Love, Art, and Murder: Mystery Romance

by Kenya Wright

  “Raunchy?”

  “Disgusting. Absurd. Insane. Name it whatever you want. It’s not normal.”

  “What is?”

  “Not sucking your thumb, for one.” I giggled.

  A chuckle left his lips. I poured both of us a glass of wine and couldn’t care less if Hex drank or not. Having him shift from thumb sucking to alcohol might’ve been a bad idea, but at least he appeared less unusual. I handed his glass to him. “So back to this party for tomorrow night, what are we celebrating?”

  “It’s more of a farewell.” He studied the glass and jiggled the gold colored liquid. A little spilled out at the edges. “Al wants everybody off the property to be safe. That makes me scared.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks I can’t handle things so he’s always hiding stuff from me.”

  “Well, you were just moping over there and sucking your thumb.”

  “Stop bringing up my thumb sucking.”

  “Never.” I sipped my wine. The sweet liquid slipped down my throat with ease and reminded me of a sugary juice versus a typical white wine. He watched me and then took a pathetic sample of his drink.

  “So this is a goodbye party for best friends?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t say that. We’re more like colleagues.” His next sip was bigger. “Every time I spot something inspiring on a television show, magazine, or an event, I discover who the creator of this magical thing is and then invite them to my place.”

  “Just like that?”

  He took a gulp. “Just like that. I love enchanting people around me. I love when so many creative people are under one roof. It’s like anything is possible.”

  Michael and Hex truly were as different as I’d guessed. My ex hated other artists around him. The spotlight needed to be on him or a problem arose.

  “Sometimes I do fun things like bring out a huge canvas. Imagine one that is bigger than the size of my studio. I drag it out to one of our gardens, call everyone around it, and just have everybody fill it with color. I must admit the result tends to be a mishmash of ideas and concepts, but none of that ever matters.”

  “None of it matters?” I finished my wine. With all the weird things that had occurred around me today, a little liquid relaxation served as the perfect tool to soothe me. “What do you do with the finished pieces?”

  “Throw them away.”

  “What?” I opened my mouth in shock. “It could be worth something one day. You never know.”

  “No.” He waved my declaration away. “None of that matters anyway. It’s never the end result that I’m looking for. I don’t ever care what the result will be from any of my crazy imaginations. I leave all of that stuff to Al. It’s how I’m able to do what I do--because Al gathers all those pieces of my artistic voyages and makes us money.”

  “So let me get this straight.” I leaned forward. “When you and your friends do art together you just throw it away because none of those works matter?”

  “None of any of the works matter. Neither their stuff nor mine.”

  “None of it?” I tossed him a mocking smirk. “I don’t believe you at all.”

  “It’s the truth. For me, the paintings, pictures, sculptures or whatever else I make is insignificant to the voyage I took to make them. It’s always about the process and the experience I get from it. That’s why I do it all.”

  “For the voyage? So there’s nothing that you’ve worked on with others that you’ll present to the public?”

  He waited for a few seconds and nodded. “There is one thing, but that would be only if the public was ready.”

  “You’re not sure we all are, huh?”

  “No.” As if newly energized, he finished his wine, sat back in the car, and wagged his arms around in elaborate circles and twists. “Anyway. With every new collection, it’s like I’m living a new life. I get to embark on some crazy adventures into theories and concepts that I would’ve never considered before. I mean, it’s addictive. I get this one thing in my head, just one thing, and it keeps me up all night. I turn into a madman, exploring its origin, smelling and tasting the idea until I can touch the texture and lap it up with my tongue and consume it whole. Surely, you must know how I feel.”

  I sat there and hadn’t moved since he’d begun talking. “I’ve never felt that way before about anything.”

  “Not even modeling?”

  “Nothing.”

  He frowned. “What about movies?”

  “When I look at movies, it’s different. It’s almost like when you suck your thumb. Movies soothe me. Anytime I’ve ever gotten sad or depressed, I would get some ice cream or chips, a huge comfy blanket, and a bunch of movies to just fall into another world for a while and not think of the things going on around me. I started watching movies a lot when I was in my teens.” I twirled the liquid in my glass, but made sure it didn’t spill out.

  Hex gazed at me. His look seared into my skin. “What’s your passion?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You have to know.”

  “Actually, I don’t, but my goal is to find out.” Now that I’d left Michael thousands of possibilities lay out in front of me. I planned to model for a while, but not forever. I wasn’t even sure if I’d ever liked modeling to begin with if it wasn’t for Michael convincing me to do it. “I guess my journey now will be to find my passion.”

  “You have to give yourself freely in order to receive that knowledge. You can’t just be safe all the time. You’ll have to dive into the ocean of obscurity with no destination in your head and just swim until you get exhausted and drown.”

  “But then I’ll be dead.”

  “No.” He wagged his finger. “Then you’ll truly be alive.”

  “Says the man who was just sucking his thumb a minute ago.”

  “Yes. Says the man who was just sucking his thumb.” Hex clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “I know what I want my collection to be about.”

  I held my hand up. “Hold on. You had no idea before?”

  “No.”

  “I thought you were working on the concept all year.”

