"I think you have the wrong number," I said.

Inside I was panicking; no Cape was supposed to know my identity, and if they did they weren't supposed to confront me with it. The fact that I vaguely remembered Tattletale as a villain made it worse.

I grabbed for my other phone and started frantically texting dad to see if he was all right. If they planned to come after Dad, I'd make what I'd done to Hookwolf look like child's play.

"I'm not calling to threaten you," Tattletale said. Apparently something of my panic had been expressed over the phone."I'm calling to ask for your help."

"What?"

"I was forced to work for a supervillain by gunpoint two months ago," she said. "And he's got a superpower that means he always wins. Nothing I've done to get away has helped."

"Even if this was the right number, what would this have to do with me?" I asked cautiously.

Dad responded to the text saying that he was finishing up at the Dockworker's union. Everything seemed to be all right, although I wasn't sure I could trust it.

"He's got moles in the PRT," Tattletale said. "I'm a thinker and he has me examine things he gets from them...including video evidence of new Capes."

She was talking about the video of me in the warehouse with my two ghosts; deep in my gut I knew it. It had been a mistake doing it all along.

"He wanted to know if I could discover the identity of two new capes in town," she said. "Imagine my surprise when I discovered they were the same person."

"I thought threatening people in their secret identity was a good way to get yourself hurt," I said. I was starting to get angry. The unwritten rules existed for a reason, and her bringing this to me at all was an implicit threat. "Badly."

"I'm not threatening you," she said hurriedly. "I know better. I saw what you did to Hookwolf yesterday."

That of course was the best reason not to call me and threaten me in my secret identity. I had the sense that she thought she was clever, maybe even the smartest person in the room. This didn't seem smart at all. It seemed like a good way to make an enemy of me, and with the power of nine capes plus my own I was particularly dangerous.

"If you know what I'm capable of, then why are you breaking the rules?" I asked. "It doesn't seem very bright."

"He has ways of knowing what I know before I even tell him. Somehow he doesn't just know what will happen, but what might happen. I've tried lying to him before or not telling him things and he always knows."

That...would be a power to be reckoned with. The ability to look ahead and see what kind of harm I might do before I even did it...things like Hookwolf might not have to happen again if I knew about them in advance."

"It makes him slippery as hell. You go to attack him and he's not even there. It's the main reason my team is so successful. If a job won't go well he tells us to stand down."

"I still don't understand what all this has to do with me."

"He gave me video of your warehouse fight and asked me to find out all I could about both of your alternate identities, including their secret identities. What the PRT knows he gave me."

I scowled. I'd thought I'd done a good job during the charade in the warehouse. If it had unraveled this quickly, maybe I should have Dad stay in the movie theater already. The PRT could be at my door any minute. Even if they didn't figure it out, if whoever she worked for had moles the other gangs probably did too.

I was going to have to be much more careful.

"Don't worry," Tattletale said, seemingly reading my mind. "I like to tell people I'm psychic, but really my power makes me a lot like Sherlock Holmes on steroids. There were all kinds of clues that the Gamble and Vengeance we saw on tape weren't the real deal, at least to me. Given that Vengeance had recently stolen the powers of Crusader and the figures I saw on tape had all the hallmarks of Crusader's ghosts, it was obvious that they were most likely generated by the same person."

"Why do you think that person is me?" I asked. "I hardly match the physical profile of either of them."

"Why create the charade in the first place unless you are trying to conceal something?" Tattletale said. "If it's just the fact that they are the same person why not show up in one identity and pretend to fight the ghost? Vengeance has Shadow Stalker's powers so he could even get away with being a little insubstantial. Being actually present could only help the ruse seem more real, so why didn't you?"

Shaking my head, I said. "I can't imagine why."

"You create two ghosts to make a third person seem as though they don't share an identity," Tattletale said. "And since it wasn't any of the Asian boys who were attacking you..."

"You assumed it had to be me," I said flatly. I thought of denying it, but it seemed futile. "How long do I have before the PRT is beating down my door?"

"I'm pretty sure the PRT bought it, at least from the memos I have access to, but I wouldn't give them any reason to reexamine the footage. People who assume they know the story make assumptions. It limits what they see. Give them a different story and they'll be a lot smarter about it."

"So?" I asked.

"He asked me to find out your identity and I have. He'll know whether I tell him or not," Tattletale said. "And he doesn't care about the unwritten rules."

