25

Dr. Leland headed back to her office carrying a fresh cup of tea and an apple to tide her over for a few extra hours. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t work overtime again that night, but the stack of court documents on her desk wasn’t getting any smaller.

Was it any wonder she had no life? Not as if it mattered, anyway. There was no one at home but her cat—the only male she’d ever met who didn’t mind her reviewing crime scene photos over dinner.

She was about to turn down the hall that led to the therapy wing when she spotted her intern moving furtively toward security, and the exit beyond.

“Ms. Quinzel?” she called. “Harleen?”

The young intern’s blonde hair was messy and loose, hanging in her eyes and hiding her face, but her shoulders hunched a little in response to Dr. Leland’s voice. She didn’t stop, however, or even slow down as she swiped her badge through the security lock and waved coyly at the armed guards as she pushed the outer door open.

Damn that little brat.

Dr. Leland sighed wearily and turned back toward her office. She really wanted to give the girl the benefit of the doubt, but her shamelessly inappropriate behavior and surly, insubordinate attitude just wasn’t a good fit for a facility like Arkham. There was chaos enough among the inmates, without having the staff contribute to it. She had no choice but to recommend that the girl be let go.

Instead of going back to her office, Dr. Leland took a detour. She walked down to the far end of the hallway, past a series of disused storage rooms and maintenance closets and into a dead end with a barred window that looked out over a gnarled and leafless tree. A quiet, forgotten corner of the facility where she often came to be alone and think.

Putting the apple in her coat pocket, she set her tea on the sill and slid open the window. It only opened a few inches before it was stopped by security blocks, but it was enough for her to reach out and grab the pack of cigarettes she had hidden in the deep sill. Outside she could hear the constant downpour of the rain in the ancient trees that surrounded the estate-turned-institution.

Leland knew that she really should quit. She had quit, essentially—except for the occasional cheat, and only when she really needed it. Like now. Pulling a cigarette from the pack, she lit one using the lighter she’d also stashed in the pack, and blew the smoke out the open window.

She couldn’t stop thinking about the Joker.

Abruptly the relative quiet was interrupted by a sound coming from the nearest maintenance closet, off to her left. A soft, arrhythmic thumping. Leland frowned, crushing out her cigarette against the sill and flicking the butt out the window.

Stepping over to the closet, she gripped the doorknob, then pressed her ear against the door. It dawned on her how private this forgotten area was. No cameras. No guards. The reason she’d chosen it to sneak a smoke made it a dangerous place to be if an inmate somehow got out of the lockdown ward.

But this wasn’t Leland’s first rodeo. She’d talked a knife out of a particularly violent patient’s hand, thwarted several suicide attempts, and defused a potential hostage situation before it went out of control. Her patients trusted her, and she was a tireless advocate for their well-being, emphasizing compassionate de-escalation over the use of force. Even the most violent offenders still deserved to be treated like human beings, rather than fractious livestock the staff moved from one pen to another.

“Is someone in there?” Leland asked.

The thumping inside the closet increased in tempo, accompanied by a soft, muffled moan.

“It’s Doctor Leland,” she said, slowly turning the knob. “I’m going to open the door now.” Whoever was on the other side, there was no sense in panicking them.

She pulled it open just a sliver, waiting to see what—if any—response there might be to her intrusion. It was pitch black inside the closet and all she got was more inarticulate moaning.

“Now I’m going to turn the light on.” She spoke calmly as she slid her hand through the crack in the door, feeling for the wall switch. “That way we can see each other. Would that be okay?”

Nothing. Just moaning.

Leland flipped the switch.

Inside the closet were stacks of cleaning products packaged in large, industrial-sized tubs. Bleach. Brown paper towels. Powdered soap. A metal roller bucket with wheels and a sad trio of limp, dirty mops. On the floor in the middle of it all, there was a body.

Harleen Quinzel.

“Ohmigod, Harleen!”

She was hogtied and lying on her belly, dressed only in a bra and panties. There was a knotted rag stuffed in her mouth and tied around the back of her head. Black makeup ran down her tear-stained face, mingling with blood from a nasty wound on the right side of her forehead.

“What the hell happened to you?” Leland pulled the door open and moved quickly to the girl’s side. She untied the drool-soaked rag. “Who did this to you?” It was a rhetorical question, she realized.

“It was…” Quinzel blubbered between harsh, hyperventilating breaths. “Was… the Joker… he… he…” She was seized by a coughing fit, and gasped to try to get it under control.

“Calm down and try to breathe slowly,” Leland said, tugging at the stiff rope that bound the girl’s wrists and ankles. “That’s it. Come on, sit up.” As she pulled the bindings away, she saw nasty red welts where they had scraped the skin.

She helped the sobbing intern up to her bruised knees, and took off her own white coat, draping it around the girl’s shuddering shoulders as she pressed a handkerchief against the head wound to staunch the bleeding.

