A/N: Thanks to all for the reviews: Caranath, AlecTowser, MoonlightGypsy, DuffyBarkley & "Guest"! Btw, how Nancy gets into the office building last chapter is something I actually did, back in college in the '80s. Social Engineering: who needs fancy plans? ;)

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To Nancy's surprise, she got back to the Center ahead of Frank and Joe. Then again, the brothers would have to do some fancy talking to get the cops off their backs. Interfering with a crime scene? That was criminal trespassing, at least. Knowing their father's connections, though, they'd get out with a slap on the wrist, maybe a fine if Joe couldn't keep his mouth under control.

Joe, control his mouth. Nancy remembered too well when she and the Hardys had first met. Joe had kept making sarcastic comments about stealing waiters, though Frank tried several times to shut him up.

Definitely a fine, then.

Stretching the kinks out of her arms and back, Nancy went back to her room. It was close to dinner time, but she should be able to grab a shower and clean up.

Maybe she should offer to pay for dinner. Knowing Frank, though, he wouldn't accept it. Besides, she wasn't feeling guilty at all. Fenton hadn't said his sons were working a case for him, nor would he approve of them fouling up a crime scene, especially where people had died. Unlicensed amateurs wouldn't be working a major arson case, either. There was no good reason for Frank and Joe being there - and the only reasons Nancy could come up with were the very, very wrong ones.

Which led to the worrying question: why had they been there? Was this so-called Association behind the fires? Had Frank and Joe been eliminating evidence?

As she headed for the bathroom, Nancy stopped. Noise thumped from the other door, the so-far-unseen, in-Seattle-for-the-weekend Kris's door. Unsure, Nancy stood a moment, listening. The noise repeated, sounding as if something hit the floor.

Well, it wasn't snooping if she was chasing someone else out. Nancy opened the door.

With a gasp, the intruder jumped: a young woman, cheeks flushed and raw-looking, her eyes reddened, a deep purplish bruise on her left cheek. Tangled, short-cropped, mousy blonde hair, long-sleeved gray t-shirt, and faded black jeans. She looked younger than Nancy, eighteen at most.

"I don't know who you are," Nancy said. "But the woman who lives here won't like you snooping."

"Um...she's me. You're Nancy?" At Nancy's nod, "I'm Kris. Frank and Joe's tagalong."

Nancy hesitated. It was obvious the girl had been crying, but Nancy didn't want to pry. Not yet, anyway. "Sorry. I thought you weren't coming in until Sunday. I heard the noise and thought someone had broken in."

"I just…um…I mean, I decided to come home early. Seattle wasn't what I thought." Wiping at her face, Kris looked down at a stack of cardboard boxes in the middle of the floor. "I cleaned out all the junk in your room yesterday, so I'm on a roll."

Nancy looked around the room: bright, colorful, warm. Crocheted afghans and satiny throw pillows covered an old couch; tie-dyed beanbags were scattered on the floor. The window — stained glass in abstract swirls of blue, green, and red — was hung with more of the rainbow-prisms; John Denver albums lay on the stereo, a battered metal desk against the near wall, and the rest of the wall-space taken up by bookshelves crammed full. An archway in the far wall led off to another space. "This is really nice. Let me guess. The prisms were actually your idea?"

Not looking at Nancy, Kris emptied out the desk drawer. "Well, most of them are Joe's, so it's legit if he took credit. I only put a couple up, but Joe decided to overdo it."

"Figures. I love it, though. Joe said he got them at a Renaissance Faire. I wouldn't mind going to one of those." Close up, Kris didn't fit the type for bodyguards that Nancy had known. Most of those were bruisers, even the women; Kris was built small and somewhat stocky, a few inches shorter than Nancy — a definite disadvantage in any kind of fight. Maybe Nancy had misunderstood what Mar had meant.

"It ended last weekend." Kris pulled magazines out from another drawer and dumped them into a cardboard box on the floor. Teeny-bop magazines, Nancy noted. Odd reading material for someone who supposedly worked as a bodyguard. "But there's an art fair tomorrow, over by the Port. The prism guy's usually at those, too."

