"You heard me, boys. Get inside the house." Dom gestured again, this time with the hand holding the gun.

Reluctantly, Joe and Tony stepped across the grass, Tony still clutching Bella’s hand tightly in his. When they reached the doors, Dominic seized Joe’s shoulder and shoved him roughly forward, into the house.

"Go in there," Scarpetti snarled, indicating his father’s study. Joe, fists clenched in fury at the rough treatment, had no choice but to obey.

Antonio was seated once more behind his desk. He frowned as the four entered the room. "What is this, Dominic? Enough of this nonsense; stop frightening Isabella."

"This ‘nonsense’ as you so quaintly put it, happens to be Isabella’s cousin – Joe Hardy. Fenton Hardy’s brat. He and his pal came here to take her away with them. They don’t want her to be with you, Father." Dominic sneered. He pushed the boys toward chairs at one side of the room. "Sit down. Both of you."

Joe exchanged a glance with Tony. Stall! his expression said. Dad and Frank are on their way…all we have to do is stall until they get here! With slow, deliberate movements, Joe walked towards the chairs, and Tony, reluctantly releasing Bella’s hand, followed. They seated themselves quietly, although both boys’ eyes were blazing with animosity.

"Uncle Dominic…" Bella spoke up now. "I heard something, a little while ago – perhaps I misunderstood. You were mentioning something about a tea…that my mother drank…."

Antonio bent his head and rested it on his hand. "Oh, Isabella…" he was heard to murmur. But Dominic didn’t even flinch.

"I’m very sorry you overheard that, Bella." he said calmly. Bella noted that he didn’t deny the deed; he was merely sorry that she had overheard.

"I have one question." she said then. "Did you arrange to have my father killed too?"

Antonio’s head jerked up at that, and he stared at his son with malevolence.

"Isabella, how could you ask me a question like that? Your father was my brother, and I loved him dearly. I could never harm him…just like I could never harm you."

The girl stared at him. "Not harm me? Uh…Dom, you killed my mother, you tried to poison my aunt, and you’ve lied to me. How could I ever trust anything you tell me again? I trusted you, and I loved you. It would have been kinder if you had just killed me too, like you did my mother!" Her eyes were swimming with tears now, but no tears spilled. "You didn’t want to make friends with me, you only wanted to get into my house so that you could kill my mother!" Her voice was starting to rise. She was beginning to feel stirrings of the same anger that had made her scream and beat on Joe’s chest with her fists, a few days before. She wanted to scream and hurt Dominic, now.

"What are you going to do with us?" Joe asked then, trying to keep his absolute loathing out of his voice.

"Do with you? Hmmm, that is a pretty problem, isn’t it?" Dominic pondered a moment, a smile twisting one corner of his mouth upwards. "I think perhaps you two boys are going to go for a nice drive, very soon…in that odd vehicle you drive." A slight expression of distaste crossed his features. "You managed to get it repaired very quickly, I see."

"You had the windshield smashed!" Joe half-started from his chair, his hands clenched into fists. "You dirty—"

"Not a single move!" Dominic snapped, and raised the .45 to point it directly at Joe’s head. "I’m not likely to miss at this distance. Now sit down!"

"Grandfather!" Bella implored Antonio. "You aren’t going to let him do this, are you?"

The old man cast her a warning glance…a very sad glance.

"Would you at least tell me why you did it?" Joe demanded. Stall, gotta stall; Dad and Frank will be here soon! "Why kill Linda? And how?"

"It was the ledger," Antonio said then, heavily, before Dominic could reply. "A ledger that my wife gave Marco when he left. I wanted it back, that’s all. Dominic was to see that it was returned to my possession."

"A ledger?" They all knew about it, of course, but Joe kept playing innocent, hoping to stall just a little longer, just a few more minutes…. "A ledger was worth killing Linda?

She knew something was wrong. She knew you were involved, Dominic. She said so in her telephone message. How did she know?"

Dominic’s lip curled scornfully. "She refused to die, for God’s sake! The arsenic wasn’t working fast enough, so I showed up at the house, and demanded that she turn over the ledger if she wanted to live. She realized then that she wasn’t just sick. But she refused to give me the ledger. She said it would be a cold day in hell before she handed it over."

"Good for her!" Tony was heard to mutter…but very quietly.

"So I tried another tack," Dominic continued. "I told her that nothing could save her at that point…the question was, did she hand over the ledger to me then, or did she wait until she was testing the temperature of hell, and I went through Bella to get it? Once I threatened Bella, Linda caved in, and acted all scared. She insisted that she didn’t want anything to happen to her daughter, and promised to get me the ledger." The bitter voice sharpened. "But instead, she went to your house…she died there…and I still didn’t have the ledger!"

"No one was supposed to be killed!" Antonio snapped irritably. "But—"

"My mother was murdered because of a book?" Bella screamed. In a swift move that surprised all the other occupants of the room, she flung herself towards her uncle. "You killed her because of a stupid BOOK?" Her hands clenched into fists.

