“I wish it wasn’t so dratted cold,” Frank Hardy remarked to his girlfriend, Callie Shaw.

“I think everyone here wishes that,” Callie replied, leaning close to make sure he could hear her. The Gresham Athletic Field- it was too small to really be considered a stadium- was packed full, and the noise was incredible. Everyone was bundled up against the near-freezing weather, but even the wind-chill couldn’t quell the excitement. “I hope the players manage to stay warm enough,” she added after a moment.

“That won’t be too big a problem,” Frank assured her. “When they’re on the field they keep warm with all the running around, and when they aren’t they’ve got those blankets to wrap up in.” He nodded at the sidelines, where the only sign of the Bayport Titans’ colors was the orange helmets. Callie giggled.

“They look funny, all those big gray blankets with a little round helmet sticking out at the top of each.”

“And spikes at the bottom,” Frank added, grinning. Iola Morton, on Callie’s other side, heard the comment and laughed too.

“They look almost like slabs of burned toast. With heads and feet.”

Callie giggled again, then leaned against her boyfriend and felt his arm go around her. He looked like his old self again- that was a relief, after seeing the bruises he’d come home with. And he was acting like his old self, too. Not quite as easygoing as he had been before the summer; he was quieter and more withdrawn than that. But he was starting to find happiness in his own life again, and that was wonderful. Callie didn’t expect he would ever be quite exactly the way he had been; in fact, she’d be a fool to hope for it. There had been too many changes to think that the old, serene Frank Hardy would ever really resurface. But at least his essential spirit was still whole.

Joe was much more like himself these days, too. More mouthy, Callie translated, smiling. She hadn’t gotten into any battles with him, though, and that was good. And though his spirits had improved noticeably with his brother’s return from Maine, Joe didn’t seem inclined to put Iola in the background so he could spend more time with his brother, as he once would have done.

Or as Iola had said, “I’m not just a nice distraction when he’s lonely now. I’m an equal partner!” She admitted that Joe still had his bleak and pensive moments, and she did what she could to help him through them. Callie understood; she had done the same thing for Frank several times now. It broke her heart to see the light go out of his eyes, the pain flash across his face, to hear the deep sorrow in his soft voice. But she never backed away from it, always did her best to lend what strength and comfort she could. And always, after a time, he would hug her or squeeze her hand, give her a grateful look, and thank her for being there.

He’d been a little hesitant to see her at first, she recalled. Afraid she was seeing someone else, or was too busy with schoolwork. Afraid they wouldn’t be able to pick up where they’d left off. And Callie had to admit that several of the University guys had expressed an interest in going out with her. She’d allowed one rather nice fellow to buy her a soda, and they had talked for a while, but there had been no spark. Frank was the one she loved, the one she felt complete with, and that was that.

Callie smiled, remembering their first date after he got home. He’d been almost as shy then as he had been on their very first date. They had gone out to eat together after his bruises healed up a bit, and she vividly recalled how his hands had trembled ever so slightly, how his smile had looked just a bit tentative. She’d taken care of that in the most direct manner she could think of, taking his face gently between her hands and kissing him till he had to pull away and catch his breath.

After that, there hadn’t been any more awkwardness.

The cold wind brought Callie’s thoughts back to Gresham Athletic Field; she shivered and cuddled closer to Frank as a wintry gust whipped past her ears. Pulling her hood closer, she squinted down at the field. “It would be the Seneca Thunder,” she commented. Seneca was Bayport’s oldest and most ferocious rival, and their school had been wild with excitement on hearing that the teams would clash for the State championship.

“They had almost as good a season as we did,” Iola reminded her. “Only one more loss than us.” The black-haired girl shivered and wrapped her scarf more tightly around her neck, then pulled her own blanket closer.

“We should’ve brought a blanket, too,” Callie muttered to Frank.

“Hindsight,” the Hardy boy agreed ruefully. “Well, we can get something hot to drink-” He stopped as the announcer began to reel off the names of the starting players. Cheers rose into the cold air as the Bayporters showed their enthusiasm; it quickly became clear that the Titans had more fans present than the Thunder did. Then the announcer requested that all rise for the National Anthem. A young Gresham student did the honors, a cappella, in a glorious voice, and then the coin toss was done. Bayport got to return the ball, and the game was on!

By the end of the first quarter, everyone had forgotten how cold they were; in fact, no one was cold anymore. Yelling and cheering and jumping up and down from their seats kept the fans’ blood quite warm. The teams were very evenly matched and neither had managed to score yet; Seneca’s fans had groaned in dismay when their kicker missed a thirty-seven yard punt attempt. The poor guy had looked utterly humiliated, Callie thought sympathetically, but at least he hadn’t scored!

“Their defense is pretty good,” Frank muttered during one of the last timeouts of the quarter. “But I think Martinez has the willies or something, he’s not completing as many passes as he ought to be.”

“Being on live TV will do that,” Iola suggested, pointing at the WBNY cameras below them.

Frank nodded, his brow creasing for a moment. Then he held Callie closer and smiled down at her. “It might go into overtime,” he warned.

“Oh, well, if that’s what it takes to win,” she retorted, and they both laughed.

The second quarter went better; Callie watched Frank nodding several times as the Bayport QB’s passes sailed directly into the hands of his receivers. “Found his stride,” he said briefly, and then leaped to his feet with the rest of the crowd as Joe caught the pass, tore down the field and crossed the goal line, bringing the Titans their first six points. “Yes!” the dark-haired boy exulted, clenching his fists in excitement. Beside Callie, Iola was shrill with equal excitement, and the two girls hugged briefly.

The roar of the crowd diminished slightly as the extra point was played out, but burst forth again when the kick was good.

Seneca was unable to match the score, thanks to the Titans’ sturdy defense; in fact, another roar went up from the Bayporters when the Seneca QB was sacked, causing yardage to be lost.

The third quarter was a nail-bitingly tense one, as the Seneca players struggled to match the Bayporters. To the Bayport fans’ dismay, the Thunder managed a touchdown, but missed the extra point, which kept the score from tying. “They’re probably going to fire that kicker,” Callie mused during one of the lulls, and Frank laughed.

“They can’t fire him, babe, he’s not pro,” he reminded her.

“Oh, right,” the girl answered, slapping her gloved hand against the side of her head. Then she shrieked and jumped up; Dave Mitchell had the ball and was weaving through the Thunder defense...until he finally was pulled down at the twenty-eight yard line.

The problem was, he didn’t get up. A hush fell over the spectators as several coaches ran out onto the field and huddled around the fallen player. The whole stadium sighed and applauded in relief as the senior was finally helped back to his sideline, limping badly as he went. “Well, now the rookies get their chance to shine,” Frank muttered tensely. Jesse Martinez had his rookies catching the short passes, saving Joe and Mitchell for the longer ones. “Joe’s going to be majorly guarded now.”

He was right, Callie saw in dismay. “He’ll have to hand off more, too, and the Thunder defense is awful good,” she murmured. Beside her, Iola was chewing nervously on the end of her scarf.

To the gratified astonishment of the Bayport fans, the Titans scored three plays later; the sophomore Stone caught a mid-range pass at the five and slithered past two big guards to get over the goal line. The crowd went crazy and the three teens watched with big grins as Joe and the other sophomore congratulated Stone- before the rest of the team pounced on him. The boy seemed a bit dazed by his success, glad to get off the field and out of the spotlight for the moment.

Seven plays later, it was the Thunder’s turn to go wild; Callie buried her face in Frank’s sleeve with a groan and listened to him growl about defensive lines with holes big enough to drive Mack trucks through. The Bayport defense, looking mighty ashamed of itself, trooped off the field as the third quarter ended. “Coach is giving ‘em hell,” Frank said, looking down at the sidelines.

Callie looked, and saw that the brief time between quarters was being taken up entirely with what looked like a steaming lecture from Zeigler. “They deserve that,” she said bitterly. “Back where we were, just one point ahead.”

The fourth quarter was almost a repeat of the first one, with neither team managing to get much headway...until the Seneca QB dropped back to pass, flung the ball...and one of the Titan defenders snagged it neatly out of the air and fell on it. “CHET!” Iola screeched, shaking Callie wildly, her voice drowned out amid the screams of delight. They were at the fifty yard line, with less than five minutes to go. Frank, no less excited than the girls, watched with closed mouth and wide eyes as the offense took the field.

It was a near-classic run. A first down gained by handoffs, another gained by a short pass and run by Ellis, the other sophomore receiver. With less than a minute left to go thirty yards, Martinez faded back, faked a toss to Stone, and then threw an absolutely perfect pass to Joe Hardy, whose Thunder guard had fallen behind. Of course he had fallen behind, Callie thought as she watched, only half-aware that she was yelling at the top of her lungs. There was no faster receiver in the league than Joe. Seconds later he crossed the goal line and the crowd, not content with yelling itself hoarse, began stomping on the bleachers until the whole structure rattled. The extra point was up, was good! The Bayport Titans were the New York State Champions against their old rivals, the Seneca Thunder, twenty-one to thirteen!

“Brrr!” Frank Hardy suddenly noticed the icy wind tugging at his hair and numbing his face; he’d forgotten all about it during the last hour or so. “What a game!”

Callie and Iola were still hugging each other in the joy of victory. Frank laughed and wrapped his arms around them both. Iola’s blanket was lying forgotten on the bleacher; she wiggled loose and picked it up, wrapping it around herself and Callie. “This is warmer,” she teased. Then her eyes crinkled in laughter. “Look, they’re storming the field!”

Frank glanced down and grinned- not at the antics of the Bayport fans, who were attacking the goalposts, but directly at his brother. Joe had pulled off his helmet and was grinning right back up at him. “First and last touchdown,” Frank sent, his thought riding a wave of pure pride. “You game-maker, you!”

“Wouldn’t’ve been, without Stone.” Joe laughed a little. “Poor kid’s going all to pieces, now that it’s over.”

“Being on live TV does tend to have that-”

“We were on live TV?” Joe interrupted, aghast. “Oh, man, I didn’t know! I saw the camera up there, but I thought it was just being recorded for later, not broadcasting! No wonder everyone was so nervous!” He laughed suddenly. “Great, now I get nervous.”

“Poor kid’s going to pieces, now that it’s all over,” Frank teased. “Settle down, brother, you did fantastic. And so did Jesse, once he hit his stride.”

“Yeah, I told him what you said. Though he thinks it was my inspiration.”

Frank nodded mentally. He’d connected to his brother early on and suggested he remind the younger QB of their post-Thanksgiving practice session. Apparently that had calmed the novice down sufficiently to find his groove. The older Hardy smiled as he watched Jesse being hoisted onto his teammates’ shoulders and paraded off the field. “Watch out, they’ll be after you next,” he warned his brother.

“Yikes, I better hide,” Joe was saying, when suddenly a dull crack rang across the field and Martinez toppled from his seat to land hard on the ground. The first sound was followed by a second, and third, and fourth.

“Someone’s shooting!” Frank gasped. “Down!” he snapped at the girls, and they all dropped to crouch on the lower bleacher. Screams- this time of fear- echoed through the stadium. The football players, badly confused, milled around until Joe seized control and yelled at them to scatter and drop. All around, in the bleachers and on the field, spectators were doing the same, faces frozen with more than the cold.

“Do- do you- s-see anyth-thing?” Iola got out between chattering teeth after several minutes of silence.

“I don’t see the shooter,” Frank answered tensely, scanning the crowd. “You okay?” he asked his brother anxiously.

“I’m not hit, at least,” Joe answered grimly. “Can we get up yet?”

“Don’t risk it. Security’s coming.” Uniformed guards, guns in their hands, were charging onto the field. Moving with practiced speed, they reached the scene of the shooting and fanned out into the stunned, silent crowd. Even as they did, the seldom-used ambulance pulled out of the shed where it was kept and raced over the field. Frank had to admire the driver, who parked between Jesse Martinez’s still form and the bleachers. That way the shooter couldn’t interfere without exposing himself.

Ten eternal, frigid moments later, the announcer- sounding shaken- requested all the fans to depart the stadium as quickly and calmly as possible. “Please be very cautious and do not push or trample your fellow fans,” he added almost pleadingly. That seemed to have a good effect; people did look anxious and impatient as they scurried for the exits, but no one was using brute force to get out.

Frank helped the girls up, wrapped them both in Iola’s blanket, and took them to the top of the bleachers. “Keep your eyes open. At least up here, no one’ll be able to get behind you,” he said briefly. “Soon’s I check on Joe and Chet, we’ll scram.” The girls nodded, huddling close to each other, faces now pale and eyes bright with worry. Frank made his way slowly back down, moving against the majority of the crowd, and soon reached the gate at the bottom of the bleachers. The stunned players were slowly getting to their feet; no one but Jesse seemed to be hurt.

Joe scrambled up and jogged over, shivering. “I don’t think he got anyone else,” he reported in a quivery voice. “But I don’t know, there were a couple other guys with Jesse, and they’re-” he waved at the ambulance, indicating the far side of it.

Frank touched his arm, leaning over the low chain-link fence. “Go get changed,” he suggested gently. Before he could say any more, Chet trotted over. “You okay, pal?” Frank asked him.

“Freaked,” the big boy answered briefly, his face bleak and pale. “Iola okay?”

“Freaked, also,” Frank said dryly. “But not hurt.” He looked at Joe questioningly.

“He took it in the chest,” the younger boy answered the unspoken question. Frank winced.

“You guys better go on and get changed before you freeze.” He looked around for the coach, but didn’t see him; probably over with Jesse and the medics. The two boys nodded and jogged for the locker room, rounding up their teammates as they went. Frank got a look at young Stone’s face; the poor kid was trying hard not to cry, but he wasn’t succeeding too well. Ellis looked as shaken, and put his arm around his fellow-sophomore as they walked. All the players looked rattled; their victory had been soundly squelched by the horror of violence.

Frank turned and scanned the area once more, then shook his head and hurried up the bleachers to where the girls were huddled. “Looks like it might be just Jesse who got hurt,” he said gently, and nodded toward the exit. “Let’s go. Joe and Chet’ll be out once they get changed.”

Iola unwrapped the blanket from around herself and Callie, folded it awkwardly and the trio started for the exit. The athletic field had emptied in a remarkably swift time; there were probably less than five hundred people present now, where there had been several thousand only fifteen minutes ago. “Why would someone do such a horrible thing?” Callie murmured into the wind.

“Do you think it was one of the Seneca people?” Iola chimed in, pulling her windblown hair back from her face and glancing over her shoulder at her boyfriend’s brother.

“There’s at least one person in Bayport High who has a massive hatred for Jesse Martinez,” Frank answered them both with a frown. “And he was heard to say, ‘you’ll pay for this,’ although he didn’t happen to say who he was talking about at the time.”

“Mark Gold,” Callie snapped suddenly. “He was furious when Jesse took over- but- wouldn’t Gold have gone for Coach Zeigler?”

