Wickedly Dangerous (26 page)

“Well,” she said in a low, discouraged tone he'd never heard from her before. “That didn't exactly go the way we thought it would, did it?”

Liam turned around, knowing he'd let down the woman he'd come to care for; knowing she had every right to condemn him for allowing Maya to be on the loose again.

“I guess I should have handed Maya over to you when you asked me to,” he said softly, shuffling the toe of one boot against the gravel. “I should have known she'd have some kind of a plan in place in case she got caught, although I never in million years would have seen this coming.”

Baba narrowed her eyes and said grimly, “I know exactly what you mean.”

He had a sinking feeling they weren't talking about the same thing.

“Baba—”

She just shook her head, that cloud of hair moving through the air like silk flowing through water. “And you accused
me
of having secrets,” she said bitterly. “When were you going to tell me you were still married?”

BABA SLAMMED THE
door of the Airstream behind her and threw her boots one at a time against the far wall as hard as she could. Maybe if she broke something, she wouldn't feel so much like crying. Not that she would cry. She never cried. But by golly, she was going to have to break a
lot
of stuff.

“Oh-oh,” Chudo-Yudo said, his head appearing from around the counter. “I know that look. What the hell happened?” He ambled over and head-butted Baba in the stomach affectionately, almost knocking her over and yet still perversely making her feel better.

“Do you want the long version or the short version?” she asked, tossing a small brown-and-red antique porcelain vase up and down in one hand as she tried to decide if it would make a large enough crash to be at all satisfying.

Chudo-Yudo eyed the motion dubiously. “Uh, better give me the short one. I kind of like that vase. It goes with my eyes.”

Baba snorted, but put the piece back down more or less gently. She walked over and plopped onto the couch, putting her head into her hands for a minute as she tried to figure out the best way to sum up the disastrous last couple of hours.

“Okay,” she said, finally. “Liam caught Maya in the act, trying to kidnap a little boy. He arrested her, brought her to the sheriff's department, and summoned me using the amulet I gave him. By the time I got there, so had a bunch of other people. Including Liam's
wife
, who accused him of murdering their baby three years ago, as well as all the children who have gone missing around here in the last six months. The board put Liam on suspension, and let Maya go. End of story.” She decided there was no point in mentioning that Liam had also refused to allow her to take Maya back to the Otherworld. The tale already sucked enough without that little tidbit.

Chudo-Yudo's tongue lolled out of his mouth as he gazed at her in amazement. Eventually he curled it back up, shook his whole body from nose to tail and said, “That's one hell of a story, all right. I think it's time to call back the Riders, don't you?”

*   *   *

“HE HAS A
wife
?” Alexei repeated. “Son of a bitch.” His massive arms flexed. “Do you want me to pound him into dust for you? It would be my pleasure.”

“Don't bother,” Chudo-Yudo said with disgust. “I already offered to eat him, and she won't let me do that either.”

“Let's focus on the real issue here, shall we, boys?” Baba said, trying to ignore the gnawing in her gut that showed up every time anyone said that word.
Wife.
Gah.

“Maya is back on the loose and we have no idea where, or what she'll do next. That's a lot more important than the fact that our friend the sheriff has a wife whom he didn't happen to mention. A wife, who after being out of the picture for two years, apparently, shows up and tells a huge lie that allowed Maya to go free.”

Grim doubt shadowed Gregori's already serious expression. “Are you sure it
is
a lie, Baba?” he asked.

She swallowed hard. “Um, call it eighty percent sure that Maya and Melissa are both lying and Liam is innocent.” So, almost sure anyway. “I suppose it's possible that Maya is using the doorway and causing havoc in the Otherworld but isn't also involved in the children's disappearances. After all, I clearly don't know the sheriff as well as I thought I did. Hell, I didn't even know he had a wife.”
There's that word again. Double gah.

The men exchanged glances, silently electing Mikhail to ask the tough question. “Could he have been fooling you all along? Fooling us all, I mean? I really liked the guy.” His handsome face was unusually somber.

She sighed. “Anything is possible. But you should have seen his face when Melissa accused him of murdering his own child. I'm not the best at reading Humans, but I'd be willing to swear that what I saw was hurt and shock, not guilt.”

Alexei shrugged mountain-sized shoulders. “That's good enough for me, I suppose. So what do we do now? Do you want us to keep watching the other children?”

