,” Frank replied, lifting one from beside the telephone. “Paper...” He went into his room, found an old spiral notebook in one of his desk drawers, and returned to the dining table with it. “Voila.”

“Viola,” Joe remarked, sitting down.

“You can think about your music later,” Frank joked, opening the notebook and looking for a clean page. He remembered now; he’d used this in high school chemistry class and the chemical formulas scrawled in blue ballpoint looked like some sort of bizarre code.

“Let me do the writing,” Joe suggested, taking the pen and notebook. “We want him to be able to read it.”

“You just don’t want to answer the phone anymore,” Frank snorted, but he didn’t protest as Joe bent over and started writing.

Making the list took longer than expected; the boys had to rack their memories to make sure they weren’t inadvertently leaving anything out. It was then that they discovered an unexpected advantage to all the phone calls; recalling who had phoned that morning helped them add several societies and charities to the list. They were also, as Frank had predicted, hindered by more calls; some were more condolences but now there were a number of people wanting to verify the newspaper article’s information. After the fourth one of these, Joe hung up with a baffled expression. “I can’t figure why they think the article is a fake,” he remarked, spinning his chair around to sit backwards in it and folding his arms on the top.

“Not necessarily fake, just not accurate,” Frank guessed, shrugging. “After all, it wouldn’t be the first time something was printed about our family being injured- or worse- and then turning out later not to be true.”

“I didn’t think of that,” Joe mused, picking up the pen again. “Okay, what else?”

“Wherever did she get all this time?” Frank wondered, staring at the list. There were already fourteen or fifteen names listed.

“She didn’t volunteer time at all of them; she made contributions to some.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Frank brooded for a moment. “I can’t think of any more to add right now; maybe we better put it aside and read it over later, see if that jogs any more memories.”

“Sounds good to me.” Joe capped the pen and dropped it on the table. “I think I’ll go get dressed,” he added, looking down at himself. Frank had to laugh; they were both still wearing the clothes they usually wore in lieu of pajamas.

“I will, too- but first, while we’ve got a lull, I’ll just make sure everything’s set for tomorrow.” Frank got up from the table and approached the telephone, daring it to ring before he got there. The machine remained silent while he located the numbers he needed.

“Good idea. Never know what some ‘helpful’ busybody might try,” Joe murmured, obviously thinking of Miss Lacie. Frank nodded vaguely, his mind more on the numbers he was dialing than the domineering old dragon.

The first call was to the funeral home, where the director informed Frank that ‘everything’ was ready for the next day. The second was to the Memorial Gardens- the cemetery- where he was assured that Gertrude’s plot was ‘in order’. He assumed that meant a hole had been dug, but didn’t really feel up to inquiring. The third call was to the officiating clergyman, regarding the boys’ decision about the eulogy. “Reverend Shenk’s pretty impressed,” he reported when he hung up. “Says that list of ours speaks louder about her character than what people might say.”

Joe looked more than a little dubious. “More about her public character,” he amended.

“Yeah. Anyway, we’ll give him the list tomorrow before the service; I’m sure we’ll be adding to it this afternoon.”

“It’s already afternoon,” Joe told him, gesturing at the kitchen. There was no sunlight in the kitchen now, which meant it was well past noon.

Frank blinked, surprised, then reckoned that must be why he felt so hungry. “Soon as I dress, I’m having lunch.”

“Never thought I’d see the day- after noon and you still in your nightclothes,” Joe needled, getting up from the table. Frank lunged at him; Joe evaded with a laugh and scampered to his room before the older boy could try again. Frank watched, grinning at his brother’s playful mood. It really was good to see Joe feeling light-hearted again- and no matter that some would call it inappropriate.

The rest of the day went a little better; the phone did continue to ring, but at greater and greater intervals. The Hardys worked around the apartment, taking care of the chores that they’d neglected for the past few days and answering the phone between-times. When night fell, Joe persuaded Frank not to cook again- not that this took much persuasion- and they had take-out Chinese in companionable silence. It would have been a good day, Frank mused as he ate, if only they had not had to contend with the exasperating phone calls- and if that feeling of ‘something not quite right’ weren’t still lingering over them. It was better than the intense anguish he’d felt at this time the previous year, though, by far.

Frank Hardy leaned back in the uncomfortable wooden pew, trying to ease the knot in his lower back. The minister’s voice echoed in his ears as he glanced around the packed church for the dozenth time since he’d sat down. The white-painted floor and walls were streaked with the midafternoon sunshine slanting in from the stained glass windows. Multi-colored rays dappled the pews and the occupants of them equally; it would have looked very pretty had a particularly brilliant band of red not been gleaming directly into Frank’s left eye.

It was Wednesday afternoon and he was attending his Aunt Gertrude’s funeral. He felt a little guilty for not being able to keep his mind on the service, but he had given up his efforts to concentrate. He was tired and hungry and hot- the six fans overhead were making little progress in dissipating the heat from so many bodies- and his suit was uncomfortable. The Reverend’s voice didn’t help; the clergyman spoke in a monotonous drone that left Frank wondering how often Shenk’s regular congregation fell asleep on him. The only respite had been the hymns sung by the choir.

Glancing to his right, Frank deduced that his brother was as restless as he. Only someone who knew Joe as well as Frank did could have seen it, but it was there in the tensed shoulders, the set of his jaw, the slight but constant jiggle of his leg, the fingers tapping silently on the wood between them.

Frank sighed softly and fidgeted in his seat as he remembered getting up early once again that morning to attend Alistair’s funeral. There had been few people present at the service, mainly Alistair’s relatives and a few people from Seven Oaks. ‘Not at all like this one,’ he thought ruefully, glancing once again around the crowded church. ‘Only two family members here, naturally, but a great many more friends...why didn’t any of them visit her in the Center?’ he wondered suddenly.

“Maybe she made it clear she didn’t want to see them,” Joe’s sending suggested, startling the older boy. Frank hadn’t realized he was letting his thoughts slip out.

“I guess that could be it,” he replied silently.

“Ironic, isn’t it? Alistair being such a friendly, caring man, yet hardly anyone there. And her being so sharp and brusque- yet everyone knew her, so they came to show respect,” Joe remarked, his thought sounding a little sour.

“Yeah,” Frank mused dourly. “And it’s even more ironic when you think- if he were still alive, she would be, too. I think we’re the only two who know that.”

“We’re the only two who know most of it.”

The nineteen-year-old agreed, then had his attention jarred back to the service by the fact that the final hymn was being played and the coffin- which rested on a wheeled cart, since there were not enough members of the family to carry it- was being solemnly turned by the ushers to face down the aisle between the pews. Frank stood up, feeling all eyes on him, and went around to the far side. Joe took the near side and together they guided the cart down the aisle, out through the wide double doors, and over the sidewalk to the hearse that waited at the curb of the parking lot. The ushers followed, and the driver helped them lift the heavy oak box into the automobile. Frank stood watching for a moment as the man closed the door. Then, stifling a shudder, he touched Joe’s arm and the two headed for their car.

The drive to the cemetery was longer than the actual burial service, due to the size of the funeral party. The Hardy boys waited patiently for everyone to arrive, waited through the brief final remarks and prayers, and waited a little longer as the crowd began to disperse. Mrs. Bradley sought them out to thank them for the numerous contributions Seven Oaks had received and Frank smiled his first real smile of the day. “You took good care of her,” he said simply. “This-” he nodded at the open grave, “wasn’t your fault.”

The woman looked relieved and Frank wondered how many times Seven Oaks’ care of their patients had been- directly or indirectly- blamed for a sick old man’s or woman’s death. Evidently quite a few. “Thank you,” the director repeated simply, and then turned and departed. Frank glanced at his brother, who was gazing studiously at the carefully manicured green grass by his feet.

“Let’s get going.”

“Let’s,” the younger boy agreed dryly, his voice low. “Before anyone else tries to tell me what a poor, brave boy I am.”

Frank shot him a surprised look, but didn’t say anything until they were in the car and the air conditioning was on. “Who told you that?” he asked at last, both curious and disgusted at the sentiment.

“Oh, at least five different people said it to me- all of ‘em older ladies.”

“I guess I wasn’t listening.”

Joe glanced over with a rather bitter smile as he pulled off his tie and unbuttoned his collar. “You said ‘thank you’ to one of them,” he remarked.

Frank grimaced at the thought as he struggled one-handed with his own tie and collar. Then Joe leaned over to hold the wheel steady for him and the older Hardy sighed in relief as he got the tie off. “Thanks. I was on autopilot,” he explained. “There really isn’t much else you can say to someone who’s condoling you.”

“Condoling?” Joe repeated in surprise. “Is that a real word?”

“Condolences, condoling...I dunno. Probably one of those words that no one ever uses.”

“I’m gonna look it up when we get home,” Joe told him. “Making up new words is my specialty; you’re trespassing.”

Frank chuckled. “That would make it your territory, not your specialty,” he teased, not without some accuracy.

“That’s my other specialty; mixing metaphors.” Joe stretched his arms up over his head, angling them behind the seat’s headrest so as not to bang into the ceiling. “I wonder why no one said anything like that after Mom...”

“Probably ‘cause now we’re ‘all alone’, no authority figures to keep us in line,” Frank responded quietly. His brother didn’t reply.

Joe let his arms fall and stared out the windshield as the car headed into a turn. He hated to admit it, but it still made him uneasy to think that it was just him and Frank still alive, out of a family of five that had been well and happy a little more than a year ago. He wondered fatalistically which of them would be next, then remembered, relaxing slightly, that there would be no ‘next’. Where you go, I go- that was their pact.

‘And Auntie felt the same way,’ he thought grimly. ‘Where Alistair went, she went. It’s hard to believe, I never would’ve guessed she could care for anyone that much. Especially since they had less than six months together. Still sort of feel like we should have talked her out of it, but we don’t- didn’t- have a leg to stand on. I wonder if she would’ve been surprised, seeing how many people were there today? I know she would’ve been offended that there weren’t more people at Alistair’s funeral-’

“Holy-!”

Joe snapped to attention as the car decelerated sharply. “Frank!” The cry came without his conscious awareness as a black four-by-four pickup truck came barreling out of a tiny dirt road at the end of the turn. Frank flung the wheel to the right and the truck skidded past with a glancing impact on the driver’s side. The truck weaved, dropping behind briefly, then sped up and paced them.

“What the hell?” Frank gritted out, his voice breathless. Joe was flung against his suddenly taut seatbelt as his brother slammed on the brakes again and veered hard to the left. The truck’s driver, taken by surprise, continued for a few seconds, then came to a screeching, shuddering halt. It turned as it halted, blocking both lanes of the road and most of the left shoulder. Frank braked further, glaring through the windshield. Joe felt his heart racing and he was shaking with more than usual fear.

Before either Hardy could say anything, there was a grinding shriek behind them; Joe whipped around and hollered, “More of ‘em!” Another truck, this one dark green, was charging them from behind. Frank’s foot slammed against the gas; Joe was flung back in his seat and everything went dizzyingly dark.

Frank Hardy pulled his eyes open and stared at the tree embedded in the front of the car.

That was the wrong way around, he concluded after a moment, his brain slowly getting into gear after the jarring shock of the collision. It was their car that was embedded in the tree; the tree was more or less undamaged, but the car was a mangled mess. Fortunately, he’d reduced their speed enough that the steering column hadn’t collapsed, the airbags hadn’t deployed, and the windows were all intact. It would’ve been a lot worse if he hadn’t jammed on the brakes in the last few seconds before impact.

Frank pried his hands from the wheel and slumped back in the seat, trying to slow his racing heart by taking several deep breaths. Then he glanced into the rearview mirror. The two pickups that had decided to play ‘chicken’ with them were mere dots on the country road behind them, and getting smaller with every passing moment. “What in the hell was that all about?” he asked, his voice quivering with fear, shock and bewilderment.

