Author's Note: Thank you all so much for reading and following! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, Barb, BMSH, and TinDog for all your reviews so far. Your feedback is always helpful and appreciated and your guesses are fun to read!

I've realized that this story is probably kind of tough to follow if you're not familiar with Macbeth. I'll give a brief summary here that'll hit all the high points that you need to know (spoiler alert, if you're concerned about that! :) ). Macbeth and his wife Lady Macbeth conspire to take over Scotland after three witches tell Macbeth that it is his destiny to be king. They murder the king, Duncan, and frame the crime on two sentries who Macbeth also kills. Duncan's sons, Malcolm and Donalbain, flee the country, making it easy for Macbeth to accuse them of paying the sentries off. The witches also predicted that Macbeth's friend Banquo's descendants would become kings, so Macbeth has Banquo murdered to secure the throne for his own descendants, although Banquo's son Fleance escapes. Finally, the witches warn Macbeth to beware of Macduff. Macbeth then proceeds to have Macduff's wife and children murdered. Macduff does eventually defeat Macbeth, but obviously not before a lot of damage has been done. There's more to the story than that, of course, but those are the main points. Hopefully what's going on in this story will make more sense now!

Chapter X

Joe shook his head in utter bewilderment as he read the strange message that had been delivered. "I suppose it's another quote from Macbeth. Well, we were right about Evan, but why would Macbeth send the message to us instead of leaving it at the scene like the other times?"

Frank ran a hand through his hair. "Who knows?"

Laura tightened her lips as if she was thinking something, but didn't want to say what it was. Her sons noticed it and wondered about it, but their friends saw nothing.

"Maybe they're taunting you," Tony suggested. "You know, saying 'Catch me if you can' by putting things right on your front porch in broad daylight."

"Or maybe the notes aren't from the murderer at all." Chet's eyes widened at his own theory. "They're being left by someone who knows who the murderer is but are afraid that they'll be next if they say so plainly, so they're leaving the messages all over the place."

"I doubt that," Iola interjected, "but it could be because whoever's writing them wants you guys to find them, and he couldn't be sure you would if he left it at the place where he nabbed Evan."

"But how does he know we're involved at all?" Joe asked. "The police are working on this case. Why not send the notes to them?"

"Boys," Laura broke in, "this is serious. You need to get this note to the police right away."

"Right," Frank agreed. "I'll do it."

"I'll go with you," Joe quickly added.

"Mom's right – this is serious," Frank told him. "We need to solve this case as fast as possible, and we can't do that if we're wasting time with both of us running errands that one could handle. Why don't you talk the case over with Dad?" He said it like there was some hidden meaning in it, but Joe couldn't see what that meaning was right away.

"What are we gonna do?" Chet asked. "We come all the way over here to help you solve the mystery, and then you start talking about how you don't even need Joe."

"You three can come with me," Frank offered. "We can brainstorm our next move on the way. Meanwhile, Joe can stay here and talk to Dad about the case."

The way he emphasized the word "case" made his meaning suddenly click in Joe's brain. "Oh, right, the case."

Tony looked from Joe to Frank. "Do you guys have something going on that you don't want the rest of us to know about?"

Frank had been giving Joe an annoyed glare, but he turned to Tony to answer his question. "Hopefully not, or Joe just gave it away by sounding like the villain's sidekick in a Disney movie."

Joe grinned. "I just meant the case. The case for Evan, the case chosen especially to clear Evan, Evan's case. That case?"

Iola giggled, but then she said with some seriousness in her voice, "It looks like you guys aren't going to give away your secrets after all."

Even in the midst of joking around, the mention of giving away secrets reminded Joe of one secret in particular that he wished Iola knew and he found he didn't have any more jokes to make.

"All right, let's go," Frank said, hoping they could leave before this turned into even more of a train wreck.

Chet, Tony, and Iola piled into the Hardys' car with him and he backed out of the driveway. Joe turned to go into the house, but stopped when he caught Laura's eyes. It didn't take much detective skill to realize that she had already figured out that it wasn't necessarily the case at hand that he intended to talk to his dad about.

He hurried through the front door and went up to Fenton's home office before Laura could stop him. Fenton was sitting at his desk, reading something on his computer. He looked up as Joe came into the room.

"Did Mom show you that envelope that was left on the porch?" he asked.

Joe nodded. "It was another one of those crazy Macbeth quotes. This one was casting Evan as Malcolm and Donalbain. I guess he doesn't understand that it doesn't work the greatest to have one guy play two. Oh, I guess we didn't tell you that Evan went missing yet."

"The police did," Fenton said simply.

"How come?" Joe asked. "Are you taking the case?"

"Not exactly," Fenton replied. "I called Ezra this morning and asked him to let me in on what's going on. Where's Frank?"

"He's taking the note to the police," Joe told him. "Dad, I was hoping I could talk to you about something."

"I was hoping I could talk to you, and I think we have about the same thing in mind," Fenton said. "I had hoped that Frank would be here, too, but maybe in some ways it will be easier to talk to you separately."

Joe sat down in one of the chairs Fenton kept in his office. "This doesn't sound good."

"You know," Fenton told him, "your mom is just as good a detective as any of us."

"No kidding," Joe replied. "If she helped us on our cases, the villains wouldn't stand a chance."

