“You’ve only got a few weeks to do it, Christos. Is that going to be enough time?” He said it like he knew it was impossible but he was being too polite to call me on it.
“I hope so,” I said quietly.
Brandon eyed me like I’d gone from being his hot property to a thorn in his side in the span of five minutes.
Because I had.
I felt bad. I was taking a huge risk with my new artistic direction. Brandon didn’t deserve the stress I was piling on him. Despite the fact he annoyed me at times, he’d always been good to me and my family over the years, and he’d been counting on me to deliver a certain amount of work in a certain amount of time. Now I was blowing my deadline. But what the fuck. I didn’t want to spend the rest of my life painting for other people.
I thought the whole point of this artist thing was to do what you wanted?
Fuck.
Maybe I was being a bit too narrow minded in my view of things.
===
SAMANTHA
Madison and Jake had already gone home from the gallery because they were getting up early to surf in the morning. Romeo was chatting with Dillon and Kamiko out back in the sculpture garden. Now that Kamiko’s painting had sold, she was ready to relax.
I wandered around in the main gallery, still entranced by all the art. It blew my mind that so many people had sold paintings tonight. Most of them were inexpensive by gallery standards, ranging between $500 and $3,000. That meant Kamiko’s had been one of the higher priced pieces to sell. I was so proud of her.
Maybe one day, I’d sell a painting for a thousand dollars.
Out the corner of my eye, I noticed Tiffany stumble toward the entrance. She looked totally drunk. I think she was leaving, but she was in no shape to drive.
I ambled toward the doorway as she left, watching her sway onto the sidewalk outside. Maybe she would wrap her car around a telephone pole on her way home and I wouldn’t have to worry about her getting me kicked out of college at my upcoming SDU tribunal hearing.
I sighed.
As much as I hated Tiffany, I couldn’t let her drive home totally drunk.
Then I noticed her stumble into a guy smoking a cigarette outside. He wore a tattered leather jacket and was leaning against a parking meter. She leaned into him and clutched the lapels of his jacket. He looked surprised. But then he took a good look at Tiffany and a smile crept across his face. He dropped his cigarette and tamped it out with his boot. I guess Tiffany knew him because he put an arm around her waist and held her up.
There were two young women smoking outside, huddled together and talking to each other. Had the jacket guy been talking to them when Tiffany came outside? I wasn’t sure. Odd.
Three guys from inside the gallery walked past me, laughing at something one of them had said as they stepped onto the sidewalk. Jacket guy stared at them. One of the three guys nodded at him and said, “Hey.”
Jacket guy nodded back.
“There you are!” Romeo said from behind me. “I’ve been looking all over for you. I think Dillon and Kamiko needed some private time, so I left them alone in the sculpture garden. Besides, I couldn’t take any more cartoon talk. They’re still talking about Adventure Time. I think Kamiko is in love. Do you want to see if the bar has any booze left?”
“Sure,” I said absently as Romeo grabbed my hand and pulled me inside the gallery.
We walked toward the bar. The crowd had thinned substantially. People were heading out the door. It wouldn’t take long to get a drink. Not that I was going to have any alcohol. I was the designated driver tonight.
Tiffany.
Jacket guy.
Something about that hadn’t looked right.
“I’ll be right back, Romeo,” I said to him, pulling my hand free from his. I danced past several people strolling casually toward the door.
By the time I was on the sidewalk, I knew something was wrong.
Tiffany and jacket guy were gone.
“Tiffany?”
I whipped my head left and right. I didn’t see her. I turned to the two girls still smoking outside. “Did you see which way that girl with the platinum blonde hair and white dress went?”
One of the smoking girls said, “You mean the chick with that guy in the leather jacket?”
“Yes.”
“I think they went that way,” she pointed with her cigarette.
“Thanks.” I took off at a dead run.
Oh my god, Tiffany.
Now that I was thinking about it, Jacket guy had looked a little too mangy to be her type.
“Tiffany!” I shouted.
I passed an alley and stopped. I peered down it into darkness. I didn’t see her. And I didn’t see anything they could be hiding behind like a dumpster or trashcans or whatever.
