Author's Note: to the VM-watchers: Does anyone remember how many Days An Echolls Family Christmas took from start to stab? I'd like to time this out correctly, if possible.

X X X X X

Dad would give me any details he thought I might need -- in the case of a possibly psychotic stalker, my contribution was going to be pretty much limited to research and paperwork -- but if this progressed in even a remotely similar fashion to the way it had originally, the stalker was a psychotic waitress, and her stabbing Aaron at the Christmas party was what led to Lynn Echolls' suicide.

I couldn't help Dad prove that Aaron Echolls killed Lilly; that was the way I was interpreting the messages from the Adversary and Lilly, anyway. (It wasn't an ironclad rule; hell, from the Adversary, this qualified as 'friendly advice."

But Dad could still investigate Aaron; and he was good. Smart enough to know what an opportunity this presented for that investigation.

And I would be damned if I let Lynn Echolls die again. So I could help Dad stop the stalker, at least, with a clear conscience.

I should have realized this was going to happen, anyway; at least, I should have expected the Christmas party itself. The stalker was helpfully supplied by the universe, the Adversary, or simply probability, given that Aaron Echolls was willing to sleep with anyone and anything female.

Still, I was going to have to be careful. My contributions here were going to have to be limited o finding the stalker and helping Dad. I don't think it qualified as "worrying about Lilly" if I ran across anything myself, but I would have to run across it honestly, not manipulate my way into running across it.

In the meantime, there was Rack.

I realized we weren't really at his level yet; but, per Ms. Calendar, he wasn't particularly good at offensive magic. (Still, at least if those two vampires could be believed, he'd burned a vampire up from the inside. Not sure how powerful a spell that was; for all I knew, the flame equivalent of witchfire could do that.)

From what I remembered from the show, he was dangerous, but not hair-trigger prone to violence; even when Warren burst in on him he was more inclined to conversation than simply throwing him out on the street.

I still didn't think he'd be amenable to sweet reason; who gives up money and power? But it might at least give us a pretext, and a reason not to make him suspicious by going in with guns blazing.

That assumed Giles didn't find some other way of dealing with him.

I knew I wasn't worrying over nothing. I might be worrying over something I couldn't control, but I wasn't worrying over nothing.

The door to Dad's office opened and Aaron Echolls stepped through it, seeming in a jovial mood. "I'll have my people send you everything you need, Keith," he said.

"Thank you, Aaron," Dad said, smiling. Laurence Olivier had nothing on Keith Mars. "I'll find whoever's stalking you."

"Thanks, Keith," he said. "I knew I could count on you." They shook hands. Aaron smiled at me on his way out. "See you around, Veronica." He thought he was being charming. Not flirtatious; even Aaron Echolls wasn't dumb enough to flirt with a teenaged girl in front of her father. But still, I found it about as charming as a pile of dirty laundry.

"You too, Mr. Echolls," I said as he left.

Dad carefully watched until Aaron had driven off – "regular guy" movie star drives himself, yeah, impressive if I wasn't sure that was part of his carefully calculated image – and then said, "That was one of the more unpleasant meetings I've ever had."

"I can't believe both of us got through that without telling him what we thought of him."

"I came close, believe me," he said. "Only the thought that this might let me drive the final nail into his coffin got me through it." He laughed bitterly. "And to think, I used to think he was a nice guy."

"So did I," I said. At least, I thought I had, though that was a timeline ago. "You took the job?"

"I took the job," he said. "Which means I'm going to do the job, and do it well. He has a stalker; we're going to try to stop her. I'm hoping in the course of my research to find something else to hold against him; something to match what we have in those two tapes."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Research," he said. "Nothing else. You've already run across way too many crazy people in person in this town, sweetheart."

"Any specific research? I already found Holly Takamura –"

"It's not going to be her," I said. "Aaron showed me copies of the letters. This is someone fairly local. Closer than LA, anyway. Stick to local women who might have a grudge against him. Besides you." He looked at me sternly. "This isn't you, is it?"

"Not funny," I said.

"I wasn't trying to be," he said.

"No. It's not me. I want Aaron to go to jail."

"Good to know."

X X X X X

I'd been lucky when I was tracking down Holly Takamura; she was one of Aaron's few conquests to have had their affair go even a little but public. I couldn't find anything local beyond rumors, which I still marked down. Certainly, the Sunnydale Press wouldn't have published anything against their most illustrious resident; they only reason they'd mentioned Jake Kane's probably obstruction charges was because the rest of the world was still watching.

