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“Yes, we’re home safe and sound, Mike. Nothing to worry about,” Frank Hardy said into the telephone, stifling a yawn as he saw his brother yawning. “We’re later than we expected to be, between stopping for dinner and running into a lot of traffic. There was a bottleneck on the Interstate. So, any news?”

A long silence fell in the apartment; Frank moved to the dining area and sat down on one of the chairs, listening as Mike DeSoto went over the events of the weekend. “So he did finally confess, huh? Great...” Another silence. “Well, we figured they’d be out soon.” A third pause, this one shorter than the first two. “Okay, we will. Oh, Mike,” he added suddenly. “There was something I keep meaning to ask and forgetting about: what’s up with that gang that hangs around by Crabbs Corners? Yeah, exactly, they aren’t there anymore- are they hanging out somewhere else, or...? Oh. Also, I wondered what happened with Bobby- the jerk who threw the shot-put through our car window. I know he turned himself in, but we lost track after that.”

There was another brief silence as Frank listened, then he nodded. “Well, good, serves him right. Okay, see you tomorrow with those photos. Thank you sir!” The dark-haired boy smiled as he got up from his chair and went to hang the phone up.

“Got a confession, huh?” Joe inquired from the sofa.

“Yeah, Madison admitted he and Lewis and a couple others were the ones who set the fire. Of course, Madison didn’t admit it until the others, including Lewis, ‘ratted him out’, to use his phrase.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yeah, I guess Lewis has a decent steak hidden away somewhere; he persuaded the rest that they shouldn’t let the whole frat take the blame for the work of five arsonists. So he and the other three confessed and the police told Madison. When he heard it- well, apparently he turned the air blue cussing, but eventually he gave in and admitted it, too. Since he’s the one who came up with the idea, he’s going to get the harshest sentence, and he knew it. He swore up and down that he never would have done it if he’d known Gertrude was in there.” Frank paused, then added, “For what it’s worth, Lewis said he tried to stop the guy, and none of the others were at all happy about the idea either.”

“Big deal. They could’ve stopped him if they really wanted to,” Joe muttered.

“Yeah. Seems Madison used the fact that we’d just moved out to convince them to go through with it,” Frank explained, sitting down on the floor beside the sofa. Sitting on the sofa itself wasn’t an option; his brother’s legs were in the way. “He said no one would get hurt, it would send a message, and nothing very valuable would be destroyed, since all the furniture was gone. All it would do was prevent us from selling the house- and we would still have the land itself to sell, so it wasn’t really such a crime.”

Joe snorted.

“Yeah.” Frank grimaced and rubbed the back of his neck, easing the ache in his muscles. Joe had driven them home this evening and Frank had drifted off for a little while with his head against the passenger window. This persistent crick in his neck was the result.

“So are they in jail, or what?”

“The arsonists are. The rest were let go this morning, in custody of their parents, and everyone was strongly warned about not being the next person to cause even more bad press for Unity. We’ll probably want to keep our eyes open for a while, though, just in case.”

“Definitely.” Joe yawned again, shifting the pillow that was stuffed behind his fair head. “What’s up with Bobby?”

“Bobby.” Frank was quiet for a moment, recalling the incident from last winter. The gang had spent most of the day at the skating rink and as the afternoon grew late, had been about to head home. As they’d reached the parking lot, something had flashed in Frank’s mind, drowning out all sound and sight. When he came back to himself, everyone was staring at him, their car had a shattered window, there was a shot-put resting near the gearshift, and someone- Bobby- was scurrying away through the snowy underbrush opposite.

Later, Frank learned that he’d shouted to Joe to stop; his warning had halted Joe one step shy of where the shot-put struck. Neither of them had been able to figure out exactly what Frank had done- aside from the obvious part about saving his brother from a serious injury- nor how. And nothing like it had happened since, which made it hard to decide if it had been something mental, like precognition, or just the result of very well-trained reflexes and peripheral vision.

“Frank?”

“Oh.” The dark-haired boy returned to awareness with a start. “Um, Bobby served three days in jail for that antic, ‘cause he didn’t have the funds to make bail. None of his friends would spring him,” he explained, “It would’ve been about three hundred dollars, so considering he was already in debt a thousand-”

“To Gold.”

“Yeah, good point, he might’ve owed more to other people. Bad investment risk. Anyway, since he got out, he hasn’t been back. The department’s noticed that the hoods are gone, but no one seems to know where they are. Or care. Less petty larceny and malicious mischief going on now. Gold’s still in prison, of course, his parents drop in every week.”

“Hmmmm. Wonder if they’re still convinced he’s innocent?” the eighteen-year-old mused sardonically.

“Dunno.” Frank leaned back against the sofa and lifted his arm to glance at his watch. “Eight-ten. Good thing I called Mike right away.”

“That’s right, he was going to come looking for us if we didn’t call him by eight, wasn’t he? Hope he wasn’t too worried.”

“He didn’t sound worried, but he did say I cut it fine, only had two minutes left before he went into action.”

Joe chuckled quietly. “Is that you making him sound like he was going to assume his super-hero alter ego identity, or were those his words?”

“His words,” Frank replied, grinning.

“I’ll have to ask about that next time I see him.” Joe yawned again.

“Stop yawning, you’re making me yawn too,” his brother complained.

“So sorry,” Joe muttered. “Hey, what was that bit about photos?”

“Oh, the pictures the Deltas took of us and the gang. The department’ll need ‘em for evidence on the stalking charge.”

Joe sat up and frowned. “I thought we gave those to him already. Or- no, we gave ‘em to Con, remember?”

Frank blinked. “You sure? I remember showing them to Con, but I can’t remember what we did with ‘em afterwards.”

“Pretty sure we left ‘em with him,” Joe replied hesitantly. “We can check around the place, and if we don’t find ‘em, we can call and ask him. Right now, I want a shower to get all this salt and sand off, and then I want something to eat. And then,” he concluded, standing up, “I’m going to read...or draw, I’m not sure which.”

“Sounds like a plan. I think I’ll do something similar, in reverse. Eat while you’re showering, shower while you’re eating, and either read or peer over your shoulder while you draw.”

“Over my pillow’s dead body,” Joe retorted.

The absurdity of the remark made Frank laugh as he got up from the carpet. “I didn’t know pillows had bodies,” he joked, giving his brother a friendly shove. “If that’s your way of asking for a pillow fight...”

“It will be a pillow rout, trust me.” This was delivered in mock-haughty tones as Joe stalked across the carpet towards the living-room door.

“We will just see,” Frank murmured, grinning as he turned towards the kitchen.

“So much for plans A and B, huh?”

Joe Hardy looked up in surprise and turned to see his brother standing in the doorway of his room. The older teen’s dark hair was black with dampness; he’d just gotten out of the shower and his dark complexion was slightly pinker than usual from the heat.

“Say what?” Joe inquired, pushing his own half-dry blond hair from his eyes.

“You said you’d be drawing or reading, and here I find you into the photo albums.”

Joe looked down at the pages before him and sighed. “I was drawing,” he admitted. “Drawing Mom, and...and I wanted to see her face again.”

Frank moved into the room; he didn’t sit on the bed or even touch Joe, but his presence at the headboard was almost palpable and very comforting. “Know what you mean,” he replied somberly, and for several minutes there was silence in the room. Frank’s hand, warm from the shower, touched Joe’s bare arm in silent commiseration, squeezed gently, then withdrew.

Joe look another long look at the happy smile that had been frozen in time by technology; he studied the familiar features of his mother’s pretty face. Then he sighed again and lifted the edge of the album to close it, but several of the pages had become skewed and he had to reopen the book and adjust them. As he was doing this, he noticed something peculiar about the inside of the back cover. “This is odd,” he said softly, running a finger over what seemed to be a discoloration in the plastic lining.

“Hmmm?”

“It’s- I think-” Joe frowned as his fingers touched a straight, thin edge. “Looks like it was cut.”

“Cut?” Frank repeated, sounding surprised.

“Yeah, here.” As Joe pulled upward on the slice, the lining lifted easily away from the cardboard underneath, revealing a narrow space. And something more- something white. “There’s something here- maybe a picture slid under,” he speculated, pulling it out. Frank, now curious, sat down and wedged himself next to Joe on the corner of the bed.

“That’s not a picture, it’s paper.”

“Looks like it...” Joe pulled up the plastic again to see if there was anything else hidden away, even sliding his fingers in and getting a layer of cardboard under his nails for his pains. “Just this,” he concluded, closing the album. Then he laid the paper on the firm surface and carefully unfolded it. It was old, he noted, and there were what looked like water stains on it.

“It’s a birth certificate,” Frank said in surprise. “Don’t recognize the hospital, but it’s a New York address here.” His finger hovered over the spot. “Born to-” he stopped, blinking. “Born...to Gertrude Hardy? What the-?” Both boys stared in disbelief, looked at each other, then turned their eyes quickly back to the paper. “Aunt Gertrude? A baby?” Frank whispered, his tone one of pure incredulity.

“A girl. Alicia Nicole Hardy,” Joe breathed, his eyes fixing on a name he’d never seen nor heard before.

“A cousin,” Frank murmured. Joe could feel him trembling with astonishment. “Joe, look at the date!”

“That’s- that’s before you were born! In fact, that’s....” Joe paused.

