Twists of Fate - 3 - Interrogations
Title Twists of Fate - 3 - Interrogations
Author: charlie_bz
Pairing/Characters: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, John Blake
Rating: For mature readers - Later chapters will turn quite dark.
Warnings: see above
Spoilers: Dark Knight Rises
Disclaimer: Dark Knight Rises does not belong to me.
Description: With Selina Kyle by his side, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham to fulfill his family's legacy. After a brutal crime, he learns that Selina's ghosts can no longer be ignored and he must investigate her mysterious past.
A/N: A few bits of profanity here and there. If you don't like the F word, you probably might not like the direction of this story. Not that it will be filled with F words but later chapters will explore some very dark themes. So consider yourself warned. J
Also, thanks for reading and reviewing! This story is quite a departure from my comfort zone so it's great to get feedback.
Previous Chapter
Interrogations
The Chief of Surgery, Dr. Andrew Rathburn, escorted Bruce to Selina’s room. On the way, he detailed to Bruce the extent of Selina’s injuries assuring him that she would make a full recovery with the possible exception of her left hand that suffered extensive damage. He advised getting a specialist and told him he would contact the best hand surgeon in the country knowing that cost was not factor. When they reached her room, the doctor lingered outside seemingly to give Bruce privacy when he finally saw her.
“It looks bad,” Dr. Rathburn said, preparing him the best he could. “But she will recover. She’s sedated and won’t wake for a few days but that’s good. It keeps her out of pain and gives her body time for her injuries to heal.” He shook Bruce’s hand and said, “I’ll make that call now.”
Bruce nodded, eager for the doctor to get on his way.
When he entered the hospital room, his first impression of her was that she seemed peaceful. The lights were low, masking the worst of the damage until he walked closer. She looked worse than when he found her on that rooftop. No blood to obscure the damage wreaked on her face and body. Her right eye was swollen shut, cuts were scattered over her face, her lip was split, and a bandage covered a deep gash on her forehead that went past her hairline. Her wrists were bandaged in a manner that looked like she had attempted suicide but the self-inflicted gashes on her wrists were from her cutting herself free of the rough rope that bound her hands. Her neck was a mottled mass of purple and black.
Bruce swallowed his anger as he took in the ring of bruises that encircled her neck, picturing someone using all their strength to choke the life out of her. What he could not see now but remembered vividly as the paramedics had worked on her in the ambulance was the almost stab wound on her chest. A one inch cut where her assailant had readied to plunge a knife into her heart
Someone had done his best to kill her. Bruce ruled out a former mark because this was not the work of someone trying to get payback for getting robbed. This was something else entirely; there was an air of cruelty to her injuries, an excessiveness bordering on sadistic. The person who had done this had taken pleasure in it.
But she had fought. Her fingers and hands bore witness to the lengths she had gone to survive. The tips were bandaged where a few of the nails had been ripped off, her knuckles covered with medical tape to cover the deep cuts. It had been a bad fight.
He moved a chair to the right side of her bed so he could hold the hand that was not encased in a temporary cast. There was no response to his gentle squeeze, her fingers were warm but alarmingly still. Propping his elbows on the bed, he stared at Selina’s bruised and battered face trying to make sense of what had happened and how everything had gone so wrong between them.
What about the other man? The man whose head had been beaten to a bloody pulp. The man with the tattoos covering his arms, with the silver skull rings on his lifeless fingers. In her last message, she had said ‘they killed him’. Who was this man to her? Bruce chased away speculation unwilling to let last night’s hurt creep back in but his thoughts swirled around their devastating fight, their angry words replaying over and over in his mind.
Yesterday morning, he had told Alfred he would deal with Selina when he returned home from D.C. Yet, as he sat in the meeting with Senator Brass and other executives, he couldn’t focus on the intricacies of forging this international deal that would not only provide much needed jobs in a very poor region of India but clean accessible water to those in dire need. The implications of her spending her nights away from the penthouse was something he didn’t want to think about but as the meeting continued on, his thoughts centered not on helping drought ridden regions access water but on who Selina was spending her nights with.
When one of the visitors from Rajasthan looked at him in dismay, he realized he was not hiding his escalating anger very well. Since he was useless to the proceedings, he abruptly excused himself, wincing inwardly at the knowing look Brass gave him. He was doing his best to shed his irresponsible playboy image and hated that his sudden departure would play into that preconception. His anger to Selina deepened.
As he hailed a taxi, he phoned his pilot, telling him to be ready to depart within the hour. The plane neared Gotham and Bruce gave in to an impulse he had been fighting for hours: he checked the GPS on her phone. The blinking blue dot indicated she was where she was supposed to be. It was just past eleven at night when he pulled into the parking garage at the penthouse. He parked next to Selina’s black Range Rover, very relieved to see physical proof that she was home.
When he went to their bedroom, he found it vacant. A thorough search of the penthouse revealed that she was not there. After looking in on Helena, he checked the guest room next to Helena’s room confirming that Isha was indeed spending the night just as Alfred had said. While he hadn't doubted Alfred, he hadn’t wanted to believe him either.
