Detective Barbara Gordon 5

The trio got out of the car with their eyes fixed in the same direction and their jaws dropped. Their attention was fixed on a burning building that was currently being tended to by the fire department.

"He knows we're on to him..." Tanner said to the other two as he furrowed his brows at the burning building where the office of the psychiatrist was.

Barbara ran towards the firemen with haste. "Hey!"

When none of them paid attention she shouted again. "I said, hey!!"

She finally got their attention and one of them started walking towards her with his palms pushing to her direction. "Ma'am, please move back. We're still putting out the fire."

Barbara quickly searched for her badge and flashed it to the fireman. "Detective Barbara Gordon. Are there any survivors?"

"NYPD? There were no occupants in the building..."

Barbara's hope was rekindled.

"...except for one. A psychiatrist."

And that hope immediately turned into disappointment.

"Is this a crime scene?" The fireman asked with a worried look.

"We don't know that yet..."

They waited for the fire to be put out until they could all enter the building.

Once they entered alongside the firemen, they immediately went inside the office of the psychiatrist they were supposed to pay a visit.

"This part of the building is more scorched up than the rest." Tanner said.

"Fu-!!" One of the firemen covered his mouth with the back of his hand after he turned a corner.

The trio rushed to see what it was that got the man agitated.

"Ah." Sterling flailed his arms in disappointment, "There he is." then, gestures towards a burnt body.

Barbara and the rest came close to the remains and crouched to study it.

"It isn't clear but he doesn't have any stab wounds."

"So, he knocked him out and left him here while the building was burning."

"The man would have died from the smoke first."

Tanner got up and breathed out a sigh. "I'll try to find if there are any files left intact."

"Yeah." Sterling said without turning his head.

A firefighter walked towards Sterling and Barbara that was studying the body. "Officers? We found the source of the fire."

"Where?"

"By the shelves... an oily rag."

Barbara and Sterling looked at each other before saying thanks to the fireman.

"If we found out any sooner, we could have prevented this. And we could have known who the killer was already." Barbara said.

"We were close, Gordon. We'll find another lead."

"He must have realized what would have given him away when he slipped up that day."

"Yeah."

"No luck, guys." Tanner came back. "Everything is in ashes."

"Huh..." Sterling got up and dusted himself. "There's nothing left here for us. Let's go back. I can still feel the heat from the fire." He said as he loosened his tie.

----

"Is there any other way we can find another lead other than waiting for him to resurface?" Tanner asked as he tapped his pen on the table.

"Unfortunately." Sterling said.

"This sucks." Barbara said.

"Don't worry. The chances of him screwing up again has increased now that he lost his outlet, one of his anchors. Knowing that we probably got close because of his mistake, his paranoia and anxiety will eat at him. He'll mess up." Sterling said.

"Then, I guess that's it for today?" Tanner

"Yeah." Sterling got up and started packing his stuff.

Barbara followed and so did Tanner.

Sterling got out of the building first.

"See you two tomorrow." He said as he headed towards his car.

Barbara yawned and waved at both of them as she went ahead.

Tanner turned around and started walking to the other direction as Barbara.

He walked two blocks until he made a turn. He turned his head to see if anyone was following him.

It was already getting dark outside.

The street lights started to turn on and cast a shadow on not well lit up areas like the alleys.

These areas become a place of possible danger at night ...

... but these areas are also a place to hide secrets.

And that's where Detective Tanner Manning went to.

A dark isolated alley.

He rummaged through his pocket and pulled out his phone.

Tanner tapped on his phone and put it beside his ear.

"Hello?" Tanner said as soon as the call picked up. "You piece of shit! You couldn't even do your job right! I got my ass hanging around just to clean up your mess!"

He was jawing at someone on the other side of the call.

"Get your shit together or this will get to Mr. Franzese and both our asses will be fucked! Huh? What do you mean?" Tanner turned around and found Sterling pointing a gun at him soon after.

----

"No luck, guys." Tanner just came back from checking through the files if there were still any left unburnt. "Everything is in ashes."

He had his jacket removed and was hanging it over his arm. Which was understandable because of the remaining heat after the fire.

"Huh..." But Sterling saw through this charade.

A ramaining piece of glass from a broken mirror on the floor. It was just the right angle for Sterling to see a part of a folder that wasn't covered by Tanner's jacket in his arms.

But Tanner couldn't possibly be the killer. He was at the hospital when another murder happened. Meaning, there must be a reason for him to protect the killer.

And that's why he decided to tail him. To know his part in all this.

After following Tanner into an alley, he hid behind a corner and eavesdropped on Tanner's conversation.

"Get your shit together or this will get to Mr. Franzese and both our asses will be fucked!"

A keyword. A name was mentioned by Tanner during his phone call with someone.

Mr. Fanzese. Head of the Franzese crime family. Currently on bad terms with the Callaghan family.

The pieces have all come together.

