Chapter 27
twenty-seven
AMANTHA
Istrode into the conference room looking like revenge. Did I wear Val’s favorite pencil skirt—perfectly hugging my hips—on purpose? I’d never tell. The red lipstick might have been a bit much though. Rolling my lips back and forth, I tried to elicit as much confidence from them as possible.
Kate followed in behind me, shooting me a knowing wink from behind her curtain of glossy hair. She tipped her head as if to say, “I see what you did there.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t my fault espionage happened to look great on me.
Okay, fine. Mediocre at best.
We settled into our usual chairs across from Brandon and Val. Brandon met Kate with a cocky smirk, which she ignored, though her knee began to bounce under the table. When Val’s eyes collided with mine, his mouth parted on a sharp inhale before snapping shut.
I fluttered my lashes innocently as I soaked up each flicker of regret and irritation. I leveled him with a sugary smile, twirled a pencil between my fingers, and crossed my strappy high-heels that I’d fully regret later.
Oh, sweet, sweet Val. You are so screwed.
The meeting continued, as did the multitude of not-so-secretive glances Val kept stealing at me. By the time I swept coldly out of the boardroom, I had counted thirteen.
Resuming Val’s phony investigation was my first priority, starting with finding the condition report of the real painting.
During our last romantic dinner—I rolled my eyes—he said the keycard logs were useless unless we knew the exact date Lake Attersee was admitted to storage.
And, according to him, that condition report would be the only place such information would be.
I loaded the record-seeking software Kate had trained me with when I first started. I toggled the search criteria and located the list of condition reports that had followed Lake Attersee since its creation. There were thousands.
Each time the painting had been moved—borrowed, archived, repaired, or rehung—the documents tracked its condition at all times.
But only one report held the information I needed.
A sly smile curved my mouth.
Thanks to my convoluted Google search history last night, I had learned that these types of files did contain date stamps, even if the software itself didn’t list them out. I scrolled the expansive list, right-clicking each file until the back-end information expanded.
The thirty-second file I clicked was dated the week before the gala. Val’s perfect signature mocked me as he signed off on the forgery, knowing full well what it was. I cursed under my breath.
I screenshotted it for good measure and continued searching for the report before Val’s. The one that would show the day Attersee got logged into storage. And less than forty minutes later, I found my first breadcrumb.
This is it.
The date was listed over two years ago. The sloppy condition report said that Lake Attersee was being placed in storage “until future exhibition.”
The report also listed a few minor grievances: a miniscule tear on the edge of the canvas and a slight yellowing of the water lily’s petals. I inhaled sharply.
That’s my water lily.
I flopped back in my chair, eyes wide. My assumptions had been correct.
Whoever stole the painting had done it after it was placed in storage.
I covertly pressed print with trembling fingers and rushed to the copy room.
I pressed the warm paper against my cream silk blouse until I stuffed it into my bag under my desk.
Twisting back and forth in my chair, I chewed a pencil between scarlet lips. All of this was useless without Val’s access to the keycard logs. I didn’t know who else had access, and if I started asking around, it might tip off Kendra.
If only I could sneak into Val’s office…
But what about his password? I was no genius hacker. For the love, I could barely remember my own email password.
An inkling edged its way into my thoughts. My computer didn’t automatically log me out throughout the day, so maybe Val’s didn’t either?
But I also had Brandon to contend with, whose desk had been temporarily stationed inside my ex-boyfriend’s office.
Even if I got them both out, it was pointless if Kendra and Blythe were present to witness my break-in.
The pencil between my lips again was in danger of getting wholly chewed in half.
Maybe if the whole team were to—
The department meeting! My spine went ramrod straight. Kendra had scheduled another one this afternoon to discuss a potential partnership with a museum in New Mexico. The boardroom was plenty far away from the curation offices. It was the perfect cover.
A dark chuckle tickled my throat. I couldn’t wait to invade Val’s privacy once again.
“How did Nancy Drew do this?” I cursed my shaking fingers as I glanced over my shoulder for the millionth time. Red lipstick or not, I was officially really bad at this. The familiar, tantalizing scent of Val’s office—his scent—filled my senses.
Knock it off.
There was no time to miss him right now.
