"I will."
Easy to say, hard to pull off, especially over a summer where we're about to be scattered hither and yon and I'm back to being able to pull regular hours working for Dad.
Before you get the wrong idea, Dad's not making me; I'm not exactly volunteering (girl's gotta get paid somehow) but he didn't exactly drag me to the office and order me to fill out paperwork for him all summer, either. I want to do it. He still thinks he's going to stop me from following in his footsteps, but really, I like doing it, I love him, and it's not like I want to be a lawyer or anything.
Wallace and Mac aren't going anywhere, at least not for more than a couple of weeks. They're working, but that still gives us plenty of quality hangout time. Weevil and I aren't exactly the hangout type, but he's doing double duty, working as a mechanic and leading the PCH'ers in the art of petty criminality.
The 09'ers, though – Lynn's still talking to anyone in the media who's still willing to listen about Aaron killing Lilly, and Logan's going along with her, as much as he possibly can.
This? Blessed by me, if you were wondering. I may have active teenage hormones (oh boy, do I), but this is way more important. We need to make sure that, even if Trina manages to make her trial a platform to tell everyone how Aaron Echolls was the second coming, that no one will believe her.
Duncan's going to be in and out of town, as Celeste figures the best way to get through Jake Kane's jail sentence and the attending and very much unwanted (but equally oh so very much deserved) publicity is to fade out for as long as it takes Jake to get out and the noise to die off. Duncan's independent enough of them (and pissed off enough at them for assuming he murdered his sister) that he's not going to go with her for the whole summer, but he doesn't want to be sole focal point of a press corps eager to ask him questions both about his father and his sister's murder, which is why he's going to be bouncing back and forth.
And Meg – well, her parents aren't shuttling her off for the whole summer, either, the way they're doing with her sister Lizzie, at least, so that's good. – for Meg, anyway, but apparently Lizzie's going to a "camp" of some sort where they're going to teach her to straighten up and fly right and behave as God (and for God, read a whackadoodle version of Him) "intends."
Which doesn't mean that Meg's summer isn't heavily scheduled out; if Duncan's not in town, Meg's not going to get an ounce of freedom, never mind the ability to contact weirdos like me. Between us, Mac and I have half a dozen ways to bypass that, under normal "protective parent" circumstances. But for parents like these, normal isn't the word. When I say they have every second of her time planned, I mean it.
The scary thing is, these aren't Meg's parents worrying something's going on and looking to fix it by any means necessary; these are Meg's parents just being themselves.
Congratulations, Jake, Celeste; you've just been moved down the list of Neptune's worst parents to at least fourth and fifth. (Aaron Echolls. Duh. In case you were wondering, and you really shouldn't have been.) At least Jake and Celeste genuinely seem to love their children, even if they show it by way of minor felonies. The Manning girls are all puppets,and they're supposed to be puppets for the rest of their natural lives.
During finals week, during lunch, Duncan and I talked about the situation, well away from the prying eyes and ears of anyone who might be tempted to listen in. Logan didn't know what was going on, but he, Wallace and Mac happily kept half an eye out in case it looked like anyone was interested.
Meg, for her part, was working on an interview for her last newscast of the year, so she wasn't at lunch. In case you were wondering.
"So," I said as I sat down. "Welcome to my world."
Duncan opened his mouth, closed it, and then said, "I was going to tell you not to be funny, but I can tell from the look on your face that you're not trying to be."
"Not in the least," I said. "It was more like my trademark bitter cynicism."
"If you're worried -"
About what, Duncan? You've been dealing with knowing about this for, as near as I can tell, a couple of months now, and your relationship's still strong. I said, "I'm not worried about anything. The cynicism was more like, deal with my shooter, rescue Lynn Echolls, and is it done? Nope. It's never done."
"Did you not want to do this right now?" From his tone, it was part concern and part annoyance.
"Ideally? I'd rather it not have happened at all. But we don't live in that world. And I promised Meg I'd be there when she needed me, and this is when she needs me. So don't worry about it."
Of course, I would have liked some time off. While I was at it, I'd take that pony I was sure Dad was never going to buy me.
But never let it be said that Veronica Mars doesn't stick by her friends. Well, never let it be said again, anyway. I'm going to be making a conscious effort to stop this idea that my friends exist for whatever I can get out of them.
Doesn't mean I'm going to stop hitting up Wallace and Mac for favors now and again. Hey, I gotta be me.
"Any ideas yet?"
"Plenty. Most of them involve you. From what Meg said, I'm getting the impression that the only free time she's going to have this summer is when and wherever she's going to be with you. So listen. And pass on anything you can. Okay?"
"Okay. And for the free time, she won't be getting much of that. Even with Dad going to jail, the Mannings still think I'm worth their daughter's time. But not so much that they're giving even me unlimited access."
"Enough to pass information back and forth?" I ate a french fry.
"Yeah. They're stuck between wanting to control Meg and not wanting to blow this chance for her to marry rich."
"Good. You know what I mean." I took a deep breath. "You still know more than me. Has she mentioned any physical evidence she could get? I'm not asking what it is, just asking if she's brought it up."
"Yes."
"Is there any way she can get it to you?"
"I get the impression the parents keep the evidence she's told me about under lock and key."
"Locks can be picked."
"And set up so that it's fairly obvious when something's missing."
I sighed. "Okay, harder, but not undoable."
"I don't see how," Duncan said.
With a slight tone of mock offense in my voice, I said, "Oh ye of little faith. Maybe it can be dummied up – or a full duplicate made. Maybe," I said, flashing back to when Logan burned the drawers full of his father's pool house videotapes, "The area could be trashed and a few items 'disappear' in the trashing." I'd saved the drawer Lilly's tape would have been in – on instinct at the time, though as it turned out? Good instinct.
"Their security system's pretty tight," Duncan said. "It'd have to happen when they were actually out of town."
"Okay, file that as a possibility. Mac – and no, she doesn't know anything everyone else doesn't know, that Meg's parents are fascists and Meg wants a way of trying to communicate, is working on something electronic."
"You're thinking of wiring her?"
"It had crossed my mind. I'm going to need a lot more details from her, details she hasn't given me yet, and I'm not pressuring her; I trust her to go at her own pace, here. I also trust her to do some of these things herself. That's why she wanted me to train her, I'm guessing, so she wouldn't need to rely on me to do it for her."
"How good is she?" Duncan seemed nervous. I could understand why.
"She solved the dog case mostly on her own, and she managed to browbeat Tad into backing off Carmen. Not the way I would have handled it – she's less subtle than I am – but like I told her, the important thing about a case is solving it. No one's handing out style points."
"Okay. This, though -" He didn't need to complete the sentence. This is at a whole other level, and I'm not downplaying dognapping or getting your rep ruined by your amateur semi-porn being posted on the web. Still.
"She's good, Duncan."
"Okay. I trust you. I trust her. I'm just doing the other half."
"Cut the cards?"
"Verify."
"Got it. One more thing. An absolute last-ditch backup. When's Meg's birthday?"
"She was 17 May 10."
"And your birthday's like mine, in August. You'd be more likely to convince your parents than Meg would."
"Convince them to do what?"
"Let you get married."
