Chapter 21: O Father, Where Art Thou?
Title: All Fall Down
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan, Keith
Rating: PG-13 to R
Words: 157,250 to date
Summary: In Neptune, the brighter the summer sun, the deeper the shadows.
Spoilers / Warnings: Seasons 1 and 2 / Language and adult situations
Chapter 21: O Father, Where Art Thou?
Author: truemyth
Additional Characters: Back-Up, Cliff, Lamb, Sacks, Weevil
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5,028ish
Author’s Note: All Fall Down is a collaborative effort by 20 writers. You can learn more about this project here. Thanks very much to mutinousmuse and rachel_shanz (the late, great Rachel_Shanz) for the beta. To shizam23 for help with the chapter name. And thanks to all the readers who have been here from the beginning and those that found us later on. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the ride and I hope you like how our story is wrapping up. I can’t believe there is just one chapter left.
X-posted to veronicamarsfic and fic_from_mars.
All Fall Down
Chapter 21
O Father, Where Art Thou?
Veronica Mars was frustrated. She was frustrated each time she had to jerk her gaze away from map spread out over the dashboard, the map with the little red dot that was still so far away. She was frustrated each time her mind drifted to the overstuffed file-folder, stashed between the driver and passenger seats, filled with pictures of little girls far too innocent for their likely fate. She was frustrated each time she tried to distract herself by glancing outside the speeding car, only to find the sun moving just as quickly towards the curve of the western horizon. In the end, she settled for fixing her eyes on the blue-gray surface of I-5 and willing herself to emulate its hard indifference.
She found the game soothing for exactly six minutes, until the high gates and bustling activity of the Mexican/American border disrupted her view of the uncaring road.
Some mornings, it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.
Earlier, that morning:
Veronica awoke to a deep droning voice, echoing down the hall only to be cut off by a mild click: the answering machine. She blinked at her alarm clock and scowled as it informed her that it was far past time to get up. As she hugged her thick, pink robe around her body and shuffled passed her father’s open bedroom door - bed already made, she had slept too long - into the living room, she breathed a small sigh of contentment. Too long or not, it had been a surprisingly restful sleep.
A playful rat-a-tat-tat heralded the arrival of the likely reason for her inner-peace. Logan grabbed her around the waist and twirled her to the center of the room as soon as she opened the door.
“My, don’t you look -” he surveyed her from the top of her bed tousled ponytail to the bottom of her ratty slippers and sighed, “- sexy?”
She narrowed her eyes at his flattery-turned-question but he simply chuckled as he pressed a kiss against the corner of her frowning mouth. His eyes slid sideways, peeking into the interior of the apartment.
“Your dad here?”
“I don’t think so. He probably left already to see what he could find out about Tallu- Dina. I think he might have just left a message - Logan! What are you doing?”
Logan’s hands continued to wrestle with hers at the firm knot of her robe sash, but his lips halted in their exploration of her jawbone as he pulled back slightly.
“Making the most of the situation?” he inquired hopefully.
And then he reached the spot at the base of her ear and she let go of the sash in favor of grabbing hold of his wide shoulders.
“Oh, of course.” She was starting to pant but it really wasn’t that embarrassing with Logan making those low growling sounds at the back of his throat. “How silly of me.” She pulled him back to the vicinity of the sofa and leaned back, only to have a real growl turn to a bark of disapproval as Back-up registered his objection at the interruption of his mid-morning nap.
“Whoa, whoa! Down, boy!” Veronica wasn’t quite sure who she was talking to as she pulled herself back to a standing position to look down at the two disgruntled males sitting on the couch. She tugged her robe back into place as she backed away. “Let me just see what Dad had to say.”
But the voice on the answering machine wasn’t Keith’s.
“Veronica Mars! This is your friendly, neighborhood lawyer calling on behalf of your friend in the clink.” Cliff’s bemused baritone filled the apartment. Logan looked up from scratching Back-up’s head and quirked an eyebrow. She shrugged and continued to listen. “Mister Navarro has requested - quite firmly - that you pay him a visit. Today.” Cliff sighed. “With that article about little Chrissie Morales and the busted sting operation... well. So, that’s his message. My message is this: Eli Navarro would be a lot better off spending his time working on his plea. Tell him you’re dropping the case, V. Please. Call me if you need me.” The machine’s whir was the only sound for a moment before Veronica spun from the counter and marched to her bedroom.
“Wait, you’re not really going to go running off to Weevil, are you?” Logan’s voice was muffled from within her closet. She poked her head out to find him leaning against her door frame.
“He deserves to know what’s happening to the girls, Logan.” She yanked out a thermal and a black over-shirt, tossing them onto the bed besides a pair of jeans before ducking back in to find some shoes.
“He deserves to be thankful you even looked into this case for him. He needs to realize that your father has been shot at, your mother has been held at gun point, and you have done everything in your power to help those girls. You deserve a fucking rest, not his guilt trip.”
By the time he had finished his tirade, Veronica was standing in the middle of her room, her boots dangling from her hand. Without a word, she crossed to him and, reaching up, cradling the strong column of his neck in one hand, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She pressed into him so that he fell against the doorframe again, letting her tongue and her body communicate what his support meant to her, before angling against him so that he fell through the door and back into the hall.
She pulled the door shut and smiled as she heard his resigned tone from beneath the wood.
“Okay. But I’m coming with you.”
“So, let me get this straight. Your dad was onto this chick twenty years ago? And you recognized her from a photograph that he’s had for a month?” Weevil smirked at her across the streaked plexiglass. “Gee, V, it’s nice to know communication is alive and well in the Mars home.”
“I told you, the plastic surgery -”
“Yeah, yeah. So then your mom was hiding money and went undercover for the Feds?”
“Weevil,” Logan ground out his name while Veronica shifted uncomfortably. Weevil didn’t acknowledge Logan as he rounded in on Veronica again.
“And so Lamb let this Dina chick get away with Christina too, huh? You know that Christie used to play with Felix’s little sister?” He nodded as she sat back and she had to close her eyes for a moment. But that didn’t stop his words. “Yep. Liked peppermint ice cream and had a huge crush on Johnny Depp. The two of them used to blast Spice Girls from the house when we were working on our bikes in the front yard. They’d dance around. You know.”
Weevil waited for her to open her eyes, only to have his smirk fade as his eyes flickered towards a corner of her face. She felt the tear roll down her cheek and was glad Logan was sitting on the other side of her.
