J.M.J.

Author's note: Thank you so much for continuing to read! When I started this story, I wasn't sure if there would be much interest in it, so I'm really glad so many of you seem to be enjoying it! In particular, thank you to MargaretA66, ErinJordan, Candylou, max2013, BMSH, drogorath, Cherylann Rivers, and t4swp for your reviews!

Chapter VI

Intruder

There had been some long days for Fenton in the past, but none were quite so long as that Tuesday. It was two days after the shooting. His family had been threatened. He couldn't even go and see them. He himself had nearly been locked up by a mob boss. It appeared that a mob war could break out at any moment. His FBI contact had taken off to another state. And not one single lead had paid off so far.

That was why he didn't allow himself to feel too hopeful when Alex Casey knocked on the door to his office late that evening.

"Casey," he greeted him. "I hope you have something to report."

"You might have to qualify that," Alex said, a shimmer of humor in his voice in spite of everything. "I've got something to report: that I have nothing to report. I feel like I must have talked to every Giovanni Beretta in the country, and that's not even counting all the ones that the rest of my team have talked to. None of them have an estranged brother named Nico."

"I thought you were going to try 'John Beretta' next," Fenton reminded him.

"Right. We've started in on that. No luck so far. We'll let you know if that changes." Alex wrinkled his forehead. "Lieutenant, you don't mind me asking a personal question, do you?"

"It depends on what the personal question is," Fenton replied.

"Is something wrong?"

Fenton raised an eyebrow sarcastically. "We're on the brink of a mob war and we're also trying to find the kidnapped parents of three young children with little hope of success. I wouldn't necessarily say that all's right in the world."

Alex almost chuckled, but then he quickly became serious again. "It's just that you seem kind of…I don't know. Worried, maybe? Not quite how you usually are. If you don't mind my saying so, sir."

"It's nothing to worry about, Casey," Fenton said, unwilling to talk about the situation with anyone. He liked Alex well enough, but even if Alex wasn't a mole, he did have infamously loose lips and might give something away by accident.

The conversation was interrupted by Mitch Johnson's arrival. "Lieutenant. Casey." He nodded to each of the men in turn, but despite his formal greeting, he seemed cheerier than he had since Sunday. "I've got good news. I've finally made some progress."

Fenton stood up. "You have? What did you learn?"

"The name of the tattoo artist who did at least one of those rose tattoos," Mitch reported. "He's got a little shop and so I gave him the name of the one Rose guy that we have identified, Robert Hatch, you remember. He says he did that tattoo for him about three months ago."

"Great," Fenton said. "Let's go there and check his records. We might get the names of some of these other guys."

"I don't know about that," Mitch admitted. "He says Hatch was the only one he's done. I'm not sure I believe him. He seemed scared. Someone might have threatened him not to talk anymore than that. I'm thinking we might need a court order to look at his records."

"But he told you about Hatch," Fenton pointed out. "If he had been threatened, why would he do that?"

"Good question," Mitch agreed. "Anyway, his name's, apparently, Odin Hannigail."

"Odin," Fenton repeated. "Well, okay. Let's go get that court order and then get down there." He was about to rush out of the office, but then he remembered the time. "It's past eight o'clock. I guess even Norse gods close up their shops at some point, not to mention there aren't too many judges who will be happy with being bothered this late. I guess it will have to wait until tomorrow."

HBHBHBHBHB

Wednesday morning was bleak and sprinkling rain. Laura and the boys were all starting to go stir-crazy in their little prison. Finally, Laura decided that there could be no harm in venturing out for a walk. In all the crowds of New York City, the chances of anyone spotting them were slim. Moreover, the rainy weather gave them a perfect excuse to bundle up and decrease their chances of being recognized even more.

"Come on, boys, let's go get some ice cream," she invited them.

"Ice cream!" Frank repeated in excitement.

The prospect of actually going out of doors had both boys so thrilled that they could hardly wait for Laura to put their boots and coats on. Laura pulled the hoods up for all three, and they started out. There was a little ice cream shop a couple of blocks away, and so they headed toward that.

The shop was mostly empty when they entered, apart from a trio of employees and a handful of customers. Frank and Joe ran up to the counter to look at the different flavors of ice cream in the clear-lidded freezer.

"Which one do you want?" Laura asked them.

"Bubblegum!" Joe said.

"You can't have bubblegum until you're older," Laura told him. "How about chocolate?"

Joe shook his head. "No. Bubblegum."

"I want that one." Frank pointed at the tub of strawberry.

"I want, too," Joe said, evidently forgetting about the bubblegum.

"Okay." Laura turned to the teenage boy behind the counter. "Two cups of strawberry ice cream." She figured that neither boy would finish his entire cup of ice cream, and so she would have to clean it up anyway. Besides that, she would be much too busy trying to keep as much ice cream off clothes and fingers as possible that she wouldn't have time to eat a cup of her own.

They sat down at a booth in the corner where Laura would have a clear view of anyone coming into the shop. They had been there about ten minutes when someone came in whom Laura recognized: Danielle Harbinger. Danielle spotted her right away.

