Veronica Mars (21 page)

A few yards away, Margie Dewalt wept silently into her handkerchief. Veronica met Ella’s eyes for one long, awful moment, forcing herself not to look away. Her breath felt tight in her chest. She saw Mr. Dewalt, pulling his phone out of his pocket, sticking his finger in his left ear to block out the sound of the crowd as he answered. His expression was confused. Then the crowd shifted, obscuring him from sight for a moment.

“All right, if there are no further questions—”

“Oh my god! She’s alive!”

People turned and craned their necks to see where the sudden cry had come from. A moment later Veronica caught sight of Mike Dewalt, his face a mask of anxious astonishment. He had a cell phone clamped to one ear.

A murmur went up from the crowd, only to die down as Mike spoke. “Hayley’s still alive.” His voice was a breathy croak. His eyes looked wild. “And so’s the other girl. They’re still alive.”

He held up the cell phone, as if it was some kind of proof. His eyes were fearful and excited all at once.

“Their kidnappers just called. And they want a ransom.”

Interrogation room B hadn’t changed at all in the almost ten years Veronica had been away. Dark wood wainscoting, dingy yellow paint, a chalkboard scrawled with what at first looked to be clues to some convoluted mystery but that turned out to be fantasy football scores. It was just like stepping into a time warp.

Except instead of a vain, lazy, incompetent Sheriff Lamb, now we’ve got a vain, lazy, corrupt Sheriff Lamb
. She looked across the table at Lamb’s glowering face. He’d just been upstaged, and he wasn’t happy.

The room was at capacity. Veronica and Keith sat across from Dan Lamb and Petra Landros. Mike, Margie, and Ella Dewalt sat close together on the side to Veronica’s left, Crane standing behind them. To Keith’s right sat the Scotts. Lianne was inches from Keith, which sent an anxious, electric charge up the back of Veronica’s neck every time she glanced their way.

Keith and Lianne hadn’t seen each other in more than ten years now; their divorce had been quick and uncontested, a signature on a piece of paper. Veronica had worried their presence in the same room would be like matter and antimatter, exploding on contact in a rush of blinding light.
But all that had happened had been a smile, a handshake. A civil exchange.

“Hello, Keith.”

“Lianne. It’s good to see you. I’m sorry for the circumstances, though.”

And then they’d sat down. That was all.

Veronica looked around the table at the other faces. Mike Dewalt’s eyes were bright with relief. Margie couldn’t stop crying, her face hidden behind her enormous handkerchief. Ella looked pale, her lips and eyes like dark marks on paper. Behind them, Crane clutched the back of a chair, his fingers white. On the other side of the table, Tanner and Lianne held hands. Hunter sat on her lap, resting his head against her shoulder and looking at no one.

They’d all just heard that their daughters had been murdered, only to get what felt like a reprieve minutes later. A sense of cautious relief hung on the air.

“The e-mail address it came from is just a bunch of scrambled numbers,” Mike said, setting his phone on the table. “But it had a … a sound file in it. What’s it called, sweetie?”

“MP three,” Ella said, in a soft, distant voice.

“MP three,” he repeated. “Here, listen.”

He hit Play. A man’s voice came through the speaker, garbled through some kind of voice modulator so it sounded like a child’s toy robot.

“Dewalts: Your daughter is alive. If you want to see her again, follow our instructions to the letter. We want six hundred thousand dollars in unmarked, nonsequential bills. Pack it in a small suitcase. Do not try to put any trackers or dye into the money; this will result in your daughter’s immediate
death. Do not involve the cops; this will result in your daughter’s immediate death. We will be in contact on the evening of the twenty-sixth to instruct you on where to leave the money. Do not try to set up some kind of sting, as we are watching every move you make
.

“For the time being she is safe and comfortable, but very scared. To prove she’s alive we asked her to tell us something only she would know. She said you once let slip that she’d been conceived to Meat Loaf’s ‘I’d Do Anything for Love.’ She said only you, Mrs. Dewalt, Mr. Dewalt, and she know that fact
.

“Do not try to outsmart us. If you follow the instructions to a T, you will have your daughter back again by the weekend. We do not want to be violent, but if we have to, we will.”