“Maybe that’s why there were more shots,” Iola speculated, glancing back again. Frank nodded; he’d just been thinking that himself. Worse, maybe Joe had been one of the targets, too...

“Gold has a motive, and he has one big trait that could point this in his direction,” the young sleuth said quietly. “He’s arrogant. He thinks he can do anything and get away with it. And anyone who tries to stop him gets the ‘you can’t do that’ treatment. If someone came and arrested him, he’d be screaming, ‘you can’t do this’ all the way into the jail cell.”

Both the girls nodded solemnly; they had seen this many times. “But Gold isn’t the type to do his own dirty work,” Callie remarked after a moment.

“That’s true,” Frank reflected. “He may’ve talked one of his gang into it.”

“You and Joe will check it out, won’t you?” Iola asked.

“We’ll offer. I’m sure the coach won’t object, but I’m not sure what the principal will say.” Frank shrugged. “Still- I’m pretty much a free agent now.” He was still waiting on word from the Board of Education in Maine. Bayport U had accepted his grades and given him a list of the classes he was eligible for when the term started again. Frank was still deciding which ones he wanted, but he’d already decided he wasn’t going to take such a heavy course-load this time. He wanted to study, but he also wanted a social life, now that he was among friends again. And time to work on cases, should they turn up- but he certainly had not anticipated anything like this.

Callie took his hand; her fingers were icy. Frank put his arm around her and they walked the rest of the way to the car in silence. Once they were in the car, Frank started the engine and turned the heat on. Gradually, they began to warm up. Frank and Callie, in the front seat, sat with their arms around each other, sharing warmth and comfort. Iola, alone in the back, unfolded her blanket and wrapped up in it again.

After about twenty-five minutes, with the parking lot all but deserted, two forms finally loomed outside the car. First Joe and then Chet slid into the back seat, and Chet closed the door with unnecessary violence. Neither of the players said a word; Frank glanced into the rearview mirror as he headed for the parking exit, and saw his old friend put his face in his hands. Then his eyes caught Joe’s and he frowned. Joe was even paler than he had been before. Either the shock was kicking in, or-

“Coach Zeigler was hit, too,” Joe said very quietly. Iola moaned and he turned to hug her. “We didn’t hear how bad it is- I don’t think they know yet. They’re taking both of ‘em to Gresham hospital, to make sure they’re stable before they try to get back to Bayport.”

“Who told you?”

“Assistant Coach Barnes.” Joe practically spat the words.

“The bastard,” Chet growled, raising his head. “That man’s got an ice cube for a heart. He wasn’t upset at all; now he can play head coach while Zeigler’s...away. He called Stone a crybaby...”

“Poor kid,” Frank murmured. He knew from experience just how harsh and demanding Barnes was. ‘Wimp’ was about the nicest thing he ever called someone who couldn’t meet his unreasonably high expectations. Worse, the man constantly played favorites. One day you’d be his pet, the next day you were pond scum or worse and his new pet was swaggering around, acting like the king of the hill. Barnes was the reason why the baseball team had such a high turnover rate; few of the students cared to put up with him for more than a season. “At least there isn’t any real coaching left for him to do,” he tried to console Chet.

“That’s true,” Chet agreed with a sigh.

The rest of the drive back to Bayport was almost entirely silent. It took longer to get home than usual, too. Frank had hoped that most of the heavy traffic had cleared off the roads, but all they’d managed to do by waiting was give it a head start. At length he pulled up outside the Mortons’ farmhouse and Chet got out. Iola gave Joe a quick kiss, then climbed out as well. The siblings walked toward their house together and Frank shook his head as Chet put an arm around his sister. Displays of affection between those two were pretty rare, so they were both clearly very shaken.

A few minutes later, Frank stopped again outside Callie’s house. She gave him a little hug and kiss, then hopped out; a few seconds later, Joe took over the passenger seat and closed the door.

“I have a feeling Barnes isn’t going to want us to investigate this,” Joe said after they’d pulled away from the curb.

“Probably not, but we’ve never let that stop us, have we?”

Joe smiled grimly. “Certainly not.”

“You’re probably going to have to leave a lot of it to me, though,” Frank added slowly, glancing over to catch Joe’s reaction- which was, as he’d expected, a deep frown. “You know, someone who’s not going to have to worry about getting detention if they’re caught, someone who’s not going to need to be in class most of the day-”

“True, but don’t forget someone who can move pretty freely among the students and hear things that former students wouldn’t,” Joe pointed out.

“Right. I didn’t say ‘leave the whole thing to me,’” Frank said patiently. “Just the stuff that you’d have to cut class to do.”

“All right.” Joe sounded grumbly, but not genuinely mad. Then he sighed. “Jesse and the coach.”

“You’re thinking what I’m thinking.”

Joe nodded. “There’s three of us Gold is holding a grudge against.”

“And two of ‘em are in the hospital now.” Frank pulled into their driveway and shut off the car, then turned to look at his brother. “Watch your back, Joe.”

“Believe me, I will,” Joe answered fervently. “Especially since we’re going to be checking this out.”

Frank nodded. They got threats and ‘accidents’ enough during a regular case; there were bound to be more than usual when revenge was factored in.

“So when are we going to check out Gresham’s stadium for clues?”

“Tomorrow. After the cops and security and news people have gone.” Frank opened the door. “It’ll give us time to talk to the principal, and also time to check up on Jesse and the coach.”

“I wonder,” Joe started, and paused as he and Frank ran into the house.

“Yes?” Frank pulled off his coat and shivered a little.

“I wonder if either of ‘em actually saw the shooter.”

“Shooter?” Gertrude inquired from where she was standing in the den doorway. Frank quickly explained. “So you’re going to try and catch this...this menace,” she concluded when he was done.

“Yes,” Joe told her bluntly. “And we have a real good idea where to start.”

“Yeah,” Frank agreed. “With Jesse. Tomorrow morning.”

Gertrude shook her head, but said nothing beyond, “Well, do try not to get hurt.”

“We’ll make a special point of that,” Frank agreed, and his eyes went to his brother. Joe returned the serious look with one of his own, and then the brothers went upstairs to plan their strategy more fully.

“So?” Joe asked impatiently as Frank put the phone down. It was Saturday morning and after a fair bit of telephone time, the older Hardy had managed to learn that the injured Jesse Martinez and Raymond Zeigler had been moved to Bayport during the night. He had promptly called Bayport General and been left on hold for nearly fifteen minutes.

“Nothing doing. Jesse’s comatose, no one allowed but family. Coach...” Frank stopped, turned to his brother. “No visitors, period. They don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Joe swore softly and pounded his fist into his palm. His temper was shorter than usual today; he hadn’t slept at all well last night. His sleep had been full of dreams about the shooting- mixed with something else, something almost as troubling. Problem was, he couldn’t remember what it had been. “Okay, so what now?”

Frank stood thinking for a moment. “The principal. And then the Gresham police.”

“The police?” Joe repeated, his eyebrows lifting in surprise. “That’s a new twist.” The police in Bayport had a fairly friendly relationship with the Hardys, and the ones in Gresham had probably heard plenty about them too, but the boys seldom went to the police until they had actual evidence.

“That’s on the assumption that Mr. Neucomb gives his okay,” Frank amended. “If not, we’ll bypass the police and go right to the stadium.”

“That’s more like it,” Joe agreed, and went to get his coat.

Principal Neucomb looked less than surprised to see the Hardy boys standing outside his door when he opened it to Joe’s knock. “I’ve been half-expecting you two to drop in,” he remarked gravely. “Come inside.”

The boys did so. Joe cast a quick glance around the comfortable living room, taking in the plush sofa and matching chairs. A clock stood on the marble mantel over the fireplace; ten-twenty. He took a seat on the sofa, at the principal’s invitation, and Frank sat beside him. “Since you’re expecting us, does that mean you don’t have a problem with us investigating the shooting yesterday?”

Joe looked at his brother in mild surprise; it wasn’t quite like Frank to jump so directly to the point. Then he realized what his brother was doing, as Neucomb hesitated for a long moment. “Truthfully, I was hoping to dissuade you,” the deceptively frail-looking man replied. Joe wondered once again how such a small, slender, soft-spoken teacher could have risen to the post of principal. He just seemed too gentle for the job, yet it was well known that he was very strict with those sent to the office. Neither of the boys had had any real trouble with him, though, despite the incident of the stolen tests last year.

“Sir, we realize there’s danger involved- there always is,” the blond boy spoke up. “But since I’m still in school, I’ll be able to pick up things that the police wouldn’t be able to. Even if they pulled anyone in for questioning, most kids would stonewall.”

“And while he’s doing that,” Frank put in, “I can check in other directions. Besides, I’m sure the Gresham police wouldn’t mind the help, since they don’t have jurisdiction in Bayport. That way there’ll be a lot less paperwork, both for them and for our force.”

Now that was a compelling argument, Joe thought admiringly. “Less opportunity for communication mess-ups and authority difficulties, too,” he added. “There’s always a question of who’s in charge...” He shrugged as the man looked at him. After a moment, Mr. Neucomb rose and paced several times.

“You make good points, both of you. I’m very anxious to know who’s behind this and to have them locked up where they belong,” he admitted. “And I know you two are accustomed to handling things like this, but if something should happen to you, I would feel responsible.”

“Sir, we feel responsible too, we really want to find who did this. Jesse’s a good friend, and we both have the greatest respect for Coach Zeigler,” Frank replied.

“In other words, you’d like my permission, but if you don’t get it- oh yes, I know how you two work. I read the papers, just like everyone else,” the man said, and a very unexpected twinkle of humor lit his pale-blue eyes for a moment. “You don’t let things like permission, or lack of it, stop you. Well... all right, but please do be careful.”

“Thank you, sir,” Frank said quietly. Joe noticed his brother was a bit redder than usual and figured he himself was, too. “We’ll keep you up to date on what we find out. Right now, we do have a suspect, a student. But we’d like to get some evidence- I mean, hard evidence, not circumstantial- before we start accusing anyone.”

Neucomb nodded. “I might have a guess at that,” he remarked dryly. “I hear rumors too. Eventually. Especially when the, eh, objects of the rumors end up in my office. But innocent until proven guilty.”

‘And proof is exactly what we’re going to get,’ Joe thought grimly. He didn’t feel daunted by the task, either; the brother detectives had faced far more challenging cases. After asking the principal if he’d been at the game- which he had- and what he’d seen of the shooting- which was very little- the Hardys took their leave.

“The challenge,” Frank remarked when they were back in the car, “is the fact that there were so many people there.”

“True, but the bullets could only have come from two or three directions,” Joe pointed out. It wasn’t easy to talk about the shooting so casually, so objectively, but right now their emotions had to be put aside. “Wonder if there’s any sort of list of who was sitting where?”

“That’s not generally how it works, you know. Professional stadiums have assigned seats, but high school bleachers are a bit different.”

“True...” Joe frowned. “Still, since so many people were coming for the game, and since the stadium’s so small, they probably wanted to pack it as tight as possible. So maybe there was some effort at filling up each section before going on to the next.”

“Something to think about,” Frank agreed, sounding dubious. “I’m wondering how to prove that Gold was there in the first place. Though if the police have run a ballistics check, that’ll be some help.”

“Wonder if they’ve put in a request for tips,” Joe mused. “Somebody had to be standing or sitting beside the shooter, after all. Could at least get some kind of description.”

“That would be a good thing to circulate through the school. Carefully. Wonder if the Seneca students would be any help? Y’know, to help prove that they weren’t engaging in unsportsmanlike conduct...”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it,” Joe growled. “Wait a minute. Seneca was on the opposite side of the stadium, Frank. Jesse had his back to most of them, and his side to the rest. And we’ve got to factor in Coach Zeigler-”

“That’s right.” The car halted in the deserted Gresham stadium parking lot. “D’you remember where Coach was standing?”

Joe frowned. “I think so. Question is, where was he hit?”

“In the head.”

A sick feeling went through the younger boy at the thought of the big man lying on the turf, a bullet in his head. He got out of the car, shoved his hands into his pockets, bent his head into the wind and trudged towards the stadium gate. Frank caught up a second later.

“You okay?”

“It’s different when it’s someone you know...and like,” the seventeen-year-old answered bleakly, and felt his brother’s arm encircle his shoulders.

“I know. But the best thing we can do for ‘em is try to find out who did it,” Frank said quietly. Joe nodded, took a breath, then pushed open the gate. The two made their way along the blacktop path that led to the field entrance.

“Doesn’t look like anyone else is here,” Joe commented, glancing around. A waist-high chain-link fence surrounded the field, and a strip of yellow tape had been stretched across the entrance. He ducked under the yellow tape, since it was tied too high to jump over.

“D’you remember about where you were standing?” Frank glanced around as well and stopped outside the entryway.

“Hmmm.” Joe walked across the field and paused. “More or less here. Wait.” He took a few steps forward, then several more towards the fence. “Here.” Frank nodded, turned, and ascended the bleachers.

“I was approximately here,” he decided. “Maybe a seat or two lower, but close enough. Now, mark your spot...”

Joe dug his heel into the turf, then looked up in irritation. “The ground’s frozen,” he complained.

“What’s in your pockets?”

Joe checked, pulled out a loose penny, sighed, and wedged it into the ground. “I hope I can find it again.”

“Cheapskate,” he heard Frank mutter, but despite a flicker of amusement, he couldn’t quite smile.

“Jesse was...” Joe turned his gaze to the dark-stained ground, behind and to the right of him.

“Yeah, I see it. But when he was on the guys’ shoulders,” Frank said, “where was he, and how was he facing?”

Joe trekked back until he was even with the bloodstain, trying to ignore the quivery feeling in his knees, then gritted his teeth and aligned himself. Jesse had fallen down and backwards, which meant he had been facing the goalposts more than the bleachers. “About here.”

“Okay, that’s about what I remember. So the shooter had to be...” Frank slowly moved along the bleacher, heading in the direction of the exit.

“Fairly close to the exit,” Joe sent when his brother stopped. He didn’t feel like yelling, and they were too far away to be heard talking in normal voices.

“Convenient,” Frank agreed. “And that makes it rather likely that you were the third target, too.”

“How d’you figure that?” Not that he didn’t believe it, he just didn’t particularly want to believe it.

“Jesse was over everyone’s heads. Easy target. Coach was out in the middle of the field. Again, fairly easy target- ‘specially since he’s so big. And you were away from most of the players just then... whoever it was, was being careful with their aim, not shooting into the crowd. Might not have had many bullets. Look around a bit, see if you can find the two that didn’t hit anyone.”

Joe frowned, but complied. “I bet the police tried this already.”

“Yeah, but they probably weren’t looking in the right places. Didn’t know to look in your area.”

“Okay, so what are you going to do while I’m doing this?”

“I’m going to the ticket booth and see what sort of paperwork they have for game day.”

“That was my idea,” Joe pointed out with a mock-exasperated sigh. “Why do you always take the easier jobs?”