"Hi, Laura. Haven't seen you in a long time. Say, what are you doing in this part of town?"

"Oh, well…" Laura stammered. She knew she wasn't supposed to tell anyone where she was staying, but lying didn't come naturally to her. "Just out and about, you know."

Danielle gave her a skeptical look. "It's not a very nice day to be out and about, and there are some much better ice cream places closer to where you live. No offense to the people running this place."

"Well…" Laura decided to get the conversation away from herself. "What are you doing here then? Shouldn't you be at work?"

"I had to take a break." Danielle instantly looked more tired. "You can only spend so much time in a lab before you start feeling like you're going crazy. Anyway, I came down here to get some ice cream and be alone for a little while. I figured it wouldn't be too busy on a day like this."

"Are you making much progress on the case?" Laura asked hopefully.

"No, not really. It's the weirdest thing. It's pretty tough to be completely anonymous in this day and age of cameras everywhere, but I can't find a thing on those other two guys. But this probably isn't the place to talk about the case."

"Right," Laura agreed, although she was disappointed. "Well, if it's all the same to you, I think we'd better be heading home."

She threw away the cups from the ice cream, pulled the boys' hoods up again, and took them by the hand to lead them back out onto the sidewalk. She happened to glance through the window as they were leaving and saw Danielle sit down at a table with a young man and evidently start talking earnestly to him.

"That's funny," she thought, taking note of the man's appearance.

HBHBHBHBHB

It was late morning by the time Fenton and Mitch parked outside Odin Hannigail's tattoo parlor. It was in one of the more unsavory parts of town and was squeezed in between a bar and an ancient used bookstore.

"I never said it was a five-star establishment," Mitch said with a shrug when he noticed the look on Fenton's face.

"That's for sure," Fenton replied, "but that's not what I was looking at. Take a look at the door."

A "Closed" sign hung prominently on the outside of the door.

Mitch pursed his lips. "Well, how do you like that? I must have scared him off."

"Or someone else made sure he wouldn't open today," Fenton said. "We'd better track him down. He's looking like a better lead all the time."

"Right. You want me to hire a PI to do that for us?" Mitch asked with a teasing grin.

"Might not be a bad idea," Fenton returned. "We can always use more manpower. Speaking of the PI, you did hire one, right?"

"I did," Mitch said. "Found one in a little town in Massachusetts. He came with good recommendations, even from the police there. I figured that was a good sign, and we're also not going to have to pay as much travel fees as we would hiring someone from here in the city. His name's Tom Radley. There's just one question about the whole thing. Why do we need to send a private eye to Rockport when Christine Roche is already checking all that out?"

"Just a hunch, I guess," Fenton said. "There's still something I don't like about Agent Roche. Anyway, Radley's completely out of this, so if his report matches up with everything Agent Roche finds, then I'll be willing to concede that she's trustworthy."

"Just so long as Radley doesn't get in her way. Well, what's the plan here? Check out some of the businesses next to here to see if anyone knows where old Odin lives? The bar's closed, so I guess that one's out."

"I think first we should try the phonebook," Fenton said. "I know there are a lot of people in this city, but there can't be too many named Odin Hannigail."

"We can only hope so," Mitch replied.

There was a phone booth nearby on the corner, and Fenton walked down to it. He took out the phonebook and turned to the H section. Within a few minutes, he had found one listing for Odin Hannigail. The address was only a few minutes away, and the two officers drove straight there. At least, they started to.

They had only gone a couple of blocks when the cell phone from Christine started ringing. Fenton answered it.

"This is Agent Roche," Christine identified herself. "I'm here in Rockport. Apparently, this group that Gregorio has gotten in with spends a lot of time here in Rockport. I figured out why yet. However, I think I have picked up a lead about Nico and Mattea Beretta."

"What's that?" Fenton asked.

"I found a guy with that rose tattoo. He wasn't willing to talk. I think this group, whoever they are, makes it clear that they don't take kindly to snitches. However, when I dropped the name Beretta, he stopped short. I'm sure it was familiar to him, but whether it's the same Beretta or not, I don't know."

"Interesting," Fenton said. "If we could just find Giovanni Beretta, he would probably be able to clear some things up for us. If I get the time, I'll join in on that search myself. Thanks for telling me. Is there anything else?"

"No," Christine replied. "I'll let you know if there is later."

Fenton hung up the phone and turned to Mitch. "Let's hurry and talk to Odin. I'm afraid he might have a more serious reason for not opening the shop than just that you scared him."

A few minutes later, Mitch had parked in front of the apartment building where the phonebook indicated that Odin Hannigail lived. His apartment was on the fourth floor and the hallways were a little confusing, so it took the detectives some time to find the apartment.

Fenton knocked on the door. There was no sound from inside. Then, on a hunch, Fenton tried the doorknob. It turned and the door opened a crack.

"That's never a good sign," Mitch commented.

Fenton pushed the door open the rest of the way and then shuddered. Mitch let out a low whistle. The body of a man was lying on the floor. From his pallid face, blood-soaked shirt, and rigid limbs, it was clear that he was dead.

"Call for backup," Fenton ordered Mitch, before proceeding forward to examine the body.

