The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “Why not cars?” Lincoln asks.

  “So you can go faster…that’s what I heard at least,” Cara continues, her eyes drifting over our faces.

  “They’re all set. Run the test!” the person from the film crew yells.

  “Ivy’s a go. Chase is a go too. Got audio for Lincoln, but not visual. Bring her over.”

  “Turning off all mics!” someone else shouts as Lincoln is led over to the tech person.

  The assistants disperse, leaving me to stand awkwardly next to Chase. Even though my mic is off, I cover it with my palm and drop my voice to a whisper, “Can’t the show get in trouble?”

  Chase doesn’t bother covering up his device. “They have insurance. Plus it’s all former students of theirs.”

  “Yeah, but still…”

  “Just don’t blow your nose in the tissues,” he says. His lips don’t quiver, yet there’s a tangible hint of humor in his voice.

  “Funny,” I mutter. After a beat, I add, “This is going to be so easy for you, isn’t it? You’ll just strut in there with your keycard and—”

  “Easy?” he says. “Don’t delude yourself, Ivy. It’s not going to be easy…for any of us.”

  “Why did you choose Christie’s then?”

  “Because it’s small, so I’m not going to be hounded by hundreds of curious people like in a museum. I’m not a big fan of crowds.” He stares down at me, his gaze devoid of yesterday’s animosity. If anything he looks drained, even underneath the thin coat of foundation they’ve brushed over his skin. “How’s your sister?”

  “Aster?” I ask.

  “Do you have another sister?”

  I shake my head dumbly.

  “My parents told me yesterday that she’d been hurt in prison.”

  “I haven’t heard from her. No communication, remember?”

  “Right.” He studies me. “You must miss her.”

  I feel freer without her, but I can’t admit that to anyone. I’d sound cruel. As Lincoln and the two other assistants walk back toward us, I say, “Yeah.”

  Cara readjusts my device, tests it again, and then leads us down to the underground parking entrance where three gleaming motorbikes are waiting for us. The drivers hand us bulky black helmets, which we strap on.

  “Ready?” mine asks, his question muffled by his impressive handlebar mustache.

  I nod and hop on, black backpack in place. And then we’re off, and warm air blows into my face and blends into my hair and makes my shirt frills flutter and tickle my collarbone. I close my eyes, not from fear but from delight. The ride is exactly what I need, albeit too short.

  As soon as we’re parked, I take off the helmet and shake out my hair. Amy must have drenched it in leave-in conditioner because it hasn’t tangled.

  “I was told to give you this,” he says.

  It’s a ticket for the museum. Dominic has thought of everything.

  “I’ll wait right here for you,” he adds.

  Gripping the tiny piece of paper, I step through the revolving doors of the Museum of Modern Art, as prepared as I’ll get for the outrageous task. Steal a work of art. Don’t get caught. Don’t damage it.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Aster

  “What do you think they’re going to do?” the nurse asks me for the tenth time as though I could somehow have divined it from Ivy’s facial expression.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her again. “But it’s something she’s not looking forward to.”

  The nurse heaves a sharp sigh. “Man oh man, my blood pressure must be through the roof.”

  There’s a knock on her door. She springs out of her wheelie chair and shuts her laptop. “Lay down,” she mouths.

  I return to the exam table just as another knock resounds.

  She flings the door open and adopts a disgruntled look to mask the flush brightening her cheeks. “This better be important,” she grumbles, “because you woke up my patient.”

  Landry shifts on his work boots and his skin colors. “I’m sorry, Nurse Celia, but I was told to check up on Inmate Redd.”

  “By whom?”

  “Um…by—”

  “Let me guess. Driscoll?” she hisses.

  “No. Actually by Mrs. Pierce. She wants to see Aster. Something about her trial.”

  I perk up at those last words, not mood wise, but physically. I lift myself up on my elbows. “My trial?”

  Landry nods.

  “Am I okay to leave?” I ask Celia.

