by Rob Thomas
“Did you know anything about the client?” she asked. “Where he was staying, who he was?”
“He said his name was Mike and he was staying here, at the Mercury. She was supposed to text Sweet Pea the room number but she never did. She could be a flake like that,” Isabella said.
Veronica didn’t answer for a moment. It was all too easy to imagine Madelyn Chase arriving at Bellamy’s room, forgetting to check in before she knocked. Figuring she could text them from the bathroom once she got in and saw if the guy was okay or not. Never quite getting the chance—because Bellamy had learned to strike quickly if something set him off.
“Did you check her house, contact her family?”
“Maddy wasn’t in touch with her family,” Isabella said. “I got the feeling they were assholes. She grew up in West Texas but she told me she ran away when she was sixteen. And yeah, I went to her condo. I had a key—I used to take care of her cat when she was out of town. Anyway, she wasn’t there, but all her stuff was. There wasn’t any sign that she’d packed up and left. And Taffy was there—she loved that fucking cat. She wouldn’t have left her behind without arranging for someone to take care of her.”
“I’m assuming Madelyn Chase wasn’t her real name?”
Isabella shook her head. “Of course not. I’ve got no idea what her birth name was, though. The name on her condo was Molly Christensen, but that turned out to be a fake.” She rolled her eyes. “The cops got a lot more interested in finding her when they realized she’d committed identity fraud.”
“This guy you’re looking into. He hurt a lot of girls?” Sweet Pea asked in an almost offhanded way, like he was asking about the weather.
Veronica hesitated. “Three for sure. Four if I can prove he did something to Madelyn.”
He nodded slowly. “Gonna be straight with you, because you seem like you don’t mess around.” He crossed his large hands in his lap. “I think you know as well as we do that the cops ain’t gonna touch this guy. Let’s say you find a girl who’ll testify, which I wouldn’t put money on. That don’t mean you’ll find a cop who’ll take it seriously, or a lawyer, or a judge, or a jury. But there are other options.” The guy didn’t do anything ominous when he said it—didn’t crack his knuckles or punch his fist—but the words sent a chill down Veronica’s spine nonetheless.
“Options?”
He gave a little shrug. “You know. Maybe you give me this guy’s information. Then you head on back to your nice little ’burb on the beach, and I make sure the right people look into the matter.”
The air in the room became dense, weighted down by the silence. She could feel Isabella’s eyes on her, sharp and searching. She thought back to Dan Lamb’s sneering face when she’d taken the case to him. Would it make any difference if she found another victim—if she found a dozen victims? These girls lived in a world that only tenuously overlapped with society at large. The law offered them no protection. They were disposable.
Veronica took a deep breath.
“Thanks, Sweet Pea. But I’m going to keep doing this my way.”
His jaw tightened slightly, but he didn’t argue with her.
“Suit yourself,” he said. He stood up and went to the little writing desk, opened the top drawer. He took out a notepad and jotted something down. Then he ripped off the page and handed it to her.
“My cell,” he said. “In case you change your mind.”
For a moment she thought about protesting, handing it back, throwing it away. That’s not how I do things, she’d say. Dirty as this world is, I’ve got to stay clean.
But she didn’t. Instead, she folded the piece of paper and slid it in her purse.
“In case I change my mind,” she echoed.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
It was a Tuesday morning, the light still low over the east hills. The beach was almost empty, save a few surfers hauling their boards out of the water. Salt and the mildly rotten smell of seaweed hung on the air. Veronica and Logan sat on an old plaid bed sheet, watching as Pony played in the surf. Logan was in Service Khaki, his shirt and pants almost the same color as the sand beneath them. His cap sat on top of their cooler, his shoes and socks stowed neatly nearby. He was due back on base at noon. From there, they’d fly him out, first through Norfolk, then through Italy, and then—the final leg—back to the Truman, which was somewhere in the Arabian Sea.