Something to check out, definitely: San Francisco's art community was famous…and notorious. Then Nancy noticed the cover pictures on the topmost magazine: the rock band Karma. Odd. Kris had been going to see them this weekend, according to Frank and Joe.

The young woman's demeanor bothered Nancy, too: unsmiling, detached. Not precisely unfriendly — flat, that was it. Uncomfortable, Nancy shifted. "I hope you don't think I'm being rude…but do you need help?"

Kris only looked at her.

"I mean, you look like you've been crying. I know I'm a stranger…but…sometimes a stranger's the best shoulder." Nancy could learn more about this place and the Association while she was at it, too, but no need to bring that up.

Kris looked down again. "Well, you're fitting in here, definitely."

"Excuse me?"

"It's nothing." Kris emptied out another drawer. "Um…just…um…guy-trouble, I guess."

"Frank and Joe?"

Kris shook her head. She wiped at her eyes, winced when her hand brushed the bruise. "Has Frank shown you the kittens yet? I need to check on them. Moggie's been getting sick on the food."

An obvious forced subject change. Nancy decided to take the hint, for the moment. "I'm ready to pack them in my bags and take them home." Guy-trouble, and the girl had a good-size bruise on her cheek. Nancy wasn't liking this.

"You and half the Center. C'mon. Frank gave me permission to go in his room to help out with them."

Any excuse to see the kittens was a good one. Maybe Nancy could get Kris to open up a little more. Nancy trailed behind her as Kris went first to the kitchen to grab a roll of paper towels, the trash can from under the sink, a box of baking soda, and a jug of white vinegar, then to the brothers' hallway.

Noise crashed from somewhere downstairs — followed by yelps, angry yells, and children's voices shrieking in Spanish. Both women jumped; Nancy started for the archway, but Kris stopped her.

"Don't. It's nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Um…we've got folks here who get a bit too enthusiastic with karate stuff. You recognize the noise, after a while."

Nancy looked at her.

"Seriously. They jump each other to keep themselves on their toes." Kris hesitated. "Um…if you want to go down there, you can, but…um…that means you'd be fair game."

Nancy looked down at her business attire. Not a good idea. "Gotcha."

No sign of Frank and Joe in their hallway — and Nancy gagged. The stench was horrible. "Oh, lord, Moggie." Kris croaked out, holding a hand in front of her nose, and stopped Nancy before she crossed Frank's doorway; there was a vomit patch right in front of the door. "It's the vet for you, little girl. Frank'll be sleeping on Joe's floor tonight, for sure."

There were several more vomit patches scattered over the floor. Moggie meowed pathetically from her spot in the open closet, followed by a chorus of meeps and three of the kittens wobbling towards them.

"I'll give you the hard job," Kris said to Nancy; Nancy had gone immediately to the window to open it. It helped, but not much. "Keep the babies busy while I clean up."

"Gladly," Nancy said, trying not to gag as Kris started mopping up the mess and applying liberal amounts of baking soda. Nancy scooped up the three wobblers and sat down at Frank's desk under the window and the fresh air. Meeping and squirming, the kittens nibbled at her fingers and batted at her hair. Cute, cute, cute: soft furry bellies, fuzzy noses, stubs of tails. But, cute distraction or not…Nancy cast for something to say, settled on, "Are you part of the Association, too?"

Giving Nancy an odd stare, Kris sat back on her heels. "Oh. Oh…lord." Then, suddenly, the girl was full of amusement. "Oh, man, I bet Frank was happy about that."

Confused, Nancy opened her mouth, shut it. "I'm sorry?"

"Suurrrrre you are. Frank and Joe didn't say anything about you being one of us! So they didn't know — wow. I wish I'd been here to see their faces."

Enlightenment hit, but Nancy kept her mouth shut. It hadn't been what she'd had meant, but let the girl keep thinking Nancy was in the Association. See what that brought out.

