Joe Hardy entered the bedroom that he shared with his older brother Frank, only to find his brother hunched over his laptop, trying to compare airline prices to Illinois.

"Weren't we going to ask Nancy to check that lead out for us?" Joe asked, leaning over his brother's shoulder.

"We did, unfortunately, according to Mr. Drew, Nancy's going through a tough time at the moment and has given up on sleuthing."

"No way," Joe insisted, "There is no way that Nancy Drew will ever give up on sleuthing."

"She hung up on me, Joe, I had to call Mr. Drew to get a hold of her and she wouldn't really talk to me. All I know is that she had a rough case and that the culprit almost got away and now she wouldn't even hear me out on my case."

"So you're going to just give up on our friend, one that I know for a fact that you've been crushing on since we met her, and book a flight to Chicago, without even trying to find out what's eating at her?"

"We aren't going to invade Nancy's privacy, Joe," Frank insisted, giving his brother a cold look.

"So we're just going to accept that Nancy Drew is turning her back to the best career opportunity ever."

"It's probably just a temporary thing, give her a couple of weeks and she'll be back on her feet and solving crimes like they're as simple as elementary math. You know Nan, she can't be down for long. She's going to walk into someplace, notice things aren't adding up, and charge straight in, because that's what Nancy does."

"I still say we look into this," Joe muttered.

"Let's focus on the case that we are actually being paid to do first," Frank insisted, "The one that takes us to Chicago, which is really close to River Heights, we can swing by and visit Nancy, if she hadn't hoped a plane to who knows where to solve who knows what."

"Or we can do a quick web search and see exactly what she's been up to," Joe insisted, "Come on, she's as famous as we are, we put her name in the search engine and we'll probably know what she had for breakfast this morning."

"Joe," Frank groaned, "I doubt that you can learn what she had for breakfast this morning."

Joe, however, wasn't listening, having pulled out his own laptop computer and was pulling the search engine up, "It won't hurt to look, you know."

"Fine, but I doubt you'll find anything, according to Nancy the whole case was a bust. So I doubt there's any news coverage."

Joe hummed, "We'll see about that," he muttered, "Let's see, 'Nancy Drew...' Do you know where her last case was?"

"No, River Heights maybe," Frank said, "I have no idea."

"What about a date," Joe asked, "Some time reference to go by."

"All I know was the man was arrested in San Francisco on charges of attempted manslaughter, arson, and avoiding arrest, about a week ago but Nancy didn't have anything to do with that so I doubt that it would..."

"Found something," Joe interrupted.

"What!"

"Charles Stokes arrested at the San Francisco Airport," Joe explained clicking on the link, falling silent as he read the article.

"So does it even mentioned Nancy?"

"Yeah, it does," Joe said slowly, "A lot… apparently he was fleeing charges in River Height Illinois for… Arson and Attempted Manslaughter."

"How does Nancy come into this?"

"According to this, Famous amateur detective Nancy Drew was investigating strange happenings at a historical manor that was in the process of being restored when she happened upon Mr. Stokes, who owned the house, prepping it for arson. She confronted him, and..." Joe trailed off slightly, looking up at his older brother, "They aren't giving any details here, but it says that Nancy was flown to Loyola Burn Center in critical condition, there's been no updates on her condition."

Frank closed his laptop, "Well, she's obviously improved somewhat, I doubt she would have been able to talk on the phone if she was still in the ICU."

"Yeah, and that explains why she doesn't want to take up another case right now, she's probably still healing, we don't know anything about her condition."

"Well, I know how to find out," Joe said eagerly, typing away at his computer, "I'll just check out Bess's YR page."

"You can't just stalk Nancy through her friend's social media account," Frank insisted.

"I'm not stalking Nancy, I'm just using Bess's account to check up on her."

"Sure you are," Frank said, "but don't come running to me for protection when Nancy gets mad at you."

"No, no, no," Joe said, "This is not right, this is bad, really really bad."

"What did you find?" Frank asked, closing his laptop, and looking at his brother, curiosity getting the best of him.

"Bess is online," Joe said, "I'll message her."

"Joe."

…

Bess was in the backseat of Nancy's car as George wove her way through town to Mr. Drew's office when her phone went off, alerting her of a message on her YR page.

"What's that?" Nancy asked, from her spot in the passenger seat.

"A notification from YR," Bess insisted, opening it, "It's a PM from Joe Hardy."

