Author's Note: Hey guys I am soooo sorry that I haven't updated in forever. It has been crazy busy here and we are in the process of getting ready to move so I can't promise that I will have another update till after we move, but I will definitely try. Thank you for your patience and for your continued support for this story, and I hope you will continue to read it despite my lack of having updated. Well, I hope you enjoy this chapter, I've spent all day on it which has been interesting since I knew what I wanted to happen but sometimes the words got clogged in my brain and wouldn't come out. Anyways, thanks again for your patience.

I Don't own the HB or ND just borrowing their brilliant characters!

Chapter 17

"Get down!" Frank shouted pushing Nancy to the ground as the bullet whizzed past. It hit the lamp that was on, causing the bulb to shatter and plunging the room in darkness. Frank looked up and could barely make out the man's silhouette, but could see he was still at the doorway. Frank saw him aim the gun in their direction and instinctively rolled taking Nancy with him, just as another shot rang out. This time he wasn't quite as lucky as he was before, as he felt the bullet graze his ankle. He winced so as not to let the stalker have any knowledge to how close he had come to actually hitting one of them.

By now footsteps thundered upstairs and Frank knew his dad would be coming down soon, most likely with one of his firearms. The stalker let out a curse before shouting, "I'm not finished with you, Hardy, I'll be back to finish the job and to collect my woman."

Frank glanced back to the door again and saw him leaving quickly. Frank looked down at Nancy, who was underneath him, his mind reeling with the implications of the man's threat. There was no way he was going to let that happen, not when he still had a chance to catch him. Without a second thought, he leapt up and began hurrying to the door, ignoring the pangs of pain that coursed through his ankle.

"Frank, wait..." He heard Nancy shout as his slippers hit the snow covered sidewalk. Turning to look both ways he couldn't see any figure running. Clenching his fist in frustration, he quickly moved to examine the ground hoping to find footprints showing which way he went. But since it hadn't snowed since a few days ago, all he could see was a jumble of prints from the many people who had walked there that day since then. He moved around scanning the front yard to see if he had possibly left any other clues, but to no avail.

Frank groaned and kicked the snow, upset that once again he had escaped. He turned as Nancy, Fenton, and George came out of the house towards his side.

"Where is he, I want to give him a piece of my mind!" George exclaimed and Frank noticed she was holding a baseball bat in her hand.

Frank sighed and said, "I don't know, and there's no way to discern any noticeable footprints either."

"Frank, did you get any glimpse of the man's features?" Fenton asked, putting the hand gun he was holding in the pocket of his robe, since the immediate danger had passed.

Frank shook his head causing Fenton to sigh, "Well, lets go inside and I'll put in a report to the police." he stated.

As they began walking towards the house, Frank caught up with Nancy and put his arm around her shoulder then asked, "Are you ok?"

She smiled a weak smile and leaned her body into his, "I'm fine, how about you?"

"Angry more then any thing, I just don't get how he could disappear like that again!" Frank replied just as a pair of headlights came up behind them. Everyone turned to see who it was at this time in the morning, though Frank pushed Nancy slightly behind him just in case.

One of the back doors opened and a familiar voice spoke, "Hey, look, they even came out to welcome us home!"

Frank smiled in relief, and moved away from Nancy to rush to his brother's side. "Joe, where have you been, I've been worried?" He asked clapping him on the shoulder.

"It's a long story, bro." Joe replied as he moved to open the front passenger door, and held his hand out to Bess who took it and proceeded to exit the vehicle.

The car was turned off then, and Carsen Drew stepped out of the drivers side. Nancy let out a cry of joy and ran to her father, embracing him upon reaching his side. After a few moments, Fenton encouraged everyone to come back in the house where it was warm.

"Whoa, what happened in here?" Joe asked upon seeing his Aunt and mother cleaning up the broken glass from the floor.

"Nancy's stalker decided to try a little shooting practice." George stated through gritted teeth as she closed the front door and locked it.

"Nancy are you ok?" Carsen asked upon getting a look at his daughter's face for the first time.

"I'm better now that you're here, dad." Nancy replied hugging her father again.

