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From Part 3:Murdered. Dave was one of those people who, as a reporter, had investigated international crime organisations, uncovered drug rings and sent child-killers to prison. And he had died because of a petty thug’s frightened shot. How ironic was that? And it wasn’t as if the business district was the home of such happenings; in fact, Lex’s private security guards were all over the place, patrolling day and night to ensure that no-one could approach the LNN building without appropriate accreditation. *She* had to show her press pass to the security guard at the door every day.
She’d get to the bottom of this. No matter what Tom said on the matter, she would make sure that she got the story and found the guy who’d done it. She’d work day and night until he was behind bars and couldn’t get out of jail until he turned to dust.
**********Part 4:Clark rubbed his eyes and rested his elbows on the guardrail. Weariness had forced him out of the office, but his mind was in too much turmoil for him to rest. He’d spent the entire afternoon gathering facts about ACL Corp. The company’s records were completely invisible, apart from the chemicals branch that had been revealed to the world by his and Lois’s investigation.
But more than his lack of findings, it was the thoughts haunting his mind that prevented him from getting anywhere. He wanted to call her. He needed to hear her voice. Three days with her weren’t enough to erase six months of loneliness, and he still had to pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t been dreaming. His quest for reality was what had driven him back here, in this small temple at the top of one of Paris’ parks.
The emotion-charged minutes they had spent up here a few nights ago were still vivid in his memory. It was as if she was still by his side, breathing in the fresh evening air and looking at the city below, its lights flickering to life as the sky got darker.
His hands smoothed over the old iron guardrail. They’d almost kissed on that first night. And if he had gone ahead and touched his lips to her then, maybe she would have kissed him back. Maybe they’d both have ensured they didn’t go beyond that first step. He wouldn’t have invited her into his apartment. He would have made sure there was no more temptation on their path.
He would have regretted it all his life.
No. There were no regrets to have. If he hadn’t made love to Lois, he’d have waited for her to fly back to Metropolis, then he’d have picked up the remnants of his hopeless existence. He would probably have felt even worse. At least now she’d given him hope that there might be a future for them.
His eagerness made it harder to bear, though. He knew it would take some time for her to end her marriage to Luthor, and in the meantime, he was haunted with memories of her body and how it had felt to hold her close.
Was he actually considering repeating the mistake he’d made that one night? He couldn’t possibly make love to her again, not until she was completely free. His ethics had suffered a serious blow with that turn of events, and the remorse he’d felt afterwards had been almost as unbearable as the six months of separation from her.
Images of their night together cascaded in his mind, and his resolve wobbled.
He was *not* going to make love to her again. Much as he hated Lex Luthor, he could not step over the boundaries that her marriage established. Only Luthor had the right to... to...
His fists clenched.
Only Luthor had the right to make love to her.
All day long, he’d fought the temptation to dash off to Metropolis and make sure she was all right. He’d struggled not to spin into the suit and fly to New Troy. He’d considered looking for the number to her office in LNN. He’d relived - through vivid images - the wee hours of that morning three days ago, when he’d woken in her arms and realised that she was real.
Tomorrow, though, he would fly back to Metropolis. Thankfully, it hadn’t taken too much persuasion on his part for the chief to let him pursue his investigation of ACL in the US. The appeal of a potential worldwide scoop about Lex Luthor probably played a large part in the French editor’s decision, as did Clark’s first front-page story. Maybe the chief was finally considering him more than the hack he’d pretended to be thus far.
In less than twenty-four hours, he’d be back home. His heart hammered in his chest at the implied consequences of his visit. There was so much he had left in the city six months earlier. Would anything look different? Would it feel like home again? Somehow he doubted that. But Lois would be there, somewhere, in one of those grey buildings that formed central Metropolis, in an area where the business suit was as essential as a tux at one of the Mayor’s expensive receptions.
The temptation to see her would be stronger than ever. She’d insisted that she be the one to get in touch with him, and he understood her reasons, but waiting for her call was getting unbearable. And once he was in Metropolis, she’d have no way to reach him, unless... unless he found a way to tell her that he was there.
He wanted to see her. *Needed* to see her. And for the first time in his life he was hoping that Lex Luthor had nothing to do with the criminal activities they’d written about. If he was involved, then chances were Lois was in danger, and that was not a possibility he could cope with. He wanted so much to believe that she was all right, that she’d already started talking to her husband about filing for divorce, and that Lex wasn’t taking the news badly enough to try and hold her back.
He wanted to believe that everything would be all right.
After the past six months, he should be aware that hope was easily smashed. He had spent an entire year longing for a relationship that had no chance of existing. Going away to lick his wounds should have taught him that hope was not something he could rely on, especially where his relationship with Lois was concerned. Even now, her rejection still stung.
And yet, how could he forget what had taken place a few nights earlier? The overwhelming attraction as they stood here in this small temple, overlooking the city... the excitement of working together again, as a team... the night of unrestrained pleasure, where past and future didn’t matter...
Yes, part of him still feared the future and what it had in store for them, but his hope had been renewed by the new turn in their relationship. He bit back a bitter chuckle - despite their separation, hope had never really died, had it? No matter how much he told himself to go slowly, it was too difficult not to dream of a better future for Lois and himself. Just when he’d been trying to turn his back on his past, she had turned up in his life and made him hope again.
He wanted to throw caution to the wind and find a way to see her over the next few days. He kept finding new excuses for an encounter with her. He had to warn her about ACL Corporation and what it linked back to. He needed her help to contact old sources in Metropolis. He craved her touch. He wanted to be there for her. He wanted her to know that he would always be there for her. He wanted to believe that she would always be there for him.
