Page 20 of The Voicemail

“It was a misunderstanding,” Elena mutters, her shoulders tightening.

I step beside her and extend my hand to Claire. “Alex Russo,” I say, cutting off the line of questioning.

Claire’s posture shifts so fast it would be funny under different circumstances.

“Oh,” she says. “Of course. Mr. Russo. We weren’t expecting you today. I can let Mr. Bellamy know you’re here.”

“Do that.”

She reaches for the phone, but her attention stays on Elena. Too curious. Too pleased to have a story forming in front of her. Elena notices, too. I can tell by the way her mouth flattens. She starts toward the staff hall. I follow.

“You’re really doing this?” she asks without looking back.

“Yes.”

“I’m going to my desk.”

“I know.”

“You don’t need to watch me check my email.”

“I’m not planning to.”

She stops outside a glass-walled office and turns toward me. “Then what are you here for?”

“To investigate,” I tell her honestly.

“For you or for me?”

“Both, if we’re lucky.”

She doesn’t like that answer, but she opens the office door anyway. Her desk is neat and orderly. There are shipment binders stacked near the printer, a cup of pens, a computer monitor, and a row of sticky notes lined up along the edge of her keyboard. She sits down at her desk and turns her monitor on before looking up at me.

“Are you planning to stand there all day?” she snaps.

“Actually, I was wondering if I could have a look at your shipment logs.”

She raises an eyebrow and waves at the binders behind her. “Have at it,” she huffs.

I grab the most recent binder and start thumbing through it. I’m not sure what I’m looking for, but I’ll know it when I see it. I’m nearly to the end when I find a shipment flagged with a sticky note.

“What can you tell me about this shipment from Elio Marchesi?” I ask her.

She looks up at me in surprise. “He’s a collector,” she tells me. “He’s shipped us several pieces in the past.”

I nod. “So why did you flag this one?”

“The logs in the shipment didn’t match the painting. I brought it to Mr. Bellamy’s attention.”

“What did he say?”

“He told me to stop acting like a graduate student and process the shipment.”

Her voice is irritated, and I realize that, for once, the irritation isn’t pointed at me. She’s furious about being dismissed. It’s been happening far too often.

Before I can ask another question, a man appears in the doorway. Julian Bellamy is in his sixties, silver-haired, and dressed in a tasteful navy suit. His smile is warm, but I can easily imagine the coldness he hides behind it.

“Mr. Russo,” he says. “This is unexpected.”