Pete and Clark found the Torch office empty when they arrived. The lights were off and there was no sign of Chloe anywhere.
"She isn't here. Clark, I swear I left her right here."
Clark walked over to a computer and wiggled the mouse to wake the sleeping monitor. "Maybe she wasn't feeling well and decided to go home. She's probably fine." He sat down to log onto the Internet when he spotted some old news clippings that were a faded and stained yellow lying next to the computer. Clark picked them up and began skimming over them.
Pete looked over Clark's shoulder at the clippings. "What's this all about?"
Clark tried to be as careful as he could be with the fragile paper. "This article is about the murders at the Foster manor." Clark read the rest of the article. "Whoa," was all he said.
Pete's brows drew together. "What is it, man?"
"Be careful with it." Clark handed Pete the article and stood up. "I'm gonna go find a phone and call Chloe's house to check up on her."
Pete nodded. He barely heard Clark's words as he sat down in the chair his friend left vacant. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the text. "That definitely explains the 'whoa'," Pete spoke to himself. But this still revealed nothing about what happened to Chloe last night. He placed the article down with care and logged onto the Internet. The second part of this research was finding out what a seance was. Just as he typed words into the search bar, Clark had returned. "Any luck?" Pete asked without looking over.
"No. She isn't home. Mr. Sullivan said Chloe called him earlier saying she would be working late at the Torch."
Pete turned in his chair to face Clark. "So she lied then?"
Clark didn't want to believe that, but it was possible. "Maybe she's on her way home?"
"Maybe," Pete began, "she went back to the manor." Pete watched Clark consider that possibility. They both knew what Chloe would do to capture a story, and moreover, satisfy her own curiosity.
Without another word, the two of them ran out of the office and headed to the manor.
*****(Metropolis, 1942)*****
They sat around an oblong wooden table that was polished to a high shine. Every last one of them were dressed in crisp dark colored suits. Their attire was expensive as anyone with an eye for fashion could tell. Just as Lillian Larson had.
She sat on a chaise longue and leaned on its back. She stroked the red velvet softness of it as she sighed. The room was no more than a gilded jail cell as far as Lily was concerned. She had long ago stopped being impressed by the beauty of it. The framed canvas artwork on the white walls and the costly oriental rugs were objects to be admired, but Lily was over them.
She studied her crimson nails for the fifth time out of sheer boredom and put her hand to her mouth as if to yawn, but stopped abruptly. She slowly lowered her hand as her eyes focused on the man entering the room. She had to make a conscious effort not to gape at the handsome stranger as he filled the only empty chair at the table. Lily sat up straight on the chaise and crossed her legs at the ankles. She smoothed out the skirt of her navy blue silk jersey evening gown, not bothering to cover the knee exposed by the split up the front. She had never seen this one before. She would have remembered.
Her sights were distracted when Gladys entered the room. Gladys was the housemaid, which was pretty obvious by the black and white uniform she had on. She set her tray down on a stand and began serving rum to the men around the table. That's all they ever drank.
Gladys then came over to Lily and served her the only flute of white wine on the tray. Lily mouthed her thank you to Gladys, not wanting to attract attention to herself. She continued to admire the handsome stranger from the other side of the room. Not once in the hour that they sat did he glimpse at her.
When the mingling started, Lily stood up from her seat. Before she could cross the room, Nick was at her side. She cast a look of mild annoyance as he put an arm around her waist and began escorting her around the room. She felt like she was being dragged. Lily wanted to tell the possessive jerk to buzz off, but instead she put on a stiff smile and stuck it out.
Lily took another white wine off the tray Gladys carried around and sipped slowly from it as she glanced out the corner of her eye at the stranger in the slate gray suit. He stood out among the black and navy that the other men wore. And Lily noticed he was the only blond in the room.
"Isn't that right, sweetheart?" Nick's words brought Lily's attention back to her side of the room.
She recovered in time so Nick wouldn't notice that her focus was being held elsewhere. She smiled because she was sure it was appropriate for whatever was being discussed. "Sure thing." She touched Nick's shoulder and he turned to face her. "Will you excuse me, Nicholas." She began to step away, but Nick held a constricting arm around her waist.
"Where are you going?" His smile faded when he asked.
