Author's Note: About time, isn't it? Please give a huge welcome to my loyal-reader-turned-beta, Tigger101, who has already saved me from making two -- count them, two -- gross character violations. If it weren't for her, Chloe would have probably clawed her way out of my hard-drive to kick my butt. Thanks for lending me your insight, Tigger101! It's a great help, and a wonderful learning experience.
And now, on to the story...
..
Chapter Twelve: Warmer
Chloe Sullivan wove her way through the teeming hallways of Smallville High, blocking out the omnipresent melee. School gossip was small change compared to the story she'd landed yesterday. That story... Oh, it's been long since she'd nailed something that hot. She was still thinking of a title that would do it justice. Maybe "Killing Under The Influence", or "Hit and Ruin", or --
The sight of a headful of close-cropped black curls infiltrated her reverie.
"Pete!" she called out, waving over the shoulder of a jock. She slipped between the muscle-block and his girlfriend, ignoring their scathing stares (which they could give but not spell, so why bother?), and came out at Pete's side.
"Chloe, my girl!" He turned to her with a smile that made her forgive the "my girl" part. She loved the exotic contrast of his white teeth and dark skin.
"Hi, Pete. Got a second?"
"For you? A lifetime." He wriggled his eyebrows in a way that made her laugh.
"You're impossible, you." She resisted the urge to tug on his arm. "Come on."
"Where to?"
"The Torch." He seemed unimpressed, so Chloe leaned in and whispered in his ear, "I have a scoop."
This made him shudder, though she doubted it had anything to do with the news. His voice sounded a little husky when he said, "We've got History in five minutes."
"Come on, Pete." Now she did tug on his arm. "Don't you prefer reporting History rather than reading it?"
He grinned and finally let her stir him away. "Man, if I didn't know better, I'd say you're angry for being out-scooped on the Punic Wars."
"Ha ha." Chloe gave him a look. "Besides, my story is better than those puny wars."
"Did you crack the Keller case?" Pete said with twinkling eyes.
"Not here," Chloe hushed him. His words had sent a trill of excitement down her spine. Cracked it? More like smashed it to smithereens. They reached the Torch's door, and Chloe tried to unlock it, but the handle turned in her hand without resistance. Could she have been that tired last evening?
"Okay," Pete said once he was seated on the corner of his desk. "Spill, Sherlock."
Chloe took a deep breath and tried to put her zipping thoughts to order. "Yesterday, after my trusty news team all pulled the vanishing act on me..."
Pete held out his hands, palms up. "Had to help dad at the factory."
"I know, I know." And just where had Matt gone off to? "Anyway, I stayed to do some digging. I talked to Justin --"
Pete opened his mouth to protest --
"-- about his accident," Chloe loudly forestalled him. "He gave me a partial plate number of the car that ran him down."
Pete's mouth clicked shut.
Chloe shook her head. "So then I called contact at the DMV, and guess what?" She pressed her lips on a smug grin.
"I know that cat-got-the-canary look," Pete said. "You got a match."
The grin broke out widely on her face. "I got a match," she said, walking over to the printer. "Feast your eyes on --" The smile slipped off her lips -- "this..." She stared at the empty printer tray, then looked up at Pete. "Have you been here earlier?"
He shook his head, looking as perplexed as she felt.
"Oh." Chloe shrugged it away. "Hold on, I'll print out another copy."
She was reaching for her computer's power switch when she glimpsed the soft blue radiance of the optical mouse. The monitor's standby light was blinking. Now that she strained her ears, she heard a soft hum coming from the PC. Chloe nudged the mouse, and the monitor woke to life with a crackle, displaying her desktop. The static electricity seemed to spider down her spine.
"Pete..."
He was already by her side, and his warm hand on her shoulder helped dispel some of her anxiety.
"Any chance you forgot to shut it down yesterday?" he said.
Chloe gave him a you-know-better look, at which his face sobered.
