Chapter Text
Veronica skipped happily along to her house. She had just seen JD again – and finally learned his name. He seemed like he might actually like her, and she thought she liked him. Not as much as - well, she couldn’t think about them. The thought of JD could distract her, though.
As she turned the corner to her house, she was stopped in her tracks by the sight in front of her. There was a police car in front of her house. The worst thoughts ran through her head. Her dad was dead. Her mum was dead. She took a deep breath and entered her house.
There was a man she didn’t know in her living room, along with her parents. So they weren’t dead after all.
‘Veronica, this man says he needs to talk to you.’ Veronica’s mum directed her and the man to the table.
The man held out his hand to her. ‘Hello, Veronica. I am Detective Dolater.’
Veronica offered him a weak smile, concerned. ‘What’s going on? Why are you here?’
‘I have been investigating and I have reason to believe that you have recently come into contact with a serial killer.’
A serial killer? What was he talking about?
‘He is known to frame murders as suicides, and unfortunately we haven’t got enough proof to charge him yet. His name is Jason Dean.’
Veronica’s eyes widened. JD? He couldn’t be a serial killer, could he? Although, he did seem to know what he was doing when he was beating up Ram and Kurt…
‘He’s only seventeen.’ Veronica finally said to the detective.
‘It doesn’t mean he isn’t capable of murder.’ The detective said. ‘It had come to my attention that you were getting close, so I thought it necessary to warn you about him - that you should be careful.’
Veronica nodded silently. Her mind was whirring. It kept whirring for long after the detective left, until she found herself in her room staring up at the ceiling. She couldn’t take it anymore. She got up and left the house. It was late, and she didn’t really know where she was going, but eventually she looked up to find herself in front of Heather Chandler’s house. Veronica sighed. Well, it wasn’t a bad idea. She walked up to the house and knocked on the door.
‘Veronica? What on earth are you doing here?’ Heather opened the door and spoke in an annoyed tone, but raised an eyebrow when she saw Veronica, ‘What’s happened?’
Veronica bit her lip. ‘Can I come in?’
Heather rolled her eyes, but stepped aside. ‘Fine. Come on.’
‘A serial killer? Seriously?’ Heather was good at not showing a range of emotions, but Veronica could tell she was shocked.
‘Yeah. But apparently, they don’t have enough evidence to arrest him.’ Veronica shrugged.
Heather looked off thoughtfully. ‘Well, then. We’ll have to get it to them.’
Veronica stared at her. ‘What?’
‘You said he fakes suicides? If we fake a few of our own, we can get the proof they need.’ Heather shrugged.
‘What are you planning, Heather?’ Veronica knew that look on Heather’s face, and it never meant anything good.
‘JD is bad news, Veronica. Serial killers belong in prison, so it’s up to us to get him there. The way I see it, we need to trick him into killing some people.’
‘Heather, I’m not going to help him kill people.’ Veronica was appalled by Heather’s attitude.
Heather rolled her eyes again. ‘You’re not going to help him kill people. You’re going to make him think he’s killed people, and then we record it and send it to the police.’
Veronica opened her mouth to object then closed it again. Yes, the detective had told her to be careful. But surely this was the right thing to do? Catch a murderer?
She sighed. ‘What’s the plan?’
Heather smirked. ‘He likes you, right?’
Veronica shrugged. ‘I think so.’
‘Perfect. So, what needs to happen is for you and I to ‘fall out’ as it were.’ Heather made speech marks around fall out.
‘Why?’
‘Because then JD will be angry with me, and then I will be his next victim. After all, it’s much easier to fake your own death than someone else’s.’
Veronica wrinkled her brow, but nodded. ‘Okay.’
‘So, it will have to be somewhere with a lot of people from our school around, but preferably no adults, so maybe a party. You’ll have to get angry first.’
‘Why do I have to?’
Heather sighed dramatically. ‘Because, Veronica, it’s more believable. I just get angry when someone challenges me, so you getting angry with me would be a believable way to get me riled up.’
Veronica started nodding, enthusiastically. ‘And if we’re at a party, I could get drunk and puke on you!’
Heather glared at her. ‘If you puke on me, my anger will not be an act. Anyway, the next morning you will come to apologise to me and bring JD with you.’
‘How do I get JD there?’
Heather groaned. ‘Do I have to work out everything, Veronica? You deal with it, but get him there. I’ll get you to make me a hangover cure in a mug, Veronica. Very important. I’ll leave out some drain cleaner and another mug to tempt him into trying something. Then when he’s not looking, you switch the mugs so when you pick up the one with the hangover cure in it, he thinks that you’ve picked up the wrong one. Then I use my supreme acting skills to make him think I’m dead, and we let the school know or something like that, and I won’t come back to life until he is caught.’
Veronica clears her throat. ‘Um, Heather?’
‘What?’
‘Are we going to tell Duke and Mac about this?’
Heather hummed. ‘No. Duke needs to take charge of the Heathers, and she won’t do it properly if she doesn’t think I’m completely out of the picture. And Macnamara, well, I would include her, but the girl can’t keep a secret to save her life, Veronica.’
‘You don’t think that it might, you know, fuck them up a little bit?’
‘They are perfectly capable of handling themselves, Veronica. But if you’d like, you can keep an eye on Mac.’ Heather put a lot of emphasis on MAC. ‘We all know how you feel about her, Veronica. Well, other than Macnamara herself, that is.’
Veronica felt her cheeks burning, which made Heather smirk. ‘It doesn’t matter anyway. She doesn’t like me back.’
‘Jesus Christ, Sawyer, wake up. I just said she can’t keep a secret and her crush on you is no exception. You’re just too blind to see it. And now, you can’t even ask her out because you went and got yourself crushed on by a serial killer, so we gotta deal with him first.’
‘I mean, we could just not do your crazy plan and instead stay away from the serial killer?’ Veronica pointed out.
Heather shook her head. ‘No, it’s too late for that, I’ve already made the plan so we’re sticking to it.’
Veronica sighed and covered her face with her hands. Maybe coming to Heather’s had been a bad idea after all.