J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you for reading! Thank you especially to everyone who has left reviews! The next chapter will be up tomorrow. God bless!

June 26 – Monday

Joe was the first one up Monday morning. The tropical sunrises came early, but without any clocks or watches to keep track of what time the civilized world considered it, the dawn could come as it willed. It had already come when Joe sat up, pushed off the mosquito netting, and stretched. In spite of the netting, he had several new bug-bites that hadn't been there the night before.

"Some paradise," he grumbled as he headed outside. He glanced over at the garden and sighed. He really had taken for granted the days when he could just grab a box of cereal out of the cupboard and pour some milk on it out of the fridge and call it breakfast. Having to gather up breakfast was much harder work. Oh, well, without the work, there wouldn't be any breakfast.

He started walking toward the garden, but then he decided he wasn't in the mood for vegetables for breakfast. Instead, he started looking around for fruit. The fruit that grew wild on the island didn't look much like the fruit that was sold in grocery stores, even when it was the same type. It was smaller and less evenly-shaped, and there were blemishes and spots where insects had already feasted on it. In spite of all that, Joe had to admit that it tasted better than anything available to buy.

He found a red banana tree and picked some of the fruit. Outside the Pacific islands, it was hard to find different varieties of bananas besides the standard yellow one, and Joe had no idea what the varieties growing on the island were called. All he knew was that they were the best bananas he had ever eaten. He climbed up the hill just enough that he could see the ocean out over the tops of the trees which were gently swaying in a cool, salty breeze. Maybe it was a paradise, after all.

It was certainly peaceful, whatever else it was. There wasn't a sound besides the surf running up on the beaches and the wind rustling the trees. The scents of the ocean and different tropical flowers and other plants were on the breeze, and at this time in the morning, it wasn't hot yet. It was pleasantly warm and cool at the same time. It was about as perfect as anyone could wish for.

How ironic, then, Joe thought as he sat there under a palm tree and slowly munched on a banana, that he would have paid to come to a place like this, but now that he was here for free, he would have paid almost anything to get off again. But then, he never had been one to daydream about living a peaceful, hermit-like life. He was too fond of excitement and adventures and mysteries. There was potential for all three on the island, and Joe was getting tired of waiting for them to set out on their expedition. For his own part, he felt completely recovered from the ordeal of becoming stranded.

Maybe the others were beginning to feel the same way, he thought hopefully. They were probably up by now. He would go and see if any of them would back him up on the idea. If Frank would agree, then it would probably happen.

The first person Joe met as he hurried back toward the cabin was Tony. He had found a small, relatively clear space where there was a flat boulder on which he could write, although he had to half-kneel and half-squat beside it, which wasn't comfortable in the least. He had his journal open on the stone and had made a notation of the date—Monday, June 26—but he didn't seem to be doing any other writing. He looked as if he was either lost in thought or praying.

"Morning, Tony!" Joe called to him, sounding more cheerful now that he had suggested the possibility of exploring to himself.

Tony started but then he smiled and returned the greeting. "Where have you been so early?"

Joe shrugged. "Just walking and thinking. I'm getting a little tired of sitting around, you know."

"You would," Tony replied teasingly.

"I think it's about time we explored the island, don't you?" Joe said.

Tony didn't have to think about it. "We might as well. If there's anything here that will help us get off, I'd like to know about it as soon as possible."

"No kidding," Joe agreed. "All right. That's two. As long as we can get Frank to agree with us, we've got it made."

Frank and the others were near the cabin. Chet was digging potatoes which he announced he was going to try to make into hashbrowns.

Evidently, this was the first any of the others heard of it, since Biff asked, "How are you going to do that? I mean, we've got a frying pan, so that part's not an issue, but how are you going to shred them up?"

"I hadn't thought of that," Chet admitted. He considered the problem a few minutes and then said that he would simply slice the potatoes as thin as possible. Fortunately, there were several knives in the chest with the dishes, and so he was able to recruit Frank, Joe, and Biff to help him.

While they were peeling and cutting potatoes, Joe floated his idea of exploring the island that day. The others all agreed that they were ready.

"Almost ready," Frank stipulated when everyone else had gotten quiet enough. "We're going to have to make some preparations if we don't want to just get ourselves in more trouble."

"Like what?" Chet asked, disappointment evident in his voice.

"Like making sure we've got food to take along," Frank pointed out. "The island's not very big, and we could probably walk all the way around it in a single day. Chances are that there are fruit trees all over, but just in case, we should bring some along. We should also bring fish. Fruit isn't going to be very filling for an all-day hike. We need to bring water, too. We were lucky to find a fresh stream here, but we can't be sure there are any others."

