**************
Part Six

Anna lay on the bed, her novel spread open across her chest. She had read the same sentence over and over without grasping its meaning, but after the second or third word her mind returned to David standing in the lobby.

She hadn’t expected to see him…Who was she kidding? When she had asked Pete Byford to book her in a hotel, he mentioned that he’d booked her in the same hotel as David, muttering something about it being nice that at least she’d know someone in the big city. She hadn’t objected. Let’s face it. It made sense…didn’t it?

He looked good standing there with that look of utter surprise...a pleased surprise, she noted...on his face. Her first impulse was to rush up and kiss him the way she would an old friend or her brother, or her lover, but before she could move or say anything, common sense prevailed, thank goodness, and shook her back to reality. She’d meet him for breakfast. She’d be professional about the whole thing.

Luckily, her brains were working harder than her hormones. She couldn’t understand why seeing him always set her heart beating loudly in her ears. No other man had ever been able to distract her from her goals, from the reality she lived with. Somehow, David Morrow had crept right in and insinuated himself in her mind whether she wanted him to or not.

Not in her mind, she reminded herself, in her hormones. Her brains turned to mush whenever he was around, and the only part of her body that worked was her heart, and maybe, she admitted to herself, another part she wasn’t willing to name. She also conceded that her defence against him was a veil of anger she put on whenever he was near. Easier to deal with him that way.

He turned her on. No man had ever done that. She’d been mildly attracted to some men in the past, but it was more intellectual. He’d be a nice guy or a good-looking one, and she’d go out on a date or two with him, but there was no magic, no chemistry. That was good. She didn’t want the magic or the chemistry which would get her in deeper than she wanted.

But she had gotten in deeper than she had ever expected. And for the millionth time, she chastised herself for her stupidity that night at Loon Lake. She should just have taken off and ignored his voice and his shivering, naked body wrapped in that old towel. He would have decided that what he had seen was simply a mirage; instead, she had approached him, unashamedly seduced him, and made love...no, had sex...with him.

And that had made her angry because if he was so interested in her the way he said he was, how could he make l...have sex with a woman whom he didn’t even think was real. Moreover, if he found out who that woman was, he’d be angrier than a grizzly bear.

But now, whenever she saw him, all she could think about was how he felt, his lips on hers, his hands touching her body. If she closed her eyes, she could feel him thrusting inside her until he peaked, and then she shuddered with her desire for him. She had hoped that if she had sex once with him, it would be enough to quench her curiosity; instead like taking a small sip of water on a hot day, she wanted more.

She tried to clear her mind. He had no right invading her thoughts this way. She knew she had to stop before she did something stupid.

She lifted the book from her chest, snapping it shut, then turned off the light. She wasn’t going to allow Morrow to turn her to mush.

**************
Lois saw Anna McLaren when she entered the lobby restaurant. Henderson had called the night before and had invited her and Clark to join Morrow and him the next morning to share information. She hadn’t expected to see McLaren as well.

She looked different than she had in Huntsville, softer, more relaxed. Instead of the blue police uniform weighted down with a utility belt, she wore a white and black silk blouse with pair of black cotton slacks and black sandals. She carried a black blazer on her arm. As she walked toward the table her facial expression kept changing: first she frowned, then nodded her head with a slight smile and finally startled, she stared. Lois followed the gaze and realized that she was looking straight at Clark. Lois slid her right hand under Clark’s left one. In her mind she sent the signal to McLaren: Wedding band. He’s taken and he’s mine.

When McLaren reached the table, the men stood up. Morrow introduced her first to Henderson, who shook her hand and muttered something like, "Nice to meet you." Then Morrow introduced her to Clark. He also shook her hand, but they held on just a fraction of a second too long. Clark looked surprised by McLaren’s intense scrutiny.

Morrow must have seen the connection that passed between Clark and McLaren because he abruptly sat down, gulped some coffee and started talking. "Yeah. Right. We’re here to...uh...put together our information about Hamilton."

"Exactly," said Henderson. "Lane, you may be on the right track looking at Vic Newbury."

"I’ve been racking my brains trying to remember why I know that name. Give me a minute," Lois said.

"Wasn’t he involved with the Churches?" Clark asked.

