Fenton Hardy stood in the hall of mirrors and closed his eyes.  Where are you Joey?  Where are you, son?

He was still standing there 10 minutes later when Chief Collig found him.

“Fenton?”  he said, worried when his friend didn’t acknowledge him right away.

The detective looked at his friend and exhaled loudly. “This is very hard, Ezra.  I never thought I would have to try and find my own child…not like this.”

The police chief sympathized with him.  “I know, my friend.  Believe me, I know.  You know how I feel about your boys, Fenton.”  In truth the police chief loved Frank and Joe like they were his own.

When his own wife, Rachel, had died from breast cancer leaving him a widower with no children, the Hardys had become like an adopted family for him.  And Ezra was finding it hard to keep his perspective, as he had seen some of the stuff firsthand that McBride had done.  Pictures of his unfortunate victims…and when he put Joe’s face overtop of any of his other victims….

Ezra shuddered.

Can’t think like that, he scolded himself, or else Joe’s picture will join the rest.

“Yeah I do,” Fenton sighed, “and thank you.” 

The older man squeezed the detective’s shoulder supportively, “Well come on, then. We’ve gotten all the information out of this old house that she’s gonna give.”

With one final look around, Fenton reluctantly followed his friend.

Hang on Joey, he thought, hang on.

* * *

Underneath their feet, the man whispered to the child again and now the boy sobbed.

His father had left him here…the stranger was right.

They had given Joe to him.

* * *

Fenton’s cell phone rang just as he was leaving the Fun House and he answered it immediately, “Fenton Hardy;” and then his heart sank as he pulled the phone away from his ear, his face turning pale.  Laura knew….

* * *

“Dammit,” snarled Chief Collig, “find out who leaked it…I want their head!”

* * *

The next couple of hours were the longest in Frank’s young life.  His brother was still missing and although no one was telling him anything, he could tell that there was something bad going on.

His father came home late. He heard the sound of the car in the driveway and then the raised voices of his parents as his mother ran out to meet him….

Why didn’t you tell me!

Laura, please calm down…

Calm down…calm down? How can I calm down, Fenton, after I‘ve found out a monster has my baby!?

We don’t know that for sure…

Can you tell me he doesn’t? Can you look me in the face and tell me Joey is going to be okay?

No.…

Then don’t tell me ‘you don’t know for sure’….I’ll tell you what I know… my baby is missing and until I can hold him again or touch his face and tell him everything will be all right, then…then….

Frank had heard his mother break down, and then his father consoling her.  They came back into the house and up the stairs.  He heard the sound of someone going into his room and then a second later Joe’s door was whipped open and the light turned on.

The boy sat up in the bed, blinking owlishly in the sudden light as he saw the expression on his father’s face turn from panic to relief; and then his father engulfed him in his strong arms and was holding him.

“Oh Frankie,” Fenton murmured as he held his oldest son close, “you gave me a scare.”

“Sorry,” the boy mumbled into his father’s shirt, and then Fenton let him go and looked into his serious young face.

“That’s okay.  Have trouble sleeping in your own room?” the man asked as he studied his oldest with the eyes of person used to picking up on the small stuff.

Frank shook his head honestly, “No I just didn’t want to go in there.  It didn’t feel right.”

“Ah,” his father said understandingly.

“Is Mom okay?”  Frank asked as he didn’t see his mother come in the room behind them, and his father sighed, realizing he must have heard the outburst in the driveway.  “Yeah, she’s just real tired and worried right now.”

Laura was sitting downstairs in the kitchen staring blankly into a cup of cold tea.  Fenton was seriously considering having Dr. Bates, their family physician, call in a sedative prescription to the local 24-hour pharmacy.

Frank nodded and then looked at his father with intense brown eyes, “What did she mean when she said that a monster has Joey?  I didn’t think monsters were real.”

Fenton closed his eyes for a moment and wished Frank had not heard that.  His oldest had never had the overactive imagination of his younger brother, and had never been plagued with the belief of monsters…and Fenton was reluctant to teach him that unfortunately, monsters do exist.

Just not the way Joe thought of them….

But he had to tell him something. “Monsters aren’t real, son, but people are.  And sometimes there are people out there who are real bad and do things like take little boys from their families…and that is the kind of monster your mom was talking about.”

“Oh,” Frank said, and then he had one more question he needed to know. “Dad…”

“Yes son,” Fenton said, sounding tired, and feeling much older then his 28 years.

“Are we ever going to get Joey back?”

The detective’s voice caught in his throat as he fought back the wave of emotion brought on by that innocent and very valid question.  He couldn’t lie to his son…but he couldn’t tell him the truth either, because while Fenton and the police were doing their best to find Joe, in all reality the odds were against them. 

