The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “I have an appointment with Officer Cooper this afternoon,” Dean says.

  I whirl around. “You do? Why?”

  “As a character witness. I heard he was a friend. A close friend.”

  My palms become moist. “He doesn’t know anything.”

  “He doesn’t know anything about you, or about the quilt?”

  “About nothing.” I wipe my hands against my jumpsuit. “I’d like to see him. Can you tell him I’d like to see him?”

  “Didn’t I make it clear that the only person you should be in contact with is me from now on?”

  “I won’t discuss the case.”

  He fixes me for a long moment, as though attempting to decide whether to believe me.

  “He’s my only friend.”

  “I’m not surprised.”

  I frown. “Why would you say that?”

  “I’m good at reading people, and you don’t strike me as a social butterfly.”

  “Well, it’s not true. I made friends here. Gill’s my friend.”

  “Gill who?”

  “Swanson. You can use her as a character witness.”

  “Noted.”

  I press on the buzzer to signal the guard I want out.

  “Oh…before you go, Ivy entrusted me with this.” He digs something from the front pocket of his briefcase and plops it onto the table so indelicately that the porcelain practically shatters.

  I stare at it without moving for so long that Dean picks it up and walks it over to me. He yanks my limp hand open, places the box on my palm, and rolls my fingers over it.

  And then he gives me an oily smile. “She also told me to tell you that she’s terribly angry with you. Disappointed were her exact words. She said you would know why.”

  I blanch.

  He glances down at his gold wristwatch. “Shouldn’t you be going? I wouldn’t want you to be late.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Ivy

  The ride back from Fire Island to the Metropolitan Museum was quiet and the night even quieter. We all retreated to our rooms, stunned into silence at Kevin’s fate. I didn’t sleep, and after close inspection of the faces around the breakfast table, I’m pretty sure no one else did either. We weren’t woken up this morning, yet we all converged in the dining room at approximately the same time. It’s Herrick’s last meal with us. I can’t bring myself to say anything to him after he called me a bitch. I know it’s petty of me to hold on to that after what happened, but I can’t help it.

  “It’ll be weird being just the three of us,” Lincoln says.

  “I have to admit, I’m sort of glad I’m leaving. It’s going to be such a fiasco around here,” Herrick says, spooning scrambled eggs into his mouth.

  Lincoln smirks. “More than it was already?”

  Chase picks at his blueberry muffin, turning it into crumbs. He doesn’t eat the crumbs. He just stares at them as though trying to divine his future from their pattern. He hasn’t spoken a word to me since I dragged Kevin’s body back to the beach. I don’t know if he blames me for his death or if he’s angry I lied to him about not knowing how to swim.

  “That was the first dead body I ever saw,” Lincoln says. “It’s weird how colorless we become in death.”

  “Please stop. I’m trying to eat,” Chase says.

  Lincoln checks his plate. “No, you’re not.”

  He shakes his head. He hasn’t combed his hair, and it’s spiky in places.

  “Morning.” It’s Brook and Josephine. “Herrick, Dominic apologizes for not being here to see you off. He’s in negotiations with the network. They want a guarantee that the show will wrap up and not be abandoned mid-competition.”

  “So it really will go on?” Lincoln says. There’s a hopeful undertone to her voice.

  Brook gives a grave nod.

  “Demain,” Josephine says. “Tomorrow. We start again tomorrow.”

  “Chase, Mom and Dad would like to spend the day with you. To celebrate your birthday. I’ll try to meet you for lunch. Lincoln, Ivy, I would suggest you girls take it easy today, but I’d understand if you want to go out. Is there any attraction you’d like to see? A Broadway show maybe?”

  “I wouldn’t mind doing some sightseeing,” I say, thinking about the diamond in my bag. I need to get rid of it. I’m tempted to pawn it off, but what if the salesman recognizes that it’s stolen? I’d get arrested. No, I’ll have to toss it out somewhere.

  “I’ll take you,” Lincoln offers.

  He nods. “I’ll get one of the drivers to accompany you. Just in case.”

