The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) (25 page)

Detective White drank in the view as I did. I’m sure after all his years investigating murders and situations for the rich, not much surprised him. However, I was sure my family would test that theory one day.

“Her room is right here.” I opened the door.

Dayanara sat in the corner with five dolls in front of her. All of their heads were missing, as usual. She didn’t stop what she was doing or look up at me. Gray hair dotted her temples. A few laugh lines had set in around her lips. It hurt me to realize that she was aging as she lived up in an attic with headless dolls, a stranger nursing her, and walls covered in tattered strips of wallpaper. Detective White stepped in, and I closed the door.

“Dayanara. This is Detective White. He’s going to look around for a little bit while you and I talk. Is that okay?”

She just petted her dolls’ bodies. Scratches decorated her fingers. They looked fresh and barely healed, like she’d just received them last night.

I dug my hand into my pocket and pulled out a strip of yellow wallpaper as bright as the sun. It shone in the hanging light bulb. “I’ve brought you a gift. It’s your favorite color.”

She hummed, but didn’t look up. I came closer to her while Detective White walked

around tapping the wooden panels a few times and shining his flashlight into the cracks between the planks.

“I’m going to place the wallpaper right next to you.” I set it down by her feet.

She tensed and waited until I left to pick it up.

“Do you like it?”

For the first time that evening she shifted her gaze from the dolls to me. “He’s still going to come.”

My nerves flared on edge. It was never a good thing when she talked so clearly. “Who is going to come?”

She returned to humming. It was such a soft jingle, light and melodious, but as I sat in the bare room with the light bulb swinging back and forth and Detective White looking for evidence of two murders, the humming shoved me over the edge. “Who is going to come, Dayanara?”

She rocked in place and held the yellow paper close to her chest. “Who else would cut those girls that way? Who else?”

“Mr. Castillo, I think we have something here. It’s hollow in this area and there is a weird smell coming from here.” Detective White knocked in the corner of the room. “Do I have your permission to undo these planks?”

“Go ahead.”

Dayanara hummed, stopped, and whispered, “Mama was right. I should have never

buried him. He was supposed to burn like all the rest. I didn’t say the words.”

Wood cracked behind me. Detective White had pulled out some weird metal tool and had part of the board lifted. The room filled with the odor of rotten food and the smell of a decaying bird left in the middle of the street. I covered my nose with my arm and breathed out of my mouth.

Detective White peered in and jumped back. “Oh Mother Mary, you don’t want to see

this.”

“What is it?”

“The two girls’ missing vaginas.”

Chapter 19

~Elle

I went back to my bedroom, realizing Alvarez would probably not be returning any time soon. When he told me he didn’t have time to search for his true love, I’d figured it was a line or some BS excuse. But it was true. He really didn’t have the time. Managing his family had kept him up all day and dragged him out of bed in our moment of passion, a moment I was happy to be interrupted.

Just like him, I didn’t have time for love. I needed to focus on why I was here, not love or another man’s arms to take my mind off Michael. How easy it had been to lay in Alvarez’s bed, sleep next to him, and wake up to his lips and fingertips all over me.

A week of Michael and I being separated hasn’t even passed and I’m already with
another man. Just like those self-help books said, I have a dependent personality.

I bathed for an hour and considered all of the things I needed to do. Running out on Michael was only the first step, modeling for Hex the second. After I washed, I gazed into the mirror.

“Change who you are,”
Hex had said.

I opened the medicine cabinet, searched for scissors, and found a sharp pair. “Okay, Hex.

I told you I would follow you down the rabbit hole. I hope you’re not mad about my hair.”

I snipped for a good hour. Half way into cutting I realized I should have gone to an actual beautician. Once my strands had run well past my behind, now they barely touched my shoulders and were unevenly layered in the back. It looked almost like I’d meant it to be cut that way, almost hip, or maybe I was just telling myself that.

Now what? Maybe I should figure out if I even want to be a model or do something else.

