The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) (32 page)

Is this his supply room, or is all of this stuff going to be used in his new collection?

The first thing that caught my eye was Michael’s most famous painting of me. Michael’s Archangel. It hung on the far wall in the back. My image floated above lavender clouds that puffed around the edges. I hovered in the center, my hair flapping out in soft, brown wings that took over most of the picture. Some of the strands wrapped around my body, but not all of it.

There were peeks of nipple and flesh to tease the viewer. The coolest part of the painting for me was my actual strands of hair that Michael had embossed the painting with to give it texture.
Hex
has the original? Holy shit. He must’ve paid an awful lot to purchase it.
An empty canvas of similar size rested to the right of Michael’s Archangel. Buckets of black, red, and silver feathers sat in front of it.

I stepped farther into the room. Metal served as the floor. My footsteps sounded on the hard surface. In the center of the room stood a huge table at least six feet long and four feet wide.

It reminded me of those movies where a character who loved trains would have a big table with a full model of a town on it. Hex’s table was similar, but instead of a train and tracks, a mini model of the castle and its property decorated the entire surface. A circular moat with real water surrounded the outer stone wall and massive castle inside of it. I leaned in closer. Tiny herbs served as the grass and bushes throughout the property. I caught the scents of rosemary and mint, but figured more were used in the depiction. Trees sprouted throughout the area. From what I remembered, all the trees and bushes looked exactly where they should be. Numbered tags hung on each tree.

Why is he numbering the trees? He does climb them a lot. Does this have anything to do
with the collection? Is this model a part of it?

For some reason, I didn’t like the tremors of fear rushing through my veins as I took in the model even more. An electronic display with several green, white, and black buttons lay on the table. I couldn’t figure out what the display was for, maybe some sort of remote control or even a tiny computer screen, maybe. Miniature people lay in a box on the edge of the model.

There were ten of them and all were women. Glancing over my shoulder to make sure Hex hadn’t walked in, I hurried to the box, looked in it, and picked up a few. None were recognizable. Sure, they had detailed features carved into the molded plastic and wore little clothes, but I didn’t know any of them, except maybe one. I put the others down and seized the tiny woman with red hair and a sparkling sea green dress with tiny white flowers painted on the fabric.

Patricia. It has to be her. This was the dress she wore the night of X-Lab’s opening. Why
would he have a model of her?

I searched through the box and didn’t see me, Alvarez, or their grandma in it. Ten little models of women. Last night Hex told me the story of how his father and mother kidnapped ten women and killed them all. Was ten just a coincidental number or did it mean things I didn’t want to think about? I set the box back down. That time, I took more care in how I walked around the room, tip-toeing so Hex wouldn’t be alerted that someone had been in this area, listening every few seconds for any movement around me.

Ten models. Ten women, and one of the female models in the box is Patricia? That’s not
a good coincidence, but it doesn’t mean Hex has anything to do with the murders. Maybe he is
somehow reenacting the murders as a sort of art therapy. This could be therapeutic. But then
why did he number the trees?

I touched the cool stone of the tiny walls and castle. All of it took time. There was no way Hex threw the model together in twenty-four hours. Maybe if he’d had help, but still I wasn’t so sure.

I have to tell Alvarez about this.

Turning around in a slow circle, I tried to memorize everything else in the room. My attention caught on a large jar on the top shelf in the corner of the room. If I hadn’t been attempting to see everything in the space, I probably never would’ve even found it. But there the jar sat, at the top of the shelf, and inside floated a small tan penis connected to a scrotum.

Screams ripped from my throat and burned everything in its path. I raced out of there without looking at where I was going and bumped my leg on the end of a table. It didn’t matter. I limped out as fast as I could. All of my guards barreled into the studio.

“What’s wrong?” One held a gun. Another talked into his cell phone.

“I have to talk to Alvarez immediately. It might be nothing at all.” The cut penis in the jar flashed in my head. “But just in case, I have to talk to him right now.”

