Disclaimer: I do not own the Hardy Boys or any of the canon book characters, and am making no monies from this story. Any Original Characters belong to the author(s).

Note: This story was originally co-written with another person, who is not currently available to ask for permission to post it. Therefore it is being posted under one author name. Also, it was written in the late 1990s, so technology is not at a 2017 level. Please pardon that fact.

Thank you to all of you who have left comments. They are very much appreciated!

September Song

By EvergreenDreamweaver

Chapter 7

Daylight came too early for the boys' comfort. Despite having blinds shut tight, a bright September sun peeked into their windows around 7:00 a.m. Joe had the ability to turn over and go back to sleep, yanking the covers over his face to keep the light out, but Frank, once roused, found it impossible to drift back into slumber.

He lay staring up at the ceiling of his room, letting his tired brain revolve around the myriad problems he had encountered in the past two days. Callie…Megan…Ted Crowley…Darryl Wright…Callie…Megan…the possibility of hired thugs breaking into the Wrights' home again…someone tailing him and Joe…Callie…Megan…Megan….

Giving up, Frank rose, showered and shaved, dressed in khakis and a sweatshirt, and wandered downstairs, where he discovered his mother reading the morning paper and sipping a cup of coffee.

"Morning," he mumbled, dropping into the chair across from Laura.

"Morning, honey," she smiled. "You look like you had a hard night."

"Just a late one," Frank told her. Suddenly he remembered the undeveloped film in his and Joe's jacket pockets, and he leaped to his feet. His mother stared in amazement as he dashed for the stairs, then shrugged and returned to the paper. She'd gotten over questioning her sons' and husband's unexplained actions, long ago.

Frank knew better than to awaken his younger brother; he merely tiptoed into Joe's room and rifled his jacket pockets until he found the film cartridges. He retrieved his own, then hurried down two flights of stairs into their basement darkroom. As quickly as possible, he started the development process, shaking his head in despair at the amount of work before him. This would take hours!

Around 10:30 he heard footsteps on the basement stairs, and then Joe's familiar rat-a-tat knock on the darkroom door. "Frank?"

"I'm here; where else would I be?" the elder brother replied waspishly. Little sleep followed by no breakfast was taking a toll on Frank's usually serene disposition.

"Come on, take a break. I'm here to take over for you," Joe said patiently. "Go on upstairs and get something to eat. Mom said you dashed down here like the hounds of hell were on your tail."

Frank eased himself out of the door, shutting it quickly behind him. "Mom said that? I don't believe it."

Joe grinned. "Believe it. Didn't you hear her that Thanksgiving when she dropped the jello salad in the sink and it went down the garbage disposal, slurrrp! She's got more of a vocabulary than you might think!"

Frank laughed, remembering the episode Joe referred to.

"That's better," Joe said in satisfaction. "Now get outta here and let me work." He opened the door a fraction, slid inside and shut it firmly. Frank stared after him a moment, then gave up and went upstairs.

Laura was just sliding a pan of cookies into the oven when her elder son entered the kitchen. "Joe said you were having Megan and Vanessa over this afternoon, so I thought I'd better prepare for an invasion," she remarked. "Sit down, hon, and eat something, okay? I don't necessarily advocate cookies for breakfast, but I'm sure we can scrounge up something."

After downing a bowl of cereal and some orange juice, Frank did feel better. He was still sleepy though, and his mother suggested he go back up to bed for a while. Reluctant, but too tired to argue, Frank drifted upstairs.

Once in his room, however, he found himself irresistibly drawn to the computer. He switched it on and accessed his e-mail. Callie's note was the last thing he'd received, and he stared at it thoughtfully for awhile, then touched "Reply" and began to type.

Dear Callie, he wrote. It sounds as if you are having a very good time in Colorado. I'm happy for you. I am enjoying my classes at Bayport Community, and have met some interesting people on campus. I am sure you are right about us seeing other people. Frank grinned a little as he wrote this, and a wicked sparkle lighted his brown eyes. Joe and I are currently working on a case, sandwiched in between his schedule and mine. Good luck this year. Frank

Six years, gone just like that. Six years…He moved the cursor to "Send," hesitated a moment, then firmly clicked. When the computer stopped whirring, he squeezed his eyes shut and said "That's that." He turned off the computer, flung himself facedown on his bed, and was asleep in less than two minutes.

