Chapter Eight-
The interior was authentic. Large, austere, and everything that needed to be wooden was richly so, from the jury box, audience seating and lawyers' benches, to the witness stand and the imposing judge's bench. However, there were touches that stood out in the overall scheme.
Gleaming in snow-white marble and accentuated with gold of an unearthly quality, four columns, one on either end of the courtroom, gave off an illumination that was soft, yet bright enough to work with comfortably. A low layer of clouds flowed from the bases of these structures, playing along the surface of the floor without obstructing it completely.
Not only did these pillars provide the expansive, sourceless light for the place, since there were no other light fixtures to be seen anywhere, but they also let everyone within, spectator and participant, know that although this facility was terrestrial in appearance, it was a clearly celestial in nature.
And the place was packed.
The audience chatted amongst themselves in expectation of the event, and outside the courtroom, Meg could hear that buzz of anticipation, and had a keen idea of what Roman gladiators must have felt like before they entered the arena.
Keeping that in mind, Meg straightened the armor of her pantsuit, checked to see that her weapon, her briefs, were safely in the shield that was her attaché. Made a silent prayer to God to do well, took a deep, nervous breath, and entered the arena of the courtroom.
Walking down the aisle, it felt as if she were walking into a movie theater, audience seating full and expectations high, except that she was a major part of the entertainment.
She was so focused in thought and preparation for the case that she barely heard two people calling her name.
Turning to the audience, Meg scanned around, still hearing her name. Then her sight fell on two people she thought she'd never see again.
"Grandpa! Mrs. Brown!" Meg said in happy recognition as she went over to them. "Wow, how are you?"
The overweight black woman took Meg's hand in greeting, saying, "Oh, we're both fine, child. How are you? How's Cleveland and Cleveland Jr.? Are they fine?"
"I'm fine, ma'am. We haven't heard much from Mr. Brown and his son, but I'd imagine that they're fine, too, Mrs. Brown." Meg then looked up ahead to see the still vacant judge's bench. "I better get going, I have to defend my client in a few minutes."
Loretta Brown thought she misheard. "What? You mean you're not here to see the trial?"
"Nope. I'm a lawyer now, Mrs. Brown. This my first case."
Francis Griffin, her grandfather, brightened up at the news. "Oh, good for you, lass. I had a feeling you'd make something of yourself, despite the fact that ya came from such a drunkard as your father. But why are ye here? Did that fat oaf fall on ya, too?"
Meg had to snicker at that. "No, Grandpa. See, I'm not really dead. My body's back home and I'm astral projecting 'cause it's the only way I can get here." Meg suddenly saw Francis' face grow stormy and she immediately wished she didn't explain that to him.
As proud as he was of Meg's accomplishments, the hearing of such an unfamiliar term brought out the stubborn, puritanical, close-mindedness in him.
"And do you know what's happening to your body right now, young lady?" he ranted. "Someone could be doing heathen things to it while you're here, flappin' your gums at us."
"Grandpa," Meg said, trying to placate him. "It's okay, my body's in bed right now."
"Yeah, the perfect place for some hooligan to take advantage of ya!" Francis countered hotly.
Meg didn't know what to do. The case was just about to start and here she was, getting embarrassed before she could ever fall on her face legally to do it herself.
She was about to try again when she saw Mrs. Brown jump in and say to him, "Oh, hush that noise, you old fool. You know your granddaughter would never do anything that would get her in trouble. If she said that this was the only way she could get here, then that should be good enough for you."
Meg thought she saw a miracle today. For once, Francis quieted down, albeit reluctantly, when told to.
"Thanks, Mrs. Brown," Meg said, almost bowing to her in gratitude.
"That's alright, child. You go ahead and win this case, 'cause your grandpa and I will be rooting for you."
Meg gathered her things again and wondered what on Earth, or Heaven, as the case may have been, did the woman have on Old Francis to make him heel.
As she turned to leave, Meg could see Francis' liver-spotted hand in Loretta Brown's, and with a knowing smile, Meg had found her answer.
