The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Most of the time. But we’re very different.”

  “I read somewhere you were Miss Popular in high school, but not her.”

  “That’s because she never tried to make friends.”

  “Maybe she didn’t want to compete with you.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s hard to have an all-star sibling.”

  “Why would you compare yourself to your sibling?”

  “You don’t; the world does.”

  “Is that how you feel about Brook?”

  His biceps tighten. I hit a nerve.

  I turn over onto my side to face him. “If you feel like that, why didn’t you choose another line of work?”

  “Art is my passion. Life’s too short to do something you’re not passionate about.” After a beat, he adds, “Could you see yourself doing something else?”

  I look at the pool, at Herrick and Lincoln splashing a giggling Maxine. “I’d hope to be able to do only that.”

  “You sold your quilt well.”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  He frowns—he probably thinks I’m conceited. “I bet your next piece will go for three times as much. You have a name now.”

  “That’s associated with murder. Super name,” I mutter.

  Chase reaches over and touches my arm, which makes my breath hitch. “Ivy, you’re not the one who killed a man.”

  I stare at my skin, so he pulls his hand back. “I know that.” The spot he touched feels a few degrees warmer than the rest of my body. I lift my eyes back to his face. “What’s your girlfriend up to this week?” I ask, to change the subject. And also, because I am slightly curious about the blonde who posed with him in that People Magazine shoot.

  “Don’t know and don’t care.”

  “Really? I thought—I thought you were practically engaged.”

  “The journalist wrote that to sell more copies.”

  “Weren’t you dating since you were toddlers?”

  “Not toddlers, but yeah, we were together a long time.”

  “What happened?”

  Chase’s jaw tightens. “Brook happened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He screwed my ex.” I must look horrified because he snorts. “Lost some of his appeal now?”

  “I’m not interested in him.”

  “That’s not what it looked like in the hallway, or at the restaurant for that matter.”

  “He came on to me. Besides, you were so pleasant to talk with last night.”

  He smiles, but there are the layers of hurt behind that smile. “I was trying to be. I think I’m going to jump in. You’re sure you don’t want to join me?”

  “Yeah. I’m sure.”

  After he gets up, he waits as though hoping I’ll change my mind.

  “I think I’ll take a nap,” I say. “I slept badly last night.”

  “You better get out of the sun then.”

  “I will.”

  Just as he leaps into the pool, I move to a shaded part of the terrace where the crew has set up a drink stand and some finger food. I pour myself a glass of icy lemonade and sit in a padded armchair with my legs curled underneath me. As I sip the chilled drink, I watch the city skyline. It’s all at once mesmerizing and boring. So much so that, between the view and the lounge music playing on the deck, my lids eventually droop close.

  I wake up to Chase nudging my shoulder. I uncoil my legs that prickle, and wipe the sleep out of my eyes. “How long have I been out?”

  “About an hour. We have to get inside,” he says, tipping his chin toward the building next to us.

  A guy with a massive camera is standing on the roof, clinging to the ledge to snap pictures of us.

  “He’s going to fall off!” I say.

  “Jeb phoned the police,” he says, his gaze running over my legs. “They’ll get him down.” He extends his hand. “Come on.” I must debate to take it for too long, because he pulls it back and walks away.

  I rise and head inside. Maxine, Lincoln, and Herrick are all sitting on the couch, chatting about how persistent the paparazzi are and how they can’t believe the police are getting involved. As I’m about to sit next to Chase, the front door opens. It’s Brook and Kevin.

  Kevin who still thinks I got him eliminated. Kevin who hates my guts. Kevin who was in the army.

  Kevin’s eyes lock on mine, and I drop into the seat, hitting Chase’s thigh on my way down. When I stare back up, the sergeant is watching me. Palms moist, ears zinging, I peel myself away from Chase.

