The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) (31 page)

Someone worked the remote to have the girls move on their own. It wasn’t meant to be done in front of actual people as they walked by. So close, anybody could’ve realized that the girls were attached to wires--that is, if they could get over the initial shock of dead bodies moving in front of them.”

“So someone wants us to think there is big magic happening around us?”

“Exactly.” He returned to the window and took a puff of his cigarette. “This person has access to the security room. The entire recording area was in disarray. There were tapes that didn’t record new footage and just replayed the same feed over and over. Therefore the guards watching the cameras never noticed anything strange. During that time, the killer must’ve carried the bodies to the area, hooked them up, set the box in your office, and fixed the cameras to return back to normal. Whoever did this took serious time learning the camera process, the servants’

schedule--and I’m not just talking about the girls who passed away. This person learned all of their schedules so they can move through the house unnoticed. I can’t find any unusual people walking the hallways. Everything seems in order.”

It wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I needed answers. No one else could die, not here. I couldn’t deal with being the cause of another person’s death due to not finding this killer.

“Who do you think could’ve done this?”

Detective White flicked his cigarette’s ash out the window. “I’ve been going through scenarios all night. No one was in the house doing anything suspicious.”

I didn’t want to ask, but I did. “Earlier, you thought my brother and grandma may have had something to do with this mess, along with Dayanara and Reece. Have they been canceled out as suspects?”

“Pretty much. Your brother painted the entire time before the girls moved in the house as well as once they were found. Your grandma argued with the police officers outside the house about Reece and Dayanara being arrested.”

“Wait a minute. The girls’ deaths occurred while the cops were in front of the castle?”

“Yes. The police and I were outside the entire time.”

Dear God. This guy is getting ballsy. If he can do this while cops are near, what will he
do when they’re not around? How much further will they go?

“What do you think I should do now?” I asked.

“I would suggest evacuating the property and going somewhere else. Unless you’re

unable to?”

“No. We can definitely leave. Is there any good news to this situation?”

“Well, these three victims were not cut in anyway. The killer for some reason didn’t cut their vaginas.”

“Oh god. I forgot to tell you. My grandma cut the first two victim’s vaginas.”

“Excuse me?”

“Yes. She did it for a spell to allow the women’s spirits to have peace or something. I’ll have her explain it to you.”

The short man pulled out his notebook and wrote several things on it.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you this sooner. What else do you have on this case?”

“There are other parts about this situation.” He put the notebook away, slung the cigarette in his finished coffee, and waved smoke out the window. “I have other questions in my head about the victims. I’ve been putting together a report of all the women. I gave one to the detective in charge, but as you’ve asked me, I also placed one on your desk.”

“Is there anything similar about these women? Any person they all dealt with?”

“Well, the obvious person is Hex. He invited them all to the property. I am still unclear on the reason why they were guests here.” He walked over to my desk and picked up a thick stack of papers.

“He usually invites them to work on some project that pops up in his head,” I said. “My brother tends to start projects and drop them, then the next month or so get excited about something else and invites more people. Meanwhile the earlier guests are hanging around the property waiting to begin.”

“Maybe if I knew the name of the projects and what the goals were, this could help me and the police somehow.”

“I’ll have you interview him sometime today. I would like to be present.”

“That sounds good.” He raised the stack of papers in the air. “Either way, this is the report on the victims.”

I didn’t relish the idea of reading about the lives of dead girls for the rest of the day.

Especially with Elle leaving. My plane was scheduled to carry her away in five hours. Ideas popped into my head—a surprise dinner for her before she left, a small gift to say goodbye, a sappy letter about how we would be good together and to beg her not to wait on us.

“Were there other similarities with these girls? I don’t have time to read the report tonight.”

“Well. . . I’ve found that when investigating murders no little coincidences should be overlooked. These women shared a doctor. However, I’ve discovered that basically all people living in the castle went to this same doctor.”

“Dr. Rosenberg?”

“Yes.”

“He treats anybody here and has a small office in the west wing. With a staff as big as mine and the types of parties Hex enjoys having, I like to keep a medical person on the property.

Additionally, Dayanara presents her own medical needs.”

“Well, I’ll need to interview him also. The police already have him down on the list of people to talk to. He prescribed all five women the same sleeping pill. It was discovered in all of the victims’ stomachs. The official coroner report states that all five victims died from a sleeping pill.”

I sat up in shock. “What? Sleeping pills?”

“Yes. The first victim, Brenda, was stabbed in the heart, but she was stabbed after the murder. The sleeping pill is what actually killed her. The second girl, Patricia, ingested the same thing. The police believe that these three girls will have the same pill in their stomachs, too, which leads us to the doctor who prescribed the pills to the girls.”

“I doubt the doctor was involved.”

“I don’t doubt anything anymore. And if this doctor treated Dayanara, then he had access to her. Perhaps he would know the schedule of the servants.”

“Maybe. He treated the servants also, and my grandma told me that many have

befriended him.”

“Then he’s someone I will look into further.”

“Are there other similarities with these women?” I asked.

“I’m not sure, but they all have troubled pasts in some way.”

“Hex is drawn to imperfect people with battered upbringings. It’s a sort of camaraderie for him to know that he’s not the only one who was dealt a wicked hand. What did these women go through?”

“Brenda, the first victim, was born a twin. When she was seven, she lost her twin sister in an accident. The two girls bathed together. Their parents didn’t monitor them and were in another part of the house. The police reports say the two girls were play fighting and the twin sister slipped backwards and banged her head against the edge of the tub. Brenda jumped out of the tub and ran to get her parents, not realizing that her sister would be unconscious, slide into the water, and drown.”

