"Disappeared?!" Bakura echoed in horror. "How? Why? When?!"
There was another pause as JP listened to Grace speaking, and then once again he placed his hand over the phone. "She says she just found out about what happened to him and tried to call the hospital. They told her that he had been in critical condition and was in the ICU. Somehow, someone managed to get in there and then apparently abducted him!"
"That's atrocious!" Yugi declared.
"Man, you're not even safe at the hospital!" Joey cried. "What are they sayin' about this?"
JP shook his head. "They refuse to comment to the press, but they have told Grace that they're very sorry this happened and that they'll do everything they can to get to the bottom of it."
"How long ago did it happen?!" Téa asked now.
"They don't know for certain," JP answered gravely. "Anywhere in the last two hours."
"Then they could be almost anywhere in the state by now!" Joey groaned. "Man, who the heck would wanna kidnap Bruce??! And come to think of it, why'd someone wanna stab him in the first place??!"
"Perhaps he's been innocent all along but he knows who the culprits are," Marik suggested after a long stretch of silence. "What if they've been blackmailing him and causing the incidents here at the station and he hasn't known what to do?"
"I think you may be on to something, my brother," Ishizu said solemnly. "Perhaps it all has something to do with the aircraft that was in the field."
Rishid nodded. "And then perhaps Bruce decided to go to the police about all of this and that's when the criminal decided that he must be silenced." He narrowed his eyes. "When he didn't die from the stabbing, they then abducted him from the hospital."
"In other words, the guy could be dead right now!" Joey burst out.
"Joey, don't say such things!" Bakura scolded.
"Hey, I'm only speakin' the very possible truth!" the Brooklyn boy retorted.
"Well, it's depressing and we shouldn't think like that," Bakura replied firmly. "We have to concentrate on the hope that Bruce is still alive and that we can find him!"
"What's all this talk about Bruce?"
Everyone looked up as Bernard and Elsa peered in the doorway.
"Oh great," Tristan sighed. "Just what we need now when we're trying to find Bruce. The two biggest Bruce haters in existence!"
Elsa looked embarrassed. "It's not like we hate him!" she protested. "We just happen to think he's not a nice guy."
"So why do you nuts think someone stabbed him, eh?" Joey demanded. "If you're so convinced he's the bad guy, how do you explain that?!"
"Well . . . we can't," Bernard admitted. "But that doesn't mean we won't!"
Téa sighed. "Give it a rest."
"I know what we should do," Mokuba spoke up. "Look through Bruce's office and see if we can find anything! Maybe if he saw something crazy, there's something about it in the files!"
"That's a good idea," Seto smiled. "We should also check his home, if possible, and speak with his sister."
"I'm sure she'd be more than happy to speak to anyone willing to help find Bruce," JP said. "Unlike Lila and I, she and Bruce got along famously." He talked on the phone for a bit longer and then hung up. "She's already flying in from Washington," he announced then. "Once she gets here, she said she'd be more than happy to speak with you. Meantime, you'd better see what sorts of clues you can find." He was just as anxious to find Bruce as everyone else was, but he knew he would have to leave the mystery-solving up to Yugi and the others for the moment, as he had his show to do in order to make the public think everything was fine. They didn't know about Bruce's disappearance yet, and JP knew the station manager would want it to stay that way.
"Well, I doubt we'll be able to find anything out from the hospital until Grace gets here," Yugi mused now, "so for now let's stick with Mokuba's plan!"
The others agreed and soon found themselves in Bruce's office.
"Haven't the police already been through here?" Téa sighed, glancing around at everything and especially at the stacks of overnight ratings reports on Bruce's desk. Everyone knew how obsessed the man was with ratings.
"They have," Bakura said softly, "but they haven't looked through everything yet. They're certain, however, that what happened wasn't a random act, and this kidnapping proves it, I'm sure. Someone specifically wants Bruce for some reason!"
"Could Phil Court be involved in all this?" Tristan wondered. "Man, I wouldn't mind seeing that guy behind bars."
"He's most definitely unpleasant," Ishizu agreed, "but we have no proof that would link him to any of these crimes. Perhaps he is simply so heart-broken about Lila Palmer's actions and her arrest that he tries to convince himself she isn't the way she truly is. Or even . . . she may have had a better side that we know nothing of." The Egyptian woman sighed as she took out several files to sort through.
