The Yanti (6 page)

Ali briefly scanned the paper. It looked like the real deal.

“Is Sheri Smith connected to this?” she asked.

Officer Garten nodded with satisfaction. “Like you said, in this part of the state, she’s a rich and powerful person. And you’re a fool to have made an enemy out of her. She’s not going to let bugs like you and your friends accuse her of murder—ruin her fine reputation—and get away with it. This kidnapping act that you cooked up—it’s obvious to anyone with a head on their shoulders that it’s a ploy to divert attention from what you did to Karl.”

Ali sensed partial truth in his words. Clearly, Sheri Smith wanted to tie her up with mundane human matters—such as lawsuits—to keep her from trying to stop the upcoming elemental invasion.

Ali met Garten’s gaze. “I’ve never even met the woman.”

“You were at her company four days ago, snooping around under a false name. What did you call yourself? Lisa Morgan? Where did you get that name from? I don’t suppose it matters. At least a dozen of the firm’s employees can testify that you were at Omega Overtures.” Garten paused. “Why were you there anyway?”

When she didn’t answer, he grinned and re-asked the
dagger
question, the one that could bury her at the nine o’clock meeting at the police station.

“Come on, where have you been the last three days?” he asked.

“Camping in the woods.”

“You can prove that, I suppose?”

“I don’t have to
prove
anything.”

He chuckled as he stepped toward his patrol vehicle. “Sounds to me like you’ve got your excuses all lined up, Ali. I just hope Breakwater’s and Toule’s bigwigs believe you. By the way, the mayors of both towns are going to be at the meeting. They’re not happy at the way you three kids keep disappearing. Especially with Karl still missing. Or should I say, especially with Cindy accusing the richest woman in the state of murder.” Garten chuckled to himself. “That was a dumb stunt if I ever saw one. You’ve always been a pain in the butt, Ali, but I never took you to be an idiot. But this time, I promise, you’re not walking away with a smirk on your face.”

Bitter, remembering Steve’s cruel murder at the hands of the witch, Ali leapt onto her front porch and snapped, “How do you know for sure the woman
didn’t
kidnap Steve and Cindy? Have you investigated the matter? How do you know Steve is even alive?”

Garten laughed as he opened the door to his black and
white. “Go back to bed, Ali. I’m not the one you have to worry about now. It’s that cop who saw you entering Sheri Smith’s house. It’s only fair to warn you—at this meeting—Ms. Smith’s going to be there, and she’s going to have a team of expensive lawyers with her.” He added, “If I were you, I’d bring one myself. Even if you have to dig one out of the yellow pages.”

Ali felt her frustration grow, and got doubly mad at herself that she let it be heard in her voice. “I’m thirteen, I’m just a minor. My dad isn’t here to advise me. I don’t have to attend your stupid meeting.”

Just before climbing in his vehicle, Garten lost his grin and spoke in a harsh tone. “Get off it, Ali. Your sweet, innocent, little-girl act doesn’t fool me for a second. I know you three murdered that boy. And I know you were the mastermind behind it.”

“How can you be so sure?” she asked in a deadly tone, thinking how nice it would be to light his crew cut on fire and watch him dance across her lawn. Just having the idea in her head might have raised the local temperature. Garten wiped a bead of perspiration from his hairline and shook his head.

“Just something about you, Ali. You ain’t normal.”

Ali went to yell at him some more, but stopped herself. The truth was, she
had
killed the jerk—but only because Karl had murdered her mother two weeks ago. But there was no sense in pleading that angle. For everyone in town, including her own father, believed her mother had died over a year ago.

“Ms. Smith is going to be there . . .”

As Ali watched Garten drive off, she couldn’t get
that
remark out of her head, but she knew the cop wouldn’t have laughed had he known who Sheri Smith really was—the Shaktra.

Yet Sheri Smith represented only
half
the Shaktra. Ali was
pretty sure the other half continued to roam the green world—as her fairy mother also continued to exist in the other dimension. Only the Shaktra was a creature of hate, who had assembled a vast army to lay waste to all that was beautiful in both worlds—a heartless beast driven by ambitions Ali could not begin to understand. And to think, in just a few hours, the
human
halves of Sheri Smith and Ali Warner would be sitting side by side at the same table.

