Determined: To Win (Determined Trilogy Book 3) (11 page)

“It’s okay Eve. It’s going to be okay,” I said, wanting to believe the words I was saying. But I knew it wasn’t going to be okay. The sheer number of officers told me that. Curtis wasn’t popping out of the gallery to tell us everything was okay and that we should go home. I felt my eyes burn and an ache grow in my stomach.
This can’t be happening
, I thought, in full denial of the situation. I glanced over at Elliot. The solemn look on his face told me otherwise.

There was commotion around the entrance of the gallery, and we looked over and saw two EMTs wheeling a body bag toward the waiting ambulance. That was it. The confirmation I didn’t know I needed. Seeing that bag did it.

“Oh my God,” I managed to gasp before I lost it. Eve and I held each other and cried as they loaded Curtis’s body into the ambulance. Elliot grabbed the nearest officer and started to ask him a series of questions, but I couldn’t pay attention to anything but the gurney. It took up my entire field of vision. I couldn’t believe he was dead. Just like that. One of my favorite people in the world, just gone? It wasn’t his time. He was still in the prime of his life. I shook my head, still in denial. This was so messed up.

The ambulance was just pulling out when David’s black SUV arrived. David leapt out of the car, immediately pinpointing me, and bee-lined for us.

“Samantha, are you okay?” he said, and I fell into his black winter coat. “Elliot, what is going on?” he asked as he stroked my hair and handed me a tissue.

Elliot must have indicated that he wanted to talk in private because David drew me up off of him, and looked me in my eyes. “I will be right back. Do not move,” he said, before joining Elliot and Thomas and one of the officers.

They spoke calmly for a few minutes before David returned.

“What?” I asked. I wanted to know everything, but I couldn’t bring myself to say the words.

David sighed, and his brow furrowed. “They think it was a robbery. Sometime last night. They took the petty cash. The police seem to think that Curtis surprised whomever it was, and they panicked and shot him.”

“Shot him?” Eve’s voice was quivering. “Oh my God, that’s why there was so much blood.”

I hugged her again. “This is so fucked up,” I whispered.

“Needless to say, they will be conducting a full investigation. The gallery will be closed until then.”

“What do you mean, until then? There is no gallery without Curtis.” I was starting to get angry, and taking it out on David because he happened to be the one speaking. Luckily, he didn’t take offense, and continued calmly.

“Why don’t you all come over to the house? It’s cold out here, and we aren’t going to learn anything by just standing around. I will put in a few calls with the department and figure out the next steps.”

I nodded and looked at Eve. She looked lost, but nodded as well. I ushered her to Elliot’s car, and David followed, sending Thomas to follow us in the other SUV.

Back at the penthouse, we found ourselves in the kitchen with Hilde.

“Eve, would you like something to eat? Hilde can fix you anything you like.” Hilde nodded solemnly to affirm the statement.

“Thanks Sam, but I don’t think I can eat anything right now.”

I nodded and didn’t push. We were all in shock. How could someone so vivacious, so full of life just suddenly be dead? And for such a stupid reason. I mean, a robbery? The gallery never kept much more than three hundred dollars in the lock box. We didn’t need to. Almost all our transactions were done with credit cards. The thief could have picked any one of the artworks off the wall and found themselves with a better payout than our petty cash. I shook my head and sighed for the thousandth time that morning. This was clearly not a sophisticated criminal we were dealing with. This was all so stupid and horrible.

After a few moments of silence, David spoke. “Okay. I’m going to make those calls, and try to find out if anyone has contacted his family.” I nodded my head. “Why don’t the two of you relax, try to watch a movie. I’ll let you know when I have more information.” David walked with us to the living room and placed the remote in my hand. “I’ll be back soon,” he whispered in my ear before he brushed my cheek lightly with his lips. I swallowed and met his eyes. “I’m right down the hall if you need me.”

“I’m going to call Carrie and Kate. Is it okay if they come over?” I asked.

“Of course. Please do. Send Elliot to pick them up, if you’d like.”

I pulled into him one more time before letting go. “Thank you.” As David walked down the hall, I turned to Eve. “You didn’t call Kate yet, did you?”

