Authors: Franklin W. Dixon
Blood Relations (12 page)
"John moves even faster than you think," said a voice from the doorway.
Everyone in the room turned to see John Dunn standing there.
In one hand was the .45 that the boys had seen before, but in the other was something much more frightening — a radio-controlled detonator.
"Hello, Walter," he said menacingly. "Just drop your gun. If I push this button, a very lovely young lady will be blown sky-high."
His expression grim, Walter Rawley stood motionless for one long minute, then he clicked the pistol's safety on and dropped it, soundlessly, onto the carpet at his feet. Frank let out a long sigh of relief.
"I got here just in time to hear your message, Linda," John Dunn said. "You did a nice bit of negotiating, but I'm happy to say it was unnecessary. We can forget about trading now. We don't have to give up anything to get everything we want."
He didn't have to say anything more. The big smile on his face said it all.
"DAD, I KNEW you'd come through," Greg said.
"Don't I always?" Dunn said. He draped his left arm affectionately around his son's shoulder.
" 'Dad'?" said Joe, his mouth falling open. "You mean — ?"
Walter Rawley's expression was even more stunned.
"Sure, it makes perfect sense," Frank said. "The family that slays together, stays together. Right, John, or whatever your real name is?"
"You have the answer as usual, bright boy." Dunn grinned. "Too bad you didn't wise up sooner. It wasn't too smart of you to call and tell me you were heading here. But, of course, as far as you were concerned I was on your team. Well, don't feel bad, Frankie. We all make mistakes. Too bad for you this one will be your last."
A troubled look came over Greg's face. There was a note of urgency in his voice. "Dad, when did Frank call you to tell you where he was going?"
Dunn looked puzzled at his son's concern. "Why, just a few hours ago. He left a message on my machine. He said he hoped I had escaped from the crooks the same way he had, and that he was heading back to Bayport to make sure the three of us were still safe at Callie's."
There was panic in Greg's voice as he said, "Dad, maybe you didn't get there in time to hear, but Frank told us that he already knew about you by that time. Why would he let you in on his plans then?"
Suddenly Dunn looked worried too. He pointed his gun at Frank meaningfully. "Okay, Frank, explain and explain fast."
But Frank didn't have to.
Something else happened fast — faster than Dunn could react to. Biff Hooper and Chet Morton came tearing through the doorway behind him.
Biff hit Dunn low, Chet hit him high.
Just Biff alone would have brought Dunn down. If he hadn't been such a great fullback, he would have made a star tackle. And with Chet's added weight, Dunn went down like a pancake being squashed. Chet, another of the Hardy's inner circle of friends, not only had the muscles of an occasional but strenuous weightlifter, he also had the weight of a voracious and unceasing eater. He was a man mountain, and right then he was sitting square on top of Dunn.
The instant they hit Dunn, Frank quickly moved to grab the detonator as it squirted from Dunn's hand.
Then he asked his friends, "Have any trouble with the goons guarding the house?"
"Naw," Chet said, getting off Dunn and letting him join his wife and sons against the wall. All four of them had their hands raised. "Those guys were too busy looking at the house to see us coming up from behind. We tied them up real nice for delivery to the cops."
"Well, keep these guys on ice while I go get Callie," said Frank.
By now Dunn had found his voice. It came out in a snarl. "So you set a trap for me, Hardy."
"Now you're the one who's being a bright boy," said Frank with the relish of revenge.
"Sure, I see it all now," said Dunn, nodding his head as rage smoldered in his eyes. "You wanted to make sure you could get your hands on me so I would tell you where Callie is. You figured I was the big cheese, and once you had me, it would be easy to mop up everything else."
"Good thinking," Frank said.
"Too bad yours isn't as good," said Dunn. "I hate to break the news. But you're not going to find sweet Callie out in the driveway. That thing's a dummy, a bluff. I just didn't want any shooting till I was in control. And besides, I'm not even the boss on this operation. He's the one who's going to pull the trigger on your sweetheart."
Frank's mouth was a thin, hard line as he digested the news. He walked to the front and looked out the window, hoping to prove Dunn a liar. When he returned he said, "I may not know much, but I do know who'll pull the trigger on you if you don't tell me where Callie is."
Dunn just smiled. "Come on, Frankie boy, I know you too well to buy that."
"You're wrong, Dunn," Frank said menacingly. "And you don't want to find out how wrong. Shooting you would be like shooting a poisonous snake."
But Dunn kept smiling. "Nice try, but I don't bluff."
Frank stood, staring for a moment at Dunn, then shrugged in defeat. "Hold this, will you?" he said to Walter Rawley, and handed him the gun. Then he faced Dunn again. "You're right, I couldn't use a gun on you, but," — he extended his hands and flexed them purposefully — "I can do things with these that might make you prefer the gun." He paused and looked straight into Dunn's eyes. "Are you sure you want to find out how far I'll go to rescue Callie?"
***
"Oldest trick in the world—hiding someone in a place you've already searched," Frank said to Joe. They were moving cautiously toward the bungalow where they had found William Clark's corpse.
