Under the Moon (24 page)

Ned looked sheepish. “I have two daughters.”

Quinn sat, uncertain what to say. Both her parents had been keeping tabs on her. Tess understood about her adoptive father. Ned knew about Nick. But they had never contacted her, never tried to form a relationship. It soured what had started as a pleasant reunion—and Quinn no longer wished to push it further. For the first time, she considered that their lack of contact reflected a flaw in them, not her.

As they made their way outside, Ned patted her shoulder, ignored Nick, and shook Sam’s hand with his other one already in the air, flagging down a cab. The three of them stood on the sidewalk, watching his taxi drive away.

“I don’t like him.” Nick stalked across the street to his car.

Sam looked sympathetic but said, “I have to admit, I think you’ve been better off, Quinn.” He followed Nick.

She waited until he was halfway across the street before following. She agreed with them but for some reason felt compelled to defend her family. That wouldn’t make either of them change their minds, and the truth was…she would never know.

…

They were silent as they climbed into the car and buckled up. Quinn’s positive feelings of a few hours ago were gone, leaving a sharper loneliness than usual.

Nick waited for a trolley on wheels to go past, then peeled out into traffic. “Where we goin’?”

Quinn sighed and let her head drop to the back of the seat. “Let’s find a hotel for tonight. We can head to Maine tomorrow.”

“Not a chance.”

“Nick—”

“No, Quinn. There’s something weird going on here, and we’re not charging in blind.”

The need to do so burned fiercely, but she knew better than to react without planning. “So what do you propose?”

He pulled into the parking lot of a Fairfield Inn. “I need to scout Marley’s place first. Problem with doing that is leaving you alone. Daddy Warbucks had a point back there.” He stared out the windshield for a couple of minutes, clearly lost in thought, before heaving a frustrated sigh. “I need to do whatever’s going to keep you safest. Instinct tells me Marley’s deeply involved in all this, and she’s your sister.” He looked at Quinn. “I don’t suppose I can convince you to leave it alone at this point? Go back to the cabin?”

She smiled.

“Didn’t think so. I can’t be in two places at once.” His eyes met Sam’s in the rearview mirror. “You can protect her here. You’ve been doing my job three-quarters of the time anyway, but at a different level. And the moon’s nearly full.”

“Which will make her a more tempting target,” Sam reminded him.

“And more badass. I never had to protect her when she was freeing women from their abusers. Only later, when she didn’t have the power to use against them.” He shifted to face the backseat. “You don’t think you can do this?”

Sam’s jaw tightened and his eyes blazed. “Of course I can.” He leaned over the seat. “The local chapter of the Society is Chloe’s chapter. I think there’s a meeting in two days. Maybe she can take us. We can try to gather more information, see what everyone’s saying about you two.”

“That’s a good idea,” Nick agreed. “The leech would be stupid to go near Chloe’s at this point. The heat’s higher, even if to us the Society doesn’t seem to be doing much. He’s got to assume they’re watching her. Be alert, though,” he told Sam. “Whoever sent those guys to snatch Quinn aren’t as high profile.”

Quinn didn’t want to let Nick go. It didn’t make sense because he’d already been around far longer than she was used to. She knew how to say good-bye to him, for cripes sake. But it wasn’t just that. She was afraid—not for herself, but for him.

For no good reason. When he said no one had ever been harmed on his watch, he didn’t mean there hadn’t been attempts. He was a powerful protector, and no matter what someone was trying to do to his reputation, he was the least vulnerable of the three of them right now. Still, dread flared at the thought of him driving alone to Maine, where the culprit in all of this could be.

Nick’s hand landed reassuringly on her thigh. Quinn looked at him, and the intensity of his gaze locked her in place.

Sam looked back and forth between them. “I’ll go register us for a suite,” he said, climbing out of the car and striding into the lobby office without looking back.

Quinn put her hand on Nick’s. “Be careful.” The dread intensified into nausea.

“I will.” He tilted toward her, hesitated, then leaned over the rest of the way. His lips met hers with warmth and tenderness, a far cry from his last kiss. Quinn whimpered, a sound she couldn’t ever remember making before. He didn’t leave it at that but moved his mouth, tasting her, telling her what he still wouldn’t say, and her head spun. She felt like she was falling, but the world righted when he straightened. “I’ll call you.”

Moments later, after unloading Quinn’s and Sam’s things from the Charger, Nick was gone.

…

Their room was light and airy, a welcome contrast to the dim heaviness of the cabin and all the cheap, ugly motels they’d stayed in over the last few weeks. Once they were situated, Quinn needed things to be normal. She could still taste Nick’s mouth, smell his skin and leather jacket, recall the sensation of falling that was far too symbolic.

She hooked up her computer to the wireless network to download her e-mail. Sam set up his own laptop on the opposite side of the wide desk. Despite the decor, it was enough like their work routine to let her relax a little. She focused on the mundane routine of the Internet. Most of her mail was spam or short check-ins from Under the Moon’s staff. She skimmed vendor solicitations, a Liquor Control Commission newsletter, and a couple of client inquiries. Then one return address made her perk up.

“We might not have to track Chloe down.” She clicked on the message. “She e-mailed…” She trailed off when she saw the content.

