A/N: Well, it's very late (or very early, depending on how you look at it) here in northeast Ohio and I decided I'd been looking at this chapter enough. Any and all errors are mine :S hopefully I caught most of them! As always, thanks to all my reviewers. I'm glad you're still enjoying the story, and I hope I'm able to keep you interested moving forward.
I do not own Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys, and I make no money from this. My only reward is your review – hint, hint ;) Please press that little review button at the end of the chapter and let me know how I'm doing!
Happy reading!
Chapter 9: A Previous Encounter
Nancy and Vanessa both rose from the couch when the suite door opened to admit Frank and Joe, followed closely by Liesle.
Liesle's phone toned as she closed and locked the door. She pulled it out and nodded. "Hank got his photo. The guy claims to be Bill Smith. Can't get much more generic than that. Here, Joe, take another look and see if you can place him."
Frank stopped and dropped a light kiss on Nancy's lips on his way to the desk in the corner of the room. She followed him. "What's going on?"
Vanessa had moved to join Joe and Liesle, and echoed Nancy's question. "What's going on?"
Joe squinted at the small screen on Liesle's phone. "Can you forward the picture to Frank's email, so I can get a better look at it on the computer screen?"
"Sure. I'm also going to send it to HQ and have them run facial recognition on him. I seriously doubt his name is Bill Smith."
Joe took Van's hand and they joined Nancy and Frank by the desk. "Got the pic yet, bro?"
"Give me a sec," Frank said.
Nancy rested her forearms across Frank's shoulders and rested her chin on one of her hands so her face was level with his. "Are you going to tell us what's going on?"
Joe answered the question. "Mitchel and his cameraman were still hanging out down in the lobby. Frank had them kicked out, and the cameraman went a little nuts. He looks familiar, but I can't place him."
While they were talking, Frank had worked his way through the hotel wireless internet access login, pulled up his email account, and downloaded the photo.
Joe examined the picture for several seconds, and then slowly shook his head. "I don't think I know him," he said in frustration, though he continued to stare at the photo.
Frank nudged his brother. "Just relax and stop trying so hard, Joe."
"I can't believe Mr. Uptight is telling me to relax." Joe looked down at Frank with a taunting grin.
"He's not that uptight." Nancy's smile was suggestive.
"Ah, too much information!" Joe whined. Then he snapped his fingers. "I know why he looks familiar. He reminds me of Victor Bucciano, a guy we had arrested a couple months ago. It's the eyes – Vic has those same, dead-looking black eyes."
Nancy raised an eyebrow. "Was that about the same time you had the confrontation with Mitchel?"
Joe snorted. "Actually, exactly the same time."
"What did you get Bucciano on?" Frank asked.
Vanessa answered. "Dad and Joe started investigating Bucciano as a favor to me. A friend of mine at the office, Carrie Rogers, had noticed him hanging around, following her . . . when you first told us about Phillip, Nan, it really creeped me out because it reminded me of what Carrie went through with this guy."
"You must have found something more than the stalking angle. That hardly ever leads to an arrest unless it gets violent," Frank prompted.
Joe hesitated. "We did find something more – a lot more. Bucciano turned out to be a real psycho. Dad and I were able to put evidence together linking him to several rapes in the past couple years. I think Carrie was one of the lucky ones."
"How was Mitchel involved?" Nancy asked.
Vanessa crossed her arms, and turned critical eyes on Joe, who cleared his throat.
"Well, technically he wasn't really involved. You see, Bucciano had gone underground, and we couldn't find him. The BOLO had been out for a couple weeks when we caught a lucky break. Vice had a guy undercover, working illegal gambling clubs. They run in rotating locations around the city, and they were developing the intel to shut the whole operation down. Anyway, the undercover cop recognized Bucciano, and the police decided to move in while he was still at the club, so they wouldn't chance losing him. Con managed to wrangle an invite for Dad and me to the bust."
"What does any of this have to do with Mitchel?" Frank asked.
"I'm getting to that. Mitchel was apparently doing an investigative piece on the illegal gambling clubs, and just happened to be staking out this particular club at the time of the bust. The cops grabbed Bucciano as he left, and he got pretty belligerent. Mitchel, of course, thought it looked like a great news clip."
Joe hesitated and Vanessa prodded him. "Tell them the rest."
"I stepped in and told Mitchel to get lost. He started spouting about his first amendment rights, and shoved me out of the way, at which point I tripped over the curb and landed on my ass. I was pretty pissed when I got up, and grabbed him. That's when the cameraman took a swing at me, and I . . . I flattened him."
Vanessa looked far from happy. "I had to go bail him out because Dad refused to."
Frank shook his head. "That hot head of yours gets you into more trouble, little brother. I don't blame Dad. I would have let you cool your heels in lockup overnight, too."
