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From Part 7:Lois, once they’d reached the group of residents, immediately engaged in conversation with her neighbours. Clark couldn’t help thinking that it was probably the longest conversation she’d had with any of them since she’d moved into the apartment block.
None of the other residents had been told anything about why they’d been evacuated; rumours ranged from a gas leak to an earthquake.
And then, finally, he heard something. Pulling Lois to one side, he murmured, “Sounds like there’s some damage to the foundations - I can’t figure out why yet. I’m going to investigate, okay?”
In case she hadn’t understood what he meant, he gave a little wave of his hand, mimicking take-off. She nodded, and he disappeared into the crowd before ducking into an alley.
*********
Now read on...A minute or two after Clark left, a blue and red speck appeared in the sky, before flying nearer and then coming in to land. Superman went over to speak to one of the senior fire officers before taking off again. Lois hoped that Clark could help; she hated not being able to get to her stuff. It was silly; after all, she knew that once the emergency services had stopped fussing over whatever it was they were worried about everyone would be allowed back in again. It wasn’t as if the building was on fire or about to collapse or anything like that. At least, she hoped not...
A few minutes after that, Superman reappeared and flew down to land beside the fire officer again. Lois edged closer, trying to get near enough to hear what was being said. But all she could hear was an occasional word. “... cracked... wall... could be... explosion... leak...”
None of that sounded good. But she had to know more. Lois grabbed her notebook, wielding it in front of her almost like a battle-weapon, and pushed her way closer still. “Superman!” she called. “Lois Lane, Daily Planet. What have you found out?”
“Lois.” She could see Clark trying to quell the twinkle in his eye. “I wasn’t expecting to see you here. I’m just seeing if there’s any way I can help the emergency services.”
“What’s the problem?” she persisted. “Is it a gas leak?”
Clark glanced at the fire chief, who shrugged.
“There’s a crack in the foundations,” Clark explained. “I suspect that there might have been some sort of gas-related explosion; I smelt gas when I was taking a look around just now.”
“That’s how Mr Trezewski figured out that there was a problem - he was down in the basement this morning and smelt it,” the fire chief interjected. “The gas supply’s been shut off now. But, of course, if there’s still gas around then anything could spark off a further explosion. And the building hasn’t yet been made safe for my men to go in with foam.”
Clark caught her gaze then, and she could see reassurance in his eyes. “Give me some foam,” he said to the officer. “I can go in and douse the place - and I’ll get rid of the gas while I’m at it. And I’ll take a closer look at the damage to the foundations.”
It really paid to have a super-powered friend, Lois thought as she stepped back to let the firefighters supply Clark with a couple of foam tanks. He conferred briefly again with the fire chief before striding over to the building and inside.
Ten minutes later, he returned, going straight back to the fire chief. Lois strained to listen; she managed to glean the fact that there was indeed structural damage as a result of an explosion of some sort. The building would need underpinning, and as such the residents would have to be accommodated elsewhere for the night. The building owner’s insurance would pay the costs.
Lois grimaced. She hated not being in control of her life, and in this situation she was far from being in control. “All my stuff...” she muttered, annoyance battling with alarm. She had papers, files, disks in there she needed for work - important information for investigations. If she wasn’t able to get that...
And then she realised that Clark’s head had shot up and he was looking in her direction. He looked away as soon as she met his gaze, and resumed talking to the fire-chief. It looked to her as if they were having some sort of argument. A few minutes later, the chief left Superman’s side and spoke to another firefighter, who went over to where the residents were standing. Lois put her notebook away and went to rejoin the group.
“...be sent to a hotel for the night. There’ll be some cabs coming in a few minutes to take you over there. And Superman has very kindly offered to escort each of you, one by one, into your apartments to collect a few things for the night. We have to limit that strictly to five minutes each, though, because we have a lot to do here and we can’t take up too much of Superman’s time, and the building isn’t safe yet.”
“The building will be safe by tomorrow?” Mr Coletti, Lois’s upstairs neighbour, asked worriedly.
“We hope so. Superman’s report on the extent of the damage was very helpful. We’re going to do some work in there once you’ve all finished collecting your stuff, and there’s a construction company on the way over.”
A shadow fell over the group; Lois turned her head and saw that Clark, cape flapping in the breeze, had joined them. “Okay, who’s going in first?”
