Lois finished packing as Clark checked them out of the motel. She’d almost expected him to try to get up close and personal with her after her little episode the night before, but he hadn’t done anything but let her cry herself to sleep in his arms. She’d awakened just before five in the morning, and Clark had occupied his usual guard position at the foot of her bed, ignoring the other bed and taking up any space on the floor that might have allowed an intruder access to the room.

He opened the door and did a scan of the room to make sure they hadn’t left anything, then he put his hand out for her bag. “Ready to hit the road?” he asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. Breakfast at the drive-through, I take it?”

He shrugged. “I think we can risk the local diner if you want eggs or waffles. It’s not likely the man we’re thinking about would have eyes this far west.”

She handed him her suitcase. “Actually, eggs and waffles sound good to me right now. It’d be a nice change from the usual microwaved breakfast burrito.”

“Good. There’s a pancake place between here and the interstate, small enough to be barely noticeable but big enough for us to hide in.”

“Ready when you are.”

“Then let’s go.”

*****

Nigel’s anger threatened to overflow on Asabi – a dangerous problem of which they were both quite aware. “I understood that you had a lead on Mrs. Luthor yesterday.”

Asabi answered as softly as he could. “I also understood that to be the case. However, the operative who thought he had spotted their vehicle was unable to locate it on the highway. She believes that they have either gone into hiding or are traveling on back roads to avoid being identified.”

Nigel forced himself to calm down. It wasn’t Asabi’s fault that their quarry had seemingly vanished. The tall Indian had as much to lose as anyone else should their employer be convicted by her testimony – testimony which would incriminate both Asabi and Nigel equally.

Nigel sighed. “So we are still proceeding under the assumption that they are going to Denver?”

“That is my firm belief. And I have no evidence which would contradict that belief.”

“Might they not still arrive in Chicago?”

“It is possible, of course, but they have had sufficient time to do so already. And we have enough assets in Illinois to let us know of their arrival were Chicago their destination. Nor do I believe they will go to New Orleans. Mrs. Luthor has enough verifiable information to place the entire Mafia organization in south Louisiana at risk of immediate arrest. They have nearly as much to lose as we do, and we cannot risk letting them acquire her. They would use her knowledge against us in a most violent manner.”

Nigel frowned in thought for a moment, then said, “I agree with your analysis. I think we should place a cordon around Denver and wait for their arrival while continuing our active search for them. There is still a chance that we are mistaken in our deductions.”

Asabi hesitated, then bowed. “As always, I bow to your superior wisdom.” He took one step backward. “With your approval, I will issue instructions to fulfill your desires.”

Nigel turned back to his desk as he flipped a wave at Asabi, who backed up to the door and silently slipped through it. The man was uncannily silent, and Nigel knew him to be efficiently deadly when necessary. He was an opponent who must not be underestimated.

Nigel wondered if Mr. Luthor understood the delicate balance that his two closest associates maintained to serve him, or how explosive the result would be if they were to actively oppose each other. Few in the city of Metropolis would be safe in such a circumstance.

*****

The five-hundred-mile drive from Terre Haute to Manhattan, Kansas, had been mostly silent, although it wasn’t an uncomfortable silence. Twice, Clark had asked Lois’ permission to find an all-news station to see if there was any word on Mayson’s condition. Neither attempt had yielded any new information.

While Lois was driving west on I-70 that afternoon following yet another drive-through lunch, Clark had scoured the morning edition of USA Today he’d bought in the pancake diner earlier. The only story referring to their situation was a mention of Sheldon Bender, Lex’ lead attorney, filing a motion in federal court for a three-week stay in court proceedings to continue examining the evidence against his client. Judge Wenzel had promised a ruling on the motion within three business days, but hadn’t seemed inclined to grant it.

Clark folded the paper angrily and almost threw it down on the van’s floor. Lois glanced at him and said, “I’m sure she’s going to be fine, Clark. If she were – if she wasn’t – I mean, they would have said something to the media by now.”

He nodded. “I know. I just can’t help being concerned.”

“I understand. Girlfriends like her are rare.”

