Page 46 of Insidious Monsters
“Um…no, you were facing the window and your phone was ringing.”
He frowned and stared at his laptop screen, then at the phone. “I’m sorry, August, I have no clue what you’re talking about.”
But this shit had happened too many times with Quentin. The blank looks, the missed calls. Something was wrong with my handler. “There’s something wrong with you, Quentin.”
His frown deepened, turning from an expression of confusion to one of offense. “Excuse me? You come to my room at…” He looked at the time on his computer and flinched. “It’s almost one in the morning.”
“Yeah, I know that, but it’s obvious you didn’t.” I glanced at his phone. “Who was calling you at this time?”
He picked it up and checked the screen. “I don’t have any missed calls.”
I crossed the room. “Bullshit. I heard it ringing.” He handed it to me. Sure enough, no missed calls. “I heard your phone.”
He frowned. “Probably an old alarm activating.” He didn’t look too sure, though.
“Quentin, something is off with you, and if you’re honest about it, you feel it too.”
He ran his hand through his hair in agitation. “I may have experienced a couple of episodes of missed time.”
“And?”
He looked up at me blankly.
I rolled my eyes. “And what have you done about it?”
“Oh, yes, I had a full workup at the Order. They didn’t find anything abnormal. Just told me it could be stress-related.”
“But you don’t believe that, do you?”
He sighed with a smile. “I’m okay. I probably did drop off. I’m a pretty deep sleeper. Plus, Ihavebeen stressed. We have three more eldritch to find and now we need to work with Keswick. We have…history.” He made a face. “He’s the only person I’ve ever met who makes me want to be violent.”
Quentin was calm and authority. The voice of reason, the mediator. I couldn’t imagine him getting violent.
“I spoke to him today,” Quentin continued. “We’re meeting tomorrow afternoon. We’ll be helping them scope out the two-mile area where their eldritch came through.”
“The eldritch that might be a person.”
“Yes.”
“I have some stuff to do tomorrow too.” I filled him in on the attack on Nandi and our conclusion that Margie was the customer at Roll With It who had a non-profit business. “Bertie will have her business address. It could lead us right to her cult and the wanker running it.”
“This guy they call the Holy?”
“Yeah.”
“You’ll need backup; you can’t take down a cult alone. I assume you intend to bring Devyn in.”
“Already done. She’s putting a team on standby, and she’ll meet us at Roll With It tomorrow at ten so I can get the address without them having to wait for a warrant to seize information. Apparently, that takes longer than a warrant to enter a property, which again, she’s hoping they can bypass if I go in first.”
“Because Margie will want to nab you as leverage.”
“Exactly.” But Devyn and team would be on standby to save my ass.
“You guys did good,” Quentin said. “I’m proud of you.”
His words made my chest feel warm. “It’s not over yet.”
“It will be. We can celebrate once we help Keswick and his rift walker bag the eldritch.”
