Frank approached the bed, his heart hammering in his throat with apprehension. Joe was sprawled on his back in bed, the covers pushed off, his pajama shirt covered in reddish….something! Surely not blood?
Frank glanced back at the door, as Laura arrived on the scene in her robe, awakened by the noise of him breaking in Joe's door. She gasped and covered her mouth with one hand, her blue eyes wide with shock at the sight of her youngest son.
He's breathing…. Frank neared the bed and leaned closer, and as he did so, a familiar aroma smote his nostrils. He reached down and put a finger in the red stuff on Joe's shirt, then brought it near his nose. Then he touched it to his tongue. "Catalina salad dressing!"
"What?" Laura stepped into the room, the shock fading from her face. "Salad dressing? What on earth…?"
"Joe, wake up." Frank shook his brother's shoulder, gently. "Joe?" He shook it again.
There was no response from Joe.
Frank tried again, shaking a little harder this time. "Joe! Wake up!"
Joe moaned slightly, and his head rolled sideways on the pillow. He took a deep breath, and returned to his slumbers.
"Joe!" Frank had stopped being gentle. Why wouldn't Joe awaken? He shook him again.
Laura was hovering beside him now. "Frank, what's wrong with him?"
"I'm not sure…Mom, don't we have some smelling salts around here? Let's try that - maybe it will help." Frank requested.
In a few moments, Laura returned with a small vial, which she uncapped and held beneath Joe's nose. His nose twitched, and he shook his head, but then turned away once more, and his eyes did not open.
"Why won't he wake up?" Laura was starting to sound a little frantic.
Frank had noticed something - every time Joe moved his head on the pillow, he seemed to sink deeper into this strange sleep. Frank removed the pillow from beneath Joe's head, and examined it closely. He reached into the pillowcase, and pulled out a cloth - a damp cloth! Even without holding it to his nose, Frank knew what was on it, for the smell of chloroform suddenly permeated the air!
Hastily, Frank shoved the rag back into the pillowcase, and tossed it to the floor. "Try the smelling salts again, Mom."
Laura held the little vial underneath Joe's nose once more. This time, Joe rolled his head back and forth as the strong ammoniate scent filled his head and began to clear the fog.
Abruptly, his eyes snapped open, and he stared up into his mother's and brother's faces, then sat up with a jerk. That proved to be a BIG mistake!
Frank saw it coming, and snatched the wastebasket from beneath Joe's desk, just in time. He shoved it under Joe's face, and Laura grabbed it and held it steady, as Frank put a supporting arm behind Joe's back.
Perhaps a minute later, Joe lay back on the bed, his face white and covered with beads of sweat. His black eye stood out sharply against the pallor of his skin.
"Lie still, honey. I'll get you a cold washcloth." Laura told him. She took the malodorous waste can away to the bathroom.
"Glad…to…" Joe whispered. He still felt nauseated, and the room was spinning nastily, increasing the sensation. "No - wait…" He fumbled with the buttons of his salad-dressing-drenched pajamas. "I've got to get this off…it makes it worse…."
Frank helped him remove the offending shirt. "You gonna be okay?" he asked sympathetically, as Laura returned and laid the cool cloth on Joe's forehead.
"Yeah…." Joe mumbled, but Frank shook his head dubiously. Joe didn't look anything close to okay.
"Mom, don't touch anything else," Frank warned her, as she went back to the bathroom to get the rinsed-out waste can. "I'm going to use the phone in your room and call the police."
Surprisingly quickly, considering the early weekend hour, Sergeant Con Riley and John Garner, formerly of the Los Angeles Police Department, arrived at the Hardy home. Laura led them up the stairs to Joe's room.
"John has just joined the Bayport PD," Riley informed the Hardys, introducing them. "He's our new forensics officer."
"Welcome to Bayport," Frank greeted the man.
"Yeah," Joe added weakly from his bed.
"It's nice to meet you boys. You too, ma'am." Garner returned the greeting. "I've heard a lot about the Hardys since I arrived in Bayport and I have been looking forward to meeting you. I just wish it could have been under better circumstances."
Garner commenced the investigation of Joe's room, careful to stay out of Joe's way after he once again sat up and was violently sick in the wastebasket.
"Joe," Riley asked him kindly, before beginning his questioning. "Do you want us to hold off on this for a while, until you're not feeling quite so rotten?"
