Author's Note: And...we're back! Here begins story number two in the What the Heart Wants universe. When we last left off, our favorite couple had decided they were, in fact, a couple. Now let's see if they can make this long-distance relationship work.
This story is complete. It will be posted daily M-F.
Chapter 1
Elsewhere in the country, Lois imagined the shift from September to October was marked by changing leaves and pumpkin patches and pop up costume shops. But in Metropolis, the only change she noticed was the need to grab a coat on her way out the door in the morning.
Lois tossed her coat over the chair beside her desk at work and sat. She opened her calendar and looked over her list for the day. And then, as it did every day, her gaze drifted to the third week of the month, when Clark would come to visit. Twelve more days, she thought as she sat at her desk that Friday morning. She smiled, and then turned her attention back to her list of tasks for the day.
The noose was tightening around Luthor’s neck. When a seventh fire had been reported the previous week, Lois went looking immediately for the Luthor connection, and it took her less than an hour to find it.
By the end of the week, she had figured it out. Every one of the seven companies was either a previous holding of LexCorp or had a chief officer who had led a division of LexCorp. And six of the seven companies were making monthly payments to Intergang for protection. She was still waiting for financials on the seventh company, but she had no doubt what she would find when she dove in.
Somehow, some way Luthor knew which of his lieutenants had defected, and he was sending a clear message that Intergang may be able to protect them from everyday riffraff, but it could not protect them from him.
She still needed proof that Beece, Inc., was Intergang. She knew it was. She just had to be able to prove it before she could write it. A series of connections, one source to another, had led her finally to someone who had previously been employed by Beece, Inc., and was willing to meet with her next week. She was looking forward to that appointment, almost as much as she was looking forward to today’s interview.
After repeated requests, Toni Taylor had finally agreed to meet with her. Toni’s lawyer would be present for their interview, and Lois had no doubt he would put a chill on the flow of information. But the fact that Toni had agreed at all was enormously encouraging. If she could get Toni to admit that Luthor had been involved in financing the original Toasters – or that he had access to those weapons – that would be the smoking gun she needed to tie him to the arsons.
Her interview wasn’t until three pm, so until then, she could work on organizing her research a little, check in with her police source about the investigation into the latest fire, and hound Jimmy about the financials.
She glanced up at the conference room. Still empty. She had time to drink her coffee and check her email. She logged in and smiled when she saw the name at the top of her inbox. She clicked it immediately and took a sip of her coffee while she waited for it to load.
From: Clark Kent <cjkent@aol.com>
To: Lois Lane <loislane@metnet.com>
Subject: Good morning
Date: October 6, 1995, 6:12am
Hey honey,
Sorry I missed your call last night. I stayed late after practice to go over the tapes from last week’s game. Tonight’s game is going to be even tougher, and we cannot get sloppy like that again, or we’re going to lose. Mercer is undefeated too, and they are gunning for us. Anyway, I stayed way too late going over the tapes, and I didn’t want to call and wake you up when I got home and heard your message.
Good luck with your interview today. You’ve got this. I’m so excited for you. I want to hear all about it.
I’ll call you after the game tonight.
Clark
Lois smiled and reread the email, butterflies dancing in her belly. Twelve more days. She could not wait to touch him again, to look into his eyes.
She clicked back out to her inbox, not bothering to reply since she would talk to him tonight before he would have a chance to check his email. She skimmed past a couple of junk messages, and clicked on the next entry.
From: Lana Ross <lanaross@aol.com>
To: Lois Lane <loislane@metnet.com>
Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Book recommendation
Date: October 5, 1995, 11:12pm
I cannot stop thinking about In the Lake of the Woods. If I float one more theory to Pete, I swear he’s going to go out for milk and never come back.
I tried calling Clark to talk about it again, but he didn’t answer. Tell him to stop avoiding my calls.
I still can’t believe he thinks Kathy ran away.
Have you two decided what we’re reading next? I was thinking Midnight In the Garden of Good and Evil? It’s supposed to be so good, and we can debate whether it was murder or self defense. Thoughts?
Lana
She closed the email, making a mental note to write Lana back before the end of the day. She really didn’t have time to start another book right now, but it was hard to say no to Lana, as evidenced by the fact that she had squirmed her way into their private book club.
She clicked out of her personal email and opened her office email.
A message from Janice in HR was at the top of her inbox. Subject line: Requested Holiday Days Off. This could not be good. Lois scowled and clicked.
She skimmed the email, her heart racing. She could feel her face getting hot. She spluttered incoherently.
“What are you having a coronary about?” Cat asked, sliding into her chair.
