Emily dithered, psyching herself up. She bounced on the spot a few times, adjusted her coat and pants, and brushed some imaginary dust off herself.

Enough stalling.

She walked back out into the corridor and instantly heard some struggling from the other end of the house. “Do you have any idea who I am?”

“No,” Emily said, her voice more snappish and hard than she was used to hearing from herself. “And I’d very much like to know who you are and who you’re working for . . . Villain.”

CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

Interrogations

Emily didn’t quite know how or where to stand at first. In fact, she wasn’t sure she wanted to question the woman on the floor at all. It didn’t help that Black Shield had her hands and legs tied behind her back and was resting on her side. It was an awkward position to be in no matter how she looked at it.

“I’m not a Villain,” the woman said. She tugged at her arms, trying to free them.

Teddy growled, her large paws flexing from their position in front of the Hero’s face. She stopped wiggling.

“That does sound like what a Villain would say,” Emily replied. She had to reframe things. Her interrogating a Villain, for the second time, no less, was . . . too much. But her chastising an unruly child? She was growing increasingly familiar with that. “I need a chair,” she said.

Athena was the first to jump up and run over to the kitchen. She came back, a chair dragging across the floor with a loud squeal.

Emily took the seat, spun it around so that it was facing the Hero on the ground, then she sat down and shifted until she was comfortable.

She folded one leg over the other and put her hands on her lap while the Hero stared up at her from the floor. Teddy edged closer, a huge, comforting presence, and Athena grinned wide and planted herself on Emily’s other side. “My name is the Boss,” Emily said. She was impressed that her voice didn’t waver.

“That’s cute, now untie me. I was here on official business.”

“On whose behalf?” Emily asked.

“The police!”

“So you have a warrant to enter this property?” Emily asked.

“What? No, but I’m allowed to be here.”

Emily sniffed, as if she’d heard one of Teddy’s excuses. It was so easy to imagine the Hero’s reply sounding like The cookie jar fell and the cookies just happened to land in my mouth.

“I don’t believe you,” Emily said.

“You were here first! That raccoon girl!”

“Are you wearing a camera? Do you have any proof of that?” The Hero squirmed. “So, you broke into this home, and seeing as how we’re all Heroes, we stopped you. You . . .”

Emily glared.

“And you shot a laser into my sister.”

“She . . . she doesn’t look injured?”