She checked the directory listing of her documents, fighting a growing sense of violation. "Someone erased my files on Justin and Keller."
"Are you sure?" Pete said.
"Yes, I'm sure." Chloe called up her email client. The blank welcome screen greeted her like a kick in the guts. "Dammit! My mail is all gone."
"So who do you think..."
Their eyes met, and Chloe knew exactly who they were thinking of: Keller.
"You shouldn't have threatened him, Chloe." Pete drew closer to her, and she indulged herself in appreciating the protective gesture. "He must have thought you have something on him."
"And I do, Pete, that's just the point --"
The door opened with a sudden exhale of air, making the papers on the desks flutter. Chloe jumped, but it was only Matt. There was a wild troubled look on his face.
"Hey, guys," he said. "Did you see Keller this morning?"
Chloe exchanged a glance with Pete.
"No, why?" Pete said, but his casualness sounded strained.
Matt turned aside and pounded his fist against the doorframe. The ferocity of the action startled Chloe.
"Not that it's my business..." she said hesitantly. Well, actually, it is. "But why exactly are you looking for Keller?"
Matt looked surprised. He began to speak and changed his mind. Instead he made a vague brushing-off gesture. "Long story."
Chloe crossed her arms. "Well, seeing as you owe me a nice, long article for the upcoming issue..."
"Oh, that." Guilt flickered on Matt's face. "Look, um... I'll turn it in later, okay? I have to go."
"Matt!" she called after him.
He lingered in the doorway. For a second, Chloe's exasperation with his lack of journalistic commitment swelled into something darker. But he wouldn't... would he?
"Have you been to the Torch last night?" she blurted out.
"Chloe," Pete chided. But he fell silent when Matt shuffled his feet, flushing.
"I forgot my bag here," Matt mumbled.
On her right, Pete intervened again. "Chloe, you don't think Matt --"
"I don't know, Pete." She found it hard to believe, but someone had touched her private files, and the violation hurt her more than she was willing to admit.
"Someone went through Chloe's stuff last night," Pete explained to Matt.
The way Matt's eyes widened, first in surprise and then in hurt, convinced Chloe he'd known nothing about it. "Not that I was blaming you," she said quickly, feeling a telltale heat rising in her cheeks. "I was just wondering if maybe you saw someone else around."
"As a matter of fact, I did." Matt's features softened in sympathy. "I don't know who he was, though, it was all dark."
Pete beat Chloe to the next question: "But did he look anything like Keller?"
The transformation from sympathy to anger in Matt's face was stunning. "Leave Keller out of this," he said.
"Whoa, what's gotten into you?" Pete said.
Matt made an impatient gesture. "Never mind. I'll see you later, okay?"
The look Chloe exchanged with Pete this time was bewildered.
"Well, that was a wall-of-the-weird moment," she said. One more story to follow up on...
"Tell me about it. The way things are going, you're gonna have to ask principal Reynolds for a new wall."
Chloe glanced at the precious collection of clippings. "Why do I get a feeling I should pin up a picture of Clark Keller smack in the middle of that wall?"
"Go ahead. I'll bring the darts." Pete's grin gave way to a furrow as his gaze came to rest on the empty printer tray. "One thing I don't get, though. Why would Keller care about your files on Justin?"
Chloe could have screamed with frustration. "That's what I've been trying to tell you all morning! That match I got? Pete, the car that ran down Justin belongs to Marshal Keller!"
She watched breathlessly as emotions chased each other on his dark face: surprise, comprehension, and finally worry. "Chloe, this is serious stuff."
"Don't you think I know that? That man left Justin to die and walked away without so much as a warning. Justice isn't just blind, it's also deaf and catatonic."
"We have to go to the police."
She'd expected this and had her answer ready. "We can't, Pete. Even if we had all the evidence --" she grimaced at her computer -- "it's still all circumstantial."
Pete was eyeing her suspiciously. "Just what are you suggesting?"
