Chapter Nine Part Three- "Degrees of Separation"
Lois and Clark peeked their heads out into the hallway of the hotel making sure that the coast was clear, "Are you sure this is a good idea?" he asks unsure if he should follow his partner in crime towards the room blocked off by crime scene tape.
"You're the one that asked for my help and besides, I would've done this anyways." She replies while taking a small device from her bag and slipping a blank card into the keycard slot, seconds later she was rising to her feet and sliding open the door with a smirk on her face.
Clark looked surprised but also curious, "An early birthday present from Chloe." she explains slipping the device back into her bag and walking into the hotel room.
From the look of the room, it was clear that crime scene cleanup hadn't arrived just yet which gave them a short amount of time to observe their new surroundings, "What are we hoping to find here?" he asks trying to avoid looking at the bloodstained mattress.
"Chloe's at the Torch trying to get access into Metro PD's homicide files, whatever evidence they have against Lex is in there including a toxicology report."
"So you think that someone drugged Lex in order to frame him? Isn't that kind of a stretch?" he responds unsure of the new theory.
"If it was easy for us to break in here then it's not that hard to do. The suspect could've stolen a key from housekeeping or bribed someone at the front desk, they slipped something into the champagne bottle that would be virtually undetectable to tests which would further the police's belief that Lex was making up the story about being framed."
Clark scans the room while Lois was explaining her theories; "What if they didn't drug Lex?" he walks over towards the bed to examine an indentation in the carpet, "What does this look like to you?"
Walking over towards him curious as to what he found, a single point pressed firmly into the carpet, "It looks kind of like the back of a heel…but that could've been made by the victim."
Clark turned to look at her, "How many women do you know wait last minute to take off their shoes before sleeping with someone?"
At that exact moment, the giant light bulb in her head went off causing a large smile to appear on her face, "You're a genius Clark!" she kisses him on the cheek before hurrying towards the door, "And unless you want to be a genius in an orange jumpsuit then I suggest we get out of here and head towards another point of interest."
The young couple head out with the door closing behind them unaware to the blinking red light of the hallway camera.
A dark figure looms outside the Luthor Mansion watching Lex and his lawyer talk about the case until it involves into an argument and she storms away after removing herself as Lex's attorney.
The figure move past the windows and follows the woman down the dark driveway, the gloved hand presses the white cloth against her mouth until she succumbs to the chloroform.
The elevator doors opened with Clark walking behind Lois while he talked to Chloe, Lois was going over her notes for the story and seemed to be at a roadblock as to where they should go next.
Seconds later he hung up and walked towards her saying, "Chloe examined the video from the elevator and found that when they first entered the elevator she had on both earrings but by the time they reached the penthouse she only had one."
"Stuff tends to happen when your in the heat of the moment, why is this anything special?" she questions looking up from her notes interested in what he was gonna say next.
"Because the coroner found two earrings on the victim and not one which means that Lex was with two different women."
Lois began writing on her notepad and started walking back towards the elevator, "There are tons of elevators in this hotel but only one that leads directly to the penthouse." she pushes the button and slips the piece of paper back in her bag before turning back to Clark, "We need to recreate the night that the earring was lost."
He stopped surprised with that deer caught in headlights look which causes Lois to smirk, "Relax Smallville, its not like we're gonna do anything that we haven't done before." she steps onto the elevator and sees that Clark is still standing there trying to process what she was propositioning, "Are you coming or what?"
Clark takes in a deep breath before stepping into the elevator, "Chloe says that the front desk hasn't found the earring and neither have the police." he begins looking around, "If I were an earring where would I be?"
Lois instantly grabs him by the lapels of his coat and twists them around so that their bodies were pressed against the side of the elevator, "Lex had Eve against the wall with her hand here" she puts her hand on his shoulder and uses the other to put his hand on her cheek, "and Lex's hand was here."
The heat between them grows but it seems that Clark is the only one affected by the closeness, "Maybe the earring got knocked off accidentally." he says while his eyes watched her mind work the scene through her mind.
"Yeah, and then she pushed him up against this wall over here like this." she pushes him towards the other side of the elevator with their bodies pressed against each other again and their faces almost touching.
There is a comfortable silence between them when their eyes lock and Clark's arms seems to pull her closer to him, "I forgot how warm you are." she says softly while her hands spread across his chest feeling the calm beating of his heart.
"I've really missed you Lo." his eyes seem to dance alongside hers and was about to lean further towards her when suddenly the doors open causing the two to quickly separate from the other as they turned to see the hotel manager standing there with an angry look.
"This elevator is for VIP residents only."
Lois clears her throat and grabs Clark by the hand where they proceed to walk past the manager, "We didn't know and it wont happen again." they slowly start to back away until they disappear through the main doors.
"Well since we were interrupted before we could locate the earring, your gonna have to speed back and scan the area."
Clark looks at her confused, "Why didn't we just do that in the first place instead of recreating the event?"
Lois shrugged with a playful smirk on her face, "Where's the fun in that? Is it too much to ask that a girl spends sometime with her boyfriend" she taps him on the shoulder before turning him around and pushing him towards the door, "Now speed in there and get the earring so we can get out of here."
He looks around to make sure no one was looking before zooming away and appeared in front of her seconds later holding the diamond earring in front of her, "Is there anything else you want me to do for you milady?" he jokes causing Lois to snatch the small piece of jewelry from him and walk away with a small smirk on her face.
Lex storms into his lawyer's office and strides towards her bar, "What's this new evidence you want to talk about?" he pours himself a glass of brandy but stops when he notices that she hasn't turned around in her chair to face him, "I'm not in the mood for games today Corinne, what do you want?"
There was no answer and no movement from her, Lex set the glass down before he could take a sip and walks towards her concerned only to see her lifeless corpse fall forward when he spins the chair around to face him.
He quickly steps away and dials 911 on his cell only to be put on hold; his frantic gaze looks around until they land on the small pink MP3 player that was playing the same techno beat that the girl from the hotel was listening to at the party.
A shadow appears in the doorway holding a gun at Lex, "This doesn't look good for you Lex. Present at two murder scenes of young women who've shared your bed in the past."
Lex flips his phone shut and raises his hands in surrender, "Whatever I did to deserve this I'm sorry."
The figure steps into the light to reveal Corinne's assistant Shannon standing there, "Its too late for apologies Lex." she pistol whips him across the face sending him to the ground unconscious, "You brought this on yourself."
TBC
comments/reviews/feedback.