9How it might have panned out... Call it Episode 11. No, I don't own The Cape. Well, yes I do. The dvd version, anyway. Does that give me rights to it? No? Darn.
"Sir, I've been thinking..."
"Never a good trait in a subordinate." The man stopped talking, and Peter rolled his eyes. "Oh, very well, go ahead. What?"
"Sir, the Faraday woman." He stopped again, and it was only with great effort that Peter avoided strangling him.
"If you don't spit it out," Fleming grated, "I will personally see to it that your tongue is removed. Now let's have it." It hadn't been a good day for him, all in all. He had no patience for stuttering subordinates.
The threat had its intended effect. "When the Cape kidnapped Chief Voyt and his wife from the courthouse, the Faraday woman was with him. He took all three. Maybe she knows where he is. I mean, if he took her to his safe house and all... It's a possibility, isn't it, sir? Sir?"
Fleming stared at the man in dumbfounded shock. He felt like banging his head against the nearest wall. It was obvious. Of course it was obvious, if it could occur to a numbskull like...like... Fleming squinted at the man's name tag. "Good thinking, Smith," he said, distractedly. "Or... Smythe. Right. Thank you." He flipped open his phone and spoke into it. "Charlie? Yes. I want you to call the Faraday woman. Yes, the lawyer. I want to meet with her in an hour. Oh, and there are a few things I need you to do in the meantime..."
Dana Faraday wasn't sure what this was about. Since Marty's confession to her just before his death, she'd tried her best to avoid even thinking about Peter Fleming. Now, here she was, summoned before the man who had caused her husband's death, who had terrorized the city, and who, if Marty was to be believed, was as unbalanced a psychopath as ever existed outside of an old-fashioned insane asylum.
She took refuge in the formality provided by her business suit and the fact that it was still working hours. I am a professional, and this man needn't scare me. "You wanted to see me, Mr. Fleming?" she inquired, only a little stiffly after she was ushered into his office.
The thin-faced man looked up from his ledgers, a smile crossing his mouth. "Mrs. Faraday!" he greeted her, "Welcome. Come in, come in. You had a nice ride, I trust?"
She'd been picked up in the company car, not quite a limousine, but definitely several steps above what she usually drove. "I did," she replied. "The car probably cost more than my house."
"Your former home?" Peter Fleming inquired. "Yes, I imagine so. Though probably not as much as the cost of the apartment building where you're living now," he remarked, as-if casually. Dana felt a thrill of fear run down her neck. He knows where I live? Where I used to live?
"What do you need from me, Mr. Fleming," she said, making it a statement, not a question. He had all the lawyers he needed; he would have no use for one more. It was tempting to play dumb, but Dana wasn't quite that good at acting. This man murdered my husband.
Fleming ignored the tone, instead holding out a chair and indicating she should sit. Having no graceful way to decline, Dana sat, if stiffly. She held her purse on her lap, taking some psychological ease from having a barrier between herself and the man who seated himself on the opposite side of the desk, flimsy though that protection was.
"Coffee? Tea?" he offered, then sent his minion off for the drinks without waiting for Dana's reply. The office was suddenly very empty, and Dana felt the hairs on her neck prickling.
Fleming steepled his hands on the desk in front of him, staring at her appraisingly. Dana met that gaze for as long as she could, but the utter creepiness of that dead-level stare made her look away. As she did, Fleming eased back. "I understand you were kidnapped a short time ago," he said, and Dana blinked at him. It was the most unexpected thing he could have started with, and her mind went ratcheting back over her last few weeks. "The Cape," Fleming clarified, and Dana colored. Ah. Yes, that must have looked like... something else. Well, if he wanted to play it as a kidnapping and not a rescue, that was his business. Argues for him being the one who ordered the hit, at least, she thought to herself.
