"Veronica!" Keith shouted through cupped hands as he pushed the front door open with the heel of his palm. "Your date is here."

Veronica took a fortifying breath, brushed a few imaginary pieces of lint off of her pale pink strapless dress and squared her shoulders before striding across the room like a woman on a mission.

Because she was exactly that. On a mission. And it was a big one.

Four young people in the last month had overdosed from using what appeared to be the same tainted batch of cocaine.

The first three had been typical rich kids. The son of a studio head crashed his Maserati after going into cardiac arrest from the stuff. The daughter of a top agent drowned in their pool. And a movie star's twenty year old college kid keeled over dead at the Viper Room while home on Spring Break.

All of the deaths had been tragic, but they were par for the course as far as Hollywood cautionary takes went.

The fourth death, however, had been a game changer.

Willa Fogerty, former Disney darling, current teen singing sensation, and future star of an upcoming Summer blockbuster, collapsed onstage in front of 10,000 fans during an outdoor concert. The only drug in her system? The tainted coke.

Now, every agent in Hollywood was freaking out about their clientele. It was one thing for their stable of stars to be dabbling, that wasn't news, but for people to be dying at such an alarming rate from one particular source was cause for alarm.

Sadly, tackling the international drug trade seemed like the easier route than trying to convince newly-legal stars - flush with cash and the kind of fame that could give a person a false sense of immortality - to quit their bad habits.

When tangling with drug dealers is considered a more viable option than suggesting rehab, there's really nothing left to do but turn over the corpses and shake out their pockets for loose change. It was the way of the world in Hollywood, getting what you could while the getting was good. Why should she be any different? At the very least, she might be able to make the world a little less horrible for kids.

Veronica usually didn't feel particularly bad for entitled assholes, but the idea of some sicko intentionally poisoning a bunch of kids really chapped her ass. Nobody deserved to die over a lapse in judgment. God knows Logan would have been dead ten times over if that were the case.

So that's how she ended up working for a conglomerate of several of Hollywood's top reps. They'd banded together to hire her to track down the source of the bad drugs so they could clean up the supply chain.

She would be making illicit substances safe for spoiled brats everywhere. It was an altruistic mission to be sure.

She would certainly be bragging about in her diary later that night. Right after she wrote that fan letter to Desmond Fellows.

Too bad her only real 'in' into the tawdry world of Tinseltown was deployed on a top secret airship (with dodgy internet access) in the middle of the Persian Gulf. Though after eight years of sobriety, he probably didnt have many more contacts than she did.

Veronica would have to make other arrangements. And quickly.

"Somebody growed up in all the right places," a familiar voice purred from just beyond the breakfast bar, forcing a surprised sigh from her lungs.

"God." She brought her hand up to her forehead and squinted her eyes shut, thanking the universe for at least waiting for her father to leave the room before unleashing this particular brand of hell. "Vincent, it would be better if I could avoid getting barf on this dress until after the party, so if you could just…not." She waved her hand in his general direction.

"Jeez. Touchy," Vinnie said, shaking pair of mocking jazz hands in the air for effect. "For your information, most chicks dig it when you compliment them on their rack. But okay, I get it. V Mars is a classy, classy lady. From now on, I will keep all my comments strictly about your ass, because that's the kind of gentleman I am."

"Lucky me."

A flash of white light from across the room distracted Veronica from her spiral of self-pity.

"Maybe you two can get a little closer for the next one?" Keith reappeared, holding up his phone to take another photo, his face practically vibrating with unrestrained glee. "Wouldn't want you to forget such a special night."

"I don't think that's even a remote possibility, dad."

Unaware of the dynamic at play between the Mars Family, Vinnie wrapped an arm around Veronica's shoulders, smiled brightly and pulled her flush against the side of his body.

The overpowering smell of his cologne caused her to grimace.

"You like?" Vinnie asked, noticing her expression. "CK One. Drives the ladies wild. It's my signature scent."

Veronica tilted her head in thought. "Isn't that unisex?"

"Yep."

Another flash of light forced her to blink back a series of floating black boxes behind her eyelids. "You don't have enough blackmail material yet?"

Two more flashes assaulted her dead-on.

"Cliff requested some profile shots." Keith tapped the phone a few more times and grinned widely. "Just taking a few minutes of video, now."

Veronica rolled her eyes. "I hope you realize that this is what you're getting for Christmas."

"Best. Christmas. Ever."

"You know, this is just like my prom - same suit even - except nobody brought Whip-Its this time...unless you're holding?" Vinnie arched a brow at Veronica.

Veronica tipped her head up and stared blankly at her 'date'. "Sorry Vinnie, I accidentally left my Whip-Its back in the mid-1990's."

"That's a good one, Mars," Vinnie said, snorting a laugh, before leaning in a little closer to whisper in her ear. "Listen, there may or may not be a small stash of the good stuff under the rear right passenger seat in the van, but if anybody asks you…you didn't get it from me."

"And, by good stuff, you mean…"

"Reddi-Whip."

"Obviously."

"I got you covered." He winked.

They hadn't even left her driveway yet, and she was already beginning to see the appeal of inhaling compressed air. Blacking out had to be less painful than this.

