*
LIAM WONDERED IF Bertie had started baking hallucinogenics into her pies. That made a lot more sense than this conversation. But he was nothing if not practical, and he had seen too much to be able to deny the new reality he had to cope with. The missing children didn’t have time to spare for him to come to terms with it gradually, protesting all the way. Some things, however, hadn’t changed.
“We are not killing anyone,” he said flatly. “I’m the damned sheriff, for god’s sake. It’s my job to uphold the law. No matter what she’s done, or what she is,” he swallowed hard, trying to get that one out without twitching, “Maya Freeman will be arrested and tried, like anyone else guilty of a crime.”
Baba had the nerve to roll her striking amber eyes at him. “Good luck finding a jury of her peers, Sheriff. Or holding her in a cell, for that matter, even if you could somehow prove she was responsible for the children’s disappearances.”
Liam opened his mouth to argue, and she put up one slim hand to stop him. “I agree, however, that we can’t kill her. She’s our best chance to find the children, for one thing. And for another, I think the queen is looking forward to punishing the woman herself. We do not want to get in the way of the queen’s vengeance.”
He watched as Baba shuddered, clearly remembering something that had happened while she was away. Whatever the experience had been, it had etched new lines next to her mouth and cast a shadow over those wondrous eyes. For the first time since Liam had met her, she actually looked tired, and less than iron-tough.
“So what do we do, then?” Mikhail asked in a reasonable voice. “The Otherworld is too big to search, and the children will be well hidden by whoever she’s given them to, since they wouldn’t want to risk the queen discovering their involvement.”
“I still think our best bet is waiting for her to grab the next one, and following her,” Alexei rumbled. “She’ll have to lead us to the door then.”
“I am not purposely allowing her to take another child,” Liam said through gritted teeth. “We are not going to put some other poor parent through hell if there is any way to avoid it. All these children are very much loved, and their parents are suffering horribly, waiting around to find out if their babies are even still alive, and envisioning every horrible scenario in the book.” He knew that for a fact, since he too had been living out every nightmarish possibility day and night since the first kid vanished.
Gregori got a thoughtful look. “They are all valued, aren’t they?” he said, tapping one finger against his lips. “So why pick these particular children in the first place? After all, there are always plenty of Human children who are unwanted, and won’t be missed. Even in this small place, there must be scores of them.” His dark eyes were sad. “There always are.”
Liam wished he could disagree, but of course, it was true. Poor folks with more mouths than they could feed, wealthy folks with better things to do than pay attention to their offspring, the unexpected and undesired infant, the neglected children of drug addicts and abusers—there were at least twenty kids he could think of off the top of his head that had parents who would be happier without them, and that wasn’t counting the ones already in the foster care system.
“So how is she finding these particular children?” Mikhail asked. “Do they have anything in common? Something to do with their parents, maybe?”
“Not that we’ve been able to find,” Liam answered, bitterness oozing out of his pores like sap from a lightning-struck tree. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a link—just that the incompetent sheriff hasn’t been able to uncover it yet.”
Baba patted his hand, a butterfly touch that almost undid him. Rudeness he could handle; sympathy might unman him completely.
“There has to be something we’re missing,” he said, frustrated. “But what?”
A frown creased Baba’s forehead. “Maybe we’re asking the wrong question,” she said. “Instead of ‘why these children?’ maybe we should be asking why Maya is working for Peter Callahan?”
“What? What the hell does that have to do with anything?” Alexei said, snagging the last piece of pie. Liam thought briefly that if he’d known there would be such a crowd, he would have brought two. Or maybe, considering Alexei’s size, three.
“Maybe the job is just part of her cover,” Mikhail suggested. “A reason to explain why she is around so much.”