“I am trying,” Icky insisted.
“Try harder.” Frederick glanced to the whisky stain on the wall. “It would be unwise for you to return home at this juncture,” he decided. “If Father is at all capable of the things that you believe him to be, then you cannot face him with such poor restraint. The man’s will is inviolate, and he will break you.”
There was frustration in Quentin’s narrowed eyes, his tightening cheeks, and the press of his lips.
“I think he’s right, baby.” Laurence raised Quentin’s hand and kissed it lightly. “You’ve made so much progress, but you’ve got a ways to go yet.”
Icky eyed him, but his features slowly relaxed, and Laurence gave a slight smile in return.
Laurence turned to Frederick and got up from the couch. “Thanks, man. It’s been… interesting. But I think maybe we should get going. Quen likes some time to digest things, and I think this is a pretty huge thing to chew on.”
“I understand.” Frederick stood and offered his hand, and Laurence shook it. Then he offered it to Icky.
Quentin rose slowly and regarded the hand. He took it, as though unsure whether it might bite.
“Thanks for coming, Icky. I mean it.” No lie required there, at least.
“Thank you for…” Icky tailed off. “Being here.”
Laurence smiled and hooked his arm through Quentin’s. “Yeah. Seriously. Thanks a bunch.”
Frederick inclined his head. “Icky’s my brother. I won’t have him killed by an angry mob.”
“Yeah.” Laurence looked to Quentin and squeezed his arm. “C’mon, baby. Let’s go.”
He escorted the mismatched pair to the door, and paused only to eye the stack of shattered glass and ceramic on a table. Icky had deposited the dangerous shards there with barely a glance.
That kind of power was immeasurably useful, but seemed fraught with danger, and Frederick was not a tremendous fan of danger. Proximity to Icky was a risk, and he would have to mitigate that risk somehow, because leaving tomorrow was now out of the question.
Laurence had information about Icky which Icky himself was unaware of, and if that led Frederick a single step closer to uncovering the identity of their mother’s killer then not a single moment of his trip was a waste.
He would need more time to dig more deeply through Laurence’s knowledge, and that meant he would be stuck in San Diego a while longer.
5
FREDERICK
Frederick took himself out and about the next day so that housekeeping could fix the damage done to his suite. Rather than malinger while staff pretended that he wasn’t there, he gathered up his research and settled down in a quiet seafood restaurant two blocks from his hotel. It was an easy matter to ensure that the place remained quiet during his stay, too: subtly influencing wait staff to seat rowdier guests near the entrance so that Frederick’s table remained a peaceful oasis at the back.
He nibbled on sashimi while he perused the information stored on his laptop. It was time to re-evaluate his pre-existing data in light of yesterday’s revelations, and he could hardly do that to the sound of a vacuum cleaner.
Three different investigators had dug through Laurence’s background prior to Frederick’s arrival in San Diego. All of them had uncovered a history of drug abuse and failed rehabilitation, and yet the Laurence Frederick had met yesterday seemed a bright young man, caring and kind despite his rough edges.
The discrepancy was intriguing, although perhaps the disconnect was in Frederick’s expectations more than anything else. The only drug users he knew personally favored cocaine. It was more of a party drug. Heroin was something one took to be alone, even when surrounded by other users.
Why would someone so vivacious and outgoing as Laurence turn to it?
Frederick flipped through pages of information until he found the name he searched for. Only one of his investigators had unearthed it. The other two didn’t seem to find it relevant to dig out the identity of Laurence’s main dealer.
Michael Brennan. Mikey to his customers. It wasn’t a lot to go on, but that wasn’t Frederick’s problem. He tapped out an email to the investigator who had uncovered that much and requested more information on Brennan. It would do well to find out whether the dealer still had hooks sunk into Riley’s veins lest Icky be sucked into any of that nonsense.
What a pickle he’d walked into. Riley was a smart boy, and had begun to piece together events and circumstances which only supported Frederick’s own nebulous conclusions. Whatever Icky had gone through as a child had been so easy to write off as a series of clumsy accidents, but in retrospect and with the knowledge of adulthood seemed so absurdly suspicious that anyone who had turned a blind eye to them were as good as complicit themselves, so far as Frederick was concerned.
That left him in an awkward position with regards to Mother.
Did she know?
Was it her?
That idea unnerved him, but it was awfully convenient that Icky’s accidents had subsided after her death. Here he had been all ready to get to the bottom of whether or not she had been murdered, but what if her death was nothing of the sort?
What if it was justice?
He reached for his water and sipped on it while he worked on soothing his own ruffled thoughts. It would not do to leap to conclusions, for doing so would skew further data he received and he ran the risk of forming a bias. No. All either Riley or himself had were suppositions, not evidence, and those ideas were hardly enough to begin pointing fingers with.
As for Icky… Well. Telekinesis. It was good, he supposed, to finally have information which fully supported the events at the funeral, but it troubled him that Icky didn’t appear to have much control over it if he lost his temper. Twenty five years of age and he didn’t have a handle on it yet. Bloody hell, Frederick’s own ability had manifested in his teens. If he didn’t take control it would have driven him insane. How the devil had Icky come so far without coming to grips?