"You might want to consider laying off the drugs, seeing as we're going on an undercover sting mission to nail drug dealers?" She winked back at him.

Vinnie wagged his finger at her, taking her to school. "Okay, A) If you can put it on ice cream, it doesn't count as a drug..."

Veronica stared at him expectantly. "...and B?"

"Totally forgot B. But we don't need B. B is for losers."

Her gaze narrowed at him. "You did one in the van on the way over here, didn't you?"

"No," he said a little too quickly, with the petulance of an offended schoolboy. "I did three."

"Maybe this time we can get one with the two of you with your hands around each other?" Keith twirled his finger in the air before snapping another picture.

All four of Veronica's back molars clamped down tightly and locked into place, as she shot her father a smile that was a thousand times more threatening than any scowl. "I know what I'd really like to put my hands around right now, pops."

Keith licked his chops and shrugged innocently. "I can't imagine what you might be talking about, honey."

"Can't you?" Veronica very seriously contemplated patricide.

And yet, it's not like she wouldn't be doing the exact same thing in his place.

"What's the time difference between here and Kuwait, I wonder?" Keith asked, nonchalantly, as he typed clumsily into his keypad with one finger. "Echolls has two 'L's right?"

"I could kill you and get away with it if I wanted to." Veronica tried to swipe the phone out of her dad's hands but her high heels slowed her down. "I got an 'A' on my perfect murder paper in criminology class. It's not like I don't have the resources or the ingenuity."

Vinnie gestured between the two of them and laughed. "Oh, I can vouch for that, Keith. If I had to put money on anybody being able to bury a body, it's your baby girl."

Keith paused and gazed thoughtful at his progeny. "I know most fathers wouldn't think so, but I find that oddly reassuring."

"I have it on good authority, that your little wigwam could make anything disappear." Vinnie's smirk was about as unsubtle as, well, anything else related to Vinnie Van Lowe.

Although she'd never explicitly told Keith about Vinnie's involvement in the Duncan Kane kidnapping case, she wasn't naïve enough to believe he wouldn't have connected the dots. Her well of morally ambiguous, connected cohorts didn't exactly run deep.

Baby-napping was too dirty for Mac to get involved with and too hands-on for somebody like Cliff. Weevil couldn't risk another round with the Kane lawyers - or rather, wouldn't - not to help out one of their own.

That really only left one person who had a strong enough criminal network and a weak enough adherence to the written law to be of any use to her.

"You'll bring the gun with you tonight," Keith informed her, as if she didn't have the option of refusing him.

Veronica patted a barely there lump on the outside of her leg, hidden in the cut of her A-line skirt. "It's already strapped into my thigh holster."

"And here I thought you were just happy to see me," Vinnie said, en sotto voce.

"Blech." Her nose wrinkled.

"I'm not gonna let anything happen to our girl, Keith. I'm a 'razzi now. I've got my peeps everywhere and those dummies will keep a look out. Everybody knows we look after our own."

Veronica tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "Well, if there's one thing you paparazzis are known for, it's loyalty."

"Damn straight. We're not going to be able to walk 20 feet in that party without tripping over one of those cock-sucking lowlifes." Vinnie dropped his chin and smiled shyly into his chest. " I love those guys."

Keith forced his mouth into a serious moue. "That is a comfort."

"This is nice. We should do this more often." Vinnie threw one arm over Veronica's shoulder and one over Keith's. "You know, Keith, I would have gotten you on the party list, but I figured once the doorman got a look at how old and bald you were, he would have probably have kicked us all out on our asses. I've got my professional reputation riding on this, so...no hard feelings?"

"Nah, 'course not. I know how much your reputation means to you Vinnie."

Vinnie wrapped his arms around Keith and pulled him into an overwhelming bear hug. "You're the best, Keith Mars. Don't ever let anybody tell you otherwise."

"I won't."

"I'm serious. Don't let them."

Veronica smiled brightly at her father over Vinnie's shoulder. "I really hope Mars Investigations values my sacrifice."

Keith, finally able to extract the himself from Vinnie's grasp, took a step back. "We do. In fact, just last week, I wrote our congressman to suggest a national holiday in your honor, but as it turns out there already is a 'V Day'?"

She stuck her tongue out at him.

"Come on, Mars! Stop giving your dad such a hard time." Vinnie rested his hand on the scruff of Veronica's neck, causing her to bristle. "Don't be like one of those chicks who hang out behind the dumpsters at the 7/11 on Sepulveda. Either they've all got a nasty case of resting bitchface, or I've done something to piss them all off."

"Are you talking about the prostitues? Why are prostitutes making faces at you, Vinnie? What have you done to the prostitutes?"

"Oh, are they prostitutes? I thought they were just really easy girls." Vinnie's eyes shifted across the room nervously as his hand drifted instinctively to the wallet seated in his back pocket. "Probably should've loaned them money they asked for, huh?"

"Oh my God." Veronica lifted her handbag from the table and rushed past Vinnie toward the front door. "Time to go."

"Slow down there, small fry!" Vinnie scurried after her to catch up. "My locks are manual."

"Get her home by twelve, Vinnie!" Keith called out after them as he leaned against the door frame and waved. "Have fun storming the castle!"