Лиза Смит - The Return - Midnight

Stefan carried Meredith out to her car. Elena gave a tiny whistle for Saber, who was instantly underfoot, seeming bigger than ever, and she raced him up the stairs to Matt’s room. It was disappointingly clean — but Elena fished a pair of briefs from between bed and wall. She gave these to Saber to delight in, but found she couldn’t stand still. Finally, she ran up to Stefan’s room, snatched her diary from under the mattress, and began scribbling.

Dear Diary, I don’t know what to do. Matt has disappeared. Damon has taken Bonnie to the Dark Dimension — but is he taking care of her?

There’s no way to know. We don’t have any way to open a Gate ourselves and go after them. I’m afraid Stefan will kill Damon, and if something — anything — has happened to Bonnie, I’ll want to kill him too. Oh, God, what a mess!

And Meredith…of all people, Meredith turns out to have more secrets than all of us combined.

All Stefan and I can do is hold each other and pray. We’ve been fighting Shinichi so long! I feel as if the end is coming soon…and I’m afraid.

“Elena!” Stefan’s shout came from below. “We’re all ready!”

Elena quickly stuffed the diary back under the mattress. She found Saber waiting on the stairs, and followed him down, running. Mrs. Flowers had two overcoats covered in amulets.

Outside, a long whistle from Stefan was met by an answering keeeeeeee from above and Elena saw a small dark body circling against the white-streaked August sky. “She understands,” Stefan said briefly, and took the driver’s seat of the car.

Elena got into the backseat behind him, and Mrs. Flowers into the front passenger seat. Since Stefan had buckled up Meredith into the middle of the backseat, this left Saber a window to put his panting head through.

“Now,” Stefan said, over the purring of the engine, “where are we going, exactly?”

“Mama said not in Fell’s Church,” Mrs. Flowers repeated to Stefan. “And that means not the thicket.”

“All right,” Stefan said. “If he’s not there, then where else?”

“Well,” Elena said slowly, “it’s the police, isn’t it? They’ve caught him.” Her heart felt as if it were in her stomach.

Mrs. Flowers sighed. “I suppose so. Mama should have told me that, but the atmosphere is full of strange influences.”

“But the sheriff’s department is in Fell’s Church. What there is of it,” Elena objected.

“Then,” Mrs. Flowers said, “what about the police in another city close by? The ones who came looking for him before—”

“Ridgemont,” Elena said heavily. “That’s where those police that searched the boardinghouse were from. That’s where that Mossberg guy came from, Meredith said.” She looked at Meredith, who didn’t even murmur. “That’s where Caroline’s dad has all his big-shot friends — and Tyler Smallwood’s dad does too. They belong to all those no-women clubs with secret handshakes and stuff.”

“And do we have anything like a plan for when we get there?” Stefan asked.

“I have a sort of Plan A,” Elena admitted. “But I don’t know that it will work — you may know better than I do.”

“Tell me.”

Elena told him. Stefan listened and had to stifle a laugh. “I think,” he said soberly afterward, “that it just might work.”

Elena immediately began to think about Plans B and C so that they wouldn’t be stuck if Plan A should fail.

They had to drive through Fell’s Church to get to Ridgemont. Elena saw the burnt-out houses and the blackened trees through tears. This was her town, the town which, as a spirit, she had watched over and protected. How could it have come to this?

And, worse, how could it ever possibly be put back together again?

Elena began to shiver uncontrollably.

Matt sat grimly in the jury conference room. He had explored it long ago, and had found that the windows were boarded over from the outside. He wasn’t surprised, as all the windows he knew back in Fell’s Church were boarded up, and besides, he had tried these boards and knew that he could break out if he cared to.

He didn’t care to.

It was time to face his personal crisis. He would have faced it back before Damon had taken the three girls to the Dark Dimension, but Meredith had talked him out of it.

Matt knew that Mr. Forbes, Caroline’s father, had all his cronies in the police and legal system here. And so did Mr. Smallwood, the father of the real culprit. They were unlikely to give him a fair trial. But in any kind of trial, at some point they would at least have to listen to him.

And what they would hear was the plain truth. They might not believe it now. But later, when Caroline’s twins had as little control as werewolf babies were reputed to have over their shapes — well, then they’d think of Matt, and what he’d said.

He was doing the right thing, he assured himself. Even if, right now, his insides felt as if they were made of lead.

What’s the worst they can do to me? he wondered, and was unhappy to hear the echo of Meredith’s voice come back. “They can put you in jail, Matt. Real jail; you’re over eighteen. And while that may be good news for some genuine, vicious, tough old felons with homemade tattoos and biceps like tree branches, it is not going to be good news for you.” And then after a session on the Internet, “Matt, in Virginia, it can be for life. And the minimum is five years. Matt, please; I beg you, don’t let them do this to you! Sometimes it’s true that discretion is the better part of valor. They hold all the cards and we’re walking blindfolded in the dark…”

She had gotten surprisingly worked up about it, mixing her metaphors and all, Matt thought dejectedly. But it’s not exactly as if I volunteered for this. And I bet they know those boards are pretty flimsy and if I break out, I’ll be chased from here to who-knows-where. And if I stay put at least I’ll get to tell the truth.

For a very long time nothing happened. Matt could tell from the sun through the cracks in the boards that it was afternoon. A man came in and offered a visit to the bathroom and a Coke. Matt accepted both, but also demanded an attorney and his phone call.

“You’ll have an attorney,” the man grumbled at him as Matt came out of the bathroom. “One’ll be appointed for you.”

“I don’t want that. I want a real attorney. One that I pick.”

The man looked disgusted. “Kid like you can’t have any money. You’ll take the attorney appointed to you.”

“My mom has money. She’d want me to have the attorney we hire, not some kid out of law school.”

“Aw,” the man said, “how sweet. You want Mommy to take care of you. And her all the way out in Clydesdale by now, I bet, with the black lady doctor.”

Matt froze.

Shut back in the jury room he tried frantically to think. How did they know where his mom and Dr. Alpert had gone? He tried the sound of “black lady doctor” on his tongue and found it tasted bad, sort of old-time-ish and just plain bad. If the doctor had been Caucasian and male, it would’ve sounded silly to say “…gone with the white man doctor.” Sort of like an old Tarzan film.

A great anger was rising in Matt. And along with it a great fear. Words slithered around his mind: surveillance and spying and conspiracy and cover-up. And outwitted.

He guessed it was after five o’clock, after everybody who normally worked at court had left, that they took him to the interrogation room.

They were just playing, he figured, the two officers who tried to talk to him in a cramped little room with a video camera in one corner of the wall, perfectly obvious even though it was small.

They took turns, one yelling at him that he might as well confess everything, the other acting sympathetic and saying things like, “Things just got out of hand, right?