Weevil’s voice was softer now, but the words still cut as deep. “So you just watched her fly away to God-knows-where, huh? I guess I should be impressed that Lamb even cared, just a little, even if their skin was brown and -”
“But it wasn’t.” Veronica cleared her throat, but she could see Logan stiffen beside her and move to examine her face more closely. He grasped her hand under the table and she didn’t pull it away.
“Wasn’t what?” Weevil bit back in surprise.
“Well, yes, all the Neptune girls looked like full-blooded Latinas. But they weren’t. Rosa’s father was an ‘09er. Tracy’s family was about as mixed as they come, despite the Hispanic surname. I didn’t really find the pattern until I looked back at the Fresno cases too. Leah O’Connor was no more Hispanic than I am.” Veronica dashed away the single tear as she warmed up to her story. “No, Dina doesn’t have a race issue. She just goes for the girls that are poor. The ones that are less likely to have rewards put out for them, the parents that are less likely to have the time to mount a manhunt.”
“Ow.” Veronica loosened her death’s grip on Logan’s hand sheepishly at his quiet protest.
“Okay, so this psycho is just a classist, not a racist, Veronica. I feel so much better now that we have that straight.”
“Well, I think that’s why Marisol…”
“Marisol had just moved here! She’d only been in the country for a few months.”
Veronica nodded and exchanged a glance with Logan. He gave her fingers a squeeze.
“And did she speak English well?”
“No.” Weevil’s eyes were wide as he shook his head. “She was learning, I mean… but it was pretty broken. You couldn’t get her to shut up in Spanish though.”
“The way I see it, and I’m only guessing here,” Veronica was careful to clarify. “I think Dina’s goons made a mistake when they grabbed her. I think, when they brought her back and she couldn’t speak any English…”
“… she was damaged goods,” Weevil finished.
“And then Lilly was found…”
“… and the press swarmed in…” Logan remembered.
“And Dina was stuck with a girl she couldn’t… use and no way to hid her.”
“Besides a shallow grave. Fuck!” Weevil’s fist slammed on his side of the table and he jumped up, ready to do battle. Two deputies moved away from the wall, ready to contain him and he held up his hands, begging for a few more minutes. When he picked up his phone again, he gripped the handle so tightly his knuckles shown white.
“What did you mean, ‘use,’ V? What is she doing to these girls?”
Veronica strived to remain impassive as she told Weevil about the pictures she’d found, tried not to remember the look in Tracy’s wide eyes as she looked into the darkening intensity of Weevil’s.
“I can’t believe you fucking let her get away.”
“Weevil, I -”
“No, save your excuses, Veronica. You’ve had all the evidence in front of you for months. If you’d talked with your dad… if you’d come to me instead of Lamb, I’d have made sure this Tallulah chick,” he glanced over his shoulders at the bored deputies, “…was stopped.”
Veronica felt the flag of color rising in her cheeks but, before she could respond, Logan had yanked the phone away from her.
“Yeah, like you could have done much of anything from back there. What? You’re gonna make Dina a new license plate. I’m sure that would have had her quaking in her pumps.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, lover boy.” Weevil still refused to look at Logan.
“Yeah? Well you are now. You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve to chew out Veronica after she’s put her life on the line to help you. Do you really feel so powerless in here? ‘Cuz if it’s an impotence problem, I’m sure there are a lot of dudes back there that could help.” Logan smirked as Weevil gnashed his teeth. “Anyone make any offers yet, princess?”
Weevil absorbed the barb and smiled before turning to address Logan. “What’s the matter, Logan? Veronica still keeping it all locked away? I guess she’s smart enough to know what keeps you hanging around.”
Logan jumped to his feet and leaned into the glass. “You don’t know a thing about us! Don’t you ever -” Logan stilled when Veronica placed a small hand on the straining curve of his arm.
“You don’t know anything,” he said more calmly before setting the phone in its hook with a muted finality.
Veronica took a last, sad look at Weevil before following him out the door.
“You can’t be serious.” Logan’s incredulity was thick enough to swim through as they walked into Mars Investigations a half hour later. “You don’t owe Weevil anything.”
“This case stopped being about Weevil a long time ago, Logan.” Veronica leaned against her desk and folded her arms, her face a perfect mask of determination. “I need to help those girls. I need to find the woman who ordered the hit on my dad.” She shrugged a none-too-apologetic apology. “I’ve got a one-track mind.”
“Do you now?” Logan tilted his head as he approached her with a slight swagger.
Veronica swallowed and moved her hands to a more secure position, gripping the desk-top. “Yes,” she stated with certainty.
“I’m so glad to hear it.” Logan reached out to run the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek.
Veronica shivered and tightened her grip on the wood.
“Did you know,” Logan enquired as he dipped his head to press a feather-light kiss along her eyebrow, “that you get the cutest little creases on the bridge of your nose when you are trying to be all fierce and intimidating?” He peppered a rapid series of kisses along her nose as his legs nudged their way between hers.
“Um, no. I hadn’t realized that… Dad?” Veronica called out for her father with a slight desperation as one of her hands moved of its own will to Logan’s hip, sliding under the edge of his T-shirt.
Logan paused, but, when there was no response from the interior office, he gave up the pretense at control and pulled Veronica towards him, while he fell forward, tumbling her onto the cleared surface of the desk. Veronica almost let herself ignore the whisper of paper as it fell past her ear in favor of Logan’s hot heat against the other side of her neck, but she forced herself to push him aside with a groan.
She hopped off the desk and made her way around to where the paper had fallen. By the time she had bent and picked it up, Logan was hugging her from behind.
“What’s that?” He nuzzled her neck as he asked.
“A note from my dad?” Veronica’s confusion rippled through her voice as she read aloud, “Veronica, I’ve found the location of Dina Clark’s hideout. This is something that should have ended twenty years ago. It’s my responsibility. Don’t worry. Don’t follow. Love, Dad.” She half-turned in his arms as she gaped up at Logan. “Is he kidding me?”
Logan sighed and dropped his hands from her midriff. “Okay, what’s the first step, Holmes?”
Veronica tossed him a smirk over her shoulder before firing up her laptop. “A little elementary cell tracing, my dear Logan.”
But only a minute later she was cursing. “He must have turned it off.”
“Are you sure you’re using it right?” Logan tried to make sense of the display while peering over her shoulder.
