Disclaimer: We do not own the Hardy Boys or any of the canon book characters, nor do we own the Sentinel or any of the canon television characters, and are making no monies from this story. Any Original Characters belong to the author(s). Co-written with Talefeathers of the HDA.
For those of you who are not familiar with The Sentinel's characters, we hope this will be a pleasant introduction to them for you. For those of you who are already acquainted with Blair, Jim, Simon and the others – enjoy! Trying to fit these four stories into two different story arcs [Hardy Boys and The Sentinel] just barely worked. Band of Brothers and Welcome to Cascade take place before September Song [Hardy universe] begins, and any time after The Perfect Partner [Sentinel universe]. Missing Persons happens right after Fanfare for June [Hardys]; A Matter of Public Record takes place any time between Death on the Fourth of July and February Flirtations [Hardys], and before Remodel and Rebuild [Sentinel].
This particular story was written in 2007. Technology does not match today's levels.
Thank you, Sarai!
Missing Persons
A Sentinel/Hardy Boys Crossover Story
By EvergreenDreamweaver & Talefeathers
Chapter 2
"Of all the IDIOTIC – what are we going to do NOW?"
The young woman flung up her hands in dismay and spun on her heel, pacing the width of the basement storage room. She whirled again, her long auburn hair flying about her face with the momentum of the turn. She brushed it back impatiently.
"Bruno, why in Heaven's name did you knock out that man and bring him here?" She glared at the big man standing next to the door, and he actually cowered away from her fury.
"He was tryin' to track you down, Miss Bobbi. I didn't figure you wanted him to find you—"
"He already had found me, you – you – augh! All I had to do was talk to him, tell him I'd call my parents, or whatever might satisfy them, and he'd have gone home, back to Bayport!"
"Bobbi—"
She whirled again, her angry gaze now directed at someone else: a handsome man in his late twenties who was leaning comfortably against the frame of a massive furnace, his arms folded across his chest. "Are you going to try to defend him, Darius?"
"It wasn't entirely Bruno's idea," the man faltered. His brilliant dark eyes dropped before Bobbi's challenging stare. "I – um – suggested it to him and Rico."
She blinked. Took a deep breath and let it out. "Why?" she finally asked – in a surprisingly calm tone.
"Having some detective following you...well, it made me nervous."
Bobbi sighed. "Darius, darling, you are the most brilliant stockbroker and potential juggler of funds I have ever met – not to mention the most deliciously handsome – and I love you dearly..." She paused, watching the young man's face flush with pleasure at the compliments. "But everything – and I mean everything – makes you nervous!"
"That's not true! And anyhow, you don't think being followed from the East Coast by a private eye is something to be nervous about?" he challenged.
"He wasn't following YOU! And I think that when that 'private eye' is Fenton Hardy of Bayport – the Fenton Hardy – it would be well to be careful. And kidnapping the man from his hotel room is not exactly being careful, now is it? He wasn't tracking me to apprehend me for some crime, Dar – he was following me because my parents are worried about me! He was just trying to locate me for them! Remember, I came out here and didn't tell them anything about it. I just...left." Her eyes flashed, speaking volumes to the man. "I wanted to be with you."
"But we don't know that for sure, do we?" Darius began nervously. "What if it was the Morano family? What if they discovered that the stock portfolio I set up for them isn't worth as much as they think? Maybe they did their annual audits early. Do you think they discovered—"
"Darius – darling – enough! Fenton Hardy was after me, not you."
"But how can you be sure of that?"
"I read the notes the man left for me at my hotel, that's how." She threw exasperated looks at both men. "AND the notebook Bruno brought along – I'll admit, Bruno, if you were going to snatch him, bringing the case notes was a good move. Makes it look more like he left of his own accord and took them along."
"Thanks, Miss Bobbi," the big man grinned.
"But you didn't need to snatch him in the first place!" Bobbi shrilled, furious once more.
Bruno sagged against the door, looking down at the floor sadly.
"Cuddles—" Darius took a hesitant step towards his irate girlfriend. "We can work it out; it'll be okay."
"Darius, kidnapping's a federal crime! And right now I don't think I care to be called 'Cuddles'!"
His dark eyes raked her humorously. "So's fraud, but you seem to be able to live with that!" The twinkle in the eyes faded slightly. "Maybe trying a little larceny on the side wasn't such a good idea after all."
Now it was Bobbi's turn to fold her arms and look at the floor. "This is getting awfully complicated," she muttered.
#####
In another storage room nearby, Fenton Hardy slowly raised his head, wincing sharply at the throbbing pain emanating from the back of it. Try though he might, he couldn't see anything – and after a few moments he realized why: a soft cloth bound over his eyes prevented it. He had been blindfolded, and, he discovered, he was tied to the chair where he sat! His hands weren't confined, but ropes looped about his chest and arms kept him firmly secured, and it felt like his ankles were tied as well.
What in hell is this all about? He tried to focus through the pounding headache, attempting to remember exactly what had taken place, and how he had ended up here in this very unanticipated predicament.
