Double Threat Christmas. Terri Reed

blinked her long lashes. “Fine. My assistant had an appointment, so she’d left early. I was alone in the workroom preparing the Wahlberer painting for transport when Mr. Drake—” She gestured to one of the two dead men lying on the floor to the right.

      Ms. McClain seemed momentarily frozen as she stared at the dark-haired man sprawled on the shining cherrywood floor. A pair of long-handled sheers protruded from the man’s gut, and blood spilled out to stain the floor a deep crimson. The click and flash of the CSI tech’s camera documenting the death echoed in the room along with the hushed whispers of those working the scene.

      A stabbing indicated a crime of passion.

      “Mr. Drake came in…” Paul prompted, wondering if there was enough fire in her blood to make her commit murder.

      She turned sharply back to him, visibly refocusing, her breathing a bit irregular. “Mr. Drake arrived early. He wasn’t due for another fifteen minutes. I wasn’t ready. I asked him to wait in the red room.”

      Paul arched an eyebrow. “The red room?”

      She made a sweeping gesture with one elegant hand toward the doorways. “The different art collections are housed in separate rooms. Each room is color-coded.”

      “I see. So Mr. Drake went into the red room.”

      “No.” She pointed to the other vic lying a few feet away. “He—Mr. Vanderpool—stormed in even before Mr. Drake had taken five steps.”

      Vanderpool was as Nordic as they came with his white-blond hair and large features. His wounds were consistent with a gunshot wound. But they wouldn’t know for certain until the medical examiner did the autopsy.

      “You say he stormed in? Why do you say it like that?” Paul watched her closely, gauging her response.

      Would her gaze dart upward and to the right, searching for a fabrication, or would her eyes go up and to the left, recalling events and words of description?

      She stared straight at him with those eerily blue, sharply intelligent eyes, no shifting, no blinking. “Mr. Vanderpool and Mr. Drake both wanted the Wahlberer painting. At the auction last night both men created quite a stir when they tried to outbid each other. Mr. Vanderpool stormed in claiming the painting was supposed to be his.”

      She gave a look that spoke volumes of how dumbfounded she was by the men’s behavior. “I thought it strange that either would find the painting that valuable since Wahlberer is so new to the art world.” She gave a delicate shrug of her slim shoulders. “People who are passionate about art are an eclectic breed.”

      Paul wouldn’t know since he wasn’t much interested in art. His focus was on contributing to society by getting the job done and putting away the bad guys. “And where is this Wahlberer now?”

      The painting had not been found in the workroom as she’d claimed it should be.

      Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “I don’t know. I last saw it in the workroom on the table, wrapped in brown packaging. I hadn’t yet put the string across to secure it before I was interrupted.”

      “By Mr. Drake?”

      “Yes. By Mr. Drake.” Frustration clearly marked her words.

      “What was your relationship with Mr. Drake?”

      She stared at him aghast. “There was no relationship. He bought art through the gallery. That’s it.”

      Her denial rang true. “How much is the painting worth?”

      “Mr. Drake bought the painting for a hundred thousand dollars.”

      Ah. Motivation enough for someone to kill and steal. Even an art curator. He made a note to check into Megan’s finances. “Who knew that Mr. Drake was coming to pick up the painting?”

      “The staff. But none of them would do this,” she protested, her lip quivering.

      That remained to be seen. “You left the painting on the table.”

      “Yes.”

      He noticed she didn’t fidget or hedge.

      When she remained silent he pressed, “And then?”

      “I went to find my boss, Lester Sinclair. I thought he was in his office upstairs. But he wasn’t.”

      “Did you knock or just go in?” He’d have the CSI team check out the second floor and hall for any trace evidence.

      She folded her hands together in front of her. He noted her nails were short and her skin red and dry. As if she’d scrubbed at them. Possibly washing away blood? He made a note of his observation on his notepad.

      “I knocked first and then I went in. His office was empty,” she stated, her voice curiously flat.

      “Is there a back way from the offices upstairs to the gallery floor?”

      Two little lines appeared between her black arched eyebrows. “Yes. There’s another staircase that leads to the back of the gallery, near the restrooms.” Horror filled her expression. “But you can’t think Mr. Sinclair could have done this. He’s nearly seventy years old. Why would he commit such a heinous crime?” She tugged her bottom lip between her white, straight teeth.

      He arched his eyebrow. “If you’re sure he wasn’t in the building, then why’d you go looking for him?”

      “I didn’t know he wasn’t in the building at the time,” she replied, her eyes widening, expressing her agitation. “Only now I know.”

      “And you didn’t hear anything?”

      “I heard the gunshots.” She blinked rapidly as if to hold back tears. “I ran back downstairs and found them. My scissors were in Mr. Drake’s stomach.” She shuddered.

      Practiced at not being moved by displays of emotion, he consulted his notes again. “Gunshots? As in more than one?”

      She nodded with certainty. “Yes. Two.”

      He made a note to tell the crime-scene techs to look for a stray bullet since they had only one GSW. “And your assistant, Lacy Knight, had an appointment. Where?”

      She shook her head; her dark hair swayed slightly. “I don’t know. I don’t keep tabs on her or the other employees.”

      “How many employees were here today and when did they leave?” he probed.

      Without hesitation, she answered, “Joanie, the receptionist, left at five as always. Donny and George are the daytime security guards. They both left at six.”

      The call came in to 911 at five minutes to seven. “There was no night-shift guard?”

      “Usually there is.” She frowned, her pert little nose crinkling slightly. “But Mack didn’t show. Lacy said he called in sick. Mr. Sinclair was going to get a temp from the security company we use but I didn’t hear what happened with that.”

      “We’ll need the names and numbers for all the employees.”

      “You’ll have to talk to Mr. Sinclair,” she stated as her gaze fixated on the men from the coroner’s office as they began to remove the two bodies from the gallery floor.

      Paul positioned himself in her line of vision. He wanted to keep her focused. “Is there an exit through the workroom to the outside?”

      Giving herself a little shake, she shifted her bright blue gaze to him. “Yes. But it’s locked. If anyone had come in or out, the alarm would have gone off. And the security camera would record it.”

      “We’ll need the video feed on the camera from the time of the murders,” Paul said.

      “You’ll have to talk to Mr. Sinclair about that.”

      “Hey, Wallace,” Andy Howell, Paul’s partner for the past six months, called from the doorway to the workroom.