The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (33 page)

The camera angle shifts to an empty white wall and the man stops talking. It takes me a second to understand what’s happening, but when the screen goes dark, I can only imagine she’s undone the buttons on her blouse and has pressed herself against him. I look at Dominic and Brook for condemnation, but both seem amused by Lincoln’s audacity.

Suddenly, the camera angle changes again—probably from her blouse flopping open. Her hands grope the brushed white surface, closing around the barrel chair. Once she’s swiped it, she presses the guy back and the camera shakes as she buttons up her blouse, her hands empty. She must have already placed it in her backpack.

The man is flushed. She asks him for a pen, rolls up his sleeve, and etches her phone number on his forearm. She ends the interlude with a flirtatious, “Don’t wash that arm until you call me.” And then she just climbs back up the stairs and strolls out of the gallery.

The dim room becomes darker now that all of the screens are black, and two spotlights fall on Lincoln and me.

“Girls, you were both great, and your performances deserve a round of applause,” Dominic says.

The room breaks out into loud clapping and shrill whistles.

“But only one of you managed to bring back your plunder undamaged.”

I play the relinquishment of the five tissues over in my mind, attempting to remember their state. Maybe I irreparably wrinkled one. Or maybe one had a tread mark on it. My pulse thrashes so wildly that I think I’m going to be sick. The only thing that’s keeping me from hurling is the fact that Lincoln’s grin has vanished.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s second finalist is…” Dominic begins.

A drumroll resounds. I feel it echo inside my body, reverberate against my organs, resonate inside my skull. I don’t breathe until the black screens flash back to life.

Chapter Forty-Seven

Aster

Of course my sister wins. She always wins. She’s draped this surprised look over her face, but I know it’s just for show. Ivy never doubts herself.

Chacha’s slow-clapping, having paused her card game against Gracie to marvel at my sister’s achievement. “Your sister, she’s a finalist now. You gonna be rich soon.”

“
She
’s going to be rich,” I correct her.

The door of the dayroom flies open and in file a bunch of the inmates. Gill isn’t among them.

“Hey,” Sofia says, coming to sit next to me. “How was your day?”

I shrug. “Does any day in here not suck?”

“Some are better than others. Heard you and Gill are a couple now.”

“Where did you hear that?”

“From her. She was telling everyone during yard time.”

“Everyone?”

“Whoever would listen.”

“We’re not.”

Chacha raises one of her over-plucked eyebrows.

“Me and Gill are
not
together,” I exclaim.

“Told you, Gracie,” Chacha says. “Pay up.”

“I saw them making out,” Gracie says.

“It wasn’t real,” I say.

“Looked real to me.”

“She forced herself on me.”

Sofia’s see-through eyes grow wide.

“What? You don’t believe me?” I say.

She tips her head to the side.

I frown. “What?”

“I forced myself on you?” a voice thunders. Gill is standing by the door, hands on her hips.

“Shit’s about to hit the fan,” Chacha says, slinging one skinny arm over the back of her chair to better take in the room.

“Yeah. You did,” I say. I can’t back down now.

A deep blush crawls up Gill’s collarbone, her neck, her jaw. It floods her face and darkens her freckles. It even seems to stain her eyes. “How dare you,” she hisses. “After everything I did for you.”

I point to the dreads. “You mean this?”

She tramples over the scratchy rug that’s threadbare in spots and slaps me so hard my neck snaps to the side.

“What the hell?” I screech, nursing my stinging cheek. I haven’t been slapped since Mom.

Mom who’s gone. For a second, when I look into Gill’s face, I see Mom. I see the hatred and the disappointment and the disgust.

“You really are insane,” she whispers.

“I am
not
crazy.”

“You fucking think everyone’s always watching you. That everyone’s always after you!”

“Everyone
is
always watching me!”

“I bet you locked yourself in the freezer to get us to pity you.”

“I did not!”

“What’s that?” Cheyenne asks, looking up from a magazine she’s been flipping through.

“Nothing,” I mumble.

She cracks her knuckles. “I didn’t hear real well from where I was sittin’.”

“Aster told us it was you,” Gill says.

I glare at her. She glares right back.

“She heard your voice, but it was probably in her head. I bet she hears a lot of voices in her head.”

