Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

When Joe turned to look at her, she winced. A faint purple bruise was barely visible on his cheek. “Did you pack the antibiotic ointment I left on the counter? And the bandages?” she asked, painful as it was. One of the scratches she’d left on his arm had looked particularly nasty this morning and she was worried that it might get infected.

“Yes, I did and I promise I’ll use it religiously,” Joe said, kissing her cheek. He slung the bag over his shoulder and headed towards the hall.

“So you’re going in to the office first and then heading upstate?” Vanessa followed him out of the bedroom and down the hall to the living room.

“Uh, no. I have to stop by the bank and then I’ll leave from there,” Joe replied. Having dumped his bag on the floor by the door, he was now in the kitchen refilling the cup of coffee Vanessa had made for him earlier.

“You already called Frank and told him about this? Is he going with you or is he still tied up with that big case he’s been working on with your dad?” Vanessa asked curiously.

“No and no,” Joe replied somewhat evasively. He took another sip of coffee and looked away, which Vanessa recognized as one of his patented stalling tactics. She leaned against the counter and continued to stare at him, saying nothing. After a lengthy silence, Joe put the cup down and finally met her eyes.

“No one else knows about this, Van. Just you,” Joe finally explained.

“What?!” Vanessa cried out, shocked. “Why?”

“Jodi asked that she, as the client, and the details of the investigation remain confidential.”

“And you agreed to that?” Vanessa exclaimed.

Joe shrugged and Vanessa knew right away he wasn’t entirely comfortable with the absolute secrecy Jodi was insisting upon. “She’s the client. It’s her call.”

“Oh, come on Joe! You have a little more at stake here than just being the guy she hired to find her missing son. I can’t believe she would ask you to do that!” Vanessa said angrily. “My God, how selfish can she be?”

“I know how it looks to you, but you don’t know what it was like for her back then,” Joe said, surprising Vanessa with the defensive tone in his voice.

“Okay,” she said, trying to tone down the rage she was suddenly feeling at this woman who showed up out of nowhere and turned their lives upside down, and who seemed to have little problem manipulating Joe into doing what she wanted. “Explain it to me.”

“It’s not that easy, Van.” Joe pushed himself away from the counter and began to pace the short length of the kitchen. “I mean, part of me understands completely why she doesn’t want anyone to know unless…” He stopped pacing, his back to Vanessa. “She was the school outcast. The one all the other kids teased and made fun of and spread rumors about. And after Iola died I started to get a little taste of what that was like myself.” He spun around suddenly and stared at her. “Come on, you remember what I was like when we first started dating.”

Vanessa swallowed hard, and shivered. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around herself. Oh, yes, she remembered…too well. In the early stages of their relationship, Vanessa spent more than a few nights wondering if it wouldn’t be better to break up with Joe. His rebellious, wild streak; his seeming disregard for his own life; the unpredictable mood swings…they had all left her wondering if it was really a good idea to get seriously involved with him. She’d always been terrified that one day she’d get a phone call from Frank or Mr. Hardy, telling her Joe had driven his motorcycle off the cliffs at Shore Road, or taken one too many chances on a case and been killed…

Vanessa had actually decided to talk to Joe about slowing things down, and planned to bring up the subject one day when they took the brothers’ speedboat, The Sleuth, out for an afternoon. Once they were out on the bay, she realized something had happened to put Joe in one of his moods where reckless disregard was the order of the day. Almost as if he’d forgotten Vanessa was there, Joe piloted the boat wildly, ignoring all boating safety rules. Despite Vanessa’s urgings for him to slow down, he seemed bent on throwing common sense to the wind and eventually capsized them. While the weather had been unseasonably warm for early spring, the water was still unbearably cold. By the time help arrived, they were both suffering from hypothermia and ended up in the emergency room.

To this day Vanessa wasn’t sure why she’d done it, but when the authorities finally fished them out of the bay and asked what had happened, she blurted out a quickly concocted story about engine trouble, with the boat speeding wildly out of control despite Joe’s best efforts to control it. The days that followed were some of the hardest in Vanessa’s life. Joe hadn’t just risked his own life that day, but hers too. At the same time that heartbreaking reality was sinking in, Vanessa also realized the feelings she had for Joe had, at some point, become so deep she couldn’t imagine life without him. Torn between her own personal safety and her love for Joe, Vanessa had spent many sleepless nights wondering if it were even possible to reconcile the two.

