Clara (Part 12)

It was two days later, the day Clara was released from the hospital, that she received follow-up on the flower threat she had received.  She did not receive this follow-up directly.  She received it in the form of a headline from the tabloid, The Globe, Chris had used to work for.  The headline read, "Reporter Turned Hero".  Clara's eyes grew wide as she picked it up from the newsstand.  In a daze, she handed over her money and barely watched where she was going as she stumbled the rest of the way home.

Back in her apartment, she read the full article.  She was not mentioned.  Not a single time by name.  The Lady Ninja was mentioned, but only as someone who had led former Globe reporter Fred Douglas to turn his own attention to bringing criminals to the sort of justice that could only exist outside the law, as the article stated.  At first, Clara had been hopeful that using the pen name in the article would keep Chris safe, but as she flipped the paper over the read below the fold, there was a picture of him smiling up at her.

His career will be ruined, she thought.  There was no way his current boss wouldn't read this.  Even though The Globe was a tabloid, it was a very popular tabloid, and she was certain the more legit papers kept abreast of what it was printing.  Her only hope was that Chris's boss wouldn't believe this drivel, that Chris would deny this drivel.  But how had this drivel even come to be?  She had been the target, not Chris, right?  Unless he had done something remarkably stupid...

After she had finished reading the article twice, she tried to call him.  His phone went straight to voicemail.  She Googled him to confirm what paper he was now looking for and then called them up to ask if she could talk to him.  The receptionist she spoke with was very kind as he explained, after having put her on hold for a couple minutes, that apparently Chris had not come into work that day.  The receptionist said nothing about The Globe's big reveal, so either he didn't know or he didn't want others to know.

Not sure what else to do, Clara decided to take a page out of Chris's own playbook and show up at his apartment unannounced, hoping he would be there.


It turned out he was not there, but it also turned out the door was unlocked, so Clara went in and what she saw was beyond alarming.  Signs of struggle were obvious - chairs upturned, coffee table pushed aside, a painting having fallen off the wall.  She found Chris's dead phone on the ground, with what looked like blood on it.  What gave her hope was that there was blood, but not a lot of it.  If the place had been cleaned up after or if there had been blood everywhere, either one of those would have been cause for greater alarm.  Chris was somewhere dangerous, but she had to hope he was still alive.  And as much as her initial instinct was to get on this right now, to do what she could to find out for herself what had happened, she found herself instead taking out her phone and calling up the police first.


Turns out the blood was enough to get them on the case fast.  She told them she and Chris were friends and that she read the paper he used to work for and had seen the article about him and came over here to demand an explanation.  No outright lies, just a failure to give every little detail.  She told everything that she felt was necessary though, every thing that she thought might help them figure out what had happened.  And then she went home to suit up and do her own search.

As she walked through the front door, she stepped on a note that had been slipped under her door.  She unfolded it to see a message composed of letters cut from magazine headlines.  It read, "Two Ninjas Enter.  One Leaves."  And then the address of a warehouse downtown.  She didn't hesitate.  She was already getting ready as she called in an anonymous tip to the police about where Chris was apparently being held and then she was on her way herself.  She didn't care that she was calling on the police and also going out as her alter ego.  She didn't care that this could get her into serious trouble.  She didn't care about any of that.  She just didn't care.