"Okay, what’s the plan?" Zac asked watching his brother drawing a series of lines on the wall.

‘Well, I figure if we lay out everything we know, maybe we might come up with a theory or something," Ike suggested. "Okay, we know what the crime was: kidnapping. To commit a crime, you have to have motive and opportunity." He wrote each word down across the top of the grid and drew a line down from each of them.

"The motive is money," Zac supplied and Ike wrote it down.

"Or revenge or obsession," Ike said writing those options down. Then he went back and wrote Suspects on the top line.

"Somebody that wants money fast," Zac supplied.

"To vague. We need actual suspects." Ike suggested.

"The girl that Nancy saw threaten Tay," Zac immediately responded.

"Good, I wish we had a name attached to her. What about anyone that Tay or Hanson has made angry for any reason?"

"Like who? We’re cool. We don’t make enemies," Zac claimed.

"Somewhere along the line, we’ve made at least one," Ike reminded his brother. "Who do we know that is crooked?"

Ike looked at his brother with a look of astonishment. "Ike we don’t know any body like that! And, even if we did, do you think Mom and Dad would let me in on it. Up until a couple of months ago they were sending me out of the room every time they wanted to discuss anything worth hearing."

"That’s true," Ike admitted. "Okay, there was the guy in Dad’s office that was charged with embezzlement."

"Yeah, did Dad catch him?"

"No, and they just made him pay back the money and fired him," Ike admitted. "You know who we know? Larry!"

"But, Larry’s died and besides he was only into drugs," Zac excused him.

"Only," Ike mumbled wondering when his little brother had become so desensitized. "Drugs are nasty stuff, Zac. What if Larry was into something really bad? What if he owed someone money or something. If you’re irrational, it’s real easy to blame someone that isn’t responsible for your problems."

"But, Larry’s dead!" Zac repeated.

Ike snapped his fingers. "You know what? Larry had a mother that was still alive, I heard him talking about her one day. But when Dad told us about him dying he said only his sister showed up and that she might have problems too. If we can get to the mother we can find out more about Larry and his sister."

"Does that make the sister a suspect?" Zac asked.

"Best one we’ve got so far," Ike said writing L’s Sister on the wall.

"What about his mother? She could be another Ma Barker or something?" Zac suggested.

Ike wrote L’s Mother on the wall. He also wrote Nut on the board and shrugged his shoulder at his brothers raised eyebrows.

"What else we got? Opportunity?"

"It had to be someone that was watching us or someone that knew our schedule. Someone that knew we were at the studio." Ike guessed. "That someone, had to be someone that has access to the studio."

"Ike that could be any one of several thousand people running around the studio," Zac exclaimed. 

"Only people with vehicles," Ike said narrowing it down considerably.

"Or the vendors," Zac said excited. "They move around the studio lots all the time. I’ve seen caterer trucks, photographers van, trucks for glass repair, decorators, carpeting, and little bit of everything."

"What we need to do is narrow it down to who was on the lot Thursday," Ike said. "Get a check-in roster from the guards or something."

"Who’s going to tell us that?"

"Jenny knows practically everyone at the studio and she has a brother that is a computer whiz," Ike said.

"You mean hack into their computers," Zac guessed. "I’ll bet Agent Curtis already has that information. In fact, I’ll bet he has most of the information that we need already on the computer."

"But, he’s not going to let us at it," Ike said.

"So, maybe we just take it, without his permission," Zac suggested slyly.

"How?" Ike asked not giving a second thought to his brother audacity.

"If I can get to Dad’s computer for five minutes, I can reconnect it back up to the network and download everything we need to Tay’s computer. I’ll disconnect it again, he won’t be the wiser and we get the information we need." Zac said confidently.

"Okay, I agreed we need the files, but how are you going to get in there without getting caught?

"We need a diversion," Zac said with a grin. "I’ll take care of that. The best time would be when they change shifts."

"Ike!" Jessica’s voice could be heard in the hallway outside of their room as she shouted for her brother.