"Your shields are really good," Kris went on. "I was wondering why I wasn't picking up from you. I take it you're out of NYC?"

"Sort of," Nancy said carefully, wondering what Kris meant by picking up. "I stay close to River Heights."

"I don't blame you. Bronx Center sucks." Kris soaked another spot down in vinegar. "I'm one of the Blades out here, by the way. If you've heard any stories about Joshua, I'm his partner, Hawk."

Hammond hadn't mentioned anything like that. "Joshua…you mean Joshua Thomas?" Nancy remembered something she'd heard someone else say last night, chanced it. "The butterfly?" The man definitely fit that nickname, judging from his clothes.

"The one and only." Then Kris paused. "Um…maybe I'm making too big an assumption. Do Frank and Joe know…?"

"I haven't said anything to them." The exact truth.

"I want to be there when you tell them." Kris turned her attention back to cleaning up the messes. "I'm surprised Joe hasn't figured it out — he should've seen your shields. Ohhhhh…unless he's keeping quiet. Gods, he's evil."

Joe should've seen…? That was what Hammond had called the crystal and the supposed protections: shields. So Joe was one of these psychics? But Nancy kept her mouth shut around her questions. Better to keep quiet than spoil the girl's chatter.

But then an open manila folder on the desk caught her eye. Nancy glanced, then glanced again. Mason & Roberts was the heading on the top paper.

That was the office tower at Union Square, the one that had burned. Nancy looked at Kris — who still scrubbed the floor and wasn't paying attention — then pulled the folder closer and shifted the top papers aside to see the rest. The papers weren't any of hers, but still…Intercontinental? 600 Market Street?

"Ugh," Kris said from the far corner, where the litter box was. "Diarrhea, too. Moggie, you poor girl. No wonder it stinks."

"It might be an infection. George — one of my best friends — her cat didn't pass the placenta when she had a litter." Biting her lip, Nancy skimmed the papers: all Rathbone Foundation businesses, including the two burned ones she'd visited. But these papers weren't hers. Where'd Frank get them from? And why?

"I didn't see them born, so I don't know," Kris said. "Frank didn't say. Maybe I can check her."

Nancy wasn't paying attention. Rathbone Tower didn't head any of the papers as best she could tell. Interesting: just the burned ones, and a fast skim of the papers when Kris wasn't looking showed building layout and rooms marked off, with scribbles stating "ignition source" —

— a diagram for arson?

No chance to look in depth, not without drawing attention to what she was doing. Nancy pushed the papers back to their original spot, as Kris finished scooping out the litter box and got up to kneel by Moggie, who was still curled up in the closet with the other three kittens.

Nancy couldn't stop thinking, even as she tickled the kittens' bellies. Hammond had called the Association "subversive", and the Rathbone Foundation took government contracts. What if the Association was behind the arson?

Which meant Frank and Joe had to have been there to destroy evidence.

It was a lot of what-ifs…but now Nancy couldn't ignore the possibility, not when the FBI was involved. Especially not when she'd seen Frank and Joe enter one of those burned buildings with no legal reason to be there.

There was noise at the hall door, voices. "We're here, big brothers," Kris called. "Moggie got sick again."

"Not on my bed, I hope," Frank said. He looked haggard and smelled of smoke. But then he stopped, gagged, and went over to push all the windows open to their widest extent before grabbing a fan and positioning it on his desk to blow in more air. "You're back early, Tag."

Her attention on Moggie, Kris shrugged. "Yeah."

"Looks like you've had a rough day," Nancy said to Frank. "You smell like a fireplace." No. Frank and Joe weren't like that. They couldn't be involved in arson.

But then why the diagrams? If this place of psychics did have them brainwashed...

Frank just looked at her.

"Smells better than that." Grinning, Nancy nodded towards the litter box.