His snort drew her attention. “What does that mean?” she asked. “You don’t think someone like Mayson is rare?”

“Irrespective of how rare she might be, Mayson isn’t my girlfriend.”

“You sure about that? From what little I saw, she’d really like to be.”

He sighed. “I know. She’s been kind of pushing me in that direction for over a year now.”

Lois risked a longer glance. “She’s ‘kind of’ pushing you?” He nodded. “And you don’t want to go down that road?” He looked back at her and shook his head. As she returned her gaze to the road and corrected for lane drift, she said, “Then why don’t you tell her how you feel about her? Or, rather, how you don’t feel about her?”

He snorted again. “You’ve never been on the receiving end of Mayson Drake’s undivided attention. I’ve seen a number of bad guys on the stand testifying in court who have just crumbled under her questions. And that stare?” He shivered. “Sometimes I think she could bore through stone with it.”

Lois chuckled. “Aw, the big bad detective is scared of the itty bitty blonde ADA.”

He frowned at her. “Yes. At least, a little bit.”

They shared a quiet laugh, then Lois asked, “How come she hasn’t gotten the idea that you’re not that into her before now?”

“Oh, she has. That’s why we almost had a fight in the courthouse just before we picked you up.”

“Ah. I thought I picked up some tension there.” Lois paused, then flipped on her turn signal and moved to the right lane. “Have to make a pit stop at this gas station coming up. We could use some more go-juice, too.”

“I’ll pull some cash out of the money belt.”

“And I’ll be Joanne Clark once again, bored housewife who’s craving a chocolate treat.”

He smiled. “I can take a hint. How about some Double-Crunch Double-Fudge bars? I hear they can knock down a craving like that before half the bar is gone.”

“That will do just fine, Jerome.”

“How are you doing? Want to drive some more?”

The question unexpectedly stung. Lex had never – never! – allowed her to drive herself anywhere. She hadn’t been behind the wheel of any vehicle since before she’d married the monster. She’d always been chauffeured – make that guarded – everywhere she’d gone without her husband, whether to work or a social engagement or to one of the domiciles Lex called home. He’d sold her Jeep Super Cherokee the week after the wedding, after pointing out that she wouldn’t ever need to drive herself anywhere again.

At the time he had sounded loving and caring.

Lois abruptly decided that when all of this was over, when she got out of prison – whenever that might be – she’d wangle a way to buy a big SUV. Something large, like a Ford Expedition or a Chevy Suburban, but not as big as military surplus Hummer. That was more like a tank than a car, and she couldn’t think of where she’d park it without paying for at least two spaces. But she could get the Suburban with a thirty-five gallon gas tank, big enough to fill up and drive all day—

Clark touched her elbow. “Earth to Lois. Are you still there?”

“What? Oh, oh, yes, I’m sorry, I was just – daydreaming.”

“Nothing wrong with that. But if you’ll turn off the ignition, I’ll take care of the gas and the chocolate. You go run your errand and—”

“I want to drive the rest of the afternoon.”

He blinked, then nodded. “Okay. We’re a little more than a hundred miles east of our destination for the evening, so we don’t have to hurry here. Just remember that it’s best if we don’t stop in public for too long.”

She turned off the engine and slid the keys into her pants pocket. “Really? Is that why we spent an entire day at that park?”

One side of his mouth smiled. “We weren’t on a major highway then. Even the octopus reach of Lex Luthor couldn’t put watchers in every little out-of-the-way place between Metropolis and every federal court this side of the Rocky Mountains.”

She nodded back. “You’re probably right. And I don’t think I’ve thanked you properly for that day by the lake. I really do feel better for it.”

He opened the door and put one foot on the concrete. “Come on, Joanne, we haven’t got all week. You want chocolate, I’ll get you chocolate.”

His sudden bad Yiddish accent startled her into smiling freely. She opened her own door, and as she stepped down, she said, “We’ve got all the time in the world, Jerry. Try not to spill gas on your pants this time.”

*****

Clark directed her to pull off the interstate at exit 313, where the sign listed Manhattan, Fort Riley US Army base, and Kansas State University as possible destinations. He then guided her north on State Highway 177 to the small town of Manhattan.

