J.M.J.

Thank you for reading! We already get to learn who our mysterious man is, but there are definitely still going to be some questions about him. I hope you enjoy. God bless!

Chapter 2

Nancy was up and about early the next morning. It was Saturday, but she had never been one to like sleeping in, and now that she had kids, she valued the early morning hours to herself more than ever. It was a perfect arrangement to have some time to relax before the adventures of the day started.

Because she liked to have some time for peace and quiet, she didn't normally check her phone until she had had some tea and read a book for twenty minutes or so. Ordinarily, she would have had the phone on all night, and so she wouldn't have missed any calls if there was an emergency. But her phone had died sometime during the night, and so she let it charge for a little while before turning it on. It wasn't likely that there would be any emergency at the moment. Nancy's dad was in Scotland just now, on business, of course. Carson Drew had done a lot of traveling in his life, but very little of it had been purely for pleasure. Hannah Gruen, his housekeeper, was attending the funeral of an old friend back in New York, and Ned's parents were out of town, too, on a real vacation. They had all already arrived safely, and so Nancy didn't expect any of them to need to call in the middle of the night. Yet when she turned her phone on and saw that there had been three missed calls from an unknown number and a voicemail, a little surge of fear went through her. She quickly listened to the voicemail.

It was short and direct: This is Sergeant Griffon of the Vancouver police. I'd appreciate if you could give me a call back as soon as possible. Then he had left his number, the same one that had called three times.

"Vancouver?" Nancy muttered aloud in bewilderment. She had never been to Vancouver before, and she certainly didn't know anyone there.

Wrinkling her nose in suspicion, she pulled up the search engine on her phone and looked up the Vancouver police department. The number from the message was listed for one of the precincts. Even so, she hesitated. Vancouver was only two time zones behind the local time. Each of the phone calls had been made as much in the middle of the night there as it had been here. The police didn't call in the middle of the night unless it was an emergency. If they wanted to ask Nancy about something for a case—which it wasn't unheard of for police in random places to call her for that reason—they would have waited for daytime hours. So what emergency in Vancouver could possibly concern her? There was one obvious way to find out, but she still didn't quite trust the situation. Caller ID could be spoofed, after all. On the other hand, there could be no harm in calling the police, and she knew that the number really was for a police precinct. She pressed the call back option.

It was answered quickly by a receptionist. Nancy asked to speak to Sergeant Griffon, and the receptionist asked her to wait while she put her on hold. That made Nancy feel it was most likely that the message had been legitimate, but that didn't relieve her very much. A legitimate call from the police in the middle of the night couldn't be anything but bad news.

The hold music had barely been playing thirty seconds before the phone was picked up again and a man's voice was saying, "This is Griffon." It was the same voice from the phone message.

"Hello," Nancy said, her voice calm despite her misgivings. "My name is Nancy Nickerson. You left a message for me to call you back."

"Oh, yes." Griffon rattled of Nancy's phone number. "Is that number you're calling from, eh?"

"Yes, it is," Nancy said in confusion.

"Could you say your name again, ma'am?"

Nancy again wrinkled her forehead in confusion. "Nancy Nickerson. Didn't you mean to call me?"

"I believe so. I'm afraid I have to ask you to do something that might be very unpleasant for you, ma'am."

Nancy felt her heart race in concern. "Yes?"

"There was an accident outside of Vancouver yesterday—That's Vancouver, British Columbia, ma'am, in case you didn't realize. Hit-and-run. The victim is a young man. He was unconscious when they found him, and I'm afraid he's still in a coma this morning. He didn't have any ID on him. The only clue he had about him was a scrap of paper with your phone number on it. Maybe you know him, eh?"

"I don't know. I don't think I know anyone in Vancouver. What does he look like?"

"Oh, late twenties. Thirty, at the outside. White. Dark brown hair. Couldn't tell you the eye color. Probably about one-point-eight meters tall. Er, sorry, that would be six feet or so. Very thin, but for as muscular as he is, I don't think that's his normal state. From the shape of his clothes and shoes, I'd say he had been walking a long time before he got by that car."

Nancy chewed her lip. She knew several people who could fit that general description, but one in particular stood out in her mind. Of anyone, he would be the most likely to get himself into trouble in a random place like Vancouver. "Do you have a picture of him?"

