PREVIOUSLY...
Clark froze in his tracks. Suddenly, his previous suspicions that somehow this was all connected to Carpenter didn’t seem quite so crazy. Not that he knew anything, but... Still, even if he did get to the bottom of it, it wasn’t as if The Star would ever run it.
Maybe he should run his theory past Linda. Maybe they could... No. No, he couldn’t do that. After all, if he was wrong, and if Carpenter realized that he and Linda were looking into a connection between the last few ‘accidents’ and Carpenter, Linda would lose her job. So would he, for that matter. But that was his choice. He wouldn’t make that choice for Linda.
So who could help him find out... His thought trailed off as one person leapt to the forefront of his mind.**
AND NOW...
* * * * * * * * *
Chapter Thirty-Six
* * * * * * * * *
“I remember how skeptical I was when you showed up on my doorstep with some wild story about Carpenter being behind the ‘accidents,’” Lois said. “I was sure it was a scheme to get to me again.”
“There was probably an element of that,” Clark admitted.
Lois’ eyebrows rose. “It’s a good thing I didn’t know that at the time. Or... well, I probably did. But you had something that I wanted.”
“The story?”
Lois shook her head. “Answers. Clark, I was so confused - especially after that story about you going into a burning building to rescue a woman you didn’t even know. It made me wonder exactly what you had the power to do. I mean, I knew about the speed and the flying. I even knew that you’d caught a missile and then apparently flown out of my apartment to explode it. I even suspected you had freezing breath and laser vision. But... I just had so many questions.”
“Are you saying that you didn’t care about the Carpenter story?”
“When have you ever known me not to care about a story? Still, I probably agreed to help you at least as much because of my own questions.”
He nodded slowly. “I can still remember us breaking into Carpenter’s office,” Clark said before beginning his story.
**The best way to describe their trip to The Star was probably to say that it was full of awkward silence. For one thing, seeing Lane dressed as a man - and knowing that when they got to The Star he was going to have to treat her like a man - was not exactly comfortable for Clark. The moustache. The suit and tie. No, definitely not working for him. For another, other than her initial skepticism about his reasons for approaching her with this story, she’d hardly been able to look at him.**
“I was so completely distracted by all the questions running through my mind. Like did you have heat vision. Or what about freezing breath. And why didn’t you just put out the fire in that hotel if you had freezing breath?”
“Yeah, well... since I didn’t know any of that, I thought you just couldn’t stand to be around me. Anyway, then we got past security and onto the newsroom floor...”
**Clark glanced around, but no one was paying any particular attention to them. On the other hand, a couple of people glanced in their direction. Clark acknowledged them with a nod. Lane had been right. If Lois Lane had walked into the newsroom, every single person would have been watching and whispering. But Clark with some man... Not of any particular interest - particularly given how few people were actually there at this time of night.
Taking a deep breath, and acting as if he had every right to be doing what he was doing, Clark led them directly to Carpenter’s office. Once inside, he closed and locked the door before turning on the light.
Lane marched straight for the computer, turning it on and taking a seat at Carpenter’s desk.
Just then the doorknob on the office door jiggled. They turned to see a large shadow through the frosted glass. A quick x-ray of the door told him who it was. Carpenter’s assistant!
“Damn!” Lane said, looking frantically around for a place to hide.
Clark looked around, too. There was a desk; Lane could hide under there. Unless, of course, the man decided to sit down at the desk. And without knowing what he was doing there...
Still, there was nothing else. He saw Lane make a dive for the floor to get under the desk when he made his decision.
“Eek!” Lane screeched when he wrapped an arm around her.
A second later, Clark had both of them floating on the ceiling.”**
“I remember that,” Lois said. “One minute I was scrambling to get under the desk and the next... I’m lying on top of you as we floated on the ceiling.”
**It took Lois a moment to realize what had happened. “Kent, what are you...”
“Shh!” Kent hissed.
The door clicked open. Lois instantly quit struggling against Kent. This was insane. They were out in the open where all it would take was a quick look up to reveal, not only their location, but Kent’s secret.
