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The answer to that was hell yes, I did. Just the thought of him made my pulse rate jump and my heart start thumping harder in my chest. But he scared me—the way he had held that man in the bar up off his feet with one hand? Who did that?I’d rarely seen anyone so strong. No one except…Dylan. He was strong like that. When he tossed me against the refrigerator, I knew it was like swatting a fly for him.
All of this was whirling around my brain as I dressed to go to the Playhouse. My life had taken a strange turn months ago and it seemed it was never going back to the way it used to be.
I wore a pair of gray trousers with a darker gray long-sleeved button up shirt to the theater. The shirt was an inexpensive one from the mall, but checking myself in the mirror, I thought I didn’t look too bad for a guy who’d been hurling in the gutter the night before, though I was still so damn pale. You could even still see some faint bruising around my eye from my run-in with the old lady on Halloween, though the bruise on my jaw was almost gone. I used a little concealer on my eye, because yeah, I was that vain, and besides, I didn’t want to have to field a bunch of questions about it.I thought my shirt collar would hide the bite on my neck, but I dabbed some concealer on that too.
I ate a few crackers standing over the sink to avoid getting crumbs on my shirt. My stomach rebelled at even that much, to tell the truth, but I didn’t think I could eat anything else, and I’d read somewhere that an empty stomach only made nausea worse. What the hell had I been thinking mixing beer with all that tequila? Or just drinking all that tequila, full stop? I made myself a fervent promise never to do that again.
My mother came into the kitchen and patted my back. “Feeling better, dear?”
“Mm-hm. Mom, I need to go out for a little while. I can call Mrs. Anderson and see if she can…”
“That’s not necessary, dear. Let her enjoy her weekend. I’m perfectly capable of looking after Tyler for a few hours. I know you think I’m not, but I’m feeling so much better these days.”
“I know you can take care of him, but if he gets in one of his moods, then he might hurt you.”
“Tyler will be fine. He’s better since you came home and as more time passes since…since your father. He and I never wanted this, you know. For you to give up your life to care for me and Tyler.”
“I haven’t given up my life.”
“No, but you need to get out more. Have some fun. Maybe not as much fun as you had last night, but...”
I looked at her with surprise. Apparently, she hadn’t believed my “touch of the flu” excuse to lie around in bed all day after all. She came up beside me and gave me a hug. “Now go and have a nice evening. Tyler has his shows on TV, and we may go for a walk later. We both need the exercise and cold weather is coming so fast we won’t be able to enjoy walking much longer. Now go,” she said, giving me a little squeeze. “Get your mind off all this unpleasantness with Dylan.”
****
I drove out to the Virginia Highlands area, whereThePlayhousewas located, and before I got to the parking lot behind it, I could already see maybe twenty or more people standing around outside and milling in and out of the front doors.
It was already getting pretty dark. There was a performance that would start in a little over an hour, so actors were walking around in the crowd that would soon start filing inside. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone, and then of course, Dale could get some free advertising in for his new production too, as he’d invited the newspaper.
I slipped past a tall, big boned woman with blonde hair being interviewed on camera—I thought it was Snyder’s wife, Ann—and went inside the theater lobby. There was even more activity inside. Various people I recognized as actors from the Playhouse were all standing around. Dylan had taken photos of most of them and showed them to me, making those mean, snide and snarky comments about these people who thought he was their friend.
Dale Snyder’s stentorian tones could be heard over everyone as he spoke to some man I didn’t know and when he caught sight of me—those photos of Dylan’s must have gone both ways—he motioned me over to him. The man was introduced as a reporter for the Atlanta Journal.
“This is Dylan’s partner,” he said, snagging my arm and pulling me to stand closer beside him. “Jace O’Neal, meet Corey Underwood. Corey is doing a story on our efforts here to help get some information on Dylan’s whereabouts.”
We nodded at each other. “How do you spell your first name?”Corey asked. “Is that Jason or just Jace? Is that with an ‘s’ or a ‘c’?”
“I don’t really need to be in this story at all,” I said, holding up my hand. “This should just be about Dylan. We weren’t really… look, just leave me out of things, okay? Dylan and Iweren’tpartners.”
Snyder brought his bushy red eyebrows together to meet in the middle of his forehead. “I thought you might want to be at the table with us when I make my announcement.”
“Announcement?”
“I’m offering a small reward for any information leading to Dylan’s safe return. You should really be with us when I make the announcement.”
“A reward is very generous, Dale. But just leave me out of it all, okay? I told you. We broke up a few months ago.”
I backed away a couple of steps, feeling really uncomfortable. What was wrong with these people? Why was he acting like I was Dylan’s next of kin or something?
Dale was frowning at me again, and the reporter was regarding me with a lot more interest. He made a quick note on his pad, and I resisted the urge to lean over and read what he had written down.
“Look, I just came for some of the flyers. I’ll get them and take off.”
Dale wrinkled his forehead and pressed his lips together in a straight line. I turned around quickly and stepped over to the closest table to pick up a stack of flyers and there was good, old Toby Baker, who was an actor at the Playhouse, and supposedly Dylan’s good friend, staring up at me with one raised and heavily penciled eyebrow.
“Hello, Jace,” he said, drawing out the sound of my name and hissing at me like a snake. He was giving me a look that a Dalmatian mama dog might reserve for Cruella DeVille. He rather looked like one at the moment too, with his corpse-like skin and big, faded brown puppy dog eyes. He fluttered his fake eyelashes at me as he looked me up and down and pursed his thin lips. “I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to show up here.”
I gave a tired sigh. “What are you talking about, Toby?”
