Page 15
Kat stared at the gallery wall.
Five paintings remained.
She made a slow rotation, scrutinizing each of the paintings, studying their dimensions. She felt her heart start to race.
“What if that card wasn’t all he left?”
“What?” Hale asked, turning to look at her, but Kat was already walking forward, examining the ornate frames around the priceless works.
“Miss,” one of the docents said as Kat leaned forward. “Miss, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to step back. ” The man eased between Kat and the painting, but not before the idea had already taken root in Hale’s mind.
“No,” Hale started, and then he looked from the paintings and back to Kat again. “Why would someone break into the Henley to leave five priceless paintings. . . . ” He looked at the walls. Counted. “Behind five different paintings?” He didn’t even try to hide the awe in his voice.
Because he’s done things like this before, Kat wanted to say. Because using the name Romani means you always have a plan—a reason. Because Psuedonima jobs aren’t ordinary jobs. Because Visily Romani isn’t an ordinary thief.
“But why would someone do that?”
“I don’t know, Hale. ”
“But why would—”
“I . . . I don’t know. ”
She suddenly felt the need to be free of the crowds and the noise and the history that hung on every wall, taunting her.
“Somebody’s playing games!” Kat said angrily as she left the exhibit hall and started down the Henley’s grand promenade. She walked faster, Hale beside her, trying to keep up. “Somebody’s having fun! And he doesn’t care that other people are going to get hurt because of it. ”
People were starting to stare, so Hale placed his arm around her shoulder and tried to stop her—to calm her.
“I know,” he whispered. “But maybe it’s a good thing. ”
“Maybe it’s what? Taccone’s after my dad, Hale. Taccone—”
“Maybe it means we’ve found them. And if they can be found . . . ”
It seemed to Katarina Bishop as if all the moments in her family’s very long, very dubious past had been preparing her to say, “They can be stolen. ”
Chapter 16
As Kat watched the city roll by from the back of a long black car, she was acutely aware of the fact that she had three— maybe four—options.
Option one: she could call Arturo Taccone and tell him to meet her at the Henley. How he got the paintings off the wall and out the door was his problem. This, of course, was the option that made the most sense, incurred the least amount of risk, and, given what Mr. Stein had told them, was most likely to get her thrown into Arturo Taccone’s moat. Therefore, it was an option she didn’t consider for long.
If they had been any other kind of paintings—or if Arturo Taccone had been any other kind of man—then option number two would have been the clear winner. All it required was a five minute phone call to the Henley’s director and the suggestion that a business card might not have been all Visily Romani left behind. But there was no way Kat could be certain that Taccone’s hold over the paintings was legal enough to see them returned, or illegal enough to see him arrested. The only thing Kat knew for certain was that if she caused Taccone to lose the things he loved, then eventually, he would return the favor.
The third option was still forming vaguely in the back of her mind, but she knew it would almost certainly involve a lecture from her father and a general call to arms of every lock man, pyro geek, wheeler, and/or inside player in the business. Given recent events, it would probably also involve a lot of Kat being looked at and talked to like someone’s daughter and niece. It would most certainly include the very real risk that Arturo Taccone’s paintings would not be the only ones liberated from the Henley collection. That is, if Uncle Eddie said so.
But Uncle Eddie had said it was over. Uncle Eddie had said it was sacred, and if he didn’t think Kat could (or should) undo what Visily Romani had done, then there was no thief in the world who would attempt it. Still, Kat’s mind kept coming back to option three.
Maybe because that was the best of the options. Or maybe, she feared, because it was the option that was in her blood.
“We don’t have a lot of time,” Hale was saying. “For a target the size of the Henley, we’ll have to—”
“This is nuts. ” Kat blurted more for her own benefit than for Hale’s. “Stealing from this Visily Romani guy—whoever he is—that’s one thing. But stealing”—she stopped, glanced at the back of Marcus’s head, and lowered her voice—“from THE HENLEY ?”
When the car stopped, Kat and Hale got out. Kat walked quickly, crunching gravel beneath her feet, and ran her hand through her hair—the very gesture she’d seen her father make a thousand times. . . .
Right before he agreed to do something stupid.
“I mean, even if we did,” she said, glancing up at Hale as he kept pace beside her, “it’s the Henley. ”
“Yeah,” Hale said, his voice cool.
“No one has ever stolen a painting from the Henley. ”
“Yeah,” Hale said again, his excitement rising.
Kat stopped. “We’d be stealing five. ”
“Well, technically, we’d be re-stealing them,” he said dryly. “It’s kind of like a double negative. ”
She turned from him again and started across a wide stretch of grass, going nowhere in particular. Just going. “Assuming we could do it, it’d take a big crew. ”
“Yeah, and no one really likes you,” Hale added. He didn’t smile.
