Table of Contents
From Part 6:Lois nodded. “That’s a start. But unless we find a link between Lex and that bomb, we won’t be able to prove anything at all about the explosion. And that’s going to be tough - it was more than two months ago.”
“We can still try,” Clark said. “I know it’s not going to be easy, but we have to get your friend out of prison.”
“Lois, what about your sources?” Perry White suggested. “It’s been so long since I pounded the streets as a reporter - I just don’t have any contacts of my own left. But maybe someone might have a lead?”
“Good thought.” Lois scribbled some notes. “I can start asking some questions.”
“Only when you know it’s safe,” Clark warned. “Remember, you can’t let him know where you are. It might be days before you can do anything like that.”
And that need for caution, he knew, was going to hamper a lot of their work, at least until Rachel was able to come through with the evidence that Luthor had tried to kill his wife. They would just have to be patient. Even if it meant that Lois had to stay in hiding for some time to come.
*********
Now read on...They’d only been back in Clark’s apartment about ten minutes when the phone rang. To her surprise, after answering it Clark passed the receiver to her. “It’s for you, Lois.”
“Yes?” she said cautiously as she took it, on her guard even though she knew Clark wouldn’t have given her the phone if it wasn’t safe.
“You better write this in your calendar. It’s never going to happen again. I owe you an apology, Lane.”
“Huh?” What was Henderson talking about?
“I misjudged you. When you married Luthor, I thought he’d corrupted you.”
Self-disgust flooded Lois again. If Henderson and Perry had seen through Lex, why hadn’t she? “It’s worse than that, Bill,” she confessed, letting her revulsion show. “He had me completely fooled.”
“He had a lot of people fooled,” the detective commented soberly.
Lois could barely believe it. Bill Henderson passing up the chance to jerk her chain about her idiocy? Especially since she fully deserved it. She’d been
married to the man. She was - no, she had been; not any more - the best investigative reporter in the business. She
should have seen what was going on. She should have known. She’d completely lost her objectivity where Lex was concerned, and now she was paying the price.
“So you found the stuff in his basement?”
“Yup. All there, exactly as you said it would be. We’ve got art experts looking it over in situ now - a lot of museums all over the world are going to be very grateful to you.”
“All I want to know is what you’ve done with him,” she retorted. She just hoped that Lex hadn’t somehow managed to escape being arrested.
“Oh, he’s cooling his heels in a prison cell right now. Not that he’s happy about it,” Henderson added dryly. “Last I heard, he was demanding his phone call.”
“You actually got him into prison?” Lois’s eyes widened. “I’m amazed you managed to move him from the penthouse. He’d have demanded a lawyer before he’d even agree to talk!”
Lex was in prison! That could mean that she was safe - he couldn’t try to kill her from a prison-cell, could he?
“He didn’t have much choice.” Again, Henderson’s tone was dry. “We turned up with a search warrant. And, thanks to your descriptions, we had information enabling us to identify some of the stuff as stolen there and then. As soon as we did that, I read him his rights and took him in. He wasn’t happy - kept insisting that he had no idea the stuff was there and that it must have been stored there without his knowledge. But I made it clear it was that or be charged with resisting arrest.”
Oh, Lex would have loved that! Lois stifled a giggle. “I wish I’d been a fly on the wall!”
She could almost hear Henderson rolling his eyes at that. “I don’t expect him to be in prison for long,” the inspector continued. “He’ll be out on bail as soon as his fancy, expensive lawyer gets here, which’ll be any minute now. So if I were you I’d keep well out of his way.”
Oh, she should have known that it couldn’t last. He was out. Free. And he’d be furious about his arrest and determined to find out who was responsible so that he could exact punishment. It was even possible that he could put two and two together and realise that Lois had remembered... and she’d be in even more danger.
But then Henderson’s unspoken sympathy, and the fact that he’d had his suspicions about her husband all along, gave her an idea. “Bill, I have another tip-off for you,” she said abruptly.
“What? Turning yourself in as accessory after the fact?” He laughed. “I don’t think so.”
“No. My almost-drowning - that wasn’t an accident. Lex tried to kill me.”