#####

A tap on his door awakened him, and he blinked at the clock. Two-fifteen. "Yeah?" he called.

The door opened and Joe entered. "The developing's done – well, the last films are in, anyway. Megan called, and I told her to come over around three. That okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, fine." Frank rubbed his eyes and sat up. "Vanessa coming?"

"Uh-huh." Joe sat beside him on the bed and looked him over speculatively. "You feeling okay ?"

"Sure, why wouldn't I be feeling okay?" Frank said defensively.

"No reason." Joe held up his hands in apology – but Frank was already apologizing himself.

"I'm sorry, Joe, it's okay. I answered Callie's letter a while ago, and I feel better. All right? Don't worry so much about me."

Joe nodded, not completely convinced but willing to let it go for the time being. "Want to start spreading out the files? Mom and I moved some of the furniture back against the walls, so there's more room on the floor."

"Okay, sounds like a plan." Frank swung his long legs off the bed and got to his feet, and the boys went down to the family room, which looked even more spacious than usual, with the chairs pushed tightly against the walls and the couch shoved to one side of the room. Stacks of enlarged photographs were sitting on it, sorted neatly into piles.

"Hey, you've been busy!" Frank noted with approval.

"Yup." Joe sat down on the floor, reached for a stack of photos and spread them out in front of him. Frank followed suit, and soon the floor was covered with paper.

The boys were deep in their perusal of file pages when the doorbell rang. Joe leaped to answer it, then winced and grabbed at the couch back to steady himself.

"Ouch! I am so stiff!" he groaned. Frank chuckled without glancing up from his work, and Joe, who had hoped for a more sympathetic response, sulked his way to the front door. He returned with Vanessa, who surveyed the snowdrifts of paper with apprehension.

"What have I let myself get talked into?" she murmured, but gamely sat down and waited for instructions.

"We're looking for something that strikes us as unusual, Van," Frank started to explain. "We don't know what, exactly, just something that looks out of whack."

"Okay, I'll do my best," Vanessa said. She picked up a photo and began to scan the contents carefully.

Megan arrived a few minutes later; this time Joe stayed put and let Frank answer the door. When he looked down at her, Frank felt his pulse quicken a little. The late afternoon sun was shining through her red-gold curls, those amazing eyes were warm as they met his, and her dimple was in evidence as she smiled at him.

"Did you get enough sleep?" Frank asked anxiously as he ushered Megan into the front hall.

She nodded. "Plenty. What about you?"

"Enough," Frank evaded a direct answer. "Megan, this is Vanessa Bender, a friend of Joe's. Vanessa, this is Megan Wright. We're in a class together, and she's the one we're doing this investigation for."

The girls nodded to each other in a friendly fashion. Vanessa remained seated; she had learned to play down her nearly-six-foot height when interacting with people considerably shorter than she; but she patted the floor beside her.

"Pull up a piece of carpet and dive in, Megan."

It felt like light-years later, but it really was only about five o'clock when Vanessa brought their first clue to light.

"This is pretty slim – but it's the only thing I've seen so far. Look, this is the second time Ted Crowley's put money into the business account. Crowley Manufacturing's been skating on thin ice, financially speaking, and he's pumping money back in from his personal account.

"Nothing wrong with that," Frank observed, but he knee-walked across the floor to study the pages Vanessa was comparing. "He wouldn't be the first owner of a company to do it."

"I know that, but look. Look where he got the money. It's apparently from a life-insurance policy…both times."

"That seems awfully convenient," Joe commented, joining them. "And how often do you get money from life insurance policies? It looks a little funny for this large sum of money – Lord! $150,000? Frank, go take out a life insurance policy on yourself with me as the beneficiary, will you?"

"Up yours," his brother said amiably.

Joe grinned and continued: "Anyway, it seems odd for this amount of money to suddenly be available just when the manufacturing company is on the skids."

Megan had been studying the pages intently over Vanessa's shoulder. "It's something Ted Crowley did. Dad mentioned it once. I thought it sounded absolutely ghoulish."

"Tell us," Frank encouraged. They settled back, waiting for Megan to explain.

