"Veronica," Logan answered, his surprise and relief stretching the distance between them. "Can you hear me?"
"I'm here." Her voice was rushed, out of breath. He heard a few short, painful gasps as, he assumed, she tore her other hand free. "Oh, god, Logan, I'm really getting out of here."
Her breathing changed. She started huffing. Running. He would have smiled and screamed and jumped up and down if he could trust the relief. But she was still out there and they were still miles away. Still, he couldn't keep the hope from his voice when he told Keith she was on the move.
"What's around you? Where are you going?"
"It's so dark," she huffed, still whispering like Lucky might hear. "I just need to get as far away as I can."
"In which direction are you running?"
She actually laughed that sarcastic little laugh of hers between huffs. "Which do you think? The road is north."
He tried not to sigh at her shortness. She was tired. He could understand that. "Don't push yourself too hard, okay? I don't want you having a heart attack or anything. If Lucky is out for the night, you can afford to pace yourself a little."
"Not gonna happen." Wheeze. "I don't know how powerful that sleeping pill really is, and I'm putting as much distance between us as humanly possible." He didn't like that answer, rational as it was, and he knew she knew it. After a moment, her breathing got even heavier and then slowed as she stopped a moment. "Look, as soon as I get a couple miles away and find someplace to hide, I'll stop and sleep for a few hours. But not long. He has a car and a gun, Logan." Then softly. "I'm scared."
"I know baby. Just hold on. We're tracking your phone."
She paused, and then her voice was sad. "Logan, I have to hang up. The battery won't last this way, and if it dies, the trace is gone."
No. He couldn't. Not again. "How much do you have?"
"It's been on two bars for a while now. If we keep talking, it'll be dead in half an hour."
"And if we hang up?"
Another pause. She was always good with the ominous, dramatic pauses. "A couple hours. Maybe less. This thing is pretty cheap and the battery probably only lasts a few hours on active."
He had to let go. It was the only way to save her. He knew it. Didn't make it any easier, and he knew he sounded pathetic. "I don't want to lose you again."
"I'll call you when I find someplace to sleep," she promised, but he still wanted to argue. He wanted to listen to her voice and know that she was still there. Still breathing. "I'll be okay, Logan. I promise."
He laughed incredulously. "Yeah, and if you're not? What do I get then?"
That sarcastic smile of hers shined through the line. "To have been right for the first time in our relationship."
"I love you." It had become their tag line, those three little words. In a matter of hours, they'd gone from cold-shoulder silence to whispered words of devotion. Desperation could do that to people. No time for second thoughts, no vows to make it up later. He couldn't pretend that he'd get the chance to make amends.
"Dude, what are you doing?" he asked jovially, watching Dick tear off a strip of red painter's tape. It had been a hell of a day as all the students in the damned school ran around like chickens with their heads cut off. The purity test results had been circulated by 6a.m., and everyone's dirty laundry was airing in plain view. Except maybe his. He didn't need to take a stupid test to know how little purity there was left in him. He'd be in negative numbers.
"Calling a skank a skank," Dick laughed as he slapped the piece on a locker.
Logan arched his eyebrows curiously. There weren't many girls in the school who could keep Dick's attention long enough to cause the anger triggering the sadistic happiness his friend seemed to be feeling. But then…there it was…Veronica Mars' locker.
A few more pieces spelled her score, and he had to hide surprise behind a laugh. It had to be a joke. Veronica Mars was a lot of things, but a freaking 14 was definitely not one of them.
Curiosity led him to the computer lab, punching in a number and reading through her test. Curiosity. Not anger or regret or a vague sense of guilt for her broken reputation. Nope. Nuh-uh. Pure, healthy curiosity. And it was none of those things that made him sick to his stomach when he read the thing.
Veronica didn't take that test. He knew it, and anyone who knew anything about her would know it. Even the drunk and out of control Veronica he'd seen at Shelly Pomroy's party wouldn't have had a mile-high three-way. Besides, how would she afford the plane ticket?
Someone had posted the test for her. That much was obvious. One of his friends, no doubt.
And of course, he felt no guilt about that either. No regret. No wish to make it right. Nope. He was Logan Echolls. Not a chivalrous bone in his body. After all, he was probably the only person who would've had a score lower than she did.
"I love you too," she whispered quickly, anxiously. "Please hurry."
And then the line clicked. She was gone again.
Wallace was tired of being told to rest. Jackie, his mother, the nurses, the doctors, the pain medication—they all told him to close his eyes and drift off. It was driving him half mad.
"I am not gonna relax, Jackie," he told her for the third time, though the yawn he tried to stifle belied his protests. "It doesn't matter how much warm milk and chamomile you give me, I'm not gonna sleep till Veronica calls me or walks through that damned door."
"But it's been hours, Wallace! You're exhausted. I'm sure Veronica will forgive you for taking a nap." Her voice was soft, concerned, and he just wished everyone would stop acting like he was dying. The bullet didn't hit home. His crisis was averted…by that very same blond girl who's crisis had yet to be. Somehow no one seemed to understand that.
He shook his head, more to clear it than to accentuate a point. "Not gonna happen. Sorry. I'll cut the painkillers first."
"You're not cutting your medication," Alicia said as she walked in. "And if you don't at least take it easy, I'll have the doctors put you out, understand?"
No! he wanted to scream because he didn't understand. He couldn't understand why everyone kept telling him to relax, take it easy, get some rest. How the hell was he supposed to rest when the one person in the world who he could count on when the world went to hell was dying every moment in his mind? He closed his eyes and that was all he could see. For eight hours he'd been going insane, inch by inch. Why couldn't they see?
