Wickedly Dangerous (27 page)

PETER CALLAHAN'S JAW
dropped open. “What? Have you lost your mind?” He shook one finger at her, apparently not noticing that it was trembling slightly.

“If you've done this horrible thing, that's not my fault!” he protested. “And I am certainly not going to allow you to take my son. I've been building all this for him!” Callahan waved his hand through the air, as if his empire would somehow appear into view as concrete evidence of how hard he'd worked.

Maya sneered, crimson lips curling in disdain. “Oh, please. You've been building it for yourself. I'll bet you haven't spent more than twenty minutes with the boy on any day since I've been here.” She put her hands on her hips, facing down her erstwhile boss.

“You'll give me the boy,” she said succinctly, each word dropping into the air like a biting fragment of hail, “or I will bring your world crashing down around your ears. I'll tell your wife we've been screwing since my first interview. I'll tell everyone in town that you helped me to choose which children to steal and that you're behind all the mischief that's happened to the people who haven't wanted to let you drill on their land.”

“That was you too?” Callahan looked so stunned, Maya wanted to laugh. “But—but if you were helping me before, why do this now?”

“I helped you get what you wanted because it suited me to do so at the time,” she said with a shrug. “And now it suits me to take it away. Just as you Humans took away my power and drained my spirit by destroying the pure waters that link my kind to this benighted world. Be practical, my darling Peter. You can make another son, but can you build another powerful career if I destroy your reputation and implicate you in my crimes?” She rolled her eyes at his deer-in-the-headlights look. “Consider your son the price for all my help. At that, you're getting quite the bargain.”

Callahan glanced around desperately, as if some miraculous answer would materialize from behind the overstuffed white couch with its hand-embroidered golden pillows or slide out from behind the bland, expensive artwork hung on the walls.

“He's out with my wife,” he said. “You'll have to leave town without him.” Callahan pulled his wallet out of a back pocket, the tooled leather gleaming under the lights of the tasteful crystal chandelier that hung from the high ceiling overhead. “Look, I can give you money. My charge cards. I'll write you a blank check.”

“I don't need your money,” Maya said. She tilted her head as if listening. “Ah, how convenient. I believe I hear your wife pulling in now. I'll just take what I came for and go; you can get on with your empire building in peace.”

“But—what will I tell my wife?” Callahan bleated, all his usual polish wiped away. “I can't tell her I simply handed over our son!”

Maya smiled evilly. “Tell her you were wrong about me after all; just another poor victim of the horrible woman who stole away everyone's children. Maybe you'll even get enough sympathy from those foolish locals to sway a few more people to your side.”

Tired of arguing, she drew on her borrowed magic and bound his will to hers. The spell hadn't worked as well as she'd hoped on that silly Melissa, protected as she was by her own insanity. But Peter had no such protection, and Maya relished the moment when he realized he no longer controlled his own actions. Only his eyes, darting frantically back and forth, revealed the mind that no longer ruled his body.

She turned her back on him and walked outside, knowing he'd have no choice but to follow. At the top arc of the circular gravel driveway, Callahan's wife Penelope was helping a small boy out of his car seat, a pile of shopping bags on the ground near her feet. She looked up in surprise when she saw Maya.

“Why, Ms. Freeman, I didn't expect to see you here.” Penelope gave Maya a cautious look, suspicion edging her voice. “I heard in town that you'd accused Sheriff McClellan of being involved in the kidnappings somehow. I just can't believe it's true. You must have made a mistake.”

“Not to worry,” Maya said brightly. “It will all become clear soon enough. In the meanwhile, I'm afraid there's been a little problem in your basement. It seems like one of the pipes there sprang a leak, and the water is rising fast.” She tapped her toe again, speeding up the flow of the underground spring she'd called on earlier to break through the floor and flood the cellar. Sometimes having control of water was a handy thing.

“Your husband asked me to come take little Peter Junior out for ice cream while the two of you deal with the plumber and all that mess,” she continued, moving to take the boy's hand before his mother could react, and walking him rapidly in the direction of her rental car. She would be
so
relieved never to have to use these stupid human metal torture devices again. Even with all her increased strength, it was agony to ride in the things.

