Telepathic private investigator Quentin Q. Quasar and his partner Nate Braddock are back. They accidentally stumble on a series of kidnapping/murders, and begin to investigate. Eventually, the kidnappers snatch a young man from an Interstate rest area, and Quentin and Nate hear his telepathic cry for help. Armed with that information, they contact their friend George Martin at the sheriff’s office, and manage to catch the kidnappers before they’ve killed the victim. The intended victim was on his way to Orlando to join his boyfriend -- also a telepath -- who’d recently moved there to take a job.<br><br>Meanwhile, Nate’s grandparents fly into Jacksonville from Chattanooga, so Quentin and Nate can drive them to a hospital in Ocala. Nate’s mother has been in a state prison for women located near Ocala, and has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. At the end of a series of hospital visits they encounter and capture the leader of the cult that Nate’s mother and stepfather belonged to. The cult leader and his wife, both of whom had jumped bail before their trials, had just administered poison to Nate’s mother, to keep her from making any sort of deathbed confession about the cult and its activities.

Sleuth LLC: Bring Out Your Dead

“That’s true, and splitting the load isn’t a badidea—”


“I like being with you when we do this.”


“Yeah, there is that,” Quentin said.


“What brought this on, all of a sudden?”


“Do you remember me telling you about my last meeting with our client, Mr. Rinker?”


“Sort of. Why don’t you refresh my memory?”


“He’s told one of his counterparts about us.”


“The guy who’s in charge of their company’s region just to the south of us.”


“It covers Alachua, Marion, Levy, Citrus, Lake, and Sumter Counties.”


“Shit! That’s a huge territory,” Nate said.


“Yeah. It’s about the same number of stations, but they’re spread over a much wider area. I told him we couldn’t do it.”


“You didn’t tell him why, did you?”


“Sure, I did. I told him that telepaths didn’t grow on trees, and it would take us quite a while to find another one.”


“Of course not, babe,” Quentin said. “I was being sarcastic.”


Chapter 13