Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own

by SilverLining2k6

Silly Duncan stopped taking his meds. Now, one dead Fitzpatrick later, Logan and Veronica need to get him out of town. Too bad they hate each other. AU. Takes place mid 1x3 - Meet John Smith.

33. Day 12 - Good Vibes

A/N - Posting two chapters today (33 and 34)

Trigger warning. These chapters are emotionally heavy and delve into past rape, trauma, bad parenting, and other sensitive issues. Also, I use the word "fuck" like 600 times.

Regarding Duncan: I knew when I started this fic that he would be integral to the story through the very end. I can't get rid of him. The best I can do is write him as a character with a soul and a conscience, and try to explore why he might be so fucked up.

Veronica

Day 12
Titan's Trigger
Nicholas Key, Florida

Veronica wakes to that feeling every woman dreads — twisting cramps in her belly and a slickness between her legs that has nothing to do with Logan's hard body.

She scoots and wiggles her way to the edge of the bed, careful not to tempt gravity, then — thighs clenched together — scrambles into the bathroom.

Thankfully, she hasn't leaked. But she's forced to empty out her entire purse in order to locate a single tampon in a faded wrapper.

First stop - drugstore.

Speaking of…she retrieves her first packet of birth control pills from her bag and fits it into the dispenser, ensuring they'll be ready to begin taking on Sunday.

She has errands on the mainland, so, after showering, she pulls on her long blonde wig, inserts the brown contact lenses and applies her makeup with a heavy hand, using contouring and highlighting techniques to alter her features.

Logan's still sleeping, but for the sake of Less War, she dresses in the closet, pairing dark, low-rise jeans with a plain black tee shirt.

Exiting the closet, she lingers midway between the stateroom's door and her laptop.

Coffee or Google?

She thinks better while caffeinated, but it hasn't slipped her notice that brewing a fresh pot of coffee is as good as casting a summoning spell for the Zadie demon.

Investigation, it is.

Grabbing her laptop and the green spiral notebook she'd used to transcribe Duncan's drunken ramblings, she climbs back into bed, using a pillow to support her back, and signs into the Wi-Fi.

Other than two offers for penis enlargement cream and a desperate plea from a Nigerian prince who needs Veronica's help claiming his inheritance, there's nothing new in her secret Gmail account. A quick check of the Global Positioning website places Liam Fitzpatrick's Barracuda somewhere around the Michigan/Ohio border, heading East.

A finger traces the sliver of skin between her tee shirt and jeans, nearly making her jump out of her skin.

"Morning." Logan looks up at her with sleepy eyes.

"Hey." Veronica's mouth forms an involuntary smile. "I'm just about to Google our uninvited house guest."

"You have all day for that." He gently tugs the laptop from her hand, setting it aside, before pulling her down next to him. "Need more cuddle time."

"A girl could get used to this." Veronica allows herself a minute or two of distraction, closing her eyes as he pulls her snug, presses his lips chastely to her neck.

Logan breathes in her skin and lifts up onto his elbow to look at her. "You showered without me."

"As I've been doing for the past seventeen years. Your point?"

"After last night, I thought maybe we'd do all our showering together. Think of all the water we could save." His eyes twinkle and his hand slides under the hem of her tee shirt. Not far, but enough to raise goosebumps on her skin.

Veronica runs fingers through his messy hair. "Sorry, handsome. You missed your chance. My current thoughts are more along the lines of: 'get this fucking uterus out of me', 'everything hurts', and 'I want to die.'"

"Oh. Sorry." Logan pulls away. "Can I get you anything? Aspirin? Chocolate? Punching bag?"

"Punching bag? Is that what we're calling Zadie now?"

"I'll even be a gentleman, and hold her arms."

"You say the most romantic things."

With a sympathetic smile and a kiss on her forehead, Logan sits up. "Well, if you don't need anything, I guess I'll go take a shower. Alone."

"Enjoy." Veronica raises her eyebrows. "I sure did."

"You are so evil."

"Get going, slacker." She watches him go, admiring his naked back and legs until the door closes behind him.

Back to Zadie.

She evaluates the search terms she'd used yesterday, compares them to the new information she'd obtained from Natalia and Duncan, and devises a search engine plan of attack: Zadie, Zenaida, Miami, Quartermaine, Nicholas Key, ballet, science, art, mural, Alex, Midwest, Minnesota.

Like yesterday, her initial searches come up empty.

It's not until she stumbles across an entry on a baby name site that her luck changes:

Zenaida (Spanish, Portuguese, Italian)

Zinaida (Russian)

She repeats her earlier searches using the Russian spelling, and….Jackpot!

Well hello, Zinaida Petrov of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Holy fucking shit!

As she scans the news article, her triumphant smile slips from her face.

HOLY! FUCKING! SHIT!

Veronica exhales sharply through pursed lips.

What the hell should I do?

Logan would want her to wait, so they can confront Zadie together. That would be the responsible choice. But somebody is awake out there, shuffling feet moving around the galley. Can she really just sit around waiting, while he showers, relieves some…tension, and completes his complicated beauty ritual?

This is too big.

She slides open the door, detecting the faint sizzle-hiss sound of meat in a frying pan as she breathes in the aroma of breakfast sausage.

Zadie stands at the cook-top, rearranging patties on a griddle with the tines of a fork. She glances over her shoulder and smiles. "Morning, roomie. Hope you have an appetite, because I'm making enough breakfast for—"

"Cut the shit, Zadie. I'm on to you." Veronica moves out into the salon. "Or should I say Zinaida?"

"Oh no!" She feigns shock. "How ever did you make the leap to Zinaida?"

"Zinaida Petrov, actually. Born December 3rd, 1987 in Miami, Florida. Raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota." Veronica's mouth twists into a triumphant smile as she moves closer. "Daughter of Yelena Petrov. Step-daughter of Ken Barnett. You remember Ken, right?"

Powering off the burner with an audible click, Zadie turns around, regarding Veronica with an expression both wary and defiant. Her chest rises and falls, but she doesn't say a word.

Veronica presses forward. "You should remember Ken. I mean, you did try to murder him. He caught you stealing money and you stabbed him."

"That's not—"

"Your mother returned home from work one morning to find her husband on the floor, bleeding. But you were long gone. You packed your bags and convinced your friend, Alecs, to run away with you."

Zadie's breath hitches, and she closes her eyes for a moment. The first genuine emotion she's displayed since barging into their lives.

"Well? Have anything to say for yourself? Don't you want to plead your innocence?"

"And why would I do that?" Zadie exhales and squares her shoulders. "I stabbed that piece of shit, and he's lucky I didn't finish the job."

Her statement should be chilling, but she holds eye-contact, and there's absolute conviction in her gaze.

"You wish you were a murderer?" Veronica asks, quietly. She suspects she already knows where this is leading, and it's nowhere she wants to go.

"I warned him. I told him what would happen the next time he got drunk and came into my bedroom."

And there it is.

A heavy dullness floods Veronica's chest, and she speaks more out of a desire to break the silence than any need for clarification. "Are you saying he…?"

"You know exactly what I'm saying."

Veronica moves to the counter, focuses on pouring a cup of coffee while she gets her emotions under control. "Your mom?"

"Worked graveyard shift at the hospital, taking care of other people's families, and pretending her husband was a stand-up guy." Zadie looks inside her coffee mug, frowns, then splashes the contents into the sink. "She wanted to believe I was misinterpreting innocent affection for something sinister. I stopped trying to convince her otherwise."

"I'm sorry that you had to live with that."

Zadie gives her a slow nod.

"I couldn't possibly have guessed. You don't…"

"Don't what?"

"You don't seem…I don't know…the sex talk and skintight clothing doesn't exactly scream…" Veronica trails off.

"I'm not victim-y enough." Zadie laughs, bitter and incredulous. "A real victim would dress like a nun, so no man would ever look at her again, right? I should swear off sex forever and curl up and die?"

"I didn't say that."

"I dress how I want to dress, and I fuck who I want to fuck. In spite of him. Because he doesn't get to influence my choices."

And suddenly, it all makes sense. Hadn't Veronica ransacked her own wardrobe last winter? Hadn't she chosen each new item of clothing for its 'FUCK YOU' factor?

"Yeah." Veronica slides onto one of the counter stools. "I can relate."

"How could you understand?" Zadie argues, then sighs and modulates her tone. "Listen, I would never minimize what you went through at the hands of that drug dealer, but you got lucky. You got away. Most people don't have two rich boys blundering along just in time to save the day."

"Yeah, they saved the day that time." Veronica snaps. "But where the hell were they last December? Where were they the night of Shelly Pomroy's party when somebody roofied and raped me? Where were they when I woke up in the morning with missing underwear and no memory of what happened the night before? DON'T TELL ME I don't understand, okay?"

"Oh, shit." Zadie whispers, covering her mouth with her hand. "I'm so—"

Veronica lifts a hand, cutting her off. "You couldn't have known, either. I guess neither one of us is victim-y enough."

"That's a good thing, Veronica." Zadie gently touches her elbow. "The monsters don't get to win."

"Raped?" A male voice speaks up from across the room.

Veronica whirls around to find Duncan sitting up on the couch bed, wide awake and incredulous.

She presses a hand to her chest. "Duncan? How much did you hear?"

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. How had she forgotten he was there?

"All of it." He pushes up to his feet, moving toward her. "What do you mean, raped?"

"Don't push this." Veronica drops her gaze. "This isn't time to play protective brother, or friend, or whatever. It was a long time ago, and I don't discuss it with anyone. Ever. I never should have mentioned it."

"Shelly Pomroy's party?" He persists. "You're calling it rape?"

"Duncan?" Suddenly, Veronica's ears are ringing and her voice seems to echo from someplace far away. Her stomach heaves and she grips the counter top, to keep her balance.

No.

NO .

NO!

He moves closer and then Zadie is in front of her like some kind of human shield. "Stay back."

"I need to…" Duncan's hands slide into his hair. "Butt out, okay? You don't even know her."

"STAY BACK." Zadie snarls at him. "Give her some goddamn space."

Startled by her ferocity, Duncan backs up, dropping heavily onto the end of the sectional.

Veronica's belly roils. Her chest heaves and contracts. The room is spinning and she only knows they're speaking to her because their lips are moving.

No! It can't be!

She barely reacts when Zadie takes her upper arm, allows herself to be pulled into the guest bathroom like a docile puppy, and guided down onto her knees.

"I'll go get Logan."

"No! I don't want—" Her throat heaves, and Zadie hurriedly lifts the toilet lid.

Veronica hugs the bowl until tears are streaming down her face and there's nothing left in her stomach but acid-yellow bile. As her brain fog clears, she notices a hand softly patting her on the back.

She doesn't even have to look up to know that it's not Logan, and as much as she aches for his particular form of comfort — large hands stroking her hair, a soft voice whispering that he's here for her — he can't see her like this. Collapsed on the floor and broken.