But then no one really saw Veronica the way he did.
With very few exceptions, Veronica had always been there for him. When he was tied to a pole, she had cut him down. When he was blackmailed off the basketball team, she had found Polly. When he'd been kicked off the team and labeled a drug user, she'd made a room full of executives tie their own nooses without breaking a sweat. She was there, no matter what.
But this time it wasn't just about basketball. This time it was good, old-fashioned, hit-and-run murder.
And she was still there.
When all was said and done, she didn't shame him for running out on his responsibility…or even for running out on her. She did what it took. She went the extra mile. She saved his life, in a matter of speaking.
Now it seemed all too familiar.
"I need a few minutes," he said, looking down at his hands and the hospital band around his wrist. They didn't say anything. They didn't have to. The skeptical stares said it all. "I'm not going to move or run or try to jump out the window." They still just stared, and he rolled his eyes. "I promise. No heavy lifting; no shimmying down the drainpipe."
Jackie stood up and looked down at him with her sad eyes. Alicia was more reluctant but did as he asked anyway. He guessed a gunshot wound could pull more than a few sympathy points. When the door shut behind them, he pulled the phone onto his lap again and dialed a number that was become all too automatic.
"Mars Investigations."
"How's it going?"
He heard Mac sigh, as if she was tiring of the question. It was very likely she was. He didn't care. He'd ask a hundred more times if that's what it took. But her voice was soft when she spoke. Anxious. Hopeful. "She's out of the car, Wallace. We haven't picked her up yet, but she's away from Lucky and on the move."
It seemed like he hadn't breathed in hours. Days. But she was okay. She was up and running and somehow away from the psychopath with the gun.
He knew that gun. Hurt like a son of bitch.
"How long till she gets picked up?" The sooner he heard her voice, the sooner he could relax. The sooner he could relax, the sooner he could go to sleep and Alicia could stop fussing over him. Alright, so that was a little selfish. V would forgive him.
She paused. He didn't like that answer. "Forty minutes. Possibly more depending on how fast Keith can drive off-road in the dark."
"Off-road? Where the hell is she?" Off-road in California usually meant way out in the middle of nowhere. No lights. No traffic. No one to hear the screams. Nuh-uh. Wasn't even gonna let his mind go there.
"They're out in the state park, but it's not even too far in." He could tell she was trying to be comforting. Wasn't working that well. "She even has cell phone reception. That's how we're tracking her."
"And she hasn't called her BFF? I think I might be hurt." He struggled to laugh a little, trying humor on for size. It didn't seem to fit. All he could manage was halfhearted exhalation that sounded almost like a chuckle.
"Don't feel bad," Mac replied just as blandly. "She hasn't called me either, and I'm the brains of the operation."
At that he did laugh. A little. He managed a smile, anyway. "When you talk to her," he said, deliberately not saying 'if,' "tell her to call me. I figure once she's out of harm's way, the girl can spare a second for an injured man."
"Get some rest, Wallace."
Again, he managed a downcast little smile. "Now don't you go starting that, too."
"They're not coming."
"What?"
"The police, Keith, they're not coming. They had an emergency." Even a hundred miles away, Mac ducked and braced herself for the explosion. "Liquor store holdup in Scissors Crossing. The night manager got stabbed. Big car chase."
"An emergency!" And there it was. Ka-boom. "She has been gone almost eight hours with a wanted murderer! How does that not take precedence?" Logan's low-spoken voice was just barely audible, but she heard it. What's going on, Keith? What's happening?
"Jurisdiction issues?" she mused, her voice as innocent as she could make it. "I don't know Keith, but you'll get Veronica. Who needs the police when Keith Mars is on the case?"
He did not seem pacified. "I'm going to have someone's badge for this, and surprising, it won't be Lamb's this time."
"He's on his way," she said quickly, trying to appease him. "Lamb and three of his deputies are coming out personally. He started out a little after the biker's found the truck, so he's only about twenty minutes behind you."
She heard his deep sigh and Logan's frantic questions on the other end. "Well, thank God for small favors. What's going on with the Goodman case?"
Finally, a safe topic. "Well, we know the two voices on the recording are Marcos and Peter, but I don't think the third voice—the one that was cut out—was Lucky. I've listened to the thing about a hundred times, and it sounds like French in the background. Like French class. The third kid Woody molested was another high school student. I'm working on identifying the kids in the Shark's team picture, and then I can cross-reference them with the roster I have of Peter and Marco's French class."
Keith was silent. She recognized the sound of it, and felt a little shot of satisfaction run up her spine. She loved when she stunned them speechless. "Well it, uh…it looks like you've got that pretty well in hand. So once we have the third, we'll have something to put Woody away with."
"Not just that." This time the shiver wasn't excitement. She didn't want to be right about this. "When Peter and Marcos were talking about outing Goodman, it seemed like they were meeting resistance. A lot of it. I think…I think whoever's the third caused the crash…to shut up them up."
Again, stunned speechless. This time she didn't like it so much.
"Let me know what you find. I'll call you when I'm closer." His voice was soft, thoughtful, sad. It was a lot to swallow in one bite, though smaller pieces wouldn't have helped. Either way, it burned going down.
"Over and out," she whispered back before she hung up. It was doubtful he heard. She didn't care.
The room was so silent, lonely without a voice on the line, that it took more than a minute to notice the boy standing in front of her. And when she did, she jumped about half a foot in the air, surprised despite his harmlessness.
"Jeez, Cassidy! Where did you come from?"