J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, Candylou, BMSH, and EvergreenDreamweaver for your reviews on the last chapter!

Chapter XIV

Where Lies the Blame?

"If there's one thing that River Heights is missing, it's the ocean." Bess Marvin Evans took a deep breath, inhaling the cool, salty breeze that was blowing in with the evening.

"And if there's one thing this ocean is missing, it's the party we were told about," her husband, Dave, added. "Where is everybody?"

There were only eight people gathered on the beach: Bess and Dave, their six-month-old daughter, Shaina, Bess's cousin, George Fayne, George's fiancé, Burt Eddleton, and their close friends, Nancy and Ned Nickerson, as well as their eleven-month-old daughter, Marian. They had arrived in Bayport a few hours ago and had taken that time to get settled in their hotel rooms. They had just arrived on the beach where Joe had told them he was hosting a get-together.

"They'll be here," George said with confidence. "If there's one thing you can count on the Hardys to be, it's late."

The others had to chuckle at that observation, which past experience had taught them was true.

"Look," Nancy pointed out. "Here come Van and Tony now."

Vanessa Bender had lived in River Heights and worked for Nancy and Ned in their detective business for the last couple years. During that time, she had gotten to be close friends with Nancy and her friends.

Soon after that, the others whom Joe had invited began straggling in. Frank and Callie were amongst the last to arrive, although Biff and Joe himself had yet to put in appearances. As soon as Nancy saw Frank and Callie, she went to greet them both with a hug.

"It seems like ages since I've seen the two of you," she said.

"Probably because it has been," Callie replied. "We don't see each other nearly often enough. Marian's probably walking and talking by this time."

"A little bit of both," Nancy said. "You should see her. Come on." She half-dragged Callie over to where Ned was holding Marian and began asking her small daughter, "Can you say 'mama'?"

Frank followed a little more slowly. He couldn't help but smile at how completely in love with their daughter Ned and Nancy were or at how taken Callie seemed with her. It wasn't hard to guess that Callie was thinking about her own child and looking forward to getting to be the proud parent herself. At the same time, Frank was wondering where Joe was and how he was taking Frank's less-than-enthusiastic response to his announcement that morning. After Frank had thought it over and gotten past the surprise, he had decided he would be completely supportive of Joe in this decision. He couldn't quite understand it, but he realized that it meant a lot to Joe and also that it hadn't been an easy decision. If this was what Joe felt he needed to do, then Frank would do everything he could to help him. He had called Joe earlier to tell him so, but Joe hadn't answered, and he wasn't sure what to make of that. It could be that Joe was so wrapped up in his case that he wasn't paying attention to his phone – it wouldn't be the first time that had happened – or it could be that Frank had offended him in their talk earlier and that Joe didn't want to talk to him. Or it could be that something had happened to Joe.

"Hey, is something wrong?" Frank started a little to find that while he had been lost in thought, Nancy had excused herself from the admiration over her baby and come to check on him. "I notice you're not exactly in the party mood."

Frank shook himself. "No. I'm fine. I'm just wondering where Joe is."

"Ah. I see."

"You see what?" Frank replied.

"Joe has a case, and you're not there to make sure nothing happens to him," Nancy said. "Am I right?"

"Partly," Frank conceded. "I'm going to try calling him again and find out where he is."

He stepped a short distance away and again called his brother's number, but again it just rang until Joe's voicemail came on. He was still frowning at his phone when he saw Biff coming down the beach.

"Hey, everybody!" Biff shouted as soon as he was within hearing distance. "Hope you haven't started the party without me!"

"Biff, what are you doing here?" Frank asked.

Biff gave him a confused grin. "I thought I was invited."

"Well, yeah, but where's Joe?"

"I dunno." Biff shrugged. "Isn't he here?"

"I thought he was with you," Frank said.

"No. Anyway, not since this morning. I had to work, you know."

"What's going on?" Nancy broke in. "Why are you so worried about Joe? Did something happen?"

"I don't know," Frank replied. "He hasn't answered his phone all day. Maybe he's just ignoring me, though."

"Why would he do that?" Nancy crossed her arms. "That doesn't sound like Joe."

"Well, this morning," Frank tried to explain without breaking his brother's trust, "it wasn't really an argument. I don't know what you'd call it. Anyway, Joe would want to explain it himself."