“Oh, the system is fine; your tracker is working perfectly.”
“My what?”
“Oh! I know!” Veronica slapped her palm to her forehead before digging through a desk drawer for a certain scrap of paper. She didn’t spare more than a glance at Logan’s gaping face.
“What are you doing now?”
“I put a tracker in Dad’s car the last time he came back from ‘Fresno.’ I was starting to think he was lying to me about that.”
“A tracker in his car,” Logan restated in incredulity.
“Mm-hum,” Veronica muttered as she keyed the electronic bug’s code into her software.
Logan pushed back from the desk and spun a tight circle of tense disbelief while looking up at the ceiling. He opened his mouth, about to speak just as Veronica crowed and punched the air with her fists.
“Got him!” She pointed to the blinking green dot on the screen and grinned at Logan, only to let her face fall in confusion as she took a closer look at the display.
She zoomed in, recognizing the patterns of streets in Neptune, growing more and more familiar as she focused on the Mars Investigations building. With a gasp, she brushed passed Logan and unlocked the supply cabinet, opening the small black case where they stored their bugs.
Sure enough, the tracker she had so carefully placed on the undercarriage of her father’s sedan sat back in its place, beneath a small sheet of paper.
“Veronica, we’ll talk about this later.”
“Well. Crap.”
Veronica replaced the supplies and tried not to worry the bottom of her lip as she considered where how she would find her father now. She held the door open for Logan, who cast a small frown at the closed cabinet before walking passed her to the hall.
“Leave me alone, Sacks! I swear, sometimes you’re just like a mother hen.”
Veronica quirked an eyebrow but tried not to shift in her seat as she heard Lamb coming down the hallway.
“Well, yes, Sir,” Sacks spoke hesitantly as he backed into view of the office door. “It’s just, we’d expected you for the meeting with -”
“I was busy.” Lamb breezed past Sacks and stopped dead the moment he saw Veronica seated in front of his desk. He wheeled on Sacks. “How many times, Sacks? How many fucking times?”
Sack’s eyes darted between Lamb and Veronica as his mouth hung open until Lamb sighed and covered his face with his hands, pulling down.
“Fine. Out. Out!” He shooed Sacks away, and then remained leaning against the doorframe. “That goes for you too, Veronica. I’ve had enough Marses in the last 24 hours, thanks.”
Veronica stood up with a smirk and took a step towards him. “Great, then just answer my question and I’ll get out of your oh-so-neatly-styled hair.”
Lamb turned to face her and the light fell over his face clearly for the first time. Veronica gasped. The whole right side of his face was bruised, scrapped ragged in places. A small Band-Aid on his cheekbone pulled down as Lamb’s lips contracted in a frown.
“What happened?”
“Oh, concern. That’s a good one. You two good cop, bad copping me now?” He’d spotted Logan in the shadows behind the door as he circled behind his desk. There went that surprise. “Because that would be a good one,” he continued. “A much more sophisticated interrogation technique than your dear ol’ dad.”
“Just tell her what she wants to know.” Logan moved with a rigid intensity, fists clenching and unclenching as he rushed towards the desk.
Lamb got to his feet slowly, unconcerned in the face of Logan’s anger. “Oh, go ahead and take a swing at me. It’ll make me feel good to toss you both in the slammer again.”
Veronica placed a hand on Logan’s chest and cast Lamb a placating look. “We just want to know where Tallulah has gone. The FBI has been tracking her for years. They must know where her hideout is.”
“So another Mars can go blundering in and fuck up the sting again? Yeah, I don’t think so, Veronica.” He placed his hands flat on the desk and leaned over. “I told your father and I’m telling you: I. Don’t. Know. Where. The. Hideout. Is. Although… ‘hideout,’ heh,” he chuckled. “I gathered it was more of a ‘base of operations.’” And then he winked and Veronica tasted the bitterness of bile in the back of her mouth.
“How can you be so… sick?” she marveled.
“Do you have any idea what your family cost me? If your mother was half the actress you are, I’d be splashed across the newspapers as a hero this morning. As it is, I get intimately acquainted with the side of my house by your dad at one o’clock in the morning after coming home from a meeting with that fucking Amazon of an FBI lady. She’s going to write me up.”
“My dad did that to you?” Veronica gapped at Lamb’s abraded face.
“It does look a bit like his style,” Logan conceded in a tone that approached sympathy before Veronica cut him an irritated look.
“Well, gee, Don. I’m really sorry that my family messed everything up for you. You must be really pissed at those little girls, too. If they hadn’t gone to the trouble of getting themselves kidnapped just to make you look bad…” Veronica shook her head as she began to walk out of the room.
Lamb snorted and she stopped so abruptly that Logan bumped into her.
“I know it’s hard for you to trust the system, Veronica, but I wouldn’t worry about the kids. Agent More-Ass is on the war path and I hear they finally got jurisdiction.” He chuckled again, “Mexico has some fucked up laws.”
“Mexico?” Veronica glanced over her shoulder.
“That’s really all I know.” Lamb threw up his hands. “Just keep your eyes on the funny-pages. It will all come right.”
“If there’s one thing I love about you, Lamb, it’s your eternal optimism in other people’s ability to do your job for you.”
Veronica stormed down the corridors of the courthouse without waiting for his response. Logan followed behind her at an easier pace, thanks to his longer legs.
“So… Mexico? Is kind of a big place.”
Veronica sighed.
“Dad probably called his pal at the Bureau. With a nice little admonishment to tell me jack, should I do the same.”
“What now then?” Logan watched her closely as they came to a stop by the exit. Veronica looked up at him sadly.
“I can think of one last person. But I need to talk to her alone.”
Veronica focused on the black back of the maid’s uniform as she led her along the edge of the pool. It was better than trying to take in the glare of the hot afternoon sun reflecting off the turquoise water. She needed to invest in a nice pair of sunglasses after this.
Veronica had been mildly surprised that Colleen Sharpe was agreeing to see her after the trouble John had gotten into for his participation in his little ‘poke-her’ games. But it all became a bit clearer when she saw the front page of the Neptune Register sprawled across the poolside table, next to an empty, cut-glass tumbler and about half a bottle of Southern Comfort.
Kiddnapper Flees in Daring Midnight Escape.
FBI Remains Mum About Involvement.
