Page 7 of Half-Blood


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“Gone. Disappeared,” Detective Logan put in, his tone sharp and impatient. “He hasn’t shown up at any of his friends’ houses or at work or at any of his usual hangouts and none of his friends know where he is. None of them have seen or talked to him since yesterday.”

“B-but I don’t understand. I mean, just sinceyesterday? That’s not so long, surely. Not for Dylan. Wait a minute... Aren’t you homicidedetectives? What exactly is going on? Tell me, please!”

****

Will Logan

I looked O’Neal up and down and shifted my weight in my uncomfortable seat on the lumpy sofa. He must have been sound asleep when he’d heard us knock, because he was still barefoot and dressed only in a pair of pajamas pants he must have thrown on to answer the door, along with a ratty old robe that looked like he’d had it for years. He had small feet, like the rest of him, except for a noticeable bulge at his groin in the thin clothing. Nothing little about that. He also had some serious bedhead going on with all that blond hair sticking up every which way, and he needed a shave. He looked grouchy and sleepy and out of sorts. I’d never seen anyone so fucking gorgeous in my life, and I couldn’t stop staring at him. He reminded me of Brad Pitt in that old movie where Pitt had played Death taking a holiday or whatever. Just impossibly young and way too pretty, even bruised up like he was.

Those bruises were part of why we were here. If anyone might know the whereabouts of Malone, it would be his favorite thrall. He’d skipped out on us, which meant he probably had been a part of that nest in the nearby small town. Once alerted to our presence, he had staged his own disappearance. Our plan was to sweat his location out of Jace O’Neal if we could. He obviously thought we were some kind of detectives, so we’d roll with that.

“Actually,” I said, “we don’t know what’s happened to him, if anything,” I said, ruthlessly pushing down my inappropriate response to this man. He was a thrall and badly compromised by the look of him. His skin was way too pale, and he was too thin, making those eyes of his stand out in his face. Then, too, there was that large bite mark on his neck.

“But it’s interesting that you should think about homicide, Mr. O’Neal. Do you have some reason to think your friend’s disappearance may be due to foul play?”

He looked startled, and he opened and closed his mouth a few times, seeming to be completely at a loss.

“Mr. O’Neal?”

“No,” he said. “Of course not. I haven’t even seen Dylan in almost a week.” Conway took a small notebook from the breast pocket of his jacket and made a note of something. Jace O’Neal watched him, with a wary gaze.

“What can you tell us about Mr. Malone?” I asked. “How well did you know him?”

“I know him really well. We used to…that is, I-I’ve known him for about a little over a year. Since we both lived in New York City. We met there.”

“But isn’t it true that you and Dylan Malone are lovers, Mr. O’Neal?” I leaned forward a little, watching him carefully. I tried to keep the intonation out of my voice, speaking the word flatly, but the spark in those pretty baby blues signaled panic all the same.

He stared over at me. “We had a relationship at one time, yes. We broke up a couple of months ago. I haven’t seen him in over a week. Maybe two weeks.”

“Okay, so one or maybe two weeks since the last time you saw him? Which is it?”

“I-I don’t know exactly. Closer to a week, I guess.”

“But you say you broke up a couple of months ago.”

“Yes. He still came by sometimes.”

He was trying to distance himself from Malone. The so-called breakup date was probably true according to what Malone’s associates had told us, but they also said Jace had seen Malone as recently as a couple of days ago, and not a week. I wondered how deep he’d dig this hole for himself.

“You say you had a ‘relationship.’ How do you define relationship, Mr. O’Neal? Was it sexual?”

He huffed out a breath and shot me a look of defiant dislike. “He was my boyfriend, and we’re adults. So yeah, of course, it was.”

“But not anymore.”

“That’s right.”

“And yet you do still sleep with him occasionally, isn’t that right?”

“Not for a while.” His cheeks were getting pink. “I…we used to be involved, like I said, but we broke up. Back in late August or maybe early September.”

“Which one?”

He shot me a dirty look. “September, I think.”

“So just friends, now, hmm? Not…what is it you guys call it? Fuck buddies?”

“Usguys? No, that’s not whatIwould call it, Detective.”

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