“Oh, God, Kate.” It was clear from her expression that it had completely slipped her mind.

“That’s okay. I’m going to invite her and Carrie over, okay?”

Eve nodded, and I dialed their numbers.

18

Their reactions were basically on par with ours. Shocked. Stunned. Horrified and angry. Even though Kate had worked at the gallery for a much shorter time than us, Curtis had a way of making quick friends. She sat on the sofa in the living room with us, oblivious to her surroundings.

“I can’t believe it. I just saw him last night. He was talking about booking a cruise to Mexico to get out of the cold weather. I can’t believe he’s gone.”

I nodded, my tear ducts having gone dry. “So you saw him last night?” I asked, desperate to cling on to whatever I could of him.

“Yeah. I was at the gallery until five. He wanted to stay late to get a few things done for the show. I would have stayed late, but I had a date with Greg. God, I should have stayed to help. There was so much work to do.” Her voice crumbled.

“Kate, it’s not your fault. If you had stayed, I mean, I don’t even want to think about what could have happened.”

She swallowed hard and rubbed her hands together.

Carrie cut in quietly. “This is so fucked up.” Carrie knew Curtis only through me, but she was clearly still rattled.

David poked his head into the room. “Samantha, can I borrow you for a moment?”

All of the girls’ faces bounced from him to me and back again. Even in the throes of grief, he was still incredibly good looking. I had no doubt that a confident, take charge kind of man was just what all of our bodies were hungry for right about now. I stood up and followed him out of the room and into his office.

He closed the door behind me and motioned for me to sit down in front of his desk. He didn’t take a seat himself, and instead chose to perch on the edge of his desk. I’m probably going to go to hell for thinking it, but I was hungry for him. Maybe it was the trauma of the morning, but he looked every bit the consummate caretaker, his button-down shirt rolled up to his elbows, no doubt a gesture of all the work he been performing so far that morning.

“Is everything all right? What have you been able to find out?” I asked quickly, looking down, knowing that my tears could surface any minute.

“Samantha. I don’t want to alarm you,” he started.

My eyes shot up at him. “Too late,” I said. It was true. My body had been on edge since the news. There was no use trying to ease me into anything. “Just tell me. What is going on?”

He looked away, choosing to focus on the far side of the room for a moment while he gathered himself. “Samantha, we aren’t one-hundred percent sure, but it looks like this might be Brian’s work.”

My breath hitched, and I blinked rapidly. “What? What are you talking about? Why would Brian hurt Curtis? That makes no sense.” But even as the words rolled off my tongue, I knew he was right. Brian had proven himself to be a loose cannon. When David tried to take over his company, his response had been to hurt me, as a way of threatening David. Who knows what he had meant to do by hurting Curtis. Hell, maybe he had even … I gasped. “Do you think he was looking for me?”

David couldn’t hide the pain in his eyes. He looked down at the floor and then back at me. “We aren’t sure, Samantha. It could have been that they were going after you, or it could be that he just wanted to make us scared. Either way, we are going to have to make some adjustments.”

“Adjustments?”

“To your security team. To mine as well.”

“What does that mean?” I balked. “How much more security could I get? Elliot already follows me around everywhere.”

“Samantha, don’t fight me on this. God help me if anything ever happened to you…” the timbre of his voice raised and then abruptly trailed off.

“Okay,” I said softly. “What do we need to do?”

“I need you to stay here until we get this resolved. I mean no going out. It’s too risky.”

I made a face at him. “Stay here? Are you crazy? I just started a new job, there’s no way Gina’s going to let me work from home. And if you think she is, well then, you haven’t met her. I don’t want to be at the receiving end of that temper.” I crossed my arms. “Besides, are you even one-hundred percent sure it was Brian? What if it
was
just a petty criminal? And what about the funeral? I’ll need to leave to go to Curtis’s funeral.” My voice trailed off. “Whenever that is…”

David pursed his lips and paused for a moment. “I’m meeting with the security team later today. I will bring up your concerns. Then we’ll talk. Okay? I’m sorry Samantha, but I just can’t put you at risk. You are too important to me.”

“What about you? I mean, if Brian is a threat to me, then aren’t you the main target?”