He'd been in his motel room, having just finished his telephone conversation with Detective Sandburg. He'd gone into the bathroom to comb his hair and brush his teeth before their lunch date. Just as he emerged, there had been a knock on the outer door. Assuming it to be someone from the motel staff, he'd opened it – foolishly, it seemed in retrospect.
He'd barely cracked it open when it was shoved from the outside, and two men had roughly barreled their way into the room, men with woolen ski masks covering their faces – definitely unusual for the current climate and temperature! Before he could react, Fenton had found himself grabbed by the larger of the two – who was considerably larger than the Bayport detective – and his struggles to free himself were useless. He'd done his best, trying to fight them off, but the odds weren't good. He'd heard just one sentence: "Aw, just knock him in the head and be done with it, Bruno!"
And he'd felt one crashing blow to his head – and all went dark.
###
So...here he was, and he had no idea why. Or where here was, for that matter. He shifted, trying to find a little 'give' in the ropes, but there didn't seem to be much slack. Whoever had tied him was a professional...but wasn't sadistic.
Fenton abruptly stopped moving, tensing. He was sure he had heard something – had heard movement nearby. A rustling noise, as of clothing shifting...someone was close to him. "Hello? Who's there?" he ventured, trying to sound annoyed, rather than alarmed. "Speak up!"
There was no reply, but the rustling noises continued, and then the detective heard footsteps, followed by the sound of a door being opened. The footsteps receded. The door was not closed.
Straining his ears, Fenton heard a not-too-distant voice speaking. It sounded familiar; he suspected it was the same man who had advised 'Bruno' to knock him in the head. "He's awake."
"So now what do we do?" To Fenton's surprise, the second voice was feminine – and very cross!
"Question him?" It was a third voice, a soft, educated tenor.
How many people are in there? The detective squirmed vainly against his bindings, then settled down again to listen.
"Question him about what?" It was the woman again. "We already know why he was following me!"
Okay...So he was being held captive by the elusive Roberta Van Lansing – or rather, by her friends or associates. And she didn't sound very happy about it. Just what sort of associates is she...associating...with, anyway?
"Maybe we should move him – somewhere else, you know, further out of the city."
"Take him out in the country and leave him – but not so far that he wouldn't be found...eventually." Another male voice, this one deep and gravelly.
"Bruno, do you have any idea of what the country is like, around here?" It was Bobbi again, and she still sounded exasperated. "You've been here, what – a week? Two? Have you even been out of Cascade in that time? We're talking mountains here, and forests with extremely large, hungry animals in them!"
"Geez, Miss Bobbi, I'm just suggestin'—"
"Taking him away from Cascade might not be a bad idea – just for a couple of days, until things have settled a bit."
"I repeat: where? Darius, you haven't been here any longer than Rico and Bruno; just where would you take him? And how would it look, with all of us having to run back and forth to guard him and feed him and..."
"Well, I suppose we could just kill him and be done with it."
WHAT? Kill me? Hey, wait a minute here...!
"NO! Are you insane?"
"It was a joke, Cuddles. A joke. Okay, okay, enough already! We leave him here for the time being, and try to figure out what to do."
Fenton sagged against the ropes with a huge sigh of relief. Bobbi...Darius...Bruno...and someone else, he mentally cataloged his captors. Obviously Miss Van Lansing was into something that her loving family had no clues about – which was why she'd been playing hide-and-seek with him. Well, he'd wondered. Now he knew – well, at least he knew that she wasn't merely out here on a vacation. But who in the world were these other guys?
And what time was it? Had Ellison and Sandburg wondered why he didn't show up for lunch? Or assumed that he was some sort of flake, and ditched them? What would his family do, when he failed to check in with them this evening?
Fenton sighed again, no longer quite so relieved. He was in a real mess, and no mistake. He wanted to hear more, but to his dismay someone abruptly shut the door – leaving him with his dismal thoughts.
In the adjoining room conversation lagged momentarily while Rico returned to watching his charge.
"Bruno," Darius began after a short interval, "Could you arrange to feed our guest? And perhaps pick up some more groceries while you're at it? I don't know that we have enough food here to feed us all, and going back to the hotel might not be a very good option – at least, not for long periods of time."
"Sure thing, Darius," the large man answered with a smile.
Bobbi watched Bruno leave the room, then turned to address her boyfriend.
"Can you just tell me-again – why we shouldn't just let him go, or leave him somewhere and tell the cops where to find him?" she asked plaintively.
"But he knows who we are! He'll be able to lead the police right back to us!"
"HOW, Dar?" Bobbi challenged, her voice rising, "How in the world will he lead anyone back to us? He never even saw us."
"Do we know that for sure? Maybe he got a glimpse of Bruno. I don't want Bruno to go to jail."
The redhead took a deep calming breath as she silently counted to ten. "Darius, darling, will you stop and listen to yourself? He didn't see any of us. And even if he had, we could just tell him it was all a bit of fun. A practical joke that got out of hand. Or...a mistake, a misunderstanding." The young woman crossed over to her boyfriend and took his hand in hers, stroking it gently, soothingly with her thumb. "No one has to go to jail. We can even arrange to upgrade his hotel accommodations if that makes you happier. Throw enough money at a problem, and it will go away."
