Author's note: B Flat.

Disclaimer: Rob Thomas created Veronica Mars. I created Vanessa Mencken, Dr. London, and this specific story, but that's it.

X X X X X

Before I hung up, I asked Lynn if she'd gotten any more threats on her life – or any orders to keep quiet about her theories about Aaron.

"Have you seen me keeping quiet?" she asked, which wasn't actually an answer. I pointed this out to her and she said, "A few, of course. Mostly from people who were big fans of my late husband. Some anonymous."

"Anyone seem like they're doing more than blowing smoke?"

"No one's actually tried to kill me." Again, this wasn't an answer. "Don't tell Logan this next part, okay? I haven't told anyone about it and I honestly didn't think to connect these things until our dinner on Monday."

"Okay," I said dubiously.

"I did come out from a hair appointment and found out someone had spraypainted the word 'liar' on my car."

"That stinks." Still, that's not life-threatening. It's harassment. It could be the same person, I suppose, but there wasn't any proof yet.

"It gets worse."

I sighed. "Of course it does."

"There was a note on the windshield that said, "Stop lying about Aaron Echolls, bitch." And that crossed to the level of threatening.

"I hope you saved the note."

"I've saved all of them. I've seen enough crime dramas to know that. I also know the Neptune Sheriff's office won't listen to me until Dick Casablancas is officially cleared."

"Which should happen sometime Thursday afternoon, so be ready."

"I will," she said.

It was looking more and more like Lynn had been the intended target. Still, I wasn't a hundred percent sure – but hoped that that level of certainty didn't come after Lynn was lying in a ditch somewhere after she'd been run off the road.

We said our goodbyes and hung up.

Sleep, that night, was sporadic at best, and it had nothing to do with my shoulder. I was worried. Worried about Lynn; worried about Dad; worried about Meg; and about Logan.

And of course, that I was facing the wall didn't help much either.

X X X X X

The next morning Logan took me in. I distracted myself from my problems with some gentle but rather charged making out in the X-Terra. It was hard not telling Logan about the threats against his mother, but I didn't want him to have to worry any more than he already was.

Meg caught up to me as I walked in. "Update time?" she said.

I shrugged, winced at the pain in my shoulder, and said, "Sure. What do you have?"

"I called the people whose dogs were returned. While the person who called them spoke fluent English, the person who actually showed up was almost always someone who spoke only a few words of it." She drowned. "Not always the same person, though. Also, they always insisted on cash payments."

"People can stop checks," I said.

"True – but combined with the first part?"

I'd already come to the same conclusion; I was just checking her confidence. "True. So. Next step?"

"I asked a couple of the people whose dogs were still missing to let me know if they got a call."

Not bad, but that might take a couple of days. "Or you could try to set up a meeting yourself – increase the reward on one of the dogs?"

Meg thought about that, then frowned. "These people don't seem to waste much time, though. I think I'll try it my way for the moment – if that's okay with you, Ronniekins?"

"Only if you stop calling me Ronniekins."

She smiled. "You're just going to have to live with the disappointment, then."

"If I must," I said exaggeratedly.

Her face got serious. "I'm not really upsetting you by calling you Ronniekins, am I, Veronica?"

Not knowing why she'd asked the question, I said, "Of course not. I've spent too long at this place taking cheap shots from people who wanted me tortured with hot pokers to let a mild annoyance from a good friend bother me in the least." I said. "After all, I haven't seriously asked you to stop, have I?"

"No. I'm just worried –"

"Whenever whatever goes down," I said. "If you need me, I'll be there."

"I wasn't actually concerned about that part," she said.

"I know," I said. "I just wanted to set your mind at ease there, that's all. Now. You're doing a hell of a job here so far. I have confidence in you. Both for this and . . . for whatever."

She said, "Veronica, I really do need to tell you about that."

"Only when you're ready."

"No; it's when you're ready. You just got shot and you're trying to figure out who – don't deny it. I may not be able to read people as well as you can, but you're not acting like you're glad Dick Casablancas was arrested. And that look in your eyes when I just brought it up kinda confirmed it for me."

"I think you can read people pretty well," I said wryly.

She said, "Anyway, I don't want to give you more burdens than you can handle."

