It had seemed like years, not just a month since he had seen familiar faces. The only familiar face he had encountered was the face of one who was lost over two years ago. He reached up and pushed his blond hair back, then took a long breath. Then he looked around at the plain room that had become his new home. The young nineteen year old had made several escape attempts, but he had not tried to escape recently. While everything that meant the most to him in his life was outside the compound, the one thing that he missed the most was in the room next to him. Sighing, he knew he could not leave that compound without his beloved, his first true love.

With that thought still in mind, the young strong man got up and stretched. Sunbeams were coming through the very small window, shadows made the lines of the bars that held him captive. His cell was an old underground basement in a house that was among a heavily wooded area. He knew that all he could see from the window was pine trees. All the while he had plotted many escape attempts, his heart ached for home.

His mother was probably frantic with worry by now. Laura Hardy was more than the wife of the world famous investigator Fenton Hardy; she was a strong woman who dearly loved both of her sons. She was a great cook and he wished he could smell the aroma of her kitchen once more. While she was a strong woman, he knew that her heart was crying out for him… to hold him in her arms just as she did when he was younger. More than anything else, he wanted to feel his mother’s arms. 

Then his thoughts turned to his father. Fenton Hardy was famous for finding missing people and bringing criminals to justice. He never doubted that his father was searching for him just as sure as he was standing there. While he did not resemble his father as much as his older brother did, he shared his father’s determination and fighting spirit. His father would overturn every rock to find him. It was only a matter of time and when he did find him… the nightmare would end.

Last, but not least his thoughts meandered to another powerful force in his life, his older brother Frank. He had to smile when he thought of his twenty year old brother who had just started his second year of college. Frank was majoring in law, while he was going to major in criminology. This would have been his freshman year and he was looking forward to commuting with Frank to Bayport University. Frank could have attended Harvard, Princeton or even Yale, but he chose to stay home and commute to college. He wondered if he had held Frank back from his dreams of an Ivy League college, but Frank had always told him that they were a team. He did not want to go anywhere without his partner. That thought hit him deep in his heart. Although he was sure that his father was searching for him, he knew that Frank would be the driving force behind his father. Frank was going to find him. He just hoped that it was sooner than later.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK 

The three knocks at the wall interrupted his thoughts. Immediately walking over to the wall, he returned a single knock and went over to the crack in the corner of the room. While his cell was very secure, there were cracks in the foundation, one being in the extreme corner of the room.

"Joe?" he could hear a voice say in a low voice.

"It’s me. How are you doing babe?"

"Fine. I didn’t know if you were up yet and I didn’t want to wake you," the voice answered. "Do you have any idea of what time it is?"

She asked that everyday as Joe laughed to himself. He walked over to the bars on the window and pulled himself up. Then he dropped to the cement floor and returned to the corner.

"It must still be morning because the dew is still covering the grass. Why do you ask that everyday?" he asked her. He didn’t even know the month or the day, let alone the time.

"I just want to know. Are the colors on the trees changing yet?" she asked again. That was the second thing she always asked him. Her room did not have a window and the only light she came from a single light bulb from the center of the room.

"They are starting to change so it must be September or October, but it is a sunny day."

"I haven’t seen the outside world for so long. What am I going to do when I see it again? That is if I ever see it again."

"Don’t you dare say that. Frank and Dad are going to find us and when they do, you will see every sunset and every sunrise," Joe said in a positive manner.

"I don’t Joe. That is what I thought after I was brought here, but it has been two years now. Two years that I have been locked up here. No one came looking for me," her voice started to stammer. He could tell she was getting upset again. He wished he could hold her and tell her everything was going to be all right. However, their captors had only let them see each other every once in a while.

Joe could not really respond to her statement. He never could find just the right words to soothe her.

"What if they think you are dead like me?" she asked again.

"Frank will never give up on me and I am not leaving without you. I am never going to lose you again," Joe replied. Then he rested his head against the cement wall and looked up. It was then that his thoughts moved to another person. A perky red head that had been his love interest for a little over a year. Vanessa Bender was his main romantic interest… his girlfriend. How could he even think of forgetting her? He even planned on asking for her hand in marriage within the next year, but now things were unclear and complicated. While he did love Vanessa, he also loved Iola Morton. Even though he believed that she died in a fiery car bomb that was meant for him, he never stopped loving her. He did not know what he was going to do once they were found, but he knew that he could not love both of them.

Suddenly, the door to his cell opened and his main captor walked in along with two of his "henchmen" as Joe referred to them.

"What do you want Rawlins?" Joe asked, standing up to face his captors.

"I just thought that I would update you on your life while you have been our guest," the heavy set muscular man that answered to the name of Rawlins said.

"Guest? If I am a guest, I would like to check out," Joe quipped.

"I think I have been gracious. I have kept you alive as well as your girlfriend. I have provided you with a roof over your head, food and clothing," Rawlins continued with an innocent tone. 

"And I am still wondering why," Joe sneered back. 

"People have prices to pay in life for their decisions. You would have been here with her if my plans would have worked out. But that is just water under the bridge. I enjoyed seeing you go on with your life with the missing link that I had. Then your father would not let things be, and I had to collect again," Rawlins said with a mocking voice.

"I still don’t understand why you don’t let her go," Joe commented again. He always tried to press for answers, even if he might not make it out alive.

"It was too much fun to keep her. Seeing you painfully search for your girlfriend after you killed our leader, it made it all worth it. Now your father is meddling in our business again. Somebody has to pay and what better way than to have you… forever," Rawlins laughed evilly.

"They will find me," Joe said sternly.

It was then that one of Rawlins’s henchmen stepped forward with a pile of paper and slammed it down on Joe’s cot.

"I have gone to the liberty of keeping newspaper clippings and e-mails that I was able to intercept from your brother and father’s e-mail accounts. Enjoy," Rawlins said with an evil sneer. With that, he snapped his fingers and the three left Joe alone with the pile of papers.

Joe, at first, stood there and stared at the papers.

Deciding that he had nothing else to do, Joe Hardy started to read through the bundle. The more he read, the more his heart sank.