"You didn't notice the resemblance of the cameraman to Bucciano at the time?" Nancy asked.
Joe shook his head. "Different cameraman."
Frank was drumming his fingers on the computer. "Did the footage end up on the news?"
"Yes." Vanessa said. "Dad was furious."
"How did I miss this?" Frank was already pulling up the Channel 9 News web site.
"Just think of all the things you miss when you're gone," Joe said blandly.
Frank cast a dark look at his brother. "Don't start, Joe."
After some digging, Frank found the footage online. It showed Joe going down, and leaping back to his feet to grab Mitchel's arm. The camera then went wildly askew, and Mitchel's voice explained what happened in narrative form while a still of the arrest was shown on screen. The clip cut to a full-face shot of Mitchel himself as he wrapped up the segment.
"So, while police were conscientiously bringing down serial rapist, Victor Bucciano based on evidence compiled by Hardy Investigators, Joseph Hardy was punching out my cameraman. Behavior such as this might call into question who is worse, the criminal, or the supposed crime stopper. This is Mitch Mitchel, Channel 9 News, reporting the side of the story that no one wants you to know."
"That's a hell of a provocative byline," Nancy said. "Must bring the conspiracy theorists crawling out of the woodwork."
"Nobody ever accused Mitchel of being even-handed," Vanessa said.
Joe shook his head in disgust. "I don't believe they still have this on line."
Frank had rewound back to the still and leaned forward, peering at the picture. He paused the video, and took a screen-shot of the image. Pulling it up, he zoomed on a figure in the background. When he sat back, his smile was smug.
"Lucky for us they do."
Joe leaned forward. "That's him."
"Who?" Nancy and Vanessa asked in unison.
"Mitchel's new cameraman, moonlighting as a bouncer at an illegal gambling club in New York," Joe said.
Frank's grin was teasing as he glanced sideways at Nancy. "We should have suspected this, Nan. I mean, what self-respecting news cameraman would have missed getting footage of your greeting for Mitchel last night?"
"Now that sounds like a story I'd like to hear." Joe grinned at her.
Nancy stood up and crossed her arms as she considered the brothers through narrow eyes. "You can both take a long walk off a short pier."
Behind her, Liesle was talking on her cell. "Willis, that photo I just sent you, check it against known associates of Victor Bucciano. He was arrested on rape charges in New York about two months ago."
*
Nancy's arms slipped around his neck, and her breath tickled his ear, distracting Frank from the Colby family history he had printed out and was studying.
"I finished charting the travel itinerary against the account deposits. I think it's time for a break."
He took her arm, and pulled her around the chair and onto his lap, as he set the paperwork down on the desk.
"Is this what you had in mind, Drew?" He cocked an eyebrow at her.
"Well, I was thinking we should go over there and visit with Van and Joe, but you don't hear me complaining."
Her blue eyes were bright, her lips turned up in an inviting smile. She leaned forward and he met her lips in a warm, probing kiss.
"Hey, get your own room."
Joe's voice sounded from behind him and Frank spun the chair to face his brother, who sat slouched at the far end of the couch. Legs stretched out in front of him, he had one arm wrapped around Vanessa, who was curled up tight against him, eyes half-closed. The television was on an old movie.
"Oh, it's The Desk Set. This is one of my all-time favorite Tracey/Hepburn movies," Nancy said. "I used to want to be Bunny Watson. I read the encyclopedia incessantly for about six months after I first saw it."
Frank was disappointed when Nancy left his lap to move toward the couch. He got up and joined her at the opposite end from Van and Joe.
Joe was obviously disinterested in the movie. "So, did you figure anything out with your computer, there, oh geeky brother of mine?"
As Nancy settled into the crook of his arm, Frank was finding it difficult to focus on anything but the warmth of her body pressed against him.
Nancy responded to Joe's question, "Most of the account deposit origins paralleled Phillip's travels."
"Meaning?" Joe asked.
Frank sighed as the puzzle of Phillip Colby forced its way into the forefront of his thoughts. "Meaning, little brother, that it appears he may have been making the deposits himself."
Joe's brow furrowed. "That doesn't make a lot of sense."
"It makes sense if he was making money while he was traveling. The same could also explain why he didn't make many withdrawals," Nancy said.
Frank found the parallel interesting, but something else was nagging at him. "Maybe, but what could he have been doing to make that kind of money? Some of those deposits were upwards of a hundred thousand euros."
Joe whistled. "Whatever he did, he must have been good at it."
Vanessa shifted. "I wish you three would button it. I love this part. I'm telling you, if Spencer Tracie ever looked at me like that, I'd give him whatever he wanted."
Nancy sat up. "Wait a minute, that's it. What about that Interpol flag that you noticed, Frank? The one in Greece."
