George glanced up at the hotel, "Okay, this is the place where Frank and Joe are staying," she announced as she wove her way through the parking lot, "Let me just find a handicap space."
"That's one good thing about you being blind," Bess announced, "We usually get a good parking spot when you're with us."
"So glad that us going out together makes it so much easier to find a parking spot," Nancy said dryly from her spot in the passenger seat.
"Hey," Bess said, "You know me, I always try to look on the bright side of things."
Nancy didn't comment as the car beneath her stopped moving as George put it in park, "Come on, let's see if we can't track down the Hardy Boys," she insisted, opening her door and stepping out.
…
"We need to figure out which room Frank and Joe were in," Nancy announced, plopping down on one of the beds, "All that they were willing to tell us at the front desk was that they checked in two weeks ago and haven't checked out yet, even though the reservation was only up today… Something must have happened to them."
"Well, I have your fake social media account up," George announced, "So we can head over to the theater at any time."
"No we can't," Bess insisted, "This whole page looks fake, none of the posts have any comments. They need comments, comments from actual accounts."
"Shoot I didn't think about that," Nancy groaned, "What do we do?"
"Easy, we ask all of our friends to follow the page and comment on the posts, then George can alter the dates like she did on the posts."
"I still want to get a hold of Frank and Joe as soon as possible," Nancy announced, "There has to be a way to know what room they're in."
"Then what? Break into their room?" George asked.
"If that's what we need to do, then yes, yes we do," Nancy insisted, her brows furrowed as she thought for a moment, before her eyes lit up, she snapped her fingers, "I've got it," she announced, turning towards where George's voice had came from, "I'm going to need you George."
"I'm over here," George said, from the opposite direction that Nancy was looking.
"Think you can hack into the hotel system and find out what room they were in, and if they've checked out already?"
"Sure, but it might take me a minute," George said.
…
It was about twenty minutes later, just long enough for Bess to finish unpacking and start asking where they were planning to eat that night for George to smile, "Bingo, I'm in, now, did they check-in under their actual names, or an alias?"
"Well, we do know around what time they checked in," Nancy insisted, "It was right before they came over to my house, a couple of weeks ago," Nancy thought out loud, "They showed up right after lunch, so they probably checked in at noon or some time close to that."
"There's three people who checked in during that afternoon," George said, scrolling through her laptop, "None of them are Frank and Joe Hardy though."
"Check the size of the room, Frank and Joe always get two doubles, or queens if they don't have doubles."
George nodded, glancing at the list once more, "We have a Fred Harvey in room 217," she announced.
Nancy nodded, "That's them alright."
"How can you be sure?" Bess asked, plopping down next to Nancy.
"Lori Girard, she could never, ever, ever, get our names right, she called Frank and Joe, Fred and Josh Harvey constantly. She swapped between Nadine and Amy for me. Frank must have known that I would recognize that name if I was looking for him."
"So we now know what room they're in, now what?" George asked.
"We use my blindness to our advantage," Nancy announced, "and convince the staff to let us into their room, they haven't checked out right?"
"No, but someone's been in there recently, today even."
"Housekeeping," Nancy muttered, reaching over to grab her white cane, "Let's see just how hard it is to convince them into letting us into the room."
…
George was amazed at how easy Nancy was able to navigate with her white cane, the only incident she had on her way to the front desk was when a little kid ran out in front of her, stopped and just stared up at her, amazingly Nancy was able to move around them easily enough.
At the front desk, George dinged the bell calling someone to them, before stepping back. She was good at two things when it came to solving mysteries, hacking into things, and chasing after people, she left the rest of the crime solving stuff to Nancy.
"Yes, can I help you?"
"Yes, I'm Nadine Harvey, my husband, Fred and I are in room 217, he's in a meeting right now, and I seem to have forgot my room key in the room, can you help me out?"
"Of course," the lady said, "Let me just call housekeeping and they can let you in."
…
"That was amazing," Bess exclaimed as she skipped into the Hardy's room, "How did you convince them that you belong in this room?"
"I knew the room number and who was assigned the room," Nancy said, "Due to the fact that I'm blind they never questioned it, and now we're in."
"So what are we looking for?" George asked, opening a drawer.
"Their case file," Nancy insisted, "It should be tapped underneath a drawer or some sort of furniture here. They always hide a copy of it in their room, just in case. It's something their father taught them."
