Stolen Identity Read online

  I snorted. “Bro, need I remind you that we are about to enter Cliffside Manor? As in, the most haunted house on this side of the Mississippi? And you’re revving your engines over some pile of dusty newspapers?”

  “Hey,” Frank retorted. “At least newspapers are real. What do you expect, for some phantasm to come sailing through the walls and take a selfie with you?”

  “No,” I said, annoyed. Of course, when he said it that way, being so excited about the haunted aspect of the manor did seem a little silly. “Anyway,” I continued as we crossed the threshold into the house, “ghosts or no ghosts, you’ve got to admit—this house has seen its share of sinister stuff.”

  Frank nodded, and I saw his eyes flick around nervously as we stepped into the front room. Legend had it that the people who’d first owned in the house, a wealthy, aristocratic family, had unknowingly built it on a piece of land belonging to a solitary man who lived in a cabin in the woods nearby. The man, who hunted deer and rabbits for food, was furious that this family had taken over and spoiled his land, but he had no legal leg to stand on, and therefore wasn’t taken seriously by the family or anyone in town. The story goes that on one particular night, when a raucous dinner party filled the forest with noise and light all night, the man broke into the house carrying an ax—and left no one inside alive. Once the horrific scene was discovered, the local police pursued him into the dark forest, where he supposedly threw himself over the cliff ’s edge. His body was never found.

  No one wanted to live in the manor after that. Gossip hung around the place like a cloud of smoke—people claimed to see the figure of the man, who they named the Gray Hunter, lurking in the shadows of the house, frightening off anyone who dared to enter. Of course, plenty of people think the whole story was nothing more than an urban legend meant to be told around a campfire, but still—just looking at the house gave you the willies.

  As we entered the foyer, what I found there did nothing to dispel the idea that the place was, like, one hundred percent haunted. Heavy velvet curtains covered every window, and the only light that pierced the gloom came from a dusty chandelier above our heads. Where there wasn’t creepy oil paintings of little girls and long-dead rich guys with white wigs on, the walls were covered in peeling, olive-colored wallpaper. The whole place smelled of mold, overlaid with a cloying vanilla scent that must have been sprayed around in an attempt to mask the stench of rot. It was quiet except for the ticking of a hulking grandfather clock and the wind moaning through the rafters, a sound that sent shivers down my spine.

  It. Was. Awesome!

  I glanced over at Frank to see if he was enjoying this as much as I was. “Isn’t this great?” I asked him. “It’s so creepy! I can totally imagine a Nathan Foxwood book about this place.”

  “The atmosphere is pretty cool,” Frank admitted, studying the room. But then he wrinkled his nose. “I could do without the smell, though.”

  Our guide, Adam, had climbed halfway up the staircase to the second floor and was trying to get everyone’s attention. “Welcome to Cliffside Manor,” he said over the murmuring of the crowd. “All of the items for sale by the Foxwood estate are clearly marked with labels and suggested prices. If you are interested in purchasing an item, simply pick it up and bring it down to this room to complete the sale.” He gestured toward a table where several people sat with open laptops and a cash box. “If an item is too large to carry, you can ask one of the assistants here to mark it ‘sold’ on your behalf. Please be courteous to other customers and . . .” Adam’s voice trailed off. He looked unsure of what to say next, but finally cleared his throat and continued. “And, just be careful. As you all probably know, this is a very old house, and things can happen unexpectedly in places like these.” He clapped his hands once, as if trying to clear the air of the mystery that surrounded his words. “Well! I won’t take up any more of your time. Good hunting, everyone!”

  People in the crowd immediately shot off in different directions, probably in search of the most valuable items on offer. “I’m going to check out the study,” Frank said. “I heard that Nathan Foxwood had a ton of true crime books in his collection—I’d like to snag a few if they aren’t too pricey. Where are you off to?”

  I rubbed my hands together in anticipation. “I’d like to buy something if I can, but I want to do a little exploring first. Take it all in. How often do you get to just walk around a place like this?”