I also spent a little bit of time tracking down gothy-goth's secret admirer – I'd marked it down as one of three people – and thinking more about Rack.

Had I bitten off more than I could chew? Maybe. But it was too late to spit the bite out now that I had the entire Scooby Gang working on it.

So, to push the metaphor, we had to work on making sure the answer with Rack was something we could all swallow.

I handed Dad what I'd found and went home.

I was doing some of my necessary homework – I wasn't going to rely on my memory for everything, though it was still a huge help – and eating a late dinner when Buffy called.

"You owe Angel an apology."

"Are you going to push this until I actually apologize to him?"

"Pretty much," Buffy said. "Anyway, I was doing an early patrol and ran across a couple of vampires; they knew all about Rack when I mentioned him. Hell, they went from trying to kill me to trying to run like hell."

"Guess they thought you were one of his clients, or something," I said.

"Yeah, that's pretty much how I figured it," Buffy said. "Anyway, I killed one and I've got the other one tied up with Angel keeping an eye on him. We're in the abandoned warehouse at Squire and 15th."

"So, it's interrogation time."

"Yup."

"I'll be down in a few," I said. I called Dad, let him know I'd be home in a couple of hours, and headed down to the warehouse. I didn't get out of the car until I saw Angel standing in the doorway.

He walked over as I got out of the car. "I just wanted to say," he said. "You don't need to apologize."

"You agree with me?"

"Not completely," he said. "But I understand you. They could have been two of only a handful. I'm certainly not offended that you think I was wrong."

"Thank you," I said. "You realize Buffy'll probably try to make me apologize anyway."

He half-grinned. "Probably."

We got inside and Buffy had a beaten but conscious and surly vampire in full game face tied to a support column. "I assume you've been checking to see if he's working on his ropes, right?"

The look on Buffy's face told me that no, this hadn't occurred to her, and she stepped forward as the bound vampire obviously kept sawing at his ropes with his fingernails.

He didn't come close. Buffy stepped forward and hit him in the head, then held him against the column while Angel gathered up some more scraps of rope and then set himself so he could watch the vampire from the rear in case he decided to get creative again.

I passed by Angel for a second, mouthing for him to follow my lead and that he was upset with me. It took a minute or so for him to catch on – lip-reading skills were not his specialty -- and then took Buffy well away from the vampire and told her the same thing, and then said, "You're angry at me."

"I am?"

"Think 'pissed because you've just been told something you didn't want to hear'."

She nodded.

Then I moved up to the vampire. No, I am not Jack Bauer, nor was meant to be. If all we needed was the ability to slap this guy around, Buffy and Angel would have been fine. I'm not sure we wanted to have Angel channel Angelus, not at this point, anyway. He would have been uncomfortable, Buffy would have been uncomfortable, and I wouldn't have felt too well myself.

So the slapping around would be kept to a minimum. Fine by me.

Still. I stood in front of the vampire and pulled out my holy water pistol, and was mildly surprised when his eyes widened a bit. Recognition? Fine. "So you know who I am?" No answer. "That was your cue to answer," I said.

Still nothing. Angel said, "Want me to hit him a few times?"

I glared at him. "If I wanted you to hit him, I would have said something."

"I was just asking," Angel said grumpily.

"Okay," I said, snapping my fingers at Buffy "Come over here and hold him still."

She did so, but made a production out of not being happy about it. Once the vampire was as immobile as he was going to get, I pressed the barrel of the water pistol against his neck and squeezed the trigger gently.

Yes, I knew what was going to happen. No, I don't like torture, even on vampires. No matter what repeated viewings of 24 might seem to indicate, all torture actually does is get the person being tortured to tell you anything you wanted to hear to avoid the pain.

The fear of torture, though? Might help. This was psychological, nothing more. I wanted him to think I would hurt him, and the only way to prove that was to hurt him, a little bit. Enough to be convinced I was serious. It was odd that the fear of torture got more reliable results than actual torture, but there you go.

And if you're wondering why I know this, or anything really, about interrogation: One part Dad, one part research, one part reasoning it out on my own. No, Keith Mars wouldn't condone torture or anything like it, but he did know the finer points of interrogation, both cop-legal and off the books, and sometimes even shared them with me.

The vampire yelled as the water trickled out. I held the trigger one more second, stood back, and told Buffy to let him go.

Buffy did so. There was a spot of his neck that was red, raw, and inflamed. "Stop screaming," I said. "If you get any attention, you'll be dead before anyone can help you."

He stopped yelling. Good. "That was the stick," I said. "Now for the carrot."

"Carrot?" Buffy said crankily behind me. "You didn't say we needed any carrots."

