Lex Luthor had been on the news for a lot of things.
Murder was not one of them. Until now, at least.
Emmeline may not have known a lot about the young Luthor, but she was pretty certain that murdering someone wasn't his forte.
Chloe and Emmeline walked into the Torch office and found Clark typing away at one of the computers.
"Where have you been all afternoon?" Chloe asked.
"I went to go see Lionel at the prison," Clark answered.
"Why? Are you backlogged with your community service hours or something?"
"No. Look, um, I know this is gonna sound crazy, but Lionel gave me a lead in Lex's case. He said that I could probably find the girl's car at the hotel, and I think I did. Check this out." He handed her a piece of paper. "There were 22 cars that were checked into the hotel valet that night after 10 PM when Lex said he left the opera. Now, of those cars, all but three were hotel guests, and of those three, two belonged to guys who had too much to drink at the hotel bar."
"Leaving one."
"Exactly, but I haven't been able to trace her name or address."
"Why am I not surprised? Let me try."
Clark stood up and let Chloe sit at the computer. "You know what the weird thing is? The police aren't even looking into this."
"Well, of course not, Clark, they think that Lex is guilty and they've already got their man." She turned the chair around to face him. "But don't you think it's possible that this is all just a set up? I mean, Lionel Luthor goes all Hannibal Lector and tells you what to look for and where to find it?"
Clark shook his head. "I don't think so. Look, I can't explain this, but something happened to Lionel in prison. I think it changed him."
Emmeline made eye contact with him. She knew he was referring to the whole body switch that had happened, but she found it hard to believe that something like that had changed such a horrible man. It didn't make sense.
Though she didn't know the whole story, Chloe clearly felt the same way.
"Clark…" she started skeptically.
"And what if he really can help?"
"Clark, he's the master manipulator. You cannot trust him, okay?"
"I have to second with Chloe," Emmeline put in. "And no one would know more about not trusting Lionel than her."
"And besides, Lex is in great hands. I mean, he's got Corinne Harper leading his defense. They call her 'The Barracuda'. What he really needs is a good publicist. Have you seen this?" She handed Clark the daily newspaper. "The police have interviewed over 13 women that have slept with Lex in the last year."
Clark's face fell.
"What's wrong?"
"Lex told me that this little one night stand was something that never happens."
"And you believed him?"
"I gotta believe somebody, Chloe." He looked at the computer screen behind her as a page popped up. "There it is."
The three of them looked at the information on the vehicle from the hotel.
"Eve Andrews," Chloe read, "age 28. Lives in Metropolis."
When they looked around them, Clark was gone.
Shocker.
Clark later returned to the office that night with news that Lex had gone to the address at the same time he did to burn photos of himself stashed around the house.
Apparently, Eve Andrews had been a bit of a stalker.
The sad part was that Lex hadn't known her at all, even her name, when he slept with her.
"She was stalking him, and he didn't know what she looked like?" Chloe asked in disbelief.
"He said he'd never seen her before," Clark told them. "Lex lied about a lot of things. He lied about all those women. Do you think he could've done it?"
"I have to say the whole fire starter thing doesn't exactly scream innocence, but there's something really strange about this. Look at this."
Chloe showed him her computer screen where there was a security video of Lex kissing some woman, presumably Eve, in an elevator.
"Wait, I thought Lex's attorneys would have all this under lock and key," Clark said.
"Yeah, well, she may know people at the top, but I know people at the bottom, and they work for tips. Check this out. See?" She paused the video so they could see Eve's face. "She's wearing two diamond earrings. See that?"
"Yeah."
"Okay, now, we're gonna skip through all this gross Zalman King stuff." She fast-forwarded the video that showed Lex and Eve really going at it in the elevator. "Just before they get out of the elevator onto the penthouse floor, and look."
She paused the video again and zoomed in on Eve's face. One ear had no earring.
"She lost an earring," Clark noticed.
"Exactly. Now, the police report said that the dead woman was wearing two diamond earrings. So either she found it, or…"
"Lex was with two different women."
Emmeline was willing to give Lex the benefit of the doubt, but knowing that he had been with two different women in one night and hadn't even known it kind of made her lose some respect for him as a person.
"So is this woman Eve Andrews or the other woman?" she asked. "And if she isn't Eve, then who is she?"
"Let's find out," Chloe told her.
The three of them headed over to the hotel to see if they could gather any more information about the other woman Lex had been with.
"So the police still haven't picked up on the missing earring thing, and according to the people at the front desk, they haven't found anything yet," Chloe explained as they approached the elevator. "So that's where we're at."