"Are you thinking of the guy who ran the Church vigilante group?" Lois asked.

"That’s the one. He turned to petty crime and Superman discouraged him."

"Sounds like the right guy," said Henderson. "He spent a short time in jail and now he’s on parole."

"You’re kidding?"

"Have you ever seen me kid, Lois?"

"No. Never."

"It seems to me," McLaren said, "we need to connect Newbury to Jeremy Hamilton, or at least to place him in Huntsville at the time of the murder. Inspector?"

"I wonder if Newbury visited Hamilton when Jeremy was there?" Lois asked.

"Newbury visited Emil Hamilton several times in the hospital. We looked at his phone records as well. He had called Hamilton..." Henderson flipped open his notebook. "...frequently both at his home and in his office.’

"Do you have a picture of him, Inspector? Lois and I could visit the nursing home and his former office," Clark said. "Meanwhile, Inspector, you could check Newbury’s phone records."

***************
Lois didn’t know exactly how it happened, but she and Anna McLaren were walking up the steps to the Renaissance Nursing Home. As they sat around the breakfast table earlier in the day, they had decided a visit to Emil would be the next move on their list. But Henderson had received a message calling him away to a more urgent case. Once they had decided to go to the nursing home in the morning, Morrow had to beg off, saying the day’s seminars at the Forensic Conference were too important for him to miss. Lois had hoped that McLaren would have some excuse not to join her, and when she turned to look at her, she noticed McLaren staring off into space. Great, Lois thought, she had to deal with an air head.

But Lois’s thoughts had been interrupted by Clark, who rose from the table saying he just remembered he had an appointment with a source, and if he didn’t get there soon...And in very typical Clark style, he didn’t end the sentence but rose from the table and headed for the door. Although his back was to her, in her mind’s eye she could see him tugging at his tie. She smiled, not understanding how she hadn’t seen through Clark’s excuses in the past.

Unfortunately, she had realized she was left with McLaren. She glanced over at the woman whose eyes were following Clark out the door of the restaurant. She had better find some time when the two were together to let her know how unavailable Clark was.

Now, standing in front of the information desk at the Renaissance Nursing Home, an old Victorian mansion turned into a nursing home, Lois asked the receptionist about Emil Hamilton.

"He’s on the second floor, east wing," she said. "I’m sure he’ll be glad to see you since he hasn’t had a lot of visitors lately. His sister-in-law and nephews haven’t been here since his brother went missing. I read in the paper that he’s dead. It’s been hard for them."

"Has Professor Hamilton had any other visitors?" Anna asked taking advantage of the woman’s willingness to prattle.

"He did for a while. There was this woman a few months ago. She never said her name or anything, just that she was a friend of the professor’s."

"What did woman look like?" Lois asked.

The receptionist shrugged her shoulders. "Like a regular woman except her hair was awful. It was dyed. I can’t understand why women want to dye their hair an unnatural colour. It looked bright orange to me. I suppose it was supposed to be auburn, but it was awful."

"Was it long or short?" Lois asked.

"Short."

"Do you remember her height, weight, age? Anything like that," Anna added.

"Nothing out of the ordinary. She was about my height, five-four, heavier than me, looked around thirty or forty, but I’m not good with age."

"Did she wear a lot of make-up?"

"Yeah, it was plastered on like she was a clown. She had pale skin, but the make-up didn’t cover the wrinkles or lines. I remember thinking that I’d like to take a cloth and wipe off all the blush. It was too much."

"You’ve got a good memory."

"I remember her because she looked so odd to me."

"Do you remember seeing this man?" Lois pulled out a picture of Newbury.

"Sure. He came with her a few times. You could tell she was boss. Kept giving him orders. He’d follow her up to Emil’s room and she’d be talking at him the whole time."

"Thank you for your help. Come, Lois. Let’s visit Emil," Anna said. leading Lois down the hall.

********************

Emil Hamilton sat in a high-backed chair staring at the wall in front of him. Lois tried getting his attention, touching his arm, waving her hands in front of his face, she even yelled at him, but Emil didn’t move or blink. He sat staring at the wall.

Lois grumbled in frustration. "I don’t know if I should hate this man for what he did or be thankful to him for the rest of my life."

"I don’t understand," said Anna, looking at the small, grey man in front of her.