"I can agree to that," Chet said eagerly, realizing how close he had come to agreeing to go on a hike without food.

"So, are you saying we need to spend the day fishing, so we can get enough for today and tomorrow and then we can go exploring?" Biff asked, not sounding at all displeased by the prospect.

Frank nodded. "Exactly."

Fishing hadn't yet become a chore, so Biff and Chet worked quickly to finish the potatoes so that they could get started. Chet fried them and while they were thin slices instead of traditional hashbrowns and they could have used some salt and other spices, they were an appreciated treat for all the boys. As soon as breakfast was over, Chet and Biff left to go fishing.

"You guys don't mind if we go fishing again, do you?" Biff asked just before they left.

"Go for it," Phil told him. "We're all going to get plenty of chances to go fishing."

The boys remaining at the cabin started on the dishes. Conversation centered entirely on the forthcoming exploration. They all knew that chances were that they wouldn't find any way off the island. Short of finding that the island wasn't uninhabited after all or that there was a seaworthy boat beached somewhere, none of them could imagine what they possibly could find that would help to get home. So they concerned themselves more with speculating about what other sorts of things they might find. They were hopeful that they might find some salt deposits, which would be a needed supplement to their meals. They also wondered whether Eli had left anything else on the island. Any supplies could be useful. They also thought that they might make some discoveries that were interesting for other reasons than usefulness. There could be animals living there. If there were more streams, there could be waterfalls up in the hills. The prospect that excited them the most was that they might find artifacts from people who had lived there a long time ago. It would be a nice distraction to be puzzling together how people had once lived here hundreds of years ago or longer from a few fragments of their belongings. The boys had been on archaeological digs before, so they would have some idea what they were doing if they found anything.

Fortunately, it was a good morning for fishing, and Chet and Biff had a plentiful catch. They spent the afternoon frying them. It took a little planning to find a way to keep the fish and carry it without flies getting in it, but in the end, they were able to wrap them in leaves and tie them with some shoelaces that they had found in one of Eli's chests.

There were also some canteens in Eli's supplies. They were all a little skeptical about using them, but Frank boiled them for several minutes over the fire and they decided that that was probably enough to make them safe.

One thing that Eli hadn't had which would have been useful was a pack of some kind. Carrying everything they would need to take in their hands would be too difficult. On the other hand, they realized that even if Eli had had a pack of some kind, it would be unusable now. They had quite a bit of rope—most of which would be questionable to use for rock climbing or anything like that—and so Joe and Phil set about trying to weave it together into some sort of sling that could be used to carry supplies. It took a lot of trial and error, and in the end, they had one sling that was usable. Joe offered to carry it while they walked.

That seemed to settle all the preparations they needed to make for the forthcoming exploration. A few of them had misgivings about leaving the cabin unattended with the door still off its hinges, but they all reasoned that there was no one around to disturb it and there was nothing inside that any animals would bother, if there were any animals on the island besides mice and birds.

HBNDHBNDHB

Lieutenant Hikialani impressed Fenton as a competent and experienced investigator. There was a part of him that wished he wasn't. If the reason the investigation hadn't produced any results was incompetence on the part of the investigators, it would be a little easier to hold out hope that the situation wasn't so serious after all. But when he and Sam met with Hikialani, the man laid out the entire situation with precision and professionality.

The detectives were told about the call that the boys had made to the police about the alleged murder. Even with several more days of investigation behind him, Hikialani could add little to what the boys themselves knew.

"The alleged victim's car seemed to be the only tangible lead we had," he explained, folding his arms over his broad chest as he sat back in his chair. Fenton and Sam were seated on the other side of his desk. "It was, at least, undeniably real. However, when we checked the DMV records on it, it was registered to a rental car agency, who had rented it to a man who was not named Kelso, not Reese. He was registered at the hotel, but he checked out the following morning and we're not sure where he went. We're trying to find him."

"You mentioned over the phone that you had texted with someone claiming to be one or more of the boys," Sam reminded him.

"That's right. Most of the texts came from the numbers that Frank and Joe gave me, but we also received from the numbers provided by all the other boys, except Tony Prito. However, we found his phone in the hotel room that they stayed in."

"Were there any clues where they might have gone from those?" Sam asked. "Maybe it really is the boys, although I doubt Tony would have forgotten his phone and not bothered to go back for it."

"They vaguely said that they were going somewhere to investigate a lead. Is that possible?" Hikialani asked. "I understand the boys have a reputation as amateur detectives."

Fenton shook his head. "Not without telling anyone exactly where they went."

"I understand that you've been investigating a case that has left you difficult to contact."

