Heist Society (15 page)

Of all the things that should have fallen within Katarina Bishop’s comfort zone, sneaking into a mansion (especially this particular mansion) at three o’clock in the morning should have been incredibly high on the list. After all, she knew the pros and cons of the security system (because she’d been the one to recommend it). She was familiar with the house and was well aware of the fact that the patio doors were painted shut and the rosebushes beneath the dining room windows were equipped with a particularly nasty supply of thorns.

But that night, walking through the front door of the Hale estate felt a lot like walking back into Uncle Eddie’s kitchen— like she’d left without permission, and she might never really belong inside again.

So she tried to cling to the shadows. She wanted everyone to be asleep.

“Kat?”

She froze and cursed the creaky floors.

“Kat, is that you?” Gabrielle’s voice was high and scratchy. Despite the darkness, Kat could easily make out her cousin sitting at the top of the stairs. Her arms were wrapped around her knees. Her hair was pulled into a sloppy mess on the top of her head.

“What is it?” Kat asked. “What’s wrong? Is it Taccone? Did he—”

“It’s your dad, Kat. He was arrested.”

A light turned on in one of the rooms upstairs, and Kat heard voices approaching.

She looked at Gabrielle, praying she would understand. “I know.”

“
You did what
?”

Kat wasn’t sure who said it first, because it seemed like her entire crew had blurted the question at the exact same time. She wasn’t even sure where to look, because every eye in the billiards room was staring at her with such heat and scrutiny, it was like squinting at the sun.

“I made an executive decision,” Kat told them.

“So
you
went to the police?” Simon said as if he’d plugged that piece of intelligence into his monster mind and the data didn’t quite compute.

“Interpol, actually.” Kat managed a casual shrug. “Technically, I went to Interpol.”

“And you ratted on your dad?” Angus asked.

“He’s better off where he is. Trust me,” she said.

“But you’re his daughter, Kat.” Hamish’s eyes were wide. “Uncle Eddie’s gonna kill you.”

“I’m also the girl who’s trying to
undo
the only Pseudonima job ever done in our lifetime, Hamish. Not even Uncle Eddie can kill me twice.”

Simon dropped to the couch. “I don’t think I’d do well in prison.”

Kat tried not to notice the way Hamish and Angus gripped their pool cues, or the way Gabrielle sat quietly beside the window, a worried expression on her face.

“Guys, I—”

“She did the right thing.” They were the words she never expected to hear, from the one person she never expected to say them. Hale dropped onto an ottoman. “If this doesn’t work, and”—he almost smiled—“it’d kinda be a miracle for it to work . . . then your dad’s gonna need as much standing between him and Arturo Taccone as possible.”

He looked at Kat. Something stretched out between them in that moment, and she knew that no one would deny Hale— or doubt him. That no one would fight them both. And so maybe they could have left it at that. Maybe the tension would have blown over if an unfamiliar boy hadn’t chosen that moment to appear in the doorway and say, “Hello.”

Simon lunged for a laptop that sat open on the wet bar and shut it with a snap. Hamish threw a coat over the model of the Henley that lay on the floor beside the couch, but Hale didn’t make a single move. He just looked at the boy in the doorway and back at Kat.

“Who’s this guy?” he asked, jerking his head toward the boy extending his hand.

“Hi, I’m Nick. Kat told me—”

“To wait outside,” Kat warned.

“So?” Hale asked, still staring at Kat.

“Nick’s a pocket man. He and I . . .
bumped
into each other in Paris.” Kat wanted to sound sure and in control—like someone who deserved to be there. “Nick, this is Gabrielle.” Her cousin gave the faintest hint of a wave with two fingers. “The Bagshaws, Angus and Hamish. Simon—I told you about him. And this is Hale,” Kat finished. “Hale’s—”

“Hale’s wondering exactly what
Nick’s
doing here.”

Kat listened for the familiar teasing in Hale’s voice, but she knew he wasn’t even the tiniest bit amused.

“You said it yourself, Hale.” Kat lowered her voice. “We need one more.”

“Two more,” Hale corrected. “Actually, I said we needed two more, and he—”

“He’s in,” Kat said flatly. “We can do it with seven. And he’s in.”

Kat looked at her crew: Angus was the oldest, Simon was the smartest, Gabrielle was the quickest, and Hamish was the strongest. But Hale was the only one willing to say what everyone else was thinking.

“I knew it,” he said, turning away. “I knew I should have gone with you. First you tell some phony story about your dad to the police—”

“Interpol,” Hamish, Angus, and Simon all corrected.

