Lex Luthor had, for the most part, enjoyed his day.
It had not begun well. Sheldon Bender, his lead attorney, the only person who was allowed to visit him, brought him the news – or lack thereof – concerning his beloved’s confusing disappearance. He was certain that Lois would never betray him, nor would she admit to even a hint of any wrongdoing against him. He might be incarcerated, but his chief lieutenants were not, and they had standing instructions to eliminate Lex’ in-laws should Lois dare such a thing. And she knew it, too. The Lane family plot’s recent addition had demonstrated Lex’ determination to insure her loyalty.
Even though Lois was still missing, Bender had brought better tidings concerning the conflict between Lex’ organization and Intergang. The advantage Intergang had over Lex’ empire was that their command structure was decentralized, so an assault on any one man or woman would not irreparably damage the entire organization. But it was also their weakness, since Lex could act without having to call a meeting and build a consensus before striking. This weakness had cost them dearly in the past month – seven Intergang board members had been attacked, and four of them had died. Two of the remaining three were injured badly enough to force them to resign from active participation in the organization.
Two of the witnesses against him in New Troy’s legal proceedings had recanted their stories. Another had turned up dead at the bottom of an elevator shaft, and one was missing. Even Bender didn’t know what had happened to the last one.
But the federal case against Lex was still moving forward, with several key witnesses being held in secret locations. It was far harder to pry information out of the FBI or the Treasury Department than the Metropolis District Attorney’s office, but Lex knew his people would keep at it. With Bender filing motion after motion and requesting continuances, someone would spill the beans, as it were, and then Lex’ people would move.
The time after the meeting was more enjoyable.
That same huge guard had brought Lex his midday meal, and this time he’d accepted the cash Lex had slipped him when he’d returned his tray. The man would, indeed, deliver on his promise of an additional channel of communication from this drab gray purgatory. After lunch, during the exercise period for the solitary wing of the prison, one of the other detainees (Lex preferred that term to “prisoner” as it hinted at a political reason for his being locked up) had produced a prison-made knife from somewhere and had tried to impale Lex. The guards hadn’t been able to stop the attacker, but they had arrived quickly enough to keep Lex from slicing the man’s throat open with the shiv. He anticipated that few others would risk attacking him now, and despite the punishment he would endure, Luthor considered the moment a quality investment in his near-term future.
It was only a matter of time before he departed from this hole in his reality. Lex Luthor would soon be free to wreak his vengeance upon his oppressors. And this time, he vowed to himself, he wouldn’t be nice about it.
*****
Clark had thoroughly enjoyed the day.
He’d bought himself some baggy swim trunks and a garish Hawaiian shirt, then had topped it with a straw hat that had made Lois laugh. And she’d laughed again when he’d given her the hat’s twin to wear. Two bottles of sunscreen and four large bottles of water resting under ice in a small Styrofoam cooler had completed their purchases.
They’d rowed out on the lake in a rented boat and met another young couple who were on their honeymoon. Bob and Carol Josephson had invited them to their campsite for lunch, where Clark had helped Bob grill burgers and hot dogs while Carol and Lois had carried ice, filled red Solo cups with it, and poured copious amounts of carbonated soda for them to drink.
The only awkwardness had appeared when Carol had asked how long Clark and Lois had been married. Lois had smoothed that over by saying that they weren’t married yet but were planning to talk about it soon. Bob’s nudge and wink had assured Clark that their covers hadn’t been blown.
After nearly two hours of fun, Clark had suggested to Lois that they take that swim they’d spoken about that morning. Bob and Carol had both smiled shyly and declined the invitation to join them, so both couples had shaken hands and wished each other well as they separated.
“Well, we know what they’re doing now,” Lois had said.
Clark had glanced back to the Josephson’s tent. “I just hope no one interrupts them.”
She’d slid into the van to change into her swimsuit. “Maybe he should have put a sock on one of the tent poles.”
“Or a pair of his underwear.”
Lois had stopped and slowly looked back at him. “Why, Detective, you have a dirty mind.”
He’d shrugged and shaken his head. “No. I just know what I would be thinking of if I were on my honeymoon. Besides, it didn’t look like he was coercing her in any way.”
She’d grinned and slid the door shut. “More like the other way around,” she’d called out.
Their conversation as he’d applied sunscreen to Lois had also gone well, he thought. “How much of this stuff do you want on your back?” he’d asked.
She’d smiled without looking at him. “Just pretend I’m your high school girlfriend and her parents aren’t around.”
Her reaction to his ministrations had given him cause to wonder just how good an actress she really was. He was sure that any casual observer would conclude that they were more than just comfortable around each other. And he was oddly pleased that the tattoo she’d described wasn’t visible outside her swimsuit.
