The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (37 page)

“Even though you didn’t win, I’m very proud of you, Ivy,” Dominic says.

The somberness I noticed earlier is still there. Did he know I was going to fail? Or does it have to do with his meeting with the lawyer and Josephine?

I touch his sleeve as I thank him. He nods, then retreats into the crowd. In the mayhem, someone bumps into me. Lincoln.

“Losing sucks, doesn’t it?” she says.

“Chase deserved to win.”

She smirks. “Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better.”

She once said we’d probably be friends if we weren’t adversaries, but she’s wrong. “So, you’re working for Josephine now?”

“Yep. I reached out to her this morning before leaving. I offered to become her personal assistant against housing at the Masterpiecers and use of the facilities.”

“And she accepted?”

“You know many people who turn down free labor? Besides, I had some information she wanted.”

“You always have an angle, don’t you?”

“It’s not an angle, Ivy; it’s an extra ace. I learned at a young age that the world is far from fair.” Her eyes gleam like the coins in the basin girdling the temples.

“What’s going on with Dominic?” I ask.

“I can’t tell you, but you’ll know very soon.”

“Does it have to do with me?”

Her gaze skims mine, but settles on the person next to me.

“So you’re working for the devil, now?” Brook says.

“If Josephine’s the devil, what does that make you, Brook?” She gives him a strange smile. “Enjoy your evening. I know I will.” She winks and leaves.

Neither of us speak. Then I feel an overwhelming need to ask, “Did she really get eliminated yesterday because of…of what happened in your pool?”

He snorts. “Is that what she told you?” he asks, watching Lincoln cross the room toward Josephine.

I nod.

“She was eliminated because she was careless,” he says, just as a fuchsia-clad Madame Babanina accosts him.

“Brook, dear, you look so handsome tonight,” she says, not bothering to address me. Perhaps if I’d won, I would have been of interest to her.

“So this is good-bye?” I ask Brook, hoping he’ll mention his offer to represent me. He doesn’t. Maybe he never meant to.

“I suppose it is,” he says.

The notorious divorcee swings her head toward me, and her curvy bangs bob against her forehead. “Sorry for your loss,” she tells me, snaking her arms around Brook’s like vines. “Brook, dear, I have someone I’d like you to meet.” She begins tugging him away. “He’d like to start a collection and I was thinking who better to advise him than—”

She stops chattering suddenly. Many people have gone quiet and are shifting, creating an aisle down which march a squadron of men and women in navy uniforms with yellow FBI insignias. Spearheading the cortege is Detective Clancy and Detective McEnvoy—in navy and yellow also.

“FBI,” McEnvoy yells. The lights in the room flare up, making his silver hair look metallic. “Nobody move!”

When his gaze lands on mine, I take a step back and bump into another body. A pair of hands shoot out to steady me. “It’s me, Ivy,” Chase whispers. “Just me.”

Clancy said she would see me again—is this what she meant? Did she come here to arrest me?

Suddenly, she stops. And it’s not in front of me. “Brook Jackson, put your hands where I can see them.”

Brook doesn’t react.

“Hands up, Jackson, now,” she repeats.

As a collective gasp echoes through the room, Chase’s fingers harden, crushing my skin.

Slowly, Brook raises his arms.

“Austin, frisk him,” Leah says.

“Is this a joke?” Brook asks, as McEnvoy pats him down.

“Do I look like I’m laughing?” Leah says.

“He’s clean,” Austin announces.

“Brook Jackson, you are under arrest for colluding with wanted criminals, trafficking stolen goods, and laundering money for the mafia.”

“What?” he yelps.

Chase’s hands slip off my arms and plummet limply against his sides. I catch one and squeeze it.

“Did you know?” I whisper.

“I knew he was up to something, but I didn’t—I—” His voice cracks. He stares down at me, then at our hands, then squeezes back. “I didn’t know he was working for the mob.”

“This is fucking ridiculous,” Brook thunders.

“Is it?” Josephine lunges out of the crowd toward him. She has something in her hands. An empty package. She waves it around. “You were using the Masterpiecers as a front! Using art for terrible things.”

“What the hell is that?” he asks.

