Fic: Undercover Angel, Part VI - The New Dawn - COMPLETE (Ensemble), Rated: R

[skk670]

Title: Undercover Angel, Part VI - COMPLETE
Author: skk670
Pairing/Characters: Ensemble
Word Count: 23,000
Rating: R (Bad Language and Sexual Situations)
Summary: This season's mysteries began to unravel - and Veronica is at the center of it all.
Spoilers/Warnings: Goes AU after Episode 2.14 but Episode 2.18 gave me the last clues I needed to complete my conspiracy
Authors Notes: My personal take on the season's mysteries.
Authors Notes: Much thanks to my wonderful betas Ethereal_65, Fickledame and Moire2

Part I - The Conspiracy Unfolds
Part II - Snake Eyes
Part III - Talking to Ghosts
Part IV - The Edge of the Ocean
Part V - The Darkness Before...

Icon courtesy of fickledame

Undercover Angel
Part 6 - The New Dawn

For a moment there was only silence. Then Cassidy flipped the switch to close the boat door and everyone jerked, including Logan. It had been such a surreal scene, watching the supposedly dead come back to life then fade into the darkness.

“Let’s move, people,” Keith ordered. “The clock is ticking.”

As though controlled by a single mind, everyone turned and headed for the stairs. Keith and Leo were in the back of the group, so consequently they were the first to reach Logan. Leo jerked to a stop upon seeing Logan while Keith merely closed his eyes and shook his head.

“Where’s his blindfold?” Keith asked grimly. Then he sighed, “Did Veronica blindfold him?”

Leo gave him a brief nod but Lizzie’s gasp of horror stopped him from saying anything. Leo, Keith and Logan all turned to look at Lizzie. Cassidy, who was coming up behind her, froze upon seeing Logan.

“Oh, shit,” Cassidy murmured, his eyes widening.

Logan raised his eyebrows and shrugged the best he could with his hands tied behind his back. Clearly, he wasn’t everyone’s favorite party crasher.

Lizzie began to shake. “He’s going to tell them, isn’t he? He’s one of them.” She turned to Keith and grabbed his arm. “We have to warn Meg. It’s a trap. They’re going to catch her. Who knows what they’ll do to her now.” She burst into tears.

Veronica came up the stairs, threw down her ever-present messenger bag and pulled Lizzie into her arms.

“Lizzie, everything’s fine. We’re still on track.” Veronica said firmly. “There’s nothing for him to tell. We caught him before he saw anything.”

Keith spoke up, his voice calm and soothing. “Everything is in place, Lizzie. One more hour and this will all become a bad memory.”

Logan tried to speak but his voice was just a muffled whine behind his gag. Damn it, if they would only remove the fucking muzzle, he would tell Lizzie himself that he wasn’t going to rat them out. Especially now that he understood that they were on some sort of bizarre rescue mission. He moved closer to Lizzie but Leo saw him and slammed him back into the wall. Logan shut his eyes at the pain that coursed through his bound arms.

“Stop it!” Veronica protested. She wedged herself between Leo and Logan, and pushed them apart. “You’re going to break his arms.”

Leo glared at Logan and it was obvious to Logan that Leo wouldn’t have a problem with that. Logan glared back. Keith effectively ended the skirmish.

“We don’t have time for this,” he said quietly. “We can’t be distracted from our timetable.”

Keith put his hand on Leo’s arm. Leo gave Logan one last glare then pivoted and rushed out of the boathouse.

Veronica turned to Cassidy. “Are you ready?” she asked him quietly.

Cassidy stood up straighter, his eyes set and determined, looking more like a man than Logan had ever seen him. “Yes,” he said simply.

Veronica smiled and Keith nodded approvingly at the boy. Cassidy smiled slightly, nodded in return and left.

Keith turned to Lizzie. “All set?” he asked.

Lizzie nodded hesitantly and brushed away her tears. “Yes,” she said in a small voice.

Keith nodded. “Wait for me in the car. I’ll be right out.” He smiled encouragingly.

His voice was low and quiet but still managed to comfort the frightened girl. Lizzie nodded, smiled briefly at Veronica then went out into the moonlit night.

Keith Mars’s smile faded the instant Lizzie was out the door. He whirled to face Veronica.

“Veronica, you are not going to untie him,” he ordered.

Veronica, who had been looking at the knots on the rope binding Logan, jerked her head to look at her father.

“But, Dad,” she began.

“No!” Keith said in a harsh, completely unlike-Keith Mars voice. “You will not untie him and that is final.”

“But Dad, Logan’s not going to try anything. And I have Backup with me,” she reasoned.

“Veronica,” Keith spoke through gritted teeth. “Think of how many lives are at stake here. Are you willing to risk them because of your feelings for Logan?”

Logan felt like he had been hit by lighting. His body was simultaneous hot and cold and there was a ringing in his ears. Because of your feelings for Logan? Veronica still has feeling for him? Of course she did, why else would she have gone to such elaborate lengths to protect him? And what the hell was she trying to protect him from anyway?

