Dare You by Jennifer Brown
“Ava?” I jumped. Matt Macy was still pointing toward the white sheet.
“Sorry,” I mumbled. “Nervous, I guess. I’ve never done anything like this before.”
As soon as I got in front of the camera, he flicked the lights on, practically blinding me. Immediately, I could feel sweat bead up in the small of my back. How could I feel so exposed and be sweating at the same time?
He leaned over his camera and squinted into the lens. “Go ahead and pose,” he said.
I didn’t move. More like I didn’t know how to move.
It never occurred to me that I would have to actually look like a model. In my mind, all I had to do was look tough and sporty. There were many things that I was not, but elegant and inviting had to be at the top of the list. My hips were for thrusting opponents to the floor, not thrusting forward for maximum sex appeal. My face had two settings: scowl and scowl harder. And flaunting was something I absolutely never, ever did.
I was going to have to fake it like never before.
He popped up over his camera. “Pose?” he repeated.
“Sure,” I said. I bent my body into awkward shapes, trying to come up with a close approximation of the slightly broken look most models had, while also closing my hands into menacing fists. “So what kinds of businesses do you normally shoot?” I asked.
“Chin up,” he answered, not bothering to respond to my question. I lifted my chin and let him take another couple of shots.
“I’ll bet you get all kinds. Anyone famous?”
No response. The camera clicked a few more times.
“Elbow out,” he said.
I moved my elbow. “I bet you have some pretty great stories.”
Detective Martinez had disappeared into the darkroom but had popped out again, moving on to a cabinet across the room. I watched as he opened and closed drawers, so silently even I couldn’t hear them, and I knew he was doing it.
Matt Macy snapped a few photos, stepped back to gaze into the camera screen, and snapped a few more. He looked completely put out.
Well, you’re not the only one, dude.
“Look,” he said. “I wish I had time to chitchat, but I really have a lot of work to do.” He shook his head and muttered, “You weren’t kidding when you said you’d never done this before. Try turning your shoulder just a little bit toward me. Okay, more. More. Keep going.”
I looked up in time to see Detective Martinez put his hands on his hips and stick his butt out, jutting his shoulder forward. He blinked rapidly, flirtatiously. I narrowed my eyes at him, feeling my lips pull into a tight line.
“Relax your mouth,” Matt Macy said. Martinez doubled over with silent laughter.
Just get on with your investigation, Mr. Comedian, I thought. As if he could hear me, he ambled over to a worktable and set his duffel on it. He leaned back against it, like he was just propping himself up, bored, but I could see his eyes wandering as he pretended to stretch back.
Matt Macy peered into the viewfinder and sighed, straightening. “Tell you what,” he said. “Let’s get Thorn in here and see if that helps you relax a little.”
Martinez lunged for his bag and unzipped it, pretending to dig around inside.
“Thorn?” Matt Macy called. Martinez turned as if startled. “Let’s get you in here with her.”
“These help?” Martinez asked, holding up two pairs of boxing gloves.
“Yeah. Yeah, definitely,” Matt Macy said.
Martinez loped toward me, and next thing I knew, he was standing next to me, holding out a pair of gloves. I took them and shoved my hand in one.
“How about this,” Matt Macy said, coming toward us with hands outstretched. He took Martinez’s gloves and tied them together, then draped them over Martinez’s neck. “You go ahead and put yours on,” he said to me. He took a step back and assessed Martinez, his finger resting on his chin, then removed the gloves. “Let’s try . . . could you maybe . . . ?” He mimed taking off his shirt.
Martinez hesitated, glancing at me. I raised my eyebrows at him. Not so funny when it’s you, now, is it? my face said. Martinez matched my raised eyebrows and yanked his shirt over his head, exposing a chiseled brown chest with a fine dusting of hair that got thicker as it trailed down the midline of his six-pack. I turned my face, feeling myself blush.