Lily knew Nick was the jealous type, but *goodness*, this was getting tiresome. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smiled. "I'm going to powder my nose, sugar." She batted a pair of emerald green doe eyes at him. "I just want to be beautiful for you." When Nick looked like he wasn't going to break, she traced a finger softly down his cheek and said, "Please." She pouted her lips slightly and spoke in a tender voice she knew Nick wouldn't refuse.
He still looked to be reluctant, but Nick dropped his arm.
"Be right back." She sauntered off. As she did, Lily incorporated a subtle swing in her hips because she knew Nick would still be watching her. He would watch her until she was out of his sight.
Lily sighed as she exited the room. Poor bastard, she thought. He's like putty in my hands.
She entered the bathroom and studied her reflection in the mirror. She didn't need any powder, but she did touch up her lipstick. She fluffed her shoulder length dark brown curls and stepped back into the hallway. She closed the door and leaned against it. There he was, standing against the opposite wall. The handsome stranger in the slate gray suit.
He looked up at her and lowered the cigarette he was about to light. "Good evening, miss."
His voice was as smooth as his appearance. She walked over to him and stopped at arms length. The three inch heels of her evening sandals brought her height to just a little past his shoulders. "Got a name, tiger?"
He cleared his throat and said, "Frank. I didn't catch yours."
Her perfect lips formed a half smile. "Didn't throw it." He wasn't a shy one, this stranger. He looked her in the eye with the few words he'd said. And for that, she wouldn't tease him *too* much. "Lillian, but please call me Lily."
Frank brought Lily's hand to his lips and kissed it with practiced softness. "I'm pleasured."
And privileged, Lily thought, but she would keep those words to herself. She slid his cigarette from between his fingers and put it to her lips. He didn't hesitate to light it for her. She blew a stream of smoke to the side and touched the lapel of his suit jacket.
"You're new." She took another drag and expelled more smoke.
"I am, but I wasn't born yesterday."
Confusion flickered across Lily's face. "Beg your pardon?"
He politely removed her hand from his jacket. "Who's girl are you, Lillian? You're too beautiful to be here alone. But you don't need me to tell you that."
True, she thought to herself. She didn't mind hearing that compliment as often as she did. She almost snorted at his question though. "I'm nobody's *girl*, I'm my own woman. But I know what you mean." She handed him back the cigarette. "I'm seeing Nick Hunter." She stepped closer to him. "But not at the moment."
He had handled her like he was used to being approached by all types of women. Of course she could see the reason why he probably had countless women swooning over him. His brown eyes were more gorgeous than any man's eyes had the right to be.
Now he let a coy smile grace his face and that let her know that he didn't think of her as just another woman vying for his attention. The boyish countenance suited him, made his lovely browns go all soft and dreamy.
Lily felt her heart palpitate. Oh shit, she thought. What was she getting herself into? She suppressed that feeling and the thought that accompanied it and leaned closer to him. "You wanna kiss me, Frank?"
He raised a dark golden brow. "W-what?" he asked in a low voice as her face neared his.
"Do you want to kiss me?" she whispered slowly and seductively, her lips only inches from his.
He leaned forward to close the gap between them. As he did, she put two fingers to his lips to stop him. "It was a question, sugar. Not an invitation." Her question was answered nonetheless. She tilted her head back and smiled. "I'm not that easy."
"No, you're not easy." Frank lifted his head and blinked the softness out of his eyes. "But you are one hell of a flirt." His expression was serious for a moment before his face broke into a smile. He extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray next to them.
Lily turned her head to the closed double doors when she faintly heard Nick's voice on the other side. He was more than likely missing her and wanted to find out what was taking her so long. Sometimes she swore Nick's gray eyes were more green than her own. Perhaps with good purpose when taking into account her current actions.
"I gotta go, tiger." She liked Frank very much and didn't want to get him into any kind of trouble. Nick could sometimes be...obnoxious. Lily turned from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She looked at him with a questioning stare.
As he held her face with one hand, his eyes traveled down to her lips her and then back up to her green irises. The passionate stare shot straight through to Lily's soul and engulfed her heart with...with something strange. She would have thought it was just passion alone, but she knew what that felt like. No, this was something more, something she had never felt in her twenty-one years. No matter how badly she wanted to, she didn't let her gaze waver.
