Chapter Ten: Confrontations

That morning, Bruce woke Lindsey up at 8 a.m. only to take away her car keys and instruct her to be up and ready in one hour. He didn't reasonably trust her to stay home alone, so she would have to go to the office with him. Alfred had been persuaded by Abby to be a chaperone at her class's field trip, to which Lindsey informed the older man that Abby never even asked their mother or Shawn to do.

Bruce hardly said two words to her after his instructions. Frustrated that he wouldn't even speak to her in full sentences, Lindsey threw her wet hair up in a careless messy bun and dressed herself in worn ripped jeans and a gray sweatshirt. His lack of a reaction when she presented herself only aggravated her further.

The ride to Bruce's office was silent. Lindsey didn't mind; she wasn't in the mood to speak with him. After a while, he decided to break the silence by saying, "You're wearing the boots."

Lindsey's eyebrows shot up and she looked at him as if he had just told her he was Batman, "Huh?"

Bruce smirked, "The boots I got you last year when you were on that strange vegan phase. If I remember correctly you screamed about how you could not stick your feet in an inside out animal."

Lindsey continued to stare strangely at him before looking down at her shoes. Sure enough, she was wearing the Ugg boots he'd given to her for her sixteenth birthday. From the time she was fifteen, when her health class had taken a trip to a meat packing plant to teach them about food born illnesses, until she had sudden cravings for chicken and cheeseburgers Lindsey opposed all meat and animal products. This included the very thoughtful gift from dear old "uncle Bruce."

Of course, at the time Lindsey had assumed Bruce only gave her the boots to egg her on. Later when she got over her animal rights activism, she wore them frequently throughout the winter.

She wasn't quite ready to give Bruce that satisfaction yet, so she shrugged, "It's chilly."

"Alright," Bruce answered slyly, the smirk still present.

Lindsey snapped her head to the side to glare at him, "It is!"

"I believe you."

"You should," Lindsey answered haughtily, though she knew he caught the corners of her mouth twitching into an involuntary smile.

"It's big," Lindsey commented as Bruce led her into his office at Wayne Enterprises. He merely nodded as he tossed his jacket onto the couch next to the large desk, "Made sure of it. You never know when someone needs to bring a sloppy teenager in."

Lindsey sneered at him, flopping down on the couch and kicking his jacket over the opposite end. "I'm not sloppy."

Bruce nodded to the jacket on the floor. She just shrugged, "It was in my way."

"Right," he answered shortly, "Well, I'm already twenty minutes late to the meeting, thanks to someone who takes four and a half hours in the shower and still emerges with wet hair."

Lindsey smirked. She had taken extra care to spend longer than usual getting ready. "So go," she ordered jokingly as she picked up a magazine from the coffee table in front of her.

"Stay here," he said sternly before making his exit. Lindsey chuckled and shook her head, finding the fact that she could forgive Bruce without even receiving the apology she'd previously expected amusing. In the back of her mind though, she knew she wasn't helping him adjust to living with two young girls.

As she absentmindedly flipped through her magazine, Lindsey hardly noticed the door creaking open until a gravely voice announced the presence of its owner.

"Tell me, Miss Brooks, because I'm very curious."

Lindsey lowered her magazine, gradually white knuckling the pages in each hand as she saw a familiar looking middle-aged man shut the door behind him and pace toward her.

"You're known as the heroic little girl who supposedly single handedly brought down a disregarded school drug scandal, you're living with close family friend and billionaire prince of Gotham, you killed a man, caused the death of one- although if he hadn't been shot he'd have no use for the hand you ruined, severely injured another man who was- like his comrade- just doing a job he was assigned, and ruined his life," he shouted the last part, causing Lindsey to jump. She had by now risen to her feet and was edging nearer to Bruce's desk as the man was slowly making his way to her.

He clapped his hands together once and added with a sarcastic laugh, "Oh yeah! And because of the first three or four reasons I mentioned, you caught the attention of a clinically insane homicidal maniac and you are causing the deaths of everyone around you!"

Lindsey shook her head, hand clamped over her mouth. She tried to block out his words even though she found the task growing in difficulty as he continued his tirade.

"That's right, sweetheart," he hissed with narrowed eyes and a wicked smirk, "The little nerd girl, the stoner, the Bible freak, the punk, the jock- you know the one they've reported missing but we both know he died in the fire at the gas station. Soon enough the princess, the loudmouth girl, her dork boyfriend, your sister, your mother, your Brucie and his butler, your little bat hero, everyone you've ever known and loved is going to die!"

Lindsey bit her lip hard and swallowed the lump in her throat. She had made it around to where Bruce's desk was between them. She was about to reach for the phone on his desk until she glanced over the man's shoulder.