“Shut up,” I yell.

Gill smirks. “Are you talking to your head or to me, Aster?”

I bound off the couch. “Shut up,” I yell again. Tears run into my mouth. They taste like salt water.

“Aw…did I hit a nerve?”

I’m shaking. “You don’t know anything about me.”

“I know you’re not as innocent as you claim. I saw the news. After slamming that dude with your car, you backed up and ran him over. That takes a special kind of crazy to crush someone’s bones.”

“You shot your girlfriend,” I counter.

“Because she hurt me. What did he do to you, huh? Nothing. You killed someone for no reason.”

“He was a criminal!”

From the corner of my eye, I see Chacha rising, and Gracie too. They’re creeping closer to me, as is Giraffe-neck. I back up and my calves knock into Sofia’s kneecaps.

“He was a mean man,” I say.

“A mean man,” Gill mimics in a high-pitched voice that doesn’t sound a bit like me. “And you’re a mean girl.”

“Am I going to need to stick you in a straitjacket, Redd?” Giraffe-neck hisses, collecting my hands against my back.

Josh is standing next to Chacha. I don’t know how or when he arrived, but I don’t care…I’m so relieved to see him. “Help me, Josh.”

Chacha looks from me to Josh and then back to me.

“Please,” I whisper.

“Who’s Josh?” Chacha asks.

“My boyfriend,” I tell her, staring at Gill. “He’s my boyfriend.”

“Josh, can you please leave?” Giraffe-neck asks, eliciting chuckles from the rapt assembly.

“No! Don’t.”

Josh gives me a pained look.

“What is it? Is Ivy okay?” I ask, trying to elbow my way out of the guard’s grip.

She just squeezes harder. “I need another officer in the dayroom. Prisoner not cooperating.”

“Josh? What’s going on?”

Chacha’s staring at Josh. “What’s happening to her?”

“Oh, God. Something
is
happening to Ivy.” My pulse skyrockets. I whip my face toward the television screen. Brook is standing next to my sister, guiding her off the stage. And that’s when it hits me. “It was
his
name on the package! I remember!”

Josh’s green eyes glow like alien spaceships.

“He’s going to hurt her, Josh! You need to—”

The door of the dayroom swings shut. He probably ran out to warn her.

Ponytail swishing, Kim pants in, jogging through the space Josh’s body occupied only moments earlier.

“Brook Jackson is mixed up with the mafia,” I tell Chacha who’s gaping at me.

“Mafia?” Chacha asks.

Gracie shrugs.

Kim hands Giraffe-neck a pair of cuffs, which the latter proceeds to snap around my wrists.

“Told you she was nuts,” Gill says.

“I’m not nuts,” I yell.

“Take her to the pink tank,” Giraffe-neck tells Kim.

“What’s the pink tank?” I ask.

“A place for people like you,” she says, long neck curving to the side.

Cheyenne grins, as do several other inmates. Gill doesn’t, but I’m sure she’s pleased to see me leave in handcuffs. I bet she would have been even more pleased to see me leave in a body bag.

“People like me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

Cheyenne twirls a fat finger over her temple just as I’m shoved out of the room.

Chapter Forty-Eight

Ivy

I still can’t believe it was my face up there.

My neighbor at the dinner table has angled his body toward me and his mouth is moving like a fish sucking in plankton. “You can imagine how difficult it was not to inform my staff about Dominic’s test,” the man, who happens to be the curator of the museum I robbed earlier, tells me.

I smile politely. “I didn’t know you were in on it.”

“Can you imagine the scandal if I weren’t?” He chuckles.

“Am I blacklisted from the MoMA or will I be able to come back for a visit?”

“You may return, but only in flip-flops.”

“Deal,” I say with a smile.

I spot Lincoln halfway across the room. I can tell she’s pissed all the way from here. And I understand. One of the toothpick-like pieces from the miniature chair splintered in her backpack. When she catches me staring, I look toward Chase, my last adversary. He’s deep in conversation with Delancey, who’s wearing his usual monocle and pinstripe suit—brown tonight.

Hands settle on my shoulders. I tip my face up to find Brook grinning down at me. “How many special orders have you received already?”

“None yet,” I say.

