Chapter 72 - Investigations

Clark offered to get Chloe and himself into the mansion to look at evidence, but she convinced him that security footage was going to be more useful to them. "I'm sure everything's been cleaned out by now," she said. "Besides, what we really want to know is what happened in the past, not what's happening now.

"Are you sure you can hack in from here?"

"Not hack, exactly. Call in some favors."

"You think that's going to work?"

"You underestimate me." She gave him a big smile. "Half an hour, tops."

But despite her best efforts over the course of the rest of the day, she didn't get anywhere. In the end, she had to relent and break in with him.

Tapping into the cameras was no issue, but it ended up being pointless. There weren't any security cameras in Ryan's room.

"He said there were cameras in his room," Clark said.

"Maybe they've been removed."

"Maybe." Clark couldn't help but feel that something wasn't right.

"Well, maybe we can extrapolate based on footage from the hallway and other areas?"

"What would that show? We would just see Lex coming out of this room."

"Or, the real killer."

"The only other person who would even try something like that would be his dad, But if his dad was in the mansion, wouldn't someone know?"

"Not if he had an inside man."

"Don't you think that's a little convoluted?"

"Clark. This is the Luthors we're talking about."

Clark sighed. "I guess it's worth a look."

Chloe spent the next hour searching through the hall cameras based on Clark's recollection of the time of the murder. It was no use. Most of the footage had been erased.

"Well, I think that answers that," she said finally.

Clark shook his head. "Chloe, we have no information."

"Think about it. Whoever did this was smart. They were either working from the inside, or had people on the inside working for them."

"So, Lex."

"And yet they also left the murder weapon in easy view?"

"Maybe he didn't have time to hide it."

"But time to erase all the camera footage?"

"It's been a couple of weeks." Clark frowned at her. "And why are you so team Lex now?"

"Well, I'm not, necessarily. I just don't think the evidence points to him. And I don't think he's the type."

"Ryan told me he did it."

She looked down at her computer, chewing on her lip. Then she looked back at Clark. "What exactly did Ryan say?"

"You're going to make me relive that?"

"This is a murder investigation. No one said it would be easy."

"Except I don't even want to be investigating this. I already know what happened."

"Well, if you're so sure, why won't you tell me what Ryan said?" She raised her eyebrows. "Unless you're worried you might be wrong?"

Clark gritted his teeth. He didn't want to do this. He didn't want to accept the possibility. But… "OK. I admit it was weird."

"Weird, I can work with."

"Not weird like that. The way he was talking, it was like he didn't think I was understanding him."

She scoffed. "And you didn't think to tell me this until now?"

"He's dead!"

It was quiet in the room for a moment. And just for that moment, Clark could feel the sadness starting to break through the anger. His eyes starting to prickle. He pushed it back.

When Chloe spoke again, it was much softer. "I think we owe it to him. And to ourselves. His family, his friends, the people who knew him and loved him and cared about him, they deserve the truth. Clark, don't you think you deserve the truth?"

Clark took a deep breath. "I wish I remember the exact words."

"Well, what do you remember?"

"He kept saying it wasn't safe to talk, there were cameras in his room."

"But there aren't."

"I assume Lex… Whoever put them there had them removed."

"If it was so unsafe to talk, why did he talk?"

"He said it was already too late for him."

Her eyes widened. "He had already been injected with the drug. He just wanted to warn you."

"Well, yeah. That's what I figured."

"But if it didn't matter… Why not just speak directly? Why not just say, Lex injected me with that experimental drug? Or is that what he said?"

"No, he kept saying he couldn't talk openly because of the cameras."

"Meaning that whatever he was telling you was probably false or incomplete. Did he say anything about being forced to talk?"

"I mean…" Clark racked his memory for exactly what Ryan had said. "Something like that."

"What if someone threatened you? Ryan knew he was dead already, but whoever hurt him was going to hurt you if he didn't implicate Lex."

"That's kind of a stretch, Chloe."

