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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 m
e, 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.