  Frank nodded and said he’d meet back up with me in the main room in half an hour. With most of the shoppers milling around the first floor, I thought I’d get away from the pack and head upstairs. I loped up the steps two at a time until I reached the landing, where two murky hallways led away from the balcony that looked down on the foyer below. So I did what I always did when I faced a choice like this—I turned left.

  The second floor of the house was no less creepy than the first—and being alone up there only upped the freaky factor tenfold. Everything was covered with a thick layer of dust, and cobwebs lurked invisibly in the air, only to be discovered by my face when I walked straight into one.

  After recovering from that unpleasant, creepy-crawly sensation, I have to admit—I was starting to get a little freaked out. I kept getting this weird feeling that someone was watching me, but whenever I turned around, there was no one there.

  Get ahold of yourself, Hardy! I thought. I mean, wasn’t this what I wanted? A real-life haunted house experience? For all I knew, Nathan Foxwood himself had walked down these halls, getting inspiration for whatever he’d been working on before he died. I wonder if this place freaked him out, too.

  As if in answer, somewhere up ahead there was an ear-splitting scream.

  FRANK

  BY THE TIME I GOT to the study, it looked like a lot of the hot ticket items had already been snatched up and the crowd had moved on. I found myself alone. The room had a high ceiling and wall-to-wall bookshelves—many of them now half-empty after being pillaged by the shoppers. Even the great mahogany desk near the window already had a SOLD sticker on it. I was surprised to see that the antique black typewriter on the desk hadn’t been taken as well, but then again, it didn’t have a tag, so maybe it wasn’t for sale. I remember reading in Nathan Foxwood’s obituary that he was infamously old-fashioned when it came to his writing—he apparently never used a computer, preferring to write his books on typewriters.

  I noticed a piece of paper was still set inside the typewriter, with half a page of writing left incomplete midsentence. It was a little spooky, seeing it left behind like that, knowing that the man who had been working away at it would never get to finish the thought. I leaned over to read the words on the page, my curiosity getting the best of me.

  The night was full of creeping shadows, I read, and my heart leaped, sickeningly, at each creak of the house, at every moan across the gutters. I felt like a deer in the woods, smelling the hunter on the breath of the wind, knowing that though I still lived my fate was sealed. And then I saw him. Too large to be a living man, and too silent besides—he appeared like a devil at my bedroom door, lit from within by an unearthly glow and hefting an axe in his hands. “The Hunter,” I whispered. I had scoffed at the villagers’ warnings, ignored their dread tales—but I had been wrong. I hadn’t believed in the Hunter, but he did not need my belief to come for my blood. I opened my mouth to—

  That was all.

  Never really being interested in horror stories myself, I’d never picked one up, though Joe pushed them in my face as often as he could. But reading this now, I could see why he liked them. The words sort of grabbed you and didn’t let go. Despite myself, I shivered.

  And then I felt a prickle at my neck. A sensation like I was being watched. Figuring it was just another shopper who had come into the room while I was reading, I turned around to face them—but there was no one there. And then movement outside the window caught my eye, and I looked through the gauzy, threadbare curtains to see what appeared to be a figure looming on the oth
er side. It was a large, dark shape, made featureless by the gray light behind it. I took a step closer and saw the outline of an object it seemed to be holding in its hands. A familiar object, one that glinted sharply as it moved.

  An ax.

  My breath caught in my throat and I stumbled back—and at that exact moment I heard the sound of a distant scream. I instinctively turned toward the sound. Did it come from upstairs? What was going on? Remembering what I’d seen, I turned back to the window, back to the dark figure—but when I looked again, it was gone.

  Had I been imagining things? Joe and his ridiculous stories are getting into my head! I went to the window and pulled aside the curtains. Out on the balcony there was a decorative stone statue of a man—could that have been what I’d seen? Was it just a trick of the light?

  That didn’t matter now. Forcing myself to focus, I ran out of the room to try and find the source of the scream. Everyone in the front room was pointing upstairs, looking spooked, so I took two stairs at a time until I reached the landing.

