Love, Art, and Murder: Mystery Romance

by Kenya Wright

  “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.

  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 mat
ter. 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.”

  “He should be scared. He may have ruined the investigation and—”

  Hex waved his hands. “I didn’t cut anybody’s vaginas.”