Chapter 10.

Chloe stood in the lobby of the Summerholt Neurological Institute. The vast modern steel and glass building on the outskirts of Metropolis almost halfway between the big city and Smallville was the state's largest research and treatment centre for brain injuries and associated complications. She didn't know what she expected to find here but her journalistic intuition told her that the answers were locked away in one of the many rooms through the door behind the reception desk. She'd watched as numerous doctors and Summerholt staff used their security passes to get in. To the right of the lobby was a corridor leading to various wards where the in-patients were housed, and Chloe felt it unlikely that she'd find answers there. No, behind the locked door was where any search might prove to be fruitful.

The only problem at the moment was the receptionist who kept glancing at Chloe suspiciously. She had an aloof demeanour about her and looked like she belonged to the cast of a 1980s soap opera with her excessive make-up and pointy shoulders. The hateful glare she had nailed down. Chloe avoided eye contact and pretended to be waiting for somebody, all the while looking around the lobby as well as outside at the parking lot.

"Can I help you?" asked the receptionist as Chloe was looking outside.

Chloe turned and replied, "Oh, I'm just waiting for my friend Kevin. He should be out soon."

With that, the receptionist went back to her task, all the while stealing glances at the little blonde in the brown coat. A minute or so later, the receptionist answered another call before getting up and opening the door behind her with her security pass. Chloe crept closer to get a better look through the open door. The receptionist had left it open while she did whatever she'd gone in the back for. Glancing around, Chloe saw that there was nobody watching so she made her way slowly through the door.

It was a corridor with a number of doors which may or may not have been offices. There didn't seem to be anybody walking around. Suddenly hearing the voice of the receptionist as she laughed at something being said by the person she was talking to, Chloe hid behind the open door. The receptionist had made her way out of one of the rooms and back out through the door to her desk, closing it behind her. She didn't see Chloe and hadn't noticed that the little blonde was no longer in the lobby.

Chloe continued to creep along the corridor, looking at the names on the doors. Some of the doors were offices and some were storage areas. All the labs and treatment rooms were elsewhere so this section must have been for administration. Just as she was passing one of the storage areas, she heard voices coming from further along the corridor. It was a man and woman engaged in conversation. The words were indistinct but getting louder so Chloe realised they were heading in her direction. Across the corridor, the sign on the door said 'Patient Archive'. Quickly shifting across, she tried the handle and to her surprise found that it opened easily. Before the two people could spot her, she entered the room.

The room had several desks and computers arranged down the centre and the computers were on. That in itself was strange, but stranger still was how lax the organisation was about its data security. You apparently didn't need to log in to use these computers, and they were housed where patient records were being archived! The walls along three sides had shelves floor to ceiling, stacked with CDs, DVDs and folders. The shelves appeared to be organised by general area of expertise so Chloe perused the various stacks until she came across one titled 'Memory Reconstruction'. Incredibly, a disc with Kevin's name on it was at the front of one of the stacks so Chloe reached up and grabbed the disc.

Removing the DVD, she inserted it into the drive of one of the computers and it opened immediately. One of the files on the disc had been labelled 'Kevin Grady - Treatment Jan 05'. Chloe clicked on it and a media player opened up. The video showed Kevin being filmed while strapped to a device of some sort. The camera was pointed right in his face and both his forehead and chin had a harness attached to keep his head from moving. There was a contraption of some sort fitted over his head which was projecting an intermittent green light. He looked terrified and was only able to move his eyes from side to side in order to see anything. Chloe forwarded the video a little and was startled by what she was witnessing. Kevin was crying out in pain and tensing up as a green beam of light shone down on a spot in the middle of his forehead. If this was his treatment programme, it looked awful.

Stopping the video, Chloe opened up a dialogue box and dragged the file into it, entering her email address for the Torch beneath it. The file was downloaded to her email account back at the Torch. Dialling Lois' cellphone number, she informed her to check her email for the file that had been sent. Once Lois confirmed receipt, Chloe hung up and sighed. This was something that needed following up on at some point.

Just then, she felt a hand grab her from behind and pull her off the chair as another hand covered her mouth with a rag. Squirming frantically to free herself and unable to utter a sound, she felt light-headed all of a sudden as the chloroform on the rag took a hold. She was out in seconds.

Lois was bored beyond belief. She'd long since stopped staring at the various cuttings on the Wall of Weird. She skimmed through various past issues of the Torch and had come across a couple of articles she'd apparently penned, liking the one about cosmetic surgery. It was a surprise that she could write such a thing as there was a journalistic flourish to it she didn't realise she had. Maybe it was Chloe's magic touch with the editing pen. Browsing the internet for information on amnesia had become boring. Also, Clark hadn't come by as of yet.

The only thing that had broken the monotony was Chloe's call to say that she might have something. Lois had confirmed the email receipt and was about to open the file when her cellphone signalled an incoming voicemail. It was Sheriff Adams.

"Miss Lane, this is Sheriff Adams. Please call me back as I would like to speak with you."

How was this for timing? Lois looked at her phone and called the Sheriff back.

"Sheriff Adams? Hi, this is Lois Lane. I understand you want to speak with me?"