“And then you come home with this?” Hale snapped, pointing at Nick as if the boy couldn’t hear. As if Kat were an amateur. A fool.

Kat shook her head, wishing she could say for certain that he was wrong.

“Can I see you outside for a second?” Kat glared at Hale, then walked to the patio doors and out onto the veranda.

As Hale closed the door behind him, Kat heard Angus say, “Ooh, Mom and Dad are going to fight now.”

Outside, the air was cool. She wished she’d brought a coat, that Hale would put his arm around her and tease her for bringing home strays and lost causes. But his tone was anything but warm. “You’re too close to this one, Kat. You’re way too involved to think—”

“I know,” she practically yelled. “I
am
close. This is my life, Hale. Mine.
My
father.
My
job.
My
responsibility.”

“Clearly.” He sounded so calm and detached. Everything she wasn’t.

“I know what I’m doing, Hale.”

“Really? Because I could swear that in the past twenty-four hours you’ve turned your father in—”

“Five minutes ago you thought that was a great idea,” she reminded him. He pushed on.

“—to the cops, and brought home a stranger.”

“Nick’s good, Hale. He picked me clean and I never saw it coming.”

Hale shook his head. “This is a bad call, Kat. If Uncle Eddie were here—”

“Uncle Eddie’s
not
here,” she snapped. “Uncle Eddie isn’t going to be here.” Her voice cracked, but Hale either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

“Uncle Eddie would stop you.”

Kat looked at him, read the cool indifference in his eyes. “So that’s what you’re going to do?” she asked. “Stop me?”

She wanted him to say, “Of course not,” but instead, he looked her right in the eye and said, “Maybe I should.” He stepped closer. “This guy is—”

“What, Hale?” Kat shouted, louder now. “What is he exactly?”

“He’s not part of the family.”

“Yeah, well—” Kat sighed. “Neither are you.”

Katarina Bishop was a criminal. But she’d never held a gun. She’d never thrown a punch. Until that moment she didn’t really know how it felt to hurt someone, and as soon as she saw the look on Hale’s face, she wanted to take the words back.

And she wished she could make them hurt more.

Both. So she went inside, unable to do either.

Gregory Reginald Wainwright was still relatively new to the Henley. Oh, nine months had been more than enough time for his personal effects to find their way out of boxes and onto shelves. In that time, he’d managed to learn the names of almost all of the guards and docents who worked between the hours of ten and six. But the honeymoon period, as they say, was almost over for the Henley’s new director. It would not be long until the board of directors started asking to see his quarterly reports, questioning him about donation levels, budget overages, and, of course, about the man named Visily Romani.

These were the worries that filled his mind, pulling his concentration away from his newspaper that Friday morning. Perhaps that was why he didn’t mind the distraction when the intercom on his desk began to buzz.

“Mr. Wainwright,” his assistant said, “there’s a young man here who would like a few moments of your time.”

He groaned. The Henley was always filled with young men. Young women, too. Which was nothing more than a polite way of saying
children
. They spilled soft drinks in the café and left fingerprints on the glass in the atrium. They filled his museum by the busload every day of the school year, crowding the exhibits, talking too loudly, and driving the Henley’s director to the sanctuary of his office with his tea and his paper.

“Mr. Wainwright?” The assistant’s voice seemed more urgent now. “Shall I show the young man in? He doesn’t have an appointment, but he was hoping you might take a moment for him.”

Gregory Wainwright was searching for an answer—an excuse—but before he could claim to be expecting an urgent visitor or about to make an important call, his secretary added, “His name is W. W. Hale the Fifth.”

“Is he good?” Nick’s breath was warm against Kat’s ear. They were standing too close, she thought, as they looked through the halls of the Henley toward an unmarked door where two corridors came to a T-shaped intersection. Someone will notice, Kat worried. Someone might think something. And still he stood behind her, watching, as the door to the director’s private office opened, and a slightly balding, slightly paunchy, slightly awkward man emerged with a boy who was his opposite in almost every way.

Kat watched Hale make a show of holding the door open for the older man to walk through. She doubted that anyone but a seasoned professional would notice the small piece of tape he’d left on the latch, the quick glance he’d sent in her direction.

And then she exhaled and said, “Yeah. He’s good.” But what she thought was,
He’s still angry
.

The director removed a small card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then swiped it through an electronic reader. The Henley has state-of-the-art security, the gesture said. The Henley’s art is the safest art in the world, no matter what you might have read in the paper.

But, of course, he didn’t know about Hale and his duct tape.

As the man returned the card to his jacket, Kat turned to Nick.

“You got it?” she asked. He nodded.

“Inside left pocket.” Nick slouched forward and grinned a sloppy grin. “Lucky I’m left-handed.”

