“We have to get to the Plyths’, now!”  Frank yelled as he was already on the hotel phone arranging a car rental. 

“What happened?”  Biff asked, quickly putting on his socks and shoes.  He, like the other boys, had been wearing sandals, but since he had no ideal what they were getting into, he decided he might need something better to run in.  Just in case….

“When I called the house the first time, someone answered the phone but dropped it before they could say anything,” Frank explained, grabbing his wallet and heading for the door, “But just before the phone was hung up, I heard someone…”  he turned back and looked at Biff, “and I know it was Joe!”

“What’d he say?”  Phil asked as the boys followed Frank.

“Nothing – he never got a chance,” the dark-haired teen admitted before he paused when they got to the elevator, “but I heard him cry out….Something’s wrong there guys, terribly wrong.”  His heart was pounding wildly as the sound of that cry echoed in his mind - he knew they had to hurry!

Forcing himself to push back the increasing surge of panic as the elevator door finally opened, he continued, “When I phoned back a man answered this time and said Pharaoh was unavailable…and that Joe wasn’t even staying there!”

“And you asked if Remus was there just in case Joe was staying under that name,” Tony speculated, and Frank nodded. 

“Yeah, but instead of answering, he just hung up!” 

The hotel clerk quickly had a rental car brought up for them, and the boys waited impatiently while Frank signed the paperwork and grabbed the keys.

Chet, sitting in the front passenger seat, already had an area map open before Frank finished buckling his seatbelt.

The desk clerk had highlighted the route to the Estate – thank goodness it was so large that everyone seemed to know exactly where it was! 

Tony, Biff and Phil piled in the back seat. 

As they pulled away from the hotel, Tony was struck with an odd thought: where would they put Joe if he drove back with them…?

* * *

Joe heard someone calling his name, and with great effort slowly forced himself to wake up.  While his broken arm ached, the slash on his wrist burned intensely.

Trying to move, he groaned as his body really didn’t want him doing anything except sleep.

“Joe, come on kiddo, please open your eyes,” a voice pleaded, and with great effort he managed to open them just a slit, expecting to see his brother hovering over him…but it wasn’t.

When he was finally able to focus, he was looking into the concerned face of Pharaoh Plyth.

This is a change, he thought grimly, should be Frank….

“Pharaoh, you ‘k?” Joe asked as he remembered what had happened, and coerced his eyes open a bit more and managed to look around.

He was lying on a small bed in what looked like a prison cell.  Pharaoh, sitting beside him, looked a bit beaten and bruised but none the worse for wear. 

At least he’s alive, thought Joe as he winced and looked down at his own wrist. 

Pharaoh had ripped off a piece of his own shirt to make a temporary bandage for him but Joe could already see the blood seeping through the material, and knew he needed a hospital…soon.

“Yeah.  I’m so sorry Joe!  I didn’t know…” Pharaoh’s eyes started to shine, and Joe wondered what was going on.

“You didn’t know…w-what?” the younger boy asked weakly, his usual strength sapped by the injury.

“He didn’t know I was coming to visit… little brother.”

Joe froze as his assailant came into the cell.  He was still wielding the knife…not that either boy was thinking about trying to disarm him; they knew a madman when they saw one.

“Romulus.”  Pharaoh spat the name like a curse, and Joe got a very sick feeling in the pit of his stomach that this wasn’t going to be good….

* * *

Although it seemed to take forever, the boys arrived at the iron gates of the estate within 25 minutes.

“How we gonna get in?”  Chet shouted as they jumped out of the car and ran towards it.  “Can we climb it?” 

But before anyone could answer him, the gates swung wide open.

“What?”  shouted Biff and Phil in unison, both surprised and wary by this apparent invitation!

“Come into my lair said the spider to the fly,” quoted Tony, not having a good feeling about this at all….  

Frank nodded in agreement, but he was too worried about Joe to refuse the open gate; they didn’t have the time for speculation!

“Don’t they have dogs?”  worried Phil nervously, as he remembered the ad in the paper: Wanted, Dog Handlers. 

Frank shrugged, trotting towards the gaping mouth of the Plyth estate. “Don’t know….When we ‘went in’ the last time, I never saw any dogs.”

“So, we’ll just cross that bridge when we come to it!” retorted Biff, already moving to keep up with his dark-haired friend.

They barely stepped inside when they saw a stocky, dark-haired man coming towards them. 

