A/N: A huge thank you to Caranath, max2013, Guest, Stork Hardy, zenfrodo, Lady Emily, Jackie, bhar, Vinsmouse, and catlover1033 for leaving reviews! Much appreciated! Back to the mystery, and thanks to all who are reading!

Chapter 11

Frank stood up from the sofa in the suite when Joe entered.

"Well, it's about damn time you got back."

Joe grinned broadly. "Sorry, I was a little distracted."

"A little?" Frank motioned for him, and Joe crossed the room and stood next to his brother.

"What's up?"

"Just a heads up. Kathy is hopping mad that you took off for so long."

Joe rolled his eyes.

"I told her you were following up on a lead." Frank chuckled. "From now on, she wants me doing that while you play boyfriend-bodyguard."

"Oh, so I'm just supposed to sit around babysitting her? Not actually working to solve this case?"

"Well, you are supposed to be protecting her," Frank pointed out.

Joe sighed. "Yeah. Listen, let's really concentrate on finding out who this creep is and wrapping this up, okay?"

Frank smiled knowingly. Joe was clearly frustrated by the way things were going on this case. Frank had always considered himself the more patient of the two brothers, but even he knew that Kathy would have worked his very last nerve by now if he'd been in Joe's position.

"Too much Kathy or not enough Emily?"

"Both," Joe replied.

Frank was about to say something sympathetic when the doorbell to the suite rang. Simone came out of her room to answer it and wheeled in a room service tray.

"Dinner for the girls," she said, pushing the cart into their bedroom.

Frank turned back to his brother. "So everything's okay between you and Emily?"

Joe grinned. "Yeah. Thanks for your help, bro."

"No worries, Joe. I sure don't want you to mess up the best thing that's ever–"

A scream from the girls' room interrupted Frank. The brothers exchanged looks then dashed in. Kathy was staring a piece of paper lying on top of her dinner plate, her eyes wild with fright.

"What is it?" Joe demanded.

Simone reached forward to pick up the paper, but Frank held back her arm.

"Don't touch it," he warned. He gingerly took the note by the corner and read it aloud. "I watched you skiing today. I watch you everywhere."

Kathy grabbed onto Joe. "That man we saw at the bottom of the slopes. It must be him." She threw her arms around Joe's neck. "I'm so scared."

Joe patted her back soothingly. "We'll get him, Kathy. Don't worry."

She nodded against his chest, then pulled away quickly. Frank noticed her lips tighten into a straight line as she crossed her arms in front of her. She's not happy about something, he thought as he moved closer to his brother.

"What's the matter?" Joe asked.

"You smell like perfume," she whispered in a low voice.

Frank smiled to himself. Emily's perfume, no doubt. How was Joe going to explain that?

"I do shower you know," Joe replied. "I can't help it if the French soaps here are so girly."

That was good. Frank observed his brother for a moment. He was amazingly talented at this subterfuge thing. Frank doubted that he could have done the same thing nearly as smoothly as Joe did. One point for the little bro.

Kathy continued to stare at him for a moment then looked at the note again.

"How did it get on my dinner plate?"

And she bought it. Two points for the little bro.

Simone spoke up. "Someone must have put it there in the kitchen."

"What exactly happened when you brought the cart in here?" Frank asked, turning his attention back to case.

Lauren walked over and stood near Frank. "Simone wheeled it in and called out 'dinner', and Kathy took off the plate covers and screamed."

"It was sitting right on top of my plate," Kathy said.

"This meal was the one you ordered?" Joe asked.

Kathy nodded.

"How did you order your food?" Frank sat down on the edge of the bed.

Kristen shrugged. "We were all in the living room. Louis asked if anyone was as hungry as he was, and we all said 'yes.'"

"So did you all just call out what you wanted?" Joe asked.

"Yeah." Lauren sat down next to Frank. "We passed around a menu and told Simone and she called it in."

"Okay." Frank stood up quickly when Lauren rested her hand on his thigh. "Joe and I are going to talk some things over and go visit the kitchen staff. You might as well eat your dinner."

Kathy eyes widened, and she grabbed onto Joe's arm while her voice rose in pitch. "You're not going to leave me alone again Joe, are you?"

Joe sounded resigned. "No. I'll stay here in the suite."

"Thank you." Kathy visibly relaxed as she reached for her dinner plate. "You don't think it's poisoned, do you?"

Frank smiled. "I think you're safe, Kathy. Go ahead and eat."

She pushed the plate away and sat on her bed. "Never mind. I'm not hungry anymore."

Joe gestured to Frank and the two of them walked out of the bedroom.

"Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Joe asked.

"Yeah. It's definitely somebody in this suite." His face looked grim. "Who?"

Joe led Frank into the room they were sharing and shut the door.

