Fenton Hardy slipped an arm around his wife and smiled to himself.   The year had started off with a slight bump, but nothing compared to the beginning of the previous year.  Vanessa's final blood test had been negative, lifting a heavy weight from his heart.  She and Joe were planning what he was sure would be the wedding of the century.  The smile grew a little bigger and he didn't even realize he'd let out a contented sigh until he felt his wife's eyes on him.

"What?" he asked, warily.

"What are you so happy about?" Laura queried in reply.

Fenton shrugged and grinned, looking amazingly like his younger son.  "Life is good," he announced, enjoying the sound of Laura's soft laughter.

'It doesn't get much better than this,' he thought, pulling Laura a little closer.

"Fenton?  Laura?"

The voice stopped Fenton Hardy dead in his tracks. He hadn’t heard it in over seventeen years, but he recognized it immediately.  Still, he stood there for a moment, certain he'd imagined it.  Surely that man wouldn't be foolish enough to come back, not after what he'd done.  The sound of shuffling feet and nervous, shallow breathing convinced Fenton that he wasn't imagining it - the worst nightmare of his life was about to return with a vengeance.

Slowly turning around, Fenton came face to face with the man he hated with an intensity he never thought he was capable of.  Staring at his brother-in-law, the words that had ripped a hole in his heart all those years ago rang in his ears.

“Joe is missing…”

Long buried memories unleashed emotions Fenton had never wanted to feel again.  The feeling of failure at the look on Laura’s face each time he’d returned home without their baby; the agony of knowing the longer Joe was missing, the less chance there was of finding him alive; the unbearable guilt as the emergency room doctors had pried Joe from his arms, kicking and screaming for his Daddy…

Lashing out with a fist that carried eighteen years of anger and resentment, he landed a vicious punch squarely on Jeff’s chin.  Watching as Jeff was knocked several feet through the air and landed on his back, Fenton knew he was close to crossing a line into unrestrained violence, but rational thought was all but obliterated by the raw emotions that were now raging out of control.

Lunging forward, Fenton grabbed a fistful of Jeff’s jacket and yanked him halfway off the ground.  Bringing his right arm back in preparation for a second blow, Fenton felt hands grasping his arm.  He heard the voice of reason; the voice that for the past twenty-seven years had kept him grounded when he felt himself thinking with his heart and emotions instead of his head; the voice of Laura Hardy.

“Fenton…don’t.”

Her hands tugging on his arm in gentle persuasion quickly brought Fenton’s runaway rage back into focus.  Abruptly, he released Jeff, letting him fall to the ground.  Still bitterly angry but now back in control, Fenton glared at his brother-in-law.

“What the hell are you doing here?”  Hatred oozed from each and every word.

Slowly Jeff pushed himself to a standing position, wincing slightly much to Fenton’s satisfaction.  Watching Jeff wipe blood from a split lip, Fenton thought he didn’t seem completely surprised by the attack.  He also noted that Jeff was having a great deal of trouble looking him in the eye and found that somehow comforting.

Jeff took a deep breath and met Fenton’s angry glare.  He needed another steadying breath before he could get the words out.

“I need your help.”

As the words filtered through the haze of anger and their meaning sank in, Fenton’s jaw dropped slightly.  Had the man he held solely responsible for Joe’s kidnapping eighteen years earlier, the man he’d threatened to kill should he ever set foot in Bayport again, just showed up on his front lawn and asked him for help?

‘No…can’t be…I must’ve misheard,’ Fenton convinced himself.  ‘Even he couldn’t be that stupid…’  He was about to pose the question again when his wife’s voice stopped him and sent a chill down his spine.

“How dare you,” Laura hissed, a venomous tone to her voice that Fenton had never heard in all the time he’d known her.  “Our child ended up in the hands of a pedophile because of you!  A child pornographer who intended to sell him to the highest bidder!  An animal who beat him and forced him to watch the most vile and despicable acts…all because you took your eyes off him ‘just for a second’!” Laura threw the words back at Jeff; the same words Jeff had used to explain how someone had been able to grab Joe and disappear into thin air.

“We trusted you with our son, trusted that you’d protect him as you did your own children, but you left him alone and vulnerable…he was just a little boy!  A little boy who thought his uncle would keep him safe!”  Laura’s voice shook with rage.  “But you didn’t keep him safe, did you?  And now you have the nerve to show up here and ask for help?  Did you think after all these years the memory might have faded?  That it wouldn’t seem quite so bad anymore?” she asked, her voice cold as ice.  “Well, guess again.  Whatever it is you want help with, the answer is no.  Now get out.”

As Laura turned on her heel, Fenton saw her face clearly illuminated in the glare of the porch light.  He thought she looked as if the anguish was threatening to drown her.  He put an arm around her, pulling her close as they climbed the few porch steps.  They were almost to the front door when Jeff finally spoke.  His words sliced through them like a knife, inflicting a pain they knew all too well and wouldn’t wish on their worst enemy.

“Kevin is missing.”

Fenton heard a soft gasp from his wife, as Jeff’s voice played havoc with his mind.  “Kevin is missing… Joe is missing…”

“The police gave up looking for him… they had no leads…”

“We have no leads, Fenton…”  Ezra Collig’s voice called from the past.  He’d been a sergeant with the Bayport Police Department back then and despite having no leads to Joe’s disappearance, he had stuck by Fenton’s side through the entire ordeal, refusing to give up until Joe had been found.

“It’s been almost two weeks and no one has heard from him,” Jeff continued, his voice starting to quiver.  “It’s like he vanished into thin air.”

“It’s like the kid just vanished into thin air!” Those were the first words Fenton heard when he had arrived at the park that day, uttered by a parent who was being questioned by a police officer.  The man had a slightly panicked look in his eyes and both arms wrapped tightly around his own child.

“Fenton…we don’t know where else to turn,” Jeff’s voice was pleading now, begging.  “I know how much you despise me, but please don’t make Kevin pay for my mistake.  Please…find my son.”