“And I was happy to do it. You just take all the time you need. Peter Jr. and I will be just fine, won't we?” She smiled happily down at the child, who craned his neck around to look at his mother uncertainly.

“Oh, no,” Penelope said. “I don't think that's a good idea. You don't even have a car seat. Besides, we've been out all afternoon and Petey is tired. And it's almost dinnertime.” She gazed as her husband, obviously expecting him to do something.

“Peter. Peter! Tell her she can't take our son!”

Callahan just hung his head and said nothing, holding Penelope back by force when she would have stopped Maya, who plopped their son into the passenger seat of her car, buckled the seatbelt around his tiny waist, and drove off in a spray of gravel and impending sorrow.

*   *   *

LIAM WAS WALKING
out of the cemetery with Baba when he heard the crackle and squawk of the two-way radio in the squad car. Technically, he shouldn't even be driving it now, but he hadn't gone home yet to exchange it for his personal truck. Besides, as long as he still wore his uniform and could sit behind the wheel of the cruiser, he could almost pretend he still had an office and a job to go with them.

“Sheriff? Sheriff McClellan, are you there?” Nina's voice spilled out of the radio in a muffled whisper, as if she was trying to talk without being overheard. “Liam? Pick up the damned radio!”

“I'm here, Nina,” Liam said as he stuck his head into the car and thumbed on the two-way. “Why didn't you just call me on my cell phone? You're going to get in trouble if someone catches you talking to me over official channels now that I'm suspended.”

The dispatcher's exasperated sigh came clearly down the line between crackles. “Because you're someplace out in the middle of nowhere, and your cell has no reception. I've been trying you on it for the last ten minutes.”

Liam glanced at the rural countryside surrounding him and grimaced. “Fine. But what's so important you had to reach me right away? If it's a fight at The Roadhouse, somebody else will have to deal with it this time.”

Nina lowered her voice even more, and Liam had to bend down closer to the speaker to hear her, the top of his body twisted awkwardly half in and half out of the open cruiser window.

“Peter Callahan's wife called in, completely hysterical. She insisted on talking to you, no one else.”

“Nina,” Liam said in his most patient tone, “I'm not the sheriff right now. She's just going to have to talk to someone else.”

“You don't understand,” Nina said urgently. “She says that Maya took her son.”

Behind him, Liam could hear Baba let out a quiet gasp.

“What? When?” he asked, already fumbling for his car keys.

“She wouldn't tell me anything else,” Nina said, clearly put out by not being in the loop. “Just insisted on talking to you. Said you were the only one she trusted. She wants you to meet her at the crossroads where Country Route Twenty and Blue Barn Road meet, as soon as you can get there.” Nina paused. “You don't think it's some kind of trick, do you?”

Liam had been wondering that himself. “You talked to her; what did you think?”

Nina pondered the question for a second. “I think she sounded like a desperate woman in a world of trouble. Do you want me to send someone else?”

Liam and Baba exchanged glances over the roof of the cruiser. “That won't be necessary,” he said. “I've got this one.”

*   *   *

AT THE BLUE-PAINTED
barn, a long-abandoned landmark that gave the road its name, Baba and Liam found Penelope Callahan waiting impatiently, pacing by her boxy green Volvo and wringing her hands. A large red and purple bruise decorated most of one side of her otherwise attractive face, and she limped slightly as she paced. The Volvo's right headlight was bashed in, its injuries seeming to match her own.

She rushed over to meet them as soon as the cruiser pulled into the lot, ignoring Baba and addressing Liam with barely restrained hysteria. Her carefully coiffed hair stuck out at the sides, as if she'd been running her fingers through it repeatedly.

“Sheriff McClellan, thank god you're here!” Penelope gasped. “Nina said you couldn't come, because they'd suspended you, but I knew you wouldn't let me down.” One trembling hand dashed away tears impatiently. “You have to help me get my son back!”

