Chapter 20: Deus Ex Matre
Title: All Fall Down
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan, Keith
Rating: PG-13 to R
Words: 152,222
Summary: In Neptune, the brighter the summer sun, the deeper the shadows.
Spoilers / Warnings: Seasons 1 and 2 / Language and adult situations
Chapter 20: Deus Ex Matre
Author: mutinousmuse and rachel_shanz
Additional Characters: Don Lamb, Lianne Mars, Agent Morris
Rating: R
Words: 5,231
Author’s Note: All Fall Down is a collaborative effort by 20 writers. You can learn more about this project here. Huge thanks to truemyth, sarah_p and ladyanne04 for the beta job!
X-posted to fic_from_mars and veronicamarsfic.
All Fall Down
Chapter 20
Deus Ex Matre
In a cheap motel room somewhere outside Los Angeles, a woman lay curled on top of a thin mattress, a brand new bottle of vodka held loosely in one hand. The television was on, but muted, sending the occasional splash of color washing over her grimy blonde hair and too-pale skin.
She took a long drink from the bottle, closing her eyes in clear relief as the liquid burned its way down her throat. The phone beside the bed rang with a loud trilling sound and the woman flinched, visibly startled.
She stared at the phone in surprise through two more rings before finally lifting it and bringing it gingerly to her ear. “Hello?”
The voice that came through the receiver was crisp and clear, and the woman sat up quickly, suddenly alert. “How did you get this number?”
The other person began to speak rapidly, outlining a plan. The woman interrupted in protest at first, but soon fell silent, listening in quiet resignation.
“Yes, I’ll help you,” she finally said, tightening her grip on the bottle so her hands would stop shaking. “Just tell me where to be.”
A few concise instructions, and then the woman on the other end said, “We look forward to working with you, Mrs. Mars,” and hung up the phone with a sharp click.
Lianne set the bottle down and reluctantly began to gather her belongings. She was going back to Neptune.
Keith stood up from where he’d spent the last two hours crouched on the floor. Various joints cracked and popped as he stretched; yet another sign that time was passing far more rapidly than he’d like. His eyes caught again on the morning paper. The headline declared that another girl had gone missing, a painful reminder that time was the one thing he didn’t have to spare.
Veronica stood as well, right hand massaging her left shoulder as she rolled the cricks out of her neck.
At their feet lay a myriad of newspaper clippings, photographs, file folders and various sundry pieces of evidence - anything and everything either Mars detective had gathered that had even the remotest possible connection to the missing girls or Keith’s shooting.
“I still can’t believe Tallulah Godfrey has been behind these kidnappings all along,” Veronica said. “She was my friend.”
“No,” Keith said, and reached out to squeeze Veronica’s shoulder. “She wasn’t.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Surprise, surprise.”
“Veronica,” Keith said, voice sharper than he intended it. “It’s not your fault. The woman’s made a career out of lying and swindling for the past 20 years. There’s no way you could have known.”
“Logan never liked her,” Veronica admitted. “Maybe if I’d listened to him -”
“Logan never likes anyone.” Keith’s eyes scanned over the scattered papers on the floor, and he sighed. Eyes narrowing, he shook his head. “And it still doesn’t all fit.”
“Well, we know that Tallulah - Dina has to be behind the kidnappings. And we know she’s been selling pictures to the upstanding Neptune locals. ”
Keith nodded. “And probably not just in Neptune. She’s out of town more often than in. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just one of several points of operation.”
“It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a pornography ring,” Veronica said. “And where is she taking the girls? She’s been doing this for 20 years, and they don’t stay young forever.
Keith shuddered. “What I don’t understand is why Frank just… let her walk. I knew him, Veronica. He was a good man.”
Veronica leaned against her father’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know.”
They both stood in silence for several minutes, each of their thoughts weaving in and out of the hideous story painted by the scraps of paper on the floor. Veronica finally spoke.
“Dad… if Frank let her go all those years ago, why kill him now? And why come after you?”
Keith shook his head. “That’s what doesn’t fit.”
Veronica nudged the file labeled “Lianne” with her foot. The financial records Keith had found at the site of Frank’s murder spilled out. “You don’t - you don’t think it has something to do with Mom, do you? She wouldn’t…”
Keith’s eyes squeezed shut. “Honestly, Veronica? I don’t know.” His arm dropped from her shoulder, and he turned away.
“Dad?”
Keith turned.
“Loathe as I am to say this… I think we need to go see Lamb.”
“Well, if it isn’t Nancy Shrew and the Hardly Boy.”
“Aw, you’ve been practicing,” Veronica grinned. She came through the door into Lamb’s office, her father close on her heels.
“Sheriff.” Keith nodded as though Lamb hadn’t said a word. “We need to have a word with you.”
“Gosh, Keith, I’d love to, but I’m a little busy at the moment. I’m sure my secretary would be happy to give you a job application. ”
“Now, Lamb.” Keith sat down in a chair across from him, and Veronica moved to sit in the one beside her father. “It’s about the kidnapped girls. Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to tell you who to arrest, and you’re going to do it.”
“I already told your daughter, Mr. Mars. We’re handling it. Now if you’d be so kind as to remove yourself from my office? I just had it sprayed earlier this week.”
“Dammit, Lamb!” Keith’s hand slammed down on the desk, startling both his daughter and the Sheriff. “This isn’t some kind of joke. There are little girls being kidnapped, molested, killed! We’re handing you the killer on a goddamn platter!”
Keith shoved a manila folder across the desk at Lamb, who leaned forward and shoved it right back. Keith shot up out of his chair; Veronica rose and grabbed his arm.
“Dad. It’s fine. If he won’t take care of it, we will.”
“No, actually, you won’t.” Lamb stood and walked to stand next to the door. “I am hereby ordering both of you to stay the hell away from this case, this office, and anything even remotely connected to either, or so help me god I will lock you both up for obstruction of justice until this is done.”
Keith wrenched his arm away from Veronica and took three angry steps towards Lamb, halting only when the tips of their noses were millimeters apart.
“So,” Lamb drawled. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
“Their blood is on your hands now, Don,” Keith hissed. And then he was moving down the hall, leaving Veronica to follow.
“He always did have such a delightful flair for the dramatic,” Lamb said, as she gathered her father’s folder from his desk. “But I mean it, Veronica. Stay away from this case or there will be consequences.”
She stalked past him without a word, vanishing down the hallway.