I felt a chill. A supervillain with my identity would have a lot of leverage if he wanted me to do things. He could threaten to make my identity public or kidnap my father. He could disassemble my life piece by piece simply by leaking the information to the PRT.

The only reason the gangs hadn't come after me so far was that they didn't know where to find me. I'd be ambushed right and left and I wouldn't find a moment's peace outside of the mirror universe.

"You could have come to meet me in person," I said. "The phone seems a little impersonal for something like this."

I noticed that she hadn't actually named either of my other identities over the telephone, although the reference to Hookwolf would make it obvious to anyone who paid attention.

Tattletale chuckled. "I like my powers, even if they are a literal headache sometimes, and I have a feeling you'd take them and ask questions later if we met in person. I can be a little...irritating to some people, and this whole unmasking thing is a good way to get buried in an unmarked grave anyway."

Given that she was a villain, even if a supposedly unwilling one it wasn't a bad supposition. I'd have probably felt even more threatened if she'd shown up at my house and there was a good chance I'd have hurt her.

"Why are you being so open about all this?" I asked. "You could probably get what you wanted with a lot less information."

"My power tells me this is the best way to keep you from draining me dry," Tattletale said. "I really like screwing with people but I've read the PRT files on what happened to you at Winslow, and I suspect you really wouldn't deal well with betrayal."

That was true enough. I'd been screwed over by enough people that I'd had idle thoughts of going Carrie at school. Being screwed over by a supervillain might not end well.

After all, Hookwolf hadn't even done anything to me personally. He'd just been in my way. How much worse would it have been if he'd hurt me or someone I cared about? I might not have stopped at all.

Maybe she was right to be a little cautious.

"I suspect you've got Victor's powers too, and if you get mad enough it might not just be my power I lose," Tattletale's voice was serious now.

"So what do you want from me?" I asked.

"I want you to steal Coil's power and help me disassemble his empire."

"What?"

"In return I'll help you find the Capes you're after," Tattletale said. "You wouldn't like my power, it gives me headaches that leave me bedridden for days if I use it too much. But I'd happily use it to help you clean up this city."

"Take out the competition, you mean?" I asked dryly.

"Once we take Coil down I intend to steal all his money," Tattletale said. "Why would I want to bother with petty crime when I can retire to a beach somewhere with millions of dollars?"

I hesitated.

Helping a criminal steal seemed wrong. Helping a criminal steal from a different criminal seemed...less wrong?

"What if you used part of the money to help the city?" I asked finally. Dad had always gone on and on about how much work the Dockworkers were missing out on.

"Ten percent," Tattletale said promptly.

I almost suspected that she'd been waiting for me to make the demand. Was her power that good or had she simply researched me and my family enough to know that it was likely?

"Twenty five," I said. I was Danny Hebert's daughter and I wasn't going to be stiffed in negotiations.

"Fifteen percent,"she said.

"Twenty."

When I hesitated, she said, "You don't know how much money we're talking about here. It's a lot. Twenty percent would be more than enough to create jobs and goose the local economy a little. It won't be enough to completely fix the city...five times Coil's total fortune wouldn't do that, but it's enough for a start."

"We'll need to meet," I said finally. "Go over what exactly you expect me to do."

"I'm a little skittish about meeting you alone," Tattletale admitted. "I'd like to bring the rest of my team."

Was she planning some sort of trap? I went over what I knew of the Undersiders and their powers in my head. With the exception of Hellhound's dogs and whatever it was that Regent did, it didn't sound like they had much that could hurt me.

Of course, groups were known to add new members all the time. The last thing I needed was to be blindsided by some sort of Master.

For that matter, I had only her word that her power was some sort of supercharged deductive skills. It went with the supervillain name she'd chosen for herself, but people had been known to take deceptive names before.

For all I knew she was herself a master, out to bring me to Coil. Of course, if she was a master, would she need my help against Coil?

Maybe she was Coil herself. I only had her word that she was even Tattletale. For all I knew she was really Othalla trying to lure me into a trap set by the Empire.

No...if she was with with Empire they wouldn't have wanted to give me even this much warning. They'd have ambushed me on the way to school and if they'd killed me claimed it was an accident, not another attack on a Cape in their home.

