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Wrong Place, Wrong Time, Wrong Clark TOC can be found Here

Where we left off in Part 123 …

Linda jumped on the bait and did it for him. “You’re being too modest, Clark. When he left the Daily Planet to meet me for lunch today, Lois threw a mug full of hot coffee in his face.”

Carpenter raised a brow at this bit of gossip.

Clark tried again to return to his reason for coming there. “Now, I also have to think about my future. The Daily Planet is a dying paper,” he said, and he was here to see if the Metropolis Star had anything to do with that. “And I don’t want to have to be the one to turn out the lights.”

Carpenter leaned forward over his desk as Linda let go of Clark’s shoulders and walked around to stand behind her boss. “We don’t pull any punches here, Kent. We make things happen!” Carpenter said, slapping his desk with emphasis.

Clark wondered exactly how literal the publisher of the Star was being.

Carpenter pointed at him. “I want you to go all out.”

“Yes, sir. That’s what I intend to do,” Clark replied.

Carpenter stood up and held out his hand. “Then welcome to the Metropolis Star.”

Clark shook his hand with a smile. “Thank you.”

***

Part 124

After ordering her pastrami sandwich and chocolate milkshake, Lois took a moment to place a call from the payphone near the restrooms.

“Hello?” a male voice answered.

“Mr. Kent…Jonathan, hi. It’s Lois,” she said softly. Lois had chosen the Metro Diner down the street from the Daily Planet, because she knew Clark wouldn’t be meeting Linda here for lunch, and because she didn’t trust that her phone line at work was bug-free. She had locked her LoLex watch in her desk drawer before leaving, just in case. She knew it was probably an irrational fear of it being bugged, but maybe S.T.A.R. Labs missed something when they found the tracer.

“Lois, this is sure a surprise,” Jonathan replied, but she could tell it was pleasant surprise. “How are you doing?”

She breathed a sigh of relief, knowing why Clark had chosen this family for his own. Their manners and politeness mirrored his own. It would make people naturally assume they were his folks, even if they weren’t. “Frankly, Jonathan, I’ve had a horrible week, and I’m hoping that you could brighten my day with a favor.”

Jonathan paused before responding, and Lois wondered if she had been too forward. “Jerome isn’t here,” he finally said.

“Oh, I know that, Jonathan,” Lois said, understanding that she probably deserved that response after the last time they spoke. She wanted to cut to the chase, but she didn't quite know how to do so without seeming too ‘citified’, as Clark had described her actions in Smallville. She figured she first needed to smooth the way. “I wanted to apologize for my behavior the other day when I called. I had been so worried about Clark, him disappearing and all, especially right after he had gone missing and ended up in the hospital…” Her voice faded a moment as she recalled how her heart had lodged in her throat when Perry had first mentioned it. Then she remembered that Clark had gone undercover at the Met Star on a big story without informing her first, and found her voice again. “And when I learned that he had gone to Kansas without telling me, I’m afraid I lost my cool. I do hope that you know that I wasn’t angry with you, but with Clark.”

“Jerome said that might have been the case, but I do appreciate you saying so,” Jonathan said, sounding as if he wasn’t holding a grudge.

“Oh, good…um… Is Martha there?” she asked. For some reason, she felt more comfortable talking to Martha than her husband.

“No, I’m sorry; she’s out plowing the east field at the moment, Lois. She should be back in a couple hours for lunch, if you’d like to call back,” Jonathan informed her.

Lois bit her bottom lip in frustration. It would have to be Jonathan then. Clark would be back in the office from his “date” by then, and… no, no, he wouldn’t. He wasn’t coming back anytime soon, damn him. Well, she couldn’t delay this any longer. She didn’t know how long Clark would be out of the office on his undercover assignment, and she had some things to accomplish without his knowledge. She was going to take a leap of faith and guess that Clark hadn’t told his ‘family’ back in Kansas about his current work assignment. “I was wondering if you had a way to get a copy of Clark’s birth certificate.”