She had that answer ready, too. "An expose," she said excitedly, ignoring his violent shake of the head. "We print it on the front page of the Torch, maybe even land the Ledger. If we get the public pressing for an official investigation --"
"No, no, no, no. Chloe, Keller will tear us apart! Forget about libel, this is plain suicide."
Chloe gave Pete her most earnest stare, trying to infuse him with her fervor, trying to burn through his obvious concern. But she knew how stubborn he could be, and right then, his face was all set.
"Well, I'm not going to let that stop me," she said, moving around him and taking her seat in front of her computer. "And I'm sure Matt would have agreed."
"Yeah, well, Matt's been acting crazy lately." Pete dragged his chair over to her side. "And I didn't say I'm letting it stop me. It's just... This is serious."
Chloe pursed her lips on a smile, but didn't push Pete further. Her fingers danced on the keyboard, coaxing out the elusive information that had survived the attack. The silence in the room was the sound of Pete climbing down from his tree.
He sighed with annoyance, which meant he'd probably reached the ground. "So which of the Kellers was it, Senior or Junior?" he said.
"I'm not sure." Chloe's quick rapport with the mail server produced the backup file of her recent emails. She scanned the list and called up the ones from the DMV. "Here. Remember I told you Marshal has a history of DUI? Check out the date on this one."
Pete peered at the screen. "That's about half a year ago."
"Five months," Chloe corrected him. "The exact night of Justin's accident."
"So it's Senior."
Chloe tipped her head, allowing but not committing. "The blood tests came out fine and the charges were dropped," she noted.
Pete shrugged. "So he was mostly sober..."
"Yeah, same like mostly harmless," Chloe said. "But check this one out. Same date, later that night. Charged for driving without a driver's license."
"Wow," Pete said softly. "So it was Junior. It wasn't their night with the law, was it?"
"Two charges in one night? Probably not." Chloe drummed her fingers on the keyboard. "On the other hand, Marshal got out clear, and Clark only got a warning."
"Lucky bastards. So which one...?"
Chloe shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine. What I want to know is how come they got off the police's hook so easily. And look at this." She displayed both files simultaneously and used the mouse to highlight the signed officer.
"It's the same man," Pete said with a frown. "Coincidence?"
Chloe raised an eyebrow. "With Smallville's history? You can probably trace Justin's accident to the meteor shower --"
"Oh, damn," Pete said suddenly and got up. "History."
"Class?"
"No, us, if we don't go now. C'mon. We'll work on the story later."
Chloe gave her computer screen a longing look. "You go ahead, I'll catch up."
"Okay." Pete brushed a kiss on her cheek. "See you in class."
But Chloe quickly realized she had no inclination to go there. What they needed was cold, hard evidence, and she doubted Hannibal and his elephants could help her there. But she knew someone who could.
Chloe was never averse to badgering teachers in their office when the need arose, but this specific office -- and its occupant -- made her hesitate. She took a quick breath, hitched up her sharpest reporter look, and knocked briskly on the door.
"Come in," came the distracted answer.
Chloe opened the door a crack and peered inside. The stern old Physics teacher was sitting at his desk, pouring over some papers.
"Mr. Bailey. Can I have a moment of your time?"
"I've already approved your entrance," he said without looking up.
Chloe entered the room and shut the door behind her. He didn't invite her to sit -- in fact, he was completely ignoring her -- so she took the initiative, as well as the chair opposite his desk. Every story she'd heard about the weird Physics teacher resurfaced in her mind. She stamped them all down.
He was still absorbed in his papers. Chloe caught sight of a strange diagram made of concentric circles, upon which a four-year-old seemed to have sketched a semblance of a sun with jagged rays. The diagram was accompanied by a multi-line graph that looked like a dead spider. She wondered what was so interesting in them. Then she glimpsed the initials 'CK' at the top of the page.
"That looks intriguing," she said, hoping to draw him out.