"Well, I'm guessing he didn't communicate it very well, he was what, 12?"

"11," Clark said softly.

"Everything fits."

Clark lowered his head. It was exactly what Lex had been trying to tell him all along, but it also sounded paranoid.

"So now, we just have to figure out who the murderer really was."

Clark breathed in to tell her that if it wasn't Lex, it was definitely Lionel, but he knew she would run with that, and he wasn't ready for it. So he just said, "I'm tired. It's getting late."

"But we're having a breakthrough!"

"I want to sleep on it, see if I can remember anything."

Her face fell. "OK."

He made himself give her a smile. "Hey, I really appreciate that you care so much. It's just… It's a lot for me."

"Clark…" She stood up to follow him out. "I'm really sorry if I pushed you. I know you're grieving, and—"

"I'm fine."

"People process grief in a lot of different ways, and —"

"I said I'm fine, Chloe." And he left her behind.

Lex met Helen at a restaurant that was fancy enough to impress her but obscure enough that he doubted his father would ever have made an appearance.

Most of the time, when he picked up a woman at a bar, it wasn't to ask for a date. But she kept playing with him, until it was clear to him that that was what she wanted. Most of the time, he would've given up. He didn't have the time for dating, especially not seriously. But she really was a knockout, and she could keep up with his wits better than any woman he had met. Aside from which, her personality made her the exact kind of person he would have wanted to spend time with, even as a friend. If he was the type to settle down, he would be considering her as a potential candidate, even after having only spoken to her for an hour.

Maybe that was what made him suspect that something was off. She was too perfect, and yet she seemed to really like him. It was hard to believe.

He felt guilty while he was waiting for her. His employees must have thought he was a coward, running away just as they staged their mutiny, practically begging him to take action. And what they were asking for wasn't too much. Protection for themselves and their families, assurance that they were safe, that their jobs and livelihoods were safe. And here he was, fooling around in the city. Hiding, drinking, going on dates.

He pushed aside the shame. Something had drawn him to her, and he had learned not to ignore his gut.

She showed up to the restaurant in a short black dress, sexy but classy. He remembered to stand when she arrived, pull back the chair, comment on how she looked in a way that was flattering without being suggestive or creepy—or disrespectful, as Jonathan Kent might have put it—and kept the conversation focused on her without necessarily withholding himself.

"Did you work today?" he asked her after they ordered, because that was more specific than just asking how her day was and less pointed than asking whether she worked.

"I'm kind of between jobs right now. I just left the hospital where I used to work."

"You work in the medical field."

"I'm a doctor."

"Consider me impressed," he said, in part because he was and in part because she would like to hear it.

She smiled. "And what are you doing out here? Last I heard you were running a factory out in a small town… where was that?"

He nodded, but his mind had already started to race. Had she researched him before coming here? She knew that off the top of her head. "Smallville."

"On to bigger and better things?"

"You could say that," he said. "So what do you specialize in?" Was that too direct? He was starting to get distracted, nervous.

"I was a general practitioner. My real passion is in pure research, though." She leaned forward a little in her seat. "I heard stories about that factory. Wasn't there an accident?"

He'd never met anyone less eager to talk about themselves. Had she only met with him to hear the rumors?

She shook her head, looking down. "I'm so sorry, I'm being rude. You'll have to forgive me, I'm a bit out of practice when it comes to dating."

"Not a problem," he said.

"I shouldn't be asking about the past. I should ask about who you are now."

He held out his hands. "I'm an open book," he said.

She smirked, and just for a moment, there was a flicker of something in her eye. He couldn't have put his finger on it, but somehow he knew for absolute certain that her "mistake" had been intentional, to put him off his guard.

Lex forced himself not to show what he was thinking on his face. A lifetime of training had prepared him for that.

Maybe he was paranoid. Maybe he was imagining things. Or maybe his gut had been trying to tell him some thing, from the moment they met.

One way or another, it was worth a test. At least that way, he would know for sure.