"He's not Joseph," Jack said smoothly. "He is my son, Jonah, and this is his younger brother, Michael. We need to rent a car for two days."

"I'm sorry, my apologies," the woman said with a grimace. "I know someone named Joseph Hardy, and he just struck me because he looks exactly like him. Who knows—maybe they're twins in another life! What model car would you like to rent, sir?"

"Something with good gas mileage," Jack replied. "Anything that gets about 35 miles to the gallon is fine."

The woman smiled and clicked her nails on the keyboard. "I hope you don't mind my asking," she said, "And you probably feel as though I'm terribly nosy, but what happened to Michael's hands?"

"He broke 'em falling out of the tree," Jack said with a sad smile. "He and his friend were goofing off and he was shoved a little too hard."

"Ouch," the woman replied. Joe noticed her nametag read Mary.

Mary, Mary… Oh! It hit him. Mary was his mother's friend from where Laura used to work. No wonder why she thought he looked familiar. Mary, don't believe Jack's lie, please, he whispered to himself.

"We have a scion, 2,000 miles, almost brand-new. Gets about 40 miles to the gallon. Will that work?"

"It sure will. How much per day?"

"Two hundred a day and three hundred for each additional day," Mary replied with a smile. "You can return the car to any Hertz dealer."

"Thank you," Jack replied with a smile. He got out his credit cards and was about to pay when he heard a familiar "Police! Put your hands in the air!"

--I'm a line--

"They tracked down Jack," Fenton said with a small smile of relief. "He had both kids with him. Mary, my wife's friend from where she used to work, recognized Joe and sounded the panic alarm. They have the place cleared now, but he's still got Joe hostage."

"That isn't good," The Gray Man muttered. "We arrested Chief Collig, he's headed back here. That's all the men that we know are involved so far, though. We haven't heard anything about this mysterious 'Hobbes' that was on the video camera."

"He's the one we probably need to be most worried about, too," Fenton muttered.

"He's the one that scares me the most," The Gray Man admitted. "He is the one, after all, who made Frank unable to speak."

"Let's head out," Fenton said. "I need to see Frank."

--This Is A Line Or At Least It Appears To Be--

"I'll kill him, I swear I will!" Jack yelled through the wall. He had barricaded Joe in the Hertz's closet. "Let me have free passage and he lives."

"Release the boy, then we'll talk," the police hollered back.

"You're not getting him unless I walk out of here a free man!"

--This Is A Line Or At Least It Appears To Be--

Dr. Bates was very angry. His plan had fallen to shambles; the war he had wanted to start and pinpoint on Fenton was gone. Chief Collig, one of his head men, was arrested; Jack was in serious trouble with the law, and Fenton was going to figure out who he was any day now.

The plan had been to grab Frank and torture him until they told them every detail about Joe. Not that they didn't already know everything about Joe, but they wanted something that he would be ashamed of every day of his life.

That didn't work out, though, because the idiots who he had hired to drive had kidnapped Joe. They weren't supposed to kidnap him. He had, after all, wanted to use his pistol.

After kidnapping Joe, the plan had been to make Frank mute, and send him back unable to talk. Unfortunately, since they had kidnapped Joe with Frank, this sped up the plan immensely.

After he had Joe, he had planned to form a bond with Chief Collig and use the Chief's influence to get to some higher ups. While they still had Joe, they were going to poison every higher-up they could think of. The plan was to keep Joe so that Fenton wouldn't be as eager to look for them, or if he was eager to look for them, he'd have no clue who they were.

Now, the entire plan was in shambles. He had planned to kill some higher-ups, including the gray man. But now, it was in shambles.

Dr. Bates sighed as he fastened his pistol. "I'm not going down without a fight," he muttered to himself. "I'm not going down without a fight."