Chapter Three

            Dinah Lance, also known as the Black Canary, looked over the top of her newspaper when she heard the elevator door opening. She was sitting at a table in the open area of the loft that looked out over the command center. She wore black stretch pants and an oversized sweatshirt with a bull's eye pattern emblazoned across the front. With her blonde hair mussed up and a fresh cup of coffee in front of her, it was obvious she hadn't been up for long.

            "Good morning, Miss Dinah," Alfred said as he entered the room. "Would you care for a bit of breakfast, or perhaps," he looked at the timepiece hooked to his vest by a gold fob, "lunch?"

            "No, thanks, good looking," she replied. "I think coffee will do me right now."

            "Very good," he said and walked down the hall where the kitchen, and his stateroom, was located.

            Dinah looked at Barbara and waved the paper in the air.

            "Have you seen this yet," she asked the red-head.

            "No," Barbara said, riding the lift that would take her to the upper area. "Is there anything interesting I need to see?"

            "Just this," Dinah said, holding the paper for Barbara to see. Across the front page, in large bold type, the headline read: Black Raven Stops Robbery Attempt. Barbara covered her mouth with her hand in order to hide he grin. "The reporter was at the bank when the whole thing went down. Why can't they get it right? I even spelled my name for him. What is it with the people in this town? Do you have to have the word "bat" in front of your name to be taken seriously around here?"

            "Actually, yes," Barbara said. She'd gotten her own cup of coffee and set it next to Dinah's on the table. "I wrote that unwritten rule the first time someone referred to me as Robin."

            "Please. It'd be kind of hard to mistake you for a twelve-year-old boy."

            "Not back then, it wasn't." She looked at her chest. "These didn't show up until much later."

            Dinah stretched and laughed. "Well, I need to get ready to make an appearance at the bar. I haven't shown up in over a week. If I don't pop my head it, God only knows what Gibson's going to do with the drink menu this time. Last time I was gone this long was when he introduced that Everclear and lemonade drink. It took forever to get anyone to come back after that."

              "I know. I tried one," Barbara said. "Biggest mistake I ever made. I was sick for two days."

            "On that note," Dinah said, and stood up. Then she turned her attention back to the paper on the table. "There's something else you might want to look into." She pointed out an article on the second page. "Looks like another employee of the Gotham Department of Youth Services committed suicide yesterday. That's two in three days. It might be something we want to look into."

            "I'll pull up the police reports and see what they have to say."

            "You do that," Dinah said, patting Barbara's shoulder. "I have a wig to go fight with." In her "secret identity", Dinah wore a black wig and glasses to disguise herself.

            Barbara sipped her coffee and reread the article. Just as with the first case, eyewitnesses reported the woman running down the street, screaming that something was after her before jumping to her death from the Gotham Harbor Bridge.

            Yes, this was definitely something to look into.