The Muse (Interracial Mystery Romance) (Dark Art Mystery Series) Read Free Page A

material of his shirt as his biceps bulged. “And as I said before, even if you do decide to hire her, we need—”
    “We don’t need anything but my approval.” Hex lowered himself to the ground and
    folded his legs into the Indian style sitting pose. “Oh! I’ve got one. ‘With your blood, I’ll paint a clown.’”
    Alvarez shifted his weight from side to side. I wasn’t sure if he was nervous about the game or my possible violation of the contract. Either way, he fidgeted with his fingers and dabbed at a tiny bead of sweat forming on his forehead.
    “Did I stump you already?” Hex asked me.
    Not even close.
    What made a movie buff different from others was the amount of freakish details they chose to fill their heads with. The typical movie-goer remembered the big lines, the ones that you could find on the film’s shirts and posters, just a bunch of tag-lines used for promotion. A true movie buff memorized the odd ones that said more about the story’s theme or characters as well as reading up on the history and interesting tidbits in creating the film. From that line alone, I realized that Hex didn’t go to the movies much. He’d picked a classic gore film that had inspired almost all horror directors of our generation. Scary movies now either redid similar blood splatter scenes or attempted to revisit those with new concepts.
    “No. You didn’t stump me. The line is from the horror movie The Bedtime Killer . The murderer said it each time he killed a child.” I should’ve left it there, but once I started with movies, I couldn’t stop. “The main actor actually quit The Bedtime Killer in the middle of the movie because his wife was pregnant and he couldn’t deal with all of the gory scenes with kids.
    Another actor finished the scenes in the last thirty minutes of the movie. In order to fix the fact that the actors playing the killer no longer looked the same, the director had the new actor wearing a ridiculous mask that’s supposed to be made out of his victims’ flesh, but really appeared like a bad kindergarten craft project.”
    Alvarez raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.
    “You’re good.” Hex nodded his head. “That movie did so badly I didn’t think more than fifty people throughout the US saw it.”
    “I love bad horror and action films.”
    “Don’t we all?” He grinned and then gestured to Alvarez. “Well, except my brother. He hates horror movies and is scared of clowns, so he wouldn’t have remembered the line.”
    “I remembered and I’m not afraid of clowns. I just don’t appreciate them around me.”
    Alvarez ceased his fidgeting. “Get on with the rest of the questions.”
    “Fine. You never like to have fun.” Hex brushed away a bug that landed on his leg.
    “Since you love horror and action, I’ll say a movie in another genre. ‘Your love is like a tower—
    ’”
    “‘Arching high above everyone around you and showering them in forgiveness.’ That’s Finley’s line in After One Goodbye . FYI, the actor who played Finley wrote and directed the film.” I exhausted all of my energy in maintaining a neutral expression. A mocking smile begged to burst from my face, but I remained calm. I still needed to get another quote correct. Now that he knew I was good with movies, he would make the lines more difficult.
    Hex stared at the ground and tapped his finger on his knee the whole time. It must’ve been five minutes before he finally looked up with a wicked grin. “Okay. There’s no way you’re going to get this one. ‘I’m sorry, mister. We can’t get you no help.’”
    Hundreds of titles raced through my head. I’d seen the movie and heard the line, but which one was it? The fact that the person said mister made me think that the character who said it was young. My speculation didn’t guarantee it, but it was worth a guess. The bad use of language with can’t get no help symbolized that a decent amount of dialect was used in the movie, most