Harvey went home with a fresh bottle of whiskey and a migraine. He opened the door, took a deep «God grant me patience» sigh, and dropped into his sofa. Then he turned to the girl sitting next to him in said sofa.
«What, pray tell, are you doing here?»
«I came to see if you had new leads on the Dollmaker», Kyle replied, pointing the zapper at the TV and flipping channels.
He groaned. It had been a long day. It had been a long, long day. Sarah was none too pleasant, Jim was none too pleasant. Hell, even Nygma was none too pleasant. Not that he ever was, but it was a different kind of unpleasantness, recently, more on the brooding, snappish side. He wasn't even asking riddles, and when he was, he stopped himself halfway and cut the conversation short. Which made it very hard to extract information from the guy. After years praying for him to shut up… Well, «careful what you wish for», they said. They were right.
«I already have one boss riding my ass», the cop snapped. «I don't need two.»
The girl shrugged and offered him some of his own chocolate cookies, taken from his own cupboard.
«I'm still asking», she said.
He sighed, grabbed the remote, and flipped channels.
«Jack shit on the Dollmaker. You can leave now.»
If some children had benefited from the Winston boys' organs, either it was not in Gotham, either their parents had kept the secret well. Harvey was still looking, but obtaining the medical records of every O negative underage patient on the continent wasn't going to be doable.
What he had discovered, though, was that Delores Stephenson was not the first Gothamite to have been killed by some device around her neck. That was the one interesting bit of trivia Nygma had shared that afternoon, before he'd lost it and stalked back to the morgue or wherever he usually dwelled. Unidentified Asian male, found cut to pieces in a landfill, with shrapnel wounds indicating an explosion under the throat. That was the extent of the information Nygma had given them, and trying to get the case file out of the records had proved difficult. Miss Kringle was on vacation and the intern filling in was not very good at navigating «rusematic» indexes. The intern had promised to find the files in the next twenty-four hours, fingers crossed. Until the boy managed, Jim and Harvey couldn't be sure the two murders were related.
The brat took a cookie and started munching on it, looking at the TV.
«Do I need to carry you out?» Harvey asked.
«Have you looked into miraculous recoveries? People changing eye colors?»
«I'll take that as a yes», the cop replied, standing.
He scooped her up, which she had not expected at all, because it took her nearly five seconds to start trashing and whacking his head. He tried to keep his face out of the way of her fists and made his way to the door. Then she scratched his cheek and he dropped her.
«Are you crazy?» they shouted in unison.
She got up in a swift motion. He wiped his cheek. Sure enough, the little bitch had drawn blood, which made him angry, and it reminded him of Fish, which made him near ballistic.
«That's it, get the fuck out, don't ever come back, or you're going back to Juvie», he snapped, shoving her out.
She backed away easily enough - the girl had enough instinct to know when there was actual danger - but froze right under the door. Harvey raised a hand. He wouldn't have hit her (not too hard), but she didn't know that.
«I said GET-»
«Wait!»
She pointed to the the TV, eyes wide.
He turned. Barbara Kean's photo was taking half the screen. On the other, some news anchor broke the news of an attack on Arkham Asylum.
###
Jim dropped his keys on the sideboard as he entered Leslie's apartment. The day had been long, very long. He'd spent it on the phone, calling Delores Stephenson's family, her friends, and a few dozen factories, twice as many chemicals sellers, and two explosives experts. Nothing on that side. They were waiting for Thomas, the intern in charge of the records annex, to unearth files on a seemingly similar murder, in the hope they could get more information that way. On the whole, Jim had spent his day desperately trying to make some progress, with no result whatsoever.
«Lee?» he called, as she should have been home.
He had not seen her leave the precinct, but her car was gone. Then again, the fridge was empty - as he noticed as he served himself some orange juice - so she was probably getting groceries.
He filled a pan with water, put it on the stove, and got a box of spaghetti from the cupboard. He had to open every single kitchen cabinet to locate some tomato sauce, but he eventually found a pot right behind the boxes of cereal (which was maybe a sign that Leslie was not that fond of tomato sauce). He reconsidered the spaghettis and grabbed his phone, so he could ask her her opinion on the evening's meal.
That was when he discovered that he had missed seven calls during his drive from the precinct to the apartment, all of them from Oswald Cobblepot.
###
Sophie climbed the stairs to the mansion and stopped a few feet away from the metal door that separated their prison from the outside world. There was a green light above it, so it was unlocked, but walking up to it was always a scary prospect. She took a step forward. Her necklace did not start beeping, so she took the three remaining ones. She closed her eyes. She breathed in. She opened the door. Fresh air brushed her skin.