Liam put one arm around her shaking shoulders briefly before stepping back to take a closer look at her face. “What happened, Mrs. Callahan? Did Maya do this to you?” Baba could see the muscles in his jaw tense as he clenched his teeth.

Penelope shook her head, wincing a little. “No, no,” she said. “Maya was there when I got home from doing the shopping with Petey. She said we'd had a major flood in the basement and Peter had asked her to take Petey out of the way while we dealt with it.” She looked indignant, as if insulted by the suggestion that she couldn't cope with a household emergency and a four-year-old at the same time.

“I said no, of course,” she went on, speaking in the rapid breathy tones of the truly frantic. “But she just took him anyway, and Peter didn't do a thing. She didn't even have a car seat!” Panic rose up in her eyes and Liam took one of her hands in his.

“I'm sure that Maya is a very safe driver,” he said soothingly. “Now, you said Maya didn't give you those bruises. Can you tell us who did?”

Tears sprang into Penelope's blue eyes, but to Baba, they looked more like tears of anger than the fearful ones she'd been shedding a minute ago.

“I confronted Peter when he tried to stop me from going after Maya. Hell, I knew that she was lying when she said all those horrid things about you, so that meant she had to be involved somehow. But Peter just stared at me like a zombie.”

Penelope pulled herself up straight. “When I told him I was going after Maya by myself, he hit me.” She touched one trembling hand lightly to the side of her face. “So I knocked him over with the car and followed Maya anyway.” She glanced at Liam. “I didn't really hurt him; he was already getting up as I drove away.”

Baba let out a choked laugh and looked at the prim and proper Mrs. Callahan with newfound respect. “You ran him over with the car? That's fabulous!”

Penelope sniffed back tears and gave Baba a tiny nod and a lopsided smile, wincing when the action pulled at the bruise. “I know, isn't it? I should have done it years ago.” She sobered quickly. “If I had, my son wouldn't be in the hands of that woman now.”

She looked from Baba to Liam. “I didn't know what to do. I followed her to a cave, and when she dragged Petey in there, I wanted to follow, but something kept me from going in. I know it sounds crazy, but I tried and tried, and I just couldn't get through!” The last bit was said in a rising wail.

Magic
, Baba thought. And could see from Liam's face that he'd realized it too.

Liam patted Penelope's hand again. “It's probably just as well,” he said. “That woman is more dangerous than you can imagine. But she's not going to harm Petey. I'm not going to let her.”

Penelope nodded damply, and Baba said, “Can you lead us to where you saw her last?” Her heart raced at the thought of finally getting her hands on the woman who had caused her so much trouble. Visions of cracking bones and freely flowing blood filled her mind for one gleeful moment before she pulled herself back to the situation at hand.
I am finally going to get to kick someone's ass. About freaking time!

Liam and Baba followed Penelope's car about a mile down a back road that led to a barely visible path into thick woods filled with pine and oak and a few spindly birches. The trail was too narrow for vehicles, so they left the cruiser and the Volvo by the side of the road. Birds chirped merrily as they passed by Maya's car, already parked on the practically nonexistent verge. They glanced inside as they passed; the keys still dangled from the ignition, as clear a sign as any that Maya had no intention of coming back.

Baba spotted something long and shining on the driver's seat and crowed with glee, sticking her hand inside the open window to pick it up. “How careless,” she said, giving Liam a grin that clearly baffled him. “This should come in handy.”

“It's a hair,” he said. “It's not even evidence of anything.”

She tucked her find carefully into one pants pocket and followed the others down the dusty trail. “You'll see.”

Penelope led Liam and Baba to the dark, shadowy entrance of a cave so well hidden by prickly shrubs and spindly young saplings, it would have been almost impossible to spot if you didn't already know of its existence. The opening seemed to shiver and twitch, radiating
wrongness
like a misplucked violin string.

Penelope nodded at the entrance, which was little more than a slit in the hillside, and said in a tremulous voice, arms wrapped around herself for comfort, “There. She took my son in there.”