There was no answer; Frank looked to his right and sucked in a breath. Joe’s face was ghastly white, his eyes wide and unseeing. The older boy swiftly reached out for the pulse in his brother’s throat, relaxing as his shaking fingers encountered the swift beat. Too swift, though, and Joe’s skin was cold and clammy. Joe was deep in shock, and no wonder; the accident- no, it wasn’t an accident; the collision- must have triggered his memory of the last wreck he’d been in. He’d had a very similar reaction the first time he’d gotten into Fenton’s repaired sedan, after Laura was killed.

Frank quickly pulled off his seatbelt and opened the dented door, hurried around the rear of the car, pulled open Joe’s door, and managed to get the seatbelt off him. Joe was limp, scarcely able stand, and he was starting to shake all over. “C’mon, little brother,” Frank murmured as he helped Joe sink to the grassy verge. “It’s okay...it’s all over. You’re all right.” He wrapped his arms around the younger boy’s trembling body. “You’re safe, Joe. You’re safe and everything’s all right.”

A faint groan answered him; Frank, suddenly wondering if Joe really was all right, gently pushed him back and lowered him to the ground. He carefully tested Joe’s arms and legs, then patted lightly over his chest, seeking any hint of pain or discomfort. He took some comfort from the fact that Joe didn’t flinch at all.

“Wh-where-” Joe’s voice was just a whisper, but as Frank looked at his face, he saw Joe blink and shake his head slightly. That was good.

“Easy, bro. Just rest, you’re fine.”

“Where’s...Mom?” Joe whispered weakly.

Frank winced, wondering if the question was due to Joe’s association of their mother with car accidents, or if he was confused because he was injured. “She’s- she’s not here, Joe.” A new thought struck him; had the incident re-triggered Joe’s amnesia? ‘Oh, please, not that! Not that, I can’t handle that again!’ he thought, feeling a sort of fearful weariness sweep through him. Not more nights of memory-triggered bad dreams, not the wary half-trust again...not now, not when they were already so alone.

“She’s not?”

“No.” Frank dug the cellphone from his pocket and shakily dialed police headquarters. ‘First things first. Get help, then deal with Joe’s memory- if that’s what the problem is,’ he ordered himself.

“But she was here,” Joe insisted dazedly. Suddenly he sat up with a gasp: “The fire! The fire’s-” He turned towards the car, blinked, rubbed his eyes, blinked again, then stared down at his hands. “There’s no fire,” he murmured, turning to Frank. “And you...” His mouth slowly closed as he sat frowning, silent.

Frank watched his brother anxiously as he spoke to Mike DeSoto, speaking as clearly of the accident as he could and hoping it would jar his brother out of his shock. He was able to tell Mike the make and models of the vehicles, then added that there had been four guys in the first truck and three in the second. But when Mike asked about license plates, Frank had to admit he was stumped. “It happened so fast I didn’t get a-” he was beginning when Joe turned and plucked the phone from his hand.

“The black one was KGR-1427, the green one was YHN-7651. And they were both Maine plates,” he said. His voice sounded stronger, but his face was still extremely white and he was visibly shaking. He handed the phone back to Frank and lay down in the grass, staring up at the sky and shivering despite the heat.

“We’ll track ‘em down in no time,” Mike was saying. “Are you two all right?”

“I’m okay,” Frank replied, “just a little shaken. Joe’s...”

“I’ll- live,” Joe murmured.

“A little more shaken than that, but he assures me he’ll live. I’m not convinced the car will, though.”

Joe turned his head to glance at the tree-and-car mess, then nodded and looked back at the sky.

“Thanks, Mike. Bye.” Frank put the phone down, took off his suit jacket, and swiped his arm across his damp forehead. “He’s sending a wrecker, they’ll give us a ride home. You sure you’re all right?”

Joe nodded.

“Want to move into the shade?” Even with the jacket off it was hot; they were both in direct sunlight. Frank also wanted to test Joe’s assertion that he was all right. Injuries that weren’t apparent when lying down became obvious when one tried to get up and move.

The blond boy stared blankly at Frank for a moment, then nodded again and tried to stand up. Frank helped him up, feeling his own knees wobble as he moved, and they both tottered a few steps into the woods before sinking down in the shade of a tall oak. Somewhat to Frank’s surprise, Joe didn’t lie down again but sat shivering beside him. “Thanks,” he murmured in a weak voice.

“You’re amazing,” was Frank’s slightly disjointed reply as he wrapped his arm around Joe’s trembling shoulders. “Taking in the plates in the middle of all that uproar.”

“You’re pretty amazing yourself. I thought we were done for,” Joe murmured. “When that one came up behind us, I- I-” His voice broke and he squeezed his eyes closed.

“You flashbacked.”

“Y-yeah.” Joe shuddered violently; Frank pulled him closer and held him until the tremors eased and Joe’s rapid breathing slowed back to more or less normal.

“I’m not too sure that one is a word,” the nineteen-year-old remarked distractedly, suddenly thinking of their pre-incident conversation.

Joe gave a cracked laugh that turned into a sob and his grip on Frank’s arms tightened. “Oh, Frank,” he gasped, and buried his face against Frank’s shoulder.

“Easy, kiddo...” It was better, easier, not to talk at all, Frank decided. He leaned back against the tree and tried to blow a wisp of hair away from his eyes, but the attempt was unsuccessful. Finally he reached up, wiped his wet forehead again, and replaced his arm around Joe. The two sat quietly for at least twenty minutes as their shaken nerves gradually relaxed. Joe sat up after a while, pulled off his own suit jacket, then looked at his brother from somewhat calmer eyes.

“I’m sorry I scared you.”

“Huh?”

“Wh-when I...flashbacked.”

Oh. “Don’t worry about it, bro, it wasn’t like you could help it. As long as you’re okay, everything’s all right.”

Silence fell again; the only sound was the whirring of insects and the occasional chirp of a bird.

After another fifteen minutes or so, another noise reached their ears: far in the distance, there came the sound of an approaching truck. The Hardys both tensed; releasing his brother, Frank got to his feet, relieved to find his knees much steadier than they had been. He moved cautiously towards the road and peered in the direction the pickups had vanished. There was nothing to be seen but the shimmering heat-waves rippling up from the black road. Looking the other way, Frank broke into a smile and turned towards Joe, who was leaning his side against the tree and wearing a wary expression.

“It’s okay, just the tow truck.”

“Oh, good,” Joe replied weakly, and slowly climbed to his feet. He picked up their discarded jackets and trudged to where Frank stood. “That was pretty quick.”

“Yeah, must’ve been in the area,” Frank agreed, laying his hand on his brother’s shoulder.

The driver of the tow truck was named Dan and he was a friendly, if laconic, fellow. He took in the wreck of the Hardys’ car, grunted noncommittally, asked if they were hurt, and had the crumpled car free of the tree in an amazingly short time. He didn’t inquire what had happened as he secured the car to the towing mechanism, only remarked that the body of the car had done a very good job of absorbing the impact- as it was designed to- leaving the passengers shaken but unscathed.

“In the old days they made these frames so solid, there was no give to ‘em. So all the inertia just ran along the steel lines of the car, maybe dented ‘em up a bit, but they held pretty well- and the passenger got the full impact,” he explained. “You couldn’t’a been going too fast, your airbags didn’t pop out.”

“Probably not more than twenty-five miles an hour, but it sure felt fast,” Frank agreed as he slid into the front seat. Joe said nothing, just got in beside his brother and leaned back against the patched leather, feeling shaky and weak.

The trip into Bayport took a little over half an hour. Joe kept his eyes shut for most of the trip as Frank answered the few questions that Dan asked. On learning who they were, Dan conveyed his sympathy for their loss and their bad luck at being in an accident on such a day. It was plain that he’d concluded the wreck was due to their supposedly traumatized emotions; neither of the boys ventured to correct him, but Joe did open his eyes long enough to trade a rueful glance with his brother.

Dan let them off outside their apartment and both the Hardys thanked him sincerely for the favor; the man had driven out of his way to take them home instead of to the service station. Joe, no longer feeling so shaky, but extremely weary and hot, slumped down on the living room couch to enjoy the air conditioning and let his eyes close.

“You look like you could use a nap,” his brother’s voice remarked over his head. “Why don’t you go into your bedroom? I’m going to call the insurance people, and if I know anything about insurance, I’ll be talking for the next hour.”

Joe considered that for a moment. Then he shook his head. “I’d just as soon stay right here,” he decided. “I don’t mind if you’re talking. If I fall asleep, fine- if not, also fine.” Opening his eyes, he smiled faintly to see the look Frank was giving him. “I feel okay, I’m just not exactly solitude inclined right now...and I’m comfortable,” he added.

“Ah.” Frank’s hand tousled his hair gently. “All right.”

Joe’s eyes drifted shut again as his brother sat down in the chair nearest the phone and he listened, half-aware, as Frank dialed and then explained that he needed to report a collision. He gave some information, then spoke to another representative...and then a third. This one seemed to be in a position to do something, but not without asking an awful lot of questions. Not for the first time, Joe marveled sleepily at his brother’s patience; he was pretty sure he himself would have lost his temper somewhere around the thirtieth question.

It was then that Joe learned exactly what had happened: seeing the green truck that was coming up so swiftly behind them and fearing the explosion that might result if the gas tank took the impact, Frank had sped up, swerving onto the right shoulder in an attempt to avoid the black truck. His move had almost worked, but the black truck had lunged at them, striking the driver’s side and jarring the car off the road entirely. Frank had hit the brakes hard but the green truck’s impact on their rear bumper had sent them into the tree anyway. The results: badly damaged driver’s side, badly banged-up rear, and totally demolished front. The hood had crumpled like tin, almost as far up as the windshield wipers. Joe shivered, remembering the sight, and stopped listening for a while. His brother’s voice became a soothing monotone that lulled him into a doze.

A knock on the door jerked Joe out of his sleep; confused, he lifted his head and propped himself up on one elbow. He was alone in the living room, the phone back in it’s usual place. As the knock repeated, Frank hurried into the room, gave him a quick smile, and opened the door. “Hey, Mike.”

“Hi Frank- Joe, you all right?”

Joe sat up, still feeling a little puzzled- what was Mike DeSoto doing here? “Yeah, just not quite awake,” he answered after a moment. “What’s up?”

“Statements,” the officer explained as Frank closed the door behind him. “And some interesting news for you fellows. Those trucks are registered to one Jack Lewis and one Derek Williams.”

Joe looked quickly at his brother, whose interested expression swiftly changed to a scowl. “I recognize those names.”

“So do I,” Frank growled. “Lewis is Madison’s second in command, and Williams was my roommate...briefly.

Mike raised a brow. “I will say this for them: neither of ‘em were in the trucks when you were hit. But there’s no doubt they were aware what use their vehicles were being put to. There’ll be some difficulty in charging Williams, since he’s only a junior member of the fraternity and could plead coercion.”

“And he’s just slippery enough to do it, too,” Frank grumbled.

“But he can still be charged as an accessory, so that’s something.”

“How do you know it wasn’t them?” Joe wondered.

“Alibied,” Mike explained. “They were visiting their Fearless Leader in prison.”

The boys exchanged a glance. “Getting instructions for the next attack?” Frank asked bitterly.

“That might’ve been their intent, but they weren’t allowed to speak privately, and nothing exchanged hands,” Mike assured them. He sat down on the opposite end of the sofa and pulled out his notebook as Frank seated himself on the sofa arm beside Joe. “All right, so that’s my news. Now it’s you guys’ turn to talk.”

It was more than three hours before Mike finally departed; the officer insisted on going over the events of the collision several times. After that, he went very carefully over the entire ‘Delta situation’, starting with Frank’s first encounter with the fraternity members at Unity College and ending with today. “It’s all going to come up in the trial sooner or later, so you might as well have it all laid out in order,” he explained when Joe asked why it was necessary to go into it all. The younger boy could tell that his brother wasn’t too thrilled at dredging up all his unpleasant Unity memories, but Frank made no overt protest.

After the officer left, the boys, both feeling rather drained, fell quiet. At length, Frank roused himself to check out the morning paper; specifically, the Classified section. That caught Joe’s attention, for the Classifieds weren’t Frank’s usual choice of reading material. “What’re you looking for?”

