The world was dark, and smelled rancid. He looked around. The car was on its roof. Frank’s seatbelt was the only thing that was preventing him from falling down. He looked around again, but couldn’t see, it was too dark.

"Joe?" he croaked, his voice raspy. There was no response.

"Joe?" he said louder. He painfully turned in his seat, towards where Joe would have been sitting. Joe was still in his seat, held there by the seatbelt.

"Wake up little brother," Frank said. He reached a sore arm over to Joe and shook his shoulder gently. Joe remained still. "He’s out cold!" Frank thought.

Fighting down the urge to panic, Frank knew he had to get himself and his brother out of the van. Joe needed a doctor most of all. Carefully he wrapped his legs around the sides of his seat and held on tight. Unsnapping his seatbelt, he carefully moved to the roof. Moving around, he opened the glove compartment and pulled out a flashlight. When he turned it on, he found that all the contents of the car, were now on the roof, scattered everywhere.

"Where is the cell phone?" he said out loud. He tried to sort through everything on the roof, but it was one big mess. Frank managed to find a small water bottle. Shaking it, he heard a sloshing noise. "Good there’s still some in here," he thought. Pulling out a handkerchief, he soaked it with the water. He took the damp cloth and gently wiped his brother’s face.

"Come on, Joe, snap out of it," Frank desperately whispered.

After a few tense minutes, Joe finally opened his eyes.

"JOE! Are you OK? Don’t move," Frank nearly shouted, happy to have Joe awake. "Do you see me? Can you hear me? Do you hurt anywhere?"

Joe tried to laugh, but it came out as a groan. "Slow down….. One I can still see you, two, yes I can hear you fine. Three, I hurt everywhere, but nothing feels broken."

"Well, if you can do all that, I think you’re OK. But we’ve got to get out of here. Let me get you down, and then you can help me look for the cell phone," Frank told him. He helped Joe get down from his seat then they began their search.

After several minutes, Joe found the cell phone. He called for the police and a tow truck. Frank thought whether or not they should call for an ambulance, but the dispatcher said that they’d send one anyway.

Climbing out of the wreck, the brothers discovered that the sedan had rolled not too far from the highway. It was a painful climb, but they finally managed to reach the top to wait for the State trooper to arrive.

"Who do you suppose that was that just tried to kill us?" Joe asked, still testing all his limbs.

"I have no idea; I didn’t get a chance to look at a license plate. He also had his high beams on so I don’t even what type of car that was," Frank replied, shaking his head.

It took a few minutes, but finally a police cruiser came onto the scene. Frank waved him down. What they didn’t expect was that the officer was State Trooper Welshman.

"Are you kids OK?" Trooper Welshman asked, coming over to them and shining his flashlight in their eyes.

"I think so, but the sedan’s a mess," Joe said, putting a hand to the bleeding on his arm. He looked at Frank. "I guess our luck isn’t with us when it comes to cars today!" he grinned. Then, Frank groaned.

"Mr. Morton’s going to kill us!" Joe groaned too as he realized that the car they had just totaled was Chet’s Dad’s car.

"What happened?" Trooper Welshman demanded. He looked over at the site where the car was. He was amazed that they managed to walk away from this accident.

"Someone tried to run us off the road, but we have no idea whom it was or what car they were driving," Frank replied, rubbing his sore arm. "All I know is, right before I blacked out, I heard a shouted warning. The person said, ‘Get off this case, Hardys!’…then I blacked out."

"Well, there’s bound to be some front-end damage. I’ll call it in," Welshman said, walking over to his cruiser.

As he was walking to his cruiser, an ambulance came, and the tow truck was behind it.

The tow truck workers went to work, trying to see how best to get car out of the ditch.

The ambulance crew came over to asses the brothers’ injuries.

"Do you feel any dizziness, headache, or nausea?" the first paramedic asked Joe, as he cleaned and put a bandage on the cut on his arm.

"No, I’m just really sore, but nothing’s broken," Joe replied.

"Look straight ahead," the paramedic ordered. He flashed a penlight into Joe’s eyes, making sure they were dilating correctly.

The second paramedic was looking over Frank. After checking his eyes, and cleaning up a few scrapes, Frank seemed no worse for wear.

"I think you’ll be OK, but if you want we can take you to the hospital," the first paramedic said to Joe.

"I think I’ll be OK, what about you Frank?" Joe asked, looking over at his brother.

"I’m fine. We got to see about getting a ride back home. We’ve got to pick up Jason too," Frank said.

"Well, since you feel you don’t need the hospital we’ll leave you. But if either of you feel dizzy, nauseous, get a migraine, chest pains, difficulty in breathing, or sudden weakness, get to the hospital right away," the first paramedic warned them. The paramedics backed up their gear and rode away in their ambulance.

"Tell you guys, what. Since I’m just about to go off-duty, I can help you pick up your friend Jason, and take you home," Welshman offered.

"I guess we can’t refuse," Frank said, gratefully accepted the offer. By then the tow-truck drivers had pulled their borrowed car out of the ditch. The drivers said that they would tow the car to the garage, where the owner, who happened to be a friend of the Hardys, would be waiting to take it into the shop.