"Yes. I can send it right over. But I have to warn you, ma'am, that he was injured very badly in that accident. The picture might be hard for you to see, especially if he is a friend of yours."

Nancy drew in a long breath. She was tempted to go and wake up Ned and ask him to look at the picture, too, but she didn't. "Okay. Go ahead and send it."

It took thirty seconds or so for the picture to come through. It showed a gaunt young man with a deathly pallor lying in a hospital bed with IVs and oxygen attached. Stitches were evident in the side of his head, and bruises made his face swell in several times. For a second, Nancy doubted whether it was really him, but that hopeful second didn't last long. It was him. She was sure of it. She let out the breath she had been holding and sank into one of the dining room chairs as memories flooded back to her.

The only sound in the room was deep breaths, hissing softly between teeth. Nancy had her eyes squeezed shut, wishing she could block out the vision of what she had seen only an hour before as easily as she could block out the sight of the police interrogation room around her. She shivered, but not only because of the cold in the room. Then someone had touched her arm, and she jumped.

"Sorry." As she opened her eyes, she saw Frank Hardy sheepishly grin at her. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Nancy took in another deep breath. "It's all right. I just…almost forgot I wasn't alone."

"Well, you're not," Frank told her. "It's going to be okay. Just let me do the talking."

"I'm not worried about that. My dad's a lawyer."

Frank chuckled slightly, but Nancy hadn't been trying to joke. From the way she felt right now, she wasn't sure she would ever joke again.

The door opened, and they both looked up as Ned came into the room. Nancy jumped up and ran to him, wrapping her arms around him.

He kissed the top of her head. "Are you okay?" he asked softly.

"I'm not sure," Nancy admitted. "Where are the police?"

"That's all right." Ned looked past her toward Frank. "They talked to your handlers, Frank, so it's all straightened out now."

"What about Joe?" Frank asked.

"He's fine. As much as any of you can be at the moment, anyway."

Frank stood up with a weary but relieved sigh. "Well, I guess as they say, all's well that ends well."

Nancy could feel her husband tense and she looked up at him. He was looking at Frank.

"No," Ned said. "Everything is not 'all's well.' What were you thinking, getting mixed up in a thing like this? And dragging Nancy into it?"

"I didn't drag Nancy into it," Frank muttered.

"He's right," Nancy added. "I made my own choices."

Ned sighed in frustration. "You wouldn't have gotten involved if Frank and Joe hadn't been, and none of you needed to be."

"Oh, come on, Ned." Frank groaned in annoyance. "Not everybody can live all nice and comfortable in suburbia. A few people have to do this kind of thing."

Ned shook his head. "Oh, sure. Getting lied to by government agents who just want to use you as a pawn in a game you would have never played if you had known what was really going on is very necessary for everyone."

"It wasn't like that," Frank protested.

"Then what was it like?"

Frank sighed in defeat, but that only made him angry. "Everything must be so clear when you get everything you want without lifting a finger for it," he snapped at Ned and then brushed past them to get out into the hallway.

Nancy started to follow him, and Ned let her go. Then she paused to look back at him. "Ned?"

"I'll apologize when he cools off a little."

"For what?"

Ned didn't answer, but he didn't need to. Again Nancy wrapped her arms around him. It was the only place she had felt safe in days.

"Ned, do you know…" she started to ask.

"I know some of it," Ned told her. "It's over now. It's going to be okay."

"Ma'am?" Griffon's voice brought Nancy back to the present. "Did that picture come through?"

"Y…yes," Nancy said shakily. She drew in a deep breath and tried to compose herself. "I know him. His name is Frank Hardy."

"He wouldn't happen to be a relative of yours, eh?" Griffon asked.

"No. He's an old friend."

"I'm terribly sorry to be putting you through this, ma'am. Do you know how to contact his next of kin?"

"Uh, yes. He's not married, so it would be his parents: Fenton and Laura Hardy. Let me get their number."

She was still fumbling through her contact list when Ned came downstairs. He was about to say "Good morning," but when he saw Nancy's face, he changed it to "Is something wrong?"

Nancy brushed a stray lock of hair from her forehead. "Frank was in an accident."

