Donut Run
14 to 15 weeks
She knows what she is suggesting to Duncan is risky but she made a promise to Meg.
Eli sits in the suite with Logan.
"We need to figure out who the inside man is." he tells him.
"I get that but why are we talking about this without anyone else?" Logan asks.
"Let's see, Felix, like you, could possible end up in jail for attempted murder. Thumper makes sure that my woman is safe with the help of a few of the boys that I know aren't selling. V is..."
"I know pregnant. Ronnie is tying to help DK get access to his daughter so she is kinda busy at the moment."
"Yeah. I need to know which one of my boys is selling for the Fitzpatricks and why the hell they are trying to get you and Felix put away. Know anyway we can figure this out."
"Actually, I do."
She, Mac and Marisol are going through baby books when Wallace enters her bedroom.
"What are you doing?"
"Figuring out everything that I am going to need. It was suggested that I start now on an idea of the theme and stuff that I want for the baby's room and stuff that I am going to need for my registry."
"Registry?" Wallace asks with a confused look on his face.
"V gets to play with one of those guns that brides to be use when they make that list of everything that the want as a wedding gift but instead it's full of things for the baby." Marisol says with a grin.
"Oh, so it's a wish list." Wallace says slowly understanding.
"For her baby shower." Mac states.
"A shower isn't until the last trimester, I am barely into my second." she says.
He sits down next to Mac and takes the book out of her hands.
"Any idea yet?" he asks.
"Too many." all there of them say laughing.
"Veronica, could you come out here." Keith calls.
They all go into the living room to find Lamb and Sacks there.
"What's going on?" she asks.
"It seems that Duncan is missing, along with his daughter." her dad tells her.
She looks at all of them in shock.
"Veronica Mars, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting the kidnapping of Faith Manning."
"Her name is Lilly Kane." she snarls as Lamb places the cuffs on her.
"Huh?" Sacks says getting a glare from Lamb.
"Duncan and Meg named her Lilly." she states as Lamb escorts her out of the apartment.
She is placed in a line up and after a short time is placed in an interrogation room.
Her dad and Cliff join her after a few minutes.
"Want to explain why you were just identified for selling some of Celeste Kane's earrings?" her dad demands.
"Oh, that." she says sitting down.
"Veronica." Cliff says sitting down across from her. "Lamb thinks that you selling the earrings is proof that you helped Duncan finance the kidnapping."
"Lamb is an idiot." she says.
"The earrings." her dad demands.
"Duncan gave them to me, I thought they were an old pair of Lilly's. He didn't want his mom or dad to foot the bill for a lawyer. He wanted to prove to Meg's parents that he is able to provide for his daughter without relying on his parents."
"You will cooperate completely with Lamb, do you understand?"
"Yes."
Sacks shows her into Lamb's office.
Celeste is there with Vinnie Van Lowe.
"I should have known that you had something to do with this." Celeste says the instant the door is shut.
"Hey, Veronica! What's the haps?" Vinne says.
"Oh, you know. I didn't think there'd be air conditioning, but, other than that, this is pretty much how I pictured Hell."
Vinnie starts to question her, but Lamb reminds him that it is not his place.
"Mrs. Kane, we will find Duncan, you should save your money." Lamb tells her.
"Forgive me if I don't trust your skills." Celeste snarks as she and Vinnie leave the office.
"You are to sit there and write down everything you can think of that will help us tack down Duncan." Lamb says handing her a pad of paper and a pen.
"Don't you honestly think that the baby is better off and safer with Duncan than those people."
Lamb just points at the paper.
"Can I at least use the restroom first?" she asks.
"Veronica..."
"I'm sorry but someone is using my bladder as a trampoline and I need to use the restroom." she snarks standing so he can see her rounded stomach.
Lamb's eyes widen. Nearly everyone knows how did you freaking miss it.
"Inga, can you take Veronica to the bathroom." he calls out.
Dick and Logan play a video game.
Logan asks Dick to buy some drugs from a couple of bikers.
Dick cheerfully agrees.
It takes her about an hour to write down everything.
She hands him the list, grabs her bag and leaves.
Outside in the hallway, Vinnie is waiting for her.
"Waiting for your girlfriend to make bail?" she snarks.
"No, no, no. Her shift ends at five. I'm waiting for you, V-dog." Vinnie says.
"What for?"
"I thought maybe you'd tell me where you're keeping Duncan, save us all some time, you know, earn some karma points."
