Tuesday, October 17, 2000 (11 am)

Fenton Hardy watched Bayport's Finest as they poured over the still smoldering remains of the house he and his wife had bought fifteen years before, when they moved to the seaside town of Bayport from the hustle and bustle of New York City. A thousand conflicting memories went through his mind all at once as he thought of all that happened in this house, bought partly with the money saved by Fenton and Laura but mostly by the rather sizable inheritance Laura received when her father passed away sixteen years before. He raised his sons and daughter in this house, had solved many a case from this house, had ran his practice here and had hundreds of people come and go, sometimes at strange hours. To see that all gone, turned to rubble, a waste, that was a big deal.

Fenton stood in front of his house, in the yard of his neighbor, Stacia Ptaski and thought of the bigger loss the rubble across the street meant. His younger son, Joe, had, from all reports, been in the house when it exploded. His beloved Camaro, destroyed from flying debris and waste from the duo explosions, still sat where it had been blown the night before - upside down on the street in front of the house. He refused to cry yet, to shed any tears for the loss of his son so early in life; tears would come later, in privacy, with his family, when the eyes of the world and a couple dozen press were not on him. He never approved of displaying grief for everyone to see, even in the darkest moments of his life. Now, for Joe, he stood stonily as he watched and waited for the officer to find something - anything - of his son.

Or perhaps he was hoping that they wouldn't.

Fenton sighed and began to pace, walking the length of Mrs. Ptaski's lawn from one edge, then to the other edge, picture-perfect pivot and back again. He knew he was only anxious because he wasn't over there himself, digging through the debris left of his house, debris that landed as far as two blocks away and would have gone farther if it hadn't been for the large elm trees that surrounded his property. He brushed again at an invisible speck of dirt on his trousers and straightened again to cross his arms and stare again at the officers at work.

"Fenton, take this," Fenton looked over with surprise at Stacia and saw that she held a small tray that had two cups of coffee on it. Fenton reached out and took one and found his hand shook with shock. Stacia held it steady in his hand for a moment until he was able to raise it to his mouth and drink it. "Fenton? Is there anything I can do for you or Laura?"

"Thank you, Mrs. Ptaski," Fenton said formally to her. "No. It's just... waiting, you see. I've never been very good at it, not when I'm... personally involved."

Understatement of the century, Fenton though dourly. Understatement of the millennia, really. When his own family was involved Fenton often moved the unmovable to keep everything in gear. His dark eyes drifted again back to what was left of his house with the obvious gaping holes in three different places; those holes caused most of the rest of the house to cave in on itself. The only part of the top floor still left, he saw, was Joe's room. The rest, including his bedroom, lay on top of various parts of the living room, kitchen and other areas of the first floor. He suspected that the lower floor now rested on top of the floor of the basement and he sighed again.

"Fenton," Fenton turned again mid-stalk and faced Ezra Collig, Chief-of-Police of the Bayport Police Department. The other man, about ten years older than Fenton, held out a hand, which Fenton shook, and then Ezra patted Fenton on the back in camaraderie. Fenton nodded to him without saying a word in return and looked back at the house once more, as if by watching he might will his son to walk out of the rubble and come to him.

"It's going to take us the rest of the day, maybe the rest of the week to go through all of it, Fenton," Collig stated grimly. "I wish I could make it easier on you, Fenton, but the truth is, I don't think we're going to find anything to tell you, one way or another, if Joe was really here or not. The fire burned really hot, there's not much of anything left now."

Fenton swallowed and took a deep breath to steady him, though his shoulders started to shake once more from reaction. Since the phone call on board the ship the day before he managed to keep his composure but that composure, he knew, was precarious and threatened to bust loose any moment. He stayed strong at first for Laura's sake, his desire to keep her calm stronger than his desire to break down about the possible loss of his youngest son. The fact that everything they worked together to get was gone didn't matter. Their world revolved around one thought. Joe might be dead.

"Steady," Collig held onto Fenton's upper arm to keep Fenton from falling over when his reaction caused him to rock to one side. "Steady, Fenton, here, come sit down."

Collig led Fenton over to one of the chairs on Mrs. Ptaski's front porch and Fenton sank into the seat and placed the now empty coffee cup onto a small table set beside the chairs. Fenton hid his face in his hands for a moment as he tried to force his composure to return again; there were entirely too many Press about for him to react like this so he finally looked up again, a grim expression on his face.

"You don't know that he's dead," Collig said in a low voice that didn't carry to the press line set up across the street, a line that many tried to break but were forced back from by the Bayport PD. "You don't know that he was really here, Fenton."

