Director Danvers and Agent Querl Dox assaulted Jake with questions, keeping the young man confined to the interview room with no other visitors. They would sit down, glare at him from across the table and list off the crimes he's accused of and look for a mistake, a slip of the tongue, and a crack in his act. Unfortunately, Jake proved a resilient subject to interrogate.

"Let's start from the beginning" Alex suggested, crossing her arms leaning back in her chair. "How long have you held a grudge against Supergirl?"

"I don't" he replied. "She saves people. She saved the world more than once."

"She didn't save your fiancé" Alex said, noting a flicker of emotion in his expression. "Sarah Linwood? Or I suppose you knew her as Sarah Kelly. She was killed five years ago, correct?"

Jake looked down and nodded. "She was a nurse. She was working at the Community Hospital in National City when the…well, you know" he said.

"Supergirl was engaged in a fight with an alien barbarian" Alex continued. "Fifteen people died in that incident. Sarah Kelly was among them. Do you blame Supergirl for her death?"

Jake's mouth twitched and Alex swore she saw him snarl for a brief millisecond. "For a while" he admitted. "But no, it wasn't her fault. If she hadn't been there to stop that monster hundreds more people could've died. It was just a senseless accident. I put it behind me and went travelling for a bit."

"Why come back to National City?"

"To put old ghosts to bed, for good, before going back home to move on with my life. I'm okay now. I think I'm finally ready to accept she's gone" he whispered.

Alex didn't buy it for a second. "You expect me to believe you've just moved on from your fiancé's death and harbour no ill intent towards Supergirl?"

He looked up at her projecting confusion. "I told you, I don't blame her. Anyway, I thought I was here to talk about my apartment blowing up?"

"Among other things" she said.

Outside of the interrogation, the others were watching through the window. Most were when they could stomach seeing him run circles around Alex and Brainy. The pair coordinated a rotation of questions; one would leave the room so the other could posit their interview. Brainy was more collected than Alex was, methodical, calculated. He focused on the facts. "How well did you know Maxwell Davies?" he asked him bluntly.

Jake shrugged. "Not that well. I worked for him for a couple of months. I was one of his engineers at TITAN Industries."

"Indeed?" he said, reviewing his notes which everyone knew he had memorised. "Ah yes. It took us some work to confirm your employment. Your records were rather…disorganised."

"Sounds like an admin issue" he chuckled. "Then again, those classified projects we worked on had me so sleep-deprived I'm amazed I was able to sign my name anywhere."

"What kind of projects?"

"Classified" he repeated. "One of the first things Mr Davies had us do when we were hired was sign a non-disclosure agreement. Last thing he wanted was the competition finding out what he was working on?"

"Did you ever work on the Samaritan project?" Brainy asked.

Jake shook his head. "I left before any of that."

"Indeed? Why did you leave the company?"

"Politely asked to, by Mr Davie. He found my work sloppy. He was a bit of an egotist. Working conditions weren't great either, so I submitted my resignation and he let me go quietly. It was either that or I inform the board of directors how he was treating his work force. Nothing illegal but just bordering the labour limits."

"The work place was unsafe?"

"It wasn't ideal when I was there. I can only hope they improved things after I left."

"You know Maxwell Davies was murdered several months ago" Brainy informed him pointedly. "Do have anything to comment about that?"

He shrugged again. "Like I said, he was an egotist. And delusional. I heard he stole Lex Luthor's battle suit designs from L-Corp and used them in his Samaritan project, all to become a superhero? I guess it was only a matter of time until he made the wrong kind of enemy" he chuckled.

"Did you consider yourself his enemy?"

"No. just an infuriating employer" he said, shifting his arms uncomfortably. "I'm sorry, is there any way I could take these off? I've been sat here for over an hour and my arms are starting to cramp." Brainy looked at the handcuffs, shooting a glance to the mirror behind him before pressing a button on his wrist. The electronic handcuffs clicked open and he was able to pull his wrists free. "Thank you" he sighed, rubbing them flexing his fingers.

"So you claim not to have worked on the Samaritan project with Mr Davies" Brainy continued. "What about the project proceeding that one. The Reconnaissance suit?"