“I’m, checking out the cars,” his brother explained, not lifting his dark head from the depths of the paper. “We’re going to need a new one- after we get the write-off check- and I’m seeing some pretty decent second-hand ones-”

“Next you’ll be saying previously-owned,” Joe jibed. Frank glanced up and grinned.

“I’ll never be that politically correct. Besides, I was quoting.”

“Ah, I guess that makes it all right, then. So what’s caught your attention?”

“Hmmm.... There’s a couple decent-looking Fords, a Honda, and a Volkswagen-”

“A Bug? You want to get a Bug?” Joe asked, allowing mock horror to saturate his voice.

“-As well as a couple old wagons and vans, and a couple foreign cars. No, a Bug wouldn’t be big enough,” Frank added as an afterthought.

“No Ferraris listed, I suppose.” Joe leaned against the back of the sofa with a grin for the look Frank gave him.

“No, Joe, no Ferraris. Nor Lamborghinis, nor Vipers, nor Porsches-”

“Too bad.”

“And if there were, they’d probably be in such bad shape that they wouldn’t be worth it. Driven into the ground,” Frank added, his look turning more serious.

“Pessimist.” Joe sat up from his half-slouched posture and considered. “Honda what?”

“Civic, but it’s older than the Fords by about five years.”

“Hmmm.”

“Anyway, it’s a little too early to be deciding. I just wanted to get a notion of what’s out there,” Frank explained, dropping the paper onto the floor beside the sofa. His eyes lingered on Joe as he unfolded from his cross-legged position and stretched. “Feeling better?”

Joe blushed, feeling a little embarrassed for his unexpectedly intense reaction earlier that afternoon. “I am,” he agreed softly, curling up and tucking his bare feet under him. “Thanks for helping me get through it.”

“You’re more than welcome.” Frank’s smile was swift and fond, the one that made Joe feel like his brother’s best friend, but it still took a few minutes for his blush to fade. He had an uncomfortable feeling that he’d fainted from sheer terror during the incident, for he could find no bruises to indicate that he’d been knocked unconscious. Worse, though, had been when he’d come to and found himself trapped in the terrible memories of his mother’s crash and subsequent death. Any embarrassment he might have felt at his reaction had been completely lost in terror and agonizing grief.

But Frank had been there. He’d been something to cling to while the visions crashed through Joe’s mind, a calm voice to help him center himself in the present instead of the past. Frank had helped Joe from the car, checked to make sure he wasn’t injured, and held him while they waited for the wrecker. He’d even praised Joe for taking note of their attackers’ license plates. And when the shock had been slow to recede, Frank’s response had been to continue to stick close, giving the comfort of his presence.

‘Grateful doesn’t begin to describe it,’ the eighteen-year-old thought seriously, watching his brother fold the rest of the paper for the recycle bin. ‘I’d be in an insane asylum by now if it weren’t for him...’

“I could say the same to you,” came his brother’s amiable mental reply. Joe blushed deeper, realizing Frank had picked up the thought. It didn’t exactly upset him, but he didn’t feel quite ready to talk about it, either, so he changed the subject quickly.

“At least our insurance premiums won’t rise again,” he mused aloud, leaning back and closing his eyes. “We’re not the ones at fault.” Their company would get an estimate on the car’s present value and give them a check for it; with that and a bit of savings, they could replace their car. Joe had been tempted to argue in favor of getting the car fixed, but it was all too likely that the cost of repairs would be more than the vehicle was worth. “I wonder how long it’ll take Mike to get all those guys found and arrested?” he added after a moment.

“Probably not long,” Frank replied. “It shouldn’t be very difficult to spot those two dented-up trucks. And he’s checking Redcliff first, since that was where Madison was staying.”

“They’re that predictable, you think?” Joe opened his eyes and turned to regard his brother curiously.

“Predictable, arrogant, stupid, take your choice.”

“All of the above,” Joe decided, and his brother smiled sourly at him.

“Observant, aren’t you?”

“That, and I’m good at multiple-choice tests,” the younger boy replied, grinning back.

“And so modest, too. Say, let’s talk about supper, shall we?”

“Let’s. I think it’s my turn to cook something.” Joe hauled himself up from the comfortable cushions and went to investigate the contents of the kitchen cabinets.

Thursday morning passed very slowly for the Hardys, who were both impatient for Mike DeSoto to get back to them with news about the pickup trucks and their Delta Phi owners. Unusually enough, Frank found he was feeling more impatient on the matter than Joe was. When Joe teased him for ‘acting like me’, the older teen explained loftily that it was only because he'd gotten up more than an hour before his younger brother; he’d been waiting longer. Joe found that highly amusing and had gotten so distracted on the matter that he’d nearly let the bacon burn.

“Of course, there’s no point hanging around the place waiting,” Frank admitted after they’d eaten breakfast, cleaned up and settled down a little from a dishtowel-snapping fight. The fight had been sparked by a disagreement over who should scour the frying pan that the bacon had been cooked in. “He might not pick ‘em up until tomorrow or the day after.”

“Maybe not, but he’ll call and tell us what they found in Redcliff. Or didn’t find,” Joe amended, and Frank grunted agreement.

“Okay, so I guess we can hang out and wait a while.” Frank ran a hand through his hair, then caught his brother’s grin. “What?”

“You’d do that anyway,” Joe informed him. “And boy, it’s funny to see you so antsy. You’ll be pacing next.”

“Will not!” Frank asserted, and marched down to the large room where he’d recently moved his computer. He could hear his brother chuckling as he sat down in the chair and turned the machine on.

The distraction helped considerably, until Frank realized that by being online, he was blocking the telephone from use. He quickly dropped the connection, muttering at himself for not thinking of that sooner, then consoled himself with the thought that Mike had their cell phone number and would have used that if he couldn’t get through. Still, he didn’t get back on, just shut down the system and tried to find something else to occupy his mind.

The phone rang a little before noon, just as the boys were debating the wisdom of running down to the grocery store and grabbing some necessities. On hearing the officer’s greeting, Frank was tempted to make some sort of remark about how often Mike interrupted something food-related, but he forgot about it a second later.

“All the Delta Phi frat members currently in New York have been arrested,” DeSoto declared, sounding very pleased with himself. Frank gestured urgently for Joe to get on the kitchen line, mouthing, ‘Mike,’ and Joe quickly obeyed, looking curious. “The older guys are stonewalling, but ever since Con started hinting about bad publicity-”

“More bad publicity,” Frank inserted.

“Yeah, a lot more, so the big fellows are getting very nervous. The younger ones already were; your buddy Williams was the first to spill everything he knew, which was plenty. We’ve got charges of harassment and endangerment- lots of those, going back a ways. Reckless driving and assault with a deadly weapon- that being their trucks, of course. Stalking, for the photographs, which were taken on Williams’ new camera, and conspiracy. However, no one is talking about the fire yet, so we need either some more physical evidence on that, or some actual confessions. I’m going for confessions; once I drop in the word that they could be charged as accessories to attempted manslaughter, I think they’ll cave in just to clear themselves. It’s definitely an ‘every man for himself’ mentality at the moment.”

“Where’d you find ‘em?” Joe inquired, sounding smugly satisfied. “And how many?”

“Eleven of them, and you won’t believe this, but they were staying in exactly the same hotel that Madison was in when we arrested him.”

“What?” came simultaneously from both teens.

“It’s hard to tell whether they stayed there because they were too stupid to go somewhere else, or because they were smart enough to figure that no one would figure they’d be dumb enough to do it,” the officer agreed.

Frank took a moment to sort through that one, then shrugged mentally and turned his attention back to Mike.

“Maybe Madison told ‘em to,” Joe was suggesting.

“Could be. We had a few words with the hotel manager, I can tell you. He should’ve reported ‘em. He claims he didn’t make the connection, since none of ‘em had their frat jackets, but I’m kinda wary about that. Granted it’s too hot for a jacket, but he can’t really have been that clueless.”

“Money,” Frank remarked succinctly.

“Exactly, grease the right palms...we’ll see. They do seem to be pretty well off.”

“You mean they have parents who’re well off,” Joe corrected.

“Very true. The parental reaction is mixed. Some are mad at us for laying such ‘impossible’ charges and others are seething at their kids for embarrassing the family.”

“What’s the likelihood they’ll make bail?” Frank asked, following the implication and not liking it much.

“There is that,” Mike agreed ruefully. “Chances are very good; mad or not, not many parents’ll leave their kids in lockup. I think we’ll make it clear as they’re departing that if anything else happens to you two, they’ll get ‘em hauled right back in for questioning. Once they hear that, they might be content to leave things as they are. And I’ll rub it in- tell ‘em they could easily be held without bail if they’re picked up a second time. Constitutes a genuine and persistent threat.”

“That ought to do it,” Joe agreed. “And we’ll be away this weekend, just so you know- it’s not a vanishing-kidnapped type of thing.”

Frank restrained himself from adding, ‘At least, we don’t plan on it.’ Surely nothing could happen while they were visiting Akilana!

Then again, he’d thought that before!

“Ah, good thing you let me know. When’re you due back in town?”

“Oh, Sunday evening sometime,” Frank told him. “We’ll call to see what the latest news is.”

“You do that, and if you don’t call by eight o’clock, I will come out there and look for you,” Mike replied sternly.

“It’s a deal. Thanks, Mike.” Frank hung up with a smile, feeling his tension and impatience evaporate. It was good to know they needn’t worry about the Deltas, at least for a while. And he was looking forward to the weekend, to seeing their Teacher. The manager of the little cottage where they’d planned to stay the previous weekend had been very understanding and assured them it was no trouble at all to move the date back a week.

“So we’re all clear for the weekend,” Joe remarked cheerfully, coming out of the kitchen. “I think we should celebrate,” he added, his blue eyes sparkling.

“Celebrate?” Frank repeated in surprise. Celebrate, after they had attended two funerals the day before, been in a major accident, and needed to replace a car?

“Yeah! No more Deltas in our hair, causing trouble and mayhem,” Joe explained. Then he tilted his head, considering. “A small celebration,” he amended. “We haven’t gone out and done much fun since- well, the fourth. More than a week. Don’t want you turning into an old fuddy-duddy.”

“A what?” Frank demanded indignantly. “I have never been a fuddy-duddy, and I never will be. And you’re not one to talk, mister staid and solemn!”

Joe snorted. “I will never live up to that description,” he declaimed. Then he grinned. “C’mon, let’s get shopping. And when we get back and have lunch, we can call the girls, see if there’s anything they want to do.”

“Not an altogether bad idea,” Frank mused, and laughed when he became the recipient of a punch in the arm. “Look at you, wasting time beating up on me when we could be getting out of here,” he chided Joe, who snorted again and went looking for his socks, shoes, wallet and keys.

“I’m really glad we did this.”

Iola Morton glanced over at her boyfriend as she pulled into the parking lot under the apartment building. “Me, too. Last night was okay, but tonight was better- just the two of us. I like Frank, you know, and Callie’s one of my best friends, but sometimes...” the girl trailed off as she maneuvered her brother’s clunky old car into a parking space.

She’d had some persuading to do to get Chet to lend her the Queen, but after she’d explained why- Frank and Joe were now down to one vehicle and Frank had it this evening- Chet had grudgingly handed over the keys. Thursday evening’s date had not been a problem, transportation-wise, since she and Callie and the boys had gone out as a foursome. But it was funny that Frank had the car tonight, for he had done all the driving the night before.

“I think Callie and Frank have some things to work out,” Joe replied quietly, a slight frown marring his forehead. “She’s not too comfortable with- with everything that’s happened, yet, and she wasn’t really trying to hide it last night.”

“Chet’s not really comfortable about it, either,” Iola agreed very softly, biting her lip as a feeling of shame went over her. She couldn’t understand why the gang was shunning their old friends; couldn’t they tell Frank and Joe were the same people now as they had been a year ago? Why did this suddenly-revealed ability, this telepathy, suddenly mean they’d be invading people’s minds left and right? It was a ludicrous thought, but it seemed awfully universal among the gang now and it made the sixteen-year-old very frustrated.