“Great,” Matt Macy said. “Now we’re onto something.” He hustled over to the prop area and came back with a stool, which he placed at our feet. “You sit,” he said to Martinez. Martinez sat, and Matt Macy draped the gloves around his neck again so that they rested against his chest. He stepped back, studied the scene, then clutched my arms, guiding me backward a few steps. “You come back here. Gloves on. Right, like that. Now hold this arm up like you’re showing off your muscle.” I did. “Good, good. And drape your other arm over his shoulder. Bend your elbow just a little bit. Get a little closer. Like you’re claiming him.” Swallowing, I pressed myself against Detective Martinez, feeling the heat of his back against the bare skin of my belly.
Concentrate on the shot, Nikki, I told myself over and over again. You don’t feel anything. You especially don’t feel anything violet.
Matt Macy clapped his hands—liking what he was seeing—and went back to his camera.
He shot about a zillion photos, making us move the slightest bit to the left or right: Your arm is sagging, sit up straighter, don’t smile, look tough. Good, good, so good.
After a while he had us switch, taking out the stool so that I was standing in front of Martinez, my gloved hands on my hips. Instead of draping his arm over my shoulder, he snaked it around my waist, pulling me in against him. I could hear the blood rushing in my ears. I wasn’t even aware of the camera anymore.
“I found something.”
I was so in my own world, trying to concentrate on just breathing, I wasn’t sure I heard Martinez whisper.
“Lower your hands to your sides, Nikki, only strong, like you could take him if you wanted to.”
What do you mean could? How about can? But the thought was rushed out when I felt Martinez’s breath on my cheek, raising goose bumps all along my left side.
“Over on the worktable. I found something.”
God, right. We were here to find something that would lead us to Rigo. I’d almost forgotten. I felt a bead of sweat roll down my spine.
“Why don’t you two face each other? Hold up your gloves like you’re going to fight. Good.” Click, click, click. “Less mean, Ava. More playful. Let’s have a smile.” We smiled, our eyes locked, having entire conversations without speaking. He had found something. We needed to get it. We needed to do something.
“Press your foreheads together. It’s a grudge match. Excellent.” More clicking, and Martinez’s shaky breath pillowing my lips.
“I’ve got it covered,” I whispered, and I could feel his forehead press a little harder into mine—a nod.
“Okay, that should do it,” Matt Macy said. “I think we’ve got some really good shots. Unless you have other ideas?”
I pulled off my gloves. “I was sort of thinking we’d get some close-ups of just the gloves?”
He took them, studied them, nodded. “Yeah. Okay. Just let me set up the shot real quick. You guys can get dressed.” But Martinez was already half a step ahead of him, pulling his T-shirt back down over his belly before the sentence was even out of Matt Macy’s mouth. He took his gloves to his duffel, giving me a barely perceptible nod.
Matt Macy hustled to the prop area and came back with a small folding table. He placed it in the middle of the set and then disappeared toward props again, muttering something about a sheet.
Martinez was hovering around the worktable, watching me like a hawk. Waiting for me to do something. I’d said I had it covered, but the truth was I had no idea what to do.
Short of causing a disturbance.
Distracting Matt Macy so that he completely forgot we were there.
While he was sidetracked, we could grab whateve
Distract him.
I knew how to distract him.
I wasn’t exactly a photography wizard, but I’d messed with enough of Dad’s cameras to know what I was doing. Quickly, without even thinking about what could happen if he turned around and caught me, I hit the lens release button and turned the camera lens counterclockwise. I rotated it until it released, and then pushed it back on, but barely. Just enough for it to hold, unless it was jiggled.
Thankfully, Matt Macy’s tripod was identical to my dad’s. I released the top clamps, holding the camera in place until it felt balanced, working as slowly and softly as I dared so I didn’t bump into anything. When it looked semi-stable, I rushed over to my clothes, which I’d left in a pile, and began putting them on, being careful to meet Martinez’s eyes again and to convey that imperceptible nod.
