CHAPTER NINE – NINA’S PRICE
Nina called me late that afternoon from an unfamiliar number.
She said she had heard Bernice had spoken to police.
“I need to know whether she told them about the transport meeting,” Nina said.
“She did.”
I heard her inhale sharply.
“Then Celia will blame both of us.”
I suggested that she contact Officer Singh or Imogen Shaw rather than explain everything to me.
Nina said she had tried to reach a lawyer but could not afford a consultation before the gala.
I gave her the legal services number and asked whether she was somewhere safe.
“I’m in a laundromat,” she answered.
“Celia took my office keys this morning.”
Nina had refused to sign a revised inventory list stating that several missing objects had been destroyed before the organization acquired them.
Celia responded by placing her on unpaid leave and instructing staff not to let her into the gallery.
Nina still possessed photographs of loading manifests and email confirmations from the days the artwork had been collected.
She wanted to turn them over without exposing the residents’ private information to the public.
I told her that seemed wise.
“I saw you at Bernice’s house because I was trying to stop her,” Nina said.
“I was bringing back a carton she had been ordered to destroy.”
“Why did you leave it with her?”
“Because I thought she might finally refuse.”
Nina described the pressure inside Bright Harbor.
Celia promised donors that every work in the catalogue could be sold, even when residents had agreed only to temporary display.
When artists requested returns,
staff were instructed to say that the shipping department was experiencing delays.
Some pieces were moved between storage units to avoid having them examined by visiting family members.
The organization had also removed handwritten messages from several objects because those messages revealed that the pieces were personal gifts.
Nina had protested after finding one such message tucked beneath the frame of Doris’s watercolor.
“I was told the messages were emotionally distracting,” she said.
“That phrase still makes me sick.”
I asked whether the auction proceeds actually funded classes.
“Some money does,” she answered.
“That’s what makes this complicated.”
Celia had used the prospect of losing those classes to pressure staff and volunteers into overlooking the disputed agreements.
Several legitimate instructors depended on the program, and some residents genuinely wanted to sell their work.
Nina feared that exposing the deception would punish honest artists alongside the people responsible.
“It’s possible to protect the classes and still demand the truth,” I said.
“Not if Celia controls the money,” she replied.
Nina went silent when someone entered the laundromat.
Then she spoke very quietly.
“There’s one more thing.”
She said Bright Harbor had hired a private event company to remove the unsold pieces immediately after the gala.
The company’s trucks were scheduled to depart before dawn on Sunday.
The removal would make ownership disputes harder to resolve because the work would be spread among private buyers and storage locations.
I asked whether she had shared the schedule with Imogen.
“Not yet.”
“Please do that now.”
Nina thanked me and ended the call.
Then someone pounded on my front door.
Celia Brant stood on the porch wearing the same cream coat she had worn at the gallery.
Two men in dark business jackets waited beside a parked car.
“We need to talk about the things in your possession,” she said.