Pussy had one arm thrown dramatically up to cover her eyes and a rather skimpy white bikini to not cover the rest of her. Veronica took a seat on the lounge chair next to her but she didn’t stir, even as the maid walked back to the house.
“You were one of Dina Clark’s victims, weren’t you.” It was a statement, not a question by the time it left Veronica’s mouth.
Pussy’s eyes were bloodshot and her lashes damp when she finally raised her arm to peer up at Veronica. Her voice was ragged when she spoke.
“I never called her Dina.”
It was confirmation enough.
“Please, Colleen, I need to know where she would have taken the girl.” Veronica was leaning forward, speaking with deliberate calm, when Pussy suddenly choked on a laugh.
“My name’s not Colleen. It’s not Pussy either. Fucking names. You never know how important they are until they change on you. Dina? Tallulah? Miriam, Susie, Jez. Why should I tell you anything, Veronica?”
Veronica gulped, unsure of how to handle this fragile psyche. She didn’t exactly have a good track record with this sort of thing.
“You wouldn’t have let me in here if you didn’t want to talk to me, Coll-,” Veronica swallowed the word and frowned as Pussy burst into that broken laughter again.
“Maybe I just wanted an audience, Veronica. Maybe I just needed someone to see me.” Pussy climbed to her feet, unsteady in her strappy stilettos as she swayed by the deep end of the pool. “Maybe that’s all I’m good for.” She was lost, staring into the deep blue water.
Veronica hung her head and whispered a single word down the front of her cotton tee.
“What?” Pussy’s head whipped around, pulling her leg away from the water as she focused in on Veronica as if she were a bug.
“Please,” Veronica repeated.
“Why?” Pussy’s voice climbed to the shrill tone of a lost little girl and Veronica shuddered, refusing to glance up again.
“My father has gone after her. He’s full of guilt and trying to do the right thing, but he’s not being careful and…” Veronica finally looked Pussy in the eyes, “She’s already tried to kill him once.”
Seconds stretched across Veronica’s frayed nerves as she waited for a response.
And then Pussy was nodding, her blonde head bouncing like a bobble doll on her thin neck.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll help you. She helped me but she didn’t, did she? She said John loved me and-they-think-I-don’t-know. He’s been going down there again. I know. I followed him. It’s how I knew I had to get away. Okay, okay, I’ll help you.” Pussy’s words trailed after her in the hot summer as she shuffled towards the house in a slightly manic set of twitches.
Veronica followed her away from the deep end of the pool, feeling more over her head then ever.
Logan had picked her up by five in a rented black Range Rover. ‘Stealth,’ he’d declared it, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. He didn’t ask where she’d gotten the map of Mexico with its little red dot inked in near Culiacàn. She tried hard not to growl when he refused to drive more than fifteen miles over the speed limit.
Two miles past the border, he offered up the fact that his father had actually hated Mexico.
“Even when he had to film down here, he’d bitch about it. ‘They know how to treat celebrities in Europe,’ he’d say.” Logan fell silent for a moment. When she didn’t fill the void, he observed, “Probably why I came down here so much. Fuck!” He brought his hand down on the steering wheel. “Is there anything in my life free of that bastard?”
Veronica grimaced and reached across the gap between their seats, settling a hand on his lower thigh and squeezing. Logan glanced at her and she tried to smile. He frowned into the darkening night.
“Of course, he could have just been saying that. It could have been an act. He could have come down here all the time.”
Veronica didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
But she left her hand on his knee.
The night was saved from complete darkness by only the faint light of the half moon, hanging low in the sky. Logan cut the headlights and they left the car at the head of the side road. They approached the long building on foot and Veronica fought the urge to flinch when Logan pulled a gun from under his jacket, even as she fumbled to settle her taser more firmly in her hand.
There were no lights on inside. No feet crunched on the gravel path around the perimeter, save their own. Any cars were hidden from view. The sense of desolation settled over Veronica like a smothering wool blanket and her breathing began to pick up speed as Logan motioned her to one side of the frame before trying the latch of the main door.
It fell open on well-oiled hinges. Logan blinked at her with overshadowed eyes, as uncertain as she was about how to proceed. She shrugged and began to enter, only to have him shoulder past her, moving into the room first with his gun held out before him. The click of the safety catch echoed down the long hall of rooms.
Veronica had begun to worry that Pussy had betrayed her, but, as her eyes began to adjust, her mind began to catalogue the evidence of recent habitation. Half empty glasses sat on the tables of the small waiting room. A loose, white sheet ran out one of the several doors on either side of the narrow hallway that seemed to run the length of the building. A chair was overturned near the entrance to the hallway. There was no dust, and the musty smell that assaulted her nose had nothing to do with poor housekeeping. Yes, people had been here recently, and left in a hurry: That was one of the inescapable conclusions that faced Veronica.
Her mind fought the second conclusion, even as she glanced through the side doors and saw the unmade beds, the too-small lingerie hanging from a side chair. The small, gray teddy bear in one corner, its mouth stained dark with what Veronica was sure would match one of the lipsticks on the counter beside it. Soon, the other corner of the room was filled with a second distasteful sight as Veronica emptied the contents of her stomach, not even fighting her gag reflex.
“Veronica!” Logan’s shout of dismay carried down the hallway.
“I know.” Veronica wiped her mouth on her sleeve as she staggered into the disserted corridor to find Logan standing in the entrance to the last room. “I know, Logan. Oh, God. It’s a brothel. It’s a brothel of children.” She spit the words out as she reached him, but he shook his head as he glanced into the room.
“It’s not that. It’s… your dad.”
Veronica had long assumed that they were the only two people left in this hell hole, and she followed Logan’s gaze with mounting fear. Her eyes traced a path of dark splotches on along the floor, to the edge of the bed and the shape of a pair of legs, stretched out on the floor.
Veronica fell to the floor, amid the dark stains, at the man’s side. Her father.
She cried out for Logan to help her as she tried turned him over onto his back. He was so still. The right side of his temple swelled with an ugly lump and the front of his shirt was stained complementary to the floor. It wasn’t blood. It couldn’t be blood.
“Don’t you dare do this. Don’t you dare.”
Logan’s hands grasped at her shoulders but she shrugged them off and pressed her fingers to her father’s throat, searching desperately for a pulse.
Continue to Chapter 22
Click here for Chapter 20.
Click here for previous chapters.
