A/N: Thanks to all that reviewed. I own nothing!

"Where are we?" After stepping out of the van, the hench-clowns ran towards a flight of stairs leaving Chelsea dumbfounded. Wearing their clown masks they were in a car park in the middle of a rarely sunny Gotham day.

The Joker walked ahead of Chelsea, not looking at her, focussed on the task at hand. She felt herself being swept towards the stairs by the men behind her. On the door at the top of the stairs a sign read "A. R Renalds Accountancy". So this was the accounts that The Joker had mentioned the other day to her. She had a bad feeling about this.

It had been a few days since Chelsea's apartment had been gutted by fire. Straight after she had called through to the police, Commissioner Gordon himself had called the mobile phone Chelsea had been given. She had left the number with him as The Joker had instructed.

This way she didn't have to meet with anyone in person as it would put her into Maroni's view. When the phone rang a little while after she had called the police, her new boss had instructed her not to answer so it went to voice mail. Commissioner Gordon wanted her to contact him. As he pocketed the phone, her boss told her to leave this all for now and when the time is right he will tell her what to do next.

Before she could get too caught up in what she was thinking she had a gun thrust into her hands by the man who was just in her thoughts. He bent down so he didn't have to speak too loudly, the clown mask she was wearing muffled his voice a little but it was clear enough.

"You will shoot anyone who goes near the room the rest of us will be in. They pick up the phone, you shoot, they talk to each other, you shoot, anyone tries-ah, to get into the place, you shoot. Got that, Sweetness?" She nodded tears filling her eyes. Suddenly they all burst into the accountants and it was chaos.

"Get down, down!" They yelled at the receptionist. She screamed and put her hands in the air. A man walked out of a kitchen dropping his coffee mug onto the carpet. He was instructed to get on his knees.

Another man opened his office door and demanded "What the fuck is happen-" he stopped short as he caught sight of the Joker casually walk towards him, whipping out a small semi-automatic gun as he went.

"...no...no!" the man pleaded backing into his office, the men followed him in. Just before the door was slammed shut Chelsea heard called from the room "Show them your face, beautiful!".

She paused, then pulled off her mask. The blonde receptionist was steadily crying, the man breathing heavily. He started to slowly lower his hand to his trouser pocket. Chelsea decided to act even though every fibre of her body was screaming at her to leave.

"Stop! One...one more inch and I'll shoot!" he stopped in his tracks. "And you!" she shouted at the receptionist "How do I lock the front door?". She had realised that no one had bothered to lock it.

Just then she heard banging on the stairs outside and she felt like she was going to vomit as the door swung open. She hid the gun behind her back trying to think of the best way to get these people of here while keeping an eye on the two others already in the room.

In walked two girls around Chelsea's age. As the door clicked shut behind them they looked over to the receptionist, then at the man on the floor, who to them may have looked as though he was just down on the floor picking up his broken coffee mug.

The girls then turned around to see Chelsea. Having seen too much she was about to get them to walk over and get on the ground when one of them spoke.

"Chelsea? O hey, Chelsea! It's Sarah and Emma from high school!". She squinted at them, in her mind they represented a world she had left behind long ago. "What are you up to, do you work here?"

Silence reverberated against the walls. Couldn't they see two people were being held hostage? That Chelsea's cheek was still bruised? The other girl spoke for the first time.

"Sarah and I are working as door to door sales people. We're selling bronzer, mascara and other make-up packs at very good, industry only prices".

She looked at them pleadingly, how could this have gotten worse? "Please...you need to leave now. Go!".

"Come on now" Sarah smiled at Emma and then looked back to Chelsea. They were both very relaxed. "Don't tell me you've lost that fun loving, cheeky spirit. Come on, have a look what we've got here".

Chelsea looked from the receptionist to the man on the floor. They were both still sitting down, rooted to the spot and looking just as confused by this turn of events as she was. She found her voice again "Please, you need to leave now! You don't understand! Go!"