"Oh, you mean, about him becoming a priest," Biff supplied.

"Yeah," Frank said, a bit of terseness in his voice. "That's exactly what he would have wanted to explain for himself?"

Nancy looked from Frank to Biff in confusion. "Are you guys serious?" Neither answered, as Biff had just realized that he had made a blunder and Frank wasn't sure what to say, but Nancy could tell from their faces that they were. She brushed her surprise aside; there would be time to ask questions about that later. For now, she was going to focus on the only question about it that really mattered, "Why would Joe ignore you because of that, Frank?"

"Personally, I'm more concerned that there's somebody running around putting bombs in Joe's car," Biff interjected.

"When did that happen?" Nancy asked, a slight rise in her voice's pitch the only indication that this sudden news had sounded an alarm in her.

"A couple of days ago," Frank said. "Dad told Joe not to go investigate by himself, but obviously he didn't listen, since everyone's here except for Joe. Wait, Mario's not here. Maybe he's with Joe."

Half-distracted, he made his way to Tony and asked him if he had his cousin's phone number. By this time, everyone had overheard enough of the conversation between Frank, Nancy, and Biff to gather that something was amiss, and all other conversation faded. Tony placed a call to Mario, who informed him that while he was at Joe's apartment, Joe wasn't there and he hadn't heard from him. Everyone was quite as Tony relayed this information to them.

"There's no need to panic," Nancy said, although there was a knot of anxiety inside her. "I'll try calling Joe. He probably just left his phone in his car or something." Her call, however, had the same results as Frank's had. She was beginning to feel that Joe had gotten himself into some trouble after all, but she knew she needed to keep a cool head. "Okay, so who was the last person to see or talk to Joe?"

"Last time I saw him was around eleven-thirty," Biff offered, and everyone else said that they had neither seen nor talked to Joe since then.

"All right." Nancy glanced at her watch. It was quarter after seven. Almost eight hours had passed since anyone had seen Joe. "Where did you see him at, Biff? Did he say where he was going after that?"

"He just said he was going to keep looking around in this attic of this house where somebody he thought might have been involved in the robbery used to live," Biff said.

"Okay. If we have to, we can go ask the people there if he said anything to them, although I doubt it," Nancy continued. "Frank, why don't you call your parents? From the sound of it, he might have had something to talk to them about this afternoon. Maybe he's still there."

"You're right." Frank took out his phone and called his dad. They, however, hadn't heard from Joe.

"He might have gone to check in with the police," Nancy suggested.

At Nancy's words, Frank's mind instantly went back to his suspicions about Captain O'Rourke. "I think it would be better if we went to police headquarters to talk to them in person. Come on, Nance." He paused. "You don't mind if I go, do you, Callie?"

"Of course not," Callie assured him.

"Ned, you stay here and call us if Joe decides to show up," Nancy said. "Biff, if the police don't know anything, we'll probably check out that house, and we'll need you to show us where it is."

"Do you think you could use an FBI man?" Tony volunteered.

"You never know," Nancy replied. "We just might need someone more official. Come on."

HBHBHBHBHB

Callie watched her husband hurry up the beach along with Nancy, Biff, and Tony. She wished she was home right now. Then she could just curl up on the couch and slowly die inside. Here, surrounded by all her friends, she was going to have to try to keep from crying or anything ridiculous like that. At least she would put herself on the edge of the group, and maybe no one would notice her.

That plan didn't work. She had just barely sat down in the sand a little distance away from the others when Ned Nickerson, who was still holding Marian, sat down a couple of feet away from her.

"You okay?" he asked.

Callie didn't know Ned very well. For that matter, she didn't even know Nancy all that well. The two women had an understanding between each other, but Callie didn't think she had ever even talked to Ned outside a group setting where the whole group had been talking to each other in general. It surprised her that out of everyone there, Ned would be the one to come and ask her if she was all right. At the moment, it annoyed her a little, too.

"Yeah, I'm fine," she lied.

Years of working on cases with Nancy had taught Ned better than to believe such an obvious lie, but it had also taught him better than to call Callie out on it. He pretended to take the answer completely at face-value while he focused his attention on Marian, helping her to stand up.