Typing furiously in the darkened room, I strained to hear any footsteps over the loud keyboard.
Before I had left the boardroom, I had scrawled a post-it note with “Stall anyone who leaves” and shoved it into Kate’s hands under the table.
Her poker face hadn’t budged at all. No questions asked.
If I ever, under any circumstance, found myself in a real crime, I knew who to call.
When this case was over, margaritas were on me.
Turns out, Val’s computer hadn’t logged him out, just like I had predicted. I pumped my fist in the air before my hands flew back to the keyboard.
After taking its ever-loving time, the database finally loaded.
I withdrew the crumpled condition report from the waistband of my skirt, double checking the date. I held my breath as columns and digits began to splay themselves on the screen.
Crap.
Val hadn’t been lying. Well, not about this, at least. The logs were insanity. Nonsensical names, employee IDs, dates, and abbreviations of who-knows-what were laughably scattered throughout each column. Time pressed in, stifling me with claustrophobia.
“Screw it.” I widened the search criteria to a week. There was no way I would have a chance to access these documents again, so margins for error didn’t exist. Pressing print, I urged the completion bar to hurry up and send the pages to the copy room.
Val’s office phone began to ring, scaring me about a foot off the ground.
I rapidly closed the software, shut Val’s door, and scurried back to the boardroom with my heart racing.
After slinking back into the meeting, not one staff member was any the wiser, except Kate, of course.
Sherlock, who?
A smirk twisted my mouth as vendetta pounded in my chest.
But a nagging sensation began to taunt me from the recesses of my brain. I frowned. Closing my eyes, I couldn’t shake the feeling I had overlooked something.
Something important.
A bead of cold sweat rolled down my spine as my eyes flew open. Four doors down, the copy room printer was expelling seventeen pages of very incriminating breadcrumbs.
I strained to prevent myself from banging my head against the table.
After the meeting, I launched out of the boardroom, but Kendra stopped me and drew me into a lengthy meeting to check on the soirée.
I was then passed to Blythe, who needed to update Kate and me on the marketing team’s social media campaign.
Details barely skimmed my brain before floating away.
Minutes ticked well into an hour before I finally burst into the copy room.
“Oof.”
I collided with an all-too familiar chest, riddled with an all-too familiar scent.
Val reached out to steady me, the heat from his palm branding my shoulder. The minimal contact sent a pang of longing through me.
Suddenly, it seemed like a grand idea to abandon the investigation and push him against the copy machine with my lips.
My expression must have blinked like a neon sign, screaming, “I Miss You, Take Me, I’m Yours.” Or, “Everyone Has A Hobby. I Don’t Care If Yours Is Thievery.”
Val’s soft lips twitched, cruelly concealing the smile I needed to see. The one I so desperately missed.
“You still have a habit of running into people, it seems.”
“Yeah.” My voice felt as weak as my smile. “Sorry.”
Alarm stoked a fire in my cheeks at the sight of prints in Val’s arms. Had he seen the keycard logs? Were they accidentally buried under his own prints? If so, it was only a matter of time until he’d realize my crime.
Orange jumpsuit, here I come.
Composing a mask of indifference, I brushed past him without another word. I had a job to do, and residual feelings for the traitor weren’t part of it.
I sagged against the copy machine when I saw my smoking gun still in the paper tray. Papers clutched to my chest, I made a beeline to my desk. Breathing wasn’t an option until they were stuffed into my bag beside the condition report.
My sweaty palms refused to be wiped off. Removing the sensation of Val’s hand on my shoulder was even more impossible.
“You okay?” Kate peered over her computer. “You’re being weird.”
My chest rose and fell, staccato and dysregulated. “Just peachy.” I forced a smile, but it probably looked more like a baring of teeth.
Kate lifted a suspicious eyebrow. “Listen. If you keyed his car, don’t tell me. Just invite me next time.” Her black hair, piled high in an effortlessly cool bun today, disappeared behind her screen.
Barricaded by the fortress of my computer monitor, I let a single tear escape.
One tear, Val. That’s all you get.
One tear for the ache he left that still wanted him back.
A deep breath of resolve filled my lungs as I straightened up. It was becoming increasingly difficult to identify the bigger traitor: Val, or my heart.