He’s been drunk for six years.
It seemed harsh, but he couldn’t deny that his brother was rather too fond of a drink, and he did seem to spend his life falling out of one party and straight into the next. If nothing else, this relationship with Laurence appeared to have weaned Icky off the booze at long bloody last.
The level of background chatter — not only via his ears, but also washing softly against his mental defenses — began to rise, so he finished his lunch and waved for the bill. Crowds were far too mercurial to spend too much time immersed in, and if his suite were not ready by now he’d simply have to spend some time in the hotel’s gym instead.
GYM IT WAS, then.
It turned out to be a beneficial use of his time, for when he was finally back in his own suite, freshly-showered and wrapped in a bathrobe, his investigator had already replied with information. It wasn't a fully comprehensive background of Brennan, but it was a good start.
Frederick sat at the dining room table which overlooked the bay and sifted through the attachments. Photographs which the investigator had dredged up rather than taken himself, obtained from a variety of sources: a high school yearbook, perhaps, and certainly some police files if the height chart behind the pretty redhead was anything to go by.
And he really was a remarkably pretty boy, even with the garish red hair. He had pale skin of the sort which likely burned in the San Diego sunshine, and a dusting of freckles across his nose and cheeks. His smooth features ended abruptly with an angular jawline; his nose was slender and faintly retroussé. Frankly thus far the only downside was that he was a known heroin dealer, otherwise Frederick might have been interested in a far more pleasurable encounter with the boy.
He chided himself. He wasn’t here to get involved in the messes surrounding Laurence’s personal life. Gathering data was all well and good, but that’s all it was: information from which he could then plan his next steps. He’d already been forced to delay his return flight and extend his stay, so the more he could learn
and the faster he could learn it the better. There would only be so long he could get away with being out of the country before people back home began to notice his absence.
Frederick forced himself to move on from the pictures and onto the less eye-catching attachments to the email. Many of them were high school records or arrest warrants. What a combination. Brennan seemed adequate academically, with a slight peak in sciences and mathematics, although his attendance dipped dramatically toward the end of his school years to the point where he almost failed to graduate. His grades were nothing to write home about, if Frederick understood the American system correctly, and since he had left school he had failed to hold down any single job for terribly long, to the point where he now seemed thoroughly unemployed and unemployable.
And that, no doubt, was where all the arrest warrants came into play. There was no way that Brennan was in a position to produce his own stock, so he was merely the lower end of a longer chain, and therefore readily expendable so far as his suppliers were concerned. One had to be a complete idiot to be arrested so often for the same offenses, yet somehow Brennan managed it. The relative lack of jail time suggested bribery somewhere along the line, but perhaps Brennan could afford the best lawyers in town. That information wasn’t attached, so he’d have to wait a little longer to find out.
Or he could just meet the boy and pick his brain.
No. That would be foolish.
It would. And hasty, too. That it had even crossed his mind was a stark warning, so he closed the laptop and walked away from it.
Christ, one day in Icky’s presence and the man’s volatility seemed to be contagious. If Frederick couldn’t get to the bottom of what Icky thought he knew about Mother’s death, he may have to shelve it for another couple of years. He had, after all, waited this long. If it took nibbling away at the truth for the rest of his life, he was damn sure he’d uncover it sooner or later. It would be awfully nice if they could get there while the perpetrator was still alive, though.
For the meantime, all he could do was wait, and while he was usually a patient man, the longer he waited the higher the personal risk became, and he was not a tremendous fan of risk. Risk led to harm, and he’d grown up with an older brother whose constant encounters with harm had slowly twisted him from a bright and outgoing boy into the reserved, easily-frightened man he was today.
Frederick quite liked himself, and intended to stay as he was for as long as possible, thank you very much. If that meant a life in shadows, keeping danger at arm’s length, then so be it.
Two weeks, he decided. That would be his limit. If he wasn’t done by the end of a fortnight, then things would have to go unresolved.
For now.
6
FREDERICK
He had little more information by the time Laurence got in touch the following day, which was perhaps for the best, as it seemed the florist wished to invite Ethan over to Frederick’s suite in the evening. The request seemed peculiar enough that Laurence must have something specific in mind, so Frederick ensured that there was a small buffet awaiting their arrival.
As was to be expected, Quentin eyed the buffet like merely laying eyes on it was enough to make him gain weight.
Frederick snorted to Laurence. “Still a chore to get him to eat anything?”
“Oh, man.” Laurence’s groan was one of a man who had butted his head against this particular wall more than once. “Seriously.”
Frederick ushered his older brother toward the food. “Icky, put some bloody meat on your bones.” He thrust a plate into Icky’s hands and watched as Icky proceeded to make the plate look full when there was hardly any food on it. The man had managed to turn faking it into an art form, and there were at most two hundred calories on the plate at Frederick’s estimate. Icky had filled it with artfully-draped leaves and the only real food present were two pieces of nigiri.
There was little use arguing over it. Icky had managed not to die of malnutrition just yet.
