"It's horrible, Batman" Gordon tells me at the latest crime scene. "This is the fourth one since Tuesday, and it's only Saturday."

Three squad cars, an ambulance and two crime scene investigators litter the ally on Case St. The lights of all of the vehicles bounce of the rain-coated brick buildings as Gordon and I talk behind a large dumpster.

When the second body was discovered on Wednesday morning, Gordon lit up the signal just before the lights of dawn blanketed the sky. It was obvious he wanted my help in case the crime was repeated again.

It was, twice since then.

"This one was a little girl", Gordon continued. "From what we gathered, she was at least six years old."

"The others were boys", I began. "If he were to follow a pattern, I would expect two more girls to follow."

"I thought that also", Gordon said. "The first three children were not molested, but there are traces of semen found around and inside the little girl."

The description angers me beyond belief. I purposely left my communicator off in my cowl; I didn't want Oracle listening to any of this.

"Everything is so random, Batman", Gordon said. "The first three bodies were found in different places. The only common elements were the parents neglectfully left their children unattended and all were found in the early morning hours before dawn."

"Two were taken while playing outside in front of their homes, one at a park", I said. "Those surrounding areas and the dump off points share nothing in common. This isn't the work of someone being clever; this is someone never visiting the same spot twice."

"I tripled the early morning patrol", Gordon said. "Can't even tell you how many cops volunteered to pull double-duty to catch this guy. Damn near almost had to turn some away."

"I suggest keeping the lights on top of each patrol car flashing", I added. "Have them all patrolling in a concentrated area. Then let about for different spots of five square miles purposely unlit by city lights or police cars. That should draw the suspect as safe areas."

"Good idea", Gordon replied. "I can have someone watching those spots without anyone ever noticing them."

"So can I."

"In the meantime", Gordon continued. "The alert we put out to parents to watch their children in the daytime should help lower the chances of abduction. Even bothered to mention to secure the rooms of children, but I bet parents aren't even going to let their kids sleep alone till we bring some closure to this matter."

We both turn as we see the body inside a bag lifted into the back of the ambulance. I turn back to see Gordon with this glasses off as he rubs the space between this eyes.

"Thing is", Gordon said reapplying his glasses. "If we don't catch him in the act, we don't have much of a chance of ever finding this guy unless we test every male in Gotham. The mayor would have a heart attack with the bill that would ring up."

I reach for my grapple then fire at the top of the building.

"Get me the results of the DNA tests", I said. "They'll be useful."

The grapple lifts me away as I hear Gordon say one last thing.

"God willing…"

Two days later, I wake up from another tragic night.

The fifth body was found, a girl as Gordon and I predicted. Same as before; mutilated, molested and found this time lying in the middle of an intersection in front of a mini-mall.

The killer is being even more random than before. This child was taken from her home as the babysitter was busy sleeping with her boyfriend in the parent's room. Gordon and the department are trying to see what charges, if any, they can bring on the babysitter and the boyfriend.

In the report, no signs of breaking and entering were found. The killer simply walked right through the unlocked door and kidnapped the child as she watched a VHS cassette of her favorite cartoon. The tape the babysitter put on was to keep the little girl occupied while she slept with her boyfriend. The babysitter said it was on because it helped put the little girl to sleep.

I had two good hours of sleep following that night. Immediately, I take my shower and brief breakfast before I head to the cave to pound my head while I try to find any link. I think back to when I was a kid and how you would never hear of crimes of this nature occurring.

Then it got me thinking on a bit of a tangent.

What if it were me that was killed and not my parents?

I gave up thinking about that scenario before I even began my training to fight the evils of the world. I believed that line of thinking would divert my focus from the tasks that were at hand. But as recent events play in my mind, I can't help but to bring play that scenario in my head and wonder the pain my parents would go through. I even wonder if they would go at any lengths, let alone the lengths I'm going through, to see that something like that would never happen to another child.

I'm wasting my time again.

After spend a good portion of the morning till the afternoon sitting at the computer, Tim comes down to see how I am.

"How was school", I asked him as he approached me from behind.

"Whoa", he said. "You said something to me first?"

I go back to being silent.

"That means no leads yet, huh?"

"Nothing…"

Tim knew that I was hell-bent on getting this case solved. The grisly nature of the murders drove me to pledge as much time as I can humanly afford to donate to this.

I was still getting nowhere.

"Well", Tim said turning to leave. "I'm gonna go wait for my pizza to get here. I've got finals coming so I need all the brain food I can…"

Tim is startled as I quickly get up and run past him.

"Three of the local neighbors ordered delivery that night. Of the three, only one other was from the pizza place the babysitter ordered from. The other was Chinese food delivered by bicycle. After interrogating each one, they all provided solid alibis that we followed up on."

That's what Gordon told me earlier.

I'm standing behind the car of one of the delivery boys right now, ready to question him further.

He had to have seen something.

The boy comes from his latest delivery at a sorority house near Gotham University. He's obviously taken no money for this order, as he's reapplying his belt while walking back to his car.

"Kevin", I say using my usual voice.

He's startled and falls on his rear when I come from around his car. The sorority parking lot is not well lit, explaining the three sexual assaults that occurred last month. I was well hidden.

"Wh…what do you want?" he finally managed to say.

"I need your help."

