The Masterpiecers (Masterful #1) (2 page)

“Is this all?” He points to my duffle bag.

“Yes.”

“I suppose they’re going to be lending you clothes,” he says.

“Yes.” They mentioned it in the exhaustive packet they sent me two weeks ago.

“How was the trip?” he asks.

“Fine.”

He tries to pluck my bag off my shoulder, but I hold on tight.

“It’s not heavy,” I tell him.

We walk through the crowded terminal toward the glass doors.

“First time in New York?” he asks.

I nod.

“You’re going to love it. Supposed to be great weather all week.”

“Don’t think I’ll be getting out much.”

“Right,” he says, just as his phone rings. “Yes…I’ll pick him up too…okay, ma’am.”

He stops and doubles back toward the terminal, signaling for me to follow him.

“Another contestant?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “Woo-hoo! Mister Jackson!”

A man in a tailored suit clutching a rolling black leather case catches sight of him and treads our way. Because he’s on the phone, he greets the driver with a silent nod. He doesn’t greet me, though. But I suppose that a judge can’t greet a contestant, because Brook Jackson is none other than one of the Masterpiecers’ judges.

Brook walks alongside the driver, crossing the car lanes. I follow close behind. We arrive in front of a big black car whose trunk pops open without anyone touching it. The driver sets Brook’s wheelie case in.

“Want to put yours in the back?” he asks me.

That’s when Brook realizes I’m there and finally hangs up. Dark brows pulled together, he slips the phone into the breast pocket of his jacket. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were with us.” He looks at the driver and then down at the sign that carries my name. “Ivy,” he reads out loud. His gaze snaps up to my face. His skin has gone a few shades lighter. He scans the parking lot. “Carl!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get the girl another ride,” Brook says.

“On it.” The driver raises his cell phone to his ear.

“Judges and contestants can’t be seen together! Who was in charge of this planning?” Brook is so loud that a few people stare.

Carl covers the mouthpiece. “Mrs. Raynoir, sir. She told me to pick you up since I was already at the airport.”

Brook shakes his head a great many times, yet his dark hair is gelled back so stiffly, it doesn’t budge.

“Danny, buddy, I got a customer in the parking lot of terminal A,” Carl says. “Needs immediate pickup. You free? Great. Usual spot.”

“This could’ve been a disaster. If the paparazzi—”

“You better get in the car, sir,” Carl says, disconnecting. He tips his head toward two men with large cameras poised in midair. “They’re here.”

Brook lunges into the backseat and shuts the door just as the two men barrel across the busy car lanes toward us. They stop inches away from my face. I can nearly feel the cool glass of their lenses. I hear the
click, click
of the shutters. It mirrors the
blink, blink
of my eyelids. Carl grabs my arm and yanks me away from them just as a black sedan pulls up. He opens the door and pushes me in. Before I’ve even straightened upright, the door closes and the car swerves away.

The new driver is chuckling. “Never loaded up a customer so fast and I’m used to working with stars. Movie stars. Music stars. You name it, I’ve driven it.”

I turn around to look at the paparazzi. Their cameras are aimed at the car.

“They got their money shot, sweets,” he says. “Your pretty little face will be everywhere by tonight.”

“It’s already everywhere.”

He eyes me in the rearview mirror. “Everyone’s been waiting for Lucky Number Eight.”

“Lucky?”

“That’s what the media calls you. Lucky Number Eight. You know…because the person they picked before you was disqualified, and you got the spot.”

“I suppose I did luck out,” I say as we pull up next to a tollbooth.

He lowers his window and hands the woman in the booth a ten dollar bill. As he waits for his change, he turns to peer at me. His hair is gray at the temples and his eyebrows are so bushy, some hairs are curling. “You’re prettier in person.”

“Thank you.”

He spins back toward the toll officer to pocket his change. “So which contestant are you the most worried about?”

“I’m not worried.”

“Confident little thing, huh? And pretty. Got a boyfriend?”

“Not yet.” I pick at a loose thread on my bag and pull on it. It bunches up the seam and finally rips off. I’m left with a small hole which I’ll have to mend…like everything else in my life.

His phone rings. “Yello,” he shouts. “All good, chief. On our way to the Met…yup…ETA is forty-five minutes…you can count on me.”