He turned to look at her, trying to glean something from her expression. He didn’t know what he hoped to see. Acknowledgement? Acceptance? Love? Anything to nurture the hope that burned inside of him, like a flame that had been exposed to the harshest of winds but still managed to survive because of the ember protected deep beneath the burnt and spent coals.

But Veronica wasn’t focused on him. She was looking at her father with a stricken expression. Keith Mars held his daughter’s stare for a moment longer then nodded in satisfaction.

“I promise I won’t untie him,” she pledged in a small voice.

“Okay.” Keith Mars sounded like himself again. He hugged Veronica close to him. Then he pushed her back and looked into her eyes again. “When this is finished, you are grounded until I get over the shock. And that will take years,” he promised firmly.

Veronica gave her father a half-hearted smile and nodded. Keith’s firm expression melted and he hugged her again. He looked at Logan over her shoulder and his expression hardened. He held Logan’s gaze until Logan lowered his eyes and stepped back from them. Then Keith turned and left.

Veronica bent down to her messenger bag and rummaged through it. She pulled out her switchblade and turned to Logan.

“Turn around,” she ordered urgently.

Logan was surprised that she was willing to disobey her father’s orders when he was barely out the door but turned anyway. Maybe her feelings for him were stronger than her feelings for her father? Was that possible?

No, it wasn’t possible. She didn’t reach for his bound arms. Instead she slipped her hand between the gag and the back of his head and carefully cut away the cloth. Seconds later the gag fell away and Logan tried to spit out the cloth in his mouth.

Veronica stepped away from him but returned almost instantly and turned him to face her again. She held a bottle of water in one hand and reached up with the other.

“Open your mouth,” she commanded.

He opened his mouth and she extracted the sodden mass of cloth. He closed his mouth and grimaced, tasting the musty cloth now that it was gone. She held the bottle of water to his lips.

“Don’t try to talk yet,” she advised. “Drink the water.”

He had to bend his knees in order for her to reach up and hold the bottle at the proper angle. He guzzled down the water greedily, not caring that it was spilling all over his face and shirt. She stood on her tip-toes, holding the bottle vertical to allow him to get the last drops. It was her precarious position that caused her to lose her balance and sent them both skidding to the floor.

Instantly, Backup was upon him, snarling viciously with teeth bared and jaw opened wide.

“No!” Veronica cried and grabbed the pit bull by his collar.

Logan lay frozen with eyes wide and mouth open as Veronica pushed the dog back. Backup wrestled with her but she put her arms around his neck and eventually soothed the angry beast. When Backup was calm again, she turned back to look at Logan.

“I’m sorry,” she said, still keeping a firm hold on her pet. “He’s been under a lot of stress lately. Dad hasn’t stopped yelling and lecturing since I was arrested - again - for kidnapping. Backup is very sensitive to stress.”

Logan finally found his voice. “I can see that,” he agreed roughly, his mouth still a little dry despite the water.

Veronica pushed on Backup’s hindquarters and the pit bull reluctantly sunk down into an alert crouch. She leaned over him and rested her slight weight on the powerful dog. Logan slowly scooted back until the wall halted his retreat. Then he shifted his gaze from Backup to Veronica.

“So now what?” he asked quietly.

“Now we wait,” she responded.

“Wait for what?” he probed.

He glanced down at Backup. The pit bull seemed to have relaxed in the warmth of Veronica’s arms. Logan could understand that. It had worked on him, too.

“For the packages to be delivered.” She also looked down at Backup and scratched between his ears affectionately.

“By packages, I take it you mean Meg and Grace?”

She nodded. “And Lizzie. We need to get them all out of the line of fire.”

“What fire? Who’s after them?” he demanded.

She looked grim. “A lot of people will be after them, once their parents realize that they’re gone.”

“Veronica, what is going on here? First you’re gathering your minions on my burned out property, then you kidnap me, and now you’re transporting the dead. I feel like I’m in an episode of Twin Peaks,” he complained.

Her head snapped up. “Meg is not dead.”

“Yeah, I can see that now,” he said, then frowned. “Although she looks like she’s pretty close. What happened to her?”

Veronica looked cautious. “What do you know?”

“Not much.”

She gave him a steady look.

He shook his head. “I know that Meg supposedly died in the bus crash. Then she miraculously survived the bus crash but was in a deep coma. Next thing I hear is that she’s come out of the coma and she’s pregnant with Duncan’s baby. Then she lived long enough to give birth but died from a blood clot.”

Veronica smiled grimly. “Sounds a little melodramatic, doesn’t it? Meg comes out of a four month long coma just in time to give birth, then conveniently dies during the delivery. I was worried that it was so fantastic that no one would believe it. But it worked out. People don’t like to ask a lot of questions during a tragedy.”

“So what parts of that story are true and what parts are ‘Veronica magic’?”

Veronica hesitated for a long moment and Logan shook his head impatiently.

“Veronica, I am sitting here trussed up like a Thanksgiving turkey being guarded by a pit bull who looks like he really wants to chomp through to my wishbone.” He twisted his torso for emphasis. “What kind of a threat am I to you? I think I deserve to know just what the hell is going on.”

She looked apologetic. “You weren’t supposed to be here, Logan. If you had just focused on banging Kendall instead of what we were up to, you would be safe.”

