Kate was dreaming. She recognized that fact immediately. Just as she recognized the type of dream she was having, that she hadn't had in over twenty years. If you didn't count the ones involving sex.
The room looked exactly as it had when Kate and Beth had lived there. A trick of the mind—no memory should retain this much detail for so long. Could it? She wasn't sure.
Beth leaned against the rail of her twin bed, mirroring Kate across the small gap—just like they had as children. "Everything looks so fresh."
"You read my mind," Kate replied as she looked at the version of Beth that had been frozen in her memory since the day Kate thought she'd lost her. It was a pleasant surprise seeing twelve year old Beth still persisted despite her knowledge that the older version was alive and well. Alive, and well, thanks to the man who had somehow, someway, received Kate's call for help.
Beth smiled at Kate's response. That toothy smile that she remembered so well. Beth had a constellation of freckles on her face, which always happened in summer. Kate realized that they were both wearing swimsuits under their t shirts and shorts, and that Beth's toe nails were painted red. She was tempted to find a mirror and look at her own reflection.
"Go ahead," Beth suggested, which didn't surprise Kate in the least, even though it should have.
So you really are reading my mind.
It's not like that, Beth answered without speaking. You're broadcasting, and I'm a receiver. So are you. You're receiving me.
Kate switched back to words to ask her next question. "Is it like that for you and Aric?"
"Yes. And no. He's a powerful antenna, and he can find me anywhere if I want him to, if I let him. But when I do it, I have to sort of transmit in the blind, and if he's open he'll hear it."
"Open?"
Beth put her hands close together in the form of a sphere before moving them apart, expanding the circle larger and larger. "If his barriers are down. When the world gets to be a bit too much he closes up tight, and then nothing gets through."
You saw it the other night, in your apartment. He'd shut down completely; we both had.
Kate felt heat rise to her face—strange, since this was only a dream. Or was it?
"How did you know?"
Beth's girlish smile lit up their bedroom. "Broadcasting, remember? Stuff leaks through. It's fine, I'm not mad."
Kate could say the words without the flood of emotion she would have felt if she'd been awake. "Is that why he didn't hear you when you got shot? He was shut down?"
Beth shook her head, which caused her ponytail to swish back and forth. "No. He didn't hear me because I didn't call him. I was the one that was shut down."
Kate could understand that. She'd been worried about keeping her focus on the task at hand. "Because we were busy, on an op, and you didn't want to be distracted? Is that why you shut down?"
"Because my green-eyed monster was still burning hot, and I didn't want him to know. Because I fucked things up so bad. That's why I didn't see that guy. That's why I got shot. I was distracted. Afterward...I don't remember much. After that, it was all you."
Kate didn't remember much after that either. Except the terror she'd felt when she thought she was watching her sister die. "Then how was it that I was able to call him?"
Beth shook her head again as her thin tween shoulders shrugged. "I don't know."
"Maybe you should ask Barra?" a new voice suggested from the door to their room.
Beth and Kate both turned to see the familiar face standing in the doorway as she dried her hands with a dish rag.
"Mom?" Kate asked.
Barbara Gordon stood under the stream of hot water and allowed it to loosen the muscles in her back. Her mind went back to the shower she and Meg had shared a bit less than twenty-fours earlier.
Can all of this really have happened in less than a day?
Three attacks. Their play acting in Lemont. Identifying their targets. The attempt to acquire one of those targets, and the price they paid.
Barbara closed her eyes and allowed the warm water to carry her mind backwards in time.
The building looked like someone had taken square building blocks of different sizes and stacked them side by side and on top of each other. Each part of the building was a square, with the rare rectangle thrown in for good measure.
Kate exhaled. "Jesus."
Beth shook her head. "He wouldn't be up there—he be trapped."
Sandra crossed her arms. "Maybe. Or maybe the whole building is a trap."
"Or he's got enough men between the front door and the top floor that he figures there's no way we'll make it that far before we give up or we're all dead."
Barbara and Helena rejoined them as they were talking. "Lots of points of entry, front and back," Barbara said.
"But nothing left unlocked," Helena added. "Nothing to tempt us to use a route of their choosing."
"So they're not trying to lure us into a killing field?" Beth asked. "That's stupid."