So it was with disbelief that Lois watched a man she didn’t know walk across the office, pick up a file, and walk back out, locking the door behind him. Lois buried her face in Kent’s shoulder and let out a breath of relief as Kent floated them both back to the floor. Once he released her, he quickly stepped away muttering a hasty apology.
“Why are you apologizing?” Lois asked, genuinely confused.
“Well, you know... Because...”
He wasn’t looking directly at her - more an over the shoulder look. And suddenly, Lois realized that he seemed to be blushing.
“Are you blushing?” she asked.
“I’m not blushing,” he objected indignantly, quickly turning his attention back to the computer that was now blinking that a password was needed. “Looks as if we have a problem.”
“Not...” Lois’ voice trailed off as she looked back at the spot where they had been floating mere seconds before and then looked at Kent. Suddenly, she understood. It seemed Kent was having a slight physical reaction to the fact that she’d been lying on top of him. A small, satisfied smirk pulled at one corner of her mouth.
“I have no idea what the password might be,” Kent said, obviously trying to redirect the conversation.
Okay, well, that was fair - given the circumstances. Still, it was slightly gratifying to know that she could effect him so easily. Of course, she’d been so caught off balance that she hadn’t had time to realize exactly how close she had been to Kent. If she had been... Okay, time to change the subject. “Password...” She took a seat on the desk next to Kent. “Well, what do we know about Carpenter? Try... ‘The Star’”
Clark did before a new idea seemed to hit him. ‘Kane,’ he tried.
“Why Kane?”
“Carpenter has a Citizen Kane fixation.”
“So he wants to be like William Randolph Hearst?”
“I guess so.”
“‘Give me the photos; I’ll give you the war’ - that Hearst?”
Kent nodded.
“Sick.”
“What about... ‘Hearst?’” Kent typed ‘Hearst’ into the password box.
“Wait! You said his fixation is with the movie. What about... Rosebud?”
“Rosebud,” Kent said at the same moment.
They grinned at each other before typing in the word.
“Great minds think alike,” Lois said when the computer beeped that the password was accepted.
“Look! Here’s the editorial that went with the hotel fire.”
Lois reached over his shoulder, stealing the mouse so that she could scroll on down. “Here’s the one on building inspections that ran with the elevator accident. Wait a minute!” For a moment she was silent before she began reading. “An eye for an eye is the only course this country can take after today’s brutal assassination of Secretary Wallace at his hotel by Omir extremists...” She looked up at Kent. “Wallace isn’t dead.”
“Yet.”
“Carpenter’s willing to kill a member of the cabinet to sell a few papers?” Lois asked in disbelief.
“To drag us into a war,” Kent corrected.
“Give me the photos; I’ll give you the war,” Lois breathed.
“We’ve got to stop him.” Kent rose from the desk.
“Just a second.” Lois took his place at the desk, slipping a floppy into the computer to copy what they had found. “We need evidence,” she said to Kent’s look.
“Just hurry.”
“So where do you think he’s going to do this?” Lane asked while the disk loaded.
“Isn’t the Ambassador of Omir supposed to be holding a press conference today to give Secretary Wallace the Orani Jewels as some sort of parting gift?” Kent asked.
Lane smiled. “That would be the perfect opportunity for that sick bastard to kill Wallace. I say we let Inspector Henderson in on this little bit of news. Then we’ll be there to get the exclusive.”
“You’ll get the exclusive.”
“We.”
Kent shook his head. “I don’t want my name associated with it.”
“But...”
“I work for the Metropolis Star. Even if Carpenter is willing to kill people to get a story, do you really think the board of directors is going to be too happy with the person who brought him down? I need a job, Lane. And no matter how much I help you, do you really think that White is going to hire me when I lose my job at The Star?”
Lois thought about what he said for a moment before shaking her head. He was right. Perry wouldn’t even entertain the possibility of hiring Kent - not even though he was the one who had realized what Carpenter was doing and had managed to bring him down.
“Isn’t that file downloaded yet?” Kent asked, looking at the screen in frustration.