“Because I brought my lockpicks and I bet you didn’t,” Frank replied, pulling the little black case from his pocket. Joe grimaced, but said nothing. “Ah, I was right. Never mind, I’ll come back and give you a hand when I’m done- if you’re not finished by then.”

Joe looked up briefly as his brother hurried down the bleachers and then walked quickly along the path back to the main entrance. There was a small ticket office there that he had noticed when they came in, and while there was no guarantee that there’d be anything useful there- especially now, after the cops had been and gone- it was worth checking out.

Joe felt a slight smile tug at his lips as he turned his attention back to the ground. It was a nasty case, all right, but he still felt- well, not ‘good’, but working on a mystery with his brother made him feel like his world was finally starting to resemble the one he remembered. Then the icy wind blew his hair into his eyes; brushing it away, he turned back to his chore. “I really hate it when you’re right,” he remarked mentally to Frank about fifteen minutes later, plucking an expended bullet from the frozen ground.

“What kind is it?” Frank asked, his attention wavering between Joe’s find and his own investigation.

“What do I look like, a ballistics lab?” Joe retorted. “All I can tell is that it’s not a twenty-two.” Twenty-two caliber bullets were the most commonly used, so both the boys had some familiarity with them. More, in truth, than they really liked.

“Well, that’s a start. I’m not finding anything very useful here, I guess the Gresham police did cart everything off. But there must have been something here at one point, because there’s a whole filing cabinet full of paperwork from other games this season. And last season, and so forth, going back a couple years.”

“Those don’t sound very helpful.” Joe shivered. “Going to come help me find the other bullet, or shall we head to the station and see what the cops are up to?” He didn’t get a coherent reply from Frank, just a sort of ‘background noise’ of conflicting thoughts while his brother mulled the situation over.

“Before I turn into a Popsicle?” Joe put a little pleading note in his mental voice. “My fingers are numb. We don’t really need both bullets anyway, do we? It’s not like the shooter used two different guns. And the cops might already have found the other one, so we’d just be wasting our time.”

“Oh, stop whining, I’m just as cold as you are,” Frank told him absently. “But you’re right, they might’ve already found the third one. No point picking over the whole field, if so, so let’s see how cooperative the Gresham police force is feeling.” A sly smile colored his thoughts. “Race you back to the car.”

“No thanks, you’d win,” Joe told him, straightening up against the ache in his back. “I have to find my penny.”

“Thought you said you were turning into a Popsicle!”

“That was before someone called me a whiner,” Joe retorted. He didn’t usually feel compelled to prove how tough he was to Frank, but the gibe stung. He’d show his brother who was a whiner and who wasn’t. A few minutes later Joe spotted the small coin and reached down for it, then stopped. “Hold that thought. We might be coming back here, right?”

“Depends if we ever manage to leave,” his brother replied, his mental voice a bit sour.

“Aren’t we in a good mood all of a sudden.” Joe left the coin where it was and jogged toward the exit, shivering. “I just thought that if we do come back, I won’t have to take a guess at where I was standing.”

“No, all you’ll have to do is find a penny in a field of grass.”

“What is the matter with you?” Joe demanded aloud as he climbed into the car and shut the door. Frank had already started the engine and was nudging the gas pedal impatiently. Pulling on his seatbelt, the younger Hardy gave his brother a rather irritated look. “First you call me a whiner and now you’re being a grouch.”

Frank scowled and drove out of the parking lot. “Sorry,” he said after a moment, pushing at his dark, windblown hair, “but I’m bugged by something. I’m just not sure what.”

“Something in the-” Joe didn’t get to finish the sentence; Frank jammed on the brakes and they were both flung forward. “Whoa! What?!”

“Television!” Frank exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel.

“Excuse me?”

“Live television!”

“Frank, would you like to try speaking in complete thoughts?” Joe inquired earnestly. “It’ll help you make a lot more sense.”

“The game was recorded live,” the older Hardy explained, turning excitedly to his brother. “So if the camera-people happened to catch the shooting-”

Joe’s eyes widened. “Aha,” he said quietly. Then he frowned. “What if that was the fourth shot? To take out the camera?”

“That’s entirely possible,” Frank agreed as he re-started the car, which had stalled at his precipitous stop. “And if it missed, it’ll be somewhere in the bleacher area...which might give us a better notion of where the shooter was standing.”

“I’d think the video itself would be more use in that case,” Joe pointed out.

“If they caught him on the tape.”

“True. Okay, so we’ll go talk to the cops first, then the news people- it was Bayport broadcasting, so-”

“-We can save that for the trip home.” Frank put the car in gear and accelerated out of the parking lot. “And somewhere in between the two, maybe stop for lunch.”

“You read my mind,” Joe said, and his brother glanced over with a smile.

“Sorry I was so sharp. I was trying to figure out what was missing and you distracted me a bit.”

“I’ll try not to do that next time.”

“All right, so what did we learn today?” Frank shifted position, arranging the notepad on his knee. He was sitting cross-legged on Joe’s bed, his back to the wall, enjoying the cozily warm electric blanket under him. Outside, the wind moaned and whistled among the bare branches of the trees. That cold and lonely sound made him glad he was indoors.

“One, we learned that the Gresham police aren’t very efficient,” Joe said, holding up a crumb-smeared finger. He was sprawled on the only clear spot on his floor, eating a brownie. Licking the crumbs off, he added, “I suppose I can’t blame them for that, they’ve never had to deal with a school shooting before. But not even knowing which officer was investigating the case from the Bayport side?” He snorted in contempt.

“Not to mention being uncertain whether Jesse and the coach were still in their hospital,” Frank agreed.

“And that lieutenant was a nimrod,” Joe added, scowling.

Frank wasn’t inclined to disagree. The Hardy boys had not always have gotten a warm welcome from lawmen on their various cases, and they were very used to being called all sorts of denigrating variations on ‘nosy kids’. Sometimes no matter what they came up with or who they ended up collaring, they were treated with contempt. It went with the territory, and they had both learned to try and ignore it, though Joe’s temper still got the better of him sometimes. But Lieutenant Daniver of Gresham had been more contemptuous than most of the lawmen they’d encountered- and more tactless, too. “Yeah...he acted like we were grade-school kids,” he muttered. “Took him down a bit, though.”

Joe sat up and smiled grimly. “Yes, when you told him that we ‘dumb kids’ knew the whereabouts and condition of the victims, when he himself did not, he shut up for a while. I hate to think what’s going to happen next, though. After all, he is the one leading the investigation, and he definitely doesn’t look cooperative.”

“I think we can manage without him,” Frank said confidently. “Now. They didn’t find the fourth bullet, so it’s still out there somewhere. Might be worth finding, if only to have the evidence as complete as possible.”

“Maybe. We need to find out who at school can get their hands on a gun,” Joe mused aloud. “So the gun licensing place is a good place to look.”

Frank made several notes in the notebook. “Find fourth bullet... check gun licenses...” He paused and tapped the eraser against the paper. “Get hold of the paperwork from the ticket office.”

“That one might not be so easy.” Joe ate another bite of brownie. “That kinda depends on Daniver. Not that he’s doing anything with it, from the sound of things, but I doubt he’d care to help us out.”

Frank pondered that for a moment. “Maybe if we get someone at the Bayport station to request it- or a copy of it. After all, they’ll need it too.”

“Yeah, but will he send it?” Joe inquired rhetorically. “He did say he’s going to solve this thing himself, without any ‘external interference’, so he’d probably either stall or send it incomplete. I’d hate to try a B&E job up there, but maybe-”

“We are not going to break and enter a police station, Joe. It’s much too risky, and it’s too close to the jail cells if we get caught,” Frank told him firmly.

Joe just shrugged. “They didn’t even ask if the hospital had removed the bullets from Jesse or Coach yet,” he said quietly. “How competent can they be?”

“Probably not so incompetent as to fail to notice people breaking into their own HQ,” Frank pointed out. “Forget it.”

“If you insist.”

‘That was too easy,’ Frank thought. He regarded his brother for a moment, then sighed and went back to the list. If Joe went ahead with that bit of nonsense, he’d have to do it by himself! They’d done a lot of risky things- some might even say stupid things- in their budding careers, but nothing that hare-brained. Frank wasn’t about to add ‘breaking and entering a police station’ to their growing list of things that inspired the remark, “Well that was just plain dumb”. “The news people, on the other hand, were very helpful,” he remarked, changing the subject.

“Yes, and that did prove my theory about the fourth shot, from what that lady-” Joe paused.

“Sarah Laughlin.”

“Her. Said it zinged past her ear. And she’s making a copy of the tape for us.”

“Right, we pick that up tomorrow.” Frank grinned down at his brother. “We can even watch the game first, if you want.”

To his surprise, Joe frowned and shook his head. “Forget it,” he muttered, throwing his napkin into the trash and getting up from the floor. He sat down on the edge of the bed and peered over at the list. “Don’t forget checking to see if Jesse and Coach have improved.”

Frank added that at the top of the list, then put the bit about ‘get and watch WBNY video from S Laughlin’ to the other items. “I don’t think the licensing office is open on Sunday,” he said suddenly, putting the pencil tip on that item. “I’ll do that Monday while you’re keeping your ears open at school.”

“All right.” Joe still didn’t look entirely happy about the prospect, but there was no choice in the matter. He knew perfectly well that neither Frank nor Gertrude would let him cut school.

“Oh, and the bullet. When’d they say that’d come back from testing?”

“Um, Monday or Tuesday. Dunno why it takes so long,” Joe murmured, shoving his hand through his hair and narrowing his eyes slightly.

“Because they have to send it to the lab. Travel time.”

“Oh.”

“Anything else?”

Joe slowly sprawled onto the bed, staring around his horrendously messy room. “I keep wondering if Jesse might have seen anything, but that’s not going to be much help till he wakes up.”

“And even if he did see something, everyone was so bundled up it’d probably be hard to tell who it was,” Frank agreed quietly.

“We’re going to need a really good chain of evidence,” the younger boy sighed.

“Don’t get discouraged so soon,” Frank told him, ruffling his brother’s hair. “We’ve had worse, and solved ‘em.” Joe grabbed his wrist and pinned it to the mattress.

“When’re you gonna stop doing that?” the blond boy demanded.

“Probably never, because you’re never going to stop doing it to me.” Frank whacked Joe lightly over the head with the notebook, then- not without effort- pulled his wrist free.

“I haven’t messed up your hair for a week!”

“I know you, you’re biding your time. Waiting- lurking! Ready to pounce.”

Joe rolled his eyes. “Please. Is this another of your ‘compare-Joe-to-an-animal’ themes?”

“It might be, now that you mention it,” Frank laughed. “What, you don’t want to be a big cat- say a jaguar, hiding in the Aztec jungle-”

Joe burst into laughter. “Right, I can see it now. A jaguar leaps from the tree, knocks you to the ground- and instead of having a Hardy dinner, messes up your hair with its paws and trots off into the forest.”

Frank leaned against the wall and laughed till his sides started to ache. “Oh, what a mental picture,” he said at last, breathless. “And what’s even better, the look on the native guide’s face when the cat leaves!”

In the “That would be a total ‘what the hell?’ moment,” Joe chortled. “I might just have to draw that.”

And “Go for it!”

“Settle down, Frank, it’s not a punt/drive option...”

“Got football on the brain?”

“Is that so surprising?” Joe’s mood seemed to do one of it’s notorious shifts; he sat up and scowled at the notebook. “I’d swear it was Gold! No one else had any reason to shoot Jesse.”

Frank hesitated, then shrugged. “I can think of at least one sort of person- someone who bet for a certain number of passes, or a certain point spread-”

“A gambler would’ve shot before the game ended, when there was still a chance of actually changing the outcome,” Joe argued, gesturing rather agitatedly. “Not afterward, not when there were so many more people on the field. And they wouldn’t’ve gone for Coach Zeigler or me, either! And they’d’ve hired a pro for it, they wouldn’t risk getting caught or bungling the job. And a pro would use a .22, knowing how hard those are to trace-” Joe stopped for a breath and Frank put a hand on his tense brother’s arm.

“You’re probably right,” he agreed. “But don’t get it locked into your head that it was Gold or one of his cronies. It could just as easily be Daniver- that bullet could be from a police gun. Maybe he’s so desperate for a promotion that he’s set up a crime to solve.”

Joe’s frown didn’t fade. “You don’t really believe that,” he challenged.

“No, I don’t, but I do think we need to keep our minds open about this. I know what your instincts are telling you, but we’ve got to be thorough. If Gold did it, the evidence will lead us to him soon enough.”

Joe sighed, all the anger and tension seeming to drain out of him. He lay back down on the bed, propped his elbows on the mattress, and cupped his chin in his palms. “Maybe we can talk to Jesse’s family and see what they can tell us about it,” he said in a weary voice. “Maybe they have some enemies we don’t know about.”

“Now you’re thinking like a pro,” Frank said approvingly, and noted that down too.

The next morning, Sunday, both the Hardys woke early and without the usual morning lassitude and grumpiness; par for the course when there was a mystery awaiting them. Dressing and breakfast were accomplished quickly, and then the boys debated what to do first. “Call the hospital,” Joe decided, and took that duty for himself. While he did, Frank pulled out the cell phone and called Sarah Laughlin of the Bayport News TV station to find out when the copy of the football game video would be ready for them.

“No change for Coach Zeigler,” Joe reported a few minutes later. Frank was on hold, tapping his fingers idly against the wall as he waited. “Jesse’s showing signs of waking up. They won’t let him have any visitors but family, though.”

“Maybe we can go over there and talk our way in, or at least talk to the family- hello?” Frank interrupted himself. “Sarah? Oh. When will she be in? Okay- yes, Frank, to be specific. Yes, she said she’d make a copy for us. Okay, thanks a lot. Bye.”

“You got recognized.”

Frank laughed as he hit the hang-up button. “In a manner of speaking, I did. Sarah told people she was expecting one or the other of us to call. She’s not in yet, she works the later shift and gets in around noon. She’ll have the video with her when she goes in.” He paused, thinking. “Since we’ve got till noon, let’s do a hospital drop-in and let the Martinez’s know we’re going to try and help out.”

“Try,” Joe snorted as he went to find his jacket. “You sound like Daniver.”

“Better than bragging that it’ll be us and not the police that solve this. Joe, let’s not go into how incompetent the Gresham police look, all right?” Frank followed his brother to the coat closet. “The Martinez’s don’t need to worry that the investigation’ll be bungled.”

“Yeah, no point shaking ‘em up any worse than they are already,” Joe agreed, pulling out his heavy ski jacket. A second later Frank’s new coat- a Christmas present- flew through the air at him and he barely got his hands up in time to catch it.

“Thanks, I think,” he said as he donned it.

“Just testing your reflexes.”

Frank pulled the car keys from his jeans pocket and flung them in Joe’s general direction. They jangled as they collided with the floor, Joe’s outstretched hand missing the grab by a hairsbreadth. “Looks like my reflexes are better than yours today!”

