The sound of heels clicking and clacking on the marble floor echoed. Talia drew close to the desk, a secretary typing at the computer. She didn't pay her any attention, clearly focused on her task.
Talia was not impressed.
"I—" she began.
The secretary raised a hand up, extending a single finger, indicating for her to wait a moment. The dark-haired woman raised an eyebrow, but consented.
As the wait drew out, she began to lose her patience.
"I am here to see Mr. Luthor," she stated again, ignoring the same prompt gesture for her to wait.
Without even looking, the secretary asked haughtily, "Do you have an appointment? No one sees Mr. Luthor without an appointment."
"I would not be here otherwise."
"Then take a seat and I will let Mr. Luthor know you are here. He will see you when he is ready."
"I have an appointment," Talia retorted. Which had been a week in the making. That was a week her Beloved had been rotting in prison; a week she had been separated from Damian; a week she had been stewing over her lack of progress. "Which means there is an agreed upon time in which we will meet, not at the behest of one participant. If you would check Luthor's calendar, you will see that time is in only a few minutes."
The secretary finally tore her eyes away from her computer screen, an annoyed look on her face. "Mr. Luthor is a busy man and he will see you when is able to. Now please take a seat."
Talia narrowed her eyes. No one told her what to do—no one. There were only two men that she willingly obeyed; one was her father; the other was her Beloved. Luthor was neither of these men.
And if this lowly secretary thought she could order an al Ghul, then she would be rotting away in a shallow grave very soon.
"I will see myself in then," Talia finally responded before she turned and walked right to the double doors that led to Luthor's office. The secretary leaped up from her chair, pushing it back as she shouted for her to stop.
Her words fell on deaf ears. Talia shoved the doors open, revealing Luthor's office in all of its splendor. The man himself was behind his desk, his bodyguard behind his chair and to his right. Their heads snapped up to look at her.
"Ms. Head," the Metropolis billionaire greeted her. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"
"Our appointment," Talia replied. "It is time, is it not?"
Luthor raised a hand up so that he could look at his wrist watch. "So it would seem. Please, have a seat. Make yourself comfortable."
A small smile graced Talia's lips as she strode towards Luthor's desk, taking a seat in one of the chairs before it, crossing one leg over the other. "Your hospitality is always refreshing," she said. "You are always willing to drop what you are doing to accommodate your guests."
Luthor held a hand up, two of his fingers extended. They quickly flicked back and forth, a gesture meant for his bodyguard to leave. The woman knew this and immediately headed for the doors. Talia glanced out of the corner of her eye, spying the secretary shrinking back into her seat before the bodyguard closed the office doors behind her. "I must admit, I was surprised you wanted to meet," Luthor remarked.
Talia returned her attention to the bald billionaire. "We were in the middle of negotiations, were we not? Your abrupt departure from Gotham ended those and I wished to continue pursuing them."
"I see. You are quite tenacious, aren't you?"
"I have been called worse things."
"I highly doubt that. Now, I believe we were—"
Talia raised a hand up, cutting off the man. "Before we go on, I must ask for the reason for your sudden departure. If there is something unsavory going on, then I would like to know."
"Unsavory?" Luthor repeated, raising an eyebrow.
"It is not uncommon for partners in business to become consumed by the actions of another. I cannot tell you how many business negotiations I have become a part of where some dirty secret was revealed that threatened to stain my own company should we continue our venture. I simply wish to know if such a thing was the reason for your leaving of Gotham."
Luthor slowly nodded his understanding. "I completely understand. Rest assured, I did not leave Gotham as per some unsavory secret. In all honesty, I simply overscheduled myself and there was a meeting I simply could not miss."
Talia did not believe him for a second. "I can understand that. However, the timing of it is odd."
"Odd how?"
"Well, I'm certain you have seen the news; who hasn't? You left as Bruce Wayne was arrested for murder."
Luthor raised an eyebrow. "And you think I had something to do with it?"
Yes. "I am merely pointing out that the timing is suspicious. There are many conspiracy theorists out there that would make a connection that may not exist. You come to Gotham; you leave Gotham, but do so with Bruce Wayne being arrested."
"I see where you are going with this." The business mogul leaned back into his chair. "And I certainly have my share of detractors who would leap at such a conclusion. Thank you for bringing this to my attention."
"Then for the sake of clearing the air, as you Americans say, did you? Did you have any involvement with the accusations against Bruce Wayne?"