The Sheriff was in her car, driving while talking. "Well well, Miss Lane! I have a few questions about the robbery at the Talon. Where are you right now?"

"I'm at Smallville High. Uh, the Torch school paper. Are you coming over now?" asked Lois.

"I will be there in just a few minutes. Don't you go anywhere now, you hear?" She wasn't asking Lois, she was telling.

It was now a waiting game. Lois thought about opening the file Chloe had sent but it seemed prudent to wait until after she'd spoken to the Sheriff. It wasn't long before the Sheriff entered the Torch office having been directed there.

Lois explained what had happened to the best of her knowledge and the Sheriff recognised that she wasn't trying to be evasive. She genuinely had no idea what had happened.

"My cousin Chloe thinks she's found something though. She emailed a file about Kevin Grady's treatment at some place called Summerholt."

"Summerholt? There's a Dr Grady at Summerholt. Lives right here just outside Smallville," answered a surprised Sheriff Adams.

Lois clicked the file and the video of Kevin's treatment began to play as the Sheriff came round to watch it over Lois' shoulder. Kevin looked frightened and was attempting to free himself, without success. He was pleading with somebody to his left.

"You don't have to do this! I won't tell anyone, I promise! I won't tell them what happened. I know it was an accident. I know you didn't mean to."

Lois sat there shocked while the Sheriff was confused.

"He didn't do it. Kevin didn't kill his brother!" exclaimed Lois.

"What is going on here?" asked the Sheriff to herself, still watching the video. She could recognise the voice of Dr Grady in the background, trying to reassure his son.

Lois turned to face the Sheriff. "We found a membership card belonging to Kevin at the Talon. We found out where he lived and went to speak to him. He wasn't there but his dad told us he was getting treatment at Summerholt to remove his memories of the accident where his brother died. He said that Kevin had accidentally let his gun go off. This video shows his treatment and I have to say, it's pretty brutal."

"Who's we?" asked the still confused Sheriff.

"Uh, me, Chloe and Clark," answered Lois without thinking. The Sheriff's face made her want to kick herself for blurting that out so easily.

"Kent and Sullivan. Always sticking their noses into police business," muttered the Sheriff, furious.

"Sheriff, is Kevin's father the one doing the treatments? You said he was a doctor there. Do you think he's trying to cover for himself? In that video, Kevin is being forced to protect someone else from taking the blame."

The Sheriff stood up and was weighing up the situation. She knew she needed to speak to Dr Grady but there was still the question of Lois' apparent memory loss.

"Miss Lane, what do you remember from yesterday?"

"Uh, I woke up in the alley next to the Talon. Before that, the last thing I remember was being back at the base with my dad, looking over articles about Chloe's death. The nine months in between? Chloe and Clark can tell you more than I can."

The Sheriff didn't understand. "Chloe's death? You mean the very much alive and kicking Miss Sullivan?"

"Yeah, I thought she was killed at the FBI safe house. She was in witness protection because she was going to testify against Lionel Luthor. I still don't know how but she got out. She told me that Clark and I found her."

The Sheriff started to think back to events of that time and wondered if her own memory was failing her. There was nothing in the police files about the safe house incident because the FBI had claimed jurisdiction from the beginning. All the Sheriff knew about the incident was whatever was reported in the Smallville Gazette. Had the FBI evacuated Miss Sullivan and staged the explosion because the safe house had been compromised? This was a question for another day but given the FBI's involvement, she suspected she might not get too far with any enquiry. She'd had more run-ins with the FBI over jurisdiction than she'd care to mention, and it was common for them to ride roughshod over small town law enforcement.

The Sheriff paced around the office as she verbalised her thoughts, and though Lois didn't know it, the Sheriff usually lost her mid-west mannerisms in such situations.

"I'm putting together the pieces here. Somebody robbed the Talon. You apparently saw who it was but can't remember because you lost nine months of your memory after giving chase. Mr Kent helped give chase but can't remember who he was chasing. You found a membership card and tracked down Dr Grady's son, and spoke to Dr Grady who said his son is undergoing treatment at Summerholt to erase a bad memory. Miss Sullivan knows what happened but never saw the culprit, and she's sending videos from Summerholt."

"That about sums it up, yeah."

The Sheriff sighed. "I don't get paid enough to chase dead ends and it seems like I'm at a dead end. Where are Kent and Sullivan right now?"

Lois had to think. "Well, Chloe should still be at Summerholt, and Clark…last I saw him was at Dr Grady's house."

"I think it's time to pay a visit to Dr Grady. I have a feeling he knows what's going on here."

Lois got up and grabbed her coat and bag, ready to join the Sheriff. The Sheriff stopped her.

"Where do you think you're going, young lady?"

"I'm coming with you. I have no way of getting around and I don't know where anything is," answered Lois as if it were obvious.

It was far from what the Sheriff wanted but having Lois tag along might have had the benefit of Lois' memories somehow returning. If that happened, she could tell the Sheriff what had happened at the Talon, and confirm that Kevin was the thief.

Lois and the Sheriff were heading towards Summerholt having first stopped by Dr Grady's house. There was nobody home so the Sheriff suspected Dr Grady might already have headed for Summerholt.