Joe sighed. “I was afraid of that. I’m just glad you’re not...uneasy, babe. That would- that’d be rough,” he admitted, turning to her. Iola shut off the engine, undid her seatbelt, and moved closer to him. She felt his arm go around her, his fingers moving through her hair- a habit he often indulged in. Seemed he liked the feel of it. She liked it herself, particularly when his fingers strayed up to the back of her neck.

“I guess I’ve got a different take on it, that’s all. I mean, you’re still you.” Iola paused, not sure how else to express it. “It just doesn’t make sense, they stuck by you when you didn’t remember, I don’t see why they can’t do the same thing now.”

“Well, that was different. They had hopes of me getting back to normal- or as normal as I get,” Joe concluded, a wry smile in his tone.

“Yeah, but they knew you might not. And they didn’t let that scare them off. I look at this telepathy the same way that I looked at your amnesia: as long as you’re more or less the same person, there’s no need for me to be- well, scared of you. If there’s a few memories missing, you’re still essentially you; and if you can speak with people mind to mind, you’re still essentially Joe Hardy.” Iola shrugged and felt the arm around her tighten. “And that’s who I have feelings for,” she added as lips brushed against her cheek. She turned her head and received another gentle kiss.

“Have I ever mentioned that I think you are a wonderful human being, Miss Morton?”

“Once or twice. Well, I like to think I’m a reasonably sensible one, anyway,” Iola murmured, blushing in spite of herself.

“Sensible? I dunno, babe; look who you’re dating.”

“We counterbalance, Joe. You’re not sensible, and I am!”

“Oh, opposites attracting. Okay, that works,” Joe chuckled, drawing her closer. Iola willingly snuggled up against him, feeling a twinge of anxiety as she touched him. He’d been- not distant, but not very intimate lately and she had the feeling that had to do with the HIV testing that he’d have to endure over the rest of the year.

They’d talked a bit about that, a few days after the revelation. Not that there’d been much to talk about; Joe had promised to be ‘very careful’ but what he meant to be careful about was something of a mystery to Iola. He already knew exactly how far she’d go, and he’d never tried to push the boundaries, so there was no chance at all of him infecting her.

That was one thing they weren’t opposites on; they could wait till the wedding, if there was one, or at least until the engagement. And there would be neither until Iola was done with college and they were both ready for the next step. She was firm on that, and if Joe changed his mind...well, he didn’t seem to have any difficulty attracting female attention! She’d be devastated to lose him, but better that than compromising both her principles and her future.

“Joe?”

“Hmmm?”

“Can you-” Iola hesitated, then sat up, braced herself and asked what she’d wanted to ask since the Fourth of July. “Can you teach me how to do telepathy?” She wasn’t entirely sure why she was asking. She just wanted to be able to do it- to share thoughts and feelings and emotions without speaking them. To be able to connect at a level deeper than words.

“Teach you to-” Joe stopped speaking. Iola could see his face in the light from the garage; he looked very surprised and a little apprehensive. “Um, I dunno if I can or not,” he ventured after a moment.

“You said you taught Frank.”

“Yes, but Frank has the ability- it’s like- like being left-handed, or like writing a symphony at age four. Either you can do it or you can’t. I can teach anyone who has the ability, but I don’t know if you have it or not.”

“Oh.” The thought that it was something inborn, that couldn’t be taught like math or grammar, hadn’t occurred to the girl. “So how do we find out if I do or not?”

Joe hesitated again. “Well...if you want me to, I can look into your mind and see if it’s there. It’s hard to explain,” he added as Iola gave him a puzzled look. “I don’t exactly look at your brain, but I go to a certain area in your mind and see how it looks and feels. Telepathic ability feels different- remember X-Men Two? How when the professor was looking at the minds of people all over the world, the ordinary people were white stars and the mutants were red stars?”

“Ohhhh,” Iola replied slowly. “Okay, I get it. So you need to see if-?”

“It’s not in colors or anything, but yeah, I need to see which category you’re under. Not a mutant, but a- Akilana calls us ‘psychics’, it covers everything from telepathy to precognition. Seeing the future,” he added in explanation.

“Okay,” the girl repeated uncertainly. “So you need to check inside my mind and see if I can- but what if I have something that isn’t telepathy? Can you teach me that, too?”

Joe frowned a little, his face taking on his ‘pondering’ look. “I can at least get you started and point you to a good, trustworthy teacher,” he answered at last. “But first things first- are you sure you want me to look around in your mind?”

It was Iola’s turn to hesitate. “What else will you see?” she asked warily.

“I’ll try not to see anything else, but I can’t swear that I won’t hear some of your thoughts. Like- like peripheral vision.”

A long silence fell as Iola gave that careful thought. Finally she turned to her boyfriend and nodded. “I really want to know,” she told him. “And- and even if you do hear some thoughts, I know you won’t, like, make fun of me about them.”

“Of course not.” Joe sounded more understanding than offended. “All right, then... let me-” He slid his arms around her again. “It’s easier if we’re touching,” he explained, and she wondered if he was blushing. It was hard to tell in the dim light. “And it won’t hurt, by the way.”

“I didn’t think it would,” Iola replied, but she relaxed a little and closed her eyes with a vague feeling that if she wasn’t seeing anything, there wouldn’t be as much for Joe to ‘see’ in her mind. Then she felt a distinct sense of presence, somehow, and her eyes flew open in shock.

“It’s okay,” Joe told her softly, and the words seemed to echo through her mind. Blinking, she clutched a little tighter at his arms and tried to relax again.

“That’s a...weird feeling,” she managed to say after a moment.

“It scared the heck out of me, the first time Frank sent to me after my amnesia,” Joe replied quietly. “Now, I’m not doing anything, just standing here, so to speak. When you’re ready for me to go in deeper, just tell me.”

Iola remained quite still for several moments, trying to define the feeling to herself. It wasn’t unpleasant- in fact it was really rather friendly and familiar. That made sense; it was Joe, after all. It was only the shock of feeling a touch in her mind, she decided at last. Her mind had been totally her own until now; she’d never thought there was any other way for a mind to be. “Okay,” she said at last. “Go ahead.”

The sense of him changed gradually. The girl had no way to define this particular feeling, but somehow she knew he was moving from the surface of her mind into the depths, and that made her just a little nervous. There wasn’t really so much down there that he didn’t already know, for she trusted him with most of her secrets, but there were a few that were too deep and private to tell even Joe. Iola hesitated on the brink of changing her mind, but even as she started to speak, she felt him withdrawing.

“Done.”

“Done, already?” Iola opened her eyes and looked up.

“Yep. I hate to tell you this, but you’re not telepathic, babe.”

“But I heard you thinking, and felt...”

“Yeah, you heard me when I sent my thoughts to you- but that was because of what I was doing, not because of what you were doing. Since I’m telepathic, I can send my thoughts to anyone who’s open-minded enough to want to get them. But only another telepath could answer back the same way.”

“So it’s a one way thing, you can talk to me, but I can’t answer you.” Iola sighed with double disappointment; not only could she not send, but Joe had stopped sending entirely, leaving her with a curiously lonely feeling. “Rats. I kinda liked it. It feels...sorta empty in my head now,” she admitted.

“Know what you mean,” her boyfriend agreed, kissing her again. “It’s kinda lonely. If you ever want me to-”

“I’ll let you know.” Iola smiled, pleased.

“Only not too frequently, please,” Joe cautioned. “It doesn’t tire me the way it used to, nor give me headaches anymore, but in general it’s a lot easier on me to connect with someone and have a prolonged talk than to do a lot of little conversations. I think it’s the reaching out and finding the other person’s mind that’s so tiring; once I find them, I can communicate for an hour or two at a time and feel about normal when I’m done. But if I reach out, then drop the connection, then re-establish, and do this a bunch of times, it wipes me out like- like one of Coach Zeigler’s football practices.”

“Yikes! That’s tired,” Iola exclaimed. “I’ll remember that.”

“Thanks,” her boyfriend said quietly, and grew rather affectionate for a few minutes.

When he finished feeling affectionate, he remarked that it was nearly eleven and she should probably get home before her curfew expired.

“Well, I suppose. I keep trying to get ‘em to let me out till midnight, but they won’t have it.” Iola frowned, feeling suddenly sulky. It wasn’t as if she was out with someone untrustworthy! Stealing a last kiss, she scooted back to the driver’s side and watched fondly as Joe got out of the car. Once he’d vanished through the apartment access door, she started the car and set off for home, grumbling to herself about the unreasonableness of her parents with every turn of the wheels.

Saturday morning dawned bright, clear and humid; as Joe Hardy prepared his duffel bag for the trip to the northerly beach, he heard the radio announcer say that the humidity was already over seventy percent. ‘Oh well,’ he told himself philosophically; ‘that makes going to the beach even better.’ At least the traffic report was good; all roads relatively clear in their direction.

Shutting off the clock-radio that had awakened him, Joe lifted the bag and went into the living room. As he’d expected, Frank was waiting for him, sitting on the sofa with the morning paper beside him. What Joe hadn’t expected was to see his brother looking so downcast; Frank was staring at the paper with an unhappy expression. He hadn’t even unfolded it yet. “Morning,” Joe said, giving the older boy a curious look. “When’d you get up?”

“Twenty- maybe thirty minutes ago,” Frank replied, glancing up and running his hand through his dark hair.

“What’s wrong?” Joe dropped his bag on the floor beside the sofa and sat down beside his disconsolate brother. “Bad night?” he hazarded when Frank didn’t reply at once.

“You could say that.” Frank gave Joe a faint smile as an insistent growl sounded. “Go eat before your stomach starts an earthquake. Tell you about it later,” he added as Joe hesitated.

“Okay.” Joe got up and went to make something that resembled breakfast. Something fast, because both of them were eager to be on their way. At least, he was. Frank didn’t look any too enthusiastic this morning, though he had been looking forward to the trip yesterday. ‘It must be something about Callie and their date,’ the teen mused as he toasted some bread and pulled out the jelly and butter. Maybe he was mistaken, but it seemed like the most logical conclusion. The two had a lot to talk about, and it took no great stretch of the mind to figure they might’ve run into problems.

Not for the first time, Joe thanked the fates or whomever that he’d been lucky enough to find a girlfriend didn’t try to make him conform to what she wanted him to do- or be. Frank was a good deal less lucky; Callie was a sweet girl- most of the time- and had a number of good qualities. Unfortunately, she did seem to have decided that being with Frank meant knowing every single thing about him- all his thoughts and feelings- and she also seemed to want him to confide in her exclusively. Joe knew that wasn’t going to happen; if his brother didn’t even tell Joe all his thoughts and feelings or confide solely in him, he was unlikely to do so with anyone else, no matter how much he cared for them.

Frank never took at all well to people trying to get into his head; he was too private a person. He guarded his feelings fiercely, at the most allowing people to catch a brief glimpse of them before he retreated behind a facade of casualness. That didn’t apply to Joe- or at any rate, not nearly as much to Joe as to other people. And even with Joe the older Hardy sometimes hesitated before unburdening himself. As a result, the depths of Frank’s feelings sometimes surprised Joe or took him off guard.

‘Of course, I could be completely off track,’ the blond boy reminded himself as he poured milk and went out to the table to eat quickly. ‘Something else could’ve happened last night- or he could be thinking about Gertrude.’

Had it really only been three days since her funeral? It seemed like so much longer, sometimes. And then other times it seemed like just an hour ago...

“You have a good time last night?” Frank asked, getting up from the sofa and coming over to the table. He didn’t sit down, but stood behind the chair opposite Joe, his hands resting on the top of the curved wood.

“Yeah, pretty good.” Joe paused to chew a bite of toast, then added slowly, “Iola wanted me to teach her to send.” As Frank’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, he explained Iola’s request, his own response, and Iola’s disappointment. Frank listened with interest, then sighed, leaning into the chair and gazing at the table-top.

“I think I’m jealous,” he muttered after a minute or two, standing up straight again.

Joe paused with the glass of milk at his lips. “Jealous?” he repeated in surprise.

