Under the Moon (27 page)

“That’s unbelievable.” Quinn shook her head. “Why are they being so stupid?”

Chloe shrugged. “I don’t think they’re being stupid. I think they’re trying to keep people from panicking. Can you imagine if we started seeing the leech in any random guy? PR nightmare, not to mention maybe people getting hurt.”

“I guess you’re right,” Quinn said. “Hey, do you have a copy of that sketch? Or any pictures?”

“Nope, sorry. We never took photos, and there was no reason for me to get a copy of the sketch.”

Sam returned to his chair and shook his head at Quinn. He looked worried. Panic squeezed Quinn’s lungs.
It might not be anything. His battery died again
.
I
told
him to get another charger. Or maybe he turned the phone off so it wouldn’t ring and give him away or something.

Or something.
Her attempt to stave off the panic was only partially successful, but what the hell could she do about it now? Nick was hundreds of miles away.

“I’d love to come to the meeting with you,” she told Chloe, forcing herself back to the subject. “Is there a nearby hotel you recommend?”

“You can stay here. I only have the sofa bed, but it’s just one night. You don’t mind, do you, Sam?”

Quinn cringed. The rising moon only provided a trickle of power, and if she didn’t use it, she should be able to avoid the moon lust for one night. It would be disastrous to have to deal with it now, after their conversation last night.

She managed to stop herself from building a barrier of pillows down the center of the barely double-size sofa bed later that night. She had already claimed a side and was in bed with the lights off when Sam joined her.

“How many times did you try to reach Nick?” she asked him.

“Four.”

“I tried three. It’s not like him, Sam.”

“I know. And the last time…” He lowered his voice. “The last time I called, a minute ago, it picked up. There was static and some yelling before it cut off.”

Panic fluttered through her again. “What kind of yelling?”

Sam slid his long legs under the covers and sighed when his feet poked out the bottom. He hitched himself higher against the back of the sofa and adjusted the pillows. “Could have been radio yelling. Maybe one of those vintage rock cassette tapes he has.”

“Or?”

“Or it could have been real people. I didn’t hear enough to know if it was Nick.”

She sat up. “We have to go after him.”

“Quinn, he’d kill me if I let you anywhere near there if we think there’s trouble.”

“I know, but we can’t leave him.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and dug underneath for her shoes. “We shouldn’t have let it go this long.”

Sam caught her elbow and tugged her upright. “It hasn’t been long. It takes hours to get to Maine, and I think Marley’s place is rural. Maybe he can’t get a signal again.”

She was tired of that excuse. For all the bragging of the various mobile phone companies, none of them seemed to have the coverage they needed, when they needed it most.

“He’s probably fine,” he tried, but she could tell he wasn’t certain of it himself. “I’m supposed to keep you safe. Here is safe. There—we don’t know.”

“All the more reason to go after him.” She pulled her arm away and got down on the floor. Where the hell was her shoe? She spotted it, an arm’s length under the bed, and caught it as Sam climbed off the bed and pulled her to her feet.

“No one has gotten the better of Nick Jarrett in fifteen years,” he reminded her, rubbing his hands up and down her arms as if to soothe, but too briskly to have the intended effect. “What if the yelling was nothing?”

“What if it’s not?”

“What if it’s a trap?”

His earnestness penetrated. He was trying to protect her, like Nick had demanded, and he was right. If it were a trap, running into it would hasten any harm that could come to Nick. Her brain started working rationally again. “Someone could have taken Nick’s phone.”

Sam’s hands relaxed their grip. “Right. There are a hundred things it could be.”

Sighing, she dropped back onto the bed. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Sleep.” He sat beside her. “If he hasn’t called by morning, I’ll drive up there while you’re at the meeting. You’ll have more power tomorrow and will be around a dozen goddesses. This guy would have to be insane to show up there. Plus, you might get some information. You’ve been cut off for weeks. We don’t know what else is going on.”

“Morning is too far away.” But Sam had convinced her, so she lay back down with another sigh. Sam slid under the sheets next to her, and his hand found hers in the dark, his thumb stroking over the back of her knuckles before he let her go and rolled over.

He snored softly a few minutes later, but Quinn couldn’t shut off her brain. She forced it to work through possible scenarios at the meeting, who would be there, how they’d act toward her. When she started to drift off, she caught herself listening for the cell phone, sure that despite its ear-shattering volume, she wouldn’t hear it.

She finally succumbed and managed three hours and forty-two minutes of sleep before waking to find Sam watching her, his light brown eyes clear and wide awake.

“Morning,” he said.

“Hi.” She covered a yawn with her hand. “Phone didn’t ring. Did it?”

“No.”

“What time is it?”

Sam gave her a look. He knew she knew what time it was. “Six.”

“And you’re still here?” With a groan she pushed upright and swung her legs over the side of the bed.

“You know Nick will kill me for leaving you,” he said.

Quinn wanted to cry. Nothing mattered if something had happened to Nick. “Then we’ll both go.”