The wind was cold beneath the gray sky. Leaves blew across the ground at their feet. “We’d need gear—the good stuff. The really expensive stuff. ”
“Too bad I’m only good for my looks,” Hale said. “And my better-than-average singing voice. ”
Kat rolled her eyes. “Seven days, Hale. ”
This time he had no response, no solution. If there was one thing Kat learned from losing her mother, it was that even the best thief in the world can’t steal time.
Kat looked over the rolling hills, the stone fences that crisscrossed the horizon. London felt a million miles away. “Where are we?”
Hale pointed behind her. “Country house,” he said, but of course, by house, he meant mansion.
Kat turned to see a perfectly planned garden spread out along one side of a massive estate. Smoke spiraled from at least three chimneys. She imagined that somewhere in that grand old building, Marcus would soon be preparing soup and tea.
She missed Uncle Eddie.
They started for the great stone house, the weight of what they had to do settling down on them.
“Mr. Stein—” Kat started, but Hale cut her off.
“Don’t think about it. ”
“They aren’t Taccone’s paintings, Hale. ”
He stopped her. Her arms felt especially small in his hands as he held her there, staring into her eyes. “First, we save your dad, Kat. ” There was an urgency in his voice that made Kat forget to fight as Hale narrowed her options down to one. “First, we rob the Henley. ”
He put his arm around her and led her toward the house where W. W. Hale the First had been born.
“We’re gonna need people,” Kat said as Marcus opened the big double doors. “People we can trust,” she added.
Hale nodded and walked her down the ornate hall, pausing before a pair of sliding doors. He pushed them aside, revealing a two-story library, a warm fire, and the familiar faces of the Bagshaw brothers, Simon, and Gabrielle.
“You mean, like them?”
Chapter 17
The assembly of a crew is a monumental event in a young thief’s life. There are meetings and phone calls. Plans, and occasionally, a celebratory cake. Normal families have graduations. Thief families have this. Kat should have felt a little cheated that she’d missed out on all the fun. But she didn’t.
She looked at Hale. He shrugged. “I had a hunch. ” And then he helped himself to one of the finger sandwiches that Marcus was circulating around the room, popping it whole into his mouth, barely taking time to chew before reaching for the tray again.
No one shook hands or said hello. Kat’s friends looked as if they were prepared to stay all night, planning. And even though they were essentially in a circle, Kat saw the way they watched her, and for the first time in her life, she knew what it felt like to be at the head of the table.
“Thanks for coming. ” She took a step closer, gripped the back of a Queen Anne chair. “I’ve got sort of a job. ”
“I knew it!” Hamish exclaimed. “I told Angus when we saw you at Uncle Eddie’s that something was happening— didn’t I? So what is it?” He rubbed his hands together. “Jewelry store?”
“Maybe a bank job?” Angus guessed.
Hamish nodded. “You know I do adore a proper bank heist. They’re so preferable to . . . improper ones. ”
“It’s not a job like anyone here has ever done before,” Hale said, giving the Bagshaws a look that said quite clearly there would be no need for anyone to interrupt Kat again.
In that moment, the room seemed to find a new energy. Simon’s fingers twitched. The brothers leaned closer. Even Gabrielle seemed to be giving her cousin her full attention as Kat searched their eyes and drew a breath.
“Whatever we do next,” she blurted, “we do without Uncle Eddie’s blessing. ”
No one responded at first. Then Hamish looked at his big brother, smiling, as if waiting for permission to laugh. It had to be a joke, after all. But Gabrielle was stoic, and Simon was mumbling about Vegas, and growing pale. And, most of all, something had pulled Kat back into their world.
Hale dimmed the lights and turned on the television. The same black-and-white video that had been haunting Kat’s dreams started to play.
“This is a private villa in Italy. ” The frame froze on the empty gallery-style room. “And I mean private. ”
“How do we get in?” Angus asked, inching closer to the screen.
Hale and Kat looked at each other. She shook her head. “We don’t. ”
Then, as if on cue, the man they called Romani came onto the screen. “Someone has already done us that favor. ”
They watched the artist work for a few moments.
“Hey, Kat,” Simon started, “is that—”
“It’s not my dad!’
“I was gonna say, is that a Degas?”
“Oh, yes,” she said slowly. She thought of Mr. Stein. “There were five paintings in all. Old Masters. ”
“Who is this bloke?” Hamish asked.
“Does it matter?” Hale asked. Hamish shrugged, but every eye in the room was on Kat.
This was the time, of course, to tell them the whole story. It was also the time to lie. Kat asked herself what her father would do—what Uncle Eddie might say.
So Kat settled on the lie she knew was truest: “That guy is Visily Romani. ”