****************
Part Three
Huntsville, Ontario
As they sat in a quiet corner of the busy Swiss Chalet restaurant, Anna couldn’t figure out how David always managed to insinuate himself into her life rather than take the hint that she didn’t want to date him. Hint! There was no hint. She had told him directly, more than once, that she wasn’t interested in dating, so he came up with all different kinds of lame plans, ones she couldn’t resist, to spend time with her. Talking about the Honda Civic was one of them. She’d reminded him of his purpose a few times already, but he had been avoiding the issue, using the time instead to talk about everything and nothing. Now they were ordering coffee, and he still hadn’t mentioned the car.
"Morrow, do you know anything about the Civic or is this your slimy way of using this meal as a tax write-off?"
"Anna, I’m wounded that you’d even think that way. If I wanted to write off this meal, I would’ve talked to you about all the plaque I found in Jesse Sherman’s arteries."
"Do you know anything about the Civic? Have you seen it before?"
"No."
"Then what kind of games are you playing?"
"I’m not playing games. I have some ideas that I thought I’d share with you."
"Such as..."
"Such as have you thought of checking through WrecksFor Lease."
"Why?"
"No one reported that car missing, right?"
"Yeah. So?"
"Well, then maybe an individual didn’t lose his car, but then maybe because the body was in such lousy condition, maybe he got it from a Wreck For Lease..."
"So that he could dump it?"
"That’s where I’m having problems. I can’t figure out why he dumped it here, in the middle of nowhere..."
"And took off with the plates? So all I need to do is check out the Wrecks For Lease places..."
"You know, we do work well together."
Anna rolled her eyes. "You haven’t helped me out that much. I’ve got Pete looking into car rental agencies."
"Well then, maybe you should stop using these stupid work excuses as a reason to spend time with me. After all, Anna, I wouldn’t be completely adverse to taking you out on a proper date. You know. We dress up, go somewhere nice. I tell you you’re handsome, and you say I’m beautiful. Things like that."
"What’s your point?"
"Go out with me."
"I told you, I don’t date."
"That makes no sense at all. You’re single, you’re beautiful...now don’t make that face...and you’re smart. I’m single, a professional and my mother says that I’m good-looking."
"David, I’m not interested." She took out her wallet and threw some money on the table. "That should cover my half."
"You know there’s something between us," he said to her back. Anna stopped for a nanosecond, then stood taller and headed out the door.
He leaned back in his seat. There was something between them, he knew it and he knew that she knew it. He’d never met such a desirable woman before, and it just wasn’t because she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. He’d wear away at her slowly hoping that no competition would show up.
As he waited for his credit card receipt, his mind drifted, as it often had over the past month, to his Cinderella he’d met so many nights ago. It was interesting how time put things in perspective and, at the same time thwarted reality. Time had told him what he’d only suspected then: he’d been dreaming, well, except for the belt that he kept in his night table. The moment he had had with Cinderella was just that--a moment, an early morning fantasy surrounding him in a heavenly aura. He didn’t want her back. He wanted Anna. If only...Sighing, he signed the receipt and followed her out of the restaurant.
**************
Metropolis, New Tory
When Clark returned to their Hyperion Avenue home, Lois was at her desk talking on the phone. He was surprised to hear her speaking soothingly. She waved him over, and as he perched himself at the edge of her desk, he listened as she placated the caller. How unlike his Lois who had no patience for most people and who had one of the most abrupt telephone personas he’d ever encountered.
It didn’t take him long to figure out why her tone was so understated. She was talking to Shelley Hamilton who was doing everything to maintain her own calm and keep her family going. He glanced at the calendar on his wife’s desk. Three months had passed since Jeremy Hamilton had gone missing. Lois and Clark had turned over every possible stone without finding anything that would help. Clark still believed that the answer lay locked inside Emil Hamilton who had been moved to a nursing home. The doctors said that his speech would return slowly, but at this point, he was disoriented and only made sounds that didn’t seem to have any logical meaning.
Lois clasped Clark’s hand as she promised for the hundredth time that she would let Shelley know if she heard any news. As she hung up the phone, Clark signalled her to follow him to the couch in the living room. He wrapped his arms around her allowing her to snuggle into him as he soothed her.
"It’s awful, Clark. How can she carry on?"
"She’s got two young children. She has no choice."
"If you disappeared like that I’d shut down completely."
"So would I." He brought her closer to him, placing light kisses in her hair. He wasn’t so sure that Lois would shut down. Knowing his wife, she’d probably move heaven and earth to find out what had happened to him. But he knew that this wasn’t about Lois and him, it was about Lois empathizing with Shelley.
They sat in silence for a short time just feeling better that they could be in each other’s arms.
"Bernie’s finished all the tests," Clark finally said.
"He did? Why didn’t you say something sooner?" Lois sat up straight, looking her husband in the eye.
