A/N: I can't tell you how absolutely thrilled and humbled I am by the response this story has gotten. Thank you all so much for your continued reading and your continued reviews. When I first started this story, it was the characters that inspired me. Now, in addition to the characters, I am inspired by all of you and your generous response. So thank you!
Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters, but borrowing them and writing about them is the next best thing.
----------------------------
When Nancy came downstairs the next morning, Chet was alone at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper. An empty plate and a half-full glass of orange juice sat before him, and from the lingering scents in the air, Nancy guessed that bacon and pancakes were the order of the day. Her stomach, already unsettled from the sleepless night that she had had, turned over at the thought. Foregoing the notion of breakfast, she sat down in the chair across from Chet. He lifted his head from the paper and gave her a smile.
"Good morning," he said brightly.
"Good morning," she replied. "Where is everyone?"
"Frank and Joe are with Mrs. Paulie and the sketch artist. The guy got here early this morning, and they went to work right away. I've been trying to stay out of their way for now. Figured I'd make some breakfast for everyone, but they've been so tied up that they haven't even taken a break yet.
"Speaking of which, would you like some breakfast?"
Nancy shook her head quickly. "Don't worry about it, Chet. I'm not really hungry."
Chet frowned. "Nancy, you need to eat something. Everything you guys have been going through, all this stress, it's not good for you. You have to take care of yourself."
Nancy gave him a wry smile. "You sound like Hannah."
Chet gave her a curious look. "Do you call your mother by her first name?"
The quick, sharp pang of pain that accompanied any mention of her mother was almost a knee-jerk reaction by now. But over the years, Nancy had become accustomed to it, and to ignoring it. So the smile that she gave Chet this time was a little more genuine.
"You could say that, in a way. Hannah is our housekeeper, who came to live with us when I was three years old. My mother died when I was very young." The smile faded from her face, and her blue eyes were sad when they met Chet's. "I guess that's something that Iola and I have in common."
Chet's gaze was stricken. "I'm so sorry, Nancy, I didn't know."
"It's okay," she reassured him.
There was an awkward silence after that. Nancy debated going and finding the brothers and the sketch artist to see what progress had been made. But she was afraid that if she left so abruptly, Chet would think it was because of what he had said. At a loss for anything else to say, Nancy picked up a section of the newspaper that Chet had set aside and began thumbing through it, not really focusing on any words on the pages but catching a few bolded headlines here or there. Chet followed her lead and resumed reading where he had left off. For a while, there was only the sound of rustling paper in the room. After a few minutes, Nancy saw Chet set down his paper in her peripheral vision. Thinking that this would be a good time to excuse herself, she started to rise, but then stopped when Chet looked up and gave her a lopsided grin.
"I know it's probably silly, but I still do the puzzles in the paper every morning."
Nancy couldn't help but smile. Chet's grin was so reminiscent of their younger years, when he had been such a happy-go-lucky teenager. Even though Nancy had only met him a few times, she had always enjoyed spending time with Chet, who had never failed to make her laugh.
"It's okay." She leaned in conspiratorially. "Your secret is safe with me," she whispered, her voice dramatically low.
Chet laughed. "I think I've already passed this habit on to Iola. She loves her puzzles, especially Boggle, which also happens to be my favorite."
Nancy nodded. "I remember her wanting to do those puzzles with Joe on the way to the hospital."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she nearly bit her tongue, afraid that she might have upset Chet by mentioning the hospital and reminding him of everything that Iola had gone through. But Chet merely smiled a fond paternal smile and bent his head to the paper, pencil in hand. He was working on the Boggle puzzle first, and Nancy watched him as he unscrambled letters to form words. As she sat there, the wheels in her head turned, until she felt a familiar click settle into place. She was out of her chair like a rocket, startling Chet into jumping in his own seat.
"Nancy, what…"
But she was already at the swinging door, pushing through and out.
"Frank!" she called, breaking into a run as she realized that she had absolutely no idea where in the house they might be.