Bruce returned to their room and called Selina. As he waited for her to answer, he heard a vibration sound in the drawer of the nightstand. Opening the drawer to the nightstand, he found her phone, ‘forwarding call’ visible on the screen
“Bruce?” She finally answered just before the call was sent to voice mail. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” he said, lifting the phone out of the drawer. Despite the adrenaline that passed through him, his voice remained calm. “I just thought I’d see what you were doing.”
Bruce glanced around the room confirming, again, that she was not there.
“Nothing really. I’m just… getting ready for bed. You worried me calling so late.”
As she was talking, lying, he paced the floor trying to calm his heart hammering in his chest. After they hung up, he stared at her phone before hurling it across the room where it shattered against the wall
He turned off the lights, choosing to sit in the dark to look out at the lights of Gotham as he waited for her to come home. The hours ticked by, his anger turned cold as he imagined the things she might be doing at this moment. At two a.m., he admitted to himself that he hoped she was stealing rather than cheating. She wouldn’t do that to him, to them, he told himself before the dark part of him remembered other things. It’s not as if she hadn’t betrayed him before...
At three a.m., she returned, dressed in unfamiliar clothes: skinny jeans, zipped up black leather jacket, and thick-soled lace-up black boots. Not the kind of attire worn while burgling a house, he noted. Unaware of his presence, she dropped a backpack on the floor then started to unzip her coat but stopped when she noticed her broken phone on the floor
Her body tensed and she took a few seconds to compose herself before turning to face him. They stared at each other for a few long, uncomfortable moments, each outwardly communicating nothing yet everything.
“I didn’t expect you back,” she finally said.
“Obviously.” Bruce said, his voice cold
Selina remained standing in place, keeping a safe distance between them. “It’s not what you think."
“Really?” Bruce drawled, waiting for an explanation, watching her scheme her way to a believable story
“I…” she started but stopped and gave him a look like he had no business asking her anything.
With effort, Bruce controlled his temper. “Either you’re thieving or you’re screwing around. Which is it?"
“Neither,” she replied, keeping her face clear of expression.
He sprang up out the chair, furious with her nonexplanations as well as her months-long withdrawal from him. Her startled eyes never left his as he closed the distance between them to stand directly in front of her
“Where were you?” He demanded.
A slight flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. “Out with a friend.”
“Who?” His voice fell deeper.
Her gaze never wavered from his. “No one you know.”
In that instant, he felt exhausted. He didn’t want to beg her for scraps of information. “For Chrissake, Selina, you have a child. You can’t run around the city in the middle of the night doing whatever it is you’re doing. We didn’t come back here so you could screw everything up.”
He had touched a nerve with that one, her eyes flashed with guilt before anger took over.
“You don’t know me at all, Bruce."
“You got that right, Selina,” he laughed, bitterly. The months of gradual estrangement had finally taken their toll on him. “How can I? You never tell me a goddamn thing!"
“Oh, Bruce, face it, coming home has shown us what a sham we are together. We were living a fantasy life and now that we’re back to reality…” She turned, walking away to stare out the window. “I’ve just realized how much you and I don’t belong together.”
The hurt that her words elicited tore through him. “Did that just occur to you while you were out fucking somebody?”
The tensing of her body showed that he had succeeding in wounding her. His already seething anger increased that she would dare act the role of the injured party.
“No, it didn’t.” She looked away from the window back at him, her face set in determination. “I’ve known it forever.”
The sadness in her voice surprised him but his anger held fast and he didn’t respond to what could be an opening to fix this mess. He felt like he was being carried off on a wave with no control over where he was going. His mind could not get beyond his heart-sickening suspicions, imagining things she may have been doing with someone else. He wanted to rage at her, to demand the name of who had lured her away from him.
She started to walk away, dismissing him, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.
“If you think you’re taking my daughter and setting up in some Old Town dump you can forget it!”
She wrenched her arm free, backing away from him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”
“When it comes to Helena I do.”
“I could take her and, believe me, you would never find us.” She looked away quickly, maybe realizing she had gone too far.
He stared at her in shock, unable to believe she had said such a thing. He loomed over her, backing her against the wall, his face coming dangerously close to hers. She unflinchingly met his furious gaze.
“Do not threaten me,” his voice was dangerously calm.
Her chin lifted in defiance. “You have no idea what I’m capable of."
“Oh, Selina, I know exactly what you are capable of.&rdquo
Her eyes widened. It was an old guilt that had never been resolved between them. Never mentioned but there nevertheless. She pushed him away from her as she fled to the safety of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her
Over the years, Bruce had been in many, many fights but the confrontation he had experienced with Selina left him raw and beaten without a single punch being thrown. Leave it to Selina to get that out of him; she had always made him feel too much. If he had been thinking clearly, which he had so not been, he would not have approached her the way he did. Now that he was calmer, he knew his mistake. Selina never reacted well when her back was against the wall and he had literally had back her against a wall. He had trapped her and when Selina felt trapped, she lashed out, her bandaged fingers attesting to that fact. As did his battered psyche.