“Two whole years older than me.” Frank’s voice faltered a little and he stopped speaking. A breathless silence hung in Joe’s room as the boys tried to process the incredible information. It was the absolute last discovery that Joe would ever have expected to make, but now that they had made it, he found himself afire with amazed curiosity. And there was no one to answer even one of his questions.

After about ten minutes, Frank stirred. “Joe- remember that last fight Mom and Auntie had?” he asked, still speaking very softly. It was almost as if he feared Gertrude might somehow overhear them, a feeling Joe was experiencing quite strongly just then. Of course it was impossible, but he still couldn’t quite get his voice to work, so simply shook his head.

“When Mom was going in to work and Gertrude kept saying how improper it was for her not to be wearing mourning? Improper and indecent, and Mom said something about how Gertrude wasn’t the one to lecture her about impropriety?”

“Oh, yeah!” Joe agreed in a whisper, looking up into brown eyes as wide as his own. “Yeah, I wondered about that- and now it makes complete sense, doesn’t it? No wonder Gertrude shut up so fast!” Then he sighed. “And I remember saying she’d make a horrible mother and-” he broke off, wincing at the memory. After a moment he asked, “Frank, you okay? You look kinda-”

“I feel kinda,” was Frank’s soft, slightly disjointed reply. “Man, this is too weird! Why didn’t anyone ever tell us? And- what happened to her? Maybe she’s- she’s-”

Joe’s eyes went even wider as he suddenly took in the significance. Maybe there was more than just the two of them left after all. And then again, maybe not! He felt his curiosity take on a sudden powerful urgency; the thought of not even knowing if their cousin was alive or dead seemed intolerable. But- “But how can we find out?” he started, then frowned at the birth certificate. “Maybe- maybe the hospital would know what happened to her?”

“I suppose that’s worth trying.” Frank sounded a little dubious. “But likely all they could tell us is what’s on this certificate.”

“Well, they could at least tell us when Gertrude was discharged,” Joe pointed out hopefully. “And what her home address was at the time- looks like she was either staying with Mom and Dad, or just living in New York herself at the time.”

“Or had dropped in to visit and everything started happening,” Frank agreed. “But what would the address have to do with it?”

“Well, we could track down someone who lived nearby and ask them about it. Like if Gertrude was- alone, or if she left the city, or was she renting, or what.”

“Oh! Now that’s not a bad idea at all- might take a little time to accomplish, but it would...” Frank paused and Joe turned to look at him.

“Yeah?”

“I wonder,” the older boy said slowly, pushing a hand through his dark hair, “maybe we could just look through Dad’s papers. Sam’s got ‘em all now and we were going to check in on him. Even if he’s not back yet, I’m sure Ethel wouldn’t mind.”

“Dad’s papers?” Joe repeated, puzzled. “His case notes and everything?”

“Well, not his case notes- I hope not his case notes! But you know how he was about filing stuff.”

“You think he might have written something down about our cousin and then filed it,” Joe summarized before Frank could go into a lengthy explanation. “Might be.”

“I was thinking, like- I dunno, if- if something happened to her and it got into the news, he or Mom would probably have clipped it.”

“If something happened to her, there’d be a police report on it, in the City,” Joe mused.

“True-”

“Still, I bet he would have saved it himself, too. After all, she was his niece... Frank, I bet that’s why Auntie didn’t want us going through her private papers when we were moving! We would’ve found something, letters or papers or pictures.”

“I bet you’re right,” Frank agreed gravely. “I-”

“Wonder why no one never told us, though! Think Gertrude put her daughter up for adoption?” Joe mused, not really listening. Gertrude’s daughter- what a peculiar phrase that was!

“I don’t know, Joe, and please don’t keep interrupting me,” Frank answered rather irritably. “Adoption- well, if our grandfather reacted the way I think he would’ve, she might have done just that. After all, we know who she got her old-fashioned attitude from.”

Joe scowled at the mild rebuke, but kept his voice reasonably calm as he replied. “Sorry. Yeah, Granddad wasn’t too tolerant. Say- her will. She didn’t mention Alicia in her will, did she?”

“Not that I remember.” Frank sighed and leaned back against Joe’s headboard. “I sort of doubt we’d find pictures, but maybe letters- maybe if we can find out who Alicia’s father was...could be he got custody of her. Whatever happened to her, it happened either before we were born or before we were old enough to remember. So at least we have a time frame to work in. Why am I so tired?” he added in a mutter, rubbing wearily at his face.

“It’s been an intense day,” Joe responded, his brief annoyance fading as he glanced at Frank’s weary face. He slowly folded up the birth certificate and laid it on the photo album, forcing his curiosity to take a back seat for the time being. There really wasn’t anything they could do about Alicia Marie tonight- except speculate, which would only get them frustrated. “I’ll call the hospital in the morning, we’ll see what they can tell us and then go on from there.”

Frank nodded and the two teens were again quiet, both pondering the incredible situation. Joe tried to think of less roundabout and time-consuming ways to find whatever they could on their lost cousin. Just looking for Alicia Hardys wouldn’t work; the child might have been given a different name, perhaps of adopted parents or perhaps her father’s name. There were plenty of ways to find a person, but they generally involved either having more than just a birth certificate or having actual sources- like family members- to question.

There was the Vital Statistics office, and Social Services might be able to help if Alicia had been adopted, but they might need her father’s name for that. And it would take a while to get through all the red tape anyway. Still, they could check for whatever information was available that way- like a marriage certificate for their aunt. Or a Social Security number for Alicia; that would simplify matters considerably! Joe frowned as a thought struck him; they’d better look for a death certificate for their cousin as well, though he hoped they wouldn’t find one. ‘And even if we don’t find one for Alicia Hardy, that doesn’t mean she’s alive,’ he reminded himself pessimistically. He didn’t like the thought, but it was the simplest reason for why no one had ever talked about her...

“So how come you’re not wiped out?”

The younger Hardy blinked as his attention returned to his brother, then shrugged. He did seem to find it easier to handle intense emotions than Frank, maybe because of his own emotion-oriented nature. Or maybe his drawing gave him more of an outlet. “At least there’s a simple remedy for it,” he pointed out helpfully. “Head to bed- does that sound familiar at all?”

“It does, yes, I think I made that suggestion to you about an hour and a half ago. What made you stop yawning, anyway? Been into the soda?”

“Food,” Joe corrected succinctly, failing to mention the half-bottle of Coke that he’d had with his sandwich.

“Ohh, of course. Food.” Frank smiled and sat up, then paused. “So do I get to see any of that stuff?” He pointed at Joe’s sketchbook.

“Nope. I’m not ready to exhibit it,” Joe replied, glancing at the closed cover. “It’s all really rough still,” he added at the disappointed look that crossed his brother’s face. “If it was a report, I’d say it was first drafts.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t worry, big bro, I’ll show you when it’s ready.”

“Or when you are?” Frank asked shrewdly.

“That too, I guess,” Joe agreed quietly, feeling slightly embarrassed. He didn’t know why he was so adamant that both he and the picture be ‘ready’ for viewing; after all, this was Frank, who knew him inside out. Except- Frank readily admitted that Joe could surprise him at times. Was part of him as hooked on privacy as Frank was? Probably so.

“Well, I think I will get to bed.” Frank stood up. “Though whether I’ll sleep might be another story!” he added, nodding at the paper in Joe’s hands. Joe glanced down, then placed the birth certificate on the nightstand and picked up the photo album.

“I think I’ll read, I’m not in a picturing mood anymore,” he decided as he followed Frank out of his room. “Say,” he added, pausing as he reached the far end of the hall and flicked on the light in the big room. “We could take back some of those papers, Frank. Not the case information, maybe- Sam’ll need that more than we will- but the personal stuff. We’ve got the room.”

“Good notion. Sam might like to clear a little space,” Frank agreed as Joe placed the album on the bookshelf and shut the light off again. “Night, bro,” he added as Joe walked back down to his room.

“Sleep well.” Joe gave his brother an affectionate cuff on the shoulder and tolerated the friendly hair-rumpling he was subjected to in return. “And remember, there’s going to be a pillow rout very soon.” He smiled as Frank cast his eyes upward, and then, as the bedroom door closed, he heard his brother’s soft chuckle.

Joe watched the light under his brother’s door shut off and smiled slightly. How long had it been since they’d done more than threaten each other with a pillow fight, anyway? ‘We used to have ‘em all the time...’ Then he shook his head and went into his own room, closing the door all but a crack, and flopped down on his bed in his usual position: feet at the pillow and head at the footboard. ‘Not enough room in this place for a really good pillow fight, anyway.’ When they lived at Elm Street, their nighttime battles had raged all over the house, even including their parents from time to time.

Joe pulled his sketchpad across the rumpled blanket and, settling himself comfortably on his elbows, opened the cover. He turned the pages slowly, pausing to remember each sketch. The Elm street back yard, as seen from the window of his room. The underground Starmail parking lot and the CTEW delivery trucks. Joe wondered briefly what had become of his sketches of Locke and the other three smugglers. Probably in some casebook somewhere... Here was the interior of the truck with the ghostly face, cracks in the wall forming the eyes. He skipped quickly past the chained, dusty skeleton, feeling a shiver go down his spine, but smiled slightly at the next picture: Iola, a breeze ruffling her black hair.

