A moment later my suspicion was confirmed as I heard Dad’s low voice mingling with Mom’s. "He’s home early," I murmured, scowling. The headache that my brother had soothed away started to make a throbbing reappearance.

"I’d better go tell him-" Frank let go of me and stood up, and I watched him walk out into the hall. I wished Dad hadn’t come home. I wished Frank hadn’t gone down to talk to him. I wished...

‘Jealous, J?’ I asked myself sardonically. ‘Jealous that Dad has priority over you? He always has; why should tonight be any different?’ Dad had always been my priority, too- until this week.

I heard their voices downstairs, heard Frank saying something about ‘library’ and ‘History’. Then I got up and closed the door, thinking I heard Dad say my name. The door effectively blotted them out and I returned to my rumpled bed, settling down to read more of ‘Watership Down’. I felt a certain affinity for the seer-rabbit in the book, Fiver; no one ever seemed to take his insights too seriously, either. At least, not until he went pretty nearly berserk. I wondered what it would take to get through to Dad that I meant what I said.

I found that out about ten minutes later. Someone knocked on my door, and I- wishfully thinking it was Frank- said, "Come in." The door opened and to my dismay, Dad walked in. He came right up to my bed and sat down on the side of it. I put the book down, but I didn’t look at him.

"Your brother tells me he’s apologized to you," he said out of the blue. Taken off guard, I just nodded, my eyes fixed on the curtains covering my window. "Are you ready to get back to work, then?"

I closed my eyes and felt my temples pound. "You never listen to me, do you?" I replied, question for question. "If there’s something that doesn’t suit you, you close your ears and mind to it- it makes me wonder how the heck you ever got to be a detective in the first place!"

"I’m listening now, and I don’t like what I’m hearing," Dad said warningly.

"No, I don’t think you are listening now," I contradicted boldly, opening my eyes and glaring at him. "I’ve been telling you one thing all week, and I bet you can’t even tell me what it is." I had never dared to speak this way to any authority figure before- especially not Dad- but as long as I was putting myself in the way of punishment, I figured I might as well speak my mind entirely.

"I told you to count me out of detecting work. You ignored me. I told you how I felt about your cases and your single-mindedness, and the way nothing matters but our ability to work for you- for you, not with you- and you ignored me. I told you how you make me feel when I can’t meet your standards, and you ignored me. I’m doing the only thing left to do, something you can’t ignore, so instead you’re ignoring why I’m doing it. And I’m telling you-!" I stopped myself; I was nearly shouting. "This," I started again, speaking slowly, "is....your....fault. Yours, Detective Hardy- not my brother’s, not Mom’s, not Auntie’s. Yours, y-o-u-r-s."

"Joe-"

"And I do NOT want to talk about it, because I have talked enough! I’m sick of talking to you and getting absolutely nowhere! Until you get it through your head that I’m not changing my mind, I want nothing to do with you!" I shouted, losing the last vestige of my self-restraint. "Don’t you ever ask me to work on a case again- do you finally comprehend that? I will not work for you, because I am sick to death of the way you treat me!"

Dad flinched as if I had slapped him. "I...Joe, I- what-" He seemed to make a great effort and pulled himself together. "I hear what you’re saying, but-"

"So, it takes something that dramatic and over-reactive to get through to you?" I asked savagely. "Good to know, I’ll be sure to have an outrageous ultimatum ready every time I have a problem that could be easily solved- because if this is any indication, I’m sure as hell going to need it!" It was the first time I’d ever cussed in front of my father and I felt a weird sort of fear. "You know, all this week- all you’ve managed to do is convince me I’m right, that my happiness is nothing as long as the cases get solved!"

Dad closed his eyes for a moment. "How do I treat you?" he asked softly, and I flung my book across the room.

"Get out! Just get out!" I hissed, shaking. "What the hell do you think, ‘I don’t want to talk about it’ means, anyway? No- just leave. Leave- and for all I care you can never come back! You had your chances, you didn’t take them- your loss. Leave me alone." I turned my back on him and tweaked the curtain open, folded my arms on the sill, and stared out at the black night. A moment later I felt the bed shift as he got up.

"Maybe when you’ve calmed down-"

"You had your chances," I repeated. "You didn’t take them. You get no more. Three strikes, you are out. Oh, I know, you think I’ll change my mind when I stop being angry. Faulty logic. If I cave in now, you’ll never believe a word I say again. My mind’s made up, and nothing you can do will change it."

