CHAPTER 7 - A PLOT TWIST

"How could we have not seen this?" Lois asked, pacing back and forth. "There were so many holes in her story to begin with! How did I miss this? First, she comes and finds us at the Planet, then she insists on having dinner at our house so that she knows where we live, then she put the blame off onto someone else who, conveniently, she doesn't know what he looks like, so we don't know who to go after."

"OK, Lois, let's not panic or jump to conclusions," Chloe said. "We don't know what to believe. We know Lana. She was a friend to me and Clark, and I think you would have considered her a friend, too."

"Chloe, you're reading the same thing that I'm seeing!" Lois shrieked. Her eyes widened in horror. "And now Lana's alone with Clark. He could be in so much danger."

"Now, if you remember, going to the lab was actually your idea," Chloe said. "It wasn't Lana's. And Clark offered to go with her. She didn't ask him to go."

"What are you getting at, Chlo?" Lois asked, realizing her cousin was refuting every theory Lois was coming up with.

"For argument's sake, let's just say that Lana has been telling the truth the whole time," Chloe said. "Think back to the time that we knew her."

"Yeah, she was full of lies, secrets, and deceit," Lois said. "I hated the fact that Clark showed any amount of interest in her. She was always pressing him to divulge his secret even though she was keeping plenty of secrets of her own."

"Lois, in all honesty, are you looking at this with your eyes wide open, or do you want Lana to be the bad guy in this?" Chloe asked sincerely. Lois' shoulders drooped as she realized her cousin was right.

"Alright," Lois said. "I have a feeling you have a theory, cuz, so lay it on me."

"If this Aaron Jacobs guy is real, and he erased all of his computer files, what if he is the one who planted this information on Lana to throw us off his track?" Chloe hypothesized.

"If that's the case," Lois said. "It almost worked. I don't really know who or what to believe right now, but I'm at least open to the possibility that Lana may have actually come to help and not harm."

"Good," Chloe said with a satisfied smile. "I'm going to keep working on everything here. Lana and Clark will check in whenever they hear anything. You go back to the Planet, so there's no suspicion as to why yours and Clark's lunch took all day."

"Call me if you hear from Clark," Lois said. "Or if you find out anything."

"Same to you, cuz," Chloe said, turning her attention back to the keyboard.

Lois rushed back into the Planet, eager to get to her computer and busy herself in her work to get her mind off everything else going on.

"Where are you going in such a rush?" Zac asked as she sped past him.

"Hot on a story," Lois lied.

"And where's that husband of yours this time?" Zac asked. "He never seems to stick around for very long. It's amazing he even remembers that he's married to you."

"Clark is hot on the story as well," Lois answered mindlessly. She looked square at him. "That's the awesome thing about teamwork. We work together. It doesn't always mean side-by-side, but he's investigating the story out in the field, and I'm investigating the story from behind the desk."

"It seems to me that he always seems to leave you behind," Zac observed. "It must be hard to live in his shadow."

"Thanks for your concern, but our partnership is none of your business," Lois answered.

Zac held up his hands in an 'I Surrender' motion and backed away. "Just making an observation."

"Lane! I need you in my office!" Perry yelled from his office.

"You better be telling us that our tornado coverage was so good that we're moving upstairs immediately!" Lois huffed. .

"Not yet, but you are definitely much closer. I have another story for" you. Nail it, and I can promise you that you and Kent will be moving upstairs and reporting in the big leagues. Where is that husband of yours anyway?" Perry asked.

"Oh, um, dentist," Lois said, covering quickly. "He chipped a tooth at lunch. He should be back in an hour. What's the story?"

"A body just washed up from Lake Metropolis," Perry said "It's been nibbled on by some little fish, and it's been in there for a couple of days at least, so there's no clear identification on it. You and Kent go see what you can find out."

"Got it, Perry," Lois said.

"Oh, and, take Easton with you," Perry said. "His shots from the tornado devastation were great, so we definitely want some shots of this. Nothing morbid, though."

"Hmmmm, Easton," Lois said, contemplating.

"What's wrong?" Perry asked, sensing her hesitation.

"Nothing, he just…." Lois said, her voice trailing off. "I'm sure it's nothing, though. I can handle myself." With that, she left Perry's office, and walked back to her desk. "Zac! Get your camera! We have a murder scene to shoot."

Zac snatched up his camera and other equipment and was on her heels as they rushed out of the Planet.

"So, what murder investigation are we going on?" Zac asked as they got in the taxi.

"Apparently, a dead body washed up on shore at Lake Metropolis," Lois said. "It's currently unidentifiable, so we're going to try and get police interviews, and maybe we'll be there when the identification comes in…..or I guess I should say if it comes. Oh, and Perry said no morbid shots while we're there."

"OK…." Zac said, his voice trailing off. Lois noticed the color draining from his face.

"Don't tell me this is the first time you're going to see a dead body," she said.

Zac shrugged with a pained look on his face.

"Just take a deep breath and try not to pass out," Lois said. "We ace this story again, and Clark and I are guaranteed a promotion."