“Luck, my friend, has absolutely nothing to do with it.” Gabrielle’s voice was even as she passed. There was no flirt, no ditz. She was all business as she teetered to the end of the corridor and called, “If you’ll follow me, please.” Instantly the small speaker in Kat’s ear was alive with noise. It sounded like a flock of birds was nesting in her head—cawing and screeching—as one hundred and fifty chattering school children gathered behind Gabrielle and followed her back down the small corridor.

The noise was deafening. Kat and Nick pushed themselves against the wall, out of the way of the kids in their neatly pressed slacks and navy blazers.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Gabrielle was yelling to the teachers at the front of the mob. “Today we’re starting all tours in the sculpture garden.”

Through her earpiece, over the roar of the children, Kat heard Hale chattering to the director about London. About rain. About his unyielding search for the perfect fish and chips. The guards at the end of the hall were pressing themselves to the wall, their duties forgotten in the chaos that flowed in Gabrielle’s wake.

“Angus, Simon, you’re clear,” Kat whispered.

The guards didn’t see the unmarked door push easily open. The kids in the pack didn’t notice when the two boys no one had ever seen before suddenly disappeared from their midst.

“We’re in,” Angus said into Kat’s ear a second later. The kids kept walking, moving through the Henley’s halls like a tide, but when Kat turned to leave, she walked in the opposite direction. She wasn’t an ordinary kid, after all.

Katarina Bishop followed no one.

“The way I hear it, there
was
a Visily Romani once.”

“Just watch the door, Hamish,” Kat warned.

“I’m on it, Kitty, don’t you worry. But as I was saying, this Romani bloke was the best thief in the land, he was. Until he fell off a guard tower—”

“I heard he drowned.” Angus’s voice filled Kat’s ear, cutting off his brother.

“I’m telling this story.”

“Simon?” Kat asked as she looked around the bustling halls. “How much longer?”

“Fifteen minutes,” was Simon’s answer.

“But Romani didn’t really die, see?” Hamish went on, undaunted. “Well, strictly speaking, he
did
die, but—”

“Hamish, are you watching the door or aren’t you?” Gabrielle snapped, joining the conversation as she followed Hale and the Henley’s esteemed director from a respectable distance.

“I am, love. It’s clear as a bell. So anyway, as I was saying, he died, but he got reincarnated, see? Every generation there’s a
new
Romani.”

“That’s not how it goes, Hamish,” Kat tried to clarify.

“Yeah,” Angus said, ever the older brother. “The original Romani drowned. And it’s every
other
generation.”

“Guys,” Kat warned. Then something stopped her. She couldn’t scold the Bagshaws—could barely speak at all—when she realized how close Nick was standing, looking at her like she had never been looked at before.

“So, Nick, have you lived in Paris long?” She stepped away from the statue they’d been pretending to admire, glad of somewhere to go.

The boy shrugged as he fell into step beside her. “Off and on.” Kat felt a pang of something—annoyance, maybe? But maybe something else.

“Your accent isn’t one hundred percent British, though. Is it?” Kat asked.

“My father was American. But my mom is English.”

“And is she going to be missing you now?”

Nick glanced around the Henley’s pristine statue collection and shook his head. “I’ve got a few days.”

“That’s all we need,” Kat told him.

Nick stopped midstride and smiled at her. “Well then, that’s what you’ll get, Ms. Bishop.”

His words startled her. Or maybe it wasn’t the words themselves, but the way he’d said them. She studied him, trying to see every angle.

“Oh,” he said, that same cryptic smile on his face. He started walking again, just a tourist. Just a boy. “You really didn’t expect me to look you up? To figure out that you were
the
Katarina Bishop?”

“Exactly how does one ‘look me up’?” Kat felt herself blush, but she wasn’t really sure why.

“Just because I work alone doesn’t mean I don’t have resources. Only, rumor has it you’d walked away from the life.”

“I’m not . . .” Kat shook her head, then tried again, stronger now. “I’m still walking.”

And she was, down the grand promenade, through the crowds that had begun to thin, more equally distributed among the museum’s many exhibits. As they passed the Renaissance room, Kat noticed that it wasn’t neglected anymore. Tourists had gathered in front of da Vinci’s final masterpiece as if the world were righting itself, settling back into place.

“And here we have Leonardo da Vinci’s
Angel Returning to Heaven
,” a docent was saying ten feet away. “Purchased in 1946 by Veronica Henley herself, it is widely considered one of the most valuable works of art in the world—the
most
valuable, according to Mrs. Henley. When reporters asked her shortly before her death which piece she would rather have for her collection, this painting or the
Mona Lisa
, Mrs. Henley said, ‘Let the Louvre keep Leonardo’s lady; I have his angel.’”