Silence. I didn’t turn around. My throat felt tight again, and I thought- with a feeling of resignation- that this was becoming all too familiar an experience. So furious I wanted to cry, but I was not, was not going to cry.

I don’t know how long I sat staring out the window into the darkness, but I came back to myself with a violent start as a hand landed on my shoulder. I whirled around furiously- and froze as my brother jerked back, his eyes going wide.

"Sorry," I said weakly, and we both relaxed. "I thought-"

"I can guess what you thought," he murmured. Belatedly, I realized he was sitting on the bed and my bedroom door was closed. "I heard you. Man, Joe, you’ve got some guts, talking like that to Dad."

I shrugged. "Figured if I was gonna get in trouble, I might’s well deserve it," I answered moodily. "Frank, why won’t he listen to me? He can’t really think it’s all pure over-reacting!"

Frank sighed. "I don’t know, baby brother. I don’t understand it myself. Maybe he just doesn’t want to admit to himself that he’s failed you so badly."

I shrugged again, thinking that might be right but not too willing to go into it. I was stressed enough as it was.

"You’re really not ever going to work on any case ever again?" Frank asked, putting his arm around me. I sighed and leaned against him- something I hadn’t done since sixth grade.

"Not with him."

My brother hesitated. "With...me?"

"That could get a little tricky," I had to admit after several moments of thought. "If someone brings us a case- just you and I-"

"But we go to Dad when we need help," Frank reminded me. "That’s not as often as it was a year ago, but still."

"Maybe we could just ask someone else," I said wearily. "Sam, or...I dunno. I really need that aspirin," I changed the subject. "Maybe three or four."

"Stay put." Frank gave me a little squeeze and let go. "I’ll get some for you."

"Thanks, big brother," I murmured. After he left the room, I pulled the curtains back into place and lay down on the bed, draping my arm across my eyes to block out the light. I was suddenly very grateful that Frank and I had worked out our own issue; I couldn’t imagine what misery I’d be in if I was mad at him and Dad all at the same time. Rather than mull over that, I let my mind drift and was half asleep by the time Frank got back with aspirin and a cup of ice-water.

***

The next day was pretty well normal, so far as school days go. I got through the first half of the day with no particular problems and the only thing of note was in math, where I did turn out to get a B (just barely) when my 22% and 95% quizzes were averaged together. That was not just a relief, it was something of a triumph for me and I was still feeling quite good about it when I got to the lunchroom.

Frank sat with the rest of us during lunch as usual; the gang acted as if there had never been any trouble between us. The gang’s great that way; if you’re angry at someone, they’ll support you, but when you make up, the grudge gets dropped in a snap.

While we were eating, Frank told me that he needed to go right home as soon as school was out. I nodded and didn’t ask questions, but he explained that he was going to be staking out one suspected hideout of the bank robbers Dad was trying to find. Dad would be at the other, across town. "See, the getaway car has been spotted going north on some occasions and south on others. So we don’t know if they loop around and come back, or if they have multiple hideouts, or if it’s just been a case of similar cars."

I nodded again and pointedly didn’t ask how they’d narrowed down the hideouts to two possibilities, nor what they were. Frank looked at me for a moment, sighed, and touched my arm; I gave him a thin smile but didn’t respond beyond that.

"I just thought you’d wonder where I was," he said, lowering his voice.

"Where you’ll be, yes," I agreed. "And what you’re doing there. And when you plan to be back, just in case something goes askew. And why you didn’t tell me this morning?" I knew why he hadn’t told me last night; I’d been in no mood to hear it, then.

"I’ll be at the Meade house-"

"I thought that was abandoned when Old Man Meade died," I remarked curiously.

"He had an heir- a nephew or something- overseas, in Germany I think, and the fellow hasn’t come to the States yet to claim the place," Frank explained.

"Oh." I wadded up the plastic wrap from my sandwich and dropped it into my empty lunch bag.

"I’ll be hanging out there until about six, and then I’m to head over to the Packett’s Inn and meet Dad- unless he calls me and tells me to get over there sooner. I hope you don’t need the car," he added teasingly. I snorted.

"I can always use my motorbike if I need to go somewhere. But it’s too cold to be out much anyway- don’t freeze your tail off, sitting in the woods somewhere." The temperature had taken a turn for the lower numbers; the high was expected to reach maybe forty degrees.