“Envious, anyway.” Frank hesitated, then let go of the chair and sat down in it, sideways. “I think Callie’s still freaked by the sending,” he muttered. “Last night...it went bad, really bad. I dunno why she even agreed to get together in the first place, she was so uncomfortable. She tried to hide it for a while, but the longer it went on, the worse she got. I finally suggested we call it a night and she agreed practically before I finished talking.” The nineteen-year-old sighed again and propped his elbow on the table, leaning his head against his hand.

“She still thinks you’d pry around in her mind?” Joe demanded indignantly. “Jeez, you’d think she’d know you better than that by now! I don’t understand why she can’t grasp that we do know what privacy is and won’t violate it.” Not that Callie was the only one doing this, but she had less excuse than most. She knew Frank better than the rest of the gang did.

Frank shrugged, but his expression had lightened a little. “I don’t know for sure, since we haven’t actually talked about it-”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid if I bring it up, she’ll conclude I read her mind to see what was bugging her,” Frank explained dryly, lifting his head and letting his arm rest on the tabletop. “But I think that’s it. Maybe she figures the temptation will get to be too much for me.”

“Oh, so maybe you wouldn’t do it now, but later on is anyone’s guess,” Joe muttered caustically, rolling his eyes. “That’s ridiculous. Hasn’t she ever noticed that when you set your mind to something, you follow through on it?”

“I would’ve thought so, by now.”

Joe slowly resumed eating, frowning as he did. Frank was very attached to Callie, but between her first demanding he share all his feelings and then retreating from his telepathy- ‘Poor bro. It looks like there’s rough times ahead.’

Still, there had been rough times between Frank and Callie before, and the two had always pulled through. Frank might get tempted to break up with her out of sheer exasperation, but he wouldn’t; he’d stick it out and try to make things work.

But Callie? Joe brooded over that aspect for a moment. The thought of Callie abandoning the relationship over either issue was an awful one, but to Joe’s mind, a very unlikely one. She hadn’t abandoned Frank through far more painful difficulties; she wasn’t likely to now. True, she was sometimes slow to accept things, but that didn’t mean she’d let those things wreck her relationship. “It’ll work out,” he assured his brother quietly.

Frank looked up and gave him a small smile. “Thanks, optimist,” he said wryly. “And- thanks for the sounding board.”

“Any time.” Joe popped the last bit of toast into his mouth, gulped down the remainder of the milk, and pushed back the chair. He hurried into the kitchen to wash the glass, then hurried right back out and grabbed his duffel bag. “Ready when you are,” he said cheerfully. Frank was standing at the open door, his own duffel in one hand, idly jingling his keys in the other. At Joe’s remark, he glanced over and shook his head.

“Anyone would think you were waiting on me instead of the other way around.”

Joe ignored that. “Lights off, stove off, alarm off-”

“Alarm?”

“Clock.”

“Oh.”

“Anything else?” Joe frowned around the apartment.

“If we think of anything, we can call Chet and ask him to come over with his spare key.”

“Cell phone?”

“In my pocket. C’mon, slowpoke, we’re burning daylight.” Frank grabbed Joe’s shirt-sleeve and pulled him through the doorway; Joe paused long enough to grab the doorknob and shut the door firmly behind him.

Frank Hardy opened the sedan’s trunk and dropped his duffel bag inside, waiting while Joe dropped his in as well before closing the lid. Then he unlocked the driver’s door and slipped into the seat.

He felt a lot better for the brief talk he’d just had with his brother. Joe was right; he and Callie had worked out problems before now; they’d work these out as well. Callie might never be completely comfortable with the telepathy, but sooner or later she would accept that he meant it when he said he’d never violate the privacy of her mind. ‘And if she’s that set on having her own thoughts be private, she can certainly ease up on me about sharing my thoughts all the time!’

Frank had every intention of pointing that out to her when he got home, but in the meantime, he was just going to forget about it all and enjoy the trip. ‘And nothing mysterious,’ he vowed to himself. ‘This time, we’re going to resist any and every urge to check into some situation that comes up. No cases, no strangers, no interruptions, no frantic running around or straining our brains. And no hairsbreadth escapes!’

With this resolution firm in his mind, Frank buckled in and was about to turn the engine on when he noticed that Joe wasn’t getting into the car. He was standing in the open passenger door, one hand on the roof, the other holding the door open. Frank waited. And waited. And waited, wondering what in the world was occupying Joe’s attention. He couldn’t see the younger boy’s face, and as far as he could tell, there was nothing going on in the far corner of the parking lot that might have distracted the teen.

When Joe finally slid into the seat and shut the door, Frank frowned at his brother’s unusually pale face and noticed how Joe’s hands shook as he put on the seatbelt. His voice quivered as he said curtly, “Let’s go.” Frank, bewildered by the abrupt change of mood, obediently started the car and headed out of the parking lot. He had no idea what was going on, but after another glance at his brother, he decided not to inquire until Joe had lightened up a bit.

Unfortunately, Joe didn’t ‘lighten up’. The few cautious questions Frank asked received curt responses and a couple of mild remarks got no reply at all. When he voiced his resolution to not get involved on a case, he got a grunt of assent, nothing more. After a few more attempts, Frank gave up and let the silence fester. He was half tempted to turn on the radio, just to have some kind of noise in the air, but refrained; he wasn’t really in a music mood and the radio generally aired more commercials than music to begin with. He was definitely not in the mood for that. He simply drove, watching traffic and gradually losing his concern that someone might be tailing them- leftover paranoia from Wednesday, he concluded.

It was as Frank thought about Wednesday, as his mind drifted over the events of that day, that he suddenly he realized why Joe was behaving so strangely. ‘Of course, the collision! He went into shock Wednesday from the collision, the same way he went into shock after Mom’s crash- in this car- a year ago! Damn it, I knew it at the time! How the hell could I forget? He asked for Mom, he flashbacked- and last night, that was why he said I should take the car and Iola would pick him up! Why didn't I realize how hard it would be for him to get back into this car today? I should have known why he was scared and shaky!’

Frank started to speak, then hesitated, scolding himself for his insensitivity. How could he have been so indifferent? At least he hadn’t gotten impatient or stupidly asked what on earth was the matter- though the thought wasn’t much consolation. “You hanging in there okay, kiddo?” he asked at last, breaking the long silence and causing his brother to start.

“Don’t talk,” Joe murmured. “Just...don’t talk to me. Gotta keep my mind blank.”

“I wish you’d let me help,” Frank began, glancing over. Joe’s eyes flared open irritably.

“You have to concentrate on driving. And I have to do this myself,” he snapped. “Can’t be needing someone to help me cope every time I’m in a passenger seat. Too distracting.”

Frank closed his mouth on an injured reply, realizing Joe had a point. As much driving as they did in the course of their cases, he could not have a partner who froze in fear every time he got into the front passenger seat. Besides, there wasn’t much he could say- now- to help the situation. ‘He sounds so resentful- he must have realized that I just figured it out, and of course he’s mad at me for not understanding sooner.’ Guilt washed over him and he increased their speed; the least he could do was get them there faster, cut down on the time Joe had to endure in the vehicle.

It was just over two and a half hours after their departure when Frank reached their exit and turned off. He had made good speed; on their last trip to this area, it had taken a little over three hours to reach this point. Glancing at Joe as they paused at a traffic light, he noted that Joe’s face was still quite pale and his eyes were closed, but his jaw was no longer clenched and his hands rested limply on his thighs. If he’d had a little more color, he would have looked like he was sleeping; as it was he simply looked unconscious. Frank frowned at the thought, worried, but saw the pulse beating slowly and steadily in his brother’s throat and relaxed slightly. Asleep, then, but afraid even in his sleep.

It was another fifteen minutes before Frank pulled into the dirt-and-gravel parking lot outside the small one-story office building that oversaw the renting of the beach cottages. The place was not much bigger than an ordinary condominium, though those generally didn’t have large signs posted on their front lawns to advertise ‘Vacation Cottages’. The building itself was in good repair, but it seemed business was slow; the parking lot had only two other cars in it. Frank parked by the door and got out to register and collect the key, thinking that now he knew why the proprietor had been so willing to change their week: she probably needed the business.

The blue-eyed brunette behind the desk was very pleasant and efficient and the check-in was swiftly accomplished. She warned him that the jellyfish had been worse this year than the last, but that there had been no sign of sharks for weeks. “It’s a good time to come,” she added as she handed over the key. “The summer rush is over, as you may have noticed; you’ll have the beach almost entirely to yourselves.”

“Sounds good,” Frank agreed, mentioning in passing how crowded the Bayport beaches and harbor had been lately.

“Cities do tend to be that way. We don’t have motorboats at our cottages yet, but there’s boat and diving information here,” she offered a white sheet of paper, “and a general map of what else is in the area, for when you get a little tired of finding sand in everything you own.” This sheet was green and looked more like an advertisement than a map. Frank accepted them both with an amused grin, gave them a quick glance-over, then thanked her and headed back out the door.

When he reached the car and opened the door, Frank smiled to see that Joe’s head had slipped sideways on the headrest and he was breathing deeply, not quite snoring. Frank shook his head with a fond look, started the car up again, and decided the priority should be to get to the cottage first. They could always get food later, he told himself, ignoring the lunchtime pangs of hunger in his belly.

The jostling of the car woke Joe Hardy with a jolt; he sat up with a gasp and cried out, “What? What’s happening?”

“Whoa, easy there,” he heard a startled, familiar voice say and turned swiftly to see his brother sitting beside him in the driver’s seat. “We just made the turnoff onto the dirt road. Actually,” Frank added, “sand road is more accurate.”

Joe sank back in his seat and rubbed his eyes, wincing as the car bounced over a pothole. One either side of the narrow road were small trees with thin trunks, wind-gnarled branches and sparse foliage, mostly pine needles. The sand was pale buff, not the darker gold of Bayport’s beaches, and sprinkled with tall green dune-grass in an effort to keep the erosion down. There were no dunes, but there were rippling hills that stretched on for several hundred yards. At the end of the hills was a flat stretch that ran down to the dark blue sea; far away, at the end of the sea, the hazy blue sky came down to meet the water. The sandy road was dotted with ruts and gouges.

Joe glanced behind him and saw a cloud of dusty sand following the car. There wasn’t much of a wind, he decided; the cloud simply drifted back down to ground level instead of being whipped away by a sea breeze. Then the road curved and another jolt made him grab the door armrest to steady himself. “They really need to pave this,” he complained. “I nearly bit my tongue! Say, don’t we need to get a key or something?”

“Did that,” Frank replied, frowning in concentration. “You were asleep, I decided not to wake you. We haven’t got the same place as last time; this one is about a mile up from it, and it’s bigger. Two bedrooms, so I don’t have to worry about you snoring. Two bathrooms, too; one with a tub and the other with just a shower.”

“Excellent.” Joe smiled. “It won’t matter how much time I take in there.”

“Planning to use all the hot water before I do, huh?” Frank inquired with a slightly sarcastic edge. Before Joe could answer, they rounded the final curve and stopped outside the cottage. It looked promising: a neat coat of white paint over the wooden walls, tidy gutters, a wide wooden enclosed porch with three steps leading up. There were a few bushes on either side, but none too near the steps. Joe wondered what the bushes were; as he got out, he noticed the ground was different, darker, and assumed it was potting soil. The fact that several late-summer flowers were edging the bushes seemed to bear his guess out. He hurried up the steps, then had to wait while Frank unlocked the door and swung it open. A refreshingly cool gust of air-conditioning greeted them as they went inside.

“This can’t really be described as a ‘cottage’,” Joe decided after he’d checked the place out thoroughly. The bedrooms were somewhat on the rustic side, with old-fashioned furniture and decorations, but he figured that was done on purpose. The kitchen was definitely modern, up to the small microwave that sat regally on the counter. The living room had both a television and a DVD player, and the phone was more technological than their own new phone at home. Joe grinned, looking at it. “No rotary phone here,” he remarked, and Frank laughed.

“I somehow don’t think we’ll need to use the fireplace,” he responded, nodding at it. Joe turned and regarded the wide brick structure curiously.

“I think probably not, it’s plenty hot enough. Though with the air conditioning set so low...”

“We can always tinker with that.”

“True, and we don’t know what kind of wildlife we’d disturb if we made a fire.” Joe scratched his head. “I dunno what they needed with a fireplace; I sorta doubt people come here in the winter.”