"When they couldn't get in touch with me, they would have called their mother or Sam," Fenton insisted. "For that matter, they would have told you where they were going."

Hikialani nodded and rubbed his chin. "This entire case is very strange. The last verifiable contact we had with any of the boys was that Joe called and said that he and Frank were being followed by a suspicious car. However, he texted later—from the same number—and said that that had been a mistake. Besides all that, there still is no evidence that a murder was committed. No one has been reported missing, no bodies have turned up, no hospitals have had gunshot victims."

"What about the boys' hotels and rental car?" Fenton asked.

"They left their hotels in a hurry and didn't take their belongings. They had paid for several days, and someone put out the 'do-not-disturb' signs, so hotel housekeeping hadn't even looked in there before we arrived. Of course, we had no reason to search until the boys were reported missing. The rental car hasn't been returned, either. I have a bulletin out on it, but so far no one has found it."

"It sounds like some kind of organized crime," Sam commented.

Hikialani nodded solemnly.

"Is there organized crime here?" Fenton asked.

"In the islands? Yes," Hikialani replied. "In this city, only unofficially. I suspect there is, but I can't prove anything. I'm not the only one to suspect it, either. But in over ten years of trying to prove it, only one person ever came up with anything, and he had a convenient accident shortly after that."

"How long ago was this?" Fenton asked.

"About eleven years."

Fenton sighed. "Whatever he found must not have been very helpful after all."

"I wouldn't know," Hikialani admitted. "He called us and told us he had found something that he was going to show us. It would get us to the bottom of this whole problem. Before he could, he and his wife were involved in a hit-and-run accident. They were both killed, and whatever the evidence was disappeared." He paused. "His name was Dylan Larson. He was an investigative journalist. His brother, Mark, is also an investigative journalist, and he's been looking into this ever since. You might want to talk to him. He would probably be interested in helping with this case, and he might have some new ideas."

"Haven't you spoken with him?" Fenton countered.

"Of course, but he has two young daughters and he's raising his brother's daughter," Hikialani explained. "He's very careful about what he says to the police. But he's a good investigator. He's helped us on several cases before." He chuckled. "I've tried to convince him to come work for us. No luck yet."

"How do we contact him?" Fenton asked.

"I'll call him and see if he's at his office," Hikialani offered.

Mark Larson was in his office, and so Hikialani explained to him who Fenton and Sam were. Then the two detectives drove to Larson's office to speak with him. They found him at the local newspaper building, staring at a laptop while chewing the end of the pencil. As soon as he saw the detectives through the glass door, he whipped the pencil from his mouth and stood up.

"You must be Fenton Hardy and Sam Radley," he said, looking at each man in turn as he said their names. He held out his hand for them to shake.

"And you're Mark Larson," Fenton replied, shaking his hand and studying the man as he did. He was about thirty-five, blond with blue eyes and barely a suntan, despite the bright Pacific sun. Fenton would have liked him to look more open, but given what Lieutenant Hikialani had told him, he wasn't surprised.

"I'm sorry to hear about your boys and their friends, Mr. Hardy," Larson began. "I've followed your career off and on over the years. As a matter of fact, I've thought about contacting you to look into this business, but I never thought I had enough to go on to make it worth your while."

"I wish you would have now," Fenton commented.

"Me too." Larson twirled the pencil between his fingers a few times before he went on. "One thing that doesn't make sense to me is that they must not know who your sons are. If they had, I don't think they would have spirited them away. The last thing they would want is to have you investigating."

"Who are 'they'?" Sam asked.

"I've spent the last eleven years trying to find out," Larson replied.

"And you don't have any leads?" Sam prompted him.

Larson began unconsciously nibbling on the pencil again before he realized and set it on the desk. "My brother and his wife were killed because Dylan was investigating certain people. These people made very sure not to leave anything behind that might incriminate them."

"We're not cops, and anything you say to us is not on an official basis," Fenton told him, leaning forward slightly in his chair in his earnestness. "If you don't know anything, then what do you suspect?"

Larson tapped the gnawed eraser of his pencil against the table several times as he considered. Finally, he let out a sigh and said simply, "Brock Garret."

Fenton and Sam glanced at one another with raised eyebrows. Then Sam asked, "The actor?"

Larson nodded. "My brother mentioned his name to me the day before he was killed. How, why, and whether he was involved, I've never been able to determine, but he somehow seems to keep coming up in my investigations, too."

"Tell us the whole story," Fenton urged him.