“What?” He seems genuinely astonished. “What’s wrong with you people? Grab her while you still can.”

“We were waiting until dessert to ask such forward questions,” the curator says with a chuckle.

The man sitting across the table from me—a thirty-something blond art dealer and Masterpiecers alumni—leans back in his chair and folds his arms over his chest. “I’d like to buy your entire collection, Ivy.”

Brook laughs. He probably thinks it’s a joke. I sort of think it’s a joke too. I smile so as not to appear stupid.

“I’m serious. All of the pieces you’ve made.”

My smile falters and Brook stops laughing. His fingers tighten around my skin.

“Have you signed with anyone yet?” the man asks.

“Signed? You mean with a gallery?”

“Yes.”

I shake my head.

“But if she wins tomorrow, she’ll automatically be represented by the school,” Brook says.

“And if she loses?” the guys asks.

“She’ll be represented by me.”

I start at Brook’s avowal.

“Are you allowed to take on private clients, Brook?”

Brook’s fingers are so tight now that they’re probably going to leave red imprints on my skin. “Why don’t you call me tomorrow and we can discuss this matter in private?”

“With pleasure. You have my number. Call me at your convenience.”

The conversation has created tension, which doesn’t disappear when Brook leaves to work the other tables. When dessert is cleared away, I thank the people around me for the pleasure of their company, then thread myself through the room, determined to reach the exit quickly. I don’t. I can see the glass door that will lead me out. I can even see Cara, and yet I can’t get to either because so many people stop me.

“Excuse me.” Brook interrupts one of my fans who smells so strongly of musk, it’s making my head spin. “I need a word with my contestant.” He waits for her to leave before saying, “Don’t sign with that guy, okay?”

“Are you really going to offer me representation?”

“I’ve been considering it.”

“Are you allowed?”

“It’s one of the clauses I’ve asked the show’s lawyer to implement in my contract. I just need to get it past Dom.”

“And past Josephine.”

“Josephine’s opinion won’t matter.”

“It won’t?”

“No. Soon it won’t.”

“Is she leaving the show?”

“I wouldn’t use the word
leaving
, but yes. Something like that.”

“Was she fired?”

His eyes grow wide with a silent warning. “The heist was all Dom’s idea,” he says, his eyes darting to a space behind me. I imagine that either someone is coming or that we’re being filmed.

“What an idea,” I say, playing along. “Anyway, I should get to bed. Larceny is exhausting, isn’t it?”

Brook stares at me with this bizarre expression on his face.

“Goodnight,” I say since he’s still just gaping.

As I join Cara, I wonder if I said something wrong, but by the time we exit the Egyptian wing, I decide that it doesn’t matter if I did. The only thing that matters now is getting through the next twenty-four hours and emerging victorious.

Once I’m alone in my tented room, I untie my hair, clean off my makeup, and slip out of my dress. As I brush my teeth, I catch movement behind me. I grab a towel and wrap it around my bare chest, then turn around, half-expecting Cara to have forgotten to tell me something.

It’s not Cara.

“What do you want?” I ask Chase, narrowing my eyes.

“I came to tell you I was sorry.”

“For being an asshole?”

“Yes.”

At first, I bite my lip, but then I raise an eyebrow. “You admit you were an asshole yesterday?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because I was.”

“I mean why did you say those things to me?”

“Because I was angry.”

“Angry at me? Because of the whole swimming thing?”

“Because I like you…a lot…and when you lied to me, it reminded me of my ex. And I panicked.” He tucks his hands inside the pockets of his tuxedo pants and looks at my red bag that sticks out in the beige-colored room like a bloodstain on a rug. “Ivy, tonight, during dinner, they were discussing your family. I heard how your mother died.” He studies his feet, which he’s shuffling. “That’s why you told me you didn’t know how to swim, isn’t it?”

“I haven’t been in the water since. At least not until the other night.” I shiver at the memory of Kevin’s body. “I don’t think I’ll ever be able to go in the water again now.”

Chase lays a warm hand on my arm. When he sees me glance at it, he lets it fall back alongside his body. “I’m really sorry I called you a liar.”

“I did lie.”

“But you didn’t do it to hurt me,” he says.

I toy with the herringbone pattern on the hem of the towel. “Why did you help me, that day with the riddle?”