"I have no idea where he is, and if I did, you would be the...last person I'd tell."
"Okay, let's say I sweeten the pot. Let's make it...five thousand dollars, the karma points are yours to keep, and if you act now, I'll throw in a free set of steak knives."
"No."
"Veronica. Seventy-two hours from now, I'm gonna have that kid back. And you'll wish you had those steak knives." He makes continues half-hearted attempt to get her to tell him where Duncan is before letting her pass.
She goes around the corner opens her bag and turns back calling out to Vinnie.
"You seemed to have dropped this my bag." she says throwing a bugged pen at him.
In computer class, the Coach is giving the students a search quiz.
She is confident of victory when he asks them to find the varsity boys' basketball team's record in district because while others will go the long way around, she just needs to type in Wallace's name.
She does and is surprised to find that Wallace lied to her.
He did play on the team at the high school in Chicago.
Dick catches Logan at his locker.
"Hey, what's the word?" he asks.
"Well, the one they call Bootsy told me no and went on to suggest I perform sexual intercourse upon my own person." Dick says.
"Hm. Doesn't he understand? If you could do that, you'd never come to school." he snarks.
"Boy, that's the truth." Dick says wistfully.
"And Hector?"
"Sold me ten hits of E. Mint?" Dick hands over the E in a mint container.
"I gave you enough cash for twenty." he says taking it out of his hand.
"Hey, he gave me the 09er discount. Charged me double." Dick tells him as he walks off.
Logan writes Hector's name on the mint container.
"Hey, Weevil, need to talk to you." he calls out.
"What's up?" Logan comes over and without anyone seeing, passes him the container.
"I need you to tell Letty that she doesn't need to come over in the morning. I won't be there tonight and with Duncan gone..."
"I'll tell her." Weevil says as he walks off.
He quickly looks at what Logan slipped him and is distressed to see Hector's name written on the container fill with E.
Sacks lets Lamb know that he has company, and Lamb ends his call.
It's the FBI.
Agents Morris and Wills are shown in. Agent Morris takes the lead. She asks him to bring them up to speed.
Sacks knocks on the door interrupting Morris, "Sheriff, Veronica is here with more information."
"Veronica, is she a girlfriend?" Morris asks.
Lamb just laughs, "No. A friend."
"But she does have ties to the local biker gang, correct?" Wills asks.
"If you call being the girls friend of the leader of said gang and knocked up with his kid, connected than yeah she has ties."
"I want to speak with her." Morris says standing up.
"You might want to be careful with her. She's slippery." Lamb warns.
"Sheriff, we have interrogated Al Qaeda members at Gitmo. I think we can handle a teenage girl." Morris says dismissing the warning.
Lamb leads them to the interrogation room.
On seeing her, the agents mock Lamb for his warning.
Lamb introduces her to the agents.
"Yeah, whatever. When I was making that list I forgot that Duncan has a online storage that our friend Mac set up for him on his laptop." she tells Lamb, ignoring the agents completely.
"Will look into that. It was good that you came to us with this." Morris says as Wills goes off to get a warrant.
"Not here because I want to be. I hope that you don't find him or Lilly at all." she snarks.
'I thought the baby's name was Faith." Morris says looking over at Lamb. "Is there another baby that we don't know about?" she says quietly.
Sacks pops his head in and tells them that border patrol is on the phone wanting to know about the searches.
"I wouldn't bother. Duncan hates Mexico."
Lamb senses a trap and tells them not to scale back the searches.
She leaves the room, shaking her head is disgust.
Felix, Thumper, and the rest of the PCHers stand behind him as he stares at Hector.
"Explain to me why I have proof that you are selling E to 09ers." he demands.
"I need to get some extra cash."
"So you work for the Fitzpaticks?" Felix asks with a look of disgust.
"I'm not working for them, not really. Molly and I are just trying to save up some money so we can run away together." Hector tells them.
"Molly Fitzpatick? Are you nuts?" Thumper asks in utter shock.
"How long have you been with her?" Felix asks coldly.
"Since last year." Hector starts. "I know that you were interested in her, man. She told me about you flirting with her. I ain't mad about that. We agreed not to let anyone know."
"Hector, until a while ago Felix was dating Molly. You remember when V and I had a fight before summer, it was because she knew about it."
"What?" Hector asks confused. "No, Molly is my girl. She loves me. We are planning on running away together."
