I hated having to go through the motions to find out something I already knew, but the entity who stuck me here had made the conditions clear. I couldn't simply go up to Duncan and say, "Why did you do that?"
I could pretend that I remembered, but then I really wouldn't have any excuse to investigate -- and Duncan would wonder why I was so upset nearly a year later, if I remembered. He'd believed it was consensual -- and had never brought it up because of his guilt, because he also believed I was his half-sister. (And that's one thing that had damn well better not have changed. Jake Kane is not someone I ever want to be related to. In any universe.)
So part of this was me going over the same things I'd gone over before. Still, different people and a different party meant a different investigation, even if it had led to the same damn result.
One little bit of good news: whoever my second rapist had been, presuming he existed, he had not given me chlamydia. A quiet trip to an out-of-town doctor had proven that. Nor were there any other nasty surprises lurking in my vagina. A minor blessing in the overall course of events, but definitely a blessing. If nothing else, it was one less thing Aaron Echolls' lawyers could throw at me when the time came for his trial.
So: Inca Mummy Girl was done; Reptile Boy, which I also had no plans to crash, was in the future. Where to begin?
The first time I'd gone through this. I'd had a clear starting point: Meg Manning. No Meg in this universe meant that pretty much everyone at this party would have stepped over my corpse for the free gum.
With, perhaps, one exception. Not the ideal person to start with, but Logan, at the moment at least, wasn't looking at me like I was lower than pond scum every time he saw me.
So. Best face forward, Veronica. After science class -- we had a pop quiz I could have A'd in my sleep, and very nearly did -- I tapped Logan on the shoulder. "Got a minute?"
"Just because we share a secret doesn't make us the best of friends," he said.
"Really? Gosh darn it! I'd better cancel those skywriters. And they were set to emblazon our friendship across the Sunnydale sky for all to see, too."
He sighed and leaned against a locker. "What do you want, Veronica?"
Good. Resigned. Just the way I like 'em. "Do you remember Cordelia Chase's Christmas party?"
"Yes. Even if nothing else had happened, I'd remember it for the charming way she invited me. She threw the invitation in my face, said, 'Just because I have to give you this thing doesn't mean you have to show up,' and stormed off. I chuckled and threw the thing in the trash, only to have Daddy Dearest tell me that I had to attend." The search for status made people do strange things. So did a sense of obligation, which was the only reason I'd shown up, well after I was on the path to becoming the school pariah.
"Yeah, well, here's the thing. I don't."
"You don't?" he said in surprise. "I was thinking from the way you acted it would have been a night you would never forget." He shrugged. "Your life must be more exciting than I thought."
"It isn't," I said. "I remember the first hour or so, and then nothing."
Frowning, he said, "This isn't a part of one of your investigations, is it?"
"It is. I'm investigating what happened to me at the party. That's it."
"What's the next thing you remember?"
"Waking up the next morning in a guest bedroom," I said. "You're not getting any more details."
"I don't want any more details. Look. This is too complicated to get into now. We'll have to talk after school get out. Word of warning, though, Mars: These are things you might not want to know about yourself."
"I didn't say I wanted to know," I said. "I have to know."
"See you then."
X X X X X
Buffy and I chatted briefly during lunch; she was clumsily trying to find out how I'd known to use holy water when Spike had attacked. Honestly, if she'd come out and flat out asked me, I might have told her -- no, not the whole truth; I can't tell that to anyone. But I least would have told her that I knew about vampires.
Still, it was fun to see her try to play detective. She's not one just like I'm not a vampire slayer, but since I'd managed to kill a vampire, I wasn't entirely discounting her efforts. I was smart enough not to leave information online, because I had no Mac around to counter the prodigious hacking skills of Willow Rosenberg.
Sheila, meanwhile, was determined to stay my friend. Over the last couple of weeks she'd changed even more. She was still a "bad girl," but now she was one determined to make something of herself.
And as near as I could tell she'd given up drinking entirely.
She wasn't Wallace. But then, thinking of her in those terms was unfair. She was Sheila, not some substitute for the friends I'd been forced to leave behind in the real world. And if Sheila Kelly wanted to be my friend, then I had a friend.
It was one of the lessons Meg had driven home to me that I'd finally, if reluctantly, accepted. Wallace and Mac, and sometimes Logan, if no one else. It had taken me a long time to accept that I had friends in my original timeline, and I wasn't going to make that mistake twice.
Logan was waiting for me outside after school, and son of a bitch if he wasn't driving a canary-yellow SUV, albeit a Geo Tracker this time. Last brand I would have expected him to drive, but then Logan had always tried not to live up to people's expectations of him.
"Hello little girl," he said. "Would you like a ride?"
"Not even if you promise me candy," I said.
"I guess I bought all those Mounds Bars for nothing, then," he said. Then, more seriously, he added, "Last chance to back out."