They walked over to where she was and placed their product bags on the couch in front of the floor length window overlooking the car park. As one of them started talking and opening the bags there was a deep booming voice coming from the room everyone else was occupying. The girls looked up at her confused.

Finally revealing the gun Chelsea waved it at them, indicating towards the door "You need to go now!" Chelsea screamed at them.

Too late. There was a hysterical male voice heard and then a single gunshot.

"Get behind the couch!" she said throwing their bags behind there too as the girls scrambled around, finally fear evident all over their bodies. Chelsea heard a sound behind her and saw that the coffee man had crawled to the kitchen doorway.

"Get back down!" she threatened now waving the gun at him. He didn't respond, in fact he moved faster.

BANG. The door opened and the gang spilled out of the room. The person at the front of the pack shot the coffee man in the head before he could do anything. The receptionist screamed and hit the floor behind the desk.

Chelsea was disorientated. Looking around Sarah and Emma were totally hidden and sensibly were silent for once.

The Joker grabbed Chelsea as they sped towards the door. "Well done, Sweetness, you did very well". She said nothing, relieved that the girls she knew in a former life would live.

They were almost at the door when the Clown Prince of Crime called out to his man who was still pointing the gun at the receptionist, preventing her from calling the police.

"O, and Paul, make sure you shoot the girls who I can see reflected in the window behind the couch". Chelsea's eyes locked with the Joker's as he began to laugh. She then was half pushed, half tripped down the stairs.

"Boss, we've heard that that Edwards girl contacted the cops". Maroni didn't show any feelings on his face besides one of anticipation.

"And?" he didn't bother looking up to the man.

"She told them she was out of town at the moment and left a mobile phone number for them to call. The Commissioner was pretty mad that the call wasn't put through to him. They've met before you see".

Maroni rubbed his chin "Hrm. It means nothing. They'll still want to speak with her. She's with the clown, I don't know how long it will be until they know that. Usually I'd say he'd keep her safely locked inside, but with him, ya never know what he'll do. I still don't understand why he's doing all of this. The guys a nutcase but we seemed to get on alright before".

At this another man ran into the room, sweating quite a bit. He looked very nervous about what he was about to say and seemed worried about his own safety as the messenger. Everyone looked up at him expectantly, most of all his employer.

"Well?" Maroni spat, not amused by neither the interruption nor the suspense.

"The Joker's taken out Renalds...all our files are missing. The cops-"

Maroni slammed his golden ringed fist down on the table. "Find them!"

A little while later Chelsea comes to in the van after being knocked out when she fell. She was disorientated and hurting all over. She hears Paul speak "...so then yeah, she started saying she would call the cops so I took her out too. We can't have that". Chelsea risked opening an eye slightly. She could see The Joker sitting opposite her, nodding deep in thought.

"Well" he began softly "We got all the information we needed".

His eyes moved over to Chelsea, he didn't see her eye partly open. He must have thought she was still out cold. He sighed. The van went over a bump and Chelsea steadied herself instantly regretting it as it gave her position away.

"Ah, Sleeping Uglies awake" he chuckled. She could feel dried blood from her head pull tightly at her face as she moved it. She would have looked pretty ugly right now, she thought. Looking up at him she noticed how angry he was.

"You hurting? Yeah?" she nodded with him, regretting it as her head started pulsing again. "Good" he growled reaching into his pocket. She heard the sound of his switchblade opening. His face was held in innocent puzzlement.

"What happened? Were you asleep when I told you very clearly what to do?" his voice was calm, playful even. His goons were looking around at each other obviously terrified.

"I was thinking" his eyes alive with thought, looking upwards "Maybe it's my fault?" he hung his head a little lower, looking disappointed with himself.

Eyeing the gang again, Chelsea had never seen them so scared. The only sound came from the vehicle moving along the road. Suddenly The Joker leaned forward and dragged her by the hair until she was a heap looking up at him from in between his legs.

"But then" he growled "I realised, it's not. My instructions were clear-ah". At this he slides the knife into her mouth. Chelsea made a squeal of fear, then nodded to agree with him that his instructions were clear.