  “I suppose.”

  “Thank you.”

  “For what?”

  “For treating me like a human being.”

  Her eyes get this sheen about them. “You are a human being. Don’t ever forget that.”

  I follow the young guard down the maze of hallways. The shrink’s door is already open.

  “Come right in,” Robyn says, before exchanging a few quiet words with Landry and shutting the door.

  “I’ve heard you’ve had a strenuous day,” she says, lowering herself into her big armchair and folding one leg over the other. “I also heard that you’ve been asking about suicide.”

  “Who told you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Is it true?”

  “I’ve been discussing it, not asking about it.”

  “Are you thinking about killing yourself?” She holds her pen over her paper, waiting for my answer.

  “No.”

  She sets the meaty part of her hand against the paper.

  “You wanted to discuss my trial?” I ask.

  “I did.” A long pause. “But before we get to that, I have a question for you. Are you aware that your mother is dead?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your mother. She’s dead. She drowned in the pond by the psychiatric home this spring.”

  “On purpose?” I’ve scooted so far forward that I’m teetering on the edge of the cushion.

  “It says she slipped.”

  I snort. “She probably did it on purpose. To get some attention.”

  “Did you know?”

  My eyes burn from the bright sun streaming in. “She’s really gone?”

  “In your file, it says you didn’t attend her funeral.”

  I stare at her face unseeingly. “Why would I attend her funeral?”

  “To say good-bye.”

  “I said good-bye when she was committed. Besides, she wanted to be cremated. Not buried. Ivy had her buried,” I find myself telling her.

  Robyn rises and moves around her office, then returns with a tissue. She dangles it in the air between us. I stare at it. She brings it closer to me. I still don’t take it. “It’s okay to grieve, Aster.”

  “I’m not grieving.”

  She cocks her head to the side and studies my face.

  “Why would I cry for a woman who made me think I was worthless?” I ask her. My eyes are really hot. I shade them with my hand. “Can you draw the blinds? The sun’s in my face.”

  Robyn doesn’t budge for a while.

  “Can you please close the blinds?” I repeat.

  Carefully, she lays the tissue on the couch, shuts the blinds, and switches on her desk lamp. “Better?”

  There’s a lump in my throat. I must be coming down with a cold. I massage the back of my neck. My tendons feel like they’ve been swapped for metal cords.

  Robyn returns to her chair and flips through my folder. “This arrived on my email this morning.” She holds up a printout. “Is this your signature?”

  “I can’t see from here.”

  She comes to sit next to me, places the paper on her lap, and points to the bottom of the page.

  My eyesight is still blurry, so I have to squint to make it out. “Yes.”

  “Why did you sign it?”

  “Why wouldn’t I sign it?”

  “Did you read it?”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a yes or no answer, Aster. Did you read it?”

  “No.”

  “So you
don’t know what you signed?”

  I bristle. “I do. Ivy explained everything. It’s a waiver form. In case anything happened to her while she was on the show.”

  “It’s not a waiver.” She clears her throat. “Let’s read it together, shall we?”

  As she begins, my knees and elbows lock. Then my fingers clench into fists and my lungs close and my veins constrict and my throat clogs up. The only part of me that doesn’t shut down is the only part I wish would: my heart. Instead, each word cleaves it open a little wider. When I start crying, Robyn hands me the tissue.

  Ivy doesn’t care about me.

  Just like my mother never cared about me.

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Ivy

  Unlike the Metropolitan, the Museum of Modern Art is a temple of sleekness and design, all white and glass. For a moment, I forget my mission and stare up and around while hordes of people enter and exit beside me at dizzying speed. No one notices me. They just walk by, their conversations contributing to the din that already resonates against the sharp, smooth surfaces.

  When some teenager bumps into me, I get moving. Keeping my head bowed, I grab a museum map and head over to the ticket entrance. The woman scanning the tickets asks me to unzip my bag. She hooks one long vinyl nail inside and angles a small flashlight to view the contents. Only then does it hit me that I should have stuck something in there…anything. Walking around with an empty backpack is sure to arouse suspicion. Sweat beads on my upper lip. I don’t dare swipe it off. I just hold my breath until she lets go.

