Chapter 9

Vivienne had beat her dad home. She hoped he wasn't in the car, but knew he likely was. She prepared for her punishment. She'd accept whatever he dealt to her because she'd rather focus on solving the mystery than fighting with him. She went into her room with provisions for her night of research. She had some water and snacks. She turned on her laptop and settled in for the mystery that awaited her.

"Viv," she heard her father's voice call. "Are you here?"

"Yes, I'm in my room," she replied feeling a little nervous about her impending punishment, but the excitement of getting to play detective outweighed the nerves.

Logan knocked gently before opening the door.

"Did you have fun at Richard's?" he asked without being prompted.

At least he didn't beat around the bush, but something seems odd, she thought.

"You know?" she replied meekly.

"Yes, my car in the driveway gave it away," he said matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry, Daddy, I just didn't -" she was interrupted before she could finish her excuse.

"I think it's time we get you a car of your own," he interjected. He seemed almost emotionless about everything. His head was not in the moment as he played through parts of the dinner with Rory in his mind. The fighting, the sparks he felt when they touched, their son and everything in between. I know I've got to tell her about Richard, and now just doesn't seem like the right time, he thought.

Is he kidding? she thought.

"Um, ok?" she replied apprehensively.

"You're sixteen, and you'll need your own mode of transportation. You should get used to driving on the right side of the road before school starts," he explained. Under normal circumstances, I'd be pissed that she took my car, but she was spending time with her half-brother, and she doesn't have many friends here, he thought. It's also hard to justify my anger when she doesn't even have a vehicle of her own.

"Ok."

"I'll call my guy tomorrow. Don't think for a minute that you'll get off so easy the next time you take the Porsche without asking," he warned with a little smile. "Goodnight, Viv."

"Goodnight, Dad," she replied as he closed the door on his way out. She couldn't help the little smile that crept across her face once her dad had turned his back to her.

Did he really offer to buy me a car after he caught me taking his Porsche without permission? Has my dad lost it, or is he in a good mood for bringing Rory to HPG tonight? It didn't seem like he was overly happy if he did sign her. He seemed more distracted and distant, she thought. I'll start with my first inclination and go from there. There's bound to be something that leads me to the answer.

First, she started with Rory's Wikipedia page to get a little background. After she found her publisher's name, she dug around trying to get some more dirt. There was nothing to indicate she had any intentions of leaving, nor were there any rumblings of her being courted by anyone else. That's so strange, she thought. Usually, there are rumors about these kinds of things or updates on book deals. The rumor mill was silent. In fact, there hadn't been much of anything said since the release of the Moonlight Valley series. Viv even dug into the HPG rumor mill, but there was nothing about Rory or trying to bag a different big name author.

What she did find were speculation blogs about the identities of characters in her books. Viv bookmarked these sites and decided to visit them later. This isn't quite what I'm looking for, she thought.

Hmmm, Rory went to Yale. That's right, Richard told me he was following in his mother's footsteps by going to Yale. My dad went there as well, she thought and a light bulb went off in her head. She typed Rory Gilmore and Yale into the first window. She opened a second and typed Logan Huntzberger and Yale.

The first window gave her several links to the Yale Daily News and articles she had written while on the school's paper. There were also links to the Stars Hollow Gazette. One article detailed Rory getting accepted to three Ivy Leave schools and others from when she was the editor of the Gazette. Viv read some articles about Rory's admittance to the D. A. R., which Richard had also talked about. A more recent entry talked about the Gilmore Empire being passed to Rory, yet another thing she already knew. There was another blurb about her grandfather giving Rory an internship. This lady sure kept her nose clean, Viv thought.

She switched to the second window that gave her more information about her dad. It was no surprise he had several bylines for the Yale Daily News. The timelines overlapped, so it seemed that the two had likely worked together at the paper. There were several other links to articles about her dad being groomed by her grandfather to take over HPG.

Maybe I'm starting to get somewhere, she thought hopefully. She had Rory connected to the Huntzbergers in multiple ways. While it might seem normal since it was within the industry, something told her to keep digging. After a few more minutes of sorting through results, she found a byline from Rory. It was about one of Yale's secret clubs called the Life and Death Brigade. As she read through it, she realized it was the club to which her father belonged. He and his friends, her uncles Colin and Finn, would always reminisce about the good old days in the Life and Death Brigade. He'd been to a few reunions over the years. Her father's friends weren't any relation to her, but they insisted she called them 'uncle'. She recalled her mother's dislike of her 'uncles'. She'd always complain about how childish they were. They'd always been fun and playful with her, so she never understood her mother's distaste in them. Her dad was always in good spirits around them.