Veronica lifts her head, accepts a plastic bottle of water from Zadie's outstretched hand, and rinses out her mouth a few times before flushing.

She shifts off her knees to sit on the floor, leans her pounding head back against the glass shower door.

Water runs in the sink for a moment, then Zadie crouches down before her. She taps gently at Veronica's face with a damp gray washcloth, presumably cleaning up the makeup mess left behind by her tears.

Veronica avoids eye contact. At any other time, she would shove the girl away, but she's not in a place to reject small kindnesses right now.

"You okay?" Zadie trades the washcloth for a black travel bag sitting on the vanity, unzipping the top to reveal enough makeup to stock a Sephora.

"Sure. I'm getting used to being blindsided." Veronica swallows past the lump in her throat. "Hasn't even been a week since the last time one of Duncan's secrets made me vomit."

"I'm guessing that's when you learned that Duncan wasn't just pretending to be your brother."

Tight nod.

He'd known. He'd learned that secret months before Shelly's party.

How had it even happened?

The room falls silent as Zadie fixes Veronica's face.

Veronica just…allows her to do it. Ignores the inner voice saying, 'I don't need her help. Or anyone else's.'. Endures the powder and concealer. She considers a token protest about bacteria when Zadie pulls out an eyeliner pencil, but it dies in her throat when she sees it's still in its cellophane wrapper.

"Loud music and peppermint," Zadie drags the pencil across Veronica's eyelid.

"Huh?"

"Grounding techniques. They help with the anxiety and panic attacks. Those work for me, but I had a friend who used anchoring phrases and wrote random lists, like songs with colors in the title or cities in New York."

Zadie must have removed Veronica's wig while she was hunched over the toilet, because she grabs it now and carefully eases it back into place, tucking in loose strands. She produces a handful of packaged toothbrushes from an outer pocket of her bag, and fans them out, offering a choice of color.

Veronica frowns. "I have my own toothbrush.."

"In the other bathroom? Where Logan is showering? I sensed that you don't want him to find out about this."

With a sigh, Veronica takes the red toothbrush, stands up, and moves to the sink. Bloodshot eyes stare back at her from the mirror, but her makeup has been restored — a little fierce for her tastes, but maybe that's what the situation calls for. "You passed up your opportunity to make me look like a clown?"

"Tempting, but that would defeat the purpose of flying under the radar."

Veronica removes the toothbrush from its wrapper and squeezes toothpaste onto the bristles. She wants to ask why Zadie even cares about her disguise. Wouldn't she want them to be arrested on the mainland so she could have the yacht all to herself?

Instead she says, "It's not that I don't trust Logan."

"No explanation necessary." Zadie tucks the other brushes into her bag, sets it on the vanity, and moves to the door. "It's your decision who you tell."

"It's just…he thinks I'm invincible." It comes out as a whisper, and why the hell is she over-sharing? "I don't want things to change."

"Nobody's invincible." Zadie answers just as quietly. She pauses in the doorway, meeting Veronica's gaze in the mirror. "But he'll love you, either way."

The door closes and Veronica is alone.

Love?

・・・・・・ ・・・・・・ ・・・・・・

Drawing upon the inner steel that helped her survive in the aftermath of Shelly's party, Veronica meets her eyes in the mirror one last time, then opens the door.

Zadie waits for her right outside the bathroom. She hands over a fresh cup of coffee with a look that says, 'I understand how you feel' so clearly,that Veronica wants to run back inside and hide.

Instead, she squares her shoulders and searches out Duncan.

He must have used the time she was in the bathroom to clean up after himself. The electric sofa bed has been retracted and he's stashed the sheets and blankets. He sits at the far end of the couch with his face buried in his hands.

"Duncan?"

He glances up with red-rimmed eyes. Attempts to speak, but no sound comes out.

The defensiveness she'd witnessed before leaving the room is gone, and now he just seems…lost. Broken.

Clearing his throat, he tries again. "Can you tell me…are you okay with telling me about that night?"

Veronica sips from her coffee in a futile hope that the warmth might ease the painful constriction in her throat. "I was hoping you could tell me. Somebody — I don't know who — handed me a drink minutes after I arrived at the party. The next thing I remember was waking up alone in a strange bed."

Zadie falls in at her right side, arms crossed over her chest like a bodyguard. She watches Duncan, as if daring him to come any closer.

"The drink was spiked," He concludes, staring down at his lap. He wrings his hands as if he's trying to rub the skin off. "So you have no memory of that night at all?"

"Just flashes"

Collapsing on a pool lounger, Logan staring down at her, Madison giving her hate stares.

"And the other day, when I asked if we should maybe have a conversation about what happened? When we toasted to 'It never happened'?"

"That night when Logan had a tantrum and took off?" The night Duncan convinced her that Logan would never murder Lilly, and they'd bonded over cooking and budgeting. "I thought you were talking about Enbom's Autumn Bash."

"Oh." Duncan searches his mind for the memory. "Okay. Right."

The reminder that he'd tried to initiate a discussion about Shelly's party takes some of the wind out of Veronica's sails. She shudders to imagine what might have happened that night if she'd only clarified which party he was talking about. This is not a conversation she would want to have while alone with him.

Even now, Zadie's presence is the only thing keeping her from fleeing this yacht. And how weird is that?

"I need you to know, Veronica, no matter what happened later that night, I did NOT drug you. I wouldn't do that to you."

Veronica drags a stool from under the eating counter and sits. "How about you tell me what did happen later."

"I only remember bits and pieces." Duncan gets up, moves to the fridge, and grabs a bottle of carrot juice. "I wasn't only drunk, I was blackout drunk."

He pulls back the plastic seal halfway, then smooths it flat again. Pulls and flattens.

"I saw you napping in one of the guest bedrooms – or at least, it looked like you were napping, or just sleeping it off or something. So I came in to check on you."

Napping? At a party?

"I think you did a lot more than checking."

Duncan pauses, then nods grimly. "I brushed a strand of hair off your face, and you woke up."

"Really woke up, or was I talking in my sleep?"

"Knowing what I know now, I can't be sure, but It definitely seemed real at the time. When you saw me, you gave me the sweetest smile. For the first time since Lilly died, I felt the ice melting from around my heart."

Veronica's stomach turns. "Can we not with the hyperbole? Did I say anything to you?"

"Yeah. You sat up and told me you missed me, and it was like you were still my girlfriend, and at that moment, I couldn't even remember why you weren't anymore." His eyes lift upward, as if picturing the scene in his mind. "I called you Baby, and you pulled me down on top of you."

"And then…?"

Duncan shrugs helplessly. "The rest of the night was like a black hole in my memory. I remember you pulling my shirt off of me, but that's only because Carrie Bishop yelled at us for not closing the door, before slamming it shut."

If only there was some way to confirm the story with Carrie.

Veronica returns to the bathroom for a few tissues and comes back out, dabbing at the corners of her eyes. "I woke up alone and afraid."

"I'm sorry," he whispers.

"Wow, that fixes everything,'' she snaps.

"Veronica…"

It's only her name, but the implied 'Be rational' enrages her. She drags heavy breaths between her teeth to keep from screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Nature just...took over. It wasn't what you think!" he insisted. "It wasn't rough or ugly. I didn't force you. It was...tender. And loving."

Zadie's eyes widen with shock and pity and Veronica unleashes.

Logan

Day 12
Titan's Trigger
Nicholas Key, Florida

Cleansing, toning, and exfoliation complete, Logan picks up the amber glass bottle containing his miracle serum.

It's always his favorite part of his skincare routine. Squeezing the rubber bulb with the perfect amount of force. Hard enough for the eyedropper to release its contents, light enough for the clear liquid to fall one drop at a time onto his waiting palm. Three drops in total. Like liquid silk, as he warms it between his hands. As he applies it to his face with the gentle patting technique his mom taught him.

'Rub in your moisturizer, Logan, but never your serum. Allow it time to penetrate.'

This particular serum likes to take its good sweet time penetrating, so he opens the bathroom door and peeks out.

The coast is clear.

It's not like Veronica to leave her laptop unlocked in the middle of the bed. She must be out in the galley making coffee.

Logan rushes out of the bathroom, quickly trades his towel for the Yogi and Boo Boo boxers Lilly gifted him and tugs on a pair of socks before heading into the closet. He chooses an olive green tee shirt, gets it over his head, and has an arm through one sleeve when Veronica's voice carries through the closed stateroom door, and damn does she sound pissed.

What did Zadie do now?

He lets out a weary sigh and pulls the rest of his shirt on as he crosses to the door, already considering strategies for calming his girl's bloodlust, as he slides it open.

Veronica stands in profile to him, her expression murderous. But it's Duncan, of all people, in her cross-hairs.

What the hell has he done now?

Weider still, Zadie stands at her side, like they're friends or something.

No. Not friends. More like two world-weary survivors, allied in facing-down the Big Bad at the end of the film.

That villain being…Duncan?

Veronica's voice returns to its normal volume, but still crackles with barely-suppressed rage. "You dumped me! Without a word of explanation!"

"You know why—"

She speaks over him. "In a span of three months, I lost my boyfriend, my best friend, my…Logan, my mom, my dad's income, my house, and all my other friends. And after all of that, you thought I deserved to wake up, all alone, in Shelly Pomroy's guest room, to learn that my virginity had been stolen too?"

An icy cold sweeps through Logan's veins freezing him in place.

"You don't understand." Duncan takes a step toward Veronica.

Zadie swoops-in between them, stabbing a finger in his face. "If I have to tell you one more time to give her some damn space!"

"Okay!" Duncan lifts both hands in surrender and moves several steps back, his expression almost fearful.

Stole. Her. Virginity?

She can't possibly mean...?

Shelly's party?

A vision springs to Logan's mind. Veronica on a pool lounger. Like Sleeping Beauty, with her long hair and white dress. Veronica opening her eyes. Smiling at him.

Veronica in Bluebell, Alabama. A different white dress. Questioning him about who else had access to GHB that night.

FUCK!

"When I woke up the morning after Shelly's party and saw you in that bed…" Duncan speaks soft and slow, as if choosing his words very carefully. "When I realized what we'd done, I had to get out of there. I couldn't be there when you woke up."

"Why not?" Veronica demands. "You said it was consensual. I pulled your clothes off you, right?"

"Because I'm a coward? I panicked. If you woke up while I was still there, you would automatically assume we were back together. And why shouldn't you? We'd shared this beautiful night together, and—"

Veronica recoils at his words, and Zadie takes her hand. Laces their fingers together in a silent show of support.

Duncan starts over. "From my point of view, and with the knowledge I had at the time, it felt like a beautiful night with the love of my life."

Veronica silently shakes her head.

Duncan's eyes plead with her to understand. "After everything that already happened, it seemed impossibly cruel to look you in the eyes and tell you our night together was a one-time thing. We weren't back together then, and never would be. I just couldn't bear to hurt you like that."