"When it comes right down to it, we really don't have any suspects," Téa pointed out. "Only Phil Court."
"Hey, he's plenty suspect enough for me," Joey snorted.
Marik paused, seeming to be remembering something strange.
"What is it, Marik?" Rishid asked, seeing the far-off look coming into his younger brother's eyes.
"I'm afraid there may be two sets of criminals," Marik told him, snapping out of his trance-like state. "The pilot said someone had tampered with the engine of the plane."
"Man, that's right," Joey sighed. "Just another angle to a mystery that already has enough of 'em!"
To everyone's utter shock—especially Joey's—a familiar figure then came and stood in the doorway to Bruce's office, her hazel eyes full of hurt and bewilderment.
"Joey!" Serenity cried. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to come here again?!"
Joey didn't look pleased at his sister's sudden entrance. "Serenity!! I thought you were going to stay with Mom today and help her with that . . . whatever it was she needed help with!" He nearly dropped the file he was holding, as his hands were shaking so badly. In spite of what he'd told her the previous night, he absolutely did not want her involved in the mysteries for any reason and regretted promising her that she could be.
"She has someone else to help her," Serenity replied in exasperation as she walked in. "You weren't going to tell me about this, were you, Joey."
Joey looked extremely frustrated. He didn't want to deal with this now, and especially not in front of everyone else. "Sure I was!" he bluffed.
"When?" Serenity pressed.
The others wisely kept silent, sensing that this was not a time for any of them to interfere. Marik busied himself with going through another file while Seto—who really couldn't care less about the Wheelers' conversation—began searching through Bruce's computer and Mokuba rooted through the desk.
"Later!" Joey finally exploded after searching for the right words. "I was gonna tell you later!!" He slammed the file onto the desk harshly and Seto grumbled as he found he'd hit the "L" key at least a dozen times in rapid succession. "Come on, Serenity, this really isn't the time to talk about this. Bruce is missing!" He knew exactly how lame his voice sounded. He was stalling for time and he knew it. And he was certain Serenity knew it.
"You promised, Joey!" Serenity objected. "You promised you'd let me help out from now on!!" Tears started to form in her eyes but she refused to give in to them. She didn't enjoy the prospect of all the danger, but if her brother insisted on being involved, then she wanted to be as well.
Joey took a deep breath. "Look, sis, I know I said that, but . . . but maybe . . . it wasn't such a good idea." He was about to go on and explain about Bakura's stalker, the disturbing werewolf incident, and Bruce's disappearance, but Serenity immediately spoke up again before he could—not that it would have made much of a difference if Joey had said what he was going to anyway.
"Joey, I already know how dangerous it is!" Serenity burst out. "I know that, but I don't care!"
"Well, I do!" Joey yelled, instantly regretting it when he heard how loud his voice was getting. But he couldn't stop himself now. "Look what's been happening to the others on this case—and on the Boston one! Kaiba and Marik nearly got sacrificed to some freaky monster, Bakura's bein' stalked, Marik almost died in an airplane crash. . . . And it just goes on and on! I don't want that for you, Serenity! I don't!!"
"I don't want it for you, either!" Serenity wailed. "Why can't all of you just stop solving mysteries and leave it to the police?!" Without waiting for Joey or any of the others to answer her, the auburn-haired girl turned and fled back down the hall.
"Serenity!" Joey yelled, running to the doorway. "Hey! Come back here!!"
"Let her go," Seto said coldly, clicking on another document.
"That's my sister!" Joey said indignantly. "No way am I gonna just 'let her go'! I can't have her bein' all upset and sad like this!" And with that he, too, left.
Tristan was the first to break the ensuing silence. "Well, there's nothing weird in this file," he said, setting it down with finality. "And that's the last one!"
No one answered him.
Téa sank down into a nearby chair, an expression of sadness in her eyes. There had been many a time when she felt like saying exactly what Serenity just had. She didn't like solving the mysteries. It seemed that every time they tried, so many of them wound up hurt long before it was over. And they had found that they weren't so indestructible as they'd like to think. Shadi—the guardian of the Millennium Items!—had perished fighting at the Black Diamond Ranch. Ever since then, Téa had been especially uneasy—not that she hadn't been before. But she was so afraid that one day, perhaps very soon, she would lose someone very close to her. Yugi . . . Joey . . . Tristan . . . Seto . . . Bakura . . . Marik. . . . She didn't want to lose any of them! What was the answer? she wondered. What kept them solving the mysteries they encountered instead of simply leaving it up to the police? Why did they constantly put themselves in danger?