He smiled in satisfaction as he pulled out his gun and got out from the corner he was hiding from.

With Tanner, still having his back facing him, he pointed his gun at him.

Tanner turned around right after and dropped his phone as soon as he saw the gun pointed at him.

"So..." Sterling made a smug grin. "You're part of the Franzese family. Then, you must be their rat in the NYPD that's been causing us trouble. The one Elise was hunting that night."

Tanner didn't reply and just glared back at him.

"Who was on the phone? Was it the serial killer? Tell me I'm wrong, Detective."

Tanner remained silent.

"Did you do him a favor because he attacked Elise just when she was about to kill you? It explains why you were hospitalized the very same night. So, the Franzese family does favors for psychopath killers now, huh?"

"... Heh." After remaining silent for a while, Tanner scoffed. "You got me, Special Agent. So, what now? Are you going to kill me?"

"Nope."

Tanner furrowed his brows at him.

"I'm going to keep you here so Elise can kill you. I'm going to help her at her job so she could help me with mine. Oh, and I need those files that you went through the trouble to get." Sterling said with a devious grin.

"Why don't you just try and take it from me?"

Sterling laughed. "Haaah." He sighed. "You know that I can just kill you right now and get those files from your corpse after, right?"

Tanner gritted his teeth and reached for his bag.

"Uh uh uh." Sterling said. "Open your bag and throw all the contents of the bag on the floor. Pick up the document from the ground."

Tanner started unzipping his bag.

"There you go. Slowly now." Sterling instructed.

Tanner turned his bag upside down and unloaded the contents on the floor.

He slowly crouched down and searched for the document.

Tanner picked up a folder that's been partially burnt and slowly got up.

"Good. Now, hand it over to me." Sterling said with his hand reaching out.

The detective handed out the document.

Sterling grabbed it but Tanner didn't let go of it.

Instead, Tanner suddenly shouted. "NOW!"

Sterling felt a sudden sharp pain coming from his side. He looked at it and saw a knife stabbing into his side.

He faced Tanner and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

It was too late. Tanner had grabbed ahold of his arm and maneuvered it to make him miss his shot.

Sterling felt the pain growing from his side. The knife had exited his body and entered again. Multiple times.

His vision became hazy and he felt his whole body going numb. He felt cold but he was still perspiring. The cold air filled his nostrils as he gasped for air.

He fell on his knees as he lost his strength before falling on his side.

Sterling looked up at Tanner who was looking down at him with a smile.

"That was close." A familiar voice rang out as his vision slowly turned dark. It belonged to someone he had met before.

----

"How..." Barbara uttered with her jaws on the floor.

In front of her was the corpse of a man that was just working with her for a couple of days until yesterday.

"W-What happened here?"

She already knew what she was about to see before she came here, but she was still in a state of disbelief.

"Are you Detective Gordon?" A man in a suit approached her.

"Y-yes. Who are you?"

"Special Agent Sterling."

"Sterling?"

"No relation to Special Agent Sterling that was assigned to work with you on the serial killer case."

"Hah..." Barbara scoffed. "You and your aliases..."

"At this moment, I would like you to hand over everything you have on this case to me. We are assuming that everyone that was handling this case has been compromised and we cannot jeopardize your safety."

"Safety?" Barbara had on a face of disbelief.

"Yes. Special Agent Sterling must have been identified by your killer and there's no saying that you and Detective Tanner have also been id'd."

"Then, what's the point of handing this case over if we're still going to be under his crosshairs?"

"Look. I understand you're upset-"

"No! You don't understand!"

"Detective. I'm gonna need you to calm down."

At that moment, someone put a hand on Barbara's shoulder to calm her down.

She was panting heavily in frustration before she turned her head to identify whose hand it belonged to.

It turns out that it was Tanner Manning. She decided to collect herself for her partner's sake and calmed down.

"Detective Meyer and Detective Adams will now be assisting me with the case." The new Special Agent Sterling pointed at two men that were on the scene.

Two men from the same precint waved and smiled at them.

Barbara couldn't reciprocate to them with the same warmth and decided to look away and grit her teeth.

"We understand, Special Agent. You can just get the files in the precint. It's already been arranged in the conference room which you can also use." Tanner replied.

"Thank you, Detective."

Tanner lead Barbara by her arm off the scene of the crime towards the car. He opened the car door for her and entered the car on the other side.

"Barbara... We don't have a choice. It's just for our own protection."

"No.... This is bullshit and you know it." Barbara tapped on the dashboard as she furrowed her brows and closed her eyes. "Something stinks. The killer wouldn't be able to take down Sterling alone, or whatever his real name was."

"So..." Tanner locked his eyes on Barbara. "... you think he wasn't alone?"

Barbara opened her eyes. "I'm not sure. I think that guy isn't telling us the whole story."

Tanner sighed. "You're planning on talking to the captain, aren't you?"

"Yup."