"I'm pretty sure we can rule out Lauren and Tammy."

Frank nodded in agreement. "I don't think either one of them is bright enough to be behind it, but they could be putting on an act."

"It's possible." Joe grinned at his brother. "Lauren obviously has the hots for you. Maybe you should see what you can charm out of her."

"She's jail bait, Joe," Frank said dryly.

"I didn't say kiss it out of her."

Frank tossed a pillow at his head.

Joe ducked and grinned again. "Surely you can put what little of the Hardy charm you were gifted with to good use here. Flirt with her."

"I don't know if I can do that, but I will talk to her," Frank said. "Why don't you try and get some more info from Kathy? Her crush on you is colossal."

Joe shrugged. "I think she's mad at me right now. When she hugged me, she could smell Emily's perfume."

"Yeah, you do smell a little pretty," Frank teased.

Joe opened the bedroom door and walking into the living room, "Maybe. But the fantastically large dose of Hardy charm I was gifted with will overcome her annoyance. I'll go talk to her."

Frank rolled his eyes. "I'll go downstairs and check with the kitchen staff. Maybe somebody saw something."

Joe turned back to his brother. "Hey? Where's Louis?"

"I don't know," Frank admitted. "Isn't he in his room?"

Joe shook his head. "He hasn't been here since I got back."

"Are you looking for Louis?" Simone inquired as she stepped into the living room, closing Kathy's bedroom door behind her. "He went down to the lobby right after I called room service. He needed to place a call to Washington D.C., and it wasn't connecting through our room phone for some reason."

Frank gave Joe a meaningful glance then smiled at Simone. "Well, I'm going to go downstairs myself. I want to find the waiter who delivered this."

Simone nodded. "I hope you find the culprit soon. Kathy is trying her best to hide it, but I know this has upset her terribly."

OOOoooOOO

Joe leaned against the doorframe to Kathy's room, where she was seated on her bed, clutching her pillow to her chest.

"Hey, mind if I come in?"

Kristen and Lauren jumped up from their position on Lauren's bed, holding their plates in front of them. "We'll finish eating in the living room," Kristen said, hurrying past Joe.

"Yeah, we know you two probably want to be alone." Lauren smiled as Joe stepped inside the bedroom.

He strolled over to the foot of Kathy's bed and sat down. "Do you want to tell me?"

"Tell you what?" she asked, her head bent as she picked at the fabric of her bedspread.

"Tell me what you're thinking right now?"

She looked up at Joe. "I'm thinking that some lunatic really wants to hurt me this time, and there doesn't seem to be anything we can do about it. What else would I be thinking?"

"Oh, I don't know," Joe said, leaning forward. "I just thought that my fabulous skiing earlier today would have you wondering why I wasn't trying out for the Olympic team."

She stared at him and Joe gave her a cheesy grin and raised his eyebrows. Kathy laughed out loud, then followed it up with a patently seductive smile.

Joe patted her leg, wishing Frank could have seen how easily he had accomplished his goal. Poor Frank…he just really didn't have a way with women. Too stiff and formal. Joe made a mental note to try and help his brother loosen up a bit. Then maybe he wouldn't always have to be in the position of having to come onto every woman they needed information from for their cases. It was getting exhausting.

He turned his attention back to Kathy. "That's better. Now, I don't want you worrying. Frank and I are going to find out who's behind all of this."

"I believe you," she sniffled. "What did you find out about the guy who was watching us this afternoon?"

"Oh, well, I've got some leads," Joe lied. "I just need to follow up on them."

"You promised you would stay in the suite tonight!" she wailed, clutching his arm.

"And I will. But sometimes I am required to do some actual investigating in detective work, you know."

"But you'll stay here tonight?" Kathy's voice had an anxious note in it.

Joe squeezed her hand. "Yes. You rest now. I'll be in the living room going over my notes."

Kathy nodded as she leaned back into her pillows.

"I'm feeling hungry again. Could you send Simone in here? I want her to go pick up some dinner for me." She made a face. "From some place other than the hotel kitchen."

"I'll give her the message," Joe said as he stood to leave.

OOOoooOOO

Nancy smiled knowingly as she and Bess entered their hotel room and saw Emily brushing her hair and humming to herself.

"Everything all right with Joe?"

Emily turned from the mirror. "Everything's perfect."

"Thank goodness," Nancy said, as she walked over to the closet and removed her coat.

She'd been worried ever since the incident on the slopes. She couldn't imagine Joe would actually cheat on Emily, but the whole situation looked bad on the surface. She also knew Emily wasn't well versed in the ways of undercover work yet, and seeing Joe with another woman hanging on him had to be devastating for her.

"What are the odds they'd be here at the same time we are?" Bess wondered as she flopped down on her bed and kicked off her shoes. "They must be staggering."