  As I start walking away, she says, “Hey, you.”

  Surely she doesn’t mean me. I take a few more steps.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you.”

  She does mean me. I freeze and close my eyes. I’m going to get disqualified because of an empty backpack. I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or depressed. In slow motion, I turn around.

  “Wear the bag on your stomach.” She pats her belly. Maybe she thinks I’m foreign…or stupid. I do feel stupid.

  I switch the straps to the front as she moves on to the next person. The absurdity of the whole situation exacerbates the anxiety rising within me, to the point where I let out a bark of laughter. I slap my palm in front my mouth to stifle the giggling that ensues while I check my museum map.

  The second floor is the one allocated to temporary exhibitions, so I head up the escalators, still smiling like an idiot. I walk through three galleries before I find the one with the painted silk tissues. They’re larger than I thought, but also wispier, practically transparent in spite of the splashes of paint. When I see that they’re just lying there, haphazardly on the floor with no barriers around them, I am filled with renewed hope. This is going to be a breeze. I walk around them first, scanning the room to locate the security guards. There’s only one in this gallery, and he’s sitting in a folding chair by the entrance, looking bored out of his mind. I turn sideways and pretend to be captivated by a painting on the wall.

  Still facing the painting, I pull one arm out of my backpack so that it hangs off one of my shoulders, then I pivot around and approach the silk tissues. Earlier, I counted five, but there are only four on the ground. I find the fifth wedged in some man’s hand. I’m expecting an alarm to resound or the guard to yell, but nothing happens. When I glimpse a second person doing the exact same thing, I realize that handling them is permitted. So I bend over and pick one up too. As I twirl it around in false admiration, a man snaps a picture of me.

  “You’re that girl,” he says way too loudly.

  A woman jumps in front of him and screams, “It’s Ivy Redd! In the flesh! Oh…my…God!” She fans her face, which is flushed all the way to her hairline.

  Her exclamation and hyperventilation attract more attention. Soon the entire room gapes at me, while more people pour in from adjacent galleries. The security guard jolts out of his chair and begins weaving himself through the gathering crowd.

  “Back off,” he says, arms fanned out wide as though the rubberneckers were dry leaves he could just rake away.

  Arms shoot up with cell phones. Everyone is trying to snap a picture of me.

  “Let me get you out of here,” the guard tells me, after warning onlookers to step back…again.

  I can’t leave with him. “I’m okay,” I say, as my hand drops to my side and gathers the tissue in a ball. I discreetly coax the zipper up with my thumbnail to create a small opening and stuff my fist inside. Trembling, I release the fabric along with the breath I’m holding. No one has noticed anything since I’m standing behind the guard. I strap on a wide smile and raise my voice, “Who wants an autograph?”

  A chorus of me rings through the small gallery.

  “I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the guard says, but I brush past him and grab an outstretched pen and notebook.

  I hadn’t planned on a mob, but now that there is one, I’ll use it to my advantage. As I sign my name, I scan the ground. I spot bright silk just a foot away. I make the pen slide out of my clammy hand. Before anyone else can retrieve it, I squat to grab it and seize the tissue.

  “Who’s next?” I ask, making sure my grin stays intact in spite of my galloping heartbeat.

  While I sign my name, the fingers of my other hand gather the silk in a tight ball. A woman approaches me with her phone.

  “So what’s the test?” she asks me. I guess she must be filming.

  “Aha,” I say, with a giant smile. I approach the camera so it won’t pick up on my hand snaking into my bag. “It’s a secret.” I raise a steady finger to my lips and add a theatrical wink.

  The crowd goes absolutely wild.

  Amid the anarchy, a little girl pulls on the frayed hem of my shorts, large eyes raised toward me. “Can I get your autograph, ma’am?” she asks, extending a Barbie diary.