He snorted. “Veronica Mars is lecturing me on staying out of other people’s business. That speedboat belongs to me. If the coast guard identifies it, I’m the one they’re going to arrest.”

“Don’t worry,” she reassured him coldly. “I’m covering your ass, as always.”

He opened his mouth to defend himself but she waved her hand to cut off his retort.

“That’s why we put the adhesive tape over the identification,’ she explained. “The flashlights the border patrol use shine right through it. If something goes wrong it will be the Coast Guard who goes after them. When they turn their spotlights on the boat’s ID, it will bounce back as a glare to them. The Cigarette Rider can outrun anything the guard has to go against it. We just can’t have it identified if Norris is forced to outrun the Coast Guard.”

“How can you be sure Norris can outrun the Coast Guard?” he demanded. “They have some fast boats of their own.”

“Norris has been practicing. He can handle the boat.” She nodded confidently. “As for the Coast Guard, Leo did a recon. The Guard only has five boats that can match the Rider. Three of them are currently posted about five miles out at one-mile intervals.”

“And you know this how?” He wrinkled his brow.

She smiled. “They received an anonymous tip earlier this evening that the El Mano cartel is going to smuggle in a boatload of heroin tonight. Their other two Matchboxes developed engine trouble this afternoon and are out of commission.”

He shook his head. “How did you do that?”

Veronica shifted and curled more comfortably into Backup. The pit bull whined in the back of his throat and snuggled closer into his mistress. But his gaze remained fixed on Logan.

“I didn’t, Leo did.” Veronica corrected. “We couldn’t take out all their speedboats; that would have been suspicious. But we needed to take out enough of them so that the closest boat would be at least two miles away if the border patrol alerted them. If it’s even necessary, which I hope it won’t be.” She frowned. “Meg and Grace have fake papers. They should be fine but, just in case, we had to prepare for the worst.”

Logan tried to get comfortable, but it was impossible with his hands tied behind his back. He shifted around a bit and Backup raised his head, his sharp canine eyes fixed on Logan’s throat. Logan stopped shifting.

“How did Leo even get onto the coast guard dock?” he asked, trying to distract himself from the ache in his arms.

She shrugged and looked away. “He’s a sheriff’s deputy. He went down to coordinate Balboa County’s offensive plan should the runner break through the Coast Guard line.”

“He’s not a deputy anymore,” Logan pointed out.

She looked back at him, the confident smile back in place. “But he still has the uniform and the proper credentials. Plus the sheriff joined the coordination effort via conference call.”

Even Logan had to grin at that. “You intercepted the call and pretended to be Lamb,” he deduced, impressed.

Her grin went from smug to irrepressible. “I appreciate your confidence in me but I don’t do it all myself. Mac intercepted the call and my dad played the sheriff.” She paused thoughtfully and tilted her head. “He’s actually very good at it.”

He snorted. “Right. How is your dad involved? Was this his plan?”

That wiped the smug smile off her face. She looked troubled and Logan recalled Keith’s vow to ground Veronica for years. She didn’t know lucky she was. Aaron would have made him pay painfully. In fact, Aaron had and for smaller infractions than raising the dead.

“No, he didn’t know about it until I was arrested again,” Veronica mumbled. “We were both investigating but didn’t tell each other. I had to come clean to him because I needed his help. He hit the roof and hasn’t stopped lecturing me since. He agreed to help us since he didn’t want any of us to end up in jail or dead. But in return I’m grounded for the rest of my life.” She blew her bangs off her forehead. “This will really put a crimp in my plans to go to Stanford. I don’t think they have daddy-daughter dorms.”

“Be grateful you have a father who cares that much about you,” he advised. And kicks your unwanted boyfriend out of your apartment for you. He barely kept himself from saying that out loud. But he was finally learning think before he spoke - and acted. Better late than never, right?

Veronica was quiet for a moment. “I’m not going to untie you,” she said softly.

He tried to roll his shoulders but stopped when Backup growled. “I’m not a threat to you, Veronica.”

She looked troubled. “Yes, you are,” she contradicted. “You attract trouble, Logan. At any given time, you have the cops, the PCHers, the Fitzpatricks, and Hannah’s dad after you. What if you had lead them to us? Any one of them could bring this whole operation crashing down around our heads. We had to keep you out of the way.”

“Is that why you set me up with Kendall? To keep me out of the way?” So much for thinking before he spoke but he couldn’t help himself.  She was pissing him off with her condescending attitude.

She sighed heavily. “So we’re back to that again? For the last time, I did not set you up with Kendall.” She spoke slowly and clearly, enunciating every word. “You wanted to sleep with her since you met her and I wanted you to stay busy and away from the Coronado Bridge. She wanted to be wealthy the easiest way possible.”

Humiliation and indignation flooded through him. “You paid her to sleep with me?”

Veronica looked aghast. “No, of course not.” She glared at him. “Cassidy simply mentioned that you were independently wealthy and ‘lonely’ after we broke up. Then he stepped back and let the gold digger do her thing.”

“I didn’t give her money,” he stated flatly.

