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

Connor MacKenzie watched his girlfriend pace the length of the small room in which they sat, occasionally brushing back a lock of long blonde hair from her eyes before going back to waving her free hand around. Mandy spoke with her mother, Laura, on the telephone about something going on in Connecticut , something having to do with the investigation but, so far, Connor didn’t know what. Mandy spoke mostly in monosyllables, sometimes rushed, as she tried to break into what Laura said.

They’d talked to Laura only a half hour ago, telling her what they’d found in the house and breaking the news about Joe’s being kidnapped by Andrew and not Derak; Laura hadn’t taken the news well. Normally stoic and brave and filled with the courage of lions, Laura had cried. Connor didn’t have to have the phone to his ear to know that; the expression on Mandy’s face at the time explained everything.

“They what?” Connor winced as he heard Mandy’s voice raise again; the shock of the day wore off gradually, leaving Mandy reeling – and angry as well. Connor knew the signs only too well: the flashing blue eyes, the furled brow, the clenched fists, everything screaming that Mandy’s meltdown was close. “Mom…”

Connor paced the confines of the small room at the Bayport Police Department where they currently sat, waiting to talk to the detective who was going to take their statements. Connor hoped it would be Con Riley; if he was going to have to deal with a cop, he would much prefer it to be one of the ones that he actually knew. He occasionally stopped when he got too close to Mandy; he didn’t really WANT to have a collision and she wasn’t watching where she was going.

“Are they okay?” Mandy asked a moment later, stopping to lean against the small table in the room. More subdued now, the hand absently pushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “Will they get to come home soon? Did you tell them about Joe, Mom? About Andrew?”

Connor relaxed back; the anger seeped out of Mandy as she continued to talk. The steely glint to her eyes faded to concern and the set to her shoulders relaxed as she leaned on an elbow on the table in the room, holding the phone to her ear.

“All right,” Mandy sighed. “I’ll try, Mom. We have to give our statement here. I’ll come back after that’s done, if you want me at home. Otherwise I want to see what we can do about finding Andrew. Anything we can find before Dad and Frank get home…I know, Mom. I KNOW, Mom. Mom… Mom….”

Connor smiled behind his hand; it wouldn’t do to make Mandy angry again, even if she was being pretty funny. Obviously Laura was not fond of the idea of her baby girl trying to investigate Joe’s kidnapping – at least not without her husband and son along. Connor often wondered which of the Hardy parents Mandy inherited her temper and personality from – until he met her Aunt Gertrude. While Mandy was more mild than Aunt Gertrude, she did have that peppery temperament Connor witnessed on more than one occasion.

“OK, Mom,” Mandy sighed. “I promise, I’ll come home as soon as we’re done here. I’ll wait for Dad and Frank to get home before I do anything ‘rash’. But, Mom, I’m not waiting forever. Joe’s out there and he’s getting farther away and harder to find. But I’ll come home. Promise.”

She visibly deflated on Connor and he went over to her, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and holding her, rocking back and forth to comfort her. He wanted to bring the smiles and bounce back to her personality; to see the girl that he loved be happy again. Having her twin brother kidnapped was weighing heavily on her and he didn’t want her to be sad anymore.

“See you later, Mom. Bye.” Mandy disconnected her cell phone and sighed again. “She said Frank and Dad were in an explosion in New Haven . That Uncle Derak blew up in a helicopter.”

Connor gasped. “How’d that happen?”

Mandy shrugged. “Someone put a bomb in it. Derak had basically kidnapped Frank and was going to take him away. Dad was barely able to pull Frank free of the helicopter just before it blew up. Frank was knocked into a pond on the back of the property and Dad fell into like a mulch pile or something. Anyway, they’re both in the hospital. Frank’s supposed to get out tomorrow and they’re going to drive back then. She doesn’t want me looking for Joe.”

The last was said with an obvious air of resignation.

