3 HARDYS & A PRINCESS

by

PiperMerlyn

Chapter 4

The Chapters

INTRO

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

EPILOGUE

Sag Harbor was quaint, thought Frank Hardy early the next morning. He and Joe had arrived too late last night to do more than check into a bed and breakfast inn and crash for the remainder of the night. The inn's owner had been nice even though they'd roused her from her bed last night and now Frank was savoring the hot coffee and the front porch complete with whitewashed rocking chairs and potted plants hanging from the eaves.

"Wonder where you disappeared to," mumbled Joe as he finished off his fourth buttermilk biscuit. They'd eaten a huge breakfast of bacon, eggs and biscuits and Joe had raved about Ira Devane's cooking.

"Waiting on you to fill up. Good thing no one else is staying here, they'd be going hungry right now."

"I did not eat that much." Joe dusted biscuit crumbs off his polo shirt. "Now what?"

"Probably be best if we played tourist for a little while, until we get our bearings."

"We don't have a lot of time, Frank."

Frank shot his brother a glare. "Yes, I'm well aware of that, Joe. Come on."

The brothers started walking down the tree-lined street toward the center of town. They'd decided over breakfast to walk around, get the lay of the land before they started looking for Rory and Kane.

A vivid red Saab convertible pulled even with them, a girl with long blond hair and vivid green eyes at the wheel. She flashed them a smile. "Hey, what are you two doing out of school? Need a lift somewhere?" Her smile faded as she gave them another look. "Oh, I thought you were somebody else."

Joe gave her a smile. "Hi, I'm Joe, he's Frank."

She slowed down. "Rachel Griffin. From the back you two look like Rick and Jordie."

Joe winked at her. "And you look gorgeous."

Rachel arched an eyebrow at him. "Flattery will get you nowhere." She glanced down the road, frowned a moment and then sighed. "Still need a lift?"

Frank studied her for a moment. "All right. We just want to go into town."

"Hop in."

Frank and Joe got into the car, Joe making sure he was in the front passenger seat. Rachel gave them both another look. "You act like Jordie too. Not quite as obnoxious though."

Frank couldn't resist. "You don't know him as well as I do."

Joe shot his brother a glare and then looked at Rachel. "So, why aren't you in school?"

"Water main busted. School's shut down until it's fixed."

Joe frowned. "I didn't think a little town like this had two high schools."

Rachel shook her head. "Catholic school in Manhattan."

"Griffin," said Frank, thoughtfully. "Is your dad Brady Griffin?"

Rachel looked in her rearview mirror at him. "Yeah. He's my dad."

"Must be a bummer about the new VR sim," said Joe as casually as he could.

Rachel flinched. "Dad won't work on it ever again. Not after what happened."  She shuddered and gripped the steering wheel tighter.

"What happened?" asked Frank quietly.

"The prototype VR sim was stolen," said Rachel, in a hushed, almost tearful voice. "Then it was used to brainwash someone." She shuddered again and looked over at Joe. "You said your name was Joe didn't you."

Joe nodded. "Yeah." He waited a moment and then added, "How can you brainwash someone with a virtual reality simulator?"

Rachel parked in front a stately building with columns. A brick-framed sign announced it was the John Jermaine Memorial Library. She looked first at Joe and then turned to look at Frank. "With psychotropic drugs in a person's system, you can make them think whatever program they're in is real."

Frank cleared his throat. "What happened?"

"They brainwashed someone and he....he almost killed a senator." She shook her head. "I probably shouldn't be saying anything. I might get in trouble."

"Who was the guy they brainwashed?" asked Joe quietly.

"He.." Rachel swallowed hard. "His name is Joe. Joe MacKensey."

Joe looked back at Frank, stunned. "No way."

"You know him?"

Frank nodded as the three of them got out of the convertible. "We met him and his wife last year."

"Jordie, Rick and I met them two years ago in Barbados. They were on their honeymoon." Rachel took a deep breath. "So...what brings you to Sag Harbor?"

Frank cleared his throat. "You wouldn't happen to know Rory Kingsley, would you?"

"I know of her. I think she's a freshman at Pierson High. Why?"

