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“Are we still fighting?” is all Veronica trusts herself to say when Logan answers his phone, and she thinks she’s done a pretty good job keeping her voice neutral, but it’s Logan, so he knows:
“What’s the matter?”
“I need a ride.”
“Where are you?”
“Fifth and Azalea.”
“Near the water? By the place with the...”
“Giant neon clock, yeah.”
“Are you okay? Are you...?”
“No, I’m fine. But if you’re home, I need you to grab something for me.”
“What?”
“The bag on the floor by the bed? The duffle bag with the...”
“Little red flowers?”
“Yeah.”
“Got it. Where’s your car?”
She can tell by his voice and the noise around him—Pony’s yips, doors closing, keys jingling—that he’s moving around the apartment. “I’ll explain when you get here, just...”
“I can talk and drive, don’t hang up.”
“Logan, I’m not in…” Better to avoid using the word ‘danger’ at all, “...trouble.”
“Okay, so you’re not in trouble.” He either doesn’t believe her or doesn’t care. “Where’s your car?”
“Should I just call my dad?” she asks wearily, pacing up the sidewalk.
Logan’s reply is characteristically annoying: “But then who will bring you your bag?” He adds, serious: “Hang on, the phone’s connecting to the car, I might lose you...” (A brief silence, then a beeping sound, and then Logan is back) “...You still there?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought you said you were going to a pharmaceutical rep conference at the Marriot?” he asks.
“We took a field trip. I’ll explain when you get here. Hurry up. Don’t—run reds or anything, I’m just cold, okay?”
The marina is damp and almost completely dark, except for the yellow-green-pink glow of that neon clock outside the diner on the corner. There are a few empty cars parked along the road, but not a person in sight—which is good, all things considered. It’s not the best part of town, and Veronica isn’t really dressed for fight or flight. She could (and probably should) go sit in the diner, but she’d somehow rather wait out here in the cold. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone, see anyone, she just wants Logan to get here. “I’m gonna wait by the bus stop on the west side of the street.”
“Okay, but…”
“See you when you get here.” She hangs up before he can argue.
He probably does run red lights, because he pulls the car up to the curb in front of her just twelve minutes later. Veronica climbs into the backseat, earning her a confused—but somewhat resigned—look from Logan in the rearview mirror. “Uber for Veronica?” he asks dryly, and Veronica leans forward over the center console to kiss him on the cheek and grab the bag he brought.
“I need to change.”
“Ah.”
She unzips the bag and rummages for the skirt she knows she left in there. “Can you take me to the Orpheus Hotel?”
Logan breathes through his nose, probably counting to ten, but he nods his head and puts the car in gear, pulling a u-turn so that they’re headed toward downtown.
“Do I get an explanation?” he asks, glance shifting between her reflection and the road.
Logan already knows the basics of the case—Rustin-Krepp Pharmaceuticals using stolen research in their R&D—but, while she shimmies out of her jeans and into a tight pencil skirt, she elaborates on some of the latest developments provided by her would-be whistleblower, Kate Redding, as well as her own espionage efforts this afternoon.
“It’s not so much stolen research as invented," she says, "and it’s not just to push meds through the process. They’re misrepresenting the products to get—ouch, damn zipper—tax breaks. Kate thinks she’s being followed. She’s not, but it made her feel safer to switch cars. I was supposed to take hers, but there’s no time now.” She tugs off her blazer and stuffs it into the bag. She’s dressed for the marketing rep conference she attended this afternoon, so the look is easy to dress up. Once she’s ditched the jacket, she’s wearing a forest green velvet bodice top, which’ll work with the skirt and the wedge-heeled ankle boots. “There’s this dinner-auction that Rustin-Krepp board members are hosting at the Orpheus, and later, Kate’s boss is meeting with the developers who are signing off on the research. I need to get a bug in their meeting.”
“How very Richard Kimble,” deadpans Logan. “Oh, and hey, Babe, side-note: how did you end up alone in the middle of the night without a car at a bus stop down by the docks?”
Veronica rolls her eyes. “Logan, it’s eight-thirty.” His reflection looks unamused, and she sighs again. “Somebody figured out I wasn’t at the conference to talk E.D. medication. They took me for a drive.”
His inhale is a hiss. “But you’re...”
“Not hurt,” Veronica reiterates.
“Alright.”
“I promise.”
“I believe you.”
“Okay.” She switches on the flashlight app on her phone and starts fixing her make-up in a compact mirror from her purse.
Tonight is an inconvenient night to need Logan’s help: they had a thing earlier, and they haven’t had a chance to hash it all out yet, and now—
Of course, she could’ve called her dad instead.
It’s just that her hands were shaking when those goons pushed her out of the car earlier—which was stupid, because they didn’t hurt her, she wasn’t in danger—but she’d just... just wanted Logan to come pick her up.
“It was just a couple of security guys and some mid-level douchebag who thinks he’s Jordan Belfort,” Veronica tells him, shading in her eyebrows with a brown cosmetic crayon. “They thought I was working for Bayer or Roche. A rival. I convinced them corporate hired me to find leaks in their branch, so they panicked and dropped me off...”
“By the docks.”
“—In the general proximity of...”
“The docks.”