He had put that thought – and several others of a personal and private nature – aside and concentrated on making sure they were alone. Then, at Lois’ insistence, he’d removed his shirt and allowed her to slather his back and neck with sunscreen he knew he didn’t need. Lois had been businesslike, almost perfunctory, after the startled little gasp she’d released when she’d first seen him without his shirt. He’d almost become used to the reaction he got from women when they noticed his body, but somehow this time it had felt special – almost unique.
Not like Mayson’s reaction to their first swim date. He knew that most men would bribe a judge to have an attractive and emotionally stable woman gaze upon their bodies with such focus that she almost forgot to breathe. But Clark hadn’t liked the degree of attention he’d gotten from Mayson. She might as well have painted crosshairs over his heart and pulled a spear gun out of her swim bag.
A quick vision of his head mounted on the wall over Mayson’s bed had galloped through his mind and erected a wall between them that had been dented and battered by her siege, but not broken. Being with Lois Lane, though, was like a shot of oxygen after a long journey through space. Even a super-powered man like himself had to breathe once in a while, and the day had been the pressure release he hadn’t realized he’d needed.
The police professional part of his mind grimly insisted that he focus on his assignment and not look for ways to impress this woman. The part of his mind attached to his heart ignored the old fuddy-duddy part and thoroughly enjoyed spending the day soaking up the sun with a beautiful woman beside him.
*****
They turned west on I-80 again when they left the park late that afternoon. Lois was tired, but it was a good kind of tired, the kind you feel when you know you’ve had a wonderful time. She sighed and wished yet again that she’d met Kent before she’d married Lex. Then the nightmare of the last five years might not have happened.
But they had happened.
And the cost in lives was almost incalculable.
What was she doing? How could she spend the day with an honest and upright man while she was still married to a ravening monster? How could she even smile? At least three people had died just to get her this close to federal custody, and she was thinking about a day spent on the water with her police escort? How much of a heartless monster had she herself become?
She shuddered as she remembered Lex’ opposition to her having children so soon in their marriage. He’d said that they needed time to establish their lives together. He’d told her that he’d know when the time was right.
It was a good thing, too, she mused. Her children would probably have all turned out like the ravening beast in the Beowulf poem. She would have ended up with a house full of Grendel-like teenagers, all chomping at the bit to be released into the wild so they could defile whatever corner of the world in which they might land.
Lois would rather be dead than be the mother of such a brood. Lex had ruined her best chance to make up for the dysfunctional disaster her family had been in her own teen years.
And now it was too late for her.
She wasn’t fit company for man or for beast. There was nothing she could give to any man, no love inside her to share, no tenderness to offer, no capacity to accept his devotion. She had to stop letting Kent into her heart. Anyone who got close to her heart got hurt. Her relationship with Lex was toxic, not just to her but to anyone around her. She wouldn’t be able to stand it if she got Clark hurt – or killed.
This thing with Kent had to stop right now.
It was for his own good.
*****
“I had fun today, Lois. It was a nice change of pace.”
Grunt.
“Bob and Carol seemed like nice people. I wonder if they know Ted and Alice?”
Extended grunt.
“That was supposed to be a joke. You know, the old movie from back around 1970? Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice?”
Gruff sigh. “Wasn’t funny.”
A quick glance across the van’s engine cover told him that yes, that was still Lois Lane in the passenger seat. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
At least he finally got words instead of grunts. “I always enjoy being out in the sunshine, don’t you?”
Another grunt.
Well. Whatever the problem was, maybe she’d perk up a bit after something to eat and a good night’s sleep. The only question now was where to stop, and when.
*****
It was close to dark, so Clark decided they needed to find a place to sleep. He didn’t want to go all the way to Terre Haute – there was too much danger of their being spotted in any quasi-metropolitan area – so while they were still more than twenty miles from the “big city,” he turned off at the exit to Brazil. Just down the access road was a Best Western that looked new and clean, so for lack of a better option, he asked Lois if it was okay with her.
She didn’t answer. “Lois? Is this Best Western okay or would you rather push on down the road?”
“Huh? Oh, no, this is fine.”
“I see a couple of fast food places. You have a preference, or are you even hungry?”
“Hungry? Sure, yeah, I can eat.” She pointed at the Burger King on the corner. “This one’s okay with me. You?”
“That’s fine. Are you okay ordering from the drive-through?”
She waved a hand in the air in apparent exasperation, although why she’d be exasperated he didn’t know. “Drive-through is fine! Let’s just get some food and some sleep, okay?”