"It’s a long story," Lois paused. She didn’t like the way McLaren looked at Clark. Maybe using her story with Hamilton could let McLaren know, without any doubt, how taken Clark was.

Hamilton was still staring straight ahead, oblivious to the two women, mumbling incomprehensibly.

Lois, seeing that they weren’t going to make sense of what Hamilton was saying, began her story. "Two years ago, old gangsters began appearing on the streets of Metropolis."

"Had they been released from prison?"

"No. Old, dead, gangsters. Bonnie and Clyde, Al Capone, Dillinger...those kinds of gangsters."

"Really!" said Anna, opening her eyes widely.

"They began to terrorize the city. Clark and I learned that Professor Hamilton here had been experimenting with cloning. He wanted to learn if resocializing criminals would change their behaviour. Before he could begin his experiments, the clones had run amok.

"While uncovering what happened, Clark and I followed them to a gambling den. There, Dillinger raised a gun at me, and Clark stepped in front of the bullet...which hit him in the chest." Lois hiccoughed. "He was dead, and at that moment, I realized that my best friend, the man I loved, was gone."

"But he didn’t die."

"No. Not exactly." Lois realized that even though she knew the truth about what happened to Clark, she was telling the public story. "He was dead, but Superman got hold of Hamilton’s notes and used them to resurrect Clark."

"Convenient," Anna muttered.

"What did you say?" asked Lois.

"Lucky that Superman was able to save him."

"More than lucky. In some ways, he saved my life as well. During those long hours when I thought Clark was dead, I thought I had nothing to live for. I had made the biggest mistake of my life not acknowledging to myself and to him that I loved him. I didn’t realize the feelings I had for Clark, for my partner and best friend, were so strong because I loved him." Lois paused for a moment remembering those moments.

"So after he was resurrected you told him you loved him and you became a couple."

"Not exactly. Several months before, Clark had told me he loved me, but I was blinded by a lot of things, and didn’t think I reciprocated his feelings."

"He told you first?"

"Yes, of course. Why?"

"Well...I...uh...I got the feeling he was... a... reticent guy, shy maybe."

"He’s quiet, but he’s not afraid of showing his feelings." This was Lois’s opportunity to let Anna know exactly what the score was. "Once we were completely truthful with each other, Clark told me he had loved me from the moment we met, that his dream was to make a future with me." Lois glared directly at Anna. "We are very much in love, and nothing will change that."

"Clark was the one who wanted to get married?"

"Yes." Lois glared at McLaren. "Why would you ask that?"

McLaren paused. Lois thought she was at a loss for words. Did McLaren think Lois was unlovable, unmarriageable?

"It was a question coming from...uh...personal experience. I...uh...I thought men...uh...didn’t want commitment."

"Not all men. I used to think the same until I met Clark. He made me believe that there are some men out there who want commitment, who want to attach their lives to another person. I’m lucky enough to have found one."

Once again, McLaren didn’t say anything, as if she was mulling over all that Lois had told her.

"And so now it’s happily ever after, living the perfect life..."

"It hasn’t been smooth sailing if that’s what you mean. We have our problems, our ups and downs, our disagreements. But we work at our relationship and it’s good, very good." Lois turned on her heels. "There’s nothing we can do here. Let’s check out Hamilton’s papers."

***************
If there had been any clues in Hamilton’s papers, they had vanished long ago, Lois and Anna had decided after having visited Hamilton’s office and apartment. At least, with the receptionist’s observations, they had more than a tentative connection between Newbury and Hamilton.

Anna had called her office and requested customs and immigration to find if Newbury had crossed the border around the same time as Jeremy Hamilton. If that connection could be made, then obtaining a search warrant became a likely possibility. The problem was that if the two men had crossed by automobile then only the license plates would have been registered unless the custom officials found something suspicious with either of the men or cars. One problem was that they didn’t have a license plate for what they believed was Jeremy’s car.

Meanwhile, Anna had time to kill. She and Lois had parted company a half hour ago. Lois had returned to the Daily Planet while Anna decided to spend sometime exploring one of Metropolis’s shopping district. She was standing in front of a hair salon looking at a picture of a woman, her hair falling softly on her shoulders. What she wouldn’t give for a professional hair-cut, for layers of hair instead of the monthly blunt zapping the ends her hair got. She shrugged her shoulders, feeling the weight of her braid running down her back.

