“That’s my point,” Baba said, drumming her fingers on the table in front of her restlessly. “Why is she hanging around at all? She could spend most of her time in the Otherworld, come through this damned doorway none of us can find, snatch the kids, and go back. But instead, she’s worked for Peter Callahan for six months, establishing herself in his office, becoming his trusted associate. Why?”
“Well, it’s not for the pleasure of his company,” Liam said in a wry tone. “The man’s a slime bucket. A smooth and polished one, maybe, but still a slime bucket.”
“Maybe that makes him her type,” Alexei suggested with a leer. “Rusalkas aren’t known for their kindly personalities.”
“It’s got to be more than that,” Baba said, drumming her fingers louder until Chudo-Yudo gave her leg a gentle—or not so gentle—nip. “What does Callahan have that she would want?”
Liam tried to make his tired brain do something more useful than spin in circles, or babble quietly to itself about Baba’s dark hair, floating enticingly across the table from him, just out of reach.
“Well, Callahan has been in the area for the last two years,” he said, thinking out loud. “Doing lots of in-depth research on the community to find the best places to drill and the people who might be the most open to selling their land to his company. He’s undoubtedly amassed a huge amount of information. Could there be something in there that she’s using?”
Baba raised an eyebrow. “Huh. I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe, although I’m not sure what or how.” The tapping fingers stilled, wrapped themselves around a sword hilt instead. “I guess we’re going to have to take a look inside that office.”
“Oh, no,” Liam protested. Why did all of these people’s suggestions seem to involve committing some kind of crime? “You are not going to break into Peter Callahan’s office.”
He didn’t like the sparkle that had suddenly entered her amber eyes. “Seriously. No. Isn’t there some way you can er . . . magically . . . get information out of Callahan’s computers, maybe?”
Baba shook her head, a grin materializing out of what had been grim discouragement. “Sorry, not possible. Magic and technology don’t mix.”
He looked around at the Airstream they were sitting in. “What about all this?” he asked. “There’s plenty of technology here.”
“Not so much as you’d think,” Baba said. “This whole place started out as a wooden hut on chicken legs. It voluntarily changed its form, and the more it is perceived as real, the more real it becomes. But most of what you see is still illusion.” She shrugged. “But illusion isn’t going to help us now—we need facts. And I suspect we’re going to have to get them the old-fashioned way.”
Her grin widened, making his pulse beat faster.
“So, Sheriff,” she said. “How do you feel about a life of crime?”
SEVENTEEN
THE MOON POKED its head out from behind a cloud and leered at them as they crouched outside a window at the rear of Peter Callahan’s office. It was somewhere around two in the morning and the neighborhood was silent, all its law-abiding citizens tucked safely into their beds.
“I don’t understand why the Riders aren’t doing this,” Liam hissed in Baba’s ear.
She suppressed an involuntary shudder when his warm breath caressed her neck, and told herself it was just nerves. Except, of course, that she didn’t get nerves.
“They’re the brawn, not the brains,” she whispered back. “They wouldn’t know what to look for. And can you see Alexei tiptoeing around inside? We’d be better off sending Chudo-Yudo. Or a parade of elephants in army boots.”
She gave the sheriff a sidelong look. He’d changed into civilian clothes; dark jeans and dark long-sleeved tee shirt, which had the unfortunate effect of making him even more attractive than usual. One lock of dark-blond hair had fallen into his eyes again, and she had to resist the impulse to brush it away. Focus, Baba. Focus.
“A better question,” she added, “might be “why are you here?” I was just kidding when I suggested you take up a life of crime, you know.”
“I know,” he said shortly, examining the wires he could see lining the windowsill.
“You’re the sheriff,” she persisted. “You’re supposed to uphold the law, not break it. You should have stayed home. Or at least back at the Airstream.”
He shrugged minutely, the barest ripple of muscles along his broad back. “I know this area and the people a lot better than you do. There’s not much point in breaking in to look at information if you don’t have the knowledge to make sense of what you’re seeing.”
“But still—” It was bad enough that most of the folks she’d befriended in her short time here now thought she was some kind of evil witch. She didn’t want to destroy Liam’s career too.
Liam swiveled on his heels, turning so he could look her in the eye. For a moment, their faces were so close, she thought he might kiss her.