Malicious Intent (Soulscape #5)

CH 34

Throughout dinner, Frank kept waiting for Alec to bring up the outing again—anticipating a return to the subject. The meal passed with no mention of the matter, as did the ensuing after-dinner drink and chat session on the front porch. Frank relaxed a bit. Prematurely so, he realized, once he and Dennis were alone in the bedroom. Alec had yet to join them.

Dennis sat on the end of the bed and fidgeted. "So... Zeke and I were talking down at the lake after you left..."

"Uh-huh..." Frank peeled off his shirt, eyeing the sheriff. "About...?" He was fairly sure what it was about but waited for Dennis to answer.

"The four of us going out together."

"Mm." Frank sighed. "And the verdict?"

Dennis rose from the bed and approached Frank. "He feels very strongly that you need to get out, enjoy your friends."

"Is that all he said?"

"No... he, uh... he said you needed to get back some of the old stuff."

"Old stuff?"

"What you had with Ron and James before."

"Before what?"

Dennis shifted. "Before... you met Zeke."

Before I met Alec... not Zeke.

"There's nothing to get back," Frank said. "We still have the same friendship as we did back in high school, only stronger and more mature." Why did it feel like Alec was trying to get him out of the house? Frank thought about the night of July Fourth. Alec had insisted on staying home... and the next thing Frank knew—Randall Scott was dead. Suicide. He just "lost his mind" and killed himself. Frank had treated patients for years—some truly disturbed patients. People with all kinds of mental problems. Randall Scott may not have been his patient, but he had analyzed him rather quickly. The whole "suicide by guilt" verdict didn't hold up. Alec had straight up questioned Frank as to why he didn't ask if Alec killed Randall.

Because you knew the answer—deep down, you knew—and you didn't want him to confirm it.

Alec was safe from suspicion from the outside because only Frank understood the dynamics of his abilities. Hell, even Frank didn't fully understand them. But he did know Alec could get inside a person's head and fuck them up if he so chose.

Did he have another target? One of the bikers? Leroy Croix, perhaps? Frank hated thinking this way—suspecting Alec of premeditated actions—but the boy had a track record that Frank couldn't ignore.

"I thought you agreed with me," Frank spoke quietly to Dennis. "I thought you weren't comfortable, either, with leaving Zeke here alone."

"I'm not, really," Dennis murmured. "But he did promise to stay out of sight if anyone came around."

Frank hung his head. "I'm not sure that's enough to ease my mind." It didn't even come close to easing his mind. And it wasn't just about what Alec might do to someone else... but what he had to allow them to do to him before he could take possession of their mind. The most haunting aspect of Alec's involvement in Randall Scott's death... was the thought of Randall violating Alec—and Zeke. Maybe that was the real reason he didn't want to know the truth of what happened that night.

Did that make him crazy—that he was more disturbed by that aspect of the event than he was by the possibility Alec may have caused the death of yet another person?

A pedophile with intentions of raping his young son.

Whether it hailed the erosion of Frank's humanity—he felt no sorrow or pity for the man. Yet it broke him to consider the things Randall may have done to Alec beforehand.