"N…no." Joe murmured weakly. "I think…it's getting a little…better." He lifted his head slightly as Frank entered the room. "Frank - could you - give me a hand? I think I'd like to…get out of here…."
"Sure, you can lie on my bed." Frank nodded. He helped Joe to his feet, and walked him slowly through the bathroom into his own room, where he eased Joe onto his bed. "There, just stay quiet a little longer; the effects of this stuff should be wearing off soon."
"And there's nothing left to come up, anyway." Joe murmured, trying to smile.
Frank returned to Joe's room, and answered Riley's questions about how Frank knew something was wrong and how he had found Joe and the room. Joe, when questioned, had no answers…he had been sound asleep, and never heard a thing.
Frank watched as Garner took pictures of the room, then pulled on a pair of gloves, and with a mini-vacuum, cleaned up around the bed. Then he changed vacuum bags and vacuumed the path from the window, where it was assumed the intruder had entered, to the bed. He took the pillowcase, rag and pillow included and placed it inside a garbage bag and sealed it shut with tape. Then he took the bedding and sealed it in another bag, and Joe's pajama shirt in another. After this, he took more pictures of the scene.
"With a little luck, we might be able to get something from the rag the chloroform was on," Garner informed Frank. "We will definitely be able to get some hair and dead skin samples as well as soil composition from where the perpetrator stepped on the carpet."
"You can learn a lot from a little, can't you?" Frank asked in awe.
"You would be amazed," Garner concurred, smiling.
"Anything new come up with the Bartlett suicide case?" Frank asked then. "Or the thing with Mom's brake lines, or the bombs at the school, or…"
Riley grinned ruefully. "Don't rub it in. Yeah, there actually is something, with the Bartlett case. Joe was right - he was out of town at the time of the bomb threat, so he couldn't have been responsible. But when we went over his place, we found an envelope with five thousand dollars in it. What sort of teacher has five thousand dollars in cash lying around?"
"There was a chemical residue on the envelope," Garner put in. "The sort used in perfumes. If there is a connection between the teacher's death and what happened here, an analysis of the rag might be able to prove it."
"Perfumes? Sounds like there might be a female involved." Frank commented. "You think the envelope might have something to do with why he was killed?"
"To be honest, it's all we've got." Riley answered. "There wasn't anything else in the car, the garage, or his house that was remotely unusual."
"That in itself could be suspicious." Frank remarked.
"Been watching The New Avengers again, have you?" Riley asked teasingly.
Frank blushed, and decided to change the subject. "Joe's English teacher, Ms. Westerman, had an intruder in her house last night - can you tell me anything about that?"
"Sorry," Con shook his head. "I'd just come on duty this morning when your call came in. I didn't have a chance to go through any of the activities from last night."
Riley and Garner took their leave, and Frank went into his room, while Laura dressed and then headed downstairs to prepare a belated breakfast.
"Joe? You feeling any better yet?" Frank sat down on the edge of the bed, very carefully. He figured joggling Joe was not a good idea, at the moment.
"Yeah…little bit." Joe opened his eyes slightly. "Did they find anything?"
"Too soon to tell." Frank confessed. "Oh, but listen to this…" He related what Riley had told him about the money found at Mr. Bartlett's house.
Joe frowned. "I'm getting very confused," he said. "Why are some of these things just pranks - like the pictures in the lockers and stuff…and why are some of them more dangerous?" He sat up, cautiously. "I also think I'm getting hungry," he added.
Since Joe's room was no longer off limits, the younger Hardy got a pair of sweatpants and a shirt to wear, then the boys went downstairs, where Joe tentatively nibbled on toast and sipped tomato juice, while Laura and Frank ate scrambled eggs and bacon. Joe was still pondering the question he had asked upstairs, and now he repeated it.
"Maybe it's two separate people?" Laura suggested, but Frank looked dubious.
"Remember the fanfic story predicted both things. It's got to be the same person who's responsible for everything…or the same group of people, anyway." he stated. "It might take more than one person to do all this stuff."
"To do this last 'stuff', someone had to break in here last night!" Laura snapped. "I want this person found!"
"Let's check the website again." Joe suggested, when breakfast was done. Accordingly, he and Frank went into the den, and re-connected to the Internet, for the connection had "idled" out long since.
"Look, there's an answer to your e-mail!" Joe indicated the signal with a finger near the screen. "It's from the webmaster!"