I sprinted down the sidewalk until I stopped at a four way intersection. My heart was hammering in my chest. Not from the running, but from the panic machine gunning in my stomach. I looked up and down the cross street. It had lots of bright streetlights in both directions. But straight ahead, the street was dark. I think I saw movement ahead.
Yup.
The small dot of Tiffany’s hair and white dress glowed faintly in the moonlight.
“Tiffany!” I shouted. The light was red, but I ran anyway. A car blared its horn and swerved around me. Luckily, it hadn’t been going very fast. I dodged clear and crossed to the other side of the street.
I sprinted down the sidewalk, screaming at the top of my lungs, “Tiffany!”
It was definitely jacket guy with her, his arm around her waist. They turned down a street before I caught up.
When I rounded the corner, jacket guy had Tiffany pinned against a brick wall. Her purse was on the ground. Tiffany was pushing at him with limp hands. She was too drunk to fight. She fell down on her knees. Jacket guy grabbed her by the sleeve and I jumped on his back, pounding the back of his head with everything I had. He stood up and stumbled backward, slamming me into the window of a parked car. White lighting shot up and down my back as pain exploded in my body.
I slid down the car. My butt thumped onto the sidewalk.
Jacket guy whirled around, looking surprised. His lips were peeled over crooked clenched teeth. He was hunched over like an animal. He swung his booted foot at my face, but I rolled to the side and scrambled to my feet. His boot clunked into the car door where my face had been, denting it. Then he lunged for me and I raked my nails across his cheek.
“You cut me, bitch!” he shouted.
I saw Damian Wolfram’s face fall into place over jacket guy’s. Anger blew up inside me like a neutron bomb and my vision went red. I swung my arms at him like helicopter blades, aiming my nails at his eyes. He stumbled back and tripped over Tiffany’s legs. I kept swinging my arms. I had no idea what I was doing, but I wasn’t going to stop.
My fingers peeled back skin from his other cheek. He scrabbled away like a squirrel on all fours. When he got to his feet, he stopped and glared at me. He touched his bloody cheek and examined the blood that came away on his fingertips.
“I’m going to cut you open, bitch,” he said as he pulled a knife out of his pocket. He flicked the serrated blade open with his thumb.
Oh no. I was screwed.
He advanced toward me. If I ran, he would never catch me. But I couldn’t leave Tiffany alone with him.
Jacket guy’s face was no longer Damian Wolfram’s. It was just ugly jacket guy who had fingernail gashes dripping red. I noticed spittle on his lower lip. I became obsessed with that spittle. It was so white in the darkness. I couldn’t stop looking at it, I think because I didn’t want to think about his knife. I didn’t know what to do. Someone was going to get stabbed but I wasn’t ready to accept that fact.
He took a step toward me.
Spittle. Spittle. Spittle.
He started to chuckle like a rusty hinge, waving the knife slowly through the air in lazy circles.
His eyes suddenly went wide, drawing my
attention to them, breaking the spittle spell.
“You’re not cutting anybody,” Tiffany said. She was behind me. I turned and saw she sat on the ground, holding a small silver pistol in both hands. She was staring right at jacket guy. “Unless you want me to blow your balls off, asshole.”
“Put the gun down,” jacket guy said.
“Are you insane, douchebag?” Tiffany sneered. “I’m going to give you to the count of three to run away.” Tiffany slurred her words, obviously drunk, but she held the pistol surprisingly steady. “One…”
Jacket guy smiled like a cobra, “You’re not going to shoot.”
“Two…”
He took a confident step toward Tiffany, “You’re too drunk. You’ll miss me by a mile.”
“I’ve been taking shooting lessons since I was ten years old, you prick,” she chuckled. “Which ball do you want to keep, the right or the left? Ah, fuck it, I’m going to see if I can get both with one bullet.” She cocked the gun like they always did in the movies.
Cha-CHAK!
“Three…” Tiffany said.
Jacket guy ran away so fast, he was a blur.
I gulped, and felt my heart slide back down my throat.