Margie hid her face entirely now, her sobs loud and ringing in the quiet room. Ella wrapped a slender arm around her mother’s neck, her face pinched and scared. For a moment, no one spoke.

“Someone’s been tracking the money on the website,” Veronica said. Her voice felt too loud in the quiet room. “They’re asking for the exact amount of money raised. That’s not an accident.”

“Ours is almost the same,” Tanner finally said. He wore a T-shirt with a picture of his daughter printed across the front. It said find aurora in large dark pink letters across her forehead. The creases in his face seemed deeper, more graven than before. He thumbed a button on his phone to play the message.

He was right; it was the same, word for word, until it got to the paragraph on proof of life.

“Aurora said she and Lianne made gingerbread pancakes together in the middle of the night during Tanner’s last relapse.
You were waiting for him to come home, and you made the pancakes to kill time and fed them to the dog.”

“That was years ago,” Lianne whispered. “She was twelve or thirteen. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about it since.” She took a shuddering breath and looked around the room, her eyes round, hopeful. “But this is good news, right? It means the girls are still alive. It means we can get them back.”

Lamb cleared his throat. He seemed to be fighting to keep his face sympathetic, but it wasn’t a natural expression for him—the effect came across almost passive-aggressive, like he actually
was
going to kill someone with kindness.

“I don’t want to dash your hopes, folks, but there are almost always hoax ransom demands that come in after a disappearance. The Lindbergh baby, JonBenét … it’s possible that this is some kind of prank or con.”

Margie let out a gasping sob. “There’s no way Hayley would have told anyone about that song. She was so embarrassed. It came on the radio one night when we were making dinner, and I … I thought it was funny. I couldn’t help myself. I had to tell her. But she ran to her room and hid for the rest of the night.”

“She might have told a friend, a boyfriend …,” Lamb said.

“No. You don’t know Hayley like I do. She was furious that I told her. I can’t imagine her telling anyone else.”

Lamb sighed. “Look, I just want to caution you all to not get your hopes up. We’ll look into every possible lead here, but the fact is, we have a suspect in custody who we can place at the scene of both crimes. And we have physical evidence tying him to one of the disappearances. The signs
are not looking good, and it would be a mistake to comply with these demands.”

That was when Lianne spoke, and Veronica saw it—saw a glimpse of her mother, the woman who’d been married to a cop, who’d been willing to fight for things she loved when the vodka wasn’t pickling her brain.

“A mistake?” Lianne leaned forward. “Listen to me, Sheriff. As long as there’s a chance of finding Aurora alive, we’ll take it. We’ll do anything we have to do to get her back.”

Landros, her face much more convincing than Lamb’s in its mask of sympathy, held up her hands. Her pillowy lips were turned down, her dark eyes gentle. “Please, Mrs. Scott. We’re here to help. Rest assured that we will do everything in our power to bring the girls home, alive and well.”

With startling intensity, Lianne whipped her head around to face Keith and Veronica. “What do you think, Keith?”

Keith shook his head. “I haven’t been working this case. I can’t really speak to the details. It’s Veronica we should be asking.”

All eyes settled on Veronica. Her heart picked up speed, and her hand, almost unconsciously, drifted up to touch the cut at her neck.

“Well,” she said carefully. “I don’t know anything for sure. But I’m not convinced Willie Murphy’s our guy.”

Lamb looked at her incredulously. “You’re the one who brought me the evidence, Mars. Now you’re saying—”

“I’m
saying
that we don’t know the whole story yet,” she said, speaking over him. “Murphy risked his life to help me back at the Gutiérrez house. I think he knows something about what happened to the girls—but I’m not convinced
he’s a kidnapper. Or a murderer. And we’re all ignoring the fact that he was in custody when the ransom notes came in. Either he has an accomplice—or he didn’t do it.”

They stared at each other across the Formica, the space between them electric with mutual loathing. She kept her gaze level, her chin slightly raised.

On the adjacent side of the table, Margie Dewalt looked up from her handkerchief. “Can we use the money from the reward funds to pay the ransom? Is that … is that something we’re allowed to do, Ms. Landros? I know it was supposed to pay for the reward, but so far it hasn’t helped us find her. Maybe it can help us bring her home.”

