Summary: Nancy never seems to be happy except when she is on a case. That is until she get a case where the lives of two of her friends are hanging in the balance. She was used to working side by side with the Hardy boys to solve cases. Now she has to find them before it's too late.

Warning: No violence in this chapter, but there will be some in the future. (probably the next chapter, but don't hold me to that)

Disclaimer: I don't really know who owns Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, but it's definitely not me.

A/N: This chapter is kinda inspired by one of my favorite tv shows, Criminal Minds. Nancy and Fenton do some profiling to narrow down the suspects.

Chapter 3

It took Nancy and Fenton a few moments to comprehend what had happened. Then Nancy offered to take all of the new evidence to the lab to be processed, giving Fenton some alone time.

"Maybe they can find something in all of this." Nancy offered as parting hope. She herself was having trouble controlling her emotions. She was close to both Frank and Joe, but it had always seemed like Nancy and Frank fit together so effortlessly when working investigations. Since that package was delivered yesterday, that meant that today was already day two. She couldn't believe that they only had one more day to find Frank and Joe. She hoped that would be enough time. What they really needed was for the leader to mess up and give them something to go on. Nancy picked up her pace. Maybe there would be some evidence in the package they had been sent.

It had taken almost an hour for Nancy to take the box over to the forensic lab and explain to them all they needed to look for. When she got back to the office, Fenton had just hung up the phone.

"I called the post office about the package, and it was the Grant in the video who dropped it off."

"Well, I asked the lab to look into the video and identify the people in it. They're also doing DNA tests on the blood and fingerprinting everything. They said they'd prioritize this case and call back as soon as they found anything." Nancy informed Fenton. "Can you go ahead and show me the first note and everything you had on the company originally?"

"The note was on one of the smugglers that we caught separately on a DUI. It hadn't been delivered yet." Fenton handed Nancy a photocopy version of the note. Nancy skimmed the note. It appeared to be pretty straightforward. It was a simple thank you note for a "job" well done.

"I didn't know that smugglers sent out thank you notes." Nancy remarked.

"We thought it must have been a specialty job, very sensitive. The boys and I researched the shipping company that it was sent to, but we couldn't find anything suspicious. They thought that it might be an isolated offender working under the cover of the shipping company to do their own dirty work."

"If the company is upstanding, shouldn't it do background checks on its employees?" Nancy asked.

"We checked into that before we sent the boys in. Apparently this is his first criminal endeavor or he just hasn't been caught yet" Fenton began rifling through his papers.

"There's one thing that's been bothering me. This guy seems to be more upset at you than at Frank and Joe, almost like it's personal. Why would he be that upset at you for a simple undercover assignment?"

Fenton looked taken aback by this idea. "You're right. I've been so upset by this case that I'm missing the simple facts. This kind of anger doesn't come out of nowhere. I bet he already had a grudge against me, and capturing the boys just set him off." This idea seemed to revive Fenton, and Nancy felt the same way too. This was the clue they had been so desperate for.

"Can you think of anyone who would have this grudge against you?"Nancy asked.

"Nancy, I arrest 60 people a year. So add in 30 years of detective work, the families of everyone I've arrested, and the families of victims which I've failed to save. That's probably a few thousand people who hate me." Fenton answered.

Nancy began began biting her lip, a bad habit she had when she was thinking. How would they find out the villain in a sea of them? "Maybe when the lab identifies the thugs in the video, we can try to connect them back to someone involved in one of your cases."

"In the meantime, we should still go over some of my cases and at least try to narrow it down somehow. You know, this seems like a lot of hate for a simple prison sentence. This guy is obsessed with killing my boys, almost as if he blames me for the death of someone he loved."

"Okay, so can we narrow it down to families of victims you failed to save and the families of criminals that died in prison?" Fenton nodded and rushed out of the room to grab the files. Fenton and Nancy spent the next hours quietly flipping through cases. Occasionally Nancy would ask Fenton about details of certain cases. Both the detectives were calmer now that they felt more productive. At about 3:00, Nancy phone began to ring. Looking at the caller ID, she saw that it was the lab calling back. She quickly picked up the phone.

"Ms. Drew, we looked into the video you sent and identified the men in the video. We're faxing all the information over. " Nancy looked up and sure enough, the fax machine was spitting out pages of information. "Thank you, if you can find anything else, please don't hesitate to call." Nancy hung up the phone and went over to look at the faxes. Fenton was already shuffling the pages.

"It looks like the thugs in the video are already wanted by the police. That's why they didn't care that they showed their faces in the video. The main one is Grant Lewis, wanted for the murder of his landlord two years ago." Fenton read from the papers he was holding. Nancy looked down at the paper Fenton had handed her. It was slightly disappointing: only saying that they were unable to unscramble the distorted voice on the video. Nancy felt herself almost wishing that they would be sent another video or note. Fenton and she had narrowed it down to 80 cases from the last five years, but they needed a new parameter to narrow it down from there. 80 was still way too many to be helpful to them.

Nancy sighed to herself. She didn't feel any of the vigor that a new case normally gave her. Instead, she had a knot of worry in the pit of her stomach. Frank and Joe didn't deserve any of this, and the thought that they might not make it through this was always in the back of her mind. Thankfully, it seemed like someone had heard Nancy's wish for new clues, because Fenton's phone began ringing insistently.

"Hello," Fenton answered. He listened to whoever was on the phone for about a minute before getting up and grabbing his coat. "Don't worry. We'll be right over." Fenton hung up the phone and turned to Nancy. "That was Laura. There was a package delivered to the house." Nancy jumped up and got her coat too. As they rushed out the door, Nancy couldn't help but feel excitement in having a new clue. Then again, apprehension for what could be in the package settled around her. Fenton seemed to be in the same mindset, because he was breaking all of the speed limits as they raced towards the Hardy home. Nancy began steadying herself, hoping for the best but preparing for the worst.