Sniff…everyone's forgotten me…well, maybe not entirely:
To Annie Mara: Thanks a million for reading! Actually the translation to Reykjavík is more like this: Smokey creek but Smokey harbour would be in Icelandic Reykjahöfn. Reykjavík however is the capital city in the country and comparing to USA it's probably the only decent-sized town in it –merely –and it's nowhere near my village…Anyway, thanks, again for reading!
To Kolla: Takk, takk, takk, billjón sinnum! You're the best, heyrumst og haltu áfram að lesa!
Chapter 10
The door opened slowly, a hand reached inside and pushed the switch beside the doorframe that turned on a single, naked light bulb in the ceiling. Maggie entered the room holding a shopping bag and after her a man who Joe half-expected to be Steven- and his stomach tightened in anger- but...
Aiming a newly silver shining Colt Defender at the captives, William West stood in the doorway and contemplated the bound people with amusement. Then he strode over to Joe, grabbed him by the hair and stared into his eyes.
"What did you see in our room?" he demanded.
Determined not to flinch, Joe stared back with dark eyes. "Their security cards," he replied, meaning Elina's and Arcens's. Everybody who were working at the contest in any way had to wear those security cards to make sure that some one irrelevant and not allowed to be in the area, like some reporters, weren't sneaking around.
Bill nodded and let go of him. "But that's hardly evidence enough," he wondered.
"True," Joe said, "So you kinda screwed up: taking me here."
"Maybe," Bill agreed, "But, now that you are here...eat your dinner, and try anything..." he finished the threat by waving the gun.
Joe rolled his eyes and let Maggie untie his arms as she'd done with the other two. Salvatore stretched his arms happily but was wary about Bill.
Dinner was fast food: deep-fried chicken legs with salad and rice.
"Charles Bradstow?" Joe questioned while eating.
-"My ex-boyfriend's name," Bill grinned, a bit proud.
"Quelle heure est-il?" Ms. Arcens asked.
Bill looked at his watch. "Onze heures et quart, mademoiselle Arcens," he answered politely in quite flawless french. He noticed Joe's curious look.
"The time," he explained, "It's quarter past eleven."
"Why did you kidnap her?" Joe hinted at the woman.
-"She overheard me talking to Ramón-"
-"Ramón?"
"-Ah," Bill snapped his fingers in annoyance at himself then pointed a finger at Joe, "You're tricky."
"So Ramón's working for you, how did you persuade him?" Joe kept on asking seeing that Bill was not a pro in this and was careless with what information he gave away.
And Bill shrugged. "I threatened to tell his family that he's gay and of our little...affair...appearently it wouldn't sit to well with his family 'cause he was very persuasible..."
"Ramón's gay?" Joe chuckled.
"You made mistakes there, "Salvatore said, "Isabelle hardly speaks a word in english."
"Yeah, well, how was I supposed to know?" Bill retorted.
"All right, now. You've talked enough," Maggie said.
"You're right, dinner's over," Bill stood from the chair he'd been sitting in. "Here, I'll tie'em up again," he handed her the gun.
"Tu crapule!" Isabelle spat out while he was retying her arms. He clenched his lips in anger and turned her chair around and slapped her across the face.
"Dad! Don't, she'll bruise!" his daughter reminded him.
"So...you're planning on letting her go?" Joe asked.
Bill didn't answer but moved on to tie Salvatore, who frowned but didn't resist.
And then he went to tie Joe.
Joe surpressed a grin, he had the feeling they were getting the upper hand. He'd remembered one of the oldest tricks Fenton had taught him and Frank, he flexed his muscles and kept his arms as far away from the chairback as he could without looking suspicious while he was being tied.
"So your boss ain't gonna pay us a visit," he asked when Bill had moved away and taken the Colt from Maggie.
Bill looked at him and snorted. "Boss? I'm my own boss."
-"Steven has nothing to do with this?"
