The Finished Masterpiece (Master of Trickery Book 3)

by Pepper Winters

  I missed her so goddamn much.

  But I’d sold my soul to the devil to save her.

  This nightmare was mine to endure, not hers.

  I would protect her future by removing myself from it. I’d made a vow as Tallup gagged me, staring at Olin’s picture on the dresser that I would never prevent the girl I loved from living the life she was meant to.

  Tallup had agreed to let her go.

  I’d paid the price.

  But there was still a tax on that payment. A tax of silence. Not one word to the girl I would always love. Not one hint that I still cared.

  The only thing I could do while Olin begged me to explain was step back, shake my head, and leave.

  That was the second time that I broke Olin’s heart but definitely not the last.

  Every day, she sought me out, and every day, I didn’t say a word. I sank deeper and deeper into ice, hoping the glaciers in my eyes would warn her to keep her distance.

  In class, I studied her pretty hair while she sat in front of me.

  In my mind, I apologised over and over.

  In my heart, I screamed. I told her I loved her with every breath. I promised her I always would. I begged her to forgive me.

  The only person enjoying my heartbreak was Tallup.

  Her tiny smirk hidden beneath her teacher’s tone. Her eyes smug and satisfied.

  A love-killer, hope-stealer.

  A total fucking succubus to the end.

  * * * * *

  “Gil! Please.” Olin dashed toward me after school.

  A few weeks had passed.

  I’d lost weight. I barely slept. I welcomed the beatings my dad gave me now because it was the only way to leech out the pain.

  I drove my hands deeper into my jeans pockets, striding faster.

  She chased me, catching up as we rounded the corner of the street.

  “Gil.” Her hand landed on my arm, her eyes watering, lips thin with stress. “I can’t do this anymore. I need to know why you suddenly don’t want to be with me.” Tears fell, sticking to white cheeks. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what I did...but I love you. I miss you.” She walked into me, pressing her forehead to my chest. “I miss you so much.”

  I stepped away, dislodging her hold. “Go home, Olin.”

  That was the worst part.

  Not being able to walk her home.

  Not knowing she was safe.

  Not escorting her through shadows and sinners.

  She followed me, her breath catching with wet tears. “Please. Talk to me. I don’t know what’s going on.”

  I didn’t speak.

  My boots thudded as she chased me down the road.

  “Gil...please!” A sob hiccupped in her chest. “If we talk about this, we can go back to the way it was.”

  It was too much.

  To believe we could be together again? To think I could have her, despite everything?

  It hurt.

  It fucking hurt.

  I whirled on her, my nostrils flaring, temper firing. “Leave me alone, Olin. I won’t tell you again.”

  No more nicknames starting with O.

  No more togetherness after school.

  It was over.

  All of it.

  She trembled on the sidewalk, her mouth opening and closing as if she wanted to argue but didn’t know how. For a second, hate flashed in her gaze.

  And it tore out what pieces I had left and threw them in the gutter.

  Then she launched herself at me, her hands reaching for my cheeks, her lips seeking mine.

  I didn’t think.

  I just reacted.

  I shoved her back, making her trip and stumble.

  Shit.

  Shit!

  I moved to support her, but I forced myself to lurch backward instead.

  The last time someone had touched me, kissed me, it had been against my control. I supposed, in some way, I would have to work through that violation if I ever stood a chance at having a good relationship with affection again. But there, on that street, I couldn’t stomach the thought of Olin’s lips on mine.

  Not after Tallup’s had been there.

  I wasn’t clean anymore.

  “Forget about me,” I muttered, turning away from her. “Just forget I ever existed.”

  * * * * *

  She didn’t forget about me.

  For weeks after, Olin tried to talk to me countless times. Cornering me in the corridor, trapping me in the classroom, chasing me over the grounds.

  Tallup was there for all of it; her smugness making me sick. Her rules making me howl for this to be over.

  I wanted to leave.

  To run.

  I’d begun having nightmares on the rare occasions I actually slept.

  Dreams of being tied down, unwanted fingers on my body, hated tongues on my cock. I’d dream of Olin being violated like I had. I’d dream of both of us dying.

  I’d wake in a full sweat, listening to the sounds of fucking in the next room and wished I could stop myself from ever falling in love with Olin.

  Because my love for her was now twisted with what happened in that hotel room.

  I hated my body.

  I hated the reactions it had and the erection that’d condemned me.

  I didn’t care I’d been tricked into taking Viagra—it was still me who fucked my teacher, and I couldn’t unscramble that from choice or command.

  “Gil.”

  I rounded the corner by the gym, almost smashing into Olin where she waited for me. Her bag rested by her feet, her hands wrung in front of her, shadows decorated beneath sleep-tired eyes.

  I sighed hard, pretending impatience and chilly disdain when really it took everything I had not to crush her to me and beg for her forgiveness.

  “I love you, Gil. Doesn’t that mean anything?” She reached for me, her body jerky and foolish.

  Again, I just reacted. Instincts that no longer attributed affection with love lashed out and hurt the one person I never wanted to hurt.

