J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you all so much for continuing to read! We're just about to the end now. There will be one more chapter after this and then an epilogue. If I have them both ready by then, I am thinking I will post both of them on Tuesday, but we will see. Thank you especially to Candylou, max2013, ErinJordan, Bkworm4life4, and angelicalkiss for your reviews on the previous chapter! Your feedback and insights are so helpful and I so appreciate that you not only take the time to read my story, but also to comment on it!

Chapter XXII

A Trap

It was late that night when the Hardy family and Mario finally climbed the front steps of their house. Their house, as well as Sam Radley's home, had been staked out ever since Lisa had declared that Evangeline Moretti was probably planning on ambushing one or more of her perceived enemies at their homes. So far, neither she nor any of the Black Rose people had been captured. Because of that, everyone, even Fenton, was far jumpier than usual.

Mario glanced over his shoulder as the Hardys went into the house. "Um, I don't want to sound like a chicken or anything, but after everything that's happened and with that Evangeline person still loose, would you mind if I slept in the house tonight?"

"Of course not." Laura held the door open for him and gestured for him to come in. "I can make up the guest room for you."

"It's so late; there's no need to go to all that trouble," Mario told her. "I'll just sleep on the couch here, if that's no trouble."

"I think that's a good idea," Fenton agreed. "It's after midnight already. We all need to get some sleep."

Laura didn't put up any more of an argument, but she and Gertrude did pull out some extra pillows and blankets for Mario. He smilingly accepted them without a word, but he only spread out a blanket to lie on top of on the couch, picked out one pillow, and selected a very light blanket to cover himself. It was warm enough that he wouldn't have needed even this one, but they had all gone over their parts carefully before returning home.

Everyone said good night, and the Hardys all headed upstairs. Mario procrastinated lying down until he saw the hall light upstairs turn off. Then he switched off the lamp in the living room. That was the signal for everyone to jump into action.

The stake-out on the Hardy and Radley houses had revealed that two men had been watching the Hardy house most of the day. Collig and Fenton had agreed that this meant that either Fenton or Mario was probably Evangeline's next target, and they had worked out a plan to capture her and her accomplices. For safety, the rest of Sam's family had been sent to spend the night with Sam's parents, but as for Sam himself, he was outside with a number of officers from the Bayport Police Department, as well as Sgt. Nicholson of the NYPD.

Inside the house, everyone had a role to play as well. As soon as the lights were out, Fenton crept back down the stairs and helped Mario to arrange the excess pillows and blankets into a decoy and then backed into the dark in the next room. Of course, if Evangeline wasn't alone, she wouldn't need a decoy, but if she had some accomplices with her, they might be fooled for the few seconds that were necessary to put the plan into action. Meanwhile, Frank, Joe, Laura, and Gertrude each took up positions at windows on each side of the house to be lookouts. If anyone approached the house, there was no way they would get past without being spotted.

The minutes ticked by slowly as everyone inside the house and out waited for something to happen. This was always the worst part of any plan, Joe reflected. He tapped his foot impatiently. He wished something would just happen already so that he wouldn't have to just sit here and think. There was such a lot to think about, but it didn't seem to go anywhere. The whole day seemed to run over and over in his head in little flashes that tripped over one another.

That morning at church when he almost kissed Iola…The confrontation with Lisa at the Pritos' house…Searching for Lisa in the woods behind the Morton farm…Kissing Iola…The explosion…The horse rearing and dragging him…Stumbling toward the tack shed…Waking up with Frank and Mario hovering over him…The trip to the hospital…"Iola is paralyzed."

Joe jumped and shook himself as if he had just woken up from a nightmare. But he hadn't, even though he wished he had. It wasn't fair. The grenade had obviously been meant for him. Why did he get out of it with just a few stitches and Iola…He shook his head. It just wasn't fair. It didn't make sense. Why would something like this happen?

A sound behind him made him turn and look up, though it didn't shake him entirely out of his thoughts. He didn't see anyone there. Maybe he was just jumpy.

At the same time, Frank was deep in thought about everything as well. Iola, of course, figured largely into his musings, though the other events of the last week weren't completely ignored, especially his break-up with Jones. He wasn't entirely sure what he felt about that. It was weird, but he mostly felt relieved. That didn't seem right. He liked Jones well enough; why should he be relieved about breaking up with her? Maybe the relief was more just because she had taken it so well.

