The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (18 page)

I glimpse a red dot on the black dome, but it blinks off as quickly as it appeared. I keep looking at it, just in case it returns. “I think we’re being watched,” I whisper.

Josh glances up. “We’re not. I promise.”

“I don’t believe your promises anymore.”

Silence hangs between us, as thick as the Indiana snowstorm that blew the night I lost the baby…the night Josh and Ivy found me curled up on a bench underneath a casing of snow. My lips were purple, or so they told me.

“What could’ve been inside that quilt?” Josh muses.

“Diamonds.”

“Diamonds?” He’s so stunned his voice squeaks. “How—You took them out?”

“Do you think Ivy was in on it?” I ask suddenly.

“Huh?”

“Isn’t it a big coincidence that both she and her quilt were headed to the Masterpiecers? Do you think that’s how she got on the show?”

He shakes his head.

“It would explain how she paid Mom’s bills.”

“What? Are you insane?” he snaps.

I bristle. “You have a better explanation as to where she found the money?”

“Yes. I do actually. She took out a loan on the apartment.”

“She couldn’t have. I didn’t sign any paper. Unless she forged my signature…” I stare away from the camera and straight into Josh’s face that has paled a little. “She forged my signature?”

“No.”

“Then how—”

“Your mother put the deed in Ivy’s name.”

“In both our names.”

He shakes his head. “Just in Ivy’s.”

“But Ivy told me—”

“She was trying to protect you.”

My eyesight goes blurry. “Mom disowned me?”

He nods. “I’m sorry, Aster. You weren’t supposed to find out.”

“Of course not,” I snap. “
Keep everything from Aster since she’s too unstable.
I should have a T-shirt printed with that.”

“That’s not why we kept it from you.”

“Whatever.”

“Ivy didn’t want to hurt you.”

“I said, whatever.” My tone is so shrill that Josh shifts in his seat.

“I should warn Ivy about the diamonds.”

I think of the porcelain box with the gift I left her—the diamond that escaped the wax paper and landed in my bra. It had plopped on my bathroom tiles after I’d finished burying the others underneath the buttonbush shrub by our front door. “Oh…she’s going to find out soon enough.”

“Why? Did you leave them in the quilt?” he asks.

“Yes.”

“Shit.” The chair legs scrape against the cement floor as Josh pushes back from the table. “Why would you do that? How the fuck am I supposed to find them now?”

I lounge back and cross my arms. “Use your super badge power.”

“This isn’t a joke, Aster.”

“Then you should really get going,” I say.

He stands and heads toward the door. Before leaving, he glances back. I don’t break. I don’t tell him the truth because he doesn’t deserve it, and neither does my sister. They’re both liars.

Driscoll drags open the door of the cement box to let Josh out, and then holds it for me. “I don’t got all day, Redd,” he says, so I head out too.

My rubber soles flap over the linoleum floor like soggy fish tails.

In the dayroom, I spot Gill on one of the couches. She pats the spot next to her, and I drop down into it. Her hand crawls to mine. “Your skin’s freezing.”

I pull my fingers out of hers, pretending that my intention was to comb through my frizzy hair. I get a few inches off my scalp when a rope of knots hinders me. Since Gill’s lips are still turned down, I pick up her hand and squeeze it. A crooked smile lights up the freckles on her face.

The show starts and I snap my attention to the TV screen. Dominic’s standing in the lobby, on top of a pyramid of trash. At least, that’s what it looks like at first. He explains that it is components of today’s test. Each contestant will have to create a collection using ten pieces from the mound below him. And then he proceeds to explain that a collection isn’t just a bunch of objects displayed next to each other, but a carefully thought-out continuum of pieces that are linked together by minute details.

He begins a countdown. The camera slides over the six contestants’ faces. Kevin, whose bushy eyebrows are slanted over his high forehead, cracks his thick neck. Herrick, who’s hooked the rucksack they’ve given each contestant on his forearm, is rubbing his hands together as though he’s about to dive in. Chase looks calm whereas Maxine seems spooked by the mess. Lincoln scans the pile, eyes pinched in concentration. And then I see Ivy whose skin glows as though she’s gotten a suntan.

