Part 3
Several trustees visibly welcomed it.
Public belief did not reverse merely because a door closed.
Adrian had funded exhibitions, donated works, paid for scholarships, and rescued the museum’s operating budget during the pandemic. His name appeared on the east gallery, the sculpture terrace, and the annual curator fellowship. He was charming to guards, generous to artists, and known for remembering the birthdays of people who could not benefit him.
Elena’s authority came from employment.
His came from gratitude.
Thomas adjusted his bow tie. “Start at the beginning.”
Adrian smiled faintly. “Gladly.”
Elena said, “Not yet.”
The smile vanished again.
Thomas looked at her. “Why?”
“Because Mrs. Aster is not in the atrium.”
Several people turned.
Lillian Aster was the museum’s senior provenance researcher. She was sixty-three, private, and incapable of making casual conversation without transforming it into a lecture on documentation. She had worked at the museum for twenty-seven years and knew more about the Rainer painting than anyone alive.
She had also disappeared from the auction forty minutes earlier.
Thomas asked, “Where is she?”
“We don’t know.”
Adrian’s voice sharpened. “She went home.”
“No.”
“She told me she was ill.”
“She told you?”
“At the reception.”
“When?”
“Before the auction began.”
“What exactly did she say?”
Adrian paused.
Elena watched him search his memory for a sentence that could survive verification.
“She said she wasn’t feeling well.”
“Where?”
“Near the west gallery.”
“Who was with you?”
“No one.”
Elena looked toward Marcus Reed.
The head of security touched his earpiece.
“West gallery camera shows Mr. Cross entering at seven thirty-eight,” Marcus said. “Mrs. Aster entered at seven forty. Neither exited through the public corridor.”
Thomas looked toward the dark opening of the west gallery.
“How did they leave?”
Marcus answered. “Mrs. Aster exited through conservation at seven forty-six. Mr. Cross exited through the sculpture corridor at seven forty-nine.”
Adrian’s expression remained controlled.
Thomas asked, “Why did you use different exits?”
“The gallery was crowded.”
“The west gallery was closed for installation.”
“I meant the adjoining corridor.”
Elena looked at Marcus again.
He said, “The adjoining corridor was empty.”
Adrian turned toward him. “Are you conducting an interrogation?”
“No, sir.”
“You seem very interested in sounding like you are.”
Marcus did not respond.
Thomas handed his catalogue to a trustee beside him.
“Elena, where is Lillian?”
“We know she entered the provenance archive at seven fifty-one. She used her card. At seven fifty-five, the archive camera stopped transmitting.”
“Mechanical failure?” Thomas asked.
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“The camera was disconnected manually.”
A guest near the stage whispered, “Oh, my God.”
Elena looked toward the sound.
The woman immediately lowered her eyes, embarrassed by having reacted aloud.
Adrian’s face remained calm, but his left thumb began moving across the edge of his watch.
Elena had seen that gesture only twice.
Once when a journalist unexpectedly asked about a lawsuit involving his family’s shipping company.
Once when Elena told him she had ordered an independent review of the Rainer’s title history.
He rubbed the watch when he needed time.
“The archive has no exterior exit,” Thomas said.
“It connects to the freight corridor,” Marcus replied.
“Was the freight corridor camera active?”
“Yes.”
“Did Lillian enter it?”
“No.”
Thomas stared toward the gallery.
“Then she is still in the archive.”
Marcus said nothing.
Elena answered. “We don’t know.”
“Have you checked?”
“Security searched it at eight twenty-two.”
“And?”
“The room was empty.”
A catalogue slipped from someone’s hand and struck the marble floor.
The sound was surprisingly loud.
Adrian looked toward the entrance again.
The shutters had fully descended. A narrow red indicator glowed above the sealed doors. Behind the metal, the city continued without them. Traffic moved. Pedestrians passed the museum’s glass facade. None could see inside now.
Adrian said, “This is why the room must be opened.”
Elena looked at him. “Why?”
“If an employee is missing, we need outside assistance.”
“You said she went home.”
“I’m responding to new information.”
“Marcus contacted the relevant people before the atrium was sealed.”
“Which people?”
Elena did not answer.
His thumb moved across the watch again.
Thomas’s voice became quieter. “Was the Rainer in the archive?”
Elena shook her head. “It was in the loading bay by then.”
“Is it still there?”
“The crate is.”
“And the painting?”
Elena looked at Adrian.
He did not move.
“The crate was opened at eight twenty-seven,” she said. “It contained a weighted travel frame and conservation packing.”
No one murmured this time.
The silence was complete.
Thomas removed his glasses again, though he had not put them back on.
“The painting is missing?”
“We have not located it.”
A trustee named Miriam Cole stepped forward. She was a retired federal judge and had served on the board longer than Elena had worked at the museum.
“Who had access to the holding room?” Miriam asked.
“Twenty-one staff credentials,” Marcus said. “Four executive overrides. Three temporary auction permissions.”
“Whose override approved the transfer?”
Elena answered. “Mine.”
“You said you did not approve it.”
“I did not.”
“Then either your credentials were stolen or you are lying.”
“Yes.”
Several people looked at Miriam, surprised by the bluntness.
She ignored them.
“Is there a third possibility?”
“The record could have been altered after entry,” Elena said. “That would require administrator access.”
“Who has administrator access?”
“Marcus, the facilities director, our external systems contractor, and the security committee chair.”
Miriam turned toward Adrian.
He was the security committee chair.
Adrian gave a restrained laugh. “Of course. We’ve reached the point.”
“What point?” Miriam asked.
“The point where every ordinary failure is rearranged to imply I engineered it.”
“You are the only administrator standing in a sealed room beside a director who says her identity was used to move a twelve-million-dollar painting.”
“Then perhaps we should ask why her identity was so easy to use.”
Elena felt the blow.
May you like
It was not entirely unfair.
Three months earlier, the systems contractor had warned that the museum’s executive credentials were too broad. Elena postponed the upgrade because the budget was short and the auction platform already required an expensive security patch. Adrian had supported the delay, calling the contractor’s proposal “fear sold by the hour.”
