Hey there. Thanks for your patience with the delayed chapters, and I hope you enjoyed them. Now solidly in the gap between "Betty and Veronica" and "Kanes and Abels," and we may be here awhile.

Disclaimer: Rob Thomas owns Veronica Mars. I do not own Veronica Mars. I do shop at a grocery store called Mars; does that count?

X X X X X

I couldn't even look at Logan to judge his reaction. "What makes you think that, Lynn?"

"Oh, I don't have any evidence evidence, if you know what I mean," she said. "But it makes sense. Aaron would apparently sleep with anything that moved. And Lilly -- well --"

"She moved," Logan said.

"Given what I know about him now I can't see how he could have resisted the opportunity."

"Neither would Lilly," I said. That earned me a look from Logan. We were going to have to be very careful here, both of us.

"Exactly. And the recording sessions in the poolhouse, and all of that -- and how that Vanessa Mencken tried to blackmail you -- well, I didn't know Lilly that well but it seemed like she would have come up with the same idea. And Aaron would have been furious." She looked at Logan. "I know what he did to you, honey. I was too weak to do anything about it, but I know. And Aaron's reputation was everything to him. He could have killed her." She stopped. "He did kill her. I'm sure of it." She looked at Logan. "Oh, honey, I wish you hadn't burned those tapes. We might have been able to check."

I made a mental note: Lynn Echolls had a lot on the ball. With just an instinctive knowledge of the characters of the people involved, she'd jumped to a conclusion that had evaded me for months and the Neptune Sheriff's department forever.

"Would you ask him that, Veronica?"

She must have kept talking while I was thinking. "I'm sorry," I said. "Ask who what?"

"Your father. If he'd try to show that that Koontz guy didn't commit the murder."

This one I was sure I could answer. "Dad and I are already sure of that," I said. "We -- I mean he -- has his reasons, but he can't get the police to look at them with Abel Koontz already on death row."

Lynn smiled. "Excellent! So does he have a client or is he doing this on his own?"

I shook my head. "No client. Everyone else -- except for you and me -- seems to be satisfied with Abel Koontz."

She looked at Logan. "You're not acting surprised."

"It makes sense," he said, shrugging. "Daddy Dearest had a nasty temper and Lilly loved men and not consequences. If they ever got together . . ." and she could tell from the way he said that word if that it was one of the hardest words he's ever had to say. "Well," he said, "it would have been inevitable."

Lynn turned back to look at me. "He does now."

"Does what?"

"Has a client." She reached into the small purse she had with her and pulled out an already signed check. Five thousand dollars. "This is just for looking into it, for the work the two of you have already done. If he proves that the Koontz man didn't do it, there's ten thousand more. And then if he can prove that my husband did it . . . how does another fifty thousand sound?"

"Sounds good," I said. "Of course, I can't make promises for my father. And he kind likes to do things his own way."

"All I'm going to want is an update here or there," she said. "I'm not a detective. I've never even played one on TV. I say, let the experts do what they're paid to do. Speaking of which," she smiled and clapped her hands again. "Antonio!"

The cook came out of the house. "Yes, Mrs. Echolls."

"Time for dessert!" she said. "So I hope you like raspberry torte . . ."

X X X X X

"Well," I said to Logan when we got back to the XTerra. "That was . . . unusual."

"Another twist and turn on the high mountain road that seems to be our lives right now."

"We can't tell her --"

"Of course we can't," Logan snapped. "I'm not dumb, Mars."

"I never thought you were," I said carefully. "I'm just trying to figure out how to handle this."

"What's to handle? Give Keith the check, tell him why, and let him make the decision. Mother dear had no idea she was making things more complicated; let's let them be as uncomplicated as possible. I don't think we could have dealt with that any other way. She's not stupid either; if I'd jumped up and down protesting that Aaron Echolls would have never done that she wouldn't have believed me." He laughed a bit bitterly. "I'm not sure how to take this 'new mom' any more. I love that she's strong again, and independent, but she's a whole lot less easy to predict."

We drove most of the rest of the way home in a somewhat glum silence. Logan's kiss goodbye was a quick peck. "Sorry about that," he muttered. "But the mood I'm in right now is not conducive to sweetness and fluff."

"I understand." I wasn't exactly up for it either.

"And now, Mars," he said with a mock flourish, "I plan on going home and getting very, very drunk. Try not to call me until I've recovered. I know how much of a jackass I can be while I'm drunk and I'd rather not us see each other when I'm in that condition."

"Don't sell yourself short, Logan; you can be just as big a jackass when you're sober."

That got at least a faint grin, which was all I was going for. "True. Now go in there and sell sell sell your father on the joys of taking my mother's money. See you later."

When I went inside, Dad was making himself a sandwich. "So how'd it go, Veronica?" he asked. "Mrs. Echolls give you a good working over?"

"Damn. And she said the marks wouldn't show." I mustered up a small smile. "No, it was fine. She likes me and almost everything was a lot of fun."

"Good." he finished the sandwich and sat down on the couch.

I pulled the check out of my purse. "And then there's this," I said, handing it to him.

He looked at it and said, "Veronica, why is Lynn Echolls giving me money?"

I sighed and sat down. "It's going to take a bit of explanation -- and I didn't even bring up the topic, I swear." I explained Lynn's theories on what had happened, and what she wanted Dad to do.