  “Of course,” I say.

  I glimpse another square of blue-green sticking out from underneath a teenager’s sneakers. Praying it isn’t damaged, I make my way toward it. Sandwiched between so many people, bending over is impossible, so I pretend to stumble. I catch my balance on the teenager, making her shift off the silk.

  “Sorry,” I say as I pull one foot out of my crystallized loafer and hook my toes around the silk. I deposit it in my shoe, then jam my foot back inside.

  “That’s fine,” she says, flushed with excitement. “More than fine. I don’t think I’ll ever wash again.”

  As she gushes to all of her friends about our run-in, I locate my fourth target. I repeat my circus act with the right foot. When it’s safely stuffed inside my shoe, I exhale again.

  One to go.

  More security guards have arrived and are pushing their way through the crowd toward me. My heart pumps so frenziedly that my veins bulge with blood. The one zigzagging down my arm sticks out abnormally. I snap my gaze away from my skin and desperately search the ground for the last tissue. My luck is going to run out. I can feel it like you can feel ants crawling over your skin. Sweat bleeds down my neck into my shirt collar, gluing it to my rapidly rising chest.

  “Move,” one of the guards orders.

  Thankfully, no one listens to him. He begins to shove people backward. That’s when I see it…the last tissue. It’s still clutched in the man’s fist—the one who sighted me—and rests limply against his thigh. I lunge over to him. With one hand, I wheedle the tissue out; with the other, I pry his fingers open and move the pen over his palm to draw my name in loopy letters. He’s so stunned, he doesn’t notice the handkerchief is gone, just like he didn’t notice he was still holding it.

  I raise the pen in the air real high. “Whose is this?” I exclaim.

  Three people shout, “Mine!”

  The silk bunched in my shoes makes it hard to walk normally, so I choose the person closest to me, a pimply-faced middle-schooler surrounded by two other nerdy boys. As I stick the pen behind his ear, I drop a kiss on his suppurating cheek. Our two bodies’ proximity hides my fist rocketing into the bac
kpack. I don’t bother tugging the zipper closed because the opening isn’t gaping and the bag is black—no one can see the colorful installation nestled inside.

  One of the guards grips my upper arm. His expression is so stern that I think I’ve been made. I’m sure of it, actually.

  “That’s it. You’re a security risk. I can’t even believe you were allowed to come here! The museum director is going to give Mister Bacci hell!” He’s livid now. “You’re going to go back to your little competition and tell him he’s to expect a phone call. And if any artwork has been damaged, he should expect a bill along with that call.”

  As he drags me back to the escalator, I realize he has no clue what I was sent here to do and find myself grinning.

  “You think it’s funny?” he growls.

  “No. Of course not. I’m sorry it got out of hand.”

  “Sorry?” He snorts while shaking his big head.

  He hauls me across the lobby. At one point, my foot begins to slip out of my shoe, so I shove the rubber toecap into the ground. I nearly trip, but at least my foot shoots back into place.

  When we’re out on the pavement, the guard stares around. “What the—?” he mutters, releasing me. The crowd is denser out here than it was inside, as though the whole city was alerted to my whereabouts.

  “Back inside,” the security guard says. “We’ll go out another entrance.”

  He grabs my arm again, but I shrug him off, scanning the crowd more intently. If only I knew my driver’s name. Like a mirage, he materializes in front of me, elbowing his way through the mass of bodies.

  “Grab on to my waist,” he says, and I do, and I don’t let go until we’ve reached his gleaming black bike.

  I plop the helmet on my head and straddle the motorcycle, the backpack flush against my stomach.

  “Hang on,” he says, revving up the engine.

  The euphoria swirling through me is so great that I squeeze the roaring, sun-warmed frame between my thighs and experience the high of a lifetime. That’s not to say I’m changing profession to become a world-class crook, but I understand the thrill. It feels as though I’ve cheated death.