Author's Note: Thank you all once again for reading and following this story! I'd especially like to thank BMSH, Cherylann Rivers, EvergreenDreamweaver, max2013, and Barb for your reviews on the last chapter.

Chapter XXI

"Joe, you idiot! What are you doing?" Frank shouted, making an unsuccessful attempt to grab his brother before he could go dashing off after Terry. He was about to run after Joe, but Phil grasped his arm and held him back.

"It won't help anything for you to be an idiot, too," Phil told him.

Phil was right, of course, but – "Someone's got to stop him," Frank argued.

"I'll get him," Olaf said. He turned to the other officer, "Get these men in handcuffs and make sure none of these other kids do anything dumb."

Fortunately, O'Riley and his compatriots really did intend to surrender. Officer Jamison had them all handcuffed within seconds, and then called on his radio to update his back-up on what had happened and ask for an ambulance for the wounded Faquary.

Jamison lined the three uninjured men up next to the police car. "If any of these guys moves an inch, say something," he requested of Frank, Biff, and Phil. Then he bent down to take a look at Faquary's wound.

Faquary was lying on the ground, groaning and sobbing with a hand clasped over his shoulder. Despite this, his shirt and his hand were both covered in blood.

"Quit crying," Jamison told him after he looked at the wound. "You're not going to bleed out before the ambulance gets here." He glanced up at the three boys. "Could one of you hold pressure over this wound? I've got to deal with these other three."

"Sure," Phil volunteered.

Jamison took a first aid kit out of the police car and handed some bandages to Phil. Then he turned his attention to patting down O'Riley and the other two. Once he had assured himself that they didn't have any other weapons besides the guns that they had already given up, he made them get into the backseat of the car.

Frank glanced over his shoulder in the direction where Joe had disappeared. There wasn't a sound from there. That was a good thing, Frank reasoned. Maybe it meant that Terry wasn't armed after all. If that was the case, Joe and Olaf together shouldn't have any trouble capturing him.

"You have the right to remain silent," Officer Jamison was saying to the three prisoners in the backseat of the police car. When he had finished reading them their rights, he leaned against the car with his arms folded and looked in the direction of Bayport. "Back-up should be coming any minute."

"Look, I got something to say," one of the prisoners, Virgil Brown, spoke up. "I didn't want to have anything to do with this whole crazy scheme. They blackmailed me into it. It's not my fault."

"Who blackmailed you?" Jamison asked.

"O'Riley and the woman and the kid," Brown whined.

"Don't try to pin this on me," O'Riley protested. "It wasn't me. It was the woman and the kid. They thought the whole thing up. I told them it was crazy, but they wouldn't listen."

"Will you two just shut up?" the third prisoner, Trevor Thanning, said.

"What woman?" Jamison asked. "Rodonna Shanth?"

"Who?" O'Riley replied, his face genuinely blank.

"Helena Markovich?" Frank added, recalling his suspicions about her.

"The fortune teller?" O'Riley said. "No. The kid's mother."

"That was Rodonna Shanth," Jamison informed him.

"No, it –" O'Riley started to protest, but Thanning broke in, "If that's the name she gave you, then that's the only name we know."

"You need to work on your lying," Jamison told him. "It's not very convincing."

"I'm not saying another word until I have a lawyer here," Thanning said sulkily. "And if these two had a brain in their heads, they wouldn't say anything either."

Jamison fixed his eyes on Brown. "What did you mean that you were blackmailed into this?"

Brown swallowed. "Nothing. I want a lawyer."

While Jamison tried to devise another strategy to get his prisoners to talk, several sets of headlights illuminated the scene as three more police cars arrived. Chief Collig and Fenton Hardy got out of one of them.

"Are you all right?" Fenton asked Frank right away. "Where's Joe?"

Frank looked back toward the darkened trees where Joe and Olaf had disappeared a few minutes before. "He went chasing after Terry. Olaf went too. We haven't heard anything from them since."

"Is the ambulance coming?" Jamison asked. "I've got a wounded suspect here."

"It's on its way," Collig told him. He pointed at two of his officers. "You take care of him."

Phil seemed more than a little glad to be relieved of his post. Making a face, he tried to wipe the blood off his hands with a handkerchief that one of the officers handed him.

"All right," Collig said to his men. "I'm going to need another one of you to stay here and take notes. The rest of you start searching for Olaf, Joe, and the other suspect."

