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.”
Kat wasn’t surprised to hear their silence.
Simon was the only one who moved. “The Visily Romani who robbed five Swiss banks in one night in 1932? The Visily Romani who made off with half the crown jewels of Russia in 1960?” Sweat gathered on Simon’s brow. “The Visily Romani?”
Hale leaned back and crossed his legs. “Don’t worry, Simon.” He popped another sandwich into his mouth. “It’s way worse than you think.”
Kat could practically feel the Bagshaws’ excitement.
Hamish rubbed his hands across the tops of his thighs, warming them, getting ready for something—anything.
Angus seemed to be calculating something in his head. “If he did a job in thirty-two, doesn’t that make him kind of . . . old?”
“Visily Romani is one of the Pseudonimas—the sacred names,” Kat explained.
“So this guy . . .” Angus trailed off, but pointed to the man on the screen.
“He could be anyone,” Simon finished.
Kat turned and stared out the window at the gardens and the grounds, the trappings of Hale’s world, as she thought about the laws of hers. “He could be anywhere.”
Simon was rising and starting to pace. “So we’re all here because we’ve got to . . .” he stammered, pointing to the screen. “You mean this is a . . .” He stopped and put his hands on his hips. His shirt was peeking out from underneath his sweater vest. His face was growing redder by the second. “I was under the impression that Pseudonimas are slightly . . .”
“Not to be messed with?” Gabrielle answered for him. Then she smiled. “Oh, they’re not. Or, well, they weren’t.”
“You can walk away right now. All of you,” Kat reminded them. “Uncle Eddie has already said it can’t—or maybe that it shouldn’t—be done.” She drew a deep breath, wondering for a moment if there was a difference. “I won’t blame any of you if you turn and leave right—”
“You kidding?” Hamish asked. “There’s a few hundred million Euros on those walls. Easy.” He glanced at his brother. “We’re in.”
“Yeah,” Kat said slowly. “Well, like I said, it’s not a typical job.” Kat didn’t know what was harder—what she had to say, or the way everyone looked at her while she said it. “Mr. Taccone has”—Kat considered her words carefully—“asked for our assistance retrieving the paintings.”