"She's missing," said Joe. "Since---"

"Oh my God, Kingsley. Oh my God, that was on the news yesterday." Rachel shook her head. "Why, though? Why are you looking for her? Who are you?"

Joe glanced over at Frank who just shrugged. Joe sighed. "I'm Joe Hardy and Frank's my brother. We're from Bayport. Our dad is a private investigator."

"It seems more feasible for us to look for Rory and not Dad," added Frank.

Rachel nodded her blond head slowly. "Yeah, I guess. But anyone who might know her is in school right now." She cocked her head to one side. "Why aren't you?"

Joe and Frank shared another look. They'd skipped school for today, hoping to find Rory before the weekend was out. "We skipped. This seemed more important," said Joe, finally.

Rachel sighed.  "School won't be out until nearly three o'clock. I could show you around."

Joe grinned at her. "That would be perfect."

Rachel looked over at him and gave him a faint smile. "I have a boyfriend, Thomas Parker. His sister and I are best friends."

"That's okay," said Joe, not the least embarrassed she thought he was flirting. "I have a girlfriend, Vanessa Bender."

Rachel seemed to relax then. "Okay. Where to first?"

Frank smiled at her as they looked around. "Why not the grand tour? It seems like a nice little town."

Rachel nodded. "It's known as the village actually. Noyac is just across the bay over there," she added pointing to her left. "It's best we start at the Windmill."

Joe arched an eyebrow, catching sight of the top of a squat wooden windmill. "What's a windmill doing here?"

"It's actually a scaled-down replica of the Beebe windmill. It's now Sag Harbor's Chamber of Commerce." Rachel led the way down a tree-lined Main Street toward the windmill. She pointed to the wharf. "There's Long Wharf."

Frank looked around, thoughtfully. "Sag Harbor has it's own port because it was a whaling town, right?"

"In the nineteenth century. I don't know if you noticed the bluish white curb stones. They were ballast from whaling ships."

They wandered along the wharf and then headed back up Main Street. "Hey, look," said Joe, stopping in front of a small shop. In it's one window were small pieces of carved ivory. "Frank, scrimshaw. Mom and Aunt Gertrude would love a little souvenir."

Rachel smiled and led the way into the small shop. "Hey, Mrs. Dennison."

An older woman, slightly hunched over, came out of a back room. "Rachel, dear, didn't know you were in town." The woman slid a glance at the pendulum clock on one wall. "Dear, you didn't ditch school, did you?"

"No, water main busted. School's closed."

"Ah, so you decided to come visit us. How sweet." The woman frowned at Joe and Frank and then did a double take. "I thought you were those boys ditching. Jordan  Sattler's been known to duck out of a class or two, drag his cousin with him."

"Rick's not that saintly, Mrs. Dennison, just usually the voice of reason. Jordan's been known to get him in all sorts of trouble."

Mrs. Dennison nodded and gave the brothers a cautious smile. "And you are?"

"Joe Hardy, this is my brother Frank. I noticed you have some beautiful pieces of scrimshaw in your window."

The woman's smile widened. "Not many tourists these days know what it is, they just buy it because it's cute or whatever. Those pieces are just a few of the ones I have. Most of them are stored in the back. Come on and I'll show you my nicer pieces."

The three teenagers followed her through the doorway into a long back room. Uncurtained windows let in plenty of early Spring sunshine and showed a tall slender teenager digging through a box, sitting on a card table.

"Kenny, be careful with that. There are breakables in there."

"Yes, Mrs. Dennison," said the boy with a scowl. He shook his head, started to say something only to notice Rachel, Frank and Joe. "Who are you?"

Rachel gave him a faint frown. "Be nice."

He shifted his dark brown eyes to her. "Rachel Griffin, Jordie's friend. I'll be nice to you." He abandoned the box he'd been going through and walked over to her. "I've told her a thousand times not to call me Kenny."

Rachel sighed. "You grew up as Kenny, give her a break." She turned to Joe and Frank. "Joe, Frank, this is Kenny--excuse me, Kane Rogers." She nodded to the teenager. "Frank and Joe Hardy."

Frank was stunned. He hadn't thought it would be this easy to find Rory's boyfriend. "Hi, nice to meet you."

Kane Rogers arched an eyebrow. "Yeah."

