"How are you feeling?"

That was the first thing Frank asked when Joe stepped into the kitchen the next morning. It was a Saturday and though a glance at the clock told Joe it was only 9 o’clock, he knew Frank had been up for hours. As much as Frank had tried to keep it down, Joe could still hear the rapid sound of Frank typing away on his computer, and as far as Joe was concerned, he had no idea what Frank might be working on.

"Fine," Joe said, managing a shaky smile as he sat in the seat opposite Frank. "At least I’m not seeing double anymore."

He was still in a daze and even though he felt much better this morning, there were still remnants of the heavy poundings in his head that had kept him awake most of the night after the medicine wore off. But they were mild enough to let his mind function at its normal pace, and though it may not be as fast as the way Frank’s mind works, it was alert enough to tell Joe that something was wrong by the look on his brother’s face. And Joe had a feeling he was going to find out what that something was.

"Is something wrong?" Joe’s brows furrowed as he reached for the coffee pot. He didn’t remember much of what happened yesterday, but he could make a good guess that he was missing something. Something big.

Frank studied his brother closely. Though Joe still looked a little white and ill, his eyes were clear and showing no sign of a fever. As fast as it came, it was gone in just one night. But still he was concerned. Joe didn’t remember what happened to Tessa yesterday because of the fever, he thought. Frank wondered if Joe remembered and whether he should tell Joe about the recent discovery or not. It’s going to break his heart.

"Joe, I, ah…I have something to tell you," Frank started hesitantly.

Joe stopped in the middle of pouring himself a cup of coffee, the pot frozen in mid-air and he looked at Frank expectantly. Frank bit his lower lip, unsure of how to continue. 17 years and still he didn’t know what to do in this kind of situation. Experience told him that Joe was not going to take the news very well.

Frank jumped in his seat when suddenly Joe slammed the pot down on the table with a bang.

"What is it? Is it about Tessa?" Joe asked excitedly. "Have they found her yet?"

He remembers, Frank thought, a little amazed. Well, that makes my job simpler. Or maybe it doesn’t. Either way Frank didn’t know how to break the news to Joe. How can I tell him that Tessa’s presumed dead?

Frank had never thought of himself as someone who easily displayed his feelings; in fact he had always been proud of his ability to conceal his emotions, but Joe proved him wrong. Joe could read him like a book and what he was reading right now was totally unexpected, and it hit him like a punch to the stomach.

"Frank?" Joe whispered his brother’s name.

"I’m sorry, Joe," Frank said gently. He braced himself for the inevitable outburst but none came. In fact Joe remained silent.

"Joe?"

Joe took in a deep breath and released it gently. Joe closed his eyes for a while and when he opened them again, Frank felt a lump in his throat when he saw the grief and anguish reflected in his brother’s eyes.

"What happened?" Joe’s voice was trembling and he was visibly shaking.

"The police broke into a hotel room yesterday, Dad was there too. He was the one who told me. And Chief Collig was there too and a whole bunch of police officers were there too-"

"Frank, stop rambling. Just tell me what happened!!"

"Blood. It was all over the place. And it’s hers."

Fenton Hardy stood in front of the door and before he had a chance to knock it swung open.

"Fenton."

"Hello, David." David Ridgewick, a balding middle-aged man, was an old friend of his, and since he was also the head of forensics, it was him to whom Fenton had asked for the blood sample to be sent.

"You paged me?"

"Yes, Fenton, I’m afraid I did." The forensics expert handed Fenton a lab coat, gesturing for him to put it on. "Go on. You need to wear this."

"What is it you want me to see?" Fenton asked and obliged, putting on the lab coat over his suit.

"Come with me." Fenton darted nervous glances here and there around the laboratory. Jars and jars of unidentified objects, which all looked like something taken out of the human body, lined one side of the lab. On the other end were rows and rows of test tubes filled with what looked to Fenton like blood. David led Fenton to another room where a sophisticated-looking microscope stood in the middle of a table. David went to a locked cabinet and upon opening it, he carefully took out two slides.