Ali felt a headache coming on. This interdimensional war was too complex. It was difficult to keep all the players straight. Especially when it came to her own family. Plus there were so many names . . . even when it came to the same people.

Ali . . . Geea . . . Alosha
.

Lucy . . . Sheri . . . Shaktra . . . Doren
.

With Officer Mike Garten gone, Cindy led Nira back upstairs and told Ali she
really
needed to get home. Ali begged for a few more minutes of her time.

“Why?” Cindy asked, showing her tiredness, which meant her crankiness. “Didn’t you get enough information out of my brain?”

“I learned a few things that would surprise you, but we still have to figure out how to deal with the police.” Ali held out the document Garten had left behind. Cindy took it reluctantly, scanned it, while Nira laid down on the couch and closed her eyes. The girl was as exhausted as the rest of them. Ali continued, “You’re going to have a paper like that waiting for you at your house. It’s ordering us to appear at a nine o’clock meeting at the police station.”

“What kind of meeting?”

“It’s going to be more of an interrogation than a friendly
gathering. The police from both towns are going to rake you over the coals with questions. Plus the mayors of Breakwater and Toule are going to be there.”

“Why?”

“Because Garten—and whoever he’s working for—are trying to connect Karl’s disappearance with your and Steve’s kidnapping.”

“I’m not following you.”

“Garten has this wild theory that the three of us staged your kidnapping to divert attention from what we did to Karl.”

Cindy snorted. “No one will believe that. A fake kidnapping would draw more attention to us.”

“I agree. The problem is, no one’s going to believe
you
until Steve’s body is found.” Ali added, “I’m afraid that ain’t going to happen anytime soon.”

“You really think Sheri Smith . . . took him?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t my word count for anything with the police?”

“They need proof a crime has actually been committed. So far, when it comes to Karl and Steve, they don’t have any physical evidence of foul play—except for the fact that both are missing. What hurts us is—the police already think you lied to them.”

“When?”

“Remember in Toule—when the cops went out to Smith’s house—they came back to the station and reported to their captain that they couldn’t find a basement?”

“Such dorks. I told them exactly where it was. I can take them back to the house and show them where it is.”

“This is going to be hard to believe, but when I was there,
I
couldn’t find the door that led to the basement.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Just telling you what I saw. When I went back to Smith’s house, there was no entrance to the basement. It looked as if there
never
had been a doorway. Also, where I laid Steve on the sofa, blood from his wound dripped onto the couch. But when I checked it an hour ago, the stain was gone.”

“Could Sheri Smith have snuck in and cleaned it up?”

“No one cleaned up anything. It was just gone.”

Cindy shook her head, confused. “Are you saying that witch cannot only alter the way people see her? She can make her house change shape?”

Ali considered. “It might be that nothing in the house has been altered—except our perception of it.”

“Did she cast a spell on the police who went out to the house?”

“Maybe. We’re not even sure if she was there.”

“She must have been there. How was she able to cast a spell on
you
?”

The remark almost sounded like an accusation, and frankly, Ali didn’t blame Cindy. Since returning from the elemental kingdom, Ali had done her best to keep her name unconnected to the events at Sheri Smith’s house. Her reasoning was simple—she had bigger fish to fry. Like saving the world. In a sense she was forcing Cindy to take all the heat.

Now Ali could see why Sheri Smith was determined to draw her into a legal battle. She tried to explain the woman’s motives to her friend.

“Smith’s not interested in you. She wants to tie me up with the cops so I don’t have time to return to the elemental kingdom.”

Cindy got tense. “You’re going back? I didn’t know that.”

“We haven’t had a chance to talk. Listen, at this meeting, you have to keep things simple, like you did before. Say that
Sheri Smith invited you to lunch—you and Steve—then put bags over your heads and tied you up and threw you in a room that you
thought
was a basement. Then explain how she killed Steve—how she stabbed him in the heart. Don’t expand on the story. The more you talk, the more details you supply them with, the more ammunition they’ll have to trip you up with.”

The advice made Cindy uneasy. “But it was Karl who stabbed Steve.”