"Ted Crowley is doing something that is legal, and I suppose it's ethical, in a sense, but it's horrible, just the same." Megan began. "He buys life insurance policies from terminally ill people."

"Huh?" Joe said. "You've lost me already. Why would terminally ill people sell a life insurance policy? The whole point of a policy like that is to leave money for the survivors."

"Yes, but sometimes there aren't any survivors – well, I mean close ones, like a spouse, or children. Or the ill person needs money for medical care…or to take a trip they wanted to have all their lives and never quite had the time or money to do," Megan explained. "Crowley would buy these policies for a cash payment. The seller gets the money for whatever immediate necessity – and Crowley gets the insurance return when the person dies."

"Ugh!" Vanessa shuddered. "That is so cold-blooded."

"I know," Megan nodded her agreement. "But I suppose he does do a service, of a sort. The patients get much-needed cash, and Crowley gets his money repaid, with interest." She glanced down at the file pages. "But the unusual thing about these two injections of cash is that they each occurred right at the very time the money was needed most urgently by Crowley Manufacturing. If we'd had time to get the files from when my dad died forward, as well as these going backward, I wonder if there might not have been some more convenient cash inflows."

"You think the two may have a connection?" Frank inquired.

"I didn't think it; but my dad may have been suspicious," she replied. "If he was, and Crowley thought Dad was a danger to him – well, you can see where that idea leads."

"From what we heard last night, your dad has some sort of proof of wrongdoing," Joe reminded her. "It isn't just your suspicions anymore. We heard Crowley mention a tape that your dad had, that apparently implicates him – or someone." He frowned in thought. "Any ideas about where that tape might be?"

She shook her head dejectedly. "No, but I haven't really had a chance to look. It must be hidden awfully well, though, since the house was ransacked once and it wasn't found."

"It sounds as if you need a crew of treasure-hunters at your house, Megan." Vanessa smiled. "I volunteer for duty, right now."

Joe grinned. "That's my girl! Always ready for action! Well, count me in. But not tonight; it's already too late."

Frank had been silent for a long time, thinking. Now he spoke: "Joe, you have football practice after school, and Megan and I don't get done until four o'clock. Could we maybe come to your place, Megan, around five tomorrow? If your mom doesn't mind, I mean? After all, we're proposing to tear the place apart again."

"She won't object. I've told her what I'm doing, and she wants to find out what happened to Dad as much as I do. Five o'clock should be fine." Megan smiled suddenly, and it was like a ray of sunshine lighting the room. "I'll even order pizza, since Joe didn't get the one he wanted, last night. This morning. Whenever!"

They all laughed. "Vanessa, is that okay with you?" Frank asked.

"Yes," she nodded. "I'll be there. Are we going to include anyone else?"

Frank shook his head. "I don't think we can. Phil's going back to New York tonight, and I know Tony works Monday evenings. It would take too long to get Biff and Chet up to speed on this, at least for tomorrow night. Maybe later, if we need them."

"Well, this has been a gas, guys, but I need to get home. I have English Lit. to read yet tonight." Vanessa uncurled her long legs and pulled herself to her feet. As she did so, Megan's eyes followed her movements, widening in surprise as she took in the height the younger girl possessed. Vanessa looked down and laughed. "Yup, I really am that tall!"

"I'm envious!" Megan said with a laugh. "I've always wanted to be tall, and here I am, stuck at 5'2"!"

"You don't need to be any taller," Frank blurted. "You're just right as it is." He turned scarlet as both Joe and Vanessa began to laugh. Megan reached over and patted his hand.

Joe now got to his feet and took Vanessa's hand. "C'mon, babe, I'll walk you to your car."

"Okay. Bye, Frank…bye, Megan. It was nice to meet you. See you tomorrow afternoon. Oh, can I come by here and go with you guys? I don't know where Megan lives."

"Sure," Frank replied. "See you tomorrow."

Left alone, Frank and Megan sat in thoughtful silence for a few moments. Frank glanced over at the little redhead, and saw that her dimple had disappeared, and she was looking very sad. Impulsively, he reached for her hand.

"Megan, what's wrong? Aren't we doing what you wanted?"

She gripped his fingers tightly. "Of course you are – better than I had hoped! But – it's scary, Frank. Last night, I was terrified. And I have a feeling it's going to get worse."