Finally, Meg made it down to the defendant's bench. She settled in, going over the notes in her folders, looking, for all the world, like a veteran lawyer. Jennifer and two of her fellow cult members were sitting next to her, just as anxious as Meg. Just next to the three kids, a sullen looking cult leader sat silently. Shame etched in every line of his sad, pale face.
Meg gave one last calming glance at the audience benches, where she saw among the crowds, amazingly, some of The Paupers and Mr. Kingsfield. Much to her chagrin, yet also to her request, Number 69 sat, waving covertly at her and blowing her the odd kiss. Mortified, Meg hid her face and turned back the matter at hand.
Jennifer leaned over to Meg and whispered, "Good luck, Meg. No matter what happens, you did the right thing, and we'll always remember you for that."
Meg finished going over her briefs and gave Jennifer a nervous smile to answer her friend's confidence, a confidence Meg wasn't fully sure she felt in herself.
"Thanks," she said.
Her confidence then began to vacillate even more when she took a look across the room at her adversary, at last.
The Devil, himself, in one of his best black and red silk designer suits, clearly was in his element. He gave Meg a little wave and a smile that chilled her from within.
Meg, to her credit, went over to greet him.
"Well," he said with what sounded in her ears like a predatory purr. "I'm pleasantly surprised that someone actually came to try and defend these lambs for the slaughter, and I see that that someone is, impossibly, you, Miss Griffin."
"Well, I guess nothing's really impossible if you work at it," Meg responded carefully, trying to gauge, in all honesty, what probably couldn't be gauged in paltry human terms, his reactions. Although he was definitely here for the souls, she couldn't help but think that at any second, he could just as easily snatch her away, too.
"Well, they must care a great deal for you to risk so much. You know, of course, that if I win, they belong to me forever."
"Well, sir, the trial hasn't started yet," Meg said, heartened by the knowledge that she had to prevent that loss from happening, and therefore feeling a touch bolder in her wording. For a second, she harkened back to the painting of Daniel Webster. He was respectful to his opponent, but he knew what his opponent was about, in this case, psyching out the competition. He knew he had to do everything in his power to win. She knew that she could do no less.
"Well," the Devil said, also feeling her confidence rise. "Aren't we full of piss and vinegar. I hope that youthful exuberance of yours doesn't get you into too much trouble."
"Well," Meg shrugged nonchalantly. "I wouldn't worry about that. I have something on my side that'll help me if things go bad."
"Well," the Devil countered smoothly, knowing what she meant. "I wouldn't put too much stock into that something you're talking about. I hear that it lets you down more often than not, and when you need it most." He gave a sly smile.
"Well, then, I guess I'm just gonna have to take my chances with it. Call it brand loyalty, if you will."
"Well," the Devil scoffed. "I'd call it stupid, but the name Meg was already taken."
Meg bristled at that. She'd been called this and that for so long, that even now, when the Devil stooped to calling her names, she had forgotten who he was and just glared at him. It might have seemed to him as though a dachshund pup just yapped at a pit bull, but she didn't care.
"Look, dude, whatever," Meg told him squarely. "We can sit here and play the 'Well' game'til Doomsday, and personally, we all know how that's gonna turn out for you." Now she gave a triumphant smile. "But I have a case to win. My first one, in fact. So, let's just shake hands and come out swinging."
She reached out and held her hand out for him to shake. Cordially, he did so, and the sensation of nausea hit Meg like a tidal wave. Her knees buckled, but she still somehow stood.
"Something wrong, Miss Griffin?" he asked innocently.
"N-Nothing I can't…handle," Meg said weakly before releasing her grip and letting the sickly feeling leave her by increments.
"I'm not giving up," she managed to say, as she turned slowly, to avoid motion sickness, and tottered back to her side of the courtroom.
Although the whole exchange was pretty much comical and what he'd expect of it, the Devil had to smile curiously at the teen's pluck. He could feel the inner pain from her flow through him like an electrical charge when they shook hands, and he liked it, but he began to consider that that self same pain made her a fighter, a scrappy little piece of flesh that, impossibly, could wrench forth a miracle should he misstep. He would have to watch and see how she handled herself here.