"Thanks for the suggestion," Frank said with a chuckle. "I’ll try not to. And I didn’t tell you this morning ‘cause I nearly forgot, until I got into History and remembered that I couldn’t stay late."

"No loss; I wouldn’t want to stay late on a Friday, anyway," I answered. Then I changed the subject and brought up my math grade, and basked in the praise that came from all sides.

[Joe notes: We were allowed to start driving the motorbikes, mini-motorcycles, when I was fourteen and Frank fifteen. It required a temporary (renewed each year) license and both a written and driven test. Naturally, we aced ‘em both each year. Soon as we got our permanent driver’s licenses, the bikes started gathering dust in the garage; doodly little motorbikes can't compare to having your own set of four wheels. And aside from being less cool, they’re slower, and a lot more vulnerable to weather.]

The rest of the school day passed the way Fridays always do: a lot slower than the rest of the days in the week. Everyone was keyed-up for the weekend and things got pretty out of hand in the halls after the last bell rang. I managed to get down to the athletic department without getting my feet stepped on, which was something of a world record. Iola wasn’t so lucky; she joined us in the hallway with a pained look on her face, holding her arm, and said that someone’s bookbag had hit her right on the funny-bone. I daringly took her hand and rubbed her fingers until she told me the unpleasant tingling was starting to wear off. The funny thing was that she didn’t take her hand away when she said that, so I just kept holding it.

As cold as it was outside, no one was very inclined to go out, so we stood around in the hall until everyone arrived. Frank was the last to show up and hauled me off to go home right away. I resented that more than I’d expected to; what harm would it have done to stick around a bit longer and talk to our friends? Iola had remained beside me, her hand in mine, tucked out of everyone else’s sight by the angle at which we were standing. That fact probably had a lot to do with my reluctance to leave.

"She’s starting to grow on you, isn’t she?" my brother asked in a rather amused voice as we headed for home.

I didn’t dignify that with an answer. Iola had been my friend for as long as Chet had, but it was weird to be seeing her in this new light. I had always liked her; now I liked her in a new and unfamiliar way, and I wasn’t ready to talk about it yet. It made me feel bashful, a feeling I intensely disliked. When I didn’t answer, Frank decided to be nice and didn’t tease, which I appreciated.

When we got home, Frank dropped me off at the curb instead of pulling into the driveway and ask me to take his backpack in. I agreed, though I might not have if I’d known ahead of time how much that thing weighed- it was even heavier than mine! Mom and Aunt G were both out, and as I dumped the backpacks by the sofa and put my coat away, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen very much of either of them lately. I resolved to ask Auntie about the play she’d been to, grabbed a few chocolate chip cookies for a snack, and hauled the heavy packs upstairs. I dropped Frank’s in his room and stuffed mine in a corner of my room while I got busy cleaning.

The time passed quickly, as it usually does when I get absorbed in something. When the phone rang, I was more than a little startled to see that it was already almost four-thirty.

"Hello?"

"Joe- where’s Frank?" my father asked.

"Well, out at wherever you told him to be, I guess," I answered, sudden anxiety going through me. "The Meade place, he said. Until six."

"Yes, but I called him and told him to come to Packett’s early, and he should have been here by now. I drove back to the Meade house and looked around, then came back here to the motel in case we crossed paths." Dad sounded very worried. "I thought maybe he’d come home for some reason."

"No," I said slowly, guilt wrenching inside me. ‘I should have been with him...I should have been with him...’ "N-no, he didn’t come home and he didn’t call- he’s got the car phone. I’m gonna go out there!"

"Joe, there’s no need, I already-"

I hung up the phone, grabbed my jacket out of the closet, hauled on my gloves, and hurried into the garage. I pulled my helmet on, opened the garage door and wheeled my motorbike into the driveway. Closing the door, I straddled the machine, started the motor, and was on my way.

***

Bayport isn’t a big city, but the population swells in the summertime. People seeking relief from New York’s heat come down in droves, some of them seeking the ‘quaint’ civilization of our city and others preferring to ‘rough it’ out in the countryside or the smaller towns scattered in the area. The richer ones- who seem to feel that staying in hotels or renting is somehow low-class- have houses scattered around the area: summer homes that they live in for two or three months of the year and lock up when autumn rolls in. Sometimes they hire caretakers to keep things under control during the winter, but the more common practice is for them to send a garden and maid service out a week or two in advance of their arrival to get everything ‘shipshape’.