Zac took a deep breath. "Thanks," he told Lois. He reached over and squeezed Lois' hand. "I'll try and get you that promotion."

Lois smiled uncomfortably and drew her hand away slowly. "Sure," she said. "Happy to - happy to help."

Zac and Lois spent the next couple of hours at the lake, taking pictures of the body, talking to police, detectives, forensics experts, and medical examiners. Lois snapped a picture of the car's license plate on her phone when she was sure nobody was looking. Though most of the numbers and letters had been scratched off, she knew she could run it through the police database from the Planet. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this person, and his car, was unidentifiable.

"Well, I think we're done here, so I'm ready to head out," Lois said to Zac around 7pm that evening.

"OK," Zac said, seeming a bit distracted. He cleared his throat, and snapped back to reality. "Yeah, let's call a cab and get out of here."

Their cab arrived shortly. "I'm going back to the Planet to do a little more work and meet up with Clark," Lois told Zac. "Are you going to the Planet or your place?"

"Um - my place," Zac stammered. Lois noticed he had been acting weird all afternoon.

"Zac, is everything alright?" she asked him. "Is it the corpse? I realize they're a bit stomach-churning at first, but in this line of work, you gotta get used to it. Perry White told us that you were the most sought-after photojournalist, so it surprises me that you've never taken pictures at a murder scene before."

"Yeah, sorry," he said, smiling at her. "I'll be fine. I guess there was just a lot that happened today that I wasn't expecting. You know what? I only live a few blocks away from here. I think I'm just going to walk the rest of the way. The fresh air would be good for me."

"OK," Lois replied. "We'll see you in the morning." Zac got out of the cab and Lois rode the rest of the way to the Daily Planet. She got to her desk and immediately started trying to run the numbers of the license plate that she secretly took pictures of. Her phone rang and made her jump. It was only Lois, a janitor, and a runner running around frantically in the bullpen. Most of her co-workers had already gone home. "Lois Lane," she answered.

"Hey hon," Clark's voice rang out on the other end.

"Clark! Where are you?" she asked. "I tried getting a hold of you, but I had crappy reception on my phone out at the lake."

"I know," Clark said. "I've tried getting a hold of you several times, too, but your phone went straight to voicemail. With Aaron Jacobs on the loose, I got worried about you, so I flew back to Metropolis, and asked Perry where you were. Once I knew you were working on a story at the lake, and I knew you were safe, I flew back to California."

Lois couldn't help but smile at the sentiment. "Awww, thanks Smallville. Anyways, so where are you?"

"We're still in California," Clark replied. There's a LOT of paper files, and we're combing through each one in case Aaron Jacobs is a fake name, too. Even with 2 super-powered people, this is long and tedious work."

"Have you talked to Chloe?" Lois asked, lowering her voice to a whisper. "Did she fill you in on what Dr. West's files said?"

"Yes, and yes," Clark answered. "I know all about Lana. Or at least what Dr. West's files say," Clark said. "I'll never pretend like she was an angel, even when I dated her there were some secrets and red flags, but last night she was the one who encouraged me to go after you and make things right with you because we are just meant to be together."

Lois smiled at the sentiment. "Well, I'll definitely agree with her on that."

"If it makes you feel better," Clark said. "I've spent the last 6 hours with her, and there is nothing concerning or suspicious about her behavior."

"She's not trying to talk me down and win you back?" Lois asked.

"Hopefully you're teasing when you ask this question, but no, nothing of the sort. It's been a lot of reminiscing about the old days, talking about her current love life, and our current love life," Clark answered.

"Hopefully you're not sharing too much about our love life," Lois said in a flirtatious manner. She heard Clark give a playful little laugh at the mention.

"Hey Lois, Lana just came back with some dinner for us, so can I let you go so that we can eat really quickly, and get back to our investigation?" Clark asked.

"Sure," Lois said. "I'm going to finish up at the Planet, and then call it a night in a couple of hours. I'll meet you back at our apartment later?"

"Of course," Clark said. "Love you."

"Love you, too," Lois told him. She hung up the phone, and continued to work on the pictures that she took on her phone at the crime scene. She uploaded them to her computer and enlarged them, cleared them up a bit, and ran the 3 digits and letters that she could make out through the DMV database. She then cross-referenced the license plate matches to a missing persons database. Three names came up of missing people who had license plates that could match the car that was pulled from the lake today. One of them made her freeze.

Easton, Zac.

"Zac Easton?" she whispered to herself. "Why is he listed as a missing person?" She clicked on the Driver's License photo accompanying the name and gasped. The man in the picture looked to be around 45, red hair, and very skinny. "Zac Easton isn't really -"

"I wondered how long it would take you to put two and two together," a voice behind her said.

Lois gulped and turned around slowly. Standing behind her was the man whom she had thought was Zac Easton. "You - you're not really Zac Easton, are you?" she asked in a faint whisper.

"You're supposed to be a brilliant reporter," the man answered. "What do you think?"

"Aaron Jacobs?" she asked.

"Ding, ding," he said creepily. "You win."

And that was all Lois remembered before her world went dark.