  Kevin’s flip-flops flap against the stone floor as he cuts across the room toward Maxine. Trailed by one of the cameramen, he introduces himself and shakes her hand, then Lincoln’s and Herrick’s and Chase’s. He doesn’t shake mine. Probably because he thinks Aster was involved in getting him eliminated. And maybe he’s right. Maybe she did doctor those photos. But just maybe, it wasn’t to sabotage him. Maybe it was to sabotage me.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Aster

  Sitting on the floor of the shrink’s office, I try to relax, but the memory is still raw.

  “Aster, you’re shaking,” Robyn says. “You want a blanket?”

  I nod. Gill is watching me. She’s always watching me. Everyone’s always watching me.

  Robyn drapes a polar fleece throw over my shoulders, then takes a seat on the floor next to me. “Let’s link hands,” she says as she shuts her eyes and starts humming.

  Gill grins.

  “I want to hear you hum, girls,” Robyn says, eyes still closed. “Like yesterday.”

  So I do, but not Gill. She’s smiling too much to hum. I nearly don’t see her crooked teeth anymore. Ivy and I both inherited our mother’s straight teeth. It’s not much of a legacy, but at least she passed on something valuable. We would have been a hell of a lot less thankful for the bump on her nose or her freckled Irish skin.

  For some reason, thinking about my mother makes me think of when I was pregnant. My mind flutters to my flat stomach, which is more concave than flat now. I remember feeling the baby move, how it had filled me with purpose. I wouldn’t have had much to offer, but the pregnancy proved I wasn’t as messed up or weak as Ivy, my mother, and Josh all thought.

  Anyway, considering all that’s happened, I realize that my loss was a blessing. I wouldn’t have wanted to be pregnant in jail. I do want a child someday, though. Not now. Not in the next five years. But one day. I want to love a being like I was never loved. I want to preserve that being’s innocence like I was never allowed to preserve mine.

  My heart is so deeply lacerated that it will never beat like a normal heart, yet it beats. This is why I don’t want to keep poisoning it with medication and toxins. As I hum, as time passes, my chest vibrates and a warm current flows through my veins.

  “Now open your eyes and savor the sensations in your body,” Robyn says.

  My lids don’t snap up. They lift gradually, like motorized garage doors.

  “Let’s take a moment to thank our mind for the respite it has offered our body.”

  I don’t thank my mind. There are limits I will not cross and talking to oneself is one of them. Robyn slips her hand out of mine, but not Gill. I have to release hers. She smiles at me so luminously that I become uncomfortable. I don’t mind the fact that she has a crush on me. I don’t even mind her company. But her touch, her attention, her intent…it’s overwhelming.

  “How do you feel?” Robyn asks.

  “Swell,” Gill says, all toothy and bright-eyed.

  “And you, Aster?”

  “Fine.”

  “Just fine?”

  “It was good,” I say, “for me. For my head.” I tap my temple to convince her I got the point of the exercise.

  She looks pleased. “Glad to hear that.”

  We start toward the door, but Robyn calls me back.

  “Save me a seat at lunch, okay?” I tell Gill.

  She nods happily, her red dreadlocks frolicking against her gray j
umpsuit.

  After the door closes, Robyn states the obvious, “You made a friend.”

  “You seem surprised.”

  She avoids responding. “It’s healthy to have friends.”

  “Even if those friends are murderers?” I say, thinking of Gill’s ex. Another reason I should discourage her interest in me.

  “‘Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.’”

  I’m astounded a prison shrink would think so quixotically. “What was it you wanted to talk to me about?”

  “When he dropped you off, Sergeant Driscoll mentioned you had a vivid dream.”

  “Yeah. So?”

  She narrows her eyes. “You want to discuss it?”

  “No.”

  “Was it about the hit and run?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Have you been having a lot of dreams about it?”

  “Yes.”

  “I know something that could help. There’s this new drug the FDA just approved.”

  I shake my head. “Drugs can make me sterile.”

  “Are you thinking about having children?”

  “Doesn’t every woman think about that?”

  “You’re only nineteen.”

  “I know, but as you said, everyone has a future.”

  “Do you consider yourself a sinner?”