“You do have such colorful characters in this town,” a woman’s voice spoke from behind the door. “I can see now where Ms. Mars gets her… oh, which would you call that, vim or vigor?”
Lamb swiveled to face the FBI agent. “Keep laughing, Special Agent.” He dropped back into his chair with a sneer. “But if I recall correctly, the vimful Ms. Mars led you on quite the merry chase last time you and your people were in town.”
Agent Morris sat on the corner of his desk and leaned towards him, eyes narrowing. “I have the utmost confidence in your ability to prevent any similar problems from occurring this time. My confidence isn’t misplaced, is it Sheriff?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Veronica Mars has no idea you’re even in town. But then, I’m not the one who called her mother.”
The woman sighed. “Let’s see if the woman even manages to get herself here in one piece before we start worrying about whether she’ll spill.” She glanced up. “I could use a cup of coffee, Sheriff.”
Lamb’s teeth clenched together, but his lips pulled back from them into the shape of a smile. “One lump or two, Agent?”
“What now?” Veronica asked in frustration, flopping down in the armchair in their living room as Keith closed the front door behind him.
“We’ll figure something out, honey,” Keith said, sounding not at all sure that they would. “I need to go to the office and make a few calls. I need to talk to some people up in Fresno. There might be something I missed.”
“I should go see Logan; he’ll want to know what’s going on.” Veronica sighed and pushed herself up out of the chair. “Meet you later for a stakeout at Tallulah’s? Chock full of fun and intrigue?”
“You got it. I’ll call you when I’m ready.” Keith dropped a kiss to her forehead and picked up his briefcase before walking out the front door.
Veronica watched him go, then dug her keys out of her purse and followed him.
Logan blinked in disbelief. “So Tallulah Godfrey… is Dina Clark… is kidnapper extraordinaire?”
Veronica blew out a stream of air in mild frustration. “For the third time, yes.”
“You know what this means, right?”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “That you were right and I was wrong?”
Logan gave a distracted half-grin and said, “Well, that too, but I was thinking more about my…” He trailed off, smile dropping, and then finished. “About Aaron.”
Veronica’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.
“Think about it,” Logan continued. “This woman - Dina, Tallulah, whatever - has obviously made her fortune selling highly specialized kiddie porn to the Neptune elite. And I’m supposed to think she and my Dad were just, what, golfing buddies?”
“God, Logan.” Veronica scooted across the couch to sit even closer to him. “We don’t know that. There are a thousand ways he could have known her.”
“Oh, of that I’ve no doubt,” he said bitterly, and Veronica wrapped her fingers through his. “But come on, Veronica. This sort of thing was right up his alley.”
An unspoken name lingered in the air between them, and Logan pulled his hand from Veronica’s to yank at his long sleeves. At a rare loss for words, Veronica did the only thing she could think to do, and leaned in to kiss him. For a moment he didn’t respond, and a wave of panic began to swell inside of her. Just as she was about to pull away in embarrassment, Logan suddenly grabbed her waist and pinned her back onto the couch with a ferocious sort of desperation.
It was all Veronica could do to keep up as Logan moved against her. Clothing vanished amidst an almost angry series of yanks and pulls, and soon only a single strategically placed layer of cotton separated the two of them. Lips roved over lips, and hands moved frantically against skin as their bodies melded together. Finally, Logan’s fingers crept up to slide away the last vestiges of material between them, and Veronica lifted her hips in eager assistance.
Once the offending garment had been banished to some far corner, Logan crawled back up to look Veronica in the eye.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
Unblinking, she returned his stare and answered with a simple, “God, yes.”
Without another word, Logan got up and walked away.
Veronica’s eyes widened, and she stood uncertainly from the couch. “Logan… where are you going?”
He looked back over his shoulder, and she couldn’t help but admire the view he presented from behind. “The bedroom,” he said, as though it should have been obvious. “Coming?”
Her face broke into a rather catlike grin. “Of course,” she replied. And she did.
An hour later, Veronica collapsed onto her side with a long sigh of contentment. “We should do that more often.”
Logan laughed. He trailed a finger across Veronica’s cheekbone but remained uncharacteristically silent. She leaned into his touch and raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. A serious expression crept across his features as he looked down at her, and his hand moved upward to entwine itself into her hair.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“Veronica…”
She never found out what he was going to say, as the mood was shattered by a cell phone springing to life on the bedside table. Her right hand fumbled across the surface of the wood and she grabbed her phone, snapping it open and gasping what she hoped was a normal sounding “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.
“Veronica?”
“Hi Dad,” she said, shooting for chipper but landing a bit closer to just-been-fucked. She sat up in the bed, smoothing her hair as though he could see her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Logan and I just came back from a stroll. What’s up?”
Beside her, Logan feigned offense, mouthing “A stroll?” She smirked and batted at his hands as he attempted to run one of them up her now-bare leg.
“I’m heading over to Dina Clark’s place,” he said, and then paused. His next sentence surprised her. “Why don’t you bring Logan along, just in case.”
“Sure, Dad,” she replied. “We’ll see you there.” Grinning, she hung up the phone. “If you play your cards right tonight, my dad might even teach you the secret handshake.”
“Why’s that?” Logan asked, crawling atop of his naked girlfriend and pressing a kiss against her shoulder.
“Because,” she said, reluctantly shoving at him. “You’ve just been invited to tag along on our stakeout.”
“The stakeout?” he asked, and she nodded. Logan looked impressed.
“Which means less naked, more … not naked.” She crawled out of the bed and trundled into the living room to look for her clothes.
Logan sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the sheets, still completely nude. “Fetch me my shoes, wench!” The shoes in question came flying at him from through the door, and Logan curled up into a ball to avoid a tragedy.
Demonstrating what Veronica believed to be great restraint, he refrained from attempting to smack her ass for the entire ten minutes it took them to get dressed and walk out to the car. Sadly, she could not claim the same restraint.
The afterglow began to diminish, however, once they were on their way. Face after youthful face flashed before her eyes as Veronica’s thoughts turned from her own recent bout of debauchery to the kidnapping victims whose tragic disappearances had haunted her over the past several months.
Logan, noting the change, placed a hand on her knee and squeezed. “Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded slowly. “I’ve been ready for this for a long time.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
Veronica opened the passenger side door of Keith’s car and slipped in as Logan slid into the seat behind her. “What’d we miss?”
Keith nodded in the direction of a van parked halfway down the street. “The feds beat us.”
