Another interim chapter. But what an interim.

Disclaimer: Veronica Mars belongs to Rob Thomas. And they say we belong to the night, we belong to the thunder . . .

X X X X X

Meg came over to my house three nights running as I began training her in the rudiments of spying, hidden cameras and microphones, and the art of coming up with a good cover story. Dad, though he knew Meg and I were friends, was nonetheless a little suspicious about this, and brought this up to me Sunday morning.

"What?" I asked. "What's suspicious about Meg coming over? We are friends, you know."

"You go into your room every time and shut the door."

"Would you like to listen in while we study and gossip?"

"You do not gossip, Veronica."

"Please! I may call it 'obtaining information for future investigations,' but by and large it's gossip and you and I both know it."

"Then why do you close the door?"

I looked him squarely in the eye. "You're right, Dad. You've caught us. Meg and me, we're part of a secret organization to control the world. We're in there divvying up territories and making plans for how best to blackmail the UN into ceding us control. I'm thinking sex scandal; Duncan wants to work the financial angles; Meg is more the 'giant space laser pointed at New York, Beijing, Tokyo and Sydney' type. Logan simply thinks we should raise our own army. Any thoughts?"

"Funny, Veronica," Dad said as he grabbed his briefcase. He didn't like to work on Sundays, but he thought he had another angle of proving Abel Koontz's innocence and time was getting kind of short, there. So he was off to Las Vegas to check something out. One, two-day trip max, he thought. He didn't tell me what angle and though I was dying to ask, I didn't.

"We'll give you New Zealand!" I called after him. He didn't answer. "Scotland? Sri Lanka? Get back to me!"

The rest of my day was booked. Logan came over a half hour or so after Dad left.

He left in the early afternoon.

What we did in the interim was exciting, entertaining, exhausting, at times left me and Logan too weak to get up, and the details are no one's business but ours.

But as exercise, it beats jogging any day of the week.

After a quick shower, I called Meg, and then Mac. Mac was a bit bemused by my request, but said, "As long as I'm getting paid I'll teach anyone. I'll be right over."

Meg arrived first; we chatted about inconsequential things, such as how Trina Echolls was driving not only Logan crazy but everyone who wandered onto the Echolls estate, including herself, Duncan, and even Mac.

"But it's hard to hate her for it," Meg said.

"You? Hate someone? Deep down inside you there's probably a warm and fuzzy place for anyone who isn't actively a mass murderer or a child abuser."

Her eyes clouded for a second – if I hadn't been looking, I wouldn't have noticed. I already knew this was about her parents; so she either thought one or both of her parents was a murderer, or she knew they were abusers.

I couldn't let her know I knew this. She wanted this to be secret.

On the other hand, she needed how to learn to keep secrets. Admittedly, I was a better reader of things like that than most, but still, if she was trying to bring down her parents she absolutely could not slip up. Maybe after Mac left.

Then Meg said, "True, but with Trina it's more pity than anything else. She almost seems like she could be a good person if she could just shake off her self-absorption, ambition and father worship."

Which more or less matched my judgment. "But if Trina weren't self-absorbed, ambitious, and father-worshipping, she wouldn't have any personality at all."

"Also true. But then she'd be a blank slate. A blank slate we could mold . . ." she rubbed her hands together evilly.

"Oh, God. I've created a monster."

And that's when Mac arrived.

See, while I was pretty good at the detection stuff, Mac was the computer whiz, and Meg was already ahead of me when it came to how to use a computer – except for sheer research, at which I bowed to no one. It had been Meg, after all, who'd spliced in the tape of Cassidy and my confrontation in the bathroom, and that was all done digitally. I know cameras, but even that was out of my league.

Thus, Mac. If Mac could teach Meg a few basic hacking skills – and even more importantly, how to hide things on your computer you didn't want your parents to find – that could only help Meg in the long run.

Mac was kind of bemused by the idea of Meg learning how to be a detective – I think she thinks it's a case of hero worship, not that I'm not entirely sure that's not part of it – but she was getting paid and she liked Meg anyway, so she didn't pry.

I paid attention as best as I could, even though about fifty percent of what was being said was over my head. When the discussion got around to hiding files, I was able to contribute some. "How computer literate are your parents?" I asked.

"They know how to open it up and look around and they check my email and internet habits. They also go through my car and my backpack, my closet . . . everything. About your level, I'd say, computerwise. They always assume I'm being deceptive." She smiled.