Baba didn't know what she wanted. Or how on earth they could keep Maya from taking any more kids now that they didn't even have a sheriff on their side. If they ever had one.

“Do any of them seem like liable targets, assuming she doesn't just cut her losses and run back to the Otherworld? Or find someplace else to start again on this side of the doorway?” she asked.

Gregori said, “Two of them, no, but the others are possibilities. If she strikes again, she might go after one of them.”

“Assuming that Liam was telling the truth about any of this, and that all our theories weren't based on the lies of a murderous madman,” Baba said, blinking furiously. One of Chudo-Yudo's hairs must have gotten into her eye. Suddenly she couldn't take another minute of this conversation. Lying, not lying. Married, not married. What did any of it matter anyway?

“But, Baba, you just said—” Alexei's bearded face creased in bafflement.

“Do what you want,” Baba said, getting up from the table. “I'm going for a walk. I need to clear my head.” Just when she had been thinking crazy thoughts about maybe not being alone for the rest of her life . . . now she felt more alone than ever. Who knew that could hurt so much?

She started toward the wardrobe door, and got as far as putting her hand on the wonky latch before she remembered with a spearing ache that the Otherworld was no longer her refuge. It took all the self-control she had not to just bang her head against the door. Repeatedly.

Instead, she grabbed her boots from where they'd landed when she'd hurled them, scooped up her helmet, and slammed out the door. A minute later, the sound of a motorcycle roaring down the road filtered in through the open window of the Airstream, which still vibrated from her violent exit.

All three riders sat, speechless, staring after her. Eventually, Mikhail said to Chudo-Yudo, “What the hell was that all about?”

The dragon-dog gave his coughing laugh and sank down, furry white head resting on his paws. “I think our Baba has finally fallen in love.”

“Ah,” said Gregori. He pondered for a moment and then added, “I don't think it is going well.”

Chudo-Yudo rolled his eyes under furry brows. “That, old friend, is the understatement of the century.” After a minute, he perked up and added, “On the bright side, I'm pretty sure that eventually I'm going to get to eat
someone
.”

*   *   *

“I FOUND YOU
wandering lost in this land when you slipped through the door in a drug-addled stupor,” Maya said to Melissa in disgust, once they were back on the other side of the doorway, far from pesky sheriffs and overly solicitous bosses. “You were a broken woman, and I took you in. I gave you a new child to replace the one you lost. Fed you and cared for you. All I asked in return was the location of the doorway, and a little unimportant information about the place you came from and the people who lived there. And this one other small thing—to accuse your husband, a man you had already betrayed in a million ways. Why are you whining at me now?”

Melissa was crying, the glowing red light of the biggest moon shining on her tears like blood. “I did what you asked,” she said, speaking so softly her words barely disturbed the shimmering air. “But I didn't know it would be so hard to see him again. To see his face when I said he killed our baby.”

She cried even harder, making Maya's fingers twitch. She couldn't wring the silly bitch's neck; she might still need her. And it wasn't as though the red-haired woman hadn't played her part to perfection. But all this silly sniveling was going to drive her mad. Humans. Irritating creatures at the best of times. And this was
not
the best of times.

“I can't go back again. I can't. I can't.” Melissa made her hands into claws and ripped at her skin, tearing her face until it bled, pulling at her long red hair, crying and screaming and laughing all at the same time.

Maya sighed and slapped her. Melissa just cried harder.

Maya sighed again. “Well, that's the end of that, then,” she said with resignation. “Damned Human. You're clearly too unstable to be depended on. It looks like time has run out on my little plan.” She'd already come to that conclusion anyway. “But first, one last child before I go. And I know just the perfect one.”

Melissa hid her head in her hands, rocking back and forth as Maya's silvery laughter filled the eerie Otherworld sky.

THE MUSICAL RUMBLE
of the motorcycle's engine eventually soothed Baba's churning stomach and frazzled nerves, and she slowed down somewhat from the bone-jarring speed she'd been traveling at to a more reasonable pace that allowed her to check the surrounding scenery to get some idea of where she was.

Tall trees lined either side of a country lane, with the occasional white farmhouse and red barn dotting either side. Black-and-white cows lifted their heads to peer at Baba as she rode by, then returned to their munching, unimpressed by this strange noisy animal. A red-tailed hawk circled lazily overhead, as if leading her on, and it was with more resignation than surprise that she spotted Liam's cruiser parked just inside the gate of what looked to be a small, ancient cemetery.

