HDA - Living in Darkness Trilogy - Pt 2 - The Search

Face scratchy and achy. She lifted a shaking hand to her face and felt along the lines of her cheekbones. She felt something warm and sticky. Put it to her nose and inhaled, smelling the unmistakable scent of blood.

"Agent? Agent, can you hear me?"

Right, she said. I can hear you. You don't have to yell.

It came out as "mmph, ugh, bleh…"

"Agent Merrill?" The voice was closer. More insistent and much louder than necessary.

"Here," she managed at last. Deanna groaned again. Her mouth felt like cotton. Her nose hurt. Her eyes felt gritty with sand, and her body ached all over, top to bottom. Even her little toe on her right foot hurt. She wondered, frowning, where her shoes were.

It took a moment to remember she'd been wearing those blasted dress shoes, rather than her comfy-as-all-get-out New Balanceä tennis shoes. When had she done something that stupid?

Losing it, she thought. Losing it. Totally losing it. Forget about the stupid shoes, Merrill, and get on with things.

"Audrey?"

Deanna called her partner's name, hoping that the other woman was not badly injured from the accident.

"Audrey, can you hear me?"

Deanna heard a light moan from her right and she looked toward her partner, seeing little in the dim light inside of the car. Deanna reached with her hand, wincing as pain lanced through her shoulder. She ignored that in favor of her partner's welfare.

"Good," Audrey murmured. "’Live."

"That's good," Deanna exhaled sharply with relief and turned to the man standing outside the window. "Don't be all day. Did you call the paramedics and fire department yet?"

The man, whom Deanna didn't actually recognize, nodded. "Yes," he agreed. "They're on the way. I was down the highway when I saw the explosion dump your car."

"Good," Deanna nodded. "How'd you know I'm an agent?"

"This," the officer held up Deanna's badge. "It came out the window when you flipped. Is your partner all right?"

"Conscious," Deanna said. "’All right’ is still under debate. Do you see any gas leaking out anywhere? I don't want to burn to death in here."

"Not so far, ma'am," the youthful officer said. "I'll keep an eye on it."

He paused and listened, then smiled. "They're almost here."

"Deanna," Deanna said. "Not ma'am. Deanna."

"Deanna," the officer agreed. "Roger Corey. I go by R.C."

"Deanna?" Audrey interrupted. "I think I can get out on this side."

"Don't even think about it Audrey!" Deanna ordered her partner. "You don't know how badly you're hurt. Wait for the paramedics to get you out."

"I don't like being upside down. Blood's rushing to my head," Audrey complained. She shifted in her seat, as if trying to get her legs back below her head where they belonged.

"Stop it, 'Rey." Deanna laid a hand on her partner's leg. "You'll just aggravate any injuries you have. Do you want me to have to explain this all to Daniel? Or, worse, Bill?"

"I'm not going to stay here upside down, Dea." Audrey shifted again, this time succeeding in uprighting herself so that her head was toward the bottom of the car and her feet toward the top of the car.

"Nothing to it," Audrey grunted. Deanna frowned at her insubordinate partner and debated chewing her out for being foolhardy but decided against it. After all, if she had the room, she'd do the same thing and damn the paramedics – or the injuries.

"You still okay?" Deanna asked.

"Better than I was a few minutes ago," Audrey agreed. She shoved her long, sandy blonde hair out of her face and tied it into a loose knot at the nape of her neck. "Can you wiggle at all?"

"Nope," Deanna replied, cheerfully. "I'll wait for the paramedics. Once I'm out, though, we're back on the trail if you are up to it."

"I'm up to it all right," Audrey said, grimly. "What in the hell happened, anyway?"

"We got shelled," Deanna replied. "That guy in the Mercedes, I bet."

"Shelled?" Looking confused, Audrey peered out through the shattered windshield – it had not broken into pieces, yet, but there was a fine webbing of cracks all through it. "What? That makes no sense, Deanna!"

The senior agent shrugged and rubbed at her face again, wishing for a termination of her pounding headache.

"What doesn't?" she asked, curiously.

"Bombs. Rocket shells. The whole thing seems a bit far-fetched for a simple kidnapping case. I mean, think about it, Deanna. How many kidnapping cases have we seen in the last several years? More than either of us can count, right? And just how many of those kidnapping cases had the kidnappers bombing, shelling or otherwise going after the authorities looking for them? The most we usually expect is to be shot!"

Deanna's clear, blue-eyed gaze met her partner's hazel one and Deanna shrugged, wincing when more pain shot up into her shoulder. "Good point," she said. "And the answer here is this: The person who has Joe doesn't want him found, and he is willing to do anything – anything at all – to stop us from finding him. That includes bombing helicopters, shooting off bazooka shots at us and otherwise causing mayhem until we get off the case – which won't ever happen. It's obvious Andrew Mathews is desperate and has absolutely no remorse about killing anyone who gets too close to finding out where he is keeping Joe Hardy."

