Chapter Eleven
"Okay, so what happened exactly?" Veronica asks her, tone urgent as she does a sweep of Wallace's house, moving past the coffee table and the magazines and toys strewn across the floor, to the kitchen where the back door has been left slightly ajar.
She turns to Wallace, who has followed her over to the kitchen area, looking at him expectantly as she awaits his response.
"I don't know exactly," says Wallace, sounding a little lost as he looks around the open plan room as if it will give him answers. "I came home to find the house empty, the coffee table like that"—he gestures toward it on the other side of the couch—"and Lucy's phone on the floor."
"How do you know she was taken?" Veronica demands, her body tensing with fear and dread. This is really not good.
Logan crosses the room, coming to a stop beside her, standing almost too close, his warm hand resting against her lower back reassuringly.
Ever since they left the apartment, since she told him everything—well, almost everything—he's been hovering. He spent the car ride over here with his hand resting gently on her knee, and has barely left her side, barely stopped touching her in some way or other, since then. Not that she can blame him, she supposes, but it's been so long since she let him this close emotionally, since she allowed herself to be vulnerable around him, that it's making her feel a little uncomfortable.
"I spoke to her husband and he said they were in the middle of a video call when someone grabbed Lucy from behind. The call cut off when she dropped the phone."
"Did he see who it was?"
Wallace shakes his head helplessly. "He just said the guy was wearing a mask."
"I need to talk to him. Now," she insists, jaw clenching as dread creeps through her. Shit, Lilly, I told you it was dangerous to come back here.
"No can do, Vee," Wallace tells her. "He's on his way here. Getting the next flight out."
"He's coming here?" she practically squeaks. Fuck. "No, he can't."
Wallace frowns. "Why not?"
"It's not safe."
"I don't understand." Wallace looks bewildered. "What's not safe?"
Veronica resists the urge to look up at Logan as she responds, "I can't explain, you just have to trust me."
"I've been trusting you, Vee," Wallace grinds out, tension filling his voice now. "I took Lucy in, no questions asked. I haven't pried, even though I'd never even heard of her before last week; even though nothing about her visit made any sense to me... but not anymore. This just got serious, Veronica. I need to know what the hell is going on."
"And you will, I promise," she says, "but I don't have time to explain right now. We need to find her."
For a moment, Wallace looks like he wants to argue, but then he sighs in defeat. "Okay. What do we do?"
Veronica reaches for the messenger bag she dropped on the kitchen island when she arrived and pulls out her laptop, and carries it through to the dining table, taking a seat as she opens it up.
"We'll check the traffic cams, see if there have been any vehicles casing out the area," she says. "Wallace, do you have security cameras here?"
"Yeah, newly-installed last week," he says. "But we don't have full coverage. They may not show anything."
"Try them anyway," she instructs. "Logan, can you check out the back for—?"
"On it," he states quickly, already understanding what she wants, and immediately heads for the back door.
As Wallace leaves the room to get his laptop, Veronica starts pulling up the feed to the local traffic cams, muttering under her breath, "God, Lilly, what have you gotten yourself into?"
Wallace returns and silence falls over the dining room as he checks his security cameras and Veronica begins searching through all the traffic camera footage she can find in the local area.
"Sorry," Wallace says eventually. "Our cameras only capture the front driveway and part of the backyard. Whoever took Lucy probably knew exactly how to avoid them. Only thing showing on here is one of the patio chairs being knocked over."
"That's something." Veronica looks up from her screen. "What's the timestamp?"
"Uh, six-twenty-three pm."
"Okay, that gives us an exact time," she says, able to narrow down her traffic cam search timings. "Now we just need to figure out who took her and where they went."
A moment later, Logan appears back in the dining room and Veronica looks up at him anxiously. "Anything?"
"Only this." He opens his sleeve-covered palm to reveal a thin, gold necklace with a broken clasp. "I found it on the ground by the patio table. I'm guessing it's not Shae's?" He looks to Wallace, who shakes his head in the negative. "I figured it might have fibres or DNA or something on it."
"Yeah, it might." Veronica nods. "Good find."
Logan deposits the necklace on the table, careful not to touch it with his fingers, then slides onto the chair beside Veronica.
His hand rests on her lower back and she resists the urge to straighten at the unexpected contact as he asks, "Any luck finding a potential getaway vehicle?"
"Still looking," she murmurs, concentrating on the grainy pictures on her screen. Something catches her eye and she leans forward "No, wait. Hang on. I might have something."
"What is it?" Wallace rounds the table to get a look.