At this moment, Talia watched everything. Every movement, every breath, every gulp; she wanted to read the man's body language, not trusting his words. Nothing he said could be trusted.
Yet, she saw no signs of nervousness. He did not flinch when asked her question. He did not shift uncomfortably. He did not look away from her. What Luthor did was shake his head. "I did not," he answered her.
The calm delivery; the simplicity of the answer; the lack of a nonverbal reaction surprised Talia. She had viewed the many press conferences in which this man was accused of despicable actions. He would deliver a long diatribe, professing his innocence, and announced that he was eagerly waiting for his day in court. She had studied his response, looking for his tells that would give him away.
She saw none of them.
Was…was Luthor telling the truth?
"I must ask," he suddenly said, "why do you bring up Bruce Wayne?"
And now the table had turned, putting her on the defensive. "I will freely admit that I am well acquainted with Mr. Wayne," she admitted. "I befriended him many years ago and I am quite fond of him. To see what is happening to him is heartbreaking for me."
"I hadn't realized you were that close."
"Closer than most, but not to others. I was there to console him when he lost his beloved butler. We had only been acquaintances at the time, but I could see the pain he was going through and I wished to help him through that time."
"I bet he was rather appreciative."
"I would certainly hope so."
"Then I suppose it is safe to say you do not believe the allegations against him."
Talia had to resist the defiant look that threatened to appear on her face. "I do not."
A small smile appeared on Luthor's face. "Then that makes two of us."
She raised an eyebrow. "You don't believe them?"
"I will admit, my interactions have been limited compared to yours with Wayne. However, seeing as I am new to the Gotham scene, I did my own research into the markets. One does not enter a new market blindly; it is a good way to get yourself killed by the competition. Naturally, I did look into Wayne."
"And what did you find?"
"Let's just say that many of my original views were changed. I will freely admit that I thought he was a spoiled trust fund kid who wasted his company's profits on his extravagant social life. As much as it pains me, I fell in line with the other lemmings in believing he was an absolute clod."
"What changed your opinion?"
Luthor's eyes glanced up to the ceiling, his mind falling into thought. "His hostile takeover of his own company. I've looked into it and the tactics he used were not of some bumbling fool. There was a finesse to it, though brutal in its delivery. No one lucks into that maneuver, even with someone like Lucius Fox at their side."
Or herself, since she did play a part in that matter.
"So, I did more looking and what I found leads me to strongly believe that Wayne is no more capable of killing that reporter than he is able to cook for himself. I believe he is innocent, and we'll see this bear out."
"That is a rather strong opinion," Talia remarked. "And if you have learned so much about him, I have to ask why you have not begun competing with him directly."
Luthor's eyes had returned to her by then, but then darted to his desk. Talia followed his line of sight and saw a small box sitting there. It was wrapped in purple wrapping and had a green ribbon running up each side of it, tying into a bow on top.
Those colors…
"Let's just say Wayne has another dance partner who is determined to monopolize his dance card," Luthor said mysteriously. "And I know better than to step on certain toes."
Talia had come to this office, in the den of a lion, fully committed to gather evidence that Luthor was behind the Fairchild murder. However, as she spoke with Luthor, she was gaining a sense that he perhaps had nothing to do with her Beloved's current circumstances. While Luthor was a known liar, she could not detect any falsehoods. Either he was a better actor than she believed he was—and she knew that he was quite an actor—or he was genuine.
Which meant she had come to Metropolis for nothing.
"Now, shall we put aside the unsavoriness of a mutual peer's plight and get down to business?" Luthor suggested.
Talia uncrossed her legs, only to recross them with her opposite leg on top of the other. "I believe we shall."
So apparently farmers were tough guys.
There were a couple of holdouts still. Selina had figured if enough cash had been flashed, they would have jumped at the chance. Instead, these crotchety old guys straight up refused.
Alright, so if being nice wasn't an option, then they could always do it the hard way. Nick had sent out some tough guys to rough those crotchety old guys up. Violence had a way of getting through thick skulls and stubborn men.
However, those signs that said "All Trespassers Will Be Shot" turned out to be more than just empty words.
When Nick's tough guys went out there, they came back with shotgun pellets in them. Those crotchety old guys had opened fire without so much as a warning. Surprised and wounded, those tough guys scrambled back into their cars and came back.
Now Selina had a problem on her hands.
"We could always fight fire with fire," Nick suggested as he lounged in a chair, one leg hanging over the armrest. "Show these guys we got guns too."
