Traitors. What a funny word. Joe was only just now starting to grasp what that word meant. He was only just now starting to grasp what the word betrayal meant as well.
He couldn't believe that Chief Collig was involved. He couldn't believe that Jake was involved. He couldn't believe that Dr. Bates was involved. What next? Would Frank be involved?
All of the people involved, he'd trusted. He trusted Jake with his life – or at least, he had. Hadn't he often said, "You can go, Dad, I'll be here with Jake?"
Chief Collig had never wanted Frank or Joe involved in his cases, he periodically called them brats, but Joe never suspected that he hated them so much he would be willing to risk his job and his freedom to carry out an elaborate kidnap plot.
Speaking of the kidnap, Joe didn't know or understand why they wanted him captive. They had made him make a few videos, sure, but they hadn't told him what the demands were for. All they told him was to "shut up or Frank would get it!"
The sad thing was, Joe knew that he had to. He didn't dare risk Frank's life. His dad trusted Chief Collig to the umpteenth degree and had probably already told him where the safe house Frank was located in was.
"Your brother might be back with us shortly," Chief Collig said, chewing on a celery stick. "Your father hasn't paid the ransom demands yet." He smiled a little. "He still hasn't discovered any of us. He thinks Frank's safe. Well, the joke's on him; Scooby knows where the safe house location is."
Joe's mouth dropped open. First, he had thought that Chief Collig knew where it was. It had become clear, listening to him, that he didn't. That meant he knew who Scooby was! Chief Collig was Boss, and occasionally his father told Chief Collig where the safe house was, but… but… Scooby could only be one person. In a situation where the crooks said they could get them "anytime", the only time Fenton told anyone about where the safe house was was one person…
Sam Radley.
090909090009090909009009090909000909090900900909090900090909090090
Frank was furious. Sam was driving him crazy. The nurse on duty, some lady named Anne, didn't know that Frank was getting agitated by Sam being in the room and said Sam could stay with him until his parents got here.
He had a sinking suspicion that Sam was involved with a gang. After Sam gave him the water, he was knocked unconscious; that had happened when Dr. Bates – aka Hobbes – gave him the water!
The only problem was, with his hands broken and being unable to speak, he had no way to relay this to his parents. But oh, how he wanted too! He couldn't write—he'd already tried that method. He'd tried gripping a marker; he'd tried gripping a pencil, but neither worked.
He had tried sign language, too, but he could barley move his arms. The FBI agent who had moved him to the safe house insisted he'd stayed there, that nobody had told. Then he had vanished again, like a ninja, like…
The Gray Man?
Frank had decided he must have been seeing things, because the Gray man slipped into his hospital room. "Sam, I'm going to have to ask you to leave. FBI, official business… private."
Sam grunted but left.
"We're getting you out of here," The Gray Man said in a whisper. "Trust no-one, not even your own parents. You'll be moved out of here very soon."
With that, he left.