Wickedly Dangerous

by Deborah Blake

  Baba felt the whole room sway in stunned distress. Or maybe that was just her, and the others were simply standing still as her world shook around her.

  “I’m clean and sober now, and I’ve found God. I know I need to tell the truth, and get this whole horrible thing out into the open.” The petite redhead gazed beseechingly at Liam, tiny streaks of salt water glistening on her perfect cheekbones. “I’m still your wife, no matter what you’ve done, but I can’t let this go on. You’re sick, Liam. You need help. When you killed our baby, shaking her to get her to stop crying, it was an accident. Killing all these other children won’t bring our baby back. You have to confess and clear your soul. And you have to stop blaming that poor innocent woman for the crimes you committed.”

  * * *

  LIAM COMPRESSED HIS lips together into a thin line and said, “Melissa, you know that’s not true.”

  He felt like he’d been run over by a truck, blindsided by lies that sounded like truth, spoken by the last person he’d expected to see, least of all in this context. He didn’t understand why she was saying what she was saying. Or how on earth she was involved with this whole mess. Words swarmed around his ears like gnats, senseless and annoying, until one sentence finally stood out enough to get his attention.

  “I’m what?” he said to Clive Matthews.

  Matthews had crossed the floor to stand in front of Liam, backed up by his cronies on the board.

  “You’re suspended,” Matthews repeated. “Pending an investigation of these very serious allegations.” His round face was pink and greasy with sweat in the inadequately air-conditioned old station. “I’ve been suspicious all along about your lack of progress on this case, and we are going to take a very serious look into both your current dealings and your child’s death three years ago.”

  The board president wiped his forehead with the napkin that had been tucked into his jacket pocket and added portentously, “You should probably call a lawyer.”

  Cold ran down Liam’s back and pooled at the base of his spine. Even his mouth felt numb and stiff. “I don’t need a lawyer,” he said, forming syllables out of blocks of ice and dropping them into the unfriendly atmosphere. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”

  Nina and Molly came to stand by his side, both of them glaring at the board like lionesses defending their cub.

  Molly said doubtfully, “Sheriff, are you sure? Just because you’re not guilty doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get an attorney. You need to defend yourself against these ridiculous charges.” She narrowed her eyes at Melissa, as if daring her to say one more negative thing.

  Liam didn’t care. The damage was already done. He looked around the room at the faces full of doubt, uncertainty and distrust radiating from the very group who should have known him best. He refused to defend himself. He shouldn’t have to. His character and his actions all these years should speak for the kind of man he was. And if these people didn’t know that already, nothing he could say would make any difference.

  Besides, maybe this was some twisted kind of justice—the universe’s way of punishing him for failing his baby, and later, his wife. He wasn’t guilty of the things she’d said, but he was guilty nonetheless. And he was so very, very tired. Too tired to fight this unexpected enemy.

  “No,” he said to Molly. “I’ll be fine. No lawyer. Let them investigate. There’s nothing to find, and you know it.”

  “Well of course I do,” she said caustically, hands on her hips. “But there are a thousand innocent men sitting in jail cells who probably said the same thing.”

  Liam shrugged, too numb with shock to think beyond getting through this utterly insane moment. He’d deal with everything else later, when he’d had a chance to remember how to take a deep breath.

  “We caught Maya, and she can’t steal any more children,” he said. “That’s all that matters right now.”

  “Under the circumstances,” Peter Callahan said, stepping forward smoothly, “I don’t believe it would be fair to hold Ms. Freeman.” He turned to Clive Matthews. “I’d like to ask that she be released on my recognizance; I promise that she won’t leave the county, and will make herself available for any questioning required by whomever you appoint as acting sheriff.”

  “Absolutely not!” Liam snapped, jolted out of his stunned inertia at last. “I caught her in the act of trying to kidnap a little boy!”

  “So you say,” Callahan pointed out acidly. “But your word isn’t very good right now, is it?”

  Liam swiveled back to face Matthews, only to see the man shaking his head in officious agreement.

  “I do see your point,” Matthews said, snapping his fingers at the deputy sitting with Maya. “After all, Mrs. Turner says she didn’t see anything, and little Davy can’t seem to remember what happened, poor boy. So all we have against Ms. Freeman is Sheriff McClellan’s word, and that isn’t exactly proof, is it?”

  The deputy brought Maya over, not meeting Liam’s eyes, and delivered her to her boss. She shot a triumphant look at Liam from under downturned lashes before smiling gratefully at the other men. Melissa stared at the ground, as if the dusty, scuffed linoleum had suddenly grown more interesting than the drama being acted out right in front of her.

  Liam couldn’t believe this was happening. He’d finally caught the kidnapper, brought her in, and not only was he still out of a job, he might even end up going to jail for the crimes she’d committed. It was as if the entire world had gone mad. Or maybe he had.

  He turned on his heel and walked outside, before Matthews could think to ask for his gun and his badge. The soft click of the door closing behind him sounded like a death knell.

  Suspended. He was suspended.

  He put both hands out and braced himself against the hood of the cruiser for a minute, trying to make some kind of sense out of the last half an hour and failing miserably. The clicking of Baba’s high-heeled boots gave her away before she spoke.

  “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?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  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 p
ut 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.

  TWENTY-SIX

  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 strang
e 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.