Apparently even when she didn't want to see him, the handsome sheriff was so strongly rooted in her spirit it was as though some invisible cord tied them together. Given free rein by her mindless driving, her treacherous subconscious had led her straight to him. She was going to have to have a little chat with it, as soon as she had more time.

For now, she coasted to a stop by the pair of weathered stone posts that marked the entrance to the nameless graveyard, flipped down the BMW's kickstand, and parked her motorcycle next to the car. Under the gloomy late-afternoon sky, Liam's figure stood alone in front of a tiny granite headstone, head bowed, a ragged bouquet of yellow-white daisies and pink and purple wildflowers crushed and forgotten in his large hands.

Baba hesitated for a moment, not sure if she would be intruding, but eventually she trudged past leaning moss-covered stones and a scattering of better tended, more modern monuments in the shape of angels, crosses, and in one case, a towering black marble obelisk, until she arrived at Liam's side.

There she stood, gazing mutely at the simple tombstone, carved with the name Hannah Marie McClellan, and dates for a birth and death that fell far too close together. Underneath the dates, there was a single word: Beloved.

Hannah hadn't even lived to see her fourth month. Baba closed her eyes in sympathetic pain and silent respect. When she reopened them, it was to see Liam gazing at her stoically, one eyebrow raised in unspoken question. The wind blew his too-long hair into his eyes. He ignored it, untouched for now by mere human annoyances.

“Hi,” Baba said, her voice soft, as seemed fitting for their surroundings. Despite the sadness all around them, there was also a kind of restful beauty in the quiet, out-of-the-way place. A single crow cawed as it flew overhead on its way to somewhere cheerier.

“Hi,” he said. “What are you doing here?” He looked at the road and back at her. “For that matter, how did you find me? More magic?”

She shrugged, the leather jacket she wore making a low rasping noise as it slid across her shoulders. “Magic of the heart, maybe. Nothing I did on purpose.” An ironic smile tweaked at the edges of her lips. “To be honest, it was just as much a surprise to me as it was to you when I wound up here.”

The eyebrow lifted even higher, but he didn't say anything. They stood there for another few minutes in companionable silence, looking down on the place that marked all that remained of his daughter except bittersweet memory.

“It's a nice cemetery,” Baba offered, finally. “Calm. Peaceful.”

“Yeah.” Liam bent and put the slightly mangled flowers down on top of his daughter's stone. “Melissa and I had our first big argument about this place. She wanted Hannah laid to rest in town, where she could stop by and see her every day on her way to work. But my whole family is buried out here; going back to the days when this area was first settled by a bunch of people with more hope than sense.”

He gave a wry smile, as if to include himself in their ranks. “After that, it seemed like we argued about everything: Whether or not to give away Hannah's clothes and toys, or turn the nursery into some other kind of room. Whether or not to try and have another baby right away. Or ever.

“And then she began drinking and doing whatever drugs she could get her hands on, so long as they numbed the pain. By the time she started in on the indiscriminate sexual encounters, I'd given up fighting.” His hazel eyes were shadowed by guilt and remembered anguish. “So maybe part of this new thing is my fault; her just trying to get back at me for giving up on her.”

“Sounds more like she gave up on herself,” Baba said practically. “I suspect you kept trying long after most men would have given up and written her off entirely.”

She was rewarded with a wan half smile. “Maybe,” he said. “But it still wasn't enough.” He gazed down at the pitifully small grave. “I never cried, you know.”

Baba looked up, startled. “What?”

“The night Hannah died. All those long weeks and months afterward. Even the day we buried her.” His hands clenched at his sides. “I never cried. I was trying so hard to be strong for Melissa, for the people who depended on me, I never cried for my own child. What kind of father does that make me?” His voice cracked at the end, although his expression never changed, as bleak and empty as when she'd first walked over to stand by his side.

Baba finally gave in and pushed the hair out of his face, but the wind promptly blew it back. She kissed him lightly on the lips instead.

“The kind of father who locks his heart up in a shell and does his job, I guess,” she said softly, one arm winding around his waist of its own volition.

Liam snorted. “Gee, remind you of anyone else you know?”

Well, there was that.
“Yeah, just a little,” Baba said. “We're a pathetic pair, aren't we?”