He pops his phone into the cup holder and shoots the car onto the highway, just missing a yellow cab. He slams on his brakes and hits his horn, insults the taxi driver, and then crosses three lanes in one go. Nauseated, I lower the window and stare out at the crackling blue city looming in the distance.

My bag is on my knees. I don’t shift it to my feet. Instead, I pull it closer to me, because it smells like home, like fabric softener, like Mom. Aster never liked our mother. She reproached her everything: our lack of money, of clothes, of food. But it wasn’t Mom’s fault. She tried her best. Her fingers bled from trying her best.

I caress the wine-colored spot along the seam; a drop of dried blood Mom never had time to wash off.

Chapter Three

Aster

When Ivy left, it hit me that I wouldn’t see her for ten days.
Ten!
I’ve never been apart from my sister for that long. I must look really glum because a woman with red dreadlocks keeps staring at me in the cafeteria. In the past two days, no one has bothered talking to me…which is fine. I don’t feel chatty. Besides, there’s no point in making friends. I’ll be gone soon.

Dreadlocks chews her food and gawks. Frankly, it’s annoying. For a moment, I pretend she’s not there, but it becomes unbearable. I’m about to go off on her when I hear my name called out.

“Aster Redd, you got a visitor.”

A visitor?
I wipe the surprise off my face before Dreadlocks can spot it. Why wouldn’t I have visitors? I know people. I quickly grab my tray, dump the half-eaten contents, and set it on the shelving. Then I stride through the metal detector and past the guard who’s holding the door open for me. I imagine I’m going through a portal that will lead me out of here, but I end up in a sterile corridor irradiated by zinging strips of too-bright neon.

Through the glass door of the visitation area, I can make out Josh’s familiar broad shoulders. When the guard buzzes me through the door, I hurry to where he’s sitting and plop down. He’s dressed in his police uniform and sports dark circles beneath his green eyes.

“Hi,” I say, my voice a little airy from the thrill of seeing him. Even though we’re no longer together, I can’t help my heart from beating faster in his presence. I’ve loved him since we were five and have never stopped, not even after the awful morning six months ago…not even after we decided to take a break from each other.

“Hey.” He scans my face. It practically feels as though he’s touching it.

I shiver. His hands were always so soft, so much softer than mine. Then again, at the pizzeria where I serve and do the dishes, I have my hands in water half the day.

“The chief okayed my involvement.”

I let out a sigh of relief.

“Look”—he takes the little notepad peeking out of his shirt pocket and the tiny ballpoint pen hooked into the spiral binding. It’s the one I bought him when we were still together. The ink tip comes out when you shake it—“I really don’t feel like you’re telling me everything, so let’s go over this again.”

“But I—”

“Just humor me.”

“Fine.” I look down at the chipped edge of the table. “I was counting up tips when this guy walked in to pick up his takeout. Everyone had left.”

“You mean all the customers?”

“I mean
everyone
. I was in charge of locking up.”

“What did he order?”

I fling my gaze back up to his. “A pepperoni pizza.”

His eyes hover over mine. “I dropped by the pizzeria and asked Abby for a receipt. She didn’t find anything. Not even a credit card slip.”

“He paid cash.”

“What about the receipt?”

“It must be there. She must not have looked well.”

Josh rubs the back of his short brown hair. “So he bought a pepperoni pizza…then what?”

“As he was paying, I thought I recognized him from somewhere. It took me a second to realize it was from that file you keep on your desk.”

He sighs and it resonates deep inside his chest. “Which you shouldn’t have seen.”

“But I did. He was a wanted criminal.”

“Granted, but you’re not a detective, Aster.”

“I know, but he was right there.”

“You should’ve called me.”

“I tried.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Aster,” he growls.

“Okay, fine. I didn’t. But that’s only because he was getting into his car. So I locked up fast and got into mine. My cell phone didn’t have any more battery.”

Josh fixes me so intensely that I fold my arms in front of my chest.

“I got him. Isn’t that what matters?” I ask.

“He was wanted alive.”

“He tried to yank me out of the car. I reacted.” My heart’s beating faster, pumping blood that feels like fire through my body. “I didn’t think I’d killed him. It was an accident.”