I could either decide to keep modeling or find some new career that made me content.

After that I held no other plans in my head. I just yearned to be happy like everybody else.

One book I’d read insisted that in order for people to be truly happy they should go after their dreams. The test was simple. Person A made wooden trains for a living and enjoyed doing it. Was he living his dream? Was he truly happy? One day person A woke up and discovered he’d won the lottery. Person A was now a millionaire. Would he still make the wooden trains or kick those scraps away and do something else? If he would still sit down and make the trains, then he was living his dream.

Would I still model if I didn’t need the money?

I wasn’t so sure. I enjoyed art, but loved movies more. I appreciated the fact that I could make a living off sitting on my behind while others created around me, but didn’t see myself ever longing to do it for years to come.

So what do I want to do? Something with movies, maybe? What does that even mean,
something with movies? I can’t act or direct.

I spent the next hour researching jobs on my phone. I browsed most that dealt with the movie industry. The only occupation that sent thrills through my body was movie critic.
I don’t
know.
It was one of the hardest occupations to get into, at least to make a living off it.

Additionally, no college solely dedicated their academics to film criticism, but on the other hand, there were many colleges that provided film studies.
College? Could I go to college?
I’d never been. In fact, I hadn’t been inside of a classroom in ten years. The very idea of dealing with math problems scared me.

I would probably be the oldest person there, that weirdo old girl on all the college
movies, serving as the butt of every joke in comedies and the person who usually died first in the
horrors.

I was twenty-nine years old with no sure path I wanted to take. Didn’t people know what they wanted in life by now? Had all those years with Michael, nurturing his career and dreams, sucked away my only opportunity for finding what I love?

Someone knocked on the door. “Elle?”

“Alvarez?”

“Yes.” His voice sounded low and sad.

“Is everything okay?” I put my phone down, jumped from my bed, and opened the door.

Alvarez tilted his head forward so I couldn’t see his eyes. The darkness of the hallway shielded half of his face. His crumpled shirt hung open at the top and he held a bottle of opened wine in his hand. My guards gave him a large amount of space, as if to not aggravate him.

“It seems that every time I run to you, I’m sinking in a pit of poisonous stew and

drowning.” The stink of alcohol drifted my way with each word. “One day I want to come to you in a happy mood.”

“Why are you so down?”

“My investigator discovered who the killer was and. . .” He took a swig from the bottle.

“Both of the people are close to me.”

“Oh my god.” I embraced him. “Who were the people?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He studied me for a minute. “Damn, you’re beautiful without all of that hair in the way. Who cut it for you?”

“I did.”

“I didn’t know you could do hair.”

“Me neither.” I paused for a few seconds. “Who were the two people involved?”

He wrapped his arms around my waist and leaned his head on my shoulder. “Do you feel like going somewhere with me? Anywhere? I just have to get off this property for a while. I can have a car take us wherever you want to go.”

How could I say no? He slumped his shoulders forward and rested most of his weight on me. The guards exchanged worried glances with each other. Alvarez was in a low place. If I was in his position, he would do all he could to take care of me. That was just the type of guy he was.

But who took care of Alvarez?

I ran my fingers through his hair. Those silky strands slipped against my skin. “I would love to spend some time with you. Let’s go.”

An hour later, we rode in the limo with the sun roof down and the moonlight spilling through. I’d changed into a simple white sun dress and he’d stumbled back to his bedroom to sling on some jeans and a gray t-shirt with the word “navy” in black. I made him leave his phone in his room so no one would disturb him the rest of the evening. In the limo, the wind traveled through our opened windows and blew through our hair as we sipped wine. Low jazz played in the background. It was full of a sensual saxophone and entwined with a steady bass. In front of our feet lay a big picnic basket of pastries filled with meats and cheeses. His chef had prepared the package for our ride. Chocolate and honeyed desserts sat in smaller containers on the sides, but I could barely motivate myself to even open the sweets after gorging on the rest.