"We will get to that later. Who are you selling for if not the Fitzpatricks?" he asks.
"An 09er. His dad works with my sister."
"Name."
She rejoins Lamb and the agents in the interrogation room.
They broke Duncan's password, which was Meg Kane spelled backwards.
They have discovered that Duncan bought a boat.
Sacks comes in to report that the Coast Guard have found the boat and are preparing to board.
They put the phone on speaker to listen in.
"There's no one here. Just some dirty diapers and empty food packages." they here over the phone.
"Could the kid have snapped?" Wills whispers to Morris.
"The grandparents did say that he has some problems." she says back quietly.
Lamb just stares at her, surprised that she has had no reaction.
"Could he have committed suicide and taken his daughter with him?" Morris asks her.
"No. Someone must have picked him up."
She gets off Eli's bike and the two of them head to her apartment.
Seeing a van, she pauses and turns back.
She opens the door to find Vinnie inside it.
Vinnie is on a stake-out, and she is the target.
They banter a little.
She gives him a private and confidential letter to give Duncan when he finds him.
She close the door and she and Eli walk off.
Vinnie takes it and opens it as soon as she goes. He smirks as he reads it.
Eli confronts Sean Friedrich in the bathroom.
"Oh, how the mighty have fallen. Do you remember last year, when you looked down on me like you were so much better?" he snarks
"Yeah. Did you get the impression something has changed?" Sean replies.
"Well, yeah. It seems both our families are in the domestic staffing industry. That makes us like family. I steal cars, you sell drugs. Hey, I can hardly tell where you end and I begin."
"I don't know..."
"Do not lie to me. One of my boys is working for you. You getting your supplies from the Fitzpatricks."
Sean confirms that he sells drugs but denies that he is supplied by the Fitzpatricks.
"Hey, They take a blowtorch to anyone short a dime bag, and I am not that dumb." Sean says as he runs out.
"Fuck." he says as Logan comes out of one of the stalls.
"Back to square one. As much as I hate to admit it, we might need to get some help from Ronnie."
"I know." he sighs.
In a mood, she sends everyone away when Wallace joins her at their table.
She hands him copies of what she found out about him on the internet.
"What happened?" she asks.
"This player, Rashard Rucker, is the best player in the nations. A little before Chistmans, him, me and a couple other players were coming home from a party. Rashard had a few to many, was driving and hit someone. He left the scene even though I told him to go back. We drove to Rashad's uncle's place. Who said that we probably hit a dog and should keep our mouths shut. I couldn't let it go." he tells her.
"I would have understood, why didn't you tell me?" she says softly.
"I felt guilty. You would have stayed and done the right thing." he says getting up and leaves her alone.
Her phone rings minutes later.
It's Duncan.
She urges him to turn himself in, to rely on the courts.
Duncan says he will never get custody of Lilly now, but he couldn't leave her with the Mannings. He adds plaintively that thought Veronica would help but that he will go it alone.
The FBI trace the call to Big Bear.
Lamb gears up to go with them.
He is not welcome, and the FBI agents will take care of it.
She, Eli and Thumper stop at her door but don't go inside.
Checking the coast is clear, she goes over to the empty apartment next door and goes inside quickly.
Duncan comes out of one of the rooms holding Lilly.
"It's time." she tells him taking Lilly out of his arms.
They go into the other room whee he has bags packed and waiting.
"So it's working?" he asks.
Eli and Thumper stay near the door keeping an eye out.
"Yes, but we need to move now. The instant we leave this room, Duncan and Lilly Kane need to disappear completely." she says softly, kissing Lilly on the forehead.
"Querida." Eli says softly coming over to her.
"Didn't think it would be this hard." she whispers.
"Ronnie, I..."
She places the baby in Eli's arms and with tears in her eyes wraps her arms around Duncan, hugging him for the last time.
"We need to move." Thumper says.
"Let's go." Duncan says rubbing the tears out of his eyes and takes Lilly out of Eli's arms. "I'm ready."
Lamb is in a contemplative mood when Sacks reports that Veronica's ATM card has been used in Mexico.
Lamb is jubilant and reckons to win one over the FBI by bringing back the prize.
He sets out to leave.
Keith, looking for toilet paper, searches the cupboard in Veronica's bathroom.
He is livid to find a hole in the wall to the empty apartment next door and a pack of diapers.
"Veronica, honey. I need you to call me when you get this. We need to talk." he says getting her voicemail.