At first, Frank thought the man was drunk, but as he got closer, he realized he was injured as the man staggered with one hand gingerly massaging the back of his head.

“Frank Hardy I presume,” the man called out to them. The effort was costly though, as he winced and stopped for a moment by one of the large trees that adorned the winding driveway.

Frank was shocked.  Who was this guy? And how’d he know his name?

“I’m Winston Abernathy…I let you in the gate,” he explained as he leaned against a tall tree for support.  Frank recognized his voice immediately. Although it was a bit shakier sounding now, this was the man who answered the office phone when Frank had called there earlier.

“Are you okay?”  Frank asked, still wondering how this man knew who he was.

“I will be.  I’d just gotten off the phone…”  He looked at Frank as he too recognized a voice, “with you, when I heard a sound outside the door.  I went to take a look and then next thing I know I’m waking up with an egg on my head and a splitting headache.  The first thing I did was check the monitors and that’s when I saw you boys pulling up to the gate.”

Mr. Abernathy pulled out a handkerchief and held it to the back of his neck. There was a little blood, but not much.

“I recognized you as Joe’s brother,” he pointed to Frank, “So I opened the gate.”

When he saw the question on the Hardy boy’s face, he gave a wry smile.  “I’m Mr. Pharaoh’s Personal Assistant and I know about the special…‘circumstances’ surrounding your family and the Plyths.  Come inside the office.  I need to report this to security and see if we can find my attacker.”  He motioned for them to follow him, but Frank just wanted to find Joe, and hesitated.

“Do you know where Joe or Pharaoh are right now?”  he asked.

Winston looked at him for a second and then shook his head.  “No, I only just found out that Joe’s here.  I’ve been on the mainland since last night, taking care of some business.  I would assume that they are here on the estate though, as I haven’t seen any gate activity between Joe’s arrival and my own a little while ago.”

Seeing their confused looks, he quickly explained, “The gate is electronic.  It keeps track of every time it’s opened or closed, and by whom.  Pharaoh has a small remote that he uses to open it, as do I and two or three other staff members.  Each remote has a different signature.  Everyone else has to be let in by the office or someone in the house.  The gate button rings through to the house only if there is no one in the office.”

“Bottom line…Pharaoh hasn’t left?” pressed Frank; while he would have normally found this very interesting, he had only one concern now, and gate activity wasn’t it!

“I can’t say that 100% because he could have left from the marina, but I doubt it.  One of the vessels should have been logged out.  We run a tight ship here, no pun intended, however sometimes, Mr. Pharaoh does things a little less than properly.” 

Frank smiled at that in spite of himself.  However, it still wasn’t helping him find Joe.

“Mr. Abernathy, I really need to find my brother.  Thanks for letting us in!” he called out as he started to trot towards the house, his friends following.

“Wait!” they heard the man call out, and turning they saw him coming out of the office with something in his hand.

“Take these,” he said, passing them each a small red walkie-talkie.  “I’ll use the cameras in my office to search the estate for any sign of either Joe or Mr. Pharaoh, and we can keep in touch with these.” 

Thanking him again, the boys pocketed their hand-helds and raced up towards the house. 

* * *

Frank wasn’t really surprised when no one answered the door, so he just tried the handle and walked in.  As he had suspected, with all the other security measures, it wasn’t really necessary to lock the front door.

Stepping into the grand hall, Frank flashed back to the first time he’d come in through that door, and knew Joe’s bedroom was on the third floor in the middle. He gave a little shudder as he remembered the look on his brother’s face when they finally found him….Joe had had no idea who they were.

* * *

“Where do we even begin?” Tony’s awe-filled voice asked, as he and his friends were overwhelmed with the size and splendor of the house.

“Maybe Joe’s room, I remember where it is—” Frank started, but then stopped as he heard the sound of someone shouting out for help coming from the back of the house. 

The boys raced towards the sound and a few minutes later a grateful Mrs. Corradi burst out of the pantry where she had been locked.

“Thank goodness – thank you boys!”  she cried out, relieved to be rescued.  The old cook had come to only a few minutes before, and instantly panicked when she remembered what had happened.

“Someone snuck up on me and the next thing I know I was waking up in here…” and then her hands flew to her mouth in horror.  “Oh, Mr. Remus!”

“What!”  Frank wanted to shake her in his hurry to find out what was going on.  He knew she was talking about Joe.