She shrugged. “I don’t care. The point was that it kept you busy and away from here. And it kept Kendall busy and distracted. She signed whatever Cassidy needed her to sign because she was so focused on trying to leech on to you.”

“By signing stuff, you mean for the Phoenix Land Trust?”

She nodded her head in affirmation. “It’s part of our plan.”

He stiffened. “Setting up Kendall is part of your plan?”

Veronica looked disgusted. “Don’t worry, Logan. Your fuck buddy will be fine. She just won’t be any wealthier than she was going into this, that’s all.” She shifted into a more comfortable position and looked at him thoughtfully. “So tell me, did Kendall and Hannah know about each other? Did they set up a schedule of who got you when or was it first come, first served?”

His face flushed an angry red. “That’s none of your fucking business.”

She smirked. “Actually, it is. Since the whole Dr. Griffith, mystery-witness-from-the-bridge scenario was set up for me.”

His mouth fell open. “Griffith set me up for you? What the hell does that mean? You put him up to it?”

Her mouth fell open, too. She just stared at him for a moment, dumbfounded. Then she glared at him.

“Of course not, you ass,” she snapped. “Griffith came forward to put pressure on you. It was supposed to make me back down.” She looked at him with mock admiration. “But you sure showed Griffith when you screwed his fifteen-year-old daughter in retaliation.”

The angry flush on his face deepened. “About Hannah…” he began uncomfortably and looked away.

“Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know the details.” Her voice was coated with disgust.

He jerked up to look at her. “Well, I had to do something. You weren’t helping me,” he defended himself.

She gritted her teeth. “I was helping you, Logan. If you could have just been patient a little while longer, I would have had all this cleaned up without Hannah ever getting involved. But, no, you had to think with your dick, as you always do. And, as usual, nobody’s feelings or safety were more important than your own. Just because I didn’t tell you what I was doing, didn’t mean I wasn’t doing anything at all.”

“What do you mean? What are you doing?” No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t keep his voice even. She was so damn secretive and infuriating. Duncan had to be a fucking saint to put up with her for as long as he did.

Veronica sat up. “Do you think I set up this whole scheme for my benefit? Do you think I’d risk my life, and my friend’s lives, just for kicks?”

“I don’t know, Veronica,” he shot back. “I don’t know you at all.”

Just like that, the aggression drained out of her. “And you’re just figuring that out now?”

He shut his eyes and rolled his shoulders in an effort to ease the tightness in his gut. “Just tell me what’s going on. I don’t want anyone to get hurt, either.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “Especially you.”

She just stared at him blankly.

“What?” he demanded. “Do you think I don’t care if anything happens to you?”

“You didn’t before,” she pointed out quietly.

He wrinkled his brow in confusion. What was she talking about? “I’ve always cared. You’re the one who forgot I existed,” he said bitterly.

She sighed. “No, I didn’t,” she denied. “And I was helping you. I’ve always helped you, Logan. I’m helping you now. When we bring down the Fitzpatricks, we’re going to bring Griffith down with them. Two more days, and you’ll be in the clear.”

Logan stared at her, overwhelmed. She had been trying to help him all along? But she had never said anything, never gave any indication that she still thought of him or still cared about him.

“You never said anything,” he pointed out quietly.

She stared at him pointedly. “I couldn’t tell you anything because, knowing you, you’d start asking questions or say something to Kendall or start a fight with the wrong person and expose us. You can’t be trusted,” she accused.

“You never tried to trust me,” he bit out.

She snorted. “I spent a whole summer covering for all your shit. You never gave me a reason to trust you.”

“And Duncan did?”

“Yeah, he did. When I needed him, he was there for me, every time,” she said with deliberate emphasis.

“Except the time he knocked up Meg,” Logan pointed out harshly. “Shit, Veronica, if that had been me, you would never have forgiven me. Instead, not only did you forgive him, but you wanted to stay with him.”

Veronica tilted her head and studied him. “The difference is, Logan, that if it were you, you really would have been the father of Meg’s baby.”

He snorted, still rankled by the injustice of Veronica’s blind faith in Duncan. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Duncan is not the father of Meg’s baby.” Veronica announced calmly.

Logan shook his head briskly. “I think my hearing is going. I thought you said Duncan wasn’t Faith Manning’s father. But that can’t be true since you and Duncan both admitted to it.”

“We only said that to protect Meg,” Veronica explained. “By that time, we knew what we were dealing with. We were afraid that, if the Mannings knew that the baby wasn’t Duncan’s, they might take Meg off life support.”

“Life support?” he repeated disbelievingly. “Why would they take her off life support? And what do you mean that Duncan isn’t the father of Meg’s baby?”

She shrugged. “There was no physical way Duncan could have fathered Meg’s baby.”

Logan merely shook his head in puzzlement.

Veronica sighed then went very quiet.

“Veronica,” Logan protested roughly, “You can’t drop a bombshell like that and not explain.”

She looked down and played with Backup’s ears. “Duncan was impotent,” she finally admitted.

Logan sucked in air on a choked gasp. “What?”

