(Song of Solomon 3:4)

Mom has a famous story that she loves to tell at any family gatherings. When I was born I was taken to the anti-natal unit straight away as I was having trouble breathing. Mom and Dad never got to see me.

Frank was just starting to walk at the time and apparently he wandered off as toddlers can at that age if you don’t tie them on to you.

Anyhow he ended up in the anti-natal ward, and one of the nurses there recognised him. She picked him up and brought him over to the window of the anti-natal unit, where I lay on the other side in an incubator, and she pointed me out to him.

Dad came running up the corridor two seconds later in a panic. He expected Frank to be upset and confused, looking at all the babies in their incubators. However according to Dad Frank never even saw him, instead he was staring through the window at me lying in my incubator, a big smile on his face. As Dad looked at me, he maintains that I too was staring at Frank.

It sounds crazy I know, babies can’t even see for the first few days, but Dad swears that it happened that way.

You see, it’s been that way from the beginning, we just clicked.

I once said that Frank and I are two halves of a whole because it seems to be the easiest way to describe our relationship.

But it’s not just a case of being close to someone, or loving someone.

I could sit here and tell you that I love my brother more than life itself, that I would do anything for him, but its not just about soapy sentiment, its about a partnership, a partnership that has stood the test of time, that has survived arguments and disagreements, tragedies and danger.

It’s a partnership that has solved cases that even we didn’t think we could solve. Perhaps it has even saved some lives.

The funny thing is that people think that Frank and I don’t argue, but we do, we could fall out two or three times everyday.

We had an argument only yesterday. We had just spent three days digging through mountains upon mountains of files and my eyes were tired and sore from staring at a PC screen practically non-stop for six hours.

I was hot, irritated and bored. Staring at a computer screen for hours on end just isn’t my thing. I don’t mind doing background work, but prefer to talk to people, to actually get out there. Needless to say I wasn’t in the best of form.

Frank said something to me about the case, and I snapped at him and stood up, about to leave the room. I remember pausing at the door, wondering why he hadn’t come back at me with some equally caustic remark.

He didn’t say anything for a second, his eyes on the computer screen in front of them, and then his voice, soft and calm said "You and I entered into this with our eyes open Joe, someone is relying on us to help them, and the only way we can do it is trawl through all this information, so why fight it?"

There was nothing I could say to this, he was right, we are detectives and sometimes its not all that interesting, but the work had to be done. SO I sat down again, without a word and continued. And in an hour, we were finished and had found the link that we were looking for.

That’s Frank all over you see. He is so logical, so calm sometimes, it’s as though he leaves his emotion to one side in a bid to solve a case.

But it’s not that simple. I know that deep down he’s as emotionally involved as I am, he just chooses not to show it.

I think in a way Frank has had more pressure on him that I. Being the eldest son of Fenton Hardy, ex NYPD and brilliant detective has to come with its share of problems and pressure. He was expected to do well in school, not that there were ever any problems there. I used to tease Frank when we were in school, telling him that he was "one floppy disc away from being a nerd"

Truth be told though, I was proud of him, proud of the high marks he constantly achieved, and the effort he put into getting them.

I still remember the day of our graduation; Frank stood up in his cap and gown and made his valedictorian speech. Parts of it have stuck in my mind, perhaps because until that day I never really realised how much our relationship meant to him.

He looked at me and smiled and all I could do was stand there, a blush creeping over my face, thinking how unlucky the people around me were, because they didn’t have a big brother called Frank Hardy.

What is Frank doing now? I can picture him, sitting on his battered old wicker chair by the window in his room. He is fretting for me. This isn’t the first time that either of us has disappeared and I’ve heard from Vanessa and Callie what he’s like.

In the beginning he seems calm, going through all our past cases, looking for possible suspects, talking with Dad, and the police, taking control.

After a while he excuses himself and goes up to his room, saying he wants to looks something up on his computer. Then he sits on that wicker chair, looking out the window, almost willing me to walk up the driveway and in the door.

He might sit like that for an hour sometimes. Callie said that she followed him up the stairs once and stood in the doorway of his room, watching him, but he never even noticed her.

I’m sorry Frank, sorry for putting you through this again, sorry that I am reduced to sitting in a cold, concrete cell talking to a stupid spider, sorry that you haven’t found me, sorry that I might die here, alone without ever getting to tell you these things.