Frank bounced his knee a couple of times and yawned. He was starting to feel a little sleepy. It had been an incredibly long day. If something didn't happen soon…

Frank's head jerked up. He had dozed off. He wondered how long it had been. It must have been a little while, at least. Something felt different. Frank turned on his phone screen at the lowest brightness setting. It was only a quarter after midnight. He couldn't have been asleep more than a minute or two. Still, there was something that had changed in that minute or two.

"Frank?"

The whisper made him jump, even though the whisper hadn't even died away before Frank realized that it was Joe who had whispered to him. He could just see the outline of his brother's head in the doorway.

"What are you doing here?" Frank whispered back. "You're supposed to be keeping watch."

"I know, but I think someone's in the house," Joe told him. "I heard someone walking around up here."

"It's your imagination," Frank said, although at the same time, he surreptitiously flashed the flashlight on his phone a couple of times in front of the window. "No one could have gotten in the house. There are cops all around."

"Yeah, well, I did hear something," Joe insisted.

"Just get back to your post, Joe."

Joe started to continue to argue, but then he gave in with a shrug. He turned around, only to find himself face to face with someone in the dark. He jumped; he wasn't expecting that.

"You should listen to your brother, Frank," the person said. It was a man, and Joe recognized his voice from the School of Thought meeting. It was the leader of the group, Rudger, if Lisa was telling the truth.

Frank snapped his flashlight on and off several more times as Joe backed into the room, followed by Rudger. Rudger at once snatched the phone away from him on threw it on the floor.

"Signaling those cops isn't going to help you," he declared. "Look, you're not dealing with a crazy woman with a personal vendetta anymore. This is business. Tell me what I want to know and you live."

Joe scoffed. "As if."

Rudger took a gun out of his pocket. "You don't have anything to lose by trying it. How many people saw the contents of that jewel box?"

"You seriously busted your way in here past all those cops to ask about that?" Frank asked incredulously. "You can just change your codes, you know. It would be a safer way all around."

Rudger chuckled. "Oh, so all you saw was the codebook. Good. You're making things easy for me."

Frank and Joe cast confused glances at one another. The codebook had been the only thing in the box. What was Rudger talking about?

"Now, just to make sure you two don't say anything more about this and then to quiet Lisa down." Rudger aimed his gun at Joe. "I have a suspicion she might talk once she finds out about what happened to you two."

"Hold it! Police!" A powerful searchlight was beamed into the room at the same time as the shout. Rudger winced and lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the glare. That would have given the officers in the hall sufficient time to disarm him, but Joe, who hadn't been taken off-guard at all, used a judo move to kick the gun out of Rudger's hand. Then he threw a left hook that caught the man on the side of the face.

Rudger hadn't been expecting any of this, and he went down. At once, Joe was astride his chest, ready to pummel him. Officer Con Riley, an old friend of the Hardys', grabbed his wrist and stopped him.

"No need for that," Riley told him. "We've got him."

Joe bit his lip. He had a theory about some of the things Rudger had done, and he would have liked to beat the truth out of him, but Riley and Olaf, the other officer who was on hand, weren't about to let him. Reluctantly, he stood up and let the two officers handcuff the man.

Frank hurried to join the group. "You know, you could have turned the spotlight on sooner."

"The idea was to get a confession, don't forget," Olaf reminded him. "I guess now we'll have to do it the hard way."

Joe couldn't help himself and he grabbed Rudger by the front of the shirt. "You threw that grenade, didn't you? Or you had it thrown."

Rudger glared at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

There wasn't time to question him further before there was a gunshot and shouting from downstairs. Everyone but Rudger tensed.

"You stay with them, Riley," Olaf ordered and rushed down the stairs.

Frank started to follow him, but Riley held him back.

"Your dad and officers downstairs can handle it," Riley told him. "I mean, there's practically a small army down there. Besides, it was only one shot. It's over now."

"We outsmarted you, anyway," Joe told Rudger. If he couldn't punch the man, at least he was going to rub in that he had lost, but Rudger's face didn't change expression. "You thought we just set up a trap for Evangeline, but we had a feeling she wasn't going to come alone. That's why we spent all evening planning out every possible thing that could happen."

Before he could say anymore, they heard Fenton call from downstairs that it was all right to come down now. Laura and Gertrude joined them on the stairs, as well as two more police officers who had been posted on the second floor. They found about a dozen more men down there, including Fenton, Mario, Sam, and Chief Collig. Evangeline was in the midst of them. She was handcuffed, but she was still spewing threats.