“Was it?” he whispers loudly.

“Yes! I’m not a murderer, Josh.”

He fixes me as though trying to x-ray my scalp to peer inside my mind. “I got an anonymous tip.”

“An anonymous tip?”

He nods and leans his muscular forearms onto the fake wood table. Josh spends equal time at the gym and at work. For the longest time, I thought he would become a sports coach instead of an officer. “Someone saw you that night. They called in to say a small Honda had a large, bloodied crack in the windshield, and the girl at the wheel was nervous and apparently cold. Covered in some blanket.”

“I admitted I hit a man. And I’m allowed to have been cold. I was in shock.”

“What did the blanket look like?”

“I don’t know. Blue.”

“He said it was multi-colored.”

“It was dark out. He couldn’t have seen.”

“Was it one of Ivy’s quilts?”

I shake my head.

“Where’s the blanket now?”

“Probably still in my car.”

“It wasn’t. I checked.”

“Then someone took it out. Why is this even important? Troy Mann is what’s important.”

He smacks his palms against the table, which makes me jump. It also makes the guard in the corner stop picking at his cuticles to stare at us. The sound reminds me of my mother’s palm colliding with my face, leaving a glaring red imprint that would begin fading just in time for the next slap. “That’s not the point, Aster. You can’t go around killing people.”

My saliva suddenly feels like plaster, thick and dry. “But he was yelling at me. He tried to strangle me.”

“You should’ve driven away,” he says, his tone more sad than angry.

“I would’ve lost him, Josh.”

“I’d rather you lost him. Instead, I—we—might lose you, Aster.”

“I’m right here,” I say, wrapping my hands around his.

“No touching,” the guard snaps.

I glare at him, but let go.

“What happened after you hit him?” Josh asks.

“I drove off.” I smelled the blood through the shattered windshield. “I threw up, so I went home to take a shower.” I swallow. “You know me, I hate blood. Especially since…” I don’t mention the awful morning. Josh was there. He remembers.

He shakes the small pen. The ink tip slides back in. He shakes it again. It slides back out. He does this several more times before asking, “You didn’t take anything from the crime scene, did you?”

I shoot my gaze downward. “No,” I say, peering down at my cracked nails. They’re all so short. Except the one on my right pinky. That one is long and sharp. It’s the only one that never breaks. The one on my left hand is torn off like the others. My pinky nails are like Ivy and me—one’s stronger than the other.

“The police report states there was dirt underneath your nails.”

I ball my hands and burrow them underneath my armpit. “My keys fell in the potted plant by the door, because my hands were shaking. I had to dig them out.”

He eyes me in silence. “Aster…”

His voice is so soft I’m expecting him to tell me he loves me, reassure me that he’s going to get me out, that—

“Tell me the truth.”

“That’s what I’m doing!”

“I know you well enough to know when you’re lying, and you’re lying. I can’t help you if you don’t help me.”

“You never believe me anyway,” I say. My vision is clouding. “You didn’t believe me that morning in the park and you don’t believe me now.” Josh’s face wobbles. The entire room wobbles. There are two, three, four guards. An optical illusion. “This conversation’s over.” I’m about to stand, but Josh grabs my arm and squeezes it.

“It’s not over.”

“Take your hands off me,” I say coolly, since the guard is suddenly totally useless.

“Aster, please…” His voice has dropped to a whisper. “Please…stay. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“Thanks for making them approve the TV channel.”

His overly tanned forehead scrunches up again. He’s going to have skin cancer someday and he’ll deserve it.

I shrug his hand off. Accompanied by the guard, I leave and count the number of footsteps it takes to reach the dayroom and the little screen that will make the next few days bearable.

Chapter Four

Ivy

I haven’t been sleeping much since Aster entered the Indiana Department of Correction, so I doze off in the back of the sedan, which makes me miss my first glimpse of the city. When I wake up, I don’t feel rested, but I don’t feel as horrid as I’ve felt this past week.

I take in Manhattan. The waning sun softens the sharp edges of the buildings. Gray, white, beige, glass, and metal collide in a lovely, linear landscape. I snap a mental picture of everything to reproduce with fabric when I get home…or maybe on the show.