The tour group moved on, and Kat eased toward the da Vinci. “You tempted?” Nick asked.

Was it beautiful? Yes. Was it valuable? Incredibly. But as she stood looking at one of the most important paintings in the world, Kat couldn’t help but marvel at how little temptation she felt.

And not because it was an almost impossible target, or because it would be practically impossible to resell, even on the black market.

It wasn’t for any of the reasons that a good thief might list. Her reasons, Kat decided—or maybe just hoped—were those of a good person.

“You’ve had big scores before, though, right?” Nick asked.

Kat shrugged. “
Big
is a relative term.”

“But you and your dad did the Tokyo Exchange Center last year, right?” Kat smiled but didn’t answer. “The Embassy job in Paris . . . The—”

“What’s your real question, Nick?”

It took a minute for him to shake his head and say, “Why the Colgan job?”

“It wasn’t a
job
. It was more like a . . . life?” Nick stared at Kat blankly, so she added, “A way of expanding my educational horizons.”

Nick laughed. “What could someone like you possibly learn at a place like that? Those kids are just . . . kids.”

“Yeah.” Kat walked on. “That was kind of the point.”

“You see, Mr. Hale, this is the wing your Monet would call home.” Hale watched the way Gregory Wainwright held his arms out wide, as if the entire wall could be his for the taking. Hale had seen that gesture before, of course. That gesture alone was possibly why he found
taking
so very appealing.

“We have hosted some of the finest works from some of the world’s finest families,” the director went on while Hale turned and surveyed the gorgeous space as if he were bored. He oozed indifference. It felt almost too easy—the role he’d been born to play, after all. But then the director glanced at his watch and said, “Oh, will you look at the time,” and Hale felt the director’s interest slipping.

“Tell me, Mr. . . . Worthington,” Hale said, pointing at a very nice Manet, “what kind of assurances do I have that my painting wouldn’t be damaged in any way?”

The director actually chuckled as he turned and glanced at the boy beside him. “We’re the Henley, young man. We use only the most state-of-the-art protection measures—”

“Docents or guards in the room at all times when the building is open?”

“Yes.”

“International Museum Federation anti-elements protocols?” Hale asked as the man gravitated toward the exit. “Gold level?”

The director looked insulted. “Level Platinum.”

“Magnetic tags tied to sensors at every conceivable exit?”

“
Of course
.” The director stopped. For the first time since he’d met the young man, Gregory Wainwright dared to look at him as if he were merely just another annoying teenager. “In fact, speaking of protection, I’m afraid I have a rather urgent ten o’clock meeting with our head of security.”

Through his earpiece, Hale heard Kat ask what he really wanted to know. “You ready for company, Simon?”

“Five minutes,” Simon answered from a wing away.

The director talked on. “I can assure you, our acquisitions department is used to accommodating almost any request, so if you’re ready to begin the paperwork, perhaps we should—”

“Oh, I’m not here to start the paperwork.” Hale stopped in the center of the director’s path, stalling as he appraised a very nice Pissarro in a way that said he had paintings twice that nice at home. Which, in fact, he did.

The museum director laughed uncomfortably. “I’m sorry, sir. I was under the impression that you would like to place your family’s Monet on temporary exhibit at the Henley.”

“No,” Hale said simply, stepping in front of the man, stopping him, but only for a moment. “I don’t
want
to place my family’s Monet at the Henley.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Hale. I’m afraid I’m quite confused, sir. You’re here because . . .” the director prodded.

“Of Kat,” Hale finished the man’s sentence as he glanced up and down the corridor at where Kat and Nick stood gaping twenty feet away. But Gregory Wainwright just kept nodding, waiting for the young billionaire to finish. “I’m here because of her.”

Perhaps most middle-aged businessmen would have balked at such an unusual statement from an anything-but-usual boy, but Gregory Wainwright was accustomed to the odd ways of the oddly wealthy, so he nodded. He smiled as he asked, “Cats, you say?”

“Yeah,” Hale said, and Kat couldn’t help but observe that Hale was becoming a fairly decent inside man. When he stayed on script, that is. Unfortunately for everyone, Hale was never on script. And worse, Gregory Wainwright had started walking, forcing Hale to follow.

“You see, Greg, my mother is going through a feline phase. Binky is a Persian,” Hale said simply, as if that should explain everything. “Binky has a nasty habit of shedding all over the living room furniture, you see.” Gregory Wainwright nodded as if he understood perfectly.