"Hmmm…" Frank rapidly scanned the message. "…'should this story no longer be posted?'…Mmmm, he's trying to be helpful, I guess. He included an e-mail address…." He typed a reply. "How's this: please continue to post the story so that we have an indication of what is going to happen, and the author is not alerted that we are aware of what is happening." he read, and hit Send. "Now I'm going to mail the author a nice, gushy letter of fandom, saying how we're just dying to know what happens next…." Again, he typed, read it over, and sent it.
"Now what?" Joe asked, when Frank finally finished his correspondence.
"Well, how about if we go back over to Ms. Westerman's and see if we can come up with a reason why she was attacked?" Frank proposed.
"All right - I think I can handle it." Joe still looked a little shaky, but was determined. "But we'd better get dressed," he reminded his brother, eyeing Frank, who was still clad in the t-shirt and cut-off sweatpants he had slept in.
"What, I can't go over there dressed like this?" Frank joked. He was about to turn off the computer when Laura entered the den.
"Go ahead and leave it on, Frank," she instructed. "I haven't read the latest things yet."
The boys went upstairs, and dressed to go out, but when they went back down, Laura called them into the den once more.
"Frank, Joe, there's another chapter of Truth and Consequences up! Come read this!"
They hurried into the den, and leaned over Laura's shoulders, both avidly reading the story.
"Hmmm….Jeremy's fine - well, that's fairly right; you weren't hurt, just sick…" Frank's voice trailed off.
"But both Jeremy and Fletcher are steamed because someone's playing with their heads - boy, is he right about that!" Joe chuckled sardonically.
They continued reading, and found that both Jeremy and Fletcher were scheduled for dates with their girlfriends.
"Not today!" Frank crowed in triumph. "Callie went with her mother to visit a sick aunt."
Joe frowned. He did have a date planned with Vanessa, to go to an afternoon movie. They kept reading.
To their distress, the story line made Fletcher leave his girlfriend alone for a short time, to check on a figure following them, and when he returned, he found her lying unconscious!
"That does it, I'm canceling my date with Van." Joe muttered. "I'm not risking her."
"No, don't cancel," Frank advised. "Go, but don't leave her alone for a minute! I'll be there at the movie theater before you, and I'll watch for anyone shadowing you."
"I don't want to…" Joe was unhappy. He was still pale from the morning's events, and the cuts and bruises his face had taken in the locker explosion contrasted sharply with his pallor. "You might get hurt. One of us hurt is bad enough."
"Joe, I won't get hurt," Frank assured him. "And we have to do it this way - we might actually find something out, and we need to do that, before someone else gets killed!"
Joe still looked doubtful, but finally agreed to the plan.
"Mom, you'll keep checking for new chapters, right?" Frank requested of his mother, who nodded emphatically.
"I certainly will!" she said. "But if you two are going to be working this afternoon, could you possibly go to Ms. Westerman's later too? The grass on the lawn is getting terribly high…" She raised an eyebrow significantly at her sons, and waited for their response.
Frank chuckled. "Sure, Mom. I'll do something about it right now." He headed for the garage and the lawn mower.
"I'll work on trimming the laurel bushes." Joe offered, and started to follow him, but Laura held out a detaining hand.
"Not so fast, young man! You don't need to add over-exertion to everything else you've been through. You just take it easy until time for your date with Vanessa." she admonished.
"Oh, all right," Joe sat down in the vacated desk chair. "I'll keep checking on the chapters, then, and look for e-mail."
Joe accessed the e-mail. To his surprise, there was a notification that the message sent to Mystique had been undeliverable!
Wait a minute…. If the web master has been receiving Mystique's chapters, then he must have had a correct e-mail address from her. That must mean that the web master is involved - hey, maybe the web master is Mystique! It's a web mistress, not a web master!
Joe composed another e-mail to the web master: Sorry, but your message was deleted before I got the address for Mystique saved. Was it…? He deliberately misspelled the address.
Deciding to do a little research, Joe went to Google and ran a search for 'Mystique' - and groaned loudly when the results came back with something like 386,000 possibilities. How can there be so many?
The familiar, annoying voice announced that he had mail. Wow, that was fast! Joe thought, and accessed the mailbox. There were two messages waiting.
Hey, this one's from Dad! Joe smiled, reading the note. Fenton stated that his case was nearly wrapped up, and he expected to be home by Wednesday. It ended with the reassuring words: 'love to you all - Dad.'
The second message was a reply to his question to the web master. Joe read it thoughtfully. According to this, the address was exactly what had been used in the undeliverable e-mail.
