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He looked up in surprise.Knock him around—it was an old-fashioned sounding phrase and a humiliating one for a man, I suppose, like I was implying he couldn’t take care of himself. It wasn’t the way I meant it. My old man used to do that to my mother, until he started getting sick. Whenever I intervened and stopped him with a well-placed fist, she got mad atme. I never understood why she defended him. And Malone was a powerful vampire, big and inhumanly strong. Jace wouldn’t have had a chance.
“No. He didn’t ‘knock me around a lot.’ He only hit me a few times, and he was always really apologetic after. He tried hard to make it up to me. Besides, like I said, I didn’t want to cause a scene with Tyler and my mother in the house.”
“And then what happened?”
“He-he grabbed me at the door and shoved me against the refrigerator. I could have calmed him down though. I know I could. I was doing that when Tyler came in.”
“Tyler?”
“Yes, he must have heard all the yelling. He came in the door and…he said something to Dylan that made him angry.”
“What did he say?”
Jace shrugged. “I don’t know. Something he’d never said before. Something that sounded like, ‘Ah be diablo.’ That sounds kind of Spanish to me. I figured maybe he heard the words on TV. Anyway, they made Dylan angry.”
“What did Dylan do then?”
“Nothing. My mother came in. She didn’t like what she saw, so she asked him to leave her house. He refused at first and that’s when I told him to just go and not to come back. She did too. I told him it was her house, so she had the say. He left and that was it. Like I said, no big deal.”
It was a huge deal, actually. By telling him emphatically to get out of her house, she may have saved both of their lives. He’d have been compelled to leave. Another one of the old myths that was actually true. Vampires had to have permission to enter or to stay. Most victims never got around to the “stay” part, because once they let the monster in, they were dead.
I nodded. “No big deal, except for the fact he slapped you.” Jace’s face got red. “That’s when you broke up with him?”
“No, I told you. We broke up in late August, but he still came around some. But yes, I told him to leave and not come back.”
“And your mother will tell us the same story when we talk to her?”
“She didn’t hear what Tyler said, and she didn’t see him slap me, but she was there for some of the rest of it. Do you have to talk to her? I don’t want her to get upset.”
“I won’t upset her,” Conway said, coming in the back door and startling us both. I wonder when I’d gotten so jumpy. Must be all this talk of Malone. Mrs. O’Neal had been lucky Malone hadn’t killed her. All of them had.
Conway glanced at me and shook his head. “No machete anywhere in the shed.”
Jace directed his gaze out the window. I could see tears standing in his eyes.
“Jace, can you call your mother, please?”
He got up and went to the door of the kitchen and called to his mom. She came out of her bedroom, but before Jace could say anything, Conway brushed past him. “Mrs. O’Neal, I have a few questions I’d like to ask you about Dylan Malone. Is there someplace private that we can talk?”
“Oh, my. Yes, of course, if I can help.” She gestured toward the front porch and Conway followed her outside. Jace started to go too, but I put my hand on his shoulder.
“Not so fast. I have a few more things I’d like to ask you. Don’t worry—she’ll be fine.”
Looking reluctant, he came back over and sat down at the table, gazing at me with a wary expression. I sat down across from him and leaned back in the chair, smiling at him.
“I think I might like that Coke now, if it’s no trouble.”
“Oh, sure.” He got up and took one out of the fridge for me and sat back down again.
I sipped it, then set it down in front of me. “So, tell me about this on-again, off again relationship you had going on with Malone. How often was he violent toward you?”
The door to the kitchen suddenly opened and Tyler stood in the doorway staring at us.
“Hi buddy,” Jace said. “Is everything okay? Did your show go off?”
“Hello, Tyler,” I said. “I’m just talking to your brother about his friend, Dylan. Do you know who Dylan is?”
Tyler blinked a few times, and then, in a deep, mean voice he said,“Don’t you fucking run from me. I’ll make you sorry if you do.”