Callie watched them dully for a minute or two. Ned's lack of response was telling her that he knew her answer hadn't been honest. Of course he would know. He was one of Frank's friends, after all. They had gone to college together, after all, and Frank had been a groomsman at Ned and Nancy's wedding. Ned had to know what was going on between her and Frank. Besides that, he had heard Frank ask Callie if it was all right if he went to look for his own brother who could be in danger. She knew Frank had been trying to be considerate of her – he was always thinking of her – but this was one time when she wished he wouldn't have been trying so hard. What did everyone think of her?

She tried to get a grip on herself. None of this was Frank's fault. If she had a little more faith in him and didn't worry so much, if she just would have kept quiet about her fears, Frank would have been with Joe tonight, and no one would have to worry about him. If it was just a false alarm, they would know that by now, and if it was more serious than that, Joe would have had a better chance of getting out of it with his brother there.

"It's my fault," she said aloud, suddenly caring what anyone else thought.

"What is?" Ned asked. He had been paying more attention than he was pretending.

"I've made such a mess out of everything," Callie went on. Tears were rising up in her eyes, and one trickled down her cheek. "I've been so stupid. Why couldn't I just think before I opened my mouth?"

"Hey, it's okay," Ned told her. "Whatever you think you did, it's okay."

"No, it's not okay. It's really not. Half the girls in Bayport High were after Frank and I'm sure there were even more in college. Why did he settle for the one who was going to try to change him and even try to come between him and Joe? If I just wouldn't have said anything…"

"Callie, listen to me," Ned broke in. "First of all, Frank didn't 'settle' for anything. He's always been crazy about you. I should know; we were fraternity brothers, after all, and there were a lot of nights he spent talking on the phone instead of studying. Secondly, it's okay to talk about your worries with Frank. He's the one person you should always be able to talk to about anything."

"If I would have just left it at talking, it would have been okay, but I had to go and ask him to give up detective work, and now if anything's happened to Joe because Frank wasn't there, it's all because of me."

Ned looked out toward the ocean before he replied. "Joe's what? Twenty-four, twenty-five? He doesn't need his big brother holding his hand all the time."

"But he does need him watching his back," Callie pointed out. "And he's not doing that because of me."

"I don't want to spoil your picture of Frank, but I don't think you forced him to make the decisions he's made. I'm no so sure you even could have."

"What are you talking about?"

Ned hesitated. "I haven't talked a whole lot to either Frank or Joe since last November, but I have heard a pretty complete account of what happened. Enough to know that none of that should have happened. But I've also been around this work long enough to know that things like that do happen. No matter how careful you are, no matter how many people you have watching your back, no matter who you have watching your back, if you're going to be a detective, you're going to run into danger. So, if anything has happened to Joe, it's not your fault."

"What if Frank could have kept him out of trouble?" Callie asked.

Ned chuckled. "Then Frank would have to be a magician or something. Seriously, though, Frank's not the only one Joe could have called on. I mean, there's his dad for starters."

"True." Callie sighed. "But if that's so, it still doesn't help Frank. He's not happy not doing real detective work. I don't know what to do."

"Well, it would probably be more productive talking to him about it than me."

"Maybe, maybe not. We're both so sick of the whole subject. We can't come to any decision that we're both happy with. At this point, even if I said I changed my mind and I want Frank to go back to being a detective, he wouldn't do it because he wouldn't believe me."

"There's got to be something that would work," Ned insisted. "I think forensics is a good idea, but I guess if it's not working, it's not working. What if he still did that, but every once in a while, he and Joe took a case like one of the ones they used to have. You know, a good, old-fashioned haunted house or buried treasure or something like that, without any kidnappings, murders, or crazy people out for revenge."

Callie smiled slightly. "I wouldn't mind something like that." Then her smile faded. "Ned, how do you do it? How do you go through every day knowing that it could be the last time you ever see Nancy?"

Ned didn't answer right away. "I guess by not thinking about that too much. I know it's good to be prepared for things like that, but it's no use crying over something that hasn't happened yet and hopefully never will. Also, I know that if the worst ever does happen, it will be because there was nothing Nancy or I could have done to prevent it."

"She wouldn't have to keep solving mysteries."

"Yeah. But then she wouldn't be Nancy, and I would have lost her anyway."

Callie looked away.