"Ordinarily I'd agree with you." Emily put the hairbrush on the dresser and turned around. "However, after dating Joe for a year, I honestly wouldn't be surprised if a bunch of flying monkeys burst through our window right now and carried us off to Oz."

"No kidding," Bess agreed. "After that week we spent in Transylvania with Count Dracula himself, nothing really surprises me anymore either."

"The inspector wasn't really Count Dracula," Nancy said, setting her briefcase down on the desk. "That was just Joe's overactive imagination."

"I wouldn't be so sure about that," Bess said. "He was very adamant about not seeing that guy's reflection in the mirror.

"Well, anyway, on this case I think they're dealing with something even worse than vampires. According to Frank, Senator Martin's daughter is quite the piece of work."

Nancy pulled out some files of information she'd put together on the monastery and began flipping through them.

"Really? Do tell." Bess lay down on her stomach and rested her chin in her hands, a big grin on her face.

"I managed to snag a few moments with Frank in the...um...linen closet downstairs before I went back to the monastery this afternoon," Nancy said, staring down intently at her papers and hoping she wasn't blushing. "Anyway, Kathy is apparently very spoiled and used to getting whatever she wants. And right now, what she wants is Joe. She's driving him bonkers."

Bess laughed. "I would pay good money to see that."

"That's not all," Nancy continued. "She's also brought along two of her giggly girlfriends. And one of them keeps trying to make the moves on Frank."

"What is it with kids today?" Bess shook her head. "Doesn't this bug you, Nancy? Someone hot after Frank?"

"Nope." She looked up and gave Bess a sly grin. "In the words of a famous country singer...'She ain't woman enough to take my man.'"

Bess burst out laughing. "Would you say that in front of Frank, please? I want to watch him turn ten different shades of red when you do."

Emily smiled. "He will, too."

"Better idea..." Bess sat up. "How about you two start singing it the next time we run into them?"

Nancy and Emily exchanged glances, then looked back at Bess.

"Maybe we'll hum it," Emily said.

"Deal," Bess replied. Then she reached for the phone. "What do you say we call room service? I'm starving."

OOOoooOOO

"Is she feeling any better?" Frank asked, as Joe entered their bedroom after his conversation with Kathy.

Joe shrugged. "She's not freaking out."

"That's good." Frank pulled his shirt off over his head. "Maybe she'll keep her hands to herself for awhile then."

Although he wasn't optimistic. Girls like Kathy Martin weren't the kind to give up on something they wanted easily. And Kathy wanted Joe.

"Doubt it." Joe bounced onto his bed and leaned against the headboard. "What did you learn down in the kitchen?"

"Not much." Frank slid off his jeans. "They got the dinner order, filled it, and the waiter delivered it. I asked him about a note being placed with the food and he knew nothing about it."

Frank walked into the bathroom, clad only in his boxers, and turned on the shower. "The waiter said that he knocked on the door to the suite, announced that the food had arrived, then Simone opened the door and he wheeled in the cart."

"Well, we watched Simone push the cart into their bedroom," Joe called out. "Do you think she could have somehow put the note there without us seeing?"

"It's a possibility."

Frank stepped back into the bedroom to grab his razor. He was getting frustrated. There were absolutely no leads in this case. How could that be? Every single time they thought they might have something, it turned into a dead end. "Unfortunately, we seem to be lacking something important for each one of our theories."

"What's that?"

"Proof."

"Yeah," Joe agreed, punching his pillow into the shape he wanted it, before laying back against it.

"Oh, hey, I did learn something important this afternoon," Frank remembered.

Joe raised his eyebrows.

"That guy you saw on the slopes? The one you thought was watching you and Kathy?"

"Yeah?"

"Louis said he's a federal agent. Kathy's father has several of them here watching her." Frank pulled his razor and a can of shaving cream out of his bag. "He has a photo of the guy. You might want to check it out. I already have a call in to Dad to confirm his ID."

Joe stood up. "If it turns out to be the guy and he really is a fed, I want to talk to him."

"Louis could probably arrange it."

"Does this mean Louis is off our suspect list?"

"No," Frank replied. "It just means that he knows a federal agent."

"Yeah, that's what I was afraid of," Joe muttered.

Frank knew that his frustration with this case was nothing compared to Joe's. His brother could only be expected to take so much of the senator's daughter and her manipulative ways.

He looked at Joe's scowling expression and resolved that he was going to put twice as much effort into getting this stalker. Besides, he had his own selfish reasons. He wanted to be done with this case so he could help Nancy with hers. A stolen religious artifact sounded much more interesting than babysitting a bunch of hormonal teenage girls.

"Hey," Frank called out to his brother. "We're going to get this guy. By the end of the week, Joe. I promise."

He just hoped it was a promise he could keep.