Lois mumbled her order low enough so that the clerk couldn’t understand her, so Clark repeated it and added his own. After paying and stuffing the receipt into the money belt, they puttered over to the motel and parked in front.
The desk clerk didn’t bat an eye when Clark told him they needed to pay in cash. In short order, he had their room keys, a breakfast menu, a TV schedule, and a room on the lower floor around back.
Lois didn’t make eye contact with him as he hauled their luggage into the room. He supposed he should be grateful that she deigned to hold the door open for him.
He eyeballed the room. Twin beds this time, and of course they were too short for him. At least he wouldn’t be sleeping on the floor. He’d just have to make sure he didn’t float in his sleep after getting recharged during the day.
She stalked into the bathroom and he heard the shower come on with what seemed to him to be irritation. He must have done something to anger her, but what? How could he have insulted her or vexed her in some way? All he’d done is drive from the park to the motel while trying to make the same kind of small talk they’d been making for a couple of days.
I’ll never understand women, he muttered silently.
He had no inkling that Bill Henderson currently felt the same way.
*****
“Come on, Mayson, take a pain pill. It’ll mellow you out.”
“They don’t give you pills now, Bill, just a button for the intravenous med dispenser.”
“So push the button and mellow out.”
“What are you, a hippie cop?” she snarled back. “I’ll take a pain pill when I’m good and ready for it!”
“I thought you said—”
“Never mind what I said! I’ll take the morphine when I know I really need it and not before!”
Bill sat down on the chair beside her hospital bed and crossed his legs. “Look, if you’re worried about saying something classified or blurting out some kind of attorney-client secrets, I can tell you that every detective on this floor is as reliable as the tide in Hob’s Bay. Even if you say something while you’re whacked out on opiates, nobody’s going to spread it around. They all know better.”
She looked up and away from him. It made him think that the secret she was guarding so closely wasn’t professional but personal. “I know that, Bill, but I – I just don’t want to be impaired if I’m needed.”
He reached out and patted her shin in what he hoped would be interpreted as a fatherly gesture. “I know you’re concerned about Kent, but I don’t think you have anything to worry about. We would’ve heard by now if they’d been caught. And I’d rather have Clark covering your witness than anyone else in the department. He’s so honest that sometimes it even irritates me.”
She snorted, but also relaxed slightly. “I know. That’s not it.”
He lowered his voice and leaned closer to her so the officer outside the door wouldn’t hear. “You’re worried about Kent being safe from Lois Lane, aren’t you?”
She snapped her head around and glared at him for a moment, then turned away again, but not before Bill saw the quick glistening in her eyes. “And if I am? What’s it to you?”
“There aren’t any regulations forbidding a relationship between detective and ADA. Unless, of course, it interferes with one partner’s fulfillment of his or her duties.”
She blinked and dashed spilled moisture from her cheek with her good hand. “You think it’s gone that far? You think I’m not doing my job because of – of my feelings for Clark?” She turned a sharp gaze to him. “Or that he’s falling down on the job because of me?”
Bill shook his head. “I know Clark isn’t over the line because he reports to me. And no one from the DA’s office has said anything to me about you. So no, I don’t think it’s gone that far.”
Mayson exhaled deeply, then looked down at the bed. “Then what are you trying to tell me in your oh-so-gentle way?”
He grinned for a moment, then rearranged his face and said, “As a man who’s lived a lot of life and seen a lot more of it lived by other people, I’m not sure that you and Clark are going to make it as a couple.”
Her free hand traced out an invisible pattern on the hospital blanket. “Why not?”
He sighed. “Because Kent’s a nice guy. A really nice guy. But he’s not that into you, as the kids say these days, not like you’re into him. And he’s so nice that he might actually go ahead and marry you to keep from hurting you. That’s a recipe for disaster on both sides, and I’d hate to see you two kids crash and burn like that.”
She nodded slowly, her hand still crawling over the blanket. “So what’s your advice, oh wise and deep-thinking seer?”
“You won’t like it.”
“I already don’t like it.”
Bill sighed yet again. “Okay, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” He paused and took a deep breath, then said, “You need to back away from Clark. I don’t mean ignore him or pretend you don’t love him more than you love your own kidneys—” she snorted a pained laugh “—but you need to stop pressing him for a commitment. Enjoy the time you spend with him, and let him know that you enjoy it, but don’t insist on more. If he loves you, he’ll start spending more time with you on his own. If not – well, at least you’ll know.”
She flashed him a wan smile. “So now you’re handing out relationship advice?”
“Only when I think I have something to say. And I’m done now.”