Pictures of his parents. A quick, rough map of the interior of the house; he’d never finished that one. Little things that had irritated him from time to time- one such sketch was of a seemingly endless flower bed, exaggerated weeds crowding out the flowers, with garden tools and gloves lying nearby. Another was a picture of the lawn mower, his nemesis.

Smiling, Joe turned the page and stopped. The first picture he’d drawn of Frank: sitting on the steps of the tiny beach cottage, looking peaceful and content. It had been a year ago now...

‘Seems like so long ago,’ the boy thought, shifting so that his chin rested in his palms. He brooded for a while, his eyes losing their focus on the picture as he remembered details of the vacation they’d had. The carnival. The roller coaster. Swimming, and being dragged down, and the divers with their weighted net, and sending frantically... Joe gave another shudder, his brow furrowing. ‘We were still pretty new to sending, then,’ he recalled. ‘And we never did find out if those jerks were bugging the cottage. Probably had a parabolic mike or something.’

He recalled their search for the bug, his tumble from the roof, his annoyance with Frank’s overprotective attitude and his own ‘discussion’ with the beach umbrella, unaware that Frank had come up behind him.

‘I never did ask how much he overheard, I wasn’t sure I really wanted to know. It was so embarrassing! ...Strange. We always were close, and I always felt better talking to him about things bugging me than anyone else, but we just didn’t really talk about emotional things like that. Never mentioned how we felt about each other, even though we knew...’

“Why do I get mad at you, then?”

“You don’t want me to get hurt, or you to get hurt, either.”

“Because...?”

Joe squirmed inside, knowing, but unable to say it.

“So you’ve figured out that I care about you?”

‘He wouldn’t say that now,’ the teen thought, a smile curving his mouth. ‘He’d say, ‘cause I love you a lot, little brother. And I knew that was what he meant then. We really have gotten a lot closer to each other, I wouldn’t’ve guessed how much so. But all this hell we’ve gone through-’

“...Your losses, and your great gain.” The memory of Akilana’s silent remark seemed to echo in Joe’s head. The teens’ losses had been not only their parents, but a good deal of their peace of mind and security. Innocence, he supposed. They had not been naive for quite a long time, but they had still been sheltered somewhat from the incredible brutality that life could suddenly deal one.

But there had been that great gain, too: each other. Joe vividly recalled the timeless moments when he and his brother had shared minds, shared comfort and consolation, even shared their souls. The bond that had begun with their first mind-touch had strengthened through everything that came after it: injury, death, percieved death, separation, reuniting, danger, and most recently, amnesia.

“Yeah, you could say we’re pretty close,” he whispered. “I don’t think most twins are this close, since most of ‘em probably aren’t telepathic. But it’s weird, when I think about how much it’s changed, I realize how- profound it is... Last year we were two pretty ordinary guys who were into solving mysteries together, which started this whole emotional bond thing. This year, we’ve been through hell and back together, and it’s really affected us both.”

How long had it been since Joe had resented his brother’s overprotectiveness? How long since Frank got exasperated at Joe’s tendency to take risks? How unthinkable was it that Joe would calm his brother from a panic attack or that Frank would tuck his covers around the younger teen when Joe crept, shaking, to Frank’s room after yet another nightmare? Once it would have been exactly that: unthinkable. Once, a slightly awkward pat on the back would have been all the comfort that was offered or accepted; this business of hugging would have been mortally embarrassing in all but the most dire circumstances. And crying? Joe snorted at the thought. ‘Talk about dire circumstances,’ he told himself dourly. ‘Boys don’t cry, remember?’

True, the deaths of their parents were certainly dire circumstances; crying at that time could be excused. But crying for any other reasons- Joe’s mouth twisted when he remembered how shocked he’d been at the mere suspicion that his brother might just possibly be crying a little, that night on the beach. And what had they both done? Why, pretended it never happened. Bad enough they’d held on to each other for longer than a conventional hug; it had only been another squabble, after all. Joe snorted again: that talk, that embrace, that ‘shocking’ show of emotion, had been the first step into this stronger, more comforting, more dependable closeness, where they were as much friends as brothers. Or maybe moreso.

‘Maybe if people were less uptight about being openly affectionate...it ain’t easy, but nothing worth having ever is,’ the youth mused, sighing. ‘But then, most people don’t have telepathy to help ‘em, either. So I guess it’s even riskier for them than it was for us- and boy! did it ever seem like a risk you were taking, J! What if he’d rejected you, or you’d embarrassed him...’

Joe shifted so that his chin rested in his left hand, refocused on the sketchpad, and turned to the next page. ‘Don’t fall into the what-if trap,’ he told himself firmly. ‘That way lies a truly ugly, if imaginary, bog.’

Joe Hardy scowled in exasperation as he hung up the living-room telephone and turned to his brother, who was sitting patiently in the big chair. “The hospital doesn’t keep records for more than ten years,” he grumbled, dropping down on the sofa opposite Frank and rubbing the back of his neck. Most of his past hour-plus had been spent on hold, being shunted between various departments of the hospital that had issued Alicia Marie Hardy’s birth certificate, and it had strained both his patience and his neck. Glancing at his watch, he shook his head in annoyance; nearly eleven. Two hours since he’d gotten up and all they’d accomplished was getting dressed, having breakfast, and playing phone tag!

“It took them that long just to tell you that they don’t have any records more than ten years old?” Frank repeated, his eyes widening in disbelief.

“Well, not for ‘inactive’ patients,” Joe amended, his scowl intensifying. “That’s what took all the time, they kept looking on the list of people that live in the area and have been treated by the hospital as regular patients. Naturally they wouldn’t keep files on people who move away. But I told ‘em at the start that it was more than twenty years ago, so you’d think they’d have the sense to ask right off if I was talking about a regular patron or not!”

“You’d think, since they know their policy and we don’t, but I guess not.” Frank shook his head, then frowned. “So, back to square one.”

“Someone’s got to be able to tell us something!” Joe burst out, rising from the sofa to pace across the floor and back again.

“Settle down a little,” Frank told him, getting up from the chair. “We’ll try plan B- go on over and see Sam and look through Dad’s papers- and while we’re at it, we can drop our class registrations off at the U.”

“Oh, right! I almost forgot about that again.” Distracted from his fit of pique, Joe hurried to fetch his registration form. He tried to squelch a twinge of unease as the boys left the apartment, thinking, ‘So much for the freedom of graduating!’ College would, he was sure, be far more challenging than high school- and that had been challenge enough!

Dropping off the registration forms took another hour, for the line at the University’s office was long; it seemed the Hardys weren’t the only ones who’d procrastinated on this detail. “Remind me not to wait so long, next time,” Joe requested of his brother as the two left the hot, cramped little building. There had been no air-conditioning; it had probably been shut off to conserve energy, since the line of students had been holding the door wide open.

“I’ll do that,” Frank agreed getting back into the car, “and I’ll remind myself too. Is it just me?” he asked wryly, “or is it scorching today?”

“It’s not just you.” Joe wiped at the sweat beading his face and turned on the car’s A/C, grimacing as steamingly hot air blew out of the vents. “A good day to either stay indoors or stay in the water.” Since neither was possible at the moment, he turned on the radio and started the interminable seach for a station that was playing good music. Preferably a station that would play not just one good song followed by several blah ones, but several good ones in a row.

By the time Frank pulled up outside the Radley’s modest 2-story home, Joe had given up the good-song search and the temperature inside the sedan was just about bearable. “Hmmm,” the younger boy mused, his eyebrows lifting at the sight of the empty driveway. “I guess no one’s home. Neither Sam’s car nor Ethel’s. Hang on, maybe Sam is in the office.” Sam preferred to work from home when he could, and had an extensive library that took up two rooms on the second floor. However, he did occasionally find himself required to go in to the small office building he, Fenton Hardy, and several of their associates rented.

“Maybe.” Frank pulled out the cell phone and handed it over, leaving the car’s engine running. Joe dialed Sam’s office extension and waited a moment.

“Answering machine. I’ll try the general number.” This got him a connection with a man he didn’t know well, a curt individual who told him that no, Sam hadn’t been in since about June; he was apparently on an extremely delicate mission. The man didn’t offer to take a message and Joe didn’t ask, just hung up as quickly as he could and relayed the message. “But Ethel wouldn’t’ve gone with him-”

“I bet she’s out shopping or something,” Frank agreed. “Maybe even on the beach. Well, we can come back later this afternoon, or call this evening and come back tomorrow. Meantime, why don’t we see if we can connect up with Coach Zeigler and Ryan?”

“Sounds fine to me.” It didn’t really sound ‘fine’, Joe thought resignedly. But at least it would occupy them for a while. And he did want to know how the coach and Ryan were doing. “Ryan first,” he suggested. “So we’re not in East Side too late.”

“That’s good thinking,” Frank agreed sourly as he put the car in gear. “Just because we managed okay down there the last time doesn’t mean it’s wise to hang around when the sun starts going down.”

Joe didn’t remind him that they still had at least eight hours until that occurred; he was in complete agreement. Besides, the rough element got more pronounced at the end of the workday, around four-thirty in the afternoon. “I hope you remember where Ryan’s uncle lives, ‘cause I’m a little foggy on it.” That was one of the holes in his memory; one of the several holes that Akilana had regretfully told him she could do nothing to restore.

“I’ve got a reasonably good idea of it; as soon as we get in the neighborhood, I think I’ll recognize it,” Frank replied, putting the car in gear again. Joe leaned back in the passenger seat, putting the phone in the cup holder above the gearshift and enjoying the coolness of the air conditioning.

