Chapter Fifty-Four

Leo D'Amato was no longer a deputy sheriff in the small town of Neptune as he once had been. No, now he was a full-fledged detective with the San Diego PD. Still, though, it came as no surprise to him that when the local law enforcement where he'd gotten his start made a request for a detective to be sent in, the job was given to him.

He was already well aware that Logan Echolls had been charged with murder. Again. It was hard to miss with it splashed across every news outlet known to man. What he wasn't sure of was what he'd be walking into. Would a certain feisty blonde be back on the scene again after all this time?

He'd heard that she had left behind her roller coaster relationship with Echolls after her first year of college and hadn't been back since. Having been back himself on more than a couple occasions since joining the SDPD, he could attest to the fact that the petite dynamo hadn't been in town for a few years. Every time he was here, he'd looked her up. Or tried to anyway. Her dad had let him know in no uncertain terms that she had taken off for bigger and better things. If he tried to pursue her, even from a distance, he should expect a shot to ring out and have everything go black.

Now, though, especially with a case involving Echolls, he couldn't help but wonder. Of course, she'd dumped him once for the movie star's kid. And she'd used him more times than he could count. So why he was still curious about her, he couldn't even say. All he knew was that when he had heard Neptune and Echolls in the same sentence together, he had to volunteer for the case. If ever there was a chance he'd see her again, it was when those particular 'planets' aligned.

Therefore, it didn't surprise him in the slightest when he strode through the main corridor of the sheriff's department and saw Keith Mars, Veronica Mars, and Logan Echolls all sitting around as if they were waiting for someone or something.

"Looking for me?" he asked with his dark eyes gleaming, a half-smirk/half-grin on his handsome obviously Italian face.

"Leo!" Veronica exclaimed excitedly, bouncing up from the bench to give him an impulsive hug and a kiss on the cheek. "It's so good to see you again!"

"Hey, Veronica," Leo said in that bashful but sexy way of his. Then he looked over at her father and Logan, both of whom were glaring at him. "Sheriff," he nodded to Keith with respect, then added, "Echolls."

Neither of the men on the bench gave an appropriate response so Veronica quickly put herself between them and the detective. With a smile, she said, "Things must be working out for you if you've made it to detective, huh?"

"Yeah well," he began with a self-conscious shrug, "Things didn't work out here so I guess they had to work out somewhere."

"True enough, I guess," Veronica conceded, looking a little puzzled, as if she may have missed something.

Not wanting to draw attention to his past disappointments, Leo looked toward the two men again and asked Veronica without looking back to her, "So what trouble have you gotten them into this time?"

"Me?!" Veronica exclaimed indignantly, "I had nothing to do with this, I swear! Logan called and said he needed my help," she explained as if that was all the answer he should need.

It was. It told him that in spite of all the drama, the ups and downs, and the extensive amount of time they'd had apart, it was still Logan Echolls who had her heart. Again, he'd lost his chance with her before he'd even known where to start. Used to it by now, though, he reached to squeeze her shoulder and said, "You always did have a soft spot for the bad boys."

Grinning up at him, her blue eyes sparkling with delight, she shrugged happily, her hands in her pockets as she quipped, "And you were never quite bad enough."

Her words brought a chuckle to Leo's lips and a scowl to Keith and Logan's faces. With her back to them, though, Veronica was oblivious and Leo alone got to enjoy the show. Glancing at her again, he asked, "How can I help?"

"Well, we've been pretty much doing the entire investigation on our own. We have a lot of pieces but not many of them are put together yet. Mind sitting down with us to work out a timeline?" Veronica asked first. When she received a brief nod from Leo, she then added, "And maybe there's something you could do about getting forensics to work a little faster on the evidence we found. I could be wrong and we may find that it's not connected but my gut is telling me that it absolutely is."

Chuckling again and shaking his head in admiration, Leo asked, "Anything else I can do for you, Princess?"

Automatically reaching behind her to keep Logan from leaping forward and pouncing on Leo, Veronica said with a sweet and magnanimous smile, "That will be all. For now."