Chapter 12

12:50 PM; Hour 27

Oliver waited impatiently in the viewing room as Chief Michaels and Diggle entered to speak with Ruvé Darhk and her lawyer again. After Felicity had identified Nora Darhk, Oliver had quickly pulled his partner and the chief into a conference room to get them up to speed.

Both had been just as surprised as he was at the turn of events. Felicity had joined them to present all the information she'd found in the limited amount of time she'd searched. When compiled, it certainly looked like enough for motive for a crime.

They had Nora's gravestone – which revealed her birth and death dates. They had a child at a nearby hospital with the same birth and death dates. That child's care had been paid for completely in cash, and the child's treatment had been cancelled after Darhk's conviction and subsequent lack of funds from his drug-running business.

Oliver was sure this was enough. When added to the other clues – the use of birds in the threats, the USB drives at the crime scene, the pattern of targets – this was a slam dunk in his mind. Damien Darhk was responsible for all of this.

Chief Michaels wasn't so sure.

She'd told him that while they were definitely closer, they still need something concrete. According to her, they could either do more digging around Nora Darhk in order to verify that the child in question did belong to the Darhks, or they could try to crack Ruvé with this information.

And cracking Ruvé would take a hell of a lot less time than using other channels to verify the parentage of a child who had been dead for a couple of months.

Chief Michaels had told Oliver and Felicity to wait in the observation room while she and Diggle continued the interrogation. Their goal was to cross-reference any information Ruvé gave them and to watch her for any signs or tells.

Felicity stood next to him gripping her tablet in her arms and biting her thumbnail as Chief Michaels and Diggle re-entered the room where Ruvé and her lawyer were waiting. Chief Michaels carried a coffee with her, and Diggle wore the same scowl he'd adopted earlier in the day.

"Do you think this will work?" Felicity whispered to him as the group on the other side of the two-way mirror exchanged pleasantries and introductions with Chief Michaels.

Oliver crossed his arms. "Your guess is as good as mine. Normally I'd say yes, but this woman is prepared. When we picked her up this morning she acted the way the seasoned criminals do when they had been expecting to be brought in and had already gotten their affairs in order."

Felicity shivered. "I felt bad for her."

Oliver turned to look at Felicity and raised an eyebrow in question.

"During the initial trial," she clarified. "She didn't testify – spousal privilege and all that – but I felt bad for her. I saw her as a woman who was losing her husband, not as a cog in his criminal enterprise."

Oliver shrugged. "No one can know if she was involved or not. But we can be sure she's involved in this. Innocent people don't act the way she's acted."

Felicity looked away from him, and Oliver followed her gaze to the interrogation room where Chief Michaels and Diggle were questioning Ruvé further about her daughter. Every time they tried a new question, Ruvé's lawyer advised her that she didn't have to answer. So far, it looked like they were getting minimal responses from her.

"Is it bad that I still feel a little bad for her?" Felicity asked softly, still staring through the window. "I can't imagine losing a child like that. Maybe it pushed her to do things she wouldn't have done otherwise. Does that make me naïve?"

Oliver wanted to tell her yes. He wanted to tell her that she shouldn't feel a damn ounce of sympathy for someone who had most likely killed people they knew – someone who had probably worked to orchestrate the threat against her as well. Instead, he replied in a steady voice, "I think you trying to see the best in people is what makes you irreplaceable to our team."

She offered him a small smile then looked back at the scene in the interrogation room. Diggle was opening the folder with some of the records Felicity had copied.

"Mrs. Darhk, when did your daughter die?" Chief Michaels was questioning.

Ruvé sat stone faced.

Chief Michaels was unphased. She grabbed a piece of paper from the folder Diggle held. "It's ok, we already know. October 14th it looks like." She paused. "I'm truly sorry for your loss."

Ruvé's breaths shuttered.

Chief Michaels continued. "It must have been difficult watching her get sicker and knowing you couldn't do anything about it."

Ruvé's eyes flashed.

"Not only were you out of money with your husband in jail," the chief went on, "but his lifestyle was the reason you'd kept your daughter off the grid. She didn't exist, so you couldn't get help."

"You don't know anything," Ruvé snapped.

Diggle took a picture out of the file – one Oliver knew was the one Felicity had found of the headstone Ruvé had placed an order for. If Ruvé was going to crack, it was going to be now.

"You and your husband blame us for your daughter's death. You think if he hadn't been arrested, she'd be alive. That's why you're targeting everyone involved with the trail," Diggle growled. "But while you rack up a body count now, your daughter is still dead."