I rolled my eyed and looked conspiratorially at the vampire. "This is what happens when you work with idiots."

"I got it," the vampire growled, talking for the first time. "You don't get what you want, you burn me. You get what you want – what? I know damn well that's the Slayer behind you. She'll kill me the second you're done."

"No, she won't," I said.

"The hell I won't," Buffy said.

"If she doesn't. I will," Angel said.

"No," I said firmly. "You won't."

"And why not?" Buffy demanded in an annoyed tone.

"Because I said so."

Buffy threw up her hands and went over to lean against the far wall. Angel snorted. "Hold on a second." I told the vampire. "Have to talk to my underlings. Be right back."

I gestured for Buffy to follow me, and she did. Once we got far enough away that the vampire couldn't hear us, she raised an eyebrow and said, "Underlings?"

"Lackeys? Peons? I'm flexible," I said.

"Underlings will do," Buffy said wryly. "Look -- where are you going with this? And why do you want Angel and me to hate you?"

"Because I want him to believe me when I say you won't kill him once we let him go."

"We will."

"I know," I said as I started walking back, yelling, "No! You're not going to kill him if he tells us what we need to know."

"I'm a Slayer! That's what I do!"

"Not when I tell you not to," I said. "Now sit down. If he tries to escape again, then you can kill him. Got that?"

"Yeah, yeah."

I walked back over to the vampire, making sure to stay out of biting range. "So," I said. "What's your name?"

"Zeb," he said after about ten seconds.

"Hi, Zeb," I said. "Look. You know about this guy, Rack."

"Yeah," he said sullenly.

"Tell us everything you know about him."

"We can't touch his customers. If he does, he kills us."

"Yeah," I said. "We're already past that. Give us something else." Nothing. "Come on, Zeb. If you don't give me something else, you're dead. Spill."

"He makes it like his place shows up randomly. But it really don't," he said. "There're maybe eight different locations he actually uses."

I looked at Angel and then Buffy and said, 'I don't suppose either of you geniuses thought to bring something to write with or on?"

Angel said, "Didn't come here to write. Came here to hit." Quoting Hank Aaron. Unexpected. Maybe in the 1960's Angel was a baseball fan.

Also, he still sounded grumpy, but he flashed me a half-grin. He wasn't offended either. Good.

I rolled my eyes, walked out to my car and got a pen and paper, came back, and handed the pen to Buffy. "I assume you can write," I said.

"Sure can," Buffy said with obvious mock cheer. "F. U--"

"Yeah, yeah," I said. "Just make sure you get these locations right."

Buffy muttered something under her breath; the vampire laughed, so I assume it was something insulting. Good. "Okay," I said to Zeb. "Let's have them."

He rattled off eight places, one of which was the abandoned lot in the industrial park Angel had found the previous night.

"Good," I said when he was done. "That's a good start."

"Start?"

Over the next 45 minutes I got as much out of him as we could -- from what spells he'd seen, to the clients, to what Rack looked like, to the names of anyone who'd know more.

When I was satisfied that he was done, I said, "Thanks, Zeb. I appreciate it."

"So you're going to let me go now?"

I said, "Are you out of your mind? Buffy, he's all yours."

Zeb was dust before he could even begin to rip through his bonds.

"We good?" I said.

"We good," Buffy replied. "And please, never join the bad guys."

"Remind me never to lie to you," I said.

I said, "Really, you guys can learn how --"

"Not how to question," Angel said. "I know that."

"That's one of those things I think we're better off not hearing about," Buffy said.

"I wasn't planning to go into details," Angel said. "Anyway, it doesn't take an expert to know how to tie someone up and pound them until they talk. But knowing what to ask? That's a different story."

"And convincing him that you were our superior?" Buffy said.

I appreciate the praise," I said, and I did. "Still, compared to my father? I'm an amateur. Trust me." And, if it seems like I was awash in self-confidence out there? Then I'm telling it wrong. Any second, Zeb could have used his common sense and figured out that the Slayer wasn't going to let a vampire go no matter what the hell I said. Thank whatever gods there are that most vampires aren't overburdened with common sense.

"Still, you got us info we didn't have before," Buffy said. "Now, I think, we take this to Giles."

I checked my watch. "You take it to Giles. I need to head home."

"Apocalypses don't actually have curfews," Buffy said.

"It'd be a lot more convenient if they did," I said. "See you tomorrow."

With any luck, tomorrow we'd actually be able to move against Rack.

Or possibly Aaron.

Both at once?

That would be my luck, wouldn't it?