"A bunch of city men going up against rednecks?" Chris responded with an eyebrow raised. "You do realize they have a veritable arsenal."
"We have more than just squirt guns too," Nick pointed out. "In fact, we got machine guns. All we have to do is drive by, shoot up their house, and bam. They're dead and done."
"Which will only invite the police, which we don't need at the moment."
Both men were right. Nick was right that they had their own guns, more destructive than whatever shotguns these farmers had. But Chris was right that they didn't need the heat, especially as they were trying to do this as legal as possible. A few dead farmers would draw attention.
"Why are these rednecks holding out, Nick?" Selina asked.
The young man shrugged his shoulders. "They plan to give the land to their kids. The land's been in their family for generations, yadda, yadda. I kinda stopped listening at that point."
So offering to buy the land hadn't worked. Using grunts to bully them out hadn't worked. So what did that leave? There was always mass destruction, but as Chris pointed out, that wasn't an option either.
No way was she going out there as Catwoman. There wasn't anything worth stealing aside from the land itself. She rather doubted there was anything of worth in those old homesteads.
She honestly had no idea on how to proceed. The unfortunate part was that they needed these lands. They were practically smack dab in the middle of the property they wanted, so it wasn't like they could make do like they could have if they were on the edges.
What was she supposed to do? What could she do?
Leaning her head back in her chair, Selina looked up to the last of her three advisers, Antonia, who was standing a little ways behind her chair. "Any ideas?"
"I have to agree with Nick. We don't have much of a choice," she responded. Nick perked up at that, a silly grin appearing on his face.
"And the heat that'll assuredly show up?"
Antonia shrugged her shoulders. "I don't have an answer for that."
Well, great, that was pretty much useless. They were freaking stuck and that was not a look Selina wasn't to show the rest of the Calabreses. She couldn't show weakness, not after she managed to unite the family, or whatever was left of it.
What should she do? What should a crime boss do? What would the Lion—
No, no she couldn't think like that, like him. Yet, that was an option.
A bad option, but really, she couldn't think of anything else. Selina sighed. Well, at least it wouldn't draw the wrong kind of attention. That was a start.
It was time to consult with the Lion.
With a few taps of the keys, Barbara had her system up and running. Work had been long, but it was par for the course now.
She pulled out a pile, a list of names appearing on one of her many computer screens. She had been looking into the Solomon Wayne Courthouse kidnapping per Batgirl's instructions, along with a list of others that had gone missing. Cross-referencing them with law enforcements, the courts, and other judicial offices, and she had made a sizable list of people that could be potential targets.
Unfortunately, as much paring down as she had done, it was still longer than she would have liked.
Faintly, she wondered why Batman wasn't looking into this. With the courthouse kidnapping, it was clearly big news. He sort of kept on top of the big crimes, ones that required a lot of attention. He wasn't a glory hog by any stretch of the imagination; he just got results the other vigilantes didn't, or rather couldn't.
Barbara thought back to that meeting with Batgirl. She seemed…off, if that was the right word. Definitely on-edge and distracted. Was she on another case that was taking up a lot of attention? Was that case one Batman was working on as well? All the girl had said was that he was out of town, so it wasn't much to go by. It would make sense if they just had their hands full with some impending crisis, one like Joker and Strange's War, or Two-Face's hostile takeover of the criminal underworld. The last thing they needed was City Hall getting hit with another dirty bomb, or half of Gotham getting burned down.
What was a kidnapped journalist when compared to those scarring episodes?
Striking a button, she opened a comm link to the Birds of Prey. If the Bat wasn't available, they were the next men up, or rather women. "Hey, Birds, I've got a case for you."
There was a second's pause before she heard Black Canary answer, "What do you have for us, Oracle?"
"I imagine you've seen the headlines, all the ones that aren't about Wayne. A reporter, Fred Jackson, was kidnapped right outside of the Solomon Wayne Courthouse."
"You have a lead for us?" Manhunter suddenly spoke up.
"Something like that. A couple nights ago, the Police Commissioner tried to contact Batman, suggesting this kidnapping was potentially one in a series. Batgirl dropped the case on me and said to give it to you."
Barbara waited to see how the Birds would respond. It wasn't often Batman deferred a case and expressed who he wanted to work on it. One could say it was an honor, or an acknowledgement of their work.
What she got was, "What, is this not important enough for the Bat, or something?" Huntress asked.
