J.M.J.
Author's note: Thank you for continuing to read! Thank you especially to MargaretA66, Candylou, max2013, and angelicalkiss for your reviews! You're right about it being darkest before the dawn, max2013—the only trouble is that it isn't darkest just yet. Thanks again and God bless!
Chapter III
A few days had passed, and there was no sign of Eva Moriare making a move to continue her work of vengeance. She had been ordered to stay away from Bayport and Philadelphia, as the latter was where Mario Beretta was living. To all appearances, she was meekly following instructions. Yet neither the Hardys nor the Radleys were prepared to relax just yet. Sam had already followed through on his plan to send his wife and kids to Colorado, and he spent most of his time at the office with Fenton or Joe. The Hardys also did their best to make sure none of them—especially Fenton—were ever alone.
Callie spent most days when Frank was at work at someone else's house, either her parents' or Frank's or sometimes the Mortons' or another friend's. She tried not to go to the same place too often so that no one would notice a pattern to her bouts of morning sickness, which generally didn't happen in the morning. She and Frank had decided that they didn't want to make the announcement yet, not until things calmed down a little. So far, no one had realized, but if this kept on much longer, it was only a matter of time, as she pointed out to Frank one evening when they were back in their own apartment.
"I really am fine staying here by myself," she concluded her pitch. "Of any of us, I'm the least likely one for Evangeline to come after, anyway. In a way, I'm almost in more danger when I'm at your parents' place."
"That's a good point," Frank conceded.
They were seated on the couch. Frank had had his arm around Callie, but she had been making her plea so intently that she had scooted around until she was practically kneeling on the couch so that she could face him.
"So?" Callie prodded.
Frank leaned forward so that his elbows were resting on his knees. "I don't know, Callie. Maybe the safest thing would be to just tell everybody."
"No. I don't want to worry everyone even more than they already are."
"And that's your only reason?" Frank gave her a skeptical look.
Callie sighed. "All right. I also don't want to get lectured about it. I already know that this isn't the safest time to be bringing a baby into the world, but there's nothing we can do about it now. I'd much rather not say anything until this is over."
"The kid might be graduated by then," Frank said, and he was only half-teasing.
Callie threw her hands in the air. "Okay, okay. I'm willing to make a compromise. We'll give it until New Year's. That's not too far away. We'll tell them then, no matter what."
"Okay." Frank pulled her close to him again. "It's all going to be okay. You know that, right?"
"I hope so."
HBHBHBHBHB
Almost three thousand miles away, Phil Cohen was sitting in his apartment, thumbing through the morning paper while he ate breakfast. This apartment was even smaller than the one he had shared with Joe, Tony, and Shaun Stane, but he was by himself in it so he actually had more room and the rent was manageable with what he earned at his job. Although it felt callous to think it, it was nicer living on his own. He was almost starting to like it, even the part where he was living in California. He could have his own routine and there was peace and quiet, which he needed.
He wasn't sure how it happened, but reading through the local paper had almost gotten to be a ritual. There was usually something of interest in it. Today, one headline in particular caught his attention: "Body of Woman Found, Police Suspect Murder." There wasn't much of a story. The victim wasn't identified and the police detective who was interviewed refused to say that it had definitely been murder. Maybe part of why the story caught his eye was because he knew the detective. It was Captain Gomez of the local police, who had investigated Tony's kidnapping and…
Phil flipped the paper over and shoved it away. That was the real reason the story had stood out to him. A day hadn't gone by yet that he hadn't thought about Tony. He hated that his stomach felt wrenched every time he thought of him. It wasn't fair that Angelo had not only killed Tony, but he had also cast the dark shadow of murder over his memory. The two thoughts were inseparable now. He couldn't think of Tony without recalling that he had been murdered, and he couldn't hear about a murder without instantly thinking of Tony.
Before this, Phil had read about murder stories with a sort of detached, fascinated horror. With one or two exceptions, they had always been people that Phil had never heard of before and never would hear about again, as if their entire existence had been built around their tragic demise. Even the exceptions whom he had known of before their deaths somehow still seemed as if their death was the defining point of their life. But now he realized what he should have before, that none of those people had been marked out for their fate from birth. They had all lived ordinary lives, more or less. They had all been real people who had expected to live out natural life spans. They had all been like him in that way.
It made his own mortality stand out starkly to him. It didn't exactly panic him, although he did feel a shiver of fear whenever he thought about it. More than that, it made him thoughtful about what was really important and what he really should be doing.
The doorbell interrupted his ponderings. That wasn't so unusual anymore. Phil didn't have a lot of friends in California, but the ones he did have dropped in a lot. For two of them, it was because they tended to be very needy and for the third, she was always checking in on him after what happened to Tony. It turned out that it was the latter.