"No." Veronica's mouth twists in disgust. "You couldn't hurt YOU like that. So what if I woke up alone, with no idea who'd violated me the night before?"

Logan had known exactly where this conversation was headed, but the confirmation still hits like a sledgehammer to the face.

Fuck fuck fuck! This can't be happening.

Not to Veronica!

Tears flood his eyes, overflowing to fall silently down his cheeks, He clasps his hands behind his neck, elbows bent in toward the face just to keep from wrapping them around Duncan's throat.

Duncan collapses onto the couch, shoves his hands roughly through his hair. "I felt like a piece of shit, and I had every intention of apologizing. At the very least, for leading you on, even if I couldn't tell you why we couldn't be together."

"Oh yeah? You apologized? Was I napping..." Veronica makes sarcastic air quotes. "…at the time? Because if only you'd had the decency to apologize to my face, I wouldn't have spent the past year wondering who raped me."

"I was waiting until after Winter break, once we were back at school. I wanted to do it somewhere public. Tell you I was sorry and make a quick getaway. But when I finally saw you in class, you were like a different person. Your clothes were…different. You'd cut off all your hair. When you looked at me, you were so cold and hostile. I just figured you hated me for running off on you, and that trying to apologize would only make things worse."

"Oh God!" Duncan inhales sharply, squeezes his eyes closed for a second. "I get it, now! You were traumatized, and I…" He trails off, buries his face in his hand, sobbing so hard his shoulders shake.

It's as if all the lifeforce drains from Veronica. In a blink, all the rage and sadness is just gone. Replaced by…blankness.

Every hair lifts on the back of Logan's neck, and he's taken back to their second night on the run, when she'd asked him to photograph her bruises. It's the same dead-eyed detachment, the same sense that she's stepped outside of her body.

"Cold and hostile?" She takes a step toward Duncan, an alien, almost birdlike tilt to her head. "Let's play your favorite game: Pretend!. You've always enjoyed mystery novels, right?"

Duncan glances up, brow furrowed in confusion. "Sure."

"Let's write one together." She takes a seat at the opposite end of the U shaped couch, facing him. Leans forward to rest her forearms on her knees. "The Case of the Missing Virginity (or How Veronica Mars became a Cold and Hostile Bitch)."

This is bad. This is 'cutting open her wrist to show everyone the color of her blood' bad. Should Logan stop her from revealing something she might regret later? Or is this something she needs to do?

Zadie catches sight of him in the doorway. "Veronica."

Veronica doesn't seem to hear her. She's staring at Duncan, waiting for a response.

Logan shifts to go join her on the couch. To support her in any way possible, but Zadie's hand comes up sharp and fierce. Demanding he not take another step. "Veronica!"

Nothing. Only Duncan exists to her at this moment.

"We have our victim." Veronica touches her own chest, then gestures to him. "…and our perpetrator. But that's jumping ahead. We won't know that until the end."

"I swear! I didn't—" Duncan begins.

"Stop." Veronica raises her hand, unknowingly mimicking Zadie. "What kind of mystery story allows the perpetrator to explain his side at the beginning? You'll get your turn after the denouement. This is the victim's story and the hero begins with the crime. Which reminds me, we'll need a detective."

Duncan watches her silently.

"You see…the problem is, this victim has nobody to advocate for her. Nobody gives a shit if she lives or dies. She goes to the Sheriff, shows him her ripped dress and bruises, but he refuses to 'round up the sons of the most important families in town' on her word. He tells her to 'go see the wizard'. Our victim has no choice but to become her own hero."

A rush of adrenaline displaces the ice in Logan's veins, his fists clench and unclench, helplessly. Rage mingling with anguish. Fucking Lamb! So many things make sense now, and someday, somehow, he will make that fucker pay.

"First, our detective must establish the known facts of the case. The victim arrived, alone, at the Pomroy house at approximately 10:00 PM. While her presence was noted, nobody deigned to speak to her, and within minutes of getting there, while moving through a dense crowd, she was handed a mixed drink in a red Solo cup by an unknown person. She drank it quickly. Rum. Coke. Roofie. A little liquid courage to help deal with the anxiety of facing down people who despised her. It was her only drink that night. Before long, the world began spinning. Her vision blurred, her head became too heavy to hold up, while her limbs went numb. She started stumbling, and her last conscious memory was laying down on a lounger next to the pool. She just needed to rest for a minute. To get her strength back."

A flicker. A smile. 'Your eyes. They're like the universe'.

'Why won't you fucking break already, Veronica?'

Logan would run to the bathroom and puke if his feet weren't rooted to the floor.

"With these details, we can narrow the time-frame of the crime between 10:45 that night, and 7:00 AM the next morning, when she woke up alone, with no memory of the night before."

"I'm so sorry," Duncan whispers.

Veronica ignores his apology, leans back and crosses one leg over the other. "Time to examine the clues. We have one red Solo cup, lost among hundreds of others, six known vials of GHB - four unaccounted for, a broken dress strap, a pair of white cotton underwear on the floor and bloodstained sheets. It's not much to go on."

She pauses and sips from her coffee cup. "Pop-quiz time, Duncan. What three things does a detective need to take into account when choosing their suspect pool."

He shakes his head. 'I don't know'.

"And you call yourself a mystery reader. It's Motive, Means, and Opportunity. Who had motive to rape our victim?"

Duncan flinches.

"Hmmm…can't rule anyone out. She was hated by all and dared to show her face where she didn't belong. She needed to be taught a lesson. 'Means' is easy. One roofied drink to incapacitate, and anyone of any size could've pulled it off. She wouldn't even remember, let alone be capable of fighting back. So that narrows our suspect pool down to…everyone with a penis. Opportunity? We can rule out anyone who didn't attend Shelly's party. How many guys were there that night, do you think? A hundred? More?"

"I don't remember."

"It's hard to nail down, since there was no guest list. No security guard keeping track of who entered or exited the party. Was it only 09ers? Did anyone else crash? A real detective would interview witnesses and compare their statements. But why bother? The answer to every question will be 'I saw nothing'. Who is going to speak up for the universally-hated victim over the rich, popular perpetrator?"

Duncan squeezes his eyes closed. Whispers, "You don't have to do this, Veronica."

"You're right. Our victim could choose to just 'get over it'. Call it a lesson learned and chalk it up to bad decisions and rape culture. Except, if she doesn't know who hurt her, how can she know if he's finished hurting her. Is she safe now? Was it a one time thing? Or will he try again? Did he get some sick thrill out of undressing her? Touching her? Forcing himself inside her? Was letting it go ever really an option?"

Logan doubles-over from nausea. Goosebumps cover his flesh and tears stream down his face, down Duncan's face, and Zadie's. But Veronica is still stone-faced, almost monotone in her delivery. She could be describing a stranger.

Duncan slowly shakes his head to the negative.

"She forgets how it feels to NOT be afraid. She hates being seen and wishes she could be invisible. But that's not really possible. Is it? She just can't escape that pool of a hundred or more suspects. They're in every one of her classes at school. They swarm her in the halls and corner her on the beach. And how can she protect herself when she doesn't even know where the threat is coming from?"

Duncan continues shaking his head, but it seems less of an answer than him wanting to escape this story.

"Her only choice is to look every single boy directly in the eye. Even though she's terrified of being seen. Even though her fight or flight response is screaming at her to run for her life. Because eventually, one of them will have to slip up. There will be some kind of gleam of recognition. Some indication of knowing."

Veronica's voice cracks, and it seems to break the spell over her. She bites her lower lip as tears fill her eyes. Blinks up at the ceiling, trying to prevent them from falling. Swallows hard and stands up. "And if all this comes across as 'cold and hostile' to an observer? All the better. It's a declaration.'You took what you wanted once. But you won't catch me off guard a second time.I will fight back, and I will hurt you.''"

Abruptly, she turns to Zadie, and some kind of silent understanding passes between them.

Logan steps out of the doorway and touches her shoulder. "Veronica?"

"Logan!" She whirls around, startled and glassy-eyed. "No! I didn't want…"

He tries to embrace her but she stiffens and pulls aways. "Not now. I just… I just need time."

She pushes past him into their stateroom, emerging moments later with her purse, and rushing up the stairs to the deck.

"FUCK!" Racing to his closet Logan snatches the first pair of jeans he finds, sliding a foot through one leg. He scoops up his shoes and hops out of the room, struggling with his second pant leg.

Zadie inserts herself in front of the stairs, blocking him from ascending. "Don't even think about it."

"She needs me! She shouldn't be…" He trips on his pants and falls. Watches from his knees as Veronica disappears from sight. "FUCK!"

Getting back up, he watches the empty space at the top of the stairs while he pulls up his jeans, zips and buttons. "She's gone."

"Veronica needs her space right now," Zadie pats him on the shoulder, then pivots to point at Duncan. "That goes double for you! Just let her breathe."

Duncan wiggles his second shoe onto his foot and, without bothering to tie it, approaches the stairs. "She needs to know how sorry I am."

"No, YOU need her to know. The last thing Veronica needs right now, is for the two of you to intrude and make it all about your guilt. Give her a few hours to process."

FUCK. She's not wrong.

As desperate as Logan is to follow Veronica, she made herself crystal clear. She wants to be alone.

So, he does the next best thing. He plants his fist into Duncan's ugly moon face.

Duncan goes down, and Logan follows, grabbing him by the shirt and landing several satisfying blows, before his windpipe suddenly stops windpiping.

"Enough!" Zadie drags him off. "This isn't helping Veronica."

"No. It's helping me!" Logan snarls, reaching around her to swipe at Duncan.

Zadie's right there in his face, holding him back. "Stop it now."

Duncan wipes blood from his nose, and glares at Logan with just enough defiance to make him charge again.

Or at least that's his intention. Zadie moves, lightning fast, and suddenly, Logan's on his back, with all the air knocked from his lungs.

How the fuck did she do that?

He sits back up. "God, you're a bitch."

Zadie shrugs, not even slightly insulted.

"Leave her alone!"Duncan yells.

"Leave her alone? So now you say it. Funny, how you never bothered to stand up for Veronica like that."

Duncan doesn't answer. Just stares at his half-tied shoe.

"Who the fuck are you, man?" Logan rises back up to his feet. "You were supposed to be the good guy. The one I looked up to all my life. I don't even know you anymore."

"I'm the same person," Duncan mumbles, his eyes glossy with tears.

"Maybe you are. Maybe I was always blind to the ways you let Veronica suffer." Logan exhales heavily. "It doesn't matter. You need to go."

"Go where?"

"Not my problem. Just leave. Get the fuck out. Before Veronica comes back."

"Fine. Okay."

"Dude, how could you do it?"

"I don't know! Don't you think I've asked myself that a million times?"

"She was your sister!"

