A/N: This is a bit of a mini-chapter…but since I got this much finished and it was a good stopping point I figured I should update today. Two updates in three days! It's almost like old times! :) Believe it or not, this story is winding down. This newspaper business won't get figured out in this story, its setting up for my next story. Probably only a few more chapters to go in this one. I just have to figure out a nice way to wrap it all up and put a big bow on top. :)

Thanks to everyone for reading and reviewing! I really appreciate it! Enjoy!

Four Times Too Many

Chapter Thirty Four

"Who are you calling?" Nancy murmured as she and Frank followed Joe and Maggie out of the hospital.

Frank slowed down a little to allow Maggie and Joe to get even further ahead of them. "That paper showing up in Biff's hospital room is too strange. I'm going to call around, see if anyone else we know received an unwanted paper." He punched the familiar number into his phone and waited for it to connect.

"Hey Chet, it's Frank," he said a few moments later.

"Hey Frank, how are you?" Chet replied happily.

"I'm good. I just left the hospital after seeing Biff."

"I'm on my way over there myself, how is he?" Chet asked.

"He's doing well, joking around as usual," Frank replied, "Listen, do you subscribe to The Times?"

"No, but funny you should ask…I got one this morning. It's a strange thing; it was delivered all the way out here at the farm. Front door and everything, I usually have to go to the street to get the local paper." Chet paused. "It's not a strange coincidence that you're asking, is it?"

"No Chet, not really," Frank sighed. "Would you mind holding on to it and I'll come pick it up?"

"Sure," Chet replied. "This doesn't have anything to do with the story about Joe in there does it?"

"So you read it," Frank said in way of response.

"Yeah, I read it." Chet said angrily, "I can't believe the paper would print something like that."

A few minutes later and Frank had confirmed that all of their friends had received papers that morning when they didn't subscribe or duplicates if they did. Phil, Chet, Tony, Liz…everyone from their circle of friends. When Frank called Vanessa to see if she noticed anything out of the ordinary that morning when she left for work she said no but that there had been a Times on her desk that morning.

Frank told Nancy what he had learned and felt the concern and anger rising up in him. "I'm going to go around and pick up all the copies that were left on our friends doorsteps. See if there's anything different about them."

"I'll go with you," Nancy said as they came up next to Joe and Maggie at her car.

"Go with him where?" Joe asked.

"I need a new pair of pants," Frank replied quickly.

"And he can't be trusted to pick out the right pair," Nancy said with a smile, "so I'm going with him."

"Yeah, that's adorable and everything but I don't believe you," Joe said and narrowed his eyes. "Where are you guys really going?"

"You're so suspicious all the time Joe," Frank said and gave his brother a lighthearted punch on the shoulder. "I just need a new pair of jeans."

"Great, me too. I'll come with you," Joe declared and folded his arms across his chest.

"About that," Nancy piped up before Frank could think of something to say, "you can definitely come, it's not a problem. You could help Frank carry the bags."

"The bags? The bags of what?" Joe asked.

"My clothes," Nancy replied as if the answer should be obvious. "I need to do some shopping as well."

Joe held up his hands, "okay, you guys win. I surrender. I want to know what you guys are really doing but I'm not willing to risk that you guys might actually be going shopping. I already went shopping with Vanessa and Maggie so I'm good for a few months."

"Okay then," Nancy replied happily. "You can take my car and drop Maggie off at home." Before anyone could protest Nancy pulled on Frank's arm sharply, "let's go Frank!"

Frank chuckled as they walked away from his frustrated brother. "You know exactly where his weak spots are."

"It's my job as a soon to be sister-in-law to know how to coerce my soon to be brother-in-law into doing what I want," Nancy laughed.

"I'm just glad we're not really going shopping," Frank said with a wince. "I may be more stoic about it than Joe is, but I hate carrying all those bags just as much as he does."

"Too bad we do have to go shopping for new jeans for you and I do have some shopping to take care of at the mall," Nancy said with a smirk.

Frank groaned and opened the passenger side door on his car, "just get in."

"Okay, so now what?" Nancy asked two hours later as she and Frank stared at the pile of newspapers on their dining room table.

"How many papers do we have?" Frank asked.

"Nine I think," Nancy replied and did a quick count.

"Where should we start?" Frank asked.

"At the top I guess," Nancy replied and pulled the top paper toward her.

An hour later and they hadn't noticed anything different about the papers. "Maybe there's nothing to notice," Frank sighed and rubbed his hands over his face. "Maybe someone is just being a complete bastard."

"Maybe," Nancy murmured and turned the page in the front section of the paper that had come from Fenton and Laura's house. "Wait a second Frank."

"Did you find something?" he asked excitedly and walked around the table to look over her shoulder.

"Maybe," Nancy replied and pointed at something in the paper, "does that look highlighted to you?"

"Yeah," Frank replied.

"Someone highlighted the word "hope"," Nancy shook her head. "Why?"

"I don't know," Frank reached for another paper and pulled it open to the same page Nancy had hers open to. "Here's another one only this time the word "bad" has been highlighted."

It took awhile to find all of the highlighted words in the front section of the paper but in the end they had nine highlighted words total. "Hope, badly, I, you, it, when, hurt, tortured, he." Frank read off the words.

"What do you think it says?" Nancy looked at the words Frank had written on the legal pad between them.

It took only a few minutes for them to figure it out. Written within the nine newspapers was the sentence: "I hope it hurt badly when he tortured you."

Nancy let out a deep breath and leaned back in her kitchen chair, "Oh my God."

"I…why? Why would someone do this?" Frank whispered.

"Why and should we tell your brother?" Nancy replied.

"I should call my dad," Frank shook his head and pushed angrily away from the table.

While Frank dialed his father's number Nancy stared at the words written in front of her. Who was mad enough at Joe to make them want to send him this message? And how did that person think that they would even be able to find the message in the first place?

The person responsible for the mysterious newspapers was busy loading her kids into the car after school. She sighed deeply and thought of what her life would have been like if she hadn't gotten married so young.

She wouldn't be a single mom with three kids that's for sure. Sometimes she liked to sit in her room at night and picture the life she knew she deserved to have: a big house, a brand new car, two perfectly groomed and well behaved children.

She sighed again and snapped at her kids to stop fighting. Slamming the door she rounded the hood of the car and climbed in. Her worthless husband had run off with another woman and had left her in their cramped apartment. Now he had the nerve to try and take her to court and call her an unfit mother? She laughed manically to herself; he had actually told the judge he believed her to be unbalanced.

She was not unbalanced. She was not. Bad luck didn't make you unbalanced. It was her father's fault for getting into trouble and leaving her. It was her mother's fault for dying when she was so young and it was everyone else's fault for not helping her out enough. Mostly though, the fault laid with one person and one person only. Just the thought of it had her clenching her steering wheel until her knuckles were white.

Turning out of the school driveway she shook her head. No, she was not unbalanced. She cared for her children didn't she; made sure they had a roof over their head and food in their bellies? They went to the park sometimes and played, they were happy, weren't they? Could someone unbalanced be able to do that?

She laughed again, no siree. An unbalanced person wouldn't be able to do any of that.

Thinking about what she had done that morning, the clues she had left and the trail she knew could only be picked up by people as paranoid as the Hardy's made her feel even more sure of her sanity.

Laughing and feeling immensely pleased with herself she asked her children if they wanted to stop for ice cream on their way home. Amid the cheers she did a silent cheer herself for her own cleverness.