The brothers were now curled up together, Frank pressed against the rock, Joe snuggled up in front of him. Both boys shared the elder brother’s jacket. They used Joe’s coat as a blanket so that the two boys were effectively cocooned in a slight pocket of warmth between the rock and the frigid night air. Still they were both shivering badly.

“So what should we do,” Joe asked at length. “Do you think we should try to make our way through the woods?”

Frank looked up above at the wide expanse of the sky. There had been forecasts of snow earlier in the day. Now he saw nothing but darkness stretched taut above them.

“I don’t know,” he answered. “It’s pretty dark and we’d be even more exposed to the cold than we already are.”

“But at least we’d be moving,” the younger boy pointed out.

“Yes, but in the dark, we might get separated again.

“Not if we held hands or held onto each other’s belt loops.”

Frank sighed. “I don’t know Joe,” he said softly. “I just don’t know.”

He felt his brother turn his head to look up at him.

Hugging his younger brother tighter he continued, “I’m afraid we’ll get lost, or separated, or that we’ll trip and you’ll hit your head again. Even though we might freeze to death out here, at least we’ll be together.”

He suddenly pressed his head against Joe’s. “It’s Christmas Eve, little brother; I don’t want to be alone.”

***

Officer Con Riley tapped on his chief’s doorframe, a thick envelope in his hand.

“Come on in, Riley,” the chief declared wearily. He was exhausted. They had been searching for the Hardy brothers for hours with very little to go on. “I hope you have good news.”

“I think I might, sir,” Con said as he stepped into the room. “Two prints, crystal clear. And they match up with some old friends of ours, members of the Jellyfish Gang.”

“And that’s good news?” Collig barked, more harshly than he had intended. The Jellyfish Gang was notorious for a string of deadly jewelry heists it had pulled some years previously. The gang was rumored to still be operating out of Bayport, but none of Collig’s men had been able to verify it. Collig wondered if perhaps Fenton Hardy might be on the gang’s trail.

“The boys were last seen exiting the mall,” Con continued once his chief had quieted down a bit, “and according to one witness, they were accosted by five large men in the parking lot. The witness says he was too far away to be absolutely certain, but he thinks one of the men had a gun. He was, however, ready to swear that the boys he saw were Frank and Joe, and that they got into a maroon van.”

Collig leaned back in his seat and waited for the officer to continue.

“We checked with Mall Security, found the appropriate segment of the tape, and made a copy. Wouldn’t you know, the security monitors had that lovely little zoom feature, so we got a clear shot of the license plate. That and my preliminary report are in here.” Con tapped the file with his thumb before handing it to his chief.

“And I put McKenzie on tracing the car. He expects to hear something within the next few hours.

The grizzled veteran straightened back up in his chair and began to open the packet. “Call Hardy,” he commanded tersely. “Get him down here.”

“Yes, sir.” Riley turned to leave.

“Riley,” Collig called out before the cop left. “Good work.”

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.