"But she wasn't always!" Duncan shouts, his face turning red. "She was my girlfriend, and I loved her. I loved her so fucking much. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fucking fair. They let me date her. They let me fall in love with her. And then they pulled my world out from under me."

Logan fights his instinct to hug him. "What your dad and Lianne Mars did was unbelievably cruel. And dangerous and irresponsible. You've been my best friend for two thirds of my life. We've been through everything together, and seeing you in this kind of pain will always hurt me." Logan slaps a hand to his heart, his throat constricting tight and making his voice break. "But you heard Veronica. You heard how she's suffered. She deserves to feel safe. I'll do anything to make her finally feel safe. Even if that means keeping you away from her."

Duncan turns his gaze up to the skylight and swallows heavily.

Zadie appears again, pressing Duncan's bottle of carrot juice into his hand. He looks surprised, but takes a long drink before speaking again. "You're right. Veronica shouldn't be forced to see me. Like some constant reminder of what happened to her."

"I'm glad you understand."

Duncan nods. "I was so afraid to look at her. Always so afraid that if she looked into my eyes, she would see right through me, and know I still loved her. She would know that there was more to our breakup than me not wanting to be with her. I couldn't hide my feelings. But that night...I was so fucked up and not thinking right, and all I wanted to do was look at her." Duncan swallows. "I should have left the moment she opened her eyes, but she smiled, and told me she missed me, and looked at me with so much love."

Does he think he's special or something? She'd looked at Logan the same way that night. Like he wasn't actively hurting her at that very moment. Like he wasn't the villain in her story.

Conflicting emotions swirl through him. On the one hand, he feels like a total hypocrite. He can't claim he's never gotten wasted and had sex. Of course, he has. But what Duncan did is different.

That night in Bluebell, Veronica had been enthusiastically drunk and very very horny. He'd been slightly drunk himself, and it had almost killed him to slam the brakes and do the right thing.

Veronica is not a girl who drinks for the sole purpose of getting drunk, but nor is she the type to decline when the drinks are flowing. He knows exactly what Drunk Veronica looks like, and Shelly's party was not it.

How had he missed the clues?

"Do you remember screaming at me that night about the salt lick?"

"I remember. It was disgusting. I guess I forgot to mention that part to Veronica."

"Really? And to think, you could have used it to look like a hero." Logan rolls his eyes. "She already knows. I confessed to her that night in Bluebell, and she forgave me. What I'm saying is that you were the one who screamed at us that she was incapacitated and could barely sit up."

"Okay?"

"So you can't claim that you didn't know. How could she have possibly consented later?"

"I don't know!" Duncan scrubs a hand over his face. "The salt lick is one of the last things I remember clearly. I pulled her away, and you brought me a drink, and after that, everything else fades in and out."

"Oh fuck. OH FUCK!" Logan presses a palm to the wall as more nausea floods through him.

"What?"

"That was the same night I drugged you."

"You did WHAT?"

"That drink. I dosed it with GHB. You'd been so miserable, and-"

Duncan charges, spearing him in the stomach. "You stupid fuck! " he screams, fists flying.

Logan only covers his face out of instinct. He deserves to get his ass beat. He deserves anything that happens to him.

This time it's Duncan who suddenly ends up flat on his back, gasping for air.

"I'm not having this shit," Zadie crosses her arms over her chest.

"Who even asked you?" Logan gingerly stands up.

"It doesn't help Veronica and it's pointless." She tilts her head, consideringly. "Unless…you both want to strip naked and slick yourselves up with baby oil? In which case, I'd happily grab some popcorn and watch you…wrestle."

"You wish!"

Duncan just stares at her, slack-jawed.

She shrugs, returns to the galley, and picks up her coffee cup.

Duncan pushes back to his feet, and brushes off his pants before addressing Logan. "Do you have any idea what you've done?"

"Yeah. I'm pretty sure I do. I made a terrible choice in a misguided attempt to protect you, and ended up ruining Veronica's life."

"And mine."

"What I did was terrible, and I'm very sorry. I'll never forgive myself for my part in what happened, and if Veronica cuts me out of her life, too, I'll respect her wishes. But don't pretend you're not as much at fault as I am. You knew she was your sister."

"But I was too drugged to think straight!" Duncan yells.

"That's it!" Zadie moves between them again. "Logan, go somewhere else for a while."

"Me? This is my place. Why should I leave?"

"Because Duncan needs to get ready for work. Just…go get some coffee or something. And stay away from Veronica. I'll text you when it's safe to come back here."

"You don't even know my number."

Zadie pulls out her cell, smugly presses a few buttons, and a phone begins ringing inside Logan's stateroom. "You were saying?"

Duncan

Day 12
Titan's Trigger
Nicholas Key, Florida

Duncan stays on his feet long enough to watch Logan exit through the hatch, then his knees give out and he crumples to the couch.

His mouth is dry, his throat like sandpaper, his body, hot all over, sweating, as if with fever.

How could he have fucked up so monumentally? He's berated himself a million times since Shelly's party. For the incest. For not having the courage to face Veronica in the morning. But this is SO SO much worse. Could he possibly be a bigger piece of shit?

He remembers his palpable disgust at finding Logan and the guys using Veronica as a salt lick. His overwhelming need to protect her. How had it gone so wrong so fast?

He'd only wanted to hold her. To experience the comfort and connection he'd been missing so much. How had the switch flipped to something…else?

"Dude. You're shivering." Zadie's voice pulls him out of his thoughts.

"Huh?"

In the galley, a cabinet door opens and closes. A plastic wrapper crinkles. Zadie crosses the room, picks up his right hand, and places something in the center of his palm.

Duncan glances down. "A granola bar? I don't really…The high fructose—"

"Eat it, you idiot." She rolls her eyes and crosses her arms. "After falling asleep drunk and waking up to a high-stress situation, your blood sugar is probably out of control."

He eats the damn bar — chocolate chip, as it turns out — because it's easier than arguing.

"Now get in the shower. You have to work in an hour. I'll go find you some breakfast."

"Work? Logan's thrown me out and I've hurt Veronica in the worst way possible. How the hell am I supposed to work?"

"Figure it out. You have enough problems. Don't make one more by losing your job. A job you love."

But what if…?

She's right. There's no point in quitting before figuring out where he'll end up living.

Duncan gets though showering, shaving, and dressing purely on autopilot, somehow, manages to insert the brown contact lenses without poking his eyes out. Reluctantly, he pulls on the platinum blond wig that doesn't breathe properly and makes his scalp hot and itchy.

If Veronica insists on him being blond, why can't he just use hair dye?

Except…after this morning, she won't really give a damn how he looks anymore, as long as he's out of her life.

She's never going to speak to him again. 'Sorry' can't possibly make up for what he did.

・・・・・・ ・・・・・・ ・・・・・・

Packing goes quickly when all of your earthly possessions fit inside two duffel bags.

It's 8:20 and there's no point in heading to work early when the marina office won't even open until 9:00.

He's sitting on one of the counter stools, staring into space when Zadie returns.

"Grabbed you a green tea and muffin from the marina store. Don't worry, it's organic. And filled with oats and zucchini, and other, gross, inedible things." She reaches past him to set a small white paper bag and a to-go cup on the counter.

"Thanks."

Zadie nods 'You're welcome'.

"But why?"

Removing the lid — because drinking hot beverages through flimsy plastic is a surefire way to cause cancer — Duncan takes a cautious sip of tea.

"Um…to regulate your blood sugar? Were you even listening earlier?"

"No, I mean…obviously, you think I'm a monster. Why would you go get me breakfast? You were ready to murder me every time I took a step toward Veronica."

"That was…" She glances up at the skylight. "Did you know that re-experienced trauma can have the same effect on the body as the original traumatic event?"

"No?"

"If you'd gotten any closer, you might've triggered a full-scale panic attack. Veronica's strong, but there's only so much one person can endure. Or should have to."

"Am I supposed to believe you suddenly care about Veronica?"

Annoyance creeps into her features. "Don't you fucking get it? We're the same. We all fled across the country to escape danger only to find ourselves mixed up in different kinds of danger. When I ran into Logan that night, I thought maybe we could…I don't know, look out for each other?" With a fed-up shake of her head, she storms off, closing the stateroom door closed behind her.

Way to say thank you, dumbass.

He swivels back around to face the counter, peeks into the white paper bag. The muffin is extra large and brown enough to imply it was made with natural wholesome ingredients. It's exactly what he would've chosen for himself.

He eats slowly, ripping off tiny pieces and swallowing them without really tasting. Thinks about what Zadie said.

Re-experienced trauma can have the same effect on the body as the original traumatic event.

If that thought was a key, he's not prepared for what it unlocks.

"Duncan?" Zadie's hand is on his shoulder. "Hey! You okay?"

"What?"

"It's like you were in a trance. Sort of rocking."

"Like catatonic?"

"Obviously not, since you're speaking to me."

"Right. I just…I saw something. in my mind. Like a vision." He tilts his head back and exhales hard at the ceiling.

Taking a seat on the other stool, Zadie grabs his muffin, still two-thirds of its original size, rips off a piece and feeds it to him.

"Jesus, my own mom doesn't fuss over me this much."

She pinches off another piece, eats it herself, before setting the muffin on the counter between them. "Tell me about your vision."

Despite his wariness of her, he finds himself speaking. "I'm sitting on the ground. On cement. Vivid green socks and red red blood. On my hands. Everywhere. The image was only a flicker. I tried to hold on to it, to like…get more details or something, but it was gone."

"Was it that day in the park?"

"That's the only thing that makes sense. The green socks were part of my soccer uniform and I had a game that day. Except…"

"Except what?"

He shakes his head, knowing he's going to sound insane. "In the vision, I had this weird sense that somebody was being dragged away from me. I can't see the person, they're already outside the frame, but I can feel the absence of their weight on my leg."

"Logan pulling the drug dealer away?"

"That's the logical answer. Only…I'm reaching out for the person, with this horrible sense of dread that I'll never get them back. Why would I feel that way about Ciaran Fitzpatrick?"

"You wouldn't. But it was your second traumatic event in one year. Maybe seeing all that blood took you back to when your sister died. Did you find her body?"

"No. I wasn't home. Or…maybe I was?"

Zadie's forehead wrinkles and he must sound insane.

"When Sheriff Mars arrived at the crime scene, I was already catatonic. Her body was still there, out by the pool, so it only makes sense that I would've seen her like that. My parents say that they found her, but we know now that she was alive hours after her official time of death, so who really knows?"

"You've never really processed her death, have you?"

He grimaces. "Mom sent me to a psychiatrist once or twice, but we didn't really talk about my feelings. She just wanted me medicated and docile."

"Are you taking meds now?"

"Logan didn't pack them when we left Neptune. To be fair, he didn't know to pack them."

"Do you need them? I can help, if you do."

"No." He speaks more forcefully than intended.

"There's no shame in taking antidepressants."

"I know. It's not about shame." He drops his gaze, embarrassed. "When I stopped the meds, Lilly came back. I can't lose her again."

