Rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, Barbara made her way down the hall towards the front door. Whoever was knocking on the other side was persistent and most likely, a salesman. Because who else would be knocking for at least two minutes straight if not someone desperate to sell her something?
Barbara turned the doorknob, already preparing to tell them she wasn't interested in whatever they were selling, when a head suddenly appeared between the gap in the door, grinning at her.
"Officer Bard!" Barbara startled back in her chair as the man forced his way inside. "Just what do you think you're doing?"
"I'm here to see you!" he exclaimed as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Sorry I couldn't come sooner. Your dad has us working like a couple of dogs, especially with everything going on with the Wayne employees," he sighed, lifting his cap and running a hand through his short blond hair. "I thought with his new fiancee he'd want to be home more often. Hell, I know I sure would."
From behind her glasses, Barbara rolled her eyes and scoffed. "Yeah, I bet you would."
A sly look came over the officer's face. "Ahh, I take it you don't approve of the soon-to-be Mrs. Pamela Gordon?"
Barbara's frown only deepened at the title. "Ugh, don't call her that."
Officer Bard chuckled as he moved further into the house, examining the various plants in the living room. "Sure looks like she made herself comfortable. It looks like the damn Amazon in here." He pinched a fern leaf between his thumb and forefinger. "Speaking of Pamela, where is she anyway?"
Barbara raised an eyebrow and smirked at the young, red-blooded officer. "Oh, I see why you're really here. It's her you want to see."
Spinning around, Officer Bard opened his mouth to protest until he saw the teasing grin on Barbara's face. "For a second there, I thought you were serious. Maybe even jealous."
The smile on Barbara's face fell. Jealous? Jealous of what exactly?
"She's asleep." She gestured with her head towards one of the closed doors in the hall. "It's practically all she ever does during the day. It's like what? Nearly eleven and she's still asleep."
Officer Bard nodded. "Weird. But hey, maybe the lady needs her beauty sleep?"
Barbara gave another scoff, this one much louder than the first. "That's not the weirdest thing. You haven't seen her eat. And I mean that literally because I haven't seen her eat," she emphasized. "The other night, she made some ribs but didn't take one bite."
"Maybe she wasn't hungry." He shrugged. "What's weird about that?"
"She didn't eat last night either." Barbara's eyes glared into the officer's, pleading for him to understand. But as she expected, he didn't. He was too rational for that. Or so, he liked to claim.
"All right, so maybe she doesn't like to eat? A lot of women that look like her don't. They just keep themselves going on cigarettes and coke." He circled back towards the front door. "So are we just going to stand here and talk about Pamela, or are we going to go do something? My time's precious here, Babs."
Barbara reached for her coat off the rack and threw it over herself. "We're going to the library. I need to pick up an application."
Officer Bard perked up. "I know a good pizza joint near there where we can grab lunch." He followed Barbara into the kitchen. "It's an authentic Italian place. The family's actually from Italy—probably involved in the Mafia—but hey, the pizza's good." He shrugged, watching as she grabbed a pen and notepad off the fridge.
Barbara only nodded, scarcely listening to him over her furious scribbling. "Sorry, but I have to leave this for Pamela." With a loud rip, she tore the page off and left it on the table.
"Really? Why?" Officer Bard glanced over her shoulder.
"Because she treats me like a two-year-old instead of a twenty-two-year-old." She pursed her lips together into a frown. "Anyway, are you ready?"
"Yeah." Officer Bard's response had barely left his mouth when Barbara spun around, already halfway down the hall. By the time he made it to the door, she was waiting next to his patrol car.
"What's got you in such a hurry?" He quirked his eyebrow as he unlocked the passenger door. "The library doesn't close for like another six hours."
"We're not going to the library," she said as she hoisted herself into the passenger's seat.
Officer Bard looked up from the wheelchair he had started to fold. "But you said—In the note, you even wrote—"
"I know what I wrote. But we're not going there." Barbara's gaze narrowed at the officer. "We're going to the Isley mansion."
Nearly losing his grip on the wheelchair, Officer Bard managed to catch it just in time before it hit the pavement. "The Isley mansion? Why would you want to go there?"
"So it does exist," Barbara whispered, her eyes growing wide. Richard hadn't been lying like she initially thought.
"Of course it does." He laid the wheelchair on the backseat before shutting the door. Making his way back around to the driver's side, he hopped in and let out a deep sigh. "I used to go over there when I was a kid. It was like the local haunted house the kids used to dare each other to break into."
"So it's abandoned?"
"Yeah." His jacket rustled against the leather seat as he started it. "Why are you asking about this? Because of Pamela?"
Barbara nodded, adjusting her glasses. "I was told that she has a mansion. At first, I was skeptical. But now..." She tore her eyes from the fogged-up windshield to look at him. "I have to see it."
"Why? It's just a rundown mansion covered in ivy. Not much else." He cracked a smile. "Don't tell me you believe it's actually haunted."
Barbara, however, didn't return his smile. "No, but it's not the ghosts I'm interested in."
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