Fenton slowly sat, noticing the loud music didn’t seem so loud in the alcove. He glanced at the door at the top of the stairs again and then scanned the alcove, making sure everyone was where they should be, only to notice both Cade and Ren were missing. He moved to get up but one of the girls with Marc’s band, the dark-haired one with the Southern accent, shook her head gently. Savannah, he remembered. “Bathroom break, Mr. Hardy. They’ll be back soon.”

Almost immediately, Piper’s two sisters disappeared and he wondered how his sons could possibly know these women. After a moment, Piper returned to sit in the chair next to Fenton’s. He slid a glance at her. “Pardon me, but you look much too young to be married.”

She ducked her head and gave him an embarrassed smile. “Thank you.”

Fenton studied her a moment. “This club, it’s yours?”

“Yes. It’s finally where I ended up.”

“Ended up?”

Piper glanced around the club. “I once worked as a chef at a restaurant called Quake. And then I tried my hand at catering and now I’ve found my niche, my calling in life.” She blinked and cleared her throat. “Sorry, waxing poetic there.”

“P3 – it’s named for you and your sisters. You all have names with the initial P. Was that intentional?”

Piper nodded. “Kind of a family tradition,” she said with a small laugh.

Fenton glanced at his watch and decided if Cade and her sister were gone any longer, he’d go check on them. At that moment, they came back with Piper’s sisters. He let out a soft sigh. “How can you be sure Leo will watch out for my sons?”

“Leo is multi-talented,” said Phoebe, almost too cheerfully, obviously overhearing his question. “Trust me. He’ll keep close tabs on your sons. Nothing’s going to happen.” Suddenly she jumped and lifted one slim leg to rub her ankle.

Paige pointedly looked over at the dais that served as a stage. “You all set up for tomorrow night?”

Piper got to her feet and nudged both Paige and Phoebe out of the alcove, whispering quickly. After a moment, both sisters drifted away to mingle with the crowd and Piper came back to her chair.

Fenton arched an eyebrow, still keeping one eye on the entrance. “What was that all about?”

Piper slid a glance over where the two bands were chatting. “Marc asked me to showcase Shattered Glass tomorrow night, only it’s to be a secret until he springs it on them.”

“I see. And your sister...Paige, right?” At her nod, he continued, “Paige was about to spill the secret.”

“In her fashion.” Piper glanced over her shoulder and frowned. “Excuse me. Be right back.”

Fenton nodded and decided to go after his sons. Frank had planned to go to a music store and had found there were two. One was near Fisherman’s Wharf and since that was the closest one, Fenton decided to head there. Something about all this seemed ‘off’ somehow.

*****

“Joe, slow down.”

“I’m going to kill that little creep. How’d he manage to get out of jail?”

Frank shook his head. “He wasn’t in jail. He was in a maximum security psychiatric institute. From what Sam can gather, Forsythe helped him get out of there.”

Joe grumbled under his breath. “We’ve got to stop him or he’ll grab Cade.”

“I know. I think it’s the lyrics that started all this. We’re near Fisherman’s Wharf, so let’s head over to Lark in the Morning.”

Joe gave his brother a puzzled look. “What kind of store is that?”

“A music shop, sells instruments and stuff. Come on.”

The brothers’ long strides ate up the sidewalk and it wasn’t too long before they reached the store. But once inside, they both discovered that it wasn’t the type of store they’d expected.

Mandolins, guitars and other stringed instruments hung from the ceiling. Glass cabinets held xylophones and flutes with everything else in between. Before Frank could back out, an older man with long hair and a tie-dyed T-shirt came over to them. “Can I help you dudes?”

Frank cleared his throat. “I thought you sold music CDs and cassettes.”

“I do,” said the man, looking rather offended. “Over here.” He led the way to another glass case. On the bottom shelf were slide-out trays holding old and rare vinyl records while the top shelf held old cassette tapes and compact disk compilations of older albums; there were even a few eight-tracks mixed in.

Joe took a deep breath. “We’re kind of looking for something in this cen—”

Frank kicked his brother’s ankle. “Something a little newer, like maybe in the last year or so?”

The man grunted. “Try Amoeba on Haight,” he said, looking unhappy. “Need a mandolin?”

Frank and Joe shook their heads and hurriedly left. Joe glanced over his shoulder. “Was it my imagination or he was still in his hippie phase?”

“Joe—”

Joe looked forward and nearly fell as he skidded to a stop. “Uh—”

Frank studied the blond-haired man in front of him. “Leo, right?”

“Yeah, what are you doing?”

“We’re investigating,” said Joe. “What are you doing?”

“Warning you. Your dad’s on his way.”

Frank relaxed a bit. “Yeah, he wants Joe to change his ringtone.”

“He’s following us because he wants me to delete ‘Bad Boys’? Frank, didn’t you tell him you were checking out the music stores?”

“He wasn’t too happy to find the bands missing from the hotel. It may have slipped his mind.”

Leo glanced past them to Lark in the Morning. “Why on earth are you two checking there? Max sells instruments and collector stuff.”

“So we learned.” Frank started to walk past Leo, only to stop. “Is that the only reason you’re here?”

Leo gave him a look. “It’s not like I’m dogging you two. I’m sure you can take care of yourselves. It’s not like San Francisco is that dangerous.”

“You don’t know Joe that well, then,” Frank said.

“Hey!”

“Frank, Joe!”

Leo moved to one side as Fenton caught up to them. “Joe, why’d you leave like that?”

“Frank told it me it might be Byron James. I’m not letting him get Cade.”

Fenton sighed. “Look, we need to find out where he is, not go traipsing all over the city. Let’s get back to P3.”

“Actually we need to go to Amoeba on Haight. They sell current music.”

Leo cleared his throat. “You’re quite a distance from Haight Street. That’s over in the Haight-Ashbury area, between Golden Gate Park and Buena Vista Park.” He turned to Fenton. “Leo Wyatt, Piper’s husband.”

“Fenton Hardy.”

Frank and Joe shared a look. “All right, Dad,” Joe said. “We’ll go back to the club.” He moved to step around his father but the sudden bright glare of headlights blinded him. Distantly, he thought he heard someone gun an engine and then everything went white...

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The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The Hardy Boys Fan Fiction authors of the Hardy Detective Agency have just borrowed them for an adventure or two. The authors promise to put the boys back when they are done with them. The authors do claim copyright to the original characters in this story. Please do not borrow original characters without express permission of the authors.