Author's Note: Thank you so much for reading and following so far! Thank you especially to Cherylann Rivers, max2013, EvergreenDreamweaver, and BMSH for your reviews! You're all so encouraging!

Several of you have commented that you're not terribly familiar with either A Study in Scarlet or Le Morte d'Arthur. Don't worry about it. All you need to know about the first is that it's Sherlock Holmes and there's a murder, and all you need to know about the second, I will explain when we get to a point that makes sense for that.

Also – please don't kill me after you read this chapter. I know all of you who read Part 1 have been wondering for quite a while about what Nancy is about to find out and doesn't share. I'll tell you, but it will take a lot more than one chapter and for the sake of the story, it's best not to get too far ahead of what Frank and Joe know about it.

Chapter III

"A copy of Le Morte d'Arthur and a weird note?" Joe Hardy repeated over the phone after Nancy had told him about the book. "Even I wouldn't think of something that random."

"You're sure?" Nancy asked. "Not to disbelieve you, but you are my number one suspect here."

"Hey, what about Frank?" Joe asked.

"Do you really think I'd pull a trick that even you think is weird?" countered Frank, whom Nancy could also hear since they were on speaker phone.

"You can be pretty weird sometimes," Joe returned. "But in a very normal way. I mean, you're so normal, you're weird. You get it?"

"Not really," Frank said.

"Okay, guys, I really need to know for sure." Nancy made her voice as serious as she could, hoping the brothers weren't continuing to play a joke on her.

"I plead innocent," Frank told her.

"I didn't send it either," Joe added.

"Did he say that with a straight face, Frank?" Nancy asked, just to be absolutely positive.

"He did," Frank said. "I think you can believe him this time."

Nancy sighed. "To tell the truth, I was hoping it was you guys. You don't think there's any chance it was any of your friends?"

"I don't think so," Frank told her. "It's not really their style, and besides, they don't even really know you all that well. I don't think they'd pull something like this on you."

"All right," Nancy said. "It looks like this is even more of a mystery than I thought. Dad seems to have some ideas about it, though. I guess I'll just have to find out what he thinks."

"Call us back when he tells you," Joe requested.

Nancy promised that she would and ended the call. She looked up at the staircase with her dad's home office just beyond. It wasn't without a little bit of nervousness that she thought about the interview to come. Of course, she wasn't in any trouble and hadn't done anything wrong, she told herself. Even so, Carson had seemed so intense about this whole thing and she wondered what it could be about.

Taking a deep breath, Nancy made the plunge to find out. When she went into the office, she saw that Carson was sitting deep in thought, staring at the book as if it was some evil omen.

"Dad?" she said.

Carson roused himself from his reverie. "What did you find out, Nancy?"

Nancy shrugged as she sat down. "Frank and Joe both plead innocent. I believe them. I think I impressed the importance of a truthful answer on them well enough."

"I was afraid of that," Carson replied. "It looks like it's back again."

"What is?" Nancy asked.

"Nancy, it's a long story but I have to tell you the whole thing," Carson said. "You remember the Hardys talking about their case back in September?"

"The Macbeth one?" Nancy replied. "Yeah. That was a pretty tough case, in more than one way. What does that have to do with this?"

"The way that case turned out, we still don't know for sure," Carson told her, "but Fenton and I both think it had something to do with a case that we worked on fifteen years ago."

"You worked with Mr. Hardy on a case?" Nancy's surprise was evident in her face. "You never told me that before. I knew that you'd met each other before, but I didn't know you ever worked together."

"It was while we were still in New York," Carson explained. "That was a really tough case, in more than one way. It took a heavy toll on both of us. Neither of us have had an easy time talking about it. It was so bad that even during that case back in September when Frank and Joe really should have known what they were probably up against, Fenton couldn't bring himself to tell them about it. I understand, but I can't agree with what he did there. That's why I'm going to handle this differently."

"Wait. You're going to tell me all about Mr. Hardy's mysterious case?" Nancy asked. "And you were involved in it, too?"

"That's right," Carson replied. "It's a long story, so just have patience."

Nancy listened eagerly as Carson explained the whole thing to her, from the day he got involved until the day Fenton and Carson had thought that that chapter of their lives was behind them forever. Through much of the story, Nancy wondered what had been so terrible. It seemed a routine, though serious, case.

Carson's voice shook as he neared the end. Nancy felt her own throat tighten as she fought against tears as her own few memories of that time came flowing back. By the time Carson had finished, Nancy could do nothing but stare at him transfixed, her lips parted slightly as a testimony that her thoughts were far from herself.

"That's terrible, Dad," Nancy said at last. "Poor Mr. Hardy. I – I don't even know –" She didn't finish sentence, unable to find the words for what she was feeling.

"So you can see now why Fenton is having such a hard time telling the boys about it," Carson went on.

"I under – but no, I don't really see." Nancy changed her mind in mid-sentence. "Frank and Joe would understand, and they really ought to have known."

"I agree," Carson said, "but I can still see why Fenton is having such a hard time. Never mind that for the moment, though. Right now we need to talk about what we're going to do. Specifically, do you still plan on working on this mystery?"