"I wasn't expecting you till tomorrow, Carsen." Fenton said placing his gun on the table by the couch.

"Well, I couldn't bear to stay away from Nancy in her time of need." Carsen replied to which Fenton nodded completely understanding the feelings.

After the glass was cleaned, Aunt Gertrude and Laura went to make hot chocolate and a snack for everyone while the group took a seat in various places in the living room. Fenton went to his den to place a phone call to the police leaving the teens mostly to themselves.

"Bess, Joe, what happened to you guys? It's been quite a few hours from the dance." Frank asked.

Joe looked over to Bess, who gave a slight nod indicating he should begin, before he spoke, "Well, as you know I went looking for Bess as soon as Dad got to the station. I came here first thinking maybe she asked Wade to bring her home, but she wasn't here. Then I realized she must not have heard about what happened to Nancy or else she would have had him drive her to the police station."

Bess interrupted then and said to Nancy, "I'm so sorry, I had no idea you'd been hurt, Nan. Wade just said he was done with the crowd at the dance and that he'd like to take me somewhere where it would be just the two of us. If I had known what had happened I would have never..."

"It's ok, Bess," Nancy interrupted, "I've been well taken care of since then and I'll be all right." She finished glancing gratefully at George and Frank.

"So Wade decided to use you as an alibi did he?" George said folding her arms in disapproval.

Bess lowered her head but didn't offer any retaliation. Frank noticed he wasn't the only one who was surprised at her silence, but before George could offer any questions, Joe continued, " So anyways, Mom did tell me Bess had called and wanted to let everyone know that she was going out to dinner at some fancy restaurant and for us to not worry about her, cause Wade would bring her home when they were done. Well, needless to say I drove around for a good couple hours checking every fancy restaurant I could think of, but still couldn't find them. Finally I ended up in Allendale. I was about to turn around when I caught sight of Bess walking. Turns out Wade had taken her to some upper class place in Allendale, but before they could order, he excused himself to make a phone call. Bess waited there for over an hour before the restaurant asked her to leave. Wade and his car were gone." Joe ended with anger in his voice.

"Then Joe's car engine decided to quit on the way back, so Mr. Drew saw us walking and offered us a ride here, after making sure the car was towed safely to the mechanic's place, that is, and that's why we're so late." Bess added and the room fell into silence.

Frank sat back into the couch, his mind going over the new information. Adding to the events from earlier, he had to admit Wade seemed like the most likely to have something to hide, even more so then before.

"There's something else too," Bess spoke up, causing everyone in the room to turn towards her, even Joe seemed surprised at this announcement. "When Wade and I were driving to Allendale, I had to use his phone when I called here, and when I typed in the number it came up right away. He had the number saved to his contacts and I don't remember giving it to him. Did anyone else give him the number?"

Everyone quickly assured her that they hadn't, so Bess continued, " That's what I thought... anyways there's more. I said that I needed to make another phone call to my parents, but then I typed in Nancy's home phone number..."

Frank held his breath as Bess paused, dreading to hear the words that might come out of her mouth. Looking around the room he could tell he wasn't the only one. Finally she spoke, "That one came up as well."

"Well, there you go, isn't that the proof we need to lock him up for good!" George exclaimed.

Carsen spoke up for the first time since the conversation started, "Well, not necessarily, while that is a type of evidence, the police can't arrest him for having phone numbers in his phone, especially since anyone can get them out of the phone book. And even if that was good enough for the police, it wouldn't do much to hold up in court without something more concrete linking him to an event that's happened."

"Yeah, and we still have another suspect to think of too." Nancy said, then turning to her father she asked, "Daddy, did you tell Ned that I was going to the dance tonight?"

Carsen thought for a moment before shaking his head negatively, "No, I haven't spoken to him in months, why?"

"But, sir, he showed up at the dance claiming you told him about it." Frank spoke moving forward, as another set of red flags went off in his head.

"Well, I did no such thing, and even if he had asked about Nancy's whereabouts tonight I would have told him to call her. After all he isn't dating her anymore so, I leave that kind of information to her discretion." Carsen said, causing an alarming silence to settle amongst them.