The old Meade place started as one of these, but Old Man Meade got so fond of Bayport that he decided to stick around and use his ‘summer house’ as a permanent residence. Like so many of these homes, it’s backed up against Willow River, one of the main feeds into Barmet Bay. The front faces the road; the driveway is long and unpaved. In the rear, the river runs silently past, no rapids or ripples to speak of, and it is extremely wide, about fifty yards from shore to shore. To the left as I faced the river lay empty fields, but to the right was a small, rather sparse woods, about thirty feet from the house. [Joe notes: Civilization being what it is, the woods are gone now and a new, very tacky home crowds the Meade place. The river’s still there, though.]

I had stopped at the end of the driveway and left my ‘bike and helmet there, then jogged up to the seemingly deserted house. I watched the area carefully as I went, half-expecting someone to accost me, and noticed the tire tracks in the hard dirt of the driveway. Pausing, I nodded grimly; I knew our car’s tires well enough to recognize them now. So Frank had gotten here safely, at least. I followed them along, wondering where he had parked, and frowned as I came across a diverging set of tire marks.

‘Okay, this is weird,’ I thought slowly, studying them. ‘First they go into the woods...then they...come back out? And then they go...’ I lifted my gaze and went cold all over as I saw the tire-tracks’ unmistakable destination. Getting to my feet, I ran down to the water’s edge and peered down the gently-sloping bank. The tire tracks led straight into the water, but there was no sign of the car itself, there or downstream.

I sprinted to the woods, my heart racing with more than exertion, and scrambled into a low-limbed tree. I ascended as quickly as I could with the dreadful shaky feeling in my body, and stared down at the brownish water again. From this angle, I could just make out something long and boxy under the surface of the water. Shifting, I craned my neck-

There it was. Our car, sunk just a little over the roof in the river.

"Oh God," I whispered, leaning back against the tree and closing my eyes in horror. "Please don’t let him have been in it!"

Sick at heart, eaten up with guilt, I turned my face away, my hands clenching on the branches. I opened my eyes and gazed back up towards the house, wondering who was in there, wondering if they’d seen me- and what they’d done to my brother. And then I saw something that puzzled me. Not near the house, in the woods- a trampled-looking spot where the ground and branches looked very strange. Quivering, I climbed down from the tree and slowly forced my way through the underbrush towards the place.

Bent grass, footprints, tire tracks...and cut branches? Now what, I wondered, was this? ‘Wait-! Tire tracks!’ I crouched and studied the tracks. Yes...our car tires. So- this was where Frank had hidden the car, and cut branches to cover it. But something had happened- he’d been seen or heard. Yes, here were the tracks where the car had backed out. And near this were footprints from three different pairs of shoes- one of them was smaller than the others, that one would be Frank’s. The tracks were all confused and scattered, as though there had been a fight- which there probably had! I chewed anxiously on my lip. "Should’ve come with you," I muttered, only half aware that I was speaking aloud.

So- two against one. No, three- but the third one hadn’t been involved in the fight, he’d been more concerned with the car. But what had they done, I wondered, my stomach clenching in renewed fear. Knocked my brother out and left him in the car when they sank it? Or taken him somewhere else? Or imprisoned him in the house somewhere?

I moved away from the disturbances, searching the ground and bushes for some sort of hints. Here were the two mens’ footprints. And there was something between them- not quite footprints. So they had been dragging Frank. A little further along, it became clear he was walking again, not being dragged, so he had likely been stunned, but not knocked out. Not then, anyway. I pushed through the tangled bushes and found myself in clear space, right above the point where the car tires emerged. Snapped twigs, crunched leaves...and footprints. Three sets of footprints leading to the house.

I dropped to my haunches with a weak sigh. It was unmistakably Frank’s footprint between the two others; they had crossed a sandy patch between the woods and the old house. To my eye, it looked as though Frank had deliberately pressed his feet hard into the ground; his prints were usually much lighter than this. As I glanced back towards the wood, I noticed something else; the footprints had crossed over the top of the tire marks, blurring the tread-pattern. Had Frank done that on purpose too, to assure me or Dad that he hadn’t been in the car when it sank? It would be just like him to think of such a trick!

So he was still alive- or had been, I amended to myself with another shiver. But if they hadn’t gotten rid of him at once, they were likely to keep him alive a while longer. I hoped. Now the question was, was he in the house, or had he been taken elsewhere? I frowned, thinking about it.

