A Beautiful Lie (Unlocked #1) Read online

But how could my father truly be capable of something so terrible? There must be a misunderstanding. Watchtower’s lack of hard evidence about anything, other than some letters they found years ago and loosely tied coincidences, was in some ways reassuring.

  “Whatever I can do to help,” I said. “But you have to work around my schedule.”

  The prospect of dropping in on my long-lost father, who was under investigation for God knows what kind of crimes, was overwhelming. Yet, being with Luke made me feel differently than I ever had with anyone else. In some ways, in the back of my mind, I knew he was always there watching out for me.

  “I’ll help you with your bags,” he volunteered when we pulled into the parking garage. As we made the trip upstairs, I found the confidence that I had made the right decision returning there. There was nothing left for me back at the loft.

  “Luke,” I said, when he turned to leave after dropping my bags inside. He turned back, his kind eyes resting on me. I walked toward him, until our bodies were closer than they’d ever been. I stood on the tips of my toes, wrapped my arms around his neck and hugged his broad body into mine. “Thank you.”

  Hesitant at first, he relaxed and returned the embrace. His body heaved a heavy sigh, as he wrapped his arms around my waist and pulled me into him. I lost my breath with each centimeter of space that disappeared between our bodies.

  He moved his lips to my ear and whispered, “For what?”

  Upon feeling his hot breath on me, a shiver encased the entire length of my body. “For not giving up on me.”

  He drew me into his chest even closer, until it felt like we were one unit. The familiar scent of him calmed me. In a few short days he’d gone from stranger to my protector, and I was grateful to have him near me.

  “I’m not allowed to give up on you. It’s my job not to give up on you.”

  His words stung, and I recoiled from him. His job. That’s all this was to him. Of course it was. It was a crazy notion anyways, getting to close to him.

  “Well, thanks for your help tonight.”

  “I’m glad you asked for it. You know where to find me if you need anything.”

  Even though he was only going a few floors down, I didn’t want him to go away. I searched my mind for an excuse to get him to stay, but came up blank.

  “Goodnight, Luke.”

  “Goodnight.”

  13

  Luke

  “Lucas!” My mother’s shrill voice filled the entire small walk-up. I peeked my head out of my bedroom, only to find her standing across the hall in the bathroom with curlers in her hair and a burning cigarette hanging from her lips. She removed it when I appeared. “Uncle Ted will be over in fifteen minutes.” She put her compact down on the counter and walked to where I stood.

  I had more uncles than one might expect for a six-year-old whose only blood relative was his mother. In fact, every man who entered our place was inevitably tagged with that label.

  Uncle Ted.

  Uncle Dean.

  Uncle Isaiah.

  Uncle Javier.

  And so on. The list was endless and ever-changing.

  “Can you promise me you’ll stay in your room like a good boy and play quietly with your toys?” She smiled and nodded, answering for me. Her floral perfume almost knocked me out when she pulled me in for a hug. “I know I can count on you to behave,” she whispered.

  When she turned to leave, she closed my bedroom door behind her, a warning to follow the rule she had set. Instead of returning to my miniature cars, I sat in front of the door. Leaning my ear against the wood, I closed my eyes and listened to the sounds of my mother getting ready for her date.

  Fifteen minutes came and went with no sign of Uncle Ted. Not to worry, this was normal behavior for him. He was perpetually late and my mother knew it. My eyes grew heavy with fatigue as my body adjusted to the realization that dinner would not be served that evening. My mother had forgotten again, as was common when the uncles paid us a visit. Before long, I gave in to sleep, curling up against the door and allowing myself to drift away.

  When I opened my eyes again, hours later, the sky outside my small window was pitch black. The only sounds I heard were the blowing of the trees outside and the low hum of the television my mother had probably forgotten to switch off again.

  I grabbed my stomach, aching with hunger. Even though my mother had made me promise to stay in my room, I wouldn’t be able to rest until I ate. I twisted the door handle with slow trepidation. My small bare feet carried me down the hallway toward the living room. I drank in the sight of my mother slumped over the ottoman, a mirror containing a line of white powder discarded beside her. An infomercial was running on the television, advertising an all-purpose miracle cleaner.