Bill snorted again. "Steven? As in Steven Belson? Oh, yes, he has something to do with this but honestly, do you see sweet, 'innocent,' loving Steven in my shoes?"
"Dad, come on! Stop prattling" Maggie urged.
"You feeling bad, Maggie?" Joe asked kindly- in a sarcastic way.
"Shut up!" she spat at him and then left the room.
-"You ought to teach your daughter some manners..."
Bill grabbed his collar. "You are allowed to bruise!" But he didn't hit him.
Instead he walked to one corner of the room where, Joe now noticed, there was a small radio on the floor, knelt to plug it and turned it on. Then he stood up and left, locked the door behind him.
Joe smiled and relaxed his muscles. The ropes were loose around his wrists. "They are so scared, they don't have a clue what they're doing," he said confidently, more to himself than the other people in the room.
"Why did he turn on the radio?" he asked Salvatore.
Mr. Elina shrugged. "He does that sometimes, don't ask me why."
Joe shrugged too and started to undo the ropes.
"How did you do that?" Salvatore asked wide-eyed.
-"Just a trick my dad taught me," he was out of the ropes within minutes and then started to free Salvatore and Isabelle, it took a while but there were no interruptions.
"Merci, merci!" the young woman said over and over, hugging Joe, between rubbing her sore wrists.
Salvatore was in worse condition. His wrists were bleeding from the nudging of the rough ropes, he had been beaten, maybe not much but he looked worse than he felt, his face was bruised, his lower lip was split, he was pale and weak but fortunately there was nothing serious, although the ropes would probably leave scars.
The door was locked. Joe tried to kick it open but it was too strong. He checked the window but realised it was too small for any of them, it was dark outside and the surroundings gave him no idea of where they were, Isabelle had been blindfolded when she was taken there and Salvatore unconsicous, just like Joe.
Joe sighed deeply. "Well, that sucks!" he growled and sunk back onto the chair.
"So what to we do now?" Salvatore asked.
The radio had begun broadcasting the overnight-program- music- starting with the spanish eurovision song.
Joe frowned and said with disgust, because he hated to say it: "Wait."
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Bill and Maggie drove to the hotel in silence. As soon as Bill had beaten Joe down they had disposed of the security cards, which Maggie had inadvertently left on the dinner table, by burning them. Those were bad mistakes and Maggie was mad at herself, now when she thought of it, she knew she should have tried to make an excuse instead of having her dad knock Joe out. He was too slippery.
"Dad?"
Bill, who was driving, didn't take his eyes of the road.
"Daddy? What are we going to do?"
"Nothing," came the simple answer, "We'll go home and catch some sleep."
End of discussion, she knew but he also knew her dad had plans.
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Many hours later -the next day- Fenton and Frank Hardy were going through the staff's profiles. Finally Fenton put his dossier away and stretched his arms with a low growl-sound.
"You know something, Frank?"
Frank looked up from the papers. "Yes, dad?"
-"This really isn't taking us anywhere."
-"Glad you finally realized." He also layed the dossier on the table and leaned foward. "So...?"
He stopped when his father suddenly narrowed his eyes at something and bent down under the table and took up a brown leather handbag, it was open, inside was an envelope, which was open too with the corner of a photograph coming out. It showed a bruised jaw and more of a bruised face when Fenton pulled the picture out of the envelope with his handkerchief covering his fingers. He recognized the man on it.
"What the hell..." he whispered. He turned the photograph around to show Frank but then he noticed that something was written on it's back. 'To Steven. Dreams come true.'
"Wow," Frank said, "We got him nailed...if only we could identify him."
Fenton pulled up his cell phone, called Steven and asked him to come to the office right away.
He was there in a few minutes. "What's going on? You found something?" he asked hopefully.
"Do you know this bag?" Fenton questioned and held up the handbag.
"It's mine...or it looks just like it," Steven replied, "Why?"