"I appreciate your trying to protect me, no matter how disturbingly out of character it is, but I want to know."
He sighed. "I'm not trying to protect you, Mars; I'm trying to protect me."
If things held true to form, Logan had been the one who supplied the drugs that day. Now to see whether he'd confess. "Protect yourself from what?'
"The wrath of Mars. I'm not looking forward to another penis-shaped bong in my locker."
"Then spill."
"It sounds to me," he said carefully, "That you were either drunk out of your mind, or under the influence of some drug." Stopping to take a deep breath, he said, "And I'm pretty sure you weren't drunk."
"And you know this because . . ."
"Because no one gets that drunk that fast without outside help -- and slamming back brewskies isn't your style, if I recall."
Ooh, Logan! So close. But if you want to draw this out, I'll let you. For the moment. "That's not a reason," I said. "That's a thought process. Not a bad one, admittedly. Apparently you've been practicing." He started to say something, but I interrupted. "You didn't say it like it was a thought process. You said it like you knew. So. How did you know? And don't lie to me."
"BecsIwsthonewhbrtthemthre," he mumbled.
I cupped my hand to my ear. "How's that again, sonny?"
Tightly, he said, "Because I was the one who brought them there."
And now it was time to really go through the motions. I knew what I was about to say wasn't true; but not to react this way would have been suspicious as hell. "Ah," I said acidly. "So my trip to the land of funny amnesia was bought and paid for by you. What, you thought it would be fun to kick me while I was down?"
"If I wanted to kick you while you were down, I'd want you to know all about it," he said. "I brought the GHB to the party so I could hook up with a girl who'd be interested in sharing the experience with me, not so I could humiliate you -- and sure as hell not so I could use it as a date rape drug."
"That last part, I believe you on," I said. "But given the contempt you've held me for the last year? Not so sure I'm buying the rest of it."
"You want proof?" he said. "Because I'm pretty sure my word alone isn't going to be enough for you."
"You're right."
"Then you can talk to the person I gave the drugs to."
"And that would be?"
"Cameron Walker." I remembered that -- right. Swim team guy. Tried to start something with Buffy until Buffy broke his nose to get him to stop. Someone who has difficulty taking no for an answer might have no problems at all using a drug on someone who did.
And, now that I remembered, he'd hit on me once or twice; of course, this was when "Veronica is a slut who'll sleep with anyone" was the story of the day. And, if memory served, he hadn't been too keen on my 'no," either.
"Any idea where he is?"
"This time of day? Probably off to the beach." Sunnydale wasn't directly on the ocean, like Neptune; but the Pacific Ocean wasn't that far away.
"Okay. I believe you for now."
"And I was worried," he said.
"You should be. Penis-shaped bong? That's just a warm-up for what happens if I find out you're lying."
X X X X X
I called dad and told him I was on my way to the beach.
"Case, school assignment, or just want to drool over guys in swimsuits?"
"One . . . with a little bit of three."
"Nothing dangerous?"
"My contact thinks he has the Unabomber's hideout."
"Sweetie, the Unabomber was arrested last year."
"Then he's probably right."
"A chuckle from the other end. "True. But I hope you're not paying him too much. See you for dinner."
Fortunately for me, Cameron was by himself -- not surfing, like so many people in Neptune would have been doing, but swimming. Not having the apparel, inclination or ability to actually go out into the surf, I waited for him to come in.
"Nice form," I said.
"Are you referring to the way I swim or my body?" he said.
"The way you swim," I said firmly. "I have a question to ask you."
"Ask away." He thought he was being charming. Even if I didn't know the kind of creep he was, I would have known the kind of creep he was. If you catch my drift.
"Cordelia Chase's Christmas party."
"What about it?"
"You were there."
"Yes."
"You hit on me, and if I recall I told you not even if you were the last hope of propagating the species."
"Something like that." His smile seemed forced now.
"Then Logan gave you some GHB."
"Yes."
"See, here's the problem, Cameron," I said. "Someone slipped me some GHB. There's a gap in my memory lasting more or less a whole night. And you had motive, means, and opportunity."
"What are you accusing me of?"
"You're not that stupid, Cammy. You tell me."
"Well, I didn't. Yeah, I had the means, but no motive, and someone beat me to the opportunity."
""Tell me."
"Logan gave me his whole supply -- too much for me to use. So I gave some of it to other people. By the time I could have even thought of spiking your soda, you were already long out of it, dancing like a madwoman." He laughed. "Cordelia nearly had a conniption fit when she saw you, but by that point the damage had been done."
"So what'd they do with me?"
"Don't know. Last I saw you were being taken off to a back room to sleep it off."
It was like pulling teeth. Which was what I'd be doing if he didn't give me more than these dribs and drabs.
"By?" I said.
"The guys in the band. Devon MacLeish and . . ." he snapped his fingers. "What's that guitarist's name again?"
"Oz," I said.