  Uncle Ted was nowhere to be seen.

  With even more discretion, I tiptoed into the kitchen. The moment I rounded the corner, I came face to face with Uncle Ted, seated alone at the table refilling his glass of liquor. He was round and short, a bald patch taking up real estate in the center of his head. He looked me up and down, and his eyes appeared to be as hungry as I was.

  “What you want?” he asked, sipping from his glass. I glanced over my shoulder to where my mother was passed out, worried the heaviness of his voice would wake her. “Don’t worry, she ain’t waking up,” he continued. His face was flushed red as his thick fingers cradled the glass.

  My words were escaping me. Instead of explaining that I needed to eat something, I just shook my head. Perhaps it was child’s foresight into what would occur over the following twenty minutes, or simply momentary confusion.

  “We ought to get you back to bed, son.” He stood up, his massive belly protruding over his belt. Before I could protest, his hand was on my shoulder, guiding me back toward my room. Tears welled in my eyes as he held me with one hand and loosened his belt buckle with the other. He closed the door behind us, sliding the belt out of the loops of his jeans.

  Finally, unbuttoning the top button of his pants, Uncle Ted whispered in the dark, “I’m gonna need you to be real quiet.”

  I swerved sharply to the right to avoid hitting the median on the highway. Ever since my visit to Mindy’s, the memories had been flooding back to me. Any attempt I made at sleep rendered me disabled with anxiety, and the urge to find something stronger than alcohol was growing.

  Still, as the rest of the team worked to get the apartment across the street from the Jasper set up, I had my own work to attend to. I’d barely had time to glance at the twice-daily activity reports that Carter sent me. Their next instruction was to get their hands on a floor plan of the Jasper. If we were really going to send Nina into the hornet’s nest, she wouldn’t go in completely blind.

  But for two days I ran into one wall after another trying to track down the families of the missing girls. The only official missing persons case to be filed with the police had been by Mindy’s family. The other girls seemed to have just vanished. I spent the entire morning calling families only to find they wouldn’t agree to meet with me, or hung up the moment I mentioned their daughter’s name. My last shot for the day required a visit out to the Jersey Shore. A new tactic couldn’t hurt, and I prayed that Jessi Reid’s parents were more likely to talk to me if I was standing on their front step.

  My hopes fizzled the moment I pulled up to a dilapidated apartment building a quarter mile from the shore. I silently hoped that it would smell like fresh laundry and candles inside, but looking at the exterior, I didn’t get my hopes up.

  Even though I could taste the salt in the sea air, I was a world away from the fun family entertainment of the boardwalk. On the far end, the siding had separated from the building, and a window in an apartment on the top floor was boarded shut. The interior wasn’t much better, with faded wallpaper and a dangerous-looking staircase I thanked God I didn’t have to ascend.

  At least there were no detectable aromas.

  I banged my fist three times on the door of number three. Moments later t
he door cracked open.

  “Yeah.” A woman’s raspy voice commanded me to speak.

  “Hi, uh…I’m looking for Mr. and Mrs. Reid.” In the dark of the hall, I could barely make out the iris of the single eye staring up at me.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m trying to find your daughter, Jessi.”

  “You got the wrong place.” The door slammed shut in my face. Desperate, I knocked on the door again. This time there was no answer. What the hell was going on that none of these families seemed at all concerned, or excited at the prospect of finding their missing child?

  Even though I was more than confident that I did in fact have the right residence for the Reid family, I retreated to my car. For a brief moment, I considered the amount of time it would take me to drive to the boardwalk, find a bar, and get blackout drunk.

  Saved by the bell. My phone lit up with a new alert on Tomas Perrot.

  Perrot Exhibit Announced! Tickets on sale NOW!

