Wickedly Dangerous

by Deborah Blake

  “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, cr
eating 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.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  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.