"Well, well, well," he murmured with a smile.
Recovering, Meg stiffened and her heart banged in her ribs when she saw the judge finally enter the courtroom and sit imperiously upon his bench.
After the bailiff presented the judge and everyone settled in, the judge read the docket, then looked at Meg and her opponent.
"Before we start this trial," he told both of them. "Do the both of you have your briefs with you?"
The Devil and Meg both responded, "Yes, Your Honor."
The Devil took out a pair of underwear from his attaché case and said, "Joe Boxers."
Meg took out a pair from her briefcase. "Bikini. French cut, Your Honor."
"Very well," the judge said, satisfied. "Counsel, please state your appearances."
"Lucifer Nicholas Morningstar Scratch for the prosecution," the Devil said proudly.
"Megan Griffin for the defense," she said, with equal pride.
"Are all of the parties present?" the judge asked the two, to which both answered in the affirmative.
"Are you ready to proceed?" he then asked them.
Again both answered in the affirmative.
"Prosecution, you may start opening statements," the judge concluded.
The Devil stood and smoothly delivered his first attack.
"Thank you, Your Honor. Ladies and gentlemen of the court, let me tell you now that these kids were never brainwashed. They weren't coerced or bamboozled. Heck, they weren't even hoodwinked. They were all sane, and all acted on their own accord," he told the jury.
"The defense will try to tell you that they only craved love like I crave coffee cake, God, I love coffee cake, but Iput it to you that they only craved attention. Attention they weren't getting enough of at home, at school, and elsewhere."
He gestured at the defendant's bench. "Here, we see the end result of their reckless youth, and when it became apparent to them that the world wouldn't bend over and call them Daddy, they sought to lash out, and do the only thing they felt would vindicate their so-called troubled existence. They killed themselves."
He walked up to the jury box and leaned against its edge casually, looking into the eyes of its occupants as though he was their oldest, closest friend.
"It was just blind chance that these kids fell in with a man of questionable mental stability, who made their angst-ridden fantasies come true by telling them exactly what they wanted to hear."
"Aaron Spelling?" asked a woman from the audience.
"That the world didn't care about them," the Devil continued, holding his audience spellbound like a Southern Baptist preacher. "That their parents didn't care about them. But nothing could have been further from the truth. If these children had the guts to tell their folks their troubles, and had the moral fiber and intestinal fortitude to stick to it when the going got tough, we wouldn't be here about to pass judgment on them, they wouldn't be here to be subject to that judgment, and, yes, The Jonas Brothers would not have had a record contract. These children would have been living good, productive lives on Earth, and maybe, just maybe, someday they might have joined the ranks of you good and fine people here. Thank you."
He calmly walked back to his bench and sat back down as Meg walked up to the front of the room to begin her opening statement.
"Ladies and gentlemen, the question will not be whether Speed Racer was a horrible movie, but whether the children of this cult knowingly committed suicide that day. The answer is no. However, the minds of all these children are at the heart of this issue. The issue being that they were all under the influence of a mysterious man in white, and the issue being that brainwashing, ladies and gentlemen, is real, and when done correctly and efficiently, with a charismatic personality molding lost and troubled minds like clay, one can see the rise of Glen Beck, Michael Savage or Rush Limbaugh all over again.
"Now according to their leader, over there, they were supposed to go on a journey to a new world where their troubles would be over as they were transformed into beings of light and power." She gestured to the sad, old man that sat at the far end of the defendant's bench, as though exiled even from the other cult members.
"As you can see, it didn't work out so well. So, yes, it's true that their leader was about as nutty as a king-sized Snickers bar, he was a few songs short of a mix tape," she said to the jury, and then decided to go on a roll. "Okay, he's screwier than a Black&Decker drill, his script's missing a few pages, he's more unhinged than a door in Bob Villa's house, I mean he's like crazy mad nutz!"
"Counselor," the judge warned.
Meg settled down. "Sorry, Your Honor. Anyway, had things gone according to plan, they would have all died by their own hand, myself included. But you have to understand, the kids only looked up to him because no one else wanted to listen to them. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, listen, and not talk. Not talk down to them, not talk at them. Just listen."