"I thought you needed me to hold you for a while...and I think that I needed it, too."
"I did. We did. But now I want to hear what he had to say."
"Well, first of all, the remains belonged to an infant girl. Kryptonian."
"You weren’t the only one who landed on earth!"
"So it seems. He also said that the baby wasn’t related to me. DNA didn’t match."
"What else did he say?"
"The space ship has been on earth for approximately thirty years..."
"The same length of time that you’ve been here..."
"And it’s made out of the same material as my space ship." Clark got up and began to pace.
"Clark? Maybe you weren’t supposed to be alone all those years. Maybe she was supposed to be with you?"
Clark stared at Lois. "It would’ve been nice to have someone like me while I was growing up, but I believe that you are my soul mate. No one else could take your place."
"But you’ve lost someone here."
"Maybe a sister. Maybe a friend. I did lose someone I never knew I had to lose." He sat beside Lois again, and this time she held him in her arms, trying to make up for this impalpable loss. "For a moment, I wasn’t the only one here, and now, once again, I’m the only Kryptonian on earth."
Lois pulled him closer to her, settling light kisses on his head. "Which makes you even more special since you’ve travelled a long way to be with me." She turned his face towards her. Looking intently into his eyes, she moved her lips toward his.
Their lips touched tenderly. She brushed her tongue over his lips until he opened his mouth. Surrounded by his scent and taste, she became enveloped in his kiss, letting him linger for a while.
As they kissed, Lois tried to show her love that she would never let him be alone again. And she thought about the baby whose parents tried to save her.
"Did you ever think of doing a search for someone who would be like you?" Lois asked.
"I tried, but the kind of information that I had wasn’t helpful. Would he have been adopted or are there other ways a child could be hidden in a family? Would he even be the same age as me? I was around three months old when my parents found me. What if the child was older? I found the space ship in China. It could have landed anywhere in the world. A ship could’ve landed in the ocean and sunk. I even looked in newspapers to see if there was a light phenomena such as the one in Smallville when my space ship crashed to the ground. Nothing."
Lois shrugged her shoulders. "Let’s keep looking. Maybe there’s some chance."
***********
Huntsville, Ontario
Anna McLaren stood over the remains, scanning the area around her. This looked like the big case she’d always hoped for, but the decomposed body in front of her reminded her of the old saying: be careful what you wish for.
"Call Doc Morrow," she said to Pete Byford. "Tell him we’ve got a body that needs a post mortem."
She then turned to Luke Bryson. "Tell me again how you found the body."
"Like I said, I was comin’ over to the summer camp. I do this every May. I clean up the outside, rake the leaves, pull weeds, you know, and when the weather gets warm enough, I put in the docks. I was comin’ over behind their dining hall to pick up some tools I left in the shed when I tripped over this bump on the path. It was all covered in leaves and twigs. I looked down at it, and I saw that hand. Then I took this here shovel and scraped some of the coverin’ off and I saw the head. That’s when I called your office."
"Do you usually clean up after the camp is shut down?"
"Yup."
"When did you do that?"
"Last October."
"Do you remember the date?"
"Nope. Just that it was right after Thanksgivin’ cuz the counsellors come up for the week-end and after that I shut down. I don’ like waitin’ long after that cuz the frost can warp the dock."
"Anybody been up here between shut down and today?"
"Not that I know of. Maybe a hunter or somethin’. I could see if anyone was in any of the buildin’s."
"Go ahead and do that, but if you see something different, don’t touch anything. Call one of us."
Anna watched Luke stride off toward the camp buildings. This was a summer camp for kids. Why would there be a body buried under a pile of leaves and twigs? Someone didn’t have time to dig a grave or didn’t care to.
"Damn," she said to no one in particular.
Within a half an hour, David Morrow had driven up in the town hearse. Working in tandem with the police, he prepared to move the body to the morgue. As he worked, he made off-handed observations to Anna.
"There’s been decay here which means that he was here before the cold weather really set in."
"Can you give me a date?"
He smiled impishly at her. "Are you asking me for a change?"
"Come on, Morrow. You know what I mean."
"If you want an approximate date, I’d say before the middle of November, but you’d have to check a calendar for the first frost and the last warm day. I can’t tell from looking how many days he was decomposing."
David scraped away the covering of leaves and twigs from the body, trying to loosen ones that had stuck to the decomposing flesh. "Come here. Look at this," he said to Anna. As she crouched down beside him, her foot slipped on a wet leave, and she teetered to the side. He reached out, placing his hand on her elbow to brake her fall. As he held onto her, ensuring that she was maintaining her balance, he noticed her eyes avoiding his.
"I’m all right," she said shrugging his hand off her elbow.
He stared at her a moment longer and then turned his attention back to the body in front of them. "Look," he said. "There’s an indentation at the back of his skull. He may have been hit with something. I’ll need to get the body back to the morgue before I can let you know more."
***********
tbc