As they pulled into the parking lot for the Texas Roadhouse, she asked, “Is there a link between this Manhattan and the one back east?”

Clark grinned. “Actually, there is. The city founders back in the 1850s wanted to call the place ‘The Little Apple’ to both link it to and set it off from the New York boroughs. It’s more of a tired joke now, but there are a couple of shops where you can get T-shirts that refer to the city that way.”

She shut off the engine and stepped out of the van. “Is the food good here?”

“The food’s excellent as long as you’re looking for Texas cuisine in a chain restaurant.”

They swung into step beside each other, close but not touching, smiling lightly but not too brightly. “Will they at least cook my steak until it’s well done?”

He laughed. “What? You don’t like a steak so rare and fresh that it moos when you cut into it?”

She goggled at him. “Tell me they don’t serve steak tartare! That’s awful!”

He shook his head. “I don’t think the state health department will let them serve anything that undercooked. But I do remember a high school football game when I was a sophomore and we descended on this place en masse, and when one of the cheerleaders was asked how she wanted her steak she told the server to just wave it over a match.”

Lois stopped on the sidewalk leading to the door. “You’re kidding. I mean, you are kidding, right?”

He laughed again. “No, that actually happened. They didn’t give it to her like that, though. Her steak came out rare but cooked.”

“Did you guys win the game?”

“I didn’t play much in that one, but yeah, we won. The game here my senior year was better.”

“How much better was it?”

“Smallville Crows 44, Manhattan Indians 13. I kicked three field goals and five extra points, intercepted two passes, broke up six others, and made twelve tackles from the free safety position.”

“You weren’t the quarterback?”

“Nope. We had a junior named Buster James who could stand on the thirty yard line and throw the ball through the goal posts at the far end of the field. He threw three touchdown passes and ran for another one in that game before he got tackled hard and hurt his throwing shoulder in the pileup. Poor guy never could throw like that again. He would have been a really good college quarterback.”

“And where did you play college ball?”

It was as if the plug had been pulled from a sink full of soapy water. All the good feelings he’d been sharing with her up to that point just swirled down the drain. “I didn’t.”

She was so startled by the sudden transformation that she couldn’t think of anything to say. It felt as if they’d stepped back to their initial meeting when he’d been grim and determined with little or no sense of humor evident.

He turned toward the door and pulled it open. “Come on, let’s get something to eat. I’m hungry, and I’m sure you are too.”

*****

Clark knew he was being harsh with her. He knew it wasn’t her fault that he’d suddenly been awash in remembered grief and guilt and regret for lost opportunities. But he remained silent as he carried their bags to the room.

One king-sized bed, which meant he’d sleep on the floor at the foot of the bed again. He tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter where he slept, that he didn’t know Lois well enough to be involved with her, that the desires and feelings welling in his heart when he looked at her or stood close to her – or worse yet, when she laughed – couldn’t have planted themselves there in the brief time they’d known each other. Besides, she was a witness in a vital felony case against a mass murderer. He needed to be objective, he needed to remain aloof and apart, he needed not to sigh over her profile as she sat in the driver’s seat of the van and—

Enough! he insisted. She’s not a potential girlfriend or mate or even a bowling buddy. She was going to testify and then go to jail, probably for several years. By the time she got out, she’d have forgotten him altogether.

Then she touched his elbow. “Clark? Do you want to talk about it?”

He blinked twice, then gently laid the luggage on the end of the bed and sat down beside it. Lois pulled the room’s single chair away from the desk-in-name-only and sat with her hands in her lap, separate from him yet still close enough to reach out touch him.

He took his glasses off and rubbed his face. “I got the game ball that night. Everybody cheered for me, even Buster. The trainers had his shoulder strapped down and his arm in a sling, but he wouldn’t leave for the hospital until the team came into the locker room. It should have been a perfect end to my high school career.”

She waited for him to speak again, and when he didn’t, she whispered, “But?”

