Smooth Criminals: Harley x Joker Origin Story

Chapter 7: Property of Joker

My apartment was too silent. The ticking clock in the living room filled my head like a chorus of voices. I grabbed it and threw it. It hit the opposite wall and the glass face shattered. It kept ticking. I snatched my pistol from the counter and shot the battery out. The clock exploded across the floor — and so did the tile beneath it.

I dropped the pistol and wrapped my fingers in my hair, squeezing my eyes shut. I focused on each breath to stop them from turning into sobs.

He'd been gone three days. The media told me nothing. They didn't even mention the ordeal. Surely the death of the Clown Prince of Crime would be breaking news?

That meant he had to be alive. But what if Bats had captured him? What if he was torturing him at that moment?

It physically pained me not knowing.

I crossed to my laptop and refreshed the page on several newsfeeds. Nothing.

The more I reflected on the Bat, the cops, the ACE weapons, and the millions of dollars in stolen items, the more I decided we'd gone too far. At the first sign of the Bat, we should have stepped back. We should have been more careful. If we'd stuck with lower-profile crimes — quick, precise, focused — Mister J wouldn't have ended up in so much danger.

I stared at my phone, the home screen void of messages. The background image grinned up at me — a selfie of Mister J and I from a particularly interesting hold-up at the aquarium a few weeks back.

Each night since I'd lost him, I'd searched for him near ACE and the bar where we'd met. I imagined finding him waiting for me with that big smile—

A knock sounded.

I scrambled for the door with such haste that I kicked several pieces of clock and tile down the hall. I pressed an eye to the peephole and saw a face covered by a hat, sunglasses, and scarf.

"Who...?" My voice was broken. I tried again. "Who is it?"

He pulled his sunglasses up, revealing piercing green eyes. My knees weakened.

"Puddin'!" I threw the door open and reached for him. "I was so—"

Mister J strode past with a newspaper in his fist. He removed his disguise and threw it on the floor, not sparing a glance at the smashed clock.

"This explains it," he said through his teeth. "They identified us."

I didn't register his words. I tried to reach for him again, just to touch him, to feel his physical form and make sure he was really there.

"Puddin', where did you—?"

He thrust the newspaper at me. "About a hundred people sent photos of us."

He wasn't going to talk about anything else. Surrendering, I closed my fingers around the newspaper.

"We were dressed up, Mister J. They can't identify us."

He snarled. "Look at this one!"

On the front page, the largest of several photos, was the selfie of me and the doe-eyed blondie.

The last photo taken of Jessica Pressfield, 18, before she was murdered by notorious criminal Harley Quinn.

My face was sharp and clear. I inwardly cursed the camera quality on these new phones.

"Makeup or not — fingerprints or not — your features haven't changed, Miss Harleen Quinzel."

I raised my eyes to him, pulse quickening. My apartment was under my parents' names, not my own, but did that mean I was safe? How long did I have before the authorities found me?