"It’s funny how losing his memory made him such an amiable person. Just to side-track, I think you should’ve knocked him on the head sooner and all our sorrows would have been spared." Lynn mused and Isaiah was a little more than piqued by her callous comment. However, he stopped himself from flaring up because he knew that was his straightforward talking Lynn and he would not have her any other way. She was showing her concern in her own way. He shook his head and remembered the first laugher he heard from Elijah. That was a good thing and that would keep his spirits up.

"What do you think of this bed? Do you he likes Prince, Queen or King? The mattress? Firm enough?" Isaiah pressed down onto the spring mattress with an open palm, feeling the admirable resistance pushing back. Lynn did more than him- she plopped herself flat down onto the mattress to test it out.

"Not bad for the price. Ok, we can take this…" She commented like a wise shopper. Isaiah lay down next to her and crossed his hands behind his head.

"Isaiah… have you considered what will happen if Elijah regains his memory?"

"I don’t know. I have mixed feelings about his amnesia… it’s like… this miracle that brought Lijah back to me. But I know he has a right to remember… I…let’s not talk about this now. Have we got everything he’ll need for his new room?" Isaiah held out the list they made and made a mental check through.

"Yup. I think we have everything settled. Don’t worry. I’ll be nice to him, after I come back from Australia." Lynn patted his shoulder and got out of the bed to find a salesman. Isaiah sat up on the bed and frowned at the disconcerting thoughts ramming his mind from random directions.

***

"We are terribly sorry. We have no leads as to who could want to burn your brother’s house down. We gather it could be some prankster or angst-filled teenager bent on destruction and thought the old mansion to be abandoned. The theory we came up with was that your brother caught the culprit in the act and maybe had a scuffle which caused his head to be hurt since your brother remembered the sense of running away from some, as he put it himself, ‘frightening force’.

Whatever it is, since your brother had lost his memory, we really have nothing to work with. However, we did manage to find his other address. A concern landlord posted a missing person search because Elijah was not back in his apartment for days and had not paid two months worth of rent." Chief Collig regretfully informed Isaiah as he passed a slip of paper to him. Isaiah narrowed his eyes as he glanced at the address. So, Elijah had been in Detroit all along. He kept the address in his breast pocket and made a mental note to visit it before Elijah caught wind or remembered he even had an apartment.

"Not even a suspect of a suspect?"

"Nope…" The Chief seemed about to say something but stopped himself and shook his head. Isaiah let out a frustrated growl and ran fingers through his hair. He was extremely worried for Elijah and angered that the police had no clue as to who the perpetrator was. On the other hand, there was a perverse part of him that wanted to shake the culprit’s hand and give him something in gratitude for bringing Elijah back to him, albeit in a most injurious manner.

It was a week plus since police investigations started. Christmas too came and went. Though Isaiah and Lynn had to spend the sacred holiday in the hospital, it was by far, the best Christmas Isaiah ever had. The turkey ham, the small little tree which Anne bought for Elijah and which the Isaiah rushed to buy decorations for because Elijah seemed so excited about decorating it and the Christmas jingles which Lynn patiently taught Elijah to sing- it all made the simple celebration seemed like something bestowed down on Isaiah from heaven.

The realization of what used to be an impossible dream.

Right after the celebration, Isaiah rushed Lynn to the airport so she would not miss her flight. The Network had sent her to Australia for a routine stint. He wished she need not go but duty called. He would miss her terribly for he gathered that he might need her emotional support for all the terrible lies he decided he would tell- fallacies and half-truths which would weigh treacherously on his soul.

And now, Elijah was about to be discharged. With or without Lynn’s presence to calm him, Isaiah was determined to bring Elijah back to a place he could call home. His brother’s days of being shuttled from place to place- wandering without any form of emotional anchor- were over.