Jonathan didn’t reply, so Lois plowed ahead.

“I know that you and Martha aren’t his real parents, but cousins of some sort. Anyway, Clark lost his wallet with his driver’s license in it during his abduction and the lunkhead hasn’t gotten around to going to the DMV to get it replaced. Over the weekend, I was arrested by mistake, and he couldn’t bail me out of jail because he didn’t have proper identification. He seemed a bit evasive when I asked him about it the other day, and I was wondering if it had to do with the fact that he didn’t have a copy of his birth certificate to prove his identity. I figure since his apartment was robbed just days before the Nightfall eclipse, any other identification he might have, such as his birth certificate and his passport, might be missing or were destroyed,” Lois rambled on.

Still Jonathan didn’t respond, so Lois continued to fill the empty air.

“And then with someone stealing the contents of his safety deposit box the night before Superman’s mission to Nightfall Major, any copies of those papers he might have kept there were also be gone,” she said, hoping something she was saying would encourage Jonathan to send the birth certificate of his dead son to Clark. She knew it was a lot to ask of the Kents, but Clark couldn’t go on without a past for very much longer and her window of opportunity was closing fast. “I’m afraid that he’s embarrassed and feeling a bit like a non-entity, because he doesn’t have a way to prove his identity. He’s a bit angry with me over some misunderstanding at the moment, otherwise I’d bring this suggestion up to him, and so I thought I’d go straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak.” Lois opened her eyes wide. How could've she just said that? “Not that you resemble a horse in the least…”

“Lois,” Jonathan finally spoke, thankfully interrupting her. “I’ll see what I can do. No promises.”

“I’d appreciate it, Jonathan. You know how private Clark is, and I’d hate for him to think I’m sticking in my nose where it doesn’t belong…”

“Nonsense, Lois. It shows how much you care for him and his feelings,” Jonathan said, seeing right through her concerned partner act.

“I do care about him. I really do. Clark’s my best friend, partner, and all. Sometimes I feel like I need to take care of him; coming from the country and all, he tends to forget that people in the city aren’t as polite and trusting as he is. Anyway, if you do find it or can get it, it’s probably safer if you send it overnight directly to his attention at the Daily Planet. Those deliverymen sometimes leave packages leaning against your door, even here in the city; can you believe it? I’d hate for it to be stolen at his apartment after all the times its been robbed. You could enclose a note about how you thought it might be helpful or something, and just keep my name out of it,” she stopped herself from babbling on in this vein. She swore she was getting worse. “Thank you, Jonathan. You don’t know how much easier this will make things for him.”

“He’s lucky to have a friend who cares so much for him,” Jonathan responded. “Bye now.”

Lois hung up and headed back to her booth where her chocolate shake waited. With the computers and data in many of the branches of the government screwed up at the moment, it was the perfect opportunity to slip in some new data that wasn’t there previously. She doubted Clark would be thrilled once he found out that she was planning on using the birth certificate of the real baby’s whose identity he had borrowed to set up a more permanent history for him, especially since her arrest the week before, and this wasn’t exactly legal. Okay, it was totally illegal, which is why she wanted to keep Clark out of the loop, so he’d have plausible deniability. Moreover, Superman needed this. If he kept working with such a superficial identity, someone else – someone bad – might discover his secret day job. If they were ever to have a future, Lois couldn’t let that happen.

Now, if Jonathan went ahead and sent Clark the birth certificate, which Lois could easily intercept this week, all she’d need to do was mock up a couple of grammar school transcripts for Eugene to put into the school’s databanks. ‘Clark was a pleasure to have in class. Always so helpful,’ that sort of thing. She wouldn’t make Clark class valedictorian or anything, but a steady B-plus, or A-minus, grade point average in high school and at Kansas State would be enough. No, wait. It was Midwest University, wasn’t it? It didn’t have to be perfect, only pass a mild scrutiny if anyone else, besides Lex, went on a fishing expedition. Maybe Louie could help her out. He knew people who knew people. Clark would finally be able to get a legitimate driver’s license, and no longer be an illegal alien, literally. It would be as if he’d been born here.