He looked at her face – her caring, sympathetic face – and turned his head away again. “It seemed like half of Smallville was there. My parents, of course, and the girl who’d promised to go to the senior prom with me.” He glanced up at her puzzled expression. “Country folks tend to commit to things earlier than city folks do.”

“Ah. And then?”

He closed his eyes and dropped his head. “I was showered and changed and dressed and whooping it up with the rest of the team when Rachel – she was my prom date – grabbed me on the way to the bus. She’d been crying and – and she told me that my dad was on his way to the hospital with chest pains. Coach didn’t blink at all, he just told me to go with her and be with my parents, that he’d tell the team what was going on.”

He felt her grip his big hands softly but firmly in her small ones, as if she was promising him something. “What happened next?” she breathed.

He lifted his head and opened damp eyelids. “I got to the emergency room and found my mom sitting beside his bed. They had him on oxygen and had all kinds of wires and tubes stuck in his arms. He was awake enough to wave me closer and tell me how proud he was of me. I told him I just wanted him to go home with us. He said he’d do his best.”

When he didn’t say anything else, she kneaded his hands lightly and asked, “What happened next?”

He pulled a hand loose and wiped his eyes. “They took Dad to Intensive Care in Wichita General. Mom and I stayed with him for four days. At first he seemed to get better, but his heart – there was too much damage and – and he died in his sleep the following Tuesday afternoon.”

Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lois swipe at her cheeks. “Oh, Clark, I’m so sorry. Is that why you didn’t go to college?”

He nodded. “I gave up my athletic scholarship and stayed on the farm to help Mom. Rachel spent a lot of time there too, and by the time the fall harvest was in, she’d convinced me to apply to her father to work as a part-time county deputy. It was really kind of her to do all that, too, given – given what happened at the prom.”

She waited for him to continue, but when he didn’t, she whispered, “Can you tell me what happened at the prom?”

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before speaking. “We were having a really good time. She hinted that she wouldn’t mind if I found a quiet place for the two of us on the way home, then asked me to get her a drink. When I came back, two of the basketball players had pushed her behind the bleachers and were giving her a really hard time. I got mad when I saw that her dress was torn and pushed them away harder than I had to. When I got her home, her dad assumed the worst and almost attacked me. I guess they both felt guilty over that, and that’s why he offered me the job.”

She patted his hand. “I bet you were great at it.”

“I guess I did pretty well, because he convinced me to go full-time in the spring. By then my mom was working on her art and she’d leased almost all the pasture land to other farmers. It was a lot less work and we had a steady income from the leases, but if it hadn’t been for my deputy’s paycheck, the farm would’ve gone under.”

“How long were you with the county?”

“About three years. By that time, Mom’s art was selling well enough on the west coast and in Mexico that she was supporting herself. She practically threw me out of the house and made me go to Metropolis to attend the academy. Thanks to my experience, I graduated with honors and eventually got my detective’s shield.” He chuckled. “It was quite a culture shock, too. One month, the worst crime I’d investigated was some high school kids rustling cattle while drunk. My first week out of the academy, I responded to a domestic disturbance where a man took his wife and baby hostage and threatened to shoot them. My partner and I managed to end that one without any injuries, but it was still a really weird day.” He sighed and shook his head. “I wouldn’t blink at something like that now.”

“What happened with Rachel?”

He hung his head and closed his eyes for a long moment, then sat up again. “She went to Kansas State, got a degree in criminology, then came back to the Smallville sheriff’s department as a dispatcher and worked her way up to county detective. She ran for sheriff two years ago and won, her father retired, and now we see each other occasionally at holidays or reunions.” He filled his lungs and let the air out in a big sigh. “I really think that was for the best. She and I don’t have the same dreams for our lives.”

Her hand touched his as if she were afraid he’d bolt like a frightened deer. “Even so, your life didn’t turn out like you expected it to, did it?”

Something in her tone of voice made him look up at her. He could see the same thing in her eyes that he felt every time he thought back over those years, that the present he had now wasn’t what he’d signed up for and he didn’t quite know how it had gotten that far off track.

He turned to face her more directly. “I guess your life didn’t either.”