Joe scooped the keys from the floor and held them up. “Looks to me like your coat’s a lot bigger than these keys, smartass. What do you say we go before my competitive nature kicks in?”

“Or any more of your abusive nature surfaces,” Frank agreed, pulling the door open with a grin. “I’m not in the mood to be pinned today.”

Bayport General Hospital was somewhat less crowded than usual when the boys arrived; Frank wondered if it had something to do with the early hour, or if things were just generally slow on Sundays. He inquired at the desk if the Martinez’s were there and was told they were upstairs with their son. “Can we go up and talk to them? We don’t want to disturb Jesse, but we did want to see them today if we could,” Frank requested politely.

“You can’t go up, but I’ll call up and ask if one of them would care to come down,” the man at the desk replied. He picked up the phone and dialed several digits, then spoke quietly into the receiver. Joe fidgeted as they stood there, his eyes darting around the waiting room. ‘He’s not very comfortable here,’ Frank thought, and didn’t blame his younger brother. It gave him the willies, too. Neither of them was as blase` about hospitals as they had been before the previous summer.

“Mr. Martinez will be down shortly,” the fellow told them after hanging the phone up again. The boys moved aside, letting the next person in line move to the desk, and turned to look at the elevators in the far corner of the room. Several minutes later a short, muscular brown-skinned man of about fifty exited from one of the elevators and walked rather uncertainly towards the desk. He was casually dressed in jeans and a colorful flannel shirt, and wore leather boots instead of shoes. His thick black hair was shot with silver and his pleasant, dark-skinned face was lined with weariness.

“Mr. Martinez?”

“Yes, I’m Domingo Martinez- Dom, they call me, Domingo is too long...you two would be Jesse’s friends?” the man replied, a Hispanic accent coloring his words. “My boy talked about how friendly you and your- gang? have been to him. He said that you had made him very welcome, helped him stop missing our home. Not everyone here has done that... though never did we expect this violence.” Domingo’s low voice held a complicated blend of sorrow, fear and anger.

“Maybe we should sit down where there aren’t so many people,” Frank suggested. Dom agreed and they took seats in the corner.

“You have come to see my boy?”

“Well, we hoped to, but they told us we couldn’t,” Joe said regretfully. “But we also wanted to talk to you a bit. We’re trying to figure out who did this.”

“The two of you?” Domingo looked from one to the other in surprise. “You are not police.”

Frank broke in, mentally shaking his head at his brother. Joe was always jumping ahead like that! He introduced them, then explained that they’d been solving mysteries for the past two years. “The principal, Mr. Neucomb, has given us permission to work on this,” he went on. “And the Bayport police are pretty used to us getting involved. Gresham isn’t, but we don’t think we’ll need to deal with them very much.”

“If you can find the monster who did this to my Jesse,” the man said softly, and stopped, his hands clenching on his knees.

“We have-” Joe started, stopped at a look from Frank, and then resumed: “We haven’t ever failed to solve a mystery yet. And we’re twice as determined to solve this one.”

‘Good save,’ Frank thought, knowing his brother had been about to declare that they suspected they knew who was responsible.

“So.” Dom looked from one boy to the other. “You want to speak to me- to tell me this? If that is why, you have all my hope and my blessing to find this...evil one.”

“Thank you, we’ll do our best,” Frank assured him. “Also, we wanted to know if there was any help you could give us. Do you have any suspicions, do you know of anyone who might want to harm you or your family? Or anyone Jesse mentioned as being unfriendly to him?”

“Ah. I do not think anyone wishes me or my family any harm. We have not been here long, as you know, but most people have been polite and many have been friendly. We had no enemies at home- our town was very small, much smaller than this. Of course there were bullies, but there was no anger against us when we left.” The man scratched his head for a moment. “My son did talk of the boy he took the place of on the football team, saying the boy- Gold?”

“That’s him,” Joe muttered.

“He said this Gold had made threats, but had done nothing. That he was too great a coward to act alone.” Domingo Martinez sighed. “Would a student shoot another student? There were some in your school who were friendly to him and others who were less friendly, but would this boy Gold go so far as this?”

“That’s what we’re going to find out,” Frank said softly.

“I was a crop-picker in Puerto Rico,” Domingo remarked, his eyes distant. “Here, I work in an office building, as a security guard, and earn more in a day than I earned in a month at home. Yet I wonder if home was not better. America is a great country, but she is a dangerous one. Here I do not break my back in the fields all day; my wife does not take in laundry for the rich people. I do not watch my children grow up ignorant and wild. But I sit here and wonder...not if my son will be ignorant, but if he will live.”

“Sir-”

“Dom. If you are going to work to help my son, you must not be formal with me,” the man insisted.

“They told us he was starting to show signs of waking up,” Frank said slowly.

“That is true. He moved and made some sounds.”

“Then I’m sure he’ll pull through just fine. When he does wake up- when he’s feeling alert enough for visitors- we’d like to see him,” Joe said earnestly.

“He will be glad to see you.” Domingo rose. “I must return to my wife. I will tell her of our conversation, it will ease her heart.”

“But better not tell anyone else,” Frank suggested, standing. “We work better when no one knows we’re working.”

For the first time, Jesse’s father smiled. “I will- as you say- keep my mouth zipped. Goodbye for now.”

Joe stood up beside his brother and they watched as the man strode back to the elevator. “So...” he said quietly, taking a deep breath.

“So, let’s drop by the police station and see if we can talk someone into snagging that paperwork from Daniver.” Frank zipped up his jacket and led the way from the hospital. Both the boys felt a sense of relief on their departure, but neither one said much during the drive to the station. The talk with Jesse’s father had subdued them both.

Their next task- persuading someone to get the paperwork out of Daniver’s clutches- proved to be no problem at all. Dwayne Fredrickson, the officer assigned to the case on the Bayport angle, had- as he put it- “run into that stuffed-shirt no-account slimeball on more than one occasion.”

“I would conclude you’re not his best friend,” was Joe’s ironic comment on that description.

“You ought to be a detective,” Fredrickson answered sardonically. “Anything I can do to let the air outta that loon’s balloon, let me know and I’ll do it. Within reason.”

Frank told him what they needed, then inquired hopefully if the ballistics tests had come back yet.

“Paperwork. Check. Ballistics test? Not yet. You know how they work over there? They have a long string of tables set up, a buncha guns on each one, and they just go down the line, trying to see which one the bullet fits into,” the irreverent cop replied. “So it takes a while. It’s got priority on it, though, which means there’s two people involved. One to try the fit and one to pick up the next gun in line.”

The Hardys exchanged a glance, both trying not to look to startled. “Oh,” Frank said at last. It was the only thing he could think of; he knew perfectly well a ballistics test was nothing like that. “Well, when they, uh, tell you which fit matched, let us know? We’re going to check around and see who’s registered to carry a gun in Bayport, and it would help to know what kind it is.”

“You guys think smart,” the cop observed. “I will let you know that, and I’ll stomp on Daniver’s feet and get those important pieces of paper, too.”

“Can you kick him for us, too?” Joe inquired, his eyes lighting up with malice. “He called us a lot of unpleasant names.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to, just on Daniver’s own lack-of-merit, but I’d also be happy to avoid an official reprimand. Now, if there’s nothing else....”

The boys took the hint and departed, thanking Fredrickson for his help.

“Man, he’s a weird one,” Joe murmured as the boys reached their car.

“No foolin’! But I have a feeling he’s as sharp as they come.” Frank had been rather impressed by the cynical African-American policeman’s manner; obviously not much got past him.

“Definitely. Okay, so what was next on the list?”

“How about lunch? It’s already after one.”

“No wonder I feel hollow,” Joe groaned, and the two slipped into a little deli not far down the street in search of nourishment.

Frank Hardy finished the last bite of roast-beef sub, took a swig of hot chocolate, and sat back with a contented sigh. His brother was still munching his own ham sub and simultaneously trying to peer at the newspaper of one of the other deli patrons.

Frank looked around the little restaurant with a smile. It was fairly crowded, most of the tables were occupied. The tablecloths were red-and-white checked, as were the curtains in the window. The white floor was clean, the counter polished. A TV hung from the ceiling, tuned to ESPN. The air was full of the smell of food cooking and warm from the big ovens and grills behind the counter. Bells over the door jangled every time it opened.

It was amazing, how much he noticed these things now. He’d always been observant, had been trained to be, but something about being home had sharpened his eye, so to speak. It wasn’t just that he was aware of his surroundings; he was acutely aware of how they affected him. And most of the time lately, they affected him in a very good way. Even after two weeks his joy and relief at being home again were intense.

Home again. Frank’s brow knotted at the thought. They still had to cope with the Unity situation. A letter from the Maine Board of Education had assured him that a full investigation would be carried out regarding his assertions, but that had been last week. No word had come back from the Mayor of Unity or the town’s police department. ‘Maybe I could ask the Chief to do some poking around,’ the young sleuth mused. ‘He owes us, but I’m sure he’d do it even if he didn’t.’

Something to think about for later. Meanwhile- “Joe, we do get the paper at home,” he murmured. “You can read it when we get back.”

Joe dragged his attention back to his sandwich. “And when is that going to be?” he inquired. “We’ve gotten a lot done, but it hasn’t led us very far yet.”

“Mm-hmm.” Frank sat up straight. “We’ve got some bits and pieces-”

“And they all point in the same direction,” Joe put in.

“That’s true,” Frank said cautiously. “But it looks like we’ve done about all we can for the moment.”

Joe, predictably, grimaced. He hated waiting. Especially during a case. “I suppose if I suggested having a chat with Gold, you’d veto me,” he mumbled, and took a long drink of his soda.

“You don’t think he’d actually confess, do you? It’d just get him on the defensive- and it might make for a nice welcoming committee for you tomorrow, if he took offense to us asking questions,” Frank pointed out.

“I guess so.” Joe frowned into his soda cup. “Well, what about going over and talking with Liz Webling?” He nodded at the patron with the paper, an elderly gentleman who the boys were vaguely acquainted with. Turning, Frank saw the Bayport Times’ main story. “Titans’ QB and Coach Remain Critical” was the headline.

“Better idea, let’s hop over to WBNY and get that video from Sarah,” Frank suggested, suddenly remembering their next task.

“Hey, yeah, and then we can run home and watch it,” Joe agreed, brightening. “I mean, some of it.”

“Gee, I wonder what parts you most want to look at,” Frank teased. Joe cast his eyes at the ceiling, picked up his trash, and went to throw it away. Frank followed, smiling. He wouldn’t put it past his brother to want to watch his game-making touchdowns. Fair enough; being in the bleachers gave one an entirely different view than being on the field. Besides, Joe did have a lot to be proud of.

Sarah Laughlin was not in her office when the Hardys reached the news building, but the secretary outside the room asked the boys to wait a moment. She went into Sarah’s office and returned almost at once, carrying a black VHS tape without a cover. “There won’t be any sound on it, since all the commentary is done up in the pressbox, but the picture quality is very good,” she assured them. “Sarah said you can keep it if you like, just don’t sell it or anything.”

“We won’t,” Joe agreed, accepting the tape. It looked just like any other tape, except there was no label on the top or side. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome. I hope it’s useful,” the red-headed young woman replied. Frank guessed she was in her early twenties and he was pretty sure he hadn’t seen her around town before. The nameplate on her desk was partially obscured by a pile of paper, all he could read was Lynne.

“Did Sarah tell you why we wanted it?” Frank asked.

“No, but I can guess. Don’t worry, I’ll keep my speculations to myself,” the secretary assured him. “Have to be discreet in this business.”

“It’s too bad more newspeople don’t think like her,” Joe commented five minutes later as he started the car.

“Yeah. Most of ‘em, you’d think they’d never heard that word before.”

The trip home was a quick one, as was usual when Joe was driving. “We’d better not get more snow,” the blond boy grumbled as they reached their own driveway. Getting out, he frowned up at the clouds drifting up over the horizon.

“Rain, I think,” Frank assured him. “Open the door, quick!” he added as an icy blast of wind whipped at them both. Joe hastened to comply.

After shedding their jackets and stamping the snow from their feet, the boys turned on the TV and VCR. Joe put the tape in and Frank picked up the remote controls. “I’m sorta surprised it’s not digital,” he remarked, hitting play. “So, at what point do you want to start?” he added, turning a grin on Joe.

“At the end,” Joe replied, unsmiling. “And quit teasing me about it.”

Frank’s smile vanished; he hit fast-forward and watched the tape zoom through the opening part of the game. After a minute or so, Joe stood up and walked over to the living-room window. The older boy tried to concentrate on the video, but finally gave up; he hit pause and turned to his brother. “You’re touchy today,” he said, trying to sound neutral. “What’s bugging you so much that you can’t take a bit of teasing?”

“You were pretty touchy yourself yesterday, snapping at me the way you did,” was Joe’s quiet reply. “But since you asked, I’m really bothered about this. You don’t know Jesse very well, you haven’t spent much time with him. I have. He’s a good friend, almost as good a friend as Chet. I’m not interested in the game. I could care less about football right now. I want to know who hurt him, who tried to kill him.”

“So you’re bugged because you think I’m not taking this as seriously as you are.”

“Oh, don’t twist my words!” Joe said crossly, swinging around. “I didn’t say you weren’t taking it seriously- it’s a case, you always take our cases seriously. All I’m saying is I don’t feel like making jokes or getting teased about my ego, or any stuff like that. I’m not in the mood for humor, all right? Think how you’d feel if it was Chet in that hospital- that’s how I feel. And think about Coach-”

“All right, so what you’re really saying is that I’m being insensitive.” Frank got to his feet and dropped the remotes on the sofa. Then he stopped and took a deep breath. “Insensitive in certain directions,” he mused aloud. “Oversensitive in others. Is it just me, or are we snapping at each other a lot more than usual?”

Joe bit thoughtfully on his lower lip for a moment. “It’s not just you,” he answered after a pause.

Frank nodded. “Y’know, I sorta expected it,” he said softly. “Just- sooner. A few months ago. Taking our frustrations out on each other ‘cause we were spending all that time together. And I was surprised- and glad- that we didn’t. I guess I thought that meant that we wouldn’t ever get to this point.”

“I really don’t know what you’re talking about,” Joe said slowly. “But it sounds kinda important.”

Frank sat back down on the sofa with a sigh, wondering for the first time where their aunt was. “When Dad was in the hospital,” he began again, “you and I stuck together a lot.”

“That’s an understatement, but yeah.”

“And we were both feeling really tense and uptight, so I sorta expected it to sorta rebound on each other, you know? I mean, we weren’t talking to anyone else-”

“Anyone at all, for that matter.” Joe nodded, folding his arms on his chest and leaning back against the window. “I start to see your point. If we didn’t snarl at each other then, why now?”

“Exactly.” Frank looked down at his hands and shrugged. “Any suspicions in your intuitive mind?”

Joe was silent, his gaze going unfocused. Time trickled past. After a while, Frank turned the TV back on and began fast-forwarding again. The only sound in the room was the whir of the VCR.