  “In case what?” I ask.

  “In case journalists spot you. They know the show’s been canceled for the day, so they’ll be on the lookout. If you meet any, please refrain from saying anything. Herrick, the same goes to you. You are off the show, but it would mean a lot to the rest of us if you don’t talk about Kevin.”

  “It was written in his contrat,” Josephine says. “In all of their contracts.”

  Herrick mimics zipping his lips anyway.

  “It was really great to have you with us,” Brook says, hugging Herrick. “Really. You have a lot of talent.” He pats his back and then lets go.

  Josephine extends her hand and Herrick shakes it.

  “Thank you. All of you. You’ve made this competition challenging and memorable.” Herrick smiles.

  “Ivy, Lincoln, someone will fetch you when the car’s downstairs. We’ll all reconvene at my place tonight for a quiet dinner. Have a nice day, guys.” Our faces must be grim, because he adds, “At least, try to.”

  Along with Lincoln and Chase, I withdraw down the grassy hallway. I wait until she’s in her room before following Chase into his.

  “You’ve got the wrong tent,” he says.

  “No. I got the right one. Why are you angry with me?”

  “You lied. I don’t like liars.”

  “I lied because—”

  He doesn’t let me finish my sentence. “My ex was a liar.”

  “If you’ll just let me explain.”

  “Don’t bother.”

  “Chase—”

  “Really, Ivy. You don’t owe me an explanation.”

  “So that’s it? You’re just going to push me away because I pretended not to know how to swim?”

  “I wasn’t thinking straight last night. As you said, one of us will be gone soon, so there’s no point in starting anything.”

  For some reason, even though he’s throwing my words back at me, it stings.

  When I don’t move, he adds, “Is that all?”

  Swallowing hard, I turn around and escape through the zippered opening, running right into Lincoln. Her eyes glow like a cat’s among the twinkling tree lights.

  “I was looking for you. The car’s downstairs,” she says. “Oh. You’re not dressed.”

  My cheeks flame. “I will be in a minute.”

  “I’ll wait in the living room,” she says.

  I walk into my room and yank on the outfit laid out on the bed. I should have stuck to my gut feeling about Chase instead of getting whisked away in the heat of the moment. I trace my steps to the red duffel bag to fish out the diamond and the paper I made Aster sign, the paper that will destroy her trust in me. For a moment, I’m tempted to throw it away, but Dean said it was her only way out, so instead, I stuff it inside the back pocket of my shorts. And then I reach further down, prepared to rip the seam. But it’s already been ripped. And the box is gone!

  A chill discharges up my spine. I check the zippered compartment for my money. It’s all there. All three hundred dollars, but the porcelain box is definitely gone. Someone knew about the diamond. I drop down on the bed. What am I supposed to do now? Signal the theft of a diamond that most probably was already stolen? Ugh!

  I think about going into Kevin’s room and turning it upside down. He must’ve taken it. What if he gave it to his lawyer last night though? I pound my palms against the duvet and groan.

  “Are you r
eady yet?” Lincoln asks, sticking her head inside my tent.

  I roll up.

  “What’s eating you?” she asks. “Trouble in paradise?”

  “Yeah,” I say, because it beats explaining the whole diamond debacle. I stand up, stick the cash in my pocket, and join her in the hallway where her assistant is waiting to escort us to the underground parking lot.

  “Hi, Miss Redd, Miss Vega,” Danny says, holding the door of a sedan open. He seems shy—or repentant.

  I don’t answer him. He doesn’t deserve an answer after the aversion he showed me when he believed I’d doctored Kevin’s pictures. I slide in next to Lincoln, who takes out a huge pair of leopard sunglasses from her tiny purse. I didn’t look for sunglasses and regret it because it’s bright out.

  “You like bargains?” Lincoln asks me.

  “Sure,” I mumble, even though I’m in no mood to shop.

  She leans forward. “Century twenty-one,” she says, then lounges back and crosses her legs. “You’ll see Times Square on the way downtown. And the store isn’t far from the Brooklyn Bridge. We can have lunch in Brooklyn Heights. There’s a little organic restaurant I used to work in. They still give me free meals.”

