A/N: I'm feeling very sheepish. Here I promised that the updates were going to get better now that I've gotten a new computer and I haven't updated in two weeks. My only defense is that another story (a non Hardy-land story) grabbed me by the throat last week and I've been completely incapable of working on anything else. :) You guys know how that goes. Anyway, on to the next chapter, shall we?

Quintessential Bliss

Chapter Eight

Vanessa hung up the phone after finishing her call with Joe and sat staring at it for a full two minutes before she reached forward and snatched it up again.

She knew that Joe didn't want to bother his family by telling them about the mysterious, hurtful notes he had been receiving for the last couple of weeks. She knew he was likely to get mad at her for doing what she was about to do but he was just going to have to deal with it.

As the phone rang in her ear she pulled the note she had brought with her to work out of her desk and unfolded it. Staring at the bold words had all of the anger and hatred boiling back up inside her. How dare someone torture Joe this way; make him worry and stress all by himself.

She hadn't mentioned the picture that had come with the note and by the sounds of things Joe hadn't received any pictures yet. Whoever was sending the notes was anteing things up. The note read: "You deserve to die." The picture was one of the pictures printed in the New York Times article that had run after the trial. It was of Joe, on his knees in the dark warehouse with blood dripping down his face and terror in his eyes.

Vanessa quickly shut the card, unable to look at the picture any longer.

"Hello?" the deep voice that answered on the other end of the phone made Vanessa jump. She had been so focused on the picture of Joe she had almost forgotten who she was calling. "Hello?" the voice said again.

"Oh! Hi! Sorry," Vanessa laughed nervously. "I was spacing out there for a second."

"Vanessa, how are you?"

"I'm fine. I'm good," Vanessa stared down at the note in her hands. "Joe is going to be so mad that I called you, Mr. Hardy."

"Which probably means it was the right thing to do," Fenton chuckled. "What's going on?"

"Well," Vanessa began and told Fenton everything she knew about the disturbing notes.

"I'm glad you told me about this Vanessa and I'm going to start looking in to this. With any luck I'll have this figured out by the time the boys get back and Joe won't have to deal with it anymore. Do you have any of the notes?"

"One, I can look in the apartment to see if I can find any of the others." Vanessa sat up straighter at her desk. She may not be a detective, but nothing compared to the excitement of tossing her own apartment for clues.

"Good, the more I have to look at the better." Fenton sighed, "I just don't understand why such terrible things happen to my sons. How could someone hate Joe so much?"

"They're in a difficult line of work," Vanessa said softly.

"Still, I've been tortured before…beaten, bloodied and never once has someone used that to terrorize me down the road." His voice grew quiet and pensive, "I just don't understand." He was quiet for a moment before he quickly cleared his throat, "Sorry, you don't want to hear the ramblings of an old man. I'll let you get back to work, thank you for calling me Vanessa. It was the right thing to do."

"Thank you Mr. Hardy, knowing that someone else knows about it helps," Vanessa said goodbye and hung up the phone. Her heart felt lighter knowing that Fenton was going to look into the notes and hopefully solve them before Joe got home.

Thinking about Joe brought her a quick pang of homesickness and she frowned at the odd feeling. She wasn't the one hundreds and hundreds of miles away from home. Home was just a short ten minute drive away. Why did she feel homesick?

When she realized why she laughed quietly, it was so cheesy and so true. Wherever Joe was, that was home to her and Joe was on the other side of the country. Their apartment just wasn't the same without him, too quiet and too empty.

Vanessa sighed and got back to work.

On the other side of the country Joe was feeling homesick too. Hearing Vanessa's voice had caused a flood of emotion to rush through him and he sat daydreaming in his office for awhile before his thoughts were interrupted by a knock on the front door.

Walking down the stairs he had to muffle a laugh when he saw that Nancy had taken the happy homemaker role to heart, wearing a flower-y ruffle-y apron and carrying a spatula as she answered the front door with a cheery smile.

"Mrs. Zuckerman, what a pleasant surprise!" Nancy said happily. Joe almost rolled his eyes; even her voice sounded Susie Homemaker. Nancy was really getting into her role. Not one to let himself be outdone Joe put on his best smile and all but swaggered the rest of the way down the stairs to stand beside Nancy.

Wrapping his arm around her he continued to smile, "Mrs. Zuckerman, good morning!" It was a good thing Nancy had called the woman by name because there would have been no way Joe would have remembered it.

"Good morning neighbors!" She responded cheerfully, Beatrice Zuckerman was nothing if not neighborly. "Did you have a good first night in your new home? Which is beautiful by the way."

"Thank you, we did," Nancy replied. "I was just fixing my husband here breakfast, would you like to join us?"

Beatrice nodded approvingly at Nancy's choice of morning activity. "No, I'm alright. So, your first night was alright? I bet that couch wasn't too comfortable," she said with a large smile in Joe's direction.

"Um," Joe could feel his smile falter. Had she really just said that? How would she have known he slept on the couch last night if they didn't have cameras in the house?