Veronica continued to look at Backup. “From the time that Lilly died until the day he finished his junior year, Duncan was on a huge amount of drugs. Everything from Oxcarbazepine for his epilepsy to Ziprasidone to keep his brain foggy and a bunch of other things I can’t pronounce. The cocktail eventually messed him up physically as well as emotionally.”

“But the two of you were together. I heard you going at it in Duncan’s room. You weren’t quiet about it,” he pointed out.

“And you were?” she shot back. “Duncan’s fine now but he wasn’t last year. And he wanted to be. As soon as he finished his junior year and his parents announced that they were moving to Napa, Duncan checked himself into the Hazelden Clinic.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s a substance abuse center,” she explained. “Duncan tried a couple of times to get off the drugs himself but he couldn’t do it alone. He wanted to get off the pills his parents had him hooked on.”

She played with Backup’s ears, tugging on them gently. The pit bull was wavering between his guard dog duties and falling into an ecstatic lull. Logan stared at her hands. Veronica had always had good technique.

He was so focused on her hands that he forgot they were actually having a conversation. He thought back on what she had just said. “Duncan said he was gone those first few weeks of the summer helping his parents get settled and face the obstruction charges.”

She laughed without humor. “Why would Duncan want to be with the people who drugged him, who put an innocent man on death row, and who destroyed my family because they thought he was capable of murder?” She shook her head. “No, his plan was to get clean, move to the east coast, finish his senior year and then take an early admission to Harvard.”

“Then what made him come back to Neptune?”

“I did.”

Logan stiffened. “He came back for you?”

“He came back because I asked him to. I had first called him in early June but he wasn’t allowed calls then. Once they gave him back his cell phone he got my messages. He called me the last week in June,” she stopped speaking abruptly.

“We were still together in June,” Logan reminded her in a gruff voice.

“Yes, we were. My dad had just gotten home from the hospital and I had to lie to him to cover for everything you were doing. I was working double shifts at the Hut, I was helping you get ready for your final exams, Meg had come to me with her problems, Norris had come to me with his problems and -” she stopped and closed her eyes

“And what?”

She bit her lower lip as she fought for control of her emotions. “I felt like I couldn’t keep things together anymore. Then Duncan called.”

“What happened when Duncan called?”

Veronica looked ashamed. “I went off on him,” she admitted. “I told him everything I felt, everything I’ve wanted to say to him from the day he broke up with me without telling me. How I felt when he just stood idly by, how much he hurt me by turning his back on me and how angry I was with him for leaving me the morning after Shelly’s party.”

Veronica got up and started pacing along the deck, keeping a watchful eye on Backup. She wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, as though trying to contain herself.

“Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop until I told him everything. I told him about you and about Meg and Norris and about how I felt like I was going crazy.” She stopped and looked at Logan. “Do you know what he did?”

Logan went very still. “No.”

“He listened to me,” she stated softly

Her tone was wondrous, as if she couldn’t believe that Duncan would have done that for her. Logan felt jealousy burn through him. That was his amazing appeal? He listened to Veronica? No, that couldn’t be it. Logan listened to Veronica all the time and it hadn’t gotten him squat.

“I spent hours letting out everything I had felt for the past two years,” she continued. “He didn’t try to interrupt me or defend himself. He just listened. When I finished, I was a mess. I was curled up on my bed and I was shaking and crying. And Duncan…”

Logan tensed. “And Duncan what?”

She stared at Backup. “He said not to worry and that he was going to help me. He was back in town two weeks later.” The wondrous tone was still in her voice. “He came to Neptune the day after he was released from the clinic. He only stopped in Napa long enough to finalize the emancipation papers and verify that his parents had transferred money into his name. And then he was here, helping me.”

The jealousy, frustration and fear were cramping up in his belly. Between his multiple arrests, her multiple arrests, the beatings, the kidnapping and Veronica being Veronica, he was amazed he didn’t have a bleeding ulcer yet.

He let out his breath on a deep, calming exhalation. “Helping you with what? What the hell is going on here, Veronica?”

She opened her mouth to respond but her cell phone chirped. She opened it quickly, listened for a moment, thanked the caller and hung up. She closed her eyes and rubbed at the frown lines between her brows.

“That was Norris. He’s on his way back,” She opened her eyes and smiled with relief.

“What about Meg and Grace? Where are they?” Logan asked urgently.

“Leo met them on the other side of the border. He’ll take them down to Mexico City,” she explained.

“What’s in Mexico City?”

“A plane to Cuba.”

“Cuba, huh? Let me guess. Duncan is there, waiting with Meg’s child, who is not Duncan’s child, right?” he supplied sarcastically.

“Yes, along with a battalion of Jake Kane’s Canadian lawyers.” Veronica rolled her eyes. “And, if Celeste has any say it - and you know she will - probably a couple of dozen spin doctors on the ready.”

Patience had never been Logan’s strong suit and what little there was of it was completely gone, along with his goodwill and, possibly, his grip on reality.

“Veronica, this is all bullshit.” He fought to keep his voice low and controlled, to not lash out at her in his frustration. “You’re just giving me bits and pieces here. Tell me what’s going on.”

“It’s a long and complicated story,” she warned.

“I’ve got a news flash for you,” he snapped. “I’m not going anywhere.”

