Frank looked at Chet in shock – he couldn’t believe what he was hearing about Mr. Rosado.  It just didn’t make sense.

Sure, the dark-haired sleuth had only met the old man twice now, but there was nothing in his manner that would suggest that he would treat anyone like that, let alone someone he knew as a good friend of the brothers.

Biff and Phil exchanged a look – although neither had met this man, so they couldn’t comment on him one way or the other.

Chet kept his eyes firmly fixed on the table as he studied a particularly interesting knot in the wood work, and waited for Frank to say something.

Finally after a few minutes, Frank cleared his throat.  “Chet…I’m sorry.”  He felt responsible for this because he had introduced the two.

The stout boy looked at him in surprise, obviously not expecting that, and Frank continued, “But he’s wrong.  You know that, right?”

“Well…” Chet started, watching his friend with an expression of slight embarrassment on his face, but then he sighed and sat back in his chair, “yeah, I do.  I’ll admit I did let him get to me, but you set me straight about that.  I guess…it’s just….Well, I’m kind of a bit jealous of you and Joe—”

“What?” Frank cut him off, now truly stunned.  That he had never suspected.  “Jealous of us, why?”

“Oh come on,” Chet scoffed, as he looked intently at his friend, oblivious to the other two boys in the kitchen with them – this was between him and Frank.  “Don’t look so shocked.  A lot of people are.”

“Oh, yeah,” Frank said sarcastically, as he looked at his watch and knew he needed to be going to meet Liam in a few minutes, “everyone is just dying to be Joe right now.”

This made the other boys laugh, and Chet shook his head, the merry twinkle restored on his face.  “I said I was a bit jealous of you guys….I never said I wanted to be you guys!”

“True,” Frank admitted, pleased to feel the mood lighten up somewhat, “but while I do think it’s normal to be envious of different people for different things, don’t let it try and sway you into thinking your own self-worth is any less.”

“Wow, Zen-Frank strikes again,” Biff piped up.

Ignoring him, Frank grabbed his house keys but then stopped and turned to Chet, an idea slowly forming in the back of his mind…an idea that might help explain the unexpected change in Mr. Rosado.

“Chet,” he said as he turned to look at his friend, “Did you see what was in those pictures?”

At first the other boy looked like he didn’t know what Frank was talking about, but then he got an unsettled look on his face as he said slowly, “Actually Frank…that’s the strangest thing.  I only saw the pictures for a few moments but they seemed to be all of the same thing.”

“What?” the young sleuth pressed, his curiosity more than aroused by the odd look on his friend’s face.

“Eyes.  Just someone’s eyes.”

“Yuck!”  Came Phil’s immediate response, as he envisioned something a little less than pleasant, and Chet rushed to correct him.

“Not like that!  Face shots, but only of that part of the face – extreme close-ups of eyes.”  Chet looked at Frank, whose turn it was to wear an odd look on his face.  “Frank, no offence, but your old friend is creepy…very, very creepy.”

Mr. Rosado is creepy….

…the way he kept looking at me gave me the chills….

Frank heard Joe’s voice again as if he was in the same room with him, and it sent a shiver tingling down his spine.  Looking at his friends he just said, “That’s what Joe said too.  He called him ‘creepy’.”

As he thought about Mr. Rosado’s reactions when he first met Joe and then his brother’s disconcerting reaction to the old man’s attention, Frank frowned.  A troubling suspicion was forming in the back of his mind….

* * *

Joe was focused on one thing and one thing only – getting to the Mortons’ farm.  It was what kept him going as he put all his single-minded energy into that one task.  He had to get to Chet’s.

Every step was a struggle, but he refused to give up. His dogged mind pushed his body, forcing it to keep going…step after stubborn step.

A couple of miles didn’t sound too bad – he ran further than that on a good morning - but with a twisted ankle and weakening, it might as well have been a hundred miles!

Biting back a cry as he stumbled and almost blacked out from the accompanying pain, Joe gasped, “Gotta get to farm…can’t stop…”

He no longer even remembered why he was moving; only that he had to get to Chet’s…gotta get to farm…gotta get to farm….

* * *

Muir waited.  He watched the edge of the woods, where the trees stopped and the fields began.  Joe would have to come out here and cross the field to get to the house.

It was dark and he’d have to keep a sharp eye or he’d never see the teen; particularly as the shirt Joe was wearing tonight, while frilly, was a ruby red. It wouldn’t stand out in the gloom.

