Enough small talk. “And did you learn all this from your mother?” he asked, trying to steer the conversation back to her past.
Madeleine looked away. Bruce felt a strange note of disappointment at ending their private little moment. “Why does it matter to you?” she said, folding her legs underneath her and leaning back against the wall. “She’s dead now. Died in jail.”
Died in jail. “What did she do to end up in jail?”
Madeleine’s eyes shuttered behind long lashes, seemed to darken. Whatever the reason, she didn’t want to discuss it. “Always curious, aren’t you?” she said. “That’s why you’re back here, talking to me and getting nothing out of it other than satisfying your own interest. That’s why you crashed your car in that chase and ended up mopping floors here in Arkham. You think you’re going to solve the mysteries of the Nightwalkers, don’t you?”
“And what about you?” Bruce replied. “What do you want? Who are you protecting? Why won’t you tell Detective Draccon anything about the Nightwalkers’ plans? The Bellingham Industries building?”
“Ah, that. Can’t let it go, can you, Bruce?”
“Let it go? The guy I stopped is dead, so…I’m finding it hard to let go, yeah.” It was a shot in the dark, but he couldn’t help seeing if a blow would land. He cast her a sidelong glance. “I’m not like the Nightwalkers. Willing to toss people aside when they no longer serve their purpose. I’d like to know what was so important about that building.”
She studied his face a moment longer. “Let’s say, Bruce Wayne, that you are a person living in a black-and-white world. You know that, somewhere, color must exist. So you read every book about color that you can find. You research it day and night until you can recite the wavelengths of blue and red and yellow light, that a blade of grass must logically be green, that when you look at the sky, it is logically blue. You can tell me everything there is to know about color, even though you’ve never seen it yourself.” She leaned on her knees. “And then, one day, you see color. Would you know it? Would you even recognize it? Can you ever truly comprehend anything about something, or someone…unless you experience it for yourself?”
Bruce narrowed his eyes. She spoke as if she had already grown old. “You’re telling me Frank Jackson’s thought experiment now?” he said.
“And you know of Jackson’s philosophical work, too? Well. You are an interesting one, Bruce Wayne.”
“What are you trying to say?”
Madeleine pushed herself off the bed and walked toward him. Her expression had settled into a calm sea that hid monsters far within its depths, and Bruce took an instinctive step back as she drew near. She stopped right in front of the window separating the two of them, then leaned forward until he could clearly see the details of her—a small, slight dot of a birthmark on her slender neck, the thickness of her lashes and each glossy strand of her hair, the puff of her lips as they folded up into a smile. God. She was frighteningly pretty.
“The first rule of fooling someone,” she said, “is to mix a few lies in with many truths.” She turned her chin down and gazed up at him from under a canopy of lashes. “It’s hard, isn’t it? To believe anything I say?”
Madeleine had been messing with him after all, even with her hurt words, her angry expressions.
“Then maybe I’m just wasting my time,” he replied.
“You should be grateful. I’m teaching you.” Madeleine’s enigmatic smile widened. “Trust nothing, suspect everything. If you want to figure out the truth, you shouldn’t just be standing here, trying to get me to talk. Go out and see color for yourself.”
The Nightwalker’s escape from the intersection of Eastham and Wicker now appeared clearly in Bruce’s mind. What had been going on behind the faded brick facade of the Bellingham building? Bruce couldn’t bring himself to look away from Madeleine’s gaze. A prickling sensation crawled down his spine.
“You’re afraid of me,” she said.
Instead of his finding a category to put her in, she was breaking him down, every step of the way. “You’re locked away in Arkham’s basement,” he replied. “I’m not afraid of you.”
“Maybe you’re afraid that you like me.” She smiled sweetly.
“Why would I like you?”
“Well, you sure talk a lot when you’re here.”
“I could say the same about you.”
A teasing light appeared in her eyes, and she pulled her hair over one shoulder in a shiny rope. “Maybe I just like trying to read your mind,” she replied.
Bruce leaned his shoulder against the glass window separating them, then sighed. “Do you even know why they were there?”
Madeleine rested a hand on her hip and chewed her lip, considering him. He wondered what she was looking for. Finally, she said, “Go back to the building. If you want to find something, you’re going to have to get inside.”
Inside. “And is that a hunch, or do you know this because you used to work with the Nightwalkers?”
She just shrugged. “I might know some things.”
“Do you know who the Nightwalkers’ boss is?”
“So many questions. I can’t answer everything for you—go figure out something on your own.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth? You just told me to suspect everyone.”
She looked pleased. “You should suspect me, more than anyone,” she replied. “But it sounds to me like you want to get to the bottom of the Nightwalkers, and that the police don’t want you involved anymore. I may have exactly the information you need, but you’re the one who needs to use it.”
This was what he had come back for—information that Draccon had been trying to work out of her for months. Keep a level head. She might crawl in. Bruce wondered if he wanted her to, just to see what she could do. “You know I’ll probably pass this information along to the police. Why would you tell me this, when you’ve stayed silent in front of them for months?”
A playful light had entered Madeleine’s eyes. “Because, Mr. Wayne,” she said, “I suppose I’ve grown rather fond of your visits.”
Even though everything in him warned him to stay away, that this was a girl who had blood on her hands, who might work with an entire organization of killers—he still wanted to stay here, wanted to keep talking to her. I have to, he told himself, justifying the feeling. I’m getting further with her than any of the police have. I’m their only shot.
“And what will I find, once I’m inside?” Bruce asked her.
She touched a finger to her lips teasingly, then waved farewell to him as she headed back toward her bed. “Check the north wall’s lower bricks in the building. I’ll let you decide whether or not that turns out to be useful information.”
Bruce turned away, too. She could have just lied about everything, but it still didn’t stop his heart from beating loudly in his chest. Useful information. Her words had taken hold in his mind, and he felt compelled to follow them.