  Without even thinking, I pulled up the site to buy a ticket. Blood coursed through my veins, urging me to type in the payment details faster. The echo of the article acknowledging how fast tickets sold out buzzed in my mind.

  Your confirmation number is: 3988070801

  At least something had gone my way that day. It wasn’t until I opened the confirmation email that I realized the tickets were for that nine o’clock that evening. I had to figure out what Nina’s relationship to this Perrot guy was. My mind swarmed with possibilities the entire drive home. Was it possible that I was reading too much into this? Or was he the boyfriend she’d made mention of during dinner?

  On one hand, maybe they really were just friends and he had just been giving her a place to live until she saved enough for her own apartment. On the other hand, famous people don’t typically invite the outside in. Either way, if Nina was in attendance at the show, I had to make sure she didn’t see me.

  It didn’t take me long to find out. At quarter to nine that evening, I walked up to the small, red brick warehouse in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. On any other day, I would have written it off as just another decaying building going to waste in one of the country’s most competitive real estate markets. But that evening, a long line snaked around the corner. I made my way to the back of the line, behind a group of twenty-somethings who were cloaked in various shades of plaid. The entire scene buzzed with camera flashes and news trucks. The new exhibit was certainly the talk of the town.

  While I waited, I surveyed the exterior of the building, expecting some sort of signage welcoming people to the show. But there was nothing. Judging by the way the crowd whispered amongst themselves, nobody had any details about the show.

  “I heard he’s reusing Madeleine Dwyer as his muse,” a girl from the group in front of me suggested to her friends. Madeleine had starred in Perrot’s first and most successful exhibit, the Forgotten series. I’d come across the images during my research into the artist and, as much as it bugged me to do so, I had to acknowledge that the man had rare talent.

  Finally, the line started moving. The anticipation grew with each step. So far I hadn’t seen Nina anywhere in line, thank God. I supposed as a close, personal friend of Perrot she might have skipped the line entirely.

  “Ticket?” an older gentleman dressed in a dark suit asked at the door. I withdrew the ticket I’d printed at home and handed it to him. Nodding, he stepped aside and let me in. I followed the group I’d been behind in line through a dark, narrow hallway. The sounds of ambient trance music filtered to us from wherever we were walking toward. The erratic syncopation of the track made me grow more anxious with each step. Finally, we spilled into open, dark space. The room was only illuminated by strategically placed spotlights that called attention to each piece of art.

  Holy fuck.

  Hanging on the wall, in the middle of the space, was one such focal point – an oversized painting of Nina stripped nude and bound to a tree. Blood trickled down her breasts and abdomen, and pain haunted her eyes. I knew those eyes from all the time I’d spent staring into them, trying to dissect what they were hiding, and it burned to know she’d revealed the answers to someone else.

  Before I could process another thought, a scantily clad woman slipped a program into my hands.

  The Muse Series: Exposed featuring Gigi Noir

  The entire time she’d been staying in Brooklyn, Nina had been Perrot’s muse. Another woman in a matching black leather bustier appeared with a tray of drinks, handing me one before I could refuse. “Excuse me.” I stopped her. “Is Gigi here tonight?”

  Without a word, she pointed to the far corner of the room. My eyes rested on Nina, arm-in-arm with Perrot. Her normally long, loose waves were pulled up into an elegant bun. She dazzled the space around her in a sleek silver ball gown. It was hard to reconcile the angelic figure in front of me with the one portrayed in the paintings.

  I moved behind a pillar, choosing to keep myself hidden. From my spot, I observed her as Perrot showed her off like a trophy. But a tension hung between them as they answered questions from the media and posed for pictures. Perrot kept whispering things to her under his breath, and Nina responded by hanging her head or biting her lip. If I wasn’t mistaken, she looked like she might burst into tears at any moment. The image of her standing beside him was more tragic than any one of the works hung in the gallery.

  There were twenty paintings in all, and each dripped with a sickness viler than the last. Images of Nina suffocated me from every direction. I walked through the exhibit, stopping in front of each piece to keep myself occupied and blend in. Each scene further depleted the oxygen in my lungs.

