Three days later, Beth spotted the headline in her newsfeed:

GCPD Detective Confesses to Wife's Murder.

According to the article, Detective Harlow had handed himself in and was immediately arrested on charges of first degree murder.

Beth smiled. He'd done it. Batman had managed to get Harlow to confess.

She didn't care how he'd done it. It wasn't her place to judge the depths of the violence he resorted to...not when she was the one who had put him on Harlow's scent in the first place.

The important thing was that Jessica Harlow and her family were given justice.

She had used her abilities for good, and it had worked out.

Objectively, she knew her gift was extraordinary. She didn't know how or why she was able to do what she did, it had always just been a part of her. And as extraordinary as it was, it was a gift she resented. Even hated at times. Because it stopped her from living a normal, full life.

But occasionally, it brought some good to the world; and the feeling of satisfaction she got from that outweighed the resentment...at least for a while.

Until the guilt set in.

Guilt that she should be doing more. That she should be working as an interrogator or a spy, using her abilities to put people behind bars or discover world-changing secrets.

But she knew that kind of life would not be sustainable. Diving deep into other people's thoughts and memories took its toll. The disorientation it sometimes caused faded quickly, but there was another - more long lasting - effect.

She held on to others' memories as if they were her own.

They stayed a part of her.

And she worried that she'd eventually take on so many other memories that she would forget which ones were her own and which ones were stolen. That she would lose the core of who she was. That Beth Carraway would become just another one of many in her psyche.

It was probably an irrational fear...but how would she know? As far as she was aware, no one else in the world could do what she did.

So instead, she'd decided to pursue a profession that she loved, rather than one which benefited from her abilities. She was fascinated by the human body, and all the ways it could go wrong. And whilst some considered her chosen speciality of pathology macabre, she loved the investigative nature of it. A dead body was like a crime scene, providing her with clues that she used to solve the mystery behind the tragedy.

Although sometimes - like today - the deaths were not quite so mysterious.

She picked up her clipboard and started the external examination of the body in front of her. The young man had been found under the Crown Point Bridge, tourniquet around his arm and a heroin needle protruding from his veins.

Straight forward and mundane...but still a tragic waste.

Just as she was about to ask her assistant to turn the body over, a faint blue mark on the left arm caught her attention. She angled the overhead light closer to take a proper look and gasped when she realised what she was seeing.

It was the bruising pattern that Gordon and Batman had been looking for last year.

She put down her clipboard and tore off her gloves.

She had a phone call to make.

———

"Thanks for coming," Gordon said as he switched off the signal light.

Bruce merely nodded and waited to hear why he'd been summoned to their meeting place.

"We need to take a trip to the Medical Examiner's office," Gordon explained. "Our possible serial killer has returned."

"The bruising?" Bruce clarified.

"The bruising," Gordon confirmed. "24 year old drug addict. Apparent overdose. Which fits the pattern...in that there is no pattern."

Bruce nodded again. So far their list of potential victims included an elderly homeless man killed with a single stab wound to the abdomen; a runaway teenage girl beaten to death; a former foster kid found hanging in the park, and now a drug overdose.

Different ages. Different genders. Different races. Different causes of death.

But all with the same odd bruising.

Running through the list in his head, Bruce realised something. "There is a pattern, though. They were all people that could go missing without detection."

Gordon frowned. "So, you're thinking these weren't just murders - but kidnappings, then murders."

"Its just a theory."

"Well, I'm open to any and all of those." He nodded to the elevator. "Let's go see what the pathologist has to say. Oh, speaking of which," Gordon said, walking away from the edge of the rooftop, "I found out something interesting about her. Carraway."

Bruce's head shot up. "What do you mean?"

"I kept digging after the first background check. I've learned to trust your instincts about people - you obviously thought there was something about her. And you might be right."

Bruce frowned at Gordon's back as he followed him into the elevator car but said nothing, trying to project the indifference that he was not feeling.