“It’s
un paquet
. The package that your friend Troy Mann sent you. We had the handwriting analyzed and the paper dusted for prints. At first, I thought Ivy was trying to earn brownie points, sending us a quilt after she got in”—she looks my way—“but she didn’t send the package. She didn’t write your name on it.
Troy
did. And it’s not the first you’ve received from him. What did he send you this time? Money? Drugs?”

Brook’s left eye twitches as he glares back at Josephine.

“Ma’am, please step back,” an agent tells her. When she doesn’t, they pull her back.

“
Tu devrais avoir honte
!”

Jeb, who’s handling one of the cameras, angles it toward Brook before whirling it back toward Josephine.

Her icy blue eyes glow like the flames atop candlewicks.
“You are a disgrace, Brook.”

“Ma’am,” Clancy says, “calm down or we’ll have to ask you to step out.”

Jeb zooms in on Josephine’s face. On the overhanging screens, I can see her skinny nostrils flare.

“Turn those goddamn things off before I arrest you for interfering with criminal proceedings!” Austin presses his palm over the lens. “This is a federal arrest people, not some episode on your fuckin’ game show.”

In seconds, all the video equipment is shut off, and the screens go dark.

“Read him his Miranda rights, Austin,” Clancy tells her partner.

“Brook Jackson, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just read to you?”

“Dominic, tell them this is a misunderstanding.”

Slowly, hunched over like a very old man, Dominic walks away.

“
With these rights in mind, do you wish to speak to me?
” Leah asks Brook.

“I’m not speaking to you, or to anyone else here.” Brook’s jaw is ruddy and his hair, which is usually so well brushed, sticks out in places. “I want a lawyer. Chase, call Dean right away!”

“Dean Kane?” Austin asks.

“Yes!”

“Doubt Mister Kane can represent you as he’ll be needing his own defense.” Austin glances my way when he says this. “Once we catch him.”

“What are you talking about?” Brook asks in a shrill voice.

Clancy comes toward me. “Ivy, why don’t you come with me?” she says, her voice low.

“Wh-why?” I stutter.

She looks around. Agents are escorting the agitated audience outside.

“What happened?” I ask, trying to make myself heard over the din.

Her large brown eyes settle back on mine. “Your sister was attacked.”

Is it possible to flatline when you’re still alive?
“Attacked?” I repeat stupidly.

Clancy nods.

“Is she…” I swallow thickly. “Is she alive?” I ask, as Chase winds one arm around my waist.

“She’s in a coma,” she says, before telling me how it happened.

At some point, I interrupt her. “I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“Why did Dean order the hit?”

“To retrieve the diamonds Troy Mann hid inside your quilt.”

“Diamonds?”
There was more than one?

“Dean and Troy were working together. It’s your sister who made the connection.”

“But then that would mean—” I shoot my gaze toward Brook, the shock of my realization so violent that I’m unable to finish my sentence. “You didn’t send Dean to help her,” I yell at him. “You sent him to execute her!”

I launch myself toward him, but Chase holds me back.

“Let go of me,” I scream.

“No.”

“Let go of me right now or help me God—”

He still doesn’t.

“Chase, please,” I beg, my voice breaking.

“Did your sister take the diamonds, Ivy?” Leah asks.

“I don’t know,” I say.

Brook laughs, a dark, mean laugh. When I glower at him, he winks.

Leah turns toward her partner. “Take him away,” she says, at the same time as Chase whispers inside my ear, “What do you want to do? Punch him? Then
you’ll
get arrested.” His fingers dig deeper into my waist. “He’s not worth it, Ivy.”

I’m trembling so hard that my teeth rattle.

“Ivy, our liaison back in Indiana, Officer Joshua Cooper—he’s a friend of yours, isn’t he?” I don’t think I nod, but I must, because Clancy continues, “He’s with your sister. He asked me to tell you that he’ll stay by her side until you get back.”

Her mouth moves some more, but my ears are buzzing so loudly I can’t make out much of what she’s saying. I do pick up four words, though.

“Might never wake up.”

She insists on the
might,
but all I hear is the
never.

Epilogue

It’s been three weeks, and still Aster is asleep. Every day I visit her, and every day, it tears me apart a bit more.

