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Of all the traffic schools in Lowell County, of course she'd have to be enrolled in the only one that met on a Saturday. The only thing that could make this worse? Having a bad driving partner.
When she caught sight of her partner? She wasn't really surprised at all.
Considering that Whitney Fordman had quite possibly *the* highest car insurance bill in Smallville as well as the record for the most cars wrecked in a single year, it came as absolutely no surprise to her that he was her "driving buddy" in this overgrown driver's ed course laughingly called "traffic school."
She leaned over his shoulder and plucked his car keys out of his hands. "No offense, but I think it'd be safer if I drove first," she said with a grin, and dropped the keys into his lap.
Whitney startled out of his seat when someone snatched his car keys, but the smell of sunflowers and the familiar voice had him relaxing. He just barely caught the keys as they fell into his lap. "What are you doing here?"
Chloe gave an impatient toss of her head as she dropped into the desk with her name on it. "Working off a speeding ticket that I couldn't talk my way out of. You?" She didn't let on for a second that she hadn't tried to talk her way out of it, because she'd heard some seriously *weird* things about the new man the Smallville DMV had hired to teach the class.
More specifically, she was interested in what the man had been doing out at Crater Lake at three in the morning last night, when Clark had accidentally stumbled onto him on the way home from Lex's. Clark hadn't been able to follow, he'd told Chloe, because the man had gotten away, but Chloe had a feeling that Clark wasn't telling her everything.
So she was out to find out for herself.
Whitney slouched in his chair. "Trying to keep my insurance out of the four-digit range," he groused.
"Kind of a lost cause, isn't it?" Chloe dropped her book on the table beside Whitney's, and tossed her purse strap over the back of the chair.
"Thanks for the vote of confidence." Whitney's foot reached out and nudged the chair just a little to the left.
"You're welcome," Chloe said brightly, and just pushed the chair *back* over so that she could sit in it without falling to the floor.
"Please, make yourself comfortable."
Chloe couldn't help the grin. "I think I have."
Whitney would have made some kind of answer, but the man who was teaching the class came in and called everyone's attention to the front of the classroom.
- = - = -
About midway through the class, a square of folded paper landed perfectly in the middle of Whitney's book. He shot a suspicious glance over towards his partner, and her angelic beam nearly blinded him. He poked the paper with one finger, and when it didn't explode, bite his fingertip off, or set off a siren, he picked it up and unfolded it.
Meet me in the parking lot tonight at midnight. I'm going to need help with the doors.
Doors? To WHERE? Whitney shook the question out of his head, realizing who he was talking to, and considered the one-line message. After a moment, he scrawled his answer across the bottom of the page and sent it sailing back to the author.
Chloe jumped when the paper landed back in her lap, but she carefully unfolded it to read Whitney's scribble.
No chance in hell. I'd like to stay out of jail, thanks.
Chloe scribbled a quick answer back, and tossed it to Whitney.
Chicken.
Whitney smirked, and scribbled two words back.
Bock-bock.
At that, Chloe laughed, and she had to turn it quickly into a strangulating cough.
"Miss… ah, Sullivan, is it?" The man teaching the class looked at her over the silver rims of his round glasses. "There's a water fountain right down the hall," he said pointedly, frowning at the disruption to his class.
"Sorry, Mr. Hanson!" she chirped, bolting for the door and sending a dark glare Whitney's way. By the time she got back, Whitney was sitting innocently in his chair, studying the pages of his book and occasionally taking notes.
And speaking of notes…
Chloe opened the one sitting in the middle of her book.
Why the hell do I always get picked for this, huh? I gotta tell you, Sullivan, this Her Guy Friday thing is going to kill me one of these days. When do I meet you and where? Just tell me I'm not going to regret it.
Of course you're going to regret it, Chloe wrote. Tonight, midnight, at Crater Lake.
I told you to tell me I'm not going to regret it. And what happened to needing help with doors?
Chloe just smiled, and scribbled one more line onto the note before passing it back. *You'll just have to wait and see.*
Whitney read the line and barely restrained the groan.
- = - = -
"Why am I here again?" Whitney asked, hissing the whisper into Chloe's ear.
"Clark found the traffic school teacher out here last night at three in the morning. We're going to look around and see if we can find what he was looking for, and if we can't, we're going back to the community center to break open the brand new shiny padlock on the previously-unlocked and empty storage shed out back," she explained.