"The Recon King?" he laughed. "Yeah, Mr Davies had that name picked out well in advance. That was a dud. Couldn't get the specs to work or find a suitable power source to run it."

"Do you know what happened to the suit?"

"There is no suit. Ask anyone who worked on it, we never made one. Never got that far. That's half the reason Mr Davies asked for my resignations. The main reason he must've stolen from L-Corp" he mused.

"You're claiming you've never made this suit yourself?"

"No, I didn't. Couldn't even if I wanted to. The whole design is trademarked by TITAN Industries."

Brainy narrowed his eyes, looking for a tell or something. Jake kept his façade well. A little too well for their liking.

Behind the Mirror the others were getting restless. "He's not going to break is he?" Nia said worried.

"He will" J'onn said optimistically. He'd trained Alex well and she wasn't the type to give up.

"What were your movements on the night of the seventieth last July?" Alex asked him, circling the table like a predator, her gaze burning into the back of his skull.

"At home, asleep" he repeated, getting frustrated by the assailment of dates.

Alex was running through the list of known appearances of the Reckoning, starting from the theft at Axis Environmental when Metallo was stolen. On that day he claimed to be at home, along with many of the incidents. Other times he was walking the city, sometimes he was at a movie or restaurant. On those incidents she nodded to the mirror where Brainy was stationed with his tablet requesting verification of his alibi. "What about the day of the Twenty-second, the same month?" she asked, the day the DEO was attacked.

"I don't know? Can you remember what you were doing on these random days?" he asked getting flustered.

She smirked. "I remember all of them" she said, leaning on the table looking at him coldly. "On the twenty-second, I was at Stryker's Island fighting through a prison riot instigated by some of your collaborators, the same day someone with a suit that you claims shouldn't exist broke into a DEO facility and killed over thirteen highly trained agents and stole highly sensitive data. Now, tell me Mr White, where were you at around eleven forty seven specifically?"

He met her gaze for a moment before looking away, closing his eyes to concentrated. "If I remember correctly…yeah, I think that was when I was picking up a component for a job."

"What job?"

"A bike part. I was fixing up a friends motorcycle. James Olsen, you can ask him. I'd been waiting for that part all morning. I installed it that afternoon."

Behind the mirror James silently groaned covering his face with his hand. He could recall that day, and if asked would be forced to back up his story. In the dark room Colonel Haley watched the interview intently, monitoring Alex's progress, what little there was of it. Supergirl stood at the back watching nervously, Lena standing besides her keeping her emotions to herself.

Alex stood up and continued circling the table. "Very well, what about the eighth of July" she said, purposely going out of order to throw him off. "Around midnight?" she looked at the mirror, looking knowingly at Lena and Kara. This was the night they found his hideout before he attacked them and set it on fire, but not before Lena found proof of Maxwell's own crimes.

Jake thought a moment before chuckling. "I was working late, in my apartment. Tinkering on one of the broken components to Olsen's bike. I must've gotten to be around two in the morning."

"Anyone with you?"

"No" he said.

Alex smiled. Not much of an alibi. He'd yet to sell them a convincing iron clad alibi that breaks their suspicions. So she moved onto the big one, the night of Maxwell's murder. "What about the day after, that night, around midnight? Were you in bed then too?" she asked.

Before Jake replied, Kara was already grimacing and cursing herself. She hadn't realised it until Alex started listing the timeline. Jake turned red with embarrassment as he quietly answered the Director. "I was. Just…not mine" he told her, looking up at the red-haired woman. "I was with Kara Danvers that night, at her place, the whole night."

The way Alex's eyes widened gave away her shock, her head turning to look at the mirror where Kara was awkwardly turning away equally red-faced. Lena looked at her and groaned while Alex silently fumed. That night? That was when the two of them…? She turned back to Jake, who just looked at her innocently. Though she was sure somewhere behind that expression he was cackling.

She stormed out of the interrogation room, tagging Brainy in while she dragged Kara into a private room away from prying eyes or ears so she could plead with her "tell me you're not his alibi!"