  She’s extra chatty during the drive, telling me all about her city. She shows me the school where her ex taught, and the subway station where she recreated the Picasso painting in chalk. She points out the club where she waitressed to pay for her sixth floor attic studio.

  Hordes of shoppers are out, dappling the sidewalks with their colorful plastic and paper bags. Cars honk, people shout into their cell phones, garbage trucks beep, drills shatter asphalt, and kids squeal. It makes for a deafening, lovely cacophony.

  “I would’ve liked to live here,” I say.

  Her elbow is bent against the built-in armrest in the door, and her fist cushions her head that’s angled toward me. “Kokomo was no fun?”

  “It was okay. It’s a small town, though, so everyone knew everyone else’s business, which can be suffocating,” I whisper, watching the billboards stretching several stories high, the enormous, wrap-around screens displaying bright ads, and the cowboy in tighty-whities and lizard boots playing the guitar in the middle of all that. New York looks like some futuristic civilization.

  “Why do you think Kevin took his life?” she asks. “Because he was”—she mouths the word gay.

  “I think it’s because of the doctored photos.”

  “Do you know who doctored them?”

  I shake my head.

  “So much intrigue,” she whispers. “Do you remember how I joked my parents would probably come out of the woodwork if I won? Well, guess what? I got a letter.”

  “You did?”

  “The person sent it to the show. This guy claiming to be my long-lost father. He seems way too young, though, so I don’t know.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Thirty-six. Which would have made him sixteen when I was born. Then again, teen pregnancies happen, right?”

  “Did he send a picture?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And? Do you look like him?”

  “You tell me.” She digs a picture out of her bag.

  The man is quite handsome, with large green eyes like Lincoln’s, and the same mouth with the plumper upper lip.

  “I see a resemblance,” I say.

  She studies it too. “What if we don’t have anything in common?”

  “I have a twin sister, and we couldn’t be more different.”

  “Like how?”

  She’s a thief and a liar. “She’s a loner,” I finally say.

  “How’s she coping behind bars?”

  “I’m sure she’s fine.”

  “You don’t know?”

  “No communication, remember?”

  “Wasn’t her lawyer there last night?”

  I bite my lip, ashamed I didn’t ask Dean how Aster was doing. “She’s fine, apparently,” I lie.

  Danny clears his throat.

  “Sick of being locked up, but fine,” I repeat.

  He does it again.

  “What?” I snap.

  “I read on the Internet that she was almost killed. Locked in a freezer by another inmate.”

  All the blood flows out of my face.

  “Jail’s harsh,” he adds.

  I’m so perplexed by the news that I let the city go in and out of focus. I do the same for Lincoln’s ensuing conversation with the driver about the atrocities in prisons. Sickened by the news, I lower the window.

  “We’re here,” Lincoln says.

  We’ve finally stopped in front of a block-long store.

  “I don’t feel like shopping anymore,” I tell her.

  “Why not?”

  “I just don’t. But go ahead. I’ll wait in the car.” As Lincoln clicks off her seat belt, I ask the driver, “Could I use your phone?”

  “No can do. Show rules.”

  “Please. It’s to call my sister. Please.”

  His eyes travel over my face, then dart to Lincoln’s. Maybe if I’d asked once she was gone, he would’ve accepted. Stupid me. “I’m real sorry.”

  “On second thought”—she straps herself back in—“I don’t need to buy anything. Let’s go to the bridge.”

  By the time we park next to an overhanging walkway that rises above the murky waters of the East River, I feel so sullen that I want to yell and cry. I do neither. I get out and slam my door. Danny tails us, conspicuous in his black suit and aviators. If anything, he makes people gawk and whisper.

  When we’re halfway across the bridge, he says, “We should head back to the car. You’ve been made.”

  Lincoln flaps her hand in the air. “Relax.”

  “Mister Bacci made it clear to keep you away from crowds.”

  “I’m not agoraphobic.” Lincoln’s smiling for the raised smartphones. She even waves.

