The flight to Chicago from New York passed uneventfully, allowing Joe plenty of time both to look through the packet of information again and to consider what he would tell Nancy Drew when he finally saw her. A vivacious titian haired woman, smarter than just about anyone that Joe knew except maybe Frank, Joe admitted to himself that he'd once had a little crush on her. Something about her spoke to both brothers but Joe never seriously considered his own crush except for what it was – the infatuation of a younger boy for an older girl.

Anyone with brains would be in love with Nancy Drew – at least for a few minutes.

Joe sighed and leaned against the window to look out over the growing skyline of Chicago, Illinois. In the distance, well away from where he would eventually land at O'Hare airport, he saw the towering skyscrapers – the Sears Tower and the Hancock Building, along with a myriad of others whose names he didn't know. Beyond them to the east was the sparkling waters of Lake Michigan where he could make out growing dots that represented boaters or parasailers, all out enjoying the beautiful, sun-filled day. Joe looked away from the window as the plane began to drop lower and lower until, finally, the wheels let out a screech as they came into contact with the asphalt below.

Once he could move, Joe grabbed the bag he brought and rushed down the gangway toward the gate entrance. He wasn't sure if anyone would meet him or if he would have to persuade the rental agency his dad normally used to let a 20-year-old behind the wheel of a car. Normally he carried a special voucher that he could use to rent cars even from the most surly of car rental agencies but he'd been in too big a hurry that afternoon to grab the one he normally carried.

Well, if he had to, he'd take an overpriced taxi to the Chicago suburb of River Heights. It wasn't money that was the issue, after all, it was expediency.

"Hardy!" a friendly voice shouted to him as he cleared the escalator that took him up to the baggage claim area where he could find an exit from the airport. "Over here!"

Joe turned and found himself facing the woman he had come to see. Nancy Drew smiled brightly at him as she raced forward and enveloped Joe in a huge hug. Joe returned the hug before he stood back to study his old friend. Nancy looked just as she always did, vivacious, hair styled just-so, wearing the latest in fashionable clothing but in her blue eyes there was something else.

Pain. The same pain he saw when he looked into his mother's eyes and knew she thought about Frank.

"So, Drew, what's going on with you?" Joe asked in a friendly voice. "Hannah said she wasn't sure you would make it here to pick me up and yet, here you are, beautiful as ever."

Nancy shrugged and led the way out of the airport toward the parking area and toward her dark blue convertible located in the parking garage across from the terminal.

"I'm fine," Nancy finally answered after she and Joe were both seated. She put her seatbelt on and smiled at Joe again. "Really, Joe. I've just… needed some time to get my head back on straight. Ned really messed me up there for a bit. I guess I don't really blame him for getting so angry and that doesn't help matters at all."

"You're a great detective, Nan," Joe commented. "And you can't let anyone take that away from you, not Ned, not your dad, not anyone."

"And what about you?" Nancy asked Joe pointedly. "You were a great detective too."

Joe shook his head in denial. "No, no, I wasn't. I was part of a great detective TEAM. I am not a great detective on my own and I know it."

Nancy snorted and steered the car out of the parking garage and toward one of the booths that would allow her to pay the outrageous parking fee.

"You're selling yourself short, Joe," she commented a few moments later, when they were finally back on the tollway. "You are most certainly a good detective. You always were."

Joe sighed and heaved his shoulders. "All right, then," he said. "I don't have the heart for it anymore, all right? It's not… it's not fun without Frank."

"Ah," was Nancy's only response. They sat quietly as Nancy continued to drive them toward her house in River Heights.

"So what did you bring?" Nancy broke the silence ten minutes later.

"I'll tell you when we get stopped," Joe said. "I don't want to distract you while we're among the sterling citizens who turn insane in the traffic around here."

Nancy laughed. "And you think New York drivers are any better?"

"Of course not!" Joe retorted. "But at least they aren't insane!"

Nancy laughed yet again and turned a grin in Joe's direction. "I missed you, Hardy. We have to get together more often."

"I agree and we will, as much as school allows."

Nearly twenty minutes later Nancy parked her car in the parking lot of the modest older house that she shared with her father and their housekeeper, Hannah Gruen. Nancy led the way inside of the house and led Joe into her father's office.

Joe silently handed her the pictures to look at, before explaining what he'd been told by the man at the docks.

"And he said I know something about this?" Nancy asked incredulously. "Really?"

"Really," Joe took the pictures back and spread them over the desk. "Do you recognize any of these things?"

Nancy chewed on her bottom lip as she studied the newspaper report of the wedding and looked at the ceiling for a moment, thinking.

"The name IS familiar," she agreed. "I just… wait!"

Nancy pulled out a magnifying glass to study the excerpt more closely.

"Bloody hell, Joe," Nancy looked up at her friend, shock on her face. "Look at the ring the man's wearing!"

Joe took the magnifying glass and studied the picture more closely, then looked back up at Nancy, the blood draining from his face.

"Frank…"