AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Those people hate you.”
I had interviewed all of them by that time and the level of antipathy was all out of proportion, it seemed. Though they were only too glad to tell us how poor, “sweet” Dylan had been stalked and abused. He really must have been a great actor. I’d assigned Hunters to watch all of them for the past few days to see if Malone paid them a visit. He was getting blood from somewhere, and the occasional bite from Jace wouldn’t be enough. He had gorged himself on Jeremiah Turner, and that had held him a few days, but he’d soon be after more. He knew Jace had been compromised by us, so he’d been careful not to come around in the past few days. Jace hadn’t seemed to suffer any ill effects from their last encounter at his office building the night of Halloween, which gave me hope that he wasn’t too far gone. Either that or he was so far gone, one more had made little difference. I had to make sure he never got at him again.
“Yeah, I know. All those people at the theater hate me, and I really don’t even know them.”
“Why is that, you think? The reason they hate you.”
“Things Dylan’s told them, I guess. I’ve never spent much time around them, so I really have no idea.”
“What kinds of things? The ‘thing’ that happened in New York?”
His cheeks got red.
“Why haven’t you defended yourself? Told everyone what really happened?”
“Well, I…”
“Tell me, Jace.”
“They wouldn’t believe me. I don’t care what they think, anyway.”
“They might have believed you. Personally, I found what I read in the report farfetched from the beginning.”
“You did?”
I nodded, regarding him thoughtfully. “You weigh like what? A hundred forty tops? And you’re maybe five six?”
“Five seven!”
“Mm hm. Well, Malone is one ninety and six feet two according to hospital records,” I said. “I just don’t see you starting a fight with him and another guy he was cheating on you with.”
I shrugged.
“Well, did you?”
He glared up at me with a little defiance, and I wanted to kiss it out of him. “You know I didn’t.”
“Well, then? Considering what he did, why are you even here trying to help him?”
He sighed and turned his face toward the window.
“When he came to find you in Atlanta, what the hell did he say to you that made you give him even the time of day?”
“He apologized over and over. He reminded me he’d never put his hands on me before that night. Well, not much anyway.”
I shot him a dark, disgusted glance.
“He admitted he was out of control and acting crazy. He said I’d been acting like I wanted to break up with him. He was right about that. He kept calling me all the time, begging me to give him another chance. He said the other guy meant nothing to him, and I was the only one he ever wanted. The only one and that he never meant to hurt me, and he’d never do it again. He even threatened to hurt himself if I wouldn’t see him.”
“And you just gave in?”
“I agreed to meet him in a public place—a bar not far from my house. He brought me flowers.” He glanced up at me and blushed at my expression. “It’s not what you think—he gave me rue and daisies.” I must have looked totally blank, and he smiled a little. “He was in a production ofHamletonce right after we met. He was only filling in as understudy, but I’d helped him run his lines, like I always did. It was just a small part as Hamlet’s friend, Horatio, but kind of important. Good for his career. Anyway, there’s a scene in the play where Ophelia goes mad and gives everyone flowers. Shakespeare was really specific about who she gave what flowers to, and I had looked it up at the time because I was curious. Rue symbolizes suffering, and sorrow. Daisies were for heartbroken lovers.”
“And you loved that romantic shit.”
He shrugged. “I did like it, yes. I admit it. I liked it because it reminded me of when we first met—before everything changed. He remembered that I’d looked it up and we’d talked about it. At the time I thought he hadn’t even been listening. Of course, it wasn’t really rue he gave me. Rue doesn’t grow in the States, and it smells awful anyway. But he got something else that looked a little like it.”
“So basically, Malone gave you weeds? Because daisies grow wild and they stink, by the way. What kind of message was he trying to give you?”