Nancy looked down at her hands, trying to compose her response. After a moment, she looked back up again and said, "Dad, I know you expect this answer and it's probably not the answer you want, but I don't think I'm going to get a choice in this. These people sent me the book and they want me to play their game. They're not going to just accept it if I say I don't want to play along. Besides, Dad, they hurt my friends, they hurt you, they hurt Mom. They need to be stopped before they do even more than that."

Carson nodded. "That's exactly what I expected, and I'm not going to try to stop you. You're right. There's no way out of this, as much as I wish there was. However, I will make one stipulation – we're going to have to work together on this."

"I've got no objection to that," Nancy replied. "Any ideas where we should start?"

Carson reached over and opened his laptop. "The place to start would be with our suspects. I should be able to find pictures of them."

It took him a few minutes to find what he was looking for and then he gestured for Nancy to come around to the other side of the desk to look at the computer screen. It showed a set of mug shots of a young man who couldn't have been more than twenty or twenty-one.

"This is Dan Moriare when he was first arrested fifteen years ago," Carson explained. "He received a twenty year sentence rather than life because – well, because he had a good lawyer. His lawyer played up Moriare's age – he was only twenty-one – and managed to convince the court that Moriare was neither the brains of the operation nor did he do the actual killings. However, Moriare turned out to be a model prisoner and he was able to get out on parole this past July. This is him now."

Carson changed the screen to another picture of the same man, but older. Though he was only in his mid-thirties, Dan Moriare appeared to have aged a great deal during his years in prison.

The next picture showed another young man who looked similar to Dan, but he was lying on a sidewalk, clearly dead.

"This is Cliff Moriare," Carson explained. "Dan's older brother. We don't have any pictures of him alive. According to Dan and his lawyer, Cliff thought out all the murders and was chiefly responsible for carrying them out. He imagined himself to be a sort of Moriarty, probably taking inspiration from his last name. That, according to Dan, is why he themes his crimes on Sherlock Holmes mysteries."

He moved onto the next set of pictures, which were all of a boy who was around seventeen years old. "This is the kid that gave Frank and Joe so much grief in September – Terry Shanth. If you look closely at him and the pictures of Dan and Cliff, you'll see a resemblance. We believe he's a relative of some sort, but we don't know how for sure. He disappeared and there hasn't been a trace of him since."

The next picture was a police sketch of a woman. "This is the only other suspect who escaped from the Hardys. We don't have a photo of her. This is a sketch based off of Frank's description. The name she gave was Helena Markovich. No one knows for sure what her role is or whether that's her real name. The men who were captured thought that she was just a messenger that Terry Shanth and his mother were using."

"Do you have a picture of Terry's mother? She's the one that they all said was behind it, wasn't she?" Nancy asked.

"That's right," Carson replied. "Here's her picture, although as you probably remember, she was killed back in September. As far as the police can determine, it appears to have been suicide, but of course, it's hard to know for sure."

The next photograph was of a teenaged girl. "This is Clarissa Margot. Her father was one of the Shanths' victims. She received multiple death threats herself and claimed that there were some attempts on her life. She also has disappeared. We don't know how or if she was involved, or whether she's still alive. She's certainly a person of interest, though."

He showed Nancy a series of other pictures, explaining that some of them were Cliff and Dan's original victims and the rest were the ones who had been killed in Bayport. Finally, he showed her the mugshots of the Shanths' accomplices whom Frank and Joe had helped capture, although they were definitely still safely in jail.

"Since most of those people you showed me are dead or in jail," Nancy said, "that only really leaves Dan Moriare, Terry Shanth, Helena Markovich, and possibly Clarissa Margot as suspects."

"That's right," Carson replied. "I can't help feeling that we're missing somebody, though. Moriare was accounted for during the Hardys' case and Shanth is just a kid. I doubt either of them could have masterminded that whole thing."

"What about Helena Markovich?" Nancy asked. "Couldn't she be the mastermind?"

"She could be," Carson admitted. "It's just that she was so insignificant the whole time. I don't know. We'll certainly want to investigate her, but it won't be easy since she also disappeared without a trace."

"Are you sure? It's not that easy to disappear now," Nancy replied. "There are cameras everywhere, credit cards, and you can't even get a hotel room without ID."

"They find a way." Carson sighed. "That's part of why I think Helena Markovich was using a fake name. We've no way of identifying her except by her name and this sketch. If the name is fake, then –"

"Then it's pretty easy for her to stay under the radar," Nancy concluded. "Well, how do we trace the untraceable?"

"By calling in the police to begin with." Carson reached for his cell phone. "We'd better also let the Hardys know what's going on. They'll probably be targets before too long."

"Dad, what about the Robin Hood case?" Nancy asked. "That follows the whole book theme these people have going on. Do you think that has anything to do with it?"

"It could," Carson admitted. "Why don't you hold off on going up there until this weekend? I could go with you then, or maybe you and the girls and Ned, Burt, and Dave could go together."

"That sounds fine to me," Nancy said. "Unless – maybe I should just focus on the Moriare case. It's a little more personal and maybe more urgent."

"But we don't have a lot of leads, and as you said, the two could be related," Carson reminded her. "I think it would be worthwhile to look into it."