“You hate this band,” Dianne said as she looped her arm through Bruce’s. He had to lean down to hear her properly.
Together with Harvey, they were heading to a summer concert held on the greens of the new park in central Gotham City. The air was surprisingly chilly tonight, the result of a week of irregular storms, and in the sky, a few lingering clouds were lit up by the sunset in hues of pink and gold.
“I don’t hate this band,” Bruce lied. “I just think the Midnight Poets are overrated.” But in the back of his mind, he was thinking about the surrounding neighborhood. The park was only a few blocks away from the corner of Eastham and Wicker, where the Bellingham Industries & Co. building had been bombed. If he could find a good moment to get away from the crowd, he could take a closer look at the intersection, perhaps get inside and follow Madeleine’s clue.
Bruce hoisted his backpack higher, feeling self-conscious about the things he’d brought in case he’d need them. A bolt cutter, to get past any locks that might be on the building’s doors. A knife. A ski mask. Gloves. Items a criminal might pack, if anyone were to look through them. His thoughts flickered back to Madeleine for a moment, and the memory of her small, secret smile. What else did she know that she refused to tell the police?
“Bruce?” Dianne nudged him hard enough to jolt him back to the present. “I said, what’s not to like? They’re billed as the next great indie.”
“Hey, obviously someone likes them,” Bruce replied, recovering quickly. He gave Dianne a wry grin. “Far be it from me to stop you guys from listening to an awful show.”
Dianne grimaced at him and rolled her eyes. Bruce knew she could tell that his mind had wandered somewhere else. “Well, if we see them playing at a Super Bowl halftime in the future, I’m totally going to rub it in your face.”
“You’ve been acting weird ever since graduation day, Bruce,” Harvey chimed in as he munched on a churro, spraying sugar crumbs everywhere. “It usually takes a lot to set you off like that. What’s happening at Arkham? Is it getting to your head?”
Bruce hesitated. The most he’d mentioned to either of them was that Draccon had finally begun…not warming up to him, exactly, but letting him in on a few aspects of her detective work. The rest of it, though—the conversation with Madeleine about the Nightwalkers—he hadn’t brought up to either Dianne or Harvey.
So Bruce shrugged. “Maybe some. Arkham’s been a noisy place, with the inmates heckling me all the time.”
“Maybe Detective Draccon will find a way to shorten your sentence,” Harvey said, “so you don’t have to deal with that every day. That doesn’t sound healthy at all.”
You have no idea. “I’ll ask her,” he replied.
Harvey looked ready to ask more questions, but Dianne just sighed and quickened her pace, forcing them to do the same. “Can we skip the asylum talk today?” she said, saving Bruce from elaborating more. He felt a twinge of relief when she cast him a subtle wink and then nodded toward the park, where people were filling up the grass with picnic blankets and lawn chairs. A few silhouettes lingered behind tree trunks, waiting for security to look away before climbing up to sit on the branches. “I mean—do you guys realize that this will be one of the last times the three of us all hang out together in Gotham City?”
“We have the whole summer,” Harvey replied. “You’re not leaving until the end of August, right?”
Dianne held up all her fingers. “Ten weeks,” she replied. “Yeah. My lola reminded me of that this morning—she nearly sobbed into her rice and eggs.”
The number sank in. Bruce felt a sudden pang as he realized how little time they had left together.
The three of them reached the park, and the topic of their future was dropped as they hunted for a good spot to sit. They finally settled on a clear patch of grass and waited for the band to come onstage. While Dianne argued with Harvey about the best song and Harvey tried to get her to sing the lyrics out loud, Bruce found his thoughts wandering to Madeleine.
Detective Draccon had warned him that Madeleine would try to manipulate him. She was probably right, too. But something about the girl’s tone…You have a heavy heart, for someone with everything. She had said those words in a familiar way, as if something from her past weighed her down, too. What had she once lost? Draccon hadn’t said much to him about Madeleine’s past, or who her family might be. What if there was more to Madeleine’s words than Draccon knew?
A cheer went up from the crowd, momentarily distracting him. The band was taking the stage, and the microphone squealed as the lead singer cleared his throat. Dianne cupped her hands around her mouth and shouted a song request, while Harvey jostled her aside to yell out his own choice. As the band began to play, the crowd joined in on the chorus.
Bruce just listened as everyone around him sang along, his gaze fixed on his friends. They made it seem so easy to get close, to take down their walls and just be. The feeling of aloneness came to Bruce again, the realization that he might never be able to let down his guard in the way that they could. There was Harvey—clean-cut, law-abiding, determined to do the most good from inside the system. And Dianne, the product of a large, loving family, simply had faith in the system altogether.
But what if the system just needed help? In every mystery he’d ever read, the police always stayed one step behind the hero. What if taking things into his own hands was the only real way to fix everything?
He clapped along to the second song, trying not to grimace at how bad it was, until he was sure that Harvey and Dianne had both turned their attention entirely to the concert. Then, when a track came on that got everyone jumping to their feet, Bruce rose and started edging through the crowd. Dianne cast him a brief glance as he went. Bathroom, he mouthed at her, before continuing on.
Beyond the park, the evening streets were surprisingly quiet. It seemed as if everyone within a one-mile radius of the concert had either decided to attend or completely avoided the area, leaving the sidewalks empty. A cool breeze blew past, bringing with it the scent of the ocean and a raw, pungent smell of underground sewage.
Bruce straightened his blazer and the hoodie underneath it, then pulled the hood over his head. The bats of Gotham City were out in force tonight; when he paused to look up, he could see a colony of them circling along the horizon, eager to start their evening hunt. He quickened his steps as the light faded completely from the sky, until only pools of streetlight illuminated the road.
Finally, he stopped at the corner of the intersection, right under the signs that said EASTHAM and WICKER, and studied each of the buildings.
Nothing seemed remarkable, at least at first glance. The cluster of police cruisers and blockades were long gone, the broken glass and bullet shells cleared from the streets, and it seemed almost as if nothing unusual had happened here. But the skid marks on the ground remained—deep black angry lines—and the Bellingham building still bore the charred scars from the explosion and fire. A maze of wooden scaffolding now covered up most of what had been damaged, new windows and bricks in a half-finished state, and a chain-link construction fence draped with black tarp now surrounded the property, hiding the bottom floor from view.
He walked slowly around the corner, taking in the details and remembering what had happened here. The police blockade, the speeding getaway car. The gunfire, the explosion that destroyed the building.
The Nightwalkers destroy their victims’ legacies.
Bruce stopped when he made his way to the intersection, then turned. Here, he could finally see the name of the storefront painted on the brick lining the second story: BELLINGHAM INDUSTRIES & CO.
He crossed the street and made his way over to the building. Above the chain-link fence, he could see the chips in the brick that had worn away over time, the history embedded in the walls of this place. He walked quietly along the barrier, searching for something, anything, that might be unusual. The minutes ticked by.
Until a voice from behind startled him.
“Bruce.”