Hardy Detective Agency featuring Hardy Boys Fan Fiction

Disclaimer: The Hardys and Callie aren't mine. Darn. But everyone else is. No lawsuits, please.

Frank and Joe Hardy were sitting in the well-furnished living room belonging to Daniel and Callie Hunter. Large bay windows allowed the late-afternoon sun to stream in, and an Oriental rug with reds and greens stretched under a mahogany coffee table.

Present besides the young investigators were Callie and Daniel; Daniel’s parents, and the immediate family of Sandra Weston Hunter.

Callie stood to make introductions.

“Everybody, thanks for coming,” she started, looking to her extended relations. “I’d like you to meet some very good friends of mine: Frank and Joe Hardy. They’re the private investigators I’ve been telling you about. They’ve graciously agreed to look into what happened to Cal, Sandy and the baby.

“Frank; Joe, you already know Danny…” Callie said, motioning to her tall, scholarly-looking husband who stood up and remained at her side. He gave them a brief nod with his dark head. His bespectacled blue eyes looked as if they were filled with worry, and his mouth was a thin, taut line.

“You guys met Danny’s parents, Martin and Janice, at our wedding, I think,” Callie continued, as she pointed out the elder Hunters. “And let me introduce Lawrence and Roberta Weston - Sandra’s parents - and her younger sister, Jodi.”

The older Westons were seated close together on a couch, holding each others’ hands in a tight grip. They nodded in Frank and Joe’s direction as a greeting. Jodi, who was also sitting on the same couch to her mother’s right, gave a half-smile and offered a shy “Hi.”

“I’ve heard a lot about the sort of work you’ve done from Callie,” Martin Hunter said to the Hardys in a deep baritone of a voice. “If there is anything you can do to find the whereabouts of my son, my daughter-in-law and my grandchild, I will be eternally grateful to you.” His wife, Janice, slid a little closer to him on the love seat they were occupying, and Martin draped an arm around her shoulders. They both looked like they were on the verge of a tearful breakdown.

Joe Hardy looked around the room and made a concerted effort not to feel too uncomfortable. It was difficult, because he hated missing-persons cases. Such cases, in his experience, usually turned out badly. Together with Frank, they had had some successes, like the missing investor they’d travelled all the way to Australia to track down. They’d wasted three months searching the Outback for Simon Wheland, expecting to find a dried-up carcass, if anything at all. When they did find him, very much alive and well, his flimsy excuse was that he’d simply lost track of time.

Probably won’t happen with this case, Joe thought glumly to himself. His instant gut reaction when Frank told him about Callie’s desperate request was that Calvin, Sandra and Andrew Hunter would not be found alive. They’d been missing for far too long.

Joe looked into the faces of Sandra’s parents. He read there debilitating worry, confusion, dejection and sorrow. Did Lawrence and Roberta also possess some primal, instinctive feeling that their older daughter was dead? He’d read stories where some parents simply knew with uncanny accuracy the fate of a missing child. He liked the accounts where, against all odds, a parent refused to give up based on some inner voice that told them their loved one was among the living. In certain cases, the parents’ insistence and persistent searching was rewarded with a joyous reunion.

There were other accounts, of course, where a parent might say: “As soon as I heard he was missing, I just knew in my heart he was never going to be coming home.” All too often such a feeling ended up being true, as well.

Which category did these two distraught families fall into?

More than anything, Joe wanted a happy ending for this family. So unless Cal, Sandy and Andy have been abducted by aliens and are being given the grand tour of the universe, I don’t think they’ll ever be coming back home.

Joe looked over at his older brother. This was not going to be a pretty case, but knew that they couldn’t refuse Callie their help. He just hoped that whatever the outcome, they would be able to get some concrete answers. And if the Hunters’ disappearance was indeed due to foul play, Joe also hoped they’d be able to secure justice.

Callie, having finished the introductions, moved with Danny to a pair of chairs in the corner of living room.

“Thanks, all of you, for coming this afternoon,” Frank said, leaning forward, and looking at each person in turn. “When Callie came to me a few days ago, I knew I would not be able to turn her down. Both me and my brother want you to know right now that we’re not doing this out of a sense of duty. We’re here because you need help, and the police just don’t have the time or resources to devote to a lengthy investigation. The trail has gone cold, but you have my word that we will do everything that is humanly possible to find out what happened to Calvin, Sandra and baby Andrew.”

