Meg had gotten back to me – I could see that she'd called – but I wasn't going to answer her that night. We had a 911 signal and she hadn't given it.

Instead it was home, then bed. Dad was mulling over getting a campaign manager.

And I dreamed of Lilly.

It had been a while; since the night before I'd had the press conference, in fact.

"What are you doing here?" I asked. We were walking along a street I didn't recognize, past thrift stores and coffee shops.

"A little shopping. Hey, a girl's gotta look fashionable, even in the afterlife."

"Thrift stores?"

Lilly grinned. "You can find good things anywhere, at any level. Just because something's rich doesn't mean it's good."

"You managed both."

"Yes, but I'm just that fabulous, Veronica Mars."

"Always were," I said.

"And don't you forget it. Oooh, look, over there," she said, pointing to a dress in the window of one of the stores. "That's beautiful."

Looking the dress over, I frowned. "It's got a bit of a rip."

"So?" Lilly said. "It doesn't have to be perfect; it just has to be good enough to get the job done."

I woke up shortly after that; Backup poked his head up from the floor next to my bed and gave me a questioning look.

"I'm okay," I said. He raised his head and licked my face, anyway, just to be sure.

Good dog.

It used to be, while the question of who killed her was up in the air, that Lilly dreams would keep me up for the rest of the night.

That wasn't the case any more, thank goodness.

XXXXXXXXXX

The next morning, Dad and I left aside the question of what he was going to do with the money – I was going to push the billboard idea again, don't think I hadn't been serious about that – and just had a nice, leisurely breakfast.

For maybe an hour or so.

Then we got a knock at the front door. Dad being in the bathroom, I walked over, looked through the peephole, felt my jaw drop, and opened the door.

"Dad!" I said as I opened the door. "Paperboy's here!"

Don Lamb stood there, holding a copy of the Sunday paper. As Dad came out I said, "Sorry, little boy, but we already have a subscription."

"Funny as ever, Veronica," Lamb said.

"I live to amuse."

"Don," Dad said. "What are you doing here?"

"Can I come in?"

Dad said, "If you're here for the reason I think you're here, you'd better."

Lamb stepped in, I closed the door, and he walked over to the breakfast table. "You couldn't have called?" He pointed to a below-the-fold headline that touted Dad's entry into the sheriff's race. See, one of the other guests at Lynn Echolls' fundraiser was a reporter. So this was guaranteed to make news.

Here's the thing, though: The paper Lamb was holding? Not the local one. It was the San Diego Union-Tribune.

See, it wasn't "Sheriff thrown out of office attempts to regain job" that was the story, it was "Man who solved Lilly Kane murder case runs for office." The Neptune Sheriff's Department had rubberstamped the conclusion, but they hadn't bothered trying to take the credit for it. And the Lilly Kane murder? National news.

It probably wouldn't have made that paper without Lynn Echolls' help. But it had, and Donny boy here had found about it. And he was being Marvin the Martian about it.

You know what I mean: "I'm not angry. Just terribly, terribly hurt."

Dad said, "Do you think I owed you a call, Don?"

"It would have been nice."

"It would have been," Dad agreed. "Here's the thing, Don: I don't think I owe you nice. I'd still planned on calling you as a courtesy, out of respect for the office, but Lynn Echolls kind of pre-empted me on that. But I don't owe you nice, Don. I owe you civil, and I owe you respect as the Sheriff. But you have never, ever been nice to me, not when I was your boss, not after you took over my job, and damn sure not when I was doing the job you should have been doing in the first place. And that's just how you treated me. When it comes to Veronica -"

"You laughed in my face," I said. In case he'd forgotten. And I was going to spend the rest of my life making damn sure he never did.

"Which is something you should never do to anyone," Dad said. "Anyone. My daughter or Trina Echolls. You laughed in the face of a rape victim. That's unforgivable."

"I –" he said.

"Go ahead, Don," Dad said with cold rage. "Let me hear the excuse you have. What's your line of reasoning?"

Lamb sighed. "I don't have one. I was wrong. Look, Keith. I know I've made mistakes in the past."

"You've made nothing but mistakes, from what I can tell," I said.

"Enough, Veronica," Dad said. "Don's been better than that."

"Thanks -:

"Don't thank me. The problem is, you haven't been better enough."

"I've been trying!" Lamb said. "I've been more careful, I've been following up reports – from everyone, not just the '09ers."

"Felix Toombs," I said angrily.

"What?" Dad said, at the same time Lamb said, "What about him?"