Viv remembered her dad kept some LDB stuff in his desk. While the connection was still weak, she decided to follow her gut, just like her television hero Gibbs. She closed her computer and set it on her desk. She hoped her dad would be asleep by now, but after the strange interaction earlier, she didn't know what to expect. She descended the stairs quickly and quietly in case he was still awake. Listening carefully, she didn't hear anything, but as she neared the door, she noticed a sliver of light. The door was cracked open just enough for her to see in. He was sitting in his reading chair with a book, which wasn't unusual. Her dad often read at night with a glass of scotch. It seemed to help him unwind after a stressful day.

She recognized the cover. He was reading Gilmore Girls by Rory. Ok, this is not his normal genre for reading material. This is all becoming curiouser and curiouser, she thought. Viv noticed the slight smile on his face as he continued reading and sipping his scotch. He was completely unaware he was being watched by his daughter. It looked as if he were deeply entrenched in the story. What is going on with my dad? she wondered. She decided to go back upstairs and continue with her online research a little more. She hoped to go back down to the study later tonight.

Back in her room, Vivienne went back to the first page of her research and kept scrolling. Her life is so boring, she thought. Didn't anything exciting happen to this woman? After many boring links, she stumbled upon a very old blog by Rebecca Thurston, and it looked as if it hadn't been updated in eons, but here it was, still floating in the blogosphere. At first, it talked about some boat and quickly discovered the Rory connection. Apparently, Rory stole a yacht while she was still at Yale. As she kept reading, she discovered that he had a partner in crime...her dad. The most shocking part was that he was called her boyfriend in the blog entry. This is exactly what I've been looking for, she exclaimed silently. It seemed they had been an Aunt Honor's engagement party.

After she finished doing a happy dance in her head, she considered the information she'd just discovered. My dad and Richard's mom used to date. I wonder if he knows about this, she thought excitedly. Viv scoured the old gossip blog for any other information, but there wasn't much besides an announcement about her dad being 'off the market' and how shocking it was that he had a girlfriend. She didn't really know much about his dating history, but knowing how her 'uncles' behaved, it wasn't all that much of a shock.

Then, an idea popped into her head. She grabbed a few things, including her computer, and headed to the attic. Viv climbed up the pull-down stairs with a flashlight pointed into the dark abyss. Attics had always been a little creepy to her. It didn't matter that they'd just moved in and it was relatively clean. Somehow, tonight was different, and the mystery superseded the creepiness of attics.

Once she found the light switch, she turned it on and assessed her surroundings, which weren't nearly as creepy in the full light. There were several boxes scattered. Some of them were labeled and some were not. She sorted through until she saw a box with 'Logan - college' written on it. It seemed too easy, but she opened it anyway. The box was filled with old textbooks and yellowed term papers that were neatly filed in colored folders. She flipped through a few and scanned the pages. There was nothing of significance in the box. She closed it and set the box off to the side. As she continued, she found a few boxes of her mother's stuff. She decided not to get side-tracked on this mission but made a mental note to come back to them later. Viv found more boxes labeled kitchen, den, bathroom, but none of them got her any closer. She got excited when she found a second box from her dad's college days, but it was another dead end filled with more remnants of his academic career.

Maybe there's nothing here, she thought as the defeat started creeping in. Just as she was about to gather her things, she spied a small box in the corner simply labeled 'pictures'. She excitedly opened the box to find several tins and photo albums. She flipped through them to find baby pictures, formal pictures, but nothing from college. She was about to put everything back in the box when she found one smaller box on the very bottom with 'Yale' written on the top. Yes! she thought excitedly.