"Goodbye Frank." Thank God her voice didn't betray her emotions to him.
He let go of her arm, but was still touching her face. "Goodbye Lily."
***
Chloe opened her eyes. The room was nearly pitch black; the sun hadn't quite set behind the horizon yet. She lifted herself off the hard wooden floor, favoring the stiff right side of her body. The intense dream she just experienced had so many emotions swirling around inside her.
As she stood up, a thought struck her, sudden and painful like a migraine. She knew who killed Lily and possibly Frankie and Unyce. She remembered his face as Lily looked into his eyes before she fell to the ground after being shot. Chloe shivered, but not because she was cold.
She noted the absence of the arctic chill and called out. "Lily?" She almost jumped at the sound of tree branches knocking against the window behind her. "You want me to help you, don't you?"
Chloe scrambled to pick up her notebook and pen from the floor. It was too dark for her too see what she was writing, but she scribbled the name Nicholas Hunter on the pad before it could escape her memory. She collected her scattered belongings and stuffed them back into her purse.
She looked around and spoke to the air. "What do you want me to do?" She was sure Nick Hunter was probably dead by now. The odds he was still alive were minuscule even if he had lived a full life. All Chloe could do was tell the police who committed the sixty year old crime and have the case finally be solved. But she couldn't do that because she had no evidence. This situation was really spoiling her fondness for a good 'Who done it?'.
What was she going to do? Tell the police she was taken over by a ghost and could reveal the perpetrator through dreamlike visions? That wasn't gonna happen. No one would come close to believing her. No one except Clark and Pete, and she couldn't tell them. They'd light into her for sure if the two of them ever found out she came back here.
Tired and perplexed, Chloe started out of the manor. She gathered her jacket around her and hugged her purse as the chilled wind rushed about. She stopped halfway across the yard, spotting Pete and Clark running toward her.
Chloe put a hand through her disarrayed locks and sighed. She had some explaining to do.
**Author's note: How do you guys like it so far? Please tell me with a review.
Thanks again to everyone who posted a review for the last chapter. They were more helpful than you know.
"She isn't here. Clark, I swear I left her right here."
Clark walked over to a computer and wiggled the mouse to wake the sleeping monitor. "Maybe she wasn't feeling well and decided to go home. She's probably fine." He sat down to log onto the Internet when he spotted some old news clippings that were a faded and stained yellow lying next to the computer. Clark picked them up and began skimming over them.
Pete looked over Clark's shoulder at the clippings. "What's this all about?"
Clark tried to be as careful as he could be with the fragile paper. "This article is about the murders at the Foster manor." Clark read the rest of the article. "Whoa," was all he said.
Pete's brows drew together. "What is it, man?"
"Be careful with it." Clark handed Pete the article and stood up. "I'm gonna go find a phone and call Chloe's house to check up on her."
Pete nodded. He barely heard Clark's words as he sat down in the chair his friend left vacant. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the text. "That definitely explains the 'whoa'," Pete spoke to himself. But this still revealed nothing about what happened to Chloe last night. He placed the article down with care and logged onto the Internet. The second part of this research was finding out what a seance was. Just as he typed words into the search bar, Clark had returned. "Any luck?" Pete asked without looking over.
"No. She isn't home. Mr. Sullivan said Chloe called him earlier saying she would be working late at the Torch."
Pete turned in his chair to face Clark. "So she lied then?"
Clark didn't want to believe that, but it was possible. "Maybe she's on her way home?"
"Maybe," Pete began, "she went back to the manor." Pete watched Clark consider that possibility. They both knew what Chloe would do to capture a story, and moreover, satisfy her own curiosity.
Without another word, the two of them ran out of the office and headed to the manor.
*****(Metropolis, 1942)*****
They sat around an oblong wooden table that was polished to a high shine. Every last one of them were dressed in crisp dark colored suits. Their attire was expensive as anyone with an eye for fashion could tell. Just as Lillian Larson had.
She sat on a chaise longue and leaned on its back. She stroked the red velvet softness of it as she sighed. The room was no more than a gilded jail cell as far as Lily was concerned. She had long ago stopped being impressed by the beauty of it. The framed canvas artwork on the white walls and the costly oriental rugs were objects to be admired, but Lily was over them.