"This car here…" She points to a sleek, silver Mercedes, the glossy paintwork shining under the streetlights. "It shows up on three different streets both before and after the time that Lucy was taken."
"I don't know, Vee, it looks a little… flashy for a getaway car," says Wallace. "Not exactly inconspicuous."
"Maybe that was the point," pipes up Logan, and it's like he's reading Veronica's mind.
"Exactly," she agrees. "Maybe they were trying to throw us off the scent by drawing attention to themselves."
"Really?" Wallace doesn't look convinced.
"Yeah," adds Logan. "The easiest way to get away with something you're not supposed to be doing is to just do it in front of everyone but with enough confidence that nobody questions it."
Veronica can't suppress a smirk at that. "That how you do things in the Navy, Lieutenant?"
"Oh, fuck no," Logan dismisses with a wave of his hand. "I'd get a disciplinary. But out in the civilian world…"
"Right." She nods, her eyes meeting his for a second, before she focuses back on her laptop. "I'll run the plates from the car, see if we can get a name. But we still gotta figure out where they took her."
"Has she been anywhere or seen anyone this week that might give us a clue?" asks Wallace.
At the question, Veronica keeps her gaze fixed on the screen. She has no idea; she hasn't seen Lilly since their argument Monday afternoon.
Logan speaks up though, "I don't know about the last couple days, but I picked her up from here Tuesday morning and we went over to Dick's. Then your dad drove her over to see Jake."
"Jake?" Wallace asks, frowning in confusion, before realisation dawns. "Wait… Jake Kane? Why would your roommate from Stanford be going to see Jake Kane?"
Shit.
Her eyes wide, Veronica turns to Logan, who is staring at her with a frozen expression.
Wallace must catch the panic in their eyes because he stands, arms crossed, looking annoyed.
"Oh, you both need to come clean right the hell now," he says tightly. "What aren't you telling me?"
Beside her, Logan deflates, giving her a look that says they don't have a choice; they have to tell Wallace the truth.
"Okay." She nods slowly, letting out a breath. "Okay."
"Well?" Wallace asks expectantly, arms still crossed.
"How about you sit back down first?" suggests Logan, gesturing toward the chair Wallace just vacated.
Wallace gives an impatient sigh, but nods reluctantly, then takes a seat again.
Logan shifts a little closer to Veronica, his hand gently running up and down her back in a show of support and solidarity. Once again, she clamps down on the instinct to shift away, to put some space between them after everything, and turns to Wallace.
"I haven't been completely honest with you about Lucy," she starts haltingly.
"No shit." Wallace snorts. "Like how you've never once mentioned a Stanford roommate named Lucy, or why it is that she somehow knows Logan very well despite you having had no contact with him at all for nine years. Well, now's the time to spill, Vee."
"Just let her explain, okay?" Logan says softly.
"You're right," Veronica continues, "Lucy wasn't my roommate at Stanford. In fact, she didn't even attend Stanford. That part was a cover story."
"Okay…" Wallace looks bewildered. "And Lucy needs a cover story because…?"
Veronica sucks in a breath and exhales slowly.
"Because she's not really Lucy Miller," she admits. "Well, I mean, she is… it's her legal name now, but it wasn't always. She had to change it when she was put into witness protection."
Wallace blinks, his expression turning sceptical. "Lucy's in witness protection? Seriously?"
"Seriously." Veronica nods. "No one is supposed to know she's here."
"Okay…" Wallace doesn't look convinced. "You realise this sounds like something out of a Lifetime movie?"
"Uh huh," Veronica says. "Doesn't mean it's not true though."
"Right…" he murmurs faintly. "So what did she witness? And who is she really?"
"I don't know exactly what she saw… she hasn't told me," says Veronica. "And I can't tell you who she really is. It would be too dangerous."
"It's already dangerous, Veronica," grinds out Wallace. "Someone broke into my house and kidnapped her. I think I deserve to know what danger my family—my son—may have been exposed to in the last few days."
At the hurt and betrayal in Wallace's eyes, Veronica feels a stab of guilt. He's right; by having Lilly stay in his house, she's put him and his family at risk. She thought she was doing the right thing, that she was protecting him by keeping him in the dark, but maybe not. He does deserve to know the truth. On the other hand, telling Wallace everything means she's going to betray Lilly's trust as well. Torn, her heart pounding anxiously, she glances over at Logan again, who nods encouragingly.
"All right," she says softly. "Her real name is Lilly Kane."
"Li—?" Wallace's voice gets stuck on the word as his eyes dart between Logan and Veronica, looking at them like they've gone insane. "No. No fucking way. Lilly Kane is dead. I watched you track down her murderer."
