"I think she's been drugged," Frank replied, checking the pulse in her neck. He turned around and headed for the door. "Get her out of the straight jacket," he told Biff. "I'll go and get someone to look at her." He left the room and headed for the nurses' station where his mother was still arguing with the head nurse.
Frank put a hand on his mother's shoulder as he came up beside her. She turned, saw Frank, and quietened down. "Is there a doctor on call?" Frank asked.
"Dr. Freemont is here," the nurse informed him, grateful to him for calming down the irate woman.
"Tell him one of your voulenteers is unconscious in room 119," he said, causing his mother to look at him in alarm. He turned to another nurse who was standing behind the first. "Call the police," he ordered her. "My brother is missing."
Frank and his mother walked back to room 119. Dr. Freemont and the nurse arrived from the opposite direction at the same time. "When did Dr. Wagner leave?" Frank asked.
The nurse, whose name was Sarah Miller, looked over at Frank. "About two hours ago," she responded. "You surely don't think he had anything to do with this?"
"That's exactly what I do think," Frank replied as Biff slipped out of the room to go let the others know what was going on.
Almost two hours later, Frank and his mother left the institution. Vanessa had been drugged but she had awakened and Callie had taken her home. Their other friends had all gone home after the police had arrived and taken a statement from Biff. Frank had promised to keep everyone informed.
"What's going on?" Laura asked Frank once they were in the car and on their way home.
"Joe's being framed," Frank began.
"I know that!" Laura snapped. "I want to know who, why, and how."
"We don't know who," Frank replied. "Dr. Wagner was giving Joe this medicine called Maisieno which made him look like he wasn't aware of anything. But he has to be working for someone else. They set Joe up for the murder of Cornett," he continued. "Whoever is behind this has a grudge against dad and Cornett's sister, the former DA, Stephanie Brown."
He hit the steering wheel in frustration. "I don't know why Joe's been acting the way he has but he's not crazy," Frank insisted. "Wagner was lying."
"Maybe if you can figure out how they got Joe to act that way then you could clear him," Laura suggested, resting a hand on Frank's arm.
"Mom, when I went on the senior class field trip a couple of weeks ago, what did Joe do?" Frank asked, an idea coming to him.
"Poor Joe," his mother said, smiling fondly at the memory. "He was bored to tears. He finally went on a hiking trip with Jerry Gilroy and Brad Andrews. He must have been missing you a lot because Jerry said Joe had gotten lost. When they found him, he was asleep under a tree a couple of miles ahead on the trail by the creek."
"Did they have any trouble waking him up?" Frank asked, frowning.
"Jerry didn't say," Laura replied. "Why? Do you think it has some bearing on this case?"
"It might have," Frank agreed, pulling into the Hardy drive. "I'm not coming in," he told her as she opened her door. "I'm going to talk to Jerry and then swing by Wagner's place. The police may miss something."
"What about those two thugs who were helping him?" Laura asked.
"Jeff Barnes and Fred Blevins," Frank said with a shake of his head. "I don't think they were anything more than hired muscle," he stated. "But if I come up empty, I'll go to their houses too."
"You shouldn't go alone," Laura said with a frown.
"It's okay," Frank assured her with a smile. "The police will have all ready been by the time I get there and I'm sure they will be watching in case he comes back."
Laura gave a faint smile and got out of the car. "Be careful," she begged.
"I will," he promised, then watched her go inside before leaving.
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Meanwhile, Joe was coming out of his drugged stupor. He opened his eyes and gazed at his surroundings. It took several minutes for him to fully realize he was no longer at the institution. He tried to move his arms but to no avail. He looked down and saw he was still in a straight jacket, only instead of being strapped to a hospital bed, he was now tied to a chair, each leg tied individually. Around his chest he saw four coils of rope. He knew he wasn't going anywhere.
The room in which he was now a prisoner was run-down. There were brown spots on the ceiling where it had leaked. He looked up with a grimace. 'It would figure they would put me beneath the largest one,' he thought. He occupied the only chair in the room. The only other furniture in sight was an old, rickety table which had obviously seen better days. The fireplace had bricks missing. He supposed the crumbling debris on the floor may have been part of the fireplace at one time.
He didn't know where he was, but he did know if this place were anywhere near civilization, it would have been torn down a long time ago.
Still, he had to try. He took a deep breath, "Heeeeeellllllppppp!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. The only sound he heard was the scampering of a rodent, probably a squirrel by the sound of it, running across the roof. Joe hung his head in defeat, wondering how long it would take his brother to find him.
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Frank arrived at the Gilroy house shortly after nine. He parked the car and made a bee line for the front door. He rapped five times and was going to knock more when the door was opened and a wiry seventeen year old with brown hair, green eyes and dark skin opened the door. "I need to talk to you," Frank said.
Jerry Gilroy, an inch taller than Frank, grinned and pulled the door all the way open. "Come on in," he offered. "How's Joe doing?" he asked as he and Frank went up the stairs to Jerry's room.
"I don't know," Frank admitted. "He was kidnaped earlier today."
"What?" Jerry exclaimed, his green eyes widening in shock.
Frank brought Jerry up to date on his investigation. "And that brings me to why I needed to see you," Frank concluded.
"Why?" Jerry asked, ready to help in any way possible.
"Mom said Joe got lost when he went with you and Brad hiking. Tell me what happened from right before he got lost," Frank requested.
Jerry frowned as he thought about it. "I can't," he said after a couple of minutes.
"Why not?" Frank demanded.
"Well, we had been hiking for about an hour on Trail 9 of Pilfer's Mountain," Jerry explained. "Joe was in front, I was behind him and Brad was bringing up the rear. We were climbing and talking about this year's football team when Joe must have walked into a bees' nest. Next thing, we were all running for the creek with hundreds of bees after us. We all got stung a few times but we were okay. We got out of the water and..." he broke off, concentrating.
"And?" Frank prompted.
"And that's it," Jerry said, shaking his head. "Next thing I remember, I woke up back down the trail. Brad was asleep so I woke him up. We started looking for Joe and found him a little farther up the trail, asleep," he paused and looked at Frank's thoughtful face. "I'd tell you to talk to Brad but his grandmother died and they went to Arizona for the funeral."
"Can you take me to where the bee nest was?" Frank asked. He knew there was no way all three boys would have passed out from a few bee stings. They had to have been drugged.
"Sure," Jerry said. "But..uh..not tonight," he added, looking out the window at the night sky. "We couldn't see anything."
"I'll be here at sun-up," Frank told him and stood up. "Thanks, Jer," he added.
"Any time," Jerry assured Frank, walking him back downstairs and to the door.
Frank got in the car and drove to Wagner's home address. He parked down the street and kept to the shadows as he made his way to the back of the house. He peered inside the window and saw no movement so he made his way to the back door and pulled out his lock pick kit. He quickly opened the door and stepped inside. Before his eyes could adjust to the darkness within, he was grabbed and pushed against the wall, a gun pushed into his ribs.