Fenton turned his blue-eyed gaze upon Collig and frowned, then shrugged and brushed his hair back again. He didn't know that he wanted to think about it right now. He would have to face it, one way or another, eventually, but just now, when he stood outside of the wreckage of his home, two of his children hospitalized he couldn't. If he admitted his feelings to himself, he had to accept that Joe was gone. If he didn't think about it, if he pushed those feelings as far back as he could, then he could still think, hope, pray that Joe was still alive.

No other answer really was acceptable.

Collig continued to stare down at him for a minute, as if by look alone he might get Fenton to pay some attention to him or to what he had to say. Fenton maintained his most stoic, grim, look, while he saw one of the firemen by his house lift up a piece of a shingle and toss it to a pile of debris on the yard to the side of the house. The fireman tossed several more pieces of debris, things that looked like bricks from the front of the house and, then, the remains of the garage door.

"You'd be better off if you didn't watch it all," Collig tried again to persuade Fenton to leave. "It's just going to make it harder on you."

"I have to be here if you find him," Fenton finally spoke and his voice cracked appallingly. "I have to see it for myself, that he's gone. I can't leave."

Collig frowned at him, the act creasing the already marked lines in his cheeks and beside his mouth and eyes. He stood with his back erect and straight, the pride of a long-time police officer evident on his face. Fenton wished he had the same presence and carriage that Ezra now possessed. If he did, he might face the tragedy with a little more fortitude. As it was, he wanted to do what Ezra said and run. He could go back to the hospital and check on Frank and Mandy and the other children. He could hold his wife in his arms and cry on her shoulder for the son they might never see again.

But there was no way he was going to do it. If he stayed here, stayed strong, then he had hope and could believe that Joe was still alive. If he went, he would melt down. Fenton knew he didn't have to say that to Ezra. Collig knew, and well, how Fenton felt just then and why Fenton resisted Collig's promptings to go somewhere else.

Collig looked like he was about walk away but stopped and turned back to Fenton.

"You should brace yourself, Fenton," Ezra said in a calm voice, steel eyes steady on Fenton's. "You know as well as I do. Ready yourself for the worst."

Fenton shook his head in denial and outrage. "No," he said. "No, Ezra. If I ready myself for the worst then I may as well give up now. I may as well go back to the hospital with my surviving children. I am here for them, for Mandy and Frank. When I go back to them I tell them that their brother is alive..."

Fenton paused and swallowed before he finished.

"... Or dead... But I'm not going until I know. And... I'm not facing the worst... until it faces me."

Fenton stood again and went back to his pacing across Mrs. Ptaski's lawn, edge-to-edge, perfect pivot, to the other edge. He kept watching the other side as he paced, as if by keeping vigil he would force them to find out... something... all the faster. Fenton wanted to prod them along, make them work faster but he knew the pace they set was because of safety.

Fenton paused mid-pace when he saw something while he was looking at the ground near where Joe's car had been tossed end-over-end. The Camaro lay on its caved-in top, on the street near the edge of Stacia Ptaski's lawn. A flash of gold met his eyes from just by the car and he stepped off the lawn and onto the street to walk over to it. Fenton knelt down and reached out with one hand to pull back a strand of golden chain.

Fenton straightened and dangled the golden chain from one hand as he tried to remember where before he had seen it. He sat back down in a chair on Mrs. Ptaski's porch and continued to slide it, over and over again, through his fingers.

Tuesday, October 17, 2000 (1 PM)

Frank woke again, slowly, his working senses reached out all around him to hear and to smell and to touch. The usual pungent odor of a hospital, the medicinal smells that always made Frank slightly nauseous were prevalent. He heard the beeping of various pieces of machinery, as well as soft voices from the corridor outside his room. His right leg, uncovered to his injured knee, was cold. He felt around with his left hand until he found the sheet and he flung a section of it over his leg. He shivered slightly still but he knew the cause of that. Shock, reaction, fear, they all wrecked havoc on his nervous system even while he suppressed memories.

Memories. He didn't want to remember. For an instant, but only for an instant, he wished he had amnesia along with his blindness. Another instant later and he knew he never wanted to forget. If he never saw Joe again, if his brother really was gone, he wanted to cherish every moment of him.

Joe's not dead. A part of his mind rebelled once again. He's not dead.

But he is, another part of his mind insisted. There's no way he could have survived the blasts. We weren't in the house and it almost killed us!

But what if he wasn't in the house? Still another part of his mind asked. What if...?