"Fra…ack!" Nancy gasped as she ran head-first into a hard chest. Strong arms caught her as she nearly fell backwards, pulling her more gently into said chest.
"Nancy, what is it? What's wrong?" Frank's voice was frantic, obviously caught off-guard by her mad dash through the house shouting his name. She shook her head quickly, strawberry blonde hair swishing across her face and into her eyes. Frank pushed the locks aside and tucked them behind her ear.
"Where's your laptop, Frank?"
The frown on his face relaxed as he realized that it was excitement in her voice, not panic.
"In my room. Why?"
"Bring it to the kitchen. I've got an idea."
Frank broke into a grin, because he was very familiar with that look on her face. Nancy was onto something.
"You got it, Drew."
----------------------------
When Frank returned with the laptop, Nancy was pacing in the kitchen, and Chet sat at the breakfast table, looking decidedly bewildered. Nancy's blue eyes lit up when she saw Frank, and she gestured for him to set the laptop down on the table.
"Could you pull up the e-mail that you got from Michael, the one with the charter flight manifest?"
Frank nodded and went to his inbox, opening the message that Nancy was referring to. She stepped in front of the laptop and let her index finger hover over the screen, slowly running down the list of names.
Amber Valletta / Dr. Jason Andrews
Robin Damons
Jan Reckler / Dr. Oscar Wen
Hubert Long / Will Davies
Her finger reached the bottom of the list, then returned to the third line. She tapped the screen lightly, then her bottom lip, and then, without removing from her eyes from the screen, reached a hand out to Chet.
"Pencil?"
He handed it to her, still looking very confused.
"Paper?"
Chet glanced around quickly, then spotted a notepad lying next to the phone on the kitchen counter. He rose and grabbed it, then handed it to Nancy, standing next to Frank behind her so that he could see what had her so enthralled.
On the notepad, Nancy wrote "Dr. Oscar Wen". Then, underneath that, she wrote the letter 'C'. She crossed the same letter out from Dr. Oscar Wen's name. Then 'a'. Then 'r'. Then 's'. Then…
Chet gasped, and Frank let out a quiet, "My God," under his breath.
"Carson Drew," she stated triumphantly.
Frank resisted, just barely, from smacking his forehead with his hand.
"It's been right in front of us all along," he said in frustration.
Nancy nodded. "I knew that something kept bothering me about this list, but I couldn't figure out what. It was only when I saw Chet doing the Boggle puzzle this morning that it finally clicked." She gave Chet a grateful smile. "So thank you."
Chet flushed and rubbed a hand over his hair. "I didn't do anything, really." To divert attention from himself, he pointed at the other name next to "Dr. Oscar Wen."
"What about that name? Do you know that person?"
Nancy shook her head. "No. But I'm betting that's an anagram too, which means we need to unscramble the letters."
She tore off the sheet of paper that she had written on from the notepad and started with a fresh sheet, writing "Jan Reckler" at the top.
Then she began trying different combinations of the letters, Frank and Chet offering suggestions over her shoulder. She wrote out variation after variation, eliminating possibilities as either unlikely names or entirely unrealistic.
NERAL JERCK
KEN CRAJLER
JEN RACKLER
JACK LERNER
Nancy's breath caught as the familiar name glared up at her from the sheet of paper. Frank made a sound behind her that sounded distinctly like a growl.
"Jack Lerner? You have got to be kidding me!" he exclaimed.
Nancy turned to face him, clutching the paper in her hand. Chet looked even more confused than before.
"Who's Jack Lerner?"
"He was a two-bit criminal that we came across in one of our cases together when we were teenagers. He and his wife were trying to scam her family and make off with a diamond that had been hidden by one of her ancestors. The last time we heard of them, they had been tried and sent to prison."
Frank glared at the piece of paper, as if willing the name on it to change. "This doesn't make any sense. Sure, we had a hand in sending Lerner and his wife to prison, but it's not like they were the most violent criminals that we ever dealt with. The offenses that they were tried for weren't even that bad. What could make that man hold a grudge against us for so long and drive him to these lengths?"
