Heist Society (7 page)

It was as if some invisible hand had taken hold of Kat in that moment—was pulling her up by the back of her black jacket, bringing her to her feet.

“Get down!” Gabrielle snapped, reaching for her cousin, but Kat was already moving to the edge of the ridge.

“Where are you going?” Hale asked as she walked purposefully toward the drawbridge, trying to shut down the part of her mind that asked
Drawbridge
?

“Kat!” Gabrielle hissed. “You’re going to get caught.”

The smile Kat flashed over her shoulder was almost wicked. “I know.”

The gates loomed taller as Kat approached. Lights shone strategically around the perimeter, highlighting the drops of rain that were starting to slice through the black sky. Still, Kat walked slowly, deliberately, across the fields and toward the villa walls. She felt the stare of the security cameras. She sensed the movement of the guards. To keep her mind occupied, she tried to guess the age of the villa, the names of the original owners, the history of the lake. She tried to focus on the falling rain, her frizzing hair.

But mostly she tried to look calm as she strolled to the small metal box on the side of the road. She prayed her voice wouldn’t betray her as she stared into the small camera and announced into the speaker, “My name is Katarina Bishop.” Lightning struck behind her. “I’m here to see Arturo Taccone.”

If the Taccone villa was a place that typically did not receive guests, it did not show it.

The man who opened the door reminded Kat oddly of Marcus, the way he wordlessly took her wet coat and softly asked her to follow. There were marble floors and chandeliers, fresh flowers, and fires burning in two of the four rooms she passed. But there were no stacks of mail lying on tables, no coats or scarves hung carelessly on the backs of chairs. It was a place that valued beauty and order in equal measure, Kat knew. So she stayed quiet, following her guide toward a set of double doors more intimidating than the drawbridge. She stood silent, waiting for an audience with Arturo Taccone.

He was sitting behind an antique desk when the doors opened, near another roaring fire in a room much like the study of the Hale family’s upstate home. There were books and decanters, tall windows and a grand piano that Kat guessed he frequently played. Though the house was at least twenty thousand square feet, Kat had an inkling that this was the room where the man of the house really lived.

“Leave us,” he ordered Kat’s guide. She heard the double doors close behind her and knew that it was at least a little bit foolish not to tremble at being left alone with him. And yet her hands stayed steady. Her pulse didn’t race.

“I should welcome you to my home, Katarina,” he told her, tipping his head slightly. “I must say, this is a surprise. And I like to consider myself someone who is not easily surprised.”

“Well,” Kat said slowly, “I was in the mood for spaghetti.”

Taccone smiled. “And you’ve come here alone,” he said, but it was really a question.

“Now, I could say yes, and have you think I’m lying.” She took a step forward, ran her hand across the baby-soft leather of a wingback chair. “Or I could say no, and have you think I’m bluffing. So maybe I’ll just say . . . no comment.”

He pushed back from his desk as he studied her. “So you have—as you Americans say—backup?”

“Not really.”

“But you’re not afraid, are you?”

She was in Arturo Taccone’s favorite room, but in every way that really mattered, Kat was back on her home turf. “No. I guess I’m not.”

He stared at her. After an excruciating pause, he asked, “Perhaps you don’t think I’d hurt a little girl?”

For reasons Taccone would never understand, Kat was surprised at the words. It was strange to hear herself referred to in such a way.
Little
, she supposed she couldn’t deny. But
girl
was odd. Woman or lady wouldn’t have been any better. She had simply been so long inside boys’ clubs that she forgot sometimes that, anatomically at least, she was not a younger, smaller version of the men who sat around Uncle Eddie’s kitchen table. That she was, from a biological standpoint, very much like Gabrielle.

“That’s a lovely piece,” Kat said, pointing at a Louis XV armoire near the fireplace.

The man raised his eyebrows. “Did you come to steal it?”

“Darn it,” Kat said with a snap of her fingers. “I knew I should have brought my big purse.”

Scary men do scary things, but for Kat, nothing was as terrifying as the sound of Arturo Taccone laughing. “It’s a shame we didn’t meet under different circumstances, Katarina. I think I would have enjoyed knowing you. But we did not.” He stood and walked to a cabinet, poured himself a glass of something that looked very old and expensive. “I take it that you do not have my paintings.”

“That’s kind of been my story all along.”

“If you’ve come here to ask for more time, then—”

“Like I told your boys in Vegas, I’m working on it.” She glared at Goon 2, who had slipped inside and was standing like a statue by the door. “Or didn’t you get the message?”