“No, but maybe in the fall. Or early spring.”

“Oh, well, true. And this time,” he added happily, “I can have my microwave popcorn!”

Frank chuckled, then glanced over at the open bedroom doors. “Which room do you want?”

Joe shrugged and pointed randomly at the nearest bedroom. “Doesn’t really matter. Where’s the car keys?”

Frank tossed them over; Joe snagged them deftly and went outside, descended the porch steps, and opened the sedan’s trunk. He pulled out his duffel bag and went back inside, feeling a sudden, rather urgent call of nature. “I left the trunk open for you,” he told Frank, dropping the bag just inside the bedroom. He tossed back the keys and disappeared into the bathroom. When he came out, Frank was nowhere in sight.

After glancing into the kitchen, the half-bath and the other bedroom, Joe went out on the porch, feeling a slight twinge of unease. Where had Frank gone so suddenly? The trunk of the car was closed; several dozen feet down the beach was a tall, slim, dark-haired figure, moving steadily away. Joe frowned, his unease replaced with relief but also with a feeling of irritation. Frank could have waited for him before going down to the water! ‘Guess he doesn’t care for me and my company at the moment. Well, fine, he wants to be alone, I guess I’ll leave him alone- but when he gets back-’

Joe turned to go back into the cottage, noting in passing the screen curtains that were looped back and secured to the cottage walls. It looked like they could be pulled down to enclose the porch; not a bad idea at all. Stepping inside, he went into the bedroom he’d pointed at, snagging his duffel bag as he moved over to the wide, desk-high dresser. Unpacking took next to no time, since he hadn’t brought much; they would only be here today, tonight and Sunday. They didn’t have to vacate by any particular time on Sunday either, which was nice. After a moment he remembered that on their last visit, the kitchen had not been stocked, and wondered if Frank had stopped at the grocery store. Then the eighteen-year-old shook his head at himself; if Frank had stopped and gotten food, there would have been bags of it- if not in the trunk, in the back seat.

As he zipped up his empty duffel and tossed it across the room and into the closet, Joe hoped rather irritably that Frank wouldn’t make his walk a long one. If he did, he might just come back to find Joe and the car missing, for Joe had no intentions of going without eating just because Frank wanted to walk for a couple hours. If it was a question between going hungry and making himself drive Dad’s car...the boy scowled as he closed the last dresser drawer and stood up, running an absent-minded hand through his hair and trying to banish his fear. It was just a car, after all.

‘Don’t think about it. Probably he’ll be back by then- the question is, why the heck did he just take off like that? Actually,’ Joe admitted to himself after a moment, ‘that’s a fairly rhetorical question, J. Frank’s probably still upset about that situation with Callie. But damn it- it’s supposed to be our time, away from home, away from worries and- and paranoid, possessive girlfriends and...aw...hell!’ Joe kicked at the side of the bed in annoyance, most of it directed at himself. There he went, being all possessive again- just like Callie.

Scowling, the youth dropped down on the bed and picked up one of the books now sitting on the night-table beside the bed. Then he put it down again and pulled his sketchpad from the bottom of the pile instead. Flipping it open to where the pencil marked the page, he considered for a moment, then got up and carried it outside. Selecting one of the white plastic patio chairs that stood in a corner of the porch, Joe sat down cross-legged and began to draw. It had been a long time since he’d drawn anything; he’d forgotten about it while he had amnesia, and even after he’d rediscovered the notebook, he hadn’t felt the urge to sketch. Now the images seemed to pour from his fingers, page after page of rough but recognizable pictures; pictures he would go back and smooth over later.

“What’cha drawing this time?”

Joe started violently and barely avoided dragging a thick black line across the white paper. His head snapped up; he relaxed somewhat when saw Frank standing at the bottom of the porch steps, regarding him curiously. “When’d you get here?” he questioned in return, quickly closing the notebook.

“Just now.” Frank climbed the stairs and then stood first on one leg then the other, brushing the sand off his bare feet.

“Oh.” Joe tucked his pencil into the spiral wire at the top of the notebook, then looked up and said flatly, “I’m hungry.”

“Let’s run into town and get some food, then.” Frank opened the cottage door.

“I was thinking about doing that by myself,” Joe agreed, getting up from the chair. He went inside long enough to place the notebook on the nightstand in his bedroom, then went back out and waited on the porch while Frank put his shoes on.

“You wouldn’t happen to be feeling irritated, would you?” Frank asked a few minutes later, emerging from the house and locking the door behind him.

“What makes you think that?” Joe retorted, ignoring the steps and jumping directly from the porch to the ground.

“I wish you’d stop giving me a question every time I ask you one,” the older boy muttered, tromping down the steps. “Well, that’s one sign,” he added, pausing to look straight at Joe. “You tend to do that when you’re angry.”

“So why’d you ask in the first place, if you already knew?” Joe inquired irritably. He wasn’t exactly angry, but he was feeling annoyed, stubborn and uncommunicative, and didn’t care to admit to the surge of possessiveness he’d felt earlier in the day.

Frank didn’t say anything more, just gave him a look, shook his dark head, and got into the car. Joe slid into the passenger seat and buckled up as his brother put the car in gear. It wasn’t as difficult to stay calm this time, but he still gripped the door handle tightly as Frank maneuvered them out to the main road and drove to the nearest shopping center.

Two hours later, with the shopping accomplished and a quick meal devoured, Joe went out onto the porch again and sat down in his chair. The sun was setting and the sky was gloriously lit in shades of orangy-pink, purple and delicate blue. The water glittered gold and bronze in some spots and lay almost black in others. The wind had died and the waves were more a murmur than a crash. It was a breathtakingly beautiful scene, but it had a less-than-pleasant side effect that Joe noticed after about two minutes. With no breeze, the insects were free to swarm as they pleased, the mosquitoes particularly. Rising, he undid the straps that held the screen curtains in place and pulled them around the sides of the porch.

“We forgot bug spray,” he remarked as Frank came out, closing the screen door behind him. The reply was more a grunt than anything else. Neither of them had said much during the shopping and the meal; both the car and the house had been thick with the tension between the siblings. There was a brief, uncomfortable silence.

“So, are you going to answer even one of my questions, or do I get to spend all night wondering what’s going through your head?” Frank inquired abruptly. “Like maybe you could just verify whether you’re furious at me?”

Joe, taken by surprise, looked up quickly. It wasn’t so much the question that had caught his attention as the tone of Frank’s voice: not quite insulting, but definitely not his usual patient manner. And he was standing beside Joe’s chair with his arms crossed on his chest, a defensive stance. “Well,” he began, but was interrupted almost at once.

“Or are you going to make me keep guessing till I get it right? That could take a while.” There was no mistaking the older boy’s defensiveness now. “And if I mistakenly conclude you’re pissed when you really aren’t, we could end up with some communication problems. But if you’re set on it, I’ll give it my best shot- which would be...maybe you’re mad at me ‘cause I was an oblivious insensitive jerk who didn’t even notice that you were freaking out until we’d been driving for more than an hour-” Frank paused for a breath.

“Frank-”

“-Which I should have both noticed and understood, considering what you’ve been through-”

Joe sat up straight in his chair and frowned up at his brother. He could see Frank’s face pretty clearly, but he couldn’t quite decipher this expression. “Frank,” he repeated more firmly, and when his brother paused, finished, “I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”

“You- you don’t have a clue.” There was a brief silence as Frank turned away, his arms falling to his sides. “Well, that’s very interesting, seeing how I just told you twice,” he muttered bitterly.

Joe regarded his brother with a mix of irritation and puzzlement. “You may’ve just told me, but that doesn’t mean it makes sense to me,” he pointed out. “Look, to begin with, I’m not angry at you,” he went on. “I am irritated, but I’m not mad and certainly not furious.”

“Sure fooled me, the way you bit my head off.”

Joe felt his eyebrows lift. “When did I do that?”

“This morning, in the car!” his brother answered crossly. “When I asked if you were okay, you snarled at me-”

“Oh.” Joe rubbed his temple, feeling suddenly sheepish. “That, yeah. I snarled at you because I was stressed, and I’m sorry about that. I shouldn’t’ve done that.”

“Okay.” Frank was quiet for a moment. “Okay, that’s my point. You were stressed. I was aware that you were stressed, but I couldn’t understand why. It took me nearly an hour to figure it out, and I thought that was why you snapped at me and why you were so moody when I got back from my walk. Because I’d been oblivious to how you were feeling.”

“This afternoon, I was irritated because of the way you just walked off without saying a word,” Joe explained, frowning. He was still a little confused about the ‘oblivious’ part, but decided that could wait a bit. “You didn’t tell me you were leaving, or where you were going, didn’t ask if I wanted to go too, didn’t even say you wanted some solo time. I just walk out and you’re gone.”

“I thought you’d come too, catch up with me,” Frank answered wearily, pushing his hand through his hair. “And you didn’t. So I figured you were still mad about this morning.”

Joe shook his head, then had to brush strands of hair out of his eyes as an errant breeze blew by. “I assumed you were thinking about Callie again and didn’t want to be disturbed. That was part of my irritation. Like...like you’d decided I couldn’t help, so you were just going to leave me out of it.”

Frank sighed. “You helped me a lot this morning, Joe. And I wasn’t thinking about Callie. I’m trying not to, in fact.”

“Oh.” Joe felt a little foolish for his earlier surge of possessiveness and was glad he hadn’t mentioned it. “Okay, so I had the wrong idea entirely.” He hesitated, then added, “I still don’t understand why you keep saying you’ve been oblivious, though.”

Frank started to speak, but suddenly sank down on the wooden floor and sat there cross-legged. Joe watched with concern as his brother lowered his face into his hands, but a moment later Frank sighed and straightened up. “I told you, Joe: I was oblivious to why you were feeling so stressed,” he said agitatedly. “It shouldn’t’ve taken me an hour to figure it out; I should have known immediately how difficult it was for you to get into Dad’s car. And I sure should have asked sooner if you were okay, if there was any way I could help.”

“But I didn’t want you to help,” Joe protested, exasperated, but keeping his voice calm. “That’s exactly why I got so sharp, I was trying to keep a grip on things and you were distracting me. Frank, I have got to be able to handle driving around on my own- I mean, I have to be able to drive, and I also have to be able to- to be a passenger without needing someone to support me. If I can’t, I’ll never be a detective; too much happens when we drive for me to be depending on anyone else.”

“I understand that,” Frank agreed, sounding calmer. “I understood when you said so. What I’m trying to say is, it shouldn’t’ve taken me so long to realize why you were reacting the way you were.”

Joe considered that, feeling as if a candle had flickered into life over his head. “So you didn’t immediately pick up on why I was feeling freaked and because of that, you’re telling yourself you’ve been insensitive.”

“Extremely.”

“Extremely insensitive. And when I didn’t come after you and walk with you, you decided you were right, that I was mad enough about it to avoid you.”

“Exactly.”

“But now you know I wasn’t irritated with you over that.”

A nod.

Joe mused for a moment. “Okay, I think I’ve got it,” he concluded dubiously. “You were mad at yourself for being ‘oblivious’ to why I was stressed out, and you thought I felt the same way. Which I didn’t. Meanwhile, I figured you were brooding over Callie again and it irritated me that you didn’t tell me. And it irritated me some more that you didn’t seem to think I’d be any help with it. But you weren’t thinking about Callie. Is that accurate?”

Frank slowly looked up, not much more than a shadow in the last fading light of the sunset. “Yes, so far as it goes. I did think you were mad at my obliviousness, but I was mad at myself for more than that. Every time I turn around, I end up getting someone upset with me for being so damned insensitive to their feelings,” he explained, no longer sounding impatient but tired and defeated. “You and Callie, in particular.”

“But Callie’s feelings- those are not your doing,” Joe reminded him gently. “You can’t help being telepathic, and you can’t help that it freaks her. And it’s entirely her problem if you don’t feel comfortable confiding in her every time she puts pressure on you.”