“They denied my request for time off,” Lois said, indignant. “I have tons of days saved. That’s ridiculous!”
“For his visit? I thought you already got that approved?” Cat shuffled through a stack of mail, only half paying attention.
“I did. That’s not… This is for November. I’m supposed to go for Thanksgiving. They just denied my request.”
Cat looked up slowly, obviously trying to stifle a smile. “You requested Thanksgiving off in October.”
Lois narrowed her eyes. “I requested it a week ago, so technically it was still September. But so what? Thanksgiving is a month and a half away!”
“Lois….” Cat said skeptically. “You can’t– You know you can’t just request a holiday off a few weeks before, right? That date has probably been blacked out for six months. At least. People request time off for holidays way in advance.”
“How was I supposed to know I would have plans for Thanksgiving six months ago?” Her voice was rising in volume and pitch. She could see her coworkers starting to give her a wide berth.
“Everyone…knows that,” Cat said, not unkindly. “I thought you knew…. That’s just how it is with popular dates off.”
“I didn’t know, because I’ve never done it!” Lois said. “I’ve worked every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every holiday since I started here. I have plenty of seniority. I could have taken those days. But I didn’t. I always work them because I know other people have…families and plans and… How was I supposed to know? I already told him-”
Lois broke off her rant, swiping at the furious tears in her eyes, and stood abruptly. “Nevermind. I’ll just go another week. It’ll be fine. I can… I don’t know. I’ll… I can’t deal with this today.”
“Conference room, people!” Perry bellowed.
Lois threw back her head and sighed in disgust. She needed a minute to pull herself together before she walked into that room and looked at all her coworkers with their neatly planned vacations and their previously requested time off.
“Can you–” she waved an arm in the direction of the conference room, and Cat raised her eyebrows, clearly shocked by this outburst. “Can you just tell him I’ll be there in a minute. Tell him I have to call a source or something. I just need a minute.”
She turned, and took off for the ladies room, dodging coworkers on their way to the morning meeting.
She stood at the mirror, hands braced on the cool porcelain of the sink, and took a few deep breaths. This was not the end of the world. She had plenty of time to figure this out. Worst case scenario, she could go another week.
Her heart clenched at that prospect. She had really been looking forward to spending the holiday with Clark and his family. And she knew he was looking forward to it as well. He had told her last week, during one of their late night phone calls, when they had been laying in bed whispering secrets, that as much as he loved Thanksgiving, he always felt like the third wheel with everyone else coupled up and asking when he was going to find a girl to bring home.
She had been so excited to give him that experience. To be the first woman he brought to a family holiday.
She felt the tears prick her eyes and blinked them back furiously.
Why was she crying in the bathroom? She was Lois Lane. She did not take no for an answer from anyone. Least of all Janice in HR. This was not over. She had a month and a half to figure this out, and she was not going to take this lying down.
She would start by talking to Perry and asking for a favor. She never asked for favors. She never threw around her Pulitzer or whined about all the unpaid overtime she put in. This paper owed her a million favors, and it was time she cashed some in.
She took one more steadying breath, feeling much more resolved, and headed back to work.
*****
Five hours later, Lois was seated at her desk, flipping frantically through the stack of financial records for TeleCorp, the latest arson victim.
She had intended to demand a meeting with Perry after the morning meeting to discuss her time off, but when she slipped into the meeting ten minutes late, Jimmy had silently slid a folder in front of her, and all thoughts of time off had flown out of her head.
Instead, she had spent the better part of the day going over TeleCorp’s financial records with a fine tooth comb, searching for payments for Beece, Inc., or something that could be Beece, Inc. She had been so sure, so confident, that it would be right there waiting for her. And it wasn’t.
It didn’t make any sense. If Luthor was punishing his underlings who had turned to Intergang for protection, then TeleCorp must be paying protection money to Intergang. But unless they were doing it off the books entirely, she didn’t know how to explain what she was seeing.
She glanced up at the clock on the computer. Two o’clock already. She needed leave now if she was going to be at the prison by three. This was going to have to wait. She sighed and straightened the stack of papers, returning them to the file folder and placing it in her bag.
She reached over to turn off her computer, and caught sight of a new email in her inbox from Janice in HR. Subject line: Re: Requested Holiday Days Off. Another email just to rub it in? Lois rolled her eyes. Who was this Janice woman anyway? Did she enjoy ruining other people’s plans?
She clicked on the email, her head slowly tilting to the side in confusion as she read the message. Her time off had been granted. She sat, frozen, trying to figure out how this had occurred. She hadn’t even had time yet to mention it to Perry. There was no way he interceded on her behalf. She hadn’t bothered to reply to the original email, so this Janice person couldn’t be responsible.