"Now, don't think I'm going to paint this guy as anything less than a predator and a madman, and don't think I'm not going to paint these kids here as anything less than dumb for falling in line with him. However, and I can't stress this enough, these children diddie accidentally."
"In conclusion, the charge of mortal sin caused by suicide is false, and these children will ultimately be proven innocent, not with my help, but with yours. Thank you."
She then returned to her bench, satisfied with her performance, and secretly shaking like a leaf.
After a rousing battle of witness and cross-examination, the trial finally ended for the day, and when Meg left to return to Earth and everyone else departed the courtroom, the Devil stood in a marble corridor talking into his cell phone, a new version of the popularly hellish Void brand.
"Do you have the profile I asked for earlier?" he asked to one of the countless functionaries in his dread domain.
"Yes, sir," came the voice on the other end. Then the profile and picture of Megan Griffin slid into view on the Void's small screen.
"So this is little Megan, hmm?" he said to himself as he casually scanned the data.
The minion, thinking that his master was speaking to him, answered, "Yes, sir. According to records, she's Peter Griffin's eldest daughter, of Irish-German descent-"
"Yes, yes, I see," he cut him off while he read more thoroughly on the subject. "Hmm… Potential for academic excellence. Planed on going to Brown University. Was an intern in City Hall and the city's local news station. Impressive at such a young age. And wrote for the school newspaper. Clearly her German intelligence shines through."
Then he saw the lower section of the profile, all in very noticeable red type. "Ah, the flip side! Arrested three times, I see. Indecent exposure at a spring break. Attempted rape on a group of burglars, that was inspired," he chuckled.
"And aiding and abetting a fugitive from justice," he continued. "Heh, my kind of girl. Peer pressure in school and physical and emotional abuse at home bring about instances of aberrant behavior and self-destructive rage. Ah, yes, definitely the Irish passion."
As people who saw him in the hallway gave him a wide berth, he wondered about Meg again. There was nothing to her, obviously. Just a mortal who somehow got in way over her head in this.
But there was also the opportunity for irony and corruption, and he could never pass up a chance for that, particularly if that made winning the case all the easier and sweeter.
"Such fury, such pain," he mused. "How to make it work for me, I wonder…"
So deep in thought was he on how to twist her to his way of thinking, that he almost didn't catch a stray concern float past him in his mind. When he snatched it, he realized that he made the right call in heeding it.
Meg was a mortal, yet she was defending the cult members' souls. Why? Because she had to have known what he and Ragg were up to. How? Because she was summoned by someone, somehow. Perhaps one of the souls themselves, someone close to her. And how did she even know how to astral project? She was getting help, and aggressively, she was knowing how to use it.
The more he thought about it, the more he started to think that this little slip of a girl might have more moxie in her than was previously figured. She just might be a definite threat to his plans after all.
He redialed his cell and called, then waited for the pick-up.
"Ragg Publishing Company. How may help you?" Ragg said on the other end.
"Ragg? It's me," the Devil said.
"Hey, how are you? What's up?"
"We might have a little problem."
"Talk to me."
"Do you still have that girl, Meg Griffin, working for you?" the Devil asked.
"Sure, why?"
"I want you to keep an eye on her. Keep tabs on her, if you can."
"Alright, if you say so." Then the CEO added, "Actually, she was supposed to come back here after her orientation the other day to pick up her approved list of the names of beauty products to mention in her letters. But why do you want me to watch her, anyway?"
"Because she was up here in Heaven today, acting as counsel to the souls I was going to give to you."
"What?"
"That's right," the Devil told him. "Somehow our little four-eyed geek found out about our little deal, and managed to arrange it so that she would defend the souls of those kids."
"I can't believe it," Ragg said, flustered. "She's really racking up those frequent flyer miles."
The Devil put his hand on his head to calm himself. "Focus, Ragg. Focus. I want you to call her. Find out where she is."
"Right, right. Okay, I'm calling now."