“Ryan? He’s at work,” the short, gaunt man at the door of the apartment told Frank, frowning. “Whatcha want him for, any- hey, wait a sec, ain’t you those guys from that trial?”

“Yes, the Starmail investigation. Frank Hardy- and my brother, Joe. We saw you there, but we didn’t get much chance to talk to Ryan. We wanted to see how he was doing.”

“Ah.” The man swung the door open wider and stepped back. “Never know who’s at your door down here,” he explained as the boys cautiously stepped into the apartment. “Have to be careful.”

The apartment was not what Frank had expected, given the disrepair on both the exterior and interior of the building. True, this apartment had clearly seen better days- and worse occupants, if the cracks in the walls and ceiling were any indication. But it was clean and odorless. The man himself, though he looked rather undernourished, was wearing clean and reasonably well-fitting, though rumpled, clothes. Frank glanced around at the sofa, small table, two chairs and three lamps that made up the living/dining room; at the tiny, gleaming kitchen; at the worn carpet that led down the hall to the bedrooms and bathroom. It was less than half the size of the Hardys’ own apartment, but it was obviously kept as well as the uncle’s resources and determination allowed.

“Sorry if we’re disturbing you,” Joe said through Frank’s observations.

“No, not at all, I just got in from work, I have the swing night shift at a local club. Cook,” the man explained. “I get off after breakfast and go in for supper- it’s a twenty-four hour place, so we serve all night. Melvin Cooper, by the way.” He offered his hand and the boys shook it.

“So Ryan’s got a job?” Frank inquired, taking a seat on the sofa as Melvin gestured at it. Joe sat down beside him and Melvin took the chair beside it.

“He does, he’s at the local market. Works as a bagger, loads people’s cars, helps out in whatever department needs it.” There was pride in the thin man’s voice. “Earning minimum wage, of course, but he gets his tips, too. He’s gettin’ pretty swell-headed about it, too, bragging how his boss says he’s better with the customers than any of the guys who’ve been there longer.”

The Hardys traded an amused smile. “So he’s discovered he likes it okay, that’s good. And is he still complaining about how strict you are?” Joe asked, grinning.

“Strict, uh?” Melvin chuckled. “That’s not what he called me the first three weeks, but we’ve got the profanity cleared out. Nah, he doesn’t complain anymore. He’s seen too much, that kid,” he added, his smile fading. “Couple of the gang kids that Lenny use’ta hang out with bought it lately. Four of ‘em, not a one over eighteen. Bought it real hard, some dang new drug coming down the pike left ‘em brain-dead.”

“Euphoria?” Joe asked sharply. Frank stifled a shudder.

“That’s the one.” Melvin sighed. “Threw ‘em into seizures, then left ‘em in comas. And they weren’t in any too good of shape anyway, their systems couldn’t take it after all the stuff they’ve been draggin’ in all these months and years. There’s been no more deaths, but I imagine-”

“Most of the dealers have been rounded up recently,” Frank inserted. “So we won’t have much, if any, around here- at least, not for a while. I hope it doesn’t make a comeback.”

“Well, that is good to know,” Melvin said quietly. “I don’t figure Ryan’ll get into the drug scene again, but you can’t help but worry sometimes. Too tempting. Too much money in it for a poor kid to resist.”

The boys nodded solemnly. “When does Ryan get off work?”

“Oh, not till seven. Eleven to seven, with half an hour for lunch. He eats there, they provide a sandwich and drink for him.”

“That’s generous of them,” Frank said in surprise. He stood up from the sofa, suddenly feeling a need to leave. The tiny place seemed too small suddenly, the situation too awkward. “We’ll drop in again sometime when he’s here and talk with him.”

Melvin didn’t try to persuade them to stick around and talk; Frank had a feeling that despite his courteous words, they might have woken him. As they left, he glanced up at the dirty, disreputable building. Mortar was crumbling, bricks cracking, windows broken or boarded up, and graffitti was everywhere. He thought of their own clean, well-maintained building with a sigh, feeling almost guilty for being prosperous when people had to live like this.

“Eleven to seven,” Joe mused as he got into the car. “And Melvin working at night. I bet they don’t see much of each other.”

“Bet you’re right.” Frank took the wheel with a thoughtful frown. “Euphoria,” he said quietly. “A couple weeks ago. You thinking who I’m thinking?”

“Thinking-” Joe stopped, a note of horrified realization in his voice. “Biff.”

Frank nodded grimly as he pulled away from the curb. “It might not have been,” he admitted. “Might have been any of those others. But they were up in Gresham; Biff was down here. So I wonder.”

“We can ask Mike, or Con. Better make it Con, we need to ask him if he’s got those pictures anyway,” Joe said, demonstrating his unnerving ability to switch topics without warning.

“The pictures! I totally forgot!”

“This thing’s getting a workout today,” Joe remarked, twisting sideways to take the phone from his pocket. “Didn’t want to leave it in the car,” he added in explanation as he dialed.

“Good thinking.” Frank concentrated on getting out of the East Side, trying to shake the conviction that Biff Hooper had indeed sold the Euphoria that had cost four young teens their lives.

“Con knows about it.”

Frank made a final turn and saw the freeway on-ramp ahead of him. He let out a soundless sigh of relief; they’d navigated East Side and gotten away with it once again. “Knows about what?” he asked absently as he concentrated on merging with the swift-moving traffic. “How’s my blind spot?”

“You’re clear,” Joe told him, glancing to the right. “Con knows about the six deaths.”

“Six?” Frank repeated sharply, giving his brother a quick look and then wrenching his attention back to the highway. He had three lanes to get across and about a mile in which to do it, but it was better than trying to weave his way back through the bad side of town.

“Six.” Joe was silent until Frank had completed his lane changes and was slowing down for the exit. “Yes, there were two that occurred before the four that Melvin mentioned. That’s one of the reasons Biff’s list of dealers, suppliers and customers is so valuable; pinning the right people for those deaths. He said he’ll let us know once they get everything clear. It does look like Biff’s doing, though; they were definite overdoses and Biff was the most inexperienced of the dealers.”

“So he gave ‘em too much and they went wild on it, or what?” Frank asked quietly, acutely aware of the grim disapproval in Joe’s voice.

“Con says that by the time Biff dealt with them- assuming he did,” Joe said slowly, “-Biff’s tolerance would have been pretty high. The guys he was dealing to were still getting big results on small doses. If he just happened to mention how much he was using and they followed his example...”

Frank swallowed and said tightly, “Let’s just wait and see what Con says. ...So, does he have our stalker pictures?”

“Yes. Yes, he does, he said he’d give ‘em to Mike right away. So that’s one less chore.”

Both the Hardys were silent after that. A few minutes later, Frank pulled up in front of the Zeiglers’ sprawling one-level home. This time he shut off the engine, then hesitated before opening the car door. Someone was plainly home, judging from the Jeep in the two-car garage, but Frank was experiencing an unusual fit of diffidence at the thought of just walking up and ringing the doorbell. Shouldn’t they have called first? What if the coach didn’t want company? And what would they say if Zeigler asked why they hadn’t come by to see him before?

“Try not to think about it,” Joe advised quietly, and Frank double-took at the unexpected words. Then he realized that Joe thought he was brooding over Biff and the six deaths- a logical mistake. He was opening his mouth to correct the misimpression when a shout made him turn quickly.

The door of the house was open and a tall, muscular, familiar figure was standing on the stoop, waving them towards the entrance. “Don’t just sit there!” Raymond Zeigler boomed. “Get your tails in outta the heat.”

“Yes, sir, coming, sir,” Frank muttered, feeling a grin spread across his face.

“And look sharp,” Joe whispered.

“And look sharp!” the coach added as the boys climbed out of the car. “I’m coolin’ down the outdoors, here.”

“He hasn’t changed a bit,” Frank murmured, exchanging an amused glance with Joe.

“Thank goodness.”

“Good to see you fellows,” Zeigler told the Hardys once they’d hurried inside and been ushered into the living room. Frank noticed that the coach walked with a limp now- on both legs, in fact- but it didn’t slow him down much. “Been meaning to thank you two, I hear I owe you one.” He turned to Joe. “And sorry I didn’t get to your graduation, but I was a bit laid up at the time.”

“Hey, I perfectly understand.” Joe sounded a little flustered.

“What d’you mean, owe us?” Frank inquired, both from curiosity and from the feeling that Joe wouldn’t mind a change of topic. Joe had taken to the coach’s injury very hard and probably didn’t want to hear too many details about the recovery. Not when he’d drawn such a parallel between Zeigler’s head wound and Fenton Hardy’s.

“For tracking down that little punk, Gold,” Zeigler responded, looking surprised. “And getting him behind bars, where he belongs. Went to see him,” he added, sinking down into an armchair. “Part of my therapy. Told him that maybe he had made a mess of me for a while, but he’d made a bigger mess of his own life and he wasn’t going to get over it nearly as quick as I was. I was going to rub in something about how he failed, but I decided I didn’t need to. He knew it, it was plain to see in his face.”

Joe nodded somberly. “Did they tell you how we caught him?” he inquired.

“How you caught him, you mean,” Frank corrected, and smiled as his brother tried in vain not to blush.

“No!” Zeigler leaned forward, his pale-brown eyes widening in interest. “Only that you did- so?”

