Heist Society

“It was good to see you again, Katarina,” Mr. Stein called from the doorway. “When I realized who you were . . .”

“Yes?” she asked, and Mr. Stein smiled.

“I thought perhaps you were here because of what happened at the Henley.”

Hale was already at the car, but mention of the best museum in the world caught his attention. “What happened at the Henley?”

Mr. Stein laughed a quick, throaty laugh. “You two should know better than I. It was robbed.” He whispered that last word. “Or so they say,” he added with a shrug, and despite everything, Kat managed to smile.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stein. I’m afraid I’ve been in no position to rob the Henley.”

“Oh.” The older man nodded. “I know. The police, they are looking for someone already—a man named Visily Romani.”

7 Days Until Deadline

Chapter 15

There are two dozen truly great museums in the world. Maybe two dozen and one if you don’t mind the crowds at the Louvre, Kat’s father always said. But, of course, even great museums are not created equal. Some are nothing but old houses with high ceilings and gorgeous moldings, a few security cameras, and minimum-wage guards. Some hire consultants and get their equipment from the CIA.

And then there is the Henley.

“So this is the Henley,” Hale said as they strolled through the great glass hall. His hands were in his pockets, and his hair was still damp from a shower. “It’s smaller than I expected.”

Kat had to stop. “You’ve never been to the Henley?”

He cocked his head. “Should alcoholics go to liquor stores?”

Kat kept walking. “Point taken.”

There were nine official entrances to the Henley, and Kat was actually a little bit proud of herself for choosing the main doors (or any door, truth be told). Maybe she was maturing. Or maybe she was lazy. Or maybe she just loved the Henley foyer.

Two stories of glass cut at dozens of angles framed the entrance. It was part solarium, part grand hall. Part sauna. The sun beat down, and despite the chilly wind that blew outside, the temperature inside the atrium was in the eighties at least. Men were taking off their suit coats. Women unwound scarves from around their necks. But Hale didn’t break a sweat, and all Kat could do was look at him, and think Cool.

Two days before, the Henley had been closed until one in the afternoon, after a security guard doing his midnight rounds discovered a business card tucked between a painting and its frame. It was a small matter, really, except the guard had sworn that, at ten p.m., no card had been there.

An alarm had been raised. More security officials had been called. And, unfortunately, so had a reporter from the local news. Scotland Yard had reviewed every piece of surveillance footage. Every member of the security staff, the cleaning crew, and the volunteer corps had been interviewed, but no one had seen anyone dangerously close to the painting in question.

And so, by Tuesday morning, the official stance of the official people, from the director of the Henley to the lead prosecutor at Scotland Yard, was that the guard was mistaken. The card must have been left by a guest earlier in the day and missed by housekeeping.

The unofficial stance of unofficial people was that someone from one of the old families was playing a joke. But Kat and Hale weren’t laughing. And neither, Kat thought, was the Henley.

Standing in the long line that day, Kat shifted on her feet. She crossed her arms. It felt as if her body held more energy— more nerves—than normal. She had to fight to keep them all in.

“I was here visiting the Angel exhibit in August,” the woman in front of them told her companion. “There weren’t metal detectors then.”

Hale looked at Kat, and she read his mind. The metal detectors were new. If the metal detectors were new, what else was?

“Well, in August, mysterious men weren’t breaking in and leaving their calling cards,” the woman’s companion replied.

They took a step forward. “Maybe he was a handsome debonair thief who had a change of heart.”

Kat blushed and thought about her father.

“Maybe he’s here right now,” the other woman said, giggling. “Scoping out the place?” She turned and scanned the atrium as if looking for the thief. What she saw was Hale, who nodded and smiled, and then it was the woman’s turn to blush.

“I wouldn’t mind meeting a dashing thief,” the woman’s friend whispered. Hale winked at Kat.

Kat raised her eyebrows and whispered, “I’d like to meet one of those, too.”

Hale brought his hands to his chest, feigning injury, but Kat was far too worried and too tired to play along. She saw Hale looking at her and felt the hope that was growing inside of him. She pretended not to notice. “It’s probably nothing,” she told him.

He took a step. “Of course it is.”

“I mean, in all likelihood, it’s a coincidence,” Kat said as if she really meant it.

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Hale lied.

The line inched forward. “We’re probably wasting our time.”

“I couldn’t have said it better myself.”

But the downside of being a con artist is that it makes you very hard to con. Even if the lies you tell are to yourself.

It was a most unusual day in what was shaping up to be the most unusual week in the Henley’s anything-but-usual existence.

Even if Katarina Bishop didn’t quite know to appreciate it, this fact was more than obvious to the guards, docents, custodians, staff, managers, and regular visitors who were all very well aware that lines never formed before nine a.m. on weekdays. The elderly ladies in the burgundy blazers who sat at the information desk commented that the eight different school groups who were visiting that day all seemed particularly quiet, as if listening and looking for a ghost.