Chapter Eight: Liar, liar…

I ran as quickly as I could down a dark street, the yellow marks on the road got blurrier and blurrier and finally disappeared leaving me running in what looked like a big, black box; I couldn't even tell if I was moving. Soon the road changed from black to purple, I screamed at the top of my lungs and found myself standing in the palm of the Riddler's gloved hand. He sneered down at me, in his other hand I saw Peabody strapped to an electric chair. "Riddle me this" he said, in a dark, commanding voice, "why is a raven like a writing desk?"

I recognized the riddle, I also knew that it had no answer, "um" I muttered,

His smile broadened, I looked up and saw that there were two people strapped to the chair; Peabody, and Vikki. "Sarah, help me!" She screamed, writhing around furiously.

The Riddler opened his mouth and began to speak again "how can you tell the difference between a vagabond and a saint without looking at them?"

"That's not a riddle!" I shouted incredulously.

He raised an eyebrow, "hmm." I looked up at the chair and saw two more people strapped into it, my parents, "Sarah!" Screamed Mama at the top of her lungs.

Nigma's lips were moving now, but his words tumbled from his lips in a jumbled mish-mash, with every riddle I didn't provide an answer to more people appeared in the chair, finally they weren't just in the chair anymore. They floated around helplessly in the black void, circling ever so slowly around us; they were men, women, children; people I loved or had never met. They all screamed things like, "Sarah, please, help me!" "Save me!" "Don't leave us here!" "Please!"

"What's the matter, Sarah?" The Riddler asked mockingly.

As more and more people floated into the void they circled faster and faster, closer and closer, a sense of imminent doom filled the area; the people in the void writhed and struggled as if they were being choked to death. The writhing and moaning grew louder and louder, "what's the matter, Sarah?" Asked Nigma over the noise, they writhed and kicked and screamed, and finally, in one swift motion, their necks snapped into place, staring up at me with glowing green eyes as they yelled, in one voice;

"SAVE US SARAH!"

I woke up, screaming at the top of my lungs. Hyperventilating, I looked around the room frantically, and flopped back onto the bed. I sighed with both relief and annoyance, it was only a dream. I looked over at the clock, 5:40 AM. I knew I wasn't going to be able to get back to sleep that night. I groaned and stumbled out of bed. I rubbed my eyes and walked out of my room, deciding I'd make myself some warm milk. Click, I turned the light on and saw Vikki, sitting on the sofa in a pair of startling pink pajamas. "Hi, Sarah" she yawned, not taking her eyes off of me. "Can't sleep?" I shook my head, "me neither" she eyed me expectantly "we need to talk, Sarah."

I sat down on the couch next to her "what is it?"

"What do you think!?" She snapped, she sighed "sorry, that was mean." She adjusted her position on the couch "it's just…while I was trying to sleep I kept thinking, 'why would the Riddler want to kidnap Sarah?'" I shrugged, "I thought about it for a long time and then I remembered something. Last week, you said you were sewing a green blazer. The Riddler was wearing a green blazer when he was arrested…" My face paled, she had figured it out. Of course she did! I thought, she's not stupid! She would figure it out sooner or later! "That's what you were working on, wasn't it?" My silence confirmed her answer. "I knew it!" She shouted, standing up from the couch, "and the Rubik's cube; that was from him, wasn't it!? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Shh!" I said frantically, "Vikki, you're going to wake the entire building up!"

She quieted down just a little bit, "Sarah, why didn't you tell me? That man's insane, you could have been killed!"

"Exactly, he's insane." I said, racing to come up with a response, "and you and I both know that Peabody had some…shady dealings…"

"Are you trying to tell me that the Riddler kidnapped you and your boss for no reason other than that he was bored!?"

"That's NOT what I'm saying, Vikki!" I felt terrible about lying to her, should I come clean with her? I thought, I mean, how could Nigma find out about it when he's in a cell in Arkham? And then basic Gothamite logic kicked in, if he found out where I lived he can find out if I've told anyone! And then another thought maybe he bugged the apartment! That did it. I wasn't going to risk her life or mine by telling her. "…Peabody probably had some business deal with him that went wrong or something and Nigma wanted to…um…get even." The lie sounded shaky even to me.

