“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.”