“Yes, yes.” He took a seat on the leather sofa in the center of the room. “You have indeed been making some interesting inquiries. Your great-uncle’s home in New York . . . that, I could understand. Your uncle is the sort of man who should be consulted. But the trip to Las Vegas”—he leaned back and took a sip—“that came as a surprise. And then I learned that we had visitors this evening. Well, you can understand if I’m perplexed.”

“I told you everything in Paris,” Kat explained, her voice steady. “My father didn’t steal your paintings. With a little time and a little help, I may be able to tell you who did. I may even be able to arrange for them to be returned—”

His smile widened. “Now
that
is an interesting proposition.”

“But first . . .”

“Help?” the man guessed.

She nodded. “You say my father did this.”

“I
know
he did this.”

“How?”

“Oh, Katarina, surely any half-decent thief would know that I have taken . . .
precautions
. . . to protect myself and my belongings.” Arturo Taccone raised a hand, waved at the opulent surroundings.

“The Stig 360,” she said with a smile. “
Nice
. Personally, I prefer the cameras in the 340 models. They’re clunkier, but they have more range.”

Outside the villa, the rain was falling in torrents, but inside, Taccone’s voice was as dry as kindling. “I had hoped you would take my word that your father has done this terrible thing, Katarina. But if—”

“Look.” Kat’s voice was sharper than she’d thought possible as she stepped closer to the man at the center of the room. Goon 2 made a move toward her, but Taccone stopped him with a wave. “It’s not a pride thing. Or a trust thing. It’s an information thing. You’re a man who makes careful decisions based on the best information possible, are you not, Signor Taccone?”

“Of course.”

“Then help me. Help me get your paintings back. You’ve got proof, you say?”

Taccone held his drink to the light as if toasting Kat and her courage. “Of course.”

Kat smiled, but her expression held no cheer. “Then show me what you’ve got.”

There would come a time—although Kat didn’t know it yet— when her conversation with Taccone that evening would be told and retold around Uncle Eddie’s kitchen table a thousand times. When the story of her crossing the drawbridge would involve not rain but bullets; when the tale of her asking Arturo Taccone for his help would include threats and windows and something involving a pair of antique dueling pistols (which, according to legend, Kat would also steal).

But Kat herself never told the story. Hale and Gabrielle lay in the darkness, staring down at the grounds when the drawbridge lowered and Kat left of her own free will, taking her sweet time.

As she walked through the rain and darkness, Hale and Gabrielle didn’t notice the way she kept the small disk from Arturo Taccone tucked under her arm. But, of course, they would see it eventually.

And, of course, eventually, it would change everything.

The hotel suite was nice. Hale (or, more specifically, Marcus) didn’t know how to reserve any other kind. The couch was plush, and the television was large, but as Kat settled in to watch the disk Taccone had given her, she was anything but comfortable.

“There should be popcorn,” Gabrielle’s voice cut through the suite. “Am I the only one who thinks there should be popcorn?”

Kat pulled her dry sweater around her and tried to tell herself it was the rain and her damp hair that had chilled her.

“Milk Duds,” Hale said as he sank to the end of the sofa. “I, personally, am a fan of the Dud.” And Kat suddenly realized where the chill was coming from.

Hale hadn’t spoken to her in the car or looked at her in the elevator. Kat pulled a notebook from her bag and crossed her legs, wondering if Hale would ever forgive her for walking away from him. Again.

She reached for the remote control and pushed
PLAY
. The television flickered. Ghostly black-and-white images flashed across the screen: the long entryway that she had walked down only an hour before, a professional-grade kitchen, a wine cellar, a billiards parlor, Arturo Taccone’s private study. And finally . . .

“Stop.”

Gabrielle hit the
PAUSE
button, and the image froze on a room that Kat hadn’t seen—a room Kat could only assume very few people
ever
saw.

A bench was the only piece of furniture. The floors were solid stone instead of marble or wood. But the most remarkable thing was the five paintings that hung on the far wall.

“Blueprints,” she said, but Hale was already rolling the spare set of documents onto the coffee table between the sofa and the TV.

“Here.” Kat pointed to a room on the plans that had the same dimensions as the one on the screen. “Looks like it’s located underground, probably only accessible here.” She tapped the blueprints. “A hidden elevator in Taccone’s office.”

“How do you know that?” Gabrielle asked.

Kat thought about the dark wooden paneling behind Taccone’s desk. “Because I’m pretty sure I was standing right in front of it tonight.”

Hale tensed beside her, but he didn’t speak as he touched the remote. The black-and-white images played like an old silent movie without a star, until the video flickered back to Taccone’s office.

Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated one wall, so it was easy to see the bolt of lightning that flashed through the sky on the screen in front of them. A split second later, the screen went black. Kat could imagine the villa going dark, someone complaining about ancient wiring and a dislike of storms.

