“What is it?” Alfred added.
Draccon took a deep breath before she nodded at Bruce. “It’s Madeleine.”
The happiness at seeing Alfred recovering, at knowing Draccon was well—all made way in an instant for a cold blanket of dread. Bruce eyed the detective. “What about her?”
“She escaped.”
Escaped.
Bruce sat there for a while longer, unable to comprehend the thought. Escaped.No.How? She hadn’t run during the jailbreak—why would she make her move now? “She…she couldn’t have…,” he managed to say.
Draccon held a hand up at the TV in Alfred’s room, which had rotated onto the news. “See for yourself.”
Bruce found himself staring at a news crew’s footage of the empty interior of Madeleine’s former cell.
A searing jolt of nausea hit Bruce. He flashed back to Madeleine first staring up at the cams—then to her casually mentioning how they could be scrambled—then to her acting vulnerable in her cell—then to her telling him again how he could talk to her without letting anyone know. He didn’t know how she did it, but somehow, Madeleine must have taken advantage of Bruce’s resetting of the security cams.
Of course.It made so much sense now; why would she try to escape during the jailbreak, when the asylum was on high alert and all the guards were looking for the inmates? The place would have been swarming with guards. Instead, she chose to use that time to set things up for her real escape. It had all been a part of her grand con against him.
Now she was loose, somewhere in the city,outside Arkham Asylum.She may even have escaped at around the same time as Bruce’s ordeal. He shook his head, numb. “Where—how?” he managed to croak out. “Any leads?”
“Yes. One.” Draccon pushed the door open wider, and Bruce saw that she had several other police officers with her. One of them was holding a set of handcuffs. Behind them stood Harvey, Dianne, and Lucius, who cast confused looks his way. “You.”
Bruce’s vision swam in a sudden wave of dizziness. “Me?”
“We have footage showing you as the last person to enter the intensive-treatment ward, right before the cams reset. Madeleine left behind a note to you in her cell, thanking you for helping her.”
“What?”Bruce exclaimed. “You can’t possibly think that—especially after this morning—”
“I have no choice but to consider you a suspect. I’m sorry.” Draccon sighed deeply, then motioned an officer forward.
He held up a pair of cuffs. “Bruce Wayne, you’re under arrest.”
The interrogation room at the GCPD precinct was cold and spare, equipped only with several chairs and a table separating Bruce from Detective Draccon and another police officer. Draccon slid a single paper toward him, then sat back with crossed arms and scrutinized his face.
“She left you this,” she said. “Security told us that, because of the camera malfunction playing the wrong footage in Madeleine’s cell, she was able to attack two workers we’d sent to check on her. She knocked them out and swiped one of their IDs before any alarms were triggered, because no cams recorded her doing it.”
Bruce found himself staring down at a note written in Madeleine’s hand and folded into the careful, intricate shape of a flower. His head swam at the sight.
He had never seen her handwriting before, of course, but it seemed to fit her—sparse, minimal, and elegant, with the occasional surprising flourish. He thought of the security tapes he’d seen of her, of the way she seemed to send signals to the cams through her paper folding. Had she been talking to someone who worked inside Arkham, and then set Bruce up to be a part of all this? What if one of the workers had intentionally let her escape? He read the note over and over again, barely able to believe it.
Dear Bruce,
We’re not a very smart match, are we? I can’t think of a story where the billionaire and the murderer end up happily ever after. So let’s call us even: thank you for helping me get out of this place, and you’re welcome for the months of entertainment. I hope you’ll remember me.
xo,
MW
It sounded like her. But Bruce couldn’t wrap his head around why she would do this—if she wanted to escape, why leave him a note? Why do this to him after she’d also helped him work against the Nightwalkers? He read the note yet again, memories of their conversations replaying in his mind, and then folded it back along its lines. As with all her folded art, the flower could unfurl into another shape—and this time it changed into the shape of a three-dimensional diamond. Bruce stared at the two-faced paper sculpture. All those seemingly serious conversations, all her talk about sympathizing with him over the loss of his parents, pretending to help him catch the Nightwalkers, warning him to get out of Gotham City. Of her lingering looks and her final apology.I’m sorry,she’d said before turning her back.
Madeleine fit into only one category.
“She’s aliar,” Bruce snapped, balling up the note. The flower crumpled. “This is all part of her plan. It’s too easy for her to do this. You can’t possibly think I purposely wanted to help her.” He looked in disbelief at the detective, then at the second policeman.
“And what about her profile that you stole from my desk?” Draccon said, her voice clipped and cold. “Is that one of her lies, too?”
Bruce hesitated. This was no time for him to start hiding things from the police. “I did take it,” he admitted. “Only because I was trying to understand her better.”