“Just about,” Lois said, studying Kent. “Tell me something.”
“What?” he asked calmly, obviously expecting some question about the story, or about his motivations in helping her.
“What powers do you have?”
He suddenly looked a little like a caged animal.
“We don’t have time for this,” he objected, looking again at the progress downloading the necessary file.
“I mean, you can fly... obviously. But I’m wondering what else you can do. Do you... I mean, can you see through things, for example?”
“What?”
Lois watched as Kent turned pale, almost choking on the single word. She shrugged her shoulders. “Just... for example. Or maybe you have freezing breath?”
“Have you been spying on me?” Kent asked indignantly.
“Please,” Lois said, dismissing the idea with a wave of her hand. However, his response told her that she had been right on target. Whatever had happened to her for those couple of days had definitely been related to him. “So can your powers be transferred to other people?” she asked as casually as she was able.
“No! Of course not.”
Lois was silent for a moment as she let his denial digest. Was it possible that he didn’t know? Or was this just another lie? “Not even... say... with a lightning strike?”
She could see in her peripheral vision that he had rolled his eyes.
“What are you getting at? Do you want these powers so badly that you’d be willing to get struck with lightning to get them?”
“I was just curious,” Lois said. A ding on the computer told her that the file had finished downloading. “There. Done.” Lois pulled the disk from the computer and shut the computer down before looking at Kent again. “So... what are we waiting for? I thought you were in a hurry to get out of here.”**
“Why didn’t you tell me about your experience with the powers?” Clark asked.
Lois shrugged. “Why would I?”
“I suppose. Still, I remember thinking that the interrogation was over when we left Carpenter’s office,” Clark said.
Lois laughed. “Hardly. After all, I still had a lot of questions.”
“I remember,” Clark said.
**Clark kept his eyes focused out the front window of the jeep. Ever since they’d left the police station after giving their information to Inspector Henderson, Lane had been asking questions - questions he’d rather not hear, let alone answer.
“So you don’t know how you acquired these powers?” Lois asked as they drove through the darkened streets of Metropolis.
“No,” Clark said, not sure how much he should tell her. So far she hadn’t written the story about him. On the other hand, maybe she was waiting to get more information. The fact that she’d figured out the freezing breath and the x-ray vision certainly indicated she was conducting some sort of investigation - although how she would have found that out was a mystery to him.
“You said you were eighteen when you started flying. Did something happen to you at that time that might have caused it? Get struck by lightning or something?”
“No,” Clark answered abruptly, still not looking over at her.
“So what do you attribute these powers to?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Kent. You must have some idea.”
Clark shrugged.
“So you do know. You just don’t want to tell me.”
“I don’t know why I have these powers, Lane.” He knew he sounded exasperated, but he really didn’t want to answer any more of her questions.
“Fine. Don’t tell me. But don’t think I don’t know that you’re hiding something, Kent,” Lane said, obviously frustrated by his lack of information.
“Look, Lane, I don’t know why I have these powers. And even if I did, why would I expose myself to you further than I already have? I can just see it splashed across the front page of the Daily Planet. No thanks!”**
“So why didn’t you know about your origins?” Lois asked. “Hadn’t the globe told you about your parents?”
“Trask never appeared on the scene, so I never found the globe,” Clark responded. “I mean, Dr. Klein had told me that my blood test proved that I was an alien, but that is really all I knew - well, that and being found in a space ship. But I wasn’t about to tell you that.”
Lois nodded slowly before her mind went in a different direction. “When we arrived at your apartment and you got out of the jeep without even saying goodbye, I think that’s when it really sank in that whatever you and I had was really over. I mean, up until then, even when I’d been rejecting you, it was always clear that you wanted to be with me. But when you got out of the car and wouldn’t even look at me...” Lois shrugged. “Until then... I guess I still had this crazy hope... That probably explains what happened next.”
“Oh, boy, why do I get a bad feeling about this?”
