The sun landed warm on her shoulders as she crossed the grass. Moving quickly, she used her long legs to eat up the distance as she crossed City Park. School was out for the summer, so the park was full of kids. Children running to and fro, playing ball, throwing Frisbee, some reading books, some sitting quietly by themselves, some feeding the ducks on the pond.
It was strange to walk past normal life. People who just were, and lived and didn’t have to deal with violence. She couldn’t remember what it was like to just go home at a normal hour and have dinner like normal people, to discuss what was on television that night, to go to bed early.
It had been a long time.
Instead her life was spent chasing criminals, fighting crime while wearing a mask, and interrogating men who had been beaten within an inch of their life. Dinah could see on the edge of things where her life would be something that might break other people. Normal people.
Yet she loved it.
It felt natural to her.
Situation normal, all screwed up, she thought, although she didn’t hold onto it, just let it wash over her. Maybe it was the normal people doing normal things that caused her to contemplate her life as she walked across the quad, moving toward the marble steps of City Hall. Perhaps it was the dichotomy of the things she had done, in the light of such an average day for them.
If asked, she wouldn’t say she enjoyed being a vigilante. That seemed wrong. There was a satisfaction in taking criminals off the streets, but she had done that just being a cop. It was the very reason she even became a cop.
Some criminals, however, the ones who went beyond the pale of normal villainy, they were a serious threat to the police and to the city itself. Some could potentially even destroy the world. Villains like that were the reason she had become a vigilante, and there was a part of her that would never give it up, never stop fighting those extraordinary kinds of evil.
Never stop being the Black Canary.
Sara Lance peeled out of the crowd and moved in next to her, matching her pace, walking with her toward City Hall. Like her, the blond crime fighter wore civilian clothes.
“Nice blouse,” Dinah said.
“It’s something I picked up while working.” She looked Dinah over. “Well, someone surely has a serious face today.”
“Just thinking random thoughts.”
“Serious thoughts?”
“Somewhat. Nothing to worry over.” Dinah waved her hand in dismissal. “I’m glad you could join me,” she said. “I thought you had left us.”
“Think nothing of it. I’ll be with you till the end of this case.”
“How does that even work?”
Sara chuckled. “It’s better not to think about it too much.”
The two of them reached the doors to City Hall. They were impressive, stretching twelve feet tall and made of oak and glass and polished steel. Dinah pulled one of them open and waved Sara through. They crossed the lobby together, walking past the security desk as Dinah flashed her badge.
“That’s pretty handy,” Sara said. “I might have to get one of those myself.”
“Somehow, I didn’t think you’d want to go through a weapons detector.”
Sara grinned. “You flatter me.”
They rounded a corner, walked down the hall, and saw two familiar faces.
“There’s my daughter,” Quentin Lance said.
He spread his arms and he and Sara hugged as Rene and Dinah looked on. Dinah caught Rene’s eye.
“How are you doing?” she asked.
“As well as could be expected,” he said.
“Don’t be a pain in the neck,” Lance chimed in. “He’s doing great.”
Rene shrugged. “I have to go finish this business, Hoss.” Before anyone could respond he turned and walked away quickly.
“Is he okay?” Sara asked.
“Yeah, he’s fine. It’s just been a long day,” Lance replied. He turned to Dinah and pointed to the door at the end of the hall. “Oliver is waiting for you.”
“I’ll go see him now.” Dinah nodded, and lightly touched Sara’s arm. “I’ll see you soon.” Sara nodded back and smiled. Then Dinah turned to Quentin and firmly gripped his arm.
“How’re you doing?” There was concern in Dinah’s voice. She didn’t know if Sara had been told what happened on Lian Yu, what her father had been through there, so she didn’t ask outright, but she felt the need to ask about his state of mind.
“I’ve been okay,” he said.
“If you need to, call me.”
“I will.”
Once she was gone Sara turned to her father. “How about you take a girl out to get some coffee?”
* * *
There was a knock at the door, and Oliver looked up.
“Come in.”
The door opened and Dinah stepped in. He set aside the file he was working on, folded his hands on the desk, and gave her his undivided attention.
“Is this a good time?”
“Of course,” he replied. “Did you find out anything that will lead us to Faust?”
“I don’t know that the beating had anything to do with Faust.” She sat in the chair across from the desk, crossed her legs. “There was nothing that indicated his involvement.”