  “No. More like brainstorming and preparing for something to grab a hold of me, but nothing hooked me until now.”

  “So what is it?”

  “Do you promise not to tell my brother?”

  “Really? Why would you hide it from him?”

  “What I have planned, he may not like. I’ve pushed him before and sometimes he threatens to leave. What I have planned will make him consider those thoughts”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Probably. If the art world had an ethics committee, I would probably be pissing my pants about the collection.”

  “You sound like you know exactly what you’re going to do.”

  “Of course, I do. I just needed a name for it.”

  “Okay. Fine. I swear I won’t tell your brother what the subject of your collection will be.”

  He extended his hand and wiggled his pink finger. “Let’s make this official.”

  “Oh my goodness.” I made sure the hand he offered wasn’t the one he had in his mouth and latched my pinky onto his. “I swear.”

  “The subject is sacrifice. As I’ve been going through the process, I really wasn’t sure what this phenomenon would be, but I think sacrifice would bring it all together.” He winked at me. “I had no idea where you would fit into the collection. Michael made you an archangel. I considered having you end the entire collection as the angel of death to metaphorically welcome everyone to the gates of the afterlife. I’m not sure I like it. Instead, I’ll follow your journey. You’ll sacrifice for me. And this way, we can go on this voyage together.”

  “I’ll sacrifice for you?”

  “Yes. You’re going to give up something to gain whatever it is you need.”

  This was the art world and Hex represented a true artist who saw the world in many layers of reality, so thick that a layer could be yanked away for a few
seconds and analyzed like a book.

  “Sacrifice.” I curled the word around my tongue and sucked in the bitter taste of it. “Why sacrifice?”

  “Because in order to truly be free you’ll have to surrender it all. You’ll have to tear away all of the things that bind you to whatever is keeping you back from your passion.” He looked out the window and off into the distance. “I’ve been battling with something for a long time. I think it’s time for me to stop being scared and see if I can discover who I truly am for sure.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ll understand later.” He leaned his weight onto the door and watched the landscape of Miami rush by.

  The Castillo property was located far outside of Miami and surrounded by tons of farmland. As we pushed into the hustle and bustle of South Beach, fields of grass and crops transformed into small businesses. The farther we ventured, those convenience stores changed to large towers that stabbed the sky with their bright colors and sculpted edges. Bushy trees that cuddled dark green leaves and lush fruit transformed into high palm trees manicured at the top and decorated with tiny lights that one would put on a Christmas tree.

  Hex lowered the window and breathed in the air. “We should have a theme for this party tomorrow. Something fun before we begin sacrificing the day after.”

  “Okay. First of all, what are you talking about with us sacrificing? What will we be giving up?”

  “Everything.”

  “I’m not giving up everything.”

  “You don’t even know what I’m talking about.”

  “Then what are you talking about?”

  “Just follow me.”

  I covered my eyes and held in a smart remark.

  “I’m serious, Elle. Just follow me down the rabbit hole.”

  “And what if at the end of the path, there’s a bunch of rabid human-eating rabbits that are ready to attack us?”

  “Then we’ll kill them all.”

  “With your wet thumb and my talent for movie lines?”

  “Yes.” He smiled so much that he exposed his teeth. “We’ll destroy them with our special powers. Are you ready to go on this voyage with me? It’s going to be more than modeling. This will be about the both of us sacrificing it all to learn about ourselves.”

  I buried my face in my hands. “You know, I liked you better when you were quiet in the corner and sucking your thumb.”

  “Well, it’s too late now.” He reached for the wine bottle, took a swig, and set it back down. “I’ve got that word, sacrifice, drumming over and over in my head like I’m a cocaine addicted drummer, banging at a hard surface to just get a few seconds of freedom before he tilts over and takes a snort. Sacrifice! Say it with me.”

  “Sacrifice.”

  “Louder!” He put his head out the window and screamed, “Sacrifice!”

  Uh oh. What did I start?

  He jumped back into the car, his eyes wild with insanity. “Can I dress you for tomorrow night’s party?”

  “Uh—”

  “I see you in feathers and diamonds as well as lots of white all around you. I want to cover you in white.”

  “I’ll have to approve this outfit first.”

  “Fine.”

  “And I get to dress you.”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Interesting. Okay. Let’s do it. You dress me and I dress you.”

  “Sounds like a good plan.”

  “And then the day after tomorrow.” He grabbed our wine glasses and poured us both a drink. “Then we’ll sacrifice. But, we don’t have to think about that now. Tonight, we’ll go to the opening of X-lab and tomorrow night we’ll have a crazy party. I’ll have to call up Reece and get her to bring in more entertainers and guests. Let’s do something huge.”

  I grabbed my wine glass and tapped it against his in a gesture of cheers. “Let’s do it.”

  “Then the day after tomorrow’s huge party we’ll start our journey down the rabbit hole.”

  “Alrighty, let’s just make sure we take some of this wine with us.”

  “What will you wear tonight?” Hex finished his glass in one swoop.

  Whoa. Maybe I shouldn’t have started him with drinking.

  “What’s happening tonight again?” I asked.