Pat of him is proud of her but disappointed that she didn't tell him.
Wallace chats to another basketball player as they head for their cars.
A man is leaning against Wallace's car. He introduces himself as Ernie Sayers, from the Chicago Statesman.
The other boy wanders off, and Wallace tries to avoid speaking the Sayers.
Sayers tells him about a hit-and-run on December 14th, that a homeless victim has been left paralyzed from the waist down. A witness saw the car, a red Hummer with spinning rims. There aren't many such vehicles in Chicago. That he knows about him leaving a party with Rashard and others.
Sayers asks what kind of man Wallace is planning on being.
Lamb is waved through.
He drives into Mexico.
He parks at a hotel and goes inside.
He shows the man a picture of Duncan.
The manager says they all look alike to him, and he should try the restaurant up the road.
She and Thumper walk into her bedroom and freeze when they find her dad sitting on the bed.
He is furious and upset that she may go to prison. "This is just not your life that you ae gambling with. What about Eli, me and the baby? I know for sure that I will not be able to survive with out you."
"Sheriff.. Weevil and I..we ..." Thumper begins.
"The less I know the better."
"We had to do it, dad. The Mannings..."
"I know. I am just upset that you didn't bring me into the loop, honey. I would have helped all of you." he says.
A knock on the door stops them.
It's the FBI, and they have a search warrant.
They search her room.
She watches as Wills looks at the emails and notebook that just happen to be on her desk in full view.
Thumper looks confused, since he knows that they were in her desk not on top of it.
They both look at her dad, who is hiding a smile.
"What is the point of this. Veronica has cooperated fully with you" her dad starts.
"A girl, matching your daughter's description was seen up in Big Bear. Whee we found a cassette of a phone call that was placed earlier today." Morris tells him.
She is silent but becoming more and more agitated as a random agent gets to the cupboard in the bathroom.
Thumper stops breathing, knowing that she exchanged things with Duncan though a hole in the wall.
They both breath a sigh of relief when she sees that the diapers have been removed and hole covered.
"Kidnapping cases don't go away." Morris says as she and the other agents leave.
As Lamb goes over some railway tracks, his trunk lid flies open.
Lamb stops and gets out to close it.
He sees empty water bottles and food packaging in the trunk.
He also sees that the trunk has been rigged to open from the inside.
Lamb realizes with horror that he has been played.
Duncan runs to the pick-up truck that appears on the other side of the road.
He throws the backpack into the back and gets in.
Inside are Astrid, with the baby and Vinnie, who is driving.
"Necisito un paseo?" Vinnie says.
"Si." Duncan replies.
"Gas, grass, or ass, kid. Nobody rides for free." Vinnie states before he can get in.
"Thirty grand." he replies handing over a envelope full of money.
"Pleasure doing business. Oooh, you pay better than your mom." Vinnie laughs.
He starts removing his disguise.
"She won't let go of my finger." Astrid says.
"Probably thinks you're Ronnie."
"So does the FBI." she says with a smile and hands him Lilly.
"Hey, Lilly. Daddy's here. Everything's gonna be all right." he says softly as they drive off.
Passing Lamb going in the other direction.
He kisses the top of Lilly's head gently.
Flashback
"Are you sure this is the only way?" he asks Ronnie.
"Duncan, honey, this is the only way." his mom tells him, sitting down next to him.
Ronnie, Logan, Weevil, Felix, Mac and Thumper sit around the room.
"The Manning's lawyers are vicious. You could lose. Big time." Mac says. "I hacked into their files to seewhat they are planning. It's bad."
"How big?" he asks.
"Like not allowed within a hundred feet of your daughter big. Meg was right, they are tearing into you life. Nothing is scared. The instant we can maneuver it, you need to disappear." Weevil tells him.
"It will work. No one knows that you mom and I are on good terms. They thought of us working together will never cross there minds." Ronnie says.
"I know how I will cross the border but what about Lilly?" he asks tuning to his mom.
"That's where I come in." Astrid says speaking up.
"Won't they be looking for..."
"I have to play my pat as well. Have a sudden urge to shower just thinking about hiring him but he is sceevy enough that it will work."
"Vinnie Van Lowe." Thumper and Felix say at his confused look.
"Trust us, please." Ronnie says.
"Okay." he whispers softly. "When do we start?"
"Now." Ronnie says as his mom hands him a jewelry box.
He looks down at his daughter and smiles.