  “Joe!” I called out. “Where are you?”

  “In here!” came his reply from a room at the end of the hall.

  I entered the murky sitting room to find Joe kneeling down next to a woman who held one shaky hand to her head, her face ashen. She looked to be in her forties, with dark, wavy hair streaked with silver, and blue eyes that fixed on me as I came in. “I heard a scream,” I said, breathless. “Is everything all right?”

  “Frank,” Joe began, “This is Heather Foxwood. She’d passed out when I came into the room, but she seems fine now.”

  “Should I call an ambulance?” I asked her.

  “N-no,” she managed. “I’m not ill. It’s just that . . . well, I saw something.”

  “What?” I asked.

  Mrs. Foxwood looked down at the floor, shaking her head. “It’s impossible,” she muttered to herself. “It can’t be.”

  “Please,” I urged. “Just tell us what you saw.”

  Mrs. Foxwood took a deep, shuddering breath before saying, “It was him. The man from the stories. The Gray Hunter.”

  There was a moment of silence as Joe and I let this sink in. What was she saying? That she’d seen a ghost? There had to be another explanation. Was someone playing a cruel prank on a mourning widow?

  “Tell us exactly what happened,” Joe encouraged her.

  “I was just in here putting tickets on a few final items,” she said. “When the room suddenly got colder. And then I sensed movement out of the corner of my eye—and there he was. He appeared out of nowhere, just there”—she pointed at the stone fireplace in front of us—“with an ax in his hands. He was coming toward me, soundless, when I screamed. I must have blacked out then. When I came to, though, no one was here but this young man.” She gestured at Joe, who was clearly enthralled by her story.

  And so I felt it was my duty to be the voice of reason in all of this.

  “Mrs. Foxwood,” I said. “My name is Frank Hardy, and you’ve already met my brother Joe. Solving mysteries is kind of a hobby of ours, so we’ve seen a lot of strange stuff—but they always turn out to have a logical explanation. Can you think of anyone who’d want to scare you like this? You are a local celebrity, and with what’s happened, your name has been in the papers a lot over the past few days.”

  Mrs. Foxwood sighed. “I know what you’re thinking—the grieving widow of a horror writer seeing ghosts in her house. It’s almost cliché. But I am a scientist, Mr. Hardy. I don’t have my head in the clouds like my husband did. Like you, I believe in facts. I believe in what I can see right in front of my eyes.” She wrapped her arms around her shoulders as a shiver shook her. “And what I saw was something I cannot explain.”

  At that moment a bunch of people—including Adam Parker—came into the room, swarming around Heather Foxwood like buzzing bees. I pulled Joe out into the hallway, trying to get away from the chaos, but even out there people were hanging around, gossiping.

  “Did you hear?” one woman was saying. “Heather Foxwood saw the Hunter!”

  “Really!” said an older man with her. “I just overheard a couple other folks saying they’d seen some kind of shadowy figure lurking around as they were shopping. Looks like this place is haunted after all!”

  I was rattled. Joe was overjoyed.

  “It’s like being in a real Nathan Foxwood novel!” he crowed.

  I rolled my eyes. “You don’t really think she saw a ghost, do you?” But then I suddenly remembered what I’d seen back in the study, and I felt the blood drain from my face.

  Joe noticed the change in my mood immediately. “What? What’s wrong?”

  I shook my head. “Nothing, nothing,” I said.

  But my brother’s like a bloodhound—once he’s picked up a scent, he’ll follow it until the ends of the earth. He squinted at me and exclaimed, “You saw something too, didn’t you! Don’t lie to me, bro—you know I can see right through you.”

  I crossed my arms, annoyed. “Fine! Yes, I saw something. But I’m sure there’s an explanation for that too!” So I told him what I’d seen back in the study.

  As I described the figure, Joe’s eyes widened in amazement. “It was the Gray Hunter!”

  “Or someone dressed up like the Gray Hunter, more like.” I retorted.