"For me? This is actually one of my lighter loads," I said. "But I appreciate that you're being thoughtful." I leaned in closer; this wasn't something anyone else needed to hear. "Meg, I haven't done any investigation, but I've already figured out part of it. One or both of your parents is abusive. Obviously things haven't gone to hell or you'd have tried to do something about it already. But if they do, don't worry about the burdens I've got. You have friends too."

She stiffened when I said the word abuse, but relaxed once I got through the rest of it. "I'm starting to figure that out too. Thanks, Veronica." Then she pulled away and said, suddenly cheerful again. "I've got to go get to class. Thanks for the support, Ronniekins!"

X X X X X

School itself was more or less ordinary. Ordinary is good. I've seen enough interesting to last a lifetime. Lunch was a raucous conversation with all six of us there, ranging from video games – another challenge, this time on the most obscure game Logan could get off EBay, a mid-1990s game called Cybermage – "I've never played this, MacKenzie, and I bet you haven't either."

"No," she said. "Looking forward to it."

"And no looking up online hint books, either."

Mac's face fell. "You expect me to go in blind?"

"It has the instruction manual," Logan said, "And I haven't opened the package yet. Everything's absolutely even."

"Well, then, how's tomorrow sound?"

"Perfect."

We stayed away from any subject that might cause angst – which meant there was a whole lot we couldn't talk about. We also talked about Ms. Stafford.

It had to be said that Ms. Stafford had been a hell of a lucky choice to be the new journalism teacher, and I was really grateful Duncan and I had managed to cover for her. No, she didn't have experience, but she wasn't trying to order us around as though she did.

She came up with ideas, she was enthusiastic (but had managed to tone down the cheer-squad drill instructor attitude that had so amused me and Logan), and she wasn't afraid of occasionally pissing off the school's administration.

After lunch, I asked Mac to check out the discussion boards Trina had mentioned. "If anyone made any serious threats, do what you can to find out who they really are and let me know, okay?" As expected, this wasn't a problem; Mac scoffed at how easy it was.

"It's been a while since you came up with a challenge for me, Veronica," she said.

"I'm sorry," I said in mock apology. "Next time I'll ask you to hack into the Pentagon."

"I said a challenge, Veronica."

Logan drove me to Mars Investigations once school ended. I was going to do some filing for dad and maybe catch up with Harvey Greenblatt.

"So, how's Maxi-me doing?" he asked.

"Still doing a good job," I said. "With any luck, if she wants to, she will be able to make it her career."

"Still not talking about it?"

"For my own good, apparently," I said, and explained what I meant.

He smiled – a genuine smile, not the patented Logan Echolls smirk. "Damn. I rarely say this about anyone, but she really is a good person. Other people tell you their problems and expect you to solve them. And you do your damnedest, Machiavelli. She's not telling you her problems, not expecting you to solve them, and not even expecting you to worry about them, because she knows that you would if she did. Now that's insightful."

I couldn't disagree.

No time for fun sex games on the way over, though the goodbye kiss was long and lingering enough that Dad came out of his office to glare at us.

"Did you want something?" Logan asked.

"My daughter."

"Are you done with me?" I asked.

"Never." Then, looking at Dad, Logan said, "But for the moment I suppose I can share." He gave me a quick peck and left.

"What do I keep telling you?"

"Don't let them out in daylight, don't get them wet, and never feed them after midnight."

"Honey, that's Gremlins, not boyfriends." Yeah; sometimes you want boyfriends to, er, eat things after midnight. But I think even Dad's legendary tolerance of banter would balk at that one. "Anyway, come on in. I rearranged the desk a bit for you."

He had; everything was on the right side except for the computer. "And if your shoulder starts bothering you, stop."

"I will, don't worry."

I took only a couple of calls, looked up some information online, and put away a couple of closed cases, which left me plenty of time.

Dad had told me that when he was looking for Aaron Echolls' stalker, he'd had an encounter with Harvey Greenblatt and his wife. My need to know what he knew outweighed my need to cover up that I was investigating who shot me. "Dad -- what do you know about Harvey Greenblatt?"

"Aaron Echolls' agent?" Dad said. "Not much. Why do you ask?"

"Because I was talking to Lynn the other day --" no need to tell him about what --"and she said that the last time she'd talked to him he'd said something vaguely threatening if she went public with her theories."