“Damn,” Veronica swore under her breath. “How long have they been here?”
“Long enough to throw a roof party,” Keith said. Veronica followed the slant of his pointing finger to look at the gathering of people on top of Talluah’s - no, Veronica corrected herself - Dina Clark’s modern-styled mansion. From the street below, it looked like a standoff was underway. The sound of a helicopter in the distance caught her attention, and she scanned the street again.
“No black and whites?” Veronica asked, surprised.
“Not so far,” Keith said. “Just the one undercover vehicle. Looks like more of a sting than a stakeout.”
“Then why the helicopter?” she queried.
“I don’t know,” he responded, voice sounding puzzled.
“We’re just going to sit here?” Logan demanded from the backseat. “We should do something!”
Veronica winced, expecting her father to lash out at Logan, but Keith just shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do. For all we know, they’re signing peace treaties up there.”
Just then, two gunshots rang out from the roof, shattering the silence of the neighborhood.
“Ah, fickle diplomacy,” Logan observed, earning an I-can’t-take-you-anywhere look from Veronica.
“Now we do something,” Keith said, grabbing his gun from its resting place atop the center console and jumping from the car. “Keep behind me,” he yelled as he pounded across the street. Veronica scrambled to follow, Logan hot on her heels as the three of them raced toward Dina Clark’s driveway.
Inside the kidnapper’s house, all of the lights were blazing. Logan and Keith took the stairs two at a time, leaving Veronica to curse her shorter legs as she hurried after them. They finally burst through a door at the top of the stairs and onto the roof, mostly unnoticed by the mixture of federal agents and local officers already there. The helicopter was now hovering in the air high above them, carefully descending to the roof - and judging from the reactions of the officers, it wasn’t one of theirs. Several of them had guns aimed at the helicopter, although none had opened fire. The blades were stirring up enough wind and sound that it took Veronica a second to orient herself and get a good look at what was going on.
Most of the other officers had their guns trained on a small group of people in the center of the roof. Veronica could see a tall man clutching a little girl to his chest - shielding himself with her small body. Beside him, a woman Veronica didn’t recognize was talking urgently into a cell phone.
Veronica felt Keith stiffen beside her and, when she turned to him, saw he was staring at something just to the right of the man holding the little girl. Veronica edged over, craning her neck to see around the agents, and what she saw made her blood run cold.
Tallulah was standing in the middle of the roof. She had a gun in one hand, aimed at the police in front of her, and her other arm was wrapped around Veronica’s mother, holding Lianne in front of her.
“Mom!” Veronica shrieked before she could think, causing half the people on the roof to turn and look at her.
“Get her out of here,” Keith growled. The next thing Veronica felt were Logan’s arms wrapping around her and dragging her back to the relative safety of the doorway. She went without protest, too numb to do anything but stare in horror as her father shoved his way to the front of the line of agents and officers, and found himself standing next to none other than Don Lamb.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Sheriff yelled over the rapidly mounting noise from the helicopter. “Get back!”
Keith aimed his gun at Tallulah. “She has my wife, Lamb.”
“Your wife has some pretty fucked up friends,” Lamb sneered. “And besides. I thought she wasn’t your wife anymore.” Nonetheless, he shook his head at the deputies who had moved up behind Keith, ready to drag him away.
A rope ladder suddenly clattered down from the sky. Veronica looked up at the helicopter, where the man who had released the ladder now held a rather large gun pointed at the crowd on the roof. The woman Veronica wit h the cell phone was the first to climb aboard, immediately followed by the man holding the girl. He shoved her above him and barked at her to climb. Tears streaming down her face, she began to clamber up the rungs. Shouts of “Hold your fire!” rang out across the roof, accompanied by a bout of creative-sounding cursing from Lamb. Tallulah was the last to go, keeping an arm clenched tightly around Lianne’s throat as she placed a foot on the bottom rung and wrapped the rope tightly around her free arm. Just as the helicopter began to rise, Tallulah let go of Lianne, letting her drop the five feet to the concrete below.
Keith rushed forward and dropped to his knees beside Lianne. Everyone else watched helplessly as the helicopter and its passengers disappeared into the night.
As the sound of the helicopter faded, Agent Morris let out a distinctively unladylike roar and grabbed Lamb by the front of his shirt.
“You are the single most incompetent piece of horse shit I have ever had the distinct displeasure of interacting with!”
“I didn’t -”
“If you so much as say one more word to me I will rip your slippery tongue out of your oversized head.” With that Agent Morris let go of his shirt and wiped her hand against her pants with evident distaste. “The services of your department will no longer be required, Sheriff. The FBI will handle this from here.”
As she strode away, Lamb turned slowly to level a glare at Keith, who was still clutching a distraught Lianne. “This is your fault,” he hissed, voice shaking. “You and your despicable offspring.”
“Go to hell, Lamb” Keith responded. He sounded more tired than anything as he helped Lianne climb to her feet and then stepped back and away from her.
“Do you understand what you just cost me?” Lamb choked out. “I had the opportunity to help bring down a killer the FBI has been tracking for years. I should have known bringing in any Mars was a mistake.” His glare shifted to Lianne, and Keith rolled his eyes.
“Oh, don’t start sharing credit now, Lamb. You’ve spent the past two terms honing incompetence into an art form all by yourself.”
Lamb’s response was cut off by the noisy arrival of Veronica, trailed by Logan.
“Mom?” She grabbed the shaking woman and squeezed her tightly. “Are you okay?”
Slowly Lianne’s arms came up to wrap around her daughter. She murmured something vaguely reassuring and began to gently stroke her daughter’s hair. Keith stared at the two of them for a moment and then turned away. Veronica looked up, confused, and then pulled away from her mother. Suddenly her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Lamb.
“Did you say the FBI has known for years that Dina Clark was alive?”
Lamb blinked back at her in confusion. “Who’s Dina Clark?”
Veronica barked out a laugh. Her shoulders began to shake, and she doubled over, airless, bitter guffaws wracking her frame.
“Veronica,” Logan said, placing a hand on her back.
She straightened, eyes bright, and leveled her gaze at Lamb. “You really are useless.”
“Come on Veronica,” Keith said, staring in the direction that the helicopter had flown. “We have work to do.”
The Mars family, such as it was, and Logan retreated into the house, leaving Lamb to alone to contemplate yet another grand failure.
When they reached the street out front, Lianne hovered uncertainly on the edge of the group. “I, um, came here with the FBI. My car is the sheriff’s station.”