Nancy shook her head. "I don't know, Frank. Maybe something happened that we don't know about. Or maybe he's just crazy. Either way, we have a name to go with now – we need to work on tracking him down."
Before Frank could respond, Joe came barreling through the kitchen door waving a large sheet of thick paper.
"Mrs. Paulie finished the sketch!" he exclaimed. "And you'll never believe who it is!"
"Jack Lerner?" Nancy supplied, as Joe paused for breath.
The air that Joe had just inhaled came out in a whoosh as he visibly deflated.
"How'd you know?"
Nancy handed him the sheet of paper that showed all of her unscrambling efforts. After taking in both Carson Drew's and Jack Lerner's names, Joe let out a low whistle.
"It's been right in front of our faces all along."
Frank gave his brother a sympathetic look. "That's exactly how I feel."
"Ditto," Nancy said. "But that's not the important thing right now. Frank, how long will it take to run his name through the Bureau's system and see if he left a trail anywhere?"
"Not long," he replied. "But I've got a better idea." He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and pushed a few buttons, then lifted it to his ear. Joe gave Nancy a quizzical look, and she just shrugged her shoulders in return. A moment later, Frank's voice cleared up the confusion.
"Yes, I'd like to speak to the manager of your agency, please." After a brief pause, Frank spoke again. "Hello, Mr. Peters. This is Special Agent Frank Hardy with the FBI. I spoke with you yesterday regarding names of individuals who had recently rented cars from your agency." Another brief pause ensued where Mr. Peters' tinny excited voice could be heard through the earpiece. "Yes, sir, I'm aware that you will not send me a list of all renters. But there was one more name that I needed you to look up in your system. Yes, it's Jack Lerner." Frank went silent as Mr. Peters presumably went to check on the name. Then, excitement spread across his handsome face. "He did? That's excellent news, Mr. Peters. I'll need to know the make of the car that he rented, the license plates, and the exact date and time that he rented the vehicle." A thought occurred to Frank, causing the excitement to change to panic. "He hasn't returned the vehicle yet, has he?" The following relief on Frank's face gave everyone the answer to that question. "Good." Another ramble from Mr. Peters had Frank pausing again. "Mr. Peters, we've already been over this. Getting a warrant will take time that I just don't have right now. This is a matter of life and death, and I assure you, if you make me wait for this information, when I finally show up with that warrant, I am not going to be a pleasant person to deal with." Another silence ensued, while everyone in the kitchen waited with bated breath. Finally, Frank smiled. "Thank you, Mr. Peters. Have a nice day."
Frank flipped the phone shut, then looked at his friends. "We got a plate and a make on the car." He scribbled the information down on the notepad that Nancy had been using.
"What's our next move?" Nancy asked.
Frank gave her a wry smile. "It looks like we'll be meeting with our favorite Agent Pennington again."
Nancy groaned. Before she could comment, however, the phone in Frank's hand started ringing. Frank looked at the Caller ID display on the outside of the phone, then frowned when he saw that it read "Unknown." He flipped the phone open and lifted it to his ear.
"Hello?"
"Mr. Hardy."
"Lerner," Frank growled. Now that he had a name to put to the voice, it was all too easy to recognize.
"So the mighty detectives finally figured it out. Congratulations. Too bad you're too late."
"What the hell do you mean by that?"
"We had rules, Mr. Hardy," Lerner snarled, his voice turning hard. "You were told, very clearly, that you would have to follow our clues in order for your fathers to survive. But, as always, you and your cohorts displayed a blatant disregard for the rules. We distinctly left a clue telling Ms. Drew to go to Memphis, which she disobeyed. As a result, she lives, and therefore, your fathers will not."
The blood froze in Frank's veins. Then, it surged, and boiled hotly.
"You bastard," Frank spat. "You planned to kill them all along, didn't you?"
"Maybe…or maybe not. But now you'll never know." Lerner laughed, a low, menacing sound.
"Goodbye, Mr. Hardy."
