Joe's PoV:-

"But what motive would that person have?" Frank thought out loud. "Does anyone else know why you're here?" Nancy inquired. "Well, ATAC does... our dad. No one else that we know of," I answered, tilting my head sideways to see Frank's reaction. He just stood next to me with his hand on my shoulder. Well I was pretty shaken up after what had happened. Bess looked like she had just seen a ghost.

"This is getting weirder and weirder... do you think the person messing with the computer had something to do with this?" Nancy asked. That point clicked in me. Frank and I shared a look. "I don't think we really know yet," answered Frank. So these two cases had the same guy behind it? Or girl. Whichever. But were they an ATAC agent? Nah. A guy arrested by ATAC in the past? Maybe. Someone having a grudge against ATAC? Possible. I wasn't entirely sure just yet. 

I looked at George and Frank, "Did you guys find anything substantial from Deidre's phone?" "Well we found text messages of someone asking her to meet with them, and like you hypothesised the person did ask her to change routes. At the end the person even asked Deidre to delete the past messages and it seems like she did delete some but not all," George answered. "Number's untraceable. I mean I could try to get a guy of ours from ATAC to check it out but it's very unlikely that the person still has the same number on them," Frank mentioned.

"I don't understand one thing though. How did the person manage to lure Deidre, or Ned for instance, to come where they wanted them?" Nancy pondered out loud. "Blackmail?" I offered. "But about what? What could be common between Deidre and Ned for them to be blackmailed by someone and well, supposedly abducted?" Nancy went on.

We all just stood there quietly, no one having an answer. Nancy sighed as she said, "You guys probably have to go by now. But could I ask for a favour?" "Of course!" exclaimed Frank. "Could you guys maybe... check with that friend of yours. If he can trace the number? Please?" she asked softly. I could tell she was dead scared about Ned's safety. "Sure thing" I assured her.

"Hope you find your wallet soon!" I said to George as we parted.

*****

"Oh god how long will they keep standing there?" I exclaimed with exhaustion. We had been standing near the fire exit staircase, hiding from a pair of teachers nearby our room. "You know we could always act like we'd just gone for a stroll outside," replied Frank. "Ugh fine," I said as I walked towards our room.

Our teachers looked at us, smiled and walked away. My jaw dropped. "I stood there, hiding, for what?" I exclaimed. Frank giggled as he unlocked our door. I jumped onto our bed and sighed.

"Ok I'm gonna send this number over to Vijay, see if he can trace anything," said Frank. "Oh, and call mom, dad and aunt T, they all really wanted to talk to you." I gave him a thumbs up as I dialled them.

*****

"What'd he say?" I asked Frank as he got off his call with Vijay. "He can't trace it. He thinks the person must've gotten rid of the sim-card and phone. Which was something we had all expected, to be honest," Frank replied with a sigh. "Well I could only offer even more bad news. Looks like we can't go on any more 'after-school investigations' with Nancy and her gang, we've got after-school extracurriculars." I told him. "Wasn't this for science students so..." he started. "Yeah" I continued for him. "Weird as fuck." 

"Guess I'll inform Nancy about all this." he said as we walked out of our room. We went to the hotel's diner, where everyone else was as well. 

Once we reached, I sat down with my plate but didn't eat much. I couldn't stop thinking for leads and potential suspects. ATAC generally gave Frank and I a proper background of our case and the place we went to, along with the people we expected to meet; but this time, none of that was given. Frank, who was seated across me, caught on to what was going on as he bent a bit, put a hand on my shoulder and whispered, "Hey look, we'll figure it out ok? We just got here and started so don't worry that much and eat." I knew he was trying to hype me up, but after what happened today, I kind of wasn't in the mood for anything. I pushed my plate back and got up. "I don't feel like eating. You take your time," I replied disheartenedly as I walked towards the elevator and to our room to crash.

*****

*Wednesday, Day 4 since the Hardy's arrived*

"JOE! UP! NOW!" - the first words I hear in the morning.

"What?" I groaned, tired. There was a pause. I opened one eye to see Frank standing completely dressed up and with an expression of horror and disbelief. I looked at the time. 7:22. Shit. We had to be down in 3 minutes. "SHIT, WHY DIDN"T YOU WAKE ME UP?" I yelled as I leaped out of bed and dashed to the bathroom. "Well, maybe if you heard me the first 3 times, things would be different."

"You're late." said Mrs. Muller.  "Sorry miss." Frank replied. As much as I should've felt bad for him trying to cover me up I honestly couldn't be asked to. I was so drowsy; I don't think I even fixed my hair. Half asleep I boarded our bus to school. "Aww did Joey wake up late?" Violet mocked. "Shut up," I shot back. Man, was she annoying. 

First and second period was a kind of boring. History, ugh. I mean I wasn't bad at it, I just could not be asked to sit through two straight lessons of it, man. Still had morning crankiness going on, I guess. I pretty much ran out after that was over. Frank and I sat down with Nancy and Bess at lunch. And then they broke the news. 

"Well, George is missing," sighed Nancy as soon as we sat.

"WHAT?" Frank exclaimed. Almost loud enough for everyone to hear and stare at us. And they did. Bess sheepishly picked up her bottle of water to drink. After they turned back he looked back and went again, this time as a whisper-shouted, "WHAT?". I just looked at Nancy, aghast. I couldn't believe it. How could this happen and why was it happening to the people close to Nancy?

"How did this happen? That too considering the fact that we just saw her less than 24 hours ago," Frank asked. "We don't know how it happened. All we know is that she went to take out the garbage and her mum called telling me she never came back," Bess replied. "We tried to look around for clues but this time there wasn't a mess, and no graffiti either. Just this," Nancy added as she handed us a note. It read 'STOP MESSING AROUND OR ELSE'. The text was put down using various magazine cutouts of letters. Typical move. Weird message though. "Messing around with what?" Frank inquired. Nancy just frowned and shrugged in a I-have-no-idea manner.

I bent forwards towards Nancy and lowered my voice as I asked her, "Hey Nancy, don't mind me asking but... are you sure you have absolutely no idea who this person could be, I mean any arch-enemy or something of the sorts. I'm asking simply because this person is clearly coming after all the people close to you." "I mean I really don't have any sort of enemy that ways.." she started. "Except Deidre," Bess butt in. "But we all know what happened to her, so it's someone else." "What if she disappeared so you would stop thinking it's her? Too farfetched?" I pondered aloud. "Hmm, just maybe," Nancy smiled slightly as she sarcastically commented.

"Ok so, apart from her... how about any known criminals?" Frank asked. "I mean I have put some people behind bars. Not like literally. But I've solved many cases where the criminals would've gotten away because the cops took too long," replied Nancy. "But we don't think it's any criminals?" I asked knowing very well what the answer could be. "I have no idea. Most probably not though." she replied. Knew it.

"What if it's two different people? I mean all the other crime scenes where the others were abducted were different than this. Or there may even be three different people we're looking for here." I said. Everyone remained silent at the table.

This case just got a whole lot more complicated.

*****

Word Count: 1455 words

To be fair there's no guarantee that I can complete this soon as I've just realised the last time I published the last chapter was March 2021. It's literally the 28th of January, 2023💀. Anyways a lot happened since. My dad had a transfer so we needed to move countries and then this year after my A-levels finish I'm off to university :')
I feel like (and hope) that in uni I'll finally get more time to write and I can finally work on the million book ideas in my head xD . Till then, I'll try. I'm again finding writing relaxing rather than stressful so I may write more but I can't promise much. Thank you to those although, who have read my books whenever in these past 3-4 years. I appreciate it more than you'll ever know <3.