Love, Art, and Murder – Mystery Romance

“No.” She waved me away. “I spilled chemicals all over the area. It’s bad luck to grow fruits and vegetables where someone died on the soil. It needs to be burned and prayed over before the soil is fit to bear fruit again.”

“So you figured you could kill two birds with one stone?”

“Yes. Burn everything with my liquids. Tell you and Hex the gods did it so you both would finally listen to me for once.”

“Do you realize that your meddling had us running around on a goose chase?”

She raised her hands in the air. “Don’t blame me. I didn’t tell women to kill themselves here. I only work with the cards I’m dealt. Besides, all of this discussion started because you were thinking about Dayanara.”

“Yes. I think Hex was going to have the last five women be discovered by Dayanara. Granted, she isn’t there right now, but he could have never guessed that part. Plus, he figured out a way to mess with the security cameras before. I’m sure he could’ve done something to Dayanara’s cameras.” I headed for the staircase. “Could you have some guards rush upstairs for me?”

“Al, I’m coming too.”

“Fine, but come with the guards, and don’t forget to get rid of that poisoned cheese and meat.”

“It’s not poisoned. It—”

“Needs to go in the trash.” I raced up the first flight of stairs, heading to the attic floor where I hoped to find five women still alive.

Chapter 29

Elle

We watched it all unfold on Hex’s cameras. Alvarez figured everything out and each time he came closer to a clue, Hex beamed with pride. It all would’ve been so adorable and breathtaking if not for me being trapped in a smelly metal room and Alvarez rushing to the attic where, on the third television screen, five women lay on the floor. The women had gone up there an hour earlier, right when Hex had walked me back to the studio to talk. The whole time Hex knew they would be heading to the attic while we strolled in the opposite direction. A month ago, Hex had gotten one of his video artists a security job where he managed the cameras. They’d been jamming and messing with them for the past hour.

I’d watched the girls die, one by one. They lay next to each other, murmuring nothing, not words or a last prayer. They just gave each other a knowing look and minute by minute life left them. Hex watched with an unnerving fascination. It was like he was addicted to it. He even went as far as zooming the cameras in to each of their eyes.

That was the worst part.

I couldn’t look away. The humane part of me said, close your own eyes, turn around, and give these women peace. The darker side kept my gaze on the women, searching for death to make its appearance known.

It reminded me of when I was a teenager and my cousin had a baby. I watched her a few times when my cousin worked. I remember looking into the tiny girl’s eyes and seeing God curved around her pupils. Innocence and purity flickered within the child’s irises.

“This must be what it feels like to see God,” I’d said out loud to the child and she smiled, probably seeing God all around her and confirming the truth for us both.

That was the only time in my life I’d witnessed the true power of God. Until the moment I watched these girls die. I could see the essence of themselves slip away, but it wasn’t horrific. It was. . . hauntingly beautiful. Peaceful, even.

I didn’t like that I found their deaths enchanting.

How sick did that make me?

“When Alvarez walks into my mother’s old bedroom to find the bodies, then the locks in this room should work as well as the phone.” Hex’s words interrupted my thoughts as he grabbed a water bottle with his name written on the surface and drank it. We’d found some pain medicine and since then he’d stopped complaining about his hurts. However, I was certain he’d broken something. “My man in the video room will turn on the operating system down here to make everything work.”

“So what if Alvarez was the one trapped in here, then when would the guy have pressed the button?”

“Whenever anybody found the girls.”

“But you did want your family to discover the bodies, right?”

“Yes. Just like Alvarez said. They needed to be shocked into living. What better way to shock them, but with a corpse?”

“There are hundreds of ways to shock people, but I doubt you would have had it any other way.”

“Exactly.” He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes.

“Who’s penis is in the jar?”

That question snapped his eyes back open. “Mine. Why?”

“Why?” I almost laughed at the absurdity of him being shocked that I asked. “Because it’s a penis in a jar!”