He stared at her, listening to the beeps of the hospital equipment, and realized the extent of his mistakes concerning Selina Kyle. The most grievous one was that she didn’t know he loved her
__________________________________________________________________________________
To visit or not to visit. That was the question Jim Gordon agonized over most of the night and a good part of the morning. There had been distinct boundaries to his friendship with Batman, if it could be called a friendship, that is. But it was, Gordon thought, remembering the masked man’s visit to his hospital room years before. He decided what the hell, go see the man and find out what he could do to help. Even if help meant stonewalling a police investigation
As he waited in mid-morning traffic that was at a standstill, he checked the Gotham news sites both happy and concerned that he found no mention of yesterday’s homicide. Happy that Bruce Wayne may be able to get through this without his name being tainted and concerned that a junkie’s violent death apparently did not warrant any attention.
The route from the hospital garage to the lobby was all too familiar to Gordon. With over twenty years on the force, he had plenty of opportunities to visit injured colleagues in this hospital. He stopped by the information desk, flashed his badge, then realized other than ‘Selina’ he didn’t know the woman’s name. The attendant was friendly and wanted to be helpful to law enforcement, taking extra time to search the records until she found Selina Kyle’s room. “On the twelfth floor” she told him as if that was something special.
The elevator doors almost closed before a hand appeared in the middle, forcing them open. Jim was not surprised to find that the hand belonged to John Blake holding a breakfast sandwich in his mouth and a coffee in the other hand.
“Good morning, Commissioner,” Blake greeted, his mouth full of food.
“Do you have a GPS on my car, Blake?” Gordon asked, not feeling as exasperated as he sounded.
“I knew you’d be here sooner or later.” Blake said, with a cheeky but charming grin before taking another big bite out of his breakfast sandwich. “I thought I’d come by and see if any more cars need moving around. I’m hoping he left the Lamborghini somewhere far away.”
“I don’t think he drives that anymore,” Gordon remarked.
“Yeah, he’s trying to be low key and fall off the media’s radar.” John looked up at the floor indicators above the elevator doors, watching as they approached the twelfth floor. “You know, he’s going to all this effort to be a good citizen, in the public’s eyes, and she’s dragging him down into the mud.”
“You don’t know that.” Gordon waved him off as they emerged from the elevator and walked down the long hall toward the waiting room.
“A woman with that kind of criminal past is trouble. Seriously, Commissioner, her file was like this thick.” Blake held up his thumb and index finger about three inches apart. “She kidnapped Congressman Gilly. And, I know she had something to do with Bruce Wayne disappearing just before Bane took over.”
Gordon frowned, that information was new to him. “I only remember her helping save the city just before the bomb went off.”
“Really?” Blake looked skeptical.
“I don’t want to gossip about this,” Gordon said. “Ms. Kyle is Mr. Wayne’s private business.”
“That private business is going to become very public if the press gets wind of this,” Blake said quickly and softly as they neared the waiting room.
“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
They found Bruce talking to a physician. Not wanting to interrupt, they hung back a discrete distance. Bruce nodded to them as he listened to the doctor.
“Have you talked to Detective Massey?” Gordon asked as they waited. After yesterday, he looked into service file and was impressed with her arrest record.
“Not since the crime scene. She knows something’s up.”
“Tell me about her,” Gordon said.
“She’s good at what she does. She likes catching bad guys especially people who end other people’s lives.”
“Am I imagining it or are my ears burning?” Massey asked, coming up from behind them.
“It’s your imagination,” Blake responded with an embarrassed grin.
“Hello, Commissioner Gordon, I didn’t expect to see you here. So are you guys all buddies or what?”
“What brings you here, Jess?” Blake asked.
At his adversarial tone, she straightened as if expecting a battle.
“I need to question one of my suspects."
“Suspect?” Gordon asked. “You mean the victim and I don’t think she’s up to it.”
“She’s not. She’s in surgery. And I did mean suspect.” She nodded in Bruce Wayne’s direction. “Your rich friend over there.”
Gordon and Blake stared at her incredulously.
“No,” Blake said, shaking his head in disbelief
Gordon looked at her steadily. “Detective, you’re wasting your time.”
“All due respect, Commissioner, but it’s you that’s wasting my time. I don’t understand what’s happening between the three of you but I do know that I got a dead body and the guy may be a lowly junkie but he died badly. Viciously. I’m going to find who killed him which means exploring every possible lead. That includes your friend in there.”
“Look, Jess,” Blake said. “No way he’s part of this.”
“How do you know?” She asked.
Blake looked at Gordon. “We just know. He’s a friend.”
Bruce and the doctor had finished their conversation. As Bruce started towards them, Gordon intercepted him needing to talk to him before Massey began her questioning.
“A detective is here to ask you some questions. I can order her to wait…”
“Don’t go out on a limb for me, Commissioner,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “It’s fine.”
“Yes, but, she thinks--” He stopped as Blake and Massey joined them. “Mr. Wayne, this is Detective Jessica Massey.”
