Chapter 25
Despite rumors to the contrary, Mrs. W. W. Hale III had not added a large solarium to the Hale family’s English estate because it was fashionable at the time, or to keep up with Mrs. Winthrop Covington II, who had built a similar addition to her manor house three miles away. No, Hale’s grandmother had ordered the construction of that particular room for two primary reasons: One, she hated to be cold. And two, she dearly loved the Henley’s massive glass-covered foyer.
As Kat sat with her crew in the glass-enclosed space that evening, eating soup and sandwiches, discussing all they’d learned, Kat wondered if anyone besides her was impressed with the irony. Probably not, she decided.
“How’s it coming, Simon?” Gabrielle asked.
Simon, completely enthralled by the small electronic gizmos and wires that covered the table, took a moment to answer.
“We have eyes.” He turned the computer around, and there, in living color and from a quite unflattering angle, was Gregory Wainwright.
“Mr. Wainwright?” a high, female voice cut through the air. Simon beamed.
“And ears.”
“Nice work, Simon,” Gabrielle said with a kiss on his cheek.
“I helped,” Hamish reminded her, moving his cheek in her direction, but Gabrielle wasn’t feeling quite that liberal with her affection.
“Mr. Wainwright?” The secretary’s voice came through the intercom, and the man on the screen moved. Lurched, really.
“He’s napping,” Gabrielle said with a laugh.
“So what do we need to know about him, Hale?” Kat said. “Besides the fact that he likes to doze off in his office.”
“He’s a suit. He’s concerned with typical suit stuff,” Hale said, clearly an expert on the subject. “Donations, revenue streams”—Hale paused, and even the Bagshaw boys stopped to listen—“publicity.”
Glass surrounded them on three sides. Perfectly tended plants sprawled throughout the space, and Kat felt the high that comes from too much oxygen and possibility.
“Our friend Romani has made life for Mr. Wainwright very, very difficult,” Hale said with a smile. He leaned back in a wrought-iron chair, which Kat guessed was as old as the glass dome around them. “The official party line is what we’ve already heard—a prank, a mistake by the janitorial staff—the usual stuff.”
“But unofficially?” Angus asked.
Hale nodded. “The Henley is spooked.”
On the screen, the secretary was entering the office. She held a small pad of paper in her hands, was rattling off something about a black-tie fund-raiser, a faulty furnace, a new record for attendance, and the annual evaluation of the building’s fire codes. And through it all, Gregory Wainwright kept nodding impatiently, desperate to return to his nap.
“Scared . . .” Kat started. She stood. It felt very good to stretch, and as she walked, she asked herself how her father would rob the Henley. And then Uncle Eddie. And then, finally, her mother. But there was only one thief who had ever done what she was trying to undo, so in the end Kat tried to think like Visily Romani.
“We’re making it too hard,” Kat said, more for her own benefit than anyone else’s. “We’re not stealing from the Hen-ley. We’re stealing at the Henley.” She began to pace in long strides.
“They’re scared,” she said, stopping, turning to Hale. “Right?”
He nodded slowly and leaned forward, elbows on knees, and something in the gesture reminded Kat of her father. She pointed to the plans. “Then we give them reason to be terrified.”
An awed silence filled the room as five of the greatest junior thieves the world would ever know stared at her and uttered, “Smokey the Bear.”
“It could work,” Simon said, nodding slowly.
“It will work,” Gabrielle added.
Angus even raised his hand, as if Kat were a visiting professor. “Yeah, well that still doesn’t explain how we’re going to carry five paintings out of the most secure museum in the world—”
“Even if they aren’t their paintings,” Hamish reminded them again.
“Without getting noticed,” his brother finished.
Kat walked to the window. She tried to see out into the night, but the glass had become a mirror in the darkness. Kat stared at their reflections, studied them all in turn.
“So we get noticed.”
To call it a party would be a mistake. It wasn’t a celebration so much as an excuse to blow off steam. But when Hamish found an old phonograph and a collection of ragtime records in the corner of the solarium, there was no doubt the music changed things.
Maybe it was the scratchy sound of trumpets reverberating off the glass—maybe they were all a little drunk on the possibility (or perhaps the illusion) that this thing might actually work. But, eventually, Simon asked Gabrielle to dance, and proved he was surprisingly good. Angus challenged Hamish to balance a cricket bat on his chin for two minutes (which he did).
And, through it all, Kat sat on an old chaise lounge, watching the party. Hale sat on the other side of the room, watching her.
“So does he hate everyone, or am I special?” Kat didn’t have to turn. She could see Nick standing over her shoulder, reflected in the glass. He threw one leg over the chaise lounge and sank onto the cushion beside her. She felt suddenly conspicuous, as if there were entirely too much them and too little chair.
Hale looked away.
“You never did answer my question, you know,” Nick said. He took a sip from his drink. “This afternoon?” He cocked his head in Hale’s direction. “How long have you two been . . . together?”