1 – Losing Lynn

Logan Echolls' life changed the day that his mom climbed up on the rail of the Coronado Bridge. He was in trouble at school again, defending his mom against his cackling classmates, and his parents had come to the school to meet with the principal. Of course, there was the inevitable fighting when they both arrived but it was when Logan threatened Aaron that things veered off the usual course.

"I cannot take this anymore."

And then Lynn was gone. Her car turned up abandoned on the Coronado Bridge, no body found, a presumed suicide.

Logan was devastated for two days before he found his grandfather's lighter in his mother's rooms and decided she had simply run away. "Free at last." That caused another pain in his heart as he realized the lighter meant that she had completely abandoned him this time but she'd been doing that for years and he had gotten used to it. He pushed the pain down as he always did and decided to be happy for her.

A few days later, at her travesty of a funeral, Logan decided he could be happy for her and still want her back. There was no way he was going to last at home with only Aaron and Trina. He racked his brain trying to think where she could have gone but he wasn't sure how he could figure this out. Then his phone rang for like the twentieth time from Veronica Mars. He still wasn't answering her calls; he could just imagine what she would have to say to him after how cruel he had been when her mother took off. If he hired her though…she was a professional, she wouldn't take the time to taunt him if he was paying her.

He went back to school the next day with the plan to corner Veronica and ask for her help. Logan had watched her help plenty of people she didn't like, surely his money would spend as well as any of theirs. The problem was, he couldn't find her. He went by her locker between each class and never saw her. He had been sure that he would at least see her in journalism but she wasn't there either. Sitting alone in the journalism classroom, he was starting to feel a little panicked as his plan fell apart before his eyes. Who was going to help him if he couldn't find Veronica?

He was caught offguard when his head was suddenly rocked forward from an impact from behind, causing him to nearly strike the monitor in front of him from the force. He put an instinctive hand to the back of his head, rubbing the sore spot, and then he was scrambling out of his seat to keep from falling. Veronica Mars had hit him in the back of the head and now was dragging him out of his seat by his collar.

When Logan managed to get his feet under him and straighten up fully, she couldn't really reach his collar any longer and she seemed to satisfy herself by shoving him in front of her towards the door of the classroom.

"Veronica?" Ms. Dent asked with a tone of curious amusement. "The office said you were absent again today."

Veronica grabbed the back of Logan's shirt to stop him for a moment. "I am. Consider me a figment of your imagination. And don't worry, Ms. Dent. I won't actually hurt him." Logan turned back to look at her and she sneered at him. "Although I really want to." She gave him another vicious shove that propelled him out of the classroom.

Once in the hallway, she pushed him again, this time heading for the girls' bathroom he had seen her using for her "business" in the past. Since his goal was to get her to help him, this was an acceptable destination although he was feeling a little apprehensive about her current actions. He couldn't imagine what was making her treat him like this. Everyone else was on their best, most sympathetic behavior with him, at least to his face, and while Logan had been dodging her calls because he was afraid she would taunt him, he had never expected her to assault him and, if he was really honest with himself, he would have been surprised if she was deliberately cruel to him with his mom believed to be dead.

Logan took advantage of his longer legs to get to the bathroom before she could shove him again. He ducked in and held the door open for her to follow, gesturing her in with a flourish. She scowled at him as she dug the out-of-order sign out of her bag and banged it onto the door before wedging it closed.

"This feels wrong," he said thoughtfully. "Boy in a girls' bathroom."

"Why haven't you been answering my calls?" she shouted at him. "I've called you like a million times."

"I've been a little busy, ya know," he shouted back. "My mother's funeral and all."

She sighed and slumped against the wall. "You should have picked up."

He leaned against the sink opposite her. "I was afraid of what you would say."

She cocked her head to the side. "What did you think I would say?"

Logan shrugged. "I don't know. I was always so mean to you about your mom taking off. This seemed like a good opportunity for you to strike back."

She made a disgusted sound. "Did you really think I would do that? I've always liked your mom. She's nice to me even when you aren't."

Logan tugged on his sleeves and shifted on his feet. "No. I don't really think you'd be like that. That's just me. I'm the one who does that kind of thing." His hand came up to rub the back of his neck. "So. I don't know what you want from me but I did want to talk to you. I want to hire you. I think my mom is alive and I need you to find her."

She looked at him incredulously. "Really?"

"Yeah, Veronica, really. I don't think she's dead. Will you help me? I'll pay you."

She looked at her feet and shook her head. When she looked up again, she was smiling.

"You don't need to pay me to find your mom. I already know where she is."