She could hear his sharp intake of breath, before he recovered and said, in a more businesslike tone, “Tell me what happened.”
She related the facts in as calm a voice as she could manage. He was taking notes, she could tell; the way he asked her to repeat some things and clarify others gave it away to her. She’d had enough practice at it herself over the years, after all.
“How did you get away from there, then? There’s no way you went back to him after you were washed up.”
She explained the rest of what she’d agreed on with Clark. “A friend who’d been looking for me found me. He smuggled me back across the border and took me to his home in Kansas. We’ve been keeping one step ahead of Lex ever since.”
“Okay. So tell me who I need to talk to to get hold of the drug evidence.”
Lois turned to Clark; he scribbled for a second and then handed her a piece of very neatly-written-on paper. She raised her eyebrow. Super-hearing and super-speed. Right.
She recited the contact details for Rachel Harris, silently agreeing with Clark that it was best to route contact through the sheriff rather than the doctor. Small-town courtesy, she guessed.
“Thanks. I’ll get onto it immediately. And I’ll contact the Canadian police too - I can’t see them refusing to co-operate in an attempted murder investigation. They can get a search warrant to look for the drug packet. Luthor’s fingerprints on that should be enough to prove it, especially if they can find the empty ampoule.” The loathing in Henderson’s voice was audible.
It sounded too good to be true, and it was. “Bill, he had a towel wrapped around his hand the whole time. There won’t be any fingerprints.”
“What, even getting an ampoule out of a blister pack and breaking it open? I doubt it. Come on, Lane, you used to be better than that.”
He was right. She had been better than that. Much better. But she would be again. She had to be - she had a lot to make up for.
“Thanks. I appreciate this.”
“No thanks necessary.” Now his tone was gruff. “I’ve been wanting to put him away for a very long time. You’ve just given me more than I ever thought I’d be able to get against him. Shame I can’t give you the exclusive,” he added, taking her hugely by surprise; in the past, he’d always fought her tooth and nail whenever she’d demanded an exclusive.
“Yeah, shame,” she replied, deliberately aiming for a sardonic tone. It wouldn’t do to let Henderson see how affected she was by all of this - including his sympathy.
Or how... elated she felt at the knowledge that
he was going to be locked away for a very long time, if all the evidence fell into place.
“Oh, and Lois? I’ll see what I can do to stall his bail application until I can get this checked out. If there’s enough to justify charging him with attempted murder, he won’t set foot outside his jail cell for the foreseeable future, no matter what fancy footwork his expensive lawyer tries.”
Relief flooded her. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Hey, if anybody’s going to wring your neck one of these days, Lane, it’s going to be me.” And with a short bark of laughter Henderson hung up.
**********
As Lois replaced the receiver, Clark crossed to her side. She smiled at him as he approached, but he was well aware that she was far from fine. He’d noticed her heart-rate increase from fast to rapid during the phone conversation, and she’d been gripping the receiver so tightly her knuckles had been white.
“You did great, Lois,” he said softly, wrapping his arm around her shoulders. “He believed you. And it sounds like he’s going to do his best to prove that you’re right.”
She nodded. “Henderson’s the best there is. The only reason he never made it higher than inspector is he doesn’t believe in diplomacy. He says it like it is - the top brass doesn’t like that.”
Clark recognised her attempt at deflecting the conversation for what it was, and refused to let her get away with it completely. “I’m glad you told him. Rachel believed us, too, but a sheriff from a small town in Kansas can’t do much - especially as she doesn’t even have jurisdiction. The crime took place in Canada and you live in Metropolis.”
“True. Plus Henderson has contacts all over the place. He seemed confident of getting the Ontario police to co-operate.”
“I noticed.” Even though she was carrying on a rational conversation, Lois was beginning to shake. Reaction again, Clark knew. He tightened his arm around her, letting her know that he was there for her.
“Oh, Clark!” The words came out on a half-sob. He tugged her into his arms, holding her against his chest.
“It’s okay, Lois. You’re safe. He’s going to get put away,” Clark murmured, stroking her hair. “He’ll never be able to do this to you again.”
She snuggled close to him, and he ached once more to kiss her. But he wouldn’t. Not until she was free.