"I'm sorry" she replied, embarrassed and equally frustrated as she relayed the night she and Jake slept together. "He was there when I heard Lena's distress signal, he was asleep. And he was there when I came back after everything had… I didn't think anything of it."

"You should've told me" she screamed. She caught herself and sighed heavily, calming herself down. "Okay, is it possible he could've left your apartment, killed Maxwell and then got back into…into your bed?"

Kara did the math in her head and shrugged. "I suppose, but it would be difficult."

"Kara, we know he did it. Right now, I need to know, is it possible? Because if it's not then my own sister just gave an alibi to a murderer!" she cried.

Kara watched her sister get frustrated and agitated. She understood her anger. Their case against him was unravelling with every question he batted away. Kara thought back on what was a wonderful night and an even sweeter morning, realising he'd been using her not just to get close to her. He'd planned so many steps ahead it was impossible to know what was real anymore.

She walked out of the room where Alex was still pacing and ducked into a bathroom, feeling queasy as she pictured that night in its totality. Jake walking her home, kissing her, making love to her, and then waiting for her to leave so he could change and follow her, murder Maxwell, attack her and return to her apartment, climb back into her bed and make her breakfast the next morning. The two faces he wore couldn't have been more different, like two different people. Which was the mask? Which part of their night together was a lie? Was any of it real?

Kara leant against the basin of the sink panting rapidly, her knuckles turning white as she cracked the basin in her grip. Her upset stomach got replaced by a boiling heat behind her eyes as tears leaked down her face. It seemed every moment she stood there watching the interrogation was destroying every last semblance of happiness that man brought her, which made her even angrier because none of it was real, just a ploy. An act like he'd doing now. And she was a fool for falling for it.

"Tell me about your employment with L-Corp Mr White" Brainy said, flicking theatrically through his notes as Lena watched from behind the Mirror intently.

Jake sighed heavily. "Why? I was only there for a few months. I worked in maintenance."

"Why did you leave?"

"Personal reasons. Not like with Maxwell, I actually enjoyed working there."

"Why didn't you apply for an engineering position?" Brainy queried, examining his CV. "with your background it seemed like a step down to work in the maintenance department."

"I wanted the change of pace. Less stress. And Miss Luthor wasn't looking to hire any more engineers at the time. What's this got to do with anything?" he asked.

"It's been discovered that a security breach was perpetrated at L-Corp during the period you were working there" Brainy told him, his expression effortlessly neutral. "Sensitive documents were stole from Miss Luthor's office containing very dangerous information. Have you ever been to Miss Luthor's office during your employment with her company?" he asked.

Lena stepped up to the glass, watching the snake sitting at the table like a hawk, her green eyes fixed on him like a predator.

Jake rapped the table with his fingernails. "A few times" he said. "I've been virtually everywhere in that building. My boss gave me the tour of the junctions I'd be keeping tabs on, and I've been called in to repair everything from a break to a coffee machine. I met Miss Luthor while I was dating Kara too" he added. "She mentioned I fixed an air conditioner in her office. Can't say I remember that job in particular, they all blur together after a while."

"Have you ever been in her office without her present?"

"I can't recall."

"Have you ever had access to her personal laptop" he asked.

Jake laughed, which make Lena grind her teeth. "Miss Luthor is a savvy business woman, and way too smart to leave her personal laptop unattended, or unsecured. I was the maintenance guy. I wouldn't have been able to guess her password much less access her computer."

"Her computer could've been hacked" Brainy posited.

"Seriously? I'm a hacker now too?" he laughed. "I must've skipped that class when I was getting my degree in electrical engineering."

"Are you denying hacking into her laptop and printing sensitive documents from the office printer to steal confidential information relating to the manufacture of Kryptonite?" Brainy asked. "Even though the printer has a log of the printout at the exact time you were logged in fixing that air conditioner in her office while she was absent from the room."

