A/N: Whew - covering a lot of ground in this one! I hope it works. I also attempted a season one-style Lilly flashback… hope that works, too! As ever, please let me know what you think. :)

When Weevil offered to track down the freshman claiming to have proof of Mrs. Echolls' suicide, Veronica was more than a little surprised. She'd never really understood how Weevil had gone from beating the crap out of Logan in September to joining his high-stakes poker game in December. Now that she knew about Lilly and Weevil, she wondered if his main motive was guilt.

For once, she didn't care. Weevil was helping, which meant she could focus on getting Mr. Rooks' name cleared of the mud Carrie had dragged it through, and – oh yeah – figuring out whether Duncan's mystery illness had anything to do with Lilly's murder.

With so much on her plate, she hardly thought about Logan's case for the rest of the week. It retreated to a little, nagging corner of her mind, jumping out whenever she passed him in the halls. She kept expecting him to chase after her and demand to know what she was doing to find his mom. Honestly, she was hoping for that, because this silence meant that he'd given up, and that she'd failed to help him.

Then came the weekend, and two earth-shattering bombshells knocked all thoughts of Lynn Echolls out of her mind.

Abel Koontz had terminal cancer, and he'd known it when he confessed to killing Lilly.

Then, when she was still reeling, Mr. Rooks tried to hit on her.

A little more digging into Carrie's allegations led her to Susan Knight. Carrie's best friend was supposed to be spending the semester in Germany. Instead, she was living in Carlsbad with her grandmother, five months pregnant with Mr. Rooks' baby.

Veronica sat in her car for a long time after leaving Susan's grandma's house, trying to wrap her mind around what Carrie had done for her best friend. Veronica knew firsthand how hellish Neptune High could be when the all-powerful in crowd decided you'd transgressed. Carrie knew it, too – hell, she'd been a part of it. She and Susan had been two of the first people to turn on Veronica. Even before Lilly's murder, they'd spread vicious rumors about her breakup with Duncan, claiming that he was mentally ill, and that she'd sent him naked pictures to win him back.

So why did she feel guilty for the way she'd treated Carrie these past few weeks? Of course she wanted to believe she was better than that, but there was something else.

She… admired Carrie. Before she'd been exiled from the 09er posse, would she ever have willingly left it? If it had been Lilly who'd been seduced, impregnated and disowned, would Veronica have been as selfless as Carrie? She'd do it in a heartbeat now… but back then? She wanted to believe she would. She just wasn't sure.

Maybe it was that insecurity that made her so hasty when Weevil found her at school the next day, dragging the pint-sized freshman Hart behind him. She'd texted Logan to meet her without a second thought.

Well, okay – there had been a second thought. She'd been feeling guilty for leaving his case for so long, and for contracting to Weevil when she was pretty sure Logan didn't want her telling anyone what they were doing. And maybe she'd also been eager for her sleuthing to help at least one person this week.

If she'd thought about it a little longer, she would've watched the tape first. Would have seen the tiny, spread-eagled dot drop from the Coronado Bridge and splash into the ocean as Hart's crappy war film raged in the foreground.

That wouldn't have stopped Logan from seeing it eventually – she knew he would've insisted – but she could have given him some warning. Let him watch it his way, which definitely wouldn't be in the journalism classroom with Weevil, some freshman and – let's be honest – Veronica Mars party to his grief. Instead, she ambushed him.

"This footage better never make it out into public consumption," she told Hart, desperate to relieve her guilt.

"Don't worry about my boy Hart," Weevil said, clamping a hand around the kid's pencil neck. "He knows if that happens, his last movie will be a snuff film. And he'll star in it."

Maybe Weevil felt a little guilty too.

He shoved Hart toward the door, shooting a look at Veronica before following him out.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Logan come to stand next to her. She fixed her gaze on the image of Hart's body toppling toward the ground, behind him that one, distant splash.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. She felt sick at what she'd seen, and sicker at what she'd put him through.

"So am I." His voice was rough with tears. If it was possible for Veronica to feel any worse, she did.

She heard Logan stumble on his way out of the classroom. She hadn't even been able to look at him.

Her phone started ringing and she pulled it out of her bag with a sigh. She had to read the text a few times before it sank in.

Activity on card registered to L. Lester.

It took her another second to find her voice.

"Logan!" she yelled. But he was long gone, or else ignoring her.

She was halfway to the door before she remembered the DVD in the disc drive. She pressed the eject button, nearly bouncing with impatience as the drive whirred. She snatched the disc and sprinted after Logan.

He wasn't moving fast, but his legs were a lot longer than hers. He was nearly at the parking lot by the time she caught up with him.

"Logan? Logan!" He didn't turn around until she was nearly on top of him.

"Logan!" she gasped. "Your mom's missing credit card was just used."

It took a moment for his face to lose the shattered, empty look, but when it did, she couldn't help grinning. Logan seemed to catch her excitement.

"What does that mean?"

"It means that someone bought something with one of your mom's cards."

His brow creased. "So it might not be her?"

The reality of what they'd just seen hit her again and her heart started to sink.