Matt Macy came back with a white sheet, which he draped over the table. Then he spent an extraordinarily long time arranging the gloves just so on top of it, occasionally glancing over his shoulder to make sure they lined up with his camera. I held my breath, hoping the tripod would stay stable until he got to it and that he wouldn’t notice anything was amiss.
Finally, he was finished arranging, and he went over to the camera and bent behind it. Again, Detective Martinez and I locked eyes. I licked my lips. Matt Macy put his hand on the camera and the clamps I’d loosened flopped forward, taking the camera with it, the lens that I’d left barely attached flying off and landing with a crunch on the concrete. Broken plastic and glass hopped across the floor.
“What the fuck?” he said, peering down in confusion. But then he saw the broken glass and really started freaking out, in curse-filled half sentences. “How in the hell? Son of a bitch! Goddamn thing! Two thousand dollars! Holy shit!”
He came around the tripod and bent to pick up the ruined lens. His shoulders slumped briefly, and then he went back to cursing, turning the lens in his hands as if maybe it would repair itself if he just looked at it long enough.
There was a tiny part of me—the photographer’s daughter part of me—that felt a little bit bad about destroying his camera. But then I reminded myself that I was doing this to prove my innocence, and my freedom was more precious than a thousand cameras put together. Matt Macy seemed like he probably wasn’t a bad guy, but when you’re fighting for your life, there is no room for guilt over things like smashed cameras.
He continued to carry on, forgetting that I was even in the room, which was, of course, what I’d been hoping would happen. He stomped off toward what looked like a storage room, kicking the prop box on the way. He wasn’t even completely out of the room before Martinez and I leaped into motion, Martinez scrambling behind the worktable and grabbing a poster, which he quickly rolled and crammed into his duffel.
“Let’s go,” he said, and we started to run.
“Wait,” I said, doubling back toward the set. I almost wiped out, slipping and catching myself with one hand on the ground. I lunged forward and grabbed the gloves. When I turned back, Martinez was looking at me with wide, impatient eyes.
“What?” I whispered. “I have to have something to spar with.” I reached out with one hand and pushed the small of his back, propelling us both into motion, across the lobby, through the door, and out onto the sidewalk, then veering toward his car, which he’d parked a couple of blocks away. He was already rummaging his keys out of his pocket and had the door unlocked before we got there. We both slid in, him tossing the duffel into my lap. He careened around a corner and into a parking lot the next street over before I even had the door all the way shut. We were both breathing heavily.
“Whatever you found,” I said between breaths, “it better have been good.”
“You’re going to look a gift horse in the mouth?”
“I broke the dude’s camera!”
He leaned against the headrest, trying to catch his breath. “He has more.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Would you rather I found nothing and we would still be in there modeling for your fake business?” I said nothing. He grabbed for the duffel handle. “I can take it back if you don’t want it.”
I grabbed the handle, too, before he could make off with it. “No. Of course I want it.” He tilted his head, cupping one hand around his ear. “What? I said I wanted it.”
“Does that mean you’re going to say thank you? Do your lips form those words?”
I yanked the duffel handle out of his hand and unzipped it. “I’ll say it after I see what it is.”
I stuffed my hand into the duffel and pulled out the rolled-up paper. I let the duffel fall between my legs and onto the floorboard as I unrolled it.
“It’s a mock-up, I think,” Detective Martinez said. “An advertisement poster. Do you see what I see?”
It only took about two seconds for me to see it. An advertisement for the Tesla estate auction. A collection of art and household items. An antique sewing machine, a painting of a boat in a storm, some dishes, a few scary-looking dolls, a familiar-looking statue, and an even more familiar-looking tribal mask.
And a cane.
A wooden cane with a silver ball handle.
My hand flew to my mouth, the breath sucked out of me.
“You think it’s Rigo’s?”