********
Clark kept Lois until last; she wasn’t happy about it, he could see, but he hoped that she’d at least guess that he had his reasons. He’d only done this for her anyway. It wasn’t the normal kind of thing that Superman would do, but he’d heard Lois’s anxious mutter and seen that she really was upset, although he suspected that it wasn’t all to do with not being able to get her stuff. This was her home, after all.
He ushered the penultimate resident out and passed the man’s duffle-bag to him. “Here go you, sir.”
“Thank you, Superman! I really do appreciate your help.” The man smiled, then hurried to the waiting taxi.
Clark gave him a wave, then turned towards Lois, who was making use of her enforced waiting time by interviewing anyone she could get to talk to her: police, firefighters, construction workers, the building’s manager and so on. “Ma’am? Are you ready to go inside?” As she turned, he pretended to recognise her again. “Ms Lane! You live here?”
She followed his lead. “Yes, I do. Or I did. And will do again, I hope, once these guys let me go back home!”
“Now, you know that they’re only doing their job,” he said soothingly, cringing as he imagined how much it would irritate her. As he led her towards the entrance, knowing they were still within hearing distance of bystanders, he added, “And they have people’s safety at heart.”
“Is this all really necessary?” she asked him as they went inside.
Clark lowered his voice. “Yes, unfortunately. There’s quite a bit of damage down there, and there was a lot of gas around - enough to knock someone out at the very least. I’ve done a bit of emergency repair work, just to make the place safer and to show them where the real problems are, but there’s no way that you’ll be able to move back in before some time tomorrow at the earliest.”
“So it could take longer?”
He shrugged. “Maybe.”
“That why they’re letting us collect some stuff?”
Clark shook his head, giving her a wry smile. “Oh, no. If they’d had their way, none of this would be happening. I heard you,” he told her, his tone amused. “And I knew you’d grumble at me all night if you didn’t get what you wanted out of your apartment.”
She shot him a questioning look. “You talked them into letting residents into the building - for me?”
“Of course.” She should have worked that out for herself, he thought, but didn’t comment. He waited while she unlocked her door, then followed her inside. “Anything for my best friend. But they only agreed so long as I observed a strict five-minute limit per apartment. So why don’t you tell me what you want from here and I’ll get it while you pack your personal things.”
Lois told him where the files she wanted were, and he set about packing them at a speed in which he became less than a blur. As he worked, he thought about what he’d told the fire chief in private about the damage to the building.
Whatever had caused it, it wasn’t accidental. He didn’t have absolute proof of that, but all of his instincts were telling him that this was sabotage.
But who would want to wreck an apartment building? Who could possibly gain from it?
The building’s owners were the obvious suspects, he knew. On the other hand, while they might assume that they would get money from their insurers, it wouldn’t be a cash payout; it would go directly to the construction company which got the contract for repairs. Unless, he thought, perhaps the owners would get a kickback from the construction company? Yet the extent of the damage wasn’t that great. He couldn’t see the repair-work being a major job.
But that all assumed that the insurers would pay out for this - and from what Clark had seen, he wasn’t at all sure that would be the case. Well, it might have been if the forensic people didn’t spot what he’d seen - though now, since he would tell them, any payout was unlikely.
Some insurance money would go to tenants, to compensate them for the disturbance they were suffering. However, all hotel bills would be paid direct to the hotel concerned, and he couldn’t envisage any of the tenants having grounds for a large claim.
But someone clearly stood to gain from this. At the moment, though, he couldn’t figure out who that might be. How would it benefit anyone to cause a small amount of structural damage to an apartment building?
Though maybe he was focusing on the wrong potential benefit, he mused. Perhaps it wasn’t money at all. The other consequence of the damage to the building was that all of the residents were being accommodated elsewhere on a temporary basis. Other than construction workers, and whatever security guards were left on duty at the site overnight - if any - the building would be empty.
What if the aim was to allow someone to gain unrestricted access for some reason?
It was a lot of effort to go to just for a straightforward breaking and entering, Clark thought. Simple robbery? He doubted it. Maybe, though, one of the residents had something very valuable? On the other hand, his intervention to allow everyone to collect a few items from their apartment could have put paid to that, if robbery were the motive. Something else? Someone wanting to hide something in the building?
