J.M.J.

Author's note: Here goes! Thank you so much for your patience in waiting for this chapter! This story is going to be read-at-your-own-pace. I'll be posting a chapter a day (or nearly every day) for the next month or so and then it will slow down again. I have to warn you that this story is long. If you want and are able to keep up as I post it, great! If you prefer or have to read it at a slower pace, that's great, too. I just hope you enjoy it! God bless!

June 19 – Monday

There was one thing you could count on if you went on a vacation with the Hardys: they were going to find a mystery of some kind. Their friends knew that perfectly well, so they weren't surprised at all when their Hawaii trip turned into a big case. Besides Frank, Joe, and Chet, there were also Tony Prito, Biff Hooper, and Phil Cohen along on the trip. They spent the first three days on the beach, enjoying themselves. It wasn't until the fourth day that the mystery struck.

The boys had made some new acquaintances who had invited them to a beach party that night. They had a bonfire and a barbeque going (which Chet had promptly jumped in to manage, making him the star of the party). Beach volleyball, music, and dancing rounded out the entertainment, and the party went late. It was well after quiet hours when the Bayporters were coming back to the motel where they had rooms and despite the high energy from the party, they were quiet as they returned. The night before, they had had a neighbor in the room next door pound on the wall because Biff had been snoring too loud, and they didn't particularly want an unpleasant confrontation with the same person to spoil the fun they had had. Besides, they had to admit to being ready to hit the sack.

The boys' rooms were next to each other on the second floor, with doors facing out toward the parking lot. Frank, Joe, and Phil were sharing one room, while the other three boys had the other one. There were only two beds in each room, but the boys had thought that the money they would save by not renting a third room for the entirety of their trip would be well worth having to take turns sleeping on the couch that each room was furnished with.

At this late hour, they didn't expect anyone else to be coming in or out of the motel, so when headlights from a car pulling into the parking lot hit Chet just as he was about to swipe the key card, he jumped.

"Oh, great," he grumbled under his breath as the card dropped from his hand and fell into the darkness.

"You'd think you have a guilty conscience, Chet," Tony teased him quietly.

"He does," Biff added. "He's worried those guys at the beach are going to find out he ate half the desert and come looking for him with a bill."

"Hey, guys, keep it down," Frank warned them as quietly as he could. "You don't want to wake up the neighbors."

"Yeah, listen to Frank," Chet said.

His remark was only met by muffled chuckles from his friends.

While the boys tried to find the dropped key card, the car below parked and a door opened and shut. A man climbed out of it, unseen by the boys. Several men waiting for him around the side of the hotel, where they had been out of sight of the boys and had not seen the potential witnesses themselves, stepped out to meet him.

"Evening, Reese," one of the men said.

The boys on the balcony above heard him and something in his voice made them pause and listen.

"You!" The voice was frightened. Terrified, even. "Haven't you done enough to me? Leave me alone."

"You don't actually think that's going to work, Reese? You're more pathetic than I thought."

"Look, I was just trying to keep the heat off myself. I got away, see? It's all over now." Reese's voice faded into a whimper. "I'll give you anything you want."

The other speaker clicked his tongue. "Now, now, Reese. You don't expect me to believe that. Maybe you ware planning on welching on your deal. Fair enough. It only shows how little we can trust you. You're a squealer and there's only one way to keep you quiet.."

"What are you going to do?" Reese's voice did sound rather like a squeal.

Joe glanced at Frank. This was starting to sound like it could turn bad at any moment.

"Don't make this any worse for yourself," the other speaker said. "At least have a little dignity about it."

"No, no!"

Frank and Joe shouted at the same time that they heard the sharp ping of a silenced gunshot. Someone below them turned a flashlight on them, illuminating all six boys' faces for a fraction of a second as they peered over the edge of the balcony. Despite the glare, the boys could see a crumpled body on the pavement beneath them with three men standing around it. Then one of the men cursed and several more silenced shots were fired as the boys came to their senses and darted away.

The room doors were still locked, and so escape couldn't be made that way. The boys clattered to the end of the balcony and bounded down the stairs while two of the gunmen were still running toward the stairs on the other end. The third gunman—who seemed to be the leader—shouted at them. The boys expected a hail of bullets to rain on them, but it didn't. If Frank and Joe had had a moment to think, they would have guessed it was because the gunmen didn't want bullets everywhere for the police to pick up as evidence. They were waiting until they had a sure shot.