“Dear God.” I rose from my chair to fix a drink.

“Brenda never truly got over it. Before modeling she was a video artist who didn’t do well. However, a lot of her videos related to death and loss. When I dug further into her family history I noticed that her parents divorced a year after her sister’s death. It seems Brenda left the house at fifteen to travel with a rock band, and didn’t have any true contact with her mother. In fact, I’m still having trouble notifying any of Brenda’s relatives.”

“So none of her family are aware she is even gone?”

“None.”

“What about the second victim?”

Detective White flipped a few pages. “The second victim’s name is Patricia. Both parents were psychiatrists. What I could grab from her medical records was that she had some bouts with depression and anxiety. She was engaged to one of the writers here, a Mr. Winslow. He was her mentor when she was twelve and continued to assist her with her poetry. There were rumors that he might’ve molested her when she was young, but no charges were ever raised by the parents.

Apparently, the art world is a pot ripe for gossip. Once she turned eighteen, her relationship with Mr. Winslow went public. The whole time he was married. It seems until this year, he’d separated from his wife and lived at this property with Patricia as counsel in whatever project Hex invited them for. Once you decided that everyone would need to leave, things changed between them. Patricia’s friend, the one who found her in the garden, told me in an interview that Patricia discovered a day before that Mr. Winslow would be utilizing your offer to everyone for a plane ticket to anywhere and that he would use the flight to return to his wife. Witnesses saw Patricia drinking all night and yelling at Mr. Winslow the few times she managed to come near him.”

I poured a glass and returned to my chair. “And these three women?”

“A calligrapher, watercolor painter, and video installation artist. Again, all three had difficulty sleeping like the others. There’s not really any clear depression like the first two victims, but I found some interesting facts. The calligrapher, Broseli, was diagnosed with a rare form of bowel cancer three years ago. There has been no indication that she is healed from it.

She did have several visits from her own private doctor while she remained here, as well as kept a private nurse with her.”

I finished my drink, not really sure how much of this I could listen to. The less I knew about the victims, the easier it would be to somehow forget them, I hoped.

“A simple internet search of the watercolor artist, Trudy, brought up results that she’d attempted suicide three times. Once she tried to paint a picture during her last suicide attempt.

She hung from the ceiling by her neck and colored. Her assistant discovered her before it was too late.”

Hex has more than invited people with sad histories, he welcomed crazy people to our
home. What other insane person did he invite, someone who enjoys killing?

I stifled my groan of annoyance and asked, “What about the video installation artist?”

“She is the oddest one. Her name is a symbol, one that looks like an upside-down

triangle. I can’t find any records of her existing anywhere. The police took her fingerprints and scanned them. Nothing has come up in any of their databases.”

“Isn’t that impossible?”

“In this day and age, most people are fingerprinted. I searched her room and couldn’t find a passport or any form of identification. I’m not even sure how she arrived here. There is no record of her coming in on a plane, bus, or train around the time the director of cleaning said she came. I’m considering the possibility that she came here by boat and have my men checking boat yards. They’ll be asking around and showing her picture.”

As always, conversations with Detective White presented more questions than answers.

“Do you need more men working with you on this?”

“Yes. My mind is boggled. I need to have my eyes and ears in many places at once.

Having a larger team can do that for me.”

“Add as many men as you need and send the bill when you’ve finished.” I got up from my chair and went to grab another drink, telling myself it was the last one, but deep down inside knowing it would be a part of many drinks for the evening.

“Okay. When do you think will be the earliest I can talk to your brother and

grandmother?”

I twirled the bitter brown liquor in my glass. “You can go ahead and talk to my grandma in her cottage now. Let’s plan to meet with my brother tomorrow afternoon. I have to interview new personal assistants soon.”

And perhaps spend the next five hours trying to convince Elle to have more faith in us.

Chapter 25

~Elle

“Hex?” I entered his studio. With the dim lighting, shadows danced on the walls as I moved through the space. “Hex?”

He didn’t answer. Although my guards stood outside and one flanked the doorway to

Hex’s studio, a chill ran through me. The week’s events had frazzled my nerves and shoved me over the edge of normalcy. Everything came out suspicious. Every distorted shape of light or twinkle past my eyes caused me to jump or shake. Yet saying goodbye to Hex was the last thing on my list before I left.

Whether he knew it or not, he’d changed my life and how I looked at myself and art. That simple session with the cancer survivors had changed my outlook on everything. They were beautiful women, not beautiful due to their hair, faces, or bodies, but lovely because they exuded it from every pore. They captivated everyone around them with their strength, spirit, and examples of survival. That was art. The paintings Michael had done of me were only pitiful attempts to capture life’s beauty. What Hex created trapped life into a solid image and forced the viewer to explore the layers of our world much deeper.

I wonder what else Hex would have taught me if I’d continued modeling for him.

I browsed his amazing works for the last time, hoping he would come back soon and

seizing the opportunity to check out some of his works from his new collection.

Did he finish the painting of the women and me?

I walked through the maze of sculptures and scattered canvases full of forgotten

obsessions, tip-toeing over fallen paintbrushes and oil soaked rags. The perfume of paint filled the air just like it would in Michael’s studio when he was in the middle of creating his huge images of me. I inhaled the aroma and followed the scented trail to an opened door in the far back of the studio. The last time I sat in this area with Hex, the door had remained closed.

Maybe the painting is in here.

I entered. Bright lights hung from the high ceiling. The whole room was more organized than Hex’s studio. Art stuff packed the shelves. Paintbrushes lay in their particular jars as well as many paints, fabrics, colorful layers of paper, copper wires, clear cords, long tubes of glitter, nails, planks of wood in various grades, and even more.