  Affection came at a cost. A cost I could no longer afford.

  My hand latched around her throat, and I shoved her against the brick wall. I was tired and struggling, and I had nothing else to give.

  Nothing else to offer.

  I was dead.

  And she deserved better. “Stop. Just stop.”

  She stiffened.

  I froze.

  Time stood still as I physically mauled her.

  Bruised her just like Tallup had bruised me.

  I reeled backward, ripping my touch from her, drenched with disgust and dismay.

  Fuck!

  Trembles hijacked my limbs as I almost tripped to the ground.

  Olin stood there, shock making her eyes wide, fear making her breath fast.

  And we stared at each other.

  Stared with our history and our hope, knowing that this was the moment it was truly over.

  She didn’t say a thing.

  I couldn’t.

  I turned and walked away from the best thing, the only thing, my forever.

  * * * * *

  She started dating Justin Miller a few weeks after I’d bruised her.

  The first time I caught them together, I ran off school property before I did something that would end with me in jail for two crimes.

  Seeing her with him?

  I couldn’t bear it.

  I couldn’t survive it.

  I’d taken three steps toward Olin, words on my tongue full of apology. Of how much I missed her, wanted her, needed her, craved her. I’d taken another three with my fists curled ready to pummel Justin’s face into his skull.

  But somehow, in the mist of possession and pain, I stopped.

  If I told Olin how much I loved her, Tallup would ruin her life and have me arrested. And if beat up Justin Miller for laughing with the girl who owned my heart, I’d be sentenced to yet another crime.

  It took everything I had, but I endured the flirting, the tenta
tive smiles, the knowledge that Justin touched her.

  I deliberately picked fights with my old man when I caught them kissing behind the gym where I’d shown her my sketch book for the first time. I thought I’d die from the way my chest split in two.

  But I didn’t die.

  And my father cracked a rib with his drunken fist.

  Week after week, I had to bear witness to Olin replacing me with another. And week after week, I crumbled inside, turning into an empty shell of grief.

  By the time school holidays rolled around, I was hanging on by a fucking thread.

  Knowing Olin would spend most of her time with Justin during the holidays.

  Wondering if she’d give him her virginity.

  Imagining her kissing him, laughing with him, touching him.

  Fuck, it made me break into a million pieces and roar with fury.

  I’d have nightmares of him hurting her like Tallup had hurt me. Visions of Olin writhing in ecstasy with someone who wasn’t me.

  It was enough to drive me insane.

  Maybe I was already insane.

  Even my father started leaving me alone. His beatings weren’t as often, his slurs and drunken tirades not as loud—almost as if he didn’t like the way I encouraged them, accepted them, needed them.

  I got a job working at a local construction company, accepting payment in cash. In return for hard labour, I earned money to repay my debts. I returned to the places I’d stolen from and left the exact dollar amount for what I’d taken—the art supply shop where I’d stolen the cans of spray paint. The stationery store where I’d nicked a sketchpad and pencils.

  Once I’d paid them, I bought more supplies, returning to the freedom painting gave me.

  I graffitied the ugly corners of town.

  I doodled the unwanted pavements of alleyways.

  I filled paper with my heartbreak.

  And through it all, I never stopped watching her, protecting her, waiting on the street outside her house...making sure she was safe.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  ______________________________

  Olin

  -The Present-

  YESTERDAY, MY PHONE had no power to reach Gilbert Clark.

  No matter how much I begged it to connect me to him, each attempt was futile.

  Now, when I needed space, the damn thing wouldn’t stop ringing.

  I’d gone to work this morning.

  I’d left Gil’s hatchback parked a few blocks from my office and walked to the office without being assaulted or kidnapped. I’d pretended it was a perfectly normal day even though my nerves were fraught.

  I uninstalled the news app from my phone, unable to handle the regular updates on the painted murders. I plastered on a professional smile and allowed Status Enterprises to surround me in its usual hive of employees settling in for a long day. I pretended everything was normal—that I had a boyfriend with normal secrets, that I had a love story worthy of fairy-tales.

  When Shannon appeared at my cubicle at lunch, I’d apologised profusely for the mess my life had become. I’d thanked her for the opportunity of employment and promised I wouldn’t let her down again.

  She’d given me a hug when exhausted, screwed-up tears wobbled my voice, making me hate myself for my weakness.

  For my confusion.

  For my aching, breaking heart while I suspected the worst thing anyone could suspect of another.

  I couldn’t stop picturing Gil’s muddy size eleven boots.

  I couldn’t stop connecting dots from his disappearance, to the unusual vodka use, to the night-shrouded confessions.

  On the inside, I was an absolute catastrophe—tangled and tired, doing my best to latch onto an answer that would make sense of the labyrinth I’d been dragged into.

  On the outside, I sat in my cubicle, replied to emails, and answered calls. I was the perfect employee, doing the job she was paid to do.

  I’d managed to stay busy until lunchtime.

  To stay away from Google and stop conjuring stories without facts. But when I caught the elevator to the second floor café, I’d made the mistake of checking my phone.

  Ten missed calls from Gil.