That does it! Joe smacked a fist into his hand. The web master is definitely involved!
Frank glanced back at the door, as Laura arrived on the scene in her robe, awakened by the noise of him breaking in Joe's door. She gasped and covered her mouth with one hand, her blue eyes wide with shock at the sight of her youngest son.
He's breathing…. Frank neared the bed and leaned closer, and as he did so, a familiar aroma smote his nostrils. He reached down and put a finger in the red stuff on Joe's shirt, then brought it near his nose. Then he touched it to his tongue. "Catalina salad dressing!"
"What?" Laura stepped into the room, the shock fading from her face. "Salad dressing? What on earth…?"
"Joe, wake up." Frank shook his brother's shoulder, gently. "Joe?" He shook it again.
There was no response from Joe.
Frank tried again, shaking a little harder this time. "Joe! Wake up!"
Joe moaned slightly, and his head rolled sideways on the pillow. He took a deep breath, and returned to his slumbers.
"Joe!" Frank had stopped being gentle. Why wouldn't Joe awaken? He shook him again.
Laura was hovering beside him now. "Frank, what's wrong with him?"
"I'm not sure…Mom, don't we have some smelling salts around here? Let's try that - maybe it will help." Frank requested.
In a few moments, Laura returned with a small vial, which she uncapped and held beneath Joe's nose. His nose twitched, and he shook his head, but then turned away once more, and his eyes did not open.
"Why won't he wake up?" Laura was starting to sound a little frantic.
Frank had noticed something - every time Joe moved his head on the pillow, he seemed to sink deeper into this strange sleep. Frank removed the pillow from beneath Joe's head, and examined it closely. He reached into the pillowcase, and pulled out a cloth - a damp cloth! Even without holding it to his nose, Frank knew what was on it, for the smell of chloroform suddenly permeated the air!
Hastily, Frank shoved the rag back into the pillowcase, and tossed it to the floor. "Try the smelling salts again, Mom."
Laura held the little vial underneath Joe's nose once more. This time, Joe rolled his head back and forth as the strong ammoniate scent filled his head and began to clear the fog.
Abruptly, his eyes snapped open, and he stared up into his mother's and brother's faces, then sat up with a jerk. That proved to be a BIG mistake!
Frank saw it coming, and snatched the wastebasket from beneath Joe's desk, just in time. He shoved it under Joe's face, and Laura grabbed it and held it steady, as Frank put a supporting arm behind Joe's back.
Perhaps a minute later, Joe lay back on the bed, his face white and covered with beads of sweat. His black eye stood out sharply against the pallor of his skin.
"Lie still, honey. I'll get you a cold washcloth." Laura told him. She took the malodorous waste can away to the bathroom.
"Glad…to…" Joe whispered. He still felt nauseated, and the room was spinning nastily, increasing the sensation. "No - wait…" He fumbled with the buttons of his salad-dressing-drenched pajamas. "I've got to get this off…it makes it worse…."
Frank helped him remove the offending shirt. "You gonna be okay?" he asked sympathetically, as Laura returned and laid the cool cloth on Joe's forehead.
"Yeah…." Joe mumbled, but Frank shook his head dubiously. Joe didn't look anything close to okay.
"Mom, don't touch anything else," Frank warned her, as she went back to the bathroom to get the rinsed-out waste can. "I'm going to use the phone in your room and call the police."
Surprisingly quickly, considering the early weekend hour, Sergeant Con Riley and John Garner, formerly of the Los Angeles Police Department, arrived at the Hardy home. Laura led them up the stairs to Joe's room.
"John has just joined the Bayport PD," Riley informed the Hardys, introducing them. "He's our new forensics officer."
"Welcome to Bayport," Frank greeted the man.
"Yeah," Joe added weakly from his bed.
"It's nice to meet you boys. You too, ma'am." Garner returned the greeting. "I've heard a lot about the Hardys since I arrived in Bayport and I have been looking forward to meeting you. I just wish it could have been under better circumstances."
Garner commenced the investigation of Joe's room, careful to stay out of Joe's way after he once again sat up and was violently sick in the wastebasket.
"Joe," Riley asked him kindly, before beginning his questioning. "Do you want us to hold off on this for a while, until you're not feeling quite so rotten?"
"N…no." Joe murmured weakly. "I think…it's getting a little…better." He lifted his head slightly as Frank entered the room. "Frank - could you - give me a hand? I think I'd like to…get out of here…."