Vikki's formerly frantic face twisted into an angry sneer, "alright, for the sake of argument let's say I believed you; then why didn't he just shoot Peabody?"

That was an easy one to answer, "You know that's not how he operates, Vikki!" I cried, remembering what I had learned about him in days past. "He always sets an elaborate trap for his victims, it's a symptom of his insanity, that's why he was locked up in Arkham instead of Blackgate!" I was vaguely aware that I was raising my voice. "God knows most of them aren't quite right either!" I said, more quietly.

Vikki thought about this for a moment, "fair enough; but why you? He left a damn Rubik's cube on the doorstep, and according to your statement, he'd never even met you at that point!"

"Look, I don't even know if that was him…" I said hurriedly.

"Don't lie to me!" Snapped Vikki,

"Maybe he just saw me talking to Peabody and thought I was involved…"

"I SAID DON'T LIE TO ME!"

I heard the sound of a fist pounding on the door; it was so startling to me that I fell off of the couch, hitting my head on the floor. "Oof!"

A hint of shame appeared in Vikki's eyes as I sat up. I rubbed the back of my head, there would be a nasty bruise there in the morning.

"Coming!" I shouted, clamoring off of the floor and opening the door just a crack, one of our neighbors stood at the door.

"Would you keep it down in there!?" He shouted angrily, "the rest of us are trying to sleep!"

"Sorry!" I quickly replied before shutting the door.

I turned and faced Vikki.

"Sarah," she said, "you know you can trust me, so why are you lying to me?"
I'm sorry Vikki, I really am. I thought, but all I said was "I'm telling you the truth."

Vikki's jaw tightened. "Fine." She stood up from the couch, "I'll just get us some breakfast then."

"Sounds good." I muttered. Vikki turned around and walked towards the door. She opened the door and exited, shooting me a dark look as she did. The door shut with a thud, and I was alone again; I sighed. She didn't buy a word I had said, and I knew it.

I thought about what I had said for a long time, it almost seemed silly, keeping a suit order a secret from someone; that wasn't exactly a multi-million dollar smuggling deal! But, I thought, if your client has a small gang of thugs at his disposal, AND has a screw loose, just nod and do as he says; unless you want to end up with question marks burned into your corneas.

…

A few hours later I went to the police station, ready to tell Officer Reagan the same bullshit story I had told Vikki, or just not say anything. I wrung my hands with nervousness, what would she ask? After sitting in a hard backed chair for a few minutes a prim woman in a police uniform stepped outside. "Miss Valens?" She asked, I nodded and stood up. "Follow me." I followed her down the hall to a small room, we found Officer Reagan patiently sitting in a chair inside. "Miss Valens, I'm glad you made it" she said flatly, "please, sit down." I sat down in the chair obediently.

"First of all, what was your connection to Mr. Peabody?"

I eyed the video camera in the corner of the room, "he is my boss." I grunted,

"Where do you work?"

"Hallward's: formal wear, consignment, and alterations."

"Mmm-hmm." Muttered Reagan, "and, to your knowledge, what is his connection to Edward Nigma?"

"I don't know, business deal maybe? I always wondered how he was able to afford designer suits with so little business."

Reagan nodded her head, "do you have a connection to Edward Nigma?"

"None, to my knowledge" I said, careful to stare Reagan straight in the eyes, and blink so I wouldn't give myself away; these answers had been carefully rehearsed. "I think…I might have met him at a bus stop before. After he kidnapped me he asked me if my knee had healed up, I scraped it after tripping near the bus stop."

"So, he kidnapped you because you met him at the bus stop?"

"No!" I said, a little too quickly, "at least, I doubt it. It was probably because I was Peabody's employee?"

"You work as a tailor, correct?"

Here it comes, I thought. "Y-yes. I do alterations; you know, letting dresses, fixing tears, hemming skirts…"

"Custom clothing?"

I gulped, "no." I replied, "Not yet at least!" I forced a laugh.

"Hmm" Reagan paused for a moment, thinking to herself, "Miss Valens, do you remember what Mr. Nigma was wearing when we arrested him?"