“Asshole,” Tiffany said as she lowered the gun.
I knelt next to her, my legs quivering like jelly. I couldn’t stand up if I wanted to. My stomach was on spin cycle. “Are you okay?”
Tiffany took a good look at me. After a moment, recognition dawned on her face, which soured when she realized it was me. “I’m fine.” She carefully eased the hammer thing on the back of the gun. I knew that meant it wasn’t about to go off anymore. She slid the gun in her purse with a loud huff. She tried to stand up, but was having trouble.
“Do you need help?” I asked, hands resting on my thighs
“No,” she blurted.
I watched her struggle to all fours, but that was as far as she was getting. “Here,” I said, and looped my arms around her arms and stood her up.
Tiffany leaned against me.
Adrenalin still flickered in my veins. My hands shook, my knees wobbled, shit, even my hair was tingling. I was surprised I could stand, let alone hold her up too.
“Which way is your car?” I asked.
“I don’t know,” she slurred, totally frustrated, like I was annoying her.
“Oh my god! Sam!” Romeo squeaked behind me. “What the hell happened?”
I turned Tiffany and myself around to face him.
“What the hells bells?” Romeo gawked. “Are you and Tiffany scissor sisters?”
“Yes, Romeo,” I said sarcastically. “We were just about to flick each other’s beans for awhile before locking crotches.”
“Can I watch?” he asked innocently.
I frowned. “I thought you were gay?”
“But this is a historic event,” he said, “and someone is going to have to document it. You’ll need proof. Otherwise, no one will ever believe it.” He pulled out his cell phone. “I’m totally taking a picture of you two.”
“Can I shoot him?” Tiffany asked.
“Please,” I giggled. It only took about three seconds for my giggles to turn into tears of relief.
Chapter 25
SAMANTHA
Two of my fingernails still hadn’t grown completely back after I’d ripped them down to the quick the night I’d saved Tiffany. They had throbbed like crazy for days.
But now, they were a minor nuisance.
I sat in a row of chairs in a hallway on the second floor of the History and Social Sciences building, which was near the Dean’s office, awaiting my SDU tribunal hearing for supposedly stealing Tiffany’s credit card months ago.
I wore the same outfit I’d worn to court the day Christos had been on trial. Black blazer, gray pencil skirt, white blouse, black hose, and black pumps. My makeup was light, just enough to look professional.
The outfit seemed appropriate because now I was the one about to be on trial.
A woman wearing a frumpy business suit opened one of the doors off the hallway and leaned out. “You can come in now,” she said.
She held the door for me as I walked into a conference room. At the far end of the big wooden conference table, Dean Livingston sat at the head, wearing a suit, flanked by an older woman and a middle aged guy. Both wore suits and I assumed they were SDU administrators. Tiffany sat near them, a few seats down. Mr. Selfridge, my old boss from the museum, sat across from Tiffany. With any luck, he would be able to say something that helped my case. The woman who had let me in sat near the door, behind a laptop set up on the conference table.
I nodded at Mr. Selfridge and smiled at him.
He smiled back.
I wasn’t entirely sure where I was supposed to sit. But nobody seemed to be telling me where to go, so I chose a seat closer to the door, not wanting to get too close to Tiffany. Also, If I needed to beat a hasty retreat, I could slip out the door with no one noticing. Not.
At least this wasn’t an actual courtroom with the armed bailiff and the jury and the defense tables and all the rules. Knowing that I had a slight degree of control over things today eased my nerves slightly. It’s not like I would get hauled away in handcuffs if things went badly.
I set my coffee on the table and my book bag on the floor. There was no way I could get through this morning massacre without caffeine. I debated pulling my laptop out, but it’s not like I had case files to review, or whatever. All I was going to do was tell them what I knew, which wasn’t much, and hope they believed me.
I wished Christos had been here to hold my hand, but he had too much work to do on his paintings. It wasn’t like I would end up in jail if things went badly today. If I ended up getting kicked out of SDU, I’d see Christos every single day.