"So, I'm here to help you break and enter. Sorry, Bonnie, but I left my shotgun in the car," he said dryly. Before he could say anything else, however, Chloe yanked him down to the ground, hiding behind the brush and the trees that lined the trail from the lake to the road. "Chloe!"
"SSSSSH!" she hissed. "Look! Car! It's Hanson's car!" She pointed as it rolled to a halt on the soft shoulder of the road, and then pulled off completely to park. They watched in silence as he got out of the car, and started to poke around. "See? Told you he was weird!" She elbowed Whitney to make her point, and he shifted out of the way, trying to protect his ribs. Unfortunately, Whitney's feet crunched a rather large twig and the snap alerted Hanson that someone was there and watching him. He bolted for his car, and Chloe sprinted after him.
She didn't bother to wait for Whitney to get in the car beside her--he had his own truck, he could follow later--and slammed the door shut as Hanson's engine roared.
She was careful when she pulled off the shoulder, looking behind her to make sure she wasn't going to get hit before flying recklessly down the highway after Hanson's car. In front of her, Hanson was swerving in and out of the sparse traffic, and Chloe followed diligently, making sure that she used her blinkers to alert the already startled cars that she was following the same path and to--
"Get the hell out of my way!" she bellowed to one particularly stubborn car.
One hand dug in her purse for her cell phone, and she dialed Whitney as fast as she could without taking her eyes off the road.
"Chloe?" Whitney grabbed the phone before it even stopped ringing. "What the hell--"
"Hanson. I'm chasing him, and he's getting ready to make a U-turn and get on the other side of Highway 12. Go down to the Hot Spot store and come up this way towards us and we'll box him in, like that roadblock in the book."
"You actually paid--right, not the time. Okay. But I'm warning you, if my truck gets wrecked, you're paying for it." Whitney hung up and waited for the road to clear before he shot across it.
"Yes, I pay attention, you ox!" she yelled into the dead phone, and then tossed it down on the seat. Her foot had the accelerator pressed to the floor, and when the little VW fishtailed into a spin, she turned the wheels *into* the spin instead of out of it, and she thanked her lucky stars that she *had* really been paying attention when that'd been covered earlier in the morning.
By the time she got control of the car again, Hanson was already out of sight, and she wove quickly through the cars on the other side of the highway, trying to find him.
And she did. The front fender of Hanson's car was dented and tangled in the undercarriage of Whitney's truck--she cringed at that, Whitney was going to absolutely kill her--and Hanson himself was lying on the pavement, trapped under Whitney's bulk as the quarterback perched on his stomach.
There was a duffel bag of green rocks scattered to the side, and Whitney was cradling his head, presumably from where he'd been clobbered with the bag. "Whitney? You okay?"
"I don't have enough of a glare to answer that question," he groused. "I'll be fine once I get some ice." Another pause. "You owe me for the body work on the truck."
"I know, I know." She waved her hand, and looked down at Hanson. "What's his story?"
"Hell if I know. Why don't you ask? I've been a little busy trying not to get my head caved in." Whitney didn't roll off Hanson's stomach, but he did lean back against one of the tires sitting behind him.
Chloe got on her knees beside the man and looked down. "Why were you collecting meteor rocks?"
Hanson reached into his pocket, and held out a plastic coated ID card and black lanyard. "Been… paid too. But nothing's… worth this." He struggled against Whitney's weight, but Whitney just pressed down harder.
The plastic card identified him as a 4th Level Hazardous Materials Handler for LuthorCorp.
The police were on their way, and Chloe stuffed the badge into her pocket, noting the bar code on the back. "Why does LuthorCorp want meteor rocks?"
Hanson shrugged, and let his head sag back against the pavement. "You got me. Ask… your buddy Luthor." He passed out then, the bloody gash on his forehead forming a little pool of blood on the asphalt beside him.
Chloe stood up then, and looked at Whitney, giving him a hand up. "The truck's not too bad. Just dented in on that one side. We'll get it fixed, and then we'll check out what Mr. Hanson was doing for LuthorCorp."
"Whoa. What's this *we* crap?" Whitney had the heel of his hand pressed against the lump from the blow to his head. "I'm going home with a headache, and I'm going to remember this the next time you ask me to help you."
Chloe just gave him a sympathetic grin. "I'll drive you home, cowboy."
Whitney grumped as she led him over to the VW. "I can drive, thank you very much."
She grinned again, and quickly pecked his cheek. "Not with your driving record, Fordman."
The End