"I got a buddy in New York to help me," Gordon continued, as they descended to the ground. "And he discovered that her birth certificate was issued - for the first time - when she was 12 years old. There's no record of her in the system before that. She was found on the streets - alone and in bad shape - and taken in by social services. She didn't know her age, where she came from, who her parents were... The only thing she knew was her name. Missing Persons checked but never got a hit on a Beth Carraway. It's like she just appeared one day, out of the blue."

Bruce rolled the new information around in his mind as he followed Gordon to the ME's office. What was her story? Where had she come from, and why couldn't she remember?

The picture he'd built of her in his mind dissolved under the weight of this revelation. He would have to start from scratch. Because she wasn't just an orphan. She wasn't just a woman with no family...she was a woman with no past.

How had that shaped her?

He parked beside her blue Camaro, and made his way to the back entrance of the facility. It was after hours, and judging by the empty car lot, Beth was likely the only staff member still around...but he still preferred to keep a low profile by avoiding the front door.

He met her and Gordon in the same hallway as a year ago. It was like déjà vu...but everything was different this time.

He was different.

And she was no longer a stranger.

She was Beth.

Mysterious, fascinating Beth.

"Hello, again," she said softly.

He nodded to her in return, and tried not to stare as he attempted to reconcile the mental image of a traumatised, amnesiac child from the streets, with the self-assured doctor in front of him.

Unaware of the direction of his thoughts, she got right down to business, briefing them as she led them to the autopsy bay. "The preliminary toxicology results confirm an opiate overdose, and the track marks on the arm suggest a long-standing habit. But I've compared the bruising to the photographs you sent me, and I think its a match."

She pulled down the sheet exposing the body, and stepped aside to let him and Gordon examine the arm.

He stared at the sunburst pattern, noting the faint lines of blue radiating from the central blank, circular area.

She was right. It was a match.

"Its a match." Gordon confirmed the opinion out loud. "Any ideas what could cause this?"

"No," she replied. "I've never seen anything like it before. But I've noticed something weird."

"What?" Bruce asked, crouching down to get a closer look.

She crouched down beside him. "You see this?" She traced one of the sunburst rays with a latex-covered finger. "How the colour gets fainter the further it travels from the centre?"

He nodded, acutely aware of how close she was to him.

"Whatever is causing the discolouration is spreading from that central point. And I think it's still spreading."

"What do you mean," Gordon asked from the other side of the table.

"I've been measuring and photographing this over the course of the day. The rays are getting darker. And longer - only by a few millimetres overall, but there's a definite change compared to this morning."

Her observations gave weight to a theory he had. One it was time to test. "Do you have any fingerprint powder?"

"Fingerprint powder?" She turned her head to look at him, her brow creased in confusion. The movement brought her closer - so close that he could count the smattering of freckles over her nose. He could see the pink wash of gloss on her plump lips. He could smell the faint coconut scent of her shampoo...

Too close.

He abruptly stood up and moved away. "Yes."

She stared at him for a beat longer, then rose from her crouch and rummaged in a nearby drawer, pulling out a small pot and brush. He used the brush to dab a fine layer of black dust over the the markings, then blew forcefully over the area. The majority of the powder dispersed, but tiny clumps remained in place in the central bare circle.

She questioned him with a look, so he explained his finding. "There's some adhesive material in the centre. I think there was a transdermal patch there. And whatever drug was released is reacting with the surrounding skin."

"To the surrounding dead skin," she corrected.

"What do you mean?"

"The fact that the colour is changing and the markings are increasing suggests that the residual drug is reacting with the decomposition changes. Either with the enzymes from the degrading cells, or with the translocating bacteria."

"So if this only shows up after death, the killer might not know that he's left behind a calling card."

"If there even is a killer," she countered. "What if its just a new recreational drug that these people were all using?"

"Applied to the exact same location on the arm? And removed just before dying by every single one of them?"

"Hmmm, valid points. But I'm keeping an open mind."

"Whether its a recreational drug or something the killer concocted, we need to find out what it is."