Bruce reached out to shake her hand. Massey looked at it, then up at his face before taking it.
She wasted no time with pleasantries. “Why were you at the crime scene, Mr. Wayne?”
Blake discretely rolled his eyes at all their efforts of hiding Wayne’s presence were wasted.
“I received a text and then a voice mail from Ms. Kyle.”
“What time were those?” She took out her notebook, preparing to take notes.
“The text was about 1:30.”
“And the voice mail message?” She asked without looking up as she wrote down his answers.
“About half hour after that.”
“What did she say?” She looked up from her notebook.
Bruce hesitated, uncomfortable at having to divulge personal information. Gordon started to intervene but Wayne shook his head.
“She said that she was sorry and that ‘They killed him’.”
“Sorry for what?”
“We had an argument,” Bruce replied.
“Over what?”
Bruce stared at her for a few seconds before responding. “I don’t remember.”
Massey’s eyes narrowed. “Do you still have the voice mail?”
“No.”
“Do you know the deceased?”
“No.”
“Ever seen him before?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Yeah, it’d be hard to recognize him now. Our John Doe was bludgeoned about the head with what we think was a club wrapped in barbed wire.” She waited for his reaction and when she received none, she continued. “I’ve also read the report on Ms. Kyle’s injuries. You know what strikes me, Mr. Wayne? This person was furious. This wasn’t the work of someone mad about money or drugs but someone who wanted to punish, to inflict pain and suffering. You sure you can’t remember what you and Ms. Kyle argued about?”
Bruce folded his arms and looked at her with a guarded expression
“I’m sure.”
“So what started out looking like a bad business transaction is starting to smell like a crime of passion. The kind of crime where a husband or boyfriend just loses it in a fit of jealous rage.”
“Now, wait a minute, Jess,” Blake said. “Mr. Wayne would not do that. Believe me!”
She looked angrily at Blake as if she felt betrayed by his siding with a suspect before turning her assessing gaze back on Bruce. “I checked into the warehouse. Guess who owns it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You do, Mr. Wayne. Not Wayne Enterprises, not any of your other corporations or LLCs or other entities you rich seem so fond of but you, Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce looked surprised at that information but hid it quickly. “I have a lot of properties.”
“I’ll bet. So, let me get this straight. You get a text asking for help but don’t respond for two hours?”
“I had my phone off.”
“Uh huh. Then, your girlfriend leaves a cryptic message and you don’t respond to that for an hour?"
“Like I said, my phone was off.”
“Might I ask where you were?"
Bruce smiled humorlessly as if this had all suddenly turned horrifyingly funny to him.
“Is there anyone who can confirm your whereabouts from noon to three?” Jessica asked.
“Nope.”
Massey shook her head in disgust. “I think I have all I need here. I’ve left word with the nurse’s station to be notified the moment Ms. Kyle wakes up.”
She started to leave then turned around to face Bruce again. “Just because you’re rich, doesn’t mean you’re above the law. If you had something to do with this, I’ll figure it out. Even if you can intimidate your girlfriend and,” she looked at Blake and Gordon, “your friends into silence, I’ll find the truth.”
With a long glare at Blake, Massey left.
“Sorry about Jess,” Blake said. “She’s a little sensitive about boyfriends killing girlfriends. Her sister was murdered in a domestic abuse situation.” Blake cringed when he realized what he was saying. “Not that’s what’s happening here but she has a thing about this kind of thing. Or what she thinks is this kind of thing...”
“It’s okay, John,” Bruce said, still watching her as she waited for an elevator. “She’s doing her job.”
“What are you gonna do?” Blake asked.
“Wait for Selina to wake up. Who better to ask than her?”
“John,” Gordon asked. “Is Massey the kind that likes media attention? I mean, will she leak unsubstantiated information to the press?”
“No,” Blake emphatically shook his head. “Not at all."
“Good.” The last thing they needed is for an attention-starved detective jumping at the chance to be in the media spotlight by implicating Bruce Wayne in a homicide. Gordon looked at Bruce. “She’s just fishing. She has nothing and she’s eliminating all possibilities.”
“I know,” Bruce said. “Though I don’t think she’s eliminated me.”
“Are you worried?” Blake asked.
“Not about that,” Bruce said as he glanced quickly in the direction of Ms. Kyle’s hospital room.
“Is she going to be alright?” Gordon asked.
“She’ll recover,” Bruce replied. He looked distracted before settling his gaze on Blake. “John, there is something you can do for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to find Selina’s friend, Jen.” He gave him her description and last known address, the walk up in Old Town. “Sorry, but that’s all I know about her.”
“No problem,” Blake said. “This is right up my alley.”
“Also, see what you can find about Congressmen Gilly and what he’s been up to lately. I don’t think he had anything to do with this but let’s… eliminate him from the suspects if we can.”
“Suspects?” Gordon asked. “As in plural? Who else do you have in mind?”
“Other than me? No one.”