“As… manipulative as Chase has proven to be, I have a hard time believing it could be a coincidence, happening so close to our recent encounter.”
Dinah didn’t speak for a moment. “It’s a great big city full of crime, Oliver,” she said finally. “You know we have a lot on our plate.”
Oliver considered her words. Dinah would know more than he would about the everyday crime in Star City. She dealt with the common criminals in the streets, as well as the threats that the team faced from persons that were beyond the norm. This was why he valued her perspective. He sat back, moving his hands to his lap. He wasn’t completely convinced, but he was willing to listen with an open mind.
“Please,” he said. “Tell me what you think.”
* * *
“Well, first of all, everyone thinks that you did this,” she said, being brutally honest with him. Holding back would do him no good.
“I didn’t.”
“I know that. The victim and a lot of people on the force think that you did.”
“The police think that this was me?”
She nodded. “Most of them actually don’t have a problem with it. This guy was an armed robber, after all.” Dinah felt a twinge of guilt over the assumptions she had made about Chavis, just because of his criminal past. After seeing him in that hospital bed, however, she couldn’t think of him as anything but a victim of a vicious crime.
She came back to the conversation. “Support for Team Arrow is high among the rank and file.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Don’t be too comfortable with that though,” she said. “They all still look at us as vigilantes, as a necessary evil, and their trust could be broken with next to no effort.”
“Do you think that’s what this new vigilante, this copycat, is trying to do?” he asked. “Undermine our standing with the authorities?”
She considered the possibility, shook her head, and dismissed it.
“According to the victim, this guy was looking for a drug dealer.”
“A drug dealer?” Oliver said. “Might he be trying to start up the drug trade again?”
“The drug trade never went away,” Dinah said. “Not really. You disrupted it in a major way with that bust of the Skulls. Oh, god, is that really what we’re calling them?”
Oliver just shrugged.
“Anyway, he seemed to be looking for the source of the drugs in town.”
“Are drugs that hard to find in Star City?”
“Not on the street. The users can always find them, but the players, well, players are pretty well hidden.” She shifted in her chair. “That’s why I think this guy is going after a source, and he may have just found it.”
“What does that mean?”
“Well, our victim gave up a big fish in the drug pond. He gave up Manny Cross.”
“I don’t know who that is.” He looked angry with himself at the very idea.
“Cross is someone that we’ve had on the radar for a long time. He’s got a high public profile, and covers his drug import business with his legitimate dealings. We’ve tried, but we haven’t been able to touch him. It’s a big operation and we drop a lot of his street-level operatives, but nobody gives up anything about Cross.
“What we do know,” she continued, “is that he used to move drugs through the city using the harbor and the trucking industry. His focus seems to have changed, though, and now he’s keeping the drugs in the city, and they’re hitting the streets in a big way.”
“Sounds like we need to put him on the list.”
“I thought you already had. He’s tied in with the Skulls.” She shook her head. “I still can’t believe that’s what we’re calling them.”
“Think of a better name, and we’ll use that,” he said. “But why did you think I’d already put them on the list?”
“Because of that incident with the car carrier.”
“I knew the Skulls were active,” he replied, “but I didn’t know anything about Cross until you mentioned him. I wound up tangling with his crew by following a tip.”
“Is that why you took White Canary for backup?”
Oliver chuckled. “You don’t know Sara very well— she just showed up that night.”
“I don’t know her that well, but I do like her.”
Oliver raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, not like that. I like that she’s direct. Doesn’t have any artifice.”
“No, she has none of that,” Oliver agreed. “Back to the beating of this guy, Chavis—if this copycat is going after Cross, we need to stop him quickly.”
“Why?” Dinah asked.
“I don’t understand the question,” Oliver said.
Dinah leaned forward in her chair. “Look, I saw his handiwork up close. I don’t know how good he is at investigating, but he took down three armed robbers and obviously has no problem doing what it takes. I say, let’s concentrate on Faust and clear that book up, because the team could use the closure with Chase.”
She leaned back again. “If this guy does any damage to Cross, it only helps Star City.”
“I don’t like the idea of a loose cannon running around.”
“Who do you hate the idea of more?” she asked. “A loose cannon aimed at a major drug dealer, or a psychotic explosives expert commissioned to create chaos and mayhem, all by a dead psychotic criminal mastermind who hated you?”
Oliver had no answer.