Pairing / Character: Veronica/Logan, Keith
Rating: PG-13 to R
Words: 157,250 to date
Summary: In Neptune, the brighter the summer sun, the deeper the shadows.
Spoilers / Warnings: Seasons 1 and 2 / Language and adult situations
Chapter 21: O Father, Where Art Thou?
Author: truemyth
Additional Characters: Back-Up, Cliff, Lamb, Sacks, Weevil
Rating: PG-13
Words: 5,028ish
Author’s Note: All Fall Down is a collaborative effort by 20 writers. You can learn more about this project here. Thanks very much to mutinousmuse and rachel_shanz (the late, great Rachel_Shanz) for the beta. To shizam23 for help with the chapter name. And thanks to all the readers who have been here from the beginning and those that found us later on. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the ride and I hope you like how our story is wrapping up. I can’t believe there is just one chapter left.
X-posted to veronicamarsfic and fic_from_mars.
All Fall Down
Chapter 21
O Father, Where Art Thou?
Veronica Mars was frustrated. She was frustrated each time she had to jerk her gaze away from map spread out over the dashboard, the map with the little red dot that was still so far away. She was frustrated each time her mind drifted to the overstuffed file-folder, stashed between the driver and passenger seats, filled with pictures of little girls far too innocent for their likely fate. She was frustrated each time she tried to distract herself by glancing outside the speeding car, only to find the sun moving just as quickly towards the curve of the western horizon. In the end, she settled for fixing her eyes on the blue-gray surface of I-5 and willing herself to emulate its hard indifference.
She found the game soothing for exactly six minutes, until the high gates and bustling activity of the Mexican/American border disrupted her view of the uncaring road.
Some mornings, it just didn’t pay to get out of bed.
Earlier, that morning:
Veronica awoke to a deep droning voice, echoing down the hall only to be cut off by a mild click: the answering machine. She blinked at her alarm clock and scowled as it informed her that it was far past time to get up. As she hugged her thick, pink robe around her body and shuffled passed her father’s open bedroom door - bed already made, she had slept too long - into the living room, she breathed a small sigh of contentment. Too long or not, it had been a surprisingly restful sleep.
A playful rat-a-tat-tat heralded the arrival of the likely reason for her inner-peace. Logan grabbed her around the waist and twirled her to the center of the room as soon as she opened the door.
“My, don’t you look -” he surveyed her from the top of her bed tousled ponytail to the bottom of her ratty slippers and sighed, “- sexy?”
She narrowed her eyes at his flattery-turned-question but he simply chuckled as he pressed a kiss against the corner of her frowning mouth. His eyes slid sideways, peeking into the interior of the apartment.
“Your dad here?”
“I don’t think so. He probably left already to see what he could find out about Tallu- Dina. I think he might have just left a message - Logan! What are you doing?”
Logan’s hands continued to wrestle with hers at the firm knot of her robe sash, but his lips halted in their exploration of her jawbone as he pulled back slightly.
“Making the most of the situation?” he inquired hopefully.
And then he reached the spot at the base of her ear and she let go of the sash in favor of grabbing hold of his wide shoulders.
“Oh, of course.” She was starting to pant but it really wasn’t that embarrassing with Logan making those low growling sounds at the back of his throat. “How silly of me.” She pulled him back to the vicinity of the sofa and leaned back, only to have a real growl turn to a bark of disapproval as Back-up registered his objection at the interruption of his mid-morning nap.
“Whoa, whoa! Down, boy!” Veronica wasn’t quite sure who she was talking to as she pulled herself back to a standing position to look down at the two disgruntled males sitting on the couch. She tugged her robe back into place as she backed away. “Let me just see what Dad had to say.”
But the voice on the answering machine wasn’t Keith’s.
“Veronica Mars! This is your friendly, neighborhood lawyer calling on behalf of your friend in the clink.” Cliff’s bemused baritone filled the apartment. Logan looked up from scratching Back-up’s head and quirked an eyebrow. She shrugged and continued to listen. “Mister Navarro has requested - quite firmly - that you pay him a visit. Today.” Cliff sighed. “With that article about little Chrissie Morales and the busted sting operation... well. So, that’s his message. My message is this: Eli Navarro would be a lot better off spending his time working on his plea. Tell him you’re dropping the case, V. Please. Call me if you need me.” The machine’s whir was the only sound for a moment before Veronica spun from the counter and marched to her bedroom.
“Wait, you’re not really going to go running off to Weevil, are you?” Logan’s voice was muffled from within her closet. She poked her head out to find him leaning against her door frame.
“He deserves to know what’s happening to the girls, Logan.” She yanked out a thermal and a black over-shirt, tossing them onto the bed besides a pair of jeans before ducking back in to find some shoes.
“He deserves to be thankful you even looked into this case for him. He needs to realize that your father has been shot at, your mother has been held at gun point, and you have done everything in your power to help those girls. You deserve a fucking rest, not his guilt trip.”
By the time he had finished his tirade, Veronica was standing in the middle of her room, her boots dangling from her hand. Without a word, she crossed to him and, reaching up, cradling the strong column of his neck in one hand, she stood on tiptoe and kissed him. She pressed into him so that he fell against the doorframe again, letting her tongue and her body communicate what his support meant to her, before angling against him so that he fell through the door and back into the hall.
She pulled the door shut and smiled as she heard his resigned tone from beneath the wood.
“Okay. But I’m coming with you.”
“So, let me get this straight. Your dad was onto this chick twenty years ago? And you recognized her from a photograph that he’s had for a month?” Weevil smirked at her across the streaked plexiglass. “Gee, V, it’s nice to know communication is alive and well in the Mars home.”
“I told you, the plastic surgery -”
“Yeah, yeah. So then your mom was hiding money and went undercover for the Feds?”
“Weevil,” Logan ground out his name while Veronica shifted uncomfortably. Weevil didn’t acknowledge Logan as he rounded in on Veronica again.
“And so Lamb let this Dina chick get away with Christina too, huh? You know that Christie used to play with Felix’s little sister?” He nodded as she sat back and she had to close her eyes for a moment. But that didn’t stop his words. “Yep. Liked peppermint ice cream and had a huge crush on Johnny Depp. The two of them used to blast Spice Girls from the house when we were working on our bikes in the front yard. They’d dance around. You know.”
Weevil waited for her to open her eyes, only to have his smirk fade as his eyes flickered towards a corner of her face. She felt the tear roll down her cheek and was glad Logan was sitting on the other side of her.