Wind.
Wind!
It had been months since she had last been upstairs. The last time, she had been lucky enough to be called upstairs during the day. She had seen actual sunlight. She still dreamed of that pinkish, orange glow on her eyelids. Shawn, who had not known the the air could move and that the sky could be blue, had wailed for hours, and Nate had tried to make him understand the concept of open spaces, in vain. The boy had to be taken downstairs again.
Wind. Wind, and moonlight. The normal, grayish light of a real night sky, without the blue hue of the floodlights.
But she was not really outside, of course. This was only the peristylium, a closed in garden, with walls and armored door on every side. All of doors of the mansion, up to the exit, were equipped with a proximity sensor that would activate Sophie's necklace if she tried to leave. Shawn's mother had wanted to prove it was all a bluff, and Nate had ended up remarrying. Becky had been a reckless idiot and Sophie loathed her. Sophie would have been enjoying sunlight until the end of her days if Becky had not thrown caution to the winds.
Three of the peristylium's doors were locked, but the fourth was lit green, and the brunette went through it, entering a library filled with Victorian furniture and Greek statues. She followed the open doors, passing through a similarly decorated hallway, to finally arrive in Mrs. Valentine's living room. The old bitch was watching TV, back turned to the door, sitting on her white, spotless Victorian lounge made of golden wood and satin cushions. She drank from an antique tea set, on a silver plater, on a low table covered with a lace tablecloth. Her permed, short grey hair was slightly on the violet side, and thinning.
Sophie was tempted to cross the few steps that separated her from Valentine and to throw herself at her throat. Sure, the proximity sensor the woman carried would make her necklace go off after a few steps, but if the brunette was quick enough, maybe the bomb would blow both of their heads off.
Nate was standing by the door, soaked in blood, and was talking to the cunt.
«He might need some time. He… It shocked him. It's always hard at the beginning. And it's the second time, too. He was fragile.»
«I don't know why it is so hard to find him a good match», Mrs. Valentine replied in that bleating voice of her's. «He's so handsome, so charming. You cannot fault him on his behavior at all: he's as perfect as they come. And yet…»
«I really would advise giving him a few weeks», Nate said. «A month or two, maybe.»
«I will, I will. I didn't intend for him to get so attached. You could see the girl was a terrible match, but she hadn't been… Indisposed. You know I wouldn't harm an unborn child», Valentine explained to a Nate who knew that very well. «Thankfully, that cleared up. Sophie, how is David?»
«Sleeping, Mrs. Valentine. I gave him some pills. I figured resting would do him good.»
Passing out was the only relief the poor guy could hope for, so the brunette had sacrificed the four sleeping pills she had left, and a glass of vodka to help them go down. David had been shaking so hard she had feared the drugs would not work. She had spent half an hour hugging him and rocking him until he fell asleep. Then she had locked the door to Shawn's room, since the stupid kid couldn't be brought upstairs without having a panic attack of his own, and she could not trust David around him.
«That's good», the old hag commented. «Very good. Please stay with him today. Nate?»
«Yes, Mrs. Valentine?»
«Go change, then we'll take the… Package downtown.»
He looked down, and Sophie followed his eyes to a large suitcase. Her stomach lurched.
«Very well, Mrs. Valentine», he replied, taking his wife's wrist to pull her out of the living room.
They walked back to the peristylium. Nate's breathing grew wheezy and quick, but his face remained perfectly blank. Still, when he opened the door to the basement, he looked down at his bloody hands, and the brown grime under his fingernails, and he nearly lost it. Sophie saw his eyes go wet, and dug her nails into his arm so he would snap out of it.
###
Oswald paced in his living room.
The surgeon he had called in was done suturing Thompkins' finger - a nice, clean job, that would prevent the woman from losing more than that fingertip - and was packing his tools, giving his patient a list of instructions she probably did not need. She was mostly lucid now, but still very subdued. She kept looking down at her hand and sobbing, however. That was irritating. It was only the one phalanx, and from the pinky, at that. Oswald's leg was basically unusable, but did your hear him complain?
«They should be here by now», he whispered to Victor, who was standing by the door. «Any word?»
The hitman shook his head. Oswald groaned and paced some more.