"All Batgirl told me was that he was out of town. I'm guessing it's hard to work a case when you're in an entirely different place. So, it's yours if you want it."
"What can you tell us about it?" came Black Canary's response. Noticeably, she was quick to answer. That might have had something to do with Huntress' previous response.
Barbara struck another key, bringing up the file Batgirl had received from Commissioner Sawyer. "I've got Fred Jackson, reporter for WGKX, covers a lot of their court stories. No doubt he was working the Wayne-Fairchild story. Before him, Jeff Daniels went missing, works for the parole board. Before him—"
"Erick Pense, City Hall liaison to Blackgate," Manhunter interrupted. That caused Barbara to blink her eyes owlishly.
"You know about that?"
"I was looking into Daniels when Pense came up. There's also Donna Grier, a defense attorney, and—"
"That drug dealer, Pierce," Barbara finished. She had thought those names looked familiar. The Birds had already been looking into those kidnappings and now had Jackson added to the list. They had asked her to do some digging into the previous kidnappees.
How had she missed that?
"So, it sounds like we're in agreement that all of these are connected," the redhead spoke after a moment.
"Yeah, yeah we are," Black Canary confirmed. "Were you able to find out anything on the others?"
Barbara pulled up that file and quickly scanned it. "A couple of links, but not much more than that. Pierce seems to be where it all started."
"What can you tell us about him?"
"Low-level drug dealer, gets arrested by the GCPD and charged. Goes to Grier for representation and she accepts. Manages to get a plea deal where he spends a couple months in jail and some community services. Original sentence was six months, but gets out on good behavior. Naturally he gets picked up again for selling drugs and then poof, vanishes.
"Now we have Grier. She was representing Pierce on his latest arrest as well when she goes missing. I don't have anything on where in the process they were, but I do have calls to the DA's office."
"Who's the DA on the case?" Manhunter asked.
Barbara began typing on the keyboard, hacking into the DA's server. It was pretty easy, especially since she already had a backdoor in. Once in, she looked up the Pierce file. "Looks like the same guy as the previous plea deal: Ralph Connolly."
"Let me guess, Connolly was working on another plea deal with Grier."
Barbara read the file. "That's what it looks like. Let me check something." Opening a new window, she put in Ralph Connolly's name, then did a cross-search between him and the known kidnappees. In a couple of seconds, she had results.
"Well, I think we have our next target," Barbara remarked. "Connolly's done interviews with Jackson. Nothing in the last couple of months, or at least on record anyway. I'm willing to bet that Jackson may use Connolly as an unnamed source."
"Then that's who we're going to look into," Black Canary said. "Keep looking for links between our victims and potential targets, O. This kidnapper has been flying under the radar so far, so he's not just going to stop. He probably has a list and is working his way down it. Hopefully he isn't killing them, but considering we haven't seen any bodies yet…"
Yeah, Canary didn't need to finish that. It was very likely these people had been killed and their bodies disposed of somewhere. Gotham didn't have any shortage of serial killers, though most of them liked to wear flashy costumes and were fixated on the Bat for various reasons.
Perhaps it was a good thing that Batman wasn't handling this case. It was time the rest of the city knew more than just one man, or rather legend, was watching this city. There were eyes everywhere and justice would be done.
Even if those eyes belonged to raptors.
Disappointment didn't begin to describe how Cassandra felt.
The shoeprint analysis had been less than beneficial. Based off of the partial print, the Batcave computer had narrowed down the possible prints to three. That was good news, or so she thought. As it turned out, each print was of a popular shoe, meaning the possible list of suspects was in the millions.
There was no way to narrow that list down, which was very disappointing. It was a promising lead that led to a dead end. All she had to show for it was a sample of limestone that she was still trying to locate.
So where did she go now?
Sitting in the chair before the computer, Cassandra glared at the screen. She was in her armor, her mask the only part not currently on. Standing next to her was Harper, also dressed in her costume, her mask off. She wasn't as frustrated as the dark-haired girl was if her face was anything to go by.
"Well, that's a bummer," Harper remarked, her arms crossed over her chest. "What's next?"
She wasn't sure, which was a big problem. There had to be something else they could follow, some other lead. That shoeprint in Thomas Wayne's study was supposed to be that lead, the one the police missed. She wasn't certain if they had canvassed Wayne Manor, which would explain why the Batclan had found that clue to begin with…
Hmmm, that was a thought.