She hesitated so long that he leaned forward aggressively. Backup raised his head and growled a warning. Logan sat back hastily. Finally she sighed.

“Okay,” she said softly. “I should start at the beginning”

“Good place,” he commented sarcastically.

“Do you want the whole story or not?” she bit back, her face flushed with aggravation and annoyance.

Logan’s clamped his mouth shut and nodded.  He needed to know what was going on, he could reign himself in for time required to get everything out of her. Despite what she thought, he wasn’t a complete knee-jerk reactive Neanderthal.

Veronica walked over to her bag. She pulled out a group of picture and came back. She took a photo out of the pile and showed it to Logan.

“Did you know Rhonda Landers? She died in the bus crash.”

He wrinkled his brow as he studied the picture. “I think so. She was in summer school with me.”

Veronica nodded. “Yes, she was there for the same reason you were.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Do you mean her father is also a psychopath who killed her first girlfriend then tried to kill her current one and her father? Or that she was jumped by a gang and had the crap beaten out of her?”

Even as the words spilled out, he was mentally berating himself. So much for staying on his best behavior.

Veronica did not look amused as she put the pictures back in her bag. “I meant that she was in summer school because she missed her final exams. In fact, she missed most of the second semester.”

He nodded. “Okay. What does that have to do with me?”

“It had nothing to do with you. But it had everything to do with Norris. Rhonda was his on-again, off-again girlfriend. She missed most of the second semester because she was pregnant.”

“With Norris’s baby?” Logan clarified.

Veronica nodded. “Yes, but she didn’t tell Norris about it until two months after giving birth. By that time, she had already put the baby up for adoption at the Levi Stinson Sanctuary House. When Norris found out, he was furious. He didn’t want his baby adopted away. He promised Rhonda that he would marry her if she got the baby back.”

“Could she do that?”

She nodded again. “Legally, yes. US law allows a birth mother six months to change her mind after putting her baby up for adoption. So Rhonda went to the Stinson Sanctuary House and demanded her baby back. They tried to put her off or to convince her that the baby was in better home.”

“But legally, she was allowed to get her baby back,” he verified.

“Yes. Norris came to me when Rhonda started to get resistance from Stinson’s. He wanted me to try to find out where his son was and help get him back.” She rubbed hands along her jeans and started pacing again.

He followed her with his eyes. “When was this?”

“It was the beginning of June.”

“Was this when you called Duncan?”

“No, I didn’t call him until after Meg came to me.”

He wrinkled his brow as he tried to follow along. “Meg came to you? Why? I thought she wasn’t talking to you?”

Veronica looked regretful. “That didn’t come until later, when Duncan and I started dating. Back in June, Meg still considered me her friend.” She looked down, deep sadness evident on her face. Then Veronica gathered herself and continued.

“Meg told me that she suspected that she was pregnant. I went with her to get a home pregnancy test and stayed with her while she took it. Once we knew for sure that she was pregnant, she was really upset. She said her parents were going to kill her when they found out.” Veronica looked down. “I asked her then if she had contacted Duncan. That’s when she told me it wasn’t any of Duncan’s business since he wasn’t the baby’s father.”

“Wait,” Logan interrupted. “Meg admitted that Duncan wasn’t the father? She was sure?”

Veronica glared at him. “Unlike you, Logan, most of us only sleep with one person at a time. Since she hadn’t slept with Duncan, she was confident he wasn’t the father.”

He let the barb slide. “Did she tell you who the father was?”

“No,” Veronica denied. “And I didn’t push her. She was under enough stress as it was. Meg was suddenly frantic to leave Neptune. She said she wanted to keep the baby but she had to keep it away from her parents. I pointed out that she was still seventeen, still a minor. If she ran away then, her parents could come after her with the cops. If she waited until September, she’d be eighteen, a legal adult, and they couldn’t come after her.”

Logan shifted, trying to find a comfortable position. It was tough now that his arms had gone numb. He tried to focus on the conversation to distract himself for his discomfort. “How did Meg react when you tried to reason with her?”

Veronica rubbed her forehead tiredly. “She was really upset. She seemed to be afraid of her parents. She wanted me to set her up with a fake passport and help her cross the border illegally. I tried to get her to understand that she didn’t have a lot of money and that she would get better medical care, for herself and her baby, here. I told her we would get things started, some seed money, a place to live, whatever she needed.” Her face pinched with regret. “I told her she just needed to wait until her eighteenth birthday.”

“And that’s when you called Duncan,” Logan verified.

“Yes, that’s when I called Duncan. But he didn’t call back for another three weeks. And I learned a lot of frightening things in the meantime.” Veronica shivered and hugged herself tightly.

“About the father of Meg’s baby?” he probed. “Did you find out who he was?”

She shook her head. “No, it was about the Levi Stinson Sanctuary House. I asked Mac to run down the financials and break into their adoption records. I was trying to find the people who had adopted Norris’s son.”

She sat down again, this time beside him. Backup immediately sprang up. “Down, boy,” she ordered. “Turn around.”

Logan looked at her. “Are you talking to me or the dog?” he questioned.