He took the poster from me and studied it carefully. “It almost has to be. Why else would the Basile woman be planning to send someone to this auction? You said she was after something in particular. Something that had been found. It’s too much of a coincidence for there to be a ball cane at the same auction and not be his.”
“They’re going to the auction to get Rigo’s cane back,” I said. “The cane that he used to . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence.
“What I can’t figure out is why the cane would be at that auction in the first place. What connection does Rigo have with the Teslas?”
I shook my head, tracing the tribal mask with my fingers. The peachy brown that stained the paper under my touch told me exactly why it had looked so familiar. And why the statue had as well. “These things don’t belong to the Teslas,” I said. “They belong to the Hollises.”
Martinez let his hands, and the poster, rest in his lap. “So now we know why the Basiles have to be at that auction,” he said.
I took the poster from his lap and rerolled it. I couldn’t look at Dru’s tribal mask anymore. I stuffed it back into the duffel.
“And why we have to be there, too,” I said.
18
THE AUCTION WAS being held at the Tesla estate. We drove under what seemed like an endless canopy of jacaranda trees, their purple flowers gone for the season. They opened up onto an oasis of yellow light and shiny automobiles.
“Whoa,” I said, leaning forward to peer through the windshield. Suddenly, being in Detective Martinez’s ordinary car—with bullet holes in the front fender, no less—felt a little conspicuous. “You probably should have gone through a car wash.”
“You’re just seeing the important people. There are others like you and me.” He steered his car away from the valets and bumped over the yard to a small parking area where there were more ordinary cars.
“If you say so.”
“I do. Come on.”
We got out, and I took a minute to hitch up the bodice of my dress, wishing I’d gone with the strappy thing instead of the strapless thing. Shopping for a formal dress was definitely something I didn’t have a whole lot of experience with. Or patience for. What started out with me curiously cramming my boobs into a blue velvet monstrosity, pulling at the back of a pink baby-doll nightmare, and feeling like a leftover prom queen in a poofy green lace horror, eventually turned into me angrily chucking a black strapless chiffon cloud at the cashier without even trying it on. I almost choked when I saw the price tag, and then realized that Peyton would have choked that I was wearing something off the rack. How different our li
I should have tried it on. The bodice was too big. Which only made me feel more uncomfortable. But I did like the way the fabric swirled around my legs.
“You clean up pretty good,” Detective Martinez said when I joined him on the Tesla walkway.
“Back atcha,” I said, taking in his tux. Truth, he more than cleaned up. He looked amazing, with his dark hair freshly gelled and his tan skin glowing against the white shirt. Everything fit him perfectly. He looked totally comfortable, like he belonged in a tux, like he was James Bond or something. I tugged at my bodice again, feeling like my clothes were wearing me instead of the other way around.
He crooked his elbow and faced the front of the house. I stared at his arm.
“What?” he asked.
“Are you trying to escort me?”
He crooked his arm more vigorously. “Yes.”
“Like a granny at a church funeral.”
“Like a date at a formal event,” he said. “Just grab my arm and pretend you’re easy to get along with for a few seconds.”
I glared at him. “I’m not that good of an actress. Put your arm away. I’m not holding it.” I clacked down the walkway. “And don’t kid yourself—I can still kick your ass in chiffon.”
“That’s not what the heavy bag says.” He caught up to me, jogging easily in his tux. It was unfair how he was so much more graceful than I was. He pretended to punch with a wimpy “girl punch.”
“Join me on the mat again and we’ll see what you have to say about it then.”
“You should try to be a little less surly, you know.”
“Why?”
“Because,” he said, “we don’t want to attract attention to ourselves, just in case.”
I stopped. “Just in case what?”
“I don’t know. In case someone here would recognize us.”
I felt my toes go cold. “You mean a Hollis.”
“I mean Arrigo Basile. In theory, he could be here with his family, right? That’s why we’re here, isn’t it? Just . . . be cool, okay?”