Weevil’s voice was softer now, but the words still cut as deep. “So you just watched her fly away to God-knows-where, huh? I guess I should be impressed that Lamb even cared, just a little, even if their skin was brown and -”
“But it wasn’t.” Veronica cleared her throat, but she could see Logan stiffen beside her and move to examine her face more closely. He grasped her hand under the table and she didn’t pull it away.
“Wasn’t what?” Weevil bit back in surprise.
“Well, yes, all the Neptune girls looked like full-blooded Latinas. But they weren’t. Rosa’s father was an ‘09er. Tracy’s family was about as mixed as they come, despite the Hispanic surname. I didn’t really find the pattern until I looked back at the Fresno cases too. Leah O’Connor was no more Hispanic than I am.” Veronica dashed away the single tear as she warmed up to her story. “No, Dina doesn’t have a race issue. She just goes for the girls that are poor. The ones that are less likely to have rewards put out for them, the parents that are less likely to have the time to mount a manhunt.”
“Ow.” Veronica loosened her death’s grip on Logan’s hand sheepishly at his quiet protest.
“Okay, so this psycho is just a classist, not a racist, Veronica. I feel so much better now that we have that straight.”
“Well, I think that’s why Marisol…”
“Marisol had just moved here! She’d only been in the country for a few months.”
Veronica nodded and exchanged a glance with Logan. He gave her fingers a squeeze.
“And did she speak English well?”
“No.” Weevil’s eyes were wide as he shook his head. “She was learning, I mean… but it was pretty broken. You couldn’t get her to shut up in Spanish though.”
“The way I see it, and I’m only guessing here,” Veronica was careful to clarify. “I think Dina’s goons made a mistake when they grabbed her. I think, when they brought her back and she couldn’t speak any English…”
“… she was damaged goods,” Weevil finished.
“And then Lilly was found…”
“… and the press swarmed in…” Logan remembered.
“And Dina was stuck with a girl she couldn’t… use and no way to hid her.”
“Besides a shallow grave. Fuck!” Weevil’s fist slammed on his side of the table and he jumped up, ready to do battle. Two deputies moved away from the wall, ready to contain him and he held up his hands, begging for a few more minutes. When he picked up his phone again, he gripped the handle so tightly his knuckles shown white.
“What did you mean, ‘use,’ V? What is she doing to these girls?”
Veronica strived to remain impassive as she told Weevil about the pictures she’d found, tried not to remember the look in Tracy’s wide eyes as she looked into the darkening intensity of Weevil’s.
“I can’t believe you fucking let her get away.”
“Weevil, I -”
“No, save your excuses, Veronica. You’ve had all the evidence in front of you for months. If you’d talked with your dad… if you’d come to me instead of Lamb, I’d have made sure this Tallulah chick,” he glanced over his shoulders at the bored deputies, “…was stopped.”
Veronica felt the flag of color rising in her cheeks but, before she could respond, Logan had yanked the phone away from her.
“Yeah, like you could have done much of anything from back there. What? You’re gonna make Dina a new license plate. I’m sure that would have had her quaking in her pumps.”
“I wasn’t talking to you, lover boy.” Weevil still refused to look at Logan.
“Yeah? Well you are now. You’ve got a lot of fucking nerve to chew out Veronica after she’s put her life on the line to help you. Do you really feel so powerless in here? ‘Cuz if it’s an impotence problem, I’m sure there are a lot of dudes back there that could help.” Logan smirked as Weevil gnashed his teeth. “Anyone make any offers yet, princess?”
Weevil absorbed the barb and smiled before turning to address Logan. “What’s the matter, Logan? Veronica still keeping it all locked away? I guess she’s smart enough to know what keeps you hanging around.”
Logan jumped to his feet and leaned into the glass. “You don’t know a thing about us! Don’t you ever -” Logan stilled when Veronica placed a small hand on the straining curve of his arm.
“You don’t know anything,” he said more calmly before setting the phone in its hook with a muted finality.
Veronica took a last, sad look at Weevil before following him out the door.
“You can’t be serious.” Logan’s incredulity was thick enough to swim through as they walked into Mars Investigations a half hour later. “You don’t owe Weevil anything.”
“This case stopped being about Weevil a long time ago, Logan.” Veronica leaned against her desk and folded her arms, her face a perfect mask of determination. “I need to help those girls. I need to find the woman who ordered the hit on my dad.” She shrugged a none-too-apologetic apology. “I’ve got a one-track mind.”
“Do you now?” Logan tilted his head as he approached her with a slight swagger.
Veronica swallowed and moved her hands to a more secure position, gripping the desk-top. “Yes,” she stated with certainty.
“I’m so glad to hear it.” Logan reached out to run the back of his fingers along the curve of her cheek.
Veronica shivered and tightened her grip on the wood.
“Did you know,” Logan enquired as he dipped his head to press a feather-light kiss along her eyebrow, “that you get the cutest little creases on the bridge of your nose when you are trying to be all fierce and intimidating?” He peppered a rapid series of kisses along her nose as his legs nudged their way between hers.
“Um, no. I hadn’t realized that… Dad?” Veronica called out for her father with a slight desperation as one of her hands moved of its own will to Logan’s hip, sliding under the edge of his T-shirt.
Logan paused, but, when there was no response from the interior office, he gave up the pretense at control and pulled Veronica towards him, while he fell forward, tumbling her onto the cleared surface of the desk. Veronica almost let herself ignore the whisper of paper as it fell past her ear in favor of Logan’s hot heat against the other side of her neck, but she forced herself to push him aside with a groan.
She hopped off the desk and made her way around to where the paper had fallen. By the time she had bent and picked it up, Logan was hugging her from behind.
“What’s that?” He nuzzled her neck as he asked.
“A note from my dad?” Veronica’s confusion rippled through her voice as she read aloud, “Veronica, I’ve found the location of Dina Clark’s hideout. This is something that should have ended twenty years ago. It’s my responsibility. Don’t worry. Don’t follow. Love, Dad.” She half-turned in his arms as she gaped up at Logan. “Is he kidding me?”
Logan sighed and dropped his hands from her midriff. “Okay, what’s the first step, Holmes?”
Veronica tossed him a smirk over her shoulder before firing up her laptop. “A little elementary cell tracing, my dear Logan.”
But only a minute later she was cursing. “He must have turned it off.”