"What happened?" Gertrude demanded, rushing down the stairs. "I thought you said she wasn't going to come alone."

"She didn't, from the looks of things." Fenton nodded toward Rudger. "I thought she might have her two guys from the car with her, but apparently not."

Evangeline stopped screaming long enough to say, "What are you talking about? I came here alone!"

It took some time to sort exactly what had happened. Rudger was no help and refused to say a word on anything, including the grenade and the jewelry box. In fact, the only thing that they learned from him at all was that he was definitely a member of Black Rose for he had one of the signature black rose tattoos on his neck that other members whom Fenton had encountered on his earlier case had had.

Evangeline was more willing to talk. In the end, she admitted that she had been planning her revenge on Fenton Hardy, Mitch Johnson, Sam Radley, and Mario Beretta for a long time. She had decided to contact Black Rose to enlist their help and had finally established a contact with Rudger, who happened to be in charge of the School of Thought operation in Bayport and several other surrounding towns. He had agreed to help her because she still had a great deal of information about Black Rose which she threatened to have turned over to the authorities if the organization refused to help or had her killed. She wouldn't tell what this information was or where it was or who she had enlisted to help carry out her extortion of the organization, as it was clear she must have had some accomplice. In the end, most of the investigators, including the Hardys, agreed that this had probably been nothing more than a bluff. At any rate, she didn't seem to be able to tell much about Black Rose or School of Thought, despite the fact that she had attended several meetings, including the one that Frank and Joe and their friends had spied on.

As for the events of the night of the capture of both Rudger and Evangeline, even those took some time to sort out. After the police's surveillance of the Hardy and Radley houses had shown that someone was indeed watching the Hardy house, the investigators had worked out a scheme to catch anyone who might put in an appearance. That Evangeline would come was a given, and it was assumed that she would probably bring some accomplices. There was also the distinct possibility that some Black Rose members might come on their own. In fact, during a meeting that took several hours, almost every possibility was thrown out and planned for. In order for the plan to work, all the Hardys and Mario had to agree to act as bait. Fenton was reluctant to agree to let his family do such a dangerous thing, but in the end, he reasoned that it was probably less dangerous than allowing Evangeline to continue to go free. In addition to the plentitude of officers who were posted outside the house, several were posted inside, both on the first and second floors. Since it would be dark, Sam suggested rigging up spotlights at every doorway inside the house so that any Black Rose cohorts could be blinded by the glare if they should appear.

Evangeline admitted that she had come alone with the intention of killing at least one of her enemies. She had been waiting at the house when the Hardys arrived, and when she heard the arrangement of having Mario sleep in the front room, she had thought that would be her chance. She insisted that she didn't know Rudger was coming or why he came, although she suspected that he had known about the trap and had let her walk right in.

"He probably planned on using me as a diversion for carrying out his own little scheme," she said with a toss of her head. "In fact, he was probably hoping I would be killed. That would eliminate a problem for him."

Although everyone looked to Rudger to see if he would make some retort, he said nothing and gave no indication of any emotion whatsoever.

"You're going to pay for this," Evangeline went on. "All of you who helped plan this. I'll get all your names and I won't forget. I swear I'll make each and every one of you regret this day."

"Well, you'll have to wait awhile on that," Olaf told her. "At least, you'll have a long, long time in jail to make your plans."

Joe glared at Rudger, who didn't even look back. "There's one thing I want to know: who threw that grenade?"

Rudger stared straight ahead with such a blank look that it sent shivers down Frank's spine.

"He's not very talkative, is he?" Gertrude observed.

"We'll get everything we need to know from him," Olaf said confidently.

"It's quite the break, catching him," Fenton said. "You know, back in New York, we didn't manage to catch a single one of these guys alive. Now, thanks to him, we might be able to crack this Black Rose organization wide open."

For the first time, a slight change came over Rudger's face. The corners of his lips turned up in a grin. "So you think, Hardy. You'll never break Black Rose. We're far stronger than you think. And we're everywhere. No, you can't stop us. You'll see."

Frank shivered again. "I almost liked him better when he wasn't talking."

"It's wishful thinking on his part," Collig said. "He might be surprised how much we can learn from him even if he doesn't talk. Let's go. The sooner these two are booked in a holding cell, the better I like it."