It didn't take too much wheedling to convince Chad that, no, he wasn't doing anything in particular with his morning and no, he couldn't think of anything he'd rather do than indulge me with a spot of housebreaking. Does anyone even call it 'housebreaking' anymore? When I was a kid, I read a story called The Housebreaker of Shady Hill and the distinction stuck.

While I waited for Chad and his broken down Karmann Ghia (complete with rust patch in the vague shape of Texas on the passenger side door) to arrive, I changed my clothes and called Heinrich. A woman answered. Running through my mental list of "Things I Know About Heinrich", I remembered that his girlfriend's name was Ilise. Only I didn't want to call her that in case she wasn't Ilise anymore.

"I need to talk to Heinrich." Not even a "hello". Miss Manners would be so disappointed.

"Who is this?"

"Heinrich?" There was a banging sound and a muffled curse.

"Do you know what fucking time it is, Sullivan?"

"Nope, they took my watch at the hospital right before they taped up my ribs," I offered cheerfully. "How did you know it was me?"

"Who else would call at seven o'clock in the fucking morning? Never mind it's my day off."

"Never mind I was in the hospital and you didn't even ask about that. So I guess we're pretty much even, right?"

"Your logic always was faulty. But I'm sure you didn't call up just to shoot the shit."

Heaven forbid. "I need information."

"Of course you do."

"It's important, Heinrich."

"It always is with you, dollface, I know. Life or death," he soothed. I love the way he says "dollface", with that Austrian accent that pulls out the vowels like taffy.

"Dr. Alexi Richter. Phone records."

"How soon?"

"Ten?"

"A.M.?" A convincingly wolf-like howl came from the other end of the line. "You'll be the death of me yet." He sounded a little breathless and I figured he was probably digging under the bed for his shoes right about then. I smiled. Heinrich was such a secret softie.

"Heinrich, you're the best!"

"I know. How did you ever live without me, right?" he drawled. "Loyaulté me lie, sweet. Loyalty binds me."

"Exactly." Outside, Chad must've been leaning on his horn. "Oops, that's Chad. I gotta go."

"Come over to the house when you're done, okay?"

"Yeah."

I hung up the phone, grabbed my jacket and dashed out the door. Chad didn't stop blowing his horn until I'd opened the passenger side door and slid in.

"Your eyeliner's smudged. Here." I wiped his cheekbone with the side of my index finger.

"I doubt the cops'll care," Chad snapped, jerking his head away from my hand. I wasn't too concerned. Chad's natural state is something like mild exasperation. He feels more comfortable that way. And who am I to stand between a man and his comfort? He pulled away from the curb. "Have you figured out a way to get past them yet?"

"What? The fuzz? Oh sure." I hadn't actually, although I knew that Chad had a point. Every cop in Smallville would be at John's place. But a plan was developing. A doozy that'd get the police away from John's house and make sure Lex didn't leave town before I had a chance to talk to him. Two birds, as they say. Two birds.

"Because it's not like they'll just welcome you in with open arms," Chad snipped. "And who calls the police 'the fuzz'?" Poor little goth. He always gets bitchy when I drag him out in daylight.

Grinning widely at him, I fluttered my eyelashes. "Annoyingly antiquated slang is part of my esoteric appeal." It wasn't until two seconds after I reached for my cellphone that I remembered I'd left it in the glove compartment of my car, which, god willing, was sitting in front of John's house as long as it hadn't been impounded as evidence. Although, with my luck. Dammit. "Hey, let me borrow your phone?" Chad flipped me his phone without a word. "I'd close my ears for the next 30 seconds, unless you want to be considered an accessory."

"Chloe, what..." His eyes got big when he realized what I wanted to do. "No way."

But it was already ringing. Chad snatched at the phone, but I dodged him easily. "Eyes on the road," I advised, bobbing my chin upwards to show him where to look. "There's a bomb at the Luthor mansion," I told the dispatcher when she answered. I spoke quickly, pitching my voice lower and hanging up when I was done.

"You're crazy." Chad shook his head.

"Like a fox, maybe. They can't afford not to take it seriously. Smallville's most prominent citizen..."

"Who'll have you painfully and discreetly killed the second he realizes it was you."