“Point taken.” She ties her hair back, secures it with several snap clips, and her look is almost complete. They’re stopped at a light, so Veronica takes the opportunity to climb into the front seat. It’s a little difficult in the skirt, and Logan grumbles, but she manages to squirm into the seat before the light turns green. Then she twists back to grab the final piece of her costume: a brunette wig.
Logan raises his eyebrows.
“What’s that?”
Veronica uses the mirror on the visor to make sure the wig is realistically aligned, that her mascara’s dark enough to pull it off, and explains: “Kate Redding is a brunette. I’m using her I.D. to get into this party, so...”
Veronica flashes the identification badge, and he glances at it, then back at her. “Her hair’s lighter.”
“Well this’ll have to do.”
It’s a dark mahogany wig: a shoulder-length blunt-cut long bob, with a hint of side-bangs. If the circumstances were otherwise, Logan would make a lascivious remark.
Veronica has heard couples say that, given time, they forget what things provoke them to fight in the first place. Those couples are not Veronica and Logan. Veronica and Logan never forget anything.
She knows that later, they’re going to have to finish their argument from before, and there’s going to be a lot of are-you-kidding-me and you’re-being-unreasonable, and she’s not exactly looking forward to that, but she’s incredibly grateful that even if they don’t forget, they do prioritize.
“So just to clarify,” Logan begins, as they’re pulling into the parking lot, “You’re going to a party disguised as a woman who believes she’s being followed for turning whistleblower on the billion dollar company that is hosting the party... and has hired muscle on the payroll.”
“You’re such a good listener.”
“And will the people who recently contemplated escorting you on a long walk off a short pier be in attendance tonight?”
Veronica keeps her eyes on her reflection, dabs at her lipstick, but admits: “It’s a possibility.”
“Excellent.” He parks the car, kills the engine.
“I can take a cab...”
“I’ll wait,” he says, which is what she expected anyway. “You have your gun?”
“No.”
“Taser?”
“They’ll be checking bags at the entrance.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Logan, you’re not dressed.” He’s wearing jeans, a U.S. Navy hoodie, and tennis shoes, and it looks like he left the house in such a hurry that he forgot socks.
“So? I’m rich. We’ll say I’m eccentric.”
“These days you have to be a billionaire before you’re allowed to wear Nikes to black-tie events.” Logan exhales, but for a moment, he looks as though he’s reconciled himself to the trajectory of the evening. Then his eyes fall on Veronica’s arm, and he frowns.
“What’s that?”
“Huh?” She follows his stare and notices a bruise blossoming on her bicep. Logan takes her arm, very gently, to bring it into the light: the mark is ugly and fresh and blue, and Veronica realizes it’s been stinging (in a dull way she hadn’t really recognized) since those creeps shoved her into the back of their Lincoln an hour ago. “I didn’t even notice,” she admits, but Logan’s eyes are clouded. “I’m fine.”
“After this...”
“I don’t need to go to the hospital.”
“But you should.”
“Logan...” She angles herself towards him: “I’m gonna go inside the hotel now, and I’m gonna plant the bugs. It’ll take thirty minutes. Then I’m going to come back out here, and you can take me to pick up Kate Redding's car. Then we’ll go home, finish fighting about the thing from earlier, and then, when you admit that I’m right and apologize, I will let you buy me dessert.”
Logan nods, considering. “Okay. Counter proposal: you go inside to plant the bugs. I go with you. Introduce myself to the gentleman who did that to your arm and then relieve him of his front teeth. Then we both come out here... car thing... go home, finish fighting about the thing from earlier, and once you’ve accepted that I’m right, I will buy you dessert and let you beg me to eat it off you.”
“We haven’t even finished fighting yet, and you’re already planning the make-up sex.” She plucks her purse from the back, checks that her supplies are secure, and shakes her head: “No. To all of—to most of that.” She swings her purse strap over her shoulder and presses a hasty kiss against Logan's lips. “Thirty minutes.”
She sees him deliberating, sees the exact moment he decides to trust her. “Fine.” He brushes her brunette bangs across her forehead, then pulls back to rest the back of his head against his window, arm draped over the steering wheel. “Go get ‘em, Buttercup.”
Veronica frowns at the pet name (what’s that, Princess Bride?), but doesn’t give him the satisfaction of inquiring.
The man at the door outside the Orpheus’s ballroom spends more time examining Veronica’s cleavage than the I.D. badge, so she gets in without a hitch (as expected), and the whole job only takes about fifteen minutes (also as expected). She told Logan thirty, because she figured that would buy her at least twenty, before his worst-case-scenario-prone imagination sent him charging in after her.
She’s right, too: there’s a freshly shredded take-out menu in the cup holder by the time she slides back into the passenger seat of Logan’s car. He swallows thickly and does his best to look neutral, but it’s Logan, so she knows.
“Buttercup?” she asks, eyebrows raised.
Logan smiles slowly. “The dark-haired Powerpuff Girl."
“No.” Veronica shakes her head. “That's not a thing. You’re not making that a thing. I let it slide with ‘Ginger,’ but come on.”
Logan ignores this. “How’d it go in there?”
“Hitch-less.”
“You don’t need to stick around to listen in?”
“Nope. It’s all getting recorded and streamed to Dad.”
“So we’re good to go.”
“Car, fight, dessert.”
“Cool.” He starts the engine.
“And you’re not calling me ‘Buttercup’ whenever I wear this.”
“Well I am now.”