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

Nate opened the phone and said, “Hi, Grandma, how are you? … Sure, we can, just tell me what time.” Nate fumbled for a pen, and Quentin pulled a notebook out of his pocket and handed it to him. Nate wrote some things in the notebook. “Got it, Grandma. We’ll be there, and the guest room will be ready for you. … Bye.”


“We need to be at the airport at one thirty,” Nate said. “Grandma just got a call from the prison, telling her my mother is in the hospital in Ocala, and they want to visit her.”


“What’s wrong with her?” Quentin said.


“She has cancer, and it’s terminal.”


Nate had a funny look on his face, so Quentin said, “What’s the matter, babe?”


“I don’t feel anything, that’s what’s the matter. She ismy mother, but I don’t feel anything? Shouldn’t I feel something?”


Chapter 36