"Hi, Jenna," Phil greeted her as he let her in.
Jenna Ridgeley had been one of Tony's friends out here, and Phil had never met her until a couple of months ago. She was one of the kindest people he had ever met and she was dedicated to making sure he was all right after everything that had happened.
She smiled and returned the greeting, but Phil thought he could detect a little worry in her manner.
"I'm afraid I've got to go to work pretty soon." Phil checked his phone. "I've only got a few minutes."
"That's okay," Jenna said. "I just was going past and I thought I'd stop in and see how you're doing."
"I'm okay. You really don't have to worry about me so much."
"And one other thing." Jenna paused. "Have you heard from Darcy in the last couple of days? She hasn't shown up for work the last two days and she won't answer her phone. Whenever I text her, I just get one-word responses, if any at all."
Darcy was one of the other people Phil tentatively considered a friend out here. It wasn't always that way. In fact, it wasn't until very recently. A few years before, Phil had met Darcy back in Bayport and they had gone out a couple of times. However, she had tried to make Phil jealous by forcing herself on an unwilling Joe, and Phil had quickly broken things off with her. Then she had surfaced again, just at the beginning of all the trouble with Angelo and Black Rose. It turned out that Darcy was working with Angelo, although not entirely willingly. She had made a suicide attempt, from which Phil and his friends had rescued her. After that, Phil decided to try to make his peace with the past by helping her out where he could, while making it completely clear to her that he was only doing so as a friend, not because he had any romantic interest in her. When Jenna had heard about her, she had naturally taken her under her wing as well. Jenna worked at a Christian bookstore and had persuaded the owner to give Darcy a chance there, since Darcy wasn't being charged for anything criminal. For the last two months, Darcy seemed to be flourishing. It was discouraging if she was throwing all that away now, but Phil told himself it wasn't all that unexpected.
"No," Phil replied to Jenna's question. "I haven't heard from her. If you want, I could stop by her place on my way to work and see if she's all right."
"You don't need to do that," Jenna replied. "I'll check on her later. She's probably fine."
Again, the doorbell rang, cutting the conversation off.
"That might be her now," Phil commented as he opened the door.
It wasn't Darcy. Instead, it was Captain Gomez with a more-serious-than-usual expression on his face.
Phil stared in surprise for a second before he recovered himself. "Captain Gomez. What brings you here?"
"I'm afraid I've got some back news for you, Mr. Cohen," Gomez replied.
HBHBHBHBHB
Day had come unheeded by Joe, who had been stuck in the back of the department store where he was working. Once the store opened, he always tried to find excuses to stay in the back. There were a lot of people in town who recognized him, and they tended to stare and whisper when they saw him working there. Of all the possible fates Joe had ever thought he might have to face, being a social pariah wasn't one that he expected.
That was why it was both a surprise and a sense of relief to see a familiar car parked next to his as he slowly made his way across the parking lot, looking forward to the nap he was going to take the second he got home. There was only one car like this one in the area: a bright yellow 1957 model. Everyone in town knew "The Queen." It had been a long time since Joe had seen the Queen waiting to meet him.
The two young men sitting in the car got out to meet him. Chet Morton was, of course, in the driver's seat, while Biff Hooper climbed out the passenger side. Biff called a friendly greeting and that completed Joe's relief. This wasn't going to be a confrontation.
"What are you two doing here?" Joe asked.
"We thought with that crazy Evangeline chick running around again, maybe you'd want someone to escort you home," Biff replied.
"Oh." It was meant as a gesture of friendship and Joe knew that, but he still felt it as a slap in the face. "You didn't need to bother. I doubt Evangeline will bother me on the way home, if she's even around."
"You never know," Biff insisted.
"She can't drive," Joe pointed out. "So she wouldn't be able to run me off the road or stop me. What's she gonna do? Use a bazooka on me?"
"Knowing her, she might," Biff said.
Joe rolled his eyes and started toward the door of his own car.
"Hold on, Joe," Chet said, and Joe paused. "Actually, we were wondering if you wanted to come and take a look at the sailboat I'm building. It's pretty great, if I do say so myself."
Joe glanced from one of them to the other. He was starting to wonder if one of his parents had sent these two to keep him from going home or something. He couldn't think of any other reason they'd have come here. "Look, guys, I've been up since four o'clock in the morning. I'm beat. I just want to get home and get a couple of hours' sleep."
"Then we'll go with you and make sure nothing happens," Biff maintained. "In fact, if you're so tired, I'll drive you."
Joe rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I'm not that tired, and I don't need a bodyguard."
