J.M.J.

A/N: Thank you so much for continuing to read this story, and even more so if you have followed and/or favorited it! Thank you especially to Ritu, Cherylann Rivers, Guest, ErinJordan, max2013, curlingduck, and Candylou for your reviews on chapter 8 and to Guest for your review on chapter 1! I love reading your reviews and they mean a lot to me.

I am going to be away for about a week, and I can't depend on having Internet during that time. Because of that, I may not be able to update in that time. If I don't, don't worry – I'm not dead and I'm not abandoning the story. I won't leave you wondering forever if and how Joe gets out of the mess I've put him in. Thanks for your patience!

Chapter IX

In the Night

"Don't you think you'd better tell that detective – Sam Radley – about what Joe did?" Emily Jacobs was sitting cross-legged on the futon in Iola's apartment. She and Iola had been fast friends since they had met in college a few years ago, and with Callie away in Rome, Emily had become Iola's chief confidante.

Iola was sitting in an armchair, with Sandy curled up at her feet, staring at Emily with all the intensity that a dog can summon. Iola shook her head in confusion and misery. "I can't let the story get out. What if it's not true after all? Even if it is true, I – I still don't want to hurt Joe any more than I already have."

"You might have to hurt him some more if you plan on helping him," Emily pointed out bluntly. "How's that detective going to find him if he doesn't even know the whole story?"

Rubbing her temple like it ached severely, Iola tried to make up her mind. "It might not even have anything to do with anything."

Emily snorted. "Yeah, right. Your boyfriend is two-timing you, you break up with him over it, his other girl turns up dead, he's the prime suspect, and then he disappears. I'm sure none of that is related in any way, shape, or form."

"I guess you're right, Em." Iola sighed. "I just wish there was some way to do this without dragging Joe's name through the mud."

"He already dragged himself through the mud." Emily shrugged. "We both know what happened. It's not your fault if he turned out to be some kind of first-class jerk."

Iola bristled at this. "He is not."

Instead of taking offense at the outburst, Emily gave her a sympathetic smile. "Hey, I know it's hard to deal with all this. And I guess I've never really talked to Joe much. I'd like to give him the benefit of the doubt, but – well, I don't have any doubt in the matter."

"How can you be so sure?" Iola asked, sounding a little desperate. "Like you said, you don't even know Joe all that well."

"You do know him well, or at least you thought you did," Emily countered. "You were convinced until he started making you feel bad. But seriously, Iola, if your detective friend is going to find him, he needs all the facts, which include what Joe was doing – or what we think he was doing, at any rate."

"Yeah." There was nothing else for Iola to say. She knew Sam would keep everything she told him confidential if he could, but if he thought it was evidence, he would be obligated to repeat it to the police. From there, it was only a matter of time before it would get to the press. Iola felt sick. If she kept what she knew to herself, it might delay the search like Emily said, and then who knew what would happen to Joe? But if she told, she would destroy Joe's reputation, and by extension, that of the entire Hardy family. It was a cruel choice to make, and she couldn't make it now, not with Emily right there, staring at her. "Excuse me a minute."

Not giving Emily the time to ask any questions, she got up and hurried through the front door of her apartment, sitting down heavily on the steps to the porch. She spotted a bouquet of slightly withered white roses lying on the ground next to the porch. The roses Joe had tried to give her yesterday. She had forgotten about them, and one of the many visitors she'd had that day – Sam, the police, Emily – must have accidentally kicked them off the porch. Handling them gingerly, almost as if they were something sacred, she picked them up. Their whiteness had taken on a slightly yellowish tint as they had withered in the hot July sun. A tear dropped onto one of them as Iola thought back on what she had done and what she now needed to do.

HBHBHBHBHB

Frank watched the guards as they made their rounds that night. No sooner had one disappeared from view than another appeared. Moreover, no single guard was watching any particular area. There was no way an outside could get in without being spotted by a guard, and there was no way one of the guards could pull off the theft without being spotted by one of his coworkers. Yet someone had been doing exactly that. It was a strange problem. That was the only thing that was certain.

It didn't help that Frank was having a hard time keeping his mind on this case. He was far more concerned about the case back at home. His brother was in trouble, and Frank hated the thought of not going to help him. Yet, he had talked it over with Fenton, and they had both agreed that there had to be a connection between Rhonda's murder and the art thefts, as crazy as that sounded. Callie suggested that maybe Joe was being held prisoner and had been forced to make the call, but Frank and Fenton had disagreed. If he had been forced to call, his captor would have had him call either his father or his brother, not his brother's girlfriend and Joe would have found a way to send a clearer message that he was in immediate danger.

