J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you for continuing to read! Thank you especially to those who have left reviews on the first chapter: max2013, caseykam, angelicalkiss, and drogorath! Max2013: I hope you continue to like it! Caseykam: Yes, Black Rose and ghosts should make for an interesting story. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Darcy won't be making much of an appearance beyond this in the story. I just wanted you all to know that I hadn't forgotten her and she will be showing up again, eventually. Angelicalkiss: I did just finish the last one, but I have most of the series planned out well enough that the main work remaining is to write it down and see what happens. A break probably wouldn't have been a bad idea, but it's hard to get back into my writing routine if I let myself get out of it, and if I'm writing anyway, I might as well post. ;) drogorath: Political thrillers are fun, aren't they? And good catch that the Chinese gentleman just might have a part to play here. I hope you all continue to enjoy! God bless!

Chapter II

The words hit Frank like a steam engine. For several seconds, he couldn't say a word. Black Rose was the name of a secret society that had crossed the paths of the Hardys several times over the years. The Hardys still didn't know what these people wanted, but they did know they were dangerous. Up until now, Frank had assumed they were a relatively small organization based in New England, but if Jim Foy was right that they had murdered his uncle, it meant this was a much bigger organization than any of the Hardys had imagined.

"Frank? Are you still there?" Jones' voice cut in over the phone.

Frank stirred himself. "Uh, yeah. It's just…Hold on a second. Joe's here. He needs to hear this, too."

He walked back over to Joe, who was still trying to see what could possibly be the matter with his car and whether it was something that could be fixed in less than five minutes. That was all the more time Joe was giving himself before he took up Tony's offer and drove his car to the airport.

"Joe, you need to listen to this," Frank told him.

Joe was about to argue that he didn't have time, but then the seriousness in Frank's voice sank in. He stood up straight and looked at his brother. "What is it? Is it about Iola?"

"No, it's about Black Rose."

At the mention of the name, Joe let out a long breath and the Hardys' friends paid more careful attention.

"What are they up to now?" Joe asked.

"You remember Jim Foy, right?" Frank said.

Joe shrugged slightly. "Sure I do."

"Hi, Joe," Jim's voice came over the phone.

"Hey, Jim!" Biff burst in. "This is a fine thing to do! Three years and you didn't even drop a postcard and then you call the Hardys up instead of me."

"So very sorry, Biff," Jim replied. "I would have called you, but I have the best of excuses."

"Boy, does he ever," Jones interjected. "You guys remember me? Jones?"

"Of course we do," Joe told her. "What are you doing with Jim? Where are you? And what's this about Black Rose?"

"I think you'd better start at the beginning, Jim," Frank said. "You said you'd been arrested?"

"That is right," Jim confirmed. "Shortly after I came back from the United States. I saw many things there that would benefit China, but I stupidly mentioned it the wrong people. I was arrested for suspicion of being recruited to be an agent for the United States. My uncle, Foy Jie, helped me convince them that I was just a student and not an agent, so they let me go, but they kept my phone and laptop, so I had no way to contact you. That is why I never called you, Biff."

"That's a better excuse than most people have given me," Biff said, shaking his head slightly in disbelief.

"My uncle and I thought it would be best to leave the country if we could before we came under suspicion again," Jim continued. "We traveled on foot to the northern border and we managed to cross over into the country of Ziyou. Ziyou is not recognized as its own country by most of the world, and China claims it as part of China, but it has been a separate country for thousands of years. Its claim is strong enough that outright hostility from China would not be tolerated by some other countries, especially the United States, so it has become a safe haven for political refugees from China. My uncle and I thought we would be safe here, and we were, until a few months ago when my uncle was murdered. I found him…Well, you do not need to know the details, except that he was holding a black rose. Black Rose has some presence in Ziyou and they have murdered people before."

"Why would they want to kill your uncle?" Joe asked.

"There is only one reason I can think of. There has been talk among some officials of Ziyou to cede some of its territory to China as a way to make peace and perhaps be recognized as its own country. Many people are opposed to it—especially the ones who happen to live in the territory which would be given to China. My uncle Jie was especially outspoken about it. He wrote articles explaining the dangers of such an action and he was even running for a political office. I think he was killed both to end his efforts to oppose this and to frighten anyone else who would stand up about it."

"Yeah, but why would Black Rose get caught up in something like that?" Chet asked. "I thought all they did was brainwash teenagers so they can train them to be assassins and hire them out to fight gang wars."

"I don't know," Jim admitted. "I don't know if they did this as their own initiative or if the Chinese government is involved or maybe the pro-China factions of Ziyou. I do not even know if it is the same Black Rose that we encountered in Bayport."