Ike pulled the clothing hangers together so the clothing would cover up his graph. "Okay, you come up with something before three o’clock, otherwise we’ll have to wait until they leave sometime after one or two in the morning."

Zac gave his brother two thumbs up. They needed the information in the computer from Agent Curtis’s files. Zac didn’t like to think of it being FBI files. No, it was his Dad’s computer, so he would just think of it as accessing information from his fathers file server. It was less scary that way.

* * * *

Taylor’s shoulder was throbbing. He’d bruised it over and over again, slamming it against the metal pipes to knock them loose. In his blindfolded state he didn’t know that he was battling old iron pipes from the late 1940’s. After hours of continuously ramming his shoulder against the pipes they had given way. To his relief his hands must have been connected to one of pipes he’s knocked loose, because they dropped about a foot when the pipe had given way. They were still hooked to something and he still couldn’t get them loose. With breaking the pipe loose, Taylor was able to get to the drip of water. He was able to scrunch himself up enough to get his mouth under the broken pipe and he eagerly tasted the long awaited water. It took an hour before he had even begun to quench his thirst because the slow drip didn’t supply more than a couple of tablespoons of water per hour. He was beyond hunger. His stomach was cramping painfully but he figured that at least he could fill it with water slowly. Trying to flex his muscles was becoming harder because he was bound so tightly at the legs that he was going numb more often. He kept at it though, because he reasoned, with his own sarcastic brand of humor, it wasn’t like he had anything better to do.

* * * *

Zac was up to something and it didn’t bode well for Ike. He could feel it. Every time his brother looked at him, he would wink and nod, but he wasn’t forthcoming with his diversion plan. 

Nancy stopped by just before lunchtime, bringing a huge basket of fried chicken with all the trimmings. Diana and Walker thanked her for all her kindness and invited her to join them. Jessica and Zac and Ike could read her sign language because they had been members of the family that Tay had used to practice with. She explained patiently to Avie and Mackie that she could not hear and spoke with her hands as well as her speech and demonstrated a few simple signs to them. They were quite happy to practice them among themselves. 

As the afternoon spent itself Ike began to get anxious about Zac’s plan. Then just as Agent Reiger went off duty and Agent Newman took his place, Zac pulled him aside. 

"Okay, brother here it is," Zac said holding out a glass with a greenish-gray liquid in it.

"What is it?" Ike asked looking suspiciously at the glass.

"Our diversion. Nancy is going to ask Agent Reiger to talk to her, outside. While she’s keeping him occupied, you’re going to keep Mom and Dad occupied. You’re about to get very sick, and while they’re taking care of you, I’m going to slip in and do the download."

"Why do I have to get sick?" Ike demanded.

"Because you never get sick and it will throw them off guard. That’s the beauty of it, the unexpected." Zac said gleefully. 

Ike was still looking at the glass doubtfully. "What’s in this concoction?"

Zac looked at him with doleful eyes and shook his head. "Don’t ask. Just trust me. Swallow it fast and be prepared because you’re about to lose everything, quickly!"

"Why do I get the feeling that you’re going to enjoy this?" Ike asked suspiciously.

"It’ll make up for all those times you made fun of me for getting car sick," Zac promised with a grin. 

"Zac be careful. If you get caught, there going to be a ton of trouble."

"I’m not going to get caught," Zac boasted with his youth exuberance.

"I’m serious," Ike insisted. "Dad can’t do much to me, but he can really nail you. He’s already about to go off the deep end. If you get caught it could be like Tay’s New York."

Zac paled visibly at that reminder. Ike was referring to the last time that their father had physically disciplined their brother. Tay, was just past his fourteenth birthday, feeling a little rebellious and he had been firmly put in his place by their father. Tay, had never forgotten it, although he laughed about it now if someone brought it up. Although spankings were fairly rare in the Hanson family, they were not unknown. Walker firmly believed that sometimes it was a necessary evil when a child started to get totally out of control. Zac hoped that his last session with his Dad, at eleven would be his last.

Zac shook off the threat. "We need those files and I’m not going to get caught. Remember I need five minutes."

"You’ve got it," Ike promised.

