The Daughters of Men

Chapter 3

Holly jerked awake. She was sitting in a dimly lit room, handcuffed to a cold metal table, her chair bolted to the ground. Despite the discomfort of her position, the biggest problem she had might have been the fact that the police had managed to remove her helmet at sometime between now and when she was arrested. Now her wild hair was going every direction, her left ear seemed to be bleeding, and she was in desperate need for a bath. But instead, here she was inside the Grand Rapids Police Department interrogation room. All she could hope for was that Barrett was in another room with similar thoughts.

The door opened and the young, handsome detective from the furniture factory walked in, badge still hanging around his neck and a file in his hand. He sat down across from Holly, and opened the file. "Good morning, Holly."

"Good morning, Detective," Holly greeted. "I think we can agree that it's unfair if you know my name without me knowing yours."

The detective gave a small smirk without looking up. "My name is Detective Woodrow."

"Well, Woody," Holly started, "it'd be really cool of you to take these silly shackles off and let me go about my day."

"You're the Black Hand," Detective Woodrow replied sternly. "The masked vigilante whose been causing trouble for the last three years."

"That's impossible," Holly insisted. "I think that I would know if I was a masked vigilante."

"So you're saying that helmet isn't yours? And that you weren't at the Fine Michigan Furniture factory between the time of 2:15am and 3:00am this morning? Because that'd be quite the magic trick."

"It was indeed an incredible magic trick," Holly agreed.

"Wanna tell me how you did it?" Detective Woodrow asked calmly.

Shooting him a glance of disbelief, Holly said, "Woody! A good magician never reveals her secrets!"

"A good magician doesn't get caught either, does she?" Detective Woodrow noted.

"Oh contraire. A good magician always gets caught doing the trick. Or else what would be the point of pulling tricks."

"Even if I were to believe you're not the Black Hand, which, so we're clear, I do not believe that at all, there's a lot of evidence supporting the claim. Namely the fact that when we removed the helmet of the Black Hand your head was underneath."

"Let's assume I'm going to agree with you and say that somehow me, a twenty-one year-old girl with no training was, through some means, a masked vigilante taking on Grand Rapids' darkest creeps, how on Earth can you expect to convict me on that alone? Sure, I was there in a mask, and sure, I was participating in vigilante behavior. But maybe I'm an impostor."

"You can't talk your way out of this one," Detective Woodrow insisted. "Here's the problem, Holly. We caught you red-handed."

Holly swallowed loudly and avoided eye contact.

Detective Woodrow shrugged. "Maybe you're the Black Hand, maybe not. But it certainly appears as though you're the Black Hand, and honestly, I'm inclined to believe the astounding amount of evidence."

"I assume then that you're the guy in charge of taking the Black Hand down?" Holly asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Yeah, I was," Detective Woodrow confirmed. "Six months ago when you broke Detective Fitzgerald's leg. She was in the hospital for some time and then transferred to a precinct in the Upper Peninsula. Do you remember Fitzgerald?"

"I met her once," Holly admitted. "She was a friend of my dad's. I was sorry to hear about that. Although it was better than what the Black Hand--or, sorry, you're assuming I'm the Black Hand, aren't you?--it was better than what I did to that poor guy who was left dangling from that billboard in November."