Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Joe sat on the edge of one of the beds feeling totally drained yet still on edge. He was relieved that his secret was now out, at least to Frank, but scared at the whole slew of new problems that could come with the revelation.

Seated on the edge of the other bed, Frank stared at him, obviously still reeling from the news that Joe might be the father of a six-year-old boy. “Why didn’t you say something, Joe?” he finally asked, genuinely confused.

Joe held Frank’s gaze but had to look away when he answered. “I – couldn’t.”

“Of course you could,” Frank tried to reassure him. “You can tell me anything, you know that.”

Joe stared at the floor, a chill welling up in his soul. Frank had misunderstood and the last thing Joe wanted to do was try and explain. Frank had never much liked Jodi and this would just give him more reason to believe he’d been right about her all along.

“She asked me not to,” Joe said quietly, still unable to meet his brother’s eyes.

“She?” Frank repeated, his voice growing hard and cold. “Jodi?”

Joe nodded mutely.

“I thought you trusted me, Joe.” Joe’s head snapped up; Frank’s voice hadn’t changed but now the coldness was directed squarely at him. Frank held up his right arm, the sleeve of his shirt slipping down. He pointed to the bracelet Joe had given him. “I thought this meant something…or was it just for show?”

Joe inhaled sharply, feeling sick. Frank was questioning Joe’s trust, and with good reason. Suddenly the full weight of the consequences of his actions – both past and present – came crashing down on Joe. He’d thought agreeing to Jodi’s request to keep silent was a small concession, given what she’d been through already. But was that concession going to cost him his brother?

Apparently Frank reacted to the stricken look on Joe’s face; when he spoke again the chill in his voice was gone. “Why didn’t you just tell me?” Frank asked somehow sounding both concerned and hurt at the same time. He dropped his arm and pulled his sleeve down.

“I – I promised her. I gave her my word,” Joe stammered.

“You told Vanessa,” Frank said, unable to completely hide the resentment in his voice.

Joe swallowed hard. “Yeah...I did,” he admitted.

Frank didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. The flash of betrayal on his brother’s face told Joe everything he needed to know.

“She’s going to be my wife, Frank.” Joe tried to defend his decision to tell Vanessa – and only Vanessa. “If there’s even the remotest chance I have a child out there somewhere, she has a right to know.”

Frank looked away, disappointment etched on his face. “So you trusted Vanessa to keep Jodi’s little secret but not me.” Frank shook his head, mystified. “Jodi Renault….Damn it, Joe, why does she have such a hold on you?”

“She doesn’t,” Joe said lamely, not wanting to admit it was his overwhelming sense of guilt that let Jodi so easily lead him wherever she wanted.

“Oh, please,” Frank snorted in disgust. “She’s pulling your strings now just like she did seven years ago.”

“That’s not true!” Joe exclaimed, yet knowing full well it was. “She asked me not to say anything and I agreed. It was my choice!” he said vehemently, even as his conversation on the beach with Jodi replayed itself in his head. He had been adamant that he wanted to tell his family, yet he’d given in to her pleas not to, easily letting her manipulate him in a hopeless effort to assuage his own guilt.

“Stop defending her!” Frank said hotly as he got up and walked to the window. He stared out at the darkness, obviously recalling some very painful memories of his own. “She’s controlling you now, just like she did then. You cut yourself off from us, Joe – then and now. All of us. Our friends, Mom and Dad…me.” Frank sighed, savagely running a hand through his dark hair. “What am I supposed to think?” He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness and shrugged. “Maybe I should’ve tried harder to get to know her better back then. Maybe I should’ve tried harder to understand what you were going through. But we were all grieving, Joe! I wasn’t thinking clearly then. None of us were. I’m sorry I didn’t try to get to know her better, okay? I made mistakes. But I’m not perfect! Not then and not now!”

“I never said you were,” Joe said defensively.

Slowly Frank turned and looked at him, his voice soft yet carrying a very heavy weight. “But sometimes you thought I was.”

In that instant, Joe clearly saw the toll his hero-worship for Frank had taken on his brother. And Joe had to admit, Frank was right. He always expected Frank to know exactly what to do, what to say, how to act in any given situation. He thought Frank had all the answers…to everything. Impossibly high expectations for anyone to live up to, yet that’s what Joe had expected from this brother for as far back as he could remember. Even now, deep inside, he’d hoped Frank would somehow magically understand with no explanation required.

Joe felt a tightness in his chest and suddenly everything came rushing back – the memories, the emotions, the blinding pain – and along with them, the reason he’d shut out everyone who loved him; everyone who’d loved both him and Iola Morton. Joe squeezed his eyes shut, unable to look face his brother, afraid it might be there this time. The one thing he’d been so certain of back then and so desperate to avoid seeing. So desperate that he had shut out everyone who cared, turning to Jodi for comfort she couldn’t possibly give.

“I was afraid.” Joe whispered, so soft and low Frank barely heard him.

“Afraid?” Frank repeated, surprise in his voice. “Afraid of what?”

“You all knew Iola…you loved her….I was so afraid that when I looked at you, any of you, I’d see it,” Joe rambled, making no sense to his brother. Yet Frank heard stark terror, and fear, in Joe’s voice. He moved back to the bed and sat down next to Joe, lightly resting a hand on Joe’s back. “I…I didn’t have to worry about that with Jodi. She never really knew Iola. I knew I’d never see it in her eyes.”

“See what?” Frank asked, utterly confused.