“I’ll call you a cab from our place,” Keith said shortly, unlocking his car.
“Thank you,” she said, climbing into back seat.
“Veronica?” Keith said, motioning for her to join them.
“Just a minute, Dad.”
He nodded, and got into the car. Veronica turned and took Logan’s hand. He pulled her against him, arms wrapping around her like a vice. Neither spoke. Veronica’s hands knotted into the material of Logan’s jacket; his clutched against the skin of her hips where it peeked out from between her shirt and her jeans.
After a lengthy embrace Veronica finally pulled away, arms reluctantly returning to her sides. “Logan, I just -”
“I love you.” The words shot of his mouth like bullets, and her eyes widened in disbelief.
“What did you just say?”
He stared back at her, mute, and then opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound her mouth smashed into his, swallowing whatever sentiment was about to spill out of his lips. The kiss was short and frenzied, teeth scraping at soft skin, tongues shooting out and back again.
A voice caught between distaste and bemusement halted them, and Veronica turned bright red. “I’m right here,” Keith called, leaning over to yell at them out the passenger window.
“Um, me too.” Lianne blinked at them through the backseat window.
“Oh god,” Veronica said. “I have to go.”
Logan reached forward to brush a lock of stray hair away from her cheek. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you,” she continued, voice high-pitched and breathless.
“Okay,” he repeated, seemingly having lost the ability to form any other syllables.
She darted forward to press another kiss against his lips before vanishing into her father’s car.
Logan grinned as their taillights faded into the distance, twirling his keys around his index finger as he walked towards the XTerra. The flashing red lights of the squad cars illuminated his smiling face as he drove away.
Keith flew out of the car as though his seat were on fire as soon as he’d jerked it into park. Veronica blinked in surprise and climbed out after him, while Lianne slowly unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Dad?” she called.
“I’ll be inside, Veronica.” The sound of a car door slamming caught her attention, and by the time she turned back around, he’d disappeared into the depths of the apartment complex.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” Lianne said. “I don’t think I blame him.”
Veronica fingered the zipper of her jacket distractedly, refusing to meet her mother’s eyes. “What were you doing there tonight?” she finally asked.
“I was part of the sting,” Lianne responded. “The FBI called to ask if I’d help them get Dina Clark to meet with them. They said… they said they knew I’d been involved in money laundering, and said your father could be arrested if I didn’t help them.”
“What?” Veronica looked up, shocked. “How could they arrest Dad? He didn’t do anything! You did this. And I don’t even know what this is.”
“Back in March, your father’s old partner, Frank Romano, called me to ask for a favor,” she responded. “He said he needed a place to stash some money, but that it couldn’t be in his name. He said it would only be for a few weeks, and that he’d give me a ten percent cut if I agreed.”
“And you didn’t even ask where the money was from?” Veronica asked, incredulous.
“You don’t understand,” Lianne whispered. “I needed the money so badly, and Frank was always such a friend to your father. I knew he had a gambling problem… I figured he probably owed some people some money.” She looked up, face painted with anguish. “You have to know, Veronica, that if I’d had any idea he was taking bribe money from a killer, I never would have done it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Bitterness laced Veronica words, and she blinked back the moisture that was gathering behind her eyelids. “The fact that my mother accidentally aided and abetted a man who was pocketing money from a child-molesting murderer is supposed to make it all better? Mom, she was paying him off for a reason!”
“Veronica, I’m so sorry,” Lianne cried, reaching forward for her daughter. “That’s why I was there tonight. I was trying to fix it!”
Veronica backed away, hands held out in front of her as if to ward off a foul spirit. “Why?” she said. “Why did you have to put it in Dad’s name? Did you know he was shot, nearly killed, because Dina Clark thought he was in on it? Don’t you care about us at all?”
“It was the only way,” Lianne said, voice desperate. “It was the only account I still had access to. All of my other accounts have been closed out. Veronica, I had no idea this would happen!”
“Well, you should have,” Veronica snapped. “Everything you touch is ruined. You should have known this would be too.” The tears she’d been containing spilled out onto her cheeks, and she turned to follow her father.
“Not everything,” Lianne called after her, voice also thick with tears. “Not you.”
Veronica halted in her tracks and turned back. She stared back at her mother, committing to memory the shape of the woman who’d created her, loved her, held her when she’d fallen. “Don’t come back here,” she said, voice trembling. “Don’t contact me. Don’t contact Dad. Don’t come back to Neptune. From here on out, I don’t have a mother.” Her voice cracked on the final word, and she spun and ran.
A horn honked from the street. “Lianne Mars?” a voice called. Lianne turned to see a taxi slow to a halt.
“That’s me,” she said, and slowly opened the door.
“Where to?” the driver asked, adjusting the rearview mirror.
She paused, eyes lingering on the apartment building her daughter called home. “Anywhere but here.”
Veronica entered the apartment to find Keith slouched in the armchair, his elbows on his knees and both hands over his face.
“Dad?” She touched his shoulder lightly and he flinched before looking up at her through suspiciously bright eyes. “Are you okay?”
He gave her a thin smile and covered her hand with his. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”
“What are we going to do now?” Veronica asked, feeling every inch the lost little girl that she knew she sounded like.
Keith sighed and looked down at the coffee table, where all their folders of evidence were stacked. “I don’t know, Veronica. I just don’t know.”
Veronica fought down a rising wave of panic. “She can’t get away with it.”
“You should go to bed,” Keith said. “Get some rest. There’s nothing else we can do tonight.”
With a reluctant nod, Veronica leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “See you in the morning.”
Keith sat up for a long time that night, flipping through folders until he had the evidence memorized. The pattern was clear, now. Now that yet another child had been taken off to god-knows-where to be subjected to tortures Keith refused to imagine. And it was his fault. Had he pressed Frank harder, had he dug a little deeper twenty years earlier, had he not fallen for the easy lies, that little girl would still be at home with her parents.
With a surreptitious glance at Veronica’s closed door, Keith quietly stood, fished his car keys out of his jacket pocket, and silently slipped out into the night.
To Be Continued
Click here for Chapter 19.
Click here for all previous chapters.
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan, Keith
Rating: PG-13 to R
Words: 152,222
Summary: In Neptune, the brighter the summer sun, the deeper the shadows.