"We thought she was dead too," Veronica tells him gently. "Until she showed up at our apartment door a week ago."
"Believe me, when I first saw her, I was right where you are now," adds Logan.
"But… how?" Wallace looks bewildered. "I don't understand."
"We don't know all the details," says Veronica. "Just what she's told us… which is that she got caught up in something she shouldn't have when she was sixteen. The FBI knew she was a witness and when Aaron hit her with that ashtray by the pool and knocked her unconscious, they stepped in, injected her with something that made her appear dead, and then whisked her off into the WITSEC program. We all thought she died that day. Except it turned out she didn't."
"I can't believe this." Wallace shakes his head. "She's been alive all these years, living as Lucy Miller?"
"Yeah," says Veronica simply.
"So, why did she come back now?"
"It's her father," she tells him. "Jake Kane is dying, and she wanted to see him before he passed."
"Oh." Wallace blinks, taking that in. "Sorry to hear that, I guess."
"Sorry for dragging you into this, man," says Logan. "But there was too much potential that she'd be recognised if she stayed with us. We thought it would be safer if she was with someone who had no prior connection to the Kanes."
"Right," murmurs Wallace. "But you could have told me."
"No, we couldn't." Veronica shakes her head. "I'm sorry for lying to you, but the fewer people who knew, the safer it was for everyone."
Wallace nods in reluctant understanding. "So, how we gonna find her?"
Veronica exchanges a questioning look with Logan.
"Well, the only other place we know she's been recently is the Kane's," says Logan. "We could check the security cameras around there too."
"And I'll call my dad. He may have seen something when they drove out there."
"What about Lucy's… uh, Lilly's… phone?" asks Wallace. "Maybe there's something on there."
"We can try," says Logan. "But it'll be password protected."
"Let's get to work," announces Veronica. "Time is of the essence."
Lilly lets out a groan as she comes to. Her head is pounding and she feels nausea rising in her throat. With effort, she pries open her eyes, finding her surroundings bathed in darkness. She's tied to a chair, hands bound behind her back, ankles to the chair legs. Surprisingly, though, she is not gagged.
She strains against the binding ropes, trying to loosen them, trying to get free. She struggles with the effort, letting out a frustrated cry when they refuse to budge.
Fuck.
She's tempted to call out for help, to scream even, but if they didn't gag her, then presumably they don't care if she screams… because no one will hear her anyway.
"Okay, I've got something," says Veronica thirty minutes later. "The same Mercedes is showing on a traffic cam not far from the Kane residence Tuesday afternoon."
"Bingo," says Logan. "Any luck on finding the owner of the licence plate?"
"Not yet." She sighs. "My contact is on it, but it could be a few hours."
"Do we have a few hours?" asks Wallace from across the table.
Veronica shrugs helplessly. "I don't know."
"What about the phone?" Wallace directs his next question to Logan.
"Nada." He sighs, letting Lilly's cell phone slide from his hand and onto the table. "Can't figure out her passcode. I've tried all the numbers I can think of that might be important to her, but it's been seventeen years, so who knows?"
Veronica reaches for the phone, tapping the screen as she considers their options. "I know our favourite hacker is on vacation on the other side of the world, but I think we could really use her help about now."
"Go for it," urges Wallace. "I'm sure she'll be happy to help, even if it is only…" He checks his watch and does some mental arithmetic. "… seven in the morning in Istanbul."
"Okay, you call Mac," Logan suggests to Veronica, "and I'll try Keith again."
There was no answer when Veronica tried calling her father earlier, but he'd mentioned this afternoon that he was going to look into a potential lead on a case and that he might not be easily reached for a few hours. As Logan heads into the living room to try him again, Veronica dials Mac's number, hoping she'll have cell phone service in Turkey. Her heart pounds, stomach twisting in knots, as she waits for it to start ringing, the international call taking a while to register.
Lilly has to be okay. She has to. After spending close to two decades thinking her closest friend was dead, Veronica has only just got her back. She can't bear the thought that Lilly might actually die for real this time.
Logically, she knows it's not her fault, that the simple act of Lilly returning to Neptune was enough to endanger her, but Veronica's spent so long blaming herself for everything that goes wrong in her life that she feels responsible. If she hadn't been so caught up in her own issues… if she hadn't picked a fight with Lilly when her old friend was clearly only trying to help… if she hadn't pushed everyone away…
When Mac's voice finally floats down the line, she shakes her head to clear it and focuses on the task at hand. "Sorry to disturb your vacation, Q, but I could really use your expertise…"
After trying Keith's number a couple more times and still not getting an answer, Logan leaves a voicemail asking him to come over to the Fennel's when he has a chance, and returns to the dining room. Wallace is fixing coffee in the kitchen, so he leans against the wall a few feet away and observes Veronica as she taps away on her laptop. She looks tired and drawn, with dark circles under her eyes, and her shoulders are filled with tension. She's been dealing with so much all by herself, and today it has all finally caught up with her.