It was a week or so later, when Joe provided her with the answer. He took her to their favorite spot on the cliffs on Shore Road, a secluded place where they were cocooned by trees, hidden from prying eyes but with a breathtaking view of the Atlantic Ocean. It was the first time Joe had ever cried in front of her, having come to the same conclusion she had – in his wild disregard for his own life, he’d also disregarded hers. He promised to change, but admitted he couldn’t do it by himself, begging her not to abandon him and promising never to put her in danger again. Even though Vanessa felt as if she were now throwing common sense to the wind – having no guarantee other than Joe’s word that he’d change – she agreed. That had been the turning point in their relationship. True to his word, Joe had worked hard at changing his attitude towards himself, his family and his friends; and most importantly Vanessa. It wasn’t easy and sometimes he slipped back into old habits, but over the next few years, Vanessa saw a ‘new’ Joe emerge, unaware this new side of him was really the old Joe his friends and family had been hoping would reappear one day.

‘If he was that bad with me, I wonder how bad it was before we met?’ Vanessa suddenly found herself thinking. ‘When he was with Jodi…’

“I – I’m sorry,” Vanessa apologized when she realized Joe had stopped speaking and was staring at her. “I’m listening,” she nodded for him to continue.

“I’m not sure if everyone believed everything they heard about Jodi – my family and friends… but I never gave them the chance to find out. I was so…” Joe let out a laugh that was both bitter and sad. “Man, I was a mess back then. And I know now that it was wrong, but Jodi was my escape. I couldn’t face anyone who knew Iola. God, I couldn’t stand the sight of myself; couldn’t stand being in my own skin. And I was so sure if I even looked at any of my friends, my family…anyone who knew Iola and loved her, I knew I’d see the same thing – or worse.” Joe leaned forward and rested his arms against the counter, staring at it so intently Vanessa wondered if he could see his troubled past playing out against it like a movie screen.

“Jodi never knew Iola. When I was with her I could pretend it never happened, pretend that I wasn’t falling apart. When we were together that burning need I had to make myself pay for Iola’s death…I could push it so far down I almost forgot about it…almost.”

Vanessa brushed at her eyes, surprised to find them filling with tears. She had heard the talk when she first arrived at Bayport High, first started dating Joe, and while she knew Joe’d had an impossibly hard time dealing with Iola Morton’s death, she’d never heard him talk about it like this before.

“I think Mom and Dad, Frank, my friends, I think they were under the impression Jodi was trying to isolate me from them; trying to keep me all to herself; turn me against them. I guess if you looked at it that way, it was pretty easy to believe all the rumors about her. But they didn’t know…I never told them…it was just the opposite. Jodi would have killed to be invited into our little clique at school; and if she only knew how many times Mom and Dad bugged me to bring her home, have her over for dinner so they could get to know her…. I was the one who isolated myself from them! And I used her to do it! All I could think of was me and my pain and how miserable I was….Man, talk about being self-centered,” Joe laughed bitterly and his voice softened.

“God, I totally screwed everything up. You know, yesterday I kinda got on her case, challenging her when she said she couldn’t find some way to contact me or Todd. I told her everything would have turned out so much differently if she had. Truth is, everything would have turned out differently if I hadn’t been so selfish back then.” Joe shook his head, looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Bottom line is I used her, Van. Granted, I wasn’t thinking straight – hell, I wasn’t thinking at all. But that’s still no excuse. So now she doesn’t want anyone else to know yet. She’s afraid of what they’ll think of her; that they’ll be vindicated, they can say all the rumors really were true. The least I can do is give her the benefit of the doubt and abide by her wishes…for now.”

“But she didn’t mind you telling me?” Vanessa wondered aloud.

“Yeah, she did,” Joe admitted. “She begged me not to tell you either. But keeping it from you is a lot different from keeping it from Frank. You’re gonna be my wife….I think this was something you had the right to know, and Jodi didn’t get a say in the matter.”

Vanessa frowned, watching Joe intently, knowing she was reading him right. Despite how guilty he felt, she got the impression he still wasn’t altogether convinced this was a good idea. “And you’re okay with this? With not telling anyone but me?”

Joe hesitated and then shrugged resignedly. He glanced away, the way he always did when he was about to tell her something she might not want to hear. “Honestly, I didn’t like the idea at all – at first. I figured you should be the first to know, but I wanted to tell Mom and Dad, too... and Frank. But after your reaction…” he shrugged again, appearing defeated. “I’m starting to think it might not be such a bad thing to keep it from them…until we know for sure who the father is. Jodi did have a point when she said why put them through that kind of turmoil if it turns out Todd is the father. It would be totally unnecessary.”

Vanessa narrowed her eyes, sensing there was another underlying reason why Joe was suddenly so hesitant to share this news with anyone. She hated to even say it out loud, but right now it was more important to Vanessa to find out what was bothering Joe so much. “And what if it turns out he’s your son,” she forced the words out. “I think your mom and dad would be disappointed that you didn’t think you could come to them…”

“So what?!” Joe snapped, cutting Vanessa off mid-sentence and surprising her with the savage bitterness in his voice. “Either way I disappoint them! I think I’ve disappointed them more than enough already for one lifetime. I’d rather not do it again unless it’s absolutely necessary!”