Viv took a deep breath and opened the box carefully. Pulling out a stack of pictures, she recognized her dad, her uncles, and a few other friends she'd met over the years. Most of them where her dad, Colin, and Finn. Half-way through the first pile, a fresh-faced brunette appeared. She had piercing blue eyes, and she immediately recognized them as Richard's. This must be Rory, she thought. She pulled up the picture from her biography on Gilmore Girls to compare. There was a strong enough resemblance coupled with her dating history to confirm the identity of the brunette. She seemed awfully cozy with her dad and his friends. From this point on, there were very few pictures without her in it. The couple looked very much in love, especially the ones where they seemed to have no idea their picture was being taken. One, in particular, caught her eye. It looked like it had been taken at some British-themed party. The brunette had been transformed into a blonde clad in a red dress with white trim. They were sitting on a couch gazing into each other's eyes. There was a hint of sadness on their faces. She turned over the picture and it said 'One last bash before leaving for London'. Was this their last night together? she asked herself as she began getting caught up in their love story.

Viv continued looking through the pictures to get more information. Thankfully, the pictures didn't end, and there were several winter pictures labeled 'Xmas in London'. The couple happily posed at several landmarks in her hometown. The pictures end with a few marked as 'Rory's grad party' on the back. What happened? she asked herself. They seemed so in love. In fact, I'd never seen my dad look so happy.

Under all of the pictures, there was a stack of letters. There were some in envelopes that were from Rory to her dad. Another pile without envelopes was addressed to Rory. Viv debated whether or not she should read them. If I'm going to solve this, I need to get the whole picture, she rationalized. She was too vested in their love story to ignore these letters. The letters from Rory seemed to indicate that the couple was still together. She was still at Yale, completing her senior year, while her dad was in London. According to the contents, her grandfather made her father move to London to work for HPG right after his graduation. She seemed to miss him terribly while he was away and loved him very much, which Viv assumed was reciprocated by her father.

The second pile of letters, without envelopes, were dated after the graduation party picture. It sounded like her dad had proposed to Rory, she turned him down and he broke up with her. He couldn't understand why she said no in the first place. The next letters talked about how lonely he was without her, and how much he missed her. The letters stopped exactly one year later.

Vivienne had nearly forgotten about the mystery she was trying to solve because she was so caught up in the tragic love story that spilled out before her. She put the photos and letters back into the box neatly. Something told her their love story wasn't over, and there was more. This kind of love doesn't die, she thought. It felt a little weird to get caught up in her dad's love story that wasn't with her mom, but she knew there wasn't much of anything there.

On a whim, she started opening the unmarked boxes hoping to find something more. After four boxes of her mother's old junk, she found another box of pictures inside a bigger box. These showed her father and Rory, now slightly older than before. 'Hamburg' was marked on the back of the first picture. It showed her dad looking dapper in a suit standing with Rory, who was wearing a red dress. It made her look like legendary journalist Diane Sawyer. Again, the couple looked happy and in love. It was as if no time had passed. The time stamp said it was about five years before she was born.

What happened with them? Why didn't they get their happy ending? Did my mom come between them? Maybe I'll find something more down in Dad's study, Vivienne wondered. She couldn't believe she was sucked so completely into her dad's love life. They just looked so happy and in love. That doesn't go away overnight, she thought. Is this why Dad was reading her book? Is he in it? He must be because it was all about her life, she thought.

Viv knew she needed to figure out why her dad and Rory were together tonight. It seemed obvious that she wasn't changing publishing houses, so there had to be another reason. Are they rekindling their romance? she wondered.

After putting things back to the way she found them, she left and quietly closed the stair access door. She dropped off her things in her room before heading down to Logan's study. She crept toward the door quietly, looking and listening. The lights were off and the door was half-way open. She pushed the door open to make sure that her dad wasn't in there. The coast was clear, so she went inside apprehensively. Even though the study was vacant, it still felt odd to creep around in there.

First things first, I'll start with his desk. If there's anything hidden, it's going to be in his desk, she surmised. Fortunately, her dad didn't lock anything like when he was still living with her mom. She opened the middle drawer and looked around, careful to put things back the way she found them. Then she moved onto the side drawers on the left side. When those yielded no results, she started on the right side. She got to the lowest drawer and was just about to give up when she noticed something odd about the bottom of it. The inside seemed much shallower than the outside indicated.

There's a freaking false bottom in this drawer! she exclaimed silently. She spent a few minutes clearing things out of the way. She started wondering what could be so important that he'd hide it in the false bottom of a drawer. This could be huge! she thought. Viv took a deep breath and opened the bottom. Lying in the bottom of the drawer was only a letter.