"Just your normal everyday round of everything gone totally wrong," Joe called from the hallway, his voice growing closer. He looked in. "Vão and Rafe wear you out already, Tag? I thought the first show was tonight." Then Joe stopped. "What happened to your face?"

The chattering girl had vanished; Kris looked up. "Moggie's running a fever, I think. I'm taking her to a vet. Something's wrong." Flat. Detached. Kris picked up up the trash can, towels, and vinegar jug. "I'll get a carrier from Eli."

Frank stopped her. "Kris. Your face."

"An accident." She shook him off. "There's new food in the kitchen, Frank. Trevor thought she might not be used to the high protein stuff, so I got a bag of cheap Purina." With that, Kris brushed past both brothers and left.

"Uh-oh," Joe said softly.

"Something tells me we need to have words with a couple musicians," Frank said.

Joe shook his head. "Leave her alone for right now. You know she won't talk."

"That's what worries me." Frank looked down at the kittens in Nancy's lap. "I hate to interrupt, but I'd like to get a shower. It's been a rough day."

"I call first dibs," Joe said. "Never interfere with a woman cuddling kittens, Frank. You definitely flunked Dating 101."

"It's okay, I can take a hint," Nancy said, ignoring the dating jibe. Diagrams for arson on Frank's desk — buildings that just happened to be for the same corporation Nancy was investigating. Coincidence on that level? Not with Frank and Joe involved.

Nancy got to her feet, deposited the kittens back with their mama. Kris was right. Something about Moggie didn't look right — eyes dull, squinty — and Nancy scratched the poor cat around the chin and ears, smiling as the purring increased to jet-engine levels. Getting to her feet, Nancy glanced at the folder. Maybe she should bring it up now. Confront Frank while he was obviously tired and out of sorts, he'd be more likely to give her the truth.

"I'm offering dinner tonight," Frank said. "Joe's paying for Burn The Tail, if you don't mind Jamie coming along."

"Which means I'm offering dinner, not you," Joe said.

"Burn The Tail?" Nancy said. "And who's Jamie?"

"Japanese restaurant." Oh, that smile. Even when exhausted, Frank's smile was gorgeous. "It's fancy, but jeans are fine. And Jamie's Joe's girlfriend."

"Godzilla's their sushi chef," Joe added. The grin on Joe's face told Nancy that there was something he wasn't saying. "That's Joshua's friend, the one you asked about."

It had been very obvious that Frank hadn't wanted her to ask more about, though Nancy had a suspicion. She wasn't naive, after all. "So you've got another girlfriend," Nancy said to Joe. "Bess'll be heartbroken."

"You should see the notches on his headboard," Frank said.

"Watch it, brother, or I'll tell Jamie that you and Nancy want to model for her after all."

"You do, and I'll take her up on it."

Joe blinked.

Frank threw a pillow at him. "Get your shower already. I'm starved."

"Jamie's an artist?" Nancy said.

Frank only smiled. Joe opened his mouth, shut it, then headed to the bathroom.

Nancy glanced at the manila folder again, decided against it. After dinner, maybe. Best stick with another topic, though not so safe. "You called her Tag — I thought her name's Kris? You said she's Mar's daughter, but she doesn't look like her at all."

"She's adopted," Frank said, in a way that closed the topic. "We grew up together — she was our annoying kid sister who kept tagging along no matter where we went." He smiled again. "Fun annoying, though."

What they'd said, right after Kris left, and what Kris had said, the way she'd acted… "Frank," Nancy said hesitantly, "when I came in, I heard her in her room. She was crying."

Frank looked up from the kittens.

"I'm not trying to be nosy. But you and Joe obviously think she's in trouble." Nancy shifted from foot to foot. "You saw that bruise."

Silence.

"Joe didn't think she'd talk," Nancy said, nettled. Frank's expression was his let-us-big-strong-guys-handle-it face. "But you're guys. I'm a woman."

"I never would've guessed," Frank said.

She would not be baited. "There's some things a girl won't talk to guys about. She might talk to me."