She nodded in agreement. "Its not showing up on the standard mass spectrometry. I'll send a sample to the national crime lab and see if they can find anything."

"When will you-"

"One of you want to clue me in?" Gordon interjected loudly. "Is there a serial killer or not?"

Beth jerked at the interruption, as if she'd forgotten the older man was in the room. He knew the feeling; the rest of the world had seemed to fade away as they'd traded theories and worked through the case together.

Beth explained her plan to Gordon, while Bruce walked around the trolley, taking a closer look at the rest of the body. His gut was telling him these cases were all connected - and not just by a new black market high. There was someone out there murdering these vulnerable people.

No, not just murdering them.

Kidnapping them off the streets, keeping them docile with drugs...and then killing them.

The killing was almost an after thought. Which explained the lack of a consistent MO. The act of killing wasn't what motivated them, it was just a way to dispose of his victims once they'd served their purpose.

Whatever that was...

He tuned back into the conversation when he noticed Gordon making a move to leave. "I'll go back to the precinct and get the paperwork filed for the samples."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

"I should be thanking you, Dr Carraway. And you too," he nodded to Bruce. "We're a step closer to solving this thing. I'll see you later."

He stepped out of the room, leaving him and Beth alone. Her back was to him as she wheeled the trolley over to the wall of fridges and slid the body onto the empty shelf. She closed the heavy door, turned around...and jumped when she saw that he was still in the room. "I thought you'd left!" she exclaimed. "You need to stop sneaking up on me."

"Sneaking implies movement. I was just standing here."

She frowned at him, as if unsure if he was joking or not. He wasn't clear on that either. "Well I'm leaving now, so you're going to have to move at some point."

It was the answer he was hoping for; he didn't like the idea of her staying in this empty building alone at night. "I'll walk you to your car."

She frowned again, but nodded. "I'll grab my stuff."

A few minutes later they were walking side-by-side towards the parking lot. He was comfortable in the silence, but he wasn't surprised when she started talking.

"I, um, saw the news this morning. About Jessica Harlow's husband confessing to her murder."

He also wasn't surprised by her chosen conversation topic. She was like him - consumed by her work.

He just nodded.

"Did you have something to do with that?" she asked.

They were at their cars now. She leaned against the driver's door of hers and he matched her pose, leaning against the passenger door of his. "I found him and told him that if he had something he wanted to get off his chest, I would listen. He complied."

The night sky was pitch black but the security light a few bays down gave just enough illumination for him to see the wry smile on her lips. "Hmmm, I bet it was just as civilised as that."

It was.

After he had threatened Harlow by hanging him upside down off Whitecross Bridge.

He caught her eyes flickering to his car, and he bit back a smile. She was curious. He stepped out of the way and waved a hand in invitation.

"Really?" She asked. He nodded.

She needed no further encouragement. She pushed herself off her car and circled the black vehicle slowly, running her gloved hand along the bodywork, crouching to check out the front grill and stopping at the exposed rear-mounted engine.

"Holy shit, this is a beast," she remarked. She studied it closely then flicked her eyes up to his. "Is it a Triton V10?"

He gave nothing away, but she nodded as if he'd confirmed her theory. "But the chassis isn't a Ford..," she murmured to herself, stepping back to view the entire car. "A Dodge Charger maybe? With something else mixed in...and the roll cage..."

She met his eyes again, shaking her head in wonder. "It's like Frankenstein's monster in car form. It's incredible."

He ducked his head to smile at her praise, hoping she couldn't see him in the dim light. A lot of time, sweat and blood had gone into building this car from the ground up.

"Wanna swap?" He lifted his head to see her jiggling her car keys at him, a hopeful expression on her face.

He shook his head and opened the car door. "Not today," he replied, as he eased into the driver's seat.

"Spoilsport!" he heard her call as he started the engine and backed out of the lot.

———

"Any luck last night?" Alfred asked over his shoulder as he set out the breakfast dishes on the small dining table.