He picked up his head and gazed at her steadily, locking his eyes on hers until she was forced to stare back. “Are we?” he asked, in a voice that tried to make it sound as though the question were more casual than it was. “A pair, I mean.”

Baba's heart jumped, giving its own automatic answer, but all she said was, “I don't know. Sometimes it seems like the entire universe is designed to keep us apart. I don't know if we can work past all of that.”

She remembered their passionate encounter, when for a few golden moments, everything had seemed possible. Even now, she wanted him with a longing that shook her to the soles of her boots. But there was no way they could resolve anything until the current situation was dealt with.

She touched her lips softly to his and said, “One thing I do know—we're going to work together to bring Maya down, once and for all.”

Hope leaped into Liam's face as if the sun had come out, although the sky above was still as gray as ever. “Does that mean you believe me? And not Melissa, with her horrible lies?”

Baba tightened her grip into something that was almost a hug before letting go. “Yes. Yes, I do.” She wasn't even sure when she'd decided to believe, she just knew she did. “The old Baba used to tell me that the heart is as important to magic as power—and my heart says you're innocent.” A tiny smile twitched up one corner of her mouth. “What it's saying beyond that, frankly, is still a mystery.”

Liam gave her a brief hug back, releasing her almost before she'd realized his arms were around her. She missed them as soon as they were gone.

“I'll settle for that, for now,” Liam said. He knelt down to pat the top of the tombstone one last time, a solitary drop of moisture sliding unnoticed down his sun-browned cheek.

“Don't you worry, baby girl,” he said. “Daddy is going to take care of everything. But I'll be back. And I'll cry for you then.”

*   *   *

MAYA LET HERSELF
into Peter Callahan's palatial rented house and let the door click shut behind her. She'd been there before, of course, so the luxurious furnishings in shades of white and taupe didn't surprise her, nor the smooth marble floors resounding coldly under the
click, click, click
of her stiletto heels.
What kind of person rents an all-white house when they have a four-year-old child?
Not that there was any sign of the usual youthful disarray; everything was pristine and in its proper place.

A sneer distorted her unnaturally lovely face. She'd despised the ambitious businessman since the day she'd met him, applying for a job he'd had no chance of denying her. In truth, she'd been looking forward to this moment for every hour of every miserable day of the six months she'd spent putting up with his smug superiority, greedy ambition, and the twice-a-week unimaginative coupling on the top of the walnut desk in his office. What was coming next would be infinitely more pleasurable.

At least for her. She suspected he wouldn't share her sentiments at all.

Drawn by the sound of her laughter echoing through the house, Peter appeared at the top of the stairs. An alarmed look wiped away the self-satisfaction that usually sat so comfortably on his aristocratic face.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he asked, glancing down at the fancy diamond-studded wristwatch he always wore. “My wife and son will be home any minute now.”

“Good,” Maya said, teeth gleaming, “I was hoping to see them before I left town.”

Peter stomped down the stairs, meeting her in the foyer that opened up into the showy living room and open-plan granite-countered kitchen. “You can't leave town,” he said, indignation spilling out like smoke. “I promised you'd stay here and testify against the sheriff.”

Maya laughed at him, rolling her eyes at this display of naiveté from someone who prided himself on being such a canny businessman. “Don't be absurd,” she said calmly. “You know perfectly well I was behind the whole thing. Why else do you think the children who went missing just happened to belong to families who were on your special list?” Her fingers made air quotes around the word
special
. “Don't tell me you thought that was a coincidence. Even you couldn't be
that
stupid.”

Indignation and fear warred on Callahan's visage. “I did start to wonder, after a bit,” he said. “That's why I was so relieved when it turned out to be Sheriff McClellan after all. And I am anything but stupid. How dare you speak to me that way? I can fire you, young lady.” The longer he talked, the more his usual confidence came flooding back, as if the familiar pattern of his words could build a palisade to protect him from the unpleasant realities the peasants had to deal with.

Maya was going to enjoy ripping it away once and for all.

“You can't fire me, you moron,” she said, tapping one Louboutin-clad shoe. “I'm already leaving. And don't try blaming me for everything that's happened; you caused it all, creating a magical doorway to my world with your destruction of the earth and the water.” She gave a bloodcurdling smile that turned his face ashen. “But before I leave, I've come for one last payment for the desecration of the element I hold sacred—I'll be taking your son.”