Seto's voice interrupted her reverie then. "Hmm. This is interesting," the brown-haired boy mused.
Instantly everyone gathered around. "What is it?" Mokuba wanted to know.
"It's talking about how some recordings are very hard to get a hold of," Seto said, skimming over the document he'd uncovered. "Some people make copies of them and sell them on the black market to the highest bidder."
"No way," Tristan said in disbelief, "people would pay that much money for one song?!" He pointed to an astronomical figure on the screen.
"Some people would," Seto replied emotionlessly.
"But . . . Bruce didn't do that to get rare songs for KETY, did he?" Yugi exclaimed.
Seto read a bit further. "No, but it seems Phil Court did," he grunted.
"And Bruce found out about it?" Téa put in.
"It would seem so," Marik said, staring at the computer screen. "And it says here that often the shipments of recordings were brought in on a small, private airplane!" He narrowed his eyes.
"It's the first real lead we've had," Yugi said. "We need to find Phil Court and have a little talk with him!"
"Oh, you do, do you?"
Again everyone looked up, but the voice this time was not familiar. To everyone's utter shock, a tall, pale figure in a cape began to materialize in front of them, grinning maniacally.
"Oh my!" Bakura gasped, backing up and falling into a chair.
"Count Dracula!" Tristan yelped, his eyes widening.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Yugi cried bravely, not about to be intimidated by this vampyre, or whatever it was.
It only laughed and moved forward. "Well, truth be told, I have been feeling a bit hungry today." The creature sneered, standing in front of Ishizu now.
The Egyptian woman was not impressed. "I am afraid you will have to find your lunch elsewhere," she said calmly, raising a hand protectively to her neck.
"Is this a real vampyre?" Tristan gulped, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
He never got one. In the next instant the room began to fill up with a horrible gas.
"Sleepy," Mokuba mumbled. "I'm getting so sleepy. . . ."
Seto held him close, his eyes narrowed as he tried to fight his way to the door. But his mind was suddenly so muddled that he couldn't remember which direction the door was in. Before long he and the others had all collapsed to the floor, unconscious!
There was another pause as JP listened to Grace speaking, and then once again he placed his hand over the phone. "She says she just found out about what happened to him and tried to call the hospital. They told her that he had been in critical condition and was in the ICU. Somehow, someone managed to get in there and then apparently abducted him!"
"That's atrocious!" Yugi declared.
"Man, you're not even safe at the hospital!" Joey cried. "What are they sayin' about this?"
JP shook his head. "They refuse to comment to the press, but they have told Grace that they're very sorry this happened and that they'll do everything they can to get to the bottom of it."
"How long ago did it happen?!" Téa asked now.
"They don't know for certain," JP answered gravely. "Anywhere in the last two hours."
"Then they could be almost anywhere in the state by now!" Joey groaned. "Man, who the heck would wanna kidnap Bruce??! And come to think of it, why'd someone wanna stab him in the first place??!"
"Perhaps he's been innocent all along but he knows who the culprits are," Marik suggested after a long stretch of silence. "What if they've been blackmailing him and causing the incidents here at the station and he hasn't known what to do?"
"I think you may be on to something, my brother," Ishizu said solemnly. "Perhaps it all has something to do with the aircraft that was in the field."
Rishid nodded. "And then perhaps Bruce decided to go to the police about all of this and that's when the criminal decided that he must be silenced." He narrowed his eyes. "When he didn't die from the stabbing, they then abducted him from the hospital."
"In other words, the guy could be dead right now!" Joey burst out.
"Joey, don't say such things!" Bakura scolded.
"Hey, I'm only speakin' the very possible truth!" the Brooklyn boy retorted.
"Well, it's depressing and we shouldn't think like that," Bakura replied firmly. "We have to concentrate on the hope that Bruce is still alive and that we can find him!"
"What's all this talk about Bruce?"
Everyone looked up as Bernard and Elsa peered in the doorway.
"Oh great," Tristan sighed. "Just what we need now when we're trying to find Bruce. The two biggest Bruce haters in existence!"
Elsa looked embarrassed. "It's not like we hate him!" she protested. "We just happen to think he's not a nice guy."
"So why do you nuts think someone stabbed him, eh?" Joey demanded. "If you're so convinced he's the bad guy, how do you explain that?!"