She sniffed and turned her head to wipe her eyes again. “Good. All I need is for some tough cop to start a dating service for me. It’d be all over the wire services in no time flat and I’d never get another conviction.”
“Sure you would. All you’d have to do is cry during your summation and the jury would convict the defendant out of pity.”
They shared a soft laugh, then she reached for the plunger strapped to the bed rail. “I think I will take that pill now, even if it’s in liquid form and intravenously administered.”
Bill stood. “Good. I’ll tell the crew to watch over you while you sleep.”
“Thanks. For everything.”
He nodded once and sketched a sloppy salute. “Just part of the service, ma’am.” He turned to leave, then stopped and said over his shoulder, “I don’t want to be there when Clark finds out the real reason they’re headed to Denver.”
Mayson sighed. “I’ll have to be. I need to be the one to tell him.”
“Right. Maybe he won’t slug you.”
“Maybe,” she muttered.
Bill waited for a moment longer, then said, “I hope you know what you’re doing. You do know that you’re risking any kind of future you might have with him.”
“Thought you said I didn’t have a future with him.”
“You know this will push him one way or the other, right?”
She didn’t answer. Bill considered another comment, then decided he’d hurt her enough for one day.
He slipped through the door into the hallway and hoped she could take the pain when it came.
*****
Lois listened for Clark’s breathing to slip into that suddenly familiar rhythm that signified sleep, but he stubbornly refused to drop off. She kept trying to find a comfortable position, but no matter how she twisted or turned or rolled or stretched or curled, the bed seemed to find a soft spot in her ribs or kidneys or belly and punch her in it.
After almost an hour, she abruptly sat up and snarled at the pillow before sailing it against the door. She tried to convince herself that she was angry at Lex, at the situation, at the lousy bed in the lousy motel, at Drake for foisting a terminal Boy Scout onto her, but she knew none of that was true.
She was angry at herself.
No. It went beyond anger. She hated herself.
She clenched her fists and pounded on the mattress so she wouldn’t start crying.
She sensed, rather than saw, Clark roll over and prop his head up on his fist. “Can’t sleep?”
“Shut up!” she snapped.
He sighed. “Lois, if I’ve said or done something to bother you or irritate you, please tell me what it is so I can apologize. I promise you, I never intended—”
“I said SHUT UP!”
Be angry, she thought. Stay angry. If you stay angry you won’t reveal how weak you really are.
Suddenly his hand was on her shoulder. She snapped her head around and saw his outline kneeling beside her bed, touching her so lightly that a hummingbird might have alighted with more force. She turned away before they could make eye contact.
Seeing the compassion she knew had to be in his eyes would undo every defense she had.
She thought that he’d stop her when she turned and draped her legs over the other side of the bed, but he only kept that feather-light contact. She flinched for a moment, expecting him to slam her down on her back and dominate her as Lex had done so many times. Her body tensed, expecting that powerful thrust to force her onto her back.
It never came. The only thing that did happen was that the bedside lamp clicked on, its lowest setting giving the room a faded patina of old, shabby colors washed too many times.
The tension leached out of her body as she felt him sit on the far side of the bed. His hand drifted from her shoulder to her wrist with that same ghostly pressure. He was doing his dead level best to tell her silently that he was there for her, was ready to comfort her, but that it was totally her choice as to what happened next.
Lex had never given her that choice.
Her voice came out damp and garbled, but she could tell he understood every word.
“My father – he’s a doctor, a surgeon. He specializes in – in prosthetic limbs. He’s one of the best in the world. And he wanted me to follow in his footsteps.”
She paused, but Clark had no comment. “He and – my mother didn’t get along. He’d chase his nurses and they’d let him catch them. They divorced when I was fourteen and my – my sister Lucy was nine. My mom tried to drown herself with vodka and I tried to be perfect so my daddy would love me like he had when I was younger. My sister decided to fix the world and she shut me out of her life.”
His hand moved and gripped her fingers. “Oh, Lois. I’m so sorry.”
She squeezed his hand with all her strength. “I went into journalism instead of medicine. I couldn’t stand the thought of working with him after – after I caught him in bed with yet another nurse. I even went to Mom’s lawyer and he got the judge to increase Mom’s alimony and pay my college tuition.”
The tears started again and she sniffed. “Lucy decided she wanted to be a cop. She went to the Metropolis police academy, passed with flying colors, and was assigned to street patrol. She stayed there for three years and then made detective.” She wiped her face with her free hand. “They started her off in the Ninth Precinct, on the west side of Hob’s Bay.”
Clark’s hand became rigid. “I remember her now. I never met her, so it bothered me why the last name was so familiar.” He let out a long breath. “Her funeral was – well, nearly every off-duty cop in the city was there to see her off.”
