The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (34 page)

His lips perk up in a smile. “Because you’re an intimidating girl, and I’ve never felt intimidated before.” His eyes grind into mine. “I thought that if I helped you, somehow I’d stop feeling threatened.”

“Did it work?”

“It did. But it wasn’t until our conversation at Brook’s place that I managed to humanize you.”

“Humanize me? What did I say that made me so
human
?”

“You told me about your dream of living off your quilts, about your imperfect relationship with your sister, and I understood that you had all these insecurities, and for some reason, that reassured me.”

“And it made you like me?”

A corner of his mouth lifts. “Oh, I already liked you. It just made me think I stood a chance.”

I tilt my head to the side to observe him. “This isn’t some ploy to distract me so that I lose tomorrow?”

Laughter ripples out of his mouth. “No. No ploy.”

“Oopsy”—Lincoln hiccups—“did I interrupt something?” She’s standing by the opening of my tent, clutching a bottle of champagne.

“Please go away, Lincoln, and take your bottle of champagne with you,” I tell her.

She sticks out her lower lip. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I didn’t want to spend my last night in here alone.”

“Why don’t you go find my brother?”

“Your brother’s the reason it’s my last night.”

“Huh?”

“Someone caught us making out on camera and leaked it on the Internet. Probably someone from the film crew.”

“But your chair broke,” I say.

“No it didn’t. They just said it did to eliminate me.”

I blink.

“Yeah, Ivy, you didn’t win tonight because you were better than me—because you’re not—you won because Dom said it was conflictual or conflicting or something like that.” She takes a swig of the champagne.

Chase walks toward her. I think he’s about to leave, but instead he stops in front of her and squares his shoulders. “You should go back to your room, Lincoln.”

She pokes his chest. “You’re not my mommy, Chase.”

He swipes her finger off. “And give me the bottle before you get yourself sick.”

She swings her hand out of his reach. “Okay, Mommy,” she teases.

He tries to grab it from her, but she lifts her arm higher. The bottle slips and falls on the floor, but doesn’t shatter. Instead, it spills champagne everywhere. She bends over and grabs it.

“Goodnight, you two,” she singsongs as she finally turns to leave. “And congratulations in advance, Chase, for your win tomorrow.”

Once my tent flap settles, I ask, “Is it true?”

“You deserved to win. Your performance was—”

“But is it true?”

“Is anything she says true?” he asks, grabbing some tissues from the nightstand to clean up the spilled champagne.

“Don’t worry. I’ll do it,” I say, crouching down beside him. The towel begins unraveling, but I catch it.

Chase sits back on his heels, his eyes stuck to the flash of thigh he’s just gotten. “I never thought I’d be thankful toward Lincoln for anything,” he says, his tone light.

I shove him and the towel comes undone again. This time,
he
catches it. Instead of peeling it off my body, he tucks the hem back between my breasts, letting his fingers linger there. Then he leans forward and deposits the sweetest kiss on my lips. And I forget about the bad blood between us, but I don’t forget that he’s still my opponent, and that tomorrow—like Lincoln said—he’ll most probably defeat me and that’ll be the end of us…

Of this…

Of me.

Chapter Forty-Nine

Aster

The pink tank is a padded cell painted bright pink. It’s supposed to be soothing. It’s not. I hate pink. The color gives me hives and I begin scratching my skin. Soon, it glows brighter than the walls. And not long after, I manage to draw blood.

I pace the cell and think of my sister and Brook and Josh and Troy and the package. Why couldn’t I remember the name sooner?

“What happened to your arms?” I hear someone ask. It’s Landry.

I rush to the gate and wrap my fingers around the bars. “I need to get out of here. Please.”

“I, uh…I’ll go get the nurse.”

I nod enthusiastically. Celia will help me. She’ll take pity on me. After he leaves, I strain to hear footsteps resound through the narrow hallways, but the minutes tick by and still no one shows.

I begin pacing again. And scratching. The blood under my jagged nails has turned a rusty shade of brown by the time the nurse arrives. Instead of flashing me a kind smile, Celia’s face contorts into a grimace.

“Landry, walk her to my office,” she says. “I need to bandage her arms.”

Landry cuffs me.

“Why—I don’t need these. Nurse Celia, can you please tell him I don’t need to be restrained?”