"We found this in it," Fenton showed him the photo.
Steven gasped. "Oh God, that's...!"
-"Salvatore Elina," Frank finished.
Fenton showed Steven the backside of the photo. "Does this mean anything to you?"
After he read it, Steven blinked a few times, then collapsed onto a chair and hid his face in his hands. "Oh God, oh god, this is so bad..." he mumbled.
-"Come on, Steven, suck it up. What is this?"
-"It...it's..." Steven finally managed to choke it out in a whisper, "Bill..."
"Bill? As in, Bill, your boyfriend?" Frank asked.
Steven nodded. "It's his handwriting and...and when we met, we were talking and I told him it was my greatest dream to direct eurovision someday."
"All right, I'm gonna call the police. You just relax, ok?" Fenton said and dialed the number.
"No, I must go back downstairs," Steven said stubbornly and sniffed.
"Fine," Fenton sighed, just then someone answered on the other line, "Yes? Hello, this is Fenton Hardy, can I speak to either chief Serafin Civera or sergeant José Moneo...?"
Frank tapped on Steven's shoulder. "Come on, I'm coming back with you."
"What do I tell the media?" Steven wondered on the way down.
"I think, that until we've gotten him, you should say as little as possible...just that we're in control of the situation, so people won't panic," there was a little silence before Frak switched to more casual subject, "So, who's rehearsing now?"
"Um..." Steven mentally went through his schedule, "Russia, I think."
"Alezjandra?" Frank asked excitedly. He had learned the name of the russian competitor since the first time he saw her.
Steven smirked a little. "Yes, Alezjandra."
-"What are her chances?"
-"Fairly good, I'd say. Those sexy acts usually do very well."
Soon they heard the blaring music from the saloon. And Russia was indeed rehearsing.
"-you took the crown
to my heart
your eyes overthrowing me, they:
Shake me, take me,
make me go crazy
with desire
Heat me, seize me
never release me
from their fire.
From the ever burning fire
in your eyes-."
-Said the chorus of the song, Fire (in your eyes). Frank's absolute favourite.
Steven scanned the area to see if Bill was still there, although he very much doubted it -and very much hoped not.
Martin Garcia stormed towards them. "What is going on? Steven, there are two days 'til the semi-finals! " he shouted.
"I know! Something came up...about Salvatore and Ms. Arcens and Joe," Steven answered calmly, "We found out who took them and why."
As the people on the stage had stopped when Steven entered and it really echoed in there, most everyone close to the stage heard those words. There was quite amount of reporters present and now they rushed to Steven.
"Calm down, people!" Frank called over the row of upset voices, "Steven, why don't you take them to the press-tent for your statement so Garcia can continue with the rehearsal here," he suggested.
Steven agreed the idea and asked the people to follow him after Frank had reminded him, with a wishper, not to say too much.
When the police arrived, Fenton had contacted all the security and body guards through their tranceivers and told them to stay on guard. The police officers then took the task to search for Bill.
"Well, we got the outside covered," Fenton snorted, looking at the growing group of reporters in front of the building and around the press-tent. Then he turned to sergeant Moneo. "All right. He came in with Steven this morning. Garcia tells me he was mostly working with the sound crew...then what?"
"Then, Marco Vélez told me, he went to fetch extension cord from the basement. And then...he hasn't been seen." the sergeant concluded.
-"So we search the basement."
-"Bien, vamos."
Frank and Miguel Quierra were already on their way backstage through the saloon. They didn't notice the shadow creeping behind the commentator cells, towards the entrance. When he didn't have the cells cover anymore he grabbed the first person that passed his hiding place, clasped a hand over her mouth and pointed his gun to her head.
Alezjandra, who was on her way from the saloon, gasped and whimpered and tried to struggle free, she bit her attacker's hand...he let go of her mouth but manged to grab her back by the shoulder but was too late, she screamed: "Help! Help me!"