Zadie nods understanding. "Is she here now?"

"Thankfully, no, or she'd be screaming at me."

They sit quietly for a minute, both ripping small pieces off the muffin to eat.

When only the paper wrapper remains, Zadie breaks the silence. "Have you thought about where you're going to go?"

"I have no idea. Maybe that hotel?" He points vaguely in the direction of the hill.

"The spa? I hope you brought all your billions with you."

Right. And only the worst scum would take more money from the communal fund than necessary for survival. He can always get more with only a phone call. Veronica can't.

"Do you think Harley would let me stay at his cottage? Or even the back loggia? I wouldn't even need to go inside."

"He might, but I won't."

"Won't what? Let me stay there?" As if it's her decision or something?

"Look, I'm only going to say this once, and if you repeat it, I'll deny everything."

"Repeat what?"

"You can't trust Harley." She lifts a hand to keep him from cutting her off. "I know you two formed some kind of insta-bromance yesterday, but he always has an agenda. He already knows your identity, which means he has leverage over you. Don't put yourself any further in his debt."

"Lilly kept calling him a snake." Or sssssnake, if he's being specific. "But isn't he your boyfriend, or something?"

"No." She speaks blandly, but fails to hide a momentary flicker of revulsion in her gaze. "And you should listen to your sister."

Maybe Burt will know of some place where he can stay.

Or maybe there's something in the marina records to indicate which yachts are rarely used. The clubhouse has showers, lockers, and laundry facilities, and if he were to choose a handful of yachts on the opposite end of the marina and never stayed on the same one two nights in a row, he could probably stick it out indefinitely.

Bluebell, Alabama is always an option, where the simple things in life are celebrated and he could live among some of the nicest people he's ever met.

Zadie interrupts his thoughts. "If you need to crash in my apartment, I could show you how to disable the booby traps."

"No! I'll figure something out."

She rolls her eyes at whatever expression is showing on his face. "How long would it really need to be? I'm sure they'll let you come home once they've had time to cool down."

"Even if he does, would that really be fair to Veronica?"

"Oh buddy," she looks at him pityingly, "It may be Logan's boat, but she's the one who calls all the shots. She's the one who will end up deciding if you can live here or remain in exile. Either way, you'll need to respect her decision."

"Yeah. I get that."

With a reassuring pat to his forearm, Zadie slides off her stool and walks over to the cooktop, where a frying pan sits abandoned. "To answer your earlier question, I don't think you're a monster." She examines the contents, then flicks the burner knob on.

"No? That makes one of us."

She turns back to face him. "What you did to Veronica was wrong in a dozen different ways, but there were mitigating circumstances. Without the GHB, I just can't see it happening."

"It wouldn't have. We dated for a year, and I never laid a hand on her."

"Yeah. That's a whole other can of worms." Eye roll. "Look, you seem like a nice guy. I don't think you're a selfish person by nature, but you make some incredibly selfish choices."

"Selfish? I waited years to ask Veronica out, because I knew Logan had a thing for her. And do I need to mention that I haven't slept in a real bed since the night you showed up?"

She shrugs, a silent acknowledgment. "I'm just saying, if this yacht was the Titanic, you can't tell me you wouldn't be first in the lifeboat."

"I wouldn't even make it onto the lifeboat." He snorts and shakes his head. "I would step aside to let Logan go first."

"Logan?" Zadie lifts a brow. "Not Veronica?"

"Well, obviously, I'd make sure she had a spot, but it's been me and Logan since we were five. He's the most important person…" Duncan trails off. His eyes start to burn and the heavy sadness of loss fills his chest. "It doesn't matter. He wouldn't return the favor. Not anymore. He would choose Veronica and then you would come along and shove me aside to take the last spot. I'd be left behind to face the iceberg."

"Fitting finale for a grand self-pity trip, but you've got it all wrong."

Duncan gestures for her to make her point.

"Logan wouldn't leave either one of you behind. Isn't that how you ended up here? And he wouldn't need to, because there's always a spot on the lifeboat for first class passengers. You'd be long gone while I was still fighting my way out of third class."

"Did you miss the part where Logan kicked me out?"

"Can you blame him?"

"No. Not really." Duncan releases a heavy breath. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am a selfish asshole."

"That's not what I said. There's a difference between being a selfish person and a generous person who makes really selfish choices."

"And I'm the second?"

"Maybe self-absorbed would be a better term. You don't want to hurt others. It probably makes you sad, after the fact, to know that you have. But you're so wrapped up in your own comfort and feelings that you don't even consider how your actions affect other people."

"Like how Logan drugged me at the party?"

"No." She shakes her head as if he's deliberately obfuscating. "NOT like Logan drugging you. What he did was impulsive, unbelievably ignorant, and inexcusable. But it was the opposite of self-absorption. He was trying, in his stupid, misguided way, to take care of you."

"Yeah. You're right." Duncan slumps over the counter. "When Lilly died, he sort of appointed himself my champion. Dragging me out of the house, walking me from class to class, shoving food in front of me. I think he was afraid I was suicidal or something."

Zadie looks a question at him, and he shakes his head.

Not suicidal, just numb.

She reminds him just a bit of Logan. Despite all her teasing and crazy schemes, at heart she's a caretaker.

"I believe him, you know?" Duncan sips his tea, considering his words. "He would never hurt me on purpose. In his own 'Logan Logic', he really thought he was looking out for me."

"You know what they say about the road to hell." Zadie turns back to the cooktop as a sizzling sound rises from the pan. She pushes the contents around with a fork. Sausages, from the smell of it.

She rinses out a mug and pours herself a fresh cup of coffee. Adds some cream and sugar.

"I think we killed her that night," Duncan says, "Me. Logan. Whichever sadistic asshole roofied her in the first place."

Zadie turns back to stare at him.

He lifts his hands. "Metaphorically, I mean. The Veronica you know is not the same girl. Real Veronica was warm and kind and loving. Trusting. She smiled all the time and always tried to make people feel welcome and comfortable. But after…she became a completely different person."

'Not the same girl.' Logan's voice whispers in his mind. 'This one's mine.'

"Trauma will do that to a person," Zadie answers, not unkindly. She checks the contents of her pan again, turns off the burner, and retrieves a clean plate from the cabinet.

"I get that now. It never occurred to me back then that she couldn't remember that night, so when I saw the changes in her, I assumed I'd broken her heart again. Or that she thought I had used her for sex. And it killed me, because I couldn't tell her how much I still loved her, and that she'd done nothing wrong."

Zadie looks at him askance.

"What?"

"That's not love."

Duncan draws his head back. "Excuse me? I think I would know my own feelings better than you."

She transfers her sausages onto a plate and joins him at the breakfast counter. "If it helps, I believe you believed you loved her."

"You weren't even around when we were together. What makes you such an expert on love?"

"I'll admit I've never been in love, but I do read about it. A lot."

"You've read about it." Duncan rolls his eyes. "So, what? You think love is some larger than life production, where the hero needs to learn to loosen up and the heroine's flaw is being adorably clumsy. And the only thing keeping the two apart is the big misunderstanding that gets cleared up in the final act? You can't expect real life to conform to fictional ideals. Nobody's perfect."

"Nobody's asking you to be perfect." Zadie tilts her plate slightly, offering him some of her sausage. He declines with a slight lift of his hand. "All I'm saying is that I know what love is, and what it isn't."

"Fine. Tell me, oh wise one, how do you define love?"

"Selflessness. If you love somebody, you prioritize their happiness over your own. If they're hurting, you'll do anything to make it better, and you'd happily take on extra suffering if only it might ease the other person's burden. You'd die if it meant they get to live. And if they're really worth it, they'll do the same for you."

"Isn't that exactly what I did? I carried the burden of knowing she might be my sister so she wouldn't have to. I suffered, so that she could move on."

"Righhht. Totally unselfish." She flashes him the okay sign. "I must have misheard your confession that you panicked and didn't have the guts to face her. It wasn't about saving her from pain, it was about avoiding conflict and uncomfortable conversations."

"Why couldn't it be both? Just because I wanted to avoid conflict doesn't mean I didn't love her and want to protect her."

"Like I said, I believe that you believe that. But Duncan…" She nudges his ankle with her foot. "If you love somebody, you also need to understand who you're loving. Like who they are at a basic level."

"So now you're saying I don't know Veronica?"

"Not well enough to understand that your version of protecting her would be her idea of torture."

The words feel like a slap.

Not knowing how to respond, Duncan snatches up the paper muffin liner from the counter, walks it over to the garbage and shoves it in.

Zadie speaks quietly. "If you loved Veronica so much and for so long, how could you not understand what I've managed to figure out in three days of watching and listening. She needs to know everything. It's compulsive."

Duncan doesn't want to hear this. Not at all. But instead of leaving, he crosses his arms over his chest. "Go on."

"The 'not knowing' would eat her alive. Not knowing why you dumped her, what she'd done that was so unforgivable that you wouldn't even speak to her. Not knowing what happened to her while she was drugged, or who did it, or why she'd woken up alone. If I actually wanted to torture Veronica, I'd probably come to you for advice."

"Or…you could just be in the same room as her." Okay, that was juvenile, but seriously.

"How can you claim to love somebody, yet not understand something so fundamental to their nature? How much better would her life be now if you'd just been honest with her?"

Duncan glances at the clock. "As much as I enjoy being ripped to shreds, I should get to work."

Zadie stands up. "I'll go with you."

"That's not necessary."

"Actually, it is. I need to return the golf cart." She carries her plate to the sink, rinses it off, then places it in the dishwasher drawer. "I brought it back so you wouldn't have to carry a bunch of luggage."

"Fine. I'll meet you out there." Grabbing both bags, Duncan carries them out to the golf cart and stows them in the back before taking a seat on the passenger side.

Is Zadie right?

His mom and Lilly had both cautioned him that telling Veronica the truth would be disastrous. But hadn't they only told him what he wanted to hear.

The Mars marriage hadn't survived Keith's reduction in income, and if his own mom was going to file for divorce, she could've done so when she'd learned about the affair.

What would a world look like where he'd just been honest with Veronica from the start?

Like him, she would still end up heartbroken, but in a way that didn't cause her to doubt herself. If they'd broken up amicably — if he hadn't frozen her out — there'd be no reason for Logan to assume she'd done something terrible and turn on her.

The truth wouldn't stop Lilly from dying or Lianne Mars from taking off, but Veronica would still be part of the group, and would have friends to lean on. She would still have protected status at Shelly's party, wouldn't have been drugged or used as a salt lick. And even if Duncan ended up with a dosed drink that night, she would know exactly why nothing could happen between them.

Maybe Veronica would end up moving on with some other guy, maybe she'd drift away from the 09ers without Lilly there to hold her interest. Either way, it would've been her choice.