The boys made it around the side of the building where it was dark. They scattered to make themselves harder to find and then took whatever cover they could find. There was a sort of overgrown flower garden on this side of the motel, so there were several shrubs and other vegetation. It didn't make for good cover, and the boys knew that if the gunmen shone their flashlights on them, they would be spotted in an instant. They could only hope that the gunmen would decide against taking the time to look for them.

Lights were beginning to come on in the motel rooms, but no one dared to come outside. The boys could hear car doors opening and closing and then a motor start. A car pulled out of the parking lot, and the boys drew a collective sigh of relief. Nevertheless, they kept still a few moments longer before they decided it was safe to get up.

"That was close," Phil said as he picked himself up.

"We'd better go check on the guy who got shot," Joe said, already heading back toward the parking lot.

The other boys followed him, but they stopped short when they came in sight of the lot. The car that Reese had been driving was still there, but Reese was gone.

"Where'd he go?" Chet asked in disbelief. "He couldn't have just gotten up and walked away."

"Those guys must have taken him," Frank concluded. "We'd better call the police."

The phone call was made and it was only a few minutes later that a police car arrived. By this time, the neighbors who had been awakened were beginning to come out of their rooms. The night desk clerk from the office was also summoned, rubbing her eyes and yawning. The Bayporters quickly told their story, leaving most of the talking to Frank and Joe.

"I didn't hear any gunshots," one of the neighbors declared in a grumbling voice. "All I heard was these boys running around and yelling."

"They must have used silencers," Joe said. "They fired a couple of shots are us. There are probably bullets in the bottom of the balcony."

"We'll check," one of the officers said as he and his partner went to investigate.

Joe noticed that Frank had a puzzled look on his face. "What is it?"

"I was just thinking," Frank replied. "Those guys probably didn't shoot at us again because they didn't want to leave bullets as evidence. That might be why they took the body, too. But if they were willing to go to those lengths to keep the police from recovering any bullets…"

"Why did they shoot at the balcony?" Joe finished. He bit his lip and looked upward. "That's a good question."

It was too dark to say for certain, even with all the lights that were on, but Joe couldn't see any sign of where a bullet had hit the balcony. The police in their more thorough search didn't find anything either. For that matter, they didn't find any blood where Reese had evidently been shot.

"You said you were just getting back to your rooms when this whole incident went down," one of the officers said finally. "Where were you before this?"

"At a party," Frank replied.

The officer nodded as if that answered more than just his spoken question. "I suppose there was alcohol at this party."

Frank narrowed his eyebrows in annoyance. "We haven't been drinking. We really saw a shooting happen. If we had been drinking, we would have hardly all seen the exact same hallucination."

The officer looked around him. "All right. Sorry. You've got to admit, this isn't exactly how the scene of a shooting usually looks."

The officers continued to examine the scene, but they couldn't find any trace of evidence. When they had finished, they let the boys look, too, and they also had to agree that no physical evidence of the shooting had been left behind.

"How is that even possible?" Biff asked in frustration after they had all given up. "We saw a guy get shot and we got shot at ourselves. All the evidence can't just disappear."

"But it did," Joe replied glumly. He added in an undertone, "And now the police think we made the whole thing up."

"There's one piece of evidence that didn't disappear." Frank pointed to the car that Reese had been driving.

The officer had overheard this much of the exchange. "We ran the car. It was rented by a Darrin Kelso. Didn't you say the gunmen addressed the guy driving it as Reese?"

Frank nodded. "Maybe Reese was borrowing the car or stole it. You're going to check it over for any evidence, aren't you?"

"Of course we are. It's going to take some time, though. If you boys really saw what you say you saw and these guys saw your faces and know that you're staying in this motel, I wouldn't advise continuing to stay here. Just to be safe."

"Right," Frank agreed. "We'll find another place."

The key card that Chet had dropped had turned up during the search, even if nothing else had, so the boys were able to get into both rooms to gather their things and then face the daunting task of finding new rooms that night.