  “Oh, really? You said that you saw the figure only seconds before you heard Mrs. Foxwood scream. But that would have been the exact same time that she saw him. So tell me how this person managed to be in two places at once?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but I couldn’t think of a good answer. “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Yet.”

  “Excuse me,” a voice broke in. Joe and I turned to see Adam Parker standing in front of us, his bow tie askew, and his eyebrows furrowed in concern. “Mrs. Foxwood tells me that you’re Frank and Joe Hardy, the amateur detectives. Thank you for coming to her aid back there.”

  “Sure thing,” I replied.

  “I wonder if you would be willing to do me a favor,” he continued. “I’m in a bit of a predicament here, and I’m not sure where else to turn.”

  Joe grinned, not even making an attempt to disguise his excitement. “Of course,” he answered. “What can we do to help?”

  Adam straightened his tie and launched into his story. “So, being an aspiring writer myself, getting to be Nathan Foxwood’s assistant seemed like a dream come true. I could learn from the best, right? And for a while, it was like that. Mr. Foxwood was a great guy—he was always full of ideas. Until a couple of months before his death. That’s when things started to fall apart. It was almost like Mr. Foxwood was losing touch with reality. I’d find him talking to himself, claiming to see things that weren’t there. He heard voices. Eventually it got so bad that the night of the accident, Mrs. Foxwood was so upset about his behavior that she left to go stay with a friend for the night. I tried to talk some sense into him, but Mr. Foxwood was out of his mind. He threw me out.” Adam looked at the floor. “I didn’t find out about the accident until late the next day. I was in shock. Anyway, I figured that was the end of it, but then all these strange things started happening. Weird noises in the house. Whispers. Things going missing from the house. I started to think I was losing my mind too! And now all this mess at the estate sale—the reporters are already having a field day!” Adam covered his face and sighed. “Look guys, I don’t believe in ghosts any more than the next person. But something is going on here. Mrs. Foxwood doesn’t want the police involved—she’s been through enough as it is—but I need to get to the bottom of this. Would you be willing to look into it for me? I don’t know where else to turn.”

  I had to admit, the whole situation had really piqued my interest. Even if Adam hadn’t asked us to take the case, not knowing the truth about what was really going on would have nagged at me for ages. When I glanced over at Joe, the dopey grin on his face told me that he was already in the game. “We’d love to help,” I replied. “When do you want us to start?”
/>
  “Tonight,” Adam answered. “At midnight. Mrs. Foxwood is holding a memorial for Nathan outside on the grounds. She’s going to read an excerpt from the book he finished right before he died, then spread the ashes. Most of their friends and colleagues will be there, so it’s the perfect opportunity for you guys to sniff around and talk to people.”

  Joe gave a sharp nod. “We’ll be there,” he said.

  As we walked out of the house and back into the windy, gray day, I couldn’t help but wonder who—or what—else would be joining us that night.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  FRANKLIN W. DIXON is the ever-popular author of the Hardy Boys series of books.

  Don’t miss the next mystery in the HARDY BOYS ADVENTURES: The Gray Hunter’s Revenge

  ALADDIN

  SIMON & SCHUSTER, NEW YORK

  Visit us at

  simonandschuster.com/kids

  Authors.SimonandSchuster.com/Franklin-W-Dixon

  READ ALL THE MYSTERIES IN THE

  HARDY BOYS ADVENTURES:

  #1  Secret of the Red Arrow

  #2  Mystery of the Phantom Heist

  #3  The Vanishing Game

  #4  Into Thin Air

  #5  Peril at Granite Peak

  #6  The Battle of Bayport

  #7  Shadows at Predator Reef

  #8  Deception on the Set

  #9  The Curse of the Ancient Emerald

  #10  Tunnel of Secrets

  #11  Showdown at Widow Creek

  #12  The Madman of Black Bear Mountain

  #13  Bound for Danger

  #14  Attack of the Bayport Beast

  #15  A Con Artist in Paris

  COMING SOON:

  #17  The Gray Hunter’s Revenge

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.