Spoilers / Warnings: Seasons 1 and 2 / Language and adult situations
Chapter 20: Deus Ex Matre
Author: mutinousmuse and rachel_shanz
Additional Characters: Don Lamb, Lianne Mars, Agent Morris
Rating: R
Words: 5,231
Author’s Note: All Fall Down is a collaborative effort by 20 writers. You can learn more about this project here. Huge thanks to truemyth, sarah_p and ladyanne04 for the beta job!
X-posted to fic_from_mars and veronicamarsfic.
All Fall Down
Chapter 20
Deus Ex Matre
In a cheap motel room somewhere outside Los Angeles, a woman lay curled on top of a thin mattress, a brand new bottle of vodka held loosely in one hand. The television was on, but muted, sending the occasional splash of color washing over her grimy blonde hair and too-pale skin.
She took a long drink from the bottle, closing her eyes in clear relief as the liquid burned its way down her throat. The phone beside the bed rang with a loud trilling sound and the woman flinched, visibly startled.
She stared at the phone in surprise through two more rings before finally lifting it and bringing it gingerly to her ear. “Hello?”
The voice that came through the receiver was crisp and clear, and the woman sat up quickly, suddenly alert. “How did you get this number?”
The other person began to speak rapidly, outlining a plan. The woman interrupted in protest at first, but soon fell silent, listening in quiet resignation.
“Yes, I’ll help you,” she finally said, tightening her grip on the bottle so her hands would stop shaking. “Just tell me where to be.”
A few concise instructions, and then the woman on the other end said, “We look forward to working with you, Mrs. Mars,” and hung up the phone with a sharp click.
Lianne set the bottle down and reluctantly began to gather her belongings. She was going back to Neptune.
Keith stood up from where he’d spent the last two hours crouched on the floor. Various joints cracked and popped as he stretched; yet another sign that time was passing far more rapidly than he’d like. His eyes caught again on the morning paper. The headline declared that another girl had gone missing, a painful reminder that time was the one thing he didn’t have to spare.
Veronica stood as well, right hand massaging her left shoulder as she rolled the cricks out of her neck.
At their feet lay a myriad of newspaper clippings, photographs, file folders and various sundry pieces of evidence - anything and everything either Mars detective had gathered that had even the remotest possible connection to the missing girls or Keith’s shooting.
“I still can’t believe Tallulah Godfrey has been behind these kidnappings all along,” Veronica said. “She was my friend.”
“No,” Keith said, and reached out to squeeze Veronica’s shoulder. “She wasn’t.”
“Yeah,” she muttered. “Surprise, surprise.”
“Veronica,” Keith said, voice sharper than he intended it. “It’s not your fault. The woman’s made a career out of lying and swindling for the past 20 years. There’s no way you could have known.”
“Logan never liked her,” Veronica admitted. “Maybe if I’d listened to him -”
“Logan never likes anyone.” Keith’s eyes scanned over the scattered papers on the floor, and he sighed. Eyes narrowing, he shook his head. “And it still doesn’t all fit.”
“Well, we know that Tallulah - Dina has to be behind the kidnappings. And we know she’s been selling pictures to the upstanding Neptune locals. ”
Keith nodded. “And probably not just in Neptune. She’s out of town more often than in. I wouldn’t be surprised if this is just one of several points of operation.”
“It seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to for a pornography ring,” Veronica said. “And where is she taking the girls? She’s been doing this for 20 years, and they don’t stay young forever.
Keith shuddered. “What I don’t understand is why Frank just… let her walk. I knew him, Veronica. He was a good man.”
Veronica leaned against her father’s shoulder, and he wrapped his arm around her. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I know.”
They both stood in silence for several minutes, each of their thoughts weaving in and out of the hideous story painted by the scraps of paper on the floor. Veronica finally spoke.
“Dad… if Frank let her go all those years ago, why kill him now? And why come after you?”
Keith shook his head. “That’s what doesn’t fit.”
Veronica nudged the file labeled “Lianne” with her foot. The financial records Keith had found at the site of Frank’s murder spilled out. “You don’t - you don’t think it has something to do with Mom, do you? She wouldn’t…”
Keith’s eyes squeezed shut. “Honestly, Veronica? I don’t know.” His arm dropped from her shoulder, and he turned away.
“Dad?”
Keith turned.
“Loathe as I am to say this… I think we need to go see Lamb.”
“Well, if it isn’t Nancy Shrew and the Hardly Boy.”
“Aw, you’ve been practicing,” Veronica grinned. She came through the door into Lamb’s office, her father close on her heels.
“Sheriff.” Keith nodded as though Lamb hadn’t said a word. “We need to have a word with you.”
“Gosh, Keith, I’d love to, but I’m a little busy at the moment. I’m sure my secretary would be happy to give you a job application. ”
“Now, Lamb.” Keith sat down in a chair across from him, and Veronica moved to sit in the one beside her father. “It’s about the kidnapped girls. Here’s how this is going to work. I’m going to tell you who to arrest, and you’re going to do it.”
“I already told your daughter, Mr. Mars. We’re handling it. Now if you’d be so kind as to remove yourself from my office? I just had it sprayed earlier this week.”
“Dammit, Lamb!” Keith’s hand slammed down on the desk, startling both his daughter and the Sheriff. “This isn’t some kind of joke. There are little girls being kidnapped, molested, killed! We’re handing you the killer on a goddamn platter!”
Keith shoved a manila folder across the desk at Lamb, who leaned forward and shoved it right back. Keith shot up out of his chair; Veronica rose and grabbed his arm.
“Dad. It’s fine. If he won’t take care of it, we will.”
“No, actually, you won’t.” Lamb stood and walked to stand next to the door. “I am hereby ordering both of you to stay the hell away from this case, this office, and anything even remotely connected to either, or so help me god I will lock you both up for obstruction of justice until this is done.”
Keith wrenched his arm away from Veronica and took three angry steps towards Lamb, halting only when the tips of their noses were millimeters apart.
“So,” Lamb drawled. “Are you going to kiss me or not?”
“Their blood is on your hands now, Don,” Keith hissed. And then he was moving down the hall, leaving Veronica to follow.
“He always did have such a delightful flair for the dramatic,” Lamb said, as she gathered her father’s folder from his desk. “But I mean it, Veronica. Stay away from this case or there will be consequences.”
She stalked past him without a word, vanishing down the hallway.
“You do have such colorful characters in this town,” a woman’s voice spoke from behind the door. “I can see now where Ms. Mars gets her… oh, which would you call that, vim or vigor?”
