It rang six times. She clutched the phone with white-knuckled hands, wondering if he’d seen her name on the caller ID and was screening her out. She didn’t want to just call 911—there wasn’t an emergency to report, and by the time she convinced dispatch that this was related to the missing girls, it might be too late.
Just as she was about to give up, he answered.
“What is it?” His voice was brusque and dismissive. She closed her eyes, mentally thanking whatever higher power had talked him into answering.
“Lamb, it’s Veronica Mars. This afternoon I got a lead on a suspect who was caught on camera selling Hayley Dewalt’s necklace two days after she disappeared. A small-time crook named William Murphy—Mac can get you the details. I’m at the Gutiérrez mansion on Manzanita, and he’s here. He’s in one of the back rooms playing video games with Federico.”
For a moment there was silence on the other end of the line. Back in the den something exploded on screen; the boys both groaned loudly. Veronica waited.
“So you want me to bust into private property, without a warrant, because someone may or may not have stolen a necklace? You’re out of your mind, Mars.”
She gripped the phone tighter. “There’s a huge party going on downstairs. I counted about fifty laws being broken. You have plenty of probable cause to get you in the door.”
“How do you even know this guy got the necklace from Hayley? How do you know—”
“Lamb, this is your chance,” she hissed, losing her temper. “I can prove that Willie Murphy had a missing girl’s necklace. Do you want to let that slip right through your fingers? Or do you want to be the big damn hero that bags the bad guy? I don’t know how long he’ll be here. You have to move.”
He was silent for another second.
“Okay, keep on him. We’re coming.”
Then he hung up.
She made her way back around the corner. Willie was still talking: “… you ever think we might all be some kind of livestock for aliens? Like maybe Earth is just a big wild game reserve and aliens come back from time to time to make sure we’ve got enough to eat and we’re healthy enough to propagate, and to pick off a couple million of us for food? I saw a program on the Discovery Channel about people who think they’ve been, like, abducted and shit. But maybe the anal probe is, like, their version of a brand. You get the old double bar up the ass, and it’s their way of marking you as theirs.”
Rico laughed wildly. One of the soldiers on the screen exploded in a shower of blood, and half the screen went black, the words GAME OVER in red. Neither one set down his controller—both seemed to think they were playing the surviving character.
The minutes crept by. She stood at the door, hoping that in the middle of their stoner ramblings they’d say something about one of the girls. Any minute she expected to hear sirens, shouts through a bullhorn, the party being invaded. Willie and Rico kept jamming the buttons on their controllers, shouting whenever one of them died.
“Shit, son, I fucking pwnd you,” Rico jeered.
“The controller wasn’t working. It was, like, stuck or something.”
“Sure, sure.” A machine gun blast, then: “Damn, man, I keep thinking of that little Puerto Rican girl in the pink bikini.”
“The one with the bangs?”
“No, the one with the pierced belly button. Cute, cute, cute.”
Willie laughed so hard he started to cough. “Dude, she called you a douche bag. I don’t think she’s that into you, man. Plus she’s here with, like, twenty girlfriends. No way can we get her alone.”
“No, man, look—here’s what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go to the garage and get the Ferrari. Then we’re gonna drive it around to the patio with the bass thumping. They are gonna swarm us, man. Bitches love Ferraris.” He held up his controller and jammed over and over again on one of the buttons. “Then we’ll load up the honeys and take ’em to Taco Bell.”
“Taco Bell? Man, there’s, like, smoked salmon and asparagus in truffle oil and, like, crudités downstairs. Why the hell do you want to go to Taco Bell?”
Rico shrugged. “I like their chalupas.”
Willie’s voice went dreamy. “Oh, yeah. Those are awesome.”
Rico stood halfway up, then fell back into the sofa, laughing hysterically.
Oh, shit. The stoners are on the move. Willie was helping Rico to his feet. Not very quickly, or efficiently … but on the move nonetheless. Time to exit.
She backed up a few steps, then turned on her heel and went back the way she’d come. If she hurried, she’d have time to duck into one of the other rooms, hide behind the door until they passed. She rounded the corner and pushed her way into the library …
… and right into Eduardo.