In fact, the only person who she had even told about the request….
Lois’ gaze slid to the desk beside hers, where Cat was tapping away at her computer. Lois narrowed her eyes, considering.
“My request for time off at Thanksgiving has been granted,” Lois said, letting the unspoken question hang between them.
“Oh?” Cat said, still typing. “That’s nice.”
Lois said nothing, but continued to stare. Eventually, she saw the corners of Cat’s mouth twitch up.
“Cat?” she said softly.
“Don’t go getting sentimental,” Cat said, eyes still on her screen. “I didn’t want to go to my sister’s anyway. I go every year and hate it. The turkey is dry and so is the conversation.”
“I don’t know what to say,” she said, overwhelmed by this act of kindness.
“Say you’re going to make me proud and spend the weekend swinging from the chandeliers.”
Lois laughed and shook her head. “Thank you,” she said. “This…means a lot to me.”
“Good,” Cat said, dropping the indifferent façade for just a moment and smiling at her.
Lois glanced at her clock again and grimaced. She said a quick goodbye, grabbed her coat and bag, and headed for the elevator.
The drive across town to the women’s prison seemed to take forever because of early weekend rush hour traffic. But Lois still managed to pull into the visitor lot a few minutes before three. She parked quickly and headed toward the front entrance, press credentials in hand.
When she rounded the corner, she was surprised to see a bunch of police cars and an ambulance clustered around a side entrance that was for prison personnel only. Lois watched as a stretcher was wheeled out of the building and to the ambulance, the body covered head to toe in a white sheet.
Lois quickened her step, passing the visitor’s entrance. She held up her credentials as she approached, earning an eye roll from one of the uniformed officers. Behind him, she spotted a familiar face.
“Randy!” she called.
The young sandy-haired officer nodded a curt greeting and took a few steps in her direction. He held up a hand to keep her from coming any closer. She craned her neck to try to get a look at the victim, but it was pointless.
“Lois,” he said.
“What happened? Who is that?”
“Inmate,” he said. “I can’t give you an ID yet. Not until the proper authorities have all been notified.”
“Murdered?” she asked.
Randy hesitated, and she knew she was right. If the circumstances weren’t suspicious, he would have said so immediately.
“What happened?” she repeated. “A guard? Another inmate?”
He sighed and leaned in closer. “You didn’t get this from me,” he said, and she nodded. “Inmate was in general population. In the yard. Got shanked in the neck. Was dead before the guard could get to her.”
“Is the inmate who did it in custody?” she asked.
He nodded. “Whole place is on lockdown. You supposed to be meeting with the warden? Or an inmate?”
“Inmate,” she said, cringing when he shook his head in response.
“Go ahead and brace yourself for bad news. They aren’t going to let you in. All inmates are in their cells.”
She swore under her breath. “I’ve been trying to get this interview for months. I finally got her to agree to meet with me. Who knows how long it's going to take to get her to reschedule it.
“Big story?” he asked amicably.
She shrugged. “It would be if I could get the info I need out of Toni Taylor. You remember her? Metro Gang? Went away for arson a couple years ago?”
Randy grimaced. “That’s who you’re supposed to be meeting with today?”
Lois nodded.
Randy shook his head, and darted a glance over at the ambulance, where the EMTs were closing the back doors. He leaned in again.
“You didn’t hear this from me,” he repeated. “But you’re not going to get a chance to reschedule that interview.”
He cast a glance back at the ambulance again, then back at her, eyebrows raised meaningfully.
“You have got to be kidding me,” she said.
He shook his head. “Sorry.”
She swore under her breath again, unbelievably frustrated.
“I better…” he said, jerking his head back toward the cluster of cops.
“Thanks,” she said. Then she turned and headed back for the visitor’s entrance. The interview had been unceremoniously canceled, but that didn’t mean her work was finished. There was a whole new story here, and she was first on the scene to gather the facts.
****
Lois closed her eyes and rolled her head from side to side, stretching her neck.
After learning of Toni’s untimely death, Lois had spent the next few hours making herself a nuisance at the prison until the warden finally broke down and confirmed the dead inmate was Toni Taylor. According to the warden, Toni had been a model prisoner over the last year and had no known enemies in the prison.
According to both official and unofficial sources in the prison, Toni kept to herself, and this attack was both unprovoked and unexpected. There was always a possibility that the hit had been retaliation for some long-buried grievance stemming back to Toni’s days as the leader of the Metro Gang, but Lois’ gut told her that was unlikely.
