lead in his stomach turned into a fluttering feeling of panic.
But this was what he wanted, wasn't it, to get the story out?
He was led to an empty table. There was another table, with several well-dressed men, al with piles of papers in front of them.
But the thing that held Matt's attention at that table was Caroline. He didn't recognize her at first. She was wearing a dove gray cotton dress. Gray! With no jewelry on at all, and subtle makeup. The only color was in her hair - a brazen auburn. It looked like her old hair, not the brindled color it had been when she was starting to become a werewolf. Had she learned to control her form at last? That was bad news. Very bad.
And final y, with an air of walking on eggshel s, in came the jury. They had to know how irregular this was, but they kept coming in, just twelve of them, just enough to fil the jury seats.
Matt suddenly realized that there was a judge sitting at the desk high above him. Had he been there al along? No...
"Al rise for Justice Thomas Hol oway,"boomed a bailiff. Matt stood and wondered if the trial was real y going to start without his lawyer. But before everyone could sit, there was a crash of opening doors, and a tal bundle of papers on legs hurried into the courtroom, became a woman in her early twenties, and dumped the papers on the table beside him.
"Gwen Sawicki here - present,"the young woman gasped.
Judge Hol oway's neck shot out like a tortoise's, to bring her into his realm of sight. "You have been appointed on behalf of the defense?"
"If it pleases Your Honor, yes, Your Honor - al of thirty minutes ago. I had no idea we had gone to night sessions, Your Honor."
"Don't you be pert with me!"Judge Hol oway snapped. As he went on to al ow the prosecution attorneys to introduce themselves, Matt pondered on the word "pert."It was another of those words, he thought, that was never used toward males. A pert man was a joke. While a pert girl or woman sounded just fine. But why?
"Cal me Gwen,"a voice whispered beside him, and Matt looked to see a girl with brown eyes and brown hair back in a ponytail. She wasn't exactly pretty, but she looked honest and straightforward, which made her the prettiest thing in the room.
"I'm Matt - Well, obviously,"Matt said.
"Is this your girl, Carolyn?"Gwen was whispering, showing a picture of the old Caroline at some dance, wearing stilts, and with tanned legs that went up and up to almost meet before a miniskirt took over, black and lacy. She had on a white blouse so tight at the bust that it hardly seemed able to contain her natural assets. Her makeup was exactly the opposite of subtle.
"Her name's Caroline and she's never been my girl, but that's her - the real her,"Matt whispered. "Before Klaus came and did something to her boyfriend, Tyler Smal wood. But I have to tel you what happened when she found out she was pregnant - "
She'd gone nuts, was what had happened. No one knew where Tyler was - dead after the final fight against Klaus, turned into a ful wolf in hiding; whatever. So Caroline had tried to pin it on Matt - until Shinichi appeared and became her boyfriend.
But Shinichi and Misao were playing a cruel joke on her, pretending that Shinichi would marry her. It was after she realized that Shinichi didn't care at allthat Caroline had gone total y bal istic, and had real y tried to make Matt fit the gaping hole in her life. Matt did his best to explain this to Gwen so she could explain it to the jury, until the judge's voice interrupted him.
"We wil dispense with opening arguments,"said Judge Hol oway, "since the hour is so late. Wil the prosecution cal its first witness?"
"Wait! Objection!"Matt shouted, ignoring Gwen's tugging at his arm and her hissing: "You can't object to the judge's rulings!"
"And the judge can't do this to me,"Matt said, twitching his T-shirt back from between her fingers. "I haven't even had a chance to meet with my public defender yet!"
"Maybe you should have accepted a public defender earlier,"replied the judge, sipping from a glass of water. He suddenly thrust his head at Matt and snapped, "Eh?"
"That's ridiculous,"cried Matt. "You wouldn't give me my phone cal to get a lawyer!"