Disclaimer: I don't own Nanoha, okay? I do, however, own a couple of Alfred Hitchcock movies, which were the inspiration for this story.

Chapter 2: Dial 'M' For Murder

Yuuno awoke laying on the floor, sore and cold. He blinked and sighed as sunlight streamed through his apartment window. How long had he been sleeping on the floor, he didn't know. But he did know that unless he really wanted Chrono to have his head on a platter, he had better get up and head to work. Groaning as he stretched, he got up and went into his bedroom, getting his clothes and heading into the shower.

Twenty minutes later, just as he stepped out dressed in his light green dress shirt, someone knocked on the door. Yuuno hurried down the hall when the knocking became a pounding.

"Don't people know how to use doorbells anymore?" he groaned, unlocking the door and letting it swing open.

He couldn't believe who he was seeing.

The woman from yesterday, Mrs. Froy, was standing in his doorway, her huge bag over her shoulder. She looked like she'd woken up, realized she was late, threw something on, and drove here like a madwoman, if her messy hair was of any indication.

"Mrs...Froy, right?" he asked.

She nodded. "I'm sorry I had run out on such short notice, Mr. Scrya, but uh...I ended up missing my train," she replied. She rubbed her hands over and over, looking nervous. "May I come in?"

"Oh, sure!" Yuuno stepped aside for the woman to come in, and directed her to the couch. "Can I get you anything? I've got coffee and donuts if you'd like."

"Coffee, please. And make sure you put lots of cream in it," she said. Nodding, Yuuno soon made his way into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

Ten minutes later, Yuuno walked out with two cups of coffee, French Vanilla cream, and his own plate of steaming hot eggs and toast. He handed Mrs. Froy her coffee and dug into his breakfast, realizing how hungry he was. It would be a few minutes until Mrs. Froy started speaking.

"I bet you're wondering why I've come to see you," she started.

"For a moment, I thought that either of the Polonez siblings had caught up to me," he admitted.

"Don't worry. I haven't seen them since this morning, when they were on their way to the train station," she said.

"...So, did you really miss your train, or did you decided not to take the trip?" he asked.

Mrs. Froy stiffened, as though his question had been a slap to the face. After a dreadful pause, she nodded slowly. "You could say I...changed my mind," she answered simply. "To be more honest, I was actually being followed on my way there. It was one of the snipers that Atenza hired."

Yuuno nearly choked on his coffee. "They sent snipers after you?"

"What can I say? I am a spy, after all. I know things that they don't want the police to know about. Especially the information that I released to you," she said.

"I have a question, Mrs. Froy. Who exactly is getting assassinated? I need to know, because some of my friends are in the TSAB," Yuuno asked.

Mrs. Froy sighed. "That is something I would have to divulge in secret, Mr. Scrya. Otherwise, it could cost me my life."

"I see..." Yuuno decided to try another loophole. "Well, can you at least tell me their rank, or their occupation? I could then figure out something."

"Well, I guess I could-"

The doorbell rang before she could finish her sentence. Yuuno was puzzled.

"That's odd. Nobody really uses the doorbell around here," he said.

At the sound of movement behind him, he turned to see Mrs. Froy hurriedly grab her things and run into the spare bedroom.

"If that's who I think it is, I want you to tell them that you don't know who I am. If you don't, you could be in big trouble," she said. "As in...you could die."

Yuuno gulped. "I don't think I want that." Sighing, he picked up the other mug of coffee, put it next to the coffee machine, and went to answer the door. Mrs. Froy ducked into the guest bedroom.

Atenza was standing there, apparently texting on his phone. When he looked up, he seemed surprised to see Yuuno.

"Oh! Top of the mornin' to ya, Blondie," he said, tipping his hat in mock salute.

Yuuno cringed at the nickname. "Good morning, Mr. Polonez. And how are you?"

"Fine, fine. Listen, do you know a person by the name of Melissa Froy? She's an employee of ours, and she hasn't been back for over a week," Atenza said. "We got a tip from someone who said that they'd seen her come up here. Have you seen her by any chance?"

"Sorry. I haven't heard of a person by that name," Yuuno said, putting on his best "casual" face. "I know all of the neighbors here. You can ask them."

"I've already asked. They said that they don't know anyone by that name, either." Atenza scratched his chin. "Maybe I should check at the other apartment complex. Sorry for bothering you, Blondie."

"By the way, it's Yuuno, not Blondie," Yuuno said tiredly.

"Sure thing, Yuuno-kun," he said. With a tip of his hat, he turned and walked down the hall. It took all of Yuuno's self-control for him not to slam the door.

Once he heard the footsteps disappear from below, he turned to the guest room. "Alright, he's gone," he said.

Mrs. Froy walked out, looking very annoyed. "It's amazing how easy he can come up with those lies. I'd never work for those creeps even if I were homeless and it was the last job on Mid," she said.