  I frown. “No.”

  She studies my face in silence for a bit, then walks over to her desk, grabs a pamphlet, and returns to me, brandishing it. There’s a white-haired woman on the front who’s smiling so widely I can see the gold fillings in her molars. “Check it out okay?”

  I grumble a yes and shove the glossy foldout into my pocket. “Is that all?”

  “I don’t know. Is it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are free to leave.”

  If only she meant this hellhole.

  ***

  Josh returns the following morning. And not to see how I’m doing. He’s back because he has questions. “Why did you send your sister’s quilt on the show?” He’s leaning his forearms on the metal desk of the visitation room, hands firmly clasped together. His skin is brown, but there’s a thin white line visible beneath the hem of his short-sleeved police shirt.

  “I didn’t send it to the Masterpiecers. I—”

  “You did.”

  “Let me finish.” I shoot my gaze up to his, trying to ignore the hickey. “I left it in the package I found it in. It was already stamped and addressed.”

  “To the Masterpiecers?”

  “To someplace in New York. I didn’t make the connection until I saw it on the show.”

  “You swear you’re not making this up?” Josh asks.

  “On Ivy’s life.”

  “Why would a mobster send a quilt to the show?” Suddenly his green eyes go wide. “Ivy mentioned a tear. He was using it as a vessel!”

  “You spoke to her?”

  “Got an email yesterday.”

  I look up at the black, dome-shaped camera over the table. “Are we being recorded?”

  “No. I asked them not to. Shit, Aster… Troy Mann was using it to transport something! If there was tear, then the person who received it must’ve taken it out. And if it’s someone from the show—Shit,” he adds in a low voice.

  I glimpse a red dot on the black dome, but it blinks off as quickly as it appeared. I keep looking at it, just in case it returns. “I think we’re being watched,” I whisper.

  Josh glances up. “We’re not. I promise.”

  “I don’t believe your promises anymore.”

  Silence hangs between us, as thick as the Indiana snowstorm that blew the night I lost the baby…the night Josh and Ivy found me curled up on a bench underneath a casing of snow. My lips were purple, or so they told me.

  “What could’ve been inside that quilt?” Josh muses.

  “Diamonds.”

  “Diamonds?” He’s so stunned his voice squeaks. “How—You took them out?”

  “Do you think Ivy was in on it?” I ask suddenly.

  “Huh?”

  “Isn’t it a big coincidence that both she and her quilt were headed to the Masterpiecers? Do you think that’s how she got on the show?”

  He shakes his head.

  “It would explain how she paid Mom’s bills.”

  “What? Are you insane?” he snaps.

  I bristle. “You have a better explanation as to where she found the money?”

  “Yes. I do actually. She took out a loan on the apartment.”

  “She couldn’t have. I didn’t sign any paper. Unless she forged my signature…” I stare away from the camera and straight into Josh’s face that has paled a little. “She forged my signature?”

  “No.”

  “Then how—”

  “Your mother put the deed in Ivy’s name.”

  “In both our names.”

  He shakes his head. “Just in Ivy’s.”

  “But Ivy told me—”

  “She was trying to protect you.”

  My eyesight goes blurry. “Mom disowned me?”

  He nods. “I’m sorry, Aster. You weren’t supposed to find out.”

  “Of course not,” I snap. “Keep everything from Aster since she’s too unstable. I should have a T-shirt printed with that.”

  “That’s not why we kept it from you.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Ivy didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “I said, whatever.” My tone is so shrill that Josh shifts in his seat.

  “I should warn Ivy about the diamonds.”

  I think of the porcelain box with the gift I left her—the diamond that escaped the wax paper and landed in my bra. It had plopped on my bathroom tiles after I’d finished burying the others underneath the buttonbush shrub by our front door. “Oh…she’s going to find out soon enough.”

  “Why? Did you leave them in the quilt?” he asks.

  “Yes.”

  “Shit.” The chair legs scrape against the cement floor as Josh pushes back from the table. “Why would you do that? How the fuck am I supposed to find them now?”

