A tenor voice, sounding slightly amused, said, “Is there a problem, Officer?”
Liam started, aware that he’d been staring rudely. He told himself it was just the surprise of her gender, not the startling Amazonian beauty of the woman herself, all angles and curves and leather.
“Sheriff,” he corrected out of habit. “Sheriff Liam McClellan.” He held out one hand, then dropped it back to his side when the woman ignored it. “And you are?”
“Not looking for trouble,” she said, a slight accent of unidentifiable origin coloring her words. Her eyes were still hidden behind the dark glasses, so he couldn’t quite make out if she was joking or not. “My name is Barbara Yager. People call me Baba.” One corner of her mouth edged up so briefly, he almost missed it.
“Welcome to Clearwater County,” Liam said. “Would you like to tell me what you’re doing parked out here?” He waved one hand at the Airstream. “I assume this belongs to you?”
She nodded, expressionless. “It does. Or I belong to it. Hard to tell which, sometimes.”
Liam smiled gamely, wondering if his caffeine deficit was making her sound odder than she really was. “Sure. I feel that way about my mortgage sometimes. So, you were going to tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Was I? Somehow I doubt it.” Again, that tiny smile, barely more than a twitch of the lips. “I’m a botanist with a specialty in herbalism; I’m on sabbatical from UC Davis. You have some unusual botanical varieties growing in this area, so I’m here to collect samples for my research.”
Liam’s cop instincts told him that her answer sounded too pat, almost rehearsed. Something about her story was a lie, he was sure of it. But why bother to lie about something he could so easily check?
“Do you have some kind of ID?” he asked. “Your vehicle didn’t turn up in the database, and my dispatcher couldn’t find any record of a permit for you to be here. This is county property, you know.” He put on his best “stern cop” expression. The woman with the cloud of hair didn’t seem at all fazed.
“Perhaps you should check again,” she said, handing over a California driver’s license with a ridiculously good picture. “I’m sure you’ll find that everything is in order.”
The radio in his car suddenly squawked back to life again, and Nina’s gravelly voice said, “Sheriff? You there?”
“Excuse me,” Liam said, and walked over to pick up the handset, one wary eye still on the stranger. “I’m here, Nina. What do you have for me?”
“That license plate you gave me? It just came back. Belongs to a Barbara Yager, out of Davis, California. And the county office found an application and approval for her to camp in the meadow. Apparently the clerk had misfiled it, which is why they didn’t have it when we asked the first time.” Her indignant snort echoed across the static. “Misfiled. Nice way to say those gals down there don’t know the alphabet. So, anything else you need, Sheriff?”
He thumbed the mike. “Nope, that will do it for now,” he said. “Thanks, Nina.” Liam put the radio back in its cradle and walked back over to where his not-so-mystery woman waited patiently by her motorcycle, its engine pinging as it cooled.
“Looks like you were right,” he said, handing her license back. “Everything seems to be in order.”
“That’s the way I like it,” she said.
“Me too,” Liam agreed, “Of course, it kind of comes with the job description. One half of ‘law and order,’ as it were.” He tipped the brim of his hat at her. “Sorry for disturbing you, ma’am.”
She blinked a little at the polite title and turned to go.
“I’m going to leave my squad car here for a bit,” Liam said. “I’m continuing a search down the riverside. Unless you were planning on pulling the Airstream out in the next couple of hours, the car shouldn’t be in your way.”
Stillness seemed to settle onto her leather-clad shoulders, and she paused for a second before swiveling around on the heel of one clunky motorcycle boot. “I wasn’t expecting to leave anytime soon.” Another pause, and she added in a casual tone, that mysterious hint of an accent making her words musical, “What are you searching for, if you don’t mind my asking?”
The wind lifted her hair off her neck, revealing a glimpse of color peeking out from underneath the edge of her black tee shirt.
Liam wondered what kind of a tattoo a BMW-riding herb researcher might have. A tiny rose, maybe? Although in Barbara Yager’s case, the rose would probably have thorns. Well, not likely he’d ever find out.