"I think we need to go back to Wayne Manor," she declared. "We found the shoeprint there. There may be other clues we missed."
"Clues like what?"
"Anything that doesn't belong. We only went to the study, so maybe the person that stole the gun went somewhere else."
"Sounds reasonable," Harper said. "Thing is, that's a big house. This person could have gone literally anywhere in there. You're the only one that's lived there, so Steph and I might miss something."
That wasn't something Cassandra wanted to hear, but it was a valid point. She was the only one that could say if something was missing, or was present that didn't belong there. She could already imagine Harper and Stephanie asking her if every little thing was supposed to belong or not.
Speaking of which…
"Where is Stephanie?" she asked.
Harper sighed. "She's bringing the brat here. He offered to help and we accepted, but we never said where we were going to meet up. While Steph and I were waiting for you to show up, he blows up our comm links to demand a meeting."
Cassandra spun her chair to face the blue-haired girl. "Why didn't you tell me this earlier?"
"Cause you charged right into the dressing room and then went right for the computer. I figured you were onto something and didn't want to break your concentration."
She narrowed her eyes. "I don't want him here. This is our place and he's only going to throw a tantrum about it."
"I can't say I'm thrilled with it either, but we didn't know what else to do," Harper defended. "Since he's had the most interaction with Steph, she went to meet him. Maybe if we contact her, we can arrange another—"
"We're here!" Stephanie's voice suddenly rang out. Already Cassandra could feel a migraine forming.
"Damn, too late I guess."
The dark-haired girl snatched up her mask from where it was lying on the computer station. She pulled it on, adjusting it until it was on perfectly. Bluebird did the same as she applied her domino mask to her face.
And then Spoiler appeared, Damian following behind her. He was looking around the BatCave, a haughty expression on his face. The lavender-clad vigilante led him towards the supercomputer, where the other two girls waited.
"Quaint," was all Damian said as soon as he stopped next to the computer.
Already, she didn't like his attitude. "What do you want?"
Damian just gazed at her coolly. "Usurper."
"Jerkface."
Spoiler raised a hand to her face, her fingers pressed and rubbing against her forehead. "Don't tell me this is going to become a thing," she groaned.
"Tell me about it," Bluebird muttered. "Alright, I'm guessing you want to go over the case we have so far, right, S.O.B.?"
The cool facade that had been on the boy's face turned into his trademark scowl as he glanced towards the blue-haired girl. "That's right," he growled through gritted teeth.
"Then let's stick with that. Clearly, we have some bad energy and unless we want this to become some insult fest, we need to stay on point." Bluebird shot Batgirl a knowing look. "Tell the kid what we have."
Fine, if she wanted her to be professional, she would be. The moment Damian acted like…well, himself, she would show no mercy. "We found a shoeprint in Wayne Manor, where the gun that was used to kill Fairchild was kept."
That got the boy's attention. "What did you find out about it?"
"The shoeprint was inconclusive since it was a partial and even of the predicted ones, they come from popular brands."
"Which means that we have several million suspects if we choose to go that direction," Bluebird added. "I don't think we have that kind of time."
"No, we don't," Damian agreed. "What else?"
"We collected a sample of the print and analyzed it as well. The predominant material was limestone and rust."
"And there are places with limestone deposits in the city?"
"Not that we know of," Spoiler responded. "So basically, we've come to a dead end with the shoe."
"Disappointing," Damian remarked.
While that was how Cassandra felt about it, she didn't like how Damian said that, as if the results of their investigation were disappointing. While they were, she didn't need to be told that by a snot-nose brat. "We were just talking about returning to Wayne Manor to see if there were any other clues left behind, since our killer clearly has been there."
"That's it? You don't have any other leads?" the boy questioned.
"Not at this time, no."
"What do the police have on Father then?"
"Why does that matter?" Bluebird inquired.
Damian gave the blue-haired girl a condescending look. "Because we can look into their evidence and see if there are any inconsistencies. You've clearly done that with the gun; what else is there?"
That…was actually a good idea. Batgirl wondered why she hadn't thought of that in the first place. No way was she ever going to tell Damian he was onto something. Turning her chair, she faced the computer and began typing on the keyboard.
It took several moments—and some annoyed foot tapping by Damian to express his impatience—before they had the GCPD's file on the Fairchild murder. "There's the gun," Batgirl murmured as she looked through the digital file. "There's security cameras showing two people walking through the lobby and up into the office. Coats belonging to Bruce Wayne and Fairchild were present…text messages…"
"Texts?" Spoiler perked up. "What do they say?"