Zac gave Nancy the signal and a few seconds later she was knocking on the office door luring Agent Newman outside to talk. Ike picked up the glass and chugged it down trying not to gag at the smell. Thirty seconds later, exactly on cue, he was whizzing by his parents on his way to the bathroom. Of course, the sounds alone of their oldest son being sick, got their attention and they immediately went to his aid.

Zac slid into his Dad’s office totally unnoticed. He knew exactly what he was doing. He pulled the connector cables out of his pocket and had the computer reconnected to the household network in less than thirty seconds. He then rebooted it quickly so it would recognize the connection and bypassed the new password to get into the database. Less than three minutes later the files were uploaded to Tay’s computer. Then just as quickly he pulled the network connection cables out and pushed the button on the CPU back-up so it would look like there had been a power surge and the system was trying to reboot itself and waiting for a password. He peered out the door, saw the hallway was clear and made his escape. Mission accomplished!

It took Ike an hour to calm his Mom down. Although his self-inflicted illness was over quickly and he felt awful, he was more concerned about upsetting his mother and father. They had enough on their minds now without him adding to it. He attributed his illness to ‘nerves’ and after his stomach settled down he was able to convince his Mom that he would be okay. She insisted that he lay down on the couch and hold a cold cloth to his head while she took his temperature. His temperature was normal, although his head was hurting and his stomach was still rumbling occasionally. He definitely owed Zac for this one, and he didn’t mean that in a charitable way. After an hour, he convinced his mother that he was fine and that he should go up to his room to lie down.

Entering his room, Ike immediately opened the adjoining door and entered Taylors’ bedroom. The closet door was closed. There were electrical cords leading into the closet. He opened the closet door to find Zac and Nancy sitting on the floor sifting through piles of paper that the printer was spitting out rapidly.

Zac looked up and grinned. "What took you so long?"

"I’m gonna get you for this," Ike warned, but his attention was drawn immediately to the piles of paper. "What’d you get?"

"Everything," Zac said with a self-satisfied tone. "Personnel records from Mercury, and from the production studio. Pass records from studio security. We’ve got all the interview reports. Man, we got everything they’ve put together."

"Did you warn Nancy about what we’re doing?" Ike asked. "I don’t want her involved unless she knows the risks."

"I want to help," Nancy said putting a hand on Ike’s forearm. "I want to help if I can."

"If we get caught with these records there’s going to be big trouble," Ike warned. "They can’t do much to Zac because he’s a minor, Dad might kill him but, we’re both adults. Agent Curtis could throw the book at us."

"I will take that chance," Nancy said solemnly in her monotone. "Taylor is my friend."

"Okay," Ike said picking up a pile of papers. "The only real suspects that we know about are the mystery girl who threatened Taylor and Larry’s sister and mother. Pull anything you can find on Larry or the sister or the mother. Don’t discount anything by anyone else though. There might be someone who admits to hating Tay or something. Read everything. There may be something in these files that is just screaming to be discovered."

"Joan," Zac said handing Ike a piece of paper. "The sister’s name is Joan, and she doesn’t seem to have an address."

Ike wrote the name on the wall and started a new pile with the paper that Zac handed him. The three of them sat on the floor and sorted through the papers silently reading, stapling them together and stacking them in piles. 

The printer finally stopped and Ike picked it up and carried it back out to Taylor’s desk.

"Zac, did you hide these files?" Ike asked.

"Yeah, they’re buried on the hard drive," Zac promised barely looking up. 

Ike shut the computer down and went back into the closet leaving the door cracked open. 

"Wow," Ike exclaimed reading through a Mercury personnel file. "Larry was a college graduate. Can you imagine that? All that talent and smarts and everything and he killed himself with by drug overdose."

"He couldn’t have been that smart to be taking drugs," Zac snapped.

"True," Ike mumbled returning back to his reading. "Hey I’ve got an address on the mother. Listed here under ‘next of kin’. Mildred Wagaman, 6969 Whitehall Avenue." He got up and wrote that information on the wall. 