Bess, unsurprisingly was the one who found the case file and handed it to Nancy, "Here it is," she announced.
"Great, can you read it for me, I can't see the paper to read it, remember?"
"Right, sorry."
…
The case file didn't have that much new information from what they had told Nancy earlier, but there were a few names and even a couple of addresses there in town, as well as several businesses names, "Let's grab a bite to eat, hit the show, and check out some of these addresses."
"Do you really think that you can find Frank and Joe with this information?" Bess asked.
"I… I don't know," Nancy confessed, reaching up and touching her eyes, "Before, I would say absolutely, but… I don't know how good of a detective I would be without my eyes."
"Don't think like that Nancy," George insisted, "Look at what you were able to do without your eyes so far. You found out where Frank and Joe were staying, you found their case file, and you have a list of places that they were checking out, plus a plan for a sting for the culprits. You've done all that after being on the case for the past what three days, and that's just because it took me a while to get your fake account up and going."
Nancy chuckled, "The only reason I got as far as I have is because I am with you two," She pointed out.
"True," George confessed, "but besides driving here, all I've done was set up your profile and hack into the hotel's computer system, which was really easy, by the way, I better leave a note telling them to work on their fire walls. Those are things I've helped you with multiple times before."
"Yeah, and I only used my knowledge of trends and social media to make your profile look ethentic," Bess insisted.
"The only thing that you would have done differently would have been to drive here yourself," George added, "you are doing great."
"Thanks girls," Nancy said, "But I'm going to need your help a lot today, let's try swinging by the theater before the show and see what we can find."
…
It wasn't long before the three girls were back in Nancy's blue convertible, George driving, and Bess sitting in the passenger seat while Nancy took the back, "Bess, I need you to look in the glove compartment, there should be a couple of yellow manila envelopes in there, one should have Frank's name and the other should have Joe's, there's pictures of them in there."
"Why do you have envelopes of pictures of Frank and Joe," Bess asked, pulling them out.
"The same reason they have pictures of me, in case they ever go missing on a case and I'm trying to track them down. There's also a list of aliases they use, and pictures of disguises so that I can recognize them easily if I run into them on a case, while they are undercover. Not going to help me much now, but people are more likely to recognize a picture than a description."
The theater was locked when they arrived, but they did find a security guard in the back.
"What do we do now Nance," Bess asked, "How do we get the guard to leave."
"How old does he look, our age or older?" Nancy asked, "It is a guy right?"
"Yes, probably not our age, but not that much older," Bess confessed, "Why?"
"Because now I know that the best way to get information out of him is to send you to flirt with him. Take a picture of Frank and Joe with you, tell him that you're looking for your friends, and have you seen them," Nancy insisted.
"You heard her," George announced, giving her cousin a slight shove forward, "Go flirt with that guard."
"The things I do for you," Bess muttered, "You owe me an ice cream or dinner or something for this. He's not even that cute."
"Bess just go," Nancy insisted.
Bess sighed, walking up to the guard and twirling her hair around her finger, "Um, hi," she said softly, a blush creeping across her face, why was she always the one to have to talk to the guys?
"I'm afraid that this is a restricted area, you and your friends will have to leave," the guard said sternly.
"Oh, I understand, it's just, my friend's boyfriend and his brother went missing a little while ago, and well, it isn't like him not to call and tell my friend where's he's at when he's traveling. Last we heard from him was two weeks ago yesterday, they, the boyfriend and his brother, where coming here to you know, see the show, but… that's the last we've heard from them, and I was wondering. Where you working that night? Did you see them? Did you maybe noticed something odd that night?"
The guard chuckled, "I see a lot of people and a lot of odd things each night," he confessed, "You're going to have to be a little more specific."
"I have a picture of them," Bess offered, handing him the picture, "Will that help?"
"Sure, let's take a look," he glanced at the picture his face darkening before he barked, "Nope don't think that I've seen them, I suggest that you look elsewhere."
"But..." Bess protested.
"Don't make me call the police Girly, I told you to leave."
"Come on Bess," George said grabbing her cousin's arm and pulling her away, "He's not going to help us."
"Oh," Nancy said, "But he did. Without even knowing."
"What do you mean?"
"I might not have been able to see his reaction, but I could hear it, and that change of tone once he saw the picture of Frank and Joe tells me one thing. He just got bumped to the top of our suspect list."