Or maybe they didn't want another incident like Fleur, in which case they might try to lure me out. I found myself wracked with indecision. If I assumed it was a trap and she was being honest then she'd tell Coil and my life would fall apart. If it was a trap then I'd be attacked.

The best option was to go but assume it was a trap and be ready for it.

"If I decide to come after you it wouldn't help," I said.

She was silent for a long moment, then sighed. "We can meet somewhere public, just you and me."

"How long can you stall him before you have to tell him?" I asked.

"A couple of days," She said. "No more. And if we're going to have time to go after him it'll have to be less time than that."

"Call me tomorrow morning at nine," I said. "I'll give you the location for us to meet then."

Given the bait she was dangling, the ability to do any mistakes I made over, I could hardly refuse her. If she was setting me up for a trap it was better if I knew it now rather than later. After all, she was talking about a partnership of a sort, and I'd need to be able to trust her before moving forward.

I hesitated. "I know the PRT thinks I'm the one stealing brains, but I'm not."

"If I believed that I'd be on the first plane out of the city," Tattletale said. "Whoever is doing it is seriously dangerous."

"I met him," I said.

"What?"

It was nice to actually surprise Tattletale for once. It had felt like she was in control of the entire conversation and I was happy to be able to tell her she didn't know.

"He steals powers too, through killing...and he can look like anybody."

She was silent for so long that for a moment I thought we'd lost a connection.

"You survived a meeting with him?" she asked. "I've seen a report on what he did to the PRT guards...a whole lot of powers there that the PRT doesn't have you listed as having."

"They don't know everything I can do," I admitted.

"I think it's part of the reason the PRT is so focused on you as being the killer too. Short of Butcher or Eidolon, no one Cape has as many powers as he demonstrated or as you have. The thought of two people that powerful running around in the city terrifies them."

"Telling them about him might help," I said. "But I don't know how without giving them more information than I want them to have."

"Make sure the information comes from a third party," Tattletale said promptly. "If we're going to be working together I'm sure we can figure something else out."

I nodded, then realized how silly that was when she couldn't see me.

"I'll call you tomorrow morning," I said. I hesitated. "I don't suppose I have to tell you what will happen if this turns out to be a trap."

"You'll depower me, drain me of all my skills until I need to wear adult diapers, and then you'll kill me," Lisa said.

I blinked.

"And the rest of your team too," I said. "Assuming they're in on it."

"They don't know," Tattletale said. "There's one of them I wouldn't trust not to betray me to the boss. I wouldn't have brought him along if I'd brought the team. I wouldn't have brought Bitch either because that probably would have gone...badly."

If she was calling her teammate a bitch she probably couldn't expect that much loyalty from her.

"All right," I said. "Tomorrow then."

"Thanks for not planning to kill me," she said brightly.

"We'll see," I said, using Vengeance's voice.

I could hear her gulp. A moment later the phone went dead.

Waiting for dad to return home was difficult for multiple reasons. I was still a little worried about how he was going to respond to the Hookwolf thing.

I'd moped around long enough about it; guilt was a useless emotion. The past couldn't be changed and the only thing I could do was do better in the future. All beating myself up about it would do was to distract me from my goals.

I also had a feeling that he wouldn't particularly care for me meeting Tattletale, assuming that was who she was. He'd think it was a trap and he wouldn't want me to put myself in danger.

The thing is, there was an implied ultimatum in the choices she'd offered me. Work with her, or Coil would have all the information he needed to completely ruin my life.

Finally the door opened. Dad shambled into the entrance way, dropping his keys into a bowl by the door.

"I hear you had a busy day yesterday," he said. He looked at me significantly. "I didn't know how busy until some of the guys started talking about it at work today."

"It wasn't as bad as people seem to think," I said. "He's not dead."

"When did that become our measure of success?" Dad asked. "He's not dead?"

"Uh, I learned my lesson and promise not to try to burn anyone alive ever again unless they really really deserve it?" I said weakly.

"I think we need to have a talk about a few things," he said.

I sighed. I had a feeling I was in for a particularly long dad lecture. It wasn't that I didn't deserve it, it was just difficult to take.

For a moment I considered purposefully dulling my sense of hearing, but eventually I decided to simply take my lumps.

After all, being a hero sometimes meant doing things you didn't want to do, especially if it was good for you.

Maybe it would build character...I wasn't hopeful, but there was a minuscule chance.