"Yeah," agreed Joe. "Pretty good idea, though. With Clark out of the way, it's a real safe spot to stow somebody."
The Hardys had left John Dunn and his fiendish family under the guard of Walter Rawley, Biff, and Chet. Frank said that as soon as Joe and he got Callie back safe and sound, they'd phone and the cops would be called in to haul the Dunns away.
John Dunn said that Callie had been left alone in the bungalow, bound and gagged, but the Hardys were taking no chances.
"No way we're betting our lives, not to mention Callie's, on that slimy character's telling the truth," Frank said.
Joe nodded. "That guy lies as naturally as he breathes. Which way do you want to bust into the bungalow?"
"Let's give them a one-two punch," Frank said. "I'll go around to the back door and pick the lock. Give me four minutes to do that. Then you ring the front doorbell. I'll wait thirty seconds, then skip inside. If anybody but Callie is in the house, we'll have him in a pincer."
"But what if somebody inside takes a look at me through the peephole?" asked Joe.
"The door doesn't have one," said Frank. "I noticed that the first time we were here. I remember thinking that Clark had no way of knowing that a killer had come knocking on his door."
"You don't miss much, do you?" Joe grinned. "Got to admit, it does come in handy sometimes. Let's synchronize our watches."
It took Frank only a couple of minutes to pick the back-door lock. Fenton Hardy had given both him and Joe instruction in this skill, saying that if the two were going to be detectives, they'd have to know how to get through locked doors of all kinds. Fenton knew what he was talking about.
Frank watched the numbers on his digital watch flashing until it was time for him to move, and when it was, he moved fast.
He went through the door quickly, ready to battle anyone who might try to stop him. But the coast was clear in the kitchen. Still on guard, he moved into the next room, and relaxed.
There was only one person in it.
Callie.
She was in a chair, bound and gagged, just as Dunn had said.
Frank relaxed, weak with relief.
"Callie, you're okay," he said, and moved toward her.
But as he came closer, he saw she was rolling her eyes, as if desperately trying to tell him something, warn him of something.
He glanced around, saw nothing, and hastily took the gag from Callie's mouth.
"Watch out, he'll be back in a second!" she gasped.
"'He'?" said Frank.
But before she could answer, there was a crash from the next room.
And then Joe's voice.
"Call me ghostbuster!"
When Frank reached the next room on the run, he saw the answer in front of him.
It was lying practically where he had seen it before.
The body of William Clark.
This time, though, there was one big difference. Frank had time to see that it was breathing.
"I don't know who was more surprised when he answered the door, him or me," Joe said an hour later, after the police had come and picked up Clark and the Dunns at Callie's house. Joe and Frank were sitting with Callie and Walter Rawley, tying up the last threads of the web of deceit. "I recovered first, though," Joe went on, "just in time to cool him before he could get his gun out."
"That's what happens when a crook gets away with too much for too long," said Frank. "He gets overconfident. Clark must have been so sure Mr. Rawley and you and I were already wiped out that he felt safe in answering the door."
"He was confident, all right," said Callie. "So confident that he figured he didn't even need to keep me alive. He forced me to write a supposedly secret note that John Dunn would pretend to find implicating Mr. Rawley as a murderous master spy. He said that Fenton Hardy would be stunned enough by the death of his sons not to question that evidence. He paid me the compliment of saying that I was too smart for my own good, and that he'd feel safer with me out of the picture."
Walter Rawley shook his head. "It's still hard to believe. Meek, mild, loyal William Clark. He's been with me long — ever since I started Laser."
"And he's been stealing secrets all that time," said Frank. "He's the big boss that Dunn was talking about. He's the one who decided that your company was so big now that the only way to have access to everything it was doing was to take it over completely. And he had to be the one who worked out the scam, the one who knew that the loss of your wife left you vulnerable to somebody like Linda."
"Come to think of it," said Walter Rawley, nodding, "he did keep urging me not to work so hard on the California business trip I took, the one where I met Linda. He said I should try to have a little fun, meet new people. I was really touched by his concern." He gave a grimace. "And I guess I was almost killed by it."
"Well, you're not the only one who was taken in," said Frank consolingly. "I have to admit I was almost fooled too."
"Almost," said Joe. "Come on, they practically had you jumping through hoops. All they had to do was make you want to prove to Callie that you could beat out Greg in finding the truth. You were so eager that you shut your eyes to anything that might slow you down."
Frank cleared his throat and hoped the something that felt very much like a blush wasn't coloring his face. "Well," he finally said, "it's true that I didn't want Callie to be taken in by a guy like Greg. Not that I was jealous, understand. I mean, 'concerned' would be a better word. That's it, I was a little concerned."
Callie, who had been listening to this with a straight face, couldn't stop herself from smiling now. "You mean, I went to all that trouble to make you jealous, and it didn't work?"
"Then you really didn't think Greg was so hot?" said Frank, smiling too.
"What I did think was that maybe you've been taking me for granted lately," said Callie. "Going steady is one thing, but going to sleep on a relationship is something else. I figured you needed something to wake you up."
"Well, next time," Frank said, putting his arms around her waist, "send me an alarm clock."
The End.