Joe looked up at him, his blue eyes filled with so much guilt it seemed to be pouring out of him. “Blame.” Joe whispered. “Hatred. Anger…that Iola was dead and I was still alive. It should’ve been me, Frank. ME! It was bad enough that I saw it every time I looked in the mirror – that question. There was no way I could deal with seeing it every time I looked at my friends, Mr. and Mrs. Morton, Mom and Dad…you…”

Frank shook his head slightly and stared helplessly, obviously having no idea what Joe was talking about.

“Why aren’t you dead?!” Joe cried out, voicing the thoughts he was so sure had been on the minds of his friends and family whenever they looked at him. “It should have been you! It’s not right…she never should have died in your place…” he yelled, choking on the words he’d never said aloud until now.

For one brief moment, Joe almost lost it completely. He felt the same black hole that had been his home after Iola died, open up again. And he wanted to jump in and be swallowed up in it…just like he had all those years ago. It was so much easier to hate himself, alone and isolated, than to see that same hatred on the faces of the people who meant the most to him. “I knew Jodi wouldn’t blame me. As far as she knew it was just some freak accident. I was safe with her. When we were together, I didn’t have to face it.” Joe stopped and took a deep breath. “But then I got to know her better and I don’t know…we clicked. You know by that time I was a pretty hot topic for the Bayport High rumor mill and no one knew what that felt like better than Jodi,” he said bitterly.

Frank felt a knot form in the pit of his stomach. Oh, yes, he remembered…

“Hey, Hardy, when are your parents going to put that addition on your house?”

Frank tried to ignore the voice and accompanying snickers as he walked past Bayport High’s designated group of delinquents.

“You know,” a second voice added, “that rubber room they’re gonna need for your psycho brother.”

It was one of the few times Frank had let his temper get the better of him. Luckily, they were a few feet off school property so the school administration couldn’t suspend Frank for fighting when he’d laid out two of the boys with lightning fast reflexes borne of years studying the martial arts. The other two had taken off running.

Word of the lopsided fight had spread quickly throughout school the next day, to everyone but Joe apparently, and while the stares and whispers had continued, no one dared mention Joe’s increasingly erratic behavior to Frank ever again.

Finally having recovered from Joe’s startling confession, Frank tried to offer comfort and assure his brother that no one had blamed him for what happened. “Joe, we didn’t blame you. No one blamed you.”

“I blamed me!” Joe cried out, his words ripping at Frank’s soul. “I still blame me!” Joe took in a deep, shuddering breath, his fingers curling around the bedspread in a death grip. “I’ll always blame me…” His voice trailed off, heartbreakingly soft.

Frank was speechless. He thought Joe had dealt with this, gotten past it, come to terms with it somehow… ‘Maybe he had… but now with Jodi showing up out of the blue…finding out he might have a son he never knew existed…’ Had these recent events opened up deep wounds that had been healed over years ago?

‘How could they not have?’ Frank realized. Joe’s relationship with Jodi had only allowed Joe to bury himself in denial and distraction. It was only when he became involved with Vanessa that Joe finally began to deal with what happened to Iola. It was a slow and painful process that had taken years, but Joe learned how to face the suffocating pain and paralyzing guilt, accept Iola’s death and understand that it was okay for him to live again…and to be happy doing it.

Looking at his brother now, Frank knew the scars had been ripped open and the pain Joe was feeling – the blame, the guilt – were just as fresh now as they had been seven years ago. And without realizing it, the fervent wish Frank had all those years ago suddenly resurfaced – that one day Jodi would just up and disappear.

“It should’ve been me!” Joe said, the bitter sadness of regret in each word. “If I hadn’t been so busy flirting I would’ve gone to the car, instead of Iola. I would have died in her place. She’d still be alive and I’d be dead, just like it was supposed to be!”

Frank stared at Joe for a long moment as his brother’s words unearthed feelings he’d forgotten, feelings he’d buried seven years ago; feelings he never, ever wanted to feel again. “NO!” Frank yelled, surprised at the vehemence in his voice. He saw Joe shrink back, stunned at the outburst, but Frank couldn’t stop. The words came pouring out and with them, the absolute terror of what could have happened.

“No, you would not have died in her place, Joe!” Frank exclaimed, jabbing a finger at his brother savagely. “You want to know what would’ve happened if you hadn’t been flirting with that girl? If Iola hadn’t stalked off without you? I’ll tell you what! You wouldn’t have gone to the car instead of Iola, you would have gone along with her!” Frank’s voice broke as he finally gave a voice to the thought that had secretly haunted him all these years, the knowledge that was too terrifying to acknowledge and so he kept it buried so deep inside even he didn’t realize it was still there. “You wouldn’t have died in her place, Joe! You would have died with her!” He grabbed Joe’s arm roughly and shook it hard for emphasis. “Both of you would have died!” His chest heaved, unprepared for the emotions that seemed to come out of nowhere. “You would be DEAD!”

Shaking uncontrollably, Frank released Joe and wrapped his arms around his midsection, finally feeling the terror he’d kept bottled up for so long. “I don’t care what kind of a monster it makes me,” he said rocking back and forth. His voice was softer now, but filled with a strange mixture of guilt and relief. He stared at the floor intently, seeing the horrible explosion again, seeing the flames reach endlessly into the clear blue sky. “I thank God every day that I did not lose my brother in that explosion,” he finally admitted, his voice breaking. “Losing Iola was bad enough…losing you too would have been…” His voice hitched in his throat and he shook his head, unable to finish the terrifying thought. Completely drained, Frank buried his face in his hands and cried.

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Disclaimer

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.