Next Chapter
Author: charlie_bz
Pairing/Characters: Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle, Alfred Pennyworth, Jim Gordon, John Blake
Rating: For mature readers - Later chapters will turn quite dark.
Warnings: see above
Spoilers: Dark Knight Rises
Disclaimer: Dark Knight Rises does not belong to me.
Description: With Selina Kyle by his side, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham to fulfill his family's legacy. After a brutal crime, he learns that Selina's ghosts can no longer be ignored and he must investigate her mysterious past.
A/N: A few bits of profanity here and there. If you don't like the F word, you probably might not like the direction of this story. Not that it will be filled with F words but later chapters will explore some very dark themes. So consider yourself warned. J
Also, thanks for reading and reviewing! This story is quite a departure from my comfort zone so it's great to get feedback.
Previous Chapter
Interrogations
The Chief of Surgery, Dr. Andrew Rathburn, escorted Bruce to Selina’s room. On the way, he detailed to Bruce the extent of Selina’s injuries assuring him that she would make a full recovery with the possible exception of her left hand that suffered extensive damage. He advised getting a specialist and told him he would contact the best hand surgeon in the country knowing that cost was not factor. When they reached her room, the doctor lingered outside seemingly to give Bruce privacy when he finally saw her.
“It looks bad,” Dr. Rathburn said, preparing him the best he could. “But she will recover. She’s sedated and won’t wake for a few days but that’s good. It keeps her out of pain and gives her body time for her injuries to heal.” He shook Bruce’s hand and said, “I’ll make that call now.”
Bruce nodded, eager for the doctor to get on his way.
When he entered the hospital room, his first impression of her was that she seemed peaceful. The lights were low, masking the worst of the damage until he walked closer. She looked worse than when he found her on that rooftop. No blood to obscure the damage wreaked on her face and body. Her right eye was swollen shut, cuts were scattered over her face, her lip was split, and a bandage covered a deep gash on her forehead that went past her hairline. Her wrists were bandaged in a manner that looked like she had attempted suicide but the self-inflicted gashes on her wrists were from her cutting herself free of the rough rope that bound her hands. Her neck was a mottled mass of purple and black.
Bruce swallowed his anger as he took in the ring of bruises that encircled her neck, picturing someone using all their strength to choke the life out of her. What he could not see now but remembered vividly as the paramedics had worked on her in the ambulance was the almost stab wound on her chest. A one inch cut where her assailant had readied to plunge a knife into her heart
Someone had done his best to kill her. Bruce ruled out a former mark because this was not the work of someone trying to get payback for getting robbed. This was something else entirely; there was an air of cruelty to her injuries, an excessiveness bordering on sadistic. The person who had done this had taken pleasure in it.
But she had fought. Her fingers and hands bore witness to the lengths she had gone to survive. The tips were bandaged where a few of the nails had been ripped off, her knuckles covered with medical tape to cover the deep cuts. It had been a bad fight.
He moved a chair to the right side of her bed so he could hold the hand that was not encased in a temporary cast. There was no response to his gentle squeeze, her fingers were warm but alarmingly still. Propping his elbows on the bed, he stared at Selina’s bruised and battered face trying to make sense of what had happened and how everything had gone so wrong between them.
What about the other man? The man whose head had been beaten to a bloody pulp. The man with the tattoos covering his arms, with the silver skull rings on his lifeless fingers. In her last message, she had said ‘they killed him’. Who was this man to her? Bruce chased away speculation unwilling to let last night’s hurt creep back in but his thoughts swirled around their devastating fight, their angry words replaying over and over in his mind.
Yesterday morning, he had told Alfred he would deal with Selina when he returned home from D.C. Yet, as he sat in the meeting with Senator Brass and other executives, he couldn’t focus on the intricacies of forging this international deal that would not only provide much needed jobs in a very poor region of India but clean accessible water to those in dire need. The implications of her spending her nights away from the penthouse was something he didn’t want to think about but as the meeting continued on, his thoughts centered not on helping drought ridden regions access water but on who Selina was spending her nights with.
When one of the visitors from Rajasthan looked at him in dismay, he realized he was not hiding his escalating anger very well. Since he was useless to the proceedings, he abruptly excused himself, wincing inwardly at the knowing look Brass gave him. He was doing his best to shed his irresponsible playboy image and hated that his sudden departure would play into that preconception. His anger to Selina deepened.
As he hailed a taxi, he phoned his pilot, telling him to be ready to depart within the hour. The plane neared Gotham and Bruce gave in to an impulse he had been fighting for hours: he checked the GPS on her phone. The blinking blue dot indicated she was where she was supposed to be. It was just past eleven at night when he pulled into the parking garage at the penthouse. He parked next to Selina’s black Range Rover, very relieved to see physical proof that she was home.
When he went to their bedroom, he found it vacant. A thorough search of the penthouse revealed that she was not there. After looking in on Helena, he checked the guest room next to Helena’s room confirming that Isha was indeed spending the night just as Alfred had said. While he hadn't doubted Alfred, he hadn’t wanted to believe him either.