"No," Bruce murmured as he padded into the room. He scraped a hand through his shower-wet hair in frustration. It had been more than two weeks since the breakthrough in the morgue, but he was no closer to finding the source of the drug.

The crime lab had managed to detect the novel compound in the sample sent over from Beth, and they'd broken it down into its constituent parts. Bruce and Gordon had been working ever since to trace each ingredient back to suppliers to find out who was buying.

It was tedious work...and it wasn't paying off. The ingredients for the drug were too common; there were too many possible routes to obtain them.

Bruce brought Alfred up to speed. "Gordon's trying a different tack tomorrow. He's gonna speak to some of the pharmaceutical firms in the City. Get some insight into what the creation of a drug like this entails."

Alfred nodded as he took his seat at the table. Bruce joined him and took a large swig of coffee.

"What about your other problem?"

Bruce glanced up. "What other problem?"

"The letter writer. Someone out there knows who you are."

"There's not much I can do about that," Bruce grumbled, poking at the eggs on the plate in front of him with his fork. The risk of exposure was always lurking, like a hammer waiting to fall. But he had to push that threat to the back of his mind and concentrate on the things he could control. "They haven't been in touch again, so there are no new leads."

Alfred was silent so Bruce looked up again. The older man was staring at him, his face set in a worried frown. Bruce tried to reassure him. "It was probably a one-off. Someone needed help, and they knew where to get it. End of story."

Alfred shook his head. "I don't think we can take that chance."

"Again, there's not much we can do about it." Bruce said firmly.

"I think there is."

"What?"

"We take pre-emptive action. Get out ahead of any scandal that might break." Alfred lent forward in his chair and braced his forearms on the table. "We set things up so that the idea of Bruce Wayne being Batman is a ridiculous notion. That way, if any rumours do start to spread, no one will believe them."

Bruce cocked his head, considering the plan. In theory it could work..."But how do we do that?"

"You change your image," he explained. "Reclusive, mysterious Bruce Wayne who's been mouldering away in a tower for the past decade...people could see him being Batman. But if you were successful, outgoing, media-darling Bruce Wayne...they would think twice.

Bruce dropped his fork and sat back away from the table. "Is this your way of getting me even more involved in the company."

"Not just that. You need to create a persona that the public can get on board with. A charming, well-adjusted billionaire enjoying the fruits of his inheritance. A playboy who's more interested in parties than the fate of the City."

"In other words, a vacuous moron no one would believe could pull off a double life."

"If need be," Alfred shrugged. And that's when Bruce realised. This wasn't an improvised plan. Alfred had been thinking about this. A lot.

He seemed a lot more concerned about Batman's identity being revealed than Bruce was.

"Is this all because you're worried about the Wayne legacy again?" Bruce asked, a mocking edge to his voice. After the revelations about his father came to light a year ago, Bruce still had a hard time seeing the Wayne name as much to be proud of.

"That's part of it," Alfred said. "But I'm more worried about you. The city is on Batman's side at the moment. But you can't get around the fact that you break the law on a regular basis. All it would take is a hardline, rule-of-law mayor or police commissioner to come into office and they'll be gunning for you. I don't want to see you behind bars for the rest of your life."

Bruce said nothing, just stared at the table in front of him. Alfred sighed. "At least think about it while I'm away."

"Away?"

"I told you, I'm visiting some old army buddies in Capitol City."

"Oh, right."

"Please think about it, Bruce."

He sighed. "I will."

———

He didn't get the chance that night. A far-right provocateur known for stirring up hate in the media was in Gotham for a political rally, and a series of clashes broke out across the city between anti-hate speech protestors and neo-nazi groups. The cops took care of riot control, so Batman spent the night going after those who'd decided to use the chaos as cover for other crimes.

It kept him busy.

Which was good.

Because it kept him away from her.

Beth.

He no longer felt right about spying on her. Not now that he knew her better. It was too much of a violation.

But it was hard to stay away. He wanted to see her.