The sound of a whistle rings out. The contestants fly off toward the pile. Some scale it, others circle it, sifting through the mess like a bunch of homeless people. Ivy comes up with a strand of pearls. She chucks them into her bag and keeps tilling the mess. Chase grabs a plastic sword. The commentators are going crazy keeping track of everyone’s findings.

When the camera swings back to my sister, she’s holding a bouquet of paper roses. She looks at it a second, but then pitches it back into the pile. The roses land a foot away from Maxine who grabs them like an eager bridesmaid. My sister lunges for something, as does Chase. The same thing: a gun.

One of the commentators chuckles. “A gun! Shouldn’t they be fighting over that paper bouquet?” There’s something about the way he says this that makes my ears prick up. What does he mean? Did something happen between Chase and Ivy?

Slowly, Chase relinquishes the weapon. A flicker of hesitation crosses Ivy’s clear blue eyes, but it zips off her face as quickly as it appeared, and she shoves the pistol into her bag. As she turns away from him, her light green dress billows around her knees like an ocean wave. The camera shifts to Herrick who’s collecting nails and wooden boards. He’s even found a chalice-like cup. Lincoln’s stockpiling tin cans and glass jars, and flattened cardboard. I can imagine her narrative: ‘Containers Through the Ages,’ or something of the sort. Kevin’s bag bulges with large objects. He’s found an old rusty pipe, which I wouldn’t have touched with rubber gloves. He stuffs it into his rucksack. When the camera finally moves back to Ivy, she’s studying a fur bunny attached to a magician hat. She punches the bunny and it vanishes inside. She keeps it. The pile of crap is dwindling.

Ivy stares down at her feet, bends, and rises again clutching a broken umbrella. It goes into the bag, along with a brass trumpet. Then she runs toward an old liquor bottle tipped on its side on the outskirts of the thinning pile. Lincoln’s hand is already arcing toward it, so Ivy dives to get it. Stunned, Lincoln quickens her gesture, but she’s not quick enough. The bottle vanishes in the depths of my sister’s bag.

“I was expecting a catfight,” one of the commentators says, his deep voice rattling with excitement.

“No, you were
hoping
for one,” a feminine voice answers.

The man chuckles as Ivy whirls away from a steaming Lincoln. I don’t know how many items she still needs, but her bag looks like it’s about to burst. She races toward one of the last three items. Only Chase, Lincoln, and Ivy are left scouring the floor. The others are all off to their mini galleries to begin arranging their loot. The camera returns to the center of the room, where my sister’s unrolling a scroll. When her face lights up with a smile, and her feet carry her away to her own white box, a giddy breath puffs out of my mouth.

“Someone’s excited,” Gill says.

I think she’s talking about Ivy, but she’s watching our linked hands. I’m crushing her fingers. I let go.

“I don’t mind,” she says.

But
I
do, because there are other people around, and they’re gawking and whispering things. I stand up and stretch. My body feels stiff. Then I pace the threadbare rug because they’ve gone to commercial break.

“Ladies,” Sergeant Driscoll says. “Yard time.”

Everyone grumbles as they stop whatever games they were playing and file out through the secure door that Giraffe-neck is holding open.

“But it’s raining,” Gill says.

“You won’t melt, Firehead,” Driscoll tells her. “Only sweet girls melt, which ain’t your case.”

Gill glares at him.

Giraffe-neck yells, “Hey, Redd, I’m not a door stop. Get your ass over here.”

“No yard time for her. Commander’s orders,” Driscoll informs her.

Gill cocks an orange brow. Before she can ask why, Driscoll shoves her into the hallway.

Giraffe-neck lingers in the doorjamb. “Did you blow him?”

“Huh?”

“Kim told me the warden closed the door the other day. He usually never conducts a meeting without a guard present. Unless he’s receiving special—”

“I didn’t touch him,” I tell her.

She eyes me a long time. “He’s into that shit. Just so you know.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

“You still owe me.”

“I know.”

She lets the door swish shut behind her, leaving me with repugnant images of the warden. I think of his daughter, and how angelic she looked in that picture. If she found out about her father, it would break her heart.

The Masterpiecers’ theme song erupts in the quiet room. The camera broadcasting the show lifts, as though attached to a drone—which it probably is—and films the six contestants milling around their mini-galleries from above. It looks like the Pac-Man-inspired video game I designed my first week of junior high. I’d helped Ivy out with hers—perhaps more than helped—and gotten in trouble for it: a visit to the principal’s office and a low mark on my project.