While the officers obeyed, Collig turned his attention to Jamison and his prisoners. "Have they said anything?"

Jamison repeated the bits of information he had gotten from the suspects. "Now all they'll say is that they won't talk without a lawyer."

Collig nodded grimly. "Bring Brown over here."

"I won't talk without a lawyer," Brown protested when he had been brought out of earshot of the other prisoners.

"Dad," Frank said to Fenton. "What about Joe? Can't we go look for him?"

Fenton was about to reply, but Collig had been listening and now he interrupted. "No, Frank. This Shanth kid is probably armed. My officers can take care of it." With a significant glance at Brown, he added, "These guys don't need anything more to get charged with."

Brown shifted his feet uncomfortably. "Look, you can pin anything on me that these others did. The woman and the kid thought this whole thing up, and O'Riley was part of it because he had a beef with the first four guys they had knocked off. None of us knew we were going to get involved with the Hardys, and we all thought the Shakespeare stuff was dumb."

"How about you tell us about it?" Collig suggested.

Shifting his feet again, Brown looked around at everyone who was surrounding him. "I don't know a whole lot about it. O'Riley and the woman and the kid all wanted Donahue and Kelly and the other two dead. I guess O'Riley and Donahue were some sort of rivals in the Irish Mob and they both were up to replace some bigwig who got killed years ago. Donahue won out, but made a mess of it. He turned everything over to Kelly and came to Bayport to hide out, but he kept his finger in everything. Pierce and Margot supported Donahue. That's all I know. I don't know what the woman and the kid had against them."

"That's not everything you know, Brown," Collig told him. "Who killed who here?"

"I only helped kill Margot," Brown muttered. "Might as well admit it. O'Riley did in Donahue and Kelly and Pierce himself."

"What about Rodonna Shanth?" Collig asked.

"What about her?" Brown looked confused.

"Who killed her?" Collig pressed.

Brown blinked in astonishment. "She's dead? Hallelujah. She was evil, I tell you. I know I've done some things you all would think are bad, but her." He shook his head. "There's only one person I've ever met more evil than her."

"Who's that?" Frank asked.

Going pale at the thought of whoever this extraordinary evil-doer was, Brown didn't reply.

"Never mind about that," Collig said. "What about Donahue's and Margot's kids? What happened to them?"

"Donahue's kid is tied up in her basement," Brown told him. "I don't know nothing about Margot's kid. We were ordered not to hurt her."

"Get some people over at the Shanth house now," Collig told one of his officers, who hurriedly made the radio call.

"You said you thought the Shakespeare thing was stupid," Collig reminded Brown. "What did you mean?"

"We were each supposed to be a character from Macbeth," Brown explained. "O'Riley was Macbeth, us other three were the three murderers, the kid was the fourth murderer, and the woman was Lady Macbeth. Each of the people they knocked off were a character, too. Margot's kid and Don-"

He was interrupted by the sound of two shots coming so close together they almost sounded like one. Frank felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach, and as he saw Fenton's suddenly pale face, he knew that his father was thinking the same thing.

HBHBHBHBHB

"But you don't have your girlfriend to hide behind this time." Terry held his gun up and fingered the trigger.

Joe's mind had such a confusion of emotions whirling around it that he didn't even know what he was feeling. A dozen thoughts flashed through his brain at once – that Terry was right and Iola being shot was Joe's fault, that he had hidden behind her like a coward, that it was too late now for the miracle he'd been praying for – namely that he would somehow be rescued - to happen, that he was going to die.

That last thought brought almost a wave of calm over Joe. It seemed so inevitable that there was no point in being afraid about it. It would happen anyway. But then it didn't.

"Shanth! Drop the gun!"

Both Terry and Joe looked at the source of the voice. It was Lieutenant Olaf. He must have followed Joe after all. Joe's deadly calm only a moment before was immediately replaced by an almost giddy relief.

After that quick glance, Terry looked back at Joe and gripped his gun in both hands. "I won't. Not until after Joe Hardy is dead." Despite his confident words and tone, Joe thought he saw a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes.

"Don't be an idiot," Olaf warned him. "You're in deep enough trouble as it is. Don't make things even worse for yourself."

Terry scowled with hate. "You're the idiot if you think I care what happens to me. I'd rather have Fenton Hardy in my sights, but if this is the best I can do, after everything he's done to me, do you think I'd give up the chance to make Fenton Hardy suffer?"

He squeezed the trigger and the sound of the shot filled the twilit woods.