Dangers in the Dark

Confessions in the Park 19.1

Holly POV

Wayne Manor

Balancing the plates in my hands, I followed after Bruce back into the living room where dad would be waiting. With Alfred now out of the hospital - prematurely in my opinion but I'm not a doctor so am probably talking a load of rubbish – dad had decided to come over for lunch to check in on them. When I'd found out he was coming here I decided to join him and had spent the last twenty minutes with Bruce in the kitchen, internally debating whether we should tell dad about Reggie.

I knew Alfred had told us not to tell dad about Reggie, most likely cause he wants to confront him himself but the facts of the matter still stand that Alfred nearly died because of him and the worst punishment he can obtain is to be locked up for the rest of his miserable existence.

Bruce was carrying through the drinks and the other plate through with his little tray and when we entered the living room I saw Bruce falter slightly when he noticed what my dad was looking at. It should have probably been removed before dad's arrival but the investigation board we had put up across the back wall was too impressive to destroy. If dad saw anything of interest on the board he didn't say anything as he turned away from the wall and came over to the sofa to join us.

"I saw the papers the other day," Bruce began as we lowered the food and drinks onto the table. "Holly also mentioned it. Congratulations."

"Thanks," dad offered a smile.

"So what does President of the Policeman's Union do exactly?" Bruce asked. He'd already asked me that same question when I told him about it earlier but I literally had no clue what dad would do as the President.

"Depends on the president," dad answered and that really wasn't much of an answer. "How's Alfred?"

"W-whinier than I thought," Bruce replied with a smile.

"I mean, I know he did get stabbed and all but that guy can be a real princess when he wants to be," I added, lifting my glass from the table.

"To be fair, the coffee you made was so strong that if Alfred did drink it he would never sleep again," Bruce commented.

"It was an accident. I didn't think he would notice if it was slightly stronger than usual," I defended.

When I had been here two days ago - on the day Alfred returned home - I had offered to make Alfred a drink. But as I went to add the coffee granules into the mug, Bruce, who had been leading Alfred through to the living room, knocked into a cupboard in the hallway and one of the ornaments landed on the floor, scaring the absolute crap out of me which was how Alfred's coffee ended up with an extra heaped spoonful of coffee.

"Either way, he's getting better," Bruce returned to the original question.

"Glad to hear it," dad replied. We were all silent for a moment before dad decided to show his true intentions for his visit. "You three lied about who stabbed him, didn't you?"

"That's why you're here?" Bruce asked and while he refused to look over at my dad, his eyes flicked up to me. "Is it?"

"Yes," dad confirmed. "Did you?" A pause. "Lie to me?"

To get out of having to answer any of his questions because the last thing I wanted to do was lie to him, I picked up my sandwich and started to eat my way through it.

"No," Bruce answered when he saw that I was going to be little help in this conversation.

"If we don't have a description of the culprit we won't find him," dad said calmly, making Bruce take a panicked drink from his glass of water.