Systematically, the three of them kept reading through the files and interviews. At one point Zac got up and wrote ‘Ravi is a Jerk!’ on the wall with no explanation except a loud "Ha!" as he threw the papers over in a pile.

"Joan has a police record," Ike said reading off of a police report. "Arrested two times for drug possession. Once for selling drugs. Once for solicitation."

"What’s that?" Zac asked looking up.

"Hooking," Ike explained bluntly.

"Oh," Zac exclaimed. "Nice sister!"

"Ike?" Diana’s voice carried into the closet.

"Keep quiet," Ike ordered and he turned off the light and darted out of the closet and took a dive onto Taylor’s bed. "I’m in here, Mom," he called out.

"Hi, honey. Are you feeling all right?" Diana asked putting her hand to her son’s forehead.

"I’m fine, Mom. I was just lying here because it’s closer to the bathroom. Just in case, you know," he said with grin. 

"Okay, you’d better take it easy this afternoon," Diana suggested. "Have you seen Zac?"

"Not really," Ike lied. "I think he said something about taking a walk with Nancy."

"Good, he’s not alone. He knows not to leave the property," Diana said. She got up walked out of the room, but she stopped for a second and picked up one of Taylor’s jackets off a chair. She gave it a few strokes as if it was filled with her child and then she straightened her shoulders and left the room with a suspicious sniffle.

Ike waited until he heard her going down the steps and then he reentered the closet and turned on the light. "You two going to have to make an appearance in a few minutes," he told his brother.

"I know, I heard," Zac said looking at his watch and picking up the next piece of paper and continued to read. 

"This is the roster from the main gate for Thursday," Nancy said.

Ike looked over her shoulder. "Man, there must fifty or more vendors that came through that day,"

"That doesn’t exactly narrow it down," Zac said looking up. He waved his hands to get Nancy’s attention and spoke to her in sign as he spoke the words to Ike. "We need to make an appearance for Mom."

Nancy nodded. "I have to leave anyway, but I can come back tomorrow after work and help."

Zac and Nancy sneaked down the back stairs, went outside and then came back in through the front door pretending that they had taken a long walk outside over the grounds. Nancy left with a promise to return the following day. 

Throughout the afternoon Zac and Ike kept sneaking back upstairs to keep reading through the records they had stolen. Finally, they managed to read through the material completely. The wall was covered with notes but for all their hours of effort they had come up with very little. They had learned Larry’s mother’s and sisters first names and they had an address for the mother. Ike figured that was their best lead.

That evening Ike told his Dad that he was getting his appetite back and he wanted to slip out and get a burger and he offered to take Zac with him. Walker agreed and they were off. With Zac in the passenger seat, map in hand they made their way across the city in search of Whitehall Avenue.

"Ike you’re going the wrong way," Zac complained. "These addresses are in the hundreds. We need to get to the thousands. At this rate we’re only seven thousand blocks from where we’re supposed to be!"

"Don’t have a cow!" Ike mumbled. He turned the car around and headed back the other direction. Several miles down the road the neighborhood started to look more run down and seedy. The area was a combination of small post war houses and commercial warehouses. Ike drove as slowly as he could on the road that split the neighborhood in half. 

Zac was counting down the addresses, but it was difficult because many of the houses didn’t have curb markers. They were getting closer and then suddenly he groaned because they missed it. Ike turned around and they tried again, but again they missed it. On the third try, at the last visible address that was 6957, Ike put his emergency signals on and they moved along the road at a crawl. A large section of the block was fenced off behind a tall chain link fence. Ike pulled off the road in front of the gates and read sign by the light of the headlights.

"All these houses have been condemned. They’re going to be demolished and a Super Drug is being built." They walked back and forth in front of the gate and rattled the pad-locked chain link gate. "Zac, the house we’re looking for, is in there."

"Well, how do we get in?" Zac asked.

"We don’t. Zac, they’re condemned. No one has lived here in a really long time."

"Then it’s a dead end," Zac exclaimed disappointment clouding his eyes as he kicked at the gate with unconcealed anger.

"Yeah, but it just means we start all over again tomorrow," Ike promised.