Vanessa’s eyes widened in shock. ‘So that’s it! He’s afraid of what they’ll think… of him!’

“Oh, Joe…” Vanessa put her arms around him and held him tightly. “They love you. They’ll—”

“You love me, too, and look at how well you took it. Don’t tell me you’re not disappointed in me, too,” he challenged, at the same time holding Vanessa even tighter.

Recognizing the mixed message he was sending, ‘I think you’re disappointed in me but please, I don’t want to see it!’, Vanessa didn’t move from his embrace, though she desperately wanted to look in his eyes. “How could I be disappointed in you? I didn’t even know you then,” she reminded him, softly stroking his hair. “I was...stunned. That’s kind of big news to hit someone with, ya know? I – I just needed a little time to absorb it; adjust to it. If I could do it again, I’d definitely handle it differently.” Now she did pull away from him, just enough to look in his eyes. “But no matter what happened six years ago, no matter if this is your child or not…I still love you, Joe. Nothing is going to change that. Nothing.”

Joe looked at her almost as if he was afraid to believe what she was saying. “So you’re not thinking about calling off the wedding?” he asked, although it sounded like he was only half joking.

“You can be so dramatic sometimes.” Vanessa rolled her eyes. “Not a chance, pal. You’re stuck with me.”

Joe suddenly pulled her close again, holding her as if she couldn’t be close enough to him. “I love you, Van,” he whispered. “I – I’m sorry to put you in this position…lying to everyone…sort of lying….” He finally let her go, but held her at arm’s length, gazing steadily into her eyes. “Is it lying if you don’t tell them something they don’t know anyway?”

“I don’t know that it’s lying, although I’m sure it’s not being completely honest either,” Vanessa admitted.

“Yeah, well, sometimes complete and total honesty isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” Joe muttered.

Vanessa reached out and rubbed his arm comfortingly. “Are you absolutely sure you want to do it this way?” she asked, worried.

“I’m not sure about anything right now,” Joe sighed. “But if I do end up telling them – or they find out somehow – I’ll take the heat for it. I won’t let anyone blame you for knowing and not saying anything.”

Vanessa chuckled but stroked his cheek affectionately. “Thanks but I think I can handle it.” She stood still, enjoying the moment of closeness a little longer before getting back to reality. “So you’re going to the bank and then leaving town? Why do you need to stop at the bank?” she asked before Joe could respond. “If you need cash, I can give you some,” she reached for her purse.

“No, that’s not it,” Joe stopped her. “But thanks for the offer. Even when a client requests confidentiality, there has to be a legally signed contract somewhere. So the one with names and other sensitive information omitted stays in the office. The other one, completely filled out and signed by the client, goes into the safe deposit box at the bank. So if there’s a problem—” Joe stopped short. “Well…you kinda get the picture. There has to be a way for someone back at the office to find out who the client is if it becomes necessary.”

“That’s a happy thought,” Vanessa grumbled, even as Joe dropped a kiss on the top of her head. “Just be careful, okay? I don’t like the idea of you doing this alone. Not that you can’t find a missing person on your own – I know you can – but you’re a little too emotionally invested in this. It’s not an average investigation.”

“I’ll look before I leap, think before I act…” Joe teased her for a moment but quickly became serious. “But you are right. There’s more at stake here, and knowing that I will be more careful; promise.”

“Okay.” Vanessa sighed, knowing there wasn’t much more she could ask. Looking at the clock, she glared without even realizing it until Joe laughed.

“Man, if looks could kill! What did the clock ever do to you?”

“Nothing,” she said grumpily. “But I have to leave – now – or I’ll be late.” She really didn’t want to go, preferring to stay right there in Joe’s arms, freezing the moment in time. “I have that big pitch to a new client this morning.”

“The one you’ve been working like a dog on for the past month?” Joe asked, releasing Vanessa and watching as she gathered up her things.

“Yeah. Phil’s been crazy all week, stressing over this presentation,” she said referring to her boss and childhood friend of both Joe and his brother.

“You seem pretty confident,” Joe smiled proudly.

Vanessa shrugged. “I’ve done my very best on it. Either they’ll like it or they won’t.”

“They’ll love it,” Joe predicted. “Phil will get a new client and he’ll be so indebted to you he’ll give you a huge raise; or a big, fat bonus.”

“Or a ‘Thanks, Van, great job!’,” Vanessa more realistically predicted. She put her arms around Joe’s neck and pulled him in for one last, lingering kiss. “Call me when you get there,” she murmured, reluctantly letting him go.

“I will,” Joe promised, stealing one more kiss before letting her go completely. “Love you, Babe.”

“Love you, too,” Vanessa responded. Blowing him one more kiss, she left the apartment, wondering how she was going to survive with Joe gone and the burden of facing their family with this secret left squarely on her shoulders.

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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.