"No," she admitted. "It's possible that someone found the card, or that it's a case of identity theft… I'll talk to my guy at the bank to find out what the charge was. That should tell us something."

"How long will that take?"

"I'll call him now. We should have the details by tomorrow morning."

"Okay." Logan ran his hands through his hair, linking his fingers behind his neck. When he looked at her, the desperation in his eyes almost hurt. "This is good news, right?"

"It's a lead," she hedged.

Logan gave a smile that looked more like a wince.

"Don't get my hopes up, right?"

Veronica offered a thin smile in return.

"Logan, I'm so sorry about back there…"

"Don't be." He shrugged. "You know, if it wasn't for you, I'd just be sitting at home, going crazy wondering."

"And instead, I've got you out of the house going crazy wondering," she joked weakly.

His smile was smaller this time, but it looked less painful.

They agreed to meet at the lunch tables the next morning before school. She watched Logan leave campus – two hours early, but she wasn't about to stop him – and headed back to class, already texting her bank contact.

A fax was waiting for her when she got to the office after school. Luckily, Dad was out in the field. She had a pretty good idea what he'd think of this case, and although she knew, deep down, that he was probably right, she wasn't ready to admit it. Despite all her warnings to Logan, she'd started to get her hopes up a little bit, too.

Mrs. Echolls had fourteen credit cards. The only one with activity was a no-limit platinum card, registered to "Lynn Lester." She didn't need to use the PI database to find out that was Mrs. Echolls' maiden name. Logan was going to love that.

The card had been used to rent a red Mercedes Benz convertible. A lot like the Dodge Viper she'd been driving when she allegedly jumped. Logan would like that too.

She called the rental company, ready with a sob story about a deadbeat dad, but it didn't matter – they didn't have video surveillance. She'd have to do it the old-fashioned way and request a copy of the cardholder's signature. That might take a few weeks, which Logan definitely wouldn't like.

By the time she was done, she still had plenty of time to pick up dinner and do her homework before calling Wallace, who'd been making noises about how they never "just hung out" anymore. He wasn't wrong. Hopefully, with only Logan's case to distract her, things would calm down for a while. In the spirit of youthful frivolity, they made plans to watch TV at Veronica's the next night, when Dad would be out on his insurance fraud case.

Of course, by the time the next night actually rolled around, Veronica was freshly snowed under, hunting down a Russian e-mail order bride's lost soul mate and trying to figure out which varsity jock had the hots for her friend Meg. From the tragic, to the tawdry, to the ridiculous.

As swamped as she was, she still found the time to get seriously impatient for the signature on the Benz rental. Logan had been through enough with this case, and she wanted to solve it for him. She told herself it was just that, and not the way her heart had fluttered when he'd squeezed her arm and looked at her like they were friends. She missed him. After everything they'd done to each other, she was surprised to realize how much.

"Thanks for helping out with this," he'd said, his thumb rubbing a slow circle on her shoulder.

She'd smiled. "I know what it's like."

And she did. No matter what had happened to Mrs. Echolls, they'd both been abandoned by their moms. They'd both loved Lilly, and they'd both lost her. And they'd both turned a little mean in their quest to get even.

Somehow, Duncan wasn't part of that. When he'd seen Logan and Veronica together, he'd joked that Logan had been inviting her to the 80s dance. As if either of them cared about stupid high school dances anymore.

Duncan had figured out how to stop mourning Lilly and go back to his charmed 09er life. She shouldn't blame him for finding peace. It actually sounded kind of nice. But she didn't have that luxury.

For whatever reason, neither did Logan.

A typically exciting Friday night found her sorting through potentials for the Russian bride's lost love – an actor who'd changed his name from the unfortunate Tom Cruz. She'd put out a pretty specific casting call, but it was amazing how many balding, hockey-playing guitarists of medium height and build were aspiring actors.

Wallace had just dropped by when Veronica got another text from the bank. L. Lester had struck again, this time dropping twelve grand on a room at the Sunset Regent in L.A.

Veronica bit her lip. If it really was Mrs. Echolls using the card, she wasn't exactly flying under the radar. She left Logan a voicemail telling him to call her, and then turned to Wallace with a grin.

"Man, I hate that look," he groaned.

"C'mon, buddy!" She punched his shoulder. "I thought you wanted to hang!"

Wallace narrowed his eyes.

"Will it result in my public humiliation?"

She gave him her most winsome smile. "Only if you want it to."

They drove to the mall, where Veronica managed to pick up a wedding scrapbook and a stack of bridal mags just before closing.

"I do not like where this is going," Wallace griped. She smiled and bought him a soft pretzel to keep him happy.

When Logan called, she told him to meet her at the Sunset Regent at noon the next day. She opted not to fill him in on her plan. After all, she could only afford so many soft pretzels.

Veronica and Wallace got back to the apartment in time to catch Dad on his way to bed.

"Hey, Dad! Can I borrow the Rock?"

The Rock was a huge, pretty convincing fake diamond ring that Dad had got for a job last year. Veronica had been waiting for an excuse to use it ever since.

Dad frowned, his toothbrush dangling from the right side of his mouth.

"What for?"

Veronica clutched the scrapbook to her chest, feigning raptures.