But I really, really hoped to avoid getting expelled. I’d worked too hard to throw it all away now. I didn’t want to stop taking more awesome art classes and seeing my friends every day. Because I knew if I got kicked out, no matter what anybody said, I would see a lot less of Madison, Romeo, and Kamiko.
Sigh.
Dean Livingston mumbled back and forth with the two administrators sitting beside him, then he turned to me, “Thank you for your patience, Miss Smith. I think we’re ready to begin?” He raised his eyebrows and glanced at everyone.
Nobody objected.
Dean Livingston folded his fingers on the files laying on the table in front of him. “As you know, Miss Smith,” he nodded at me, “the reason we’re here today is because Miss Kingston-Whitehouse has accused you of theft. Theft of her credit card, to be exact, while she was a visiting patron of the Eleanor M. Westbrook art museum, where you worked at the time.”
I wanted to say “I object!” but I wasn’t a lawyer and this wasn’t a courtroom. I knew enough to keep my mouth shut until they told me it was my turn to talk. Only then would I dive over the table and throttle Tiffany by the neck while demanding she tell the truth.
The Dean turned to Mr. Selfridge and said, “Mr. Selfridge would like to say a few words on your behalf, Miss Smith.”
I hadn’t expected that. I hoped he didn’t bad mouth me.
Mr. Selfridge stood up and smoothed his jacket. He clasped his hands in front of his waist and smiled at me. “Although I only had the pleasure of working with Miss Smith for a few short months, in that time I found her to be a diligent, hard working, forthright young woman. She always did her job, and did it well, was always pleasant with the visiting patrons, was never impatient, and she was always responsible.” He smiled at me before turning to the administrators. “I trusted Samantha implicitly, and had no concerns about leaving her in charge of the museum when I needed to step out for errands.”
Dean Livingston glanced up at Mr. Selfridge and said, “It is my understanding that you weren’t present at the time of the theft?”
“No,” Mr. Selfridge said apologetically, “I was in a meeting with the Provost of Adams College at the time. You know how Bill is about hi
s meetings,” Mr Selfridge grinned.
The Dean smiled at him, “Yes I do.” Then his smile faded. “But you weren’t at the museum at the time of the incident?”
“Regrettably, no,” Mr. Selfridge said. “I was only present afterward, when Miss Kingston-Whitehouse returned for her credit card.”
The Dean nodded, as did the two administrators flanking him. The woman administrator shot me a quick glance. I gave her my best smile, trying to look innocent and pleasant.
She looked away. Had she already decided I was a guilty liar? I hoped not.
The Dean glanced at the papers in front of him and said, “Mr. Selfridge, am I correct in saying that you saw Miss Smith remove the stolen credit card from her wallet?”
“Yes.”
“But you never saw how it got there?”
“No.”
“Thank you, Mr. Selfridge,” the Dean finished. “You can sit down.”
Mr. Selfridge sat down and tossed a nervous smile in my direction.
I smiled back genuinely. He’d tried. I mean, what else could he say? He hadn’t seen how the card had gotten into my wallet. Heck, I’d been in the restroom when it had happened. For all I knew, Tiffany had hired ninjas to sneak into the museum and put it there.
It occurred to me at that moment that being in the restroom was possibly the worst alibi of all time. How was I supposed to prove it? Fish my old tampon out of the sewer somewhere and have it carbon dated to the time I’d used the ladies room? Yeah, right.
I had nothing.
“Miss Kingston-Whitehouse,” the Dean said, “Can we hear your version of events?”
Tiffany stood up to speak. She wore a sexy silver pencil skirt and a fitted lilac colored blouse that was only buttoned halfway up her cleavage. Her blonde hair wafted across her bosom. She looked ridiculously hot. I guess it was fitting. When the Queen shouted from her throne, “Off with her head!” she usually wore a fancy outfit.
The Dean, Mr. Selfridge, and the other male administrator looked hypnotized by Tiffany’s beauty. The woman administrator, rather than being catty, seemed similarly entranced.
Wasn’t it a fact that people tended to trust attractive people more than unattractive ones?
Painless (The Story of Samantha Smith #3) Page 46