"I hate you! I wish you’d never come into my life!" she ranted. She leaped towards him, fists flailing. Joe recognized the move. The last time he’d seen it, he had been the recipient of her fresh grief. But it wasn’t grief that was spurring her on this time; it was white-hot rage. Her eyes were almost flashing red.

Bella caught Dominic off guard, and nearly sent him toppling over the couch. As she pummeled his chest, he batted her away much as a person might brush away an annoying fly. The move sent Bella stumbling backwards, and she landed on the floor, striking her elbow hard against Antonio’s desk as she fell.

Tony leaped from his seat, incensed that Dominic should treat Bella this way. The man jerked his gun menacingly toward Tony. "Stay put, kid!" But Tony kept moving.

"Tony, no!" Bella screamed. "Stay back!" She struggled to her feet, hauling herself up by clinging to the desk.

Dominic whirled around to face her. Reflexively, his hand tightened on the grip of his gun. In his agitation, his finger slipped, and the weapon fired.

Bella’s scream mixed with the sound of shattering glass, as a priceless Ming vase became the only victim of the rogue shot. Dominic used the moment’s distraction to slam a fist into Tony’s stomach. The boy doubled over and fell back into his chair, clutching his midsection. Joe leaned over to him, trying to ascertain whether Tony was badly injured or not.

Bella’s eyes flashed with unbridled fury. "Is this how you do business, Uncle Dom? Poison unsuspecting women, and beat up on unarmed kids?" Slowly, she advanced on him, fists again clenched. "I can’t believe you share the same blood as my father! You are a sick, twisted, despicable human being, and I hope you rot in jail forever!"

Bella should not have compared Dominic to his younger brother. Marco had been the golden child, as long as Dom could remember. Not even Marco’s defection had changed that completely. Without a second thought, Dominic raised his left hand….

Bella was on the floor sooner this time. She lay still for a moment, tasting blood in her mouth from the effects of Dominic’s backhand slap. Joe remembered Alex Harrington’s comment about family, and how Dominic wouldn’t hurt Bella. Evidently Alex was wrong about Dom… he thought. He doesn’t seem to care whether he hurts a member of his family or not. Joe wanted desperately to go to his cousin but he dared not move now.

"Enough!" Antonio shouted, rising to his feet. He rubbed his left arm slowly. "I will not have violence exerted on a member of my family. Dom, stop, now! Fermo!"

Whether or not the younger Scarpetti would have obeyed his father was never to be known…for at that moment, the front door was flung open, and Fenton Hardy ran into the entry hall, closely followed by Frank. He dashed down the hallway towards the den.

"Scarpetti! Dominic Scarpetti!" Mr. Hardy shouted. Dominic whirled towards the study door, and fired a random shot through the opening. Fenton dodged back, and the bullet whined harmlessly past his head to bury itself with a thunk in the woodwork.

"Dominic, put down the gun!" Fenton bellowed. He dropped to a crouch, keeping behind the scant protection of the wall, and pulled his .357 from its shoulder holster. With his free hand, he motioned for Frank to stay back, out of the predictable line of fire.

Inside the study, Tony had dropped to the floor, and was rapidly crawling over to Bella. He gathered her into his arms, attempting to shelter her. Joe had also hit the deck, and was scooting as quickly as possible toward the cover of the sofa. Antonio had sunk back into his chair, holding his arm and staring aghast at his son’s actions.

"Dominic?" Mr. Hardy yelled once more.

BANG! BANG! Two shots fired in quick succession were his only answer. Fenton ducked lower, as did Frank, and again the bullets missed their intended targets. A mirror splintered into a thousand shards of silver, and a new hole suddenly appeared in the wall across the hallway.

"He’s firing randomly," Fenton hissed to Frank. "If we can keep him shooting and not hitting anything…." He aimed carefully, and fired a single shot through the study door. Almost at the same instant, the detective was rolling across the opening, changing his angle of fire, then he shot again before crouching against the opposite side of the doorway.

BANG! BANG! Scarpetti fired twice more. The bullets smacked into the wall where Fenton had been a few seconds before.

"How many bullets, do you think?" Frank whispered. "Six? Nine? Thirteen?"

Fenton Hardy hadn’t been a detective all these years without learning when to gamble and when to bluff. Now it was time to gamble.

"Dominic! You’ve only got one left!" he shouted, hoping against hope that his instinct had held true. Scarpetti’s gun had sounded like the Glock 33, which carried only six rounds of ammunition. He had heard five shots go off….

"You aren’t going to hit me, Scarpetti!" Fenton called. "You might as well give up!"

For a long moment, there was silence. Then Dominic’s voice:

"Maybe I won’t hit you…but I have other targets here. Like your son, for instance. I think I could watch him die with great enjoyment, Hardy! Just like I enjoyed watching Linda becoming sicker…and sicker. Day by day." The smooth voice gloated now. "Yes, indeed. Come and watch, Hardy…watch him die."

Fenton was on his feet and in the doorway in a bound. "Dominic—" He froze, the words dying on his lips, for Dominic Scarpetti was standing over Joe with his pistol pointed directly at the boy’s head.

With dreadful deliberation, Scarpetti pulled the trigger.