"I can see the blanket on the couch," she pointed into their living room. "I left that throw neatly folded on the loveseat yesterday afternoon. Two plus two, you know how it goes."

Nancy was the first to recover, "Absolutely," she said with what Joe was surprised looked like a very sincere smile. Nancy was a better actress than he thought, "Joe was so exhausted from all the driving, flying and moving yesterday he just dropped to sleep on the couch watching Sports Center." Nancy leaned forward and spoke in a fake conspiratorial whisper. "I'm sure you know how that is."

"Oh absolutely," Beatrice laughed. "If my husband mows the lawn he falls asleep on the couch. Although, I usually don't let him sleep there all night." Even though the words were said easily and there was still a big smile on Beatrice's face Nancy could detect the note of censure in her tone.

Joe felt Nancy stiffen beside him and knew that she had reached her pleasant I'm-the-perfect-housewife quota for the moment.

"So, Beatrice," Joe said cutting in. He had just had a very vivid and very real looking image of Nancy going at Mrs. Zuckerman like a jungle cat, scratching her long claws down that perfectly smiling face. As much as he would have liked to see that, he also knew that to blow their cover so quickly would probably be a bad thing. "To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit this morning?"

"I just wanted to come over and invite the two of you to a neighborhood barbecue tonight. It's our little way of welcoming you to the neighborhood and a chance for you to get to know all of your new neighbors!"

Joe watched in fascination as the woman spoke, she was so lively and happy and upbeat…it was unnatural. "Thank you so much, we'll be there," Joe said with a smile still plastered to his face. At the same time he wondered what the neighborhood would have done if he and "Mrs. Livingston" had already had plans.

As soon as they had said their good-byes and closed the front door Nancy scrubbed a hand over her mouth as if to sooth the over worked muscles from smiling for so long. Both she and Joe exchanged meaningful glances but after the revelation that there were indeed cameras in their house they didn't dare say or do anything out of the ordinary.

"Ready for breakfast sweetheart?" Nancy said sweetly but no matter how hard she tried her bright smile just wouldn't return. She settled on a half smile as she led the way into the kitchen.

"I'm always ready for your cooking honey," Joe replied.

Both of them had to work very hard not to make gagging noises.

"Are you sure? Because I was told that they would be working right now," Frank asked the unhelpful nurse.

"Of course I'm sure," she snapped as she reached over to put another chart in the tray.

Frank sighed in frustration. He had been told that the crew working the night Charlie had disappeared would be on duty…he checked his watch…forty-five minutes ago. "Well then, can you tell me when they will be on duty?"

"Try again tomorrow," the woman replied curtly.

"Try again tomorrow?" Frank repeated, "You mean you don't have a schedule?"

The woman stopped what she was doing and laid both hands on the desk. Leaning forward she said very slowly and very clearly, as if she were talking to a young child, "Try. Again. Tomorrow."

"Fine," Frank threw up his hands in defeat. "You'll see me again tomorrow."

"Looking forward to it," the woman said sarcastically.

Making his way back out to the parking lot Frank checked his phone and saw that he had missed a call from Callie. Calling her back she answered on the third ring, "Hey Callie, what's up?"

"We've been invited to a barbecue to welcome the Livingston's to the neighborhood." She said with false cheerfulness. "And I was just making sure you were going to be here for it, because there is no way I'm going by myself."

Frank laughed, "I'll be there."

"Good," Callie paused. "This is going to be weird."

"Yep," Frank agreed.

"You sound too happy about this," Callie said suspiciously.

"I'm just thinking about how much Joe must be freaking out right now. He's going to have to have intelligent conversation about investment banking with all of his new neighbors."

Joe wasn't freaking out. He was as cool as a cucumber and able to dodge most all questions about his profession. He and Nancy were the main attraction at the barbecue held in the little community park and because there were so many people jostling for position to meet them Joe was able to avoid all investment banking questions.

Reaching for a beer in the large bucket he was actually starting to relax and…was he enjoying himself? Enjoying this mass of super happy, women wearing perfectly pressed sundresses and men in polo shirts, crowd?

Nancy reached around him for a beer and suddenly a hand shot out of the crowd and grabbed her wrist. "What are you doing?" Mrs. Zuckerman sounded mortally offended. "My dear, surely you don't drink beer?"

"Well," Nancy began and trailed off. Her temper was starting to rise. If Mrs. Zuckerman didn't take her hand off of her in a few shorts seconds she was going to wonder how a few of her fingers had gotten broken.

"Here," Callie Shaw suddenly materialized out of the crowd and smoothly removed Mrs. Zuckerman's hand from Nancy, "I'm sure you were looking for the wine coolers. Those are over here, Nancy. Can I call you Nancy?"

"Of course," Nancy replied and let Callie lead her away.

"What. Was that?" Nancy whispered in an undertone as she and Callie reached for their own fruity beverages.

"Beer equals Man Drink," Callie explained quietly. "Nice sundress," she smirked.