Jake stared at the man before looking up at the mirror opposite him. Lena stared back at him, hoping he knew she was there watching. Did he truly believe his crime would go unnoticed? Was there a flicker of surprise in his facade when Brainy detailed his ingenious heist? After a moment Jake turned his gaze back to Brainy saying "I don't know anything about any heist from L-Corp. I wouldn't even know what Miss Luthor would've been working on from one day to the next. She's more private and paranoid than Mr Davies was. How would I know what was on her laptop, if I could even access it." he sat back in his chair, folding his arms repeating "now I'd really like that lawyer, unless you actually plan to charge me with any of these crazy accusations you keep throwing at me."

Brainy straightened up and gathered his folders and paperwork together before rising up to his feet. He didn't show it but he wasn't optimistic with this line of questioning. Despite Lena coming to them with her discovery about the Kryptonite formula, they didn't have any evidence to prove Jake was the one who stole it except a timestamp. But any good defence lawyer could put it down to a coincidence. He did some thinking as he walked across the room. Maybe they could use this particular crime to detain him while they investigated further. It was certainly an oversight he hadn't anticipated. He detected a handful of micro expressions when he mentioned the timestamp from the printer.

"Shame really" Jake muttered just as Brainy reached the door. "Despite everything, I really enjoyed working at L-Corp" he remarked, looking at his reflection wistfully.

Lena glared back through the glass. She didn't share his lamenting statement.

"Conniving, two-faced, arrogant, manipulative, fucking…" Lena chanted, hyphenating each insult with a palm to the vending machine that eat up her money and refused to give her the snack she requested.

Down the hall Kara sat on a bench listening to Lena vent her frustrations on the machine, looking up from the floor to call out "aim for the sticker on the right hand side."

Lena looked around and found a curious pick pony stuck to the metal panel. When she smacked it the dessert toppled from the stand and fell to the grate. She stared at the tray. More disappointed she no longer had an excuse to beat up the defenceless cabinet. She left her snack in the tray and walked over to sit on the bench beside the blonde woman. "I don't know how you can remain so calm" she grumbled.

"Who says I'm calm" she muttered, looking at the raven haired woman. They both sat in silence listening to the bustle of agents moving around the DEO working. "I thought I'd be relieved when they caught him" Kara said, wanting to fill the silence with something. "I thought once we had him in custody everything would be alright. But instead…"

Her attention was pulled to Nia, who came into the hallway to sit beside Kara on the bench carrying some bottles of water. They'd been hanging around here for hours now, the clock approaching 2pm. Kara hadn't noticed the time, or how long it'd been since she ate or drank. Nia offered the water to both of them and sat back with a worried look. "It's not looking good is it?" she said. "Brainy isn't optimistic. He's been coordinating with agents and analysts to poke any holes in Jake's story."

"Good" Lena smiled.

"And?" Kara asked, already sensing it wasn't good.

Nia's expression showed her doubt as she looked at Supergirl. "He can't find anything that indicates a motive, can't prove a connection to the Blacksmith, he can't even find anything that negates the alibi's he's given."

"What about the link to TITAN, Axis, or me? The connections are there" Lena said.

"He says it's not enough" Nia explained. "Coincidence and conjecture. There's no hard evidence to prove Jake had anything to do with the Reckoning, the blacksmith, no communication with the Children of Liberty or Hank Henshaw, nothing to prove he had the means to get around when and when he needed to be. The only part of this case he's more confident about is the theft of the formula he stole from you" she told Lena. "But even that is proving difficult to make stick without a paper trail to follow."

"So he might get away with it" Kara muttered.

"We'll get him" Lena assured her with conviction. "We know who he is now, what he's done, what he's capable off. We won't let him get away again."

Kara nodded. She was glad one of them was confident because watching his interrogations were proving a difficult endeavour. She start to wonder some things that concerned her, things she didn't want to ask out loud. But she needed to ask them. "How smart would you say Jake is?"

"Not smart enough" she scoffed immediately.

"Seriously" she said, turning in her seat to look at her. "Be serious." She looked at Nia too, asking them both "how smart is Jake White?"

They both shrugged. "Pretty smart I guess" Nia admitted. "I mean, he did graduate at the top of his class at university…"

"I'm not talking about that. You've seen him in there, heard all the answers he gave. Think about it; he's been playing us for months, years. He's planned everything ahead and managed to slip under our radar at every turn."

