NO SOUVENIRS
by
Piper Merlyn
Chapter 4
The Chapters
A loud knock on the door, roused Joe from a wonderful dream of a fishing trip where he caught the largest fish ever recorded in the history of the Guinness World Records. He was just about to get his picture taken with the huge fish when the pounding shattered the image. “Aww, man, this had better be good,” he mumbled as he sat up, blinking.
Frank pulled open the door and Vanessa strode into the room. “Come on, you two can’t sleep the day away. I want to go see Macey.”
Joe yawned. “Macey’s at work. R’member th’ note?”
“I still want to go and see if it’s true.”
Joe blinked several times and looked over at her. “You think she was lying?”
“I think someone made her leave that note. Come on, let’s go.”
Joe grunted. “Fine, but you’re buying me breakfast.”
Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Just get up, Joe, and I’ll buy you a ton of souvenirs and breakfast.” She shook her head and left the room.
Joe yawned again and swung his feet to the floor. “Humph, like bribery would work on me. I only wanted breakfast.” He looked over and saw that his brother was already dressed. “Did you know she was going to do this?”
“No. I thought since we’re here as tourists, we could play tourist this time.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you’re up...” Joe glanced at his watch on the nightstand. “Before ten.”
Frank rolled his eyes and put his shoes on. “Just get dressed before Vanessa barges in here again.”
Twenty minutes later, the four teenagers were once again riding a cable car and Joe was loudly complaining that plain bagels did not constitute a normal breakfast and since the bagels were compliments of the hotel, Vanessa hadn’t bought him anything. “I mean, who would actually eat a bagel without anything on it?”
Vanessa sighed as the cable car came to their stop. “I didn’t say when I’d buy you breakfast.”
Joe grunted but didn’t say anything else the entire walk to Macey’s apartment. He didn’t even complain about the hills. Frank checked over his shoulder to make certain Joe was even back there, following. They reached the old Victorian where Macey lived and Frank noticed immediately that the front door hung open. “Come on.”
The four teenagers darted up the steps just in time to hear a scream. They hurried up the stairs to the second floor to find Macey’s apartment door open partway. Joe dashed past Frank and pushed open the door.
“Hold it right there.”
The four of them froze in the doorway. The speaker was tall, black and had a shaved head. He had one muscled arm around Macey’s neck and had dragged her to the large window. The man smiled and made an odd motion with his free hand. The door swung shut. “Who do we have here, Mary, friends of yours?” he asked in a gravelly voice.
Macey’s eyes went wide and she tried to shake her head. “N-no one. I don’t know them.”
Vanessa took a step forward but the black man made another odd motion with his hands, almost as if he were cupping the air. A second later something glowing a putrid yellow sat in his hands. He gave Macey a wide grin. “Then you won’t mind if I clear the room, will you.” He cocked his hand back, making the glowing thing waver a bit.
“No!” Macey screamed and tried to get free just as the man threw the putrid glowing thing like a fast pitch.
Something swirled in front of Joe’s eyes, almost like sparkling snowflakes and then three women just appeared in front of him. One woman threw her hands out, like she was tossing a Frisbee or something and the glowing thing just stopped.
Vanessa sucked in a sharp breath. “What the—?”
The three women spun around and the woman who’d made the throwing gesture did it again. The four teenagers went as rigid and still as the glowing thing. “Damn it,” said the woman who’d made the gesture. “Why are they here? Who are they?”
“Piper, calm down.”
“They saw us orb in, Paige. They—“ Piper stopped, turned around and exploded the glowing thing. “Damn it, he was about to incinerate them with a fireball.”
Before Piper could say another word, the black man blinked and he and Macey were gone. “Argh,” muttered Piper. “She makes the fifth witch snatched. What is going on?” She tucked her dark hair behind her ears and grunted again. “I’d call Leo, but we’ve done enough damage already.”
Paige, a petite red-haired girl, sighed. She looked over at the slender blond who’d been about to speak. “I think that’s Macey’s pen pal. Macey talks about her all the time. I think her name is Vanessa.”
“Oh just great, just great. More innocents. Like I don’t have enough going on with the club, with some warlock jockey who wants witches...argh.” Piper nearly threw her hands up in the air but stopped herself in time.
The third girl had brown hair with golden highlights. She looked around and took a deep breath. “Maybe I should see if there’s any way I can get a fix on where he took her.”
Piper Halliwell looked at her sister Phoebe and grunted. “If it would work.”
Phoebe glanced at Paige and rolled her eyes. “Well...someone got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
Paige didn’t crack a smile. She gave Piper a sad look. “He never came home last night?”
Piper sighed. “This is hardly the opportune time to talk about me and Leo, Paige. I can’t freeze the four of them indefinitely.”
As if on cue, the four teenagers blinked and moved. The girl Paige had identified as Vanessa looked in the direction of the window and went pale. “She’s gone!”
“Hey, where’d bald and ugly take her?” asked the blond man, zeroing in on Piper. “What did you do, anyway?”
Piper made herself smile. “I’m Piper Halliwell, this is my half-sister Paige Matthews. And you are?”