By the time Ethan arrived, Laurence too had a plate, although his was piled high with actual food. Frederick opened the door and said nothing as Ethan breezed past him. It was the best he could do to hide his smirk as every thought which trickled through Ethan’s brain came out of his mouth at almost the exact same time.
“Dude!” Ethan stared around the penthouse. “This is crazy! Hey, you can see the Coronado bridge from up here!”
“Freddy, may I introduce Laurence’s friend, Ethan,” Icky murmured as he retreated to a chair at the dining room table. “Ethan, this is my brother, Frederick.”
“Freddy, please,” Frederick said as he offered Ethan his hand. While he’d picked the boy’s brain at the Jack in the Green, there was no harm in going through with a far more polite introduction. “They’re up to something. Likely trying to set us up for a date, but I’m afraid I must disappoint you. I’m not in town for much longer.”
Ethan laughed as he pumped the offered hand. “It’s cool. I’ve already got my forever dude anyway.”
Icky winced, and Laurence sat by his side, eyeing Icky’s plate like he was checking there was food on it.
“Right, you two.” Frederick moved to the sofas and sat opposite the lovebirds. “I doubt this is a social gathering. What are we here for?”
Icky picked at his salad while he waited for Ethan to sit, then he sighed faintly. “We have a dilemma.”
“Spit it out, dear boy.”
Icky fiddled with his fork.
Frederick rolled his eyes and turned his attention to Laurence.
“Okay. You’re both here,” said Laurence, “because you both know one of us has psychic abilities. We’re both here ‘cause each one of you only knows that about one of us.”
Ethan squinted as he chewed. “That was a fucking awful sentence, dude.”
“Shut up.” Laurence huffed. “Quentin and I are both psychic, okay? I can control plants, look at the past or the future, and I have pretty good senses. Quentin’s got crazy good telekinetic skills and he heals as fast as I do. So there. Now you both know all of it.”
Frederick exchanged a look with Ethan.
“Prove it,” Ethan said.
“Man, not again!” Laurence huffed at him.
“It does seem redundant,” Frederick agreed.
“But telekinesis is cool!” Again, Ethan’s thoughts echoed his words almost identically.
That could prove problematic. The only people whose thoughts poured from their mouths so readily tended to make incredibly poor liars, and Ethan was currently being entrusted with the biggest secret Frederick could imagine he had been handed in his entire life.
Quentin cleared his throat. “There is rather more to this assembly than news alone. We have a situation we would like to solicit your opinions on.”
For the most part, Frederick picked apart Laurence’s thoughts rather than listened to Icky’s words, and for all Icky’s enthusiasm about this Kane fellow, Laurence’s mind was filled with concerns and deductions which were — while mostly negative - also reassuringly astute.
He skimmed over Ethan’s responses to the unfolding tale, too, and was relieved to find that while Ethan was excited by the notion of some kind of school for psychic children, he too was rather wary now that more details came to light. Frederick gave Ethan the gentlest of psychic nudges so that they could talk through the issues rather than both agree outright, as that wouldn’t persuade Icky of anything at all.
“I can’t believe you’re even thinking about this,” Ethan said slowly.
“I concur,” Frederick added.
“I mean, you’re gonna say yes, right?”
“I— what?” Frederick feigned horror as he stared at Ethan.
“What? That’s what you do with superpowers, dude. You strap on your spandex and you go be a big damn hero.” Ethan grinned. “And the world could use some heroics. So I say go for it! Join up, save the world, right? With great power comes great responsibility, all that shit?”
“
How absurd,” Frederick responded. “You already know my opinion, Icky. This is a terrible notion which seems designed to reveal your existence to the world at large.”
Ethan stuffed a rice ball into his mouth, and was too busy chewing it to answer.
“But if we do not accept Kane’s offer,” Icky reasoned, “it will not stop his actions. If the revelation is inevitable, then it is so regardless of our presence.”
For all his protestations that he was an idiot, Icky was remarkably logical when the need arose, it seemed. Now would be a good time to test his resolve.
“Mm.” Frederick rose and wandered toward the kitchen. “White? Red?”
“We don’t drink,” Laurence said quickly. “Not any more.”
Frederick fished out a bottle of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon. With his back to the others it was considerably easier to mask his disappointment. It would have been better for Icky to refuse the drink himself. With Laurence having stepped in it made it reasonably apparently that the driving force behind Icky’s newfound sobriety was the florist. The concern there, of course, was that without Laurence by his side, would Icky return to the booze?
“I’ve gotta get to work after this,” Ethan added.
Frederick affected a shrug and returned to the table with the bottle. He offered it to Icky. “Can’t find the corkscrew,” he said.
Icky sighed and tore the foil free, then eyed the cork. It began to wriggle free, and then finally popped out.
Frederick eyed his brother as Icky plucked the cork from the air.
There.
Despite Icky’s composure, Frederick caught the flicker in his gaze as he inhaled the whiff of wine from the bottle. At first it looked like remorse, but then — for a split second — Frederick thought he caught guilt in the set of Icky’s gaze. Without any ability to read his brother’s mind, though, it was not a great deal to go on.
Reeve of Veils (Inheritance Book 4) Page 4