Of course, Frank had still had doubts throughout the day. What if they were wrong? What if Joe was in danger? What if the case in Rome had nothing to do with what was going on with Joe? It was frustrating to think that they were possibly just wasting precious time. At least he knew that Sam was back home, working on the case with the police. Frank would have rather worked on it himself, but when he forced himself to think about it logically, he knew that Sam was doing everything Frank himself would have done. The case was in good hands.

Callie came into the room right behind one of the guards and gave Frank a tired smile. "No invisible burglars yet?"

"Not that I've seen." Frank realized the ridiculousness of the statement a moment after he said it and grinned. "What are you doing here, Callie?"

"I couldn't sleep, so I thought I'd come and lend you an extra pair of eyes," Callie said.

"You didn't need to," Frank tried to protest. He knew that Callie didn't care much for detective work, and he never wanted her to feel like she had to feign an interest in it.

"I think I did, to be honest," Callie replied. "After all, if Joe's in trouble and I can help in any way, even if it's not doing much, then I want to help. You know, he's practically like a brother to me, too."

"Okay. I can't complain about the company, at any rate," Frank said.

Callie watched another guard walk past. "I knew the security was intense around here, but I didn't realize it was this intense. They must have about a hundred guards here."

Although the comment was completely innocent, it brought into full focus an incongruity that Frank had only been vaguely aware of. "Who let you in?"

Callie noticed the intensity with which Frank asked the question at once, and her reply was a bit apprehensive. "The guard at the door. I don't know his name. Why do you ask?"

"It's probably nothing," Frank said. "It just seems a little odd that he would have let you in since you're not one of the official investigators. He asked for identification, at least, I hope?"

"Yeah," Callie told him. "I had to show him my student ID. He let me in right away. I figured you must have told him it was all right."

"I didn't think to mention it to him." Frank pursed his lips thoughtfully. "Dad might have, but I don't see why he would have unless he had known you were coming. We'd better go have a talk with him."

Together, he and Callie went to the front door to question the guard. Once they had him in sight, Callie touched Frank's arm and whispered, "That's not the same one who was there before."
Frank nodded at her briefly before he approached the guard. He gave him a friendly greeting and then asked, "Who was at this post before you?"

"Pier," the guard replied without having to think about it.

"Do you know where Pier is now?" Frank asked.

The guard shrugged. "I don't know. Probably home asleep. He went off-duty right when I came on."

"That can't be." Frank shook his head in confusion. "Nobody is going off-duty right now."

"Who said anything about right now?" the guard asked. "That was two hours ago."

Frank and Callie exchanged confused glances.

"I think there's some mistake," Callie spoke up. "I came in here maybe ten minutes ago and there was a different guard here."

"Oh, well, I had to take a short break." The guard cleared his throat. "I asked one of the other guys to watch the door for me for a few minutes."

"Who was it?" Frank asked. "I'd like to ask him a couple of questions."

The guard shrugged. "It was one of the new fellows. I don't really know all their names yet. I could point him out to you if it's something important."

Frank weighed this possibility. It was a lot of trouble to go to for something that was probably nothing, and distracting the guards for even a short amount of time could be a costly mistake. "That's all right. Just next time you have someone take your post for a short time, make sure he understands that no one can come in after hours without clearance from my dad, Monsignor Caro, or myself. For the record, though, Callie here is all right. She can come in any time."

As he and Callie went out of earshot of the guard, Callie teased Frank, "You'd almost think you weren't glad to see me."

"As if," Frank replied. "I think I'll tell Dad about what happened, though. He might want to follow up on it."

HBHBHBHBHB

"So, what's the plan if someone catches us breaking into the detective agency?" Tony asked, pulling on the latex gloves that Joe had told him to wear.

"We're not breaking in," Joe told him. "I'm a partner in this firm. I can come and go as I see fit."

"Oh, okay." Tony's voice held a note of sarcasm. "If someone calls the police, saying there are two burglars breaking in here, we'll tell them that it's all cool. You're the Hardy brother that's wanted for murder, and I'm the guy who's helped you hide out so far, and so they can just let us get on with our burglaring."

"Yeah, something like that." Joe grinned. "Come on. Let's get this over with."