‘Frank told me there were two places they were staking out, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t a third, or even more. So they might have taken him elsewhere...but they took him inside, at least for a while. He would have left other clues if he possibly could- maybe something that’ll tell me where they took him. I wonder if Dad went into the house at all? I bet he didn’t. Probably saw the two sets of tire tracks and figured it was just Frank leaving- that’s why he thinks Frank got ambushed on the way to the Inn.’

Mind made up, I slunk up to the old house, wondering what I’d find when I got in there.

***

Going into a strange old empty house always gives me a creepy feeling.

Sneaking into a strange old empty house that was probably being used as a criminal base, by myself, as the sun was going down, freaked me out pretty badly. I wasn’t sure if I was more worried about seeing ghosts or getting caught by the bank robbers.

I have a systematic way of searching houses; I go to the topmost part and work my way down. It’s always seemed more sensible to me to do it that way than to search the middle floor and then move up or down. Frank won’t admit that my way is more methodical, but I’m less likely to skip things and people have less opportunity to evade me.

I got in through the back door, which was closed but unlocked. I went through a scullery into a kitchen and then into a dining room. After that was the living room, and circular stairs led up to the next level. There wasn’t a stick of furniture in the place, but there were footprints on the floor, leading upstairs. That made me hesitate, but the thought of my brother sent me up that staircase, one careful step at a time. The stairs were painted black, now dusty and chipped, and I realized after a moment that they were metal, not wood.

I avoided the middle floor and went right up to the attic. This was a single large room that ran the length of the entire house. There was a window at each end and a lot of dust on the floor. It smelled musty. No footprints, no sign of occupancy. I closed the door quietly, my nerves tingling, and descended to the middle floor.

This was more promising, but also more nerve-racking. I moved as softly as I could, grateful for all the effort I’d put into learning to walk silently. I passed bare walls, listened outside closed doors, and tentatively opened each one a crack before peeking in. Three empty rooms that had probably been bedrooms. A walk-in closet in each bedroom, all stinking of mothballs. One bathroom with a shower stall and one with an ancient bathtub that was raised up on claw-like feet.

The third bedroom interested me the most. It had a fireplace in it, of gray stone- maybe marble, maybe slate. It was the last room on that side of the house, and it had no windows at all, unlike its opposite at the other end of the hall. The really odd thing about it was that it seemed asymmetrical. All of the other rooms had been more or less rectangular; this one was square. Possibly it was an addition- maybe it had been intended for an office or den, not a bedroom.

On this level there were plenty of footprints crisscrossing the floor, and going in and out of the bathrooms, in particular. I figured the water must have been turned on, and probably the electricity, too. There was also much less of a stuffy smell; it’s hard to describe, but it didn’t smell abandoned. People had been in here, stirring up the air with their passage and voices.

But for all that, there wasn’t a sound aside from my own breathing. I should have been feeling as if I was alone, but I didn’t; I felt as tense and jumpy as I had when I first came in. I was actually grateful there wasn’t any sudden noise; I probably would have jumped out of my skin at the slightest sound.

I made my way back to the stairs and went down to the ground floor. It didn’t feel so ‘used’ here; there were very few footprints, almost all of them going straight to the kitchen and back to the stairs. I found another room with a fireplace- probably a den- untouched. The dining room had a dusty chandelier hanging from the ceiling and faded paper on the walls. The living room was the only carpeted room in the whole house- the rest of the floors were wood and stone, though they’d probably had rugs over them at some point. There were empty wire coat hangers and a rat-trap in the coat closet, but the bait was long gone. There were dusty, stained shelves in one little room and I decided that must have been either the pantry or a workroom. There were three cubbylike rooms that had to have been servants’ quarters. And in the kitchen, where I’d come in, there was a great wooden door. I opened it expecting to see cabinets or shelves and instead saw stairs leading into semi-darkness.

It was then that I heard the first sound: water dripping from the kitchen sink. It seemed terribly loud as I looked at those steep wooden steps, but by the time I was on the fourth stair, the silence was complete again.

***

I moved cautiously down the stairs, ears straining, my heart thudding. Still not a sound- though once, when a step creaked, I had to strangle a gasp of fear. I was shivering, partly from the chill that was rising up to meet me, and partly from pure nerves.

When I reached the bottom of the steps and looked around, there was not much to see- and not much light to see it with, either. The floor was bare wood, the walls faded plaster. The place could have been anything from a ballroom to a rec-room to a laundry room. I noted a few outlets on the walls, and water-pipe hookups in one corner, but there was nothing else. What little light there was came from one window, set in the shorter wall at the end of the room.

