Cover Up

Deal With It

"Death threats?" I ask Flynn as I look through the six letters he's just handed me. "Bruce gets death threats all the time, there's nothing special about that."

I walk forward and to a door that requires a code and scans my finger prints as well.

The door slides open and Flynn walks after me.

"Not like these" Flynn says quickly as he tries to match my pace. "These are different."

Our office was big and had large windows that blinds covered because ew, light.

"How so?" I ask Flynn as I walk to my desk to turn on my computer.

There was an open room that holograms floated around when activated. We walked past Flynn's desk which had computers, phones, papers, and bookshelves surrounding it yet most the books were on his desk, flipped to special pages where the records were circled rather than the shelves. My desk was in front of us. It was a large L desk and was organized because I cleaned it the night before all of this went down. My computers were ready for me and the files of previous problems we've worked on were behind my desk in a secret cabinet that looked like just part of the wall.

"Well," Flynn started "First off most of them aren't to Bruce."

I pause then frown at him "What do you mean?" I ask "They were sent to the manor though"

He nodded "Oh unmistakably! Literally Wayne Manor in the middle of nowhere, you can't get the address wrong. But even so in the letters it is literally only mentions one name and it's not Bruce's, Tim's, Damian's, or even Alfred's."

Curiosity grapples at me so I open a letter and scan it to see which name pops up.

"It's sent to a Mr Cobbler." Flynn says before I can find the name.

Sure enough I find it and it says a Mr Cobbler. I check the other letters and they're all the same.

"What are most of the threats about? Do they want money?" I ask as I walk to the hologram part of the room. I put a control glove on and and run it over the letter then throw the words up into a hologram in front of me.

"Well most are about they'll kill people if he doesn't return or something like that." Flynn said. "And you'll never guess where I found all of these."

"Where?" I ask as I wait for the hologram letter to memorize the handwriting in case we already have that handwriting in our system.

"Inside the wall of the manor." Flynn says with a nod.

My head whips over to look at him in confusion.

"The wall of the manor? You mean after it blew up you found these in the wall?" I ask. He nodded and I raise a confused eyebrow "Well how is that possible?"

"No idea." Flynn sighed. "But maybe Alfred had a pen name or something?"

I smile at that "Highly doubt Alfred has someone after him." I say before Flynn's phone rang.

He answered with a "Tell me what it is and tell me fast because I got stuff to do." he was quiet before he frowned "You're sure that's what that is?" he nodded then sighed "Alright send them over and we'll look at it." He hung up then turned to me. "Turns out Alfred found sneakers in the attic."

"And it's not Tim's or Damian's?" I ask.

"He checked with them but they don't know who's they are." Flynn said with a shrug "I'm having a guy bring them over."

The hologram made a beeping sound.

I look over and see that it found a match. It was a note that was on Bruce's car one day. On it was a phone number and a little note that said "One year" on it. I had just pegged it as some crazy fan but kept it all the same.

"I'm gonna call this." I say as I grab my phone and dial the number. "Check for any Cobblers in the city." Flynn nods and leaves.

For a moment I thought no one would pick up but then a man's voice says "Hello? You've reached the Cobbler's household how may I assist?"

Cobbler, well, looks like we've already found the family!

"Hello, this is Corbeck calling to ask you about your car's extended warranty." I say in a cheesy way. I was hung up on immediately.

I didn't actually want to talk to them because if they're sending death threats I don't wnat to be on their list.

"Flynn what have you got?" I ask.

Flynn looks up from his desk and says "There are only two Cobbler families in the city and one is a man in a retirement home." Who would want to retire in Gotham? You're just asking to die quicker. Maybe that was the point? "And then there's this large family who seem to be very well off."

"Living in a mansion?" I ask

"I have no idea where they live!" Flynn said. "I can't tell what they own and what they don't."

"Send it to my screen." I say.

He sends me their address and I'm impressed and now worried. They own a large estate with woods and a large mansion house in the middle of it but there aren't really pictures which means they didn't allow anyone to come and take pictures of their property.

"So there's the parents, an aunt and uncle, and ten kids." Flynn says as I look through their files we have on them.

"Eleven actually." I correct.

Flynn is quiet before "Um, no I just see ten currently."

"What do you mean? It's eleven" I say as I look up.

He frowned at me "Ced I'm looking at their family portrait right now and it's ten."

I'm staring at their family count though. After a few minutes of searching it seems that maybe one of their kids have disappeared.

I sit down in my rolling chair and think.

"So what does this mean?" Flynn asks. "Is something wrong?"

I get up and head to the door. "It means I think someone is living in the manor and we just don't know it."