A/N: I am so sorry for the ridiculously long wait between updates.
This is the second to last chapter.
Veronica practically sleep-walked to third period.
"Earth to Mars, earth to Mars!" someone yelled into her ear.
"I'm here Wallace!"
"Doesn't look like it. You look like the walking dead. What did you do last night?"
Veronica smiled humourlessly.
"Battling Gotham City's most evil in the act?" she countered.
Wallace shrugged, knowing that this was one of those times where he just shouldn't ask.
They walked a few more steps in companionable silence before Veronica broke it.
"Hey, I'll see you in Biology, gotta go to the bathroom."
"Want me to take your books for you?" asked Wallace.
"Well ain't you a fine gentleman?" she southern accent-ed, giving him a sleepy smile as well as her heavy textbook that try as she might, failed to co-operate into fitting into her bag.
Wallace made a flourishing bow before walking away.
Veronica stared after him somewhat wistfully as she made her way to the girls bathroom. She wished she could tell Wallace all about the sordid doings of her clients. But there was that whole client confidentiality thing for starters. And then there was the fact that some part of her wanted to keep Wallace away from the sordid doings of her clients.
…………
Veronica was inspecting the heavy bags under her eyes in the mirror when the door burst open, banging loudly as it bounced off the wall. Veronica looked into the mirror at the reflection of none other than Melanie Ribson.
She was one of those 09-er wannabes. While her parents didn't exactly make the yearly sum to make 09-er status, it was enough to give girls like Ribson a sense that they could get away with the behaviour of an 09-er. Basically, she was a bitch.
"Veronica Mars" she sneered in all her short-skirted glory.
"Melanie Ribson." Veronica warily replied back, unaware of how this was all going to play out.
"You are a nosy one Veronica, along with everything else that you are, I'll give you that."
"Thanks," Veronica replied sarcastically before turning and facing her, fixing Melanie with a cold stare.
Melanie looked shaken and since she'd made that dramatic entrance into the girl's bathroom, started to look uncomfortable. Clearly her resolve was somewhat stunned.
God, I love how I have that effect on people.
Melanie started to stumble over her words.
"Why did you ring me in the middle of the night pretending to be my "friend" Kelly?"
I can't believe she just did that air quote thing with her fingers.
Veronica knew that she'd been caught. There was no way that she could deny that it was her.
She decided to go on the offensive.
"And why was a thirty-six year old married man in your house at the middle of the night Melanie?"
Melanie blanched. "She hired you didn't she? That cow, his wife? I knew it!" practically shrieking the last part.
"What the hell do you think you're doing? You're sleeping with a married man! You're underage!"
Veronica had no idea why she was even asking her this. She really couldn't care less. Despite the many cases that she had handled, she still couldn't understand why someone would want to purposely ruin someone else's marriage.
She put it down to the general assholish-ness of human behaviour.
Melanie sneered back at Veronica, and said derisively "I give him what he wants. He wants something pretty and skinny to fuck. It's something that he can't get at home."
Veronica could only look disgusted as she tried to make her way out.
"She hired you didn't she? Just tell me that. She hired you to follow him around and take pictures of us right?"
Veronica had gotten to the door by then. She set her jaw, refrained from rolling her eyes and said "You think you're the only one he fucks when he finishes work?" before pushing the stunned Melanie and getting out the door.
………………..
Her meeting with Mrs Thompson was to take place that afternoon at a small café, a few blocks away from the office. However, she soon received a text from Ella, wanting a change in the meeting place, making her instantly suspicious. If Melanie knew of her involvement in this matter, who's to say that Alex himself didn't?
She decided not to show up to the meeting.
……………….
Veronica was back in the Mars Investigations office that afternoon, taking calls while trying to get her homework done. She received a text from her father.
Got him. Thanks for the files. Don't want to know how you got them. Hope ur safe. See you 2night.
Veronica laughed happily at both the relief that her father was okay and at his usage of text speech.
Putting her earphones on to her iPod, Veronica went back to her English assignment on Emma.
She was halfway through arguing some pointless characterisation's of Harriet Smith when someone walked in.
Woah.
None other than Alex Thompson walked into the office. He smiled at Veronica who quickly took her earphones out. She swore she had put the closed sign and locked the door …
"Hello. This is Mars Investigations right?"
He smiled smoothly at her before looking her up and down that made Veronica's stomach tighten with disgust. This guy was way too slimy. She plastered a perky smile on her face that hid her revulsion.
"That's right. How can I help you? I'm afraid Mr. Mars is out at the moment, but I am happy to take any messages for him."
"Thank you. Actually you are the one that I am looking for Veronica."
Veronica's fake smile dropped a sixteenth of an inch.
"Oh?"
"Oh." He sat down and leant back into the chair, staring at her with his head tipped back. She despised the way that he was practically undressing her with his eyes and the smirk that was playing on his lips.
Okay, so he is quite something. I'll give the sleazy bastard that.
"I want to know Veronica, what to do with a video of you breaking and entering into the Merellen offices at 3 am last night."
There are no security cameras in the offices. Ella assured me of that.
Veronica's seasoned poker face was held in place.
Think quick Mars!
She took a deep breath and played her next card. Leaning forward and placing her elbows onto the table across each other to support herself, she narrowed her eyes at him to ask "And I want to know Mr Thompson, what to do with photos of you in very compromising positions with a one Miss Jennifer Marsh; twenty two year old blonde at the Camelot Motel? I'm sure your wife would be very interested in seeing those pictures."
He didn't move an inch, except for a small twitch that did nothing to wipe the smirk from his face that Veronica so wanted to smash with her Biology textbook.
"Ella will never divorce me."
"You sure of that Mr Thompson?"
He let out a laugh, smiling before looking down and facing Veronica directly in a way that made her hackles go up.
"Ella listens to her father. And her father knows of my indiscretions. She'll do as she's told. Now the question remains, what am I to do with this video of you Miss Mars?"
She sat back and took a breath, surveying this distasteful man before her, practically flaunting the fact that he was having multiple affairs and a subordinate wife that he can control to his will.
"Why did you come here Mr Thompson? What exactly do you want?"
"I want any trace of evidence that you've got relating to my personal business."
"You mean of the ones where you're sleeping with a seventeen year old?"
His benign, and somewhat sleazy, facade faltered as he started to look scared. But he managed to pull it together, having the gall to look unashamed.
"The very ones Miss Mars," he replied.
"But if you're so sure that these photos of mine can do you no damage, then why are you so anxious to get them?"
"I'm a very thorough man. I like to have all my loose ends tied up."
"Clearly you take your work very close to heart right?"
"Right."
"And what do I get in return?"
"Why, the video of course."
"And who's to say that you won't have made a copy of it? At best, all you're offering is a stalemate between us."
Throughout the exchange, neither one of them had broken eye contact, but at this, Alex looked down before looking back up at her from underneath his eyelashes.
"True, but that is the best either of us can obtain out of this situation. If there is one word of wisdom I can offer you from my years of experience is that you can't win them all. As to whether believing I haven't made a copy of the tape? Faith" he said getting up, as if this discussion were over. "Faith in the human spirit Miss Mars. Meet me tonight at eight by the Pier. Don't be late." He left the office with his sanctimonious smirk held firmly in place.
Faith? Either he's delusional or insane. And he doesn't know his wife either.
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