"She has a theory about this one that she talked over with me," Fenton went on. "I think she just might have a point."

"About this case somehow being connected to another case you solved?" Joe asked. "That's actually exactly what I wanted to talk to you about."

Fenton sighed. "There are similarities between the two cases, and so it is very possible that they're connected somehow. This message being delivered here, to you and Frank, makes it even likelier. If they are –"

"This must have been some case," Joe observed. "I've never seen you have a problem talking about one of your cases before."

"This one's different." Fenton bit his lip. Although he had been working on deciding exactly what and how much he would tell his sons about this, he still hadn't made up his mind yet. "There are several different ways they could be connected. In one scenario – the worst possible one – I should be able to find out about it pretty easily. I'll just need to talk to the other person who was instrumental in solving the case."

"All right." Joe was having a hard time following. His dad often kept things to himself about current cases that he was working on by himself, but it wasn't like him to make vague hints about past cases or his sons' current cases without explaining why. "So, until you do that, are we clear to keep working on the case?"

Fenton looked down at his hands, not answering right away. Finally, he said, "Yes, but you have to be very careful. And if I learn that these cases are connected, you're going to have to give it up."

"Why?" Joe asked.

"It's too dangerous," Fenton told him.

Joe shook his head, not necessarily because he was disagreeing with Fenton but more because he was confused. "I don't get it, Dad. Frank and I have worked on plenty of dangerous cases before now and you and Mom didn't make us stop. What's so different about this one? What happened on that other case?"

"You may have a point," Fenton conceded. "This isn't the first dangerous case you've taken on, but I don't want it to be the last."

"Ominous," Joe commented, "but it doesn't answer my question. What happened?"

"I'll tell you about that other case another time," Fenton told him. "When you're older."

"Dad," Joe protested. "I'm seventeen, and I've seen a lot more stuff than your typical seventeen-year-old. Whatever happened, I'm old enough to hear about it."

Fenton smiled a little ruefully. "That's true, Joe. But trust me on this, you're going to have to be older than you are now to understand why the things that happened on that case happened. And I'm going to have to ask you to make me another promise."

"What's that?" Joe asked.

"Don't try to find out about it on your own," Fenton said. "I want to tell you about it myself when the time comes."

Joe sighed. Promising to leave a mystery be didn't come easily to him. Even so, he knew he had to. "Okay, Dad. I promise."

HBHBHBHBHB

"This hasn't been near as exciting as the other day," Tony complained as Frank came out of police headquarters after delivering the message to a grudging Detective Olaf.

"You mean you want to almost get run over with a car again?" Frank asked, climbing into the driver's seat.

"Well, no," Tony replied. "That would be kind of repetitive."

Chet rolled his eyes. "Tony, if you're planning on being a comedian when you finish school, don't. You'll starve."

"Thanks for the advice," Tony said dryly.

Frank glanced at his watch. He had been talking to Olaf for more than an hour, and he couldn't blame his friends if they had gotten impatient waiting. He wasn't sure, though, that an hour was enough time for Joe to finish his conversation with Fenton. He'd have to find another way to keep his friends occupied, since it wouldn't do to go home until that conversation was over.

"You know," Frank said, "I've been thinking about this case."

"Oh, wow," Chet replied. "That's big news."

"The murderer," Frank continued, ignoring Chet's sarcasm, "is copying the murders in Macbeth. At least, we thought at first that's what he was up to. If he's caused Evan to disappear, he must be trying to copy the whole story and not just the murders."

"So?" Tony asked. "You guys have already said you thought Banquo would be the next to go, but that doesn't help us figure out who Banquo is."

"I've got an idea to figure it out," Frank said. "In the play, Macbeth got the whole idea from the three witches. What if there's someone in real life who's playing that part?"

"Uh –" Tony started to say, but Chet interrupted, "Could be. Maybe it's a medium or something. I mean, it's not exactly the same thing, but –"

"But it works here," Frank completed his sentence. "In the play, Macbeth essentially got the idea – or at least the inspiration – for murdering Duncan from the witches' prediction of the future."

"Wait, so you're saying that the murderer got the idea from a medium?" Tony asked. "I didn't think you believed in that sort of thing."

"I don't," Frank replied. "But that doesn't matter. What matters is whether the murderer believes in it."

Tony shivered involuntarily.

"Don't tell me you believe in that stuff," Chet said.

"I don't believe they can see the future or anything," Tony told him. "It's just – they're messing with the proverbial things they don't understand. And I think it would be better if we didn't mess with them either."

Chet rolled his eyes, but Frank's response was more generous. "If you'd rather not come, you don't have to."

Tony took a few seconds to weigh the pros and cons and finally said with a sigh, "I guess it wouldn't hurt anything."

"Shouldn't we go get Joe and bring him along?" Iola asked, speaking up for the first time.

Frank checked his watch again, as if to remind himself that not enough time had passed. "He's fine. We'll catch him up when we get back. He won't mind."

"Are you sure about that?" Chet asked, raising an eyebrow.

Frank desperately racked his brain to think of some answer to this, but he was saved the trouble by Iola interrupting the conversation.

"Hey, guys, I just got a text from Clarissa," she said, looking at her phone.

"So?" Chet asked dryly. "Don't tell me she's a friend of yours."

"No, but she wants me to come over right away," Iola replied. "She says it's urgent."