“I’m looking for a little girl,” he answered her, dragging his mind back to the task at hand. “A seven-year-old named Mary Elizabeth who disappeared six days ago. I don’t suppose you’ve seen her?”
Barbara shook her head, a small groove appearing between the dark arches of her brows. “Six days. That’s not good, is it?”
She pulled off her sunglasses to reveal startling clear amber eyes surrounded by long, dusky lashes. For a moment, staring into them, Liam felt like he was falling. Up into the sky, or down into a bottomless pool of water, he couldn’t tell which. Then she blinked, and was just another woman with beautiful eyes in an oval face with sharp cheekbones and a slightly hawkish nose.
Liam shook himself and thought longingly of coffee again. He didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him this morning. Stress, he figured. And too little sleep.
“No, it’s not,” he said. “Neither is the fact that she is the third child to go missing in recent months.” The muscles in his jaw clenched, hating to say it out loud. It was bad enough to have the numbers racing around in his head all day, and haunting him all night. Three kids, four months, six days, seven years old. It was like a demented counting book used to scare disobedient children. Or incompetent sheriffs.
Barbara gave him an odd look; some indecipherable mix of anger, concern, and resignation. He had no idea what it meant, other than that she clearly didn’t like the idea of little girls disappearing any more than he did.
“Well,” she said shortly. “We can’t have that, can we?”
No, he thought, we really can’t.
TWO
BABA SCOWLED AT the Airstream until the door decided to stop playing games and settle into place, then slammed it shut behind her, dropping her full saddlebags onto the floor with a thud. Green matter spilled out in a puddle of curly-edged ferns and frothy Queen Anne’s lace, its pungent odor warring with the sharp scent of her anger.
“Problems with the law?” Chudo-Yudo asked, jerking his muzzle in the direction of the sheriff’s retreating form. “I could eat him if you like.”
Baba rolled her eyes. Her traveling companion may currently look like a large white pit bull with a black nose and soft brown eyes, but his instincts were still all dragon. His dog form was a lot easier to fit into the trailer, though, since in his true form his wingspan was over ten feet.
“Not at the moment,” she said, kicking her boots off and strolling over to the half-sized refrigerator to mull her limited breakfast possibilities. “The sheriff seems harmless enough. But I think I may have found out what called us here. He told me they’ve had three children go missing.” She scowled at the scant inch of orange juice hiding behind the bottle labeled Water of Life and Death. “Remind me to get orange juice the next time I go into town, will you?”
She gave up on the fridge and grabbed a granola bar out of a cupboard overhead, munching on it as she fiddled with the coffee machine. Nothing in the Airstream ever worked exactly as expected, and she really wanted coffee, not hot chocolate, tea, or, gods forbid, liquid gold. That one had been hell to clean up.
“Orange juice. Right.” Chudo-Yudo pulled a huge bone out from under the couch, ignoring the fact that the space was taken up by a large drawer. The laws of physics didn’t work all that well in the Airstream either.
“So, do you think someone invoked you to find one of the
children? Usually they’re blaming you for disappearances, not asking you to solve them.”
Baba snorted. “That was in days gone by, old friend. No one even remembers the Baba Yaga anymore; certainly no one who realizes it is a job title, not the name of a single person. If we were in Russia, maybe, but who here would know to call on me for a favor?”
She sniffed the coffee, which only smelled a little like the blue roses that made up its essence, and settled down with boneless grace onto the couch. She scratched Chudo-Yudo’s head absently, hearing her nails scritch on nonexistent scales. A puff of contented smoke escaped from his canine snout as he lay his massive head down on her bare feet.
“So how are you going to find out if you were called to this benighted backwater to search for missing children or for some other reason?” Chudo-Yudo asked, his words distorted by the bone hanging half in and half out of his mouth.