"That's enough-" the lawyer protested.

Diggle ignored him. "Your daughter isn't coming back, no matter how many people you hurt in her name. You're placing blame on law enforcement because it's easier than facing that fact!"

"Of course I blame you!" Ruvé shrieked, suddenly no longer put together. "You took my husband and my daughter!" Felicity gasped next to him, and Oliver felt his own stomach turning to lead. Now they were getting somewhere.

"Your daughter never stood a chance because of the life your husband led," Diggle countered.

Ruvé shoved her chair away from the table and stood up. Her lawyer protested, and Diggle moved to stand up too, but Chief Michaels placed a hand on his arm to keep him in place. Ruvé began to pace.

When she spoke again, her voice was calm. "Do you have children, Detective Diggle?"

Diggle crossed his arms. "No."

"Then you don't understand the lengths a parent will go to for their child."

"Ruvé, I'd advise you to stop…" her lawyer started. Ruvé ignored him.

"Do you know how old my daughter was when she died? 10. 10 years old. She still had baby teeth in her mouth and still played with dolls. My innocent child died because of what this department did to my husband. Every single person involved in that case – that stuck up assistant DA, the arresting officers, all the way down to that analyst whose testimony turned the jury right at the end – they killed my daughter. They deserve everything that's coming."

Oliver felt blood rush to his ears at what she'd just confessed and barely registered Felicity's strangled intake of breath before she turned and darted out of the room. Chief Michaels stood. "What's coming, Ruvé?"

"Nothing you can stop!" she shouted. "They're going to pay! All of them! When you least expect it! The plan's in motion and arresting me won't do anything to stop it. We won't rest until everyone involved is cold and buried just like our baby! They'll all be dead, and it will be their own fault!"

Oliver's vision blurred and his stomach revolted. He barely registered the commotion in the interrogation room as Diggle moved to slap handcuffs on Ruvé Darhk, Chief Michaels recited the Miranda Rights, and the lawyer weakly demanded a moment alone to speak to his client.

"It doesn't matter what you do. We will have our revenge and you can't stop it now," Ruvé spoke, her voice filled with venom as Diggle secured the handcuffs.

"We'll stop it," Diggle assured her angrily, yanking her towards the door. "We got you to confess, didn't we?"

Ruvé smiled like a predator whose prey was trapped and didn't know it. "Who says my confession isn't part of the plan?"

Diggle huffed and pulled her towards the door that Chief Michaels was holding open.

The plan's in motion. You can't stop it now. They'll all be dead. Overcome with frustration, Oliver growled and punched his hand against the reinforced wall – ignoring the stinging pain that erupted in his knuckles and reverberated in his injured shoulder. One step forward, but still no closer to stopping whatever had been set in motion. Ruvé wasn't the one who had shot at them yesterday, and he'd be willing to bet she wasn't the one who physically murdered Yamashiro and Ramirez either. There were people out there doing their work – operating under their orders – and those orders were to kill Felicity and everyone else involved in the trial. How the hell were they going to find the people, these ghosts, who had eluded security cameras when plotting and traffic cameras when escaping?

"Oliver?" Chief Michaels poked her head into the room. "I need you and Felicity in the conference room ASAP." She paused. "Where is Felicity?"

Oliver remembered Felicity ducking out right after Ruvé had started to become unraveled. Without a word, he skirted past Chief Michaels and out of the interrogation room.

Fuck, he should have gone after her when she left. She was probably terrified. He knew he was.

She wasn't in her cubicle. He headed down the hallway towards the locker room, which he knew would be mostly deserted at this time right in the middle of a shift. He swung the door open and entered, on alert. "Felicity?" he called.

She didn't answer, but he heard the echo of some movement near her locker, so he stepped inside and shut the door. When he rounded the corner of lockers, he saw her. She was sitting sideways on the bench near the wall, her legs propped up and lying across it in front of her and her back leaning against the cinderblock wall. Her head was resting against the wall, and her eyes were closed.

Not wanting to startle her, he stepped forward slowly. "Felicity?"

She hummed a response but didn't look at him.

"Chief wants us in the conference room." She didn't react. Oliver noticed for the first time that her hand was trembling slightly. He stepped forward again. "Are you ok?"

"I just needed some quiet," she whispered.

"You didn't answer my question," he pressed, taking a seat on the bench across from her. "Are you ok?"

She opened her eyes then and looked at him. The pain he saw in them made him want to punch another wall. Her lips trembled to match the slight shake of her hands. "If I had known about that little girl…"

"Stop," Oliver demanded, already feeling a fire spark in his veins because of where her head was at.