"He's not as bad as you think." That earned an odd look from under Chad's heavily mascaraed lashes. He nervously flicked the tips of his nails. Half a dozen police cars passed us, heading in the opposite direction, their sirens blaring. "See? I was right."

"Never said you weren't right. Just that you were crazy," he muttered. He pulled the car smoothly to a stop about a block and a half from John's house. "Someone's gotta be looking out for our well-being!" he protested when I rolled my eyes at the distance.

"God, you're lily-livered," I observed, tugging him out of the car. "C'mon. They won't be gone forever."

Chad has a beautifully kept set of lockpicks that've been useful any number of times. Well, okay, the number of times has been three, but they were undeniably useful on each and every one of those three occasions. He explained to me once that his uncle was a locksmith and that the picks were an old set of his. Chad's uncle had made him take a rigged-together oath he'd come up with himself before he so much as touched the picks.

"It was this completely insane version of the locksmith oath. I think they make them all take it so that locksmiths don't use their powers for evil or anything," Chad'd explained to me.

Every once in a while, I remember to bug Chad about his vague promise to teach me how to pick a lock. There's only so far a girl can go in this life with the jiggle of a credit card. He's never quite gotten around to it though, but I accept the forgetfulness with equanimity. It's like a little postcard from Chad's subconscious that tells me he doesn't really mind occasionally playing Clyde to my Bonnie.

I bounced lightly on the balls of my feet, shifting my weight at the same time. "While we're young?" I murmured, swiveling my head nervously. I'm not ashamed to admit that my palms were sweating a bit. But I scrubbed them vigorously on my jeans.

"This is an art," Chad protested. Or at least that's what I assume he said. He had one of the picks clamped gently between his lips, while he dipped two of the others in the lock. The noises that actually came out of his mouth were more like: "Iffs is a arr." I'll leave it up to posterity to decide whether what I thought he said was actually what he said.

The door clicked open.

"Have I told you lately that I'm passionately in love with you?" I enthused.

"Not since the last time I did this for you," Chad returned dryly.

"Oh. Well, there's time for that later. C'mon." I pulled him into the house and shut the door behind us. One great thing about being Bonnie is that I can focus on Chad's twitchiness instead of my own nagging fears.

I'd been in John's house once before, for an interview. He'd explained his whole-house filing system to me then. A place for everything. His rooms were organized roughly by category, although the order within those rooms left a lot to be desired. He'd showed me his study almost bashfully.

"It seems awfully fussy," he'd explained. "To have a study, I mean."

"I guess you call your garage a 'car hole' too?" He'd laughed at that, catching the Simpsons reference straight off.

"I'm not quite that far gone," he'd admitted, rubbing the back of his neck.

I grabbed Chad's hand and led him upstairs. "If there's anything here, it'll either be in the study or the bedroom," I told him softly. Even though there was no reason to be quiet. "Down there."

John's study was stuffy and hot and close. I cleared a spot for myself in front of his desk and started sifting through his papers. Up till then, none of it'd quite hit me yet, I guess. But the things make up the person and that's what was hard. All those things I hadn't known because I hadn't really known John: a brochure from some east coast sailing school, ticket stubs from the smokiest little jazz club in Metropolis, video dating? God. But as difficult as it was to see and realize how little I'd known about him, it was more frustrating that none of it was giving me any idea about who'd want to murder him or why.

Felt like I'd been hunched over for about a hundred years by the time Chad poked his head into the room. He was dusty, and when he swiped his hand across his sweating forehead, he left a smear of muddy dirt. Perspiration was beading on my upper lip, pooling in the valley between my shoulder blades.

"Any luck?" I asked hopefully.

"Nah. You?"

"Interesting stuff, yes. Spectacularly useful, not so much." I frowned. "This all makes it harder," I admitted, ruffling idly through another pile of papers.

"It's not your fault. You're doing everything you can." My head snapped up at that. Chad's not an overly demonstrative person. But I must've looked too amazed because he scowled. "I'm not about to get in trouble with the cops because I had to give you a happy sunshine daisy pep talk. Let's go."

"I hope Heinrich's having ten times the luck we did."

"Ten times nothing being nothing." Aaand the universe clicked back into place. That was more like it.

"Semantics."

"Reality?"

"Whatever."

* * *