The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1)

by Olivia Wildenstein

  “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.”
<
br />   “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?”

  His lips perk up in a smile. “Because you’re an intimidating girl, and I’ve never felt intimidated before.” His eyes grind into mine. “I thought that if I helped you, somehow I’d stop feeling threatened.”

  “Did it work?”

  “It did. But it wasn’t until our conversation at Brook’s place that I managed to humanize you.”

  “Humanize me? What did I say that made me so human?”

  “You told me about your dream of living off your quilts, about your imperfect relationship with your sister, and I understood that you had all these insecurities, and for some reason, that reassured me.”

  “And it made you like me?”

  A corner of his mouth lifts. “Oh, I already liked you. It just made me think I stood a chance.”

  I tilt my head to the side to observe him. “This isn’t some ploy to distract me so that I lose tomorrow?”

  Laughter ripples out of his mouth. “No. No ploy.”

  “Oopsy”—Lincoln hiccups—“did I interrupt something?” She’s standing by the opening of my tent, clutching a bottle of champagne.

  “Please go away, Lincoln, and take your bottle of champagne with you,” I tell her.

  She sticks out her lower lip. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow. I didn’t want to spend my last night in here alone.”

  “Why don’t you go find my brother?”

  “Your brother’s the reason it’s my last night.”

  “Huh?”

  “Someone caught us making out on camera and leaked it on the Internet. Probably someone from the film crew.”

  “But your chair broke,” I say.

  “No it didn’t. They just said it did to eliminate me.”

  I blink.

  “Yeah, Ivy, you didn’t win tonight because you were better than me—because you’re not—you won because Dom said it was conflictual or conflicting or something like that.” She takes a swig of the champagne.

  Chase walks toward her. I think he’s about to leave, but instead he stops in front of her and squares his shoulders. “You should go back to your room, Lincoln.”

  She pokes his chest. “You’re not my mommy, Chase.”

  He swipes her finger off. “And give me the bottle before you get yourself sick.”

  She swings her hand out of his reach. “Okay, Mommy,” she teases.

  He tries to grab it from her, but she lifts her arm higher. The bottle slips and falls on the floor, but doesn’t shatter. Instead, it spills champagne everywhere. She bends over and grabs it.

  “Goodnight, you two,” she singsongs as she finally turns to leave. “And congratulations in advance, Chase, for your win tomorrow.”

  Once my tent flap settles, I ask, “Is it true?”

  “You deserved to win. Your performance was—”

  “But is it true?”

  “Is anything she says true?” he asks, grabbing some tissues from the nightstand to clean up the spilled champagne.

  “Don’t worry. I’ll do it,” I say, crouching down beside him. The towel begins unraveling, but I catch it.

  Chase sits back on his heels, his eyes stuck to the flash of thigh he’s just gotten. “I never thought I’d be thankful toward Lincoln for anything,” he says, his tone light.

  I shove him and the towel comes undone again. This time, he catches it. Instead of peeling it off my body, he tucks the hem back between my breasts, letting his fingers linger there. Then he leans forward and deposits the sweetest kiss on my lips. And I forget about the bad blood between us, but I don’t forget that he’s still my opponent, and that tomorrow—like Lincoln said—he’ll most probably defeat me and that’ll be the end of us…

  Of this…

  Of me.

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Aster

  The pink tank is a padded cell painted bright pink. It’s supposed to be soothing. It’s not. I hate pink. The color gives me hives and I begin scratching my skin. Soon, it glows brighter than the walls. And not long after, I manage to draw blood.

  I pace the cell and think of my sister and Brook and Josh and Troy and the package. Why couldn’t I remember the name sooner?

  “What happened to your arms?” I hear someone ask. It’s Landry.

  I rush to the gate and wrap my fingers around the bars. “I need to get out of here. Please.”

  “I, uh…I’ll go get the nurse.”

  I nod enthusiastically. Celia will help me. She’ll take pity on me. After he leaves, I strain to hear footsteps resound through the narrow hallways, but the minutes tick by and still no one shows.

  I begin pacing again. And scratching. The blood under my jagged nails has turned a rusty shade of brown by the time the nurse arrives. Instead of flashing me a kind smile, Celia’s face contorts into a grimace.

  “Landry, walk her to my office,” she says. “I need to bandage her arms.”

  Landry cuffs me.

  “Why—I don’t need these. Nurse Celia, can you please tell him I don’t need to be restrained?”


  She doesn’t.

  In silence, we make our way to her office. There’s a spot of blood on the paper covering her exam table. That’s why she was late. She was treating another patient. She gathers the soiled sheet, balls it up, and chucks it into the bin, then rolls out a fresh one. Landry removes the cuffs so I can climb onto the exam table. I’m half-expecting Celia to kick him out, but she doesn’t. She brings over a metal kidney tray filled with cotton swabs, antiseptic, and a roll of gauze.

  “Right arm,” she says.

  I give it to her. Gaze cast downward, she cleans it and assesses the damage, trades the gauze for a few Band-Aids, and pastes them on.

  “Left arm.”

  “Are you mad at me?” I ask her.

  She peers up at me through her yellow bifocals, but still doesn’t speak.

  My breath hitches. “You are.”

  Landry stares out the window, but I know he’s listening.

  “Why?” I ask.

  Still she doesn’t say anything. At least not to me. “Landry, you may bring her back wherever she needs to go.”

  “Not to the pink tank…please.” My voice comes out as a hoarse whisper as the officer approaches the exam table. “Can I go to the dayroom? It’s my sister’s last day.”

  “I’m not sure you deserve to go watch TV right now,” Celia says.

  I gasp. “Why are you being so mean to me?”

  “Me? Mean? I’m not the one blaming some poor girl of forcing herself on me. Gill tried to take her life. She was so embarrassed by your accusations that she cut her wrist on the prison fence,” she says. “I tried to see the good in you, Aster, but in here”—she pounds her fist against her heart—“there’s too much bad.”

  I squash my lips together to stop them from quivering.

  “Take Inmate Redd away. I have work to do.”

  The handcuffs dangle from his hands.

  “I’ll cooperate, but no cuffs,” I say.

  Landry glances at Celia who’s wheeled herself behind her desk and is typing something on her laptop. “Okay,” he says softly. “But don’t try anything.”

  I lower myself to the ground, and, hunched over, walk docilely out of the infirmary and away from the only person who didn’t hate me in this prison.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  “Back to your cell.”

  I stop in my tracks. “No. To the dayroom…I need to see my sister.”