"Sure, you can lie on my bed." Frank nodded. He helped Joe to his feet, and walked him slowly through the bathroom into his own room, where he eased Joe onto his bed. "There, just stay quiet a little longer; the effects of this stuff should be wearing off soon."
"And there's nothing left to come up, anyway." Joe murmured, trying to smile.
Frank returned to Joe's room, and answered Riley's questions about how Frank knew something was wrong and how he had found Joe and the room. Joe, when questioned, had no answers…he had been sound asleep, and never heard a thing.
Frank watched as Garner took pictures of the room, then pulled on a pair of gloves, and with a mini-vacuum, cleaned up around the bed. Then he changed vacuum bags and vacuumed the path from the window, where it was assumed the intruder had entered, to the bed. He took the pillowcase, rag and pillow included and placed it inside a garbage bag and sealed it shut with tape. Then he took the bedding and sealed it in another bag, and Joe's pajama shirt in another. After this, he took more pictures of the scene.
"With a little luck, we might be able to get something from the rag the chloroform was on," Garner informed Frank. "We will definitely be able to get some hair and dead skin samples as well as soil composition from where the perpetrator stepped on the carpet."
"You can learn a lot from a little, can't you?" Frank asked in awe.
"You would be amazed," Garner concurred, smiling.
"Anything new come up with the Bartlett suicide case?" Frank asked then. "Or the thing with Mom's brake lines, or the bombs at the school, or…"
Riley grinned ruefully. "Don't rub it in. Yeah, there actually is something, with the Bartlett case. Joe was right - he was out of town at the time of the bomb threat, so he couldn't have been responsible. But when we went over his place, we found an envelope with five thousand dollars in it. What sort of teacher has five thousand dollars in cash lying around?"
"There was a chemical residue on the envelope," Garner put in. "The sort used in perfumes. If there is a connection between the teacher's death and what happened here, an analysis of the rag might be able to prove it."
"Perfumes? Sounds like there might be a female involved." Frank commented. "You think the envelope might have something to do with why he was killed?"
"To be honest, it's all we've got." Riley answered. "There wasn't anything else in the car, the garage, or his house that was remotely unusual."
"That in itself could be suspicious." Frank remarked.
"Been watching The New Avengers again, have you?" Riley asked teasingly.
Frank blushed, and decided to change the subject. "Joe's English teacher, Ms. Westerman, had an intruder in her house last night - can you tell me anything about that?"
"Sorry," Con shook his head. "I'd just come on duty this morning when your call came in. I didn't have a chance to go through any of the activities from last night."
Riley and Garner took their leave, and Frank went into his room, while Laura dressed and then headed downstairs to prepare a belated breakfast.
"Joe? You feeling any better yet?" Frank sat down on the edge of the bed, very carefully. He figured joggling Joe was not a good idea, at the moment.
"Yeah…little bit." Joe opened his eyes slightly. "Did they find anything?"
"Too soon to tell." Frank confessed. "Oh, but listen to this…" He related what Riley had told him about the money found at Mr. Bartlett's house.
Joe frowned. "I'm getting very confused," he said. "Why are some of these things just pranks - like the pictures in the lockers and stuff…and why are some of them more dangerous?" He sat up, cautiously. "I also think I'm getting hungry," he added.
Since Joe's room was no longer off limits, the younger Hardy got a pair of sweatpants and a shirt to wear, then the boys went downstairs, where Joe tentatively nibbled on toast and sipped tomato juice, while Laura and Frank ate scrambled eggs and bacon. Joe was still pondering the question he had asked upstairs, and now he repeated it.
"Maybe it's two separate people?" Laura suggested, but Frank looked dubious.
"Remember the fanfic story predicted both things. It's got to be the same person who's responsible for everything…or the same group of people, anyway." he stated. "It might take more than one person to do all this stuff."
"To do this last 'stuff', someone had to break in here last night!" Laura snapped. "I want this person found!"
"Let's check the website again." Joe suggested, when breakfast was done. Accordingly, he and Frank went into the den, and re-connected to the Internet, for the connection had "idled" out long since.
"Look, there's an answer to your e-mail!" Joe indicated the signal with a finger near the screen. "It's from the webmaster!"
