William Doe stepped off the bus at the Bayport Bus Terminal and looked around. Something was wrong.  

Men, women and children were running and screaming, all in a bid to get away from the terminal building.  The place was in total chaos and in all honesty, that suited him just fine! At least this way, it was less likely that he would be noticed.  

He would have preferred not to have taken a bus, as he suspected that the stations would be on alert for him. But in the end, he really had no choice – that was all he could afford, and no one was very anxious to help him out.  

Oh sure, he could have hitchhiked. But as he adjusted his baseball hat on his head, he chuckled to himself as he thought, but hitchhiking was dangerous. You never knew what kind of psychopath would pick you up…or be picked up….  

As the throng of people pushed past him, he heard the bus driver demanding to know what was going on.  Will caught snippets about a shooting or a kidnapping or maybe both, only moments earlier.  

That would definitely explain the commotion, the teen thought as he allowed himself to be swallowed up by the mass moving across the platforms and away from the building.  

All the better for me to blend in, he thought – just another moving head in a sea of panicked travelers.  

It was easy to pick out the police. As Will had suspected, the bus station had been covered.  However, all the undercover officers were now scrambling to try and contain the scene – so no one paid him any notice.  

“Hey!” William heard a voice call out behind him, but pulling up his coat collar, he ignored it, and continued moving along.  The voice sang out again – only louder this time, “HEY!”  

Afraid of attracting the attention of the police, the teen stopped, and, pulling his cap down over his eyes, he turned to see who was calling out to him. And then his face broke into a wide grin as he snorted softly.  

Hurrying towards him was about the only person William would have been glad to see just then – an old friend from Foundling Hall.  

Doug Ranier.  

“Doug!” he greeted as the other boy caught up. The two boys gave each other an enthusiastic hug before pulling back to just shake their heads at the changes two years had brought.  

“I see you’ve been living well,” William commented as Doug ushered him towards a small dark blue car. The other boy grinned. Never small to begin with, he had added some extra bulk to his girth since the last time they had seen each other.  

“You’re one to talk,” Doug grinned, climbing into the driver’s seat and starting the car, “been working out a bit, have we?”  

“Working on staying one step ahead of all the nastiness in the Big Apple,” William shot back, and his friend scoffed.  

“Will, my man. You were the nastiness.”  

“Ah, knock it off,” the other boy grinned, feigning embarrassment, “you’re making me blush!”  

Doug laughed and glanced side-long at his old buddy as Will continued, “You got my message then, I’d assume?”  

“Oh yeah,” the other boy nodded as he maneuvered away from the bus station.  “Needless to say, I was a bit shocked. After what happened I never thought you’d show your face around here again.”  

William shrugged and leaned back in the seat as he lit a cigarette, passed it to Doug, and then lit another for himself.  “Things change. People change.”  

“Really?” Doug countered, “People change? Like what?”  

“Like going from being alive to being dead,” William said cryptically, and then went on to give the other boy a very brief account of what had accelerated his desire to return to Bayport.  

Doug let out a low whistle, “Holy shit man, that’s big league stuff. Killing a cop—”  

“I didn’t kill him,” William shot back, “technically, the truck that hit him did that. But I hardly think the fact that he was chasing me at the time is going to be a thing in my favour.”  

“No kidding,” Doug said seriously, and then before he could say anything else, William asked:  

“Where’s Peter? I thought he’d be with you?”  

“Nah,” Doug shook his head.  “Pete’s doing time in Juvie. He was stupid and got caught messing over one of the new kids.”  

William snorted.  “Figures.”  

“Anyway,” Doug wanted to return to their previous conversation, “what’cha planning on doing? I can hide you out in one of those old condemned buildings at the Hall – but I can’t see that as a long term solution.”  

“No kidding,” William agreed, thinking about Foundling Hall. The state boys’ home was situated on six acres of land and actually consisted of three separate buildings. However, two of the buildings were still full of asbestos insulation and were condemned, with only the one main building – Foundling – still being used.  “Can’t say I relish the idea of breathing in poison for very long.”  

“So?” pressed Doug, already on his way back to the hall.  

“So… what?”  

“So…what you gonna do?” The other boy glanced at William again.  

William shrugged.  “Go home.”  

“Go home?” Doug repeated incredulously. “Like what? Just knock on the door and say ‘Hello, Mr. and Mrs. Hardy. Remember me? I tried to kill your son a couple of years ago….No hard feelings though, eh? So where do I sleep?’ something like that??”  

William actually laughed as his friend pantomimed the scenario. He missed Doug’s sarcastic sense of humor.  

“Well actually, more like ‘Mom, what’s for dinner?’”  

Doug pulled the car over to the side of the road, slammed on the brakes and stared at his friend incredulously. “You’re not—”  

William grinned smugly. “I am.”  

“No way!”  

“Yeah way.”  

“You’ll never pull it off!” Doug said, shaking his head. “It can’t be done.”  

“Oh yeah it can,” William said, staring hard at his friend, “And I am going to do it – with or without your help.”  

“My help?” Doug shook his head vehemently. “No way, man. Will, you know I’d do anything for you. But not this! This is ludicrous!”  

“It’s not ludicrous,” William denied as his eyes narrowed darkly.  “What it is…is justice. That little shit has what is mine, and I intend to take it back. For two years I have been living on the streets – in hellholes, to be exact – while he has been living a borrowed…forget that…a stolen life. And I want it back!”  

Doug stared at his friend apprehensively. This side of William terrified him.  He said carefully, “But William…it was never yours to begin with. They adopted him—”  

“Only because they saw him first!” the blond-haired teen raged, “it should have been me! I was the angelic blue-eyed little boy that should have gone home with them – not him!”  

Breathing heavily, William paused and forced himself to calm down. Normally frighteningly in control of his emotions, he never forgave his brother for this either – Joe was the only one who could get to him like that. That could make him lose his cool….  

Regaining his composure, William smiled at Doug, leaving no doubt that he was expecting him to help, regardless of what Doug had said.  “Like I was saying, it’s not ludicrous – we get Joe. And I get my life back.”  

And then the blond boy grinned, “Actually, I get his life…back.”  

Pulling onto the road, Doug felt an intense pity for Joe Hardy – and he had never even met him before.   

William was back in Bayport and apparently his time away had done nothing to soften his edge.  

He was as sharp as ever…  

Deadly sharp, that is.  

 

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.