The Devil waited, and then got a call back a few moments later.
"I just called her cell phone and I got no answer," Ragg told him, sounding a little fearful.
"Drop what you're doing and hang up," the Devil commanded. "Check your house. She might be there."
"I'm gone," Ragg said, and then hung up, leaving the Devil to actually wonder if making a deal with Ragg was such a good idea. Then he remembered the back-up plan and realized that, in the end, he would come away the victor, no matter what Miss Griffin managed to do.
The red station wagon was parked off by the side of the road. Among the widely spaced townhouses and mansions that dotted the area, the car looked wholly out of place, yet, miraculously, it wasn't towed away.
And so it sat, undisturbed, as a body began to stir into consciousness in the trunk.
Planning ahead, Meg had come out of her astral projection and back into her body, here. She woke up and stretched the stiffness out of her joints. She knew she didn't have much time. Ragg was going to find out something was wrong when she didn't touch base with him.
Looking at her cell phone's recent list of messages confirmed that fact. He called while she was on her way back.
"Crap!" she muttered to herself as she got out of the rear and came around to enter the car from the driver's side. "I don't have much time."
She started the car and pulled out of its spot on the road, drove a few yards, and then entered the driveway of Ragg's property.
She breathed a sigh of fathomless relief when she didn't see his limo there. It looked as though Ragg wasn't planning any company, which could have made Meg's job a little easier, in the long run.
She got out and slowly went to the front door, rehearsing the half-baked story she cobbled together last night. She knocked crisply and waited. Meg raised her hand to knock again, when she heard the locks on the large door loosen.
The door opened and an elderly woman of Spanish descent wearing a professional housekeeper's uniform stood dully by the threshold, a feather duster in one yellow rubber gloved hand, a can of furniture polish in the other.
Meg wondered if she had seen her someplace before, then banished the thought as she gave the woman a tight smile and rattled off her lie.
"Hello, ma'am. My name is Meg Griffin. I work for your boss, Mr. Ragg. I'm his personal assistant. He left some paperwork at home this morning, and so he sent me to go get it for him. Could I just run in there and pick it up?"
The old housekeeper, Consuela, to her credit, slowly refused. "No. No," she said softly with age. "I no let you in. Mr. Ragg, he no call me to say you coming."
Meg maintained the charade even though this woman was a tough nut to crack and time was short.
"I know, I know. He was going to call here, but he was so busy that he couldn't, so he had me rush straight over here."
She had hoped that that would have convinced her, but, again, with the steadiness of a tortoise, the old woman said, "No. No. I no let you in."
The clock in Meg's head counted down ominously and she simply didn't see any other alternative. She just begged. "Please? Please? I have to get in there, just for a few minutes, I swear. Please?"
"No. No. I no let you in. You go now. You go," Consuela droned in her monotonous Pidgin English. Apparently, she was quite adamant.
Meg reluctantly turned to go back to the car. She was not about to get into a pissing contest in the middle of the day with a housekeeper that clearly was going to bar her at every turn.
"Wait."
Meg stopped in shock. The housekeeper wanted her?
"Yes?" Meg asked, inside, overjoyed to somehow still be here. Maybe the old lady would invite her in on second thought.
"Do you have Lemon Pledge?" Consuela asked listlessly as she gently shook an empty can of the furniture polish.
Again, Meg was in shock, and not in a good way. "Uh, no."
"Okay." Then the heavy, oak door closed in Meg's face.
Meg just stood there, her mind blank. Not even the threat of Ragg's imminent arrival could stir her just then. She knew that she wasn't going to get in like she planned. It was just foolish, wishful thinking.
She went back to the car. If she was lucky, she could probably get back into town without running into her boss, and then make up a story as to why she didn't get in touch with Ragg that was, hopefully, better than her most recent one.
'I can't believe that that…housekeeper would have the nerve to ask for some blankety-blank Lemon Pledge,' she fumed. 'She could have just gone to that shop on the main street, back where the road opened up.'
The shops and the mini-mall that she past the night that she first tailed Ragg to his home…
Meg stood rigid in thought, and then, when she was satisfied, gave a grin that would have warmed even the Grinch's evil heart.
