Page 80 of The Dreidl Disaster

Once again, a long pause and Artur thought he was going to be sunk. “Wood?”

“Yep.”

“I can’t guarantee anything,” Isaac finally said after what felt like the longest pause of the afternoon. “But sure. I’ll take a crack at it if you need me to.”

Which was the only thing he could hope for. Isaac was a brilliant sculptor, and his ‘dabbling’ was someone else’s masterpiece. “Good,” he said. “I think I’m going to. Let me get your number and I’ll call you if I need to.”

And as he ended the call, he was ready as he could be.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

The night beforethe event’s opening Liv spend hours in her office checking guest lists. The team, the board of legislators and other county officials, people from Hollowville and Rivertown, the sisterhood and a few other individuals.

The event schedule started in the evening and the sculpture was supposed to arrive the next morning. Of course she had a meeting with Mayor-Elect Fields-Kramer in the morning, the handing over the keys as it were.

Except she should be there when the sculpture arrived. It would feel wrong if she wasn’t, so she should try to move the meeting.

When she made the suggestion to the mayor-elect, Liv was met with resistance.

“Can’t,” Terry Fields-Kramer said. “I had to somehow create time in my schedule to meet with you now.”

And this time, it was the random buzzer she set but never ended up using that heralded the end of this meeting.

It didn’t bode well.

The meeting had run late even though these meets never do, and the sculpture had presumably already arrived. Artur was there and she trusted him…

But she wanted to be there. She should be there.

Liv couldn’t push the new mayor out of her office fast enough, before she grabbed her coat and ran out the door, not even stopping to look at the clock.

Just outside the window on the bottom floor of town hall, she saw Artur, his back to her. Talking to…someone.

Where was the sculpture?

The person he was speaking to gestured as if he was doing some kind of magic, hands all over the place.

What was going on?

She had to get there. Liv burst out the door and headed toward Artur.

*

Artur was dealingwith a problem. He’d gotten Naomi’s email at the party the night before, and he’d quickly dashed off a message, explaining the situation and what he needed from her.

He stared out the window, waiting for the sculpture to arrive, before running down to meet the truck, hoping Naomi would do what he needed her to.

Of course, when the sculpture arrived, the situation was as bad as Emily Gould-Smythe feared.

“It’s in pieces,” the sculptor confirmed.

Not wanting to dwell or wait or create a situation where Liv would find herself here before she spoke to Naomi, “We’ll take care of it from here,” he said.

The sculptor headed off, presumably to get as far from the situation as possible, having already been informed by someone else from the Empires public relations team that the sculpture would be fixed without his involvement or input.

“Where is this going?” the driver asked.

Artur pulled out his phone and read off Jacob’s address. “I’ll meet you there and take you to the garage.”

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