This time when Frank flipped the phone shut, there was fire in his eyes.
"Let's go. We don't have time to waste."
----------------------------
On the way to the Bureau's field office in Helena, Frank related his conversation with Lerner to Nancy and Joe. Both paled visibly after hearing Lerner's threat, and Nancy felt bile rise to her throat. If only she had gone to Memphis like the clue had said…but then she would be dead, and there would still be no guarantee on her father's life. Nevertheless, the guilt was nearly crushing the breath out of her. She felt a slight pressure on her hand, and looked down to see Frank's hand squeezing hers, his other deftly handling the steering wheel.
"How in the world did Lerner and Krieger ever even meet up in the first place?" Joe asked in disgust, leaning in from the back seat and poking his head between Nancy and Frank. "We encountered them in two entirely unrelated cases that we worked on. And Krieger was supposed to be buried in some hell-hole prison in Cairo for the rest of his life."
"That's something we're going to have to ask them when we finally catch them," Frank replied. "I think the more important question right now is what those two men could be planning." He shook his head. "They're two completely different people. Trying to anticipate their next move is going to be difficult, if not impossible."
"And how did they find out that I'm still alive?" Nancy asked, forcing her voice past the lump in her throat. Frank shook his head. "Who knows, Nan?"
As he said this, Frank pulled into a parking space at the field office. Nancy gave the dull, red brick, one-story building a long look, then squared her shoulders. The three exited the vehicle and made their way into the building. Pennington met them just inside the door, and judging by the scowl on his face, he did not seem happy to see them.
"Did I not make it perfectly clear that I expected to be apprised of everything that you found at the crime scene?" Apparently this was a rhetorical question, because he went on before any of them could answer. "And then you call me out of the blue and tell me about a business card that you found that's led you to a car rental agency from whom our perps have rented a car, and when you decide you need my assistance, you choose to apprise me of this information?" His voice had risen as he spoke, and other agents were growing silent as they stared at the spectacle unfolding before them. Joe shifted slightly on his feet, but Frank was stoically still. Pennington was just reaching his stride now. "Withholding evidence in a federal investigation is a criminal offense, Agents, not to mention highly unprofessional. One phone call to A.D. Burr and I…"
Joe cut him off, ignoring his brother's slight motion to him to be quiet.
"Call Burr. Call the goddamn President of the United States if you want to, but on your own time. Right now, every minute that you spend wasting your breath endangers our fathers' lives further. If you won't help us, we'll find someone who will."
Pennington's mouth snapped open, then snapped shut again. He eyed Joe beadily for a moment before pivoting on his heel and walking away. Frank looked at Joe and Nancy, uncertain of what the agent's actions implied. Pennington stopped suddenly and turned to look at them.
"Well, aren't you coming?" he snapped. "I thought you were in a hurry here."
Nancy, Frank, and Joe followed him to his office without another word.
----------------------------
It was amazing how breathing could be both a blessing and a curse. Each breath, each expansion of air in his lungs, caused his ribs to throb even as life-sustaining oxygen was pumped through his veins. There was no part of his body that didn't hurt. Every bone, every muscle, even every organ, it seemed, throbbed with a dull ache. Until he shifted, and then the ache morphed into a stabbing pain. But shifting was necessary, because his hands and feet were tied, and if he didn't move, Fenton Hardy was afraid he would lose what little circulation he had. So every hour, or what he assumed to be roughly an hour because the kidnappers certainly hadn't been considerate enough to leave him a clock, he would force himself to shift around, his back braced against the wall, until some of the pins and needles left his hands and feet. Beside him, Carson Drew sat still as death, but Fenton knew that what his friend was feeling was infinitely worse.
"Carson," he ventured, his voice cracking from disuse.
But Carson did not respond, as he hadn't to every other attempt that Fenton had made to talk to him for the past two days. It had been two days ago when they had been in a darkened hotel room, both he and Carson recovering from the effects of yet another dosage of drugs, when the kidnappers had been about to leave to go off on another one of their unknown errands. The man with the scar on his face had stopped and turned, an expression of malicious glee on his face.