"It's Kris's privacy. We don't rat on each other, and I'm not going to let a total stranger butt in, either."

"So you're just going to ignore it?" Typical men. But Nancy had to stay calm. Frank would yank out the over-emotional-female card, if given even the tiniest opening. "Abuse should be ratted on. Ignoring it just makes it worse."

"I know that."

"She's involved with those musicians, isn't she? With Vão Carvalo?" When Frank hesitated, Nancy glared. "You think he's abusing her."

"Women's intuition again?" Not…quite…sarcastic.

"I do listen to what people say," Nancy countered. "Joe wasn't exactly subtle about teasing her."

"Joe teases about a lot of things that are just in his head. You should hear what he says about —" Frank stopped. "Never mind. Yes, Kris is involved with Vão and Rafe." Weary, giving in. "But they're not hitting her. She wouldn't put up with that."

"You'd be surprised at what women convince themselves to put up with." That young woman — girl, really — was involved with two of the band? That sounded like someone in way over her head, especially with rock musicians involved. Nancy knew what those types were like.

"Correction: I can't see Mar or Josh putting up with it. Josh's a 'Nam vet, and he's been Kris's big brother a lot longer than me and Joe. And Mar…" Frank stopped.

"There's more to abuse than hitting,. And you guys didn't seem too impressed by them last night."

"There's too many people impressed with them already. But Vão and Rafe aren't like that."

Nancy bit back her temper. She could see where this was going. It always did, in abuse cases. Breaking through the wall of denial was always the hardest part. "That's the problem with abusers. They can be real charming, right up to the point they're not. And no one wants to believe that 'such nice guys' could do something like that. Someone famous…he'll turn it around on the girl, making it seem like she's at fault, and everyone'll believe him, not her."

Now Frank looked annoyed. "You're making a pretty big judgement call without having any facts."

His expression, his stance, his tone: she could tell exactly what was running through his head, and she didn't need to be one of these so-called psychics to do so. "It's not a judgement is falling right into a known pattern."

"One bruise and crying is not a pattern. And Kris doesn't lie, not to me and Joe."

"And you didn't believe her, either."

"I think there's more to the story, yes. But I know her a lot better than you do. I'm a lot more qualified to make a judgement call than you are."

"I've seen this sort of thing a lot," Nancy said, with heat. "Dad handles abuse cases pro bono. Don't tell me about qualified."

"Look, just butt out. It's none of your business. You go off on those assumptions, and you'll only make a fool of yourself."

"Oh, like you're butting out of my business? Do as you say, not as you do, is that it?"

Frank looked confused. "What?"

That did it. Nancy grabbed the manila folder from his desk, shoved it at him; Frank fell back. "That! You're snooping around in my case, poking into my business —"

"What? This is our case, not yours. Who gave you permission to look at my papers?"

"Oh, real nice, Hardy. You take pot-calling-kettle to whole new levels." Nancy made it to the doorway; Joe stood in the hallway, frozen in place. Fine. "Did you enjoy your stay with the cops?"

"You…?" Frank reached as if to grab her arm.

Nancy backed up, dropping into defensive stance. "Do that, and you'll be staring at the ceiling again."

"You sic'ed the cops on us?!"

"Snoop in my father's work again, and you'll get more than the cops!"

"Your father? This is something me and Joe are working on, not you —" Then Frank stopped. "Wait a minute…"

"What were you looking for when you searched my bags? Did this place tell you to do that, too?" Nancy didn't wait for an answer. She stormed back to her room.

She wasn't going to wait for Frank to get his guts up and follow her, and Nancy was not going to stay anywhere that jeopardized her father's confidentiality. Nancy grabbed up her notes, carry-on, suitcase — luckily, she hadn't unpacked much; she tossed everything back in without regard for folding — and stormed back out. Hopefully the original hotel still had rooms available.

Frank had made it out to the living room. "Nancy, wait, you've got it all wrong —"

She dodged out of reach, fled the suite, the building, and down to the rental car.

She'd call Hammond tonight.