Change of Climate

Untitled Part 7

Quinlan waited until London was asleep, wrapped up in his parents' bed, and then he thought for a second, and then he Skyped his parents.

It was on the late side in Cheltenham, which meant it was obscenely late in London, which meant that he was waking his parents up from a sound sleep and he knew it was going to worry them but he also thought this was a big enough deal that it couldn't wait until the next day. London could sleep, because London clearly needed the sleep, but Quinlan needed to talk to someone. He felt very badly out of his depth.

"Quin?" asked his mother, worriedly, as she answered, her hair a sleep-mussed mess all over her head.

The computer had clearly been sitting by the bed. His view was of his mother in bed, his father beyond her, just done turning on a lamp. He also turned to look at him in concern.

"Hi," he said, with a little wave.

"What is it?" asked his mother. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing really," he hedged, because, well, he didn't know how else to put it.

His father lifted an eyebrow at him, which was effective even an ocean away. "You just decided to call us in the middle of the night."

"You're never going to guess who's here," Quinlan said.

"Here? As in where?" said his mother.

"As in this house," said Quinlan.

His mother frowned. "You're not supposed to be having guests over."

"London Lassiter," said Quinlan, ignoring this.

There was a beat of reaction time from his parents, who clearly recognized the name and were bewildered by it.

"London Lassiter?" echoed his mother.

"Showed up on the doorstep," affirmed Quinlan.

"And said what?" asked his father, in bewilderment.

"Her father's dead," said Quinlan, bluntly.

He'd had his parents' attention all along, but now he saw them shift everything into a higher gear. His mother shifted to sit up more in the bed. His father leaned toward the screen and said, "What?"

"He's dead. She says she was murdered, for something in his lab. She says they're after her, too. I can't tell if she's, I don't know, hysterical or serious or if I should be believing her or should I go to the police or—I just didn't know what to do. I don't know. I still don't know what to do. Turns out being a freshman psych major is useless when it comes to people suddenly showing up on your door talking about their parents being murdered."

On the computer screen, his father was now scrolling through his phone, his mother looking over his shoulder.

"It's true," his father murmured. "David Lassiter is dead."

"I know," said Quinlan, a little annoyed. Did they think he hadn't bothered to confirm London's story first?

"Murdered in his lab," his mother said, and pressed her fingers to her lips and blinked rapidly. "Oh, my God."

"God, it doesn't make sense," said Quinlan, feeling the press of a headache, the way he'd had whenever he'd really thought about London's story. He looked at his parents in England, his globe-trotting professor parents, and how he had never once thought that their boring profession with their boring academic papers could be any kind of motivation for murder. "Why would anybody kill a professor?"

"London's with you now?" said his mother, still looking at his father's phone.

"Yeah, she's...she's sleeping. She's had a tough time of it. Which, you know, is putting it mildly, to say the least. She found him."

"Oh, God, poor girl," said his mother. "How is she? She was such a sweet girl. David was so proud of her."

"Well," said Quinlan. "She still is a sweet girl. She's still with us. She's not the one who's past-tense in this conversation."

"Right," said his mother. "Right."

"What am I supposed to do? I mean, the police are investigating David's death, but no one seems to be looking for London. Should I call the police about her being here? She hasn't done anything wrong in being here, but...I don't know. I didn't know what to do."

"Don't call the police," said his father, suddenly, sharply.

Quinlan blinked, surprised. "Okay," he said, slowly.

"It's just there's no reason to get them involved," his mother added, hastily. "Poor girl, she's been through enough already. She's probably trying to get away from the police relentlessly asking questions. She's not under investigation, obviously, so why should you need to tell the police anything at all about her whereabouts? Just...keep her there. And keep her safe."

"Right," Quinlan said. "You know I'm not a samurai warrior, right? Keep her safe from what? I've got the alarm on, that's the best I can do."

"Let her sleep," said his mother. "Call us tomorrow when she's awake. We'll see if we can figure out what to do."

"Okay," Quinlan agreed.

"You did the right thing, Quin," said his father, gruffly. "Well done, son."

Quinlan tried to think of the last time his father had said Well done, son to him. He thought the last time was never. He lifted his eyebrows and said, again, slowly, "Okay."

"We'll talk to you again in a few hours, Quinlan," said his mother. "Get some sleep. Love you."

"Yeah, love you, too," said Quinlan, and his parents ended the call, and he stared at the blank computer screen. Weird conversation, he thought. Weird day. Maybe he was going to wake up tomorrow and find out that he'd dreamed the whole thing.

If this was a dream, his Freudian professor was going to dissect it pretty gleefully, thought Quinlan.

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