"Hmmm…" Frank rapidly scanned the message. "…'should this story no longer be posted?'…Mmmm, he's trying to be helpful, I guess. He included an e-mail address…." He typed a reply. "How's this: please continue to post the story so that we have an indication of what is going to happen, and the author is not alerted that we are aware of what is happening." he read, and hit Send. "Now I'm going to mail the author a nice, gushy letter of fandom, saying how we're just dying to know what happens next…." Again, he typed, read it over, and sent it.
"Now what?" Joe asked, when Frank finally finished his correspondence.
"Well, how about if we go back over to Ms. Westerman's and see if we can come up with a reason why she was attacked?" Frank proposed.
"All right - I think I can handle it." Joe still looked a little shaky, but was determined. "But we'd better get dressed," he reminded his brother, eyeing Frank, who was still clad in the t-shirt and cut-off sweatpants he had slept in.
"What, I can't go over there dressed like this?" Frank joked. He was about to turn off the computer when Laura entered the den.
"Go ahead and leave it on, Frank," she instructed. "I haven't read the latest things yet."
The boys went upstairs, and dressed to go out, but when they went back down, Laura called them into the den once more.
"Frank, Joe, there's another chapter of Truth and Consequences up! Come read this!"
They hurried into the den, and leaned over Laura's shoulders, both avidly reading the story.
"Hmmm….Jeremy's fine - well, that's fairly right; you weren't hurt, just sick…" Frank's voice trailed off.
"But both Jeremy and Fletcher are steamed because someone's playing with their heads - boy, is he right about that!" Joe chuckled sardonically.
They continued reading, and found that both Jeremy and Fletcher were scheduled for dates with their girlfriends.
"Not today!" Frank crowed in triumph. "Callie went with her mother to visit a sick aunt."
Joe frowned. He did have a date planned with Vanessa, to go to an afternoon movie. They kept reading.
To their distress, the story line made Fletcher leave his girlfriend alone for a short time, to check on a figure following them, and when he returned, he found her lying unconscious!
"That does it, I'm canceling my date with Van." Joe muttered. "I'm not risking her."
"No, don't cancel," Frank advised. "Go, but don't leave her alone for a minute! I'll be there at the movie theater before you, and I'll watch for anyone shadowing you."
"I don't want to…" Joe was unhappy. He was still pale from the morning's events, and the cuts and bruises his face had taken in the locker explosion contrasted sharply with his pallor. "You might get hurt. One of us hurt is bad enough."
"Joe, I won't get hurt," Frank assured him. "And we have to do it this way - we might actually find something out, and we need to do that, before someone else gets killed!"
Joe still looked doubtful, but finally agreed to the plan.
"Mom, you'll keep checking for new chapters, right?" Frank requested of his mother, who nodded emphatically.
"I certainly will!" she said. "But if you two are going to be working this afternoon, could you possibly go to Ms. Westerman's later too? The grass on the lawn is getting terribly high…" She raised an eyebrow significantly at her sons, and waited for their response.
Frank chuckled. "Sure, Mom. I'll do something about it right now." He headed for the garage and the lawn mower.
"I'll work on trimming the laurel bushes." Joe offered, and started to follow him, but Laura held out a detaining hand.
"Not so fast, young man! You don't need to add over-exertion to everything else you've been through. You just take it easy until time for your date with Vanessa." she admonished.
"Oh, all right," Joe sat down in the vacated desk chair. "I'll keep checking on the chapters, then, and look for e-mail."
Joe accessed the e-mail. To his surprise, there was a notification that the message sent to Mystique had been undeliverable!
Wait a minute…. If the web master has been receiving Mystique's chapters, then he must have had a correct e-mail address from her. That must mean that the web master is involved - hey, maybe the web master is Mystique! It's a web mistress, not a web master!
Joe composed another e-mail to the web master: Sorry, but your message was deleted before I got the address for Mystique saved. Was it…? He deliberately misspelled the address.
Deciding to do a little research, Joe went to Google and ran a search for 'Mystique' - and groaned loudly when the results came back with something like 386,000 possibilities. How can there be so many?
The familiar, annoying voice announced that he had mail. Wow, that was fast! Joe thought, and accessed the mailbox. There were two messages waiting.
Hey, this one's from Dad! Joe smiled, reading the note. Fenton stated that his case was nearly wrapped up, and he expected to be home by Wednesday. It ended with the reassuring words: 'love to you all - Dad.'
The second message was a reply to his question to the web master. Joe read it thoughtfully. According to this, the address was exactly what had been used in the undeliverable e-mail.
That does it! Joe smacked a fist into his hand. The web master is definitely involved!