Joe regained some of his composure and explained how he’d caught a glimpse of the gun Mark Gold had been carrying.

“The little fool had no more sense than that?” Zeigler sputtered. “You have got to be kidding me.”

“Probably gave him a psychological edge over his buddies, to know he was carrying a gun when all they had were knives,” Frank suggested dryly.

“Incredible. Well, I knew it couldn’t’ve taken a great deal of skill to catch the twerp, but he sure made it easy for you.”

“Yeah, but the Gresham lieutenant, Daniver, didn’t,” Joe answered wryly. “Fortunately, we bypassed him- and boy, was he sore about it, too! He was not at all pleased to have us ‘poking our noses in’ the way we do. But his chief- Stanton- was cool. Most of them are, as a matter of fact, it’s just that one big jerk.”

“Ah, well, one in every pot.”

“I thought those were chickens,” Frank said, frowning. Joe and Zeigler laughed.

“That describes him well!”

“Now, don’t insult the chickens, boys... So how’s Martinez?”

“Fully recovered. His problem was mainly blood loss and a cracked breastbone,” Joe explained. “His football gear did a good job of slowing the bullet and it missed anything vital, but it was still pretty serious for a while there. But he’s fine now, and I think he’ll be in tryouts soon.”

“Good! Good. I’ll be back come the time the practices start, got a few more sessions to see if they can work my limp down a bit. The docs were afraid I’d be on crutches for the rest of my life; told ‘em I guess I could coach on crutches if I had to, but I wasn’t planning on it.” Zeigler smiled.

“A darn good thing, too. They need a good coach at Bayport High,” Joe growled, his brow knotting.

“You can’t apply that adjective to Barnes,” Frank explained when the coach looked puzzled.

“Made us play football every day,” the younger Hardy added disgustedly. “And what a mess he made of it, too! If he’d coached our season, we’d’ve been not just losing games, but coming up with 50 to nothing scores. Or worse.”

“That man...” Zeigler was silent for a moment as his face darkened. “I shouldn’t tell you this, but Barnes had one big wish in his life. To play pro football. I don’t know how he botched his chance, because there are plenty of ways to do it, but I do know he was recruited by the Cincinnati Bengals and dropped like a hot potato less than a month later. And I’d better not catch you two spreading that around,” he added, shaking a stern finger at both the teens.

“You won’t catch us at it,” Joe agreed mildly. Frank and the coach exchanged a look, and Frank nodded.

“Always was, still is, always will be. No point trying to change him.”

“Sorry?” It was Joe’s turn to look perplexed.

“A smartass, brat.”

“Oh.” Joe shrugged dismissively. “Sure, I’ve never denied it.”

“An honest smartass is a real rarity,” Zeigler remarked, grinning. “Joe, I’m going to miss having you on the team, and not just ‘cause you were my fastest. You always had a way of making people loosen up and laugh when things are looking a little too tense. And you knew how to motivate people without sounding like you were being critical.”

“Look at that,” Frank said, laughing softly as he regarded his brother’s reddening face. “Coach, I think you just hit a new high on the blush-meter!”

“Oh, shut up!” Joe snapped, swatting at him, but the blond boy was grinning despite his embarrassment. “I’m blushing with humiliation ‘cause he’s making me sound like you,” he added, his blue eyes shining with mischief and another, deeper emotion.

“Oh, I see. Gonna ruin your reputation as a smartass if that gets around,” Frank teased back.

“Darn right! Keep it to yourself, will you, Coach?”

“Keep it to myself.” Zeigler was plainly enjoying the banter. “What sort of favor do you think it’ll take to make me keep my mouth shut?”

“Hey! That’s blackmail!”

“You keep quiet, I’ll keep quiet,” the big man parried, grinning.

“Sounds fair to me,” Frank chimed in.

“Whose side are you on? Jeez, why do I always get picked on by everyone in the room?” Joe demanded, flinging his hands over his head.

Frank laughed and reached over to give him a friendly shake. “’Cause it takes more than one person to get the better of you,” he replied fondly.

Joe grumbled under his breath, but the smile he was trying to stifle kept breaking through, and finally he gave in and laughed.

The Hardys and their coach talked for a while longer, the conversation growing more serious as the boys described their summer so far. The coach had seen the notice of Gertrude’s death, of course, and expressed the obligatory consolations. Frank stifled his immediate response again and thanked him, then changed the subject. He glossed over the parts of the Euphoria case that weren’t to be public knowledge yet, but he did tell the stunned coach about Biff’s involvement.

About forty-five minutes later, Zeigler glanced at his watch and invited them to stick around for lunch. Frank could tell his brother was tempted, and he was too, but the boys traded a glance and regretfully declined. “We need to check in on Ethel Radley- our Dad worked with Sam, her husband, and he’s been away for a while. Need to look through some of Dad’s files,” Joe explained.

“We turned Dad’s files over to his associates,” Frank added at the coach’s puzzled look. “Mainly Sam, since he was Dad’s primary assistant. We can’t talk to him right now because he’s on an assignment, but his wife is a friend and won’t mind us coming by to check through Dad’s stuff.”

“Oh, that makes sense. All right, well, good to see you two. Drop in again, okay?” Zeigler rose, shook hands, and escorted them to the door.

“Maybe we’ll drop by the field to see how Q’s sweating it out,” Joe joked.

“You do that, I may put you to work like I did your brother,” the coach countered, grinning. “Take care, fellows.”

“On second thoughts,” Joe murmured as the door swung shut and the boys hurried through the sticky heat to their car, “I think I’ll steer clear until winter sets in. Getting recruited in this weather is no joke.”

“Sounds like a very practical plan,” Frank agreed. “Shall we grab something to eat first, or go see Ethel first? I heard your stomach go off, you know,” he added as he got into the oven. “I think that’s why he offered us lunch.”

“Oh, hush,” Joe suggested, buckling his seatbelt and closing the door. “Let’s go home and have lunch- late lunch,” he amended, pointing at the clock face on the radio. Frank glanced over as he started the car; it was after three. “We can try Ethel later, when it’s cooler. She’ll be more likely to be there then anyway.”

“All right.”

“Oh, great,” Frank Hardy said in disgust as he walked from the kitchen into the apartment’s small dining area.

“What?” his brother inquired.

“Now you’re going to be hyper all afternoon,” Frank explained, nodding at Joe’s soda. “And you’re going to expend all that energy in my direction, aren’t you?”

The younger boy simply grinned, picked up his glass, and took a long swig.

“Like I said: great.” Frank shook his head and sat down with his own plate and cup. “You know, it’s a good thing we don’t have neighbors.”

“We don’t have neighbors?” Joe repeated in surprise.

Frank shook his head as he bit into his BLT. “No one on either side- we’re the only three-bedroom renters just now. Everyone else is one or two-bedrooms. And the one directly below us is empty,” he explained when his mouth was clear again. “Larry did that on purpose; he’s got so many rooms open that he staggers them so no one’s directly above, below, or next door to anyone else. That will probably change, though, when people start renting more.”

“Oh. That explains why I never see anyone going in or out of those doors. Never really thought about it, but it did seem kinda odd that we seem to be the only ones who come up the stairs.” Joe fell quiet, occasionally moving his glass to make the soda swirl. The newspaper he’d been reading during his lunch was pushed to the side of the table, partially crumpled.

“You’re thinking,” Frank observed finally. “Debating what to eat next?” he added with a smile. The plate before Joe held crumbs, a few dots of mayonnaise, and a fragment of Swiss cheese from the ham and cheese sandwich that had been there fifteen minutes previously.

Joe shook his head. “Trying to think of some other way to figure this all out- Alicia, you know. We’re kinda stuck at the moment.”

“Well.” Frank paused. “We could check for a death certificate or an obituary,” he said rather reluctantly. “In fact, that might be most practical. At least then we’ll know if we should be looking for a live woman or not. And if not-” he shrugged.

“If not, that’s that,” Joe concluded. “Of course, there is the problem of the name,” he added. “If she was adopted and then died...geez, I feel morbid, talking like this,” he added with a grimace.

“Me too, but it’s a sensible idea. It won’t narrow things down too much, but it will eliminate one possibility, at least. And we know her birth year, so we can start then and work forward.”

“Gonna use your computer?”

“Hmmm...I guess we can try that. I might have more luck with it than with the library; their systems are so obsolete, you might as well skip the computers and go to the card catalogue.”

“Although there are the microfiles.”

“True, but those are easier to use when you know more about what you’re looking for.”

Joe nodded in acquiescence and was quiet again, his fingers tapping in silent but swift patterns on the edge of the table. Frank finished his sandwich and juice, took his plate out, found some Oreos, and ate a couple in hopes of fortifying himself against Joe’s potential hyper mood. When he got back out to the table, though, Joe was still slumped in his chair, frowning into middle space.

“What is it?”

A shrug. “I guess it- it feels weird,” the younger boy admitted after a moment, sitting up and running his hand through his hair. “I dunno whether to hope or not. Not sure I want a cousin- not if she’s like her mother. But then there’s no saying she would be, especially if she was adopted. There’s just- there’s so many ifs, it’s mind-boggling.”

“Yeah. A lot to think about, some of it kind of unnerving. Well, let’s start out with the if she’s alive and move on from there to the if we should try to get in touch,” Frank told him. “Funny,” he added softly. “I mean, funny weird, not funny amusing,” he added quickly at Joe’s curious look.

