Fool Me Once | T. Drake ✔

[17] Played For A Fool

Tim had gone to check if Roxanne was at her house but the gates were locked and even the housekeeper wasn't there. Her car wasn't parked in either and even though he called her again and again, her phone was going directly to voicemail.

He called Bruce finally, waiting for him to pick up. When he did, he told him the situation that Roxanne was missing and her place was all locked up too as if she had left forever.

"Are you sure? Did she tell you where she was going?"

"No," he was driving back to the manor, "I'm going to check if her phone can be tracked."

"And what about the contract? You were supposed to be with her at all times..."

"She terminated the contract. She gave me the deed of termination today and if I had known earlier, I would have stopped her."

"She can be in danger," Bruce replied and that was exactly what Tim was worried about too, "do you have any updates on who was sending her death threats?"

"We have a possible suspect. Adrian Castellan is alive."

"Castellan?"

"Yeah. Shocked me too." He parked his car in the garage and went in through the main gate.

He knew if he had to track Roxanne, it would be better if he went down to the cave and made use of the resources there.

"Keep me updated, I'll check on my own end too," Bruce added.

"And call Jason, he said he had to brief you about the Castellan case, I didn't get all the details from him," Tim remarked, setting up the Batcomputer, "I'm tracking her phone's location. So I'll need to call her again."

"Alright."

Bruce hung up and Tim dialed her number again but unlike earlier, her phone was switched off. That complicated things a bit.

He could only track the last active location of the phone.

As he worked on the computer, his head was whirling with thousands of worrisome thoughts. If Adrian Castellan was alive, then he could be the one sending her death threats.

He could be the one wanting to take revenge on Roxanne for apparently killing him. No one else would have a greater motive than he would for getting rid of her.

There were still many questions such as how was Adrian still alive, and who was the person presented as the corpse of the bullet-ridden young man upon which the postmortem was carried out. How could the whole case be fabricated when the person supposedly murdered was still alive?

All those questions were starting to make him dizzy.

The notification on the screen shook him out of his thoughts and he straightened, clicking on it to see the last active location of her phone.

And much to his shock, the location was found to be Gotham City Airport.

He checked the clock, seeing that two hours had passed since her last tracked location. By then she could have easily boarded any plane and be headed to anywhere in the world at the moment.

If only he had been more cautious of her and tried to figure out what was going on right under his nose, perhaps he could be able to stop her. It was frustrating that he hadn't been able to figure it out that she too was playing her own game until it was too late.

He called Bruce again but the line was busy, indicating that he could be talking to Jason. So he sent him a text instead for him to check when he got free from the call.

R is not in Gotham. Last tracked location was at the airport, two hours ago. Tell J to keep an eye on the arrivals at Dublin airport.

Hitting send, he placed the phone down, leaning forward in his chair to hold his head in his hands.

The only place he could assume she would go to was Ireland as the Donnelleys' family home was located there. He knew a bit about Rom's family from her too, Colin and Anya, but he had no idea where they were living and if they were in Ireland or not.

She had taken great care not to tell him anything that could be used later to track her.

The feeling of being used by her struck through his heart.

She had kept him around for as long as she needed then didn't even consider him important enough to tell him that she was leaving.

He had been fooled.

And Tim Drake hated being played for a fool by the other person. Especially if the other person was someone he trusted.

***

The doorbell rang and Anya sat up, looking at the time. It was too late for any visitor but she knew who would be out there.

Not disturbing Colin who was asleep in his room, she went to answer the door. She looked through the visor inserted in the door, showing a woman with a mask covering her face and her hair hidden under a dark scarf.

But her eyes were the brown shade she could recognize anywhere, exactly the same as her husband's.

So she opened up and the woman who was standing outside stepped in, quickly locking the door behind her. Both of them stayed still for a few minutes, cautious that they hadn't been seen by anyone else.

And when there was no other sound from outside, she breathed out in relief, lowering the mask and taking off the scarf.

"Roxanne, my dear," Anya had taken her into a warm hug shortly after and she held onto her tightly.

She realized that she was crying and it worried her as she pulled apart, wiping the tears from the younger woman's face.

"Come in," she took her hand and led her inside, "Colin is still asleep so you can stay in my room for tonight."

She nodded, her eyes filling up again.

"Dear, please don't cry," Anya got worried to see her as such, "nothing bad happened to you on the way here, right?"

She shook her head, "no... I just... I missed you guys so much."

"We missed you too," she stroked her head gently, leading her to her room, "I'll fetch some clothes for you, in the meanwhile you can freshen up."

Roxanne nodded, taking the clothes she offered and stepping into the bathroom. While she was gone, Anya went to the kitchen to bring something for her to eat.

It was a long journey from Gotham to Edinburgh and then she must have had to commute by bus as well to reach their small town. She must be hungry and exhausted.

Although Colin and Anya lived away from Gotham and mostly did not know anything that was going on in Romero's life, that once Anya had found out about the case. So she also had a lot of questions to ask Roxanne regarding Romero and the investigation going on against him.

But for the time being, she wanted her to rest after her tiresome journey.

***