Deanna winced and rubbed at her temple, taking deep breaths to force herself to relax and ease the tension there.

"One thing's for sure, though." The blonde agent turned a hyena grin toward her partner. "He just made a huge mistake."

"What?" Audrey asked, confused. "What mistake?"

"Artillery shells," Deanna grinned. "They can be traced. We'll have him. Soon as I get out of this car and make some phone calls. We're close, Audrey. I can feel it!"

** ** **

Fenton Hardy and his partner, Sam Radley, pulled up to a small house located in Woonsocket, Massachusetts and peered around intently, listening and waiting as the police escort pulled in behind them, tacitly providing the two private detectives with an official reason to be here. Fenton waited for the police to step up to the deserted house and knock on the door before announcing that they were police and would be coming in.

Fenton remembered those days from when he had been a New York City detective; days of announcing his intention, of announcing the fact that he was a police officer with a search warrant and would be entering with or without the permission of the bad guys involved. Fenton sighed with satisfaction when there was no answer, and the officer tried the door handle before nodding to him.

Fenton admitted he did not quite have Frank's manual dexterity with lock-picking tools but he could jimmy one in only slightly more than twice the time that it took Frank to do it. The lock popped with a satisfying 'chunk,' allowing the officer to open the door and lead the way inside of the room.

"Someone's been here, recently," Sam commented, idly. "In the last few days."

Fenton nodded his agreement as he looked around the small room in which they stood. There was solid evidence of foot tracks through the dust on the carpet and an opening where some webs hung down from the doorsill going into another room at the back of this room. Fenton bent down to study the tracks, running a hand through the air along the edge of one solid shoe print.

"Men's shoe," he announced. "Size 11. I believe that tread's a Nike™, but I'm not positive about that."

"All right, everyone," the police officer – a woman in her forties named Isabelle Romero who had introduced herself as 'Detective Issy Romero, call me Issy.' "Let's clear out of here and let forensics in to do their thing. We don't want to disturb any of the evidence that might be in here.

Although Fenton understood, he turned with great reluctance. He wanted to do the evidence collection himself. Every delay in searching meant a further delay in finding Joe, giving Andrew more time to get further away. Fenton sighed as he thought about his youngest son.

Stay strong, Joe, he thought. Stay strong and stay well. I am going to find you. I promise.

He backed out of the room, careful to stay in the prints he made going in, and slowly joined the other officers – and Sam – who were leaving the small house. He went to lean against the hood of his car, staring balefully at the forensics team as they went into the house.

"Patience, grasshopper," Sam said from behind him. Fenton looked over his shoulder and found Sam standing, hands in the pockets of his coat, eyes on his partner. "They'll do a good job and do it faster than we could. Let's give them time."

"We don't have time," Fenton growled, impatiently. "Andrew's had Joe too long already."

"You'd rather they hurried and missed something?" Sam raised an eyebrow at the thought. "I thought you wanted Joe found, pal."

Fenton growled again. "I do!"

"Then be patient," Sam advised. "Because if you don't, we'll just hash this up all over the place. They'll be out here before we know it and we'll hopefully have some information that we need to find Joe and Andrew. That's how this works."

As much as Fenton hated it, he knew Sam was right. Not that he wanted to hear it, of course, but he knew he had to hear it – and to accept it as well.

"I hate just standing here," Fenton muttered. "I feel like I'm just wasting time."

"Me too," Radley admitted with a grin at his partner. "But we'll survive it. We've been on too many stake-outs to not remember how this is done."

"I always hated stake-outs," Fenton grumbled.

"I know," Radley laughed. "Me too. But we do them because we have to. And you will wait here, patiently, because you have to. Right?"

Fenton frowned, then shrugged. "Fine."

"That's my partner." Sam settled back to lean against the car as well.

Fenton studied the house a while longer before he turned to Sam, a frown on his handsome face.

"What if all of this is a smokescreen?" Fenton asked, curiously.

"What?" Radley turned to him, diverting his attention from the house.

"All of these addresses we have, the houses all over the place in every direction between Bayport – or Connecticut – and Cambridge . What if it's all a smokescreen?"

"A smokescreen?" Radley said, slowly.

"Yeah," Fenton said, feeling slightly nauseous. "What if the house we're looking for isn't under Andrew or Cathy's name at all. What if he's got Joe somewhere that can't be traced to Andrew?

"What if this is all for nothing?"

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Disclaimer

The Hardy Boys belong to Simon and Schuster and the Stratemeyer Foundation. The authors 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.