“What is?”

“I’ve noticed this about us before,” the dark-haired boy replied thoughtfully. “You don’t talk about feelings much, but you do show ‘em. And I don’t show ‘em much, but I tend to talk about ‘em more.”

Joe’s eyebrows lifted in surprise; he obviously wasn’t expecting the remark. “Are you sure about that? And what brought it on, anyway?”

“Well, I was just watching you,” the older boy explained. “You weren’t saying anything, but I could tell you were thinking about it...” Frank paused and considered how to explain himself; on the surface, it did seem like a faulty conclusion. “Like if I’m worried or something, I try not to show it. But if someone asks me, ‘Aren’t you worried?’, I’m usually going to answer, ‘Yes, but I’m trying not to focus on that.’ If you’re worried, you show it- sort of,” he amended. “Like you were tapping your fingers just now, and fidgeting with your cup. But if someone had said, ‘You’re worried, huh?’ you’d probably answer something like, ‘Who, me? Worry? No way.’ Right?”

Joe tilted his head to the side, his blue eyes narrowing in thought. “I...guess so,” he replied at last, his expression turning to one of bemusement. “Hadn’t thought about it that way before.”

“Of course, I really don’t say much about being worried or whatever,” Frank conceded. “But I admit it. You don’t exactly admit it, but you don’t really hide it, either. A person would ask me because they didn’t know; they’d ask you as verification.”

“So in that respect, I am kinda more open about it,” Joe concluded, scratching his head. “It is funny- weird- I never noticed that before. Guess I need to start cultivating a poker-face,” he added with a grin, standing up.

“Good luck. Hey, and work on not fidgeting or pacing or tapping on things-” Frank chuckled as Joe made a face at him.

The remainder of the afternoon passed fairly quickly. Frank did get on his computer and attempted to search for an obituary notice for their mysterious cousin, Alicia Nicole, but was soon stymied. “There are both too many possibilities and too few options,” he finally told Joe, straightening up against the crick in his back. “Too many obituaries and too many Alicia Nicoles even in just a one-year span. And we don’t know what city Gertrude was in after the birth; she might’ve been in New York, but she might not. I tried the Vital Statistics site, but you have to be an immediate relative- mother, father, brother or sister- to get birth and death certificates and adoption records, so that’s a total dead end.”

Joe, who was lying on Frank’s bed, working in his sketchbook, looked up briefly at this choice of phrase. “And so we land right back at square one again,” he said with a sigh. “I sure hope Dad had something about her in his papers, or we may take the next ten years solving this. I keep trying to think of other ways- say, did you try Social Security?”

“I’ve been trying everything I can think of, but it all comes back to wondering if I’ve got the right name,” Frank explained. “We know Granddad would have disapproved intensely and we know Gertrude didn’t raise any kids, so either Alicia was put into an orphange or foster care, or she didn’t survive. If that hospital had kept her records, we’d know if there was anything wrong with her at birth; for all we know she was born premature and only lived a day or two.” Frank paused; something about his own remark made him wonder. “Or she might’ve contracted something when she was a year old- babies are susceptible to a lot of things, and twenty years ago they didn’t have the medicine and techniques they have now.”

“And if she was adopted, she’s not Alicia Marie Hardy, she’s someone else. And who knows, there are probably quite a few Alicia Marie Hardys whose mother was not named Gertrude Hardy,” Joe inserted with a sigh. “Who may or may not be about twenty years old.”

“Exactly.” Frank grimaced at the offending machine. “So, want to try calling Ethel again?”

Joe sat up, closing his notebook. “Let’s,” he agreed. “I sure hope she’s home,” he added, sliding off the bed. “All this waiting and wondering is starting to get to me.”

Frank nodded and followed his brother into the living room, heroically resisting the urge to ask Joe to show off his sketches. The thought of taking a surreptitious peek while Joe’s back was turned occured to him for about a second and a half, but he dismissed it sternly. No peek was worth the risk of marring Joe’s trust in him.

“No answer,” Joe said crossly, five minutes later. “Frank, what if she’s out of town? She might be staying with relatives or in a hotel to avoid any possibilities of foul play.”

“Maybe so,” Frank agreed. “Try the office again, see if they’ve been in touch with her since Sam left.”

Joe brightened and dialed again. After a few minutes of discussion, he hung up and turned to Frank with a rather troubled look. “They talked to her over the weekend, she called asking if there was any word of Sam. Sounded a bit worried. And she was definitely calling from home.”

‘So maybe there has been foul play.’ The thought flashed through Frank’s mind; looking at Joe, he could see that his brother was having the same thought. “I wonder if we ought to alert someone at headquarters,” he suggested slowly. “Sam vanishing is one thing, but Ethel...”

“Well, we don’t know that she’s vanished. She might even be meeting Sam somewhere,” Joe pointed out, but he still looked uneasy. “Besides, they’d just quote us the twenty-four hour rule. Since we don’t know when she was last seen, they’ll make us wait the full twenty-four before investigating.”

Frank considered that for a moment. “So you’re suggesting we check this out by ourselves?” he inquired rhetorically.

“Sounds like a good notion, don’t you think? I know Ethel wouldn’t mind if we went in and looked around, as long as we don’t make a mess. And if there are signs of foul play...”

The older Hardy hesitated, noting that it was after four-thirty. While he didn’t really relish the idea of going back out in the heat, he was getting concerned about Ethel Radley as well as feeling impatient to research this cousin of theirs. “I guess I’m a little concerned about going in there,” he admitted. “Someone might see us and wonder what we’re up to.”

“Maybe we could let Con know what we’re doing- he knows we turned Dad’s files over to Sam, so I don’t think he’d find it too odd. Besides, Frank, we do have their house key, it’s not like we’d be breaking and entering.”

“I guess that’s true.” Frank hesitated a moment more. “Guess it’d be better to do it now than wait for tonight,” he decided. “Go ahead and check in with Con, I need to shut off my computer.”

Shutting down the computer took less than a minute, so when he walked back into the living room, Frank was surprised to see Joe hanging up the phone. “That was quick.”

“He’s away from his desk. Left a message saying Ethel’s been missing, Sam’s away, none of Sam’s associates know where either of them are and the last anyone heard from Ethel was about two days ago. Then I said we’re going to check it out, since we have Sam’s house key.”

Frank pulled his keyring from his pocket and double-checked. “Yeah, here it is. Okay, let’s get to it.”

“Well, no signs of a struggle,” Joe Hardy murmured, gazing around the impeccably tidy Radley home. He and Frank had arrived a few minutes ago and done a quick check through the house, carefully opening every door...just in case. It wouldn’t have been the first time they found someone locked up inside a closet or pantry.

This time, however, they had found nothing in the closets that didn’t belong there. Quite the contrary; everything was neat and clean and the place had been dusted and vacuumed recently.

“Ethel was obviously here within the last forty-eight hours,” Frank remarked. “Maybe we’re overreacting a bit.”

Joe frowned dubiously. “Maybe,” he admitted. “I dunno, though. Just because nothing’s out of place doesn’t mean there wasn’t an intruder.”

“Well, no, but Ethel’s been around detectives long enough to leave some sort of sign. She would’ve knocked something over or mussed something up. And no one would risk knocking her out and carrying her, not in this neighborhood. They’d be seen.”

Joe wasn’t convinced, but he let the matter drop for the time being. “So we’ll wait a bit longer and see what develops.”

“Yeah. And as long as we’re here-”

“Might as well,” Joe overlapped, and led the way upstairs, then paused at the top of the steps as Frank came up behind him. The boys stood for a moment, looking from one doorway to the other, then glanced at each other.

“You start in that room,” Frank suggested after a moment, pointing to the left. “I’ll check in here. If I find Dad’s personal files, I’ll call you-”

“And vice versa.” Joe nodded and went down to the room on the left while Frank went to the right. “I wonder,” he added, pausing on the threshold. “Dad only had one office; Sam has two.”

“Yeah, but Sam was a detective from the start; Dad was a cop first,” Frank reminded him. “So Sam has been storing files for longer, and he’s worked with more people. Dad mainly worked alone...”

“Except for us and Sam,” Joe concluded, and felt a sudden surge of grief. Without another word, he went into the room and looked around, wondering where to start. There were filing cabinets, there was a closet, there was a large desk... ‘The desk first,’ he decided. ‘The cabinets’ll be criminal files. They’re even alphabetized,” he realized after a moment, taking a closer look. The first was A through C, the second D through G. Acting on a whim, Joe opened the third and searched briefly through the folders for ‘Hardy’. Not finding anything, he nodded, unsurprised, and turned to the desk.

It was nearly an hour later when Joe heard his brother calling him- or at least calling out something, for Frank’s voice was muffled. Rising from his cross-legged position before one of the bottom desk drawers, Joe limped on half-asleep legs to the other room.

“Sam has way too many filing cabinets,” Frank was grumbling as Joe walked into the room.

“The ones next door are alphabetized,” the younger Hardy remarked, crouching beside him. “What’ve you got?”

“Those are alphabetized too,” Frank explained, looking up and waving his hand at the three cabinets to his left. “But these two aren’t. Those seem to be all ‘inactives’.”

“Inactives?” Joe repeated curiously.

“Either dead or completely out of touch. And the reason there’s so many is because it’s not just criminals; it’s his contacts, too.”