  The first only a few minutes after I’d left him—as if he’d sensed I was no longer in his home.

  I deliberated calling him back, but I had no idea what to say. He’d dumped his hardships on me last night without any concrete explanation of what it all meant. I needed time to understand—or at least try to. I needed space to clear my mind before I could handle any further conversation that I couldn’t decipher.

  Gil may or may not be a killer. He may or may not be blackmailed into doing things he despised. He may or may not have a tragic secret in his past that explained everything he did in his present.

  The only thing that would help us move on from this mess would be honesty. Bitter, brutal honesty with nothing left out.

  And I didn’t think he was ready. Didn’t think he had the strength to tell me what he hid in that second bedroom, where he was last night, or why he disappeared at the same time two girls went missing.

  And if he wasn’t ready to talk about it...I definitely wasn’t ready to listen.

  Just the thought of my suspicions being a tiny bit true made my stomach slither and slide into my feet.

  Keeping my phone on vibrate, I’d forced myself to eat a salad sandwich. With my stomach churning, the struggle was hard even though I was lightheaded from hunger.

  Avoiding fellow employee stares and unwilling to be sociable, I opened an internet browser, falling down the rabbit hole of news sites and murder investigations.

  With shaking hands and racing heart, I read more details on the latest killing, skimmed hypothesises, and drank up potential descriptions from so-called witnesses.

  The vague description was a man wearing a baseball hat. No distinguishing features like hair colour or tattoos. Just a masculine shadow.

  Gil had never worn a baseball hat in his life.

  Was it purely a disguise or was his wardrobe yet another thing I knew nothing about?

  You know so little...

  I gritted my teeth.

  I know his heart. That doesn’t change.

  I sighed, tracing my thumb over the picture of the girl killed last night, following the artistic shadows and splashes of bluebells painted on her lifeless thigh.

  Are you sure? Hearts can change. Hearts can camouflage into strangers.

  Shaking my head, I locked my phone and slipped it into my bag. It felt a thousand times heavier than normal as I tossed out the rest of my lunch and went back to work.

  * * * * *

  The work day was over.

  Employees slowly filtered from the building, heading home to loved ones.

  I literally had nowhere to go.

  My apartment wasn’t safe. Gil wasn’t safe. Justin couldn’t be expected to babysit me.

  I didn’t know where to go and I still didn’t have enough information.

  And I needed it fast so I could make up my mind on what to trust: my heart or my mind.

  My heart urged me to return to Gil and tell him how I felt. To provide a non-judgemental, totally accepting environment in which he could spill his every revelation. But my mind cursed me for being such a stupid fool. It wanted to call the police. To use the card the female officer had provided and ask outsiders for advice.

  And because both options weren’t practical, I had to rely on myself to make a correct, informed decision. Just as I’d had to rely on myself to cook, clean, and study when I was young. The one lesson my parents taught me well: independence was hard and lonely, but it meant you were strong no matter the situation.

  As the last of the staff left for the day, my fingers flew over the keyboard.

  I inputted every parameter I could. I read online articles and trawled through facts.

  Gilbert Clark.

  Murdered girls.

  Previous Birmingham killings.

  Maps of
the forests and parks where the girls had been found.

  Body paint supply stores.

  Other body painters in England.

  Bad publicity on Total Trickery, good press, negative reviews, glowing feedback.

  I diligently did my research all while earning a chest full of frustrated heartbeats and a headache of confusion.

  Nothing hinted that Gil could be involved.

  The longer I stayed online, the more I hated myself for doubting.

  I wanted so, so much to trust my heart. I wanted to be brave enough to return to Gil’s and ask him point blank where he was last night. Why he’d vanished for the second time. Why he’d been traipsing around in the undergrowth. Why my instincts told me there was more to his life than he’d told me. More darkness. More pain. More sin.

  But all I could think about were his muddy boots.

  Size eleven.

  Same as the killer.

  I needed more time.

  Time where no one could find me.

  Using the elevator, I left work by the back entrance in case Gil waited for me in the foyer like last time. Stepping out into narrower streets, I tucked my dark blonde hair beneath a grey scarf stuffed in my purse.

  Jamming hands into my blazer pockets, I weaved with end-of-day foot traffic, making my way from the work district to the more artsy side of town. Where small theatres hugged street corners and posters displaying colourful dancers decorated lampposts.

  Stepping into the area where I’d practiced my art before moving to London, I struggled not to cry.

  I missed dance.

  I missed the smell of musty picture houses and papery playbills.

  I missed Gil even while I hid from him.

  Dance practice had finished for the day for full-time staff, and it seemed no after-school classes were held tonight as I slipped into the studio where I’d first been noticed by the London Dance Company. I’d sweated and cried and flown on endorphin highs in rooms that all looked similar.

  Mirrored and wooden floored, a simple stage for a ballerina.

  I no longer belonged here.

  My accident had stolen that right.

  The door clicked behind me; the heavy silence of the space hugged me tight.

  Closing my eyes, I inhaled deep.

  Tears sprang to my eyes as leotards and ballet slippers and sweet piano notes pirouetted on my senses.