Even still, just holding her was enough. Knowing that in his arms she felt safe. That he could protect her - and she wanted him to protect her. At the same time, her hair was silky under his fingers, making him want so much more. To taste her - to find out if her lips were as soft and inviting as he imagined.
But she wasn’t free. And right now all she wanted from him was comfort. And that was what she would get.
“It’s not just what he did to me,” she said shakily. “Though that was bad enough... It’s how
stupid I’ve been!”
”Lois, you can’t beat yourself up about this for ever,” he said gently. “You were fooled. And, I know, because you’re the best when it comes to investigative reporting you think you should’ve seen it and that you have to tear yourself apart because you didn’t. You have to remember that he set out to fool you! He was very clever about it, too - you told me how he charmed you and courted you. He never gave you any reason to believe that there was anything suspicious about him, did he?”
She shook her head. “But if Perry knew... Henderson knew...”
“All they had were suspicions. And, okay, you missed it, Lois. I won’t pretend that you didn’t. But, like I said, he set out to make very sure that you suspected nothing. And anyway, everyone makes mistakes. What matters is what you do to put things right,” he told her, relying on a nugget of his father’s wisdom, repeated over and over to him as he’d been growing up.
She was silent for several moments. Then, just as he thought she was about to reject his advice, she nodded. “You’re right. And I’m going to do everything I can to put it right!”
Too soon, she pulled away from his embrace, raking her fingers through her hair and avoiding his gaze. “You must think I’m such an idiot. Falling apart every other minute...”
“Hey, after what you’ve been through I’m amazed you’re as together as you are!” he exclaimed with complete sincerity. “From the little you told me about last night, you must have been terrified.”
She nodded. “He wouldn’t say what he was going to do with me, and that made it far, far worse - I was imagining all sorts of things. If you can believe it, killing me seemed the least bad option. The creepiest thing of all was the way he kept behaving as if everything was normal - I mean, like we were still happily married and he was only keeping me there for my own good. And... and he wanted us to...” She shuddered visibly. “He talked about having... sex...”
Clark had to turn away to hide his reaction. Apart from stark, outright jealousy, which he had absolutely no right to feel - Luthor was Lois’s
husband, after all - everything inside him recoiled at the thought that a man who would calmly try to murder his wife still wanted to be intimate with her. No; he corrected himself. Use her body. There was nothing intimate about sex if the couple involved didn’t share any emotional intimacy, was there?
But Lois didn’t need to be aware of how he felt about what she’d said. “He’s in jail, Lois. And your cop friend pretty much promised to keep him there. He can’t get to you.”
“No,” she agreed. She took a deep, shuddering breath and then continued, pacing up and down the room. “But he has... minions everywhere. And even in jail he can control them. There’s Nigel, for instance. Nigel knows Lex wants me dead - if he knew where I was, he’d come after me.”
“Yeah, but neither Luthor nor this Nigel know who they’re dealing with,” Clark reminded her, wanting to reach out for her again but unsure if she’d welcome it now. He could see how hard she was fighting to keep control of her emotions. “If they want you, they’ve got to come through me.”
At last, she smiled. “I know. I’d love to see them try to take you on!” Then she frowned again. “But you have to be careful. They
can’t know who they’re dealing with. You can’t afford to let them find out, Clark! Your life - your parents’ lives - wouldn’t be worth living. I know how big-time criminals operate. They’d use your parents to make you do stuff you’d never dream of doing.”
He nodded. That was something he’d been aware of for some time - that, while he couldn’t be hurt, his parents could. It had forced him to limit his activities considerably. “Yeah. That’s what I hate, you know? There’s so much I could do - stuff I’d love to be able to do. But if the world knew that Clark Kent could stop avalanches or put out fires with his breath or land planes on his back...”
“Whoa, whoa!” Lois exclaimed. “Back up there a second! What’s this about stopping avalanches? Landing planes?”
Clark shrugged. “Just things I’ve done a couple of times.”
“You
what?”