Isaiah had tried to enlist the help of Howard again to see if there was a more insidious angle to the arson but Howard refused the task as he was up to his neck with other tasks. Elijah’s past were still a mystery to Isaiah and he wondered if his brother had made any enemies then- enemies who bore grudges and thirst insatiably for revenge.

Shaking that disconcerting thought away, he let out a heavy sigh before swallowing with some difficulty. There was someone else he could ask, if he wanted to.

"I don’t mean any disparage but can I have Fenton Hardy’s number? I think I’ll need his help." Isaiah asked in all seriousness, clasping his fingers together in front of him on the table while his gaze bore deep into the Chief’s. Chief Collig had the most reluctant expression on him but, faced with a resolution more vehement than his ego, he had no choice but to surrender. Shrugging briefly, he then scribbled down a number and an address on a piece of post-it note. After detaching it, he passed it to Isaiah who took the note with a smile- a show nothing more than plain courtesy.

"He’s still in town. But you better find him fast."

Isaiah nodded and left the police station as unceremoniously as he entered.

***

"Hello. Is this Mr. Hardy?"

"Yes, speaking." The confident, stately voice came through clearly from the other end.

"I’m Isaiah Raily. You know my father, Daniel Raily, from some time back."

There was a pregnant pause at the end of the line. Isaiah intuitively knew the exact reason for the sudden tenseness. Fenton Hardy used to be a good friend of Daniel Raily who portrayed an extremely respectable and compassionate image to the eyes of the public- a wealthy businessman who never shied away from the outstretched hands of charity. When Isaiah was very young, he remembered being threatened to put on his best behavior and to keep his brother in line whenever Fenton and Laura Hardy came over for dinner. If Elijah misbehaved or did something as trivial as dropping the fork onto the table, Isaiah would be punished and vice versa.

"I remember you. How are you, Isaiah? And your brother? He’s with the FBI, isn’t he? A remarkable man at such a young age. My sons had the pleasure of cooperating with him on a case once."

"He was with the FBI. I didn’t call to reminisce. I called to solicit your assistance. You must know that our old mansion which got burned down, thankfully without any casualty, a week ago. I have a… a hunch that someone’s after my brother but he’s suffering from amnesia now and could provide us with no clues. What I know is he had a turbulent youth in Detroit and then in New Haven, Connecticut, where he went to college in Yale Law School. And he was missing, or rather, I had no clue what he was up to last year."

"So you’re asking me to dig up details of your brother’s life in hope of seeking out the culprit?"

"Yes. It’s a long shot but a shot nonetheless. I’ll pay premium for your time."

Fenton Hardy cleared his throat. "I’ll see what I can do but I need some answers to some basic questions."

***

Isaiah disconnected the phone call after providing Fenton Hardy with whatever he knew about Elijah’s youth- his high school’s name, the street he stayed in and alike- details that he had engaged Howard to uncover long ago. Also, from one of his visions in the first and only case he solved with his brother, he heard the name Barney- a man who was supposed to have introduced Elijah to some sordid business. Isaiah had a keen intuition as to what it could be but he would not lay down any solid conclusion just yet. All those years of stalking his brother from states away finally found some uses for the results his clandestine operations yielded.

As he spoke on his cell phone to Fenton, he observed the two young men putting up a ‘Happy New Year’ banner across the width of the front door of their homely Tudor while engaging in a happy banter. Once a while, the slightly taller dark brown haired young man would burst out laughing at some wise cracks the blond one made.

They were Frank and Joe Hardy- the most famous brothers in Bayport. A few years younger than him, they had much more shared experiences with each other than he and Elijah would ever enjoy. The apparent brotherly love between them caused Isaiah to sink bitterly into the arms of Envy.

He threw one last lingering glance at them from inside his Lexus and caught Joe Hardy flinging a snowball right smack against Frank Hardy’s right temple. A playful prank escalated into a scuffle punctuated with hilarity- dictated in the name of harmless fun.

Isaiah had to look away immediately. He stepped on the accelerator and sped all the way to Bayport’s Hospital.

Elijah was going home.