Part of him felt elated to be going back to the one place he’d considered home, but the other part was constricting his chest with fear. As big as the city was, he’d still be so very close to Lois... to her husband... to the life she was considering quitting. It was going to be hard to see her without arousing Luthor’s suspicions.
Hiding.
He was doing exactly what he had feared adultery would lead to. He was starting to think in terms of the lover who had to stay in the shadows so as not to destroy his partner’s marriage.
He heaved a sigh and rubbed at his temples. He supposed it was necessary, albeit temporary. As long as Lois’s marriage to Luthor existed, they couldn’t be public about their relationship. In fact, it was best that nobody knew about it. Not even his parents. Not that they would approve anyway, and he couldn’t blame them. He could barely believe himself that he had temporarily forgotten Lois’s married state and gone on to make love to her. If it had been a one-time thing, as he had first feared it was, he would probably not have forgiven himself - or her - for getting carried away. But it wasn’t. Lois had made it clear that she was as serious about them as he was. They had a relationship. They were a couple. How could he not get carried away by that exhilarating thought?
He had to see her again, even in secret. He had to make sure she was all right, that Luthor wasn’t doing any harm to her or trying to talk her out of divorcing him. When he had voiced his fear that her husband could physically harm her, she had looked horrified, as if the thought had never occurred to her. That should reassure him but, in truth, it terrified him. What if Luthor didn’t let her go? What if he treated her like a possession, something that he owned and wouldn’t give up?
He firmly quashed his fears. He had to trust Lois. She was pig-headed enough to convince a Bedouin to buy sand in the Sahara. Heck, if worst came to worst, she was probably able to be the worst pain in the neck Luthor had ever known, to the point when *he* would be more than happy to fill in the divorce papers.
He held onto that hope like onto a lifeline. Hope, after all, was all he had left.
*********
“What do you mean, you can’t give me anything?”
“I can’t give you anything, Lois. That’s just the way it is. I’m not on the case. I don’t have access to anything in the file. Dwight classified it as confidential.”
“Two hours. I waited *two* hours to see you, all for you to tell me you don’t have anything?” Lois slammed her cup of coffee onto the desk and ignored Henderson’s disapproving scowl. “This is not just another investigation, Bill. This is big. My boss is dead. And I want whoever who killed him to rot behind bars for the rest of their miserable life.” She grabbed a handful of tissues and dabbed at the coffee-stained desk-blotter. “They’re not going to get away with it!”
Henderson leaned over his desk. “You’re too close to this.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I’m offering you some friendly advice. You’re too close to this.”
“Well, you can take your advice and stick it where the sun don’t sh - ”
“Why don’t you leave it to the police?”
“With Dwight in charge? Who are you kidding? And somebody has to report the news anyway. The investigation of our editor-in-chief’s murder *is* news. If it’s not me, it will be somebody else.”
“Such as Linda Montoya?”
“What? Oh come on, she wouldn’t know a lead if it bit her in the butt!”
Henderson shook his head. “I see you two are still the best of friends.”
“I’m not letting her ruin this, just like you’re not gonna let Dwight ruin this either. Dave was a friend. And you may say I’m too close to the case to get the story, but I’m not letting it go.” She crumpled the coffee-soaked tissue in her hand and threw it towards the trashcan at the far end of the office. Missed.
“I should have known that one day you’d be back in the game.” Henderson got up, grabbed the offending ball, aimed at the trashcan, and scored. “You probably didn’t lose *too* many of your skills either.”
“So you’re going to help me?”
She knew she was begging. She’d always hated begging, especially for information. She usually got her leads the hard way, rarely ever negotiated with the police, and when she did, she generally found a way to hide what she found out from them until she had enough to run the story.
Henderson was different, though. He knew all her tricks and traps, and he was not foolish enough to let her manipulate him. But he was her one last contact at the precinct, the one person she trusted not to sell her half-facts or try to get to her husband through her.
She needed his help, especially if Dwight was on the case. That guy was as much the opposite of Bill as you could find. Where Henderson was honest, straightforward and thorough, Dwight was corrupt, twisted and usually rushed through every investigation. What mattered to him was the number of guys he put behind bars, no matter whether they were innocent or guilty of the crime of which they were accused. He might find a culprit for Dave’s death in a matter of hours, but it was likely that the man in question would never even have seen her editor-in-chief.
"I'll do what I can," Henderson said at last. "I can't promise you anything, but I'll give you a call if I learn anything interesting. And..."
"And I'll do the same. I know." Lois got to her feet and extended her hand out to Henderson. "And thank you. Bill, can I ask you something else, please?"
"You’re high maintenance, you know that?"
“Don’t tell Dwight I’m on it. He doesn’t like me any more than I like him, and if he learns I’m looking into it, he’ll be even more secretive about the whole thing.”
The inspector nodded his consent. “So who are you guys sending him for the official story?”
Lois grimaced. “Probably Linda.”
“Who wouldn’t know a lead if it bit her in the...”
“Precisely. So Dwight is perfectly safe with her. She’s not gonna check that he did his work properly.”
“You should send me Montoya more often. I think I like her.”
Lois ignored the taunt and got up from her chair. “So you call me, okay? Got my office number?”
“I tried to lose it, but somehow that didn’t work.”
“Pleasure to see you, too, Bill!” she threw over her shoulder before closing the door behind her. It felt good to know that some things never changed.
*********
tbc...