The guards exchanged glances, but followed me as I rushed out of the studio.

“Everything okay?” Hex’s voice sounded from the tree nearest the studio’s opening.

I held my shaking hand over my eyes to shield the sun and looked up in that direction.

“What are you doing up there?”

“Why were you screaming in my studio?” He hopped down from the tree. “How long

have you been in there?”

“I-I just went in there to say goodbye.”

“Goodbye?” He came close.

“Mr. Castillo, we need you to keep your distance from her, please.” My largest guard got between us.

Hex laughed and tucked a few of his black and white strands behind his ear. “What?

Why? What’s going on?”

“I need to talk to your brother.” I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I hurried along to the castle.

“What’s going on?” Hex called back.

I glanced over my shoulder to see him following me and my pack of guards.

“Elle, why are you saying goodbye?” Hex asked. “We’re not done with the collection

yet.”

“I think it’s too unsafe here.” I swung the front door open and headed to the center staircase. A few maids vacuumed the thick carpet near the entrance.

“But you’ll be fine. You’re not in any danger.”

“How do you know that?”

Do I even want to know how you know that? Are you involved with these crazy murders,
Hex?

He’d tried to sell me on the whole incident being paranormal. Was that what he hoped for? His grandma was surely convinced. Not me. Not when a model of a dead girl lay in his box.

I didn’t know what the other four girls looked like, but I’ll bet they were in the box, too.

Or maybe you’re over thinking this all? Patricia and Hex were good friends who worked
together on projects. It could’ve just been a project. But then how would he explain the severed
penis? Was that art too? Whose penis was it? Why would someone have that in their room,
especially when the killer carved out the dead girls’ vaginas?

I climbed the stairs. Footsteps pounded behind as the guards and Hex tumbled along after me.

“Where are you going?” Hex asked.

“To talk to your brother.”

“About what?”

“None of your business.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I rounded the corner on the second flight and marched toward

Alvarez’s office, praying he was in there.

“Wait, Elle. Hold on.” Hex attempted to grab my arm. I jumped out of his reach. The guards grabbed him. He struggled to wrestle his skinny arms away from them. “Get off me! Are you all crazy?”

“Hex, just let me talk to your brother.”

“About what?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because you were screaming in my studio. That’s why. So whatever you have to say it’s about the stuff in there. Am I wrong?”

I paused and crossed my arms over my chest. “What would be in there to make me

scream?”

“I don’t know.”

I met his nervous gaze with a confident one. “Well, then you have nothing to worry

about.”

“Fuck you, Elle.”

“Fuck me? Really?” I held my hands out and turned around to leave.

“Wait! Please, don’t tell him. Please, Elle.”

The two guards continued to hold Hex, but it seemed they relaxed their grasp on him.

“What?” I faced him.

“You have your guards right here.” He gestured with his head at each guard, since his arms were in their grasp. “Let’s go back to my studio so I can explain it all.”

“Explain what?”

“Don’t act stupid. I know you went in the other room. That’s the only thing that would have made you freak out.”

“Why don’t you explain it to Alvarez?”

“He won’t understand. He’ll try to stop it before it’s done. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let people die for nothing. They believed they died for something. I won’t take it away from them.”

I stepped his way. “Hex, what are you talking about?”

“Just give me some time.”

“What do you mean?”

“Wait until it’s done.”

“What?!”

He closed his mouth.

“Hex?”

Alvarez’s door opened. He directed his gaze to me and then to Hex. “What’s going on out here? It sounds like you’re arguing.”

I looked at Hex, waiting for him to step in and make sense of all the things he’d babbled.

I didn’t understand what he wanted from me, besides to be silent on what I’d discovered in his studio, but I couldn’t. Not when women died around us. If any of that stuff was directly linked to the murders, then someone had to know. And what the hell would he need a jar full of a penis in his room for? What would he use that for? Whose penis was it?

“Elle? Hex? What’s going on?” Alvarez stepped out and came close to me, filling my

space with his scent and reminding me why I’d been avoiding him these past hours.