Lamb swiveled to face the FBI agent. “Keep laughing, Special Agent.” He dropped back into his chair with a sneer. “But if I recall correctly, the vimful Ms. Mars led you on quite the merry chase last time you and your people were in town.”
Agent Morris sat on the corner of his desk and leaned towards him, eyes narrowing. “I have the utmost confidence in your ability to prevent any similar problems from occurring this time. My confidence isn’t misplaced, is it Sheriff?”
“Of course not,” he said. “Veronica Mars has no idea you’re even in town. But then, I’m not the one who called her mother.”
The woman sighed. “Let’s see if the woman even manages to get herself here in one piece before we start worrying about whether she’ll spill.” She glanced up. “I could use a cup of coffee, Sheriff.”
Lamb’s teeth clenched together, but his lips pulled back from them into the shape of a smile. “One lump or two, Agent?”
“What now?” Veronica asked in frustration, flopping down in the armchair in their living room as Keith closed the front door behind him.
“We’ll figure something out, honey,” Keith said, sounding not at all sure that they would. “I need to go to the office and make a few calls. I need to talk to some people up in Fresno. There might be something I missed.”
“I should go see Logan; he’ll want to know what’s going on.” Veronica sighed and pushed herself up out of the chair. “Meet you later for a stakeout at Tallulah’s? Chock full of fun and intrigue?”
“You got it. I’ll call you when I’m ready.” Keith dropped a kiss to her forehead and picked up his briefcase before walking out the front door.
Veronica watched him go, then dug her keys out of her purse and followed him.
Logan blinked in disbelief. “So Tallulah Godfrey… is Dina Clark… is kidnapper extraordinaire?”
Veronica blew out a stream of air in mild frustration. “For the third time, yes.”
“You know what this means, right?”
Veronica rolled her eyes. “That you were right and I was wrong?”
Logan gave a distracted half-grin and said, “Well, that too, but I was thinking more about my…” He trailed off, smile dropping, and then finished. “About Aaron.”
Veronica’s eyebrows drew together in puzzlement.
“Think about it,” Logan continued. “This woman - Dina, Tallulah, whatever - has obviously made her fortune selling highly specialized kiddie porn to the Neptune elite. And I’m supposed to think she and my Dad were just, what, golfing buddies?”
“God, Logan.” Veronica scooted across the couch to sit even closer to him. “We don’t know that. There are a thousand ways he could have known her.”
“Oh, of that I’ve no doubt,” he said bitterly, and Veronica wrapped her fingers through his. “But come on, Veronica. This sort of thing was right up his alley.”
An unspoken name lingered in the air between them, and Logan pulled his hand from Veronica’s to yank at his long sleeves. At a rare loss for words, Veronica did the only thing she could think to do, and leaned in to kiss him. For a moment he didn’t respond, and a wave of panic began to swell inside of her. Just as she was about to pull away in embarrassment, Logan suddenly grabbed her waist and pinned her back onto the couch with a ferocious sort of desperation.
It was all Veronica could do to keep up as Logan moved against her. Clothing vanished amidst an almost angry series of yanks and pulls, and soon only a single strategically placed layer of cotton separated the two of them. Lips roved over lips, and hands moved frantically against skin as their bodies melded together. Finally, Logan’s fingers crept up to slide away the last vestiges of material between them, and Veronica lifted her hips in eager assistance.
Once the offending garment had been banished to some far corner, Logan crawled back up to look Veronica in the eye.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.
Unblinking, she returned his stare and answered with a simple, “God, yes.”
Without another word, Logan got up and walked away.
Veronica’s eyes widened, and she stood uncertainly from the couch. “Logan… where are you going?”
He looked back over his shoulder, and she couldn’t help but admire the view he presented from behind. “The bedroom,” he said, as though it should have been obvious. “Coming?”
Her face broke into a rather catlike grin. “Of course,” she replied. And she did.
An hour later, Veronica collapsed onto her side with a long sigh of contentment. “We should do that more often.”
Logan laughed. He trailed a finger across Veronica’s cheekbone but remained uncharacteristically silent. She leaned into his touch and raised an eyebrow at him quizzically. A serious expression crept across his features as he looked down at her, and his hand moved upward to entwine itself into her hair.
“What is it?” she murmured.
“Veronica…”
She never found out what he was going to say, as the mood was shattered by a cell phone springing to life on the bedside table. Her right hand fumbled across the surface of the wood and she grabbed her phone, snapping it open and gasping what she hoped was a normal sounding “Hello?” into the mouthpiece.
“Veronica?”
“Hi Dad,” she said, shooting for chipper but landing a bit closer to just-been-fucked. She sat up in the bed, smoothing her hair as though he could see her.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Logan and I just came back from a stroll. What’s up?”
Beside her, Logan feigned offense, mouthing “A stroll?” She smirked and batted at his hands as he attempted to run one of them up her now-bare leg.
“I’m heading over to Dina Clark’s place,” he said, and then paused. His next sentence surprised her. “Why don’t you bring Logan along, just in case.”
“Sure, Dad,” she replied. “We’ll see you there.” Grinning, she hung up the phone. “If you play your cards right tonight, my dad might even teach you the secret handshake.”
“Why’s that?” Logan asked, crawling atop of his naked girlfriend and pressing a kiss against her shoulder.
“Because,” she said, reluctantly shoving at him. “You’ve just been invited to tag along on our stakeout.”
“The stakeout?” he asked, and she nodded. Logan looked impressed.
“Which means less naked, more … not naked.” She crawled out of the bed and trundled into the living room to look for her clothes.
Logan sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the sheets, still completely nude. “Fetch me my shoes, wench!” The shoes in question came flying at him from through the door, and Logan curled up into a ball to avoid a tragedy.
Demonstrating what Veronica believed to be great restraint, he refrained from attempting to smack her ass for the entire ten minutes it took them to get dressed and walk out to the car. Sadly, she could not claim the same restraint.
The afterglow began to diminish, however, once they were on their way. Face after youthful face flashed before her eyes as Veronica’s thoughts turned from her own recent bout of debauchery to the kidnapping victims whose tragic disappearances had haunted her over the past several months.
Logan, noting the change, placed a hand on her knee and squeezed. “Are you ready?” he asked.
She nodded slowly. “I’ve been ready for this for a long time.”
They rode the rest of the way in silence.
Veronica opened the passenger side door of Keith’s car and slipped in as Logan slid into the seat behind her. “What’d we miss?”