On the other hand, she knew she shouldn’t complain about her hair. In the end, it had given her a cloak to hide behind, a veil that David couldn’t see through. At least she had had that one night with him.

At the time, she had believed it was only one night, that there was no future for them, but maybe she was wrong. If Clark could find a woman who could accept him, then perhaps David would consider her...until he found out.

The conversation with Lois had been strange; they’d spoken at cross purposes. Lois had interpreted Anna’s interest in Clark as a romantic one rather than the more clinical interest in learning what made him tick, how he functioned as two different people. Instead of her words becoming a warning against moving in on Clark, her words gave Anna a glimmer of a hope that a semblance of normalcy was a possibility.

Anna was fascinated by Clark Kent because he didn’t keep his skills and talents hidden, as she had for so many years. She remembered clearly the day she learned about Superman. It had been four years earlier. She’d been on a training exercise for a number of days, having no communication with the rest of the world. When she got home, her mother’s voice on the answering machine told her to get a newspaper, check the news and call her back...immediately.

She had done as she was told, and when she opened the newspaper, she saw the picture of the good-looking man wearing the red, blue and yellow costume. She quickly scanned the Lois Lane article that had been picked up by most English language newspapers. What struck Anna was that this Superman had all the same talents as she had. He called them powers. He had enhanced hearing and vision, extraordinary strength, invulnerability and he could fly...just like her.

Following her mother’s orders, she had called home. Her mother was excited. Anna wasn’t alone in the world. There was someone just like her. She had to contact him. He could answer her questions, explain what she didn’t know. Anna had promised her mother she would find him, but in the end she’d procrastinated.

At first, she had decided to find out more about him, so she kept reading the newspapers to get as much information as she could. Within a few weeks, she learned that he was from a planet called Krypton. She had looked at herself in the mirror. Could an alien look and feel as human as she did?

She had always believed that she was human, some kind of human experiment gone awry. How or why she wasn’t sure. She, along with her parents, worried that if someone found out about her, they would take her away from the only family she knew. So, together, they had decided to keep her developing talents a secret. They had decided if she needed to tell someone, one of her brothers was always available, but, in the end, she didn’t want to burden any of them. Being a sister to four brothers was difference enough.

As far as Superman was concerned, she had to learn more about him before she admitted they were the same. Most first hand reporting about the new superhero, as he was called, came from Metropolis. She began reading the Daily Planet on a regular basis and became familiar with the names Lois Lane and Clark Kent. Those two seemed to get most of the more substantial interviews with Superman.

Anna also wondered if this Superman was really like her. She didn’t walk around in a flashy costume saving people. She always used her talents in a natural and unobtrusive way. She was satisfied being a tad faster or stronger.

Four years had passed since she’d learned about the existence of Superman, and in that time, she’d never tried to contact him. She’d figured out, by trial and error, that Superman was a disguise for Clark Kent, the reporter at the Daily Planet. On reading the Lois Lane and Clark Kent exclusives in the paper, she decided to do a background check on the reporting team. The broad strokes of Clark Kent’s life paralleled her own. Age, adopted, athletic, bright. Too coincidental. Then she looked for pictures of Clark Kent. There weren’t too many available until the Planet started advertising the Hottest Team in Town with a large one page spread of Lois Lane and Clark Kent. At the time she thought that it was a stupid move on the paper’s part, giving faces to its top investigating team, but it became possible for her to place a picture of Superman beside Clark Kent’s. There was no doubt in her mind afterwards.

Once she knew who he was, she thought about meeting him, but what would she say? Hey! I’m Kryptonian, too. No. She wasn’t even sure she was Kryptonian. All she knew was she could do what he could, and they shared the same talents. And anyway, she was too busy. Up until now. She had actually met Clark Kent and they were in the same city. Now she had no excuse. Yes, she would tell him who she was...as soon as she found the right time.

Meanwhile, she had a case to solve, Jeremy Hamilton’s murderer to find. The clues, at the moment were circumstantial, but she could use the time to follow up on one of the leads. Vic Newbury.

****************
tbc