***

“…And, lastly, the Luthor Conservatory of Music has sent over your season tickets for this month’s opera. They are for this Saturday evening’s performance of ‘Madame Butterfly’,” Mrs. Cox said. “Would you like me to hold on to them for you?”

“No, that’s all right, Mrs. Cox. You can leave them here with me,” Lex said, holding out his hand.

Reluctantly, it seemed to Lex, Mrs. Cox passed him the tickets.

He patted the tickets against his palm with a smile. It would be nice to see Lois dressed up again; it had been so long. With her arrest and plea deal out of the way, she deserved a night out on the town. He already had Bender working with the governor’s office on a full pardon for her, since Mayson Drake seemed to think that a change in counsel for Lois meant Lex’s threats of exposing Ms. Drake as being in Bill Church and Intergang’s pocket no longer applied. He glanced up and saw Mrs. Cox still standing there watching him. “Was there anything else, Mrs. Cox?” he asked.

“Dr. Carlin is waiting to see you,” she reminded him. “Regarding the grand opening of the Luthor House for the Mentally Unstable.”

Sometimes Lex wondered if any of the women in his life were worth the trouble of dealing with their demands. Then he recalled his last session with Dr. Muldoon from the previous evening, and smiled. She was teaching him all about control and how waiting until his partner was satisfied or ‘satiated’ as she described it, would make a woman’s body more receptive to conception.

Lex didn’t care about impregnating anyone. He had sired more children than he wanted already, and usually chose the alternative route in dealing with them and their mothers, but he enjoyed Dr. Muldoon’s attentions to him as the alpha male. She had assured him that he was ready for her to bring in a second woman for him to pleasure under her strict guidance. She had spoken with a few women in the Community and found a willing first mate, or broodmare, for him. One who wouldn’t require the usual wooing. He knew having Dr. Muldoon there would make the experience more pleasurable for him. The doctor was a bit hard to please, and he looked forward to showing her what he could do with someone a little more willing.

He found that satiation also made the woman more docile, limber, and less likely to complain about his rougher activities. While he did enjoy a bit of screaming and crying now and then from his partners, silence was a nice change of pace. If he didn’t have to drug them to get them that way, all the better. His eyes darkened as he remembered showing up unannounced at Mrs. Cox’s apartment after his session with Dr. Muldoon the night before and how he had kept his assistant quiet. Lex stood up and walked over to Mrs. Cox, running his hand through her long brown hair, down her back past her butt to her thighs.

“Give me five minutes, Mrs. Cox, and then send in Dr. Carlin. When she leaves, I’ll need you for dictation,” he murmured, gliding his hand under the edge of her short skirt.

She whimpered in anticipation. “Yes, Mr. Luthor.”

Lex wondered what Lois would be like once he had her under his control. Would she be adventuresome like Mrs. Cox, frigid like his former wife, nagging like Dr. Baines, loving but boring like Toni Taylor, or domineering like Dr. Muldoon? Innocent ingénue, he hoped. Inexperienced, but wanting to please. Then he could mold Lois into whatever he wanted. Frankly, it didn’t matter what Lois would be like; it would be excellent finally to possess her.

He had thought earlier that she had been with both Superman and her partner Kent, but recently he realized that her power lay in the chase. Lois Lane was a tease, the Anne Boleyn to his Henry the Eighth. Once he possessed her, she would become the jewel of his harem. But until then…

His hand moved further up Mrs. Cox’s thigh. Yes, he would be implementing his office’s soundproofing this afternoon as he felt in the mood for some screaming. He removed his hand and returned to his desk. “That will be all for now, Mrs. Cox.”

Mrs. Cox’s chest rose and fell with her breathing. “Mr. Luthor,” she said, leaving the room and shutting the door behind her.