After inserting one of them into the slot, David turned to Fenton. "Come take a look at this. I need you to look at something."

"What is it?" Fenton asked curiously. He squinted into the microscope. He recognized the organelles he was seeing. They were healthy blood cells.

When Fenton was done, David exchanged the first slide with the second one. Fenton peered into the microscope again. He was puzzled.

"The two samples are the same," he said. In confusion, he looked at his colleague for an explanation. "They’re both red blood cells."

David shook his head. "The first one was fresh blood, which I had taken from myself a half-hour ago. The second one was a two-week-old sample. Not much difference, is there?"

"What are you getting at, David?"

"The second one was the sample you took yesterday."

"The blood of the missing girl? Wait a min- two weeks? But she only disappeared 3 days ago!"

"Exactly my point. You know in our blood we have anti-coagulants to keep our blood from clotting?"

"Right."

"At first I wasn’t quite certain about it myself, but upon testing it, I discovered traces of a synthetic anti-coagulant in the sample you brought me that we use on all the blood we keep in storage." David took in a deep breath. "And that means-"

"The blood we found yesterday was stale blood," Fenton said slowly, his mind racing. This is more complicated than I thought. The blood was Tessa’s. And she was only kidnapped last Wednesday, which was less than a week ago. So how can the blood splattered on the wall be two-weeks old?

"But they didn’t find a body, Frank," Joe said heatedly. "So there’s still a chance she’s still alive!" He had forgotten completely about breakfast and now was pacing to and fro the kitchen so fast he was making Frank dizzy just looking at him.

"A very slim chance, Joe. No one could survive after losing that much blood," Frank said, trying to reason with his brother.

Joe shook his head stubbornly. "She’s still alive. I can feel it. Until her body is found, never will I believe she’s gone." His voice broke a little as the last word died and as much as Frank himself was convinced Tessa was dead, he couldn’t help hoping against hope that Joe was right. More for his brother’s sake than Tessa’s. He doubted with all the pain and suffering Tessa must have gone through that she was not hoping for death. And he hoped it came swift for her.

"Joe-"

"She-is-still-ALIVE, Frank!!!" Joe punctuated each word with a jab of his finger onto the dining table, his face tight and pale with tension. His blond hair was mussed, some tumbling into his eyes, giving him a crazed, frantic look as he went back to pacing, shaking his head, mumbling to himself all the while. Then he stopped pacing. "She is still alive."

Frank winced at the harsh tone.

"Alright, Joe, alright. Let’s say she is still alive-"

"She IS!!!"

"Okay, Tessa’s alive," Frank said. But he seriously doubted it.

"Thank you." Joe heaved himself back in his seat and buried his head in his hands, his shoulders tense, his breaths coming out harsh and rapid. Frank waited patiently. At last Joe calmed down somewhat.

"So what were you working on this morning?" Joe asked, totally changing the subject. He didn’t want to talk about Tessa anymore. As far as he was concerned, until he saw her dead body with his own eyes, he would not, he would never believe that Tessa was dead. She couldn’t be dead. She just couldn’t.

"I tried to find out more about the wonder drug."

"Proxcel?"

"Yeah, that’s the one."

Joe gave his brother a sharp look, his blue eyes accusing and angry. "Why?" He asked in a tight voice.

Frank frowned. Then he understood. "No, that’s not the reason why, Joe. In fact, there was no trace of Proxcel in Tessa’s blood. No trace at all."

Joe’s gaze softened. "Right. Go on."

"Seemed like some of the wonder drug was stolen right before the government decided tot erminate the project because of its hazardous side-effects. All 7 scientists tried to find out who the culprit was, some even blamed each other, but in the end, they never got to that."

"They were all murdered."

"Right."

Then Joe tensed. "Wait, did you say 7 scientists?"

"Yeah, why?"

"Remember the research we did on the serial murders?"

"Yeah?"

"Odd, because I seem to remember that there were only 6 scientists who were murdered."

Frank narrowed his eyes. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. Because I remembered thinking that maybe the killer worked during office hours only, 6 days a week, and Sunday was his off day. That’s why he killed only 6, not 7."