“I’m not very objective right now,” Joe said eventually, breaking the silence. “But I think you hit it with ‘insensitive in some things and oversensitive to others’. I mean for both of us,” he added as Frank looked up sharply. “It’s not all your doing. Some things I just don’t care about as much as I used to- or should. Like being tactful- and I never was too good at that. And then some things hurt an awful lot more than I’d expect them to.” He canted his fair head. “Sound familiar?”

“Very. I haven’t been too tactful lately myself, and not very patient either.” Frank shivered, remembering their Christmas Day blowup. There hadn’t been another argument as bad as that one, but there had been feathers ruffled, as Chet would say, on and off over the past two weeks. That was unusual; the Hardys seldom got on each others’ nerves, even when they’d been in close proximity for a long time. “And things do- get to me- more than they might seem to. More than I expect them to.” He paused, glancing at the television, then looking back at his brother. The winter sun was descending and the room was getting dark. “I’m still very glad to be home, though,” he added.

At this, Joe smiled. “I’m glad you’re home, too. I’d rather have you here and a bit moody than not here at all. We’ll just have to keep all this in mind and try to get a grip on our moods...gonna be like having two of me in the house for a while.” His smile twisted a little.

Frank nodded, then gestured to the sofa- just as his brother turned back to the window. Sudden sharp pain bit at him. Rejection... ‘No. No. Joe wouldn’t do that. He just didn’t see, that’s all,’ Frank told himself firmly. ‘You’re being oversensitive, just like you said a minute ago. Making a mountain of a molehill.’ “Joe?” the older boy said softly.

His brother glanced around; Frank gestured somewhat hesitantly at the sofa again. And gave himself a very firm, ‘I told you so!’ as Joe smiled again and crossed the room to sit beside him. He put his arm around Joe’s shoulders; the brothers exchanged a brief glance, and Frank’s simmering tension vanished entirely when the younger Hardy leaned up against his side.

“It was a good game,” Joe admitted after a few minutes of watching the images flicker silently past, still in fast-forward. “I just feel guilty as hell thinking about it. It seems completely wrong to be thinking about something that’s suddenly so unimportant.”

“It was a great game,” Frank answered him quietly. “And I was really proud of you. Still am. I can see why you’d feel it’s no longer very important, but- it’s the same with that as it is with Gold. Don’t go getting tunnel vision, kid brother. I know how single-minded you get on a case, and that’s good, but don’t forget or dismiss everything else in the process.”

“This is why you and I make a great team,” Joe murmured. “You listen to me and I listen to you. We actually take advice from each other. I think not too many people do that.”

“I think you’re right.” Frank considered for a minute. “Maybe all this sensitivity stuff was inevitable,” he mused, half-aloud. “Maybe it’s one of those stages people go through when they’re....”

“Adjusting,” Joe finished for him.

“Yeah. I hope it’s one of those quick-moving stages. I don’t care for it very much.”

“Me, either. I’ve been thinking with my emotions too much, and I feel pretty silly when I stop and realize that- if I’d just use my brain- there’s no need to react that way. I guess I’m backsliding a bit, I thought I was getting better at that.”

That summed it up very well, Frank thought. Case in point: Joe’s flipflop from being mad about Frank’s teasing about the football game to admitting the game had been a very good one. “I’ve been doing the same thing, I think my patience needs some reinforcing. It never used to fray so fast.”

“Like two of me,” Joe repeated rather cryptically, and then shook his fair head. “I wonder if that means I wouldn’t get along with myself, if I happened to meet me?”

Frank turned from the television and regarded his younger brother for an anxious moment.

“That didn’t come out right,” the seventeen-year-old mused after a moment. “I meant to say, not so much getting along with myself, I just kinda expect we’d argue a lot.”

“Do you feel all right? Because you sound weirder than usual.”

“Stop the tape, stop the tape!” Joe exclaimed, pointing suddenly at the screen. “Rewind! It’s there, the shooting.” A few seconds later, all question of arguing, sensitivity and weirdness had been forgotten in the larger problem of trying to identify the shooter.

The elderly woman frowned as she approached the large stone house. The car in the driveway told her that her nephews were finally home again. She wondered where they’d been. Probably out gallivanting around town on one of their neverending ‘investigations.’ Gertrude Hardy frowned, her face falling into familiar lines of disapproval and annoyance. Hefting the bag in her gloved hand, she fumbled in her pocket for her keys, wishing she’d put on her heavier boots. He feet were quite cold from the brief walk to the nearby shopping center. She almost wished she’d driven, but it was getting late and driving at dusk was something she tried to avoid. Her eyes weren’t what they’d once been.

When Gertrude opened the door and walked into the house, shivering slightly in the sudden temperature change, the scene that met her gaze irritated her beyond reason. Her nephews were home, all right. They were sitting on the sofa in the darkening living-room, intently watching yet another football game. And, as usual, they were sitting much too close to each other to suit her. Frank’s arm was around Joe and the younger boy leaning on his brother’s shoulder. Shameful. Boys simply had not behaved like that in her day, and there was no excuse for behaving this way in these days, either. Still, the elderly woman kept her rebuke to herself. She knew it would only provoke another interminable battle if she reprimanded either of them. They were so totally engrossed in their television that they hadn’t noticed her come in. So much for powers of observation!

Taking off her long coat, Gertrude tucked her gloves into the pockets and carefully hung it up. Then she carried her bag into the kitchen. She’d been planning the meal when she’d discovered she was out of paprika, and several other things she needed had sprung to mind as well. So she had made a trip to get them, slightly annoyed at herself for not asking the boys to pick them up on their trip into town. In the running of errands, at least, they were both reliable. Once she had put the shopping away, the woman emerged from the kitchen and turned on the dining-room light. “You’ll wear your eyes out, watching TV in the dark,” she remarked, and her nephews both started.

“We didn’t hear you come in, Auntie,” Frank said, turning to her. The very image of his father, even his voice... “We’re looking at Friday’s game,” he went on, and Gertrude frowned. “Trying to see if we can spot any sign of the person who did the shooting.”

“I might have known you’d get involved with that.” Disapproval was sharp on her tongue. Why Fenton had ever allowed these two- but then, she supposed most fathers did want their sons to follow in their footsteps. It was a shame, that dreadful, violent shooting- but surely the police could handle it without the assistance of a couple of teenagers. There was no denying that her nephews had either a great deal of luck or a considerable amount of skill when it came to catching criminals, but it really wasn’t a fit pursuit for two young boys.

“Of course you might’ve,” Joe agreed. His voice was mild, but the words were meant to be insulting. He didn’t even do the courtesy of turning to look at her! “Jesse Martinez is my teammate, and our friend. And Coach Zeigler is a friend too, teacher or not.”

Gertrude cast him a baleful look as she returned to the kitchen, but he didn’t see it. She paused in the doorway and regarded them both, the one so dark and the other so fair. They had both been adorable children and had grown into very handsome youths. ‘You wouldn’t guess,’ she thought bitterly, ‘that such ill manners were hidden under those pleasant exteriors.’ Truly, they could both be shockingly ugly in their words and deeds. Joe moreso than Frank- if Frank was Fenton all over again, Joe had certainly become the image of the woman who bore him.

Gertrude Hardy had never cared for the woman her brother chose to marry. She’d been suspicious of the woman’s golden beauty, certain that the lovely blue eyes that stared so adoringly into Fenton’s would quickly look aside and find a lover to beckon to. And perhaps she had. That might well explain a few things- like why there was not a trace of Fenton in Joe’s features. Still, if Fenton had not been Joseph’s father, it was impossible to tell. The boy’s resemblance was all to Laura, with not a sign of his paternity either way. Perhaps that was fortunate for him- and Laura.

Gertrude had also been utterly disapproving of Laura Taylor’s hypocrisy. The woman had always spoken vehemently of ‘women’s rights’, yet had pretended to be an utterly docile homemaker. Not that there was anything wrong with wanting equal rights, the spinster reminded herself. She herself had marched with the crowd and supported the ERA, and no one would dare deny it. No, the wrong was in saying one supported something and then doing nothing to back that statement- and then hunkering down to do the opposite. It was not until the boys were in first and second grade that Laura had finally left her settled niche as the mother-wife and taken a job. If she really was as much for her rights as she claimed, she would have made a way to have both children and career, not one and then the other.

For her part, Laura had always seemed to have trouble being polite and had often informed Gertrude that the running of her home was in her hands- not Gertrude’s. Had it not been for Fenton’s promise that she’d be welcome with the family, Gertrude was quite sure she’d be eking out a bare survival on her own. Laura had not welcomed Gertrude with open arms when she came to live with her younger brother.

Fenton was not blameless in the matter either, the older woman thought grimly. He’d been too soft on the children, spoiled them. He’d allowed the critical discipline to be neglected, had been away from home so often that the burden of scoldings and punishments had fallen on soft-hearted Laura. Laura, who tolerated the most insolent back-talk and even defended it as ‘telling the truth’. Laura, who thought that an A in English was reason enough for a special treat. Good grades should have been demanded, not rewarded. Conferences with the teachers over ‘excessive energy’ should have been met with punishment, not gentle requests to behave better. She’d even laughed when the boys had pulled all the cushions and pillows from every room in the house to make a ‘fort’, and had commended them on their originality. It was a wonder the boys had any respect for other people’s belongings!

Frank had been lucky. He’d inherited a great deal of his father’s calm, his discipline, his control. But Joe- Joe had his mother’s temper and impatience, and her stubbornness as well. True, Fenton and Frank could also be stubborn, but not to Joe’s degree- and never so loudly, either. He also had his mother’s sharp tongue, Gertrude mused, not pausing to think of her own sharp tongue, high temper and stubborn manner. It was such a shame that Frank showed no inclination to discipline his brother; he’d always had the strongest influence on the wild boy and he could have done much to alter the bad qualities Joe possessed. But Frank was blinded by affection, fondly seeing Joe’s faults as strengths. In that regard, Frank did share a trait with his mother.

‘Probably too late now, anyway,’ the woman thought resignedly, moving into the kitchen. The time to nip bad habits was before they got embedded in one’s personality. Joe had not the self-strength to change his ways now; he would always be rude and lazy, sloppy and insolent, manipulative of his brother and stubborn as a mule. It really was a shame. Were he only hers, he would not be so spoiled. She would have knocked the nonsense out of him. She would have insisted that neither of the boys even consider a career as detectives. But that was not a choice, not now. Legal guardian or not, she was not strong enough to stand against both of them- especially since Frank was eighteen, nearly nineteen, and her authority over him was in name only. They would have their way and she would do the minimum required of her to make sure no one could fault her for failing to provide.

“Dinner will be ready in about forty-five minutes,” she said through the doorway. To her surprise, Joe got up and went to set the table without being asked.

Two hours later, Gertrude readied herself for bed, her foul mood and dark thoughts somewhat lessened. For two such spoiled young brats, her nephews could be quite thoughtful, caring and sensitive. Joe had asked if she was feeling all right, saying she looked very tired. And Frank had insisted that the next time she needed groceries, she let them know. It was too cold out for her to tolerate for very long, and there were too many bad drivers in the winter. They had refrained from discussing their mystery at the table, which had pleased her, though she knew better than to think this meant they’d give it up. Really, she couldn’t fault their loyalty; it was right to want to help when a friend was hurt. Just not in the manner they did. But there was nothing she could do about it; she no longer made any attempt to stop them anymore.

Resigning herself to her lot, the elderly woman made sure her alarm was set before picking up her book to read her bedtime chapter.

“Boy, was she putting out vibes tonight or what?” Joe growled, sitting down hard on the side of Frank’s bed and rubbing his eyes with both hands.

“Definitely not ‘or what’, from what I picked up. Did you get anything specific?” Frank sat down beside him and rubbed his paper-dry hands together. Between the cold of the season and the constant exposure to water when doing the dishes, he was a little surprised the skin hadn’t started peeling yet. ‘We need to start using rubber gloves,’ he thought.

“No, I wasn’t trying to. All I really got was extreme dislike, disapproval and resignation. You’d think she’d use her shields- maybe she wanted us to pick up on it.”

“She might have!” Frank agreed, surprised that he hadn’t considered that himself. “Well, at least she’s settled down some.”

“Yeah. She was probably in a bad mood and took it out in thinking nasty thoughts.” Joe shrugged and looked at the night-black window with a little sigh. “I think I hear rain.”

Frank listened, tilting his head toward the window. “Sleet,” he corrected after a moment.

“No school tomorrow?” Joe sounded so hopeful that Frank had to laugh.

“I guess you’ll find out when you wake up. Don’t look so resigned, Joe. If you get the day off, great- if not, you can keep your ear to the gossip-mill at school and see what sort of information comes out.”

“A slight consolation,” Joe agreed, lying down on the bed behind Frank and stretching. “And a badly mangled metaphor... Too bad there wasn’t anything very useful on the tape,” he added with a sigh.

“Well, spotting the Crabbs Corners guys was something. We know Gold’s been hanging out with them, so if they were there, he would’ve been too.” Frank scratched his head. “Maybe we were looking in the wrong area.”

“More likely the camera just didn’t happen to be focused on the right part of the bleachers.”

That was the more likely explanation, Frank agreed silently. The camera view had altered wildly from shots of Jesse and the coach lying motionless to a rapid scan of the bleachers and then back again- several times. It had all taken place in less than a minute, though, so the opportunity to actually see anything had been severely limited. “Maybe I’ll go talk to those hoodlums tomorrow,” he suggested. “See what they have to say.”

“Probably something along the lines of, ‘so we were at the game, big deal,’” Joe replied.

“But they never attend any of the other games. So turning up at this one makes things look a bit suspicious. Like they knew something was going to happen and wanted to see it.”

“You sure they never go to the other games?” Joe propped himself up on his elbow, looking skeptical.

“Okay, I’ll amend that: I’ve never seen their dirtbikes outside the field after a game- or before it.”

“Coulda hitched a ride. Besides, this was the state title. Not your average game, even a bunch of hoodlums might be interested in the outcome.”

Frank twisted around and gave his brother an exasperated look.

“Just playing devil’s advocate.”

“I noticed,” the dark-haired boy said dryly. “Okay, so maybe there isn’t anything that we can pin on ‘em, but I still think it would be wise to talk to them. Make sure they know they’re hanging out with the wrong guy. Considering their past records, they might decide to give up some information when they realize they could be charged as accessories to attempted murder.”

“First degree, at that,” Joe muttered, sitting up. “That was obviously planned out in advance.”

“Yeah, good point...heavier punishment for premeditated.”

“One other good point: you don’t go anywhere near them till I’m home from school- assuming I have school.”

Frank raised a brow at this sudden show of authority. “Oh?”

“I mean it, Frank. They’re all running around armed these days, and there’s five now- Gold makes six. He was cutting school a lot before the winter break, and he wasn’t there two days last week. If he’s not at school, he’s hanging out with them, and you’re not going to go walking up and asking questions of that bunch. Not by yourself,” Joe told him firmly.

