Kat pulled her legs under her, farther from him. “Oh, a while,” she said, and then for reasons Kat would never know, she couldn’t stop herself from smiling at the memory.
There are stories thieves don’t tell—trade secrets, mostly. Or incriminating tales. Or mistakes too embarrassing to repeat. The story of Kat and Hale was none of those things, and yet it was one she never said aloud; at that moment she wondered why. She studied him across the room. He smiled back in a way that said, despite the music and distance, somehow he’d heard—somehow he was thinking the exact same thing.
Hamish’s right arm was around Angus’s waist as the two of them tangoed past.
“I still vote for Uncle Felix,” Hamish was saying.
“Did the man on that tape look like he had a bum leg to you?” Angus asked, his cheek pressed against his brother’s.
“Uncle Felix hurt his leg?” Kat asked, and Hamish shuddered.
“Alligators,” he said, stopping midstride. “Buggers are faster than they look.”
The Bagshaws both seemed to be studying her.
“Smile, Kat,” Angus told her. “It’s a good plan. Uncle Eddie couldn’t have done better.”
Hamish raised an imaginary glass. “To Uncle Eddie.”
Everyone echoed the toast, except for the boy beside her. “Who’s Uncle Eddie?”
Perhaps it was her imagination, but Kat could have sworn that the needle on the phonograph skipped. For a moment, everyone stopped dancing.
While the whole crew stared at Nick, Hale smirked at Kat, challenging her to describe the indescribable.
“Uncle Eddie is . . . my uncle.” Kat started like every good con starts, with a little bit of the truth.
Gabrielle added, “Our uncle.”
“Yes, Gabrielle,” Kat conceded. “Uncle Eddie is our grandfather’s brother. He is our great-uncle.” She gestured to herself and Gabrielle. “The real kind.”
“Way to rub it in, Kat,” Angus said with only a semi-mocking tone as he and his brother danced by. (Kat wasn’t sure who was leading.)
“The Bagshaws are sort of like . . .” Kat struggled with the words.
“Our grandfather worked with Eddie before he even moved to New York,” Angus explained.
“You ever hear of the Dublin Doxy Heist?” Hamish asked, eyes wide. “What about the time someone ransomed that little dog Queen Elizabeth was gonna breed all her other dogs with?”
“And then she got the wrong dog back?” his brother finished. Nick shook his head.
The brothers shrugged as if Nick were utterly beyond saving, and resumed their tango. Nick turned to Simon, unfazed. “How about you? How do you know this Uncle Eddie?”
Simon rubbed his hands together. “My dad had a sort of cash-flow problem when he was at MIT, and that’s how he met—”
“My grandfather,” Gabrielle interjected as she reached for Simon’s hands and pulled him to his feet.
“Our grandfather,” Kat corrected as Simon tried to dip Gabrielle. And failed.
“Who was Eddie’s brother,” Simon said, reaching for the girl who was currently sprawled across a hard floor for the second time in three days.
Across the room, Hale smiled slightly. “We can draw you a diagram if you need it.”
“No thanks,” Nick said. “I think I’ve got everyone but you.”
“Oh.” Hale smirked. “That’s simple.” Kat wasn’t moving— wasn’t dancing—and yet it felt like her heart might pound out of her chest as she watched Hale lean farther into the shadows and say, “I’m the guy who happened to be home the night Kat came to steal a Monet.”
Chapter 26
Hale found her in the garden, staring at a statue of Prometheus that W. W. Hale the First had purchased in Greece and transplanted to Wyndham Manor sometime before the first World War.
“I wouldn’t try stealing that, if I were you.” His voice came from behind her, but Kat didn’t turn.
“The weight would make it hard,” she said.
From the corner of her eye, she saw Hale stop beside her, hands shoved into pockets, looking up. “You’d need a crane,” he said. “Cranes are loud.”
“And big.”
“They leave nasty tracks all over gardens.” Kat could almost feel him smile. “And quads.”
Not for the first time, Kat wanted to ask about Colgan and the Porsche and exactly how he’d done it, but every good thief knows that the only job that matters is the next job. So Kat stayed quiet in the midst of the rosebushes and fountains and perfectly trimmed hedges that ran across three acres like a maze. She stood at the center of it, not at all surprised that he’d found her.
“He stole fire from the gods,” she said flatly, pointing at the statue.
Hale sighed. “The Visily Romani of his time.”
In comparison, even Arturo Taccone didn’t seem like such a threat. The music had been turned up and was floating through the glass and out into the night. Inside, someone was laughing. And Katarina Bishop was standing with Hale in the chilly air, watching his foggy breath.
Hale’s hand found hers. It was big and warm around her cold fingers. It felt like it belonged there. And then, just that quickly, it was gone, and Kat found herself grasping crisp, cold paper.
“I found these, by the way.” Hale studied Kat’s face as she looked down at the manila envelope that she had hoped to never see again.
“How did you . . .”
“Under the rug in your bedroom, Kat? Really?” He laughed. “For an excellent thief, you really are a terrible hider.” She didn’t open the envelope. She already knew too well what was inside. “The one of me is especially nice.” He turned his head. “It captured my good side.”