  I keep my face angled down. “He’s right. We should head back.”

  “Oh, stop it, you two. They’re harmless. They just want some pictures,” Lincoln says. “They love us.”

  They love us so much that they close in on us, asking for autographs on their water bottles, their bags, even on an unused diaper. At first, Danny fends them off, but the crowd grows so deep that he is rendered powerless. He takes out his cell phone and calls for backup.

  A large video camera pushes past the crowd, along with a woman holding a microphone. The reporters have found us. My breathing becomes shallow and my heart pounds harder. I look around like a crazed animal, trying to locate an escape hatch, but I can’t even see the bridge railing.

  I feel hands stroke my back, my bottom, my chest, and my stomach. Fabric and skin brush my bare legs and arms. The stench of armpits, of un-brushed teeth, and pungent perfumes slap me. I scramble backward, taking shelter between Danny and Lincoln, using their bodies to shield my own. An arm drapes around my stiff shoulders. Lincoln’s. She’s chatting with the reporter.

  “Ivy was the first to find him,” she says.

  My breath hitches.

  “Did you have anything to do with Mister Martin’s death, Miss Redd?” the reporter asks.

  “I said she was the first on the scene. I didn’t say she killed him. Right, Ivy? You didn’t kill Kevin?” Lincoln asks sweetly.

  I gape at her bright teeth as she squeezes my shoulder. And then I step away, because I finally see her for the viper she is. She wants me out of the running, and by implying I could have had a hand in Kevin’s death, she just might get her way.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Aster

  “If you were to commit suicide in here, how would you do it?” I ask the women sitting at my table in the middle of our breaded chicken and mushy corn dinner.

  “I’d hang myself,” Gill says.

  “With what?” Chacha asks, readjusting her hairnet.

  “I’d roll up my bed sheets,” Gill says. “Tie a noose.”

  “Okay. And where would you attach them? It’s not
like there’s a hook on the ceiling of our cells.” The woman who speaks is one of Chacha’s relatives apparently—a distant cousin. She sort of looks like her even though her eyes are much lighter, almost honey-colored, and her hair’s dyed blonde. Her name’s Gracie.

  “I dunno. Maybe on the upper railing of our bunk beds. And then I’d have to keep my knees bent until my neck broke,” Gill says.

  “I would use a knife,” Chacha says.

  “Yeah, but you have access to knives. That’s too easy,” Gill says.

  “Then I’d drink a cleaning product. A toxic one.”

  “What about you?” I ask the translucent-skinned girl sitting alone a few spaces down. She’s been listening to our conversation. I can tell by the way her clear eyes keep darting our way.

  She sits up straighter. “I’d cut my wrists with a shiv.”

  “A shiv? What’s that?” I ask.

  “Homemade blade, dumb-dumb,” Chacha says.

  “You can make it out of a toothbrush,” Gracie adds. “I even heard of a prisoner making a shiv in papier-mâché out of a toilet paper roll.”

  “How would you do it, Gracie?” I ask her, pushing the corn kernels around with my fork. Chacha looks at my plate, so I scoop some up and shovel them inside my mouth.

  Gracie spins a small container of creamer between her index and middle fingers. “I’d light this baby up. It becomes a flamethrower.” She drops her voice. “But don’t tell anyone or we’ll be forced to drink our coffees black.” She sets it back down and fixes me with her yellow eyes. “How ’bout you? How would you do it, Aster?”

  “I think I’d just lock myself in the freezer again. At least you pass out before you die.”

  Chacha wrinkles her wide nose. “You’re morbid.”

  “Why are we talking about suicide?” Gill asks, her red dreads swinging past her shoulder blades. “You aren’t planning on killing yourself now, are you?”

  “No,” I say, even though the thought crossed my mind after Dean left. I spear a piece of soggy, breaded chicken and eat it.

  Gill’s brown eyes stay narrowed; she doesn’t believe me. Suddenly another tray slides in next to mine. It’s Translucent-girl. I wasn’t sure what part of my question was an invitation for her to sit closer.