Frank’s eyes widened a little. “Armed, huh?”

“They all carry knives. And- remember Bobby? He always has a length of chain on him.”

“I remember him all right, he always was the meanest,” Frank agreed, grimacing at this reminder of the past.

“In fact...maybe we should ask Chet and Jerry to come along,” Joe mused. “Just in case. Guys who are armed are always more likely to attack than guys who aren’t.”

“Might not be a bad idea,” Frank conceded. He glanced over to see the time. Almost nine o’clock. “You got all your homework done, right?”

Joe rolled his eyes and nodded.

“Hey, I know you- mister last-minute panic.”

“I’ve been a lot better at that this year,” Joe protested. Then he smiled. “But you couldn’t know that, since you weren’t around to see it.”

“Incredible. It’s nothing less than a miracle. Next thing I know, you’ll be keeping your room clean on a weekly basis,” Frank teased.

“Oh, don’t worry, I won’t put anyone into shock by doing something so drastic.”

“Your concern for our health is very touching.”

“What can I say, I’m just being considerate old me.”

Frank snorted. “Excuse me, but the last time I checked, I was the elder.”

“No, it’s my turn this year,” Joe answered tranquilly. Frank stared at him.

“And just how are you planning to manage this little trick?” he asked, a grin spreading over his face.

“I’m not going to tell you that! If I do, you’ll use my secret method to reverse the process.” Joe’s expression was one of innocent reasonableness, but his eyes were shining with mischief.

“You- are-”

“Nuts, I know.”

“I must be getting predictable,” Frank muttered. “Y’know, I think this could be a lot of fun. If you’re the elder, I can make all sorts of younger-brother jokes about how my ‘older brother’ is getting all worn out and decrepit.”

Joe’s brow furrowed as he began to realize the disadvantages involved in his scheme. “Fine, but when we trade back, I’ll just use ‘em all on you,” he warned.

“Trade back? Who said anything about trading back?”

“Me! In a year.”

“Okay, so I have a year in which to amuse myself at your expense-”

“Like that’s anything new,” Joe said dismissively, and the brothers grinned at each other.

“You really are a loony-tune.”

“I have never denied it.”

Frank, beginning to feel slightly stiff from sitting twisted sideways, turned so that he was sitting cross-legged, facing Joe. He was enjoying the banter, happy that the bad moods of earlier in the day had passed, and very pleased at the look in his brother’s eyes. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d wondered when- if- the sparkle would ever return to Joe’s personality. It wasn’t quite as strong before, but it was definitely coming back.

Joe grumbled as he prepared to depart for school the next morning; the sleet had changed to rain overnight, so there were no cancellation, not even a delay. The air was not too cold, as long as the sun was out and the wind remained calm. On the positive side, he didn’t have to scrape an inch of ice off the car windshield, a task that always left his arms and back aching.

‘Bookbag, coat, gloves, hat, lunch money....all set. Now, just one more thing.’ Joe hurried up to Frank’s room, where his brother was just getting up, and made Frank promise once again not to try and interview the Crabbs Corner gang by himself. “You’d end up in worse shape against them than you did at Unity,” he said bluntly.

Frank looked a little insulted, though a good deal of that was probably due to his usual early-morning mood. “They took me by surprise up there, and it was at night as well. I do know how to defend myself, Joe.”

“Yeah, but the only weapon the frat-boys had was a stick,” Joe reminded him. “Speaking of that,” he added, suddenly remembering the unresolved situation.

“I’m going to do a little poking around with that this morning,” Frank yawned before Joe could finish asking the question in his mind. “That, and drop over to the gun licensing place. And call what’s-his-name...Fredrickson, and see if the ballistics are back yet.”

Joe sighed. “Have fun,” he said gloomily.

“Here’s wishing you no pop quizzes,” was Frank’s reply. “And keep your ears open- maybe Gold’ll brag to someone about it and you’ll solve the whole thing right there.”

“Nah, his parents would lie and say he was with them the whole afternoon,” Joe disagreed, not bothering to suggest that Gold wasn’t that stupid. In his opinion, Mark Gold was more than arrogant enough to brag about his shooting. “Thanks for the wish, though.” He went out to the car and headed for school, not sure quite how to feel.

One the one hand, it was great to have a case to work on. On the other, it was different from their usual- not the violence, particularly, though that had hit closer to home than normal. He just wasn’t used to being wrapped up in school while Frank was out checking into things. Felt like he wasn’t contributing. It had been more than a year since he’d had that feeling.

Joe had often found himself feeling superfluous in the past when the brothers were working on a mystery. Frank was more often the leader, more often the deductive one, and definitely the more logical one. Joe had frequently had the sneaking suspicion that his brother didn’t really need his help- or at least, not often enough for Joe to justify calling himself a detective. Sure, being fast enough to chase down a bad guy was useful, but first you had to know who the bad guy was.

The feeling of inferiority had affected him so badly that not long after he’d turned sixteen, he’d gone to Frank and suggested that the older Hardy work alone. Frank’s reaction had led them first into an argument (Joe had adamantly insisted that he was both serious and not being ridiculous, which were his brother’s first two reactions) and then into a rather long discussion about the finer points of their joint detecting. In the end Joe had accepted his brother’s feelings and reasoning on the matter, with the result that they continued working together.

Now, as he pulled up outside the high school, Joe felt the familiar uncertainty. Was he really going to be any help on this case? ‘Never mind, even if you don’t end up being much help on this one, you have been in the past and you will be again,’ he told himself firmly.

As expected, the school was abuzz with the football game and the shootings. So many students asked Joe if he and Frank were going to solve the mystery that by lunchtime, the young sleuth had stopped keeping count. Several suggested that if the Hardys weren’t going to take the case, they’d give it a try themselves, which made answering the question that much more difficult. Joe didn’t want the whole school knowing that he and Frank were working on it, but if he said they weren’t, the situation would spin wildly out of control. The last thing they needed was a bunch of eager kids all playing detective- and more likely than not, ruining any chance of solving the case.

‘That’s what we get for being ‘teen sleuths’, as the Times always puts it,’ he told himself wryly. ‘Copycats up the wazoo, and not one of ‘em trained like Frank and I are.’

“I don’t think Mr. Neucomb wants students getting involved, and I know the police don’t,” quickly became Joe’s stock answer through the day. To those who persisted, he added, “Practically the entire student body was there, so they could be considering us witnesses- and some of us might be suspects, too. They wouldn’t want to risk the guilty person tampering with evidence or framing someone.”

The last part settled even the die-hards; the thought of being framed seemed to unnerve most of them. Truthfully, having been in that spot more than once in his life, Joe had to admit: being under suspicion for something you knew perfectly well you didn’t do was damned unnerving. Particularly when the evidence started to look conclusive against you.

“So how many people have asked you about the coach and Jesse?” Iola asked as he sat down beside her at the lunch table.

“Approximately half the school. I guess the other half will ask after lunch,” Joe replied with a sigh and a shrug.

“Poor baby.” Iola patted his hand in gently-teasing sympathy. “Frank’s...?”

Joe nodded slightly, then said, “He’s checking into the Unity situation. We still haven’t heard a thing back from the Board of Education, and classes start up again at the University in a week. Bayport U accepted the transfer and his grades, but they are concerned about the personal remarks that some of the professors included. They are- how’d that go... ‘Disturbed that the comments seem to show a strong bias against the student. The comments are not consistent with the grades awarded, and may be subject to the laws prohibiting libel and slander,’ he recited. “So now he’s got the weight of the University behind him as well as all the other evidence.” Picking up his first hamburger, he started eating.

“Well, good!” Iola said with satisfaction, poking her fork at a rather dubious-looking pile of macaroni and cheese. “What sort of comments?”

“Oh, stuff about what a troublemaker he was. Superior snotty attitude, condescension and verbal abuse of fellow students, disruptive in class- and yet they give him all A’s, sure, nothing biased in those comments,” Joe answered, glowering at his carton of milk as though it were a Unity professor.

“Why no, nothing biased at all,” Iola agreed sarcastically. Changing the topic in hopes of improving her boyfriend’s mood, she asked, “Did- have you seen Jesse yet?”

“We tried to yesterday, but it was still family only. We did run into his dad in the waiting area. He’s a nice guy,” Joe answered nonchalantly, and this time he shook his head just a bit. Iola knew him well enough to know what that meant: no useful information.

“You’ll be pleased to know that a certain former quarterback was not in English today,” she remarked after a moment. Iola was in senior English, having taken a summer-school writing course her sophomore year that moved her past eleventh-grade level. She had plans to be a writer, though she had not decided whether to go into journalism or try authoring books.

“Oh, good. That means he won’t be in gym class, either,” Joe agreed. “That guy is nothing if not a pain in the rear.”

“Tell me about it. You know, it’s funny how people suddenly notice things. Gold’s been cutting school on and off for the past month, but he cuts today and all of a sudden everyone acts like it’s this big ominous deal,” his girlfriend said with a little laugh, shaking back her black hair.

“Yeah, I heard some of that myself.” Joe bit into his second burger and grimaced. “Cold already, and I just picked it up ten minutes ago. I wish they had a decent oven in this school,” he grumbled through his mouthful. “Anyway, Ben Tass was saying it’s a sign of guilt. That Gold is the one who did the shooting and now he’s staying away from school so no one will find out. Which is ridiculous. If he did it, he’d be careful to behave like he always did, which would mean coming in here and crowing about how Martinez got what he deserved.” Actually, Gold was doing just what he’d always done; skipping school. But there was no point mentioning that.

“Uh-huh.” Iola sipped her milk. “And if cutting class is a sign of guilt, you have to wonder what he was doing all those other times he cut... and what certain other people are doing when they cut...”

Joe chuckled as Chet sat down beside them. “People don’t think of that. And as for Gold, he was hanging out around Crabbs Corner. Trust him to fall in with delinquents as soon as he realized he wasn’t king of the hill anymore.”

“Birds of a feather,” Chet observed sagely, and started in on his piled-high tray.

“They sure don’t make any money off you, pal, even with the price of lunch rising every year,” Joe said half-admiringly.

“I do get my money’s worth, but if I was here next year, I mighta started falling behind. So a lot of students think Gold was responsible, huh? I disagree. He doesn’t have the guts,” Chet replied after very nearly inhaling a burger.

“I dunno. He’s a bully, and they do tend to be mainly talk and no action. But hiding in a crowd and shooting at someone who doesn’t know you’re there is the sort of thing a bully would do. And waiting till the game was over was pure mean-spiritedness. He’s got an abundance of that,” Joe pointed out casually, shoving aside the spinach and regarding his tainted fries with dismay. “Look at that. Revolting. Slimy spinach all over my fries. Can’t they aim a little better?”

“I pulled my plate away so they couldn’t offer me any,” Chet remarked smugly. “And I never met anyone who ate spinach with hamburgers anyway.”

“I’ll have to try that.” Joe found Iola’s hand under the table and was pleased when her fingers wrapped tightly around his.

“I hope your day went better than mine,” Joe Hardy grouched as he walked into the living room and dropped his backpack on the floor with a resounding thud. He stuffed his gloves into his coat pockets, then shrugged out of his heavy coat and went to put it away.

Frank, who was sitting on the sofa, waited until his brother returned to answer. “Not the most profitable day, no,” he answered ruefully. Joe dropped down beside him with a peculiar noise- sounded like a combination of grunt and sigh. “Let’s see, the ballistics test isn’t back yet. Fredrickson’s leaning on Daniver, but getting nowhere fast. I did find one interesting thing, though: Sean Gold, our former QB’s father, owns a .45.”

“Well, now that is a very useful bit of information.” Joe leaned back, tucking his hands behind his head and stretching his legs out in front of him. “I didn’t do much better, the only interesting thing I ran across was that our former QB cut school today. Which he’s been doing on and off during the last two months, but for some reason it generated a lot of talk today. He’s definitely number one on everyone’s suspect list. And wouldn’t you know, ninety percent of the school came up and asked if you and I were working on this.”

Frank shook his head, casting his eyes at the ceiling. “Inevitably. Just what we need, word getting around. We’ll be getting little ‘love notes’ in the mail any minute now.” The older teen was feeling discouraged by the lack of results and it showed in his exaggeration.

“Unless they decide to use the phone,” Joe reminded him.

“Oh, yes, how could I forget. ...To say nothing of our shooter deciding to ditch any evidence or go into hiding- or even leave town.” Frank braced his elbow on his knee and put his chin in his hand, thinking about that. “Let me guess, did certain kids also say that if we weren’t involved, they’d solve it themselves?”

“What a wondrous deduction.” Joe grinned as Frank gave him a dirty look. “And a couple others were conspicuous by their lack of inquiries, which means they’re probably already muddying the waters,” he went on. This time the brother detectives exchanged a rather jaundiced glance.

There were certain students at Bayport High who fancied themselves amateur sleuths and went out of their way to compete with the Hardy boys at every opportunity. The problem was, none of them possessed the intense training and wide experience that Frank and Joe did, so the most common result was that the ‘tenderfeet’ (as the boys called them) made a lot of trouble. Sometimes they did unearth something reasonably useful, but more often than not the interference meant distractions, false leads, false clues, dead ends, and a lot of bungled opportunities.

“You’d think that if we, who’ve had training, know that we still have a lot to learn, the tenderfeet would figure out that they’re getting in way over their heads with this stuff,” Frank muttered.

Joe snorted. “I’m looking forward to the day when we pull one of ‘em out of a tight spot and they don’t yell at us for messing them up or explain how they had the situation under complete control. But I think I’m going to be waiting for a long time,” he answered cynically. “At least when our buddies get into something, they keep their eyes open and don’t make wild assumptions.”

“We’ve got ‘em trained,” Frank agreed wryly.

“Yeah. So anyway, I spent most of my day explaining to people that I didn’t think Mr. Neucomb was going to give anyone permission to work on this, and that I was very sure the police wouldn’t. Then I pointed out that since we were all at Gresham field, we were all technically witnesses and someone might be a suspect, too. So anyone caught messing around with this might get suspected of trying to tamper with evidence. That scared most of ‘em off,” Joe explained, resting his neck against the edge of the sofa and closing his eyes briefly. “And then there was gym class,” he muttered.

“That was a smooth evasion,” Frank complimented, and his brother smiled briefly. “Speaking of gym-related things, Jesse’s conscious.”

Joe sat up so quickly that Frank wondered if his brother had given himself whiplash. “Now you tell me! And what about Coach Z?”

“I almost forgot, it was the first thing I did. My mind’s been on gun registration for the last two hours,” Frank told him, gesturing at the papers littering the coffee table. “Coach is showing signs of improvement. His pulse is stronger and he’s responding to stimuli. What happened in gym?”