Joe let out a breath that was somewhere between a dry chuckle and a sigh. "I don't know whether to hope it is the same or not. If it is, they're a lot bigger and more powerful than we thought, and if it isn't, that means there's two of them."

"That's what I was thinking," Frank agreed. "Either way, this isn't good news. We need to tell Dad right away."

"So, do you think you're going to help?" Jones asked. "If you are, I've got the perfect cover for you with this mission thing I'm doing. We've got people coming in and out from the U.S. and a couple of countries in Europe all the time. You'd even get a free place to stay out of the bargain."

"Please come," Jim pleaded. "The local police are finding out nothing. I do not know if they are incompetent or intimidated by Black Rose or maybe even in league with them. In any case, we must find the person who killed my uncle so that no one will be afraid of them any longer."

"You mean, you guys are actually suggested we should drop everything and go to this Ziyou place?" Biff asked. "That'll be awesome! Can I come, too?"

"First we have to decide that we're going," Frank pointed out.

Biff waved that aside. "Aw, come on. Since when did the Hardys ever turn down a case?"

Joe looked down at his watch. It was two-thirty. Iola's plane was arriving right now. The upcoming three weeks was going to be the last chance he would have to see Iola until Thanksgiving or maybe even Christmas. Giving that up, even for an important case like this, wasn't going to be easy.

It wasn't hard for Frank to guess what his brother was thinking. Frank had some reservations of his own. Deep down, he wanted to get on the next flight to Ziyou—if there were any—and get to work on the case, but he knew he needed to be more realistic about it than that. They couldn't just leave the country at the drop of a hat, and college was starting up again in a few weeks, which didn't leave a lot of time.

"You will come, won't you?" Jim asked.

The note of fear in his tone finished off any reservations the Hardys might have had. Their friend was in trouble and he had a mystery. Of course, they would help him. Everything else would just have to wait.

HBHBHBHBHB

The one thing that didn't wait was picking up the Mortons at the airport. Joe and Chet raced there as fast as they could after the phone call was over, and while they were on their way, Chet called his parents to tell them how they had gotten held up. Chet tended to be long-winded at explanations anyway, and this one was so complicated that he was still winding it up while he and Joe walked into the airport and saw his parents and Iola.

Joe rushed gave them a big smile and a wave and he rushed toward them. He bent down to give Iola a hug, wishing as he always did that he could pick her up and whirl her around in a real hug, but he didn't want to hurt her again.

"I've missed you so much!" Iola told him. "I've got a million things to tell you, but from what Chet was saying, it sounds like you're not going to have time to hear them all."

"We won't worry about that just yet," Joe told her. "I had the whole three weeks planned out, but it looks like we're going to have to cram it into, like, three days, so we're not going to have time to worry about too much."

Iola laughed. "I'm game for that or for just hanging or whatever you want to do."

Joe offered to carry her baggage, while Iola wheeled herself along. The Mortons and Joe chattered away a mile a minute, bouncing around from one topic to another so quickly that anyone else probably would have been able to keep up. Joe and Chet mostly filled the others in on the doings around Bayport, while Iola and her parents talked about the things they had seen in Texas and Iola's coach and training.

There was hardly a moment to breathe until they had gotten back to the Morton farmhouse, where Frank and Tony were still waiting for them. Tony was in a hurry to get home, and since he was going to have to give the Hardys a ride home with both Joe's car and the Queen out of commission, that cut the visit short.

Iola sighed as she watched the car pull out of the driveway from the living room window.

"Something wrong, honey?" asked Molly, her mother.

Iola rest her chin in the palm of her hand. "It's just that it's always this way with Joe and me. One or the other of us is always coming or going. We don't even have time to call each other most of the time. Do you think it's a bad sign?"

"Not necessarily," Molly told her. "It just means that you're both going to have to make some decisions. If you want to be together, you're going to have to make time for each other, and that might mean giving up some things that won't be easy."

Iola chewed her lower lip. "I do want to be with Joe, but I can't give up my training and I don't know that I want him to give up his mysteries. I never wanted to put him in a position where he'd have to choose between his mysteries and me."

"Because you're afraid of what he might choose?"

"In a way, I guess, but I think I already what he'd choose. He'd choose me, of course, and I guess that should make me happy, but I just don't know that he'd be Joe without a mystery to solve."

"Well, it probably wouldn't be as dramatic as all that," Molly assured her. "You'd just have to work it all out."

HBHBHBHBHB

After Tony had dropped Frank and Joe off at the Hardy house, the boys immediately went to see if their dad was home. They were disappointed when Laura told them he was still at the office. They went up to Frank's room and bided their time by researching possible travel plans. At least, Frank was doing the research. Joe was sitting on his brother's bed, staring at the opposite wall.