Mr. Bailey finally looked up at her, and his flint-sharp eyes narrowed. "So it is, Miss Sullivan. Are you familiar with the dendritic density of retinal ganglion cells?"
"Um -- not really." She had a feeling his stare cut straight through her pretense. "Actually, I'm doing a little survey among the staff, and I was hoping you could help me."
There was an unmoving quality in his face that only accented small moves. The upward curve of his lips, so subtle she could have easily missed it, struck her like an outright sneer. Now that she'd tore him from his papers, his grayish eyes remained fixed on her face with unsettling intensity. She resisted the temptation to shake her head. Concentrate, Chloe.
"Go on," Mr. Bailey said.
Chloe arranged her notepad on her knees and clicked her pen. God, I wish I'd rehearsed this. "I came across an article that expressed concern over the rising level of violence in schools over the US," she improvised. "I'm working on a local follow-up. Do you feel the concern is justified?"
He tipped his head slightly. "I'm familiar with the phenomenon," he allowed.
Chloe almost sighed with relief. "Have you ever had any personal experience with violence at this school?"
"Define personal experience."
"You know, inappropriate behavior... Students demanding higher grades or special privileges in your class..." Blackmail... Threats... She felt like she was pushing it already. "Of course," she added quickly, "this is completely anonymous."
"Of course," he repeated dryly. Was he mocking her? "However, as I'm sure you know, my elasticity to pranks of that sort is very low. Therefore, I must answer your question in the negative. Is that all?"
She knew she was being dismissed, but she refused to give up. "If you witnessed an act of violence by some student against another, what would you do?"
"What is every teacher's duty. I would intervene if necessary, and inform Mr. Reynolds."
Chloe stifled a thrill of excitement. Got you... Just a little more... "So you wouldn't feel hesitant to interfere in a situation that's potentially dangerous?"
"I hope not." Those narrowed flint-like eyes were drilling into her. "What are you striving at, Miss Sullivan?"
Now. "You know Josh Miller? He's the jock that Clark Keller knocked down just outside your classroom, in front of at least six witnesses, including you. You didn't do anything about it."
"There was no need for intervention," Mr. Bailey said coldly. "The incident was contained."
"Except that three hours later, Whitney ended up in hospital with a concussion," Chloe said angrily.
"The two events were unrelated."
But was that a flicker of doubt in the teacher's eyes? Chloe pressed the attack. "How can you say that? If you had stopped Keller the first time, he would never have --"
"Miss Sullivan, that is enough."
She bit back her impatience. There was definitely some emotion in those hard eyes. Was it fear? "Mr. Bailey, if Keller is threatening you in any way --"
"That is enough!"
Chloe jumped in her seat. She'd never heard the Physics teacher raise his voice like that, had never seen his face darken with anger. What was wrong with people today?
He made a visible effort to compose himself. "You will leave this office now, Miss Sullivan, and you will leave Mr. Keller alone."
Chloe's jaw all but dropped. "Why is everyone saying that today?"
"Because," Mr. Bailey began but stopped short, frowning. Chloe hadn't really expected an answer, and she suspected that neither had he. Finally he said, "You cannot begin to imagine the pressures working on that young man right now. Please don't add to them. Even ADNRs can be broken."
"ADN-what?"
"Aggregated diamond nanorods, Miss Sullivan. Goodbye."
There was no arguing with him this time; the silvered head had already bowed over the crazy sun-and-spider diagram. Chloe picked up her things and left the office. So much for solid evidence.
She was so frustrated that she walked right into someone in the hallway, and her notepad and pen clattered to the floor.
"Sorry," she said, just as a familiar, cultured voice said, "Excuse me."
She looked up with surprise at the young man. "Mr. Luthor!" Her reporter senses kicked back into high gear. "What brings you to Smallville High?"
Lex Luthor gave her an appraising look, then smiled. "Chloe, isn't it?"
God, a billionaire remembers my name. "Yeah, it is. How are you doing?" I did not just ask him that. "I mean, after the accident and everything."