Joe drifted off after Mrs. Dennison, seeing she was trying to lift what looked to be a heavy box. Frank turned to Kane. "You work here?"

"Yeah, odd jobs. Do all sorts of stuff, mow grass, trim hedges. Keeps my cash flow healthy."

Frank took a deep breath. "It was all over the news yesterday.."

Kane gave him a sharp look. "Yeah, Rory was pretty shook up. Where did you say you were from?"

"I didn't. I'm from  Bayport."

"Up the coast, huh?" Kane narrowed his eyes. "Why are you here?"

"Kane, be nice." Rachel shook her head. "And polite."

Kane grunted and went back to digging in the box he'd been working through.

Joe Hardy walked up beside Mrs. Dennison. "Here, let me get that."

The woman smiled at him. "You're a sweet boy. Jordan and Patrick are nice boys, don't get me wrong. They just always seem to have an adventure or something. They went over to Japan a few years ago and nearly got killed, so Marina says. And then they went down to the Caribbean and it happened again. Marina's Jordan's mother," she added before Joe could ask.

She glanced over her shoulder at the tall teenager now talking to Rachel and Frank. "Kenny..." She shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder. His daddy went off and never came back, his momma died several years ago. He lives alone in an old rundown house over on a little road off Garden Street. Used to be a pretty place when his parents were around to keep it up."

She motioned for Joe to set the box on an old wooden table that could use a few coats of varnish and pointed a finger at him. "Don't get me wrong, now. He keeps the yard up nice and pretty. But I'm afraid he doesn't know how to keep the house up."

Mrs. Dennison opened up the box and started taking out odd-shaped objects wrapped in old newspaper. "My grandfather was a whaler, boy. His best friend would take a piece of bone or ivory, if they'd found a walrus, and carve the most amazing little things."

Joe took a step back. "Surely you wouldn't want to sell those, if they belonged to family."

As she pulled each wrapped object out of the box, she would wrap both hands around it, feeling it up and down. She looked at Joe. "Boy, I told you not many tourists know what those little things are. You're the first young person to walk in here and say it was scrimshaw. Means something to me that you recognize it."

Joe swallowed hard. "Um, thank you."

She nodded and took out a long object. She nodded and unwrapped it. "This was a walrus tusk," she said handing the object to Joe. "I have the wooden stand it sits on somewhere, hold on."

Joe held it gingerly in his hands. It was jagged on the larger end where at one time the tusk had broken off. It tapered to a blunted tip, shiny smooth. Etched deeply into the yellowed ivory was an intricate scene of a whaling ship complete with crew about to spear a whale. Feeling something on the other side, he turned it over to find a rendering of Sag Harbor seen from the sea. "Oh wow."

Frank and Rachel joined him just then. Frank carefully took the tusk. "It's beautiful."

Mrs. Dennison turned with a wooden block that looked hand-carved. In the middle was a smooth slightly curved indention where the tusk would sit. "There you go."

Joe took the wooden stand and after retrieving the tusk, placed it carefully on the stand. "It's gorgeous. You should keep this one."

"I have plenty of ones just like this one."

Joe dreaded asking the price, knowing it was too pretty and too well made to go cheap. "Um, how much?"

"Twenty-five dollars. There's a special going on today."

Joe shared a startled look with Frank as Mrs. Dennison headed into the front of the store. "Frank, this is got to be worth more than that."

Rachel touched his arm before he could follow Mrs. Dennison. "Don't haggle with her. She'll get miffed if you try to pay more."

Joe sighed. "All right. But I think I'll just give this to Mom and Aunt Gertrude and tell them it has to be displayed on the mantel."

Frank just grinned and waited until the transaction was complete and the tusk and its stand boxed up. Once outside, Frank quickly told Joe about Kane Rogers.

Joe arched an eyebrow. "Hmm." He told Frank what Mrs. Dennison had told him.

"Why are you two so interested in Kane?" asked Rachel. "Because he's Rory's boyfriend?"

"That and the fact that Rory saw the killer," said Frank quietly. "We need to find her before the killer does. Her little sister is already safe."

"Hmm," mused Joe as they headed up Main Street. "Wonder how Dad made out with the tea party?"

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