“You don’t know all of it.” Lois paused and took a deep breath, then wiped her face with her free hand. “I married Lex a year before she made detective. She tried to warn me that he wasn’t a good guy, that there was too much chatter about him in the locker rooms and the precincts for him to be clean and honest, too many cops who would clam up and leave the room when his name was mentioned, but I wouldn’t listen. Stupid me, I married him just to show her I could.” She clenched her free hand into a fist. “Not the only reason, but it was one of them.”
Clark relaxed his grip slightly but didn’t speak.
“Eighty-two days. That’s how long it took before I learned something I wasn’t supposed to know. Again, stupid me, I thought it was one of Lex’ subordinates running an operation he didn’t know about. I told him about it, thinking that he’d – that he’d thank me for helping him. But he – he did know. He set it up. And when I told him about it, thinking that he’d be so glad that I was helping him, he beat me.” She jerked and sobbed again. “I tried to fight back and he beat me. Then he beat me some more. I ended up in his in-house emergency room. He beat me so badly I didn’t know if I’d ever walk without a cane again.”
He filled in the next piece with that velvet voice. “And Lucy found out.”
Lois nodded. “I tried to keep it from her, but I couldn’t. I think that was when she started digging up dirt on Lex in her off hours. I saw the file last year. Lex had stopped hiding things from me long before, but even I couldn’t believe how much information she had. It wasn’t all provable, some of it was from unsupported allegations from informants or her logical deductions, but everything – everything fit.”
She sobbed again and stomped her feet on the floor. “I should have helped her! I should have told her who to talk to in the DA’s office and who to stay away from! I knew how – how dangerous it was! But I didn’t do anything! I didn’t help her one little bit!”
Clark sighed. “And Lex had her killed?”
She nodded, unable to form the words.
His voice hardened. “All this time we thought she just walked in on a grocery store robbery gone bad. All the witnesses said she just turned around at the register and the thief was right in front of her with a combat knife. They all said she started for her weapon and took the blade in the belly before she could even identify herself.” He hesitated, and when she didn’t say anything, he continued, “She bled out in less than a minute. There was nothing anyone could do for her.”
Her vision blurred and her voice shook. “That’s – that’s what happened. Except the perp was one of Lex’s hired killers.”
He hesitated, then said, “I’m sorry, but I have to ask you how you know that.”
She wilted and fell back against his solid chest. “Be – because – because Lex introduced me to him – said that I had to – to behave or – or my parents would – would meet him.”
He barely breathed out the words. “And he’d have them killed too?”
“Yes!” she wailed. Then she fell sideways onto the bed, her strength gone. Her hand still gripped his, but she knew it would but just a moment before he disengaged himself and left her alone forever.
And it was no less than she deserved. She’d allowed her own sister to die rather than risk any more pain. The only reason she was going to testify was revenge. There was nothing altruistic or noble about why she was doing what she was doing. She wanted Lex to die – or, failing that, to spend the rest of his natural life in prison.
But not because she was a good person. She wasn’t, not now. She was just trying to survive long enough to see justice done.
Her sister was dead. Her parents wouldn’t stay in the same room with each other. Neither of them enjoyed being with Lois. Her father stayed away because Lex underwrote his research and Sam hated the fact that he couldn’t pay for it all and transferred that resentment to his daughter. Her mother treated her like a leper because she sensed that her son-in-law was prototypically evil and she couldn’t understand why Lois stayed with a man who terrified both of them.
She couldn’t even tell her parents that she stayed with Lex to keep them alive.
And now this man – this good man, this honest man, this transparent and unselfish man – knew what she really was and any second now would push her far, far away from himself. She couldn’t blame him, either. If she could have left her body behind, she would have pushed herself away.
But he didn’t.
She suddenly realized that he had laid down behind her on the bed, his arms gently cradling her in his powerful embrace. He held her with a peculiar blend of ease and tension that seemed to promise that he’d never let her go unless she wanted him to release her. His heart beat against her shoulder with a power that filled her ears and thrilled her. The cords of muscle she’d admired earlier now enveloped her in a cocoon of safety and care, and she felt invulnerable.
If only he’d been there before she’d married Lex. She would never have given the billionaire a second glance. Too bad that it was too late for her to love him the way he deserved to be loved. And in a few days she’d be in federal custody and she’d probably never see him again.
There was no future for them, not together. It wasn’t possible. All they had was now. The only thing she could take from him was his gentle and unyielding presence. She would make herself be satisfied with the memory of tonight, his arms wrapping her in his compassion and comfort as she wept bitterly.