She doesn’t.

In silence, we make our way to her office. There’s a spot of blood on the paper covering her exam table. That’s why she was late. She was treating another patient. She gathers the soiled sheet, balls it up, and chucks it into the bin, then rolls out a fresh one. Landry removes the cuffs so I can climb onto the exam table. I’m half-expecting Celia to kick him out, but she doesn’t. She brings over a metal kidney tray filled with cotton swabs, antiseptic, and a roll of gauze.

“Right arm,” she says.

I give it to her. Gaze cast downward, she cleans it and assesses the damage, trades the gauze for a few Band-Aids, and pastes them on.

“Left arm.”

“Are you mad at me?” I ask her.

She peers up at me through her yellow bifocals, but still doesn’t speak.

My breath hitches. “You are.”

Landry stares out the window, but I know he’s listening.

“Why?” I ask.

Still she doesn’t say anything. At least not to me. “Landry, you may bring her back wherever she needs to go.”

“Not to the pink tank…please.” My voice comes out as a hoarse whisper as the officer approaches the exam table. “Can I go to the dayroom? It’s my sister’s last day.”

“I’m not sure you deserve to go watch TV right now,” Celia says.

I gasp. “Why are you being so mean to me?”

“Me? Mean? I’m not the one blaming some poor girl of forcing herself on me. Gill tried to take her life. She was so embarrassed by your accusations that she cut her wrist on the prison fence,” she says. “I tried to see the good in you, Aster, but in here”—she pounds her fist against her heart—“there’s too much bad.”

I squash my lips together to stop them from quivering.

“Take Inmate Redd away. I have work to do.”

The handcuffs dangle from his hands.

“I’ll cooperate, but no cuffs,” I say.

Landry glances at Celia who’s wheeled herself behind her desk and is typing something on her laptop. “Okay,” he says softly. “But don’t try anything.”

I lower myself to the ground, and, hunched over, walk docilely out of the infirmary and away from the only person who didn’t hate me in this prison.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Back to your cell.”

I stop in my tracks. “No. To the dayroom…I need to see my sister.”

He freezes and turns sideways. “I-I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Please. Everybody hates me around here. Everybody thinks I’m crazy, and that I’m a liar. The only thing keeping my head above water is watching my sister.” I take a breath. “In some ways, it feels like I’m watching myself, like I’m getting a chance to live again, and be someone…someone people respect and admire. I’ve never had that.”

Landry rubs the back of his neck.

“Do you know what it feels like when your future contains no pigment, no sparkle? Because that’s what mine looks like. I have nothing…no one besides my sister.”

I think he’s about to say yes when the radio strapped to his shoulder buzzes. “
Yobwoc
, you copy?”

“Copy,” Landry says.

“What’s the status on Inmate Redd? Is she stable?”

Landry’s round face colors.

“
Yobwoc
?” Driscoll barks again when Landry remains quiet for too long. I don’t like what his silence implies.

“She’s okay, sir,” he finally says.

“Well, she got a caller in visitation room two. Escort her there, will ya?”

“On it, sir.”

As we walk down the string of hallways toward the visitation area, I take mental bets as to whether it’s Josh or Dean. I’m hoping for the first, because I need to know why he didn’t defend me back in the dayroom.

Unfortunately, it’s Dean.

“Inmate Redd’s just been released from the pink tank,” Landry tells him.

Dean doesn’t ask what it is. He must know. “What happened to your arms?”

I flop down in the chair across the table from him.

“Were you attacked?” he asks.

“She scratched her arms.”

“Because I had a rash,” I add.

Dean raises an eyebrow, but drops the topic. “I can take it from here, Officer Landry.”

As soon as the young guard shuts the glass door, I say, “Thanks for sending Josh over.”

The gray in his eyes looks silver in the bright concrete room, like the reflective tape on running shoes. “Officer Cooper stopped by to see you?”

“Yes. This morning. He left quickly though.”

“Where did he go?” Dean’s frowning.

“New York.”

“He left for New York?”

I nod. “Yeah.”

“That’s odd.”

“Why?”

“I met with his chief the other day who told me that your boyfriend was never authorized to investigate your case because of your relationship. Last I heard, he was on probation for disregarding direct orders.”