“Oh, Barnes,” Joe said, in the sort of voice one would use to say, ‘I stepped in dog droppings.’ “Since he gets to play head coach for a while, he made us play football. I really hate being part of some lout’s wish-fulfillment! And on top of that, he is a lousy football coach! Just as well the season is over. If we tried to compete with him in charge, it’d be a complete fiasco.”

“The season’s over and he made you-? Yeah, I’d say that was wish-fulfillment, all right.” Coach Barnes had long wanted to take the position of football coach, so with Zeigler in the hospital, Barnes was evidently taking what advantage he could of his opportunity. “Must really be chafing him that he’s limited to the class periods.”

Joe grinned his wicked grin. “We made a point of mentioning that. Loudly and repeatedly. And Dave Mitchell asked him where was the administration going to put our State Champions banner. The look on Barnes’ face was priceless.”

“Good for Dave!” Frank laughed. “Hey, how’s he doing?”

“He’s okay. Getting a bit of attention. He pulled his Achilles tendon pretty good, but didn’t sprain it. No crutches or anything. He was in class, but he had a note excusing him from participating.”

“That’s good. I almost forgot about him in all the other excitement.” Frank felt a little abashed at his lapse; Dave Mitchell was a good friend and he didn’t deserve to be forgotten about.

“Hey, where’s Auntie?” Joe asked. “And is there anything good to eat left in the refrigerator, or have you scarfed it all down?”

“Auntie’s over at Mrs. Kessell’s house. Apparently someone had a baby and she wanted to see it,” replied Frank, who did not share his aunt’s interest in the lives of their neighbors. At least, not to the degree Gertrude did. “As far as things to eat, there’s still a mountain of potatoes and at least half the baked chicken.”

Joe rose from the sofa with alacrity. “It was cold hamburgers, fries, macaroni and cheese, and spinach today,” he explained as he disappeared into the kitchen. “And the server got spinach all over my fries.”

“Sounds like a new taste sensation,” Frank answered idly, leaning over to heft his brother’s backpack.

“Are you out of your mind?”

“Only slightly. You will have observed, of course, that I didn’t say it was a good taste sensation.” Silence. Frank grinned. “Got a lot of homework?”

“More than I ever wanted.”

“Joe, one math problem would be more homework than you wanted.”

“That’s true, given some of the math problems we’re getting lately. They take up about half a piece of paper each. But no reports to write, so I should be done by, oh...three a.m.”

“Oh, an early night. ...Seriously, I’d like to go have some words with the Crabbs Corner guys.”

The microwave went on and Joe appeared in the doorway for a moment. “Ah, yes. That won’t take long, and our little Gold friend might still be with them. Let’s do that after I eat, don’t want to face that bunch on an empty stomach. Then again,” the blond boy mused as the microwave dinged and he turned back around, “they’re enough to bring a meal right back up again...”

“Lovely thought. Keep it to yourself and treasure it alone,” Frank commented sardonically.

“Why, brother, are you feeling a little weak in the stomach?”

“There are just more pleasant things to think about, brat.”

“Well, I’ll give you that one, too; there are,” Joe’s voice agreed magnanimously. A minute later he re-emerged and sat down at the table with a plastic dish full of chicken and potatoes. Steam rose from the food as he ate. Frank, deciding he also felt a bit on the hungry side, went to find something to munch.

“They don’t move around much, do they?” Joe remarked as the Hardys pulled up outside the Kwik-Shop. Six guys in heavy coats were standing and sitting on the lee side of the convenience store; the Hardys’ left, the store’s right.

Frank shook his head as the two boys got out of their car. Nine times out of ten, this was where the delinquents hung out, so finding them took no great effort. The Hardys had discussed the rather delicate situation on the way over, and decided exactly what not to do. What they were going to do depended on Mark Gold. Since he was there, the young sleuths would need to be extra cautious.

“Well, look-a-here, it’s the Hardlys,” Bobby drawled.

“Still can’t spell, can you, Robert?” Joe replied mildly.

Bobby flushed and his companions laughed. All of them were holding beer cans and there was an open twelve-pack on the sidewalk. Frank cast a sidelong look at his brother; if nothing else, these guys were guilty of supplying alcohol to a minor. Gold was eighteen or nineteen; the others were all in their early twenties.

“What’s on you kiddies’ minds?” John, the leader of the group, inquired.

“We saw you at the game on Friday,” Frank said coolly. “Wanted to ask you some questions about that.”

Mark Gold swore, and continued to swear until Carlos leaned forward and smacked him rather hard on the back of the head. “Why?” the older thug inquired, squinting at the Hardys.

“And what makes you think we’re gonna answer?” Trent added belligerently.

“We thought you might’ve seen something that the rest of the crowd didn’t,” Joe explained to Carlos, ignoring Trent. “Everyone else was facing forward. You guys were down at the end, near the goalposts, so you had a different angle. Thought you might’ve seen who was carrying the gun.”

“Nope,” John said mildly. “Nothing like that. Weren’t looking at the crowd, looking at the field.” He was at least half-drunk, Frank thought in disgust. But at least he wasn’t feeling aggressive. If John didn’t order his bums to attack, they probably wouldn’t get up the inititive to do it themselves.

“At the field,” Gold echoed, and laughed. “Damn good show. Pow!” He punched the air. “Thud!” He slapped one hand against the other. “Martinez out. Got ‘zac’ly what he d’served!” The boy picked up his beer can and swung his arm up in a violent arc, toasting the thought of Jesse’s near-fatal injury.

Frank glanced at his brother, but Joe’s face was impassive. “Well, thanks anyway. If you do think of something-”

“We will be sure to let the police know ‘bout it,” the sixth boy smirked, speaking very carefully. Joe ignored that too, and nodded towards the car. Frank followed, relieved that his brother wasn’t blowing his top, but a little puzzled by it too. It wasn’t like Joe to let insults like that pass, and he wondered what was up.

He had his answer about three minutes later. As soon as they were well clear of the Kwik-Stop, Joe pulled out the cell phone and dialed. “Lieutenant Fredrickson, please.”

“What’s going on?” Frank asked, trying to keep his eyes on the road and frown at his brother simultaneously.

“I saw- Hey, it’s Joe. Listen, we were just at the Kwik-Stop on Alder lane. Gold’s there, with the guys who hang out at the filling station at Crabtree plaza. They’re all sitting there getting drunk...yes...but listen. Gold’s carrying a gun.”

Frank very nearly hit the brakes in shock, but managed to control the impulse. He did pull into a random parking lot, though, and put the car in neutral. “What?” he said at last, turning to his brother.

Joe was still speaking. “...Asked if they’d seen anything unusual at the game, and one of ‘em said no. Then Gold said they’d seen Martinez get shot, and did a sort of toast with his beer; his jacket was unzipped and when he raised his arm, I saw the gun. He’s not wearing a holster, it’s just stuck in his belt. I bet you’ll find it’s been fired recently, and I bet the bullet will match it.”

“I’ll be damned,” Frank murmured. He’d heard of dumb criminals, and even run into a few now and then, but this one surely took the prize. Even a fool senior who was stuck on revenge ought to have more sense than to carry the weapon of his vengeance around with him. Although, he probably hadn’t intended for it to be seen. Frank himself hadn’t seen it; it was plain luck that Joe had been standing at precisely the right spot to catch a look.

Joe spoke into the phone for a few more moments, then turned it off and put it away. “He’s coming out here, with backup,” he reported, his eyes very bright and his expression grim. “And he doesn’t want us in the area. Just in case Gold feels like snapping off a few shots at the folks who fingered him.”

“Good point,” Frank agreed, and pulled out of the parking lot. “That gang doesn’t much like us anyway. I think being an anonymous tipster would probably be wise, under the circumstances.”

“So it was Mark Gold,” Jesse Martinez said softly, looking from one Hardy to the other. “I sorta figured it would turn out to be him.”

Joe was sitting on the side of the hospital bed; Frank sat in a chair next to it. It was Thursday afternoon and Jesse’s mother and father had gone home not long after the Hardys arrived, taking a brief break from their vigil over their injured son. Domingo had been effusive in his praise and thanks to the boys when they first arrived. Mrs. Martinez- Joe hadn’t caught her first name- had spoken rapidly in Puerto Rican, then slowly in English, expressing her heartfelt gratitude.

On Tuesday, Fredrickson and his backup had arrested the Crabbs Corner gang and Mark Gold. There had been vast quantity of smug ‘I knew it was him!’ remarks from the Bayport High students, following the newspaper headlines Wednesday morning. That aspect was (thankfully, in Joe’s opinion) dying down as everyone adjusted to the news. His role in spotting the gun had taken on something of a life of it’s own; all the detective wannabes were annoyed with themselves for not spotting that very obvious “clue” themselves.

Of course, hearing Mr. Neucomb announce it over the PA was not quite what Joe had been expecting either. He was pretty sure he hadn’t gotten rid of his blush until after he got home from school. Frank had found his brother’s discomfiture extremely amusing, and had wished out loud that he’d been there to observe it all firsthand. Joe was grateful his brother had not been there; as it was, he’d taken some teasing about his sudden ‘shyness’. Not that he wasn’t pleased at the outcome, it was just that he didn’t feel he was a hero just because he’d been standing in the right place at the right time!

On the more serious side of things, Mark’s parents had attempted to cover up for him, just as Joe had predicted, but the Golds had been stymied by the overwhelming evidence against their son. There were the collective assertions of the Crabbs Corner gang; the fingerprints on the weapon; the ballistics test, which had been a perfect match to the gun in Mark’s possession; and the news video that clearly showed their son and his unsavory friends at the football field. Faced with all this, they had retreated into their ‘no comment zone’, as Joe labeled it, and kept themselves self-imposed isolation in their fancy three-level house.

The Hardys had not been permitted at the interrogations, and neither of them had been at all upset about that. However, being their usual curious selves, they had visited Fredrickson later to see what he would tell them. He’d been quite forthcoming, but requested that they keep the information to themselves. It was, as he’d said dryly, going to be difficult enough to find impartial jurors anyhow, what with more than half the city witnessing the football game in question.

Frank and Joe had agreed to keep quiet, but asked if they could at least tell Jesse and his parents, and the cop had admitted that was only fair. He hadn’t had the opportunity to meet the Martinez’s yet and was willing to let the boys take care of it for him. “Just like you did for most of the rest of this case,” he’d said wryly to the boys when they met in the privacy of his office. “But let me tell you,” he’d added, his dark face splitting into a wide grin. “Daniver is mad as sh- as all git-out. I rubbed it in a bit, saying if he’d cooperated with us he mighta cracked it on his own. Since he sat on those papers we wanted, we had to find other ways of investigating, and look how well they worked!”

The boys had gotten a good laugh out of that, and agreed that the pompous Daniver had received exactly what he deserved.

This afternoon, Frank had learned that Jesse, who’d been steadily improving, was now being allowed to have non-family visitors. Domingo had called from the hospital and told him that Jesse was asking to see them both. The Hardys had hurried over after Joe got home from school and promptly gave Jesse the news about Mark Gold’s arrest and the reaction of the bully’s parents. Now the boy leaned back against his pillow, his dark skin a little paler than usual but his eyes alert. “So what happened when they were arrested? Did they resist, or confess, or what?”

“That we didn’t see,” Joe replied.

Frank explained about their desire to avoid identification as ‘tip-offs’ by the gang. “Those guys already don’t like us, so we figured on staying out of the way. Of course, if they read the paper, they’ll know we called the police as soon’s we left ‘em, but they aren’t exactly the literate types. I was mainly worried Gold would start shooting.”

“We did talk to Fredrickson later, though,” Joe went on. “Seems the gang decided to plead guilty to providing a minor with alcohol, rather than be charged as accessories-”

“As what?”

“An accessory is- well, there’s innocent bystanders, and then there’s not-so-innocent bystanders. Someone who knows what’s up, but doesn’t prevent it, or even encourages it,” Frank explained. “Not quite an accomplice, who usually helps with the planning and provides some sort of support.”

“Oh. I always thought it was those things women buy to go with an outfit. Like shoes and belts-” Jesse chuckled as Joe pretended to threaten him with a clenched fist. “So they took the lesser charge and...?”

“And admitted everything they knew about Gold’s plan, which is to say everything there is to know. He made no secret about what he was going to do,” Joe replied more seriously. “He didn’t quite brag about it, but they all went over the details several times. So he’s going to be looking at some major jail time. The others’ll get some too, but not as much. Though the alcohol laws are pretty strict. And it’s not the first time some of ‘em have been in prison, either, that always counts against people.”

Frank nodded agreement. “Concealed weapons, too. They were all carrying knives.”

“Wonder if they know how to use ‘em,” Joe murmured, and then shook himself. “Not that it matters. I still can’t believe Gold was that stupid. Fredrickson was astonished, and I think it takes a lot to astonish him. He said not only was the gun loaded, the safety was off. Said it was a wonder Gold hadn’t...” Joe grinned. “Perforated his-”

“We get the idea, brat,” Frank cut in.

“Privates,” Joe finished. “Ha, you thought I was going to say something else. You forget how Fredrickson talks. Interesting guy,” he added to Jesse, who was grinning as well. “Has a very peculiar way of talking- like saying he wanted to ‘pop that loon’s balloon’ when talking about the Gresham guy who was working on the case.”

Jesse laughed again. “Original,” he remarked. Then he grew serious and Joe knew exactly what his friend was going to ask. “How about the coach? Ma and Pa told me he was hurt...”

The Hardy boys traded a regretful look. “He’s...he has improved some, but he’s still not out of it. He is getting better,” Joe replied slowly. “But not very quickly. He was hit in the head, you see, and that-”

Jesse’s pallor intensified. “So even if he does recover, he- he might be- impaired.”

“It’s a possibility,” Frank agreed quietly. “That’s one reason Gold’s going to get such a heavy sentence. He tried to kill you, but you aren’t going to suffer any lasting damage. But Coach Z...he very well might, and that’s going to affect his livelihood.”

Jesse nodded, then looked at Joe. “Ma said there were four shots.”

“Yeah. One each for you, me and the coach, and one to distract the news people- or maybe damage the camera.”

“But you’re okay, right?”

“I’m fine,” Joe answered, feeling a touch of survivor’s guilt. It seemed wrong somehow that he should be untouched, while his friend and his coach had been so horribly wounded. He was pretty sure Frank would not agree, though.

“I’m glad,” Jesse said simply. “It must’ve infuriated him to miss you. And you wouldn’t have been able to catch him so quickly if you had been hurt.”

“Funny you should say that,” Joe mused, glancing at his brother. “He didn’t seem to annoyed to see me-”

“Maybe that was why he started swearing the way he did,” Frank pointed out.

“Oh, well, true. I thought he was just cussing about the game in general, but maybe...” Joe trailed off, thinking about that. It did make sense.

“Remember, he was drunk, too. Probably wasn’t thinking of the game until you reminded him.”

“Oh well,” Joe murmured rather pointlessly, then looked back at his schoolmate. “You’re starting to look like you’ve had enough. We better let you get some rest,” he suggested, seeing that Jesse’s eyes had closed.