The remnants of their breakfast picnic littered the blanket around them—plastic tubs of fruit, quiche Lorraine, chocolate croissants, and mugs of hot coffee. Veronica had barely eaten, picking at her food, but Logan had sampled everything and gone back for seconds. “Real food’s about to be a thing of my past,” he’d said, his mouth full of pineapple and blueberries. “Gotta savor it while I can.”
They watched as Pony charged and retreated from the surf, her body writhing with excitement. She’d almost doubled in size since the day they got her. Now she was too big to sit in Logan’s lap. It didn’t stop her from trying—Veronica had at least three pictures of the dog awkwardly splayed over him. One was now her desktop wallpaper.
“How am I going to raise Pony without you?” she asked. “You know what happens to puppies who don’t have a strong masculine figure around. She’ll grow up with daddy issues.”
It wasn’t meant to be a real argument; she’d let those go the day he’d mailed his paperwork. She’d bottled up all the things she’d been feeling—resentment, fear, grief—and forced herself to smile and pretend everything was normal. He’d be leaving, whether she liked it or not. It didn’t do her any good to fill their last days together with fights.
And they say Veronica Mars doesn’t know how to pick her battles, she thought wryly. Well, she still had plenty of windmills at which to tilt. In the weeks since her trip to Vegas, she’d been stuck, unable to gain any more traction against Bellamy. She’d e-mailed Bethany Rose again, asking if she’d consider filing a police report, but she’d never heard back. She’d sent another e-mail to Tonya Vahn, the girl whose phone had been disconnected, and begged her to call with any information. Strike two.
Without another witness who’d go on record, there was nothing else she could do. Nothing but watch Mitch Bellamy, and wait, hoping they got a break before he tried to hurt someone else.
At least Mac is still monitoring his accounts so we’ll know if he does try something. That’s some comfort. And I always have Sweet Pea’s number—not that I’ll use it. But she thought about it sometimes, taking it out of her wallet and holding it up. Imagining the no-niceties dimension in which she could casually sic a very large, very businesslike man to take care of cases she couldn’t prove in court.
Between that and Logan’s preparations to leave, she’d felt uncharacteristically helpless. She’d started jogging in the mornings, just for something to do. She’d run along the beach and weave through the neighborhood, trying to make herself too tired to care. So far it wasn’t working, but she’d shaved a few seconds off her mile. And she’d started to follow the election coverage feverishly. She read every article she could get her hands on about Marcia Langdon, obsessed over poll updates and projected voting patterns. She’d helped with Keith’s caseload a few times that week to free him up to work on the trial preparations. It wasn’t much, but it was easier than all this waiting.
Voices of the Navy wives at the funeral echoed in her mind like a Greek chorus. We try to look out for each other. Well, you’ll see. It didn’t make her feel better. She didn’t want to be in their club. Didn’t want to learn how to be apart from the one person she longed to see every day.
“Veronica.”
She snapped back into the moment and looked over at Logan. He was watching the ocean, his eyes intent on the waves, his brow slightly furrowed.
“You know we can do this, right?” he said.
She wanted to say yes. To reassure him, to keep their morning simple. She had a feeling that was what Cathy and the other Navy wives would do. But she couldn’t seem to make herself spe
ak.
“Well, that’s not reassuring,” he murmured, turning to look at her.
She hugged her knees to her chest. “Logan, all of this is still new to me. This coming and going, the cycle of losing you and then getting you back, only to lose you all over again.”
“You’re not losing me, Veronica.” He ran his hand through his hair. “You know, I’m not leaving you.”
“But you’re not staying either.”
For a moment, they sat in silence. Veronica’s shoulders were tight, her fingernails cutting into her palms. When Logan spoke again, his voice was low. She looked up to meet his eyes. They were serious and sad.
“Look, Veronica, I know you’re pissed that I’m going back early.” She blinked, surprised. He smirked. “Sorry—you’re not that good an actor. And I come from a family of bad actors so I should know. Anyway, you have a right to be pissed. I get it. But this isn’t about you. It kills me to leave you. I hate it. But I have to, because this is who I am. You just don’t know what this job means to me.”
“So tell me.”
