The Inheritance: Part 1

Chapter 6

While not strong, there's heat in the building, and as soon as they step inside, she doesn't have to pretend that she's not shivering.

Thank God.

Red Hood shakes the snow from his boots behind her; no small amount of snow clings to his boots and the hems of his pants. She turns her gaze from him to the building around them.

They are in a side atrium, with high ceilings and directional signs hanging in all different directions. The building is mostly finished, with only a few floors blocked off for active construction. Although all the machines and appliances are still wrapped in plastic, most surfaces are draped with tarps.

It'd take all night to clear it together.

They split up. She takes the hotel. He takes the casino.

She doesn't run, but she's swift and efficient in her movements. Since they didn't have access to any blueprints, she's going into the search blind and can't waste any time.

It's been a while since she'd gone into a building search completely blind.

She used to love blind searching back when she was Robin. It was a fun way to learn the city and explore the world she'd been kept from while in the circus. Plus, in Gotham, it almost always leads to either a potential lead or a showdown against one of the rogues. The best way to expel excess energy or to pick up a slow night on patrol was a blind search.

Now she knows why Bruce had left that job to her: it sucks.

In Bludhaven, she avoided building searches unless she had strong leads to make entry, but the volume of her workload there was so high she justified "not having the time," and when she'd gone back to Gotham, she was familiar with the buildings and had Bruce to split the labor.

This almost feels like being Robin again.

The first two floors alone take the same amount of time as any building in Gotham. In part due to their unfamiliarity, but mostly due to its size and network of maze-like and often dead-end hallways. All illuminated by dim emergency lights that cast beams of warm light. For all the money being put into it, the layout isn't where she'd expected corners to be cut.

The first floor had been a food court, with the second being the hotel lobby. The third floor is where she finds the offices, across from a lounge, and a skywalk to the casino. The hallway is blocked off with a glass wall and a wooden door that's propped open by a toolbox.

Sweet.

She slips into the hallway and trots through, checking doors and name placards. The open ones, she checks, but they're all mostly empty. A few have desks, but the majority are still in the process of having their carpet laid. The most interesting thing is a boarded-up section of the wall. By the shape and size, it's either a set of double doors or perhaps an elevator, but it's well secured to the wall and doesn't budge under a solid tug.

She abandons it for the sake of time. If it's inaccessible, it's probably not going to have anything worthwhile. As she goes, the sinking feeling that there wouldn't be anything to find begins to creep in. There wouldn't be anything here to find it isn't operational.

They shouldn't have come.

And yet, there had to be something. She racks her brain and thinks through the situation at hand.

Franco had kept the file on a drive and went through all the trouble of hiding it, only to upload his manufactured employment records onto the drive before giving it to her. None of it makes sense for a man so careful and methodical.

Unless–no. She shakes her head. That'd be too messy, too impractical, too–Gotham.

At the end of the hall, there's a placard with the name George Franco. The door is locked. She kicks it in. Unlike the others, his is mostly finished, featuring a dark wood desk, a brand-new swivel chair, wall ornaments, and even a desktop computer. It's not even plugged in. And there's no power to the office at all, making her work in the dark.