Batgirl typed on the keyboard, pulling up screenshots of the text message exchange. Reading them, it seemed as if her father and Fairchild were trying to set up a meeting. According to the date and times, they were on the day of the gala, the one her father had been stood up.
It was also worth noting all of these texts were from Fairchild's phone.
Reading what the police had to say about the text messages, the screen shots were collected from Fairchild's phone, but not from Bruce Wayne's. There was a note saying he had none of the messages, along with an explanation that they were deleted.
Deleted…
For some reason, that didn't sit well with Batgirl. She wasn't too familiar with her father's texting habits, so he very well could have deleted those messages. So she scrolled further down to see if there were screenshots of the text chain from Bruce Wayne's phone and found it, just as the notes described.
Except there were texts between Bruce Wayne and Vesper Fairchild present. The last one was of her father agreeing to meet with Fairchild at the gala. Above those were ones that were of another meeting being set up between them.
Why would he delete the last text messages and not the ones before it? Why not delete them all? Or even delete them as they came?
"Well, it does look like Bruce Wayne was trying to destroy evidence," Bluebird remarked. "He's missing those last few text messages."
"The police did say they were deleted, or presumed to be," Spoiler pointed out.
"Then why not delete them all?" Batgirl asked. "Why delete those specifically?"
"So that he could claim he never got them," Bluebird answered.
"You sound like you think he did it," Damian growled.
"I don't think he did," the blue-haired girl responded, "but this isn't a good look. No doubt the cops thought the same."
"What if he didn't get the texts?" Damian pressed. "He never would have deleted them if he never got them."
"But Fairchild's phone shows there were text between them," Spoiler said.
"Then we need to see if he did get those texts," Batgirl declared. She was typing on the keyboard again, this time gaining access to her father's phone provider. It wasn't long before she pulled out his phone records, going right for the text messages.
And what a sight to behold. Though the messages themselves weren't shown, the time stamps were and the last one on Bruce Wayne's phone was of the rescheduling for their meeting at the gala. There were none after that. Just to make certain, she then went after Vesper Fairchild's phone records, finding them shortly after and received a different record, one showing the time stamps for all of the text messages Vesper had received, but Bruce Wayne hadn't.
"Okay, this isn't making sense," Bluebird announced. "How the hell are these records that different? One matches up with Wayne's phone and the other matches with Fairchild's. They should both match only one phone."
"How would this happen?" Spoiler questioned. "Could they have been planted? Made up?"
"No, they happened," Bluebird replied. "Each timestamp matches, so there was communication."
"But not with Father's phone," Damian said. "It would have been another phone, one with the same phone number."
"Like a cloned phone," Batgirl spoke out loud in realization.
"Holy crap," Bluebird breathed. "This…we've got evidence of someone else luring Fairchild. Holy f-ing crap."
They did, though admittedly it was incomplete. They needed the record from this cloned phone to confirm this, but since a cloned phone was pretty much a copy of the original, it would have been done on a burner phone, one meant to be discarded.
"Wait a minute," Spoiler interjected then. "If this phone was cloned, meaning copied, wouldn't it just be tapped into Bruce Wayne's phone number? If they used that clone to send messages, wouldn't it also show up on Wayne's phone?"
"Not necessarily," Damian responded. "The phone would have to be cloned, but there are programs out there that can redirect and isolate the number. So our real killer could communicate with Fairchild all they want and Father would have been none the wiser since all of those communications wouldn't go to his actual phone."
"Then we need to track this phone," Batgirl said, already opening a tracing program. If the phone was on, they would have it in a matter of minutes.
Turned out, it wasn't on.
"Why isn't it finding it?" Damian demanded as he stared at the computer screen.
"The phone must be off," Batgirl grunted. "Most likely our real suspect is finished with it and shut it down. Damn it."
"Another dead end," Bluebird grumbled.
"Maybe they'll use it again?" Spoiler suggested hopefully. "You never know."
Highly unlikely, but there wasn't any harm in waiting. Typing some more, Batgirl then said, "I'm setting the computer up so that it'll detect if this phone turns on. The moment it does. We'll know."
"That's something at least," Damian said. "But what now? Surely we aren't going to just sit here and wait."
No, they weren't going to do that. "Let's see what else the GCPD uncovered," she mused as she went back to the file.