But in the suite, all Kat heard was the deep sighs of her companions and their simultaneous exclamation, “
Benjamin Franklin
.”

Having done it herself on more than one occasion, it wasn’t hard for Kat to imagine the thief scouting the old villa and formulating a plan. She imagined him taking a room in town—something that catered to tourists, perhaps. A place where he could be just another visitor to the countryside, while he watched and waited for a stormy night.

When the tape resumed, Kat leaned close and squinted. “How long until the generators kicked on?”

“Forty-five seconds,” Gabrielle answered.

“Not bad,” Hale said.

“For Taccone’s system or our guy?” Gabrielle asked.

He shrugged as if to say it was a toss-up.

“Everything else went black, but this room . . .” Kat pointed to the vaultlike space that filled the screen. “This room must be on a separate feed from the rest of the house.
This room
kept recording.” Kat glanced from the screen to the blueprints. “Looks like it’s directly under . . .”

But her voice trailed off as, on screen, water began dripping from the gallery ceiling.

“The moat,” they all finished in unison.

“Cool.” Hale’s voice was pure awe. “Benjamin Franklin with a side of Loch Ness Monster.”

“Eww!” Gabrielle exclaimed. “That moat is disgusting. Seriously. No way would I go near it.”

“From what I could see, there were at least five Old Masters in that room, Gabs,” Hale said. “You’d go near it.”

“Maybe,” Gabrielle admitted. “But if he cut a hole in the ceiling of a room under a
moat
, then why isn’t it flooded?”

Kat turned away, not needing to see the screen to know what was happening. “He rode a mini-submarine in from the lake and then sealed it to the room’s roof. After that, all he had to do was open the hatch, cut the hole, and . . .
A mini
submarine,
” Kat said again with a shake of her head, as if trying to cast aside a terrible case of déjà vu.

Her cousin looked at her. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s what Dad did.” A silence fell over them as Kat stood and walked to the windows that overlooked the quiet streets. “Two years ago. Venice. It was—”

“Beautiful,” Hale said, but Kat had another word in mind.

“Risky.”

“Well,” Hale said slowly, “at least now we know why your dad is Taccone’s leading suspect.”

“
Only
suspect,” Gabrielle corrected.

On the screen, a masked man in a plain black wet suit was easing through the fresh hole in the gallery roof, moving with silent purpose. There were no hurried or wasted steps as he neutralized the pressure switches on the individual paintings and removed them from the wall, packed each carefully in a watertight case, and slid them through the hole in the ceiling and into the craft Kat knew was waiting in the moat outside.

“Taccone said that when the power went out, someone looped the video feed to the guard’s station, so no one saw a thing. What we’re watching is from an off-site backup system that our guy either didn’t know about or missed.” Kat shrugged. “However it happened, no one even knew those paintings were gone until Taccone got home from a business trip.”

“What kind of business
is
he in?” Gabrielle asked.

“The business of being incredibly scary,” Kat answered at the same time Hale simply said, “Evil.”

The girls looked at him. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. “Arturo Taccone is in the business of evil.”

Something about the way he turned back to the TV told Kat there was something he wasn’t telling her—information obtained from private investigators or corporate gossips, from Manhattan socialites or high-ranking Italian officials. They were the kinds of stories told in smoke-filled rooms over expensive Cuban cigars.

But some stories make your hands shake. Sometimes too many details make you fidget in the dark. So Kat didn’t ask Hale to tell the tales. She looked at him, watched him toss the remote on the table and say, “So maybe I’m going to handcuff myself to you the next time you decide to take a stroll.”

“I was fine,” Kat insisted, desperate for him to understand. “He . . . likes me. I amuse him. He thinks I’m”—Kat hadn’t realized until now—“like him.”

“You’re not,” Hale blurted. For the first time in hours he looked into her eyes. “You are
not
like Arturo Taccone.”

There were times when Kat thought she knew everything there was to know about W. W. Hale the Fifth—with the single exception of his first name—and then there were times like this, when she felt that he was like one of the first edition novels in the library of his upstate house: she hadn’t even finished the first chapter.

“How deep would the river that runs to the moat be at its shallowest?” Gabrielle asked.

Kat shrugged. “Eight feet?”

Hale nodded. “I’d say ten at the most.”

“How small would the sub have to be?” Gabrielle asked.

“Small,” Kat answered.

“Note to self,” Gabrielle said. “When it comes to moats, deeper isn’t necessarily better.”

Then Hale asked, “
How
small?”

Kat heard the hum of a motorcycle on the street below, saw lights shining on the Coliseum in the distance. In the dim hotel room, a masked man stood frozen on the TV screen, caught in the act of stealing five priceless paintings and her father’s future.

“There’s one way to find out.”