"Enough what ifs, Hardy," he mumbled. "More action."

Frank pushed up with his good hand until he was in a sitting position. He adjusted his bed angle after he found the control for it. A moment later he pressed the call button. He drummed the fingers his good hand against the bed until he heard a bright voice from the doorway.

"Mr. Hardy?" the voice sounded young to Frank. "Can I get something for you?"

"I need to see my sister," Frank said without preamble. "And my girlfriend."

Frank heard nothing for a few moments and he frowned as he waited.

"You aren't allowed out of bed yet," the voice explained finally. "And your sister... isn't she a patient too?"

"Yes," Frank admitted. "I need to talk to both of them."

Be patient, Frank, he told himself silently. Be patient.

"Tomorrow," the voice said finally. "You can see them tomorrow."

It took Frank three tries but he swung his legs off the bed. He sat silently as his brown eyes blinked into the darkness for almost a minute, and then he pushed up with his good arm and slid until his feet touched the floor. Before he stood all the way, he balanced on his good leg and felt around cautiously with the other leg to see if felt anything.

"You need to lay back down!" the voice insisted. "Your leg isn't badly injured but you should let it rest more!"

"I," Frank said through gritted teeth. "Am going to talk to my sister and my girlfriend. It's important so I'm willing to crawl if I have to. You can agree or disagree, it doesn't matter. I am going. Now."

"I'm getting the doctor," the nurse's soft-soled shoes moved almost, but not totally, silently down the hall.

Frank took a cautious step and winced. The pain in his knee was not too bad but it did hurt. The young man squared his shoulders in determination and took another two steps, always ending on his good left leg. He felt forward with his hands and felt nothing, felt cautiously with his foot, and then took two more steps with care.

"Where do you think you're going, young man?" Frank recognized Doctor Carlisle's voice. "You need to get right back in that bed."

Frank felt the Doctor touch his shoulder but he wrenched free and nearly stumbled.

"I have to see Mandy and Sam," he said to the Doctor. "I won't go for long but... I have to talk to them."

He swallowed, the last of that sounded too desperate. He almost teared up again but he refused to cry in front of the doctor.

"You can't wait until tomorrow," it wasn't really a question.

"No, sir," Frank said. "I can't."

Dr. Carlisle sighed but, finally, acquiesced.

"All right," he said. "I'll have Miss Thomas bring you up to your sister's room. You may have no more than thirty minutes, then I want you right back in this bed, asleep, no arguments. Agreed?"

Frank let out a breath as he nodded. "Yes, sir."

Frank didn't know what happened next, he heard nothing for a bit but, finally, he heard something roll down the hall.

"Here, Frank," Miss Thomas said in a calm voice. "Have a seat."

Frank gingerly lowered into the chair and the nurse situated his feet onto the footrests. He leaned back and sat as the nurse pushed him down the hall. Frank didn't bother to try to keep track of distances, he didn't know how from a moving object like a wheelchair. He was pretty sure that there was a way to do it, a calculation of the speed of the chair with the time the chair moved, but he didn't have the mental energy left to dedicate to such calculations. No, instead he thought of Joe, of Vanessa, of his house, of all the things that went wrong the last two days - and the last two months.

Joe isn't dead, he thought again as the wheelchair stopped and a telltale beeping heralded the arrival of the elevator. Joe isn't dead and if I have to go to the moon to find him, I will.

He relaxed again, aware that his shoulder's tensed without his meaning them to. Frank wallowed nervously as he mentally ran over what he wanted to say to Mandy and Samantha. The chair bumped off the elevator and they went right. A minute or less later, the nurse knocked on a door then pushed Frank forward.

"Remember, thirty minutes," Miss Thomas warned.

"Frank!" that voice was Mandy. "Are you all right? Here, I have that, you can go!"

The nurse made a displeased sound but the door to the room closed and Mandy, or Frank assumed the person to be Mandy, pushed the chair again then locked the wheels.

"What are you doing here?" Mandy demanded. "And why are you out of bed?"

"Are you all right?" Samantha asked in a low, soft voice as she kissed his cheek. "Frank..."

"I'm all right," Frank assured her. "I really am, Sam, Mandy. I'll be 100% in no time. And I came, Mandy, to talk to you about Joe."

"If you've come to convince me that he's dead you can get that nurse back in here this minute and get out," Mandy said, already angry. "He's not dead. He's not!"

