Veronica sat in the Echolls family living room on the couch flicking through the property records and criminal histories of the various properties owned by the late Kendall Casablancas in her real name, Priscilla Banks and writing things down on the small whiteboard that Logan had managed to find in his mothers study. Aside from the strip club and the beauty parlour, there was a house… she had to go and find out more about what was at that house, hopefully before the incompetent Sheriff Lamb was helped by a half decent Deputy Sacks or Leo D'amato by uncovering Kendall's real identity, she would have to move fast if she wanted to find anything useful. The research task would have been a lot easier to accomplish if her attention wasn't constantly being drawn to pervert by Logan's unintentional distraction of twisting the pen around in his fingers while he skimmed over the information on the witness from Felix Toomes murder investigation. It was something he even did when they were in their classes, she had noticed him make this gesture probably a thousand times but now it was a problem… Damn he had such nice hands… such strong talented.. long fingers… fingers that she'd like him to…
"Please stop doing that" she scolded as she reached for the pen and put it down on the coffee table in front of them.
"Hmm?" he asked, confused.
"It's distracting" she blushed.
"What too shiny?" he laughed, cocking an eyebrow at her as she tried to hide her reaction behind her laptop screen, hinting at the plastic blue pen.
"It's just distracting" she told him and clicked over onto the malpractice site for their Plastic Surgeon. Time to change tactics for a bit, the crime reports for the Rusty Knot didn't have much more than the usual stuff and it would only be a matter of time before her dad removed her usernames and passwords from the search permissions for the crime reports. Or changed his own.
"I'm not seeing anything useful here… it basically just says hes the salt of the Earth. Do you see the charity contributions here alone in his tax right offs? A Jury is going to love this guy" Logan sighed.
"There's going to be weak spot somewhere… a hole in his story… he wasn't there and we will find it" Veronica promised, rubbing a hand on his shoulder. He looked at her, his brown eyes smouldering into hers. He leaned forward and kissed her.
She really wanted this investigation to be over, to solve the murder of Felix Toomes, to get Weevil and the PCHers off their backs and to see Aaron Echolls get the death penalty for what he did to Lilly Kane, for killing her classmates on that bus. For leaving her friend Meg Manning and her unborn child stuck to a ventilator fighting for their survival. She just wanted this.. right now, this moment.
"I have to get to that house Logan" she told him, her blue eyes were determined, she knew he wouldn't want her to but he had to see reason this time.
"Veronica… no…" he scolded, putting the files down on the table and getting up from his chair.
"We are running out of time Logan… if Lamb finds out about Kendall.. and he will when the coroner starts filing reports and finds a death certificate for the REAL Kendall then we lose our chance" Veronica warned. He ran his hand through his brown hair and took a deep breath. He couldn't deny that she was right.
"You don't have to be the one to go" Logan warned her. "We could just take all the stuff we found to the authorities" he suggested.
"I would… but Danny Boyd is connected to the Fitzpatricks Logan" she told him pointing at the list of malpractice complaints on the registry.
"Who?" Logan asked, frowning.
"Dr Tom Griffths… involved in an unauthorised procedure for one Danny Boyd.. when we found out about Kendall/Priscilla and Cormac Fitzpatrick… I started a quick family tree, theres 13 of them, including our neighbourhood unfriendly bartender at the River Styxx Molly Fitzpatrick she's in our senior year, including four cousins on her mothers side, whose Maiden name is Aiofe Boyd… Danny Boyd's older sister, including Patrick and Thomas and Mary" She showed him, as she handed him the tablet she had been using to create the chart. "It's connected Logan… I don't know how or why but that is too big a coincidence" Veronica told him.
"My dad's trying to get me charged with Murder?" Logan spluttered.
"I don't know… we need more answers and I am pretty sure we will find them at that house" Veronica explained. "They kept it hidden for a reason… there's a bigger agenda here"
"Why would my dad want to kill Dick and Beaver?" Logan asked finally.
"They lied for you… Logan… if this is your dad… Dick and Cassidy lied for you the day of Lilly's murder… maybe its pay back?" Veronica suggested.