He ran his hand over his face. For a few long minutes he seemed to be gathering his thoughts.
“You were gone for nine years, so all you got to see was the ‘after’ picture. The ‘before’—let’s just say it wasn’t so nice. I was hitting the bottle pretty hard. And some other stuff too, bad stuff.” He laughed humorlessly. “You know how it is around here. As long as you call it ‘partying’ it’s all okay. But it was getting pretty out of control. Even Dick was worried, and that should tell you something.” He shook his head. “There’s stuff I barely remember. Like, once I wandered into a woman’s house, thinking it was Dick’s. She found me passed out on the sofa. I was lucky she didn’t call the cops. But the thing is, I didn’t even care. That was the worst of it.”
Something clenched around Veronica’s heart, a tightness that tore into her like claws. But she held her tongue.
“Everything just felt pointless and stupid. I remember being out on my surfboard one morning and sitting there for the longest time. I’d paddled out as far as I could, and the waves were amazing, but I couldn’t make myself stand up. I thought about just rolling off the board and letting myself drift. Seeing if I could drown without too much effort.” He looked up at the sky. “I guess it’s no big shocker. Another Hollywood brat who can’t handle his shit.”
Veronica inhaled sharply. She’d been at Stanford by then—trying her best to forget everything she’d left behind her. Trying to forget Logan. While she’d been complaining about all-nighters and turgid academic prose, he’d been casually, calmly thinking about ending his own life.
Logan continued. “It went on like that for a couple of years, worse and worse. And Veronica, it would have killed me. Without a doubt, it would have killed me, if not for Dr. Galway. I don’t know if you remember him; he was a history professor at Hearst. He showed up at the hospital after my second OD. I’d already dropped out of Hearst by then, but I guess for some reason I had made an impression on him. Turns out, he used to be a flyboy himself. He was the one who told me I was made for this. He checked me into a detox and rehab program and made sure I stuck with it. Afterward he helped me reenroll at Hearst, then he made some calls to get me into OCS.”
Logan scooped up a handful of sand and let it trickle through his fingers. “After that, it was like things just snapped into focus for me. For the first time in my life I had something that seemed worth working for. Something with actual, you know, purpose.”
He laughed, embarrassed by his own earnestness.
“Sorry—lamest recruiting script ever. Take Two: I just wanted the badass flight suit and a chance to reduce architectural treasures of the ancient world to smoking rubble.”
“Now that’s the man who won my heart,” Veronica said, gently rubbing his back.
“Look, you’ve known me a long time,” Logan said, the urgency returning to his voice. “I’m living proof it’s possible to have total freedom—to be indulged and deferred to by everyone around you—yet feel utterly worthless. You can’t imagine that feeling, Veronica, because you’ve never spent a day being worthless in your life. But for me it was like…a revelation.”
He took her hand and looked at her steadily. “So please understand, this isn’t some asinine death wish. This is what saved my life.”
Her eyes blurred, and she was half surprised to find tears running down her cheeks. For a moment she couldn’t think, couldn’t process; all she could do was hear his words echoing over and over. Drown without too much effort. Second OD. She felt his hand squeeze hers, and she squeezed back.
A warm, wet ball of fur suddenly collided into her. Pony ran back and forth across their blanket, tracking sand everywhere. Veronica pointed her finger at the puppy.
“Sit,” she said.
Pony licked her finger, then bounced in circles around them. Veronica looked at Logan.
“You see? She’s already acting out. It’s a cry for help.” She wiped her eyes quickly, and ruffled the fur on the puppy’s neck.
Then she took a deep breath. “Acceptance has never been one of my strong suits. But I’m trying, Logan. I just need some time.”
“That I can give you,” he said. He slid an arm around her waist. “I’ve gotten good at waiting for things.”
“Who knew you’d be the patient one?” She rested her forehead against his.
They sat that way for a few minutes, looking into each other’s eyes. And for that brief moment, nothing that’d come before or after mattered. The sound of gulls and waves surrounded them, the puppy leaned against Veronica’s leg, and she and Logan were just where they were supposed to be: side by side, at the edge of the world.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
“What do you think? More cheese? Less cheese? Different cheese?”