Biff and Chet glanced at one another, as if they weren't sure how to proceed. Obviously, they were a little taken aback by Joe's attitude. In fact, Joe was a little surprised and ashamed of himself, too.
"Look, guys, I'm sorry," he said, dropping the attitude and finding it a relief to do so. "It sounds fun to look at your sailboat, Chet. Maybe another time, on a day I don't have to work. I really am too tired right now."
"Okay," Chet said.
There was an awkward pause. Joe could sense that his friends had something more that they wanted to say to him. He wasn't sure whether he should just drive away or if he should listen. He was leaning with his forearms against the roof above the driver's door. Now he let his head sink down until his forehead was resting on his arms. "What is it?"
"We wanted to talk to you about something," Biff said.
"About what?" Joe asked, looking up.
"About this." Biff gestured to the department store behind Joe. "I mean, why?"
Joe buried his face again. "They pay me. And they're some of the only ones in town who will do that, so there's that."
"But why aren't you working for your dad?" Biff insisted.
"You both know perfectly well why I can't work for my dad."
"Nope. We actually don't," Chet spoke up. "I guess after a couple of months ago, it's not too hard to figure out, but it started before that. Why did you go to California in the first place?"
"You really don't know?" Joe looked at him intently, but he couldn't see any telltale signs that he was lying. He sighed. "Okay. Well…I just don't have what it takes to be a detective."
Biff made a sound halfway between a snort and a chuckle. "Seriously? You, Joe Hardy, don't have what it takes to be a detective? Then who does?"
"Anyone who's not a coward and an idiot," Joe muttered.
"Then that puts you in the clear," Biff replied.
Joe shook his head. "Guys, do we really have to talk about this right now? I'm going home and going back to bed." He opened the door to his car and started to get in.
"We know you're not to blame for what happened to Tony," Chet said bluntly.
Joe froze. "You weren't there."
"We didn't have to be," Chet insisted. "We've seen you work enough to know you did everything you could and thought you should. And to know that probably nobody else could have done any better."
"You've got too much confidence in me," Joe protested. He scoffed. "I don't know why. Of all people, why do you even care what happens to me after everything I've done to Iola?"
"Joe, not everybody writes you off as easily as you're writing yourself off," Chet retorted, although a flare of color had come into his cheeks.
"Oh, really?"
"Really. You still have friends. Maybe you shouldn't be so eager to change that," Chet snapped in reply.
Joe turned away, his flash of annoyance cooling off. Again, he felt ashamed of himself. "I'm sorry."
"You should be," Chet said.
"Hey, cool it, Chet," Biff broke in. "He said he was sorry, and you promised you wouldn't do this."
"I know," Chet said, although his voice still clearly revealed his irritation.
Joe wished he could slink away somewhere and never have to face anyone again. At the same moment, a thought occurred to him that he realized had to be the explanation. "Did Iola ask you to come and talk to me?"
Chet gave a barely perceptible nod. "You know, after everything you've done, she still feels sorry for you. She almost convinced me to, but you're reminding me why I don't."
"Stop it," Biff told him. "Why don't you just go home, Chet? I'll drive Joe home. We've still got a lot to talk about."
"It's fine, Biff," Joe said. "You don't have to worry about sparing my feelings. Besides, I'd rather not have anyone feeling sorry for me."
"Are you sure about that?" Chet asked. "You don't seem to have a problem feeling sorry for yourself."
For a second or two, all Biff could do was watch Joe closely. In the old days, he couldn't imagine Joe letting anyone talk to him like that without escalating the situation further. However, all Joe did now was tighten his jaw and look at the ground.
"Both of you, just cut it out," Biff told them. "This wasn't supposed to be an argument. Honestly, I'm sick and tired of everyone acting the way they are. The last couple of months have been hell for all of us. What do you want to go and make it worse for?"
Neither of the others replied. Joe continued staring fixedly at the ground. Chet continued staring at Joe with his arms crossed.
Biff sighed and muttered, "I'm going to have to find myself some friends who aren't so stubborn."
It was hard to say exactly how the situation would have ended without a third party interfering. As it was, they were all distracted a moment later by a car double-parking behind the Queen and Joe's car. Tony's two youngest sisters, Maria and Katherine, piled out of it.
"Thank goodness you're still here!" Maria said, rushing to Joe.
"I don't know that that's the reason I am," Joe murmured, but he could see that both girls were clearly upset. "What's wrong? Did something happen?"
Maria nodded. "We were just out at the cemetery and we found something."
"What?"
"Show him, Katherine." Maria turned to look at her younger sister.
Wordlessly, Katherine stepped forward and placed an object in Joe's hand. When Joe looked down at it, he realized that it was actually two objects: a withered white rose and a black rose.