Helping Ivy seems to bring me nothing but trouble.

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ivy

Kevin reminds me of a fairytale ogre, the sort who eats children for breakfast. Threatening and huge. We haven’t talked yet. Not one word, not even hello. We avoided each other all afternoon. At some point, I even faked a headache to burrow in Brook’s bedroom, which earned me a strange look from Chase. I don’t know what he imagines. Even before what he told me about Brook and his ex, I wasn’t interested in his brother. The only reason I wanted to go in the bedroom was to check my email. Of course, I couldn’t tell him that.

When I’d stepped inside the bedroom, two things struck me. First that Brook or someone else had touched my clothes because I’d left them folded on the seat of the large armchair in the corner and they weren’t folded anymore, and second, that he’d removed the tablet. I was too preoccupied with wondering if he suspected I’d used it, to worry much about him manipulating my clothes.

I feel something cold touch my lips, and realize it’s the microphone. Dominic’s holding it close to my mouth, waiting. “Ivy? Your collection?”

“The roaring twenties,” I say.

He nods to egg me on.

“But it didn’t start that way. When I found the pearl necklace and the top hat with the bunny, I thought about doing a collection around costumes. But then I realized I had more than just stage props…I had an era. The gun, the smoking pipe print—”

“For those of you who don’t know, Magritte is a surrealistic painter, and surrealism started in the 1920s. This particular work—the original one—was painted in 1929,” Dominic says. “So, Ivy, what would you name your collection?”

“A Time.”

“Can’t get more straight to the point,” Dominic says. “Nicely done.”

I inhale the praise. I’m lucky, really lucky, because my choice of the print was based on the popularity of pipes in the twenties. I had no clue when the surrealistic period started. Dominic has given me way more credit than I deserve.

“So, Chase, tell us about your collection,” Dominic says.

“I built it around the Dutch painter, Rembrandt.” He proceeds to explain how all the objects he gathered—from the horse figurine to the long brown feather—were featured in his paintings. Plus, he names each painting and explains the symbolism of the objects. Thankfully this competition isn’t about knowledge. If it were, none of us would stand a chance to Chase.

The audience claps loudly for him—louder than they clapped for the rest of us. I bet they’re rooting for him. When everyone falls quiet, Dominic moves to the last contestant, Kevin. His voice explodes out of the microphone and echoes through the cavernous stone lobby. His collection is about pipe dreams—illusions—thus the big rusty pipe, the paper bouquet that I thought Maxine had taken, and the magnifying glass. I hate to admit that it all makes sense. I so wish it hadn’t.

After we’ve all defended our collections, we are dismissed until the evening show. Our assistants lead us back to the large staircase under dense waves of applause. My heart beats fast as I wonder how I did. I know that on TV, there’s a running commentary, but we are not privy to it. As we reach the first-floor landing, the applause stops and a commotion erupts. It’s followed by heavy footsteps on the stone stairs. Police officers dressed in plainclothes flash shiny badges as they jog up.

“Ivy Redd?” one of them barks.

The contestants and assistants part around me. I feel like I’m having that dream where I’m walking down Highway 31 in Kokomo, naked, while everyone is clothed, even the girls from the Hip-Hugger strip club.

A woman walks up to me. “I’m Detective Clancy. You need to come with us.”

My mouth goes as dry as a sunbaked cornhusk. “Wh-why?”

“We need to ask you some questions.”

“About what?”

“About your sister.”

“What
about
my sister?” This time, my tone is a bit snappier.

“Do you really want us to discuss this in front of the cameras?” She gestures to Jeb and his crew whose devices are aimed on us.

“Just tell me if she’s okay.”

“Depends what you mean by okay.”

“Physically?”

“Yes. Now, are you coming or do we have to cuff and drag you out of here?”

Although it’s painfully embarrassing, I follow her and pretend everyone is not staring at me. As I start down the stairs, Dominic arrives. His neck is bright red, as must be the rest of his face underneath his thick layer of foundation.

“What in God’s name is this about?” His usually suave voice is slightly shrill.

Detective Clancy sticks her hand on her very narrow hips. They’re like man hips. “Nothing that concerns you or your show, Mister Bacci.”