David shrugged “Could be.”

“So, are you going to stay here, locked up, too?”

“Samantha,”

“No, seriously. I mean, why do I have to stay here if you don’t? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Samantha. Let me talk to my team. Please. Don’t drive yourself crazy. We will get this figured out. I promise.”

“You are really important to me too, you know,” I grumbled.

David pulled me up off the chair and wrapped his arms around me. “I know baby, I know.”

19

Later that evening, the girls and I were watching a mindless action movie on HBO and picking at Hilde’s lasagna when Elliot came in and summoned me back to David’s office.

I was surprised to find him in the company of a middle-aged white man and a young African-American woman both dressed in dark suits sitting with Thomas, opposite David’s desk. I recognized the man standing next to David as his lawyer, Ted, from the gala. Except now he was dressed down in corduroys and a sweater. A third man with tan skin and a dark moustache perched on the edge of David’s desk. I hadn’t heard them come in. All six of them looked up as I shut the door and walked a little further into the room. I nodded hello to Ted.

“Samantha, this is Detective Lopez, Agent Callaghan, and Agent Williams. Detective Lopez is from OPD and Agent Williams and Agent Callaghan are with the FBI. Agents, this is my girlfriend, Samantha Sharp.”

I walked over to them and offered my hand as they stood up. Once they sat back down, I made eyes at David.
FBI? Seriously?

David seemed to sense my confusion and explained.

“Detective Lopez was put on the Kinsler case. And our team has been working with the agents for a while now. They had a couple of questions for you Samantha.”

My throat ran dry.
Working with them for a while?
Jesus. This was much bigger than I had realized. I hesitated. I hadn’t ever been questioned before. “Questions for me?”

“Just a few standard questions,” Callaghan interrupted, “Since you seemed to know Mr. Kinsler fairly well.”

I nodded, unsure of where this was going.

“Do you know if Mr. Kinsler had any enemies? Anyone who might want to hurt him, or anyone who might profit from his death?”

I looked over at David and Ted. They didn’t seem to object to the line of questioning, so I answered them carefully.

“Um, no. No enemies that I can think of. He knew lots of people, he’s really well connected.” The agents looked at each other and then whispered back and forth, and then finally looked back at me.

“Well connected how exactly?” The second agent asked, her face dark and serious.

“Like, in the art world. He knows everyone. Or knew everyone,” I said, stumbling over my speech.

The agents let out a chuckle and then the woman spoke. “Ah, got it. When you said well-connected we thought you meant with organized crime.”

“Oh, God no,” I said, blushing. Dammit. My face was probably beet red. I looked over at David, but he seemed not to notice. “No, no, not at all. Like I said, I meant he was really well-liked, in the gallery world. And I can’t think of anyone who would profit from his death either. He has a sister down in Monterey, but other than that, he wasn’t even dating anyone.”

“What about new people suddenly appearing in his life? Any new faces lately?”

“Uh, no one he had mentioned. He doesn’t really talk about his personal life that much. And we’ve been focused on getting the new show up at work.”

“What about at work?”

“At work what?”

“New faces.”

I fiddled with my hands while I answered, wishing my trousers had pockets to jam them in to. “Um, not really, I mean, I haven’t been there a lot lately. I guess Kate is fairly new, but she isn’t someone who would do this.”

Detective Lopez looked at his notepad and then up at me. “Is this Kate Devereux?”

“Yeah.”

“The same one who was working last night? According to my notes, she was also the last to see Mr. Kinsler alive.”

“Yes,” I affirmed.

“What would you say was the tenor of her relationship to Mr. Kinsler?”

I sat up a little straighter. “Uh, good. I mean, she’s new. I don’t know her that well. But she seems like a good person. I think they got along fine. Curtis got along with everyone.”

My eyes started to mist at the thought. The events of the day were really starting to take a toll on me. I was exhausted and confused about their line of inquiry. Why were they focusing so much on my friend instead of finding the person who did this? I looked to David for help.

David gave me a small nod and cut in. “Do you need a break?” he whispered. I nodded. He turned back toward the group. “Everyone, would you excuse us for a minute?” The investigators hesitated, looking at David and then at Ted.