"There's been a problem with organized crime in this city for a long time, but whoever's behind it is smart. You hear about the '20s and how everyone knew who the crime bosses were, but they didn't have good evidence to convict them, especially going up against someone that rich and powerful. Our gangsters seem to prefer anonymity. Dylan started investigating. I don't know what all he learned or what all he did to learn it. He didn't talk much about his investigations. But he must have been on the right track. The day before he was killed, he called me and said he was getting close to getting the evidence he needed, but that he thought they were onto him. He said he was sending me a package and I should put it in a safe place and not mention it to anyone. If anything happened to him, he wanted me to remember Brock Garret's name. He said he would explain later. That was the last time I talked to him, and I never got the package.

"I started investigating immediately, but I had to go about it cautiously. As I said, I have my wife, my daughters, and my niece to think about. The police didn't turn up anything, and they tried. Hikialani was the lead investigator then. I was suspicious that he might be crooked at first when he couldn't learn anything, but over the years, I've gotten to know him and his work well enough that I have no suspicions anymore. You see, after about four years, he did find the man we strongly suspect killed my brother and his wife. A hired assassin named Rogan Transol. He wasn't from Hawaii; he was brought in from the mianland. The problem is that when they found him, he was sealed up in a barrel and sunk to the bottom of a small lake in Montana. Coroner thought he'd been there about four or five years."

"What makes you so sure it was him?" Fenton asked.

"The MO matched, Transol was seen in town a couple days before the murders, and they found a partial fingerprint on my brother's burned car. It didn't match him or his wife, but it did match Transol. There just wasn't enough of it to get enough points of similarity to make a positive identification."

"So he was probably killed immediately after the murders," Sam said. "Why?"

"The usual reason is to keep them quiet, but I don't know," Larson replied. "Whoever killed Transol would have to be kept quiet, too, and that's not really a sustainable business model, to keep hiring assassins and then having to hire more assassins to kill them. I think the people we're dealing with here are smarter than that."

"You said that your investigations kept leading back to Garret," Fenton prompted him.

"My investigations, yes. He was the only lead I had at first, so I did everything I could to learn everything about him. I read everything I could find about him online, I watched every single movie he ever made, and I badgered his agent for over a year to get me an interview with him. Nothing seemed to implicate him in any crime of any kind. I was beginning to think that Dylan was mistaken about that part of the case, but I didn't think that was likely. Why kill someone who was on the wrong track?

"It didn't make sense, until the police found Transol. I started looking into him. That's when I found the first hint that Garret had something to do with all this. I learned that he uses several burner accounts to interact anonymously on social media. I was able to identify a few of them. One of them was solely interested in cases in which Transol was a suspect. Hardly conclusive, I know, but it was a definite link."

As Larson momentarily paused, there was a knock at the door. The man stiffened and then asked who it was.

"It's just Don," a male voice replied.

Larson relaxed. "Come in."

The door opened, and Fenton turned to see a young man of about nineteen or twenty standing there. The boy glanced briefly at Sam before looking more closely at Fenton for several seconds.

"This is my intern, Don Cameron," Larson introduced him. "Don, these are Fenton Hardy and Sam Radley."

Don nodded almost imperceptibly at the introduction and exchanged polite, but slightly aloof greetings with the two men.

Then Larson added, with a warning glance at his visitors, "I'm interviewing them and they haven't much time. What is it, Don?"

Don hesitated. "There's, uh, a rumor circulating around the newsroom in the last hour or so. Nobody seems to be able to figure out who started it. Everyone says that they first heard it from someone else in the room. It's kind of spreading like wildfire, and I think I can guess why." He glanced again at Fenton.

"What rumor?" Larson asked.

"That a group of tourists from the mainland have gone missing, and that the group included Frank and Joe Hardy."

"How did that leak out?" Fenton asked sharply, looking directly at Larson.

"It didn't come from me," Larson insisted. "Someone with the police must have leaked it. In any case, if the press has it now, it will be all over the country within half an hour."

"Is it true?" Don asked. He quickly added, "I don't want to write the scoop or anything like that. It's just that I met Frank and Joe once and we have a…mutual friend, and so I'm hoping it's not true. I was going to ask you about it, Mr. Larson. I didn't realize you were talking to Mr. Hardy right now."

"When did you meet the boys?" Fenton asked, hoping that he might be about to get a lead from an unexpected quarter.

"It was a couple of years ago," Don told him. "They might not have mentioned me. It was a little bit of an awkward meeting. But is the rumor true?"

"I'm afraid so," Larson said. "How did you happen to meet the Hardy boys?"

Don let out a long breath. "Like I said, we have a mutual friend. I'm sure you know her, Mr. Hardy, so you can ask her to vouch for me if you like. Her name is Nancy Drew."