“Taste this one.” He slipped a flaky bite of pastry between my lips. It melted on my tongue and revealed a strong flavor of cheese that I couldn’t guess.

“That’s delicious. What type of cheese was that?”

“I have no idea. I just know it’s good.” He popped one in his own mouth and leaned

toward the basket. “Would you like some more?”

“No.” I waved him away. “I’m not hungry at all. You’ve been stuffing me with delicious things since we sat in here.”

“You
have
to be a little hungry. We’re going to a restaurant that has the best seafood on South Beach.”

“No. Thanks. I’m nowhere near hungry with the wine and all those yummy bites in the basket. I would just be happy to see South Beach.”

“Fine.” He leaned back in his seat. A huge grin spread across his face. “I knew being with you would be a great idea. No matter what is around me, your presence shoves it all out of my head. All the horror and dread that I see, as soon as you’re near I forget about it all.”

I shook my head and giggled. “I wish I could take the credit, but that’s the wine, Alvarez.

Not me.”

He centered his gaze on me. “Trust me. It’s all you.”

The limo carried us forward. Like a boat among a sea of cars, it rocked us on the waves of the road and stopped every now and then to reveal the sights of Miami—exotic women draped in bright printed dresses, gorgeous men in khakis and flip-flops, palm trees dancing in the wind, the staccato hum of a distant salsa song coming from a far away café, and on and on. I battled with so many luring sights that at many times, I forced myself to focus on the inside of our limo in order to anchor my excitement to one calming focus.

Another jazz tune filled the silence in the vehicle. The whole time Alvarez kept a foot of distance between us, except for his hands, which twirled my short hair over and over around his fingers. After several encouraging minutes of moonlight and jazz, I risked disturbing the mood.

“Are you going to tell me what happened earlier today?”

“I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Because it makes me sad.”

“Who was involved? It makes me nervous that you said it was someone near you. It

wasn’t Hex, right?”

“No. It was my assistant.”

“Oh.” I hadn’t expected that at all. “I got the impression that it was more than one person because you said that they were people close to you. Who was the other one?”

He made himself a drink. I’d been counting how many glasses he swallowed down since we got into the limo. This was his fourth glass of wine. At this rate, I would have to ask the guards to carry him to his room.

“I might as well tell you now, before you hear it on the news.” He set the bottle of wine down. “At this moment, the cops should be at the castle arresting my assistant Reece and my mother Dayanara Castillo for the murder of two girls.”

“Your mother? I thought you told me your mother was gone?”

He took a sip of his wine. “As far as I’m concerned she’s been gone for over ten years now. Her mind snapped under extreme pressure and she’s never returned. I tried to put her in a mental facility a few times, but my grandma and Hex couldn’t deal with the separation. The end result was me having to place her in the upstairs area of the castle. That way she would still be close to my family, but far enough to not hurt anybody else.”

“But she did?”

“Yes.” He gulped some of his wine. “Not many people even knew she lived on the

property, only a few of the servants, her nurse, and her guards.”

“But if she had guards around her, how did she get free to kill those women?”

“My security director and Dayanara’s nurse were a married couple who snuck moments

together early in the morning when most people slept. The director would turn off the camera and go to the living area where they did whatever they did while Dayanara escaped. The police detective and I are still unsure of how she left her quarters, but we assume Reece helped.”

“How are you sure Reece and your mother were even involved?”

“My investigator found blood drops and hair matching both victims in Reece’s living quarters, and then the victim’s. . . body parts were uncovered in Dayanara’s room, with me right there.” He finished the glass and reached for the wine bottle with trembling fingers.

“No. Don’t drink any more.” I took his glass out of his hand and moved his other one away from the bottle. “I know you went through a whole lot, but you don’t want to start drowning yourself in liquor. You’ll find that it’s easy to do, but by the time you realize it could start to be a problem, you’re already over that cliff.”