  I lounge back and cross my arms. “Use your super badge power.”

  “This isn’t a joke, Aster.”

  “Then you should really get going,” I say.

  He stands and heads toward the door. Before leaving, he glances back. I don’t break. I don’t tell him the truth because he doesn’t deserve it, and neither does my sister. They’re both liars.

  Driscoll drags open the door of the cement box to let Josh out, and then holds it for me. “I don’t got all day, Redd,” he says, so I head out too.

  My rubber soles flap over the linoleum floor like soggy fish tails.

  In the dayroom, I spot Gill on one of the couches. She pats the spot next to her, and I drop down into it. Her hand crawls to mine. “Your skin’s freezing.”

  I pull my fingers out of hers, pretending that my intention was to comb through my frizzy hair. I get a few inches off my scalp when a rope of knots hinders me. Since Gill’s lips are still turned down, I pick up her hand and squeeze it. A crooked smile lights up the freckles on her face.

  The show starts and I snap my attention to the TV screen. Dominic’s standing in the lobby, on top of a pyramid of trash. At least, that’s what it looks like at first. He explains that it is components of today’s test. Each contestant will have to create a collection using ten pieces from the mound below him. And then he proceeds to explain that a collection isn’t just a bunch of objects displayed next to each other, but a carefully thought-out continuum of pieces that are linked together by minute details.

  He begins a countdown. The camera slides over the six contestants’ faces. Kevin, whose bushy eyebrows are slanted over his high forehead, cracks his thick neck. Herrick, who’s hooked the rucksack they’ve given each contestant on his forearm, is rubbing his hands together as though he’s about to dive in. Chase looks calm whereas Maxine seems spooked by the mess. Lincoln scans the
pile, eyes pinched in concentration. And then I see Ivy whose skin glows as though she’s gotten a suntan.

  The sound of a whistle rings out. The contestants fly off toward the pile. Some scale it, others circle it, sifting through the mess like a bunch of homeless people. Ivy comes up with a strand of pearls. She chucks them into her bag and keeps tilling the mess. Chase grabs a plastic sword. The commentators are going crazy keeping track of everyone’s findings.

  When the camera swings back to my sister, she’s holding a bouquet of paper roses. She looks at it a second, but then pitches it back into the pile. The roses land a foot away from Maxine who grabs them like an eager bridesmaid. My sister lunges for something, as does Chase. The same thing: a gun.

  One of the commentators chuckles. “A gun! Shouldn’t they be fighting over that paper bouquet?” There’s something about the way he says this that makes my ears prick up. What does he mean? Did something happen between Chase and Ivy?

  Slowly, Chase relinquishes the weapon. A flicker of hesitation crosses Ivy’s clear blue eyes, but it zips off her face as quickly as it appeared, and she shoves the pistol into her bag. As she turns away from him, her light green dress billows around her knees like an ocean wave. The camera shifts to Herrick who’s collecting nails and wooden boards. He’s even found a chalice-like cup. Lincoln’s stockpiling tin cans and glass jars, and flattened cardboard. I can imagine her narrative: ‘Containers Through the Ages,’ or something of the sort. Kevin’s bag bulges with large objects. He’s found an old rusty pipe, which I wouldn’t have touched with rubber gloves. He stuffs it into his rucksack. When the camera finally moves back to Ivy, she’s studying a fur bunny attached to a magician hat. She punches the bunny and it vanishes inside. She keeps it. The pile of crap is dwindling.

  Ivy stares down at her feet, bends, and rises again clutching a broken umbrella. It goes into the bag, along with a brass trumpet. Then she runs toward an old liquor bottle tipped on its side on the outskirts of the thinning pile. Lincoln’s hand is already arcing toward it, so Ivy dives to get it. Stunned, Lincoln quickens her gesture, but she’s not quick enough. The bottle vanishes in the depths of my sister’s bag.

  “I was expecting a catfight,” one of the commentators says, his deep voice rattling with excitement.