"I don't know Cuddles..." the young man began anxiously, only to be cut off by a finger against his lips.
"Darius, please," she implored him, "Let him go. We don't need the kind of trouble a kidnapping will bring. You're not thinking clearly."
Darius sighed, and smiled worriedly at his girlfriend. "Let me think about it. You're right – I'm not really thinking very straight at the moment. I just get so jittery sometimes..."
"I know, Dar, I know," Bobbi crooned softly, soothingly.
"Give me a day or two, I'll have figured out what to do by then. I mean, it won't hurt him to wait a couple of days. We'll take good care of him. I mean, it isn't like we'd mistreat him or anything."
Bobbi nodded her head. Apparently, that was the best she was going to get. A day was all she figured it would take to bring Darius around, anyway.
#####
Jim Ellison was still leaning against the outside door of Fenton Hardy's motel room when his partner arrived. Blair – the thrifty grad student still cropping out in him, even after more than a year as a detective – hadn't waited for a taxicab; he'd hopped on a city bus and ridden the ten or so blocks from the restaurant to the motel. Jim spotted him jogging across the dusty parking lot, and waved and whistled sharply. "Here, Sandburg!"
A few moments later Blair was beside him. "I feel like you ought to give me a puppy treat, after that!" the younger man complained teasingly, then sobered. "What've we got?"
"C'mon in. I didn't want to start without you." Ellison unlocked the door with the passkey he'd been given and propelled his partner through it, followed him in and shut it behind them.
"Whoa..." Blair stared at the clothing scattered about on the floor, the open dresser drawers, the crumpled sheets of paper from a yellow legal pad, the overturned wastebasket.
"That was kinda my take on it too. Something went down here. I wonder if someone was in a fight – or someone else was looking for something?"
Sandburg narrowed his eyes. "Well...maybe...I guess he could just be a slob, ya know?"
The Sentinel shook his head. "That's stretching things, Chief. I'd say if there's anyone not likely to be a slob, it's probably Fenton Hardy."
"It doesn't look all that much different from my room at home, though...Frank said Joe was messy; maybe he takes after his father," Blair argued weakly, then shrugged, conceding that Jim was probably right. "Okay, I admit that's a little different. I live there; he's only been here one night and this morning. Do you see any signs of injury, blood or anything? Should we report it?" He glanced up at Ellison, briefly meeting the ice-blue eyes. "Right. We'll hold off for a bit. Okay, let's see what we can come up with."
Using all their skills as police detectives and all Jim's specialized skills as a Sentinel, they went over the room, inch by inch. There was distressingly little to find. Toiletries on the counter in the bathroom; the toothbrush clearly had been recently used. A few dark hairs in a comb. Clothing neatly hung up in the closet contrasted with the articles dumped on the floor, quite evidently from the drawers.
"Prints?" Blair asked, as Ellison emerged from the bathroom.
"Just ones that I assume are Hardy's, on the glass, and his razor and other things. Doubtful that the maid's been here yet today, since the bed was unmade. You pick up on anything out here?"
"Maybe..." Sandburg said slowly. "It's the absence of something, though, rather than the presence. There's no case notes anywhere. His briefcase is here, but there's nothing in it except that legal pad and a pen. No pictures of who he was looking for, no file...nada! I suppose he could have left suddenly and taken them along, though."
Ellison frowned. "Anything on those sheets of paper?" he asked, indicating the wadded-up pages now in the righted wastebasket.
"No. Odd, huh? Why rip out blank pages?"
Jim was reaching into the trash, pulling out the papers and smoothing them carefully on the surface of the table. "Maybe they aren't quite as blank as they seem," he said cryptically, and bending over, began carefully running his fingertips over the sheets, one by one. "Someone took the original page, but there are some indentations..."
Blair, realizing what he was doing, drew near and hovered at his elbow, resting his hand lightly on the bigger man's shoulder blade. "Go ahead and dial touch high," he whispered. "I've got you."
After long seconds, Ellison looked up, lips curling in a feral grin. "There are things written in two different handwritings. One says 'The Breakwater, 25th Street.' Nice, neat block printing; I'd bet that's Hardy's. The other is scribbled, hardly legible...write this down," he murmured, still tracing over the paper, and Blair obediently copied down a telephone number as Jim read it to him, followed by the initial 'J,' and then a cryptic 'L. Twrs.'
"That's all," Ellison sighed, straightening up from his stooped position.
"We can try to trace the number – and what do you suppose 'L. Twrs' means? Someone's name?" Blair carefully pocketed the card on which he'd jotted their scant information.
"That we'll have to find out." Jim began replacing clothing in the dresser drawers. "For now, let's straighten things up a little and get out of here. Mr. Hardy's still checked in here, so it's not like the motel's going to rent out the room from under him. Maybe we're wrong about this, and he'll be back here this afternoon from following up a hot tip on his missing person."
"He would have called us," Blair said sadly, following his partner's example and setting the disarrayed room to rights. "I know he would have, Jim."
"I agree, Chief. And," Ellison paused, looking somber. "How long do we wait before we call the Hardy kids and tell them we think their father's been assaulted and kidnapped?"