"They read all your email?"

"Every single one."

"We need to set you up with a hotmail account – just never access it through the computer you use at home," Mac said. "Use the ones at the library or school. Or a friend's."

"Also, you have a boyfriend – if you need to hide anything in a hurry, hide it in Duncan's car. And when he visits you, make him keep it locked. They don't search every car on the block, do they?"

"No. They're afraid of publicity."

"Good."

What was it about Neptune and creepy parents? As near as I could tell Mac's adoptive parents, Lynn Echolls, Dad and Alicia Fennel were the only ones who didn't qualify.

"This conversation left computers in a hurry," Mac said.

"I need to be able to hide things – and I need to be able to find them out. And I need to know quickly." Meg looked at Mac. "Please don't ask why. I'm not ready yet."

"She hasn't told me either," I said.

Mac said, "Okay, then. Tell me if you're ever comfortable." And then we got back to the best ways of hiding computer files.

After a few hours, Mac left $100 richer.

"Is this a good start?" I asked Meg.

"I think so," Meg said. "But how do I find out?"

"Tell you what. Next case I actually get involved in . . . you help me with it. We'll see how your instincts are. Anyone can rig up a camera or microphone; the trick is knowing when and where." Then I said, "Any school-related case, I mean. I'm sure my parents and yours would frown at you helping me stake out the Camelot motel waiting to see which cheating husband is cheating with whose secretary."

"My parents might kill me."

I don't think she was joking.

X X X X X

The rest of the day was uneventful. I studied, chatted with Wallace, walked Backup, talked with Logan, and went to bed.

The next day at school, it was weird watching Logan try to run the newspaper – Ms. Stafford at my and Duncan's urging, had picked him as temporary editor in our absence, for which he had promised to murder the both of us in our sleep.

Wallace hung with the jocks, and Mac and Meg were setting up a secret school computer account.

So Duncan and I were eating lunch together. Alone.

Two months ago this would have been awkward as hell. Duncan and I would have talked about safe subjects and in monosyllables before one of us got up and left – if we didn't simply run screaming from the table.

Now that 95 of our issues were behind us, now that Duncan seemed happy with Meg and I was happy with Logan, we could actually have a civilized conversation.

After some discussion of Meg's daring rescue and what the Navigator would look like in our absence, Duncan asked, "So, Meg's taking detective lessons from you?"

"Yup," I said. "There are parts she's a natural at – she lies more convincingly than anyone I've ever seen – and parts she's working on." After a second, "Do you know –"

"Yes. And I'm not telling you."

I sighed. "I wasn't actually going to ask. I just wanted to know if someone did. It's important, I know, and she can tell me or not at her leisure." Then, "And I honestly can't think of anyone better backing her up."

"I can. You." I flushed slightly at the compliment. Then he grinned. "But I make a pretty good runner-up."

"You make an excellent runner-up."

Logan came by right then. "You two enjoying your time off?" he asked.

Duncan and I looked at each other and nodded in unison. "Uh-huh."

"I already promised to kill you for making me do this, right?"

"Right," Duncan said.

"Remind me to make it a slow death."

Duncan and I laughed as Logan ran off.

X X X X X

Dad called that afternoon. "Guess where I am," he said.

"Right behind me?" I whirled around.

"No."

"Kuala Lumpur?"

"No."

"Well, then, I give up."

"I'm in the editorial room of Neptune's finest newspaper –"

"The Navigator?"

He chuckled. "All right then, Neptune's finest for-pay newspaper. Do you want to guess who's with me?"

"If it's Santa Claus tell him I'm miffed because he never brought me that pony."

"I am standing here with a Las Vegas prostitute named Cheyenne. Would you like to know why?"

"Dad, if you don't quit dragging this out for dramatic effect I swear I'll reach through the phone and poke you in the eye."

"You ruin all my fun," he said.

"That's what daughters do. Now spill."

"Cheyenne was with Abel Koontz the night Lilly was killed. She's in here now talking to a reporter – and I've also given him my story about the shoes and a copy of the "agreement" Amelia DeLongpres had with Kane Software."

I grinned. "The smoking gun."

"The smoking gun."

"I should be home in an hour or so, honey. Tonight we celebrate!"

"See you then."

Tonight, I could celebrate.

Tomorrow, things were going to get interesting.