Chapter One

The apartment is empty when Logan bursts in, the door slamming roughly behind him as he crosses to his room. He throws Veronica's manila folder onto the bed, watching the papers scatter in feigned interest.

He could hire someone else. A real P.I. this time.

The thought flies through his mind so fast it barely registers. If Veronica doesn't do this for him, he'll take the fall. No one else knows enough. No one else will believe him.

No one else believes in him.

He scoffs at the thought. Veronica never believed in him. She made that more than obvious. He was just another step towards Lilly's killer. Just another step towards that taste of perfection that she's been scrambling for ever since.

Then again, he's not so sure why he believes in Veronica Mars anymore either. After all, she really believed it was perfect.

Maybe she's not as good at this sleuthing business as he gives her credit for.

XxXxX

"Do you need a ride?" she asks him, pretending to riffle through her locker as though she isn't waiting for him.

"Mom's picking me up," he tells her. "Door-to-door service because I can never leave the house again." He starts to close his locker, and she scrambles for words.

"You are going to talk to me eventually, right, Wallace?" she asks, just as he starts to walk away. She hates that she's pleading with him. Not because it's him. She just hates the pleading part.

She'll do it for him. She feels it's the least she can do.

"Not today, V," he murmurs.

"But this – this mess between us," she rambles on, "it's going to blow over, right?" Her head is still half-buried in her locker, because she can't look at him when she does this. Pride can be a bitch sometimes.

"Veronica, just..." he pauses, and, in her peripheral vision, she sees his neck craning towards the door, "not today." And then he disappears down the hallway, and she wonders how much longer a flicker of New Year's hope will last.

XxXxX

Veronica doesn't think of Logan on the drive home. She doesn't think of him or Lilly or fire or murder, because she can't – she won't. She's learning that sometimes she does get the news ten minutes too late, and, sometimes, there really is no way out.

The tapes are gone, and she can't change that. She has other things to occupy her mind.

She hasn't spoken to Wallace since New Year's, minus a few obscure meetings in the hall when he couldn't side-step her fast enough. She wanted to believe that it was all okay. All he needed was a little vacation to forgive and forget, and all would be just as it had been.

Only real life doesn't work that way. Veronica is beginning to realizing she's wasting her life away trying to work backwards.

Solve Lilly's murder; get your old life back. Only no, because the killer's in jail, but Lilly's still in the ground.

Without Lilly, it's all so much more complicated.

Then there's Duncan – her Duncan, but not really anymore. Now she knew there had always been a lie over her and Duncan – one huge, invisible lie towering over their heads – but they had still been innocent then. They hadn't known. Now the lies were between them, woven into the tentative relationship that never seemed to quite reach what it had been.

Her Duncan never lied to her. What's happened to her Duncan?

Veronica's begun to wonder if he's ever really existed at all.

By the time Veronica pulls up to the curb beside her apartment, she's almost convinced herself that she's not really thinking about Logan, that he's not haunting her like Lilly used to.

That she can really let go.

Two steps through her front door, and the lie crumbles around her.

"You might want to invest in a deadbolt," Logan quips from his seat beneath Backup, "because your security detail seems to be slacking off." Backup nudges Logan's idle hand with his nose, insistently demanding more attention and ignoring Veronica's entrance.

"How did you get in here?"

"For a P.I. family, your spare key is not very discreet."

"Logan." Veronica's voice is low and dangerous. "We don't have a spare key."

Logan's eyes widen theatrically before he smirks at her. "Hmm. I guess the window must've been open."

"This isn't funny, Logan. You need to get out of my house." Veronica reaches for the leash that hangs beside the door, and Backup suddenly takes notice and bounds towards her. "I want you gone when I get back."

She has her hand on the doorknob when he speaks again.

"You're really going to let them fry me for this?" he questions. "You know that I didn't do it, Veronica. You're not that much of a bitch."

"Wow, Logan," Veronica tells him, barely turning from the door as Backup tugs at her arm. "Your flattery needs some work."

"The tapes were nothing, Veronica. You know that."

"Those tapes were everything," Veronica throws back.

"You grew up in law enforcement, Veronica," Logan says softly. "If you'd just wake up, you'd realize they have no chance against him. He's going to crush them, regardless of those tapes."

"They have him for statutory rape at the very least," Veronica argues. "It was something."

"Wow," Logan deadpans. "So you nearly killed yourself to get him a few hours of community service?" Veronica opens her mouth to protest, but he cuts her off. "Think about it, Veronica. He has the best lawyers in the country, and people love him. They won't hesitate to bring everything about Lilly out in the open, and you think people are really going to believe that this is all on him? They have nothing against him."

"Now they don't." She puts her hand back on the doorknob. "Thanks to you."

"I didn't delete the tapes, Veronica." Logan stands from the couch, and Veronica moves away from the door as he steps closer. They both ignore Backup's soft whimper. "Maybe when you clear out of this denial stage you seem to be in, you'll feel like knowing why."

And before she can say another word, he leaves her gaping at the empty doorway.