Crane suddenly spoke, his voice loud and sneering. “Look, this guy they arrested had her
necklace
. He obviously killed her.” He jerked his head toward Veronica. “Like she said, Willie was already in jail when the e-mails were sent. Whoever sent these notes, they’re just trying to get your money.”

Mike Dewalt shot to his feet. His face was terrifying, his thick bushy brows low over his eyes. Wordlessly, he grabbed his son’s shirtfront, pulling Crane roughly toward him. Margie shrieked, shoving her chair away from them both. Veronica caught sight of Ella’s face, a sudden, protective blank.

Before anyone else could move, Keith stood from his chair. He held both hands up nonthreateningly, but he took a few careful steps toward the two men. “Mr. Dewalt. Please—you’re in a courthouse. I don’t want to see you in the lockup. Not when we should be focused on how to bring Hayley home.”

His voice was quiet but firm, a tone that was more compassionate than chastising. The room was otherwise silent. Veronica realized she was holding her breath, her muscles
tense. Mike froze, staring down into his son’s face for another beat. Then he let go. Crane leaned against the wall, shaking—whether from anger or fear, Veronica didn’t know.

Petra waited until Mike had sat back down before speaking again. “As to your question, Mrs. Dewalt, I will talk to the lawyers this afternoon to make certain, but I see no reason not to use the donations any way we must.”

It was Tanner who broke the silence.

“What about a ransom specialist?”

The gravity in the room shifted, all eyes moving down the table to his exhausted face. He looked around at them all.

“A what?” Petra stared at him blankly. He looked apologetic, like bringing it up was somehow awkward.

“You know—the people who handle the ransom so it all goes off according to plan? They had a thing about it on
Dateline
a couple years back. Lots of security firms are doing that kind of thing these days.” He licked his dry lips, looking around the table. Margie glanced at her husband, obviously interested in the idea. Lamb scowled but remained silent.

“Well, of course, if you feel it’s the best way to handle the situation—” Petra began. Lianne stood up abruptly, holding Hunter against her chest.

“I think we do.” She gave Lamb a withering look. “I’d feel a little safer with a professional on my side.”

Veronica knew the barb was directed at Lamb, but she still flinched internally. As if she weren’t a professional; as if she hadn’t done her best to bring the girls home. But Lianne was already halfway out the door, Hunter in her arms. Tanner gave the table an awkward smile and hurried after her.

With that, the meeting seemed to be adjourned. Crane
stormed out ahead of his family, shoving violently through the door. Everyone else rose slowly, gathering their belongings with tentative movements. Veronica took one last look at Lamb then left, Keith close behind her.

“You okay?” Keith asked Veronica when they were on the steps outside. She smiled faintly.

“Yeah. I’m okay.”

But her heart felt heavy as they walked back to the car together. For once, she had a feeling that Lamb might be right—not about Willie Murphy, but about those e-mails being a hoax. And somewhere in the pit of her stomach she had the uneasy feeling that the girls weren’t going to make it home. If the families paid out, someone was going to get away with fraud at best—and at worst, murder.

Veronica’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking. She held the revolver straight out from her body and breathed slowly, deeply, the hot-metal smell stinging her nostrils. She tried to relax her shoulders. Then she pulled the trigger.

It was early afternoon on Saturday. She’d come to the range by herself, slipping out the door once she’d heard her dad start his lawnmower in the backyard. She didn’t want him to see her sneak into the kitchen like a thief and take the gun from where they’d both left it on the kitchen island.

She knew she was being stupid. Keith was a good shot—he should be teaching her. But for some reason she wanted to do it alone. Perhaps it was that she wasn’t ready to eat crow after their argument, even though he wouldn’t try to rub it in. More likely, it was that she didn’t want him to see how scared she was, holding a thing that was intended to hurt someone. To kill someone. She didn’t want him to know that the idea of using it made her feel sick to her stomach. Because she knew he’d see it as a weakness, a sign that she really wasn’t ready for this kind of work. So instead she’d spent the morning googling how to load and shoot a revolver. She found a video blog giving step-by-step instructions, starring a plump, cheerful ex-cop from Florida
who managed to put a hole through the target’s head every single time.

Veronica took aim again downrange, trying to focus on the target, and fired.