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.
“And so we had to get new living room furniture, which, unfortunately, does not go with the Monet.”
Kat stood for a moment, staring into that small window of the world where someone would tire of a Monet simply because it clashed with the couch.
But perhaps the strangest part was that, to Gregory Wainwright, and indeed to Hale himself, the story didn’t ring strange at all. Kat thought about Hale’s mother’s empty room and empty house—all the valuable things in her life that the woman never thought to miss.
“He is good.” Nick looked at Kat, who couldn’t help but smile. “How long have you two been together?” Nick asked, and just that quickly, Kat wasn’t smiling anymore.
“We’re not together,” Kat blurted. Instantly, she wished she’d said something different. Something coy. Something clever. But it was too late, and she was stuck sounding like a silly girl and a very bad liar—two things she had never been before.
“I meant, how long have you been working together?” he corrected. Then he smiled his slightly goofy smile. “But that’s good to know, too.”
Before she could even ponder that statement, footsteps began to echo in the hallway that led to the director’s private office.
“Simon?” Kat questioned, but before the boy had even finished his “Just one more minute!” something happened that Kat had never experienced on any job of any kind.
The director and Hale were fast approaching, and to Kat’s surprise, so was Nick.
“Stall,” she whispered, starting to turn, to think, to work.
But just as quickly, Nick was grasping her arm, pulling him back to her with a quiet, “Okay.” And before a single diversionary tactic could come to mind, she was in Nick’s arms, and he was kissing her right there in the middle of the Henley’s hallway.
Right there in front of Gregory Wainwright and Hale.
She was aware, faintly, of the two of them skidding to a stop before they could turn the corner—and catch Simon in the act. She was certain she heard the director mutter something that sounded a great deal like “Children kissing in my halls . . .”
Through her earpiece, she heard Angus say, “We’re clear.” But the voice Kat most wanted to hear was Hale’s.
She pulled away from Nick right as Hale said, perfectly casual, completely unfazed, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Wainwright, before I can promise you anything, I would really like to hear from you that there’s nothing to fear from this man”—he snapped his fingers as if trying to remember the name—“Visily Romani.”