He gave me a hard look. "Veronica --"

"Dad, it came up. I'm concerned about her. And like you said, you can't stop me from thinking."

He sighed. "My exposure was limited. His wife cheated on him with Aaron --" motive for him to kill Aaron, maybe, but not Lynn -- "And Aaron was really his only big client. He's got a couple of TV bit players and that's about it." Bingo. While he's already lost his client, the money would still be rolling in from DVD sales, posters, and so on. If Aaron's reputation turns from martyr to murderer those sales take a nosedive. I mean, look how much acting work OJ Simpson's gotten recently. "And," Dad said, "You're not to investigate it."

"What? Heaven forfend. Tomorrow after we blow Lamb's case against Dick Casablancas out of the water, I'll point Lynn towards Harvey as having a motive. That's all," I lied.

"It had better be."

Well, that killed my plans for calling him from work; I couldn't, not with Dad half-listening in. Fortunately, the businesswoman Dad was trying to catch had another "late meeting" tonight, so I'd call him then.

I dropped the subject for the moment and Dad went back into his office.

X X X X X

Okay, now Dad was likely gone for a while, unless the businesswoman rips her lover's clothes off in the Camelot parking lot. Don't laugh; Dad caught one of Jake Kane's subordinates doing just that. Fastest money he ever made. He was back home in an hour.

Given that as a precedent, probably not a good idea to dawdle. Wouldn't want this to be that one in a hundred time.

To my astonishment and delight, the call gets me right through. "This is Harvey Greenblatt."

"Um, Mr. Greenblatt, my name's Veronica Mars -- did Lynn Echolls tell you I might call?"

His voice, not exactly a melodious one full of sunshine and puppies to begin with, turned positively sour. "Yeah, she did, kid. Something about something I said to her before her press conference. I can give you five minutes."

"There's no easy way to ask this question, Mr. Greenblatt. Trina Echolls called you before it, right?"

"Right. Thought I might be able to talk Lynn out of this half-assed theory she's got about Aaron killing that Lilly Kane kid. No luck. I told her she'd be cutting into her own funds and she didn't seem to care."

I said carefully, "Then she says you said you weren't going to let you drag you down with her."

"Yeah. I got in touch with some people who owe me favors."

"And these people are . . ."

"Gossip columnists. Entertainment columnists. Reporters. You know, people like that. Told them Lynn's theory and asked them to do what they could to defuse it. If Lynn wants to be crazy, let her. But just because she doesn't care about the money doesn't mean I don't." After a second, "So why're you asking these questions, kid?"

"Lynn thinks the person who shot me --"

"Right, Heard about that. Sorry it happened. If you ever want to pitch it as a movie idea, give me a call."

I didn't dignify that with an answer. "Anyway, Lynn thinks the person might have been aiming at her instead . . ."

Dead silence, then the last sound I expected. Booming laughter erupted from the other end of the phone. "And she thinks I might have done it?" he said when he stopped laughing.

"Well, if you were worried about your revenue stream . . ."

"Yeah, I was. Still am. Wouldn't have Lynn killed to shut her up, though. And if I had, I'd've had it done before she spouted off her stupid theory. Not after. After and she'd be a martyr."

"Unless all you meant to do was scare her."

"Kid, if I ever hired a hit man, it wouldn't be just to scare someone. Best way I know to scare someone is telling them the money's going to dry up. Once that didn't work, the 'bad publicity' angle was the best I could work. Anyway, Aaron's made me enough money that if I wanted a hit man, I could afford one who wouldn't miss."

True. And if it was a hit man, I was way out of my league anyway.

"I would have had to been Superman, anyway; Trina didn't tell me until about 5:15 that afternoon and first thing I did was try to call Lynn. After she said no is when I tried the publicity angle. And that's all, kid; your five minutes are up. I hope I've convinced you that this crazy theory is just like Lynn's other crazy theory." He hung up without saying goodbye.

I had to sort through what I thought about that. The timing issue was the biggest thing. The rest of the answers made sense but weren't completely convincing. Two hours is kind of short notice to hire an out-of-town hit man, though. I couldn't completely dismiss it, but it seemed less likely.

The same probably applied for Trina's agent, but I'd try him too. It was looking like a local stalker was more likely.

And we knew Lynn had one of those.

Up tomorrow: Getting Dick Casablancas cleared.

I could hardly wait.