She smiled briefly then reached out to Backup. “Down, boy,” she repeated and the pit bull reluctantly flopped down in front of her, his gaze fixed firmly on Logan.

She turned to Logan. “Turn around.”

“Why?” he asked as he shifted so that his back was to her - and the potentially killer pit bull.

She rubbed his back and shoulders firmly. His breath hissed out at the pins-and-needles sensation of blood flowing back into his arms. “Not that I object to you manhandling me or anything. But you could just untie me and save yourself the work,” he pointed out.

“No, I can’t.” She continued to poke and prod the blood back into his arms. “I promised my father.”

“You pick a fine time to suddenly start listening to him,” Logan complained.

She stopped massaging. “Logan, this is serious. There are a lot of lives at stake here, including yours. We need to work as a team. I’m not going to do anything to endanger anyone any more than I already have.”

He put his head down as he considered her words. “What did you learn about Stinson house?” he asked gruffly.

She began to rub his fingers between her hands, creating a burning friction. “We found out that the Stinson Sanctuary House was a front for a religious sect called the New Dawn Church. Levi Stinson was a child psychologist who believed that keeping children on a strict regimented schedule was the key to developing an intelligent, disciplined mind.”

She sounded slightly breathless, but whether from exertion or emotion, Logan couldn’t tell.

“The New Dawn Church based their belief system on Stinson’s teachings,” she continued. “But they took it to the extreme. They have strict guidelines for everything, from how much a child is supposed to eat, to how much sleep he’s allowed, which punishment was appropriate for which infractions, and the belief that disobedience was a sign of a weak mind. People who adopted from the Stinson Sanctuary House had to join the church and pledge to raise their adopted children by the church’s teachings.”

Logan winced. “Veronica, if you don’t stop doing that, you’re going to set my hands on fire. My fingers aren’t kindling.”

She stopped immediately. “Sorry,” she apologized. “I just get upset thinking about it.”

He wiggled his burning fingers. “I get that.” He thought about what she had just told him. “Norris must have been freaking when he found out what kind of home his kid went into.”

“Yes, he was.” Veronica shifted to sit beside Backup again. “The more we found out about the church, the most upset he became.”

Logan turned back to face her. “What else was there about the church?”

She sighed heavily. “We found out that that there was no legal record of the adoptions. The mothers gave birth at the center, with church followers as their doctors and nurses. The adoptive parents were listed as the birth parents. Every one of their adoptions was illegal. Then Mac broke into their financial files. We found out that members of the church had to make huge donations to adopt their children.”

“You mean buy their children,” Logan corrected.

She nodded. “And they donated massive sums to the church each year. The question became, what was the church doing with all that money?” She paused to take a deep breath. “We kept following the money trail and it led us to H. Richard Casablancas.”

“Dick and Beaver’s dad?” Logan gasped in amazement.

She nodded solemnly. “Yes. It seemed that the church invested millions into Dick Sr.’s pyramid scheme. In fact, the church was his primary investor, the ones who would walk away with all the money when the pyramid collapsed.”

Logan shook his head in disbelief. “You’re saying that Dick Sr. is a member of the New Dawn Church and that Dick or Beaver are adopted?”

“No,” she denied. “It took me a little time to confirm it but, no, neither Dick nor Cassidy are adopted. Although Dick, Jr. could still possibly be an alien spawn,” she added in disgust.

Logan snorted. Veronica shrugged and resumed speaking.

“But Dick Sr. is not a member of the church. He was just the vehicle the church used to build their wealth.” She looked at him curiously. “Didn’t you think it was odd that I suddenly stopped objected to going over to the Casablancas’s house?”

Logan was taken aback. “No, I didn’t really think about it,” he mumbled.

She sighed. “I hated going there. I couldn’t stand Dick’s smarmy attitude or Kendall’s running around nearly naked all the time. I went with you because I needed to search their house. That’s how Cassidy came into this. He caught me snooping in his father’s office. I either had to tell him what was going on or he would tell his father. If Dick Sr. alerted the church, then they would go underground and Norris might never get his son back.”

“What did Beaver say when you told him?”

She smiled wryly. “Cassidy refused to believe that his father would be involved in anything as crooked as pyramid schemes or illegal adoptions.”

Logan snorted again. “Poor stupid, innocent Beaver.”

“I had to show him some of the proof we had gathered to convince him,” she admitted. “After that, he believed that his dad had set up the real estate fraud but wouldn’t believe that his dad would be part of baby stealing. He would only agree to help me if I could get his dad out of the picture.”

“You didn’t get his dad out of it,” Logan pointed out. “He fled the country when his real estate scam fell apart.”

“We set that up.”

Logan’s eyes widened. “What?”

“Cassidy and I engineered the collapse of Casablancas Enterprises,” she elaborated. “Did you think it was coincidence that the SEC raided his offices only moments before he was about to board his helicopter for a meeting? Do you think he could have escaped them without some preplanning?”

Logan just stared at her, open-mouthed.

She shrugged. “It was easy. Cassidy was the one who suspected Kendall’s involvement in the scam. So we came up with the cover that I was investigating Kendall because Cassidy suspected she was cheating on his dad. Cassidy was actually hoping to prove to his father that Kendall was scamming him.”