He needed to talk to Lois, Clark concluded as he zipped out through her window at a rate faster than the human eye could follow, taking her files to his apartment. They worked best as a team anyway, and she’d have ideas to add to his.
When he returned, she was standing in her sitting-room, holding a carry-all into which, he could see, more than it was supposed to carry had been stuffed. He reached to take the bag from her; she shook her head, indicating that she preferred to carry it herself. She threw him an enquiring look. “Where are my files?”
“My place,” he explained briefly. At her puzzled stare, he explained, “How much could you really have packed in five minutes?”
“You didn’t help anyone else?”
He shrugged, reaching past her to open the door. “A little here and there. But they were mostly packing personal stuff, so it wouldn’t have been appropriate.”
Lois glanced down at the bag she was carrying and raised an eyebrow. “Uh-huh.”
Clark touched her arm lightly before they left the building. “I’m going to take off pretty quickly - wait for me, okay? I’ll be back.”
Lois nodded, saying audibly as they emerged, “Thanks, Superman!”
“You’re welcome, Ms Lane,” he said, leaving her and heading back over to the fire chief.
**********
“You want us to call you a cab, ma’am?”
“Oh!” Lois turned away from watching Clark take off - that sight still made her catch her breath, every single time - to see a police officer trying to attract her attention. “It’s okay. My car’s parked just up the road.”
“Lois!” Clark came running up, slightly out of breath. “I’m sorry - I got called away. What’s happening?”
Of course. He was here now as Clark, and so he had to pretend that he didn’t know anything about what was going on. Just as, when he’d been there as Superman, he’d had to be formal with her, calling her Ms Lane, pretending that he didn’t know where she lived, treating her as courteously as he did everyone else, but showing no sign of any personal interest in her. Carrying on that deception had been a strain for her, she knew - remembering to call him Superman, to behave differently around him, not giving anyone cause to think that she knew him any better than Lois Lane, reporter, should. How much more of a strain was it for Clark, who had to keep up that act every day, living the lives of two people, doing his utmost to keep the two as separate as possible?
“We’re all being sent to a hotel for the night,” she explained quickly. “I guess I need to get over there and check in.”
He took her bag from her without asking. “Why would you go to a hotel?”
“Uh... because that’s where everyone’s going?”
He shrugged. “You don’t need to go to a hotel. You can stay with me.”
Stay with Clark? She hadn’t considered that as an option. Did she want to stay at her partner’s apartment? He did only have one bedroom, although she knew Clark well enough to be sure that he wasn’t offering to share it with her.
More’s the pity.That thought escaped before she could stop it.
Stupid! she told herself. Clark was her friend. She didn’t want anything more with him. She’d told herself that enough times already, so why was she indulging in that sort of wishful thinking?
Still... If it was a choice between a hotel-room and staying with Clark, she’d stay with Clark. Of course she would. She hated the anonymity of hotel rooms, the impersonal decor, the feeling that she could be in Metropolis or San Francisco or even Abu Dhabi and the room would look exactly the same.
And... she didn’t want to be alone, suddenly. Okay, all that had happened was that there’d been some sort of explosion and her apartment was temporarily unsafe. Yet she couldn’t help feeling at a loss, uprooted. And she wanted, needed, the comfort of having a friend nearby. Not just any friend - having
Clark nearby.
“Thanks!” she said, throwing him a grateful smile.
“Come on.” He laid his hand lightly against her shoulder, steering her away from the emergency workers. “You can tell me what’s happening on the way.”
Or he could tell her, she thought; he had a lot of explaining to do about what exactly had happened and what he thought had caused it. And her instincts were already screaming at her that there was something odd going on. Clark had seemed preoccupied as he’d accompanied her into her apartment, and she’d also had the feeling that there were gaps in what she’d heard him say to the fire chief. She’d sensed, when they were in her apartment, that he was waiting until they were alone before telling her more about what he’d found.
And tell her he did, once they were back at his apartment. Lois stared at Clark in disbelief once he’d explained all he’d seen and the conclusions he’d drawn. “You think someone deliberately set off an explosion? But why? It’s just an apartment building. What possible motive - ?”
He shrugged. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. It doesn’t make sense to me. I thought maybe insurance, but -”
“But I can’t see how anyone would really benefit. It’s not as if the building was destroyed and the owners would get compensated for it.”