Yuuno chuckled. "You and me both." As he started to gather his things together, he turned to his guest. "Hey, uh...will you be alright by yourself, Mrs. Froy? I mean, you are a wanted person now-"

"Mr. Scrya, I've been trained with a particular set of skills, some of which would put some of those magic users to shame." She grinned wickedly. "I may be old, but I can still pack quite a punch. If anyone tries to break in, I can handle them."

"If you're sure..." Yuuno still had a gut feeling that told him he should stay home, but the woman was confident that she could handle herself. And he did have to get to work or else Arf would get Nanoha to drag him into work again, all the while telling embarrassing things.

Were it not for Arf's quick thinking, Yuuno may as well have become a shut in.

Pushing down his raging doubts, he said goodbye to Mrs. Froy and made his way out to work.

"...Are you freaking kidding me?"

"Nope."

Yuuno stared at the sheet of paper that had been left on his desk when he'd gotten there only a few minutes late. Chrono really did have a bad habit of just walking in to make his requests whenever he wanted. Whenever Yuuno wasn't there, Chrono usually left a slip of paper with his requests.

Today, it was no different...except that Chrono had tripled the number of books to over 350.

"See if you can top this before your shift's over, ferret boy. Chrono."

Yuuno took one look at that before promptly slamming his head into the desk. Today was not going to be easy...

The whole thing continued when Yuuno overheard Arf telling Fate about what had appeared in the papers.

"Are you and Teana looking into this?" Arf asked.

Fate nodded. "So far, it looks like a clean, professional kill. Whoever did this was very skilled in using a gun," she said.

"But, weapons like this have been banned for the last few centuries! Who would have access to a gun like this?" Arf asked.

"I'm not sure...but we're going to be visiting every weapons dealer in the area and see who purchased this," Fate said.

Yuuno couldn't keep silent about the matter any longer.

"Fate, I know exactly who did this," he said, turning to the Enforcer.

Fate blinked, completely caught off guard. "You do? Why didn't you tell me sooner?" she asked.

"I, uh...I was completely shaken after I saw them. The last thing I wanted to do was to relive that," he said. This was as truthful as he could be; he hadn't really seen the murder, but he knew who the shooters were.

"Well, could you tell me who they are?"

"It's Atenza and Mariel Polonez, the art collectors who have that art collection in Cranagan," he said.

Arf stared at him like he'd come from the moon. "Come on, Yuuno. You've made some pretty crazy theories before, but this is just ridiculous."

"How is it-"

"Atenza and Mariel are well known around Mid-Childa as world-class art collectors. What are they going to do, make an art out of murdering people?" Arf said.

"You never know, Arf. Evil can come in many different forms," Fate said. She turned back to Yuuno. "So, did you actually get an upclose view of the crime?"

"No. I heard a gunshot, and I ran towards where I heard it. I was halfway home when I saw Atenza and his sister talking about how the man they'd just killed was such an amateur. They left for an apartment complex not too far from where I live," he said. "Calling the police was the last thing on my mind..."

"I understand that you were shocked, but it would've saved us a lot of trouble if you had told us directly," Fate said.

"S-Sorry..."

"Don't be. We'll make sure to get in contact with the Polonez siblings as soon as possible," she said.

"Thank goodness for that," Yuuno said. "I was beginning to feel guilty for everything that had happened."

After confirming his statement again, Yuuno and Arf said goodbye to Fate and continued with their duties. Before she left, Arf called out, "I can't believe you were actually at the scene of the crime, Yuuno."

"Neither can I. But now I can forget about the whole thing," he said, heading into the back to get more of Chrono's books.

Neither librarian nor familiar noticed the black shadow that crept out from behind the bookcases and went outside...

Mariel sighed, staring up at the small apartment that her brother had just walked into. It hadn't been until this morning that they realized that Froy hadn't been on the train, and that she was still somewhere in the city. If they didn't catch her, their entire plot would be ruined.

Just then, her brother came storming from the back door, looking like a wild bull. She could already guess his answer.

"No one there, huh?" she asked.

"You think you're so smart, don't you?" he shot back, letting out an angry breath.

"We need to find that old woman and fast. Who knows who she could be giving information to?" she said.

Before Atenza could reply, someone shouted their name from across the street. Both siblings turned around to see their contact rush across the road, nearly getting hit by a moving car as he ran up to them.

"What are you doing here? We told you to stay at the Infinity Library!" Atenza snapped.

"You won't believe what just happened there!" the contact said. "Enforcer Harlaown was there, talking to that Scrya dude you were talking about."

"And?"

"It turns out he saw you walk out of the alley," he said. "He told that to her."

Atenza let out a stream of obscenities that would make even the most hardened sailor blush. Mariel, though, remained deadly cool.

"Well, that takes care of one thing," she said.

"What's that?" Atenza panted, having just run out of anything else to say.

"I've just found out where our dear Mrs. Froy is," she said. "Where did you say Mr. Scrya's apartment was, brother?"