A fitting color, he mused, what better color to die in, then red?

He knew his employer would be disappointed that they had no pictures of his young guest, but he’d just have to console himself with what he did get.

And that brought a cruel smile to the giant’s lips – he’d kill Joe, yes, but not before he got what they needed.

“Then he’ll never see what’s coming”, Muir whispered and then chuckled at his own sick joke, this was going to be a good night…

* * *

After saying good-bye to Phil and Chet, who were going home, Biff went with Frank to meet Liam and his friends.  The other two boys wanted to go with them, but Frank was worried that if Liam’s friends saw them, too, they might decide to split.  He wanted them to talk to him, and figured they wouldn’t if they felt ganged up on.

* * *

At eight o’clock on a Sunday night, Mr. Pizza’s wasn’t overly busy, so Tony was able to come over and sit with them for a while as they waited.  Frank filled him in on what was going on, including Mr. Rosado’s rudeness to Chet, and the Italian youth’s face darkened, as he was very protective of his friends.

“That’s ludicrous!” he scoffed.  “Everyone knows, it’s you and Joe who are the odd ducks in the group!”

Biff just about choked on the piece of pizza he was chewing, as Frank laughed and patted him on the back.

“Too true, Prito, too true!”

And then the group sobered up as they saw Liam come into the restaurant followed by two other teens of about his age.

Frank recognized neither boy, and realized they must go to Bayport West, the other high school in the area.

Tony got up and went back to the kitchen as Liam saw Frank and Biff and came over to sit down with them. The other two guys followed closely, glancing around nervously as they did.

“Glad you could make it,” Frank said as the three newcomers sat down and immediately grabbed a slice of pizza.

Liam shrugged casually.  “Had nothing better to do.”

Frank waited for introductions, but none came.

Instead, one of the teens gave a curt nod and then spoke: “Look, we don’t want any trouble.  We’re sorry to hear about your brother – from what Lee tells us, he’s decent, but we ain’t got nothing to do with that.”

“I’m not a cop…” Frank said, addressing the joy riders, “I only want to know if you might have seen something, anything, that could help me get my brother back. That’s all.  No trouble, I promise.”

The two kids traded looks, contemplating what he said, and then the smaller one shrugged and took a second slice of pizza.  “We didn’t really see anything.  Just the van…”  He looked Frank straight in the eye and continued, “and a black limo pulling onto the road - an old black limo.  But that’s all. Nothing else.”

Frank felt his heart leap into his throat.  A black limo!

He heard Biff ask the boys if they were sure that was all, and after two vehement nods, he settled back in his seat next to Frank.

This was the first thing they’d had to go on since Joe disappeared, and Frank was elated, but he kept it under control and just nodded casually at the other kid, “Thanks.”

And then he looked at Liam.  “When I find Joe, I’ll tell him he owes you.”

Liam gave them a wry grin.  “Just tell him we’re even…he’ll know what I mean.” 

“Thanks,” both Biff and Frank echoed the sentiment and then got up to leave.

An old black limo…

They finally had a starting place…now Frank just hoped it wasn’t too little…too late.

* * *

“So why do you think the kids didn’t tell the police about the limo?” Biff asked Frank as they pulled away from Mr. Pizza’s.
The dark-haired boy shrugged.  “I don’t know.  Some people are just afraid of being witnesses so they keep their mouths shut.”

“Yeah,” Biff agreed, thinking that made sense, and they drove for a few minutes in silence until Frank closed his eyes, leaned his head back against the headrest and let out a heavy sigh.

“Well that narrows it down,” Biff said, glancing at his friend.  “I mean how many limos could there have been on the road at that hour on Saturday morning…in Bayport?  We aren’t exactly Hollywood!”

Frank opened his eyes and gave his friend a wry grin.  “True.  But that also presents a potentially bigger problem.”

“Oh?”  Biff wasn’t following Frank’s logic.  But Frank had already had that same thought and moved past it.

“If they have money, that means they’ll have the means to make it harder for us to find Joe…if he’s even still in Bayport.”

“Crap,” Biff muttered, “I hadn’t thought about that!  Do you really think Joe’s gone?  That he’s been taken somewhere else?”

Looking out the window, Frank didn’t say anything.  He had no idea…only a very strong desire to talk to his father.

He had to ask him a question.