"Dad!" Barbara said, surprised. "You're there. I thought the promotion was supposed to make you...." She heard the line go dead and finished to herself. "A desk jockey." Sometimes it seemed she worried more about him than he did about her.
She saw the confetti, barely registered surprise--the bomb had been a farce; even the worst of the criminals in the city would have a remote detonator, not something out of a movie, she just hadn't been sure what the point had been. And the she heard it, coming faintly from her comms and from the TV, with its sound turned down. Chills ran like ice water down her spine. He was dead, Bruce had said he was dead, but he'd never seen the body, hadn't he said that?
"I hear it Dick," she mumbled. And then shook her head, trying to shake herself out of it. "Misdirection, it has to be. They want us to think.... There was a riddle, and I pulled up on my screen that Edward Nigma was released from Gotham County just a month ago; he's small time, never really did anything to deserve Arkham. That doesn't mean he wouldn't be in league with them. And, I mean, he is a trickster.... I'm trying to trace...." But it was a recording, no trace. That was good, wasn't it?
No, don't you dare let this get to you! It's a trick, nothing more. "The cops are at the asylum; I don't have any reports yet."
Huntress cut the power, sighing with relief when the sound cut off. "Was that who I think it was?"