  He held his hands out to the side in a grand gesture. “Tonight is the huge opening of my new art gallery X-Lab. Well, it’s not just mine. At least fifty other artists, curators, and filthy rich bastards invested in this. X-Lab is going to be amazing. It’s going to blow everyone in the art world’s mind. I’m talking no one will have seen anything so awesome. There’s nothing like this anywhere in the world. Only experimental stuff will be there—performances, mind-boggling videos, and interactive installations.”

  “Whoa. I love installations, especially the ones where you can climb in and interact with them somehow. They’re like adult playgrounds for the artfully inclined. They bring out the kid in me.”

  “That’s the exact feeling I want people to experience and so much more—joy, thrills, fear, pain, regret, triumph, hope, and anything else.” His eyes glittered with excitement. “I can go on and on about this, but I’d rather just let you see X-Lab for yourself.”

  “Why haven’t you ever done installation art?”

  He shrugged. “It’s difficult. My ideas are too big at times and in the end Al wouldn’t be able to stomach them. However, for this new collection I’ve been working on something. Maybe you’ll be able to help me out with it later. It’s sort of installation art in its grandest sense, bigger than anyone has ever imagined.”

  “I’ve never been involved with any type of art besides different forms of paintings, so this should be interesting. How far have you gotten with your installation?”

  “Pretty far.”

  I waited for him to say more. “That’s it? Pretty far. Come on. Tell me about the process. How does one even do an art installation?”

  “First you have to make a mini model of it to help you plan how it will look and experiment with the size. Once you have the model then. . .” He paused and shook his head. “You know what? It’s better if I just show you everything later. For now let’s focus on tonight.”

  “Your gallery opening?”

  “Yes.” He grabbed my feet and slipped off my shoe. “I want to dress you tonight, too.”

  “Oh goodness. Should I be worried?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Well, if you dress me, then I’ll dress you. What’s the theme?” I relaxed as he massaged the heel of my foot and didn’t even think to ask him why he was doing it. Maybe the glasses of wine finally entered our scene.

  “Theme?”

  “It’s fun to have themes when you do events. My . . . ex-boyfriend and I would come up with a theme and dress like it for an opening, just for fun.”

  “Hmmm.” He kneaded his knuckles against the ball of my foot. “Androgyny. That’s the theme. We’ll combine masculine and feminine features into one look.”

  “My goodness. I meant more like flowers or a particular color—”

  “Too safe. Let’s go with androgyny.”

  Chapter 6

  Alvarez

  Nothing went as scheduled. The shipment of Hex’s Zombie Series never made it to the art museum in Paris. I exhausted close to two hours calling around and searching for it, only to discover that the damn collection still sat in our own warehouse in Florida. Then there was the police. They questioned me longer than I appreciated, combed the property, scared the servants, disturbed the flowers, and put Grandma on edge when they came near her cottage. I ended up walking with them the majority of the time, just so she wouldn’t jump outside and curse them.

  Later I sat through several web conferences of companies hoping to get Hex’s name on their products. One offered to create an entire line of differently shaped paint brushes with his signature on the stick and the bristles dyed in his hairstyle pattern of black and white. Other companies constructed several demo product
s that looked more like trash than profitable objects—Hex dolls, iPod covers done in his Morbid Series, fridge magnets with my brother’s pictures and the ridiculous comments he made to the press, a cartoon where he constantly saved the world with his art while secretly promoting slyly placed consumer products, and the worst of them all, glow in the dark underwear with images of his sculptures plastered over the groin area. I only approved the paint brushes as well as the iPod covers and said no to the rest.

  While sitting on the phone for an auction of Hex’s paintings in Tokyo, I reviewed the house budget for the month. We hired new servants for the party tomorrow night and many more groundskeepers to save the rotting earth. I cringed at the total cost for just one month of all of our living.

  I’ll have to convince Hex to sell this stupid castle. It’s costing us a fortune.

  By the end of my meetings, I raced to my bedroom to shower and change with no time for a nice shot of brandy or a large cup of coffee. I ended up missing the limo ride with Elle, Hex, and Reece to the opening, but thankfully had my own driver get me there a good thirty minutes before the doors opened. It was important for me to see as much of everything as possible before people walked in. Only God knows what Hex could have snuck into the approval process without me noticing.

  Once I arrived at X-Lab, the tension in my shoulders subsided an inch or so while I browsed the interior of the gallery for the first time.

  Not bad. Not bad at all.

  White paint covered the large walls, high ceilings, and floors. This was the perfect space for art. My footsteps echoed through the area. According to the schedule my assistant Reece sent to my phone, all of the participators, investors, and showcasing artists met on the third level in an intimate reception before the gallery doors opened. I rounded the corner toward the installations. They were all on the lower level.

  The first art installation I approached consisted of thousands upon thousands of colorful rope woven into circular patterns and attached by thin wires that connected from the floor to the ceiling. The ropes formed into sort of little swings that seemed to be held up by only the air, but a closer look showed that thin wire was attached. There must’ve been thirty swings hovering over me. A stack of ladders rested on the floor, probably for the audience to set them up, climb to the swings, and enjoy.