"Not those instructions today, Doll. I mean the ones back in your lee-tle office. Remember back then? When Danny Boy was still alive? Hrm? Ha" He dragged the knife along her inner lip, nicking it slightly. She began to cry.

His voice was now more direct "I said from now on you do what I say. You didn't do that today. Paul here" he indicates with his thumb "tells me the girls you knew were sooo, disgusted, byyou. Yeah" he nodded, swiping his tongue over his lips.

"Disgusted that you could work, for me". His eyes looked deranged. "But" his tone lifted to one of carefree observation "you were, were disgusting to them...long before I, came into the picture! I just gave you, a little push" at that he cut her lip again, enough to draw more blood.

Chelsea was shaking now feeling it drip off the bottom of her chin. She didn't know where this was going. She tried to hold herself reasonably still so that she wouldn't injure herself further on the weapon.

"You had a time limit stamped on you head when we . first . met. I offer you a way out...and you go against me. You wanted to see me fail! What am I...what am I meant to do?"

"No! No, I-" she started to mumble, her head really hurting. Leaning down he grabs her chin and menacingly whispers "You are nothing without me, nothing".

At this he throws her across the van and she hits her head again. She must have hit her head very hard on the stairs earlier because everything was fuzzy and she felt very ill. At this The Joker stands, balancing himself by placing a hand on the roof as he casually takes the semi-automatic gun out of his pocket, arming it and aiming it at her head.

He was so tall standing over her, rocking slightly with the van. "Give me...one reason...why I shouldn't finish you...right now". The van rocked harder and Chelsea hit her head again. Just that little knock was enough to send her into darkness once more.

Later that night

"You can turn that off" a gruff voice instructed on the roof on the MCU. Jim Gordon went over and shut off the bat-signal.

"It's about time you got here. I hope you've been busy". Gordon could see the shape of the man around ten feet away from him. "The Joker broke into A. R Renalds accountancy today. My men searched the place but couldn't see anything missing. He must have been there for a chat".

"Maybe" was the response, Jim could hear that the man was sceptical, he could hardly blame him considering who they were talking about.

"Well it would make sense. There were three people on the payroll and they were all...accounted for. Everyone there was found shot, all five of them. Looks as though two travelling sales girls were just in the wrong place at the wrong time".

He shook his head and took a moment, he really hated some aspects of his job. Not the job itself, just some of the things people did. Although, situations like this reminded him why he did what he did, so the world could have justice.

"Before you ask, there were no witnesses and surprisingly no cameras. The building had its own car park and no one has come forward. We only knew it was The Joker as one of the victims had his face cut, it could always be a copy cat but I'm not so sure. The cuts were made quickly and precisely. Well as precise as that procedure is"

He raised his eyebrows and held Batman's gaze to make his point. "The autopsy hasn't been carried out yet but at first glance forensics think it may have been inflicted post death. They believe it was the bullet wound to the forehead that killed him first. We'll have to wait and see". Gordon said matter-o-factly.

Batman looked up "The grin must have been to send a message to someone else. I wonder who the message was for".

"Yes" Gordon said. "We don't know yet. Anyway, any word of the Edwards girl? She called here the other day to say she was out of town".

He began to look slightly agitated. "I asked for all calls from or about her to go directly to me but it wasn't done! Now all we have is a mobile phone number with a full message box!".

He gripped his fists tightly but relaxed them, calming down. "It's all too suspicious, her partner works for the mob, he's killed, then her apartment is destroyed and she's conveniently out of harm's way. It's not making any sense at the moment".

Gordon looked at the Batman's eyes and saw he wanted information on both these matters as much as he did.

"I guess we'll just have keep looking. I really need to bring her in for questioning. With everything that's happening, and her ties, I really should arrest her".

"If you find her first let me know. I'll work on The Joker" he instructed in his growl.

"I will. Who do you think The Joker's message was for? Batman?" Gordon looked around but the other man was gone.

As he walked back towards the door that led from the roof he whispered with a wry smile "I hate it when he does that".