“I didn’t look very closely- you’re saying he keeps criminal files together with contact files and closed cases with open ones?”

“Looks like it.” Frank shrugged. “To each his own, I guess.”

“Weird. You’d think he’d have some for contacts, a couple for criminals, at least one for closed cases and maybe two for unsolveds...”

“Organize it like Dad did, you mean?”

“That,” Joe agreed, frowning, “and have bigger cabinets in the first place. These’re only two-drawer ones, he could reduce a lot of ‘em if he just went to four-drawer.”

“Or he could stack ‘em on top of each other,” Frank mused, looking interested. “Well, maybe he gets a discount on ‘em,” he added with a half-smile. “Anyway, I looked under the H’s and didn’t come up with anything, but when I got over here-” he paused and stood up with a little groan. “All kinds of personal stuff in these two. Feel a little weird going through it, but I found that about half of this bottom drawer is Dad’s personal stuff.”

“Personal, like Sam’s bills and stuff?” Joe inquired diffidently, his eyes going to the half-open bottom drawer and the folders that leaned against the back of it.

“Those and other things. Invoices. Ticket stubs. Letters, cards- sort of like his version of a scrapbook, I guess,” Frank confessed, leaning down and pulling out a handful of tan envelopes. “Anyway, these are Dad’s. Envelopes, not folders, though they aren’t sealed.”

Joe nudged the filing drawer closed with the toe of his sneaker. “So do we look at ‘em here, or take ‘em home?”

“Here. That way we might be here when Ethel gets home and we can talk to her.”

“Suits me,” Joe agreed, extending his hand. Frank handed over several of the envelopes; Joe looked around, then settled to the floor with his back against the side of the desk. “I hope he sorted these by year,” he remarked quietly.

“No such luck,” Frank replied, spreading the contents of one folder over the desk. “I’ve got at least three different years right here.”

Joe sighed and got busy. Silence fell, except for the quiet rustle of papers. Joe paged carefully through the first envelope and, finding no references to Alicia Marie Hardy, closed it up again and went on to the next. Then the third, and fourth and then

“Frank, here’s another copy of the birth certificate,” he said quietly. “And this one has been altered.”

“Altered?” There was a rustle as Frank put down his handful of paper and then a touch on Joe’s shoulder.

“Here, someone put a name down in black ink, under ‘father’...looks like Dad’s writing.” Joe held out the document.

“It does,” Frank agreed. “Hmmm...Earl Pickering? She never mentioned his name, as far as I can remember.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell with me, either.” Joe handed over the certificate, then rummaged a few more pages onward. And then he sucked in his breath. “Here we are,” he said softly.

“What, custody? Or adoption?”

“Neither. Death certificate.” Joe felt a sudden ache as he looked up, saw the same deep disappointment in his brother’s eyes. Holding it up, he read it as Frank gazed over his shoulder. “You were right, she was eight weeks premature, and her heart wasn’t completely formed. It’s a wonder she lived three days,” he murmured after several moments.

“Must’ve been a little fighter,” Frank agreed quietly. “But we tend to be, don’t we?”

“Yeah.” Joe sighed. “You know...I bet this was the cause of Gertrude’s depression,” he added, musing. “And it’s why she never went to find treatment- it would mean admitting to what she’d done.”

“That’s why she was so determined to take us over, wasn’t it? She didn’t have Alicia, so we were...replacements.” Frank ran his hand through his hair; Joe looked up and saw his brother’s guilty expression. “Makes me wish I hadn’t been so outspoken about what a terrible mother she’d’ve been.”

Joe winced. “Me, too. Never would’ve said it if I’d known.” Another long silence fell and that awful scene replayed itself in Joe’s head.

“Keep your ignorant mouth out of what doesn’t concern you! She can’t even raise you right!”

“Oh and you think you could do better? If you were my mother, I’d’ve run away by age six. You’re hateful. All any kid would learn from you is how to be rude and unkind and critical. Especially when things didn’t go the way they wanted,” Frank informed her, cool disdain in every word.

“More likely, they’d’ve had nervous breakdowns by age four,” Joe growled.

“That’s a real possibility. Overprotected, over-lectured, over-disciplined, constantly told how dishonest and troublesome and all around worthless they were- that’s what your kids would be. They’d be bullied, they’d have no self-esteem, and if you stuck them into any situation that wasn’t scripted to the last inch, they’d have no clue what to do.”

“How dare you speak this way to me!” Gertrude screamed, rage distorting her face.

“What’s the matter, Auntie?” Joe taunted. “Thought you were so big on the truth! Don’t like hearing that we think you’d be a failure as a parent? Don’t like hearing that we’ve thrown out whatever respect and affection we used to have for you? Too bad- that’s the way it is now, and you can thank yourself and your bullying for it. From now on, you’re just an annoyance that we have to deal with. Sorta like the bullies at school.” he added thoughtfully, looking at his brother, who agreed at once.

“A lot like that. Nobody really likes them, though some pretend to, from fear of being beaten up. Everyone avoids them, and no one takes their talk seriously.”

“We were all pretty rough on each other,” Frank said after a while. “But I still think she overdid it. She took her feelings out on us without even telling us the reasons behind ‘em.”

Joe nodded. “Though...we didn’t exactly ask,” he pointed out.

“Think she would’ve told us if we did? I can just imagine that. ‘Auntie, why’re you being so nasty?’ ‘Nasty? I suppose a rude, spoiled, badly-raised child like you would mistake discipline for nastiness.’ And so on and so forth.” Frank shrugged briefly. “Both sides have to be reasonable, you know, before they can communicate effectively. And she was hardly even willing to admit that she was grieving for Dad. The chance of her confiding anything else was practically nonexistent.”

Joe acknowledged this with a nod and a rueful grimace. Then he gathered the papers together and stood up. “I guess Mom and Dad decided to leave it to her to tell us about Alicia in her own time. And she just decided not to. You can’t persuade me that she forgot about it all.” He sighed. “Well, at least now we know. I guess-”

“You guess?”

“I forgot where we were,” the younger boy admitted, looking around Sam Radley’s second office in some surprise. “And Ethel’s still not home.” A fresh jolt of concern made him frown as he turned to his brother. “It’s getting late-”

“It’s nearly seven,” Frank agreed, glancing at his watch as he stood up. “We’ve been here a while. Look, let’s take these home-” he bent to pick up the envelopes that were scattered on the carpet “-and grab something to eat. We can call here later this evening- like nine or so. If Ethel’s coming home, she ought to be back by then. If not, we can call headquarters and let them know she’s been missing for at least twelve hours. And they might just be able to tell us something.”

“Like?” Joe wondered. He gathered up the loose papers, stuffed them back into the envelope, and pulled himself to his feet. His legs had tried to go back to sleep again and he limped as he left the room and moved slowly to the stairs.

“Dunno.” Frank paused a moment and the office light went out; then he joined Joe at the staircase. “Maybe she went to visit Sam, maybe she’s in protective custody, maybe she’s visiting someone.”

“Then why would she have called the agency, sounding worried?” Joe asked. “Why would she tell the police and not Sam’s associates?” Reaching the bottom of the steps, he turned to look up at Frank. “You don’t think she might’ve gone off to try and find him herself, do you?”

“I really doubt that, Joe. Though...” Frank paused, scratching behind his ear. “Though if she was worried, it’s just possible that someone could’ve capitalized on that.”

“You mean, coming in and telling her they had news or needed to take her to Sam, and she went with them?” The thought had occurred to Joe before, but he’d tried to push it aside.

“Something like that.”

“Which’s why nothing was disturbed, if she went willingly and got taken into a trap.”

“Worst-case scenario.” Frank stepped to the floor and touched Joe’s shoulder. “Let’s hope it’s not that bad.”

“I would definitely prefer a better explanation,” Joe agreed. “But-”

“Bad gut feeling?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m getting antsy too, but let’s try and keep it under control. Plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

Joe nodded and exhaled, trying to loosen some of his tension. “Right. So let’s start by getting home. I hope anyone who sees us leave doesn’t think we’re stealing these,” he added, nodding at the folders they both carried.

“I doubt anyone’ll really notice. Besides, we’ve been seen in this area often enough,” Frank reminded him. “They know we’re not up to no good.”

Joe had to smile at the old-fashioned expression. Leaving the tidy, dark house, he went down the front walk to the curb and opened the passenger door. The evening had grown cooler and the sky was dimming as night approached, but it would be at least another hour before the sun set. The sound of a lawnmower running several yards away was the only significant noise.

Frank, who had paused to close the front door, hurried down and got in on the driver’s side. He passed his handful of folders to Joe, who took them without comment. “Isn’t that nice?”

“What?”

“Hearing a lawnmower and knowing we don’t have to do that anymore.”

“Oh. Yeah, it sure is!” Joe smiled despite his unease as his brother started the car and pulled away from the curb.

“Hold it right there, boys.”

Frank Hardy froze, his pulse doing a sudden acceleration as his hand fell from the knob of their apartment door. He turned quickly just as Joe, a step behind him, also spun around. “What do you want?” the younger boy asked the stranger who stood on the top step of the staircase.