"Just thought you should know, old man," he had said, addressing Carson, "that your bitch of a daughter is dead."
Carson had lunged to his knees, and had somehow kept his balance despite the drugs in his system and the ropes around his ankles. "You bastard!" he had spat, and there had been fire in his eyes. "You're lying! I know my daughter, and she'd never die at the hands of the likes of you."
The man with the scar had merely laughed, while the other one had a look of contentment on his face that had been infinitely more unnerving. "Let's just say that she had an explosive morning. They're probably still picking up little pieces of her."
As the door had shut behind the men, Carson had howled, in a voice that was barely human. Fenton had sat beside him in numb shock, grief warring with the sick relief that the men had not said anything about his own sons. And then guilt had immediately followed, at thinking such a thought at such a time. He had not been able to comfort Carson, he had not had any words. Any attempts he had made to talk to him had been met with stony silence – Carson had not uttered another sound after that unearthly howl. He had merely rocked back and forth on his knees and heels until the men had returned. Then, all hell had broken loose. Without warning, without any reason, the men had brutally attacked them. They had kicked Fenton and Carson repeatedly, in the head, the stomach, the chest, the legs – anywhere within reach. The man with the scar had been particularly vicious, and had only stopped when the other one had regained control and reminded him that it was not their time to die. Yet. Then Carson and Fenton had been blindfolded, and when he had been able to see again, Fenton had found Carson seated next to him, his gaze vacant. Two days had passed since then, and Carson's eyes were still as empty as before.
As Fenton studied his old friend's face, he couldn't help but visibly wince. Carson bore scars that Fenton was sure were similar to his own, but so much worse than that was the look of emptiness. In one day, he had aged ten years. Even as Fenton looked, telling himself to turn away to allow his friend the illusion of privacy in his grief, Carson's lips tightened, causing a crack in his lip that had barely begun healing to split and bleed. For the first time in nearly twenty-four hours, Carson turned to face Fenton.
"She's not dead."
The words were spoken clearly, quietly, and emphatically. Fenton could only nod.
"You would know it."
That simple declaration carried more weight than any sympathy ever could. He knew, Carson thought. Fenton knew what it was to have a child, children, in constant danger. To worry every evening whether today would be the day when there would be an officer at your door, telling you that he was very sorry for your loss. To wake from nightmares because you knew how many close calls your children had had, and in your nightmares, the close call had not been close enough.
"Were we wrong for allowing them to choose this life? Should we have tried harder to keep them from it?"
Fenton sighed. Those were questions that he and Laura had asked themselves, too often to count. He had lived the life of a cop, and she that of a cop's wife. Both knew the dangers and the risks, and the horrors that felt like they would chip away at your humanity until there was nothing left. And as his sons had grown older, and as he had begun to see more and more of himself in them, he and Laura had worried. But with the worry there had been a sense of pride. Despite a penchant for attracting trouble, Frank and Joe had an innate sense of morality and a strong desire to stand up for what was right. Yes, he was proud of his sons.
"I don't think we could have stopped them if we had tried, Carson."
Carson allowed his head to fall back against the wall behind him, the impact sending a jolt of pain through his skull. He felt old, infinitely old.
"No, we couldn't have."
And he knew that it was true. From the day that she had been born, Nancy had been a willful, precocious child. And she had stolen his heart. After his wife had died, he and Nancy had only grown closer. They had become a unit, a team. And like any good partner, and any good father, he knew his daughter's heart. Investigating cases, helping people – they weren't a choice for her, but a passion. She thrived on the work, she was happier for it. And he could never have denied his daughter that happiness, despite the constant worry that it brought to his life. But with the worry came pride, even though at a time like this, it was a very sharp double-edged sword indeed.
Before either man could say anything further, a door swung open, and the light that entered blinded them. In the glare, they could make out the dark silhouette of a man, but they could not identify which of their kidnappers it was. But the words were clear enough.
"Your time is up."
----------------------------