"Well . . . we can't," Bernard admitted. "But that doesn't mean we won't!"
Téa sighed. "Give it a rest."
"I know what we should do," Mokuba spoke up. "Look through Bruce's office and see if we can find anything! Maybe if he saw something crazy, there's something about it in the files!"
"That's a good idea," Seto smiled. "We should also check his home, if possible, and speak with his sister."
"I'm sure she'd be more than happy to speak to anyone willing to help find Bruce," JP said. "Unlike Lila and I, she and Bruce got along famously." He talked on the phone for a bit longer and then hung up. "She's already flying in from Washington," he announced then. "Once she gets here, she said she'd be more than happy to speak with you. Meantime, you'd better see what sorts of clues you can find." He was just as anxious to find Bruce as everyone else was, but he knew he would have to leave the mystery-solving up to Yugi and the others for the moment, as he had his show to do in order to make the public think everything was fine. They didn't know about Bruce's disappearance yet, and JP knew the station manager would want it to stay that way.
"Well, I doubt we'll be able to find anything out from the hospital until Grace gets here," Yugi mused now, "so for now let's stick with Mokuba's plan!"
The others agreed and soon found themselves in Bruce's office.
"Haven't the police already been through here?" Téa sighed, glancing around at everything and especially at the stacks of overnight ratings reports on Bruce's desk. Everyone knew how obsessed the man was with ratings.
"They have," Bakura said softly, "but they haven't looked through everything yet. They're certain, however, that what happened wasn't a random act, and this kidnapping proves it, I'm sure. Someone specifically wants Bruce for some reason!"
"Could Phil Court be involved in all this?" Tristan wondered. "Man, I wouldn't mind seeing that guy behind bars."
"He's most definitely unpleasant," Ishizu agreed, "but we have no proof that would link him to any of these crimes. Perhaps he is simply so heart-broken about Lila Palmer's actions and her arrest that he tries to convince himself she isn't the way she truly is. Or even . . . she may have had a better side that we know nothing of." The Egyptian woman sighed as she took out several files to sort through.
"When it comes right down to it, we really don't have any suspects," Téa pointed out. "Only Phil Court."
"Hey, he's plenty suspect enough for me," Joey snorted.
Marik paused, seeming to be remembering something strange.
"What is it, Marik?" Rishid asked, seeing the far-off look coming into his younger brother's eyes.
"I'm afraid there may be two sets of criminals," Marik told him, snapping out of his trance-like state. "The pilot said someone had tampered with the engine of the plane."
"Man, that's right," Joey sighed. "Just another angle to a mystery that already has enough of 'em!"
To everyone's utter shock—especially Joey's—a familiar figure then came and stood in the doorway to Bruce's office, her hazel eyes full of hurt and bewilderment.
"Joey!" Serenity cried. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to come here again?!"
Joey didn't look pleased at his sister's sudden entrance. "Serenity!! I thought you were going to stay with Mom today and help her with that . . . whatever it was she needed help with!" He nearly dropped the file he was holding, as his hands were shaking so badly. In spite of what he'd told her the previous night, he absolutely did not want her involved in the mysteries for any reason and regretted promising her that she could be.
"She has someone else to help her," Serenity replied in exasperation as she walked in. "You weren't going to tell me about this, were you, Joey."
Joey looked extremely frustrated. He didn't want to deal with this now, and especially not in front of everyone else. "Sure I was!" he bluffed.
"When?" Serenity pressed.
The others wisely kept silent, sensing that this was not a time for any of them to interfere. Marik busied himself with going through another file while Seto—who really couldn't care less about the Wheelers' conversation—began searching through Bruce's computer and Mokuba rooted through the desk.
"Later!" Joey finally exploded after searching for the right words. "I was gonna tell you later!!" He slammed the file onto the desk harshly and Seto grumbled as he found he'd hit the "L" key at least a dozen times in rapid succession. "Come on, Serenity, this really isn't the time to talk about this. Bruce is missing!" He knew exactly how lame his voice sounded. He was stalling for time and he knew it. And he was certain Serenity knew it.
"You promised, Joey!" Serenity objected. "You promised you'd let me help out from now on!!" Tears started to form in her eyes but she refused to give in to them. She didn't enjoy the prospect of all the danger, but if her brother insisted on being involved, then she wanted to be as well.