It wasn’t the most polite way of inquiring the man’s business, but then this fellow’s opening remark didn’t exactly inspire trust, Frank thought. For that matter, his appearance didn’t, either. He was a big, bulky man, wearing slacks and a short-sleeved sport shirt, a pair of mirrored sunglasses, and a wide-brimmed felt hat that would have looked more fitting on the head of Indiana Jones. Between the shadow of the hat and the sunglasses, neither of which were necessary at this time of the evening, it was impossible to make out much of the man’s features beyond his thick cheeks and wide mouth. ‘Which is probably the point,’ the nineteen-year-old mused.

“First off, I want you two to know I could have you arrested for breaking and entering.”

“For what?” Joe sputtered. “This is our apartment-”

“Breaking and entering,” the man repeated. “I watched you go into the home of Sam Radley-”

“We used a key,” Frank retorted. “A key Sam gave us upwards of two and a half years ago. You obviously weren’t watching too closely, were you?”

“The black Porsche across the street from the Radleys’ driveway,” Joe said suddenly. “That where you were?”

“Oh, that’d be the Porsche that pulled into the parking lot right after me, I guess.” Frank spoke calmly, but he was annoyed with himself; why hadn’t he noticed they were being trailed?

The man seemed a bit nonplussed. “All right, just who are you two?”

“Frank Hardy.”

“Joe Hardy.”

“Really. Can you prove it?”

Joe started to reach into his pocket, then stopped. “Better idea- you tell us who wants to know. We don’t talk to strangers,” he said insolently.

“Joe...” Frank murmured warningly.

“He’s got some nerve, trailing us home and then acting like we’re pulling the suspicious maneuvers,” Joe protested.

Frank was about to mentally remind his brother that irritating an unknown man who looked like a gangster, hid his face, and might very well be armed was generally not a good idea. Before he could send his rebuke, however, their accuser spoke up again. “Agent Rahms, FBI.” The thickset man produced a wallet and flipped it expertly, revealing the badge and documentation. Frank stood where he was as Joe examined it closely. The younger boy finally looked up with a grudging nod.

“All right...here.”

Rahms studied Joe’s wallet as closely as Joe had studied his. Then he moved past Joe and held out a hand to Frank. Frank stifled his annoyance and produced his own license. “So. Mr. Hardy’s boys. What brought you to Mr. Radley’s home when no one was there to welcome you?” the agent inquired, returning it.

“We’ve been trying to get in touch with Mrs. Radley since last night. We needed some of the documents- personal papers- that were in our father’s files, which we turned over to Sam after Dad died,” Frank explained briefly, nodding at the envelopes his brother was holding. “We knew she wouldn’t mind if we came and got them, but we did think it would be better to call, first. Unfortunately, she doesn’t seem to be around.” He studied the agent for a moment, then added, “You know where Sam is?”

“Mr. Radley is in protective custody. Where exactly that is, and how long he’ll be there, is information I’m not privy to. I followed you two because I saw you- as I thought- casing the place earlier today and then entering it tonight. Can’t blame me for being cautious.”

‘No,’ Frank thought, glancing at Joe, who was rolling his eyes. ‘Only for not researching a bit more.’ Then he dismissed the thought; they’d done their share of mistaking motives and identities before, too. “So he succeeded in that undercover job and is in custody until the trial, or was he compromised, or what?”

The agent’s face seemed to twitch. “You’d be wise not to mention that job,” was all he said. “Some people might think you were involved, if they heard you. I’m surprised he told you that much.”

“He knew if he went missing too long we’d come find him,” Joe explained, leaning against the wall behind the man. “He wouldn’t want us to arrive at an awkward moment.”

Rahms turned. “You sound like you have a high opinion of yourself...for an amateur.”

“We know what we’re capable of,” Joe shot back. “And amateur, in case you’re not aware, doesn’t mean ‘inexperienced’ or ‘incompetent’. It means ‘not professional’, as in ‘not charging fees’ and ‘operating without a license’. We need to get through college before we can start setting our hourly rates and billing people for services rendered.”

Rahms was silent a moment, then shrugged expressively. “At any rate, Mr. Radley is in a perfectly secure situation and does not need to worry about anyone inadvertently leading his enemies to him,” he said pointedly. Frank felt himself redden at the rebuke.

“What about Mrs. Radley? Is she in custody too?”

“That’s a need-to-know, and you’re not cleared. For that matter, I’m not cleared either. Stay out of this, kids.” The agent moved toward the stairs.

“Does Sam know where she is?” Joe asked suddenly.

“I really don’t know what Mr. Radley knows,” Rahms replied. “I haven’t spoken to him for a week, at least.”

“But she’s his wife, isn’t he on the need-to-know list?” Frank persisted. Rahms made no reply, simply descended the stairs, his out-of-place hat disappearing as he went. Joe straightened up from the wall and frowned after the agent.

“I don’t like this,” he said softly. “When they don’t answer, it doesn’t always mean ‘yes’. And the way my intuition is going off-”

“Something’s happened to Ethel and they haven’t told Sam,” Frank finished, his brow furrowing. “I wonder if he really is in Witness Protection- they aren’t supposed to tell people that. Let’s get inside,” he added abruptly, turning to unlock the door. Joe hurried in behind him, pausing to drop the envelopes he was carrying onto the coffee table.

“So what’re we going to actually do about this?”

Frank Hardy regarded his younger brother, who was restlessly pacing the floor between the front door and the coffee table. “We can either try to find Ethel, or find Sam and tell him he needs to put pressure on some people to find out where his wife is, and in what shape,” he replied grimly. “We could find Ethel by following Rahms back to his superiors and trying to work our way through them, but that would take a while. And once we did find her, we’d then have to alert Sam-”

“Sounds like we better find Sam, then. His authority will get us farther, faster, and we’ll all three be working together from the start instead of us having to pause and contact him. Pauses are usually problematical,” Joe concluded for him, halting in front of the chair where Frank sat.

“Exactly. So what we first need is for you to rack your memory for everything Sam said to you about his case on graduation night.”

Joe nodded. “Then we’ll need to bull our way through a couple layers of the FBI and into the Witness Protection to get some idea of his location...” Joe’s voice trailed off thoughtfully.

“An idea?”

“Yeeeeaaah,” the younger boy drawled, his brow furrowing. “Maybe so. I think that way will be the slower way, so this might be a good time to see if I can recognize Sam’s mind from a distance.”

Frank sat up straight in the chair, half intrigued and half alarmed. “But,” he began, unsure of how to phrase his objection. “He’s probably in the middle of some huge city, Joe. Surrounded by people. You know how hard it is to isolate one mind from many! You could burn yourself out, searching for him.”

Joe shook his head. “I’ve been around Sam often enough- and recently enough- to pick him out of a crowd without much trouble. It’ll be like searching through a bunch of people wearing red in search of one guy wearing white. It will take a while,” he added as Frank gave him an unconvinced frown. “’Cause there’s a lot of crowds wearing white. But I won’t have to do a careful search, and that’s what takes so much energy- checking each mind, one at a time. I won’t be doing anything near that difficult.”

“Well...” Frank hesitated. Was it really that urgent? ‘It might well be,’ he told himself grimly. ‘Ethel’s life might hang in the balance.’

“It won’t be any worse than when I was trying to find you in East Side- probably less so, since he hasn’t got shields,” Joe added, obviously trying to allay Frank’s worry.

“Well, that’s true.” Frank chewed uncertainly on his lip, then ventured, “Can I at least help?”

Joe’s eyes widened a little, and then he smiled. “Sure!” he answered almost cheerfully. “You can come along with me, and if I start to get tired, you can loan me a little of that shield-energy of yours. Don’t worry,” he added, sinking into the sofa and giving Frank a reassuring look. “I won’t let either of us overdo it.”

“I just keep thinking about those headaches we used to get- especially you,” Frank explained. “I know,” he continued quickly; “that was poor technique, but all the same...”

“Once bitten,” Joe suggested with a touch of wryness.

“Yeah. Say, how long will this take?”

Joe shrugged. “Hard to say. A couple hours, a couple minutes...”

“Then shouldn’t we eat and-or use the bathroom?” Frank suggested dryly, getting up from his chair.

“Well...” “And isn’t Sam less likely to be moving around later at night?” “Okay, that’s true.” Joe stood as well. “And if it does take a couple hours, at least we won’t come out of it feeling starved and shaky.” “Exactly.” Frank made his visit to the bathroom, then came out to find Joe busily preparing a heavy-duty sandwich. “I was thinking more in terms of a real supper than a tiny snack like that,” he joked. “It is a bit on the puny side, isn’t it?” Joe agreed with a grin, regarding his top-heavy creation critically. “Absolutely. You’ll be complaining within an hour that it wasn’t nearly enough.” Frank poked around in the refrigerator and eyed several very old slices of pizza before throwing them away. “Moldy,” he explained before Joe could protest.

“Oh.”

Nearly an hour later, the Hardys- now well fed and prepared for their telepathic task- sat down on the sofa. Joe looked completely at ease and confident, an attitude Frank silently wished he could duplicate.

“Ready?”

Frank took a deep breath and allowed his mind to link with his brother’s. “I guess so.”

“Hmmm. And this,” Joe mused suddenly, silently, “is why we invariably have three or four different situations to deal with simultaneously.”

“Huh?”

“You know, always sticking our noses into other peoples’ business.”

“Yes, but for good reasons,” Frank pointed out as the two of them joined hands and left their bodies behind for the interim. He was starting to feel a little more confident; maybe Joe’s attitude was contagious.

“The best of reasons,” Joe agreed. “So- let’s go be nosy.”

“Right with you, bro.”