And every hour that the child was missing…was one less hour that they had to find him.

Looking his son straight in the eye he said, “I’m going to do my best to bring your brother home…my very best.”

Even at six and ½, the child showed the keen perception that would serve him so well when he got older. 

He understood exactly what his father meant…and what he wasn’t saying.

His father…his hero…had no idea.

* * *

Joe had no idea what they wanted.

After being hustled out of the Fun House, tossed into the trunk of the car and driven around for a while, he was pulled out and dragged towards a small house in a run down area.

He couldn’t scream because the man had duct taped his mouth.

He couldn’t fight because his hands had been duct taped tightly together.

And he couldn’t run… there was nowhere to go….

A woman opened the screen door and quickly ushered them in.

Her face lit up when she saw the child.

“Oh Miles,” she cooed, as she reached out to touch the perfect little face, “he’s perfect!” 

Joe tried to pull away from her, but the man smacked him across the back of the head hard enough to make him see stars.

“That’s no way for a boy to act around his mother!”

Joe’s eyes widened in disbelief as he started to shake his head…this wasn’t his mother!  He tried to tell them but couldn’t get anything past the duct tape.

Then the man, Miles, smiled tenderly at the woman, “Yeah it was him or his brother….Either would have been perfect but this little guy came to me first.”

Smiling, the woman tried to touch the child’s face and this time he couldn’t pull away because the man had grabbed his hair, painfully, to keep him from moving.  “Oh baby, you’re going to work out wonderfully…absolutely perfect.  Now momma is going to take that nasty old duct tape off so she can hear your sweet little voice.”

As she started to take off the tape, Miles whispered into the child’s ear, “And if you make any noise at all, I will slit your throat, drink your blood and then go get your brother…do you understand?”

Joe nodded, and a few minutes later he was ungagged and untied.

“Now son,” the woman was saying as she stroked his tear stained cheek, “tell momma you love her.”

“You’re…you’re not…you’re not my mommy,” Joe stammered. Miles backhanded him, knocking the child to the floor and splitting his lip.

“Wrong answer,” the man said, towering over him.

The woman knelt down by the crying child.  “Oh sweetie,” she cooed, “you shouldn’t do things to upset your Daddy, you know how he gets.”

Joe looked at Miles and before he could stop himself he said, “Not…my Daddy!”

Miles grabbed him by the front of his shirt and threw him against the wall.  “WRONG ANSWER!” he roared again, and then taking a deep breath, he pasted a smile on his face and said pleasantly, “Have you forgotten so soon? They don’t want you anymore.  Your brother…your father…they left you.  They knew where you were.  They could have gotten you back. But they didn’t want to.  Do you know why?”

Joe’s eyes were huge and glistening as he shook his head, not understanding the sick mind games they were twisting him with.

The man crouched down in front of the child.  He had seen how energetic and rambunctious the kid was at the Carnival and made a logical leap.  “Because you’re too much trouble….You’re not worth it.  You don’t sit still as good as your brother….You leave your room a mess….You just don’t listen, now do you?”

Joe was shaking as he heard the words hurled at him.  And he was confused, looking from one stranger to another. He didn’t know them…how could they know him?

Miles pressed, “Do you?”  He slapped the child again when Joe still didn’t say anything.

“Well, you don’t.  You don’t listen and they don’t want you.  In fact, right now they’re happy that you’re not there making a mess of everything…ruining their lives.”  And then Miles made his mistake: “Your brother has always hated you and is glad you’re never coming back. I heard him say that myself!”

Now Joe might have believed many things this man told him, but not about Frank.

Frank had always been there for him…nightmares…owies…bullies…. Frank had always been there to keep the monsters in their place.  Away from his brother.

Before.

Jumping to his feet, with his little fists clenched, Joe yelled at them, “YOU’RE LYING!  FRANKIE WOULD NEVER SAY THAT…NEVER….” At five years of age, Joe was unable to control the temper that would give him enough trouble later in life…and at five years of age he was too young to realize the danger he was in.

He was just upset, scared and angry and he yelled at the surprised couple, “AND MY DADDY WOULD NEVER LEAVE ME…OR MY MOMMY!  YOU’RE LYING!  YOU’RE NOTHING BUT STINKING LIARS….”

Miles moved fast.  He needed to shut the kid up before the neighbors heard him.

Grabbing the angry boy, he dragged him across the kitchen, opened the door leading down to a dark basement, and tossed the child down the stairs.  Pulling the duct tape out of his pocket he descended on the form that was now lying silently at the foot of the stairs.

“Had enough of his sweet voice yet?” he asked his wife sarcastically as he went downstairs.

“As a matter of fact”, she said tiredly, “I have.”