"James Alexandra Kline!"

I cringed as my full name reverberated off the hallway walls. Through the glass wall in my office I could see Matthew storming toward me, his round face puffed up like a pimple about to burst. Across the hall, Tara – the visiting collections curator – looked up from her desk, her face alight with the promise of intrigue.

Matthew was mad. Which meant only one thing. He'd found out that—

"James Alexandra! The Raynard exhibit is opening in two weeks. Where the fuck are my paintings?"

I sank down lower behind my desk, wringing my hands in my lap. I'd known this confrontation was coming. In my head, I screamed at him that they weren't "his" paintings. Matthew Callahan was the director of the modern art department at the Halt Institute, a prestigious art gallery in the heart of Crookshollow village. He could no more paint an exquisite work of art than he could recognise one. He didn't even really care about art. He had only one trait that made him a competent curator: he was loud and bolshy and could usually get his way. Except, of course, when his assistant curator messed things up.

The assistant curator being me, although judging by Matthew’s voice, probably not for much longer.

"Well?" Matthew loomed in my doorway and barked. "Do you have anything to say for yourself, James?"

"No," I muttered, staring at my knees. I hated it when Matthew used my real first name. He only did it because he knew it made me uncomfortable, and Matthew loved making people uncomfortable. Silently I cursed my parents for naming me – their only daughter – after James Fauntelroy, my famous male ancestor. Who does that?

But now wasn’t the time to be thinking about my parents, especially since that usually brought up some tough memories. I had a bigger, angrier problem hurtling through my office door.

A thousand excuses loomed on my lips. It wasn't my fault the paintings were late. The Halt Institute won the contract for one of the most anticipated exhibitions in the entire country. The artist, Ryan Raynard – despite being one of the darlings of the modern art scene (and my favourite English artist) – was a recluse. He lived in his family's crumbling manor not far from my own flat in Crookshollow, but he hadn't been seen outside the manor walls for at least ten years. Despite never having exhibited, never doing press, and never schmoozing with the rich collectors who made the art world go round, Raynard was one of the most sought-after artists painting in the modern impressionist style. Buyers snapped his pieces up as soon as they hit the auction houses. His paintings leached into the market through his secretary, Simon Host, who was the man I had been dealing with over Raynard's first-ever public exhibition.

Everything had gone well initially, until I needed to have the paintings shipped to the Institute. Despite numerous calls, emails, and even a drunken attempt to smoke signal from the pub last night (courtesy of my flatmate Kylie helping me drown my sorrows) to Simon's office, I'd heard not a single reply about the delivery of the paintings.

Of course, Matthew didn't care about any of that. All he saw was a big gap in the warehouse where the Raynard paintings should've been, and a staff photographer getting paid to Instagram pictures of his nostrils.

Matthew leaned against the doorframe and scowled at me. He'd curled the ends of his moustache with wax, so it looked as if he was smiling and frowning at the same time. "Gareth isn't working this weekend. If those paintings aren't here by tomorrow, the photographs don't get shot until next week, which means the advertisements don't get to the printers on time, the Guardian hold back our editorial, and I start wondering why on earth I hired someone so goddamn incompetent."

I gritted my teeth. "I know all this, Matthew. Raynard’s office is being difficult, but I've got it under control."

"Tomorrow, then. On your head be it." Matthew shot me a final, deadly stare, and continued down the hall to harass another curator.

I rose and shut the door, turning the key in the lock so Matthew couldn't walk in again. Across the hall, Tara – another curator – waved at me through the glass. I glared at her and pulled down the shade, hoping she hadn't noticed my red face and shaking hands.

I slumped back into my chair, rubbing my fingers against my throbbing temples. I didn't need Matthew to tell me that the artwork was going to be late. I knew it was going to be late, if it even showed up at all.

What I didn't know was what to do about it.

Two years ago, I'd landed my dream job as assistant curator here at Halt, off the back of a successful kinetic exhibition I’d curated for the Tate Modern. But compared to some of the other curators – who'd been working at Halt so long they remembered when Warhol was just an upstart young commercial illustrator with a canned foods fetish – I was green. I'd been astounded when Matthew shoved a thick file on my desk two weeks ago and announced that it was my job to co-ordinate the exhibition details with Raynard.

My astonishment quickly turned to dread when I realised Raynard wasn't going to be easy to deal with. Despite his absurd insistence on an opening only a month away (most of our exhibitions at this scale were planned a year in advance) he refused to even get on the phone to discuss a single detail, and he had a list of demands rivalling that of a rock star. He knew no gallery would turn down his wishes, and he was clearly a man of some considerable ego. Even though I greatly admired his work and I’d never even talked to the man, I was beginning to hate Ryan Raynard more and more each day.

Right now, my fear of losing my job boiled that hate over into seething, unadulterated rage.

Calm down, Alex. You have to think. I wiped my sweaty palms against my wool skirt. Perhaps Simon Host was just busy with other preparations for the exhibition. The exhibition was to be his client’s first public showing in ten years, after all. It was likely Simon was in his office right now.

I dialled the number I now knew by heart, after calling it twenty times already today. While I listened to it ring I refreshed my browser. No new emails. The phone rang and rang… ten times… twenty times… Raynard's secretary still wasn't answering, and there was no way to leave a message.

What am I going to do?

This was the first major exhibit Matthew had entrusted me with. If I messed this one up, I'd be back to doing administration and running the children's gallery talks. If I had any hope of becoming a serious curator one day, I had to figure out a way to solve this.

My stomach churned. My pulse throbbed in my ears. I gulped down the urge to throw up. Panicking wasn't going to get those paintings to the gallery. I stared at my car keys on the table. There was nothing else to do.

I was going to talk to Ryan Raynard and make him hand over the artwork, even if it meant breaking into Raynard Hall itself.