  Nina bound spread-eagled on a pool table, men in suits circling her like hyenas.

  Nina standing alone in a field, so close to a building on fire that her naked skin was beginning to burn.

  Nina sprawled across the frozen ground of a winter’s night, her skin turning a slight bluish color.

  I pressed the drink I still held to my lips and took a large gulp, unable to process what I was seeing. According to the program, every scene in the series was painted on location. Some took weeks to complete, requiring repeated exposure to extreme elements.

  “It’s disgusting,” a man said to me over the music, which had steadily increased in volume and was now driving me toward insanity. He looked to be about my age. He was looking between the mounted canvas in front of us and a small notebook into which he was scribbling. His media credential gave him away as a reporter for some obscure blog I’d never heard of. “This entire thing is depraved. It’s not art. It’s a spectacle. These images say nothing.” He shook his head and went back to scribbling notes.

  “I’m glad that I’m not the only one to think so.” I breathed a sigh of relief. The gin settled heavy in my stomach, taunting me to continue.

  “Pfft.” The guy gave a sad chuckle. “Look around, everyone here thinks so. The only people mildly intrigued by this bullshit are the post-pubescent, piece-of-shit college kids who don’t know any better. This opening night is a disaster.”

  I’d been so focused on my own mental state since entering the show that I hadn’t observed anyone else. The group I’d been behind in line now stood at the base of a nearby image of Nina in a cage. In the distance, a faceless man wielded a whip. Her eyes pleaded for the ordeal to be over. Two of the boys in the group hovered over a phone, laughing at something. One turned his back to the image, held up the phone, and snapped a smiling selfie with Nina in the background.

  Part of me wanted to go knock Perrot out, grab Nina, and get the hell out of there. I knew better than that, but I couldn’t stay. Adam bubbled up in the back of my mind. If he were here, he might actually commit a crime if it meant getting his sister out of here, and this…art destroyed.

  “God, she is so fuckable,” one of the kids in the group shouted to his friend. “The things I would do to her, man.”

  Before I knew what I was doing, I slammed the rest of my drink and
had his shirt collar bunched in my fist.

  “Keep your mouth shut, why don’t you?” I pulled him in so that our foreheads nearly bashed into each other’s. At first, his eyes grew wide at my provocation. “Show a little respect.” When I noticed the crowd around us pausing to look on, I released him and turned to walk out the door. Behind me, I heard them burst into laughter.

  Outside, I allowed the cold air to bring me down. As I walked toward the car, the images of Nina filtered through my mind like a flip book. As hard as I tried to expel them from my consciousness, I knew they would be burned there forever.

  After the day I’d had, more than anything I wanted another drink. My insides were calling out for a drop of any kind of substance I’d pledged to ban from entering my body. The drink I’d indulged in at the exhibit burned me alive from the inside. The sensation put a spotlight on my weakness, the bright reminder of my failure.

  I made my way to the apartment building’s residential gym facilities. The gym was on ground level and faced the front of the street. I loved the way it looked at night, with the entire place empty and only the streetlights outside illuminating the equipment. When I first landed on my feet in New York, the gym had been my refuge. I spent so many hours pushing through the physical pain, grinding myself down mentally, until I got to my core. Until there was nothing left to get out.

  I broke into a brisk jog on the treadmill, zoning out. The familiar burn of exertion made the trials of the day fade away. I didn’t want to think about Nina on display at Perrot’s exhibit. How could we send her into the Jasper to reunite with her father when the world was already online posting cellphone photos of her likeness in one compromising position after the next?

  I’d been running for a while when a yellow cab pulled to the stop in front of the building. At first, I ignored it. But then Nina stumbled out onto the sidewalk, hair a mess, with tears streaming down her face.

  I intercepted her the moment she walked in the front door. “Nina?” She was disheveled and shaken. Her eye makeup was streaked and her formerly perfect bun was now loose and tilted to one side as though it had been pulled. I adjusted myself against the lobby wall, holding her close to me.