Instead, she'd been left with no choices at all, isolated and outcast with nobody left to lean on in her darkest times, she'd spent a year believing she'd been drugged and raped. All because Duncan couldn't face having an uncomfortable conversation.

"Ready?" Zadie slides behind the wheel and pushes the start button.

"Yeah. I guess you were right. I am self-absorbed."

"I can't tell if you mean that, or if it's a passive-aggressive attempt at shutting down the conversation."

"I mean it." He exhales heavily. "It's a lot to process, but when you describe it in your terms, I can see what you mean."

She touches the gas pedal and they pull away from the slip. "That's a start. Now, what are you going to do about it?"

"Do? You mean, like putting other people first?"

"No. Not everybody deserves to come first. All I'm saying is that when you're making your mental pros-and-cons lists, consider how your decisions affect other people too."

"I can do that."

Like what could happen to the nice people of Bluebell, Alabama if Liam Fitzpatrick found out they were sheltering Duncan? What would happen to Burt?

What about Zadie? Hasn't she suffered enough?

"I'm sorry," Duncan says, "For what you went through. Before Miami."

Yeah, that was super awkward.

She glances over at him. "What do you have to be sorry for?"

"I don't know. You survived this horrible thing and I was so caught up in my own shame and misery that your story was just sort of…shoved to the side."

Zadie's expression softens. "Trust me when I say that nobody wants the spotlight during Trauma Show and Tell. And even if I did, I would've spoken up."

"Trauma Show and Tell." He lets out a soft laugh that's anything but funny. "Jesus, when Logan is the least fucked-up—"

Zadie's foot leaves the gas and the golf cart comes to an instant stop. She turns to him. "Seriously? I don't even know what Logan has lived through, but he's the most damaged of us all. He might as well have the word 'TRAUMA' tattooed on his forehead."

Duncan's body tenses, and his face grows hot. Anger surges through him, even as he mentally acknowledges that she speaks the truth, even as his brain assembles supporting evidence — Exhibit A - the plethora of surfing accidents nobody ever witnesses.

How dare she articulate what he's spent so many years trying his best to ignore? Because, when Logan refuses to discuss it and won't let him do anything to help, ignoring is the only option left.

"I didn't realize you were so interested in Logan. What? Do you want to fuck him, or something?"

"If I were you, I'd be very careful about what I said next." Zadie points a finger in Duncan's face in a way that invites no argument.

"What?" Duncan lifts both hands.

"Don't act as if expressing an observation about a guy makes me some kind of slut looking to bone."

"Everyone wants to bone Logan! And I wouldn't call you a slut!"

"See that's the problem. It's not the word, it's that you think it's an insult."

"What are you even talking about? It's like the biggest insult you could use for a girl. They paint it on each other's locker's at school."

"And you don't find that really weird?" She tilts her head slightly. "It's like some kind of mass hysteria."

"It's mean. It's bullying."

She sighs and resumes driving. "It's mean because some invisible social contract — that nobody even voted on — tells us it's mean."

"Okay, I know where you're going with this. Guys can sleep with a different girl every day and they get called a stud, but when a girl does the same thing, she's called a slut."

"No. I mean you're on the right track. The real question is why stud and slut can't mean the same thing? Why don't girls high five each other? 'Nice score, you slut!', instead of terrorizing each other?"

"Because girls don't…"

"Don't what? Enjoy sex? That's bullshit."

"God, Lilly would love this conversation."

"Lilly sounds like a reasonable girl. Okay, imagine this. What if, instead of calling each other 'slut', the mean girls terrorized each other with the word 'hugger'?"

"Hugger?"

"Ridiculous, right?"

"Madison Sinclair could make that work."

"They all hug their brains out in their free time, because hugs are amazing, and make you feel loved and appreciated. But if Madison-whatever walks up and calls me a hugger, I'm supposed to hang my head in shame?"

"Hugging has never ruined anybody's life, though."

The employee lot is empty when Zadie pulls to a stop in front of the marina office, and all the windows are dark.

She turns to him, a sad expression on her face. "Sex can be wonderful. Safe, consensual sex with somebody you feel a strong connection to is one of the best things in the world."

"So why did you get so angry when I asked if you wanted to fuck Logan?"

"Because, coming from you, it was a condemnation." He starts to protest, but she cuts him off. "You've already measured me against your personal yardstick for purity and found me lacking. I'm not a good girl, so I must be a slut. And if a slut observes a guy's behavior, she must be looking for sex."

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean…"

"Look, I understand it wasn't your intention to be mean. Just…don't sit there, with your weird sexual hangups and judge me for my healthy sexuality."

"Fine. Then don't sit there with your healthy sexuality and judge me for my weird sexual hangups."

Zadie stares at him, her head at a slight tilt. He stares back, mentally replaying what he'd just said, and for several exceedingly awkward seconds that's all they do. Then a faint smile forms on her lips, and he smiles back, and they're both laughing.

"You're right," she says, wiping an eye with the back of her hand.

"I am?"

"Yes. It was absolutely wrong of me to shame you like that. First, at my apartment, and again, on the tour with Harper."

"And Logan, too. Last night on the boat."

"That was actually…" She stops herself. "It doesn't matter what my intention was. That was wrong, too."

"It's fine."

"No. It isn't. If you were a girl, I would've reassured you that everyone moves at their own pace and that it's okay to not want to do things. I was being a defensive asshole with you."

"Why?"

She shrugs. "A little of this. A little of that. I'm proud of all the work I put into making my apartment feel like a home, but seeing it through the eyes of a billionaire's son who grew up in a mansion was really tough. You'd already categorize me as trash. And then the scandalized way you reacted to Lina turning tricks in the hall somehow felt like a personal judgment against me.I think I wanted to strike first before you could." She sighs. "And maybe I was a little jealous."

"That I grew up with money?"

Zadie looks out at the water. "That you were even capable, at your age, of being scandalized by a scene like that. It reminded me that good families protect their children and shelter them from the realities of sex." Her voice cracks at the end and she unobtrusively rubs at her eyes. "Like, what a luxury."

He wants to be offended by her use of the word luxury. She doesn't know his life, of Jake and Lianne, and the times he caught Lilly in compromising positions, and the repercussions left for her partners to shoulder. Maybe self-absorption is genetic?

But it's middle school Logan who comes to mind, boasting of his exploits with the haunted gaze of a hostage. Zadie's word choice suddenly makes sense. Had Logan ever been allowed the luxury of a childhood?

He moves back to safer waters and addresses her earlier comment. "That day at your apartment, I was actually impressed by your ingenuity and resourcefulness."

"Really?" She looks doubtful.

"I talked to my billionaire dad once about switching to solar and he said we had to wait for prices to come down. Meanwhile, you've managed this whole elaborate setup on a shoestring budget."

This gets a smile out of her. "I like solving problems."

""Not to mention, your extensive repertoire of sexual euphemisms. Truly impressive."

Her smile stretches wider, and he's bracing himself for something raunchy when a car pulls into the lot.

"Saved by the Burt," Duncan says. "Well, thanks for the ride. And the muffin. You've given me a lot to think about."

He holds out his hand to shake but she hugs him instead. Her hair is soft against his cheek and smells of strawberries and it's not the worst feeling in the world.

"Good luck," she says when she pulls back.

"Thanks." He climbs out of the golf cart, grabs his bags, then leans down to look in at her. "Later, hugger."

Veronica

Day 12
Miami, Florida

She finds a small measure of comfort in the familiar. The weight and heft of her trusty Nikon, the rub of its canvas strap against the back of her neck, and the whir-click of its shutter. If she just pretends hard enough, it's almost like doing a stakeout for Mars Investigations.

Her subject waits outside a busy corner store, out of the way of passing pedestrians, but not close enough to the brick wall to risk dirtying his pale linen suit. He checks his watch again, then, with a glance up at the darkening sky, removes his panama hat. Pushing his dark hair back from his forehead, he looks to the left and right.

Veronica crouches, pretending to tie her shoelace. Unsurprisingly, the man's gaze sweeps right past her. He has no reason to recognize her.

She'd caught sight of him an hour ago, outside the Cosmopolitan, an aspirationally-named, rent-by-the-hour, motel four blocks south. There for the same reason she was, he'd settled-in with his newspaper to wait. Veronica kept one eye on him from her spot inside a bus shelter.

As the hour drew to a close, the man took a call on his cell phone. Relaxed at first, he grew progressively more anxious, until abruptly shoving his newspaper into the garbage can, and taking off on foot, in the opposite direction from his parked car.

He was half a block away when Veronica's camera captured Mr. Shapiro and his paramour emerging from their afternoon-delight session and passionately kissing goodbye.

She can't explain what made her follow him.

Avoidance. She knows that's the name for what she's doing. Some people inhabit their emotions - whether through conversation, or acceptance, or a good fucking cry.

Veronica works. She stays busy. She studies and makes lists and checks things off. Anything to keep her mind occupied. Not forever. Just long enough for her to detach the emotion from the situation. Until she can examine it with a cool head.

A second man approaches the first. Shorter, with a sandy-blond buzz-cut and a body shaped like a bulldog, he moves with an air of arrogant invincibility. Definitely a cop.

After shaking hands, he gestures for the first man to follow him into the adjacent alley.

Panama Hat aims a surreptitious glance over his shoulder before rounding the corner. The cop doesn't trouble himself to check for witnesses.

What are these two up to?

It could be completely innocent, but Veronica's gut urges her to follow. And if you can't trust your own instincts, who can you trust?

The right side of the alley backs a strip of low-rent commercial spaces. Veronica ducks behind the corner's store's green dumpster. A large spray-painted dick covers the back side, and the lack of odor tells her it's been emptied recently.

After waiting an appropriate amount of time, she creeps to the next dumpster. An Italian restaurant. Flies circle overhead, and similar graffiti covers the sides. A ten-speed bicycle is padlocked to a drainpipe, and through an open rear door, she catches a glimpse of a kitchen, hears a man singing.

She continues in this manner, moving silently from dumpster to dumpster. Hanging back far enough to hide her footsteps.

The twenty-seventh spray-painted dick, on the back of the final dumpster, has a splatter pattern around it. The 'artist' must've started here, with a fresh can of spray paint and worked his way toward the mouth of the alley. Whoever drew them — a member of the WAYBACK BOYS, judging by a nearby tag in the same shade of red — could not be described as a stickler for details. They're all missing ball hairs.

The alley dead ends at a tall chain link fence. Veronica peers out from the dumpster to find the off-duty cop standing in front of it, beefy arms crossed over his chest like a bouncer. Playing lookout? But where is Panama Hat?

The back door for the last shop on the right bears a small sign reading 'GOOD VIBES'. Sounds like a headshop. Even if he could've entered in the split second she'd looked away, it's not really the kind of place men like this would visit.

On the other side of the fence are two tall buildings. Apartment buildings, she'd guess, from the rows of tiny balconies. Could he have climbed over?