Jim had called him back (in response the seven calls Oswald had made sure to time with the cop's drive home from work, all of them too short to let a ringtone go past its first note), and was on his way. He wouldn't arrive easily. Seeing how Gilzean was AWOL, the crime lord had called some men, who had received the order to spill a delivery's truck worth of wine bottles on Pioneer's bridge. There would be no driving from Thompkins' apartment to the mansion for two solid hours.
Once the surgeon was gone, Cobblepot returned to the woman, who was laying in his new sofa and had managed to stain it with that bloody hand of hers, and he put on his softest smile.
«I don't know why Jim has not arrived yet, but he should be here any moment now. Is there anything you need?»
«I-I… I'm fine, thank you», she murmured.
She tried not to look down to her hand, and failed.
«I'm so very sorry we didn't arrive sooner», Oswald said, because while he was talking, he could not hear her sob. «I so deeply regret that short delay. W-»
He jumped back at the noise of screeching tires, coming from the park. He hoped it was not Jim, not before Kean was secured. But the next thing he heard was Gilzean's voice.
«INSIDE», the thug was screaming. «GET. INSIDE.»
A car door slammed. Oswald made his way to the window and watched as his man, frayed and bloody, pushed a laughing Barbara Kean into the mansion. A few moments later, the door opened on Butch, who dragged the blonde inside. She was dirty, covered in blood, but unharmed. The same could not be said of Butch, who had clearly had to tend to a nosebleed.
«WHERE WERE YOU?» his boss screamed. «We've been worried sick!»
Gilzean forgot his usual terrified subservience, throwing Kean forward. Leslie moved back on the sofa. Barbara chuckled.
«We crashed the car», Gilzean said. «I had to buy another. Which would have gone a thousand times better if the lady had not started screaming that I was abducting her to rape her.»
«Hey! For all I knew, that was true. I seem to recall that the first time we met, you threatened me with just that.»
«Oh come on, that was just banter. It's part of the job, too. Grab the hostage, scare her a little, wait for the target…»
He turned to Oswald, saw that the younger man was going livid with rage, and quickly amended his words.
«Obviously, I'm not in this line of business anymore, Miss Kean. Now, I work for a friend.»
«So am I finally going to be briefed on the whole thing?» the blonde piped back. «Maybe by you, Mister Cobblepot?»
The crime lord composed himself.
«Of course, Miss. Please take a seat.»
She took a seat, sitting with her back straight and her chin up and her hands on her knees like a schoolgirl.
«It came to my attention today that an old enemy of Jim Gordon - a man called Arnold Flass», Oswald explained, looking to Butch to make sure that said Arnold Flass would not be back to present his own version of the story, «was recruiting some men to exact revenge on James, who had arrested him for murder a few months ago. Now, as you maybe know, Arnold Flass is a cop, which left me with very limited options. I knew he had something planned for today, but… I could hardly contact the authorities, could I? So I took it upon myself to send some of my men to rescue the two of you. I'm sorry the circumst-»
«Okay», Kean cut in, bouncing out of her chair.
She started walking around the room, looking at the furniture and decoration. She had left her sandals under the seat.
«So let me get this straight», she asked, stopping in front of a painting. «All of this, the whole rescue, is to impress Jim?»
«I beg your pardon?»
The blonde started walking in another direction, now looking at Oswald.
«Its a lot of effort for two strangers, if you have nothing to gain. So I figure you gain something from impressing Jim. Don't you?»
He did his best not to frown nor purse his lips.
«You are mistaken. James is a dear friend of mine who - as you very well know - once saved my life. It's only my duty to return the favor by protecting the people he loves.»
Barbara stopped dead in her tracks, next to Thompkins's seat. The doctor slid to the opposite end of the sofa.
«Love?» the blonde asked, looking stunned.
«Well, of c-»
«Oh, no, no, you poor man, you don't understand Jim at all, do you?»
By that point, Oswald was confused, the guards were confused, and Gilzean was just leaning against the wall with his eyes closed.
«Jim does not love anyone», Kean continued, in a nice, warm voice, playing with a necklace she was not actually wearing, out of habit. «It's not his fault! He tries very hard. He's a good man. But he just does not know how to love. It's not in him.»
Cobblepot stared at her.
«And since Jim does not know how to love, he does not know how to protect people. He knows how to fight for them, however. He'll do that. He won't stop until he wins.»
Her fingers kept searching for something on her throat, patting up and down and circling.
«Now, of course, that's bad news for you, because after you harm us, Jim won't rest until he sees you dead. I hope you know that.»
«I have no intention to harm eit-»
She smiled, pulled a knife out of her cleavage, whirled, and slashed Leslie Thompkin's throat.
###