"You realize that would be almost impossible to prove," Dad said.

"I do. I think she'll be happy even if all you do is prove Abel Koontz didn't do it -- maybe because then she can spread the story that her husband did."

"What do you think of her idea?"

"I think it makes a lot of sense," I said honestly. "I mean, she doesn't have proof, but it's entirely possible." Possible, hell. It had happened exactly that way. But I couldn't tell Dad that.

"I'll call her tomorrow and talk to her about it before I do anything with this," he said, raising the hand that held Lynn's check. "But unless she seems to be completely off her rocker I'm not going to turn down this much money for doing something I was going to do anyway."

"If she's crazy, she's a better actress than Aaron ever was."

"Not really that hard a job, sweetie, but I get your point."

X X X X X

That night I looked through Cassidy Casablancas' file. High grades in everything but PE, but a long list of disciplinary issues. Most of them were related to Dick, of course, but there were too many of them for me to entirely believe his story that he'd always been an unwilling participant. Maybe he wasn't much on physical confrontation, but still.

I didn't know exactly why I was spending so long scratching this particular itch. Something about the way he tried to casually split me and Logan up had something to do with it -- which was seemingly out of character, for him. And that wouldn't have been Dick's style. Little Dick's idea of subtle was sneaking off campus to beat me up. Which meant Cassidy had come up with this on his own.

Logan had made jokes about Cassidy Casablancas not being Lex Luthor or Professor Moriarty. I still didn't think he was. But I suspected that he could be a lot more dangerous than his brother, if he ever set his mind to it.

I certainly wouldn't trust a word he said to me ever again.

I put it aside and went to bed. I had something else in mind for tomorrow. Logan would be recovering from his hangover and Dad would be talking to Lynn Echolls.

I'd still been getting occasional phone calls and hangups ever since Valentine's Day. It was time to track this person down. The number was still the same; I had it burned in my head. The number wasn't listed anywhere I could check, but the area code and exchange pegged it as being somewhere around Barstow. And I still wasn't get anyone to pick up when I tried calling back.

I told Dad on my way out to give me a call if he had any questions about his meeting with Lynn and said I was just going to take it easy today. Which, comparatively speaking, I was.

I stopped off at the Mars Investigations office and ran the number through some of the specialized PI software. No luck. Which meant it wasn't an unlisted number, it was either a cell or a pay phone.

Since my computer skills had just reached their limits, I decided to call someone who knew more.

The voice on the other end grunted more than spoke English. "Mac?" I said.

"Veronica," she said sleepily. "Hey."

"Sounds like I woke you up."

A loud yawn directly into the receiver then, "Why would you think that?" I apologized and she said, "Don't bother. I was up late watching a DVD. You couldn't have known." After another yawn, this one not right into my ear, she said, "So what do you want?"

"What makes you think I want anything?" I asked innocently.

"Am I not the Willow to your Buffy?" she said. "Well, early Willow. Before she got witchy. Or lesbian." After a second, "So what kind of demon do you need me to research?"

I laughed. "The demon of unknown phone numbers," I said. "I've done everything I can do --" I gave her the thirty-second summary what -- "And I was hoping you could do more."

"Of course, of course," she said. "But couldn't you have figured it out?"

"Eventually," I said. "But you can get it so much faster."

"Where are you right now?"

"My Dad's office. Why?"

"If you don't mind, I'd like to come by and do it there."

"Okay . . ."

"See you in half an hour." And she hung up.

So I sat in the reception area for a bit, paging through magazines. The Entertainment Weekly had a report on the Vanessa Mencken episode of Tinseltown Diaries. "And where there's one tape, there could be more," it read. "But Lynn Echolls, at the moment, isn't talking."

That reminded me: Those tapes I'd saved could likely do nothing but hurt Logan and Lynn now. I'd have to call Cliff and find a way of getting rid of them.

The only tapes we really needed were those of Aaron and Lilly. And I had them so well hidden I doubted even Clarence Weidman could find them without six hours lead time and a lot of help.

I also had the photos of the poolhouse and the camera system if I needed them. Vanessa had never asked for them, and I certainly wasn't going to volunteer.

Mac showed up within 25 minutes. "Sorry about that," she said. "But there's a big car show in San Diego Dad's been talking up and I wanted to be out of the house in case he suddenly decided on a spur of the moment 'family fun' road trip. So," she said, "Let me at that computer." Within ten minutes she had the number -- it was a pay phone from a place called the Sage Brush Cantina. She also had an illegal copy of at least two of Dad's PI programs. What the hell. She was doing this, so far, for free.

I had no idea why someone from there would be harassing me, but I was about to find out. "Hey, Mac," I said. "Want to guarantee you won't go to that car show? Come with." I don't know why I asked her to go. Guilt that the only reason I talked to her was to ask for something, whatever. But a nearly three-hour ride would be a lot better with someone to talk to.

"So, let's see. A day looking at vintage Packards, or a day spent with you looking for a crank caller at a dive in Barstow?" I nodded. "I'm in. Of course, I'll have to look at the inevitable slideshow later when Dad compares the grille of a '61 Edsel with a '63 model, but that's so much better than actually being there."

Cool. Had a plan, had a destination, had a friend to share the ride.

Next stop: The Sage Brush Cantina.