Atenza smirked. "Follow my lead."

Yuuno found himself unable to concentrate. His mind, for some reason, kept running on Mrs. Froy, and all the stuff that he was currently trying to push away from his mind. The feeling of dread was beginning to come back into his stomach, to the point where it almost hurt him to walk.

Could this be a sign that something bad was going to happen?

"Hey, ferret boy."

Just when his day couldn't get any worse. Chrono waltzed in, looking satisfied with himself. "I see you couldn't get all the books at the end, after all."

"Well, I probably would have, but I got distracted," Yuuno replied. "I do have other customers to help during the day, you know..."

"Ah, it's no big deal. I'm just doing this to tick you off, anyway."

Yuuno stared at Chrono like he was insane-which, to him, may not be an exaggeration. "What kind of a friend are you?"

"Not a normal one, that's for sure," Chrono replied.

"You got that right," Yuuno muttered, turning back to his computer. He was currently sending a few important files into his flash drive-one of them being Mrs. Froy's email.

He then became aware of a pair of eyes burning into his back. "Can you not stare at my emails, Chrono?"

"I just happened to see a sentence that started with 'I'm a spy from the TSAB' so I'm trying to see what else it said," he replied.

Yuuno hurriedly clicked off the email, hoping that Chrono didn't see anymore than he already had. "I-It's nothing that you need to see," he lied. "Nothing important."

Chrono, however, wasn't easily fooled. "It was certainly important for the subject to be 'SOS'."

Yuuno sighed. There went his hopes of keeping this secret from Chrono.

"So, who is this Melissa Froy person, and why is she sending you a message about assassins and spies?" Chrono's face was clear of its usual sarcasm.

Yuuno sighed. "Well, to be honest, there have been some weird-"

A loud rock tune exploded into the room, startling both Admiral and librarian. Yuuno smiled sheepishly as he pulled out his cellphone and answered it.

"Yuuno Scrya speaking," he said.

A scream responded, followed by a massive crash. There were heavy footsteps and then another crash as whoever was in the background was tearing up things like a wild animal.

"Yuuno, are you okay?" Chrono stared at him with a vaguely disguised look of concern.

"I-I'm not sure..." Yuuno stopped talking when he heard someone answer.

"M-M-Mr. Scrya, are you there?!"

Yuuno leapt from his seat at the voice. "Mrs. Froy! Are you alright? I heard all of the commotion and-"

"Never mind all that. Someone's trying to break into your house!"

"W-Who?"

"Who do you think? They must've gotten smart and figured out where I was. Whatever you do, Scrya, don't come over he-"

Her voice erupted into a scream as someone rammed into something. Various sounds of a struggle filled Yuuno's ears as Mrs. Froy was being attacked.

"Mrs. Froy! MRS. FROY!" Yuuno yelled. "Where are you?! Answer me!"

The phone picked up again. But it wasn't Mrs. Froy who answered.

"Well, well, well. I'm surprised you actually care about this deadbeet. She doesn't deserve to live, and neither do you, after all the crap you two pulled." Atenza. "First, tricking me to believe she wasn't there, and then witnessing a murder that we committed. But I'll let your precious Froy live, Blondie, on one condition. Do you have any emails from her in the last few hours?"

Yuuno swallowed. "N-No, no I don't," he lied. "I never got anything from her."

There was a pause, and then Atenza said, "See, sis, he can be reasonable. Continue with the operation."

"WHAT?!" Yuuno's shout reached octaves higher than his normal voice. "You said that you would let her live!"

"Oh, about that? I lied." Atenza chuckled. "We were already planning to kill her anyway, since she's stolen plenty of information from us. Shoot her, Jasper."

There was a scream of protest from Mrs. Froy, and then a loud gunshot filled Yuuno's ears. He let out a yelp as he heard a sickening thud, letting him know that she'd been shot.

There was a pause and then Mariel chuckled on the other end.

"Heh, I knew you looked girly, but I didn't know you could scream like one. If you're that squeamish, you shouldn't have gotten involved in this. But know this, Yuuno Scrya-we'll be watching your every move. You so much as call the police, and you're getting a bullet to the head. Got it?"

Yuuno let out a small, traitorous whine in response. "Y-Yes..."

"Good. I'd hate to kill more people than our intended target. I'll be seeing you around...Blondie."

And then the phone went dead.

Okay, I've decided to go ahead and put up another chapter for this story. As el-f1 otakugamer pointed out, this is actually the first time someone other than Fate was involved with a crime story. I decided, "Hey, why not have Yuuno and Chrono as the main characters here?" There's hardly any stories about them anyway.

Each chapter title will be titled after a few famous Alfred Hitchcock movies, or after episodes of Alfred Hitchcock Presents. This one is called 'Dial M for Murder' for a good reason. And if you couldn't tell, The Ferret Who Knew Too Much is a play on The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Happy Reviewing, and God Bless,

iheartgod175