"Yes, it was trademark green suit, purple mask and a bowler hat. Very strange ensemble if you ask me."

"It's more the suit that I'm concerned about. We found large amounts of green and gray fabric in the back room of Mr. Peabody's shop."

I suppressed a gulp, "okay…"

"It's the same color as Nigma's suit jacket."

"…So?"

"Did you sew the Riddler's suit?"

I shook my head no.

"Really? Because that isn't what your employer or his wife said."

"What did Nigma say?"

"Well, I suppose I can tell you. He asked another officer a riddle, offering to tell him what had happened once he had solved it, then insulted him when he couldn't answer. He won't tell us anything, however Mr. and Mrs. Peabody said that Mr. Peabody had you working long hours every day to finish the suit, and that they made a hefty profit from it."

"I don't know why they would say that…"

"Maybe because you tailored the suit." Reagan shifted her position in the chair, "Miss Valens, I understand why you're lying, you're afraid. But I need you to come clean, what happened?"

I shut my mouth and wouldn't say anything more.

After having a five minute staring contest in which I didn't say anything, Reagan finally gave up on that question, for the time being. "Okay, one more question." She pulled a file out from under her chair and showed me three photos. "Do you know any of these people?"

I knew all three of them.

The first photo was a mug shot of a thin, olive-skinned man with mangled hair which had been dyed electric blue and a fresh scar running up his cheek, he smiled at the camera in a detached, crooked manner; it was definitely Mr. Archer. The second photograph was a bit blurry and looked like it had come from a surveillance camera. It showed a pale, brown-haired man staring directly up at the camera with an alarmed look in his bright blue eyes. It was the eyes that gave him away; Jermaine Carlyle. I had a bit of trouble with the third photo; it portrayed a plus-sized white woman with bleached blonde hair running all the way down to her rear end. At first I didn't recognize her, but then I realized that if you made her a bit thinner and dyed her hair brown it was most likely a younger version of Mrs. Browning.

"…Yes" I replied, "They were all at the party that Mr. Peabody and I attended, his wife had a previous engagement and couldn't go, so I went with him. Their names are Richard Archer, Jermaine Carlyle and Olivia Browning; none of them seemed like people I'd want to associate with."

"Well, two of them were lying." She pointed at Mr. Archer's photo "his name isn't Richard Archer his name is Julian Stone."

"Why is he important?"

"He's a hit man from LA, he broke out of a small prison there about three years ago. We heard rumors that he had come to Gotham recently but as more of an 'illegitimate business owner' than a hit man; and this," she said, pointing at Mrs. Browning's photo, "is Angelique Shays. She was a suspect in three murders last year; most were convinced that she did it but if she did she was very good at covering up her tracks. She was put in jail on dubious grounds at best, and released about a month later, but we're keeping an eye on her. As for Mr. Carlyle, we don't have any charges on him yet. He's been at the scene of several bank heists, we think he might have been the bagman, but we have yet to catch his face on camera during one of the heists rather than after or before it. Now here's why he's important in this case; one of those bank heists was a Riddler heist."

My eyes widened slightly, "so, you think he might have told Nigma that Mr. Peabody and I were going to be there?"

"No, but that's not a bad theory. Why would he want to do that though?"

I instantly shut my trap. Reagan gave a slight grunt but didn't say anymore.

"Very well, wait here, Miss Valens, I'll be back." She stood up to leave,

"Wait!" I called out, she stopped and turned around, "the riddle he asked the officer, what was it?"

"Let me think," she muttered, "oh yes! How did Mark legally marry three women in Michigan, without divorcing any of them, becoming legally separated, or any of them dying?"

"hmm…" I thought about it for a moment, "he's a justice of the peace; it's part of his job."

A faint grin played at Reagan's lips, "clever…" she left the room, but I could still hear her talking outside the door.

"Yeah, she's not fessing up anytime soon" said Reagan, "told me she had no idea what she was talking about; a lie of course."

"Sounds like she's scared."

"Of course she's scared! Poor kid."

"But she tailored the suit?"

"Oh she tailored it alright…" The voices got quieter and quieter as they walked down the hallway. I leaned my head against the wall, crap.