Lex lifted up the telephone and dialed the only phone number he had memorized.

“Lois Lane,” her brusque voice answered.

Lex could hear the noises of the newsroom, and it sounded as if she had him on speakerphone. He turned around in his chair and flipped a few switches on his computer. Her image popped up on the monitor. “Lois, darling. It’s Lex,” he said.

Quickly, she dropped the file she was working on and picked up the receiver to make their conversation quiet. “Lex, what a surprise. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“Are we still on for Thursday?” he asked, running his finger down her chin to her neck on the monitor. Despite spending last Thursday introducing himself intimately to Dr. Muldoon, he had missed his dinner with Lois and the ease of their conversation. The missed dinner had put him behind schedule, and he didn’t like to rearrange things at the last minute.

“Thursday?” Lois asked, but from her expression on the monitor, he could see quite plainly that she knew exactly to what he was referring. Tease.

“Dinner and conversation between friends,” he clarified.

“Lois! Do you have that follow-up article on the Orani Jewels heist attempt?” He could hear Perry yelling.

She covered up the receiver with one hand and pointed at it while glaring at someone, probably her boss, off Lex’s monitor. “In a minute, Chief,” she hissed, before returning the phone to her ear.

“You sound busy,” Lex said.

“Well, you know the news business, Lex. It never waits for anyone. Anyway, since Clark up and quit yesterday to work at the Metropolis Star with his new girlfriend Linda King,” she grumbled. “My workload has doubled.”

The name of Kent's girlfriend sounded familiar to Lex, but he couldn’t place it. “Then I won't keep you,” Lex replied.

He watched as Lois’s eyes widened as she realized she had never confirmed their date. “Dinner and conversation sounds wonderful, Lex,” she hurriedly interjected, to his delight. “I could really use a night off.”

Her refusal the previous week, especially after he had gone out of his way to orchestrate her arrest and bail, had been extremely vexing, but were all part of the tease package. This time he didn’t answer her right away.

Lois pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and exposed the line of her neck more distinctly. Her hair was back to the length it had been when they had met last May. He couldn’t wait until he could feel it glide through his fingers. “The usual time? Seven o’clock?” she asked.

“Will you be driving?” he inquired, running his finger down her neck to her cleavage on the monitor. “Or shall I pick you up?” Or, namely, Nigel with the limousine.

Lois scowled at someone outside of the view of his monitor. She shooed whoever had interrupted her off, and then hesitated a moment before answering, “Yes. If you don’t mind, Lex. I’ll be coming straight from work, so I’ll drive.”

He frowned, and then caught sight of the opera tickets on his desk. “While I have you on the line, Lois, I have tickets to ‘Madame Butterfly’ this Saturday night. If you haven’t seen the opera I highly recommend it.”

A large smile grew on her lips. “Lex Luthor, are you inviting me on a date?” she inquired, almost flirtingly. There again was her teasing nature. Lex wasn’t one who enjoyed being teased but, for some reason, from Lois it was exceedingly tantalizing. If she kept this up, he’d have to bring in Mrs. Cox before seeing Dr. Carlin.

Usually Lois brushed aside all his attempts to woo her due to ‘her career’, but Lex could see that she was clearly thrilled with this development. It appeared that Lois Lane was a typical romance-driven female after all; that would make this easier or at least faster. Perhaps having Kent move to the Metropolis Star was just the nudge she had needed to dip her toe in the dating pool again.

The answer to your question is a resounding ‘yes, this is a date’, he wanted to say, but didn’t. He never said what first popped into his mind. “I know you aren’t interested in dating at the moment, Lois,” Lex responded, even though that was exactly what their Thursday night dinners had been to him: dates. “We can call it two friends enjoying opera together, if you like.”

She looked a bit skeptical about the ‘enjoying opera’ part. He would bend her to his will on this one fact. Opera was essential to any good relationship. Opera was about passion, love, and triumph. Not to mention, it was the best non-culinary aphrodisiac he had ever found. He had yet to go to the opera with a woman, who didn’t open her legs to him afterwards. The champagne in the limousine didn’t hurt either. Often, they never made it back to his penthouse.