"Back atcha," Nancy replied with a smile of her own. "Where's Frank?"

"Over there somewhere," Callie replied with a look toward the barbecue. "He got sucked into manly grunting over the barbecue."

Nancy snorted, "I should have guessed."

"Oh look," Callie said and her voice dripped with sarcasm. "We're being summoned."

"Summoned?" Nancy asked.

"It's time to separate the sexes," Callie said and smiled. "Better put on your happy face!"

Joe hadn't been part of a boys on one side girls on the other event since his first seventh grade dance and he found it weird to be at an event like it now. The men were all gathered around the barbecue, talking man talk and drinking beer and the women were on the other side of the park in the shade, no doubt to save their delicate complexions.

He glanced quickly at Frank and years of working together undercover and the fact they were as close as two brothers could be meant that he and Frank both knew exactly what they other was thinking.

What the hell is going on here?

Joe found that his mind was beginning to wander as talk of some giant merger between two major companies became the new topic of conversation. He had no interest in the stock markets, what investing he did he left up to Frank and his father and why not? Frank had an uncanny knack with predicting the markets and Joe wasn't about to think he could do better.

"What do you think Livingston?" A rowdy man with large jowls and a permanently red face asked him loudly and Joe snapped back to attention. What was that guys name again? Hank? Larry? Was it Larry? Yes, he was sure it was Larry but he had no clue as to his last name.

"What do I think about what Larry?" Joe asked trying to sound like he knew what he was talking about.

"The big merger? I bet your office is going ape-crazy over this." Larry lifted his beer to his lips for a long sip.

"Oh yeah, ape-crazy," Joe confirmed and wracked his brain for any reason why his firm would go ape crazy over a merger.

"Selling lots, buying lots?" Larry asked.

"Of course, of course," Joe nodded his head. "Money talks, people listen. The world goes round," he was starting to get nervous so his mind latched on to every relevant non-committal statement he could think of. "It's a dog eat dog world out there."

"I can only imagine," Larry replied slowly and studied Joe intensely. Just as Joe was starting to sweat Larry spoke again, "I'll probably call you in the next week or so to talk about some things. I'm going to be acquiring a few smaller businesses; I'd like your advice."

"Sure, sure. Absolutely no problem," Joe said, eager to have the conversation over with. The Network must think they were awful funny making him an investment banker.

"So Joe," another man spoke up and this time Joe had no hope of remembering the man's name. "I've got a question for you."

Damnit, Joe thought to himself. Not another banking question, "Sure, shoot."

"Why do you let your wife lead you around that way?" the man smirked at Joe and then joined in the quiet laughter that erupted at the question.

"Excuse me?" Joe was bewildered and completely taken off guard.

"You let her lead you around like a puppy," the man asked still smirking. "What gives?"

"Um…" Joe couldn't think of a single thing to say. The importance of who walked where first had never even entered his thoughts.

"I mean, she is a hot piece and all." The man drank from his bottle of beer. "What with that sexy red hair and they way she moves her hips. Am I right gentlemen?" There were sounds of approval and wolf whistles from the group of men.

Joe glanced at Frank, noticed the balled up fists at his side and knew that if he didn't do something to stop this jerk soon Frank was going to do something that would completely blow their cover.

"Of course you're right," Joe replied through clenched teeth. "But I don't see how you have any right to be looking."

"It's hard not to." God Joe wanted so badly to wipe the smirk off of the man's face. Glancing over Joe knew that Frank was feeling the same way. What had happened to his even tempered brother? "How did you luck out? I bet she's a regular firebrand in be-"

It all happened very quickly. Joe noticed that Frank was about to snap, having stepped forward with a murderous gleam in his eye and intent written all over his face. The only thing Joe could think of to keep from having their cover blown was to rush forward and tackle the smirking man straight on.

"What were you thinking?" Joe whispered angrily at Frank as they walked toward their houses with Callie and Nancy behind them later that night. "Seriously, you could have blown our entire cover!"

"I know," Frank sounded remorseful. "What's gotten into me lately? It must be this place, this situation. I don't know…but hearing that guy talk about Nancy that way."

"Well, she's my wife remember? Why don't you leave the defending of the fair maiden's honor to me?" They paused in front of Joe's house.

"Fine," Frank held up his hands, "fine. See you tomorrow."

"Fine," Joe nodded and watched his brother stalk across the road toward Callie's house. He shook his head at the strange change in behavior he'd seen in his brother recently.

Turning to face Nancy and Callie he smiled, "Well, goodnight ladies."

"You better get in there and nurse your night in shining armor back to health," Callie said in a teasing tone.

"I will, goodnight Callie," Nancy smiled and turned toward the house. "Coming honey?" Nancy asked sweetly and held out her hand.

"Yeah," Joe replied glumly. With all that had been going on he had completely forgotten about his biggest problem: sleeping in the same bed with Nancy.

He walked up their front walkway with the heavy heart of a man on his way to the gallows.