“Lois, my powers are pretty amazing. I can do all sorts of stuff - I mean, so far I haven’t found anything I can’t lift, and since nothing can hurt me it’s easy for me to fly into, say, burning buildings or the centre of a volcano. I grabbed people out of the path of the lava the last time Vesuvius erupted. A few years ago, I was hiking in the Alps when I heard an avalanche start way up on the mountain - so I flew up and pushed a few rocks in the way of the slide and managed to stop it. It’s nothing to me, but it saves lives. I just wish I could do more,” he added regretfully. “But, as it is, I’ve taken more risks than I should.”
“Wow,” Lois said softly, and sank back onto the couch. “You are amazing, do you know that?”
He shrugged. “I just try to help, Lois. It’s only what anyone would do. I mean, if you passed someone in trouble on the street and you could help them, wouldn’t you?”
“What? In this city?” She rolled her eyes at him. “You stop to help someone and next thing you’ve been mugged. Or worse.”
“It’s not that bad, Lois!” he exclaimed. “Seriously. People help other people who are in trouble. If you saw someone being attacked, you’d call the cops, even if you weren’t able to come to their rescue. I
can come to their rescue. It’s just... I can’t afford to let anyone know what I can do. I’ve had to move on before because a couple of people started looking at me suspiciously.”
“Move on? You mean, when you were working in different countries?”
“Yeah. You know I said I was in London for a while? There was an incident on the subway - the Tube, they call it - one day. Someone was standing too close to the edge of the platform and she got pushed just as a train was coming. I was a few feet back, but the platform was full of people - so I jumped over their heads and grabbed her just before she hit the track. The train hit my arm as I jumped back onto the platform, and I know people saw. Including a guy who lived in the same apartment building as I did. A cop - they have transport police - tried to talk to me, but I got on the train before he could catch me. Anyway, after that I decided it was time to leave.”
Lois was looking thoughtful. Suddenly, she looked up, and he could see a light in her eyes which worried him slightly. It held determination and inspiration; it made him wonder if he was seeing Lois Lane, famous investigative reporter, once more.
“You know what you need?” she said, her tone suggesting that she intended to brook no argument.
“What?” he asked warily.
“A disguise.”
“Huh?” What on earth was she talking about?
“You know. Like the Lone Ranger. Or Zorro. They wore disguises. The Lone Ranger was really a guy called John Reid, and Zorro was Don Diego. But no-one knew who the man under the disguise was. No-one even imagined that someone like Don Diego could possibly be Zorro. Not even his girlfriend. And his enemies couldn’t understand why they could never find him.”
“Yeah,” Clark said slowly. “He was just the antithesis of his alter ego, wasn’t he?”
Lois arched an eyebrow. “Encounter much trouble with blue pencils when you write, do you?”
“Huh?”
“Use words like antithesis in articles and I could see subs rolling their eyes at you.”
Clark grinned. “Not if you’re writing for a better class of newspaper.” But then he sobered. “I see what you’re saying. If I had some sort of... disguise... then I could help people and nobody would know it was me.”
“Yeah. I mean, who’d associate a masked rescue worker doing incredible things with an ordinary reporter? Especially if you acted as if there was nothing extraordinary about you. I mean, when you’re saving people you’d have to be very commanding and in control, wouldn’t you? If you weren’t like that as yourself...”
“What, I should be weak and indecisive and accident-prone?” Clark couldn’t help laughing.
“I can’t see that!” Lois retorted. “But just... oh, I don’t know. Not assertive. Friendly. Kind of the way you are, really.” Then she grinned. “Just a mild-mannered reporter, right? No way you could be the Flying Rescue Guy in disguise.”
“Right, so I should wear a mask and... what? Like a fireman’s outfit? Or a great big red cross on my shirt?” Clark grinned at her in return, enjoying the game. At least the conversation, ridiculous as it was, was distracting Lois from thinking about her husband. Distracting her from the fear which he knew still consumed her...
“I think we need to work on the outfit,” Lois answered. Her tone told him, to his amazement, that she was actually taking the conversation seriously. She really did think that he should adopt some kind of disguise so that he could help people the way he wanted.
Was it possible...?
He dropped down on the sofa next to her. If he did have a disguise - a secret identity - he could do all kinds of things. That plane crash in Atlanta the previous month, for example... He’d heard the news report about a plane in trouble. He’d ached to fly down and land the plane safely, but he’d known that it was impossible. Atlanta airspace was just too busy - he’d never have escaped notice. And so the plane had gone down. Crash-landed on a stretch of highway a few miles from the airport. He shuddered at the memory.
