Joe was waiting for him, looking worse for wear.

"What’s up with you?" Frank asked as Joe got in. Joe shook his head, looking deeply stressed.

"I think maybe I’ve broken up with Vanessa," Joe said slowly.

"You THINK?" Joe nodded glumly.

"You think, but you don’t know whether you’ve broken up with her or not?" Frank tried again, feeling a trifle confused. Joe nodded again.

"What happened?" Joe shook his head.

"You don’t wanna talk about it?" Frank guessed. Joe nodded. Frank stared at his brother for a long time. Joe looked as if he was about to cry.

"She knows?" Joe nodded silently. Frank felt really bad for his brother. For a second he forgot all about his fears. Maybe it was growing pains but Joe seemed kind of emotional lately and rarely did Joe ever let other people see the other side of him, the side that he’d seldom portrayed to other people, the side that Frank was seeing in him right now.

"I’m sure it was all a misunderstanding," Frank tried to comfort his brother, but Joe looked anything but comforted. At last Joe sighed, leaning his head back against the headrest.

"Maybe." Frank contemplated telling him about their father’s warning but then decided against it. Joe had had enough to worry about without adding his big brother to the lost. I can take care of myself, Frank told himself firmly as he ignited the engine. A few seconds later they were back on the road.

"So any new lead on the case?" Joe asked. The one thing that always gave him solace was working on a case. He needed to take his mind off things. Frank’s face lit up and he turned his head sideways, giving his brother a grin.

"This place gives me the creeps," Joe muttered. They were standing in the Bayport coroner’s office, a small room in a dull brick building in downtown Bayport. They had arrived a few minutes later and had been told to wait because the coroner was out, but after the assistant who had greeted them left, naturally they started wandering off on their own. Through the connecting door at the rear of the small office, Joe could just make out the suggestive metal surface of, urgh, refrigerated corpse slabs built into the wall.

"Let’s just grab the reports and get out of here," Frank whispered, going over to the cluttered desk. What a mess, he thought as he surveyed the scattered folders and papers and dirty coffee mugs. Frank gingerly used the tip of a pen to remove a pair of dirty-looking used gloves on the open files.

"Jackpot!" He whispered excitedly. He found the reports on all the murder victims’ deaths clipped to the inside of the folder. Joe tapped his foot anxiously at the door, keeping a look out as Frank spent a couple of minutes jotting down all the important details, scribbling furiously in his notebook. Joe couldn’t seem to tear his eyes away from the door adjoining the office and the morgue. He could just imagine one of the slab doors swing open suddenly on its own…a decayed, mottled hand reaching out…Joe shuddered at the thought, scolding himself for his morbid, over-active imagination.

"Are you done yet, Frank?" Joe asked anxiously. Then he cocked his head, listening intently. Are those footsteps I hear? "Frank, someone’s coming! Come on!"

Frank’s head jerked upward. Eep, he thought. Then as fast as he could, he gathered all his notes, stuck them in his pocket, even placed the suspicious-looking gloves back in place and grabbed his brother’s arm, urging him out. True enough, the coroner was walking around the corner toward the office. Caught! Frank thought frantically. But then he pushed Joe forward when he saw that the man was deeply engrossed with the folder he was reading.

Thank God, Frank thought as they managed to escape out the back door. All this snooping around and breaking into premises are going to turn my hair gray before its time. Joe was breathing raggedly beside him. Frank broke into a grin and exchanged high-fives with his brother.

Joe’s face turned ghastly pale as they went through the notes. Just listening to Frank relay what he’d read was enough to send shivers down his spine. He swallowed hard, trying not to imagine the pain, the agony, and the torture the victims had to go through, hoping against hope that death had come swift for all of them.

"Mary Helen Lee died of excessive bleeding from a slashed wrist…and one of her ears was cut off too." Frank grimaced. "The same goes for the rest of them…" Frank flipped over the page and felt his eyes mist. "PJ died of internal hemorrhage from injuries caused by…it says here, most likely surgical instruments."

"Trevor’s cause of death-" Frank paused. "Nails."

Joe’s forehead wrinkled. "Nails?"

"Over a hundred puncture wounds were found all over his body," Frank said grimly. Joe swore under his breath. It was almost impossible to believe that something like this would happen in a peaceful town like Bayport.

"So what do we do now?" Joe asked. I want you to go home and stay inside until this lunatic’s caught, Frank was tempted to say. But he knew Joe wasn’t the kind to be easily scared, his recklessness sometimes putting himself in more danger than he was supposed to be.

