A/N: My thanks to all those who sent enthusiastic reviews! I normally try to thank each individual via e-mail, but some of you posted Anonymously. Plus, there has been such an abundance of reviews, I am unused to such volume. So here is a blanket THANK YOU to all you cool folks. I really appreciate the encouragement. I'm hoping things won't get out of hand plot-wise, because it will mean a whole lot more writing on my part. Nevertheless, here is chapter 3, enjoy!

Chapter 3

Frank sat for a few long moments in stunned silence, feeling as if someone had delivered a sudden punch to his gut. He struggled to comprehend the implications of what Sergeant Garrison had just told him. Nancy's car, at the bottom of Lake Michigan? Ten months ago? What on Earth happened?

"Frank, what is it?" Joe's insistent and urgent voice broke through his brother's reverie.

"It's...they found Nancy's car in Lake Michigan ten months ago," Frank managed to say.

"What?" came the younger man's shocked response.

Sergeant Garrison's voice came through again. "Mr. Hardy, I don't know what interest you have in this case, but they pretty much closed the investigation into Detective Drew's disappearance when they pulled that blue convertible out of the lake..."

"But she – a body wasn't actually found in it, was there?" Frank asked, terrified at the answer he might receive.

"Naw. No remains were found, but the top was down, so her body could've floated away. She'd been missing for two months prior to that point," Garrison said matter-of-factly. "Say, did you know her personally or something?"

Or something... Frank almost couldn't stand the sergeant's tactless and seemingly blasé attitude. "Uh, yes. We got to know each other over some cases we worked on together."

"I see... Where'd you say you were calling from?" Garrison asked.

"I didn't say," Frank replied tonelessly, "but I'm in New York."

"New York, huh? Well, sorry I didn't have more positive news for you, Mr. Hardy. Good-bye."

Frank placed the receiver softly on the cradle. The silence in the room was palpable, as both brothers could not find words to express their thoughts and emotions.

It was Frank that finally spoke. "Help me out, Joe. What in blazes were we doing a year ago? How could we not know that Nancy was missing and presumed dead?"

Joe, startled by his brother's sudden angry outburst, took a few moments to answer.

"Um, last year this time? We were...we were on that case in Australia, remember? The Outback, looking for that missing investor."

Frank remembered. Simon Wheland, an executive with an investment firm, had his family and co-workers in a panic. It had taken three months of their time to locate the man who was only supposed to have been backpacking for three weeks in the Australian Outback. When he failed to return home to his job in Los Angeles, the Hardys had been hired to find him. When they finally located him, his only explanation was that he had 'lost track of time'.

"And that stupid moron is the reason we weren't in the country when Nancy disappeared," Frank said, pounding his fist into his pillow. "That's why we never even heard about it. Nancy needed us, and we were too busy looking for an idiot who couldn't keep his timetable straight!"

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves here yet," Joe said, in a calming tone. "This is what we know so far:

A: One year ago, Nancy goes missing. B: Two months later, they find her car, but she isn't in it. C: Tonight we saw someone we're 99.9 percent sure was Nancy, even though she called herself 'Molly'. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

An idea was dawning in Frank's mind.

"It sounds like it could be some sort of witness protection program," Frank mused, slowly feeling hope creeping back.

"Exactly! I mean, that would explain her behaviour...wouldn't it?"

"It surely would," Frank said, with renewed vigour.

"What do you want to do about it?"

"Get ourselves down to Chicago to get some answers. Nancy needs our help, and a year is already too long for her to have gone without it."

The woman calling herself Molly Jenkins sat on a folding chair in a room that was otherwise bare. A 'safe house' it was called, and although 'Molly' knew it was for her protection, it did little to comfort her.

Of all the small Italian bistros in the Village, and Frank and Joe had to walk into mine, she thought miserably. New York was supposed to have been a good place to disappear; a place where once face melds into another; where one person can be just as indistinguishable as the next.

I should have known better, 'Molly' chided herself. I should have known that even though Frank and Joe are busy investigators, they'd pick New York as a destination for a little R 'n' R. Bayport is so close...I should have insisted on an entirely different locale.

Now, it was too late. 'Molly' knew it was only a matter of time before the Hardys began to investigate her and her circumstances. And that notion terrified her more than anything else...almost.

The door to the room opened quietly, and the man 'Molly' had spoken with on the telephone earlier in the evening entered. Robert Phillips said, "Are you ready?"

'Molly' nodded. "I guess so."

"Then let's go. We'll be establishing your new identity as soon as we reach your new 'home'."

"Where is it this time?" 'Molly' asked wearily.

"San Francisco."

'Molly' sighed, and rose from the chair. Three more individuals stood in the outer hall, waiting for this departure.

"Things are going to be okay, Molly," Phillips said, trying to bring some semblance of calm to what was a very difficult upheaval.

You don't know that! 'Molly' wanted to scream; you don't know what Frank and Joe are like! But instead she mumbled a reply that seemed to agree with Phillips' assessment of the situation.

"You'll be out of the state long before your private investigator friends even know," Phillips said.

Which will just make them that much more determined to find out what's happened, 'Molly' thought bitterly, and that very determination will get us all killed.