**Lois stared at the invitation for a long moment. What exactly was she supposed to do with this? If she’d gone to a high school on the other side of the country, the answer would be easy enough. After all, although she’d always liked her friends in high school, she didn’t really keep in touch with any of them. Oh, there were the obligatory Christmas cards - although often she forgot to send them. And the invitations to weddings - although she’d often been too busy to attend.
The problem was that she’d gone to high school right here in Metropolis. As a result, her failure to attend would be regarded as a down-right snub. After all, she had been President of their senior class and she’d been dating the quarterback. So it wasn’t as if she had a low enough profile to fly under the radar. People would notice if she wasn’t there.
But going to this thing was the last thing she wanted to do on a Saturday evening. Seeing fellow classmates who were now married with families - and having to tell everyone one of them that there wasn’t a man in her life only to have to pretend not to notice their looks of pity... Not exactly her idea of a fun evening.
“Hey, cool,” Jimmy said, coming up behind her to read the invitation over her shoulder. “That’ll be fun.”
Lois looked over her shoulder at Jimmy. “I’m not going,” she decided, tossing the invitation into the trash. Who cared what they thought of her? She wasn’t about to waste an evening trying to justify her very existence.
“What are you doing, Lois?” Jimmy asked, grabbing the invitation out of the trash. “It’ll be fun. I remember my five year reunion. We had such a blast. It was just like being in high school all over again - except this time we didn’t have to worry about the cops catching us drinking.”
Lois rolled her eyes. “And what exactly makes you think I would consider that a good time?”
“Okay, so maybe getting smashed isn’t exactly on your top ten priorities list, but... I’m sure you have some people you’d like to see again.”
Lois thought about that for a moment before nodding. Yes. There were some classmates it might be fun to see. Joe Malloy. Peggy Barrish. Julie Keaton. And of course, it would be nice to see their significant others, Debbie, Les and Dick, again. Still... “I’d need a date and I don’t...”
“You need a date to what?” Claude asked, coming over to join them. “Because I’m free.”
“You don’t even know what it is for,” Lois said.
“I don’t have to,” Claude responded, reaching out to play with her hair.
She quickly jerked her head away.
Unperturbed, he continued. “For you, I’ll always be available for a... date.”
Lois narrowed her eyes at him. The way he’d paused before the final word. The emphasis he’d added made it more than obvious that he wasn’t thinking about dinner and a movie. “I don’t think so, Claude,” she said dismissively before turning her attention to her rolodex. Surely she knew someone who would make a suitable date.
When Kent’s image flashed through her mind, she quickly pushed it away.
So... who was there? Wait a minute!
She opened the drawer of her desk, pulling out a business card.
Jimmy leaned over her shoulder, reading off the name. “Dr. Maxwell Deter?” he asked.
“I met him when I was researching the Mendenhall story - and then we ran into each other again when I was looking into Herkimer Johnson,” Lois said. “Both times, he asked me out.”
She picked up the phone.
“Come on, cherie,” Claude said, taking the phone from her hand. “Why bother this man when you have me at your beck and call? If it’s a date to your high school reunion that you need...” He picked up the invitation, looking at it. “...how better to make those catty women from your past jealous than to show up on my arm? And then afterwards...” He let his sentence trail off in a way Lois could only guess he meant to be tantalizing.
Her eyebrows rose. He was serious. He really thought he was sounding irresistible. How had she ever been taken in by that fake French charm? “Please, Claude,” she said, taking the phone back. “I don’t think so.”**
“So you went to your high school reunion with Maxwell Deter?” Clark asked.
Lois gave a sheepish shrug. “At least it was better than Claude.”
Clark held his peace. Although the look on his face clearly indicated that he wasn’t nearly as certain.
“So what happened?” he finally asked.
“Well...” Lois said, trying to think back. To that night. To those people. To the hotel ballroom decorated with signs and pictures, and as she remembered it, a large disco ball. Early 1980s splendor. “Things went pretty much the same as they did when we went. Annette was just as aggravating as I remember from our reality. Oh, one thing that was different was that I had to jump out of the way when that disco ball fell, not having a Superman to catch it for me.” She leaned over, giving Clark a kiss. “Still that was the party where I discovered that Joe’s wife, Debbie, and Peggy’s husband, Les, had disappeared. Which led me to the story about Annette using some chemical formula to shrink people.”