"Unless the whole building is a killing field," Sandra said in the same monotone that she'd just used.
"You know, I think we should put you in charge of morale."
"They can't guard all the entry points," Helena said, "there are too many."
"But there's no reason we have to make it easy for them," Kate said as her head tilted up to view the second and third levels.
"Some of us can't scale walls, in case it slipped your notice," Sandra said. "But if you can get us there, we'll show you what we can do."
Kate turned to look at Beth.
Beth held up her hands in mock defense. "Don't look at me. Trish is the wire expert, not me."
"Trish?" Barbara asked.
"It's a long story," Kate said as she switched her gaze from her sister to her tall training partner. "Looks like it's you and me, kiddo."
The two women surveyed the windows, which were large, designed to let in an abundance of light, and hinged in the middle for air flow in during the hot months. Each had a wide granite lip protruding at it's base.
"OK," Kate said as Barbara nodded her head like she was reading the older woman's mind. "We make our entry on the second floor. Then we wait for you three to waltz through the front door. Give us time to get behind any welcoming committee and either take them out, or give them something to think about while you close the gap."
"Then?" Beth asked.
Kate's hands pantomimed her words as she was speaking. "Then Babs and I go back out the window and up to the third floor. Lather, rinse, repeat."
Barbara's own hands demonstrated her exasperation as she spoke. "No names, Jesus!"
Shit, Kate thought. "Sorry, my bad."
"I knew it!" Helena whispered as she pointed to the woman that stood just as tall as she was. "I knew it was you carrying that fucking case! I never forget an ass."
"Oh for fuck sake," Sandra said as she shook her head.
Beth was grinning like the Cheshire Cat as she looked from her sister to Barbara Gordon, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
"Great," Barbara Gordon said, "just great."
"In her defense, Babs, it is a pretty nice ass," Kate said.
Four of the five women found that very amusing for several seconds.
"You know what?" Barbara said as she threw her hands up in the air, "it's fine. I'm fine."
"Great. So after the third floor...?" Sandra asked.
"Third floor is as high as we go on the outside. From there it's all inside," Kate explained.
Barbara Gordon, aka Batgirl, was removing a spike tether from her belt and attaching it to the end of the cable that sat rolled in its coil waiting to be deployed. "So we get up to the third floor and see what's what."
"Correct. Unless someone wants to suggest a different plan?"
The silence that followed Kate's question served just as well as a loud no.
"He's not stupid enough to actually be home is he?" Laurel asked.
Trish linked her arm with Laurel's as if they were just two girlfriends out for an evening stroll, even though the time for such activities had long since past. "Depends on whether the two guys in the car reported to him, or made a run for the border and aren't risking the phone."
"They have to be using burners."
"Yeah, but if someone's tapping this guy's phone they might recognize their voices."
"But Van Dick must be using a burner too," Laurel argued.
"Fine. Rain on my parade. And it's Van Dyke."
"Like I don't know that."
It was an older section of Chicago, which was to say that it was Chicago, where houses were packed together on plots of land that rarely reached a quarter acre; not some bullshit suburb with tons of space and no hesitation at draining Lake Michigan dry watering their lawns.
Laurel and Trish were prowling the neighborhood that William Van Dyke called home, their masks tucked into the pockets of their black trench coats. If it had been summer temperatures would still be in the eighties even at this time of night, and the residents of Back of the Yards would have wondered what two women were doing wearing coats of any sort. But they were spared that attention, or any other attention for that matter. South Honore Street wasn't a stranger to people out for an evening stroll. But midnight was a bit late for such things. Their path took them directly by the front door with the number 4356 displayed in ancient brass numbers imbedded in the brick and mason work above it. They continued on before turning left on West 44th street. They turned left again onto the unmarked alley that passed a long series of detached garages. One each for the homes that fronted Honore Street. On their left, just before they reached the garage belonging to their target, was a wrought iron gate fitted with a deadbolt and a sign stating NO PARKING and another NOTICE This Area Under 24 Hour Video Surveillance. The camera was hanging from an eave behind a sagging gutter. They walked past, ignoring the camera. Trish listened closely—nothing.
"It's not panning to keep us in view," Trish said without turning her head.
