Crossroads - Chapter 30

by a campbell

Clark Kent/Lex Luthor, PG-13

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 It shouldn’t be this hard.

Chloe sat back in her desk chair and squeezed the bridge of her nose with her index finger and thumb. A habit she’d picked up from Lex. And one that, just as when Lex did it, indicated extreme stress and frustration. She had a two-day headache that wouldn’t quit despite being treated with a bottle and a half of extra-strength ibuprofen. Had she been anyone else she’d have tried to keep from pondering Clark’s absence, and from wondering what might be happening to him as time passed with no word. But that wasn’t her style.

In the week that had passed since they joined forces, the two of them should have been able to come up with a foolproof scheme for getting Clark out of that hellhole. Security at the new Luthor building was tighter than Fort Knox and the Pentagon combined. The team Lex hired after their initial conversation had been on the job for days, scrutinizing, reporting, still turning up nothing that could help.

She and Lex had spent most of the past three days working together as well as alone, and still not been able to pinpoint unguarded entrances to the building or formulate methods for getting in. That is, if they wanted to be careful and cautious. They could be careless and try for an easy and hasty way in, but at the possible cost of Clark’s life. A risk neither of them wanted to take. And even if they took that chance, they both knew that a premature effort to free Clark could likely result in additional loss of life for Lionel’s staff. Neither of them wanted to put Clark through that additional stress and grief.

She usually effected connections, unearthed results faster than this. Were her skills deserting her?

She’d urged Lex to go back to the penthouse to get some sleep before he collapsed. "You won’t be any help to me half-dead," she’d insisted, giving him a gentle push toward the door.

He’d thinned his lips and left as bidden, the door closing briskly behind him.

Now it was after midnight and, as she drained her mug of coffee, tasting nothing, Chloe reached again for her mouse, clicked and began punching data into the machine once more. It was better than tossing and turning in bed through a lonely, endless night, her troubled thoughts spinning round and round.

The beep of the telephone startled her from her thoughts. Chloe fumbled for the receiver.

"Damn it!" She cursed as it slipped from her fingers and clattered on the desktop.

"Chloe?"

"Lana." Suddenly she was awake and alert.

"Chloe, can we talk?"

"Sure."

"When can you meet me?"

Chloe didn't allow herself to weigh pros or cons. "Right away. Just tell me where you are and I’ll be there!"

"Not here, It’s too dangerous. Come to the Winston Lodge Motor Inn on the interstate just outside of town." A pause. "Park at least a block away, and wear dark clothes.

"Is this about Clark?" Chloe knew she shouldn’t have said it, but the words seemed to rush out on their own.

"Just hurry. And be sure to come alone. If we’re found out, he’ll kill both of us."

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