Disclaimer: All belongs to Rob Thomas; nothing but the specific plot belongs to me.

Once again, there are a couple of moments of dialogue from the show, this time from "Lord of the Bling."

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X X X X X

The next couple of weeks passed fairly smoothly. My dad tracked down two bail jumpers; the only hitch came with the last one, who was set to go on trial for beating up his wife. Dad threw out his back while wrestling the guy into his car. After finding out he wasn't seriously hurt, I rimmed him out for not remembering to hit the guy over the head first.

"Sure, sweetie," he'd said. "I'll make sure I'm carrying a Louisville Slugger with me next time."

"Damn right you will," I'd said.

I also didn't make any more progress figuring out who'd killed Lilly -- I was trying to figure out how best to broach the topics the next time I talked to Logan, Duncan, or Weevil, without actually revealing that I'd planted a bug in Ms. James' office.

I mentioned the general topic to Wallace -- without revealing the specific information, though I think I let something slip on Logan's apparent partial change of heart.

"Let me get this straight," he said. "You want to bring up subjects you found out by bugging private counseling sessions without having the people involved get royally pissed or throw your ass back out of this school again?"

"Uh-huh!" I said brightly.

Wallace laughed, saying, "And after that would you like to see Sheriff Lamb dance down the streets in a tutu?"

"Uh-huh!" I said brightly.

"Gotta say this for you. You don't think small. Anyway, I don't think these are topics that'll ever be safe to bring up. You'll just have to use 'em as background or something. They're gonna wonder where you got this stuff from."

"So you don't think my plan to say, 'uhhhh, Internet!' would work?"

"Unless Backup's secretly a pink or green-haired fairy, no."

"Do you think if I had Fairy Godparents my life would be like this?"

"Maybe," Wallace said. "Something about you kinda likes being the outsider."

True, that.

After lunch was over, I walked into the school and found Logan engaged in a quiet bit heated discussion with Vanessa Mencken. Vanessa Mencken had been one of the people who hung out in Lilly's larger circle of acquaintances and hangers-on; the kind of "friend" you would have hung out with at the mall, but not done anything really serious with.

That she'd been somewhat ambitious in the boyfriend department prevented the acquaintanceship from being anything more. In Lilly's world, there was only enough room for one man-magnet.

I overheard part of it as I walked by, "-- I know what happened, Echolls. Your father did it while your mother watched."

Logan's anger was cold. "My mother would have had nothing to do with that."

She shrugged. "I was there. You weren't. You know what --"

Unfortunately, Logan and Vanessa had both seen me as I walked by -- Vanessa had glared, Logan had rolled his eyes -- so I couldn't stick around to listen to the rest of the argument.

John Terrell, a freshman, hired me two minutes later to find out who'd been leaving threatening notes in his locker telling him to stay away from Lindy McDaniel, the girl he'd been dating. As cases go, it was one of my more boring ones; I had it figured out by the end of the day, and all it took was a simple stakeout. Lindy had been leaving the notes herself, so she could be all protective and concerned about it.

To my astonishment he didn't break up with her or anything. But I got $50 out of it, so let them have their creepy social dynamic.

X X X X X

That afternoon, Wallace and I were doing homework on the couch at Mars Investigations. We had the newspapers from the last week or so scattered over the table. One of them -- a low-rent Enquirer clone called Week Beat -- had a picture on the cover of Aaron Echolls' dead body, with several smaller pictures around it, all with a different woman, "Aaron Echolls' Love Life!" the headline screamed. "Wife goes into seclusion!" A subhead said.

"How'd they get that picture of his corpse?"

I laughed. "You're kidding me, right? The Echolls had their own photographers there. Doesn't startle me in the least that one of 'em decided to cash in."

"Is Logan handling it better?" His fight with Hector had been the talk of the school. He'd played the sympathy card just right, leading to him not getting in trouble at all while Hector got kicked out for a couple of days. (In any event, it's not like he actually had anyone to come down there and hash things out with Van Clemmons, what with his mom holing up, his dad being dead, and his sister being a publicity-hungry lunatic. Who was he going to bring, the maid?

"As near as I can tell. It's not like we're phone buddies or anything."

Dad crept his way to his office, still sore from his encounter with the bail-jumper. I teased him a bit more, gave him some pills, and got back to homework.,

A minute or so later, speaking of people who were in Lilly's vague social circle, Yolanda Hamilton's dad came in and hired dad to find her. Apparently she'd gone missing and he didn't want the cops involved.

Dad and I actually worked together on this one, for once. Turned out there hadn't been a kidnapping at all; Yolanda had simply run off to get married. Still, I got a lovely guided tour of the inner workings of the music world. If I had any illusions about a singing career, this pretty much destroyed them. From now on I'm limiting my musical excursions to karaoke.

I got a chance to talk to Yolanda via the internet a bit later that night, though. She didn't blame me for the social isolation she experienced after I told on her and Logan's makeout session.

"Veronica," she said, "If I'd been in your position I would have done the same thing."

I smiled. "Thanks, then. Forgiveness seems to be in short supply around Neptune these days."

"Still isolated yourself, huh?"

"Sometimes it feels like I'm on Tristan da Cunha."

There was a knock at the door. "Hold on a second," I told Yolanda.

I got a shock when I opened the front door.

It was Logan.

"What are you doing here?"

"I want you to stop Vanessa Mencken from slandering my mother."

It was going to be a while before I got back to Yolanda.