Terrence Cook

Life isn't easy for the former Sharks champion. Yes, he has an astonishing number of fancy cars, a place in the Hall of Fame seems to be in his near future, and daughter Jackie is sweet caring a true gem more than any father could reasonable wish for.

But there are darker elements in his life: a pesky gambling addiction not only forces Terrence to purposefully throw an important baseball game on the behest of his debtors, it also associates him with the shadier elements of Neptune. Meanwhile, his passionate history with the obsessive Leslie Dumass threatens to ruin his career and even his life when she finds out about his less than savoury deeds and tries to blackmail him into rekindling their relationship.

Ms. Dumass' convenient death in the bus crash casts suspicion on Terrence, and even though Keith Mars tries his best to clear his baseball idol, Terrence's lies — and a stash of explosives hidden in his tool storage — hamper the detective's efforts considerably. Is Terrence guilty after all? After retrieving the explosives, Sheriff Lamb certainly thinks so and issues a warrant to arrest him for murder. It certainly can't be said that Terrence is putting any effort into seeming innocent, as an attempted break-in into the home of Leslie's family ends with him getting shot and hospitalized. Maybe he should have taken the cautionary tale of another desperate burglar to heart — never mess with your dead girlfriend's family without the help of Veronica Mars.