Baba snapped her fingers, and a local newspaper appeared out of the herb-scented air. “I expect someone will come tell me, alas.” She sighed. She was a lot more comfortable with dragons than she was with human beings, for all that she had been born one. Many, many years ago. Before she met the preceding Baba, who had rescued her from a barren Russian orphanage and set her on the path that had led her to a flower-filled meadow, an attractive sheriff in desperate need of a haircut, and a mystery with her name written all over it.
* * *
LIAM SLAPPED AT another whining mosquito and took off his hat to wipe his forehead with an already sodden handkerchief. He’d searched for over three hours along the river’s muddy banks, and the only things he’d found were empty beer bottles, a snapping turtle in a bad mood, and an old red ball that had clearly been there for years. He’d made a note of the ball anyway, just in case, but he finally had to admit that he wasn’t getting anywhere. It was time for him to head back into the office; those piles of paperwork weren’t going to fill themselves out. And Nina got snippy when he didn’t check in every couple of hours. As if he were likely to run into something more dangerous that an irate turtle out here.
Still, he made all his officers follow a regular check-in schedule, and as Nina liked to remind him, part of Liam’s job was to lead by example. Never mind that he had more than ten years’ experience on most of them. And that he hated having to conform to anyone’s rules, even his own.
As Liam came into the clearing where he’d parked, Barbara Yager opened her door and stepped out to raise a hand in greeting. Like the first time, her appearance seemed to cause his mind to stutter and spin, and his heart to beat out of sequence. Then she took a step forward, and the world fell back into place.
He coughed, trying to catch his breath. Too much time out in the hot July sun. Or low blood sugar, maybe. He’d skipped breakfast, as usual, in his eagerness to get to the search.
“Are you okay, Sheriff?” the dark-haired woman asked. She seemed more curious than concerned. “Would you like a glass of water?”
“That would be very nice, thank you,” Liam said with gratitude. Water, that’s what he needed. He’d forgotten to take any out with him. He followed her into the Airstream when she beckoned, and looked around with interest. It was compact and surprisingly luxurious; the furniture was covered with rich jewel-toned brocades, velvet, and what he thought was some kind of nubby raw silk. Not standard issue, even for a top-of-the-line model. It was a strange contrast with the black leather. The woman was a puzzle. Liam didn’t much like puzzles. He preferred things to be simple and straightforward. Like that ever happened.
“I’ve never been inside one of these before,” he said, accepting the crystal goblet she handed him and draining it in one long swallow. “It’s pretty impressive.”
“Thank you,” she said, refilling the glass. “All the comforts of home without the pesky land taxes.”
Liam pulled his sunglasses off and stared at her. “You live in it year-round? I thought you taught college in California. There was a Davis address on your driver’s license.” Lie number two, he thought.
Baba shrugged. “I teach on and off. More off than on, these days.”
Movement caught Liam’s eye, and he took an involuntary step backward as a huge white dog crawled out from underneath the dinette and spat an equally huge bone at his feet. Its black tongue lolled, as if it was laughing at him.
“Holy crap!” he said. “That’s a big dog.”
“Yes,” said Baba. “But a small dragon.” She shook one slender, grass-stained finger at the animal. “Behave, Chudo-Yudo. He’s a guest.”
The dog gave a conciliatory woof and sat back on its haunches, brown eyes watching Liam’s every move.
“Chudo-Yudo? That’s an unusual name.” Liam liked dogs, almost all dogs, but he wasn’t going to make the mistake of trying to pet this one. No wonder she called it a dragon; it looked as fierce as one.
“It’s Russian,” she said.
“Ah, that explains the accent!” Liam said, pleased to have solved at least one mystery. “I couldn’t quite pin it down.”
Baba narrowed her eyes and folded her arms over her chest, the motion causing another glimpse of color at the bottom of both tee shirt sleeves where they cut across her biceps. Interesting, Liam thought.
“I don’t have an accent,” Baba said, speaking slowly and clearly. The foreign lilt clung to her words like honey, regardless. “I got rid of it years ago.”