Her eyes searched his, begging him to understand something. "If they had asked, I'm sure we could have found a way to help her. I'm not a monster. I never wanted -"

Oliver shifted forward so he could grab her hands in his, effectively stilling them. They were cold, and Oliver absently started rubbing his hands over hers to warm them. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare start believing a single word that woman said. What happened to that little girl is nowhere close to being on you."

"I know it's not my fault," she replied in a small voice. "But I also know that she was receiving treatment before I helped put her father in jail."

"That's our job. He was a criminal, Felicity. How can you question that?"

"I don't." Her eyes flashed then, and he was happy to see the fight beneath this solemn mood she was in. "Darhk got what he deserved."

Oliver adjusted her hands in his so he could use one hand to trace the outside of her palm. "Then why are you upset? I thought you'd be bothered by the confirmation that they're coming after you."

She shook her head. "We already knew that. I'm not afraid of them."

He could feel a small hum beneath his skin where his hands were connected with hers. He tried to focus on it to keep him from getting angry before asking the next question. "Then why? And if it's because you think you somehow deserve this you better not even think of saying that to me."

She met his eyes again, a vulnerability there that made his heart speed up. "I don't deserve this. I don't blame myself. I just think… it's unfortunate. If I'd known about the girl, I'm sure I we could have worked something out to secure her treatments in the absence of his funds. I would have tried. I swear I would have."

"I know that," he assured her, feeling the certainty of his words deep inside him.

She hesitated. "No matter what her parents were into, I can't imagine a child like that as anything but innocent. It doesn't seem fair that she paid the price for her parents' choices. And I don't like that in doing the right thing, I contributed to something so wrong."

"It's not -"

"My fault," she finished, shifting so she could bring her legs down to sit in front of her and she was facing him completely. "I know that. It's just…sad. I'm just sad."

Oliver stared at her, wondering how someone so pure-hearted and kind could not only survive in this job, but thrive. This beautiful, intelligent, and caring woman was sad over the loss of the child of the man who was trying to kill her. "You really are the best of us, you know that right?"

Her cheeks turned pink and she took her hand from his so she could reach out and lightly shove his uninjured shoulder. "Maybe I need some lessons from you on how to turn my emotions off when I'm at work."

"No," Oliver breathed. "I'm the one who should probably be taking lessons."

She tilted her head and his lips curved into a soft smile, which she returned. They looked at each other, their hands and eyes connected and a deep current of understanding flowing through them. He the overly cold and closed off detective; she the analyst who felt too much. Maybe they needed each other more than either realized.

As the seconds ticked by, the atmosphere became charged. Felicity's tongue darted out to lick her lips, and Oliver's eyes flickered down to follow the movement. Her lips looked soft and inviting. He imagined how they'd taste if he were the one running his tongue across them. He looked back up into Felicity's crystal blue eyes, which somehow seemed darker than they'd been a moment ago. He was suddenly acutely aware that they'd both been leaning forward throughout their conversation and their faces were now so close that he could feel the edges of her breaths ghost lightly over his lips with each of her exhales. All it would take was a slight shift – a small movement – and he'd be close enough to press his lips to hers.

"What part of 'ASAP' do you not understand?"

Diggle's voice echoed through the locker room and had Oliver and Felicity jerking back from each other in surprise. Diggle rounded the corner of lockers and gave them both a hard look. Oliver and Felicity both stood up. Felicity look flustered as she smoothed the front of her shirt.

"Sorry. We're coming," she assured Diggle. Then she snapped her mouth and eyes shut, looking frustrated with herself.

Jesus.

The last thing Oliver needed right now was that mental image. And knowing that's where Felicity's mind was …

"Then let's hurry up. We've got a case to solve," Diggle said gruffly. Oliver could have sworn he saw his partner roll his eyes at them as he turned around to leave the locker room.

Oliver and Felicity followed Diggle to the conference room where Chief Michaels was already waiting for them. Oliver closed the door and locked it as soon as Felicity was inside. The three lower-ranking officers faced their boss and waited for her to speak.

Chief Michaels stood straight and held her chin high as she spoke. "We now have a confession on record from Ruvé Darhk implicating her and her husband in these crimes. We've done great work so far. We know who did this and we know why. Now we have to work on the 'what.'"

Felicity nodded. "We need to figure out what else they have planned that's already been set in motion."

Chief Michaels stepped towards the evidence board where she had re-arranged some of the pictures, diagrams, and other data. "We have a few threads that haven't been pulled on yet."

