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.”

“But you did the rest?” Alvarez raised his eyebrows.

“What? No. I-I. . .” Hex turned to me as if I could save him, when I was really hoping to hear the answer myself.

A skinny blonde woman walked down the hallway towards us. We all became quiet.

“Yes, Vivian.” Alvarez turned to her. “How can I help you?”

Tags: Kenya Wright Mystery
Source: readsnovelonline.net