She studied her crimson nails for the fifth time out of sheer boredom and put her hand to her mouth as if to yawn, but stopped abruptly. She slowly lowered her hand as her eyes focused on the man entering the room. She had to make a conscious effort not to gape at the handsome stranger as he filled the only empty chair at the table. Lily sat up straight on the chaise and crossed her legs at the ankles. She smoothed out the skirt of her navy blue silk jersey evening gown, not bothering to cover the knee exposed by the split up the front. She had never seen this one before. She would have remembered.
Her sights were distracted when Gladys entered the room. Gladys was the housemaid, which was pretty obvious by the black and white uniform she had on. She set her tray down on a stand and began serving rum to the men around the table. That's all they ever drank.
Gladys then came over to Lily and served her the only flute of white wine on the tray. Lily mouthed her thank you to Gladys, not wanting to attract attention to herself. She continued to admire the handsome stranger from the other side of the room. Not once in the hour that they sat did he glimpse at her.
When the mingling started, Lily stood up from her seat. Before she could cross the room, Nick was at her side. She cast a look of mild annoyance as he put an arm around her waist and began escorting her around the room. She felt like she was being dragged. Lily wanted to tell the possessive jerk to buzz off, but instead she put on a stiff smile and stuck it out.
Lily took another white wine off the tray Gladys carried around and sipped slowly from it as she glanced out the corner of her eye at the stranger in the slate gray suit. He stood out among the black and navy that the other men wore. And Lily noticed he was the only blond in the room.
"Isn't that right, sweetheart?" Nick's words brought Lily's attention back to her side of the room.
She recovered in time so Nick wouldn't notice that her focus was being held elsewhere. She smiled because she was sure it was appropriate for whatever was being discussed. "Sure thing." She touched Nick's shoulder and he turned to face her. "Will you excuse me, Nicholas." She began to step away, but Nick held a constricting arm around her waist.
"Where are you going?" His smile faded when he asked.
Lily knew Nick was the jealous type, but *goodness*, this was getting tiresome. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and smiled. "I'm going to powder my nose, sugar." She batted a pair of emerald green doe eyes at him. "I just want to be beautiful for you." When Nick looked like he wasn't going to break, she traced a finger softly down his cheek and said, "Please." She pouted her lips slightly and spoke in a tender voice she knew Nick wouldn't refuse.
He still looked to be reluctant, but Nick dropped his arm.
"Be right back." She sauntered off. As she did, Lily incorporated a subtle swing in her hips because she knew Nick would still be watching her. He would watch her until she was out of his sight.
Lily sighed as she exited the room. Poor bastard, she thought. He's like putty in my hands.
She entered the bathroom and studied her reflection in the mirror. She didn't need any powder, but she did touch up her lipstick. She fluffed her shoulder length dark brown curls and stepped back into the hallway. She closed the door and leaned against it. There he was, standing against the opposite wall. The handsome stranger in the slate gray suit.
He looked up at her and lowered the cigarette he was about to light. "Good evening, miss."
His voice was as smooth as his appearance. She walked over to him and stopped at arms length. The three inch heels of her evening sandals brought her height to just a little past his shoulders. "Got a name, tiger?"
He cleared his throat and said, "Frank. I didn't catch yours."
Her perfect lips formed a half smile. "Didn't throw it." He wasn't a shy one, this stranger. He looked her in the eye with the few words he'd said. And for that, she wouldn't tease him *too* much. "Lillian, but please call me Lily."
Frank brought Lily's hand to his lips and kissed it with practiced softness. "I'm pleasured."
And privileged, Lily thought, but she would keep those words to herself. She slid his cigarette from between his fingers and put it to her lips. He didn't hesitate to light it for her. She blew a stream of smoke to the side and touched the lapel of his suit jacket.
"You're new." She took another drag and expelled more smoke.
"I am, but I wasn't born yesterday."
Confusion flickered across Lily's face. "Beg your pardon?"
He politely removed her hand from his jacket. "Who's girl are you, Lillian? You're too beautiful to be here alone. But you don't need me to tell you that."