Privately, Lois thought the only thing Toni had done lately to provoke anyone’s ire…was agree to meet with her. To discuss Luthor.
Lois shoved down the twinge of guilt, and let her anger smother it.
Her front-page article about Toni’s death was complete and submitted for editing. But she couldn’t go home yet. She had to find the connection between Luthor and the attack.
His motive was clear and obvious, but she needed to discover his means. She was digging into the background of the assailant, since that seemed like an obvious place to start. But she couldn’t help but wonder if one or more of the guards were also under his thumb. Someone who could overlook a homemade weapon during routine sweeps. Someone to turn a blind eye to an attack in the yard.
Her phone rang, and she reached for it automatically, hoping it was going to be her source inside the prison, a former cop turned prison guard who had helped her out on multiple previous occasions.
“Lois Lane,” she said.
“Lois? Hey?” Her heart leapt at Clark’s familiar voice, soft with a hint of concern. Her eyes went immediately to her computer’s clock, and she realized it was nearly midnight.
“Hey!” she said.
“Sorry to call you at work,” he said. “I just… I called you at home twice and you didn’t answer.”
“It’s fine,” she said immediately. “You can call me at work. I didn’t realize how late it was. I completely lost track of time.”
“Is everything okay? How was your interview?”
She sighed. “There was no interview. I got there just in time to see the paramedics wheeling out her body. Someone got to her before I could.”
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “Luthor,” he said quietly.
“Without a doubt,” she said. “I just have to prove it. I should have gone home to wait for your call after I finished my article for tomorrow. I’m just working on the Luthor connection now. I could do that at home. But I was waiting for a call back from my prison source. I didn’t realize how late it was. He’s probably not going to call back tonight.”
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said automatically. “Frustrated. I need to figure out who knew she was meeting with me today. There’s no way this is a coincidence. Time of death was 2:43. Our appointment was at three. Waiting until the last minute like that…I doubt that was an issue of opportunity. He’s playing with me. That’s exactly the twisted sort of thing that sick-”
She bit off the end of that sentence and took a shaky breath. She could feel her skin prickle with the surge of adrenaline, and she wasn’t sure whether she was about to start raging again or burst into tears.
“It’s okay,” he said softly. “This isn’t your fault.”
There were the tears. Of course he knew exactly why she was so manic right now.
She hated crying at work. She cast a glance around, thankful the newsroom was all but empty. Most reporters were long gone for the day, and the few editors that remained were in their offices.
“Lois,” he prodded gently. “You know this isn’t your fault, right?”
“If I hadn’t set up that interview,” she said, her voice tight.
“You aren’t responsible for his decisions. And if you hadn’t pursued this story, if he got away with this, how many more people would die?”
She didn’t say anything, willing herself to believe his comforting words.
She looked up and saw Perry headed her way. He too was usually long gone by this time of night, but he had stayed late to rearrange the front page and make room for her story. She knew he was probably coming to tell her to go home and get some rest, and he did a double take when he saw her tears and the phone in her hand.
This was hardly the first time he had seen her cry. Despite all her rules, she always got emotionally involved with her stories, and there were plenty of times one had brought her to tears. But she was usually good about holding them in until they were alone in his office. And she never, ever cried in front of a source. She could only imagine what he was thinking.
“Just a minute. Perry’s here,” she said softly into the phone, then put her hand over the mouthpiece.
“Are you all right?” Perry asked, nodding his head at her phone.
She nodded. “It’s Clark.”
She saw him register surprise, and then his face softened. “That’s good, darlin’. That’s real good. You want to take that in my office?”
She was flooded with affection for him, so thankful for this man who was more than a boss, more than a mentor. She considered his offer for a moment, then shook her head.
“Actually, I just want to go home. I’ll be back tomorrow.”
He nodded. “Get some rest. You’re not going to get anything out of anyone first thing Saturday morning.”
She nodded and lifted her hand from the mouthpiece. “Hey,” she said. “I need to get out of here. Can I call you back in fifteen or twenty minutes? When I get home?”
“Take your time,” he said immediately. “I’ll be here.”
She closed her eyes and swallowed. She would have given anything in that moment to have his arms around her.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll- oh! Clark! Your game? Did you-“
“We won,” he said, and she smiled a genuine smile for the first time all night.
“Tell me all about when I get home?” she asked, knowing that would be the perfect distraction from this nightmare.
“Yeah, honey,” he said softly, his voice warming her, thawing the icy shards of guilt and fear that had coursed through her veins since she learned the identity of the victim. “Count on it.”
Last edited by AnnieM; 07/18/22 01:05 AM.