Joey took a deep breath. "Look, sis, I know I said that, but . . . but maybe . . . it wasn't such a good idea." He was about to go on and explain about Bakura's stalker, the disturbing werewolf incident, and Bruce's disappearance, but Serenity immediately spoke up again before he could—not that it would have made much of a difference if Joey had said what he was going to anyway.
"Joey, I already know how dangerous it is!" Serenity burst out. "I know that, but I don't care!"
"Well, I do!" Joey yelled, instantly regretting it when he heard how loud his voice was getting. But he couldn't stop himself now. "Look what's been happening to the others on this case—and on the Boston one! Kaiba and Marik nearly got sacrificed to some freaky monster, Bakura's bein' stalked, Marik almost died in an airplane crash. . . . And it just goes on and on! I don't want that for you, Serenity! I don't!!"
"I don't want it for you, either!" Serenity wailed. "Why can't all of you just stop solving mysteries and leave it to the police?!" Without waiting for Joey or any of the others to answer her, the auburn-haired girl turned and fled back down the hall.
"Serenity!" Joey yelled, running to the doorway. "Hey! Come back here!!"
"Let her go," Seto said coldly, clicking on another document.
"That's my sister!" Joey said indignantly. "No way am I gonna just 'let her go'! I can't have her bein' all upset and sad like this!" And with that he, too, left.
Tristan was the first to break the ensuing silence. "Well, there's nothing weird in this file," he said, setting it down with finality. "And that's the last one!"
No one answered him.
Téa sank down into a nearby chair, an expression of sadness in her eyes. There had been many a time when she felt like saying exactly what Serenity just had. She didn't like solving the mysteries. It seemed that every time they tried, so many of them wound up hurt long before it was over. And they had found that they weren't so indestructible as they'd like to think. Shadi—the guardian of the Millennium Items!—had perished fighting at the Black Diamond Ranch. Ever since then, Téa had been especially uneasy—not that she hadn't been before. But she was so afraid that one day, perhaps very soon, she would lose someone very close to her. Yugi . . . Joey . . . Tristan . . . Seto . . . Bakura . . . Marik. . . . She didn't want to lose any of them! What was the answer? she wondered. What kept them solving the mysteries they encountered instead of simply leaving it up to the police? Why did they constantly put themselves in danger?
Seto's voice interrupted her reverie then. "Hmm. This is interesting," the brown-haired boy mused.
Instantly everyone gathered around. "What is it?" Mokuba wanted to know.
"It's talking about how some recordings are very hard to get a hold of," Seto said, skimming over the document he'd uncovered. "Some people make copies of them and sell them on the black market to the highest bidder."
"No way," Tristan said in disbelief, "people would pay that much money for one song?!" He pointed to an astronomical figure on the screen.
"Some people would," Seto replied emotionlessly.
"But . . . Bruce didn't do that to get rare songs for KETY, did he?" Yugi exclaimed.
Seto read a bit further. "No, but it seems Phil Court did," he grunted.
"And Bruce found out about it?" Téa put in.
"It would seem so," Marik said, staring at the computer screen. "And it says here that often the shipments of recordings were brought in on a small, private airplane!" He narrowed his eyes.
"It's the first real lead we've had," Yugi said. "We need to find Phil Court and have a little talk with him!"
"Oh, you do, do you?"
Again everyone looked up, but the voice this time was not familiar. To everyone's utter shock, a tall, pale figure in a cape began to materialize in front of them, grinning maniacally.
"Oh my!" Bakura gasped, backing up and falling into a chair.
"Count Dracula!" Tristan yelped, his eyes widening.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Yugi cried bravely, not about to be intimidated by this vampyre, or whatever it was.
It only laughed and moved forward. "Well, truth be told, I have been feeling a bit hungry today." The creature sneered, standing in front of Ishizu now.
The Egyptian woman was not impressed. "I am afraid you will have to find your lunch elsewhere," she said calmly, raising a hand protectively to her neck.
"Is this a real vampyre?" Tristan gulped, not sure he wanted to hear the answer.
He never got one. In the next instant the room began to fill up with a horrible gas.
"Sleepy," Mokuba mumbled. "I'm getting so sleepy. . . ."
Seto held him close, his eyes narrowed as he tried to fight his way to the door. But his mind was suddenly so muddled that he couldn't remember which direction the door was in. Before long he and the others had all collapsed to the floor, unconscious!