"Maybe… Have you spoken to Duncan this morning?" Logan asked, hinting at her phone.
"Not yet… I spoke to Wallace.. my dad's upset" she sighed. She was curled on the sofa in one of Logan's t-shirts and a pair of Trina's workout pants, but they were a little too long. It definitely wasn't Sleuth friendly attire. She had texted Wallace to ask him to bring some of her stuff over, she usually kept a Go bag ready packed in the bottom of her wardrobe encase she ever had to leave in a hurry. She thought about Backup… she missed him.
"So are you" Logan observed. He hated being the reason they weren't speaking, he hated being the cause of so much drama in her life.. but he couldn't quite bring himself to hate that she was here with him. He had forgotten how much he simply enjoyed having another person around the house, it reminded him how lonely he had been since Trina had left to avoid the media circus and try to sell her version of the Aaron Echolls story to the Lifetime Networks.
"It's not broken… we both just need some time" she reasoned. She and her father were so alike, she knew that he would forgive her.. its just the kind of person he was. Just like she would forgive him… it didn't mean that she wasn't going to change the pin code on her voicemails and use her disposable for the next few days. He nodded and walked into the kitchen. There was barely any edible food left and the Sunshine Cleaning Service would arriving soon to do their thing.
"We should probably take this stuff out to the Pool house.. they don't really tend to go out there" he suggested. Plus it's where they had installed his Safe Veronica had suggested he invest in during the summer that he had ordered so he could safe guard his most prized possessions encase the PCHers decided to show up some night and stole easily fenced valuables in retaliation. They had only shown up the night of his Life Short Party a few weeks back, and he had been glad of it. He suspected that some of his classmates had been taking things as souvenirs from Casa-de-Killer as the Echolls family estate and putting them on Ebay.
Some of his fathers movie props, like his Beyond the Breaking Point medallion had mysteriously found its way onto Ebay and Trina hadn't been in town for at least two months. Although given everything they had learned about Kendall Casablanca's.. perhaps he should have been keeping better tabs on all of the stuff in the house. Even his fathers which he hadn't given a damn about at the time.
"I never got your attachment to your dad before…" Logan admitted. "I guess it's because I hated mine… after Lilly… I couldn't understand why you would have chosen to side with him… but now I see it… it's because he loves you… you love him…" he stated simply as he leaned against the counter. He still hadn't fully forgiven himself for that year after Lilly's murder… for the way he had blamed Veronica for her death, for the hell he had put her through. For the way he had let her down when she thought she had been raped at Shelly Pomorys Party. He may not have been guilty of the Murder of Felix Toomes… but he was guilty of making her life worse.
"You should have just stayed away from both of them" Duncan's voice whispered again.
"He crawled through fire for me" Veronica smiled sadly, recalling the night her dad had rescued her from the fire when Aaron Echolls had tried to kill her for the location of the tapes.
"Do you want to order something?" Logan suggested as he picked up the menu list he had been collecting in recent months, no chef usually meant he had to get creative.
"We could do a grocery shop online?" Veronica replied as she got up from her seat and walked to the counter to stand beside him. He smiled a little when he saw how long the legs in the jogging bottoms were, she barely needed slippers, only her toes were visible. He wrapped his arms around her waist and stood behind her, his head leaning against her shoulder. Veronica shuddered as she remembered the previous evening when he had taken her from behind in a similar positon and he was currently pointing out items on the grocery list using those long fingers to point at the screen.
Damn these hormones and their happy little dance…. She thought as she tried to stop herself from getting distracted. Who knew his dorky little hand gestures would have this effect on her?
"I'm going to make us dinner tonight" Veronica told him as she started putting items in the basket and flickered through the menus for ideas.
"A proper home cooked meal… I don't think there's been one of those in this kitchen since the night my dad tried to feed me shellfish" Logan mused.
"Aren't you allergic?" she frowned, looking at him sideways.