True, she thought to herself. She didn't mind hearing that compliment as often as she did. She almost snorted at his question though. "I'm nobody's *girl*, I'm my own woman. But I know what you mean." She handed him back the cigarette. "I'm seeing Nick Hunter." She stepped closer to him. "But not at the moment."
He had handled her like he was used to being approached by all types of women. Of course she could see the reason why he probably had countless women swooning over him. His brown eyes were more gorgeous than any man's eyes had the right to be.
Now he let a coy smile grace his face and that let her know that he didn't think of her as just another woman vying for his attention. The boyish countenance suited him, made his lovely browns go all soft and dreamy.
Lily felt her heart palpitate. Oh shit, she thought. What was she getting herself into? She suppressed that feeling and the thought that accompanied it and leaned closer to him. "You wanna kiss me, Frank?"
He raised a dark golden brow. "W-what?" he asked in a low voice as her face neared his.
"Do you want to kiss me?" she whispered slowly and seductively, her lips only inches from his.
He leaned forward to close the gap between them. As he did, she put two fingers to his lips to stop him. "It was a question, sugar. Not an invitation." Her question was answered nonetheless. She tilted her head back and smiled. "I'm not that easy."
"No, you're not easy." Frank lifted his head and blinked the softness out of his eyes. "But you are one hell of a flirt." His expression was serious for a moment before his face broke into a smile. He extinguished the cigarette in the ashtray next to them.
Lily turned her head to the closed double doors when she faintly heard Nick's voice on the other side. He was more than likely missing her and wanted to find out what was taking her so long. Sometimes she swore Nick's gray eyes were more green than her own. Perhaps with good purpose when taking into account her current actions.
"I gotta go, tiger." She liked Frank very much and didn't want to get him into any kind of trouble. Nick could sometimes be...obnoxious. Lily turned from him, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back. She looked at him with a questioning stare.
As he held her face with one hand, his eyes traveled down to her lips her and then back up to her green irises. The passionate stare shot straight through to Lily's soul and engulfed her heart with...with something strange. She would have thought it was just passion alone, but she knew what that felt like. No, this was something more, something she had never felt in her twenty-one years. No matter how badly she wanted to, she didn't let her gaze waver.
"Goodbye Frank." Thank God her voice didn't betray her emotions to him.
He let go of her arm, but was still touching her face. "Goodbye Lily."
***
Chloe opened her eyes. The room was nearly pitch black; the sun hadn't quite set behind the horizon yet. She lifted herself off the hard wooden floor, favoring the stiff right side of her body. The intense dream she just experienced had so many emotions swirling around inside her.
As she stood up, a thought struck her, sudden and painful like a migraine. She knew who killed Lily and possibly Frankie and Unyce. She remembered his face as Lily looked into his eyes before she fell to the ground after being shot. Chloe shivered, but not because she was cold.
She noted the absence of the arctic chill and called out. "Lily?" She almost jumped at the sound of tree branches knocking against the window behind her. "You want me to help you, don't you?"
Chloe scrambled to pick up her notebook and pen from the floor. It was too dark for her too see what she was writing, but she scribbled the name Nicholas Hunter on the pad before it could escape her memory. She collected her scattered belongings and stuffed them back into her purse.
She looked around and spoke to the air. "What do you want me to do?" She was sure Nick Hunter was probably dead by now. The odds he was still alive were minuscule even if he had lived a full life. All Chloe could do was tell the police who committed the sixty year old crime and have the case finally be solved. But she couldn't do that because she had no evidence. This situation was really spoiling her fondness for a good 'Who done it?'.
What was she going to do? Tell the police she was taken over by a ghost and could reveal the perpetrator through dreamlike visions? That wasn't gonna happen. No one would come close to believing her. No one except Clark and Pete, and she couldn't tell them. They'd light into her for sure if the two of them ever found out she came back here.
Tired and perplexed, Chloe started out of the manor. She gathered her jacket around her and hugged her purse as the chilled wind rushed about. She stopped halfway across the yard, spotting Pete and Clark running toward her.
Chloe put a hand through her disarrayed locks and sighed. She had some explaining to do.
**Author's note: How do you guys like it so far? Please tell me with a review.
Thanks again to everyone who posted a review for the last chapter. They were more helpful than you know.