Keith nodded in the direction of a van parked halfway down the street. “The feds beat us.”
“Damn,” Veronica swore under her breath. “How long have they been here?”
“Long enough to throw a roof party,” Keith said. Veronica followed the slant of his pointing finger to look at the gathering of people on top of Talluah’s - no, Veronica corrected herself - Dina Clark’s modern-styled mansion. From the street below, it looked like a standoff was underway. The sound of a helicopter in the distance caught her attention, and she scanned the street again.
“No black and whites?” Veronica asked, surprised.
“Not so far,” Keith said. “Just the one undercover vehicle. Looks like more of a sting than a stakeout.”
“Then why the helicopter?” she queried.
“I don’t know,” he responded, voice sounding puzzled.
“We’re just going to sit here?” Logan demanded from the backseat. “We should do something!”
Veronica winced, expecting her father to lash out at Logan, but Keith just shrugged. “There’s nothing we can do. For all we know, they’re signing peace treaties up there.”
Just then, two gunshots rang out from the roof, shattering the silence of the neighborhood.
“Ah, fickle diplomacy,” Logan observed, earning an I-can’t-take-you-anywhere look from Veronica.
“Now we do something,” Keith said, grabbing his gun from its resting place atop the center console and jumping from the car. “Keep behind me,” he yelled as he pounded across the street. Veronica scrambled to follow, Logan hot on her heels as the three of them raced toward Dina Clark’s driveway.
Inside the kidnapper’s house, all of the lights were blazing. Logan and Keith took the stairs two at a time, leaving Veronica to curse her shorter legs as she hurried after them. They finally burst through a door at the top of the stairs and onto the roof, mostly unnoticed by the mixture of federal agents and local officers already there. The helicopter was now hovering in the air high above them, carefully descending to the roof - and judging from the reactions of the officers, it wasn’t one of theirs. Several of them had guns aimed at the helicopter, although none had opened fire. The blades were stirring up enough wind and sound that it took Veronica a second to orient herself and get a good look at what was going on.
Most of the other officers had their guns trained on a small group of people in the center of the roof. Veronica could see a tall man clutching a little girl to his chest - shielding himself with her small body. Beside him, a woman Veronica didn’t recognize was talking urgently into a cell phone.
Veronica felt Keith stiffen beside her and, when she turned to him, saw he was staring at something just to the right of the man holding the little girl. Veronica edged over, craning her neck to see around the agents, and what she saw made her blood run cold.
Tallulah was standing in the middle of the roof. She had a gun in one hand, aimed at the police in front of her, and her other arm was wrapped around Veronica’s mother, holding Lianne in front of her.
“Mom!” Veronica shrieked before she could think, causing half the people on the roof to turn and look at her.
“Get her out of here,” Keith growled. The next thing Veronica felt were Logan’s arms wrapping around her and dragging her back to the relative safety of the doorway. She went without protest, too numb to do anything but stare in horror as her father shoved his way to the front of the line of agents and officers, and found himself standing next to none other than Don Lamb.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” the Sheriff yelled over the rapidly mounting noise from the helicopter. “Get back!”
Keith aimed his gun at Tallulah. “She has my wife, Lamb.”
“Your wife has some pretty fucked up friends,” Lamb sneered. “And besides. I thought she wasn’t your wife anymore.” Nonetheless, he shook his head at the deputies who had moved up behind Keith, ready to drag him away.
A rope ladder suddenly clattered down from the sky. Veronica looked up at the helicopter, where the man who had released the ladder now held a rather large gun pointed at the crowd on the roof. The woman Veronica wit h the cell phone was the first to climb aboard, immediately followed by the man holding the girl. He shoved her above him and barked at her to climb. Tears streaming down her face, she began to clamber up the rungs. Shouts of “Hold your fire!” rang out across the roof, accompanied by a bout of creative-sounding cursing from Lamb. Tallulah was the last to go, keeping an arm clenched tightly around Lianne’s throat as she placed a foot on the bottom rung and wrapped the rope tightly around her free arm. Just as the helicopter began to rise, Tallulah let go of Lianne, letting her drop the five feet to the concrete below.
Keith rushed forward and dropped to his knees beside Lianne. Everyone else watched helplessly as the helicopter and its passengers disappeared into the night.
As the sound of the helicopter faded, Agent Morris let out a distinctively unladylike roar and grabbed Lamb by the front of his shirt.
“You are the single most incompetent piece of horse shit I have ever had the distinct displeasure of interacting with!”
“I didn’t -”
“If you so much as say one more word to me I will rip your slippery tongue out of your oversized head.” With that Agent Morris let go of his shirt and wiped her hand against her pants with evident distaste. “The services of your department will no longer be required, Sheriff. The FBI will handle this from here.”
As she strode away, Lamb turned slowly to level a glare at Keith, who was still clutching a distraught Lianne. “This is your fault,” he hissed, voice shaking. “You and your despicable offspring.”
“Go to hell, Lamb” Keith responded. He sounded more tired than anything as he helped Lianne climb to her feet and then stepped back and away from her.
“Do you understand what you just cost me?” Lamb choked out. “I had the opportunity to help bring down a killer the FBI has been tracking for years. I should have known bringing in any Mars was a mistake.” His glare shifted to Lianne, and Keith rolled his eyes.
“Oh, don’t start sharing credit now, Lamb. You’ve spent the past two terms honing incompetence into an art form all by yourself.”
Lamb’s response was cut off by the noisy arrival of Veronica, trailed by Logan.
“Mom?” She grabbed the shaking woman and squeezed her tightly. “Are you okay?”
Slowly Lianne’s arms came up to wrap around her daughter. She murmured something vaguely reassuring and began to gently stroke her daughter’s hair. Keith stared at the two of them for a moment and then turned away. Veronica looked up, confused, and then pulled away from her mother. Suddenly her eyes narrowed, and she looked at Lamb.
“Did you say the FBI has known for years that Dina Clark was alive?”
Lamb blinked back at her in confusion. “Who’s Dina Clark?”
Veronica barked out a laugh. Her shoulders began to shake, and she doubled over, airless, bitter guffaws wracking her frame.
“Veronica,” Logan said, placing a hand on her back.
She straightened, eyes bright, and leveled her gaze at Lamb. “You really are useless.”
“Come on Veronica,” Keith said, staring in the direction that the helicopter had flown. “We have work to do.”
