A taste from Chapter 9, Part 3...
Lois glanced at her desk and her face lit up. “Roses? Clark, you are the sweetest. I love you.”
“I love you, too,” he stated. “But they aren’t from me.”
Lois took the card from the bouquet; her teeth gnashed together as she read it and then tore it to pieces.
Clark noticed a flower on her lapel. “Where did you get the corsage?”
Lois grimaced, pulling it off and dropping it on the ground. As she smashed it with the heel of her shoe, a high pitch electronic whine escaped from the flower, causing Clark to grab his ears and cringe, and then the sound disappeared into nothingness.
“What’s the matter?”
Clark picked up the flower and looked at it, really looked at it. There at the center, disguised as part of the stamen was a small, microscopically small microphone in the shape of the smashed bat. Really? A bat? Can you announce your secret identity any louder there, Mr. Wayne? The flower was certainly bugged. Correction, it had been bugged. “Wayne,” he growled and then showed Lois the bug. She didn’t have his microscopic vision and couldn’t see its shape, but she could see enough to tell that it was a electronic listening device.
She nodded to the bouquet of roses. He scanned them. They were clean. “I should check the whole office to be on the safe side.”
Lois nodded again. “Um, Clark?” She held out the boutonniere. “Shall we do some target practice?” she asked under her breath.
He laughed softly, pocketing the flower. “When did he give it to you?”
“When I arrived at his office.”
Clark nodded and made a circle with his finger. He walked around the entire newsroom, scanning here, scanning there, scanning here and there, scanning everywhere. No more bugs. He sighed in relief and returned to Lois at her desk.
Lois was staring at the bouquet of yellow roses. Then she glanced at her watch, her brows coming together. “When did this get here?”
“Just before you did.”
“Clark…” His wife pulled the pieces of the note out of the trash and set them on her desk, trying to reassemble the pieces. “He may be rich, but there is no way this bouquet could have been prepared and delivered in less time than it took me to return to the office.”
I know some of you are going to differ with my opinion on Lex Luthor's background. Before I get comments such as "this isn't Smallville!" here's my opinion: It has always been my impression that Lex *said* he was a self-made man, not that he really was. He acted more like someone who had come from money or, had been used to having it around. Plus, he had been able to afford a house with staff for Lex, Jr. down in Australia for all those years, all those years ago. He’d have to have been a ‘self-made’ teenager! Or VERY much older than we were led to believe. Or married VERY well indeed when he married Lex, Jr.'s mom. (And no, you aren't self-made if you marry into money.
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Thank you for reading. Please post your comments (rebuttals) here.
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Missing Lois - TOC