Ah well. In for a penny and all that. "Felix Toombs," I said. "Member of the PCH'ers. Stabbed in a fight a couple of months back. Died in the hospital. Death ruled "by natural causes" by the county coroner. Almost certainly murdered since, according to his doctor, he was about to wake up."

Lamb looked – puzzled. Not angry, not bewildered, just confused. "I read over that report personally. Everything seemed to be in order."

"The coroner used to be a pharmacist," I said. "The doctor's the head of the emergency department. Try again."

"Okay, I will, if that's what it takes for you two to think I'm taking my job seriously."

Now it was Dad's turn to sigh. "Don, I know you're taking it more seriously now. But you shouldn't be doing this just to get my, or Veronica's, or anyone else's approval. You should do it because it's right. If you want to show me you've learned your lesson? Here's your chance. I'm still going to run. I'm going to do my damnedest to win. Now go out there and do just what you said you were going to do, anyway. Do your job. I'm not running because I hate you. You're not my favorite person in the world, but then neither is Jake Kane and I'm not bidding to become CEO of Kane software, either. I'm running because I think I can do the job better than you can."

"Okay," Lamb said. "You've given me something to think about." He stood up. "Good luck, Keith."

"Thank you, Don," Dad said, and walked him to the door. Smiling, he then said, "See you on the campaign trail."

He closed the door and then turned to me. "That went better than I thought it would."

"That's not hard," I said. "I honestly expected him to come in either crying or screaming. Instead he was . . . civilized."

"Now," Dad said. "About Felix Toombs . . ."

XXXXXXXXXXX

I got out shortly before noon only by promising Dad I'd said I was meeting Meg for lunch. "To study" was the excuse Meg's parents had, but Dad, like I said, knew better.

Did I convince him that I knew about the controversy over Felix just because I was friends with Weevil? I don't know. (It was true; Weevil would have likely taken care of the problem himself if we hadn't been fairly tight.) He didn't get as much time to grill me as he would have wanted; he started getting calls – from potential supporters, mostly, although there were a couple of reporters, and at least one person who hated the idea and had no problem telling Dad all about it, for the ten seconds Dad let him stay on the phone, anyway.

I got away, but I wasn't dumb enough to assume that either my explanations or the distractions had been enough to keep Dad from being suspicious.

Speaking of: On the way over to meet Meg, I got a call from Weevil. "So, your Dad's running for Sheriff again, huh?"

"That's a big yup," I said.

"Good."

"Good? He's a lot more competent than the clown in there right now."

"Yeah, but the guy in there right now doesn't give much of a shit when things happen to people like me. The Sheriff might run a tighter town, but he'll give us a fair shake."

"True, that. Changing the subject: You hear anything from the Red Diamonds?"

"Nothing I want to repeat. But I'm working on it."

"Cool. Have a good day."

"You too, V."

XXXXXX

We met at a coffee house – not Java the Hut, one that served sandwiches but still let people hang around for a couple of hours.

The best way to lie is, don't. "The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" can be parsed out. The Mannings and Dad both had been told we'd been working on homework together.

So, we did homework. I had some math to work on, and she planned out an essay due in English in a couple of days.

But that's not all we did. "The truth and nothing but."

Of course we hashed out the previous night – she swore Duncan hadn't told her anything about the fundraiser in advance, either. "Not that I'd have been allowed to go, of course," she said. "It's not seemly for a woman to do anything in politics other than stand by the side of her husband and look pretty."

"Really?"

"Really," Meg said flatly, and I dropped the subject. Really, there wasn't anything else to say. It had already long been established that the Mannings' attitudes about women were stuck somewhere in the 1800's.

We got around to her talk with Johnny Gomez. "He was confused why I'd be calling about some fight that happened a few years ago, but he had no problems talking about it. The regular and JV baseball teams had been practicing at the same time; the running coach had kept a few of the kids out a bit early for some extra training in how to slide, and Peter and Marcos were two of them. When they came in, Buzz Truman – Caz's older brother – asked them a question, and then Marcos stepped up and punched him in the jaw. Other players stepped in, Peter tried to defend Marcos, and all hell broke loose." She shook her head. "I can't figure out why the question bothered them. Hell, it didn't even make sense; Peter and Marcos were both infielders."

I thought I knew what the question had been. And it figured that a jerk like Caz would have an older brother who was just as much of a jerk. It also figured that Meg would be innocent enough not to get the reference, even though she went to Neptune High. She wasn't naïve in general, but about certain topics?

Oh boy.

Still, I had to ask to be sure. And I was right.

The question that got Peter and Marcos so pissed?

"Yo, dude, which one of you's the pitcher and which one of you's the catcher?"