September first, 1998

19

"Dean, anything to report from yesterday?" His boss asked as JD jumped in his cubicle, not expecting him to be there already. This was the part when he had to lie his ass off.

"Nothing much sir. Most of the people I called don't remember anything useful. There were two people who seemed to remember some guy that didn't really like Heather all too well, however I would say that was more of a petty high school rivalry than a murder motive. The kid killed himself anyway, so we wouldn't be able to arrest him" he decided to leave out everything Martha had said until he had a clearer plan and focused on manipulating the statements of MacNamara and Duke.

"What was the kids name?" His boss asked.

"Well it's hard to tell, apparently he went by his initials so nobody remembers his full name. Something like JB or JC, but he's dead now anyway" he reminded him "there was one girl, however, that really took a disliking to Heather Chandler, called Heather Duke. I spoke to her yesterday, and she seemed convinced that they were genuine suicides. Either way, she didn't seem to care much when I brought them up, in fact she sounded bored. Apparently she was said to have celebrated her death afterwards, and replaced Chandler as the queen bee, so to speak. Is that worth looking into, Sir?"

"I suppose so" his boss answered, though JD doubted he had actually listened to any of it "keep up the good work."

JD sighed with relief once his boss left his desk. He didn't know how long he could keep lying for. At some point someone would contact the police station with information and he wouldn't be the one to answer the phone. Until then though, he could breath, though he wasn't sure how much time he had before he would have to make a proper, stable plan. He knew he had to get away from Sherwood Ohio, and that he had to take Veronica and Jenna with him. That was the safest option, but he when was the best time to leave without seeming suspicious?

Back at her house, Veronica was rifling through newspaper adverts for appartements far away from Sherwood Ohio. Like JD, she knew their best option was to run while the focus wasn't directly on them, but she still dreaded the thought of uprooting Jenna from her life. At least she could get away from her bullies, but she knew she would struggle to say goodby to Bailey.

Hopefully she would be more focused on the fact that she would get to live with her dad. That was, of course, if JD didn't mind. It was a huge decision, but she was quietly confident that JD craved a sense of normality and family, the life he had always been denied.

She spent her day sighing at the disappointing adverts, or lack of them, and walked to their local library to use the computer there. The internet gave her much more promising results. She wanted to get as far away from Sherwood Ohio as she could, and began to look into other states. Suddenly, she saw a proper in Seattle that seemed promising. It surprisingly wasn't too expensive, and it was close to local schools. Most importantly, it was far away from Sherwood Ohio. Part of her worried even that wasn't far enough.

JD waited for his lunch break to arrive. He had spent his morning listening in to pretty much every conversation around him to see if anyone suspected anything new, but as usual, the conversations were limited to football games and food. He felt bad when he glanced over at Ollie, who had been ignoring him since the incident in the evidence room. He seemed scared to look in JD's direction. Nothing new there then, just one more person in his life that he pushed away. Great.

When his lunch break finally arrived, he began to drive back to Veronica's house, but then remembered the promise he had made to himself to actually go out and buy food. He pulled into the local supermarket in the center of town and headed into the store. He picked up the usual groceries, and a few extra things so he could offer to make a nice dinner for Veronica and Jenna if they wanted. He also stopped at the confectionery stand, and picked up some candy for Jenna. He decided he wanted to be the cool dad after all, even if it did get him in trouble with Veronica.

After paying, he made his way out of the store, and was surprised to see Veronica walking down the street opposite him, clearly lost in her own thoughts, he beeped his car horn quickly to get her attention, although he seemed to have scared her shitless. Swearing under her breath, Veronica crossed the street towards him, as he loaded the grocery bags into his car.

"I saw you had left this morning" she said as she approached the car, "any news on the case?"

"Not a thing" JD replied "I just needed to get some fresh clothes from home, I obviously haven't been there in a few days."

"Yeh about that..."

JD's heart sank at this.

"Okay, look, I get it, I'll stop hanging around your place if..."

"What, no that's not what I mean!" Veronica blurted out quickly. She felt bad for making JD think she was already kicking him out of her life. "I've been thinking, we can't stay here any longer. It's not safe. I've just been looking for places to live in other states on the library computer and there's one house in Seattle that's pretty affordable, and it's far enough away for us to be off the radar. I was wondering, if it's okay by you, if we could live together? You, me, and Jenna. What do you..."

This time it was JD's turn to cut her off with a kiss. She liked this game they were playing, it was like a romantic game of mental tennis. She thought he took it pretty well then.

"I'd love to" JD smiled.