She hopped into the car and tore off down the road as fast as she dared, hoping that what she wanted was there, and in sufficient quantity.
The unexpected snarl ran the length of three blocks, stopping traffic dead ahead of Ragg's limo.
The plumber's pick-up truck that was T-boned in the rear by the municipal bus, sat in a smoking, impotent heap at the head of the mess, its back half resting on the street, and errant pipes scattered from crosswalk to crosswalk.
Ragg couldn't believe his luck and cursed it bitterly. For all he knew, that troublemaking high-schooler was probably already rooting through his papers, plundering his hard drives, ransacking his study, and going through his liquor cabinet.
He was so tantalizingly close to the expressway. If only he could cross it now, he might just catch her by total surprise in the home, and then he would introduce her to his own home version of The Silence of the Lambs. If only he could keep moving.
"Caruthers," he asked pensively, fingers unconsciously kneading into the leather arm rests of the back seat. "Is there anyway to go around this?"
"I'm afraid not, sir," came the awful, expected reply. "There's been an accident up ahead, and it looks like our car is far too big to maneuver past the others."
"Damn it. I have to get home now!" Ragg raged petulantly. "You're my chauffeur. What can I do if you can't take me anywhere?"
Caruthers muttered hotly under his breath, "You can take a flying leap off my pimply ass."
Ragg thought he heard something coming from the driver's side just then. "Did you say something, Caruthers?"
"No, sir," the chauffeur lied loudly. Then he heard the sound of a car door open, then close.
He rolled down his window and saw his employer quickly march away from the car and down the street, towards the front of the tangle of vehicles.
"Where are you going, sir?" Caruthers asked.
"Can't just sit here with my thumb up my ass!" said Ragg. "I have to save it!"
He walked vigorously past complaining motorists and interviewing traffic reporters, idling cars and rubbernecking pedestrians, until he reached the front and could see the truck knocked to the side of the street by the wayward bus, which suffered a slightly mangled face, of sorts, upon impact.
Ragg's mind was racing, more with questions than answers. The arguing bus driver and the police on the scene were no help. Nor were the people coming out of the bus and the families in the cars just behind it.
He took a quick look at his watch for the time, but in honesty, he didn't need to. He could feel the precious minuets drain from him, as if he were in the truck by the side of the street and the wreck wounded him bloodily.
That thought made him snap his head up in the direction of the pick-up. The driver, who had already told what he knew to the police, sat on the end of the way-to-low rear loading area, sulking and nursing a sore neck.
"Hey!" he called out in the direction of the bus driver and the police officers. "Do any of you guys know anything about whiplash?"
"Ask Indiana Jones," Ragg said in reply after getting into the driver's seat and turning the left-behind key in the ignition.
Amazingly, the truck shuddered to life and Ragg whipped it into gear like a professional driver. However, the rear, made low because the bus damaged its rear axel, dragged noisily along the surface of the tarmac, causing the vehicle to swerve crazily, fountain sparks into the air behind it, and trail rolling pipes everywhere.
A sight that was more and more appreciated by the original owner, since he, so startled by the carjacking, held on to the back door, and was now howling for dear life as he was dragged on his unlucky way towards the expressway.
Consuela moved as well as her elderly bones could manage in time to the drum rhythm of the salsa on the Spanish channel on the radio.
She was trying to dust to the beat, but found it hard to do with the residual drops of polish spurting feebly out of the can whenever she pressed the button up top to spray.
With a sigh, Consuela shook the can once more and heard its weak sound of something infinitesimal splashing against the metal environs. Not enough to work with at all.
She was about to stop dusting and move on to something else when she thought she heard something over the rhythm of the music, something like a tap, or knock.
She ignored it as her ears playing tricks on her, another of the creeping symptoms of her old age, when it sounded again, much louder.
Consuela turned down the radio and shuffled over the door. Perhaps it was her current employer. He sometimes did come home early, with a young woman from the secretarial pool on his arm.