Quinn
:

I spoke to Tanda, who said you might be heading my way. I’d love to see you—everyone seems to be avoiding me. And I have to tell you something weird that happened, but only in person. Call me.

Chloe

She reread it aloud to Sam, who whistled. “Better call her.”

Quinn already had her phone out. “She gave me a new number. The leech probably took her phone, too.” She programmed the number into her phone and hit send. It was late afternoon, but the call went straight to voice mail.

“Chloe, it’s Quinn. I just got your e-mail.” Which she realized had been sent two days ago. “I’m in Connecticut now. I can be there in less than two hours. Call me back.”

“I wonder what she has to tell you,” Sam said. “‘Weird’ makes me nervous.”

“Me, too.” She scrolled through to make sure she didn’t have any missed calls on her phone. “I hope she gets the message. I’m worried about her.”

“I’m worried about you,” he came back quietly.

Quinn
stood, leaving the phone on the desk. Any worry was unproductive. “I’m no more vulnerable than all the other goddesses and less than many, with both you guys on me all the time.”

“When we’re not, things happen,” Sam pointed out.

Quinn had to smile at that. “You’re not wrong.” She felt much better having both of them around until this thing was over. She had power, confidence, and the ability to take care of herself. But Tanda and Chloe had all those things, too, and it hadn’t protected them.

She turned and sat on the sofa, thinking. “Tanda said it was raining the day the leech came, right?”

“Yeah.”

“That makes sense, because he can’t leech power that isn’t there. But her power is much less predictable than a lot of ours. Why didn’t she have a regular protector?”

“I asked Nick. He doesn’t know much about anyone else’s schedule, unless a goddess is going to be left uncovered because of conflicts or something. There aren’t enough of them to assign one fulltime to any particular goddess, though. The ones whose power comes and goes most frequently and unpredictably don’t always have a protector when they should—like on a sunny day in Oregon. Too unpredictable, and without evidence of a threat, she might never get one.”

“And Chloe lives by the ocean, so she’d only need a protector if she traveled.”

“Right.”

“Same with Jennifer, with the river.”

“As far as we can tell, no one with a protector has been leeched, and vice versa. Where are you going with this?”

She didn’t know. It seemed like it should connect to the accusation that Nick had gone rogue, but how? Nick kept insisting it wasn’t important, but it had to be. And there had to be
someone
out there who could fill in the blanks. It frustrated her not to have anyone in the Protectorate she could ask but Nick.

Then she remembered. “Toss me my cell phone, will you?”

Sam obliged, and Quinn paged through the phone book. Somewhere in here was the name and number of a guy Nick had told her to contact if she ever couldn’t reach him. There. John W. She paused to consider what she was going to say, then hit send.

“Yo.”

“John?”

“Yeah, who’s this?”

“Quinn Caldwell. I’m one of Nick Jarrett’s—”

“Yeah, yeah, one of his goddesses. I know who you are.” He sounded cold, and she cringed.

“Nick gave me your number a long time ago, and I thought maybe you could help me.”

“With what? Nick hurt?”

“No. I hope not.” There hadn’t been time for him to get hurt. But the foreboding deepened. “Are you with the Protectorate?”

“You could say that.”

“I’m trying to get a handle on this rogue thing. He’s obviously not rogue, and I want to know why someone would say he is.”

“What are you talking about?”

Oh, shit
. She thought Nick had talked to them about this, or at least that other protectors would have heard about the accusation. She thought fast. “I just met my birth father,” she tried. “My birth mother is a goddess, but she’s not really part of the Society. But my father called Nick ‘notorious’ and was pretty hostile to him. I don’t know why he’d think such things.”

Whatever John assumed her subtext was, it seemed to ease his suspicions.

“Nick’s the best protector there is. You should know that, he’s been yours for, what, fifteen years?”

“I know, but in all that time, nothing’s ever happened. He sits in my bar and drinks beer.”

John laughed. “You only know about what you saw. His presence is exactly why nothing happened. Goddesses like you are constant targets, Quinn. He’s saved you and a dozen others more times than I can count on both my hands and feet. Twice.”

She’d had no idea, and it floored her to realize it. One day, she’d make Nick tell her about them. “So why would someone try to malign his reputation now?”

“Dunno. They’d have a hard time doing it.”

“Could it be a distraction?”

“Not a good one, since I don’t know what you’re talking about. The best way to distract Nick from his job would be to go through me.”

“Would saying he’d gone rogue do that?”

His voice tightened. “It would. I wouldn’t believe it, but I’d sure as hell recall him to find out why they were saying it. That’s the second time you’ve used that word. Why?”

If Nick hadn’t told his boss about it, she wasn’t going to. “My father’s reaction, that’s all. I think he was being protective, like he thinks Nick’s my boyfriend or something.” Across the room, Sam snorted but didn’t look up. “Thanks, John.”

“Let me talk to Nick.”

Shit
again
. “He’s not available. I’ll have him call you.” She hung up before he could argue with her and bent, pressing the phone to her forehead. God, she hoped that hadn’t been stupid. If John did a little asking around, he’d find out she lied about the rogue thing, and he’d recall Nick, and…she felt sick.

“Well?”

She sat up and sighed. “If someone’s trying to get Nick off the job or blamed for the leechings, they’re doing a poor job of it.”

“Unless they’re just getting started. We need—”