I don't use any of my interrogation tactics on him. I need him thinking clearly. It's obvious he on something while talking to me, which would make him incoherent if I did things how I normally would.

"I did notice something that night, that's what you're talking about right?" he said as he slowly stood up. "When the cops asked me, I didn't think anything of it."

I burned a hole through him.

"Look man, I was fucked up, alright? I deliver to colleges all the time and that night I delivered to an E party. I wasn't even thinking straight, man. And these cops…"

"Just tell me what you saw", I growled at him.

"This…this guy, man", he barely started. "Fuckin', just sitting in his truck reading the paper."

"What did the truck look like?"

"One of those big fuckin' trucks that, like, look like moving trucks. It had that door on the back that slid upwards, know what I mean?"

"What color."

"White, dude", he said losing coherence. "No, grey with that orange stripe on it."

I turn from him raising my grapple.

"Get off of the E, Kevin", I tell him. "Or I'll make sure you wind up accidentally doing it around me, and I wouldn't suggest that."

After all, I owed him a favor for the information.

The grapple fires and I leave Kevin with a story that will get altered significantly before can he tell it to his buddies.

I have Oracle searching for any company that uses trucks with that description. She found two companies in particular; one was actually a moving company and another was for the Gotham Times. I found it hard to believe that anyone in the neighborhood would fail to notice this truck parked with a man inside reading a paper.

A paper…

I then tell Oracle if any businesses in the areas where the children were abducted receive the Gotham Times. Before she can give me an answer, my police scanner in my cowl picks up an APB.

The sixth child was taken.

Another little girl.

Not this time.

A 911 call was placed only a few seconds ago as a mother called from her cell phone. She was picking up her girl from the babysitter only to have been attacked in front of her home and her girl taken from her. GCPD will get to the nearest trap zone set up for the killer in only a few minutes.

I'm only a few blocks away.

I radio Gordon and let him know what to look for, a Gotham Times delivery truck that is making its daily rounds. I jump down from the rooftop and climb into my car in record time. I check the route in my onboard satellite feed, the link up I have with a Wayne satellite shows me the van turning into the ally in the closest zone.

I'm driving at full speed when I reach the end of the ally. The killer carefully backed into the ally, probably hoping for a quick drive off when he finished with whatever he planned to do. I block him in with my car and see him in the cabin staring back at me.

He jumps out of the cabin and runs for a fire escape up the side of the shortest building. I open the hatch of my car and fire a grapple to the roof. It pulls me up in time as I intercept the killer while he's running. He stops in front of me and I throw a thunderous punch at his jaw. He drops while I profile him; mid thirties Caucasian male, brown hair with random white streaks, goatee, brown eyes.

I'll remember his face for the rest of my life.

I pick him up by his throat, easily lifting him to his feet to meet my eyes with his. Those scare tactics I held back on with Kevin came out in full force with this scumbag. I knee him in his midsection, sling him over my shoulder as he doubles over and I jump off of the roof to the ground behind the van.

I use the grapple to slow myself as I place him on his feet facing the back of his truck. From behind him, I violently grab his hair and pull his head back.

"Open it."

My heart is threatening to rise up through my throat as I throw him against his truck. He slams against it as I hear the sirens begin to draw near, his hand slowly moving for the handle. He twists it and raises the door, the loud aluminum slides up and secures just under the ceiling of the cargo area.

I grab his hair again and slam his face into the edge of his truck. He falls again, clutching his broken nose as his groaning fills the space that is housing stacks of newspapers. In the center of the space, is a knapsack large enough to hold dirty laundry.

Or a little girl.

My heart is now being held back by my tongue as I place my hands on the knapsack. I thank god when the knapsack shifts in fear of me.

"It's ok", I say in my kind Bruce Wayne voice. "I'm not going to hurt you."

The bag slowly turns, obviously realizing that this was a different voice than before. I slowly undo the string of the knapsack as I place my gloved hand over the opening. The small hand of a little girl gripped on my ring finger as the knapsack opened and fell around her.

She was unharmed.

Scared, but unharmed.

The girl looked up at me with eyes that quickly transitioned from fear to the greatest sense of wonder a child can experience.

"B…Batman?"

"He's a father working two jobs", Gordon tells me from the roof of police headquarters. "He has six children."

"Three boys, three girls", I finish.

"…Right", Gordon continued. "We talked with his wife; turns out he beat them on random occasions. Sent his oldest boy to the hospital once, they easily made it to look like an accident. This wife also said that he had lost interest in being a father, which probably attributed to his motives. She was thankful that it wasn't their kids instead."

"Tell that to the other parents, Jim", I coldly say.

Gordon turns away from me for a moment as I regret my tone.

"I'm sorry, Jim. I know I'm not the only one who has been affected by this case. I just…"

I pause and look down as the words are hard to come by. Gordon turns back to see the difficulty I'm having.

"If you knew why I do what I do, then you'd understand why I feel like I've failed."

I feel Gordon's hand on my shoulder as I keep looking down.

"I've always had a good general understanding of why you do what you do, old friend", Gordon said. "But it doesn't take experiencing a tragedy to know how much it affects people. What we both do is not for thrills or glory; we do this to make a difference."

I raise my head up to meet the subtle smile Gordon had on his face.

"You did that tonight for one little girl. You've made a difference in her life for as long as she lives and you should be damn proud of yourself."