"The worst part about Dad's job is that you never know when he might come home," Frank commented. "He could get home at five or come home earlier or he might not get home until midnight."

"Yeah," Joe replied without really hearing what Frank was saying.

"Maybe we should have just gone to the office," Frank went on. "If we wouldn't have taken the day off, we would have been there when Jones and Jim called and then Dad could have listened to the whole thing."

"Yeah."

"At least, there aren't big cases right now. Nothing that Sam can't handle on his own, for sure. As far as that goes, we should be fine going to Ziyou."

"Yeah."

Frank looked up from his laptop and raised an eyebrow at his brother. "What's wrong with you? I've never seen you this unenthusiastic about a mystery before?"

Joe heaved a heavy sigh, but all he said was, "It's nothing."

"You're going to have to do better than that. There's obviously something. Is it missing out on Iola's few weeks here, because if it is, I totally understand…"

"No," Joe cut him off. "You don't really understand. It's different with you and Callie. She'll always be here when you get back from a mystery. It's not like you're going to have to wait four months to see her again. She's not going out and doing a million things like Iola is all the time. Sometimes I wish Iola was boring like she is."

"First off, Callie is not boring," Frank said, bristling just slightly.

Joe flopped backwards on the bed. "That's not what I meant, exactly. I don't know what I mean. I just…I'm tired of dating a phone, if you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I can see that." Frank bit his lip. "If you want to sit this one out, I get that. Dad and I can handle it."

"Sit this one out?" Joe propped himself on his elbow. "No way!" He sighed. "Does that make me a terrible person? About missing my one chance to see Iola, that is?"

"In my experience, terrible people usually don't worry about they're terrible or not, so I'd say no. Besides, you're still only nineteen and Iola's only eighteen. It's not a bad thing to be taking this time to figure out who you are and what's important to you separately from one another."

Joe grunted. "Thank you for those wise words from your depths of ancient wisdom, O Elder Brother. I can hardly wait until next year when I'm as old and wise as you are."

"But don't forget, I'll still be a year older and wiser than you."

Joe grabbed the pillow and threw it at Frank, hitting him squarely in the face. "Okay, enough of the soppy problems. What about Ziyou? Is it looking feasible to actually go there?"

"Not really, unless we take Jones up on her missionary offer. They might be able to help us get there within a few days."

"Missionaries." Joe actually chuckled as he shook his head. "Can you see me and you as missionaries, going and preaching the Good News to people?"

"Not really, but then I can't see Jones doing it, either," Frank replied. "Maybe it's more of a medical missionary-type of thing."

Any further speculation was cut off by the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway. The boys looked out and recognized their father's car immediately. Then they tore down the stairs and were already telling Fenton about the mystery before he got in the door.

"Hi, honey." Laura greeted her husband with a kiss at the door, catching a little of the explanation. "What's this? Another case?"

"Sounds like it," Fenton replied. "Look, boys, let me get in the door and then tell me about it."

Once they had given him a chance to sit down, Fenton paid perfect attention as his sons told him about the mystery. He frowned deeply as soon as they mentioned Black Rose. When they had finished, he stood up and shook his head.

"I don't know about this, boys," he said, beginning to pace down the room.

"I know it's not going to be easy to get over there," Frank replied, "but we can figure something out, and if we have to miss the first week or so of college, it's worth it to me."

"Me, too," Joe agreed.

Fenton scratched the back of his neck. "What kind of grades did you get last year?"

"In classes that didn't count attendance as part of the grade, mostly A's," Frank said. "Except for the classes where I missed a test or something and the professor wouldn't let me make it up."

"And what about you, Joe?"

"Mmm, well…" Joe hesitated. "Maybe not quite as good as Frank, but I haven't failed a class yet."

"No, but you haven't gotten as high a grades as you should," Fenton said. "Why are either of you bothering to go to college if you're just going to skip classes?"

"Because it's about learning the material, not necessarily the grades," Frank reminded him.

"Besides, this is a murder," Joe added. "It's a lot more important than maybe boosting your grade a point or two. Anyway, there are lots of people in college who skip classes for much less valid reasons than investigating murders."

"Maybe, but I just don't know about this case," Fenton said.

"Why not?" Joe asked. "Because of getting there or the skipping classes?"

Fenton considered it a few moments. "Neither, to be honest. If Jim's uncle was running for a political office in a foreign country, it could get very messy to have some American citizens investigating. We might not be able to do much."

"But it's Black Rose," Frank protested. "This is a gold opportunity to learn more about them. Come on, Dad. If we pass up this chance, they might never be stopped."

Fenton folded his arms, drumming the fingers of his right hand against his left elbow. "All right," he said finally. "We've got to stop these people."