Now is not the time to be thinking about Alvarez and how much I’m going to miss him.

Just tell him.

“Can we talk in your office?” I asked.

The short black man known as his investigator Detective White stepped out of Alvarez’s office behind him.

“Please, Elle.” Hex shook his head over and over. “Please, don’t.”

“Don’t what?” Alvarez leaned his head to the side.

I swallowed my fear. “Hex has a severed penis in his studio along with tiny dolls that I think are of the girls who died. I’m not sure about all of that. I just know one of the dolls looks just like Patricia.”

Alvarez snapped his attention to Hex. “What the fuck, a severed penis? What is Elle talking about?”

Hex glanced at Detective White, climbed out of the guards’ arms, and leaned on the wall.

“You won’t understand until next week.”

“Why?”

Hex didn’t respond, so Alvarez turned to me.

“In this back room in his studio, there was a whole model of the property, the castle, trees, moat, everything. And on the trees there were numbers. I don’t know if any of this is related to the murders but when I saw the penis it scared me since the dead girls were cut up like that.”

“What? Wait a minute!” Hex scrunched his face up into confusion. “The girls were cut?

No one told me that.”

“Get back on topic,” Alvarez said. “What is all of this stuff in your studio?”

Hex combed his shaking fingers through his black and white hair. “It’s for my new art collection.”

“A severed penis?” Alvarez asked.

“Yes.”

“And a model of our property with tiny depictions of the victims,” Alvarez asked through clenched teeth. Blood vessels bulged along his temples. He looked like he was about to explode.

“Yes. It’s all part of my collection.” Hex turned to the investigator. “Why did Elle say someone cut the women’s vaginas? Did that really happen?”

“I want Detective White to look in your studio and you will do the interview with him right now. No more stalling. You need to tell him everything.”

“I won’t and you agreed years ago that my studio is always off limits—”

“Not when people die it’s not!” Alvarez roared.

Hex, Detective White, and I took a step back.

“No one goes in my studio.” Hex stuffed his mouth with his thumb. “I mean it.”

“Or what, Hex?”

“I-I don’t know.” Hex’s eyes watered like he was about to cry.

For whatever reason, my heart broke at the sight. Alvarez appeared like a deranged man ready to destroy anything in his path while Hex seemed to be near the moment where he dropped to the ground and balled up into a crying baby.

This is my fault.

“Okay. Let’s figure out a way to handle this.” I held my hand up. “Hex, maybe you can just explain everything to your brother.”

“He’ll end it.”

“Then maybe you can explain it all to Detective White.”

“No,” Hex mumbled around his wet thumb. “I’ll explain it to you. Maybe you’ll

understand and get Al to not be a dickhead and stop it all.”

“Me? I don’t know if I could.” I touched my chest. “I mean. . . I barely understand what I say and—”

“Please, Elle.”

Everyone looked at me, except Alvarez who continued to glare at Hex. Alvarez was a

man pushed over the cliff into a sea of pure madness. I didn’t know what had happened to him in the last twenty-four hours, but he’d had enough. I had to step in. I did it to save Hex, but more to take care of Alvarez, someone who was slowly becoming an important person in my life, even though I didn’t think I was ready for everything he could give me.

“Okay. I’m willing to sit down and talk to Hex about whatever the stuff in his studio means.”

Alvarez shook his head. “No. I don’t want you involved. You leave today and get away from this craziness.”

I wagged my finger at him. “I’ve already told you before that you don’t get to tell me what to do. I’m going to talk to Hex about this and then report back to you.”

“Unless you think you should wait,” Hex added.

“I doubt it. If this has anything to do with the murders, then I don’t think I would wait.”

“You might.”

“This is stupid.” Alvarez stomped Hex’s way. “I don’t want Elle involved. Tell me now.”

I seized Alvarez’s arm before he could move any closer to Hex. “Stop. You’re scaring him.”