Just a quick note – to thank you for reading and reviewing, it really means a lot to me. The easiest part of the story is done, so the gaps between postings might be slightly longer, but not too much – I don't mean to intrigue you all with waiting, but rather make the best of the story. So- thanks for staying with me. I promise it won't be long before everyone gets their questions answered.

Laura Hardy frowned, watching Frank's back disappear up the stairs. She had laughed at the forgotten umbrella joke, but a more serious explanation still left her uncertain. Taking a delayed flight as a sign to stay home for a little longer? Frank wasn't someone to believe in 'signs' and 'premonitions', meaning his sudden homeback must have something to do with his father who'd left in a rush a few hours ago. Anxiety crept into her heart and she rubbed her forearms to ease the feeling. Whatever her men were up to, she hoped her husband hadn't taken her son on a case.

Upstairs in his room and with Joe's laptop again, Frank checked if any new e-mails had arrived since he'd checked it last. There was just one new message of some friend liking a photo on facebook and nothing to shed more light on Joe's disappearance. Frustrated, he once again searched every site Joe had visited and every message he had received or written before his death, but still nothing contained threat or looked suspicious. Well, a few visits to adult sites felt somewhat suspicious, but he reminded himself with a meek smile that little brothers grew up, too.

Frank closed the laptop and checked his watch, his father should be back home any minute. He wondered if he should have gone to Bayport Memorial Hospital, too, but felt chill run down his spine at the very thought of it. Never again did he want sit by the morgue and wait for the DNA test results. Especially if they came positive.

Finally, there was a sound of a closing door from downstairs, followed by his parents' voices. Frank rushed to the door, but stopped with his hand on the handle. Laura would get even more suspicious if he was too quick to get downstairs and drag his father into the study, so he waited a couple of minutes before going downstairs to the kitchen.

"Heavenly smell," he said to his mother with a smile.

Laura smiled back, "Pasta with salmon, but it's another ten minutes."

"Okay, I'll... hang around then," Frank hoped he didn't look too excited about having ten minutes to talk to his father and walked, as casually as he could, to the study. He knocked on the doorframe and looked inside.

There was something frail in the way Fenton was standing by a big window of his expensively furnished study. He was a man who helped hundreds of people solve their mysteries, but who now wore a lost look in his eyes over the loss of his own son. He gestured to close the door and came to stand in front of the table, with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Dr. Bates and Dr. Greene, the autopsist, were both there," Fenton started. "The DNA samples don't last more than 8 days, so we got into their computer database, retrieved them and checked…. You know how DNA tests are done?"

"STR – simple tandem repeats of 16 loci. Right?"

Fenton nodded with a soft smile, "Sometimes you're too smart for your young age. You're right. So… We checked again and… they were 99,9% identical as before, meaning-" he paused.

"-meaning direct relation," Frank finished for him in a whisper and closed his eyes, not wanting his father to see him break down again. This was it, this was the end of the story- with no happy ending to it.

"Right again," Fenton said with a nod. "But."

But? Frank snapped his tearful eyes open.

"But then Dr. Greene noticed that 13 of 16 loci were 100% identical. The fact that the other three were 0,1% not is a mere deviation of computer calculations."

"I… I don't get it," Frank frowned.

"The doctors didn't too, because the only case when you get such results is when you take one sample and check it- guess how?"

Frank blinked at him. "Against itself?" at his father's nod, he shook his head. "I still don't get it. Explain?"

"To make a long explanation short, when they did the test in June, the result was given on comparing one DNA sample against itself. Naturally it was as positive as it could be."

"Wh-what? How is that possible?"

"The task of collecting samples and putting them into a computer database is usually given to interns. It's relatively easy, but the very test is done by experienced doctors. So we looked into the very computer records."

Frank walked closer to him, all ears.

Fenton rubbed the bridge of the nose with his fingers. "The intern…. Turned out he had inserted the same DNA sample information under Joe's and my records. He doesn't work there anymore, so we called him, he said he remembered no such thing – he had a 22-hours shift that day, as they had some crowded case of food poisoning, and he was almost going home when they asked him to collect the samples. Maybe, he said in the end, he did mess up due to exhaustion- which he hoped he didn't, of course. The guy's going to face a major examination now."

"I don't believe it..." Frank shook his head in amazement. "He-does that idiot realize what..." he was fuming with anger. Twenty two or one thousand and twenty two hours shift, he didn't care. The guy screwed up, big time, and the examination was a low price for what his mistake had cost them. "Whose sample was that in the record?" he asked, his voice strained to keep himself from lashing out at the intern.

"Not mine, hopefully. Otherwise we'd have to exhume the body."

"You did the test again, right?"

Fenton inhaled deeply and nodded.

Frank put his hands on his face, waiting for the news that he knew would put his life upside down again.

His father looked him in the eyes. "Negative. It isn't Joe six feet under."