"Seriously," Nancy groaned, "What does he want? I already told Frank I wasn't interested in helping with their case."

"He learned about your last case and wants to know how you're doing?"

"Just ignore him," Nancy insisted, "I don't need his pity as well."

Bess frowned, pulling out her phone, She was released from hospital this morning.

There was a pause before there was a ding.

That's great news, how's she doing?

Struggling.

Anything Frank and I can do?

I don't really know, she's hardly letting her dad in right now, not to mention George and I.

…

Joe frowned looking at the message on his phone, "Nancy's struggling and won't even talk to her father, or Bess and George."

"That's not good," Frank said, "But there isn't really anything we can do, if she doesn't want to talk, we can't force her."

"Yeah," Joe muttered, "And we're not going to be any help for her, here, when can we get to Chicago?"

"Tomorrow afternoon," Frank said, "I've bought tickets, but we can't just show up at the Drew residence unannounced, it's rude."

"Right," Joe said, grabbing his phone, dialing a number that he had on his phone. Frank groaned, knowing exactly who he was calling. Nancy had given them both her home landline and her father's phone numbers when they started teaming up in case an emergency happened and they needed to get a hold of her father or Hannah.

"Hello, Drew residence, this is Hannah."

…

Mr. Drew was going through the paperwork he needed to have done before the court meeting when his phone rang. What could that be about?

"This is Carson Drew," he said softly.

"Hello Carson," Hannah said, "Just thought that you would like to know that I've managed to get Nancy out of the house."

"How'd you managed that?"

"I might have told her and her friends that you have forgotten some paperwork," Hannah explained, "They're bringing some papers over, try to act appreciative."

"Thanks for the heads up, Hannah," Mr. Drew said with a sigh, "I'll try my best to act like I was expecting them."

"Mr. Drew," His secretary called out from the main office, "Ms. Fayne just showed up with some papers for you."

"Send her in," Mr. Drew insisted, "I was expecting her."

George only stayed a minute, dropping off the papers and, at Mr. Drew's insistence grabbing the handicap parking pass from his car.

He had barely gotten back to his office from getting the parking pass when his phone went off again, this time it was Joe Hardy, Frank's younger brother. Now what in the world would he want? Joe was the more impulsive of the two Hardy boys, and therefore the more likely to get in trouble. If one of the boys needed a lawyer, it would be him. Unfortunately, he had told the boys when they first started teaming up with Nancy that should they ever need a lawyer to give him a call. This could very well be that call.

"Hello this is Carson Drew," he said slowly.

"Hi, Mr. Drew, it's Joe," Joe's voice filtered through the phone, "Frank and I are going to be in the area tomorrow, and I was wondering if we can stop by for a visit."

"That sounds wonderful, Joe," Carson said, letting out a sigh of relief, he really hadn't wanted to have to go to Massachusetts right now, not when Nancy just got out of the hospital.

"We've heard about Nancy's accident, is there anyway that we can help?"

"I think a visit from you would help a lot," Carson admit, "I have a feeling that you and Frank can out stubborn her."

…

Nancy was getting suspicious that Hannah had sent them on a wild goose chase. For one thing, for being too busy to make the trip home to grab the papers himself, he had grilled George on where they were going before going home and had insisted that they take the handicap placard with them.

Of course, now that they could park in the handicap parking, Bess insisted that they had to stop at Scoops, after all it was on the way back to Nancy's house. Nancy tried to explain that it wasn't, not really, but Bess and George wouldn't listen to her.

So that was how she found herself sitting at one of the tables outside of Scoops as Bess went inside to order ice cream for them.

"What happened to her, I'm never going to eat ice cream again?" Nancy asked.

"I have no idea," George said, "I think it had something to do with an apple pie a la mode, tricking her into breaking her own no ice cream rule."

"To be fair," Bess insisted, setting down the ice cream on the table with a distinguished clink, "That was an amazing apple pie."

Nancy shifted uncomfortably, she had no idea which one of the three dishes in front of her was her ice cream. There was a scrapping sound as Bess pushed one of the dishes closer to her, "Here you go Nance," she said.

Nancy reached out and felt the cold dish in her hands, before asking sheepishly, "Where's the spoon?"

Something thin and cold was pressed into her hand, "Here you go," George insisted, "See, you're doing just fine with a little help from your friends."

"Yeah," Nancy said slowly, "I guess, but we're going straight home after this, understand."