No. There's a large hole in the fence. He must've gone that way

A buzz issues from Veronica's pocket, and, as she stands to pull out her phone, she knocks over some kind of cardboard sign that was leaning against the wall.

FUCK!

She retreats around the side of the dumpster as footsteps approach, flattens herself as best she can, and silences her phone. Waits, not even breathing for the man to catch her.

And keeps waiting.

He doesn't even seem to be looking for her, probably assumes the wind knocked it over. So why won't he go away?

She knows he's not creeping along the side, because she can clearly hear him moving boxes around on the opposite side.

Is he seriously abandoning his lookout post in order to dumpster dive? Would a stack of boxes even support his weight? And will she suffer a heart attack from anxiety while waiting?

The man speaks in a low rasp. "Stormi, Stormi, Stormi…What kind of idiot would throw you out?"

What the hell? Who is he talking to?

Cardboard drags against brick, against the ground, against the dumpster. "Don't you worry. I have just the spot in my living room, where we can watch your best movies together. You just lean here for a while, and I'll come back later with the car."

The footsteps retreat and Veronica returns to her hiding spot. A large box has been wedged into the space between the wall and the dumpster in order to support a tall cardboard cutout. The image faces outwards, so all Veronica can see is the back silhouette, but the arm position is weird, with the right elbow leaning against the bricks and the left on the dumpster. Is Stormi doing the chicken dance or something?

Either way, she provides the perfect cover for a crouched Veronica. She sets her camera on the box, adjusting it by centimeters until the man is centered in the viewfinder window.

She checks her phone. No calls from Logan or Duncan, but there's a recent message from an unknown number. She shoves it into her pocket to listen to later.

Abruptly, the door to Good Vibes swings open and a small, pink-haired girl exits. She carries a trash bag and does a double take at the sight of Veronica crouched behind the dumpster.

Veronica lifts a finger to her lips, and pleads with her eyes.

Pinky's gaze swings in the other direction, narrowing in distaste at the sight of the cop. She lifts her free hand to wave and Veronica squeezes her eyes closed.

Please don't. Please don't. Please don't.

"Morning, Detective Bacon."

"Baker," The man corrects gruffly.

All three of them know the name slip was no accident.

"Taking in the scenery?" The girl asks, sarcastically craning her head right and left.

"Meeting with a C.I." Baker answers, "So hurry it up and get back inside before you blow their cover."

"Yes, sir." Careful not to knock Stormi over, the girl pushes her trash bag through the dumpster's side opening. She returns to her store, aiming one last conspiratorial smile at Veronica, as she pulls the door closed behind her.

Confidential informant, my ass. More like partner in crime.

When Panama Hat returns, Veronica activates her phone's video recorder.

They chat for a minute, then Panama pulls out a voice changing device, and dials a number on his cell. His call lasts only a minute. When he hangs up, the cop gives him a 'good job' pat on the shoulder, and together, they leave the alley.

Veronica doesn't rush to follow. She doesn't need to, her suspicions have been confirmed.

Stormi, it turns out, is not doing the chicken dance. Fully nude, each hand covers one breast, or at least the middles. A coy tilt of her right leg covers other regions.

Veronica considers pulling out her Sharpy, giving Stormi a mustache and blackening a few teeth, but decides against it. Bacon would just blame Pinky, and nobody deserves the enmity of a cop with a God complex.

So, if this is Stormi, does that mean Good Vibes…?

Ohhhh.

She exits the alley, circling around the front of the retail space and back toward the Explorer.

Pulling out her phone, she listens to the new voicemail message. "Ms. Marshall, this is Darlene from Planned Parenthood. I don't want to alarm you, but we'd like for you to come into the clinic to discuss the results of your lab work. Give me a call back when you get this message and let me know if there's a good time for you."

Right. Because, when you believe that a day couldn't get any worse, the universe is obligated to prove you wrong.

"I'm on my way," she says, to nobody in particular.

Through a store window, familiar pink hair catches her attention.

"But first, a pit stop."

Keith

Day 12
Shillelagh Irish Pub
Santa Monica, California

If Shillelagh had a voice, it would be screaming to be taken off life support.

The odor hits Keith first. A permeating stench of long-ago spilled drinks left to mildew in the threadbare commercial carpet. Irish themed signs and decor hang in configurations so random and out of balance, he suspects that half are hiding fist holes. Only one of the three TV mounts above the bar still holds a television - currently tuned to ESPN.

A man in his early twenties leans on a stool behind the bar, working a crossword puzzle. His wavy auburn hair grazes his collar and white medical tape crosses the bridge of his nose. He glances up as Keith approaches, shakes his head and emits a soft laugh, as cryptic as it is bitter.

"What can I get you?" He tosses down a green chipboard coaster reading Shillelagh Irish Pub.

"Scotch. Neat." Keith drapes his jacket over the back of a wooden barstool before climbing on. "And a bar menu. If you have one."

"We're not really a menu type of place." Retrieving a bottle and a clean-ish glass, the bartender pours Keith's drink. Up close, his eyes are a striking shade of blue. "I could probably whip up a corndog. Maybe some home fries."

"Potatoes sound great." Keith smiles pleasantly.

The man exits the bar area through a swinging door.

An old Metallica song plays at half volume on the jukebox. Keith doesn't remember the title — if he ever knew it at all — but its somber, hopeless tone feels appropriate for this place.

It's a little past noon, but, between a decade's-worth of sooty film covering the establishment's windows and several burned out light bulbs, it could just as easily be midnight. The effect is disorienting.

The only other patron is an elderly man at the far end of the bar, barely holding his head up as he nurses a pint.

The bartender returns from the kitchen. "Your food will be right up, Mr. Mars."

"Ah. So you do remember me, Mr. Fitzpatrick. Good. That'll save me from having to come up with an icebreaker."

"You might as well call me Ian, since you went to the trouble of tracking me down."

"Okay. Mind if I ask you a few questions, Ian?"

He pours a drink for himself. "Would it matter if I did?"

"Lilly Kane," Keith begins, without preamble.

Ian silently whistles and looks away.

"You may have seen her at the River Stix? Maybe in the company of your cousin, Liam?"

"I may have."

Anticipating an immediate denial and a long round of leveraging threats, the almost-answer catches Keith off guard.

"You did? Or you didn't?"

"Let's just stick with hypotheticals for now." Ian drags his wooden stool over with his foot, and leans back against it. "You get Liam off the street and behind bars, and who knows? Maybe my memory will magically improve."

"I see." Keith reevaluates the man in front of him. "Are you saying you would testify against your cousin if he was locked up?"

"You seem surprised."

"I am." There's no point in denying it. "Alright. Tell me what you know and I'll keep our conversation 'off the record'."

"That would be great, if you were a reporter." Ian lifts a hand, before Keith can respond. "Save your breath. I researched private investigators a few months back. Legally, you can lie to me, trick me into incriminating myself or others, trick others into incriminating themselves or me. You can steal my garbage the moment I place it on the street, and photograph anything that's visible from public property. You can do anything you want, short of entering private property illegally. "

Again, Keith is caught off guard. "Studying for the P.I. licensing exam?"

"Nope. I was looking for an ally." Ian tilts back his drink, swallows all of it and slams the glass on the bar. "I'm living on borrowed time, already. I'm fortunate that my Nana loves me best, but the day she dies, they're coming after me. Unless I find a way to outmaneuver Liam first."

"So then, why the insistence on hypotheticals?"

"He could always kill me now and make it look like an accident."

"I understand. And you're right about P.I.s. All of it. But here's the God's honest truth." Keith leans forward, making eye contact. "My daughter is out there somewhere, being hunted by a psychopath. Eventually, he's going to find her, unless I find some way to neutralize him. You have information about Liam, and might be the only person willing to talk. That makes your safety my priority. Second only to Veronica's."

The smile that stretches across Ian's face takes years off his age. Was it prompted by Keith's impassioned plea? Or by him arriving someplace he was being led to all along?

"Not today."

Not today? Keith is mentally preparing arguments for why he absolutely needs to tell him everything this very second when Ian clarifies. "You said Liam will eventually find your daughter. But it won't be today."

Keith tilts his head, questioningly.

"Nana talked to him earlier. Seems he's holed up in some Midwestern motel room, recovering from getting his ass kicked." His lips twist into an evil smirk. "By a troupe of Girl Scouts."

"WHAT?"

Somebody calls out from the kitchen, and Fitzpatrick excuses himself. "Back in a second."

Keith pulls out his phone and chooses one of the presets.

His contact answers on the second ring.

'Hello?'

'It's Keith.'

'I know. Your name came up. Good to hear from you.'

'So…I just heard the craziest story.'

'Did it involve Girl Scouts?'

Fitzpatrick returns a minute later with an overfilled plate of home fries. "So you wanted to know about Lilly Kane?"

What is it with this guy zigging every time Keith is expecting a zag?

"Yes. Did you ever see Liam and Lilly together? Hypothetically?"

"Once or twice."

"They were sleeping together?"

"Well, I didn't witness that personally, but yeah. It was generally known around The Stix that they were."

After adding salt and pepper, Keith takes a bite. The potatoes are crunchy and buttery and take him back to late night meals over the kitchen counter when he was still a bachelor.

"How long did it go on?"

"Don't know. Couple months? She wasn't around often. Here and there."

"How did Lilly and Liam meet?"

Fitzpatrick shrugs, and slides onto his stool. Refills his drink and then Keith's. "I wasn't there the first time she came in. According to gossip —AKA my former cousin, Ciaran — her rich lover came in for a drug buy. She got bored waiting in the car and followed him in."

"Rich lover?" Keith sets down his fork and spears the man with his gaze. "You mean Logan Echolls?"

His stomach heaves. Logan is Veronica's only line of defense. One of the few people she trusts. If he has a drug connection to the River Stix, it's going to destroy her.

"The kid? Nah. Wasn't him."

"How can you be sure? Did Ciaran mention the guy by name?'

"No, but he was really smug about it. Liam snatched her away from somebody impressive. I know it wasn't the kid, though, because this guy was married."

Keith exhales his relief. Yet, at the same time… What were you thinking, Lilly? A married man AND Liam Fitzpatrick?

"Did Lilly show any indication of fear? Did she seem like she was being coerced?"

"I barely knew the girl, but I didn't get the impression that she was afraid of anything."

"What else can you tell me about the time Lilly spent at the River Stix? How did she act? Did she come alone? With friends? Did she make friends with any of the regulars?"

"Alone." Fitzpatrick takes a long swallow of his drink. "Lilly acted as little girls do, when they've cast themselves as the femme fatale of their own movie. She liked attention. Male attention. Female attention. Old or young. She played pool, danced, flirted with everyone. Posed seductively. Lots of posing. I remember her leaving with Kendall Casablancas one night."

"They were close?"

"It seemed more like a hookup to me. Or maybe she wanted Liam to believe that it was."

"Can you remember when that happened?"

"I don't know. Last July, maybe? August?"