Joe also donned gloves, although the cast on his left hand made the process a little difficult. In addition to the gloves to prevent them from leaving fingerprints, they were both wearing baseball caps from Tony's extensive collection to keep from dropping any hairs. Fortunately, Joe had had his keys in his pocket during his encounter with Rhonda and her thugs, and so they were able to get inside the building easily. From there, they didn't want to turn on the main lights, so Tony held a flashlight while Joe worked on dusting the area around Rhonda's desk for fingerprints.

"How do we know which ones are hers for sure?" Tony whispered.

"That's the problem." Joe's reply was in a normal tone. "We don't. I'm just taking an educated guess here. Of course, if we wanted to be absolutely certain, we could always break into the morgue and take prints off the corpse."

Tony made a face. "I think you've worked on a few too many murders if you think that's funny."

Joe only chuckled and then returned to his work, which required some level of concentration. He located several prints, which he lifted with tape, marking each one with where he found it. He looked them over carefully.

"We've got two different thumbprints, which could be her left and right, along with plenty of others," he announced. "There are several that are repeated – they're probably hers."

"Okay, then can we go?" Tony asked.

"Hold on just a second," Joe requested. "I want to see if she left anything behind that the police didn't take yet."

"What good will that do?" Tony glanced apprehensively out the darkened windows as Joe began opening drawers to the desk.

"It could be a clue." Joe methodically looked through each drawer for anything that was not standard office supplies. The search would most likely be fruitless, but with so little to go on, Joe didn't want to pass up the chance.

"You guys sure have a lot of paperclips," Tony commented.

"Rhonda was in charge of ordering stuff like that," Joe explained. "It looks like she ordered enough for the next twenty years."

"Is that a clue?" Tony asked.

Joe shrugged. "Beats me. I don't see anything that belonged to her. Let's go."

As they drove back to Tony's apartment, Joe's thoughts turned once again to Iola. He wondered what Rhonda could have possibly told her or shown her to make her think – what she thought. He and Iola had been together such a long time, and they'd been friends for forever. Whatever Rhonda had come up with must have been very convincing, but Joe couldn't think what it could possibly be. If it was any of those pictures or audio recordings, Iola would know how easily those could have been faked and wouldn't have been taken in by them. What was even more confounding was the question of how Rhonda got to Iola in the first place. Surely, she wouldn't have gone up to her and told her the tale bluntly. Was she blackmailing her? That didn't make any sense either. Blackmailing a guy for cheating on his girlfriend made sense, but blackmailing the girlfriend? No way.

Tony broke into his reflections by clearing his throat. "So, um, Joe, the whole time we're in the Bronx, am I going to be paying for everything? Obviously, you can't use your credit cards, and I seriously doubt you have enough cash to last too long."

"Sorry," Joe told him. "I'll pay you back as soon as we get home. If we get home." He sighed. "You know, there's still time for you to get out of this without anyone realizing you were part of it."

"Who's going to pay your bills then?" Tony asked. "Besides, when I called Chet this afternoon, I 'let it slip' that I was going. It'll be all over town by tomorrow. It'll look suspicious if I back out as suddenly as I decided to do it."

"It certainly was a stroke of luck that your uncle or cousin or whatever he is invited you to the Bronx for the summer," Joe commented. A hint of suspicion began rising in his mind. What if this wasn't a coincidence? What if it was all part of a big plan? Joe tried to force the thought out of his head as soon as it came. Paranoia, he told himself. Black Rose couldn't have known he'd go to Tony, and he was sure they couldn't have gotten to Tony's relative, either.

The relative in question was a distant one. He was a priest named Father Giovanni Beretta. Tony had met him only once, a few years ago, and had been a little annoyed when Father Giovanni had invited him to the Bronx to spend the summer in the mission that the priest was in charge of. Tony's father had thought it was a great idea and had encouraged his son to go, but Tony had balked. Spending the summer in the crime, poverty, and destitution that was a daily part of life in the part of the city where the mission was located had seemed a pretty dismal prospect, especially compared to spending the summer working with his father near his friends. However, Joe's sudden need of an inconspicuous ride to the Bronx had changed things, and so Tony had called Father Giovanni and told him that he had changed his mind and would be coming anyway. At Joe's insistence, he hadn't yet told the priest about the extra passenger he was bringing, nor the danger that would accompany both of them.

"Do you think you'll be ready to go by tomorrow afternoon?" Joe asked as Tony parked his car outside his apartment. "I mean, I'd be ready to go now, seeing how I don't have anything to pack or anything to arrange."

"Tomorrow afternoon will work," Tony replied. "Then we'll be off to take down Black Rose."