"I know," Frank spoke quietly and reached for her, tears already streamed down his cheeks. Someone wiped them then he felt someone wrap her arms about his neck and a hand buried into his shoulder. He struggled to fight back the tears and reminded himself, firmly, that Joe was alive.

"Where do you think... where do you think Joe is?" Mandy sounded half-choked. "Do you think that Derak took him?"

Frank shrugged. "If it weren't for the house, if it weren't for the fact that it was blown-up, I'd be on my way to Connecticut or Western New York or wherever Uncle Derak is right now. I just... I don't remember hearing that Derak knew anything about explosives."

"He doesn't have to," Mandy said. "He could have hired someone! He could have pretended not to know. He could have learned!"

"In jail?" Frank shook his head. "He hasn't been out long enough to pick up that kind of information."

"It doesn't take expertise," Mandy insisted. "I know enough to know that."

Frank sighed and shook his head. They both wanted and didn't want it to be Derak. If it was Derak, they'd find Joe, but what would Joe be going through now? If it wasn't Derak, who took him, why and how long would it be before they found Joe - if they found him?

"Maybe... maybe someone should just call him," Samantha suggested in her sweet, soft voice. "I'm not saying ask him right out if he has Joe but... I don't know... ask him other questions. Offer to visit and see what he says. Maybe he'll..."

The door to the girl's room opened again, stopping what Samantha was saying.

"Frank Richard Hardy! What are you doing out of bed?" his mother exclaimed. "I know you're not supposed to be up yet."

"I needed to talk to Mandy and Sam, mom," Frank felt his mother's kiss on his cheek. "A nurse brought me down here. We were just... talking things over."

"What things?" Laura asked. "Or is it... is it Joe?"

Frank nodded, too choked, for the moment, to speak. He swallowed hastily as his eyes teared again. He wiped them on a sleeve.

"Tell me what else has happened," Laura said in a soft voice.

Frank blinked but told his mother all of it. The near miss at the mall, Vanessa being hit by a car, the arrow attacks at the church, the explosion. Laura said nothing and Frank desperately wished he could see her face, since she did not say what she was thinking. Frank drummed his fingers on the arm of his chair again but said nothing to break the silence.

It was broken a short time later when there was another knock on the door. Laura, or Frank assumed it as his mother, answered it.

"Mrs. Hardy, you have a phone call, I'll connect it to the phone in the lounge," a female voice said.

"You can't connect it in here?" Laura asked.

"I was asked not to by the caller, ma'am," the nurse or receptionist, Frank wasn't sure, said. "If you would, please?"

Her tone said clearly, I don't have to do this at all so if you want it, you'd better go now!

"Oh, all right," Laura said. "I'll be right back, kids."

"Don't worry about us, mom," Mandy said to her.

The door closed again.

"I was thinking something," Mandy said then. "About... all the attacks and things. I mean... they went after all of Samantha and us. They nearly killed Vanessa and they, whomever it was, blew up our house. What's the connection?"

Frank, confused, shrugged. "I don't know, not yet."

Mandy snorted and Frank remembered and expression she normally had on her face when she made that sound. It was her 'did you just lose your mind?' expression.

"Get the cotton out of your brain, big brother," Mandy said. "And think! It's psychology."

"I hate psychology," Frank muttered.

"Doesn't matter," Mandy touched his arm. "Now think! Or do I have to use my superior intellect on you?"

"That'll be the day," Frank laughed. "But, uhm, OK."

He forced himself to think... he had to think. What did they have...?

"Isolation," he said, softly.

"Isolation," Mandy agreed. "I don't claim to know as much about crime as you or Joe but I remember one of the first 'rules' of psychological warfare against a captive."

"What does that mean?" Samantha sounded confused.

"It means," Frank felt suddenly cold inside and he shivered slightly. "That whomever took Joe wants him to know he's completely alone. That not only is he alone now, but that he is always going to be alone. That..."

Frank wallowed and wished, suddenly that he had a blanket over him or something to warm him.

"...He won't be rescued, because there's no one to rescue him," Mandy finished in a soft voice.

The room was silent. Frank's heart beat fiercely within his chest for several beats.

"I'm sorry," Samantha broke the silence. "But... you are there, I mean, here. You're here to rescue him!"

"That's the problem, Sam-Ann," Mandy explained. "If whomever took Joe wants him isolated, if they took him with the intention of never returning him..."

"They'll be coming after us," Frank said in a husky voice. "All of us. They, he, whomever it is won't stop. He won't stop until all of us... are dead."

The room was so silent then that the barely audible sound of the door opening was almost like a crack of thunder.

The Loss PG