The shorter wall, I thought, staring at it. I gave the room another look, frowning at the wall opposite the window. "Wait a second," I whispered. A notion was scrabbling inside my head.

The floor above this...a window in the dining room and one in the family room- at opposite ends of the house. The middle floor- a rectangular bedroom at one end with a window and a square den without a window at the other end. And in the attic, a long rectangle with two windows.

Why the discrepancies? I wondered. Why a window on some levels and not on others? And why this weird squarish appearance? Why not a rectangle throughout? It couldn’t be additions to the house-

Unless...

I moved over to the blank wall and scowled at it for a moment. Then I poked it, running my thumb over the surface. "Wood," I whispered. Wood painted the same white as the plaster. I crouched on the floor, my notion becoming more certain by the moment. And there on the wood, I found the final clue.

Sand. Sand that had been tracked in, had fallen from someone’s shoes, and had dried in vague outlines. Outlines that were interrupted by the wooden wall in front of me.

"A secret room," I murmured, and my pulse took off in double-time as I remembered the square den. "Two?" I wondered. "But which one are they in?"

That was the question, all right! I had no wish to open this door- assuming I could find the mechanism- and confront a bunch of hostile bank robbers! But I thought of the footprints in the upstairs- the warmer, brighter upstairs. The lack of footprints on the ground level, the trail leading from the kitchen to the upstairs. So the real question was, were they keeping Frank captive with them, or not?

‘Probably not,’ I told myself as I ran my hands over the wall, searching for a catch. ‘Wouldn’t want him to hear all their talk...’ My hands shook, but I forced myself to examine every tiny niche and crevice.

It took me a long time; the chill seeped through my coat and my hands grew so cold that I had to stop twice and warm them in my pockets for several minutes. When I finally found the switch to open the panel, it wasn’t in the wood; it was in a false outlet, in the long wall closest to me- which happened to be the rear of the house. I hesitated briefly, wondering what alarms I might set off, then clenched my teeth and flicked the switch.

The panel slid silently to the side for about four feet, then stopped. Dank, cold air greeted me as I raced to the opening. I couldn’t see a thing in the pitch-black interior, but I heard a noise- a groan. That was all I needed to propel me into the nasty little room and grope about on the cold dirt floor until I found a soft, shivering lump.

Frank.

I got my hands under his arms and hauled him out of the room, hoping desperately that I wasn’t harming him. I nearly backed into the panel in the process of getting out of there, and pulled my brother to the side so that he wasn’t lying in the crossbreeze.

He’d been bound and gagged, but not blindfolded; I pulled the gag off first and his teeth immediately started to click together. His clothes were rumpled, but he was still wearing his jacket and didn’t appear to be injured. I dug in my pocket and pulled out my jackknife. "Did they hurt you?" I whispered as I sliced at the ropes on his purply-red hands.

"N-no," he whispered back. "J-j-just c-cold." He was blinking as his eyes adjusted to the light, gazing at me in a sort of fearful relief.

"Not surprised," I murmured.

"Wh-where are- they?"

"I don’t know, I’ve been all over the house- probably up in the other secret room," I hazarded, finishing with his hands and moving to work on his feet. That was quicker; when I was done I got up and hurried to the outlet, closing the panel and shutting off the flow of cold outside air.

As I went back to Frank, who was trying to sit up, I noticed that he didn’t look at all surprised at my remark. He nodded, then leaned on me as I knelt beside him. "Thanks," he gasped. "Thought..."

"Shhh. If you can walk, we should get upstairs- it’s warmer."

Frank shook his head. "T-t-too c-cold," he murmured. He was starting to shake in earnest now, so I unzipped my coat, then undid his and pulled him next to me. I wrapped the open ends of the coats around us both, and nearly smiled when my brother leaned into me with a deep sigh. It was basic first-aid for hypothermia, but I had the feeling his sigh had less to do with body-heat and more to do with comfort.

"Th-the car?" he asked after a moment. "Did they-?"

"In the river," I replied softly. "For a while there, I was afraid that..."

"They th-threat-tened to-" Frank’s icy hand squeezed my arm. "To...put m-me in it, but..."

"Wanted to know how much you knew?"

He nodded.

"And you wouldn’t tell them, so they stuck you down here to change your mind?"

Another nod.