"Is he okay?"

"It doesn't sound like it." At that moment, Nancy found the phone number she was looking for. She relayed this to Griffon.

From this, Ned could tell that this wasn't Joe or one of the other Hardys calling to let Nancy know what had happened. He sat in the chair next to her and waited to see what he could do.

"Thank you," Griffon told Nancy. "I'll call them right away. Hopefully, they'll be able to come right out here. The doctor tells me that it's important for the patient to have loved ones nearby. Even if they don't seem like it, they can tell somehow."

"How bad is it?" Nancy asked.

Griffon hesitated a second. "I'm not really supposed to say, considering you're not family, but I suppose it'd be okay to tell you it's pretty bad. Are you a close friend, eh?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, I really am sorry. I take it he doesn't live anywhere around Vancouver."

"No, he doesn't even live in Canada. He lives in New York. The city, that is."

"He's a long way from home. He didn't happen to mention anything about coming to British Columbia, eh? Or maybe Washington or somewhere else around here?"

"No. I haven't talked to him in a few months. He didn't tell me anything about going anywhere."

"Well, I don't suppose he would tell you everywhere he goes. I still don't quite understand why he would have had your phone number in his shoe."

"In his shoe?"

"Like he was hiding it. Any ideas on that, eh?"

Nancy reflected on this. Finally, she said, "I really don't have any idea. Frank is a private investigator, though. He might have been in Canada on a case. His dad works with him. When you talk to him, he can probably tell you more about it."

"All right. There was also a message with the phone number. Written on the same scrap of paper. Maybe it was meant for you. I certainly can't make heads or tails of it."

"What does it say?"

"It just says 'Sign of the white horse.'"

"That doesn't mean anything to me."

"Well, it was worth asking. If you remember anything or hear anything or see anything that could shed some light on it or any other part of this, you'll let me know, eh?"

"Of course."

"And I'll be in touch with you again. I'm sure I'll think of some more questions to ask." Griffon chuckled softly, but then he said he was sorry again and ended the call.

"Nancy?" Ned asked in concern. "What happened? Who was that?"

Nancy took in a deep breath and then described the phone call. "He must have been on a case. I don't know how else he would have gotten into a predicament like that. And if he was working on a case, Joe probably was, too."

"Right, but that doesn't mean anything happened to Joe," Ned replied, guessing what she was thinking. "They could have just gotten separated somehow. It'll be easy enough to find out."

He took out his phone and called Joe's number. It immediately went to voicemail, which was not reassuring. He sent a text then, asking Joe to call him as soon as he could. He breathed out an uneasy breath and then added, "Do you want to go and see Frank? And find out what happened to him? Obviously, it wasn't just an accident."

"Of course I do." Nancy paused. "But I wouldn't want to get in the way, and I don't know how we could leave with the girls. We couldn't take them along, and Dad and Hannah and your parents are all away."

"I'm sure Bess or George would be perfectly happy to watch them for a few days."

Just then, there was a clatter upstairs. The next moment, Audrey came barreling down the steps, with Katie following more quietly after her.

"Morning, Mommy! Morning, Daddy!" Audrey shouted. "Is breakfast ready? I'm starving!"

"I didn't even think of breakfast," Nancy murmured.

Ned squeezed her hand and whispered to her that it was all right. Then he got up and went to hug the girls. "We're having cereal for breakfast. What kind do you want?"

"Yay!" Audrey said. "I want Cocoa Puffs!"

While she ran off to the pantry, Katie glanced first at her dad and then at her mom. Cereal for breakfast was a semi-rare event, especially for the first official day of summer vacation. One look at her mom's pale face confirmed her suspicions.

"Did something bad happen?" she asked.

Ned blew out a rueful breath. He never had been able to fool Katie, so there wasn't any point in trying. "An old friend of your mom and me was in an accident," he told her gently. "Your mom and I will probably go and see him for a few days."

"Can Audrey and I come?"

"No. We'll see if you can stay with your Aunt Bess or Aunt George while we're gone. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"I guess so." Katie frowned. "Who was in the accident?"

"You probably don't remember him. You haven't seen him for a long time. His name is Frank."

"Is he going to be okay?"

"Yeah. Everything's going to be fine."