Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Will looks at me, surprised at the treat. “Thanks.”
“I know, very North American of me to be walking around with takeout coffees,” I say brightly. “But I figured we could use the extra energy to get rolling today.”
When his shoulders ease a little and a hint of a smile plays at the corners of his mouth, it’s confirmation that getting the coffees was the right choice.
It feels like a win. Something lifts in me to see his mood rise even by a notch.
But his eyes are still distant. Or lost, even. Like I’ve already left.
“I need to show you something,” Will tells me.
“Sounds hot.”
“Dylan, please.”
“Sorry,” I say meekly, giving him a half smile as we take the lift upstairs.
We sip our coffees for a few minutes in the boardroom.
He sets his bag down and takes out his computer.
Will fires up his laptop. The room is pared down from our earlier setup over the summer.
We still have a cart in there with the textbooks I brought in for Will to read as references and copies of various printouts and files.
The side of the room has the latest iteration of the gallery layout, the final version.
Otherwise, the boardroom has been reinstated as a boardroom.
The long table feels very sparse with only our coffees and Will’s laptop.
He sits down in front of his computer, waiting for it to start up and log in. Which he does, and I watch over his shoulder as he opens up our master tracking spreadsheet for the exhibition. I’m fighting the urge to put my hand on his shoulder or massage his neck.
“Here. Look.” Will glances over at me. I move closer, like I need any encouragement.
He navigates to the color-coded section with the fashion exhibits that have arrived and their location and associated packing materials and special handling instructions. He scrolls through, but there’s nothing for Vivienne Westwood.
I frown, leaning in. “Wait, that doesn’t make sense. There should be something there. We’re missing a whole chunk.”
“There isn’t anything.” His tone is matter-of-fact, crisp.
Then Will navigates to the big planning spreadsheet with the complete list of objects that Lily has compiled with the rest of the Curatorial team, including lender information, item dimensions, and more.
Will finds the Vivienne Westwood section and leaves his cursor hovering over the insurance values.
There’re six Vivienne Westwood pieces we’ve borrowed from a private lender. He opens a linked page with an itemized list with a brief description and materials each piece is made from and, of course, the insurance values. Which prove to be eye-watering.
“Holy fuck.” My eyebrows lift in alarm when I see one corset is insured for ￡50,000, and we have three. Along with a tartan dress, skirt, and top. The combined values for all the pieces make me feel sick.
No wonder Will looks stressed.
It’s my turn for the brow furrow. I set my coffee down and fold my arms across my chest as the full gravity of this situation hits me.
We’re quiet for a long moment.
“Now, wait. Why isn’t this whole collection in the tracker?” I ask.
“You tell me.” Will turns to gaze at me, his dark blue eyes shifting to steel.
“But we had the receipt. We saw that yesterday. And, obviously, we picked the collection up together.” I frown, running a hand through my hair.
“It’s my signature on the chain-of-custody receipt.” Will gives me a solemn look, his voice quiet. “And we have condition report photos at the collection point.”
I shake my head, at a loss. “Well, sure, but—”
“And you were the last person seen with the collection when we got here.”
“Hang on a sec.” My eyebrows rise at that, along with a gut twist. “What’re you saying?”
Will frowns. “You’re meant to sign things in—”
“We’re both meant to sign things in.” I fold my arms stubbornly across my chest. “I get you’re worried. So am I. But blaming me isn’t the solution.”
“Dylan. You said you would do the paperwork that day when we got in, and obviously, you didn’t.”
“I don’t know about that.” Stung, I search his eyes, but he’s very far away in this moment.
But the proof is in the tracker. Nothing’s there.
“Maybe we can find a backup of the spreadsheet and check in case something got deleted by accident,” I try. It’s a reasonable solution. Or at least get us closer to a solution. “I’m sure we would have entered the collection’s arrival. I mean, obviously, we have the receipt.”
“I did my part,” he says defensively. “And we can’t ask IT for a backup without getting Lily’s attention. Or permission.”
“Let’s forget the damn spreadsheet for a minute, and let’s go downstairs and bring everything else up to the gallery. We’ve got the space, and we can double-check our list against the tracker. We’ll find it in there, you’ll see.” I give him a hopeful look.
Will doesn’t look convinced. “Fine, let’s try this your way.”
“Good. Listen to the voice of reason,” I try with as much humor as I can muster, but to be honest, I’m feeling kind of deflated at the minute. Best I can do is humor-lite. I work on my latte, finishing it. “Ready?”
“Ready.”
We head down to the collections space in the basement to start the process of bringing everything else up.
When the collections techs arrive at 9:00 a.m., we enlist their help in moving the exhibits to the gallery, though we don’t tell them exactly what we’re looking for.
By the time Lily arrives at 10:00 a.m., she’s thrilled to see our progress in bringing everything up to stage for the show.
“I was going to ask you to bring out the rest of the collections today,” Lily informs us. “I’m so happy you’ve predicted the next step and took ownership of that task, gentlemen.”
We look at each other. Will chews his bottom lip, solemn.
I make an effort to smile. But with every crate, box, and package we brought up, we are no closer to finding where we put the Westwood collection, which is worth far more than our summer stipends combined, and then some, to the tune of nearly a quarter of a million pounds.
My stomach twists.
Don’t think about it.
That’s only the insurance values. The worst part, though, is that they’re rare pieces, and there are no replacements if they’re lost. And there’s definitely no chance of either one of us getting to stay on at the end of the summer if the collection is actually lost.
“I think there’s still more to bring up,” Will says, looking intently at me.
I flush slightly, feeling the heat in my face. I’m feeling more in the crosshairs than I like. This is both our problem. Not only mine. I didn’t create this. There’s no time or space here to bristle because we have a full schedule.
“Let’s get on with it, then,” says Lily, flipping to her schedule. “Will, I need you to go do a couple of drop-offs. Dylan, I need you here in the gallery today. Tomorrow, you’ll switch off.”
We both nod, then split to get to work before Lily susses something’s up.
At least with me here, I can search absolutely everything without Will freaking out even more than what he is already.
But this doesn’t make sense. We’ve been so careful with the exhibits.
To be fair, there’s been a staggering number of them to coordinate to come in, and there’s even more objects to leave the museum this next week as well.
I hurry off to search before the techs are ready to start taking down the show, with the couriers and reps coming in from 10:30 a.m. Come hell or high water, I’m finding these missing exhibits.
Then Will can relax, and we can figure out what to do with the last couple of weeks or so we have left together. And have some fun.
Except I search, and then I search over my lunch break, and I search more when the workday officially wraps up too.
And I don’t find anything despite my thorough search.
It’s not a huge museum, definitely on the smaller side, and we’ve maxed out the space.
None of this makes any sense. I’m busy with the techs when Will gets in, and when I finish with them to go catch up with him, he’s already left.
Still hurt after the earlier awkwardness in the morning, I check my phone, but there are no messages from him. And I’m too confused to message either. My phone remains dark.
Shit.