The brothers climbed into to the cramped back seat of the cruiser. The space was cramped because of the bullet-proof padding of the seats. It wasn’t long before they managed to get to Jaime’s house and pick up Jason. Both Jamie’s mother and Jason had gotten worried when the saw a police cruiser pull up instead of the Hardys van. When Jason saw his brothers at the door, he rushed into Joe’s arms, as Frank patted his back. Joe hugged Jason tightly, and then felt his shirt get wet. He pulled back, and saw Jason was crying.

"Jason, what’s wrong?" he asked. Jason looked at him, and sniffled.

"I was scared…and I had a nightmare. I was afraid you left me again!" Frank and Joe groaned softly at themselves, and hugged Jason again. Mrs. Rawlins’s told them quietly about Jason waking up from a nightmare.

"It took me quite a while to calm him donw. He wanted you two," she added in. They thanked her again, and left. After getting dropped of at home, and putting Jason to bed, the brothers discussed the case in Joe’s room.

"OK, I called Vanessa and she said we can borrow her jeep until we get the van fixed," Joe said, hanging up the phone.

"I’d better call Mr. Morton," Frank muttered. He quickly dialed the Morton home, and spoke to Mr. Morton, telling him about the accident, and saying sorry many, many times.

"Son, don’t worry about it! The car is insured, I’ll get a new one! I’m just glad you two are okay! Take care now, okay?" the big man said jovially.

"Thanks, Mr. Morton, and we’re sorry again! Goodbye!" Frank replied.

"Goodbye!" Mr. Morton said before hanging up the phone. Frank then sat on Joe’s bed.

"Who do you suppose would run us off the road like that? We’ve barely started investigating," Joe asked, looking directly at Frank’s eyes.

"I have no idea," Frank replied, sitting on the edge of Joe’s bed. "It’s seems almost unreal. It’s a lucky thing we had our seatbelts on or we both would have been killed."

"You still have that piece of cloth right?" Joe asked.

Frank reached into his shirt pocket. To his relief the piece of cloth was still there. He examined the piece in his hand. "It’s definitely from a pair of pants. This looks like a piece of kaki cloth."

"That won’t help considering kaki pants are widely available," Joe said.

"I know. But we at least know the killer is know wearing a pair of torn pants," Frank replied. He went into his room and put the piece of cloth into a bag then put the bag in his closet. Returning to Joe’s room, he found him rubbing his shoulder.

"Are you OK?" Frank asked, sitting down on the bed beside Joe.

"I’m fine, my shoulder just hurts a little bit," Joe replied through clenched teeth.

Frank took a peek under Joe’s shirtsleeve and found a nasty looking bruise. He winced as the bruise looked rather painful. "It’s bruised. The seatbelt must have bruised you when the van flipped over," he said.

"No wonder, I better ice it before it starts to swell," Joe said, getting up.

"Sit down I’ll get it," Frank told him.

Joe sat down, and within a couple minutes, Frank had returned with an ice bag. Joe took the ice bag and pressed it against his shoulder, wincing as the bruise had already started to swell.

Joe thought for a moment about the argument he had with his brother. He couldn’t believe he actually said those things. He felt an overwhelming sense of guilt to rise, and cause a lump in his throat. Swallowing the lump, he looked up sadly at his brother.

"I’m sorry," he said, looking down at the floor. "For what I said. I didn’t mean any of it," Joe replied. The pain he felt seemed to run much deeper than the pain caused by the bruise.

Frank sat down next to Joe and sighed. "No, I should be sorry. I’m the one who started that argument. I shouldn’t have said what I did."

Joe looked up into his brother’s eyes. "It’s OK." Joe gave him a small smile. It caused Frank to lean over and give him a hug. Then Joe started laughing.

"I can’t believe how immature we were acting, what with the car radio and all," he said, still laughing. Frank joined him in laughing, and soon, they were both laughing so hard, they had tears rolling down their faces. It felt good, after fighting for so long. Soon, though, they were thinking about the case again. Frank stood back up, trying to come up with to come up with some way they could protect Jason and investigate at the same time.

"Have you been feeling any of the symptoms the paramedics warned us about?" Frank asked, trying to look into Joe’s face and gage his response.

"I’m really just worried about Jason. Do you think Staci won’t mind bringing Boomer over here and watching him while we investigate?" Joe asked, lying down on his bed.

"I don’t think so. I think her dad feels she’s safe as long as she has that dog with her," Frank said. He too was worried about Staci’s safety. With all these gruesome murders, no suspects, and no motive, she was still in danger. Perhaps she would be safer in Bayport since these crimes seemed to be in or near Bridgeport. And those that were near Bridgeport were in the northern counties.

"And Jason really liked Boomer. I think they’ll be fine," Joe added. Frank agreed, and they both decided to turn in early.

It was a good thing they had turned in early. Jason had woken up in the middle of the night after having a nightmare. Frank had to hug him for several minutes to assure him that he wasn’t hurt and was fine. It took a couple lullabies and a short story to soothe him back to sleep. Jason still looked a little scared and hugged his new teddy bear close to him.