He sighed. “No, I’m out the door in ten minutes. I didn’t want to leave without talking to you, but you didn’t sleep well so I didn’t want to wake you, either.”

She looked over her shoulder. “How do you know I didn’t sleep well? You were snoring all night.”

“I always know, Quinn. How long?”

She ignored the question and headed for the bathroom. When she came out Sam stood by the door, dressed in a checked button-down shirt and jeans, his duffel slung over his shoulder. Humming and water running in the kitchen told her Chloe was awake, too.

“Call me, okay? No matter what you find. In fact, check in every two hours or I’m coming after you.”

“Don’t worry.” He pinched her chin and gave a reassuring smile. “It’ll be fine.”

She didn’t like that her mental response was “Famous last words.”

…

Chloe cornered Quinn by the beverage table at the back of the meeting room. “What’s wrong?”

The windowless room with its low drop ceiling closed in around Quinn. She stepped to the side to let a few other women get to the coffee urn. “It’s been six hours since I heard from Sam.”

“Oh.”

She twisted the top off a bottle of water so hard it went flying. She didn’t bother chasing it, despite the scolding look someone threw at her. “I haven’t paid attention to a single thing that’s been said since lunch. I’d have been on the road four hours ago if I had a car and some idea of where I was going.”

“Quinn?”

She faced the young woman who’d appeared at her shoulder and bit back her irritation. “Yes?”

“I’m sorry to interrupt. I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For your loss.”

Quinn’s breath left her in a whoosh. Her heart paused, then thudded so hard it cramped. Her vision went dark. Then she inhaled deeply and forced her vision clear.

“I’m not sure what you mean,” she managed to say.

“Um…at the Society meeting last week, the board said you were unable to attend because of a death in the family.”

Quinn spun to Chloe, who spread her arms. “I didn’t hear that.”

Fed up, Quinn said, “Thank you, but there was no death in my family. That was the board’s excuse for pushing me out of the loop on the leech.” She stopped short of saying they suspected her. She didn’t know that they did, and she didn’t want to set
everyone
against her.

The young woman gasped. “Leech?”

“You heard about me but not about the leech?” Her tension overrode her manners. “There’s a man out there leeching goddesses. Including Chloe, in case you didn’t know of your chaptermate’s tragedy.” She looked around her. The six or seven goddesses in the room had frozen and now all stared at her. The young woman backed up until another put her arm around her shoulders and murmured into her ear.

“I get not wanting to cause a panic,” Quinn continued, unable to help herself, “but every goddess is in danger until this guy is caught, and as far as I can tell, no one is working very hard to do that.”

Most of the other goddesses had returned to the room. Some nodded, some frowned, and a couple who had never liked Quinn sneered. Her chest heaved with every breath, but she pulled herself back together. None of these people was responsible for what was happening.

“I’m sorry,” she told the young woman. “That’s not your fault. I appreciate your condolences, I do.”

One of the sneering women muttered, “Who let the dog out without her leash?” Her friend laughed, and Quinn’s anger, which hadn’t receded very far, flared again.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The snide-looking goddess didn’t pretend she hadn’t spoken. She looked around exaggeratedly. “You’re here alone. No big strong man tagging along to keep you in check or bring you water. It must be so hard for you. Where’s your ‘assistant’?” She and her friend snickered. “Did he find someone more powerful? Or maybe he’s leeching—”

Quinn didn’t think. She snapped her fingers, and the cupcake in the woman’s hand burst into flames and turned to ash. Another snap, and the bottle of juice she held shattered—no matter that it was plastic—and pink liquid cascaded over her white shirt. The woman gaped at Quinn, as did all the other watchers. Shame pierced her anger but didn’t abate it. Sam could be hurt or dead while he tried to save these people, and they dared to
accuse
him? Behind the anger, a new fear flared. If the Society suspected her of creating the leech, maybe they did suspect Sam of being the leech.

She glared, her hand up, looking for an excuse to do more than mess up a nice shirt. She was tired of hiding, discreetly digging for information.

“Quinn Caldwell!” The president of the chapter pushed through the group. “What the hell are you doing?”

Quinn opened her mouth to retort but her cell phone rang, and suddenly nothing else mattered.

“Forget it. I’m leaving. Thank you for your hospitality.” She snapped open the phone and stalked out into the hall of the community building. “Hello!”

“Quinn, it’s me.”

“Sam.” Relief cascaded through her, and her knees buckled. She stopped to lean against the wall.

“I’m sorry I haven’t called. I couldn’t. Signal has been spotty up here.”

But that wasn’t the only reason. She could tell. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.”

Her lungs compressed again, and she couldn’t get any air out to talk. Sam didn’t need her to ask, though.

“It’s Nick. He’s been shot.”

Chapter Eleven

Historically, the Society deemed it wise to hide the abilities of

our members from the general public. Though full secrecy is not practical or desired in modern society, caution should rule all goddess-related activities. In addition, interaction with non-goddess authorities is to be considered only under extreme circumstances, when all other options are exhausted.

—The Society for Goddess Education and Defense,
Public Relations Handbook

…