“Frank Hardy.” Frank stepped forward to keep his younger brother from doing or saying something stupid. “How did you, um, get here?”
The third girl who was standing staring out the window turned around. “Magic.”
Piper spun around to shoot the girl a look. “Phoebe.”
“Well, they saw us come in, they saw the warlock...we have to tell them something.”
Vanessa frowned. “Warlock? You mean, witches?”
Piper took a deep breath, raised one hand in a pointing gesture. “Now let’s get one thing—“
Phoebe stepped over to her and pushed her hand down. “Piper, they don’t know.”
Just then the door burst open and a man shouted, “Police, freeze – what the hell?”
Paige gave the policeman – a serious-looking black man – a wide smile. “Darryl.”
Darryl grunted. “I should have known. The lady upstairs called the police when she heard a scream. When I saw how close it was to your place...well, I should have known.” He holstered his weapon and pushed the door shut. “What’s going on?”
Piper gave him a saccharine-sweet smile. “Do you really want to know?”
“No. But I’m asking anyway.” He gave Piper a hard look and then seemed to notice the four teenagers. “And you four are?”
Frank introduced the four of them. Darryl gave him an odd look. “Are you any relation to a private investigator named Fenton Hardy?”
Joe blinked. “You know our father?”
“By the way, I’m Detective Darryl Morris.” He held out a hand and Frank shook his hand. Morris lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I know of him. About ten years ago, from what I’ve heard, he helped bust a smuggling ring working within the police department. It was a sensitive case all around. Andy knew him personally. I didn’t.”
“Andy?” asked Joe.
“Andy Trudeau, my former partner.” Darryl sighed. “He was killed in the line of duty two years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” said Callie, quiet until now.
Joe noticed that Piper had gone a bit pale. “Are you all right?”
Piper gave a sharp nod. “All right, Darryl, what do you want to know?” she asked in a rather fatalistic tone.
“Is this more your jurisdiction than mine?” he asked.
“You could say that,” said Piper, rolling her shoulders.
“Do you know this is the fifth woman to disappear? They’re all single, all live alone, all...” Darryl’s voice trailed off as he noticed the low table and the odd assortment of items on it. “Oh shit. Witches. They’re all witches, aren’t they?”
Piper nodded slowly. “Yes, yes and yes.”
Joe shook his head. “You mean like Samantha on Bewitched? Witches? You’ve got to be kidding.”
Darryl let out a low grunt. “Trust me, when Andy first told me, I had the very same reaction.”
Piper cleared her throat. “Yes, well, it might have been better if Prue hadn’t told Andy we were witches.”
Joe jumped. “You’re witches too? But...” His blue eyes widened and he looked at Phoebe. “You weren’t kidding with that crack about magic.”
Phoebe slowly, almost sadly, shook her head. “No.”
Callie cleared her throat. “Who’s Prue?”
Piper went pale again. “She was our sister.”
“Was?” asked Frank, gently.
Piper gave a jerky nod. “She was killed a year ago.” She reached out and grabbed Paige’s hand. “But Paige is our half-sister, she helped us cope.”
Darryl cleared his throat. “Well, I’m sure the excitement will garner a few nosy neighbors. Might be best if you three—“ He nodded to the three sisters— “were gone.”
Vanessa frowned. “What about us?”
Darryl looked over at her. “So how long have you known Mary Wilder?”
“Three years. She had listed her name and address in a pen pal section of a fantasy magazine and I answered. We’ve been writing each other these last three years.”
“So....you’re just now meeting her face to face?” asked Darryl.
Vanessa nodded. “We shared pictures. And we told each other everything.”
“Hmmm,” Darryl sighed. “Why did you come out to San Francisco?”
“My mom is attending that animation convention at the Moscone Convention Center. She invited us to come with her for spring break. Since Macey and I have wanted to meet since we first started writing each other...” Vanessa shrugged. “It seemed the perfect time.”
Darryl looked over at Frank and Joe. “Well, it’s best if you get on with visiting San Francisco and let me handle this case. I assure you I will get Mary – Okay, please tell me why you call her Macey. Everyone I’ve met calls her that.”
“Her name is Mary Celeste. She said in high school, she was called M.C. But somewhere along the way it ended up Macey.” Vanessa shrugged. “She said she liked it because it was different, because she went to school with about a dozen girls named Mary.”
“All right, well...” He looked at the three sisters. “Why are you still here?”
Piper let out an unladylike snort. “Look, go deal with nosy neighbors. We’ll deal with things here.”
Joe frowned. “You mean us.”
Piper sighed. “We need to talk. Our house is at the corner over there. Please, just hear us out.”
Joe glanced at his brother and the girls. “All right. Lead the way.”
Frank stepped close to Joe as the three sisters left Macey’s apartment and started down the stairs. “You think this is such a good idea?”
“Hey, if you’ve got a better one, I’m all ears.”
“I think we should go,” said Vanessa in a quiet voice. “We all saw something weird. We need to know what’s going on.”
Frank nodded. “All right. Let’s hope we’re not getting in over our heads.”
Joe gave his brother an exasperated look as he followed the three sisters. “You’re worried about that now?”
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Disclaimer
The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors 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.