"Uh, yes," she murmured. "Fortunately it was only for a short time." Or, more to the point, unfortunately. She hadn't felt so protected since Vince was alive. It had been something of a relief to let a competent man take charge, for a little while. Despite her independent nature and the innate strength that many people seemed to think was her birthright as a modern woman, Dana hated the stresses that came with being a single mother in charge of everything. She missed Vince with a longing so intense it almost carried a physical presence. He had always been her anchor, her rock, her lifeline, all of those old cliches that she'd dismissed as petty poetry before she'd realized just how true they were. The Cape... mysterious as he was, he'd been a bit of that to her, just a little. As if she mattered to him. He'd been Vince's friend, as he claimed, so maybe it was just her transferring her feelings for her dead husband onto the first man who reminded her of him. And in any case, the office of the CEO of Ark Corporation was most assuredly not the place to be dissecting her feelings. Dana mentally slapped herself back to the present.
Fleming seemed not to have noticed her short diversion into her own head. "It must have been a terrifying experience for you," he offered, and Dana shrugged.
"Not so much," she demurred. "He wasn't what you might call criminal about it." The slight dig was petty, but Dana felt there was little harm in indulging herself. After all, what could Fleming do?
The CEO tilted his head. "So I'm to understand that he simply let you go? Snatched you off the street only to turn you loose not a day later?" His unsettling eyes bore into Dana's, and she suddenly began to regret the quip. He continued in a low voice. "What hold does he have over you, Mrs. Faraday?" he asked. "Did he threaten you to ensure your silence?"
"What? No!" Dana was shocked into a reply. "He didn't threaten me with anything!"
"Ah." Fleming's voice continued low. "You do realize that he is a criminal, do you not? If you protect him, you could be charged with aiding and abetting. He has killed people, Mrs. Faraday. It is your civic duty to help put a dangerous madman behind bars."
The only dangerous madman I know is you, Dana thought, angrily. "I don't know anything," she blurted. "The police - your Ark enforcers - have already debriefed me. You should have access to my full report."
Fleming didn't even bother to glance at his computer, eyes never wavering from Dana's face. "He brought you to his hideout, Mrs. Faraday," he said. "You can tell me details; things that can help us find him. I imagine that you could even, were you so inclined, lead us there."
Dana shook her head. "I was blindfolded," she protested. Falsely, but Fleming wouldn't know that. "The Cape isn't that stupid; I doubt if the place he took us is even close to his headquarters." But it was, and she knew it was, and she knew how to find it, and how she prayed that Fleming wouldn't press any further...
"You seem to be attached to this masked vigilante," Fleming said. "And your son even more so."
Dana's heart froze as Fleming casually turned his laptop around. Trip was on the screen, obviously unaware that he was being watched as he read his favourite comic series. What she could see of the room he occupied was a kid's paradise, with enough toys and technical gadgets to keep even the most hyperactive child occupied for hours.
"The door is locked of course," Fleming said, bringing Dana back into the room where they both sat. "I sincerely wish that you had simply chosen to cooperate. Now, this is going to be much harder." He shut the lid of laptop with a sharp snap, cutting off Dana's view of her son.
The distraught mother pulled in a shaky breath. "I... I really can't help you. I don't know anything!" she pleaded, but Fleming shook his head, mock-disappointed.
"Oh, Dana, Dana, Dana," he murmured. "Lies will only get Trip hurt. Killed, even. Such pesky things, doors. They can refuse to open, for one. Keys can be lost so...easily. One little boy can be forgotten for... oh, weeks, if necessary. Though death by dehydration only requires a few days. I wonder when your son had his last drink?" The clock on the wall seemed to get louder. Tick...tick...tick...
"You leave my son out of this!" Dana cried, her voice cracking as she tried for control.
Fleming tsk'ed at her. "I'm not the one who brought him into it. The Cape did that all by himself. He brought you into it as well, if you think about it that way. Say, I have an idea. I'll make you a trade, one for one. You bring me the Cape, and I'll give you your son back. I'll even let him have a drink before he goes." Fleming grinned with half of his mouth, baring one side of his teeth, and Dana shook. With fear, with rage, she didn't know.
"Don't you dare touch my son!"
The CEO shook his head. "Dana, now you're just being obtuse. You bring me the Cape, you get your son back, right as rain. Understood? Now. Off with you." He made little shooing motions. "My secretary has all the details about when and where we'll expect to meet you for the exchange. Goodbye, Mrs. Faraday." He smiled. "It's been nice doing business with you."