“Why not?” Lois said, relaxing back in her chair. “But you have to promise to spoil me.” She laughed. “The full ‘date’ experience.”

“I guarantee it will be a night you’ll never forget, Lois,” he replied smoothly.

“We can discuss the details over dinner tomorrow night,” she suggested. “I better work on that article for Perry.”

“Au revoir,” Lex said, hanging up the phone.

He watched as Lois jotted down their date in her agenda. She then leaned back in her chair again with a very satisfied expression on her face. She reacted to something off-screen, causing her to sit upright, and Lex clicked the volume button to hear her response, now that he didn’t have her on the telephone.

“Well, what, Cat?” Lois snapped. “Do you think I’m going to share my private life with you after you put my lunch date all over your column?”

“Who’s always saying, ‘A scoop is a scoop is a scoop is a scoop’?” he could hear Cat Grant faintly respond.

“I’m not having dinner with Lex so that you can fill column inches,” Lois informed her co-worker.

Personally, the photo had pleased Lex. It wasn’t as nice as the one he had of Lois in his private study, but he loved the concerned expression on her face, and was thankful that Cat hadn’t used any photos during the time Lois had pulled off his sunglasses.

“Mmmmm. Inches, huh?” Cat replied in her seductive tone. “How many?”

“Leave the sexual innuendo to your fan club. I’m not interested in hearing it,” Lois said, holding up her hand.

Lex heard a chair move, the click-clack of heels, and suddenly Cat was sitting within view next to Lois. Cat was resplendent in another one of her hot-pink skintight low cut dresses. No one could show off her assets like Cat Grant, except maybe Arthur Chow’s current wife. ‘Exotic dancer?’ Lex shook his head sadly at Chow’s ignorance. One didn’t have to marry the exotic dancer; she would give it away freely. With Arthur at the head of the Chow fortune, it wouldn’t be long before Lex surpassed him in wealth. All it took was one good divorce lawyer. He chuckled, jotting himself a reminder to make sure that the new Mrs. Chow had received a business card from the divorce attorney at Bender’s firm. All was fair in love and war.

“Sooooo. I heard you made a date. Spill the beans. Totally off the record of course,” Cat begged. “I’m all ears.”

“Buzz off, Cat. I’ve got work to do,” Lois said, pushing the woman off the corner of her desk.

“Is he picking you up in the limousine?” Cat probed with bouncing eyebrows. “I especially love the Bentley.”

Lex liked using his Daimler Limousine. Even if a woman didn’t know about cars, such as its make and model, an automobile as luxurious as that always impressed and made her feel like royalty.

Lois looked askance at her colleague. “Have you ever ridden in it?”

“No,” Cat admitted. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t know a nice car when I see it.”

The truth of the matter was that Cat Grant had been in his limousine. It must’ve been back ten years ago, now. Lex had just entered the Metropolis social scene. He hadn’t amassed the bulk of his fortune yet, and wasn’t known on sight as he was today. Between marrying Arianna and some not-so-legal business moves, Lex had acquired enough wealth to buy the Daimler Limousine. That night, he had wanted to treat himself to sex with a living woman, instead of his cold fish of a wife.

He had met Cat at some charity event put on by the mayor’s council. Lex had noticed Cat Grant right away by her style and curves. When her fiancé had disappeared into a closet with some cocktail waitress, and Cat couldn’t find him, Lex had swooped in and offered her a ride home. Lex had made a pass at her in the back of the limousine, but she had slapped his face and told him directly that she wasn’t that type of woman. He never allowed a woman to slap him. Instead of forcing himself on her, as he had been tempted, Lex had decided to ruin her life, one brick at a time until she begged him to take her. So, he had apologized and insisted that he hadn’t realized that she was engaged, even though it had been he who had slipped the cocktail waitress the twenty to distract Cat’s date. No point in getting himself on the wrong side of the press.