The Mars family, such as it was, and Logan retreated into the house, leaving Lamb to alone to contemplate yet another grand failure.
When they reached the street out front, Lianne hovered uncertainly on the edge of the group. “I, um, came here with the FBI. My car is the sheriff’s station.”
“I’ll call you a cab from our place,” Keith said shortly, unlocking his car.
“Thank you,” she said, climbing into back seat.
“Veronica?” Keith said, motioning for her to join them.
“Just a minute, Dad.”
He nodded, and got into the car. Veronica turned and took Logan’s hand. He pulled her against him, arms wrapping around her like a vice. Neither spoke. Veronica’s hands knotted into the material of Logan’s jacket; his clutched against the skin of her hips where it peeked out from between her shirt and her jeans.
After a lengthy embrace Veronica finally pulled away, arms reluctantly returning to her sides. “Logan, I just -”
“I love you.” The words shot of his mouth like bullets, and her eyes widened in disbelief.
“What did you just say?”
He stared back at her, mute, and then opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound her mouth smashed into his, swallowing whatever sentiment was about to spill out of his lips. The kiss was short and frenzied, teeth scraping at soft skin, tongues shooting out and back again.
A voice caught between distaste and bemusement halted them, and Veronica turned bright red. “I’m right here,” Keith called, leaning over to yell at them out the passenger window.
“Um, me too.” Lianne blinked at them through the backseat window.
“Oh god,” Veronica said. “I have to go.”
Logan reached forward to brush a lock of stray hair away from her cheek. “Okay.”
“I’ll call you,” she continued, voice high-pitched and breathless.
“Okay,” he repeated, seemingly having lost the ability to form any other syllables.
She darted forward to press another kiss against his lips before vanishing into her father’s car.
Logan grinned as their taillights faded into the distance, twirling his keys around his index finger as he walked towards the XTerra. The flashing red lights of the squad cars illuminated his smiling face as he drove away.
Keith flew out of the car as though his seat were on fire as soon as he’d jerked it into park. Veronica blinked in surprise and climbed out after him, while Lianne slowly unbuckled her seatbelt.
“Dad?” she called.
“I’ll be inside, Veronica.” The sound of a car door slamming caught her attention, and by the time she turned back around, he’d disappeared into the depths of the apartment complex.
“I don’t think he wants to talk to me,” Lianne said. “I don’t think I blame him.”
Veronica fingered the zipper of her jacket distractedly, refusing to meet her mother’s eyes. “What were you doing there tonight?” she finally asked.
“I was part of the sting,” Lianne responded. “The FBI called to ask if I’d help them get Dina Clark to meet with them. They said… they said they knew I’d been involved in money laundering, and said your father could be arrested if I didn’t help them.”
“What?” Veronica looked up, shocked. “How could they arrest Dad? He didn’t do anything! You did this. And I don’t even know what this is.”
“Back in March, your father’s old partner, Frank Romano, called me to ask for a favor,” she responded. “He said he needed a place to stash some money, but that it couldn’t be in his name. He said it would only be for a few weeks, and that he’d give me a ten percent cut if I agreed.”
“And you didn’t even ask where the money was from?” Veronica asked, incredulous.
“You don’t understand,” Lianne whispered. “I needed the money so badly, and Frank was always such a friend to your father. I knew he had a gambling problem… I figured he probably owed some people some money.” She looked up, face painted with anguish. “You have to know, Veronica, that if I’d had any idea he was taking bribe money from a killer, I never would have done it.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” Bitterness laced Veronica words, and she blinked back the moisture that was gathering behind her eyelids. “The fact that my mother accidentally aided and abetted a man who was pocketing money from a child-molesting murderer is supposed to make it all better? Mom, she was paying him off for a reason!”
“Veronica, I’m so sorry,” Lianne cried, reaching forward for her daughter. “That’s why I was there tonight. I was trying to fix it!”
Veronica backed away, hands held out in front of her as if to ward off a foul spirit. “Why?” she said. “Why did you have to put it in Dad’s name? Did you know he was shot, nearly killed, because Dina Clark thought he was in on it? Don’t you care about us at all?”
“It was the only way,” Lianne said, voice desperate. “It was the only account I still had access to. All of my other accounts have been closed out. Veronica, I had no idea this would happen!”
“Well, you should have,” Veronica snapped. “Everything you touch is ruined. You should have known this would be too.” The tears she’d been containing spilled out onto her cheeks, and she turned to follow her father.
“Not everything,” Lianne called after her, voice also thick with tears. “Not you.”
Veronica halted in her tracks and turned back. She stared back at her mother, committing to memory the shape of the woman who’d created her, loved her, held her when she’d fallen. “Don’t come back here,” she said, voice trembling. “Don’t contact me. Don’t contact Dad. Don’t come back to Neptune. From here on out, I don’t have a mother.” Her voice cracked on the final word, and she spun and ran.
A horn honked from the street. “Lianne Mars?” a voice called. Lianne turned to see a taxi slow to a halt.
“That’s me,” she said, and slowly opened the door.
“Where to?” the driver asked, adjusting the rearview mirror.
She paused, eyes lingering on the apartment building her daughter called home. “Anywhere but here.”
Veronica entered the apartment to find Keith slouched in the armchair, his elbows on his knees and both hands over his face.
“Dad?” She touched his shoulder lightly and he flinched before looking up at her through suspiciously bright eyes. “Are you okay?”
He gave her a thin smile and covered her hand with his. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”
“What are we going to do now?” Veronica asked, feeling every inch the lost little girl that she knew she sounded like.
Keith sighed and looked down at the coffee table, where all their folders of evidence were stacked. “I don’t know, Veronica. I just don’t know.”
Veronica fought down a rising wave of panic. “She can’t get away with it.”
“You should go to bed,” Keith said. “Get some rest. There’s nothing else we can do tonight.”
With a reluctant nod, Veronica leaned down to kiss him on the forehead. “See you in the morning.”
Keith sat up for a long time that night, flipping through folders until he had the evidence memorized. The pattern was clear, now. Now that yet another child had been taken off to god-knows-where to be subjected to tortures Keith refused to imagine. And it was his fault. Had he pressed Frank harder, had he dug a little deeper twenty years earlier, had he not fallen for the easy lies, that little girl would still be at home with her parents.
With a surreptitious glance at Veronica’s closed door, Keith quietly stood, fished his car keys out of his jacket pocket, and silently slipped out into the night.
To Be Continued
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