“Are you sure you’re using it right?” Logan tried to make sense of the display while peering over her shoulder.
“Oh, the system is fine; your tracker is working perfectly.”
“My what?”
“Oh! I know!” Veronica slapped her palm to her forehead before digging through a desk drawer for a certain scrap of paper. She didn’t spare more than a glance at Logan’s gaping face.
“What are you doing now?”
“I put a tracker in Dad’s car the last time he came back from ‘Fresno.’ I was starting to think he was lying to me about that.”
“A tracker in his car,” Logan restated in incredulity.
“Mm-hum,” Veronica muttered as she keyed the electronic bug’s code into her software.
Logan pushed back from the desk and spun a tight circle of tense disbelief while looking up at the ceiling. He opened his mouth, about to speak just as Veronica crowed and punched the air with her fists.
“Got him!” She pointed to the blinking green dot on the screen and grinned at Logan, only to let her face fall in confusion as she took a closer look at the display.
She zoomed in, recognizing the patterns of streets in Neptune, growing more and more familiar as she focused on the Mars Investigations building. With a gasp, she brushed passed Logan and unlocked the supply cabinet, opening the small black case where they stored their bugs.
Sure enough, the tracker she had so carefully placed on the undercarriage of her father’s sedan sat back in its place, beneath a small sheet of paper.
“Veronica, we’ll talk about this later.”
“Well. Crap.”
Veronica replaced the supplies and tried not to worry the bottom of her lip as she considered where how she would find her father now. She held the door open for Logan, who cast a small frown at the closed cabinet before walking passed her to the hall.
“Leave me alone, Sacks! I swear, sometimes you’re just like a mother hen.”
Veronica quirked an eyebrow but tried not to shift in her seat as she heard Lamb coming down the hallway.
“Well, yes, Sir,” Sacks spoke hesitantly as he backed into view of the office door. “It’s just, we’d expected you for the meeting with -”
“I was busy.” Lamb breezed past Sacks and stopped dead the moment he saw Veronica seated in front of his desk. He wheeled on Sacks. “How many times, Sacks? How many fucking times?”
Sack’s eyes darted between Lamb and Veronica as his mouth hung open until Lamb sighed and covered his face with his hands, pulling down.
“Fine. Out. Out!” He shooed Sacks away, and then remained leaning against the doorframe. “That goes for you too, Veronica. I’ve had enough Marses in the last 24 hours, thanks.”
Veronica stood up with a smirk and took a step towards him. “Great, then just answer my question and I’ll get out of your oh-so-neatly-styled hair.”
Lamb turned to face her and the light fell over his face clearly for the first time. Veronica gasped. The whole right side of his face was bruised, scrapped ragged in places. A small Band-Aid on his cheekbone pulled down as Lamb’s lips contracted in a frown.
“What happened?”
“Oh, concern. That’s a good one. You two good cop, bad copping me now?” He’d spotted Logan in the shadows behind the door as he circled behind his desk. There went that surprise. “Because that would be a good one,” he continued. “A much more sophisticated interrogation technique than your dear ol’ dad.”
“Just tell her what she wants to know.” Logan moved with a rigid intensity, fists clenching and unclenching as he rushed towards the desk.
Lamb got to his feet slowly, unconcerned in the face of Logan’s anger. “Oh, go ahead and take a swing at me. It’ll make me feel good to toss you both in the slammer again.”
Veronica placed a hand on Logan’s chest and cast Lamb a placating look. “We just want to know where Tallulah has gone. The FBI has been tracking her for years. They must know where her hideout is.”
“So another Mars can go blundering in and fuck up the sting again? Yeah, I don’t think so, Veronica.” He placed his hands flat on the desk and leaned over. “I told your father and I’m telling you: I. Don’t. Know. Where. The. Hideout. Is. Although… ‘hideout,’ heh,” he chuckled. “I gathered it was more of a ‘base of operations.’” And then he winked and Veronica tasted the bitterness of bile in the back of her mouth.
“How can you be so… sick?” she marveled.
“Do you have any idea what your family cost me? If your mother was half the actress you are, I’d be splashed across the newspapers as a hero this morning. As it is, I get intimately acquainted with the side of my house by your dad at one o’clock in the morning after coming home from a meeting with that fucking Amazon of an FBI lady. She’s going to write me up.”
“My dad did that to you?” Veronica gapped at Lamb’s abraded face.
“It does look a bit like his style,” Logan conceded in a tone that approached sympathy before Veronica cut him an irritated look.
“Well, gee, Don. I’m really sorry that my family messed everything up for you. You must be really pissed at those little girls, too. If they hadn’t gone to the trouble of getting themselves kidnapped just to make you look bad…” Veronica shook her head as she began to walk out of the room.
Lamb snorted and she stopped so abruptly that Logan bumped into her.
“I know it’s hard for you to trust the system, Veronica, but I wouldn’t worry about the kids. Agent More-Ass is on the war path and I hear they finally got jurisdiction.” He chuckled again, “Mexico has some fucked up laws.”
“Mexico?” Veronica glanced over her shoulder.
“That’s really all I know.” Lamb threw up his hands. “Just keep your eyes on the funny-pages. It will all come right.”
“If there’s one thing I love about you, Lamb, it’s your eternal optimism in other people’s ability to do your job for you.”
Veronica stormed down the corridors of the courthouse without waiting for his response. Logan followed behind her at an easier pace, thanks to his longer legs.
“So… Mexico? Is kind of a big place.”
Veronica sighed.
“Dad probably called his pal at the Bureau. With a nice little admonishment to tell me jack, should I do the same.”
“What now then?” Logan watched her closely as they came to a stop by the exit. Veronica looked up at him sadly.
“I can think of one last person. But I need to talk to her alone.”
Veronica focused on the black back of the maid’s uniform as she led her along the edge of the pool. It was better than trying to take in the glare of the hot afternoon sun reflecting off the turquoise water. She needed to invest in a nice pair of sunglasses after this.
Veronica had been mildly surprised that Colleen Sharpe was agreeing to see her after the trouble John had gotten into for his participation in his little ‘poke-her’ games. But it all became a bit clearer when she saw the front page of the Neptune Register sprawled across the poolside table, next to an empty, cut-glass tumbler and about half a bottle of Southern Comfort.
Kiddnapper Flees in Daring Midnight Escape.
FBI Remains Mum About Involvement.