When I arrived at the hospital, I asked the nurse to shave my sister’s hair off. The woman who attacked her hacked off strands, leaving half of her head bare and the other half covered with ugly dreadlocks. I heard her name was Gill Swanson. I’ve been tempted to pay her a visit, but I think I would strangle her if I were to meet her.

The heart monitor beeps, reminding me that Aster’s still alive. I don’t know if she can hear me, but I talk to her all the time. I tell her about my new project, making a quilt just for her. I tell her I’m using Mom’s prized fabrics. I even tell her about the history of the cloth rolls. Her heart spiked when I mentioned they were gifts from our father, so I embellish the few stories Mom shared with me about our dad.

Her heart hasn’t spiked since.

“Hey,” a gentle voice calls out from the doorway of the hospital room.

I put down my needle and the strips of ochre satin I’ve just cut, and stare at the one person who’s made the past weeks bearable. “Hey back. I missed you.”

Chase crosses the room in four quick strides and deposits a kiss on my mouth.

“One week in, and you’re already skipping school,” I tease him.

He chuckles, but then he stares at Aster, and his laughter dies out. “Anything new?”

I shake my head sadly.

“She’ll wake up. I can feel it,” he says.

“Just like you felt I would win?”

“I never thought you would win.”

“Aha! You finally admit it.” I wink when I spot his jaw darkening with a blush. “You even tried to help me at the end, and I still didn’t give the right answer.”

“I wanted you to win. I really did. I knew my brother was going to be kicked off, which would’ve made room for me.”

“How is he?”

“He keeps claiming how innocent he is, but I know he’s not.”

“I hope he’ll survive prison better than Aster.”

“You’re too nice.”

“He’s not entirely evil, Chase. No one is.”

He stares at me with that penetrating gaze of his that makes me feel as though no one else exists in the world, and then he digs into his jacket pocket for something. “This arrived for you. The nurse asked me to bring it up.” He extricates a lumpy envelope with no return address and places it on top of the shimmery satin strips.

My name is printed on the front, along with the hospital’s address. Cautiously, I slice the paper with my sewing scissors. When I spot a black velvet jewelry box inside, a chill shoots up my spine.

“Someone sent you jewelry?” Chase’s voice is so loud that I fear the cop stationed outside the hospital room will overhear him. Thankfully, the door doesn’t open. “Should I be jealous?”

I lift my eyes to his face. The vein on his temple lobe is pulsing. He’s not just jealous; he’s angry.

“It’s probably the family heirloom Kevin stole from me,” I say in a low voice. I know now that it wasn’t Kevin. It was Brook. I figured it out when he winked at me the day he was arrested. I’m surprised he hasn’t told the police about the diamond yet.

“He stole something from you?”

I inhale a slow breath and nod. I hate that I’m lying to Chase, but what choice do I have?

“Did he send it from his grave?”

I lower my gaze to the velvet box. “His wife must’ve found it in his personal effects.”

“Wouldn’t she have assumed it was a gift he got her?”

Why must Chase be so smart? “Maybe Dominic told her they were looking for it, and she felt obliged to return it, what with all that’s happened.”

I stare at the box. It shimmies in and out of focus.

“Well, aren’t you going to open it?” His usually calm voice sounds somewhat sharp.

I swallow. And then I click on the latch. And it’s as excruciating as if I were pulling the trigger during a game of Russian roulette. The box unbolts and the lid rises. Silence hangs, thick and heavy like the rainclouds outside. Not only is the stolen diamond back, but it’s been woven into an intricate setting that spells my name.

“I understand why she couldn’t keep it,” Chase says. “Although she could’ve removed the stone from its setting.”

The brilliant rock winks at me, a scornful reminder of why I’m sitting in a guarded hospital room next to my sister’s lifeless body.

“Here. Let me put it on you,” Chase says, reaching for the box.

“No,” I say quickly, snapping it closed.

He frowns.

I want to tell him the truth, but how can I explain it now that my name is linked to the diamond? “If Aster wakes up and sees it, she’ll be sad. Mom never made her one.”

I was wrong.

Brook
is
entirely evil.