"Well then is it Ned or Wade who shot at you guys tonight?" Bess asked in confusion.

" Unfortunately I think only time will be able to answer that one 'Cos." George replied as the gloomy feeling began settling even more.

"Till then I think the most important thing to worry about is Nancy and Frank's safety." Fenton Hardy's voice spoke causing the group to be startled not having heard him come back in, "Especially since whomever it was gave a pretty serious threat before he left. " Fenton continued as he moved to sit amongst everyone.

"Well, what else do you think we should do, Dad, it seems no matter what precautions and extra measures we take, he's always been there to put a crimp in things." Joe said with curiosity.

"Carsen, I think it's time to put plan B into action." Fenton spoke directly to his friend. Carsen's face fell but he shook his head in agreement.

"Wait, dad, what are you talking about?" Nancy asked turning to her father for information.

"Fenton and I spoke when I was up here visiting a few weeks ago and came up with an alternate plan in the event that things became too dangerous for you here. And the plan is that we would send you undercover to Idaho to stay with Hannah and her husband until things clear up."

Frank's breath caught in his throat at the thought of Nancy having to go away indefinitely till things wrapped up. He knew that Nancy missed her housekeeper dearly since she had gotten married two years ago, and that the chance to see her again would be enough to get Nancy to seriously consider it, especially since Hannah was like a mother to her. But Frank's heart felt heavy at the thought of not seeing her or hearing from her for an extended period of time, of not being there to make sure she was safe. It was all he could do to not shout out his protestations because he also knew in his heart that it would be the safest thing for her to do right now.

"Well, what about Frank, dad, you said we needed to keep him safe too, since he's apparently become a target due to his interest in Nancy." Joe spoke up causing Frank to send a sudden glare at his younger brother and Nancy to blush. Joe seemed to ignore the two and continued with his thought, "I mean I don't think his new vendetta against Frank will go away just because Nancy's not here."

"Actually I was thinking about that and I've come up with a few new ideas since the parameters have changed a bit. I would send Frank undercover with Nancy as well, so that Nancy would continue to have someone looking out for her while she's gone and vice versa. Then since the police can't do anything without more evidence against either Wade or Ned , I'd like the rest of you to keep an eye on both of them and try to dig something up. Bess, since you've had more interaction with Wade then Joe or George, I'd like you to take the lead in trying to see if there is anymore evidence on that end with Joe helping as well. George, since you know Ned pretty well, I'd like you and Chet to return to River Heights and see if you can find anything on him." Fenton replied and Frank felt respect for his dad, knowing he'd spent some time thinking up how to best go about this.

Though Frank's heart was put at ease a little more at the thought of going along with Nancy, he was still unsure about the idea of sitting around doing nothing, leaving family and friends to take over and find the clues. He glanced over at Nancy and could tell by her face she was struggling with the same thoughts.

"Well, Bess, I'm game if you are." Joe was the first to speak and turned to see her reaction.

Bess sighed and fiddled with her shawl a little, "Well, only if you've got my back." she said reluctantly.

Joe pulled her into a hug, "Always." he stated firmly before kissing the top of her head.

"I'll talk to Chet, I'm pretty sure we can wrestle the evidence out of Ned if need be, it won't be a problem." George said causing some of them to chuckle at the image she portrayed.

Frank looked to Nancy again and he knew how hard it would be for her to walk away in the middle of this, he knew the pain that would come from having to be undercover and the feeling of not having any contact with family. But he also decided that he wasn't going to let her stay here to endure any more of her stalker's harassment, not if he could help it. So taking a breath he simply asked, "Nan?"

Nancy took a teary breath too as every eye on the room turn to her, "All right, we'll do it." She replied as she gave her father another hug.

Frank nodded, before saying, "All right, so when do we leave?"

Well there you have it, I don't know that I loved the way this chapter came out but no matter how many different ways I tried to get it, it always came back to this... so anyways, like I said I'll try to update sooner next time, I'll just have to see how the move goes and everything. But please R&R you guys are awesome!