“I thought…” Harleen said, lifting her anguished, mascara-smeared eyes up to peer at Leland. Then flung herself sobbing into the older woman’s arms. “He said we would be together forever. He said I was special!” The words stretched into a wail.

Something in the girl’s histrionic tone tickled the needle on Leland’s bullshit detector, but as with the Joker, there was something about this kid that threw her instincts off balance. Besides, this was neither the time nor the place for judgment. She needed to notify security, and get Harleen to the infirmary.

Then it was going to hit the fan, and most likely multiple heads were going to roll. Perhaps even her own. An incident like this would spawn a media free-for-all, with Quinzel in the spotlight. Dr. Leland hated to see any woman forced go through that particular meat grinder in the wake of an assault.

Shaking her head, she figured they would cross that bridge when they came to it. She helped the girl to her feet and led her out of the supply closet, focusing on locating a security phone to initiate an emergency lockdown, and then getting poor Harleen some clothes.

*   *   *

Back in her office, Dr. Leland gave the girl her tea to sip, and a bulky brown sweater she kept in her closet for times when the air conditioning was running too high. Sitting at her desk, she was on the phone with the head of security.

“No, Doctor,” he said. “The Joker is still in his cell. Batman is with him right now.”

That didn’t make sense. If the Joker was in his cell, then who did she see leaving the facility? The girl was still too upset to talk about what had happened in the closet, softly crying and staring into the tea cup, looking like a small child as she held it with two hands.

“Then I want a full head count on every ward,” Leland said. “Especially Ward A. Make sure you—”

“Hang on, Doc,” the head of security cut her off, and she heard someone else talking in the background. “Looks like the baby killer is MIA,” he told her. “His cell is empty.”

“Kurt Lenk?” Dr. Leland said, frowning. Of all the patients to attempt escape, Kurt was the last one she ever would have guessed. He was so passive, so accepting of his fate, never questioning that he deserved his life sentence at Arkham. There was nothing for him in the outside world. “Are you sure?”

*   *   *

“Hold still, Kurt,” Quinzel said, gripping Lenk’s chin between her fingers as she smoothed whiteface over his flushed cheeks. There wasn’t a lot of room in the closet, and the Joker elbowed her repeatedly as he struggled to pull her too-tight pencil skirt up over thick, suntan-colored pantyhose.

“Does this escape plan make my ass look big?”

Harleen giggled and tossed him the long blond wig she’d had inside her massive crocodile purse. She also laid out the size eleven brown leather pumps she’d bought in a specialty store, knowing her own little kitten heels would be worse than useless.

“Don’t forget to put the foundation on your hands, too,” she said. “After you tie me up, of course.”

The Joker nodded, pulling a length of stiff, paint-stained nylon rope from a back shelf while she pulled a spiky green Halloween wig over Lenk’s own thinning hair. She wished the cheap wig was curly, like the Joker’s own wild emerald green locks, but it would have to do. Hopefully the dim lighting in the cell, combined with the general laziness of the night staff, would work in their favor. All it had to do was buy him an hour or two. Enough time to disappear into the teeming city.

The Joker slipped his lanky arms into the white coat she’d been wearing, and then did a little twirl. Everything she’d worn today had been too large for her, and she’d had to cinch it up so no one would notice.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“You don’t look like me,” she said, stepping up to press herself against him as she slipped her badge around his neck. “But you don’t look like you either.” He twisted away from her, pushing her back with his elbow.

“Don’t touch me,” he said, making a sour face. “You’ll ruin it.”

Stung but not wanting to show it, she turned her attention back to the faux Joker, double checking her makeup job. Kurt stood in the corner like an unplugged automaton, staring down at his shoes. It was almost too easy.

“He’s good to go,” she said, waving a hand in front of the man’s blank, staring eyes. “Now me. And make it good and tight.”

The Joker grabbed her arm and spun her to face away from him, cinching her elbows together, and then her wrists. She arched her body against the knots and issued a small, kittenish purr.

“Knock it off,” the Joker said, pressing her down first to her knees and then to her belly on the cold concrete as he looped her ankles with the rope. “You’re incorrigible.”

“Whatever you say, Mister J,” she replied with a wink as he tied her ankles to her wrists.

“Ready?” he asked, holding up a gag made of knotted rags.

Harleen smiled up at him, and then cracked her forehead sharply against the concrete. Stars danced in her vision and she felt a hot trickle of blood on her temple.

“I am now,” she replied.

“Atta girl,” the Joker said with a grin, pressing the dusty knotted rag into her mouth and tying it behind her head.

She didn’t know what she was hoping for in that moment. That he would pledge his undying love to her, or swear that he would find her on the outside and they would be together forever? But he didn’t say a word. He just slipped his knobby feet into the big heels, rubbed the rest of the tan foundation onto his hands and wrists, and then led their doppelganger away.

He kicked the closet door shut behind him. It would take under a minute for him to return the fake Joker to his own cell. Then, using the same electronic badge he’d used to open his cell door, he could swipe through security and walk right out the front door.

In the darkness, she wondered if she would ever see him again.