“I’m all right,” Jesse started. Then he took a deep breath and sighed. “Although...”

“If you’re all right now, you’ll be better tomorrow,” Frank pointed out, standing. The junior smiled a little, but didn’t attempt to argue. Joe reached over and gave his friend’s arm a light squeeze, then got up from the bed.

“Take it easy,” he admonished Jesse. “No running around, no fifty-yard passes...”

Jesse snorted. “Sure thing...you lunatic.”

“Lunatic,” Frank repeated. “Oh, I like that one. Mind if I start using it?”

“Hey!” Joe protested over his friend’s, “Help yourself, Frank.” Then he shook his head. “I owe you for this,” he told the Puerto Rican boy. Jesse smiled and the Hardys took their leave to let him rest.

The next day the Hardys dropped in on Jesse again, and this time they brought Chet Morton with them. Chet was the only other guy on the football team who was part of the ‘gang’ the boys hung out with, and he’d been asking- nagging- to come in and see Jesse himself. This time the discussion was not so serious; the boys felt it wiser to say as little as possible about the case in general, in an attempt to keep the rumors under control. They also did not want to upset Jesse’s parents, his mother in particular. She was a lovely woman, younger than her husband, and apparently rather high-strung.

Or perhaps, Joe thought, it was the strain of having her eldest son injured that made her so fluttery. He suffered a brief memory of his own mother and her reaction to Frank’s panic attacks after he’d been stabbed. Anxiety unsettled even the most ordinarily serene people. Like Laura Hardy- or Frank himself.

Shaking off the thought, Joe smiled a little as Chet and Jesse discussed the championship game, practically re-playing the whole thing. The team quarterback looked much better today than he had yesterday. There was more color in his brown face- now that was a contradictory notion, Joe told himself- and more energy in his gestures. He sat up straight, not leaning against the pillow. He still had the IV and vital functions monitor hooked up, but they didn’t seem to be bothering him much, and he looked less undignified in the hospital smock than most people did.

Joe took a look around the little hospital room, letting his mind wander while the other three talked. It looked just like the room he’d been in- and the one Frank had been in. Three beds, two of them empty, with ‘privacy’ curtains around them. A door in the corner of the room that led into the bathroom. A window on the wall opposite the entrance. A small table by each bed, a couple of chairs, a fluorescent light fixture over each bed... hooks on the wall for the visitors’ jackets. There were several pots of flowers on the windowsill and another rather interesting little plant on the table by Jesse’s bed. They brought a certain amount of life and color into the otherwise stark and functional room.

“Hey, lunatic,” he heard someone say, and turned to frown at Jesse.

“Who’re you talking to?” he demanded as his brother and Chet laughed.

“I like your new nickname,” his best friend teased.

“I’m not sure what I did to earn it.”

“Just being yourself, brat,” Frank replied with a grin.

“Cut it out with the ‘brat’, would you? Between the two of you jokers, I’m likely to forget my own name,” Joe complained.

“I just wondered why you’re being so quiet. It’s not like you,” Jesse explained, his tone conciliatory.

“Don’t mind him when he barks,” Chet assured the younger boy. “He-”

“Keeps thinking about Coach Z,” Joe said curtly, cutting off Chet’s next remark. He regretted it a moment later, as the buoyant air left the room and a subdued silence settled in. “Sorry,” he murmured, taking a deep breath. “Didn’t mean to deflate everyone... I’m going to go see how he’s doing.” He rose quickly and made his escape, feeling bad on several levels.

Frank Hardy watched as his brother hurried out of Jesse’s hospital room, feeling a little sorry for him. Joe’s emotions were rather a jumble at the moment, but there was a distinct feeling of guilt and a great deal of tension. Frank was a bit tense too; after this summer, he suspected any hospital setting would have the same effect on him. “You know how he gets,” he said quietly to Chet, who seemed to be caught somewhere between indignation and sympathy. “He’s a little too passionate about wanting everyone he cares about to be well and happy.”

Chet’s expression settled into sympathy and he nodded. “Joe takes it real personally when one of his friends gets hurt,” he explained to the puzzled Jesse. “And if he can’t do something about it, he starts feeling helpless. I guess he’s brooding about Coach, even though he knows it won’t do Coach- or him- any good.”

“He seemed okay yesterday,” Jesse ventured in a questioning voice.

“He was glad to see you improved. Now that he can stop worrying about you, he’s turned it all over to the coach,” Frank explained. But he didn’t mention the other aspect; he wasn’t sure he wanted to remind his friends of the previous year’s repeated hospital trips. No point making Jesse feel bad when there was no fault to him. If Joe wanted to see his friend- and he did- he’d simply have to put up with coming to the hospital to do it.

The trio talked for a bit longer, gradually perking up somewhat. But when Joe hadn’t returned after nearly twenty minutes, Frank decided he’d better go find out what was up. Excusing himself, he went down to Intensive Care, and once there he found his brother by telepathy, rather than asking at the nurse’s station.

Joe was in Zeigler’s room, standing beside the bed and gazing down at the man. Frank stepped up beside the younger boy and sighed. Zeigler was on a respirator and the formerly muscular coach looked gaunt and frail. His skin was pale, almost gray, and his eyes were closed.

“He’s so far away,” Joe whispered, not turning. Frank said nothing, only rested his hand on Joe’s shoulder. “I can’t...” Joe began, and then stopped, squeezing his eyes closed and turning away

‘Can’t reach him,’ Frank thought as he put his arm around his brother. ‘Just like you couldn’t reach Dad.’ It was a bitterly sorrowful thought, and it troubled Frank deeply. He didn’t like Joe drawing this parallel, reliving his anguish at seeing their father in a similar situation. “Let’s get you home,” he said softly. “You’re no happier being in this place than I am, and you’re working yourself into a depression about the coach.”

Joe pulled away and walked out the door; Frank followed, checking a sigh. Joe annoyed was better than Joe depressed, as long as he didn’t add the two together and refuse anything resembling comfort. Fortunately, the surge of annoyance seemed to wear off when they were on the way home, having paused to say ‘later’ to Chet and Jesse. “I hate to admit you’re right,” the seventeen-year-old spoke up eventually, gazing out at the late afternoon traffic and squinting against the setting sun. “But you were right, I was... am letting it get to me. You know why,” he added, half questioning, and Frank nodded.

“You keep thinking about Dad.”

“All this fall and winter, most of my thoughts landed on Mom,” Joe answered softly. “Now, with this...yeah, Dad’s suddenly on my mind an awful lot. And it’s- hard to...to see it happening again...” Joe sucked in a shaky breath and said nothing more as they proceeded home. It wasn’t until he was in the safety of his own room that he let out what he was really feeling. “I feel like I ought to be able to- to bring him back somehow.”

“You felt that way about Dad.” Frank had followed Joe into Joe’s slightly-less-messy than usual room; he stood near the door, watching his brother with troubled eyes. “You always feel responsible when someone’s hurt, but...”

“But?” Joe was sitting on his bed, pulling books out of his backpack.

“But since you’re identifying Coach with Dad right now, maybe you’re feeling it worse than usual.” Frank canted his head. “Yeah?”

Joe finger-combed his hair back and pondered that for a moment. “Yeah. He’s in almost exactly the same situation Dad was, he’s drifting just as far away- and since I couldn’t do anything for Dad, I feel like-”

“Joe, listen,” his brother said gently. “Saving the Coach- even if you could manage it, it won’t bring Dad back.”

Fire kindled in Joe’s blue eyes. “You think I don’t know that?” he growled.

“Yes,” Frank told him bluntly. “You just finished saying he’s in the same situation Dad was. That you’re identifying him with Dad. Brother, I’m getting a little afraid of what- of how you’re going to take it if Coach Z doesn’t pull through.”

Joe stared at him, brow puckering with anger- and confusion.

“I think you’re going to tell yourself it’s your fault for not pulling him through. You do have this tendency to blame yourself for things you can’t prevent.” Frank paused, not wanting to say any more on that topic if he could help it. He didn’t know if Joe still blamed himself for not noticing that their mother hadn’t put her seatbelt on. “And I think,” he added slowly, “that since you’re identifying him with Dad, you’d take his death very hard. Much more so than the average Bayport High football player, for example.”

Joe’s shoulders slumped. “So what do you suggest I do about it?” he asked in a low, drained voice. “I don’t want someone else I care about to die! And I can’t help how I feel...” Suddenly he pushed the backpack away and buried his face in his hands. “Frank, why is this happening?” he groaned. “I feel like- like I’m caught in this never-ending loop.”

Frank Hardy quickly closed Joe’s bedroom door and dropped down beside his brother on the bed, taking the distraught boy in his arms. “This happened because Mark Gold is a shitty little ass who decided to get violent,” he said softly. “And yes, it’s pretty disturbing, both that he’d do it and that it reminds us- I do mean us- so much of what happened this summer. But it’s a coincidence, Joe. We’re not being put through some kind of- of-”

“Atonement,” Joe whispered, his voice trembling as he tried to control his feelings.

“Atonement?”

“I wanted to save Dad- and I couldn’t. And now this-” Joe’s head was bowed, Frank couldn’t see his face.

“Atonement means making up for something you did wrong,” Frank pointed out, still confused. “Atonement would be if you felt that saving Coach made up for not saving Dad. I find it hard to believe you’d feel that way.”

“I guess I have the wrong word,” Joe agreed after a minute.

“You feel like you’re being punished for something?” Frank asked tentatively.

“I feel like I’m being set up for failure,” the younger Hardy replied miserably. “And- that every time I fail, someone else is going to suffer. I couldn’t save Dad- now Coach is in the same boat, and if I can’t save him, someone else will-” Joe stopped and slowly shook his head. “I know it’s crazy, superstitious, but it’s haunting me! Who’s going to be the next one?”

Frank was quiet; he had picked up on the fear his brother wasn’t saying aloud.

What if you’re the next one? What if I can’t save you?

He wanted to offer some sort of reassurance, but what would ease his brother’s mind?

“Some kind of what?” Joe asked after a few minutes, finally sitting up and rubbing his arm across his face.

“I forget,” Frank admitted, coming back to reality with a jolt. “I had a word in mind, but I lost it. Oh! Penance.”

“I think that was the word I wanted.” Joe tried to smile. “Doing penance for screwing up.”

“Well, that only works when you’ve genuinely screwed up, not when coincidence- and people like dear little Mark Gold- are involved,” Frank answered, his voice heavy with bitter sarcasm.

Joe didn’t answer right away, but eventually, reluctantly, he nodded. “Thanks, brother,” he murmured, laying his head wearily on Frank’s shoulder.

“Just how long have you been feeling like this?” the older boy asked, stroking the bright hair. He wondered if it had something to do with his brother’s recent difficulty in keeping his emotions under control. Still, that had been going on since well before the football game. It had probably added to Joe’s difficulties, but not been ultimately responsible for them.

“Last night, I guess. It was great to see Jesse looking so much better, but then I started thinking more and more about Coach...”

“I see. You had all that worry about Jesse hanging around with nothing to do, so it joined forces with your worry about Coach Z and made it about a hundred percent worse.” For a moment he feared he’d said the wrong thing, but then his brother made a strange little sound of amusement.

“That sounds about right.” Joe’s momentary amusement passed and he sighed. “I wish I could get rid of it, but- I just keep worrying about what might happen next.”

“That’s unusual for you,” Frank said aloud, without thinking. “This whole situation has been rougher on you than most of our investigations.”

“I told you,” and now there was a note of impatience in the younger boy’s voice, “it’s one thing when it happens to people I don’t know. It hits me a lot harder when it’s people I care about who get hurt. Maybe even killed.” He sighed again. “It just feels like people keep being- taken away. And in the end...”

Frank wanted to protest, but he couldn’t. Mom and Dad had been ‘taken away’. He wished he knew what to say. There would always be crimes committed. There would always be murders. That was why they wanted to be detectives, to do something about it all. But they couldn’t always be thinking about the ones they couldn’t save, the crimes they couldn’t stop. And they couldn’t live their lives fearing that something horrible might strike down someone they cared about at any second.

“It’s like a hurricane, or a tornado, or an earthquake,” he muttered aloud, hardly aware that he was talking at all. “You take what precautions you can and then you go on with your life, because sitting and waiting for disasters to happen isn’t really living- it’s just surrendering to fear.”

Beside him, Joe sat up straight, as if he’d been poked. “You’re right. You’re right, Frank. That’s what I’ve been doing. Waiting for disaster to happen. Worrying how I’m going to deal with it when it gets here.” He paused; Frank looked at him. “But when it gets here, that’s the time to deal with it. Anticipating it is a waste of time, because it may never show up.”

“Now you sound like my optimistic kid brother,” Frank said proudly, smiling at him. “And whenever it shows up, if it does, we’ll deal with it together. Remember? Where you go, I go.”

Joe smiled, his lips quivering just a little, and then he leaned forward and hugged Frank tightly. “I just keep thinking it could’ve easily been you,” he admitted after a few seconds.

“It was much more likely to be you, since you were the one he was pissed at,” Frank pointed out, a little surprised.

“I know. It’s...well, ever since we talked on Christmas- you know.” Joe was blushing. “How I said- we both said- about not trading?”

Frank grinned. “It’s a good thing I do remember that, yes.”

“Ever since that, I- well, I guess I freaked myself out a bit. I mean...I guess when you’ve only really got one person...you do hang on tighter to ‘em than most people would.”

“I guess so,” his brother agreed, piecing the logic together without much difficulty. When there was only one person in your life you could honestly say you loved, the thought of losing that one was worse than just about anything else you could think of. “Some paranoia is perfectly acceptable, and I admit, I’ve indulged a bit myself-”

“You had every reason to. Oh, Frank, I don’t know- I’m almost surprised we both saw another year. It’s a scary thought. I really used to think nothing terrible could ever truly happen.”

“But we got through it.”

Joe looked up. “Yyyesss,” he said doubtfully.

“We got through it together, because we were together. And we still are, and we will continue to be, and if anything does happen, it’ll happen to both of us.” Frank stroked his brother’s hair back from his forehead, the better to see his blue eyes. “You told me that yourself, if not quite in so many words.”

Joe nodded and relaxed somewhat. Then he smiled. “Y’know what?”

“Possibly. What?” Frank teased gently.

“You’re a really good guardian. Protecting me from-” Joe paused and a strangely tender look crossed his face. “From my own fears...”

Frank felt himself blush at the memory. He’d said that exact thing himself, back when Joe had helped him fight off his panic attacks. “All part of being a team, I guess...yeah?”

“Yeah. We’re a good team.”

“The best team. ‘Cause we look after each other...and listen to each other...and take advice from each other...”

Joe smiled.

“And,” Frank finished with another caress of the tousled golden hair, “we communicate like no two other people on earth.”

Joe nodded and leaned against Frank’s shoulder again. “Brother, you said I was amazing. Take that title for yourself,” he whispered, and his old smile was back in his voice.