"Probably just recording, triggered by motion," Laurel added. "He'll look at it later, or if it sends him a motion alert."
They knew his address because for some reason known to no one he'd posted a request for a housekeeper on the CPD online bulletin board. They knew what he looked like only because he'd received some sort of commendation two years previous, after they'd googled his name. Trish thought he more resembled a rodent than a detective, but that was probably just her prejudice against dirty cops offering its opinion. John Dorazio didn't want to go into any official system to search his name, not and risk alerting him that he was in their cross hairs. So they had no idea what he was driving. Their own rides were several blocks away, in locations he wasn't likely to pass.
Trish was processing everything they knew and reviewing possible plans when something in her brain clicked.
"He's not here, he's not anywhere near here. But he's watching. That camera, there's probably another one out front."
Laurel was nodding, letting Trish know that she was up to speed. "So he's a safe distance away. But he wants to know if anybody drops by. And if someone does?"
Trish turned her head and looked back at Bill Van Dyke's house. "Think like a corrupt cop whose already shown that he has no trouble killing other cops, and who is now trying to cover his tracks. What would you do?"
Laurel turned her head as well, but wasn't sure she was looking for. "Take out anyone who's after me."
Trish turned all the way back again until she was looking at Laurel. "And what's an effective way to take out people who are on your trail?"
Laurel did not have to consider that question very long. "Set traps."
"Mom, how can you be here?" Kate asked.
"Where is here?" Gabrielle Kane asked as she threw the dish towel over her shoulder and placed her hands on her hips. Kate could see her mother's skin shining with perspiration, the sleeves of her button up t-shirt pulled up to her elbows. She never remembered her mother being so fit. Maybe it was the top she was wearing that showed off her narrow waist, her broad shoulders, and the muscles in her upper arms, as did the cut off jeans for her toned legs, which were tanned, her bare feet showing the Teva-tan pattern that identified their mother's footwear of choice during the summer months.
Beth answered for the two girls. "Our bedroom in the old mansion," she said innocently. Jacob Kane had moved his remaining family shortly after he'd lost his wife and daughter. But the mansion was still there, a short distance away from the building were Kate currently lived. Still the property of the Kane family. Kate's secret exit of the parking garage under the Kane Building, the exit they had both used the night before, emerged at ground level in the building immediately adjacent to Kane Manor. Beth had never set foot in the home that Jacob and Kate had inhabited in the years between then and now.
Gabi Kane's head tilted down as she looked at Beth. "Don't act like you're totally clueless. You didn't learn that from me, or your father."
"I'm not acting clueless, I'm keeping what I know to myself, and I learned that from Mother Lilith."
Everything felt too real. But something didn't add up. She and Beth were still children, yet they had talked about the raid on Freddy Giancona's hideout. And Mom—Mom was here, speaking of Mother Lilith and Barra, the woman who'd once orchestrated their kidnapping. What had she just said? Kate was missing something—something important.
"What's happening? What am I missing?" she asked Beth.
But her sister didn't have time to answer.
"You'll both learn everything soon," Gabrielle Kane said, "but right now, it's time for both of you to wake up. There are people who would like to talk to you."
Meg knew something was up when Tyler, who had abandoned her company when Beth and Kate had returned, arrived on the beach for a moment of affection before trotting off to investigate the damp sand farther south. When she looked back towards the house she could see that Aric was no longer on the porch, which Captain Dorazio had also abandoned, his large feet carrying him closer to her with each step.
"They're awake," was all he said.
Meg collected her mug and towel and they walked back to the house together. John shortened his stride to stay by her side, and he took the moment of privacy to talk to her as their steps slowed.
"Let him take the lead. Whatever happened must have been pretty bad. All that blood was hers. Beth's. But there's not a scratch on her. Let them tell it in their own time. Then we can get into specifics. What did they learn? Did Freddy get away? Where might he be now? Who was working for Van Dyke?"
How could that woman have almost bled out but doesn't have a mark on her? How can she be fine after losing show much blood? Why isn't she in a hospital right now? How did we not know that Batwoman was actually two different women?
All of those questions were running through Megan Chander's head as her feet found the first step that lead up onto the wide porch.