"Yep… but he never knew that" Logan admitted, and Veronica felt something in her heart break for him. For all their privilege and all their wealth… for all the guest bedrooms and features of the expensive mansion, Logan had never had a home. Not a real one anyway. Not one that counted. It made her even more grateful for Keith Mars and his devotion to being her dad. She turned around and hugged him, pulling him closer and kissing his mouth. He moaned happily and chuckled a little as she yelped a bit as his cold hands reached up under the green t shirt she was wearing and cupped her breast. "Sorry… my hands are little chilly" he smiled.
"Your hands… have been distracting me all day" she admitted as she grabbed his wrist and pulled the wandering appendages back down from under her shirt. She wasn't wearing a bra and the outline of her pert breasts and hard nipples were peeking through the top. He flashed his eyebrows at her again and smiled suggestively.
"I know… you have been flustered for about the last twenty minutes" Logan told her knowingly.
"How could you possibly know that?" she protested.
"Because you get this little crinkle just here and you look like you want to slap me when you start thinking about sex" he laughed, rubbing a little spot on her forehead with his thumb and kissing her again. "I've become somewhat of an expert at picking up at the signs of when something is getting to you" he admitted. Truth was, he had been mapping out every single little thing about her, committing her to memory. There wasn't a single detail that he wanted to miss.
"That sounds a little overconfident" she mused.
"Nope.. it's a skill I have honed over many years… mostly to aid my ability to a complete pain in the ass" he confessed.
"If I am cooking in here we are not having sex in the kitchen" Veronica warned him as she turned away again and completed the purchase for the groceries.
"Well then we can order in…" Logan suggested as he tickled her ribs.
"Hey stop…!" she giggled before the doorbell rang through the house. Someone was at the front door.
"Expecting someone?" Veronica asked.
"Please tell me its not your dad…" Logan stiffened, the last time he had answered the door someone had punched him in the face.
"I'll get it" she told him as she hinted that he should hide the files sitting on the coffee table.
Veronica went to the front door and was surprised to see Deputy Leo D'amato and Deputy Ryan's standing there.
"Deputy?" she asked carefully.
"Is Logan Echolls here?" he asked shyly.
"What's the problem officer?" Logan asked as he checked time and date on his phone calendar, he wasn't due for his check in at the station for another two days.
"Can you tell us where you were last night between midnight and two am?" he asked.
"Can't you just check the ankle monitor?" Logan frowned hinting at the black instrument wrapped around his ankle.
"According to our systems… it's been tampered with" he frowned and looked pointedly at Veronica. "It's possible its been sending a false signal and that someone has manipulated the GPS, we need to take you with us to download it and check the device"
"Tampered with how?" Veronica complained as she watched Leo get his cuffs from his belt.
"This is an official matter now, I am sorry Veronica, I have to take him in" Leo sighed.
"No!" she protested. "We were here all night last night"
"We?" Deputy Sacks asked.
"Yes, both of us" she confirmed.
"Don't these things have like an alert or something?" Logan argued, he was sure it said something about 24 hour monitoring.
"After 11pm last night it seems there was some systems trouble" Deputy Sacks explained.
"What kind of systems trouble?" Veronica asked.
"Half of Neptune went dark" Leo told her.
"Okay… but why is that a problem?" Veronica asked again, arresting Logan certainly seemed to be a bit of an extreme reaction.
"Because one of other PCHers who made statements at Logan's hearing, Havier "Shiv" Alonso showed up about six miles outside of town shot dead in the back of Logan's car" Leo explained.
"Logan doesn't have his car… it was at the impound lot" Veronica reasoned.
"Yeah well the gun found in the car had Logan's fingerprints all over it" Leo sighed.
"A gun?" Veronica shrieked. Logan paled visibly. He was being set up again and they both knew it. Another dead PCHer?
"You have the right to remain silent.." Deputy Sacks began as he pulled Logan forward and began to clip the cuffs on him.
"Veronica… don't…" Logan warned as she began to try and block the door.
"Leo…. He wasn't there!" Veronica swore.
"I'm sorry Veronica" he replied simply as they led Logan from the house and into the back of the police car.
"Hello?" a quiet voice asked, it sounded like she was somewhere trying to be hushed.
"Mac?" Veronica said as her friend answered the phone.
"Veronica?" she replied.
"Mac…. I really need your help" Veronica told her, tears streaming down her face.