Bruce returned to their room and called Selina. As he waited for her to answer, he heard a vibration sound in the drawer of the nightstand. Opening the drawer to the nightstand, he found her phone, ‘forwarding call’ visible on the screen
“Bruce?” She finally answered just before the call was sent to voice mail. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine,” he said, lifting the phone out of the drawer. Despite the adrenaline that passed through him, his voice remained calm. “I just thought I’d see what you were doing.”
Bruce glanced around the room confirming, again, that she was not there.
“Nothing really. I’m just… getting ready for bed. You worried me calling so late.”
As she was talking, lying, he paced the floor trying to calm his heart hammering in his chest. After they hung up, he stared at her phone before hurling it across the room where it shattered against the wall
He turned off the lights, choosing to sit in the dark to look out at the lights of Gotham as he waited for her to come home. The hours ticked by, his anger turned cold as he imagined the things she might be doing at this moment. At two a.m., he admitted to himself that he hoped she was stealing rather than cheating. She wouldn’t do that to him, to them, he told himself before the dark part of him remembered other things. It’s not as if she hadn’t betrayed him before...
At three a.m., she returned, dressed in unfamiliar clothes: skinny jeans, zipped up black leather jacket, and thick-soled lace-up black boots. Not the kind of attire worn while burgling a house, he noted. Unaware of his presence, she dropped a backpack on the floor then started to unzip her coat but stopped when she noticed her broken phone on the floor
Her body tensed and she took a few seconds to compose herself before turning to face him. They stared at each other for a few long, uncomfortable moments, each outwardly communicating nothing yet everything.
“I didn’t expect you back,” she finally said.
“Obviously.” Bruce said, his voice cold
Selina remained standing in place, keeping a safe distance between them. “It’s not what you think."
“Really?” Bruce drawled, waiting for an explanation, watching her scheme her way to a believable story
“I…” she started but stopped and gave him a look like he had no business asking her anything.
With effort, Bruce controlled his temper. “Either you’re thieving or you’re screwing around. Which is it?"
“Neither,” she replied, keeping her face clear of expression.
He sprang up out the chair, furious with her nonexplanations as well as her months-long withdrawal from him. Her startled eyes never left his as he closed the distance between them to stand directly in front of her
“Where were you?” He demanded.
A slight flicker of doubt appeared in her eyes. “Out with a friend.”
“Who?” His voice fell deeper.
Her gaze never wavered from his. “No one you know.”
In that instant, he felt exhausted. He didn’t want to beg her for scraps of information. “For Chrissake, Selina, you have a child. You can’t run around the city in the middle of the night doing whatever it is you’re doing. We didn’t come back here so you could screw everything up.”
He had touched a nerve with that one, her eyes flashed with guilt before anger took over.
“You don’t know me at all, Bruce."
“You got that right, Selina,” he laughed, bitterly. The months of gradual estrangement had finally taken their toll on him. “How can I? You never tell me a goddamn thing!"
“Oh, Bruce, face it, coming home has shown us what a sham we are together. We were living a fantasy life and now that we’re back to reality…” She turned, walking away to stare out the window. “I’ve just realized how much you and I don’t belong together.”
The hurt that her words elicited tore through him. “Did that just occur to you while you were out fucking somebody?”
The tensing of her body showed that he had succeeding in wounding her. His already seething anger increased that she would dare act the role of the injured party.
“No, it didn’t.” She looked away from the window back at him, her face set in determination. “I’ve known it forever.”
The sadness in her voice surprised him but his anger held fast and he didn’t respond to what could be an opening to fix this mess. He felt like he was being carried off on a wave with no control over where he was going. His mind could not get beyond his heart-sickening suspicions, imagining things she may have been doing with someone else. He wanted to rage at her, to demand the name of who had lured her away from him.
She started to walk away, dismissing him, but he grabbed her arm and spun her around to face him.
“If you think you’re taking my daughter and setting up in some Old Town dump you can forget it!”
She wrenched her arm free, backing away from him. “You don’t get to tell me what to do!”
“When it comes to Helena I do.”
“I could take her and, believe me, you would never find us.” She looked away quickly, maybe realizing she had gone too far.
He stared at her in shock, unable to believe she had said such a thing. He loomed over her, backing her against the wall, his face coming dangerously close to hers. She unflinchingly met his furious gaze.
“Do not threaten me,” his voice was dangerously calm.
Her chin lifted in defiance. “You have no idea what I’m capable of."
“Oh, Selina, I know exactly what you are capable of.&rdquo
Her eyes widened. It was an old guilt that had never been resolved between them. Never mentioned but there nevertheless. She pushed him away from her as she fled to the safety of the bathroom, slamming the door behind her
Over the years, Bruce had been in many, many fights but the confrontation he had experienced with Selina left him raw and beaten without a single punch being thrown. Leave it to Selina to get that out of him; she had always made him feel too much. If he had been thinking clearly, which he had so not been, he would not have approached her the way he did. Now that he was calmer, he knew his mistake. Selina never reacted well when her back was against the wall and he had literally had back her against a wall. He had trapped her and when Selina felt trapped, she lashed out, her bandaged fingers attesting to that fact. As did his battered psyche.