"So two to three months before her death." Keith leans closer. "Be honest with me, Ian. Do you think Liam murdered Lilly?"

"No." Ian takes a moment to reconsider the question and shakes his head. "It just doesn't fit. She may have been the only person he wouldn't murder."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I can't be. But his grief was real. He went on a rampage the day he learned of her death. My cousins, Brenden and Danny hid all the guns and knives to prevent him from going on a shooting spree."

Keith adds Brenden and Danny Boyd to his mental list of people to interview, as well as Kendall Casablancas.

"He ended up taking a baseball bat, instead."

Wait. Holy shit!

Dozens upon dozens of vandalism reports rolled-in last year in the days after Lilly's death, most concentrated up in the hills.

"That was Liam?"

"Like I said. Rampage."

"I was told that you had a quarrel with Liam right before you moved out of Neptune. Can you tell me what that was about?"

"Quarrel? Is that what they're calling attempted murder these days?" Ian subconsciously rubs at the tape on his nose. "It was about the meth."

"What about it?"

"I'd been opposed to them selling it in the first place, and at them for months to stop. That stuff is bad news. When people started getting sick. I begged Liam to stop cooking it."

"Wait, Liam was cooking meth?"

"Well not personally. He has a chemist on the payroll."

"How did he react?"

"He didn't give a shit. Then Colleen Foley almost died."

An image flashes in Keith's mind - tiny, like Veronica, pale round face, immense blue eyes, long hair in that shade right in-between dark blonde and light brown.

"Colleen was my first love, back in high school. One of the sweetest girls I've ever met." Ian looks off across the bar. Avoiding eye contact. "While she was in the hospital, I picked the lock on her apartment and stole the rest of her stash. And well…I know a guy who knows a guy."

"What does that mean?"

"I had it analyzed. You know, for impurities. Turns out, they were cutting the product with some really nasty stuff."

"Did you confront Liam?"

"Yep. I don't know what made me think he would suddenly care about human life. He said if I knew what was good for me, I'd 'shut the fuck up and never speak of it again'. Business as usual."

"And you didn't go to the police?"

Fitzpatrick laughs.

"You think this is a laughing matter?"

"Not even a little. So what? I just hand the report over to Lamb along with that month's bribe?"

"So Lamb is on the payroll."

"Everyone knows that."

"Do you have proof?"

"Not anymore."

"Wait." Keith's heart seems to stutter. "You had definitive proof that Lamb was a dirty cop?"

"Yep. But it disappeared from my apartment the night they beat me half to death. I thought stashing it in a plastic sandwich bag under a dead plant was super clever. Didn't account for the fact that terra cotta is fragile and the cousins love smashing things."

"When did this happen?" Keith gestures to the tape across Ian's nose. "Pretty recent? A witness saw you arguing with Liam outside The River Stix."

"Liam cornered me the day that rich kid died. A month or so ago. Suddenly, my chemical report was more than just a minor annoyance. It was a major inconvenience. I told him I didn't have it anymore. That I'd destroyed it the same day he told me to keep my mouth shut. I should have known he wouldn't believe me. They came for me that night when I was asleep. I spent a few days in the hospital and then got the hell out of Dodge."

"What was your plan?" Keith asks.

"To lie low until Liam got himself killed or arrested."

"No. I mean, why collect evidence if you knew Lamb wouldn't act on it?"

"Ahhh." Ian pulls out his cell phone, pushes a few buttons and then hands it over to Keith.

His call history displays on the screen - among the calls to Nana, calls to Danny, calls to Colleen, and others, are five outgoing calls to an unlabeled number between June and August.

"Why do I recognize that number?" Keith mutters, not really expecting an answer.

"Go ahead. Call it," Ian says.

So he does. He presses the button for send, listens to it ring twice.

"You've reached Mars Investigations," Veronica's recorded voice speaks. "We're unable to take your call right now, but—"

"Son of a bitch!" Keith disconnects the call and hands the phone back.

"Every time I called, your daughter said you were out of town." Ian shoves the phone back into his pocket. "Seemed like a dangerous thing to tell people, when everyone knew you were raising her alone."

It comes across as a cautionary warning, and Keith lets it pass. If it had been a real threat, he'd have knocked the other guy on his ass already.

"For obvious reasons, I couldn't leave a message."

"So you collected evidence against Liam and Don Lamb with the intention of handing it over to me?"

"Like I said before. I was looking for an ally."

Ian's reaction to Keith entering the bar makes sense now.

He'd been trying to share evidence of tainted drugs all the way back in June. Months before Dennis Fairlong's tragic death. Months before Evelyn Fairlong hired Veronica to find the person responsible.

"I have one more question," Keith says, "Does Liam have an Achille's Heel that you're aware of?"

"Not anymore. Your daughter and her friends killed him."

Veronica

Day 12
Dock of Introspection
Nicholas Key, Florida

The dolphins aren't frolicking today.

Even the sky is overcast, a somber, pewter shroud, in deference to Veronica's mood.

She'd returned to the island hours ago, after running out of errands and other mental distractions on the mainland. 'Anywhere but the marina' had been her only thought upon climbing into the golf cart, but she hadn't been particularly surprised to end up at the deep-water dock. Something about the place keeps drawing her back.

It's isolated here, but not in a way that makes her feel lonely. It's the kind of place you go to wind down and get centered. The kind of place ideal for introspection.

She's been here for a while…introspecting.

The egg chair curves around her like a protective shell and she surrenders to nature, allowing the wind to choose her scenery — grass and road and forest, and then, with a creak of the strong chain above her, open sea and dark, turbulent waves.

Swallowing the last of her lukewarm coffee, Veronica tucks the empty paper cup in the space between her right thigh and the swing's frame and tugs her phone from her pocket.

No messages. No missed calls. Either the cell reception here is dodgy, or Logan isn't as worried as she imagined he'd be.

Eventually, she'll have to return to the boat, but not now. She can't face the boys. Not yet, with her armor so cracked and dented. Not with the — not a rape, not a rape, not a rape – INCIDENT still playing on a loop in her mind.

The wind shifts, bringing a familiar scent of amber and vanilla. Even in her fragile state of mind, Veronica can't fight her small grin. The chain creaks and the swing slowly rotates back to center.

"You should consider wearing a little blush on the apples of your cheeks, Veronica Mars. You look like a ghost."

"You should consider wearing a bell, Lilly Kane" Veronica takes in her friend's radiant complexion. "And you don't. Look like a ghost, I mean."

Lilly lounges sideways in the second egg chair, one knee drawn up to her chest, the other leg dangling. "What can I say? Death is no match for this kind of fabulous."

"Why the ghostly visit, Lils? I'm not really up for fashion advice today."

"I'm here as your best friend, not your stylist." Lilly's swing rotates in the still air, and when she comes back around, she's wearing a nondescript heather gray sweat suit. The opposite of attention-seeking outfits. "The Donut's really gone and put his foot in it this time, huh?"

"Would that it was only his foot."

"How are you dealing?"

"Dealing...?" Veronica picks at the paper sleeve around her empty cup. Her first instinct is to change the subject, but if you can't vent to a figure-of-your-imagination, who can you vent to? "I don't know, Lilly. What's the course of action when the incident that became your driving force turns out to be less of a premeditated crime against you, and more of a case of extreme cosmic fuckery."

Lilly winces in solidarity. "I'd tell you to find a new driving force, but you already have. Survival."

"That's true."

"Trust me." Lilly points a thumb at herself. "I know all about cosmic fuckery."

"Yeah…I suppose you would." Veronica exhales heavily. "All of that fear over not knowing who to fear, and in the end, it wasn't some nameless, faceless, boogeyman. It was just..Duncan. Somebody I used to love. You would think finding out would make me feel better, right?"

"A little bit better. A little bit worse." Lilly holds her hands palms-up, and mimes a set of balance scales. "Because the downside is that you were betrayed by somebody you trusted."

"The whole thing just makes me feel uneasy."

"Do you think he lied about what happened?"

"No." Veronica shakes her head. "His explanation makes sense. And it matches Logan's version of that night. Duncan was drugged. I was drugged. Our inhibitions were severely lowered."

"But?" Lilly prompts.

"But I still feel like something very very wrong went down in that bedroom. Aside from the incest, I mean." She sighs and then glances into Lilly's eyes. "And I need to get past it."

"Um. Excuse me?" Lilly looks outraged on her behalf. "You don't need to get past anything."

"But I do. Because our family can't survive with this kind of fracture. That's what's most important right now."

"Maybe…" Lilly stretches out one foot, but if she's trying to reach Veronica's, she comes up short. "Or...you could just cut him loose. Let him make his own way."

"No." Veronica answers immediately and unequivocally. "He won't survive on his own."

"I guess that answers the question of whether you hate him now."

"No, I don't hate him. I'd like to taser him, and watch him flail on the ground for a few minutes. But then I'd help him stand back up." Veronica exhales heavily. "I love Duncan. I mean, not in the same way as—"

"Logan?" Lilly's eyes twinkle as she examines her fingernails.

"Before. Not the same as before." Veronica corrects with an eye roll. "I love Duncan like a brother. The shitty kind of brother, who gives you Chlamydia, but still…"

Lilly's jaw drops in shock. "He didn't!"

"He did. Speaking of brothers…You knew, didn't you? About your dad and my mom."

Lilly lowers her gaze.

"You told me Duncan would come to his senses and beg me to take him back. Then, a few days later, you started acting evasive, and telling me to give up and find somebody new. Why couldn't you just tell me the truth?"

"For the same reason Donut didn't. We didn't want to hurt you."

"Lilly!" Veronica doesn't even attempt to hide her exasperation. "If I'd known WHY Duncan was off limits I would have moved on. Logan's friendship was a lost cause at that point, and I never really cared about the other 09ers. But I remember standing in front of the mirror, curling my hair just the way Duncan liked it. I remember choosing the pretty white dress he liked me in. If only I'd known the truth…"

"You'd have never gone to Shelly's party at all?"

Veronica lets out a sad laugh. "I know you both meant well, but given a choice, I wish the two of you had just hurt me with the truth."

"I'm so sorry, Veronica."

"I know you are." Before Veronica can say more, her phone rings.

The display shows a 214 area code. Not Logan or Duncan. Could it be Zadie?

She glances a question to her right, but the second egg chair is empty. Lilly is gone.

Tentatively, she answers the phone. "Hello?"

"Veronica? Are you okay, sweetheart?" The voice is warm like honey.

"Peggy?" Tears prickle at the corners of Veronica's eyes, and a sense of relief floods through her. "It's SO good to hear from you."

"Logan called."

Sigh. "Of course, he did."

"Don't be too upset with him. He's very worried about you. All he said was that you'd learned something devastating this morning, and might be in need of a friendly voice and sympathetic ear."

"He…wasn't wrong."

"Want to tell me about it?"

"You know what? I think I do. I really do."