Frank ran a hand through his dark hair and sighed. "Honestly I don’t know. We could keep on looking for clues but…"

"But what?" Joe could detect uncertainty in his brother’s voice, and also something else. Fear.

"Nothing." Joe twisted around in his seat, his blue eyes narrowed. He knew his brother too well. "What is it?"

Frank was saved from answering when his cell phone suddenly rang. Grateful for the diversion, he quickly flipped it open. Frustrated, Joe leaned back against his head, waiting for Frank to finish the call. But soon he forgot about his own curiosity when Frank’s face suddenly drained of color. Oh no, Joe thought in alarm. Not another one.

True enough, Frank’s next words sent a chill down Joe’s spine. "Craig Henderson’s missing."

Frank and Joe listened as Vanessa made her report at the police station. If it weren’t for the fact that Vanessa had spent so much time lately with Henderson, personally Joe wouldn’t have anything against the guy. But seeing Vanessa’s distressed face as she lodged her report made Joe realize that no matter how much he disliked that guy’s guts, he would never ever wish this on anyone, not even on his worst enemy.

"We were walking around the trade show when he offered to get me a drink-" Vanessa stole a glance at Joe. Joe was watching her with an unreadable expression on his face, but the tight clenched muscles of his jaw gave his distress away. "And I waited and waited for him but he never came back."

"And when did this happen?" Con Riley asked.

Vanessa tried hard to remember. "Uh, he went off at about…3.30…more or less. I remembered that was when Computer Rats launched the latest in new computerized security systems." She covered her face with both hands. "Oh God, I can’t believe this is happening…"

"Are you sure he didn’t just hook up with somebody else and left you there?" Joe was tempted to say but he bit his tongue. In something as serious as this, he’d better rein his personal feelings in. Frank rephrased his question in a more subtle way.

"Are you sure he didn’t wander off somewhere? I mean, he has only been missing for half a day," Frank spoke up. He didn’t like the way things were turning out. He didn’t like it at all. And the fact that Craig Henderson wasn’t even an American citizen to begin with made things worse. This could lead to an international dispute, he thought as alarm grew in him.

"Anything can happen in half a day," Vanessa snapped. "I tried calling the family he’s staying with but they said that he hadn’t come home."

"Yeah, the Jacksons came in earlier to lodge a report too." Con Riley was wearing a huge frown on his forehead.

"Have you run a check on the hotels where he might be hiding Craig?" Joe asked.

"Done that. No one checked in under the name Tony Orlando. He must be using a different name this time. We’ve contacted the Swedish embassy and informed them about this. They didn’t take the news well at all." Con Riley winced. "Look, I want you kids to be very, very careful. This is not some petty pickpocket we’re dealing with here. Whoever this barbarian is, he’s very, very dangerous and if you come across any clues or ideas-" Con turned to the Hardys, "-I want you to come straight to the station and never ever go wandering off on your own. I’m not kidding here. All of you are in danger. Every high school kid in Bayport is. Frank?"

"Yes, sir," Frank answered dully. Many times they’d been warned of the dangers of sleuth work but this time Con’s warning truly sent a bolt of fear into his heart.

He sat with his feet up on the table, his head bobbing from side to side in time with the music.

He reached out and grabbed the pair of knitting needles on the table.

He smiled as he touched the tips. Sharp. Sharp enough to inflict some real pain.

It’s time, he thought, pushing himself out of the chair. On the way out, he stabbed the off button on the stereo.

By the time the Hardys had dropped Vanessa off and arrived home, it was already dark. Joe and Vanessa still weren’t talking to each other and though Frank tried to strike up a conversation, his attempt at lightening up the tense mood fell flat on his face. Joe’s mood had darkened considerably, and it was not just because of Vanessa. Frank might not know it, but Joe was secretly afraid for him. Secretly terribly afraid for him. He couldn’t bear it if something happened to Frank. And the fact that Frank was hiding his fears from him only confirmed his suspicions that Frank was equally afraid.

Well, I’ll just make sure not to let Frank out my sight, Joe thought as he walked up the driveway. The whole house was dark. Dad and Mom must be out. I wonder where they went.

"Hey Frank, did Mom or Dad tell you that they’d be out tonight?" Joe asked, his voice sounding unusually loud in the silence of the encroaching darkness. When Frank didn’t answer him, he whirled around.

"Frank?" he called out nervously. His brother was nowhere to be seen. The van had been parked at the side of the road but there was no glimpse of his brother anywhere.