Chapter 7

Dick's POV

"Someone did WHAT to V?"

I glanced around the diner, checking that no one had heard, just telling Weevil was pushing it, I doubt Ronnie would be very happy if everyone in the most popular diner in town also knew what happened.

I face Weevil again,

"Keep your voice down, Paco, everyone finding put is not what we need right now." I shot at him.

He glared at me from across the plastic table top, and clenched his fist.

"You're pushing it, Casablancas" he warned. "Just tell me what happened and what I need to do."

I leant back in my seat and waved the waitress away as she walked over to take our orders,

"We just need another minute, thanks."

She nodded, and I turned back to Navarro.

Burying my face in my hands I pondered how to tell this story. I didn't want him to get angry and blow our cover; if someone sees us here it will look suspicious and I'm not in the frame of mind to be making up excuses for why the rich, white surfer is having a chat with the leader of the motorcycle gang over a coffee, no, best to keep a low profile.

I lifted my head up, wiped the sweat off of my brow, and decided to just dive in to the story, from finding Ronnie in the bedroom at Shelly's to my decision to include Weevil and the bikers, to try and find Ronnie's rapist.

Weevil kept a stone hard face while I was recounting what happened. It wasn't until I finished that he said,

"Whatever you need me to do, I'm in."

"I hoped you'd say that."

I stepped into my car as I went over the action plan Weevil and I had decided on. He'd talk to his boys, I'd talk to mine, then us, and a few select others would go and discuss how we were going to do this with Lamb and the deputies tomorrow, after I had spoken to Veronica.

I had one last call to make.

Ring. Ring.

"Yo, Dick, last night was awesome. Where did you go, I was look—"

I cut him off. "Logan, I need to talk to everyone in the gang, something serious happened last night at the party, I need to talk to everyone about it."

He sounded as confused as Weevil had looked earlier,

"Dude, what's going on?"

"Sorry man, I'll explain later, can you call everyone and get them to your place?"

"Sure man, who specifically do you need?"

"Um… Get Luke, Sean, Casey, Duncan and… Meg! Yes, get Meg."

"Okay, see ya in a few."

"Yeah, bye dude."

"Bye."

I snapped my phone shut and leant my head against the wheel. How am I going to do this?

I pulled into Logan's drive way 10 minutes later with no plan a, and no plan b. I'm just going to have to wing it. Jumping out of the car, he spotted Logan waving at him to come behind the house; he guessed everyone was in the pool house already.

Turning the corner, Meg's blonde head came into view. She seemed to be pacing up and down outside the pool house while Casey was trying to calm her down. He kept looking exasperatedly at Duncan, who seemed to not even realise he had left home, and was in fact sitting on Logan's sun lounger and not his own; every 20 seconds or so he would suddenly look really surprised and blink, looking wide-eyed at everyone, before slumbering back into his zombie like state. He'd been like that for a while, and while I hoped that the news of someone harming his ex-girlfriend would jolt some sort of protective instinct or anger into him, he decided not to get his hopes too high.

"Guys!", Logan called, "Dick's here!"

Everyone looked up quickly as Logan and I walked over to where they were sitting.

"So, Dick," Sean finally piped up, "What's going on?"

Everyone turned to look straight at me and I realised that I literally had to tell them now, no more putting it off, if we were going to help Ronnie, we needed everyone on our side. And no, it hadn't gone past him that one of the people here, excluding Meg, and, he hoped, Logan, could have been the ones to rape Veronica themselves. No, he hadn't overlooked that. This was just part of what Weevil and he had talked about at the diner. They had come to the conclusion that the rapist must have been a male 09er, and the best way to smoke out a guilty 09er? Get Logan involved.

I stood up, took a deep breathe, looked over the five worried faces and Duncan's emotionless one staring up at me, and decided it was now or never.

"This morning, when I woke up in Shelly's living room, I saw that one of the doors to the guest bedrooms was wide open. Hoping to find a lift home, as I was still a little drunk, I went in to see who was in there. Let's just say the surprise I got wasn't the good kind. I found a girl in the bed-"

"Yeah you did! Sweet!"

Luke and Sean said together and high fived.

Meg and I glared at them. They shut up.

"As I was saying, there was a girl. She was crying and her arms were bruised. There was blood on the sheets of the bed. She couldn't find her underwear, and she had no memory of the night before. I think it's obvious to all of us what happened."

Everyone gasped and glanced around at the group. Meg let out a whimper.

"Who was it?" Casey whispered, "Who was the girl?"

I paused, and raked my eyes across the expressions of shock, sadness, and anger that was painted across the faces if his six friends. He hoped those expressions wouldn't change when he revealed the victim's identity.

"It was Veronica," He met Logan's stare with his own. "Veronica Mars."