“Exactly. So I can’t figure it out at all. I was hoping you might have some ideas.”
“Hmmm.” Lois wandered into Clark’s kitchen, picking up items and setting them down again as she mulled over what Clark had said. He was right: it didn’t really make sense. In fact, she couldn't see that it made any sense at all.
“And you’re positive that it was sabotage?”
“Absolutely.” He came over towards her, pausing to lean against the worktop. “It was very cleverly done - I guess it might’ve fooled a forensic investigation. But then, the forensic officers don’t have my abilities,” he pointed out with a quirk of his lips.
“So who would benefit...?” she murmured, thinking aloud.
“That’s where I’m stuck,” Clark told her. “I even thought about non-financial possibilities - you know, like someone wanting unhindered access to the building...?”
“Yeah, but won’t the fire and construction crew be there most of the night, doing the underpinning or whatever it is?” Lois pointed out.
Clark shrugged. “I guess so. That’s pretty much the brick wall I came up against, too.”
“So, where do we go from here?”
Clark glanced at his watch; automatically, Lois looked at hers too and was surprised to discover that it was early evening. “I guess we call in to the newsroom and tell them we won’t be back today. And we could ask Jimmy to run a check on the building owners, their insurers and anyone else who has any kind of an interest in the place - okay? Including the superintendent - Mr Trew -?”
“Trezewski, yes,” Lois supplied. “Okay, you make the call. I just want to check that my notes are all safe.”
Clark gestured towards the kitchen table, and she noticed for the first time the tidy stack of folders there. “It’s all there. Be right back, and then you can tell me what you’d like for dinner. Then I guess we’d better sort out the sleeping arrangements.”
Sleeping arrangements. Lois cast her partner a surreptitious glance as he headed for the phone. Of course he was going to be his usual courteous self - he’d offer her his bed and he’d sleep on the couch.
Taking advantage of the fact that he was standing with his back to her as he talked to their department head, Lois studied Clark, taking in his tall physique, the way the muscles in his back and shoulders rippled through his shirt as he moved, at one moment shaking his head, at another running a hand absently though his dark hair.
Clark Kent was one incredibly good-looking man. Though she was already well aware of that - in fact, on one memorable occasion, she’d seen
exactly how good-looking he was, how well-muscled he was all over. Not that she’d been supposed to be looking at the time. She’d been focused on trying to save him and getting all of them safely out of Trask’s laboratory - but all the same, she hadn’t been able to resist just a peek. She’d bet there wasn’t a woman alive who could have resisted sneaking a peek at a naked Superman tied to a bed, intrusive though it was.
Right now, Lois couldn’t help wishing that, for once, Clark would also be less of a gentleman. If he would just say something like, “I’ve got a big bed - you know, we could share...?”
But that just wasn’t Clark. He wasn’t pushy, in any way. Even if by some remote stretch of the imagination he was interested in her in that way, he’d never put pressure on her - least of all when she was his guest. She was staying with him because, short of a hotel, she had nowhere else to go. No, Clark wouldn’t be suggesting that they share his bed.
Clark, who had for the last couple of minutes been talking to Jimmy, finished his conversation at that moment and turned to face her again; Lois hurriedly put all thoughts of sharing Clark’s bed out of her head, hoping that her expression wasn’t revealing any of what had been going through her mind. “No problem at the Planet?” she asked, pre-empting anything he might have said.
“Nah. I told Jimmy about your apartment building and he said he’d tell Perry - he said the Chief had heard why we left anyway so there wasn’t a problem. Oh, and Jimmy’ll look into that stuff for us. He should have something for us in the morning.”
“Okay. So there’s nothing more we can do on this for today?”
Clark shook his head. “I’ll talk to the fire investigators again tomorrow - or Superman will,” he amended. “Given I’ve told them what to look for, they shouldn’t have any problem finding evidence of sabotage. So then it’ll be a question of whether there are any clues I didn’t see, or whether the saboteur left fingerprints.”
“Right.” This was good, Lois told herself. She was seeing Clark as her partner again, instead of as a good-looking man whose bones she wanted to jump. “So if there’s nothing more we can do on that now, why don’t we get back to what we were working on before we were interrupted? I got my father to do some digging on the bionic research...”
**********
...tbc