A month later, shortly after Cat’s engagement to Owen-the-philanderer had been announced in the Daily Planet, Lex had anonymously sent her a plain manila envelope of a series of photographs of her fiancé intimately involved with cocktail waitresses, socialites, and friends of Cat’s from parties Lex knew that Cat had attended as junior society journalist.

After that, Lex hadn’t given any thought to the woman, until they happened to bump into one another several years later. Lex had built up a reputation as a very wealthy man, fifth in the world at that time, and Cat was known about town as the cougar of Cat’s Column and game to do anything with anyone. She didn’t recognize him as the same man whose face she had slapped all those years earlier, and flirted with him outrageously. He could have brought her home that night or any night since, and done as he pleased with her, but he had decided the best revenge was letting Cat Grant know the sting of rejection as she had dealt it to him.

It was especially sweet payback that Lois worked with Cat. Now, Lex could continue to reject Cat’s advances with someone Cat considered below her, womanly-wise. When he heard that Cat was making a play for the number two billionaire, it had been Lex who had slipped a quarter ounce bottle of one-percent Revenge to the exotic dancer Arthur Chow was seeing on the side, via the ‘freebee in the mail’ method, and suggested that she use it on her boyfriend for an ‘extra fun time’.

Two birds with one arrow.

Lex loved it.

***

Clark was still wondering how to broach the subject of Preston Carpenter’s spot-on editorials with Linda.

Since he had suggested to Carpenter that he be partnered up with Linda until Clark knew the ropes of their company, Linda had stuck to him like glue. At first, Clark was unsure if it was because she really liked him or because Carpenter told her to keep an eye on him. Clark was only thankful that nobody had needed Superman for anything that emergency services couldn’t handle. He doubted the “source” or “trip to the pharmacy” excuses would have worked in prying Linda off him. It only made him miss and appreciate Lois even more for giving him and Superman his personal space.

Clark had never worked with a partner on a regular basis back at the Daily Planet in his old dimension. If he had, and if they were anything like Linda, it would have given him second thoughts about coming to this dimension to try to partner up professionally with Lois. Of course, Lois wouldn’t be Lois if she had acted like Linda, now would she be?

It had started the afternoon Carpenter had hired Clark at the Metropolis Star. Linda had told him at the Omir Embassy’s Orani Jewels press conference, after Carpenter’s phone call but before Lois caused that over-the-top scene, that if Clark hadn’t come to work at the Metropolis Star, she, Linda, would have considered going elsewhere. Apparently, Preston Carpenter was consistently hitting on Linda and had even asked her out to dinner yesterday evening at the Press Club, just the two of them. It wouldn’t do his undercover assignment any good if Clark were canned for dating the new boss’s girlfriend. If he had been human, it probably wouldn’t have done his health any good either.

He was only relieved that Linda let him go home yesterday evening without tagging along after work, because she had to get ready for her dinner date with Carpenter. Perry was meeting Clark at his apartment for a progress report on his assignment, so Linda being present would have let the cat out of the bag. Clark had been surprised and reassured to learn from Perry that Lois had guessed all about his undercover assignment at the Met Star. Clark had been beginning to wonder if the coffee in the face incident had been out of jealousy of Linda, instead of the lack of head’s up on his story, especially after the screaming match between the two of them at the embassy press conference. He actually had felt sorry for the Omir ambassador and Secretary Wallace.

He had been grateful for the altercation, though, because when Lois shoved Linda, she fell against Clark. He used the impact to bump against the pedestal, knocking it down to block the door, and foil the attempt to steal the Orani Jewels. He alerted security and told them that while lying in front of the closed door he heard the cocking of guns and someone trying to enter the room. He had no idea how else he could have stopped the heist without drawing attention to himself.