"Matt said the charges were dropped. Some rich widow that claimed a Phillip Colby stole money from her."
"That's how he made money," Nancy said.
Vanessa looked at Nancy, her interest obviously aroused. "I think you could be onto something, Nan. I mean, goodness knows Phillip has the looks for it. He could probably charm the Pope out of his ring."
"Wait a minute. I see where you're going, but why would someone whose father is in international finance and obviously has plenty of money at his disposal, need to con lonely widows out of money?" Frank shook his head. "It doesn't make any sense."
Nancy pursed her lips and slumped back into the couch. "Frank's right, it doesn't make any sense."
Joe shrugged. "Maybe he didn't do it for the money."
"Nothing about Phillip Colby makes any sense," Frank said. "He's a spoiled rich kid, with money at his disposal, who chooses to go hiking around the Mediterranean on a shoestring. He seems to really be in love with Yvonne, but he's stalking Nancy. He's got plenty of money to buy Yvonne jewelry, and yet he breaks into Nancy's apartment and steals hers. I just can't figure the guy out, and I'm kind of tired of trying, at least at the moment."
He allowed his thoughts to stray away from the quandary of Colby as he slipped his hand along Nancy's waist under her shirt to find warm, silky skin. Nancy laced her fingers with his, and stopped his hand from wandering any further.
She stretched up to kiss his cheek. "Behave yourself, Hardy."
"You're no fun."
Van stretched out a leg and kicked Frank's arm. "Frank Hardy, you listen up and behave yourself, or you'll have to deal with me."
Frank closed his eyes and sighed. "Spoil sport."
"I think you're a bad influence on my big brother, Nan," Joe said.
"Joe." The warning in Frank's tone was unmistakable.
"I'm afraid you might be right, Joe."
Nancy's voice sounded far too serious. Frank opened his eyes and looked down at her, noting the brooding expression. Based on the conversation that had preceded the change in mood he could make a good guess at what was bothering her, but he chose to play dumb.
"What?"
"We need to talk."
"That kind of talk requires privacy. And privacy, unfortunately, is something that we have had very little of." Frank knew he was being petulant, but the lack of privacy was starting to wear on him.
Nancy turned to Vanessa and Joe. Vanessa didn't even give her a chance to ask a question. "The bedroom doors close and lock. Help yourselves."
Nancy stood up and pulled Frank with her. As they headed toward the bedroom, Joe's voice followed them. "To talking only . . . help yourselves to talking only."
Frank's amused grin faded as Nancy closed the bedroom doors and turned to level him with a somber look.
"I know Joe's been kind of a pain, Nan, but you have to trust me. He'll get over it."
"Joe's not the problem." She crossed her arms. "Frank, I never meant for you to move to Chicago. I thought we agreed that we would just have to deal with a long-distance relationship for awhile, until we figured out where we were going to end up. I feel like you're jumping the gun."
"You don't want me to move to Chicago?" Frank felt his heart drop into his feet.
"What? No. I mean . . . that's not what I said." Nancy's expression reflected confusion. "I would like nothing more than to have you move to Chicago. I mean –"
Frank smiled happily, and closed the distance between them. "Then I don't understand what the problem is."
Nancy put her hands against his chest, her blue eyes imploring. "I know why you're doing this, Frank, and it isn't necessary . . ."
Pulling her into his arms, he leaned down and kissed her. "It is necessary, Nan. I know this may seem impulsive, but I've really missed you this past week."
She relaxed against him, her expression softening. "I've missed you, too."
Frank leaned down and covered her mouth with his. Her lips parted willingly, and he probed the warmth of her mouth, savoring the taste. He wrapped his arms around her, and she slid her hands up to his shoulders, allowing him to mold her body to his. Soft kisses quickly deepened, and became urgent as they melded together.
It occurred to Frank that his brother wouldn't be very happy about the course that their 'talk' was taking. But with Nancy in his arms, he wasn't sure he really cared.
It was Nancy who put on the brakes. "Joe said talking, only. I don't think we should be doing this."
The breathless sound of her voice was encouraging, rather than discouraging. Frank leaned his forehead against hers, and smiled. "The door locks, and I doubt he has a key."
Her accepting sigh was the permission he had hoped for. He pressed his lips to the hollow of her neck, and felt her heart beat racing under his lips. His own heart sped up to match it, as every sense tuned in to Nancy.
He would have ignored the knocking, but not Nancy. He groaned as she pulled away and walked to the door. In the entryway, just outside the bedroom, Yvonne and Phillip were being greeted by Joe.
Frank ran his hands back through his hair in frustration. Taking a deep breath, he got himself under control and followed Nancy out to greet the new arrivals, wondering just what the hell Colby wanted now.
Whatever it was, it had better be good, Frank thought irritably.
