It was just a dream. And yet, somewhere in his subconscious, he could sense Madeleine there, was both terrified of her and filled with the desire for her in his arms.
Bruce glanced at the time on his phone. It was just past dawn, but the black clouds made it look like the dead of night outside. He tilted his head back and closed his eyes for a moment. Then he swung his legs over the side of the bed and rose. Weak light illuminated his naked chest and the pants that hung low on his hips. He walked barefoot out of his room and stared down the hall for a moment, watching where it disappeared into the shadows, imagining Madeleine materializing there, a ghostly figure in the dark. Only silence and storm greeted him. Alfred hadn’t even gotten up yet. Speckled light trembled in patches on the floor. After another long moment, he ventured out in the hall, his feet making no sound as he made his way to his study.
The air seemed stale in this room, and the rain lashing against the windows smeared the outside world into streaks. Bruce paused to stare at the old grandfather clock against one wall. The hands were stuck, and he had never bothered to force them to work again. He ran a hand through his hair in exhaustion, then made his way to his desk. There, he sat down and turned his computer on.
The machine—nothing but a thin, transparent glass panel as long as the desk itself, a piece of technology he had built himself—came to life, and cold, artificial light illuminated him. He stared at the icons that popped up, hovering seemingly in the middle of the air, and then leaned over to type in a new search.
Madeleine Wallace mother
Several familiar links showed up from his previous searches about Madeleine—her original arrest, the details about the murders she’d committed that had been released to the public. He scrolled through two pages of entries. Finally, at the top of the third page, he found a brief mention in an article about Madeleine.
It was an opinion piece, going into the murky details of Madeleine’s youth. A faded photo of the family. Madeleine Wallace. Cameron Wallace. Eliza Eto. Even though her brother was older than she was, he looked thinner and frailer, with hollow eyes and sloped shoulders, his hair buzzed short. Bruce’s attention went to Eliza Eto. There was no doubt that Madeleine had inherited her beauty from her mother; the two had the same long, straight blue-black hair, the same pale complexion and full lips. Bruce went back to reading the article, murmuring aloud as he went.
“?‘The consequence of such negligent malpractice was tragic. One week after her son’s death, Dr. Eliza Eto broke into the office of Dr. Kincaid and lay in wait until Kincaid entered the room, then proceeded to stab Kincaid over a dozen times with a kitchen knife.’?”
Bruce swallowed hard at the words. The story was similar to what Madeleine had told him—but it was not the same. In Madeleine’s version, her mother had hit the doctor once, accidentally, and too hard. In this version, Eliza had stabbed the doctor a dozen times with a kitchen knife, had committed a gruesome, premeditated murder, and had as a result been given the death penalty. She died in jail before the sentence was carried out.
Bruce leaned back in his chair with a frustrated sigh. Everything Madeleine said seemed to be a half truth. What about other things she had told him?
A chat bubble appeared in the corner of his screen. It was from Dianne. You’re up already? she said.
Crazy storm, Bruce typed back. Didn’t sleep much.
Same, she replied.
Are you ok? How are you feeling?
I’m fine, Bruce. Q is, are you fine?
Bruce sighed. Not really, he replied. But as much as he hated that Dianne was now somewhat involved in the case, too, he still felt relieved to have someone besides Draccon and Dr. James to talk to about everything. He cleared his search and tried another one. This time he looked up Cameron Wallace.
So—Madeleine told me some more about her past, Bruce typed back to Dianne. At least Draccon was right about her coming from a criminal family, although I still can’t tell how much of what Madeleine said is true.
Bruce. He thought he could almost hear Dianne’s sigh. You’re still on this case? The one that almost killed you?
Just listen. Please, Di.
Fine. Fine. What else?
Her mom was on death row for murder, too.
A pause. Damn.
I feel for her, though. She was ten at the time. And it was over her brother.
Oh, Bruce, I’m sorry. Also I didn’t know she had a brother?
Bruce stared at the screen’s search results. The top one was an obituary for Cameron Wallace, age twelve. Up popped a photo of the same weak, smiling boy.
Her brother died of some kind of bacterial infection. He sent Dianne the link.
How had that led Madeleine to the Nightwalkers?
Revenge. Bruce knew this instinctively, without a doubt—he could hear it in the way she talked about the death of her mother and the callous way the justice system had treated her, in the way she talked about her brother. Bruce might have even done the same, in her shoes. But his thoughts lingered on the doctor who had been murdered, and then on the three philanthropists killed in cold blood.
Whatever the reason, Bruce replied, she didn’t do it alone. A ten-year-old girl simply didn’t become an assassin in eight years without someone else’s help.
Bruce frowned, then leaned forward in his chair and reached for Madeleine’s profile that he’d taken from Draccon’s office. I’ll put it back the next time I’m there, he told himself. His finger scanned her profile, her crime reports. He stopped near the bottom, where a link was printed alongside a username and password. It was to her interrogation video.
He hesitated briefly. Then he typed it into his browser. The page promptly asked for the username and password, and Bruce entered them.
GCPD Guest
GreenLightning
The prompt flashed once, and the screen refreshed. He was in the GCPD video directory.
The familiar reports on each of Madeleine’s crimes popped up, followed by a series of videos and interrogations. Bruce paused at one video, where Draccon and several other officers had surrounded Madeleine in her cell. She stayed on her bed, her head turned away nonchalantly, as they asked her a slew of increasingly frustrated questions. The sight brought a cynical smile to Bruce’s lips as he remembered how he’d felt whenever Madeleine ignored him in the same way.
“You’re not doing a very good job of lying, Miss Wallace,” Draccon was saying, the bite in her voice the same as when she’d first met Bruce. “We are well aware that you were not alone in the Grant home. In fact, we suspect that you had at least three, perhaps even four, others working with you on this murder. Who were your accomplices?”