“I know...I know it...it’s just icing on the cake, Joe. I’ve been really oblivious to your feelings lately- first with Biff and now with this- and I feel rotten about it!” Frank drew his legs up and draped his arms over his knees in one of his ‘vulnerable’ postures.

Joe frowned. He had long known that his brother was not nearly as sensitive to other people’s feelings as Joe himself was, but Frank usually managed to pick up on most of Joe’s feelings. Not this time, which was surprising considering how extremely tense and snappish Joe had been, but had it been genuine insensitivity? “You sure being stressed and blue and awake so early didn’t just give your radar a glitch?” he inquired at length. “’Cause I know neither of us was totally awake, and you were concentrating on driving as well.”

Frank sighed and Joe looked over in time to see him rest his head on his arms. “Excuses,” he heard Frank mutter. “I am so good at making and accepting excuses.”

“Some excuses are valid,” the younger boy said quietly, reaching over to touch his brother’s shoulder, knowing that Frank was referring to the way he’d excused Biff’s actions as a result of Euphoria. “And some aren’t. But if you really insist you’ve been insensitive, the thing to do isn’t to beat yourself up about it; it’s to take all that remorse you’re showing and use it to try and strengthen your ability to feel how other people are feeling. I really don’t think you need to, you’ve shown me an incredible amount of attentiveness and caring- and sensitivity- over the past couple months, but if you really think you need to work on it, go for it. It’ll help you feel better to solve it instead of brooding over what a supposedly ‘terrible’ mistake you made.”

There was a long silence. The sun was down, the last rays gleaming on clouds rich with shades of purple, lavender and pewter set on an indigo sky. As Joe watched, the afterglow faded and the long summer dusk turned to night. Frank continued to say nothing; Joe twisted around in his chair so that he was looking down at his brother instead of out at the sea, feeling another twinge of concern. “You okay, bro?”

“I wish to Heaven I could do what you do...” came the mumbled response. Frank lifted his head again and looked up, a strangely pleading note in his voice as he reached up to clasp Joe’s hand. “I hate this, Joe- I hate feeling like I’ve failed someone because I wasn’t tuned in enough to their feelings. I swear, I think Callie was right- I’m more android than human!”

“What? Frank, that is total nonsense,” Joe said sternly, mentally cursing his brother’s girlfriend. “You have feelings and you care about people- you don’t want them hurting or scared or miserable. You look for solutions in your own way- logically- but you don’t turn to someone who’s depressed and tell them to cheer up, it’s all in their mind. That is insensitive, not sitting with them and listening to them tell what’s bugging them and trying to reassure them. You’re not as- as emotionally attuned as I am- I’m sometimes overly attuned. Just like you’re sometimes overly attuned to the logical side of things. But being feeling-oriented doesn’t make me a failure, and being logic-oriented certainly doesn’t make you a failure. And definitely not an android!” Joe paused and took a deep breath. “You know,” he added after a moment. “I think you’ve told me several times that feeling first and thinking later wasn’t anything to beat myself up about.”

“I guess you’re going to say I should take my own advice?”

“You do get awfully harsh on yourself sometimes-”

“So do you, Joe.”

Joe was quiet, gazing at the sea through the dozens of tiny holes in the screen. The darkness had deepened and the stars were beginning to make their pinprick appearances in the velvety blue-black sky. The sea was black, only a few faint bits of silver flickering from the waves. “So did Dad,” he said after a while. “He wasn’t too harsh on our mistakes, most of the time, but he sure got mad when he slipped up. I guess it runs in the family.”

“Guess so.” Frank sighed and pressed the back of Joe’s hand against his cheek for a moment. He’d never done that before and Joe looked down in some surprise. Then he reached over with his free hand and smoothed the dark head beside him. “Got a lot of self improvement to do,” the older boy went on quietly. “Start sharing my feelings more, stop being so harsh on myself-”

“I’d try it one at a time,” Joe broke in. “Who knows, maybe if you start sharing your feelings more, you’ll find you’re being less rough on yourself. If you tell someone you feel like a failure, maybe you’ll be less likely to brood to yourself about what a terrible failure you are. Which would be good, ‘cause you’re not,” he concluded.

“And then you can start giving me optimist lessons,” Frank suggested, looking up with a rueful smile.

Frank Hardy glanced at his wristwatch as he eased himself down to the soft, warm sand. Nearly two o’clock. It didn’t seem possible that it could still be so early. A lot had happened this morning!

The Hardys had woken early after an early night; the discussion they’d had after dinner had fatigued them both emotionally, and the night swim had completed the job, sending them yawning to their beds before ten o’clock. Breakfast had been cheerful, and then the two had hopped into the car and headed for Akilana’s home, some ways up the beach. Joe had exhibited a lot less stress about being in their father’s car today, which had relieved Frank.

Akilana had greeted them from the porch swing and waved for them to join her. After they had caught up on the basics- which included asking if the Teacher had any news about the burned outcast, Stuart- Akilana had ushered them into the beautiful, serene room she used as her meditation area and classroom. She’d served them cool drinks and snacks, then asked, “How are things with you?”

The simple question had unlocked a flood of talk from both boys. For three hours straight they took turns telling her what had gone on in their lives since the last time they’d seen her.

Akilana had listened, occasionally nodding or making a brief comment. “Yes, I felt it as her mind faded. It was not exactly a deliberate death, but she was craving the peace. It was her time,” she’d said quietly when Frank told her about the old woman’s death. Her gaze had been sympathetic when she heard about Frank’s experience with Euphoria, and she had gently told Joe that no, she couldn’t restore the missing fragments of his memory. “It will have to come back by itself, or not at all,” she explained. “I cannot force it out of hiding. I’m glad that the sending helped you as much as it did, but it was the memories asserting themselves, not the sending, that pulled them into the light.” She’d listened to the shocking discovery of Biff’s addiction with a deep frown and shaken her head, but said nothing to that.

After they’d talked themselves out, the boys had remained for a while, relaxing on the sofa and enjoying the sense of peace. The sound of the waves was soothing, aura of the room comfortingly familiar. In an effort to delay the inevitable, they’d devoured the crackers, vegetables, dip and fruit chunks on the snack tray, quelling their hunger pangs for the moment. Akilana had watched with a smile, remarking, “Talking is hungry work.”

“Is that why you didn’t say much? So you wouldn’t get hungry?” Joe had inquired jokingly. The Teacher had laughed quietly and commented on what a ‘clever one’ he was.

“And there are many different definitions of the word clever,” she’d added, a suddenly teasing glint in her black eyes. Both the boys had laughed, as much from surprise that she was joking around as at the remark itself. They’d never considered her a teasing sort before.

Eventually, renewed hunger had urged them to depart and they’d done so, reluctant to leave their friend but glad for the visit. They’d made good time back to the cottage, had lunch and a relaxing snooze, and then a swim.

Now, lying on the sand, Frank turned his gaze from the partly-cloudy blue-white sky and regarded his brother, who was sitting cross-legged beside him, elbows on his knees and chin on his fists, still dripping from his latest plunge into the sea. “I haven’t talked that much in a long time. Feel like I ought to be hoarse.” A sudden coolness passed over him as a cloud moved across the sun.

“I hadn’t realized how long it’s been since we’ve connected with Akilana,” Joe agreed. “The last time was- well, when I told her we’d let the gang in on the sending, on the fourth. But before that, it was back when Stuart was still with us.”

“Yeah. I was kinda relieved when she said she’s been keeping her mental eye on him,” Frank remarked. “Last winter seems like so long ago, but it really hasn’t been five years- just about five months.”

“Five months,” Joe repeated slowly. “Yeah, about that- Stuart was still around while the trial was going on in February.”

‘The trial,’ Frank thought. The Starmail trial that had sentenced Locke and Pearson to death. “And those rotten lawyers are still delaying the execution dates,” the older boy mused sourly. He shot another glance at Joe, expecting an angry frown and some strong words about the legal maneuverings, but his normally volatile brother looked like he was thinking of something else entirely.

“It’s funny- not ‘funny’ funny, but weird,” Joe said slowly after a moment, drawing a pensive finger through the sand. “First it all happened. Then we had to go through it all again at the trial. And then I forgot and you had to remind me all over again. It’s like- like we’re stuck in a loop, like-” His finger formed a pattern of jagged peaks in the sand, rising, descending, rising again.

“At least this time you didn’t quit eating,” Frank murmured, remembering how concerned he’d been when Joe’s weight had started to drop. “Maybe...maybe ‘cause it- it still hurts, but it doesn’t hurt as much as it did. We’re not desensitized, by a long shot, but it doesn’t rule our feelings and reactions either.”

Joe lifted his hand and scratched near his eye. “That...feels about right,” he agreed. “I just wish,” he added complainingly, “that things would all quit happening while other things are going on. It’s like we never really see the end of anything, it’s never ‘over’, you know?”

“It’s only in books or movies that things are all tied off neatly at the end,” Frank pointed out quietly. “Real life’s a lot messier. The Starmail trial won’t haunt us much longer, though, not once those jerks get what’s coming to them-” Frank paused to get control of the bitterness that was seeping into his voice. “Speaking of that, we haven’t checked on Ryan lately,” he mused, suddenly recalling the young teen who’d lost his brother in the mansion fire. The last time they’d seen Ryan, at the trial, he’d been hollow-cheeked and pale, visibly depressed. And despite his complaints about his ‘strict’ uncle, he’d stuck very close to the slender, balding man who sat beside him.

“We should do that,” Joe agreed, looking over. “See if he’s doing any better- and make sure he’s still going straight.” He paused. “I guess I know what you mean, there’s really no such word as ‘closure’, but even so...dealing with Stuart-the-outcast while the trial was going on wasn’t too pleasant. And before that, dealing with Unity while Stuart was getting into my dreams, and now it’s been Unity and all their rotten stunts again, right on the heels of this Euphoria thing and my amnesia. And then you mix in Biff and Aunt G. Man! That one’s going to follow us around for a while!” he concluded, frowning.

“And don’t forget Coach and Jesse getting shot, right after I got home,” Frank added gravely. “You’re right, it’s like we get partially into something and something else happens. Gives us a lot to deal with. But we’ve dealt with ‘em, Joe. And some things are resolving themselves, or at least moving into the- the homestretch, so to speak.”

Joe looked over at him with a half-smile. “Is this your first lesson in optimism?” he asked, and the older boy smiled in return. “We should check on Coach Zeigler, too,” he added thoughtfully. “Last I heard he was in physical therapy- maybe he’ll be back at Bayport High this coming autumn.”

“We should make a list,” Frank suggested, propping himself up on one elbow. “All the folks we need to get back in touch with. Ryan, Coach Z...”

“Sam, maybe,” Joe put in. “Although he did say, when I saw him at graduation-”

“You saw him?”

“Oh, thought I told you. Yeah, he was there, I ran into him as I was heading down to the locker room, to go out onto the field. He said he would be going deep undercover for an indefinite time and not to get concerned if he wasn’t around for a few months. It’s been a few months, so maybe he’s back.”

“Okay, add Sam to the list.” Frank lay back down again, oblivious to the sand in his hair. “What I want to know is what’s up with Gold and the rest of those guys. I know Gold’s in jail and won’t be out soon-”

“And we know Bobby did turn himself in after he tried to cream me with that shot-put,” Joe inserted.

“Yes.” Frank scowled, remembering. “But I’d like to know what sort of punishment he got. That whole bunch has been nowhere this summer, so either they’re avoiding us or-”

“Or, just possibly, they’ve been up to something,” Joe concluded.

“Or both.” Frank squinted as the sun came out again briefly. “And in between all that, there’s class schedules-”

“I know, I know. I’ve got my mind pretty well made up, just need to turn the thing in,” Joe assured him. “I s’pose you turned yours in a month ago, at least. Probably the day after the term ended!”

Frank turned to look at his brother, who was smiling down at him, and slowly shook his head. “Haven’t turned mine in either yet,” he admitted, and had to grin at the amazed look that crossed Joe’s face.

“Wow. I must be rubbing off on you,” Joe teased.

“Just too much going on to think about it.” Frank shrugged and drew one hand out from behind his head; his fingers were going numb. A long silence fell as the two sat watching the sun duck in and out of the clouds, alternately coating the waves with glitter and turning them a dark, somber blue.