“Hello, kids.” Connor relaxed when he saw Con Riley’s friendly face staring at them. “I thought I’d come in and take your statements myself, though I should warn you that you may get interviewed again by the F.B.I. It will depend on what Agent Merrill wants to do when she gets back from New Haven .”

“You’re going to do our statements together?” Mandy asked, surprised. “I thought you’d separate us.”

“You’re not suspects, Mandy,” Con reminded her. “But, yeah, we’re not separating you. We got the actual eye-witness account from your friend, the one who saw your cousin driving off in the car with Joe. What I want from you is what happened to lead you to investigate that house.”

Mandy turned and showed Con the chunk of her hair that had been cut off earlier that day.

“We were just canvassing the neighborhood,” she explained. “Finding out if anyone saw anything the day that our house blew up. We went into the old Andiron place – I didn’t know that they didn’t live there anymore. I knocked; I didn’t think anyone was there so I started to leave, then the door opened and someone cut off a big lock of my hair in the back. That made me angry so I started pounding on the door. Nobody would answer, they wouldn’t acknowledge I was there so we, uh…we staked the place out.”

“You broke in?” Con asked.

Mandy shrugged. “I thought maybe they had something to do with the explosion – or Joe being kidnapped. I may not have been thinking straight but I had to find out what was going on. We were looking the place over when we found those pictures - and then we were told about Joe being taken away by Andrew…”

Mandy’s voice caught in her throat and Con took a deep breath, calming himself and his own nerves. She was obviously rattled – more rattled than he had heard her in a long time, even when the house had gone up. He gave her a moment to settle her nerves, smiling when Connor put an arm around her shoulders.

“We were that close, Con,” Mandy spoke softly, eyes turning up to gaze into the eyes of her boyfriend before turning back to the detective. “We were that close to finding Joe, to getting him back. I never…I never suspected Andrew. I mean…he was a victim too. His father…he was a victim. How could he do this to Joe?”

“It’s obvious by what we found that Andrew is not exactly stable,” Con said, diplomatically. “Something happened in the intervening years while your uncle was in jail – something that caused him to obsess on Joe. We saw the same headlines that you did – and what Andrew wrote about them.”

Shrugging, Mandy leaned back in her chair. “No matter how he’s doing this, I’m not going to let him get away with it and I’m not going to cut him any slack. He took my brother. He may be screwed up in the head, but nothing gives him the right to take Joe away like he’s some kind of toy.”

The anger, once absent, slowly seeped back into her face. Connor gently rubbed her back, trying to quiet her the best way he knew how. He didn’t want her this upset; she needed to stay calm!

“We’ll find him, Mandy.” He gently stroked her hair, knowing she loved the feeling of fingers running down the long strands. “We’ll find him. One way or another, somehow, we’ll find the clues that are needed. You know your dad won’t rest until he’s found; neither will we.”

Con stared at the younger man for a moment and Connor returned the stare. Yes, Connor said to the man without speaking. WE are going to look for Joe. Con finally looked away, nodding slightly. Connor turned his attention back to his girlfriend, smiling as he rocked her in his arms.

“Come on, Mandy,” he said. “Let’s go find the others and get to work.”

The normally mild-mannered young man sent a decidedly challenging expression to the older police officer still seated at his desk, before he stood with Mandy and walked out of the police station.

** ** **

“Is…is everything okay, Dad?” Frank mentally cursed his brief stammer as he reached out a hand in the direction of where he had last heard his father speak. He felt it caught up in a strong, warm[,] hand as his father leaned in close, his musky scent familiar.

“I just talked to your mother, son,” Fenton sighed, weary with fatigue and the aches and pains from the explosion. “She had…news…”

Frank would’ve paid a lot of money to see his father’s face just then, but he caught the hesitation. He didn’t really need to see to imagine the frown marring Fenton’s face or the creases in his forehead. Frank squeezed his father’s hand to encourage him and smiled wanly.