Did she imagine it, or did his smile become colder? There was no sign of it in his voice when he spoke. "I'm fine, thank you. I believe I didn't thank you for your help in identifying that schoolbag."
"Oh, that. No problem." It reminded Chloe of the owner of that bag, who seemed to be causing her trouble all morning despite his conspicuous absence. "I guess we should all be grateful Clark Keller was there."
Luthor's brow creased. "Actually, I'm not so sure about that."
Chloe's guts tingled in a way that suggested a new story. If they keep cropping up, I'll need a staff the size of our football team! "What do you mean?"
But whatever the billionaire really meant was safe behind the slight pursing of his lips. Even before he spoke, Chloe knew he was parrying.
"Just that there's a great deal of violence associated with that boy," he said. "Wouldn't you agree, Miss Sullivan?"
Chloe nodded silently. Luthor's words echoed her conversation with Mr. Bailey, but with a strange twist of roles which left her uneasy.
The young billionaire gave her a brief smile. "Leave Clark --"
"I know, I know," she cut him off exasperatedly. "Leave Clark Keller alone."
He raised his eyebrows, a gesture stressed by his baldness. "I was about to say, leave Clark Keller to me."
"Oh." As if. And what's that all about?
He gave her a half-bow of his head, and Chloe realized she'd been dismissed, again. She watched him walking away down the empty hallway, dressed in his four-figures black suit, and thought of a panther in a playground. The image made her shudder. How did Lex Luthor fit into this mess?
Only one way to find out.
She gave him a decent head start -- somehow, she doubted Lex Luthor suffered people to pry into his business -- and followed him. She was hardly surprised when she ended up at the principal's office. The closed door, on the other hand, stumped her.
Now what?
She couldn't ease the door open without being caught. Chloe loitered innocently nearby and tried to intercept the occasional word, but whatever noises reached her ears were muffled beyond discern. It must have been a hushed conversation. She could hardly imagine Luthor losing his composure and shouting out his intentions. But wait, was that principal Reynolds's voice, rising in anger?
"With all due respect, Mr. Luthor --"
Someone cleared his throat just behind her, and Chloe jumped guiltily. Mr. Bailey was regarding her with disapproving eyes. She'd been so concentrated on her attempted eavesdropping that she'd forgotten her cover. Some reporter I am.
"I, uh, wanted a word with the principal," she said quickly, trying to will away the heat from her cheeks. "About my article, you know."
The Physics teacher only looked at her for the longest of moments. His eyes were unreadable. He showed no intention of going away.
Chloe couldn't hover next to the door with him watching, and she couldn't just leave, on account of her improvised excuse. She waited a decent distance from the door and curbed the temptation to tap her foot. I should have gone to that History class. I bet I could have gotten better clues out of Hannibal.
The principal's door opened suddenly, and out came Lex Luthor. He seemed collected and content. Principal Reynolds was neither, judging by a quick glance into the office. She wondered if she should go in just now.
Mr. Bailey made the decision for her. "If you'll excuse me, Miss Sullivan, I have to see the principal about something urgent."
"Oh, sure." Finally, something is going right. "I can interview him later."
But before either of them could move, principal Reynolds's phone had rung loudly. Chloe heard him snarling into the mouthpiece, and expected to hear it slam down again. It didn't. The ensuing silence riveted Chloe to place, and seemed to last forever. When Chloe peered into Reynolds's office again, he looked grim and tired. He was still on the phone.
The principal's eyes found and dismissed her, then lingered on the Physics teacher.
"One moment," he said and covered the mouthpiece with his palm. "Evan, have you seen Clark Keller today?"
Hardly daring to breathe, Chloe glanced at the Physics teacher. The old man was as unreadable as ever.
"I'm afraid not," he said. "Who's asking?"
"The police." The principal brushed his free hand over his eyes. "There's been an... incident... at the Keller residence."
.:: To be continued ::