She opened the door slowly, thoughts of her heavily disinfecting the sheets after their likely tryst, bobbing in her hazy mind. She was not prepared for what she saw.
On the brick-laid step just before the threshold sat a can of Lemon Pledge shining in the noonday sun.
Consuela didn't register. She just stared dumbly down at the can in disbelief, as if it were made of the purest gold. Then she slowly, almost reverently, reached down and picked it up.
Yet when she was bent over, she happened to look out into the yard. No car of that annoying girl who came by earlier, but something else caught her attention, and nearly took her breath away by the sheer luck of the situation. Another can stood off to the side.
Consuela managed a breathless, "Si," before toddling quickly back into the house, and then coming back with a paper grocery bag.
She quickly picked up the other can and placed it in the bag, and then she saw another can, and another, and another. A procession of aerosols in a beautiful, tempting line. She felt her heart skip a beat. She picked up more cans.
Every time she bagged a can, she would drone the word, "Si." It was as close to ecstasy as she could emotionally convey, and had been saying that word for a close to a minute now, plucking cans like a harvest, from the walkway that led from there to the side of the house. If she were wearing a sunbonnet, the picture would have been perfect.
The can collection continued around to the side of the house, and now she was humming merrily to herself, as well as saying, "yes" in Spanish for every can taken. She was lost in thoughts of hours, days, even months of uninterrupted dusting pleasure, using can after glorious can of lemony goodness.
So deep was she in her fantasies of polishing, that she had no idea what was set to strike just up ahead, open and ready to enclose her in darkness.
A few feet away, a large cardboard box propped up by a thin stick, was waiting…
From her hiding spot by the shrub she hid near the other night, Meg saw the box do its quick work, then she ran pell-mell to the open front door.
She entered and closed the door. She momentarily marveled at the interior of the mansion. Apart from her grandparents' and great-great aunt's home, Meg hadn't been to many such places.
Then she went to work, moving from the foyer, to deeper into the house to look for the den or study. It would be the first, logical place to search, possibly on the first floor, and hopefully, she might just get lucky on the first try.
Meg entered the large dining room and scanned for more doorways or archways. She found one off to one side of the room. Passing that led her to the gallery, and from there, she could see a smaller door that was opened slightly off to the side.
When Meg came in through the door, she sighed in relief. Judging from the desk, the small library, the little bar by the powerful and expensive stereo system, the wall safe, and the scattered papers, folders and files on the aforementioned desk, this was the study/den/office.
She went straight for the desk, clutching and glancing hard at every sheet that had writing on it, her mind programmed not to notice anything unless it had been titled with the crucial words, "Mortality Report."
Occasionally, Meg would glance out the windows in the room whenever she heard the sound of a car going by the house. She was thankful that such a sound was intermittent, so she could concentrate on her frantic, fearful search.
After she went through the loose, solitary papers on the desk, she grabbed at the folders, opening them with abandon and trying to speed read them as best she could without missing any important details as to its identity.
Read folders were discarded in haste in a small sliding pile on one side of the desk. While she had a folder in hand, Meg looked down at the desk, noticing with trepidation that the number of folders had dwindled dangerously. Only three remained unread.
She flipped open the one in her hand and perused quickly. It was nothing, just another financial report. Meg flung it to the discard pile, and then she reached over for one of the untouched folders, knocking the closest one from her to the floor.
Growling in frustration, she stopped rooting through the folders and bent down to pick it up. The fear that any second now the sound of that detestable limousine parking out front, and possibly trapping her in the house, made her heart jump a little. Just reaching down for that folder was probably an extravagance of time she didn't have.
The typed title on the fallen folder, "M.R." made Meg grin from ear to ear. She grabbed it without another thought and bolted out of the study.
She flew from the house, slamming the door and running hard out into the road. She reached her car, parked in the same spot she put it in when she came back from the celestial courthouse earlier that morning.
Meg tossed the folder in the passenger seat and then hopped in, turning the key and then accelerating away from the neighborhood, keeping a sharp, anxious eye out for Ragg's limo.
Behind her, a pick-up truck grinded its noisy way from the far end of the road.