The man had been young, probably younger than Fenton. His dark hair had been cut short and he had a beard and mustache. Both arms were covered in sleeve tattoos and a partial tattoo showed above the collar of his shirt. If this was Odin Hannigail, which seemed likely, none of that was too unexpected. What did surprise Fenton was that the man was holding a single black rose in his hand.

Fenton bent down to take a closer look at it. The hand wasn't clasped around it, so it had probably been put there after the victim had been killed, which meant it was probably the calling card of the killer. That made sense, after all, since Odin had most likely been murdered because he had let out a little information on the rose tattoos.

"I've got some more people coming," Mitch said, crouching next to Fenton. "Looks I messed this one up big time. If we'd been quicker about getting the court order…"

"I don't think we would have been in time," Fenton told him. "It's hard to say until the medical examiner has looked at him, but I'd guess he's been dead for quite a few hours already. It probably happened last night."

"Someone must have heard the shot," Mitch said. "We should talk to the neighbors, see if we can pin down a time. What's that?" He noticed the rose.

"I think it's someone letting us know why he was killed."

"Pretty audacious of them," Mitch observed. "Or of him, I should say. It's looking more and more like Gregorio is back of this all the time."

"Whoever killed him probably destroyed all the records he had of those tattoos, but we might as well look for them," Fenton said. "He might have hidden them somewhere in his apartment rather than the store, especially after you were asking about them. Let's look." He stood up, but Mitch remained crouched next to the body, staring at him in some sort of contemplation. "Hey, come on. Let's not waste any more time."

"Just give me a minute here." Mitch let out a long breath. Then he stood up. "It's pretty obvious now that this gang uses a black rose as an identifier. How hard have you looked into that?"

"I've been looking into it. No matches on it yet. But let's take a look around."

A thorough search of the apartment revealed no trace of any records. Several detectives were also sent down to Odin's shop, only to find all the records there stolen and the computer smashed. As for the murder, no clues turned up. The neighbors insisted that they hadn't heard a thing or seen anyone going into the apartment. Even the forensics and ballistics reports yielded nothing, save that Odin had been killed with a .22 caliber handgun at point-blank range. The markings on the bullet didn't match any other bullets on record.

As soon as he had returned to the precinct, Fenton had had a message that Laura had tried to call him earlier. Since Laura had said in the message that it was no emergency, Fenton didn't take time to return her call until the reports were in and the investigation had once again slowed down.

"Is everything okay?" Laura asked before telling him about her own observations. She noticed the heaviness in his voice.

"We're starting to make some progress in the case, I think, but it's looking like it will still be awhile," Fenton replied. "Is everything okay with you and the boys?"

"Yeah, well, I did something that probably wasn't too smart," Laura admitted. "I took the boys out for ice cream this morning, just for a little while. I don't think anyone would have recognized us, except we happened to run into Danielle Harbinger. I wouldn't have thought anything of that, except that she said that she had needed to take a break and have a few minutes to herself, but then, the minute we left, she sat down with a man and started talking to him. It just seemed a little strange."

"It does," Fenton agreed. "Can you describe the man?"

"He was African American and he had his hair shaved really short. He was wearing a dark green jacket, I think, and he was sitting down so I couldn't really see how tall he was or what else he was wearing. I just got a glimpse."

"Okay. I'll look into it."

After a few more minutes of conversation, Fenton reluctantly said that he had to get back to work. He had no sooner hung up the phone than Mitch came into his office without bothering to knock.

"I've got some good news. Finally," Mitch announced. "I think I've found Giovanni Beretta."

"Really?" Fenton asked. "You weren't even assigned to look for him."

"I know," Mitch said. "But I had a few spare minutes, and I figured might as well spend them doing something worthwhile. I remembered Laura's suggestion about maybe he's going by John, so I did a little looking and I found a John Beretta who is a student at Our Lady of Good Counsel Seminary in Boston. I spoke to the rector there, and he said that their John is, indeed, actually named Giovanni even though he goes by John and he's from New York City and he's going to call me back when he can find out about the rest."

"That sounds good," Fenton said. "How did you find him?"

"Well, it wasn't too hard, honestly…" Mitch began, but he was interrupted by the phone ringing.

Fenton picked it up. "Lieutenant Hardy speaking."

"Hey, um, Fenton? This is Lucy Walters down the hall from your apartment, you know?"

"Right," Fenton said, a dread falling on him. He had asked a few of his neighbors whom he knew fairly well to keep an eye on his apartment and let him know if anyone came there. "Is someone at my apartment?"

"I think so," Lucy replied. "I didn't actually see them, but I heard them. They knocked on the door, and I'm pretty sure I heard them go in."

"Okay. I'll be right there."

Fenton and Mitch didn't waste any time in driving to the Hardys' apartment building. They paused in front of the door, listening for any sounds from within. For several minutes, all was silent. Then they heard a door close. Fenton nodded to Mitch, and both men drew their guns. Then Fenton unlocked the door and threw it open. The detectives stepped into the doorway, their guns pointed forward, and shouting an order to freeze. There was a long, loud scream from within.