Pussy had one arm thrown dramatically up to cover her eyes and a rather skimpy white bikini to not cover the rest of her. Veronica took a seat on the lounge chair next to her but she didn’t stir, even as the maid walked back to the house.
“You were one of Dina Clark’s victims, weren’t you.” It was a statement, not a question by the time it left Veronica’s mouth.
Pussy’s eyes were bloodshot and her lashes damp when she finally raised her arm to peer up at Veronica. Her voice was ragged when she spoke.
“I never called her Dina.”
It was confirmation enough.
“Please, Colleen, I need to know where she would have taken the girl.” Veronica was leaning forward, speaking with deliberate calm, when Pussy suddenly choked on a laugh.
“My name’s not Colleen. It’s not Pussy either. Fucking names. You never know how important they are until they change on you. Dina? Tallulah? Miriam, Susie, Jez. Why should I tell you anything, Veronica?”
Veronica gulped, unsure of how to handle this fragile psyche. She didn’t exactly have a good track record with this sort of thing.
“You wouldn’t have let me in here if you didn’t want to talk to me, Coll-,” Veronica swallowed the word and frowned as Pussy burst into that broken laughter again.
“Maybe I just wanted an audience, Veronica. Maybe I just needed someone to see me.” Pussy climbed to her feet, unsteady in her strappy stilettos as she swayed by the deep end of the pool. “Maybe that’s all I’m good for.” She was lost, staring into the deep blue water.
Veronica hung her head and whispered a single word down the front of her cotton tee.
“What?” Pussy’s head whipped around, pulling her leg away from the water as she focused in on Veronica as if she were a bug.
“Please,” Veronica repeated.
“Why?” Pussy’s voice climbed to the shrill tone of a lost little girl and Veronica shuddered, refusing to glance up again.
“My father has gone after her. He’s full of guilt and trying to do the right thing, but he’s not being careful and…” Veronica finally looked Pussy in the eyes, “She’s already tried to kill him once.”
Seconds stretched across Veronica’s frayed nerves as she waited for a response.
And then Pussy was nodding, her blonde head bouncing like a bobble doll on her thin neck.
“Okay. Okay, I’ll help you. She helped me but she didn’t, did she? She said John loved me and-they-think-I-don’t-know. He’s been going down there again. I know. I followed him. It’s how I knew I had to get away. Okay, okay, I’ll help you.” Pussy’s words trailed after her in the hot summer as she shuffled towards the house in a slightly manic set of twitches.
Veronica followed her away from the deep end of the pool, feeling more over her head then ever.
Logan had picked her up by five in a rented black Range Rover. ‘Stealth,’ he’d declared it, and he wasn’t entirely wrong. He didn’t ask where she’d gotten the map of Mexico with its little red dot inked in near Culiacàn. She tried hard not to growl when he refused to drive more than fifteen miles over the speed limit.
Two miles past the border, he offered up the fact that his father had actually hated Mexico.
“Even when he had to film down here, he’d bitch about it. ‘They know how to treat celebrities in Europe,’ he’d say.” Logan fell silent for a moment. When she didn’t fill the void, he observed, “Probably why I came down here so much. Fuck!” He brought his hand down on the steering wheel. “Is there anything in my life free of that bastard?”
Veronica grimaced and reached across the gap between their seats, settling a hand on his lower thigh and squeezing. Logan glanced at her and she tried to smile. He frowned into the darkening night.
“Of course, he could have just been saying that. It could have been an act. He could have come down here all the time.”
Veronica didn’t know what to say, so she said nothing.
But she left her hand on his knee.
The night was saved from complete darkness by only the faint light of the half moon, hanging low in the sky. Logan cut the headlights and they left the car at the head of the side road. They approached the long building on foot and Veronica fought the urge to flinch when Logan pulled a gun from under his jacket, even as she fumbled to settle her taser more firmly in her hand.
There were no lights on inside. No feet crunched on the gravel path around the perimeter, save their own. Any cars were hidden from view. The sense of desolation settled over Veronica like a smothering wool blanket and her breathing began to pick up speed as Logan motioned her to one side of the frame before trying the latch of the main door.
It fell open on well-oiled hinges. Logan blinked at her with overshadowed eyes, as uncertain as she was about how to proceed. She shrugged and began to enter, only to have him shoulder past her, moving into the room first with his gun held out before him. The click of the safety catch echoed down the long hall of rooms.
Veronica had begun to worry that Pussy had betrayed her, but, as her eyes began to adjust, her mind began to catalogue the evidence of recent habitation. Half empty glasses sat on the tables of the small waiting room. A loose, white sheet ran out one of the several doors on either side of the narrow hallway that seemed to run the length of the building. A chair was overturned near the entrance to the hallway. There was no dust, and the musty smell that assaulted her nose had nothing to do with poor housekeeping. Yes, people had been here recently, and left in a hurry: That was one of the inescapable conclusions that faced Veronica.
Her mind fought the second conclusion, even as she glanced through the side doors and saw the unmade beds, the too-small lingerie hanging from a side chair. The small, gray teddy bear in one corner, its mouth stained dark with what Veronica was sure would match one of the lipsticks on the counter beside it. Soon, the other corner of the room was filled with a second distasteful sight as Veronica emptied the contents of her stomach, not even fighting her gag reflex.
“Veronica!” Logan’s shout of dismay carried down the hallway.
“I know.” Veronica wiped her mouth on her sleeve as she staggered into the disserted corridor to find Logan standing in the entrance to the last room. “I know, Logan. Oh, God. It’s a brothel. It’s a brothel of children.” She spit the words out as she reached him, but he shook his head as he glanced into the room.
“It’s not that. It’s… your dad.”
Veronica had long assumed that they were the only two people left in this hell hole, and she followed Logan’s gaze with mounting fear. Her eyes traced a path of dark splotches on along the floor, to the edge of the bed and the shape of a pair of legs, stretched out on the floor.
Veronica fell to the floor, amid the dark stains, at the man’s side. Her father.
She cried out for Logan to help her as she tried turned him over onto his back. He was so still. The right side of his temple swelled with an ugly lump and the front of his shirt was stained complementary to the floor. It wasn’t blood. It couldn’t be blood.
“Don’t you dare do this. Don’t you dare.”
Logan’s hands grasped at her shoulders but she shrugged them off and pressed her fingers to her father’s throat, searching desperately for a pulse.
Continue to Chapter 22
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