“I told you, Karl cannot be brought into this. That’s exactly what Sheri Smith wants. She’s trying to muddy the water. When it comes to Steve, she should be on the defensive. I mean, she’s being accused of murder. That’s not a small thing. But already she’s put us on the defensive by focusing the police on the fact that Karl disappeared last month while he was camping in the woods with us.”

“You don’t know that for sure,” Cindy said.

“I spoke to Garten. It was obvious he’s using what happened in Toule to tie us to Karl’s disappearance.” Ali added, “He went out of his way to tell me Sheri Smith was going to be at the meeting.”

Cindy paled. “She’s coming here? To Breakwater?”

“Yes.”

“Doesn’t that worry you?”

“Well. . .”

“But she murdered Steve! Why don’t they arrest her?”

Ali shook her head. “Right now, it’s your word against hers.”

The information that she would be seeing Sheri Smith again in a few hours shook Cindy. “I can’t be in the same room as that woman,” she muttered.

Ali tried to soothe her. “I’ll be beside you the whole time, and there’ll be plenty of cops standing guard. I’m sure she won’t try to physically harm us.”

“After what you said about her house, it sounds to me like she could cut out our hearts and eat them and the police wouldn’t even notice.” Cindy added anxiously, “Maybe we should just tell the truth.”

Ali had been afraid she would say that. “Exactly how much of the truth do you think we can tell?”

Cindy wouldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m not saying you have to say that you’re a fairy. But it would be easier if you could back me up some.”

“How?”

“Well, tell them you rescued me from Karl.”

“Then they’ll want to know where Karl is.”

“Tell them you don’t know.”

“Somehow I don’t think that will go over very well.”

Cindy glanced up, hesitated. “Where did you . . . put him?”

“It doesn’t matter, no one’s going to find him. And I’m never going to admit to killing him, nor are you going to talk about him. I hate to be so hard on this point, but we have to keep our stories straight here. Karl’s dead but he can still put us both in jail.” Ali paused. “Do you understand?”

There was a lengthy silence. There were no two ways about it, Ali was giving Cindy an order. However, Cindy glanced over at Nira, then straightened up and nodded. Ali heard the resolve in her voice.

“Don’t worry, I won’t give you away,” Cindy said.

Ali hugged her. “With all this running around I’ve been doing—flying around—I haven’t had a chance to tell you how brave you and Steve were, going after that witch. If it wasn’t for what you guys did . . .”

“Steve would still be alive,” Cindy interrupted.

“No.” Ali hugged her harder, then took a step back, brushing Cindy’s curls from her weary blue eyes. “You mustn’t think
that way. Remember, it was Steve, using Karl’s computer, who first connected Smith to the Shaktra. He read all her e-mails to Karl. He knew what a monster she was. He knew the risk he was taking by going after her, but he did it anyway. That might sound melodramatic, but it’s the truth. Steve didn’t die in vain. You didn’t suffer at the hands of that witch for nothing. Finally, she’s been exposed for what she really is, and she’s worried. That’s why she’s moving so fast on the legal front, trying to corner us. But she’s got problems on her own end.”

Cindy looked at her hopefully. “What kind of problems?”

“Before you were taken captive, you guys had a long talk with Hector, and you revealed your suspicions about Smith. You also told him you were going to have lunch with her the next day, and then, by coincidence, you guys disappeared. Toule’s almost as tiny as Breakwater. He must have heard about your disappearance, it must have troubled him.” Ali added, “That’s one of the reasons I want you to call him right now.”

“At six in the morning? Are you out of your mind? I hardly know him. Why am I calling him?”

“To tell him that Sheri Smith killed Steve. Also, tell him you managed to escape from the witch’s dungeon, and that you have Nira with you.”

“Ali . . .”

“Listen. Hector’s ex-girlfriend, Patricia, used to babysit Nira, before she was mysteriously killed by what looked like the same SUV that killed Freddy Degear. You and Steve used that coincidence to get in his door, remember? But now you have lots more to tell him about Sheri Smith, and he’ll want to hear it.”

“How do you know?” Cindy asked.

“Because he hates her. I heard it in his voice.”

“You’ve never even spoken to him.”

“I heard it in your brain.” Ali added, “Trust me, that’s why you have to get him over here.”