Part of him wishes he could pull her into his arms and soothe it all away, make everything better, but another part doesn't really know what to make of everything she told him earlier. That part of him is confused and even just a tiny bit angry. Not with her, but with the whole situation… okay, maybe a little bit with her, for pushing him away instead of trusting him enough to confide in him. It's going to take some time to come to terms with it all and to fix things between them.
Veronica lets out a frustrated sigh then and drops her head forward, rolling her shoulders, her fingers coming up to rub her neck, and Logan pushes off the wall, crossing the room and coming to a stop behind her. His hands come to her shoulders and gently begin massaging her tight muscles.
"Thanks," she murmurs softly.
"You okay?" he asks, thumbs and fingers working out the knots under her skin.
"It's been a long day," she says, tiredness evident in her tone.
"Yeah, it has
"We have to find her."
"We do," he agrees, a combination of fear for Lilly and guilt over the possibility of failing her twice twisting in his stomach. "We will."
She sighs heavily. "The longer it takes, the less chance she—"
"Yeah, I know…" Logan stops the massage and sinks down onto the chair beside her again. "She's going to be all right. I know she is. After all, she has you on the case."
"Yeah." Veronica looks down, her hands now twisting together in her lap.
Logan frowns. "What's wrong?"
She lets out a harsh chuckle. "I haven't exactly been top of my game lately. In fact, shitty pretty much covers it."
"You've been dealing with a lot," he reasons. "It's understandable."
"Maybe." She doesn't look convinced.
Before Logan can say anything further, Wallace returns with a tray and hands them both mugs of steaming coffee.
"Any luck with Mac?" he asks as he takes a seat again.
"Yeah." Veronica nods as she takes a sip of coffee. "She's going to try hacking into Lilly's phone. She said it might take her a while though."
"So what do we do now?"
Veronica straightens in her seat. "I should be out there, looking for her."
"But you have no idea where she is," Logan points out.
"I have to do something," she insists. "I can't just sit here and wait. Lilly could be—"
"Okay," Logan cuts her off, not wanting to consider the possibility that they might lose Lilly Kane for the second time. "But if you're going, I'm coming with you."
"No, Logan." She stands, shaking her head. "You should stay here."
"You're not going alone," he states firmly, leaving no room for discussion. "So, either I go with you, or neither of us goes anywhere."
Veronica glances toward Wallace, her expression pleading with him for help, but Wallace just shrugs and shakes his head.
"Sorry, Vee, I'm with Echolls on this one," he says. "I'll be here in case anything happens. This is my house, after all."
"Fine." With a sigh and an exaggerated roll of her eyes, she reluctantly agrees. "Let's go."
Eyes having adjusted to the darkness now, Lilly's gaze frantically roams the small room she's being held captive in, looking for… well, anything, really; any clues as to where she is, and who might have taken her—though she has a pretty good idea on that one—and how the hell she's gonna get herself out of this.
The room has no windows, just a sturdy-looking door a few feet in front of her, and it seems to be otherwise void of furniture. She assumes she's in some kind of basement, or maybe being held in an abandoned building. She has no idea how long she's been here, how long she was unconscious for, or if anyone even knows she's gone. The last thing she remembers is talking to her family, before she was grabbed and everything went black.
Oh God, what about Josh… and Caden… what if they're in danger now too, all because she was stupid and careless?
Veronica and Keith were right; she never should have come back to Neptune. Her family would still be safe if she hadn't.
Feeling helpless and starting to panic, she looks around the dark room again. She hasn't survived more than seventeen years in Witness Protection just to die now. She has to get out of here.
The sound of a key in a lock pulls her from her internal freak-out and light bathes the room as the door opens slowly, like it's an effort to open it. Lilly blinks at the brightness, her eyes used to the dark now, and at the silhouette of the large, burly man now standing before her.
"You're coming with us. Boss's orders," the man says gruffly, towering over her. He's wearing a double gun holster and she can see two large knives sheathed at his waist "And I suggest you be on your best behaviour. Any struggling or attempts to escape will result in your immediate death."
Lilly's heart pounds loudly as he advances on her, her chest clenching with fear.
Fuck.