He stared at her, listening to the beeps of the hospital equipment, and realized the extent of his mistakes concerning Selina Kyle. The most grievous one was that she didn’t know he loved her
__________________________________________________________________________________
To visit or not to visit. That was the question Jim Gordon agonized over most of the night and a good part of the morning. There had been distinct boundaries to his friendship with Batman, if it could be called a friendship, that is. But it was, Gordon thought, remembering the masked man’s visit to his hospital room years before. He decided what the hell, go see the man and find out what he could do to help. Even if help meant stonewalling a police investigation
As he waited in mid-morning traffic that was at a standstill, he checked the Gotham news sites both happy and concerned that he found no mention of yesterday’s homicide. Happy that Bruce Wayne may be able to get through this without his name being tainted and concerned that a junkie’s violent death apparently did not warrant any attention.
The route from the hospital garage to the lobby was all too familiar to Gordon. With over twenty years on the force, he had plenty of opportunities to visit injured colleagues in this hospital. He stopped by the information desk, flashed his badge, then realized other than ‘Selina’ he didn’t know the woman’s name. The attendant was friendly and wanted to be helpful to law enforcement, taking extra time to search the records until she found Selina Kyle’s room. “On the twelfth floor” she told him as if that was something special.
The elevator doors almost closed before a hand appeared in the middle, forcing them open. Jim was not surprised to find that the hand belonged to John Blake holding a breakfast sandwich in his mouth and a coffee in the other hand.
“Good morning, Commissioner,” Blake greeted, his mouth full of food.
“Do you have a GPS on my car, Blake?” Gordon asked, not feeling as exasperated as he sounded.
“I knew you’d be here sooner or later.” Blake said, with a cheeky but charming grin before taking another big bite out of his breakfast sandwich. “I thought I’d come by and see if any more cars need moving around. I’m hoping he left the Lamborghini somewhere far away.”
“I don’t think he drives that anymore,” Gordon remarked.
“Yeah, he’s trying to be low key and fall off the media’s radar.” John looked up at the floor indicators above the elevator doors, watching as they approached the twelfth floor. “You know, he’s going to all this effort to be a good citizen, in the public’s eyes, and she’s dragging him down into the mud.”
“You don’t know that.” Gordon waved him off as they emerged from the elevator and walked down the long hall toward the waiting room.
“A woman with that kind of criminal past is trouble. Seriously, Commissioner, her file was like this thick.” Blake held up his thumb and index finger about three inches apart. “She kidnapped Congressman Gilly. And, I know she had something to do with Bruce Wayne disappearing just before Bane took over.”
Gordon frowned, that information was new to him. “I only remember her helping save the city just before the bomb went off.”
“Really?” Blake looked skeptical.
“I don’t want to gossip about this,” Gordon said. “Ms. Kyle is Mr. Wayne’s private business.”
“That private business is going to become very public if the press gets wind of this,” Blake said quickly and softly as they neared the waiting room.
“Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen.”
They found Bruce talking to a physician. Not wanting to interrupt, they hung back a discrete distance. Bruce nodded to them as he listened to the doctor.
“Have you talked to Detective Massey?” Gordon asked as they waited. After yesterday, he looked into service file and was impressed with her arrest record.
“Not since the crime scene. She knows something’s up.”
“Tell me about her,” Gordon said.
“She’s good at what she does. She likes catching bad guys especially people who end other people’s lives.”
“Am I imagining it or are my ears burning?” Massey asked, coming up from behind them.
“It’s your imagination,” Blake responded with an embarrassed grin.
“Hello, Commissioner Gordon, I didn’t expect to see you here. So are you guys all buddies or what?”
“What brings you here, Jess?” Blake asked.
At his adversarial tone, she straightened as if expecting a battle.
“I need to question one of my suspects."
“Suspect?” Gordon asked. “You mean the victim and I don’t think she’s up to it.”
“She’s not. She’s in surgery. And I did mean suspect.” She nodded in Bruce Wayne’s direction. “Your rich friend over there.”
Gordon and Blake stared at her incredulously.
“No,” Blake said, shaking his head in disbelief
Gordon looked at her steadily. “Detective, you’re wasting your time.”
“All due respect, Commissioner, but it’s you that’s wasting my time. I don’t understand what’s happening between the three of you but I do know that I got a dead body and the guy may be a lowly junkie but he died badly. Viciously. I’m going to find who killed him which means exploring every possible lead. That includes your friend in there.”
“Look, Jess,” Blake said. “No way he’s part of this.”
“How do you know?” She asked.
Blake looked at Gordon. “We just know. He’s a friend.”
Bruce and the doctor had finished their conversation. As Bruce started towards them, Gordon intercepted him needing to talk to him before Massey began her questioning.
“A detective is here to ask you some questions. I can order her to wait…”
“Don’t go out on a limb for me, Commissioner,” Bruce said, shaking his head. “It’s fine.”