She sighed. “No. A little over five years ago, when the Daily Planet was bombed out of business, I was – I felt like I had nothing to stand on, nothing solid under my feet. Lex came along and proposed to me and I felt like I had a solid foundation again, that as Lois Lane-Luthor I could do the same kinds of things I’d been doing before, busting the bad guys and making the city better.”

She pulled her hands away and crossed her arms over her chest. “But it didn’t last. I was an assistant editor and producer of some of the hard news pieces the suits upstairs let us run. It wasn’t long before I saw a pattern – if the segment questioned the business practices at any of Lex’ subsidiaries, the piece got cut. I went to Lex about that and about some side deal one of his high-level assistants was running. I thought he’d be thrilled to find out what was going on so he could fix it. Instead, he – I got all up in his grill and he beat me up for the first time.”

Now he reached out to take her hands. “Oh, Lois, I’m sorry.”

She leaned forward over their rejoined hands. Her tears dripped on his fingers as she continued her tale. “That was the first time he hit me. It wasn’t the last. He never left bruises on my face or my forearms or lower legs. And he always gave the doctor a reasonable excuse – she was injured during a martial arts workout, she fell off the parallel bars, she slipped on a piece of soap in the shower – and they were paid well enough to pretend to believe him.”

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know this is a very insensitive question, but – didn’t you ever try to get away? Didn’t you look for any way to escape?”

She nodded. “Yes. Yes, I did. And every time I wasn’t where he’d told me to be, one of his goons would find me. Sometimes he’d send Asabi with me. He’s from India and he acts like he’s gentle as a lamb. But I’ve seen him cripple people with his bare hands. He worries me, but Nigel St. John scares me. He’s a former MI6 agent from England and he always carries a handgun and a knife. And I don’t mean a little folding knife, either. The blade is about seven inches long and sharp enough to cut through bone. I think he likes to kill.”

“I see. And you think they’re trying to find you?”

“No. I know they’re trying to find me. And if they do – if either one of them does – I’ll either go back to Metropolis with my parents literally under the gun, or I’ll be buried in an unmarked grave in some wooded area. And anyone with me, anyone helping me, will be dead.”

He nodded. That explained a lot, like her mood swings and her defiance of Luthor despite her obvious fear and her hesitance in reaching out to Clark, even as a friend.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “You’ll get to Denver in one piece. I promise.”

She blinked at him and looked away. “Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep, Clark. It’ll hurt too much if you have to break them.”

*****

Lois opened her eyes and felt a muscular arm across her belly. Reflexes honed by years of abuse made her shrink in on herself, hoping against hope that Lex wouldn’t decide that this was a good morning for sex.

But the moment she moved, the arm lifted and released her. She grabbed at the covers to jump out of bed before he could encircle her again—

Nothing happened to her when she moved.

Then she remembered. She’d spent the night in a budget-friendly motel room with a police detective. She was on the run from Lex in Kansas and was working her way west to surrender to federal authorities in Colorado.

And Clark wasn’t going to force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

A glance at the clock told her it was a few minutes before six in the morning. She turned to look at the other side of the bed for a moment and saw the tall, handsome, broad-shouldered man lying on the covers, his head propped up under his hand and a half-smile gracing his face. “Good morning,” he almost drawled. “You can have the bathroom first.”

Lois took a step toward the bathroom and tried to force her breathing to slow. Manhattan, Kansas, that’s where they were. The Little Apple. They’d had steak at some franchise restaurant whose name she didn’t remember in what passed for downtown in that little burg, then they’d come back to the motel and talked for over an hour about their lives and how neither one of them had signed up for who and what they were now. They had agreed that life wasn’t fair, and then she’d leaned back against the soft but unyielding power of his chest and had slept soundly all night long.

Too well, she thought. She shouldn’t feel this relaxed, this at ease with him. She’d been under the covers and he’d lain on top of them, but there was still too much intimacy this morning. She couldn’t do this to him.

She definitely shouldn’t do this to herself.

