Love, Art, and Murder – Mystery Romance
“What’s wrong?” One held a gun. Another talked into his cell phone.
“I have to talk to Alvarez immediately. It might be nothing at all.” The cut penis in the jar flashed in my head. “But just in case, I have to talk to him right now.”
The guards exchanged glances, but followed me as I rushed out of the studio.
“Everything okay?” Hex’s voice sounded from the tree nearest the studio’s opening.
I held my shaking hand over my eyes to shield the sun and looked up in that direction. “What are you doing up there?”
“Why were you screaming in my studio?” He hopped down from the tree. “How long have you been in there?”
“I-I just went in there to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” He came close.
“Mr. Castillo, we need you to keep your distance from her, please.” My largest guard got between us.
Hex laughed and tucked a few of his black and white strands behind his ear. “What? Why? What’s going on?”
“I need to talk to your brother.” I didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, I hurried along to the castle.
“What’s going on?” Hex called back.
I glanced over my shoulder to see him following me and my pack of guards.
“Elle, why are you saying goodbye?” Hex asked. “We’re not done with the collection yet.”
“I think it’s too unsafe here.” I swung the front door open and headed to the center staircase. A few maids vacuumed the thick carpet near the entrance.
“But you’ll be fine. You’re not in any danger.”
“How do you know that?”
Do I even want to know how you know that? Are you involved with these crazy murders, Hex?
He’d tried to sell me on the whole incident being paranormal. Was that what he hoped for? His grandma was surely convinced. Not me. Not when a model of a dead girl lay in his box. I didn’t know what the other four girls looked like, but I’ll bet they were in the box, too.
Or maybe you’re over thinking this all? Patricia and Hex were good friends who worked together on projects. It could’ve just been a project. But then how would he explain the severed penis? Was that art too? Whose penis was it? Why would someone have that in their room, especially when the killer carved out the dead girls’ vaginas?
I climbed the stairs. Footsteps pounded behind as the guards and Hex tumbled along after me.
“Where are you going?” Hex asked.
“To talk to your brother.”
“About what?”
“None of your business.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I rounded the corner on the second flight and marched toward Alvarez’s office, praying he was in there.
“Wait, Elle. Hold on.” Hex attempted to grab my arm. I jumped out of his reach. The guards grabbed him. He struggled to wrestle his skinny arms away from them. “Get off me! Are you all crazy?”
“Hex, just let me talk to your brother.”
“About what?”
“Why does it matter?”
“Because you were screaming in my studio. That’s why. So whatever you have to say it’s about the stuff in there. Am I wrong?”
I paused and crossed my arms over my chest. “What would be in there to make me scream?”
“I don’t know.”
I met his nervous gaze with a confident one. “Well, then you have nothing to worry about.”
“Fuck you, Elle.”
“Fuck me? Really?” I held my hands out and turned around to leave.
“Wait! Please, don’t tell him. Please, Elle.”
The two guards continued to hold Hex, but it seemed they relaxed their grasp on him.
“What?” I faced him.
“You have your guards right here.” He gestured with his head at each guard, since his arms were in their grasp. “Let’s go back to my studio so I can explain it all.”
“Explain what?”
“Don’t act stupid. I know you went in the other room. That’s the only thing that would have made you freak out.”
“Why don’t you explain it to Alvarez?”
“He won’t understand. He’ll try to stop it before it’s done. I can’t let that happen. I won’t let people die for nothing. They believed they died for something. I won’t take it away from them.”
I stepped his way. “Hex, what are you talking about?”
“Just give me some time.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wait until it’s done.”
“What?!”
He closed his mouth.
“Hex?”
Alvarez’s door opened. He directed his gaze to me and then to Hex. “What’s going on out here? It sounds like you’re arguing.”
I looked at Hex, waiting for him to step in and make sense of all the things he’d babbled. I didn’t understand what he wanted from me, besides to be silent on what I’d discovered in his studio, but I couldn’t. Not when women died around us. If any of that stuff was directly linked to the murders, then someone had to know. And what the hell would he need a jar full of a penis in his room for? What would he use that for? Whose penis was it?
“Elle? Hex? What’s going on?” Alvarez stepped out and came close to me, filling my space with his scent and reminding me why I’d been avoiding him these past hours.