“Personally, I’m more interested in hearing the story about you and Deter.”
Lois cringed. “Why did I think that would be the case?”
“You’re stalling.”
“I’m not stalling. I’m just... working up to telling the story,” Lois responded.
“And the longer you stall, the worse I think it is.”
“Well... the reunion went okay. It was afterwards... When we left the reunion...”
**“Where are we going?” Lois asked as they wound their way through the streets of Metropolis.
“I thought maybe we’d go out for a nightcap,” Max said.
“I don’t think so,” Lois said. “It’s late. I think it’s time for me to call it a night.”
He hesitated for a moment before responding. “I understand. But before I take you home... Do you mind if we stop at my clinic for a minute? It’s not much out of the way and I need to check my messages.”
“No problem. So I take it you’re always working, huh?”
“Pretty much. My patients don’t always have their breakdowns between nine and five. But given how many stories you seem to get, I suspect you’re much the same.”
Lois chuckled. “Yeah, I suppose. That’s probably a really good reason for us not to date. Both of us working all the time. We’d never even see each other.”
Max looked over at her, startled. “I think it just means that we’d have to be creative, make the most of our time together.”
Lois sighed. “Look, Max, I’m not sure that... Well, I guess I just don’t see this as going anywhere - long term. Still, thank you for coming with me tonight. I had a good time - although what you got out of it is beyond me.”
Max didn’t look happy as he pulled the cadillac convertible into the parking lot at the clinic. “Why don’t you come in with me?” Max said. “I’m sure it will be more interesting than sitting out here.”
“I’m fine here.”
“Please. I just... Well, this isn’t the greatest neighborhood and I’d feel so much better if you came in.”
Lois was about to object that she could take care of herself when she suddenly shrugged. It probably didn’t make much difference either way. But it seemed important to him. And he really had been great tonight.**
* * * * * * * * *
**“Lois?”
Lois blinked. Where was she?
“You fell asleep,” Max explained.
“Oh, I’m sorry.”
“No problem. So... do you want to go home now? Or are you up for a nightcap, perhaps at my place.”
Lois smiled shyly at him. “The nightcap sounds good,” she said, thinking that just maybe a nightcap wasn’t the only thing that sounded good. “And your place sounds even better.”**
“Are you telling me he gave you a hypnotic suggestion to get you to like him and then invited you back to his place for a ‘nightcap’?” Clark asked in horror.
Lois shrugged. “That’s the only explanation I can think of. I mean, one minute I was thinking that... well, that even though Max seemed like a nice guy, he really was not my type. And the next, I was madly in love with him - and only him.”
“So what happened when you got back to his place?” Clark asked warily.
**The apartment was decorated to a man’s taste. Large, overstuffed dark brown leather furniture. Solid looking maple coffee tables. On one wall was a wet bar. Abstract, yet somehow sexually stimulating photographs that seemed to show not much more than a shoulder or an elbow or an eyebrow hung on the walls. But one was left with the impression that if the entire collection were removed and put in order, they would reveal a naked woman.
The place was slightly cluttered, but in a decidedly clean way. No empty pizza boxes or dirty dishes. No, the mess was a clutter of magazines, newspapers and half read books. Two walls were made of glass, giving a magnificent view of the city lights.
Max flicked on the small light by the door and let the light coming in from the world beyond provide the remaining illumination.
She walked in and looked around before looking back at the man himself. She ducked her head slightly when she realized he was watching her. And the expression on his face, clearly illuminated by the light from the entranceway, was one she was familiar with. Apparently he wanted her as badly as she wanted him.
“Why don’t I fix us those drinks?” he suggested, removing his coat and tossing it over the back of the couch.
Her heart pounded wildly as she watched him cross to the bar to fix their drinks. There was something so sexy about this man who could turn her on merely by the way he was putting ice into glasses.**
TO BE CONTINUED...