She paused and looked sad for a moment. “I think he was hoping that his dad was innocent and Kendall was the one who set up the scam. Unfortunately, she’s not that clever. She was only screwing you.”

Veronica didn’t wait for her barb to sink in before she continued. “But it was still enough. Cassidy went to his father with the evidence and told him that he had hired a private investigator to take the pictures. That was all it took to send Dick Sr. racing for his copter. He knew that any legitimate investigator would see the pictures of Kendall bribing city officials and immediately turn them over to the SEC.”

“Why didn’t Beaver just tell his dad about the illegal adoptions?” Logan asked.

“We were afraid that Dick Sr. wouldn’t believe him and, worse, he might approach the church with the information. And Cassidy wanted his father safely out of harm’s way.”

Logan thought some more. “Why did you confront me about Kendall after Dick Sr. ran? You already knew I was sleeping with her.”

A myriad of emotions crossed Veronica’s face; hurt, betrayal, anger, jealousy, disgust - and pity.

“Because I was angry with you,” she mumbled. “I knew, in my mind, that you were sleeping with Kendall, but in my heart, I didn’t want to believe it. There was a part of me that thought that you wouldn’t do that. That you had some kind of a moral code and that you had loyalty, at least to Dick and Cassidy, if not to me. It wasn’t until I saw the pictures that it really sunk in.”

He could still feel the pain of Veronica’s defection, as raw and as intense as if it only happened yesterday. “I didn’t have to show you any loyalty. You dumped me, remember? You went running back to Duncan,” he pointed out.

She nodded. “Yes. Duncan helped me. He was there for me.”

”Why Duncan? Why did you turn to him for help? Why didn’t you ask me to help you? I would have done anything you asked for.” He tried but failed to keep the anguish out of his plea.

She laughed harshly. “Right. I couldn’t get you to stop trying to tear the city apart, even for your own defense. How could I depend on you for something this sensitive? When were you going to find time to help me between bouts of sabotage and fucking Kendall?”

“I didn’t start up with Kendall until after you threw me out.”

“You had turned into a liability, Logan.” Her eyes frosted over and all signs of vulnerability disappeared. “I couldn’t handle all the pressure. Every time I put out one of your fires you lit another one. You were getting angrier and angrier. I couldn’t give you all the time you wanted, my father needed me to be with him, I was working flat out, I still wasn’t able to sleep-”

This was news to him. “Wait a second, what do you mean you still weren’t able to sleep? When did you start having trouble sleeping?”

She was quiet for a long time.

“Veronica?”

She sighed. “It started a couple of days after Aaron’s arrest. At first, I didn’t notice because I didn’t have time to sleep. Both you and my dad were in the hospital, I was still in school, I was investigating the PCHers, the police were questioning me constantly and I had to find a job.”

She stopped and took a deep breath. She shook her head, her face pinched and tired again. “I was taking care of you when you were released from the hospital, then my dad. I would fall into bed but my mind couldn’t stop. There was too much to think about.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

She looked away. “At first, I didn’t want you to know. You were recovering and I didn’t want to burden you with my problems.” The she looked back at him with harsh condemnation. “But as you recovered, revenge turned into the only thing you cared about.”

“It wasn’t the only thing I cared about,” he protested hotly. “I cared about you. I told you I loved you.”

“You had a really funny way of showing it,” she shot back. “I did everything for you, Logan, and you didn’t do a damn thing for me.”

“That is not true,” he snarled. “I did everything for you.”

He leaned forward and Backup sprang to his feet. Veronica hastily grabbed Backup’s collar. She pushed the pit bull down and leaned on him. It wasn’t until the dog calmed that she looked at Logan again.

“Don’t Logan,” she protested tiredly. “You used me as your excuse for the shit you pulled. You would have done it even if we weren’t together. No,” she concluded sadly, “I’d given up on you by then.”

“When?” he growled.

“When what?”

“When did you give up on me?” he clarified. “What was the day you finally decided that I was unredeemable? Was it the day you broke up with me or was it the day you finally agreed to date Duncan?”

“It was the day of the bus crash,” She glared at him, disgust tightening her features.

Bus crash? That didn’t make sense. “What? You’d been dating Duncan for over a month then.”

She looked away. “Yes, but there was still that part of me that…cared about you. But after the crash, there was Duncan, sobbing and holding me, devastated that I had almost died.” She turned back to glare at him. “And there was you, who couldn’t get off his fuck buddy long enough to leave a message on my cell phone.”

It was his turn to look away. “I didn’t think you wanted to talk to me,” he muttered.

“I didn’t, not after that. Before that day, I was so careful not to say anything or do anything to hurt you. After that, I -“

He looked up. “You what?”

“I hated you,” she admitted. “I hated that you didn’t care that I lived or died. I had given you so much and I didn’t mean a damn thing to you.” Her eyes filled with angry tears.

“That’s not true,” he denied. “You were everything to me. But I was hurting. You had turned your back on me.”

Veronica looked sad and weary. “I never turned my back on you. I only stopped being a part of your self-destruction.”

Section 2