“We’ve requested from the state police whatever information they have in their investigation of the disappearance,” Joe stated, picking up where Frank left off, “but we’d like to hear from all of you what you know at this point in time. We understand, of course, that you’ve probably been over this numerous times in the past month. Anything you can tell us at all, no matter how insignificant, will be very helpful to us.”

“Right,” Frank echoed. “Plus, we’d like to have recent pictures of the three of them, if you have any at all. Callie told me you’ve already posted pictures of them in and around the town nearest the cabin they were staying. We’d like to keep that up.”

Roberta Weston spoke up: “The most recent photos were taken at the hospital just after Andy was born. Larry has them stored on the computer. We took quite a large number, of course.”

“Good,” Frank said with a nod. “You can e-mail them to us, then, as soon as possible.”

“I have other pictures here with me now,” Roberta said, opening her purse. She rummaged around and pulled out her wallet. “Here. These are of Cal and Sandy after they were engaged. The pictures are about a year-and-a-half old.” She passed them down the line to Frank and Joe, and they were soon looking at a smiling, attractive young couple.

One of the wallet-sized photos showed Sandra with shoulder-length, naturally wavy dark brown hair. Her blue eyes sparkled under well-shaped eyebrows, and her nose was straight. With full lips, high cheekbones and perfect complexion completing her facial features, the two Hardys conceded that Sandra was a very pretty woman. It was also easy to see that she resembled her mother in many ways. In fact, both Weston girls looked like Roberta, as Jodi’s own looks mirrored her mother’s.

Calvin Hunter also had dark hair and blue eyes, much like his older brother, Danny. He had what some would describe as ‘boyish’ good looks. His grin showed off white teeth, and his cheeks were dimpled. Cal had inherited a strong, square jaw from his father, as well as a slight cleft in his chin.

“They were just going up to the cabin for the weekend,” Martin Hunter said, in answer to Joe’s request for details surrounding the disappearance. “They’re both of them outdoorsy people.”

“Weren’t they a bit worried about having a newborn infant with them in a remote area?” Frank asked.

“Cal and Sandy? Worried?” Martin scoffed. “If they’d had a choice, they’d have given birth to Andy in the cabin. My kids aren’t yuppies, Mr. Hardy. No, they weren’t at all concerned about taking the baby up with them. They’d love to get him as accustomed to it as soon as possible. It’s what me and Janice did with the boys.”

“What were they driving?” Joe asked.

“Well, the SUV, which they would normally have used, was in the shop, so they took Sandy’s Taurus,” Martin Hunter answered. “Someone - some vandal had gone on a spree in their neighbourhood the day before they wanted to take the drive to the cabin. The tires on the SUV and seven other cars on the street were slashed. The Taurus was parked in the garage at the time.”

“License plate number and description?” Joe asked.

“It’s a dark green sedan,” Jodi Weston piped up, “like a forest green. It’s a pretty common colour for the model of Taurus Sandy bought. It was a 1998. The plate number is S72 8KV.”

“I tried to call them late the Sunday night they were supposed to come home,” Roberta spoke in a soft voice. “I only got the answering machine, so I just thought they perhaps hadn’t come back yet. I left a message telling them they could call as late as midnight. Just to let us know they got back safely, you know?”

Frank and Joe nodded.

“And…they just never called back…” Tears spilled over onto Roberta’s cheeks, and her husband, Lawrence, pulled out a handkerchief.

“It’s okay, Larry,” Roberta sniffed impatiently, wiping at the tears with her hands. “I’m okay. I just need to know what happened to them. Not knowing…that’s what’s driving me crazy.”

“Of course,” Frank said soothingly. “This case is our top priority as of right now, Mrs. Weston.”

As Frank and Joe departed from Callie and Danny’s home later that evening, they could not help but wonder what sort of trouble Calvin and Sandra could have encountered on their return trip from the cabin. The Hunters and Westons were adamant that the disappearance was definitely involuntary. They also confirmed the complete lack of enemies that might want to harm either Cal or Sandy.

The Hardys had recently dealt with a case involving Nancy Drew, whose ‘disappearance’ was also involuntary; but a necessary action so that she would be provided with protection against a contract on her life. Frank and Joe were quite sure the reason behind Cal and Sandy’s vanishing act had little to do with any kind of Witness Protection program.

Whatever the case, the brothers knew they had their work cut out for them.

Between the two of them, though, the most upsetting part of the whole case was that an innocent child was involved. It was already appalling to think that Cal and Sandy might have met with a terrible fate - but what sort of monster would harm a newborn baby?