Through the window in the door, Lindsey could clearly see the man she knew as Lucius Fox at the doorknob as Bruce glared daggers inside through the small window. Just as the door began to open, the man launched himself across the desk, landing right on top of Lindsey.

"It's all you!" he shouted in her face, "You'd be better off dead!"

Lindsey whimpered and managed to scamper out from underneath him as Bruce and Lucius yanked him away. She used Bruce's desk to pull herself up to her feet and staggered away to collapse on the couch.

As an entourage of security guards dragged the rambling old man out kicking and screaming, Bruce kneeled in front of his shaking ward.

"Lindsey," he said gently, brushing away a few strands of dark hair that had come loose form her messy bun, "Did he hurt you?"

Lidnsey didn't answer but stared at the floor. Out of the man's long tirade, a few phrases stuck in her mind.

"And because of the first three or four reasons I mentioned, you caught the attention of a clinically insane homicidal maniac."

"…the jock- you know the one they've reported missing but we both know he died in the fire at the gas station."

"It's all you! You'd be better off dead!"

"Lindsey? What'd he do?"

Lindsey didn't answer his question. She flicked her eyes upward so meet his and said just above a whisper, "I need to see Gordon."

"And he just started ranting about…it wasn't even one subject. But he said that because of the whole article/ steroid scandal at school being publicized, I caught the Joker's attention. Then he started listing off the ones who died and the ones who will die…and said something about John Carey."

Gordon nodded quickly, not wanting her to deviate from her story. Of the few times he'd spoken with Lindsey this was the first time he'd really gotten her to open up. "What about Mr. Carey in particular?"

"That he was reported missing," she answered, "Was he?"

"Yes. Last night, Michael and Anne Carey informed us that John did not return home. They've called his friends, the school, and family members, but they haven't seen him either. We have received reports of his plans to move to his family's ski resort in Wisconsin from a few who claimed to be his friends. We've arranged or a team to go out there and investigate."

Lindsey quietly interrupted, "No…John's dead. There's no way he could've survived the explosion."

Gordon's eyes briefly narrowed before he asked calmly, "Did you come in contact with him last night?"

"Yeah. He kind of flagged me down to the parking lot there. When the building caught on fire, he went in to save people," Lindsey trailed off, remembering each event vividly, "He actually rescued this girl that had to have been my little sister Abby's age. The mother got her and told me to run but I had to wait for him. Then the explosion…"

"Lindsey," Gordon started softly, "Only one body was recovered. That body belonged to an Italian man named Antonio Tazza."

"Couldn't DNA tests have been altered by the fire? The body had to have been-"

"The man was middle aged, heavy set, and five foot six. Does that sound like Mr. Carey?"

Lindsey glared at the man across from her, "No. It doesn't. But John Carey couldn't have survived that."

Gordon rested his elbows on the table to massage his temples. He sometimes forgot the persistency of young women. "How can you be sure?"

Lindsey sighed, reaching into her purse, digging out her cell, and opening up the first text message she'd received that night. She slid her phone across the table and allowed the man to see.

"I know you were there. He won't always be around. I thought about you as I was melting Jockstrap. From a friend," Gordon read out loud. He paused for a few moments of awkward silence, rereading the message before asking Lindsey, "Are there others like this?"

"Just one," Lindsey answered. She opened the second message and Gordon read this one to himself.

"Even if it doesn't exactly say Love Joker," Lindsey stated, believing she knew what Gordon would say, "It's got to be from him. Or some other sociopathic nut job is watching me."

"On the subject of John Carey," Gordon began sternly, not wanting her to rant any longer, "While this could be evidence of his death, no other body was recovered from the site-"

"Which could mean the Joker still killed him and those sources you're calling John's friends are working with the Joker and told you that he was talking about going to Wisconsin so the team you sent will find him burnt and dead in his parents' cabin thing."

Gordon held up a silencing hand, "Now is not the time for conspiracy theories. We have arranged for you, Angela Benedetti, and Monica DuPriest to live in one of our guarded quarters until we can get the situation under control."

Lindsey scoffed and leaned back in her chair, "So you're locking us up?"

"You're not going behind bars. We've developed a section that protects those endangered by loose criminals to live in until they are proven to be safe. It's pretty much a little house. This is the step we'd prefer to take before the Witness Protection Program."

As Gordon continued explaining Lindsey's relocation, she suddenly realized a detail of his statement.

"Hold on…Angela, Monica, and me? What about Dominic Randolph?"

Gordon looked surprised, a first sight for Lindsey, as he informed her cautiously, "Dominic Randolph? You haven't found out yet?"

"Obviously not. What happened to him?" she demanded anxiously.

"He was found dead at his home this morning."