“Yes, but, she thinks--” He stopped as Blake and Massey joined them. “Mr. Wayne, this is Detective Jessica Massey.”
Bruce reached out to shake her hand. Massey looked at it, then up at his face before taking it.
She wasted no time with pleasantries. “Why were you at the crime scene, Mr. Wayne?”
Blake discretely rolled his eyes at all their efforts of hiding Wayne’s presence were wasted.
“I received a text and then a voice mail from Ms. Kyle.”
“What time were those?” She took out her notebook, preparing to take notes.
“The text was about 1:30.”
“And the voice mail message?” She asked without looking up as she wrote down his answers.
“About half hour after that.”
“What did she say?” She looked up from her notebook.
Bruce hesitated, uncomfortable at having to divulge personal information. Gordon started to intervene but Wayne shook his head.
“She said that she was sorry and that ‘They killed him’.”
“Sorry for what?”
“We had an argument,” Bruce replied.
“Over what?”
Bruce stared at her for a few seconds before responding. “I don’t remember.”
Massey’s eyes narrowed. “Do you still have the voice mail?”
“No.”
“Do you know the deceased?”
“No.”
“Ever seen him before?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Yeah, it’d be hard to recognize him now. Our John Doe was bludgeoned about the head with what we think was a club wrapped in barbed wire.” She waited for his reaction and when she received none, she continued. “I’ve also read the report on Ms. Kyle’s injuries. You know what strikes me, Mr. Wayne? This person was furious. This wasn’t the work of someone mad about money or drugs but someone who wanted to punish, to inflict pain and suffering. You sure you can’t remember what you and Ms. Kyle argued about?”
Bruce folded his arms and looked at her with a guarded expression
“I’m sure.”
“So what started out looking like a bad business transaction is starting to smell like a crime of passion. The kind of crime where a husband or boyfriend just loses it in a fit of jealous rage.”
“Now, wait a minute, Jess,” Blake said. “Mr. Wayne would not do that. Believe me!”
She looked angrily at Blake as if she felt betrayed by his siding with a suspect before turning her assessing gaze back on Bruce. “I checked into the warehouse. Guess who owns it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You do, Mr. Wayne. Not Wayne Enterprises, not any of your other corporations or LLCs or other entities you rich seem so fond of but you, Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce looked surprised at that information but hid it quickly. “I have a lot of properties.”
“I’ll bet. So, let me get this straight. You get a text asking for help but don’t respond for two hours?”
“I had my phone off.”
“Uh huh. Then, your girlfriend leaves a cryptic message and you don’t respond to that for an hour?"
“Like I said, my phone was off.”
“Might I ask where you were?"
Bruce smiled humorlessly as if this had all suddenly turned horrifyingly funny to him.
“Is there anyone who can confirm your whereabouts from noon to three?” Jessica asked.
“Nope.”
Massey shook her head in disgust. “I think I have all I need here. I’ve left word with the nurse’s station to be notified the moment Ms. Kyle wakes up.”
She started to leave then turned around to face Bruce again. “Just because you’re rich, doesn’t mean you’re above the law. If you had something to do with this, I’ll figure it out. Even if you can intimidate your girlfriend and,” she looked at Blake and Gordon, “your friends into silence, I’ll find the truth.”
With a long glare at Blake, Massey left.
“Sorry about Jess,” Blake said. “She’s a little sensitive about boyfriends killing girlfriends. Her sister was murdered in a domestic abuse situation.” Blake cringed when he realized what he was saying. “Not that’s what’s happening here but she has a thing about this kind of thing. Or what she thinks is this kind of thing...”
“It’s okay, John,” Bruce said, still watching her as she waited for an elevator. “She’s doing her job.”
“What are you gonna do?” Blake asked.
“Wait for Selina to wake up. Who better to ask than her?”
“John,” Gordon asked. “Is Massey the kind that likes media attention? I mean, will she leak unsubstantiated information to the press?”
“No,” Blake emphatically shook his head. “Not at all."
“Good.” The last thing they needed is for an attention-starved detective jumping at the chance to be in the media spotlight by implicating Bruce Wayne in a homicide. Gordon looked at Bruce. “She’s just fishing. She has nothing and she’s eliminating all possibilities.”
“I know,” Bruce said. “Though I don’t think she’s eliminated me.”
“Are you worried?” Blake asked.
“Not about that,” Bruce said as he glanced quickly in the direction of Ms. Kyle’s hospital room.
“Is she going to be alright?” Gordon asked.
“She’ll recover,” Bruce replied. He looked distracted before settling his gaze on Blake. “John, there is something you can do for me.”
“Anything.”
“I need you to find Selina’s friend, Jen.” He gave him her description and last known address, the walk up in Old Town. “Sorry, but that’s all I know about her.”
“No problem,” Blake said. “This is right up my alley.”
“Also, see what you can find about Congressmen Gilly and what he’s been up to lately. I don’t think he had anything to do with this but let’s… eliminate him from the suspects if we can.”
“Suspects?” Gordon asked. “As in plural? Who else do you have in mind?”
“Other than me? No one.”
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