Oliver stepped up next to her so he could look at the pieces of evidence on the board as well. Unanswered questions swamped his mind. Who had shot at them at Laurel's crime scene and if they were found, would all this end? Was there any significance to the flash drive left behind that contained information about ingredients to make an explosive? How had Darhk and his wife stayed one step ahead in regards to disabling traffic cameras and planting a phony receipt at Bertinelli's Hardware?

If Ruvé was willing to incriminate herself just to taunt them about how they'd never be able to stop the plan she'd put in motion, then Oliver was pretty damn sure all this wasn't over. She wouldn't confess to perpetuate a bluff.

Chief Michaels took a marker and began writing on the whiteboard. "Johnny, you and I are going to Iron Heights to interview Darhk. I've already alerted prison officials to the new charges that will be brought against him in short order, and he's being kept in solitary."

Diggle nodded in understanding.

"Oliver, I want you and Felicity following up on the only other people we know are involved in this. I have half the department out looking for that SUV and the men who shot at you, but we've come up empty so far."

"I have a call in to the Department of Transportation to find out why the closest traffic camera was down yesterday. I'm waiting to hear back," Felicity supplied.

"Good. While we wait for that and the patrol officers keep looking, maybe it's time for the two of you to pay Frank Bertinelli another visit and see if we can figure out why the receipt for the explosive supplies doesn't match the surveillance film."

There was something Chief Michaels hadn't brought up yet, and Oliver hated the fact that he had to mention it at all. But Felicity's safety was on the line and he was going to leave no stone unturned. He cleared his throat. "Chief, what is going to be done about the very real possibility that we have a mole?"

Chief Michaels' face became rigid and somber. "For now, we keep our cards close to the vest."

"Don't tell the patrol officers that we have a confession?" Diggle supplied.

Chief Michaels shook her head. "We keep everything in here. I know Officer Seldon was helping with some analysis yesterday, Felicity. If you need him, we can bring him in."

Oliver's muscles tingled in annoyance. The thought of Felicity needing anyone to do her job, let alone that guy who so obviously had an IQ less than half of hers, was ridiculous to him. "No, I don't need help with this," Felicity assured their boss, helping to assuage some of Oliver's sudden tension.

Chief Michaels nodded. "So we keep the investigation tight, and we try to flush out the mole through our leads. We can't fight this war on two fronts. As soon as the department knows we suspect someone on the inside, we'll have chaos."

"Agreed," Diggle confirmed, glancing at Oliver. "The only way we'll find them is if we don't let it slip that we're on to them."

Felicity tapped on her tablet a few times. "Ok, so Oliver and I will take another stab at Bertinelli, and you two will see what you can get from Darhk. The goal is to come up with any information we can about Darhk's endgame."

"Lyla," Diggle interjected. "What about the banquet? We have about 4 hours until it starts. Are we sure the banquet won't be their target?"

Oliver's muscles tightened at the words. The thought had run through his mind once or twice, but he'd tried to push it back. He was glad Diggle had voiced it. They needed to account for every possibility.

Chief Michaels sighed. "I've thought about it. I've already contacted the canine unit, the bomb squad, and SWAT. They're on alert, and they're going to have extra officers sit out tonight to do extra sweeps and work security at the event. All precautions are being taken."

That seemed to satisfy Diggle, but Oliver wasn't so sure. Was it really wise to have the majority of the law enforcement officials in one place tonight while this threat was looming and while there was someone on the inside pulling strings? He glanced over at Felicity and saw hesitation on her face as well.

They were going tonight whether they thought it was a good idea or not. He'd just have to make sure he was on alert the whole time. Maybe he and Felicity could even use the night to be interviewing their coworkers about the case without their knowing.

A frantic knock on the door had them all turning their heads. Oliver, who was closest, quickly turned the lock and opened it to reveal Ray Palmer's excited and eager face.

"I thought you'd all want to know that we just got a hit on the black SUV from yesterday!" he said, making a move to step into the room. Oliver, aware of all the information displayed on the board, quickly stepped in front of him to prevent it. Ray eyed Oliver, then stepped back in resignation. "Officer Drake got information from a CI that the SUV was parked on 8th and Washington. Cooper confirmed via the traffic cameras. Chief, you want us to head there now, I'm guessing?"

Chief Michaels pushed past them all and out into the bullpen. She turned her head to speak over her shoulder. "Queen, Smoak. You go with the officers on site to follow this. John and I will head where we already discussed." She continued towards the door and Diggle hurried to follow her. "Let's get these bastards."