The elevator door slid open, and the three of them walked inside. They began scanning the elevator floor to see if the earring was anywhere.
"Well, if I were an earring…" Clark said.
The doors slid shut.
"Let's re-enact the event, okay?" Chloe suggested. "So Lex had 'Eve' up against this wall right here, so…" She pressed herself against the wall and motioned for Clark to follow.
Clark looked back at her awkwardly.
"Okay, come on, big boy, it's for the cause of truth and justice. Now, push me up against the wall."
"I don't—"
Chloe grabbed him and forced him against the wall with her. "And her hand was like this…" She put her right hand on Clark's shoulder. "…and I think his hand was like this." She made him put his hand on her cheek. "And they were…" She moved her other hand down his back in an attempt to find the right position.
Emmeline questioned how Chloe was possibly keeping her thoughts straight in a moment like this. She was pretty sure she was silently milking this up.
She couldn't help but smile at the extremely uncomfortable look on Clark's face. She hadn't seen him so uncomfortable since he had to pretend he was ridiculously in love with Mandy, the love potion cheerleader. It was hilarious.
"Maybe he knocked the earring off accidentally," Clark mustered out.
Chloe furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "Yeah. Yeah, and then she pushed him up against this wall over here like this."
Chloe pushed Clark up against the opposite wall of the elevator.
The second their eyes met, she forgot all about what she was doing.
"Hi," she said quietly.
Clark stared back at her for a moment, the uncomfortable expression gone from his face. His gaze went down to her lips.
No feelings for her, huh? Emmeline thought.
The elevator doors slid open to reveal a mother with her twin girls.
"Oh, my," the mother said at the sight of Chloe and Clark.
Clark quickly moved away from her. "It's okay. You can come in."
"Um, no, that's fine. We'll just, uh, take the stairs."
The mother hurriedly pushed her daughters away from the elevator.
"No, but nothing was happening!" Chloe insisted. "We weren't doing anything! Really!"
Clark sheepishly looked at the two girls.
"I hope you both know that I am never going to let you live this down," Emmeline laughed.
Chloe ignored her and knelt down to look at the crack between the elevator and the floor. "Hey, guys. What if the earring fell down this crack?"
They traveled down to the bottom of the elevator shaft, and sure enough…there was the diamond earring.
The next night, Clark, Chloe, and Emmeline met up at the Torch office after Clark had once again visited Lionel in the prison.
Surprisingly, he was actually helping them fix this whole mess.
Chloe put the earring under a microscope to make out the serial number and track down who was the owner of them.
"There it is," Clark remarked when they finally could see the number. "Just like he said."
"How do they get the serial number so small?" Chloe asked. "It's Lilliputian."
"Lasers. Lionel said all the high-end diamond dealers do it. In case it ever gets lost or stolen, you can track it down."
"Or it can track you down." The fax machine beeped, signaling that Chloe had an incoming fax. "I still can't believe that Lionel actually called his old jewelry guy and had him send over the purchase orders." She picked up the pages from the machine. "All right, give me the numbers."
"7-2-2-D-J-S-3-9-7-0."
"Here we go. Two diamond earrings. Wow, very expensive. Couriered to Miss Shannon Bell."
"Shannon Bell…how do I know that name?"
"Well, according to this, she works in Lex's law firm."
"We have to warn him."
"I'll call the police."
Chloe picked up the phone in the office and dialed 911. When she looked up, Clark was nowhere to be found.
"Okay, that got old after the third time he did that to us," Emmeline said. "How does he manage to get out so fast?"
"If I knew that, I'm pretty sure a lot of my questions would have been answered a long time ago."
"Hey, Em," Clark said as she entered the loft.
Emmeline smiled. "So you mean to tell me that Lionel was willing to help us solve the Lex case because he switched bodies with you?"
Clark looked uncomfortable again. "I don't get it either."
"It's amazing that you can change a person like Lionel Luthor. Even if it took a body swap to do it. You always manage to change people you come in contact with for the better."
"Not everyone."
"You changed me."
Clark smiled a little for a moment before his smile faded. "Maybe not Lex. Why would he lie to me about this whole thing?"
"Maybe he worried you would see him differently if you knew."
Clark didn't answer her.
"From what I know about Lex, you may be the only truly good and innocent thing he has left in his life. I think he's willing to do whatever it takes to keep it that way."
"Well, he still shouldn't have lied to me."
"Granted. And I'm not condoning it. But in the end, I think Lex really does want what's best for you. It's just that his ways of going about it are questionable."
"How do you always manage to see the good in people?"
Emmeline smiled at him. "I learned a lot of it from you."