In disguise, he could have flown down. Taken care of the problem. Landed the plane safely. And a couple of hundred lives would have been saved, including those on the ground.
And there were many more occasions he could think of, where he could have helped if he’d been able to do so without fear of discovery. Earthquakes. Train crashes. Armed robberies. Fires. Traffic pile-ups. Kidnappings. Murder attempts.
He glanced briefly at Lois. Without his special abilities, she would be dead. How many other lives could be saved if he were able to do more?
Lois touched his arm; he felt the warmth of her hand and almost glowed inside. “You’re tempted, aren’t you?”
He nodded. “Yeah.”
“Then do it.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“What’s not easy about it?” She shrugged. “Okay, so you need to come up with a disguise, but that wouldn’t be too difficult, would it?”
“Probably not,” he agreed. “My mom’s great with a sewing-machine. I’m sure she’d help.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
He hesitated, trying to put his concerns into words. “I guess... I’m just unsure about the sort of reaction I’d get. I mean, what if people don’t trust me? Or decide that I’m more of a threat than what I’m trying to help them with? I mean, Lois, I’m invulnerable! And can you imagine what I could to with my strength?”
“Amazing things,” she said immediately. “I mean, I remember the Planet explosion. It was horrible. People were trapped under rubble for hours. You wouldn’t have needed special equipment or anything like that, would you? You could’ve had them out in minutes.”
“Probably,” Clark agreed. And it was something else he’d done secretly in the past. “Lois, the problem is that people tend to be... well, scared of anyone who’s different. And when those differences include making someone powerful enough to... Lois, if I wanted, I could take over the world! There’s nothing strong enough to beat me. I could crush a human being between two fingers if I wanted to. That’s more than enough for people - for governments - to decide that I’m a threat.”
“I see what you mean,” she said slowly. “But you’re not like that, Clark. And it’s simple - all you have to do is show people that you’re
not a threat. I mean, if all you ever do is show up at accidents and save lives, I don’t see why people shouldn’t trust you.”
“Yeah, but nobody would know who I was,” Clark pointed out. “I mean, a masked man... got to have something to hide.”
“True.” Lois seemed to muse on that for a moment. Then she said, “Don’t wear a mask.”
“What?” He stared at her. “I thought the idea was not to be recognised.”
“Take off your glasses.”
He did. She leaned towards him and ran her fingers through his hair, seeming to be trying to style it differently but, whatever she was doing, he really loved the sensation.
“There.”
“What?”
“No glasses, different hairstyle. It’s a start. And if your costume is striking enough it’ll divert attention away from your face anyway. Plus, like I said, if you behave differently as Super Rescue Guy then why should anyone associate him with Clark Kent, reporter?”
It sounded like a huge risk. But, on the other hand, it was very tempting...
The phone rang.
He answered it. It was Inspector Henderson again, and he passed the phone to Lois. Listening in, he heard that Henderson was calling to say that he’d spoken to Rachel Harris and the Canadian police and that he was on his way to Smallville - and that he’d already informed the DA that a more serious charge was going to be made against Luthor once the evidence from Smallville and Ontario was in Metropolis. So there was no way that Luthor was going anywhere for the time being.
Before hanging up, Henderson added dryly, “You might want to listen to the news.”
Clark glanced at his watch; almost three in the afternoon. Crossing to the kitchen, he flipped on the radio. Within a few minutes, a news bulletin came on.
“...and, in breaking news, this shock report: Lex Luthor, head of LexCorp, Luthor Industries and a number of other companies, has been arrested on charges of receiving stolen goods after several priceless art treasures were found in his possession and with his fingerprints on them. In even more disturbing news, our sources within the MPD suggest that Mr Luthor is also being questioned concerning the disappearance of his wife, Lois Lane Luthor, who it appears may not have perished in Lake Superior, as was reported yesterday.
“We have reactions from some of Metropolis’s business community and a leading politician to this incredible story, later in the programme...”
*********
...tbc
