“Her mentor was on the property, right? Did he know what she was going to do?”
“He was here, but he never knew she would kill herself.”
Hex pulled out three more figurines of women I didn’t recognize. “This is Broseli. She was dying of cancer. The doctors gave her less than a month to live. She chose to die her way. Trudy is right here. Five years ago, she lost her whole family in a plane crash as they were flying to one of her events. I mean everybody--parents, husband, kids, and an aunt. They were on her private plane when it happened. She never got over it.”
“And the last one?”
“I don’t know why she did it. She never told me much about her life. I’d invited her for some of her famous video art collections. You’ll never hear of them. They were all banned in pretty much any country that matters.”
“Why?”
“She killed animals in most and—”
“I don’t want to hear anymore.” I sighed. “Okay. So you have five more mini-dolls in the box. That means five more women are going to kill themselves?”
“Yes. Which is why I don’t want Al knowing about this. He’ll want to stop it.”
“Of course he would. This is wrong.”
“How is it wrong?”
“If someone says they want to kill themselves, you don’t say cool, let’s make it art. How can I help you do it? You try to get them help. You pray for them or—”
“All of that has been done. I’m giving them what they want.”
“No, you’re not. You’re doing this for yourself.”
“No. I’m not.”
“You are.” I pointed at him. “If any art gallery shows this--and that’s a big if--it will be huge. This will go down in history. Art schools will discuss it, whether in a good or bad way, they’ll study it. Psychologists will probably jump on this, and any other social scientists. You and your group will be famous.”
He grinned. “Well, I did think of that. We all did, in fact.”
“This isn’t funny, Hex. You’re letting people kill themselves for art.”
“I don’t see the problem if they want to do it.”
How can I get through to him? How can I stop those other five women from dying?
“You’re acting just like your dad, but in a different way,” I said. “You’re killing women for immortality. Your name will be out there forever in the art world. In the end, that’s all it is.”
“Their names will be there, too.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. People will wonder about the women for probably the first ten or twenty years, but after a while the ones who died will be insignificant to the one who presented it all. The genius artist who got them all together will be known and remembered.”
“No.” He shook his head and put his thumb back in his mouth. “You’re wrong.”
“Who are the other five girls?”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t want them to kill themselves. I don’t want the police to exhaust even more of their time to this freaking case when they have real cases out there to solve. I don’t want everyone on this property, especially the women, to walk around scared out of their mind, wondering if a serial killer is standing next to them. And I don’t want Alvarez to continue to overwork himself to save more women. This is wrong.”
“So you’re going to tell Alvarez?”
“How can I not?”
He got in front of the tiny electronic display I’d seen earlier with all the multicolored buttons. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
He pressed the red button on the right.
The metal floor under me opened up. I fell through, screaming the whole time. Hex dropped along with me. The button must have controlled the entire floor. I crashed into the ground. Dirt rose all around me. I coughed as it got into my mouth. Pain licked up my whole body. I didn’t think I broke anything, but I was sure I would be sore for a while. Something crashed above us. I looked up to see the metal floors slam together.
“No!” I rushed up to a standing position and tried to jump up to stop the floors. It was too late of course. Darkness filled the space. I limped around and extended my hands to see if I could touch anything in the dark.
“Elle, are you okay?” Hex asked.
“Where the hell are we? Where are you?”
“Hold on. There’s a light switch around here. Just give me a minute to find it.” A boom sounded, and then another. Finally the light turned on to reveal a thumb-sucking Hex with a few dots of blood dripping from his forehead. The whole area was gray metal around a dirt ground. “Okay. There is a sliding door here on the right for the main facilities. I have to check my forehead. . .”
He swayed and tripped over his own feet. The back of his head slammed into the wall. “Oh God!”