“Just tell me, Dad.” Frank ran a thumb along one of the fingers on his father’s hand. “Just tell me, okay?”

“Andrew,” Fenton began and his voice caught. Frank frowned, pushing until he sat up more, and adjusting the bed until he was in a full sitting position.

“What’s wrong? Did something happen to Andrew?” Frank was not that close to his cousin but never wished him ill.

“No, Frank,” Fenton’s voice steadied and just a hint of steel entered it. “No. Andrew is the one who took Joe. Mandy – one of her friends saw him drive away with Joe in that blue Audi. They were in the Andiron house.”

“The Andiron house?” Frank closed his mouth before he looked like a gaping fish. “But that’s just across from our house. The Andiron house? And…Andrew? But how?”

He blinked, feeling stupid and slow, like someone told him the punchline to a joke he never actually heard.

“Yeah,” Fenton said faintly. “He had a room full of pictures – of Joe. He was obviously obsessed. According to Mandy, Andrew had a diary, had write-ups on post-it notes on some of the pictures. He’s the one who nearly killed Vanessa, who tried to kill you and Mandy…”

“But…”

Frank paused, wondering if the drugs he was on were making him hear things. Obviously, he was hallucinating.

“But…how?” he asked. “I mean, the explosions…it…where’d he learn that?”

“I don’t know – yet,” Fenton said. “But I will. In the meantime, what do you think about going home first thing in the morning?”

“How early is first thing in the morning?” Frank blinked and shook his head.

“O-Dark-Thirty,” Fenton grinned. “That’s how early. Maybe we can get out early enough to miss the truly delightful traffic in New York City . Then again, maybe we won’t.”

“What about statements? Don’t we have to give them to the police?” Frank wondered briefly why he was reticent about going home. He wanted to go home, to see his family, to get out of this hospital, and yet his mouth kept coming up with excuses why he couldn’t leave.

“The F.B.I. is taking them. Deanna and her partner are coming with us to Bayport – in their own car.”

Frank shifted again and plucked at the blanket over his legs, staring at unending blackness. Still anxious, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do – except find Joe.

“All right,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

For once, Frank didn’t mind the wheelchair ride to the car because, while he could walk, it hurt and he wanted to use his cane to get around with, not to support him. He settled into the back seat of the spacious sedan, stretching his bad leg out as he closed his eyes. His father packed too many blankets around and over him but he felt cozy and cared for. He relaxed against the pillows behind him and leaned against the soft, leather-backed seat.

He woke later when a car bleated somewhere behind them and he grimaced, rubbing his ears as he sat up a little, leaning forward until he touched the back of the front seat.

“Where are we?” he asked.

“Bridge going onto Long Island ,” Sam Radley’s soft baritone sounded. “Another hour or two, depending on traffic. How are you? Want some water?”

“Yeah,” Frank reached forward and a cold bottle slapped into his hand. He sat back and opened the bottle, drinking greedily to clear the cotton balls in his mouth. “Thanks. Is Dad asleep?”

“If the snoring a few minutes ago is any indication, yeah,” Sam said.

“I,” this time Fenton spoke. “Do not snore. Never have, never will.”

Frank laughed and took another gulp of water.

“Sure, Fenton, old pal,” Sam retorted. “So it was what, a tape player of a lumberjack sawing logs?”

“Nope,” Fenton said. “It was your imagination.”

Frank laughed again and idly checked his seatbelts – two of them – uncomfortable as they were with him lying sideways. He leaned back again as he listened to his father and Sam continue their playful banter. He was about half asleep again when he heard Sam yell out,

“Oh, my God! Hold on!”

They were rammed hard from the back and Frank was flung forward, hitting the back of the seat in front of him despite the seatbelts. He grunted and braced himself with his good hand on the back of the front seat.

Suddenly, they were struck again from behind just as a loud report banged through the air and, just behind him, the back window shattered.

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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.