When Clark asked Perry why Lois hadn’t accompanied him to their meeting since she knew the truth, the Chief had told him that Lois was miffed because Clark hadn’t informed her about the story in advance. It wasn’t as if they didn’t have separate stories. She had been working on at least the Harrison murder and the Daitch EPRAD Nightfall Disaster without conferring with him about it.

Anyway, Lois had worked with him, slightly, on the elevator cable sabotage story, so technically it was their story… so she shouldn’t have had any problems coming to the story meeting at his apartment. Of course, he now realized, it also meant that he should’ve told her about his undercover assignment. Once again, things seemed to circle back around to Clark having not told Lois what he should have.

Clark had spent his entire life trying to hold on tighter than anything to his secrets. Regularly keeping someone apprised on his activities was a new skill he hadn’t quite, or at all, mastered. He wasn’t deliberately trying to withhold information from Lois, they just hadn’t been able find the time to discuss things properly. It seemed as if whenever they were alone together, work or his secret was the last thing on their minds… well, the last thing on his mind. He sighed. He really should call Lois and invite her to help confront Linda about Carpenter’s abilities to make things happen, so that the Met Star always got the scoop.

Linda had told Clark that morning in the taxi that when Carpenter made another pass at her at dinner the night before, she had informed him that they should keep their relationship strictly business. She had then slipped her hand onto Clark’s and told him straight out that Preston Carpenter wasn’t the type of man she was interested in. How convenient for her.

Clark had pulled his hand away and reassured Linda that she wasn’t the only reporter on the Met Star’s payroll who Carpenter called to check on her whereabouts. Clark had failed to mention, however, that the other reporters’ ‘scoops’ had also happened directly after receiving calls from their ‘hands-on’ publisher. Linda had reacted as if it had been a personal insult that she wasn’t the only reporter Carpenter called. To Clark, it had validated his theory there was something not right going on at the Daily Planet’s rival, but he doubted that Linda was personally involved. The way Linda reacted when she got the phone calls from her boss seemed to be more in the realm of annoyance than anticipation.

He had finally been able to duck out of the Met Star offices with the double excuse to go get him and Linda some decent coffee while meeting a skittish source who would only meet with him. He walked the long way around the block to make sure that Linda wasn’t following him and picked up the handset of the telephone outside of the Cosmo Coffee chain. Time to face the Mad Dog and call his true partner for her assistance and advice.

***

Cat set down her telephone and replayed the information that Bridgette Kahn had said about her sister Monique. Apparently, the former LexLab’s worker was dating someone high up in LexCorp, someone who had wanted to keep their relationship hush-hush. No big surprise there. Cat had already learned about Monique’s secret boyfriend when she had gone through Clark’s desk to look at his story notes on the woman’s gruesome murder.

What had been a surprise though, was the man had given Monique a silver Gucci watch. Monique had bragged about it during a phone call the week before her suicide attempt off that building. Now, what a coincidence that both Antoinette Baines and Monique Kahn, two very different women, owned the same watch. Not conclusive, or concrete evidence, but definitely something to look into. Was it possible that Lex Luthor had been handing out silver Gucci watches with tracking devices hidden inside of them to some of the women with whom he was friendly?

Cat opened her folder and gazed at the photograph she was able to get from a friend of Simon’s. The photo was of that perfumer Miranda after Lois and Clark had found her hanging from the ceiling of her shop. Pulling open her desk drawer, Cat removed her magnifying glass, the same one she had used to discover that all too familiar mole on Clark’s face. She took an extra close look at Miranda’s wrist, where she found a silver Gucci watch. The pieces were starting to fall into place.

She tapped the magnifying glass against the palm of her hand. Yes, things were becoming clearer, but what did they all mean and what kind of story would she be able to make out of all this information?

Opening up her rolodex, Cat flipped to the New Troy State Woman’s Correctional Institute and dialed.

‘At least one of Lex’s former paramours is still alive and well,’ Cat thought. ‘Let’s see if she’s willing to talk.’

***End of Part 124***

Part 125

It appears everybody is busy investigating. Comments welcome.