“I don’t think I like this being alone business.”

Frank Hardy hadn’t really intended to say what he was thinking, but the words echoed in his ears and a moment later his brother’s hand closed around his arm and squeezed gently. He didn’t look down from the silver-tinted gray clouds, just explained slowly, “It feels like there’s no...security now, no guidance except our own. And we’re pretty inexperienced.”

“You’re worried about making mistakes?”

Frank considered that. “Not quite,” he decided after a few moments. “Not so much making mistakes as of trying to- to think and act responsibly and not knowing how to. Not knowing how,” he repeated with a nod. “That’s the thing. I know people learn from errors, and I’ve certainly done it myself, but this is different. I’m used to making mistakes from misjudgment, not from pure ignorance, and I think ignorance could prove a lot more serious.” ‘And you,’ he added to himself, finally meeting Joe’s concerned gaze. ‘I feel responsible for you, but I- sometimes it was all I could manage to be your Guardian, and Mom and Dad were around then. And I can’t fail you.’

“I know what you mean.” Joe’s quiet voice broke into his reverie. “It’s unnerving not to have authority figures, not even Aunt G’s brand of authority. But it doesn’t make us alone. We’re partners, remember...and we have some very strong friendships. I don’t mean just with the gang, I mean people who’ll give us advice and guide us whenever we need it. We are going to be a lot more, um, self-reliant than most people our age, but we were that anyway, thanks to all Dad’s training. Which includes knowing how to find things and information that we need.”

Frank’s hand closed over his brother’s as he digested Joe’s words. It was true, and it was a comforting thought, but what about things that others wouldn’t be able to help them with? Sure, there were friendly experts and counselors and well-meaning friends- but how much help had those people been during the preparations for Gertrude’s funeral? The decisions had still belonged to the Hardy boys, and they had not been easy ones to make.

“You’re thinking very loudly,” Joe murmured, squeezing Frank’s fingers to indicate that the physical contact was responsible for him overhearing Frank’s thoughts. “Frank, how often are things like that going to come up, do you think?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know,” the nineteen-year-old replied with a sigh. “I’d like to think that it’ll be a rarity, but I dunno. Think on it, Joe- just this spring and summer you got amnesia, one of our best friends got addicted to Euphoria and betrayed us, the rest of our friends learned we’re telepathic and they’re all freaking out about it- except your girlfriend. My girlfriend- I dunno where that’s going to end. And I really wish Mom or Dad was here to talk it all over with!”

“Talking to Akilana helped.”

Frank felt his hand loosen; he’d been inadvertently squeezing Joe’s fingers as his tension and frustration increased. “Yes,” he murmured slowly. “Yes, it did, it helped a lot.”

“And she didn’t really give advice, she just listened until we were done and said what she thought.”

“True...” Frank frowned. “So you think I don’t need advice so much as I need to get things off my chest now and again. Actually,” he added wryly, “that’s been mentioned before, hasn’t it? Maybe it’s about time I start taking that advice.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me.” Joe sounded mildly amused. “And remember- sometimes telling me all about it doesn’t work so well, either because I already know or because I might have reactions to it- whatever it is. Time comes when you need an objective sounding board, not- well, whatever sort I might be,” he concluded with a shrug. “Subjective?”

“The sort of position Callie would love to be in,” Frank muttered. “I don’t know why it’s so easy to tell Akilana-”

“She’s a telepath.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain why I trust her so much that I run off at the mouth and tell her everything I can’t tell my girlfriend.” Frank sat up as a wave rolled perilously near his feet and scooted back from the rising tide.

“Sure it does. You know Akilana won’t betray you; she has no fear or revulsion at all of your telepathy; she’s taught you and me; and most of all, she doesn’t push you to open up. She takes exactly as much as you want to share with her and accepts you completely as you are,” Joe informed him, counting off the points on his fingers. “You know, you don’t have to love someone to confide in them completely- although I think it does help.”

“Well, what then?”

“Huh?”

“If it’s not love that’s the deciding factor-?”

“Trust.” Joe delivered the word quite matter-of-factly.

“You’re saying I love Cal but I don’t trust her enough.”

“Isn’t that exactly what you’ve told me? And isn’t that how she feels about you, loving you but not trusting you to stay out of her mind? I think she wants to trust you, though; I think that’s why she’s pushing so hard for you to confide in her.”

“Catch-twenty-two. I can’t totally trust her till I’m able to confide in her and I can’t confide in her until I can totally trust her.” Frank heaved a sigh. “How come you just know all this?”

“I’m farther away from the problem than you are, though not by all that much,” Joe answered wryly, uncrossing his legs and scooting back a bit. “You okay?” he asked, scooting closer and peering into Frank’s downturned face.

“I dunno if ‘okay’ is the word.” Frank gave an aggrieved little snort. “She was so supportive last year, so helpful. We never talked much when she came over, but it didn’t seem to matter. I really felt like she understood how miserable I was feeling. And she didn’t try to cheer me up, she was just- there. Comforting. I felt like we really had something. And now I remember that and I think, what in the world happened? When did she suddenly decide she had to know everything that was going through my mind? Every feeling, every reaction- and why should I be so open with her when she doesn’t set an example, anyway? All take and no give...”

Joe’s arm slid across Frank’s shoulders as the older boy took a deep breath, trying to control his voice. “Sounds like something you need to ask her,” was the quiet reply. “She might have a good reason, or she might not realize she’s doing it.”

Frank nodded. Silence descended for a while; eventually he straightened up and gazed out at the dark sea. Joe’s arm remained comfortably on his shoulders and the weight was oddly soothing.

“Sometimes I’m awfully afraid that- that I’m not a very good Guardian for you,” the dark-haired boy sighed after a while, surprising himself again. He was pouring out his feelings all over the place today. Maybe it was an aftereffect of talking so much with Akilana. “I think of all the times we wished I was your legal guardian, and now- man, I just dunno, little brother. I’m really scared I’ll- I guess that’s why I’m so afraid of messing up. I don’t wanna mess you up, too.”

Joe gave him a strange look; it seemed to be a mix of mild puzzlement and fondness. “You can’t mess me up,” he said simply. “I’m not the most mature person on the planet, but I can look after myself most of the time. You don’t need to worry about ‘providing’ for me, if that’s what’s bugging you, big brother; that’s the part we’re supposed to be a team on. All I really need you to guard for me is my-” The blond boy paused, turning red about the cheeks and ears. “My- feelings.”

“I’m not always so good at that, either.”

“You’re being too critical of yourself, Frank. You really do take very good care of me emotionally- better than I do of you, I think.” Joe’s eyes were very serious as he regarded Frank earnestly. “You’ve always taken care of me, ever since I was little. I’m not little anymore, so you can stop worrying about all those details that any eighteen-year-old should’ve mastered by now and just concentrate on being a sounding board every now and again.”

Frank suppressed a flash of irritation at the thought that Joe wasn’t taking this very seriously and a deeper shaft at the ‘stop worrying’. “It’s not that easy,” he replied dryly. “I feel...”

“Responsible.”

“Well- yeah. I mean, I don’t feel like you’re depending on me or relying on me too much...kinda the opposite, really.”

“That’s good.” Joe sounded subdued. “I mean it when I say we’re supposed to be partners, Frank. That means we look out for each other, but it also means we don’t let one of us do all the work. If you feel like looking out for me both physically and mentally is too much for you, maybe it means I am depending too much on you.”

Frank’s momentary irritation shifted to concern; Joe was obviously taking the conversation very seriously indeed. “I didn’t say it’s too much, Joe, but I- I have this fear of failure and the thought of failing you when you need my support is- it’s something I don’t even want to think about.”

Joe leaned against his shoulder and sighed. “Well, I don’t know what to do about that,” he admitted very quietly. “I feel that I couldn’t ask for a better Guardian, in any sense of the word, but I don’t know how to convince you that you’re doing fine and that I wish...I wish...”

“What?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea what I wish, I just...wish. Damn it-” Joe sounded downright morose. “I wish I’d never found out I was telepathic, that there weren’t such things as- as Teachers and Guardians and Warriors. It’d be one less trouble for you-”

Frank wrapped his arms around the disconsolate blond boy, shaking his head. “Don’t, brother, don’t. We need the sending, Joe, it makes it so much easier. Think how hard it would be to understand all these complicated feelings without it! We need it to communicate, and we need to guard and fight for each other. We wouldn’t even be here, either of us, if we couldn’t send.”

“Like I ever fight for you anymore.” Joe’s voice was muffled. “You guard me always and there’s nothing I can do back, what sort of partnership is that? And you make the decisions- I try to help, but-”

“You do help. Joe, don’t act like helping me with the Euphoria withdrawal wasn’t fighting for me, because it was. I would have had a terrible time with that if you hadn’t gotten me through it. I could’ve lost my mind from the sensory deprivation.”

Joe’s reply was a sniff and a soft, “I feel so useless sometimes. And I’m not exactly helping now, am I?” he added abruptly, sitting up. “Getting all...whiny and needing you to tell me I’m not a- a-”

“Don’t you say it,” Frank chided gently. “I wonder why it is,” he mused, reaching up to stroke the lock of hair that seemed to perpetually fall into Joe’s eyes, “that both of us keep feeling like useless burdens? Something not right about that. I know how big a help you are to me, and you say I’m this huge help to you, but neither of us seems convinced in our own minds.”

Joe shrugged, frowning as his attention was distracted, then canted his head. “Insecure?”

“I sure feel that, yeah. You?”

“Oh, man, do I ever.” Joe picked up a seashell and flung it hard at the incoming waves.

“So...I guess we need to stop listening to ourselves and start listening to each other,” Frank concluded thoughtfully. “We’ll get a more objective view of how ‘useless’ we are that way.”

“Yeah,” Joe agreed quietly. “I feel like I don’t hold up my end as well as I should. ...Do you feel you have to do it all by yourself, Frank? ‘Cause that’s what I worry most of all about, and you just said you felt responsible for me.” There was real anxiety in Joe’s voice as his troubled blue eyes met Frank’s.

“I feel,” Frank said slowly, “like I ought to be responsible, but that I don’t know how to go about doing it. And then you sort of nudge me in the right direction, like reminding me when recycle day is or mentioning that you’ll run to the store- then I go, ‘Oh, yeah! I should’ve remembered that, so much for being responsible!’ I guess that falls into feeling like I don’t hold up my end too well,” he concluded. Joe nodded slowly, then leaned up against him again, his arm encircling Frank’s back.

Silence fell as Frank put his own arm around the broad shoulders and let his thoughts drift. The sun had gone behind a very large cloudbank and it didn’t look like it would be emerging any time soon. The air was still fiercely hot, though, and the humidity was high. Frank mused over taking another brief swim, then glanced at his watch and discarded the notion. It was nearly three-thirty and they needed to get on the road soon.

Glancing at his brother, Frank noted the slight burn Joe had taken, despite his use of sunscreen. His hair was practically dry, too, and starting to stick up in tufts. “We should pack up and start for home,” the older boy suggested, and serious blue eyes turned from the sea to look at him. “We don’t want to get caught in Sunday traffic.”

“Yeah. Hey, hold still a minute.” Joe’s arm withdrew and his hands brushed lightly over Frank’s shirt and the back of his head. “That’s what you get for laying down in sand,” he remarked. “You look like the sandman. At least you didn’t get seaweed on you.”

“That’s good to know. Thanks.” Frank got to his feet, reached down, and pulled Joe into a standing position. “It’s also nice to know I’ve got my own personal philosopher/ shrink,” he remarked, starting across the rolling hills of sand toward the cottage. “And one I can trust completely, at that.”

“Akilana, you mean?” Joe fell in beside him.

“No, kiddo, I’m talking about you,” Frank answered quietly, giving his brother’s already-tousled head a gentle pat. “Knowing Akilana’s around is reassuring, and I do trust her, but you’re still my number-one sounding board. Always will be.”

“I know exactly how you feel, big brother.” Joe’s quick smile lacked his usual mischief, but the affection in his bright glance more than compensated for it.