Wild Hunger (The Phoenix Pack, #7)(2)

But she didn’t want to prolong her conversation with Vance, so she simply said, “I have to go. I hope things work out for you and Layla this time around.” Just then a familiar Mercedes convertible parked behind Vance’s car. Frankie smiled as a middle-aged redhead dressed in a tailored blouse and skirt hopped out of the car.

“Who’s that?” asked Vance.

“My agent.”

His brow creased. “You have an agent?”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised. You may not approve of my job, but others do.”

“It’s not that I don’t approve. It’s that you could be so much more.”

Like sculpting was easy and something to sniff haughtily at. “You take care now, Vance.” The dismissal clearly rankled, and his jaw hardened. Yeah, well, his dismissal of her career rankled too.

Striding up the path, Abigail took in Frankie’s appearance and said, “You’ve been working. Good.”

Frankie smiled. “Well, hello to you too.” She counted Abigail as a friend, which Frankie didn’t have many of. She’d never been a particularly social person and often buried herself in her work.

“You know I’m not one for pleasantries.” Abigail eyed Vance curiously. “And who might you be?”

“Vance Browne.”

“Oh, the attorney who crawled back to his ex.” Yeah, that was Abigail—she didn’t spare anyone’s feelings.

His eyes hardened. “I didn’t crawl anywhere.”

“He has fabulous cheekbones, Frankie. You should sculpt his face. Then we can shatter the nose, break the jaw. Maybe even scalp it.”

Frankie saw some appeal in the idea, but . . . “It would be a waste of clay.”

“True.”

Frankie stepped aside to let Abigail pass. “See you around, Vance. Give Layla my best.” She closed the door, headed down the hallway, turned right, and walked into the studio attached to the house. She’d had it built a few years ago to her specifications. The high ceiling, spotlights, large windows, and good ventilation system made it a perfect work space.

Sunlight streamed through the open roll-up door, outside which she’d sectioned off a part of her backyard to use for bigger, more challenging sculptures. Tools, materials, and other equipment lined the walls; some sat on benches or shelves, others on metal racks or the floor, ensuring she had plenty of space to work.

Abigail’s high heel clicked on the cold concrete floor as she stood near the locked door of the display room, tapping her foot impatiently. Frankie kept all her finished sculptures inside, and she’d recently completed a commissioned piece for the owner of a New York art gallery. She fished the keys out of the pocket of her coveralls and unlocked the door.

Eyes alight with eagerness, Abigail walked inside and pointed to a veiled sculpture. “This it?”

“It is.” Frankie gently removed the cover, and there it was. A life-size child sat on a rickety chair, her head drooping forward so that her long black hair covered her face. Her gray nightie was dirty and ragged and stopped just below the knees. Deep scratches covered her legs and arms.

“Jesus, Frankie, she almost looks alive. This is terrifying. Honestly, my nape’s prickling—like someone’s watching me. This sets off that same feeling of danger. You’ve never used synthetic hair in a sculpture before, have you?”

“No.” Frankie made mixed-media sculptures, liking to combine different materials in her projects.

“She looks spooky, and it makes me wonder if she’s a victim or a creepy evil kid. Makes me want to part her hair to see what her face looks like. At the same time, I don’t want to know.”

“That’s the point. Pierre wanted something that reflects how often we’re too scared to look close enough to see what could be a dark truth, how often we see what we want to see.”

“He’s going to love it.”

Frankie had gained quite a rep for creating dark sculptures. She rarely set out to make something dark, but often the finished result looked like something she’d plucked right out of a hellish nightmare.

“What are you going to call it?”

“Child’s Play.”

“Shit, even that’s spooky.” Abigail shivered. “You must have extremely bleak dreams.”

She’d had nightmares as a child, but she could only recall flashes of them now. Remembered the snarling. The crying. The scary shadows. The sheer terror that had seized her. But the images had never made sense, had never come together to create a clear picture.

“Really, Frankie, I wouldn’t have thought I’d like this kind of work. Wouldn’t have thought I could truly admire it, let alone properly represent someone who created it. But every piece is so powerful that it touches me on some level—and sometimes it’s a level that I don’t like.”

Frankie’s mouth curved. “Good. If they don’t touch people—” She cut herself off as her phone beeped. “Hang on just a sec.” She dug her phone out of her pocket and opened the e-mail she’d received. She read it. Then she read it again. Then she read it again. The words began to blur, and she realized her hand was shaking.

“Is everything all right?”

Unable to properly process what she’d read, Frankie burst out, “What the fuck is this?”