Liam shook his head, pushing the resulting flow of hair out of his eyes with an impatient hand. “It’s not very strong, but it is there. You shouldn’t try to get rid of it, though. It’s beautiful.” He caught himself, feeling the tips of his ears flush hot with embarrassment. “I mean, it’s nice. It doesn’t sound like everyone else.” He stuttered to a halt before he could shove his foot any further into his mouth.
The white dog snorted and coughed, rolling on the floor. Great. At least I’ve amused her dog. He was fine with belligerent drunks, completely capable of dealing with thieves, drug dealers, and even the occasional murderer. But apparently one woman who smelled like flowers was enough to turn him into a babbling idiot. It had to be the heat.
He put the goblet down in the sink and started wandering around the trailer; as much to end the awkward conversation as to take advantage of the fact that his newest—and only—suspect had conveniently invited him inside her home. Besides, it was seriously cool.
“Do these dinette benches fold out to be beds?” he asked. “My parents had an RV for a while, although not one nearly as nice as this, and it seemed like every other piece of furniture was actually a sleeping area in disguise.” He looked inside a cupboard, impressed by the clever way everything was kept from moving around when the Airstream was on the road.
“That’s what it said on the brochure,” Baba said. She watched him poke around, her only response a raised eyebrow. “I rarely have guests.”
Liam stopped in front of what looked like a closet and tugged on the handle. It didn’t move. His lawman’s instincts went into high gear. Locks meant secrets. And people rarely hid things for no reason. A frisson of disappointment made his hand feel like it was vibrating.
The cloud-haired woman was at his side before he even realized she’d moved, the pit bull at her feet. “That door has kind of a tricky latch; it’s meant to keep it from opening when the vehicle is in motion.” She put one lightly callused hand over his, making the vibration slide up his wrist and into his arm. A tiny click made the handle buzz against his palm, and then the door swung open to reveal a mundane wardrobe full of black leather pants and patchwork peasant skirts. A silky red minidress winked at him enticingly from one corner before Baba closed it up again.
“Seen enough, Sheriff?” she asked, a little acerbic. Apparently he hadn’t been as subtle as he’d thought. “Or would you like the grand tour of the entire trailer, so you can make sure there are no small children tucked into the storage bins?”
Liam smiled, trying to take the sting out of his words. “Sure, if you’re willing to give me one.”
Baba heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes, but proceeded to show him every inch of the Airstream, from the bedroom closets at the far end of the trailer, to the tiny shelf in the corner of the shower, which he was interested to see was across the hall from the toilet. She showed him that too, although it was so small, he wasn’t sure how anything could have been hidden in there. There were herbs everywhere; hanging from the ceiling, confined to jars, tucked into corners. Other than that, there was nothing unusual. Still, the back of his neck itched with the feeling of something wrong.
All he knew when they were done was that there were definitely no children tucked away, or any sign that there had ever been any. But then, he hadn’t really expected there to be. If this odd lady was collecting other people’s kids for some reason, she was clearly too smart to keep them in the place she lived.
“Satisfied?” she asked, leaning against the dinette table, one slightly dirty foot swinging idly. “Or did you want to check my pots and pans, in case I cooked and ate them?”
Ouch. “No, of course not,” he said. “I apologize if I offended you. Besides, that kind of thing only happens in fairy tales and on CSI.”
“CS what?” Baba said, as if she’d never heard of it.
“CSI.” He looked at her expression to see if she was kidding, then looked again. It was still blank and baffled. “You know—the TV show? There are a whole bunch of them. CSI: New York, CSI: Miami. For all I know, there’s a CSI: Alaska by now.”
“Oh, TV,” Baba said dismissively. “I don’t watch TV.”
Liam glanced around the Airstream and realized what he’d missed on his first pass through. No television. Just a bare spot on the wall where one would usually be, opposite the dinette, where you could see it from the couch in the lounge area beyond.
Wickedly Dangerous Page 2