"Not every turn" Lena scoffed. "We found out about his connection to Maxwell, to Hank, we saw the evidence at his apartment, figured out how he got the kryptonite…"

"But how much of that was by design?" she asked. She looked at them both. They didn't have an answer. The group had pondered if this was all a part of his plan, to make sure Kara knew. He was expecting them at his apartment. "He was already leaving the country when he called the apartment, called me. He planned it, planned to show us the truth and then clean up afterwards. He planned Maxwell's death with me as an alibi. He planned everything. We have to admit he is brilliant in that respect."

"I guess, what's your point?" Lena asked.

"So why come back?" Kara wondered. "He knows the DEO and FBI were looking for him. In the UK, he was safe. They couldn't force an extradition. So why come back at all?"

"Because he's after you" Nia said. "He came back to get to you."

"Using his own name on a public airline? He must've known we would've noticed and arrest him."

"You think he wanted to be arrested?" Nia asked. Kara shrugged. It didn't make sense, not from a logical standpoint. Nia thought about it commenting "he also knows who you are, you're secret identity, our…others secrets" she acknowledged.

Lena, reluctantly, nodded in agreement. "So why hasn't he used that knowledge?" she wondered. "He's been recorded ever since he arrived. Colonel Haley has been listening in all day. He could've outed Supergirl at any time, exposed all of us… so why hasn't he? What's he waiting for?" The three of them looked down the hall to the door hiding the interview room. Maybe it was just paranoia, but there was something fishy about this situation that unnerved all of them.

The conspiracy theories were interrupted when they heard Alex shouted from the main lobby down the hall. They all got up to jog into the war room and find her pacing the large table. "So you're telling me we don't have anything?" she asked, her palm pressed to the surface as she looked across it to Brainy. J'onn and Olsen stood nearby also investigating the commotion.

"I'm afraid we have nothing concrete to prove he committed any of the crimes" Brainy replied dejected. Nia approached him putting a hand on his arm as he explained "I've scrubbed through his social media, his call history, his emails, the GPS on his mobile, retraced his steps everywhere I could. I used security feeds to map his whereabouts at every spot he claimed to be at the times you're listed. So far they've all corroborated he was where he said he'd be, including at Kara Danvers's apartment the night of Mr Davies' murder" he said, glancing to Supergirl.

"So we have nothing to help our case?" Alex asked in disbelief. "Nothing?"

"He's good" J'onn admitted. "He's even got us backing up his alibis."

Alex refused to accept defeat. "We'll just have to keep going at him until he confesses."

"I don't think he's going to confess" Olsen said. "He's been running circles around us for hours now. He clearly prepared for this situation." Olsen noted the loaded glance between Nia, Lena and Kara, but didn't have time to query them about it right now.

"Then we'll have to force him" Alex considered more aggressively. "J'onn, maybe you could use your telepathy to…"

"No, you know I can't" J'onn interrupted her. "Even if I was willing to commit such a violent intrusion like that, I can't compel him to do anything. Any memories I see won't be allowed into the investigation."

"Okay, what about a truth seeker?" she suggested.

"We'd need clearance from Colonel Haley for such methods" Brainy told her. "Unfortunately I don't believe we have sufficient evidence to warrant a request."

"Well I can ask anyway" she said. "Unless any of you have any better ideas?"

"I could talk to him" Kara suddenly suggested.

The room fell silent as everyone turned to her. There was a beat of surprise before they all unanimously agreed "absolutely not, that's a bad idea."

"I'm the reason he's doing all of this" Kara argued. "So maybe seeing me, speaking to me, it might make him drop his guard and slip up."

"Kara, I understand the need for closure" J'onn warned. "But you'll be putting yourself at great risk. If you go in there, you'll be on camera, on record. You won't be able to speak freely without giving yourself away."

"Worse, he might give you away" Nia agreed.

Kara looked at them all in turn. "That's a risk I'll have to take" she told them. "Unless you have any other suggestions?"

The others all looked at each other falling silent. None of them had an alternative.