Yet she couldn’t help but trust him. He hadn’t taken advantage of anything she’d said or done during the entire trip, not even last night when it would have been easy for him to do so. After hearing his story, she’d wanted to comfort him, to somehow ease his pain, but she knew it would have been the worst thing she could have done. He needed to protect her from Lex and his cohorts, and not because he thought he was in love with her.

She carried her suitcase into the bathroom and closed the door. My life really sucks, she told herself.

And whose fault is that, she replied.

Mine, of course, she responded, and we both know it.

She looked into the mirror and moved to see around the crack across the top. She looked surprisingly good to herself. Younger, or maybe just more rested and relaxed.

And that was ironic. She was running from almost certain death into a prison via a public trial which would reveal to the entire nation what an utter idiot she was, yet she looked and felt years younger and more rested than was reasonable to expect.

A sudden tap on the bathroom door startled her. “Lois?” Clark called. “I’m going to go fill up the van. There’s a convenience store next door, so I won’t be gone long.”

She got her breathing under control. “Okay. I’ll be ready to roll when you get back.”

*****

He backed into the parking space in front of their room and turned off the key, then sat in the driver’s seat with a slight smile on his face. Last night had been wonderful. He and Lois had each opened up to the other and revealed some inner thoughts, things that he’d never told Mayson and which he was certain Lex had never heard from Lois. He opened the door and paused, wishing that he was really on his way west with his wife to visit family and friends. For that brief moment, it didn’t matter that none of it was true or that the probability of its coming true was too close to zero to make a difference. It was a nice fantasy—

Then he heard it.

A low, near-whisper of a voice, muffled by distance and a closed car window, the kind of thing he’d trained himself to ignore under usual circumstances.

Unless, of course, he heard his name mentioned.

“Yeah,” the voice repeated, “Kent and Lane. Yeah, I’m dead sure. Cause I’m lookin’ at him right now. He’s about a hundred feet from me, just getting out of that white van. Just filled up the gas tank. Well, it’s almost dawn here in Kansas, so I think they’re leavin’ town. No I ain’t followin’ him! Cause he got himself a reputation when he was a cop here several years ago and he’s not someone I’m gonna tangle with again! Yeah, he busted me! Look, I ain’t scared, just smart. But – okay. Okay! I’ll call you back if they go anywhere but west on the interstate. Yeah, you can see the highway from here. No! I told you I ain’t followin’ him! Yeah, if you don’t hear from me – Fine! Just send the money!”

Clark watched from the corner of his eye as the man punched the phone off in apparent frustration and threw it into the passenger seat. He thought back to some of the arrests he’d made in and around Smallville – yes, he remembered the guy. Billy Parsons, high school dropout, petty thief, tried to run with a bad crowd but couldn’t measure up to their standards. Clark had arrested him for marijuana possession not long before he’d moved to Metropolis.

Should have checked on his sentence, thought Clark.

They had to get away without Billy reporting on them. But how? He couldn’t arrest the man, nor could he ask the local police to do so. Billy hadn’t broken the law by making a phone call. But he’d reported seeing the van and given their location to someone.

They had to get away fast.

He considered taking Billy’s car, but aside from the fact that it probably was a traffic stop away from an arrest, it looked as if it might break down the moment he started it again. A quick glance into the engine compartment told him that Billy only changed the oil when he absolutely had to, didn’t seem to know why the motor should have a clean distributor cap, had allowed the spark plug wires to degrade, and apparently didn’t understand that the ‘check engine’ light meant he should have the engine checked. The tires were so thin that the two on the driver’s side had no appreciable tread left.

That idea was a non-starter, just like the car.

Then he thought of another possibility. About five slots further up, on the other side of Billy’s car, was a much newer Plymouth PT Cruiser with the phrase “Just Married” scribbled on the back window. He looked closer – yes, it was soap and not shoe polish, which meant he could get rid of it easily. He risked a glance into the room in front of the car and saw two young people sleeping in each other’s arms under the sheet and clothing strewn around the room. If they were typical young honeymooners, they wouldn’t know their car was gone for at least several hours.

Now all he had to do was figure out how to get rid of Billy.


Life isn't a support system for writing. It's the other way around.

- Stephen King, from On Writing