"Wallace and I are running away together," she gushed. "The ring's just in case he wants to make an honest woman of me."

Dad raised his eyebrows at Wallace. Veronica didn't have to turn around to know he was rolling his eyes.

"Well, I still want you home by curfew," Dad said, going to get the ring from his sock drawer. "And if you run away together, remember to drive safe."

To his endless credit, Wallace stuck around for a whole hour of wedding scrapbooking.

"Is this really what girls do?" he asked, frowning as he tried to paste a picture of roses onto a page and got his fingers stuck together instead.

"I dunno." She blew her bangs out of her eyes, cutting carefully around a wedding dress. "Why, does it scare you?"

He grinned and gave a theatrical shudder. "I'm ter-r-r-rified!"

Veronica kept working after he headed home. As silly as it was, there was something soothing about cutting pictures out of one book and pasting them into another. She'd made a real scrapbook for Lilly's seventeenth birthday, full of photos and ticket stubs and notes. She could still picture the first page: a photo of Lilly and Veronica at prom, surrounded by pressed flowers from their corsages. Lilly's dress had been black, skintight and plunging. They'd skipped pep squad to go get it after school one day. It had been two years, but Veronica could still remember leaning against the scorching hood of Lilly's silver Mercedes, waiting for her best friend and wondering why that Weevil kid was watching her across the lot. At least she'd managed to solve one mystery.

The bell had rung and then Lilly and Logan had appeared, joined at the lips since their recent reconciliation.

"So, do I get to see this dress before prom?" Logan asked as they arrived at Lilly's car.

"It's bad luck," Lilly teased.

"Pretty sure that's just for weddings."

"Well, this is as close to the altar and I'm ever gonna get," Lilly said, letting him pin her against the car. Veronica rolled her eyes with a tolerant smile. "I'm a modern woman, you know."

Logan's retort was drowned out by the ear-splitting roar of the PCH bikers peeling past on their motorcycles.

"Overcompensating for something?" Logan quipped as their taillights disappeared down the road.

"Says the guy in the big yellow gas-guzzler," teased Veronica. Logan blew her a kiss.

"Alright, boy toy, playtime's over." Lilly kissed Logan once more before pushing him away and unlocking her car. "Let the girls go do grownup things."

Logan opened her door and helped her in. "See ya, Barbie." He winked at Veronica in the passenger seat. "Skipper."

"How dare you?" Veronica demanded, mock-offended. He grinned and gave them a little salute before closing Lilly's door.

"So, how are things with Logan?" Veronica asked as they pulled out of the lot.

"Well, you know what they say," Lilly said airily, "fifth time's the charm."

Veronica gave her best friend a sympathetic look. Lilly liked to act like nothing fazed her, but Veronica couldn't imagine being okay if she and Duncan broke up… well, ever. Let alone every few months.

"Do you think you guys will stay together this time?"

Lilly shot her a scornful look and Veronica backtracked, digging deep for that inner bitch Lilly liked so much.

"I'm just asking because I don't want your drama ruining my prom photos."

Lilly gave a loud laugh. "Fear not, Veronica Mars. Your misty, water-colored high school memories are safe. Anyway, there's no better date for a school dance than Logan." Before Veronica could accuse her of sentimentality, she added, "He buys the best corsages. And the best booze."

Veronica scoffed. "God, Lil – if your family wasn't already loaded, I'd say you were using Logan for his money."

"So cynical!" Lilly cried. "Can't I just be using him for his body?"

Veronica's eyes had drifted closed with the memory. Now she opened them as she heard Dad moving around in the other room. It was nearly 4 AM, and he was heading back into the field.

Dad poked his head around her door and frowned at the carpet of tattered wedding magazines.

"Sweetie?" he prompted. "Is there something you want to tell me?"

Veronica gave an innocent shrug. "I love scrapbooking?"

"With bridal magazines?"

"You're the one who wanted me to have normal hobbies," she reminded him. "This is what teenage girls do, Dad! I saw it on TV."

He looked skeptical. "You'll warn me before you get married, right?"

"You kidding? Who else is going to hold the shotgun?"

"That's my girl."

"Be safe!" she called after him, smiling to herself as the front door clicked shut.

She fell into bed at 4:30, waking up at 9 to call the front desk at the Sunset Regent. The man who answered had one of those snobby, faux-British accents, like Kelsey Grammer on Fraser. Veronica put on her very best Rich Bitch Socialite.

"My fiancé and I were hoping to see your honeymoon suites – is there a good time for us to pop our heads in? Maybe after the maids have been through?"

"I'm afraid the Sunset Regent does not offer tours, ma'am."

Veronica gritted her teeth around a smile.

"Of course. But if there was a specific suite we were interested in, I'm sure we could look in? They were glad to accommodate us at the Ritz-Carlton."

"If the suite is unoccupied," the man said, "one of our staff should be able to showcase it for you."

"Fabulous. We'll be there at noon. Ta!" She hung up before he could try to argue.

She checked the clock and swore, then started rifling through her closet for her stuffiest clothes. If she hurried, she'd be just in time to fake an engagement to her dead best friend's ex.