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What the hell are you thinking, Quinn? What is wrong with you? Turning off the cameras? What if someone else shows up? It's been years and he's never come around, but that could change now that you ran into each other! This is insane!

Those questions chased me back to my house, but didn't stop me from going into my security app and turning the back cameras off, just like I'd promised. I couldn't see them clearly from my kitchen window, but I knew the red recording light would blink off when I powered them down. I couldn't bring myself to turn off the cameras facing the front of the house, though. Just the thought of it made my skin crawl with anxiety.

"I swear it's for a reason, Rom," I said quietly. I couldn't get my mind off that container. How had it known to close it? Could it actually understand me? Just what the hell was living behind my house?

Despite everything with the creature, I did get some sleep last night. Actually, the question of what it was had proved to be a good distraction, keeping my mind off the lingering memories dredged up by the encounter at the coffee shop.

"You're disturbingly chipper today," Lain drawled as he came into Groomer Has It a little before noon. Since he stayed for the later appointments, he always came in a little later than me, giving me a few hours in the morning to groom on my own in peace and quiet.

"What makes you say that?" I paused, glancing over my shoulder at him, and Pipsqueak took the opportunity to lick my cheek, smiling innocently when I raised an eyebrow at him.

"Oh, is the Corgi Crew here today?" Lain lit up, slipping through the gate and peering under my grooming table, where three more corgis sprawled in a pile, napping. The fourth, a puppy named Gabrielle, was chasing Rom's tail while he looked on in exasperated amusement. My dog had a soft spot for puppies.

"They've been upgraded. Their mom got them new harnesses and leashes so they each have their own color, so they're the Color-Coordinated Corgi Crew now."

Lain rolled his eyes. "Let it never be said that groomers aren't cool." He plopped down on the floor and immediately got a lap full of corgi. Xena, the matriarch of the family, never passed up a chance at getting solo attention, preferably in the form of belly rubs. Pipsqueak and another of the corgis, Joxer, were her puppies, with Auto rounding out the crew. The five of them were some of my favorite clients and usually sent my other clients into cute overload when they saw all of them together.

"Are you happy because the corgis are here?" Lain pressed even as he obediently rubbed Xena's belly.

"I'm the same as I always am," I shrugged, turning my attention back to Pipsqueak before he could sneak in another kiss.

"No, something's different, but I don't know what."

"I think you're projecting. You're still on cloud nine from your date, and it's making you see things."

"I saw a lot of things during that date," he said with a big grin. As predicted, he immediately launched into another retelling of his date the other night. I'd heard it twice already, leaving me free to space out a little.

I trusted Lain more than anyone else in my life. He'd seen me at my very worst, when my life fell apart and he'd had to come to my rescue. Instead of getting scared off, he'd stuck with me and helped me pull myself back together, cementing himself as my best friend. If I told him about the creature, he wouldn't tell another soul. As much as he loved to gossip, he could keep secrets when it mattered.

Something held me back, though. While I trusted him, this felt… special. Not in any way I could explain, but the mystery of it all was pulling me out of the rut my life had fallen into. It gave me something new, something different, something entirely mine.

It wasn't logical, and it certainly wasn't normal, to look at the situation like this, but I'd never claimed to be a paragon of mental health. Until I knew what it was and how to help it, I wanted to hold on to the secret just a little longer.

The topic of his date distracted Lain from his questioning, thankfully, and the afternoon passed fairly quickly once we settled back into our routine. The corgis played on the floor with Romulus while I worked on Maizie, the little pup belonging to Ashley at Buns 'n' Roses. She was even cuter in person than in the pictures, and I absolutely didn't regret squeezing her into the schedule.

The bell over the door rang while I was trimming up her bangs, clipping little snips of hair between her excited kisses. I glanced over my shoulder, expecting to see the Corgi Crew's mom, but the two men standing in the front lobby were total strangers. Lowery's Crossing had about 10,000 people in it, but I knew most everyone by sight, at least, just from living here my whole life. I knew for a fact that I'd never seen these two before.

"Hi, can I help you?" I carefully put Maizie down, letting her run over to join the playgroup on the floor. Lain glanced over, as well, doing a double-take when he saw the strangers.

The older of the two stepped forward, giving me a friendly smile. It didn't quite reach his eyes, though, and something about the way he looked at me reminded me of Aaron. Only years of experience kept my customer service mask firmly in place.

"Sorry to bother you while you're working," he said, still with that fake smile. "We're new in town and we just wanted to check out the local businesses."

"Okay…" I hesitated, faltering when he didn't ask any follow-up questions. Professional interactions were one thing, but making small talk with strangers wasn't a skill I possessed. Already my anxiety was creeping higher, my shoulders tensing and my own fake smile growing brittle.

The younger one quickly jumped in. While his friend looked to be a little older than me, maybe around late thirties or early forties, this guy looked to be at least ten years younger, around Lain's age.

"Sorry, Garth isn't much of a talker," he apologized, and his sheepish smile actually looked real. "I'm David."

"Nice to meet you." It came out more like a question. Despite his more easygoing manner, this whole situation felt wrong somehow, and I just wanted them out of my salon. From the corner of my eye, I saw Lain subtly grab his phone off his side table and start firing off a text one-handed, the other still brushing the terrier on his grooming table.

"Nice to meet you," David nodded. "So, my friends and I are actually road-tripping together. I'm writing a book about modern folklore, so we're visiting places that have a lot of stories connected to them. I read about Lowery's Crossing on an urban legend forum and had to stop by to check it out."

If they'd started with that, I might have actually believed it. Although if they were hunting urban legends, they'd be out of luck here.

"Okay. Well… I don't know how much use I can be. I don't know much about stuff like that."

"You've never seen anything strange or unusual around town?" Garth asked. He'd dropped the mask and the way he looked at me ramped up my anxiety nearly to the breaking point.