Heist Society

And, of course, eventually, it would change everything.

Chapter 10

The hotel suite was nice. Hale (or, more specifically, Marcus) didn’t know how to reserve any other kind. The couch was plush, and the television was large, but as Kat settled in to watch the disk Taccone had given her, she was anything but comfortable.

“There should be popcorn,” Gabrielle’s voice cut through the suite. “Am I the only one who thinks there should be popcorn?”

Kat pulled her dry sweater around her and tried to tell herself it was the rain and her damp hair that had chilled her.

“Milk Duds,” Hale said as he sank to the end of the sofa. “I, personally, am a fan of the Dud.” And Kat suddenly realized where the chill was coming from.

Hale hadn’t spoken to her in the car or looked at her in the elevator. Kat pulled a notebook from her bag and crossed her legs, wondering if Hale would ever forgive her for walking away from him. Again.

She reached for the remote control and pushed PLAY. The television flickered. Ghostly black-and-white images flashed across the screen: the long entryway that she had walked down only an hour before, a professional-grade kitchen, a wine cellar, a billiards parlor, Arturo Taccone’s private study. And finally . . .

“Stop.”

Gabrielle hit the PAUSE button, and the image froze on a room that Kat hadn’t seen—a room Kat could only assume very few people ever saw.

A bench was the only piece of furniture. The floors were solid stone instead of marble or wood. But the most remarkable thing was the five paintings that hung on the far wall.

“Blueprints,” she said, but Hale was already rolling the spare set of documents onto the coffee table between the sofa and the TV.

“Here.” Kat pointed to a room on the plans that had the same dimensions as the one on the screen. “Looks like it’s located underground, probably only accessible here.” She tapped the blueprints. “A hidden elevator in Taccone’s office.”

“How do you know that?” Gabrielle asked.

Kat thought about the dark wooden paneling behind Taccone’s desk. “Because I’m pretty sure I was standing right in front of it tonight.”

Hale tensed beside her, but he didn’t speak as he touched the remote. The black-and-white images played like an old silent movie without a star, until the video flickered back to Taccone’s office.

Floor-to-ceiling windows dominated one wall, so it was easy to see the bolt of lightning that flashed through the sky on the screen in front of them. A split second later, the screen went black. Kat could imagine the villa going dark, someone complaining about ancient wiring and a dislike of storms.

But in the suite, all Kat heard was the deep sighs of her companions and their simultaneous exclamation, “Benjamin Franklin.”

Having done it herself on more than one occasion, it wasn’t hard for Kat to imagine the thief scouting the old villa and formulating a plan. She imagined him taking a room in town—something that catered to tourists, perhaps. A place where he could be just another visitor to the countryside, while he watched and waited for a stormy night.

When the tape resumed, Kat leaned close and squinted. “How long until the generators kicked on?”

“Forty-five seconds,” Gabrielle answered.

“Not bad,” Hale said.

“For Taccone’s system or our guy?” Gabrielle asked.

He shrugged as if to say it was a toss-up.

“Everything else went black, but this room . . .” Kat pointed to the vaultlike space that filled the screen. “This room must be on a separate feed from the rest of the house. This room kept recording.” Kat glanced from the screen to the blueprints. “Looks like it’s directly under . . .”

But her voice trailed off as, on screen, water began dripping from the gallery ceiling.

“The moat,” they all finished in unison.

“Cool.” Hale’s voice was pure awe. “Benjamin Franklin with a side of Loch Ness Monster.”

“Eww!” Gabrielle exclaimed. “That moat is disgusting. Seriously. No way would I go near it.”

“From what I could see, there were at least five Old Masters in that room, Gabs,” Hale said. “You’d go near it.”

“Maybe,” Gabrielle admitted. “But if he cut a hole in the ceiling of a room under a moat, then why isn’t it flooded?”

Kat turned away, not needing to see the screen to know what was happening. “He rode a mini-submarine in from the lake and then sealed it to the room’s roof. After that, all he had to do was open the hatch, cut the hole, and . . . A minisubmarine,” Kat said again with a shake of her head, as if trying to cast aside a terrible case of déjà vu.

Her cousin looked at her. “How do you know?”

“Because that’s what Dad did.” A silence fell over them as Kat stood and walked to the windows that overlooked the quiet streets. “Two years ago. Venice. It was—”

“Beautiful,” Hale said, but Kat had another word in mind.

“Risky.”

“Well,” Hale said slowly, “at least now we know why your dad is Taccone’s leading suspect.”

“Only suspect,” Gabrielle corrected.

On the screen, a masked man in a plain black wet suit was easing through the fresh hole in the gallery roof, moving with silent purpose. There were no hurried or wasted steps as he neutralized the pressure switches on the individual paintings and removed them from the wall, packed each carefully in a watertight case, and slid them through the hole in the ceiling and into the craft Kat knew was waiting in the moat outside.