Keith held up a measuring cup of shredded mozzarella and looked inquiringly at Veronica across the kitchen island. She was slicing tomatoes but paused mid chop to look up with one raised brow.
“When is the answer ever less cheese?”
“Fair point.” He dumped the entire cup into the mixing bowl and started to stir.
It was Wednesday night, the first “Daddy-Daughter Dinner” since Logan’s departure a week earlier. Keith hadn’t seen Veronica much in the past week. Ostensibly, she’d been out of the office, busy with a few minor cases, but Keith knew she was struggling to keep her feelings about Logan hidden and controlled.
She’d always thought she was good at that. He never had the heart to tell her he could see right through it.
At least there was plenty to keep her busy. She’d started on a few new cases, picking up the slack so he could focus on Eli’s upcoming trial. Now Keith’s part in the preparations was more or less over. He’d found all the witnesses he could and convinced several to testify, looking into their cases to select the most credible for the witness stand. In the meantime, he’d put security measures in place, installing cameras and panic buttons at both Eli’s and Lisa’s places, showing them what to inspect on their cars before getting in, in case of sabotage. Lisa had been unfazed by the entire process but Eli was openly unnerved.
“For real? You think someone might try to take me out?”
Keith had held out his scarred arms at his sides as if to say, “Exhibit A.” “Do you really think a meth head hit Sacks’s car in January?”
The trial was three weeks away now, and Keith’s nerves were on edge. He realized he was waiting for some shoe to drop—but how? Lamb probably wouldn’t have the stones to do anything overtly violent given all the publicity, but he wasn’t about to roll over and give up. The thought made him uneasy.
Keith refocused his attention on the lasagna. With artful delicacy he sprinkled the last bit of mozzarella over the lasagna pan and looked at his work. An odd little flicker moved in his chest. “Your grandma made the best lasagna. I’ve never been able to get the sauce quite right.”
Veronica put down the knife and rested her
chin against her fist. “You know, you’ve been weirdly nostalgic lately. Is this just the ravages of time at work, or is something wrong?”
“Hey, a grown man can miss his mommy without shame.”
“Yeah, he can, but it’s not just Grandma. You’ve been talking about high school and racing your ’78 GTO in the streets of Omaha. I’m just waiting for the day you pull a Werther’s Original out of your pocket and try to give it to Pony.”
Keith put on a Grandpa Simpson voice and bent over. “That reminds me of the time I went to Hampton, which is what they called Hampstead in those days, so I tied an onion to my belt, which was the style at the time….”
She threw a towel at him. “All right, wise guy, deflect away. Just remember, I was a psych major. I can see right through your emotional repression.”
Then that makes two of us, doesn’t it? The thought made him smile. Mars and Mars, always trying to believe they’re the best spy in the room, when they know each other’s tells by heart.
“Okay, Dr. Mars. Maybe I have been waxing a little nostalgic.” He shrugged. “I guess it’s partly seeing Marcia again. Most of the people I knew back then have moved on. Both my parents are dead. Not a lot of people to talk with about ye olden days.”
“So were you guys friends?” She took a carrot from the veggie platter and crunched it between her teeth. “I mean, it’s kind of funny. You both ended up cops, and you lived, what, three houses from each other?”
He hesitated. Friends. He’d been expecting a question like that for a while, but he still didn’t know how to answer it. To buy a little time, he scooped up Pony, who’d gotten so big he had to bend his knees to lift her.
“No,” he finally said. “Not friends. But I liked her. She wasn’t exactly a laugh riot, but she had a very dry wit. She was a little bit prickly and didn’t take any crap.”
“A woman after my own heart,” Veronica said.
Somehow, the idea made his jaw tighten. It wasn’t a bad comparison, really; Marcia had been smart, driven, and ambitious. All the things he’d loved in his daughter. All the things he’d tried to raise her to be. But he shook his head.