“You must have heard wrong, because the chief okayed it. Josh told me so.”

“I’m going to have to report him then.”

My eyes widen. “No!” I shake my head. The dreads whip my collarbone. “You can’t report him! He needs to save Ivy.”

“Save Ivy? From what?”

“From Brook.”

“Excuse me.”

“Brook’s name was on the package. The one that was addressed to the show with my sister’s quilt in it. I remembered it when I was watching the show.”

He drums his fingers against the metal table. My gaze sticks to his pinky, the one with the heavy gold ring. I’ve seen it before, on someone else’s hand…I’m certain of it. But whose? The person had long fingers with buffed nails, feminine fingers. Was it a woman? Dean stops tapping the table. Instead, he flattens both his palms on the table and stands up. And that’s when it hits me. Where I’ve seen it before. I jump away from him, knocking over my chair that crashes against the cement floor. As I cower against the wall, Landry races into the room.

“What? What’s going on?” he yells, hand on his Taser gun.

“He knew Troy Mann! He knew Troy,” I exclaim, pointing to Dean. “They have the same ring!”

Landry’s face swings between me and Dean.

“You have to arrest him. He’s in on it,” I yelp.

“On what?” Landry asks, head still swinging back and forth. “What is she talking about?”

“I think she needs to return to the pink tank. She’s obviously not stable yet,” Dean says.

“The hell I’m not stable!”

More voices buzz around me. “What the fuck is the matter in here?” Giraffe-neck asks, her long neck flushed. She must have run.

“Your prisoner is making baseless accusations,” Dean says with a snort. He’s so calm—too calm.

“They’re not baseless. They have the same ring. Take his ring. Compare it to Troy Mann’s! They’re the same!”

“A lot of men have rings.” He snorts again.

“I know what I saw,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “You have to believe me.”

For a second, I think she does, but then her mouth contorts into a smirk when someone behind her says, “Just like you saw Officer Cooper this morning?” Gill is leaning against the glass wall of the room, arms folded.

“What’s she doing here?” I ask, eyeing the gauze wrapped around her wrist.

“You told me I should interview her for a character witness,” Dean says, stroking the gold bar hooked into his yellow tie.

“No,” I yell. “She’s not my friend anymore.”

“You don’t have any more friends around here, Aster,” Gill says. “But that’s your own fault.”

“I’m sorry, Mister Kane. We shouldn’t have been so hasty to release her from the tank.” There is no more smile on Giraffe-neck’s face. “Landry, cuff her.”

“What?” I roar. “No! No! I’m telling the truth—”

“Shut it, Redd,” she snaps. “Or we’ll have to Taser you.”

“No! Don’t let him get away! Don’t—” Two copper wires latch on to the skin below my collarbone, delivering a jolt of electricity so great it sets my organs on fire, paralyzes my muscles, and darkens my mind.

Chapter Fifty

Ivy

“Authenticity!” Dominic’s voice booms out of his microphone. “You will be shown to a gallery in which we have arranged six of the Met’s most celebrated treasures. Amidst those six, one is fake. Ivy, Chase, to win, not only must you uncover the fake, but you have to explain how you’ve arrived at this conclusion, because, although luck exists in the art business, expertise is still key.”

The screens around the Temple room switch to visuals of the nominated pieces. The first one is a Monet representing a bridge overhanging a pastel water lily pond. The second is a swirly Van Gogh landscape with a tall cypress tree and a tumultuous summer sky. A bronze Degas statue of a fourteen-year-old ballerina is object three. Then an epic-looking painting of Washington crossing the Delaware River is number four. The fifth piece is a terracotta-hued bust of a man by Pablo Picasso. And the last is a marble statue of a mythological hero holding Medusa’s severed head.

The slideshow of works dissolves back to the Masterpiecers’ logo.

“Contestants, you will be given all the tools afforded to professional appraisers and you will be shown how to use them. As always, have fun, and good luck.”

Bodies parallel but not touching, Chase and I descend the stairs and ford across the standing audience. I don’t glance at him, afraid to spot the confidence I’m lacking…and afraid that my glance will give away my growing feelings for him. His pinkie grazes the side of my hand and I shiver. I stare into the cameras that are being wheeled in front of us, then over my shoulder at the audience marching like a disciplined army behind us.