He told himself it was just to make sure she was safe. But the truth was, he liked being around her. She was clever and funny, and they had a lot in common - not just their shared love of cars, but they were both striving - in their own ways - to bring meaning to the deaths that plagued the city. It was nice to have someone to talk to. He had Alfred of course, but their interactions were always so fraught with undercurrents of frustration (his) and judgement (Alfred's).

There was none of that with Beth. She was so...easy to be around. And after their last couple of interactions, he felt like they'd slipped past a purely professional relationship into something possibly approaching friendship.

It was a fragile, new thing that he found himself wanting to nurture, against his better judgement. The yearning for human connection was warring with his self-preservation instincts - the desire to shut himself off from any potential pain - and that yearning was winning.

But how could he find a way to see her again that didn't involve subterfuge or a pair of binoculars?

Laughter and shouting interrupted his thoughts before the answer could come to him. He watched from the dark alley as a gang of five men exited the building to his left. And they were a gang - all displaying the colours of the The Deacons, a particularly nasty organisation based in the Hill.

"Who's taking bets?" one of them asked. He looked to be in his mid twenties, older than the rest of them. Likely the ringleader.

A short, stocky teen tilted his head back and squinted at something high on the building. "Twenty bucks says he falls."

Another voice: "Nah, I reckon he'll make it. He'll blubber like a baby, but he'll make it."

"Well, we'll know later tonight," the ringleader said. They passed in front of the alley and disappeared around the corner.

Bruce melted out of the shadows and looked up, cursing as his suspicions were confirmed.

He'd heard of this before.

It was a Deacons initiation rite called 'walking the plank'. New recruits were blindfolded and bound, then led out onto a 'plank' jutting from a rooftop. If they made their way back to the gang alive and in one piece, they were in. If they fell...it just proved they weren't Deacons material to begin with.

The figure currently frozen in place ten stories above his head looked young and terrified.

Too young. He couldn't have been more than 12 or 13 years old.

Bruce cursed again. He launched his grappling hook and moments later he was flying up the side of the building. He pulled himself onto the rooftop and reset the grapple gun. Then he made his way to the low stone wall guarding the edge of the building; the plank was secured to the top of the wall and he approached it quietly, trying not to spook the child. "Kid?" he whispered.

The young boy's head jerked at the sound. "Who's there?" he called, his voice breaking with fear. He shifted his back foot and Bruce sucked in a breath; he was inches from the edge of the plank.

"I'm here to help you. Just stay still."

The boy tried to brave it out. "I'm s'posed to do it myself."

"I won't tell if you won't," Bruce replied.

The boy bit his lip and nodded.

Bruce nodded in return, even though the kid couldn't see a thing behind the bandana wrapped around his eyes. "What's your name?" he asked, trying to calm the boy's nerves.

"G-George," he stammered. "George Ryan."

"You've got two first names, that's cool. All the best people have two first names."

A hint of a smile played on George's lips, and Bruce knew he was ready for what came next. "George, I want you to hold out your hands in front of you. I'm gonna grab you and guide you back in, okay?"

The boy nodded and raised his shaking arms in front of him, his wrists fastened together with a zip-tie. Bruce seethed at the cruelty of the prank. He stepped up and onto the secured part of the plank and leaned forward, his gloved hand outstretched. The tips of his fingers brushed against George's.

Just a little further, Bruce thought, as he inched out on to the plank. He didn't want to risk his weight snapping the thin wooden board, but he needed to get a bit closer...

Just at that moment, a gunshot sounded from two streets down. The loud bang startled George. His back foot slipped off the side of the plank and he crashed down on to the board...and over the edge.

"No!" Bruce yelled, images of George's broken body flashing through his mind...but then he exhaled in relief - the boy had managed to catch the plank with his bound hands.

But his fingers were slipping.

Bruce rushed out onto the plank and grabbed George by the wrists. He lifted the boy to his feet and steadied him.

But as he feared, his weight was too much.

With a crack, the plank sheared in two...and they both plummeted to the ground.