Page 76 of Handle with Care
For a moment, Will looks surprised, but he recovers quickly.
“Actually, I have something to say as well.” Will looks at the director and Lily.
For my part, I look intently at Will. He finally glances at me, looking hollow. He sits.
“Dylan, please keep on top of the deliveries this morning,” Lily tells me pointedly. It’s meant to be Will’s turn to do the deliveries, but obviously, he doesn’t look up for it.
With reluctance, I leave the director’s office, shutting the door after me, wishing it didn’t feel so final. I force myself to walk away, even though it feels like betrayal to leave Will behind. Though obviously, they noticed he looked rough too.
They’re only checking in on him. Then I’ll talk to him after and find out what he had to say.
I take a moment in the boardroom to compose myself, to finish my coffee when I quickly check the messages and the day’s schedule for both Will and me to come up to speed. We’ll make a plan.
Soon, I’m back to the loading bay with my clipboard, ready for action with two of the techs for the first delivery of the morning, which comes as scheduled, and I’m busy checking crates and filling out paperwork. The morning passes quickly, even though I feel entirely out of sorts.
All I can think of is how imposing the director’s office was, with its sleek black leather and chrome finishes and oak. Or the look of quiet disappointment on Lily’s face as she gazed at us. The way the clock sounded or the soft scent of Will’s cologne I could pick up, seated so close beside him. And then the agony of being sent away and leaving Will behind.
By 11:00 a.m., there’s time for a tea break, and I go up to the gallery to find Will at last or see if he’s been sent out on any errands. I don’t see him up there, so I make my way downstairs to peek into the tearoom, but there’s no Will. However, I find Carine. Ever since the first day when I showed up more drowned rat than confidence-inspiring intern, she’s been nice to me. And if anyone knows where Will is, it’ll be her, since nearly everyonecomes and goes from the front door, except for people working out on the loading bay with the back door out to the lane.
“Hey.” I give her a weary smile. “Enough water in there for me too?”
“Of course.”
Carine makes up a pot of tea, and we wait for it to steep in the small tearoom, which is more like a galley kitchen than anything else. I hop up on the counter opposite to sit for a moment.
“How’s the installation going?” she tries, a little too carefully. Like she knows what’s up. She lowers her voice. “There’s a rumor going around that an expensive exhibit’s been lost?”
I groan. “It’s not exactly a rumor.”
Her eyebrows lift. “Oh?”
“It’s, um, kind of true?”
Carine looks too startled for words. “Oh.”
“Obviously an accident,” I tell her quickly. “I’m hoping we can still sort it out by some miracle. I can’t imagine where it’s gone. Everything comes in from the back door to the museum whenever Will and I have gone out together.”
Thinking back, as usual, we’d gone out that day using Will’s Land Rover. There’s no chance the exhibit’s been lost somewhere else. We would have unloaded everything into the loading bay, then taken it straight downstairs on a cart. I’ll have another look around and check my laptop for more notes about that day. I can’t imagine the exhibits have vanished into thin air. Or believe that Will’s diabolical enough to actually steal or hide the collections to set me up for an angle into the permanent job. Neither one of us looks good here.
Unless Will makes a miraculous discovery at the eleventh hour, which leaves him looking golden when the collection turns up. Maybe that’s what he’s told them.
I feel like an asshole for even thinking like this. I’ve probably streamed too many true crime stories on art heists back in university.
“Shit.” I screw up my face.
“What’s wrong?” Carine asks.
“Oh, nothing. It’s a lot, you know?”
She makes sympathetic noises and pours tea into the two waiting mugs. “This’ll help,” she says with confidence. “Tea always does.”
If only I felt the same way Carine does about tea and its calming properties.
When I go back to the gallery a little while later, there’s no sign of Will. And later, after I text Will at lunchtime to find out how the last drop-offs are going, there’s no reply from him.
At the end of the day, I check in with Lily in her office before I leave for the day, having stayed till 7:00 p.m. I’ve had no response from Will all day, and I’ve been doing my best to keep super busy, which is easy to do, to keep from thinking about him.
“What time’s Will back from the drop-offs?” I ask her, after I’ve given the latest update on my end with all the other arrivals now in the gallery and staged for the install. “I was hoping to catch him.”
