Heist Society

“Dad, I—”

“Leave the Henley alone, Kat,” he blurted. “Take a test. Go to a pep rally or—”

“A pep rally?”

“Kat, kiddo, you do not want to do this.”

“Of course I don’t want to, Dad,” she said, too aware of how true and deep the sentiment ran. “We have to.”

“We? Who exactly is we?”

“Hale,” Kat said. Even from a block away she saw her father grimace. “Simon. Gabrielle.” Kat wanted to keep her voice even, steady. “Hamish and Angus—”

“The Bagshaws?” he said, not hiding his disapproval.

“They didn’t know she was a nun!”

A cold wind blew through the tower and down onto the square where her father stood.

“So that’s it, huh?” her father asked. “You’ve got your own little heist society and now you’re gonna rob the Henley.” He turned and started moving down the busy street. “Call Uncle Eddie, Kat. Tell him it’s over. You’re out.”

“You think Uncle Eddie is putting me up to this?” She watched the words wash over him. “You think he hasn’t already gotten on a plane and told me to let him handle it?”

“Then let him handle it.”

“Yeah.” Kat fought back a laugh. “Because Uncle Eddie always has your best interest in mind.”

“Kat . . .” Her father’s voice was softer. “You stay away from Arturo Taccone. He’s—”

“Coming for you.”

“I’m fine, Kat.”

“Now, Dad. You’re fine now. You can get coffee and read newspapers and put on a show for whoever Interpol has following you that day. But if Taccone doesn’t get his paintings back, five days from now there’s going to be a moment when Interpol isn’t watching and you’re not thinking, and then Arturo Taccone’s gonna be here and you will be anything but fine.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” Kat turned away, leaned against the cold, rough stone of the tower wall as she spoke softly into the phone. “I do know, because he told me.”

Kat turned back to the square in time to see the shock sweep over her father, followed quickly by fear. “You stay out of this, Kat. You stay away from—”

“It’s too late, Daddy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

When the sirens first broke through the damp chilly air that surrounded them, Bobby Bishop didn’t even seem surprised. He had made his peace long before, but his daughter’s conscience wasn’t so clean. She shivered.

“It means you taught me well.”

“Robert Bishop?” Kat heard Amelia Bennett’s voice come clearly through the phone. She watched her father study the woman who was walking toward him, with her chic haircut and designer coat, and Kat knew that if it hadn’t been for the badge in the woman’s hand, her father would have never guessed she was a police officer. Or, more specifically, Interpol.

“Hang up the phone and put your hands behind your back, sir,” a uniformed officer said, appearing at her father’s side. But her father didn’t move. Instead he yelled, “Don’t do it, Kat.”

She watched the officer reach for the phone, heard her father call out one last time, “Go back to school, Kat.”

And then nothing. The scene in the square was like a movie with no sound as Kat said, “Dad,” but no one heard her. The crowd parted. Sirens wailed. And high above the chaos, Kat whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Chapter 22

Kat used to love Paris, but as she walked away from her father that afternoon, the sidewalks seemed too crowded and foreign and cold. She wanted to go home. Wherever that was.

She felt someone bump against her as she waited on a street corner for the light to change. She heard a soft “Sorry,” but didn’t turn to acknowledge whoever had spoken her native language on that foreign street.

Of course, in the weeks that followed, Kat would look back on this decision from time to time and allow herself to feel at least a little bit stupid. She’d had a lot on her mind at that moment, it was true. She’d been worried about her father. Worried that the cops might realize that Melanie O’Hara and Katarina Bishop were one and the same, and that the eyewitness account of the former was good enough to hold the latter’s father and keep him from Taccone, but not quite good enough to keep him in jail.

She’d worried what Uncle Eddie would say when he found out that she’d broken the thief’s (much less the daughter’s) ultimate code.

Given her current mindset, it was understandable that it was instinct alone that made Kat brush against the boy who, two seconds before, had brushed against her.

Or maybe, Kat wondered later, it was fate.

“Did she find you, sir?” the bellman said as he passed the boy on the hotel stairs.

The boy stopped. “I’m sorry?”

“The young lady, sir. She said she was your cousin.” The bellman paused, concern growing on his face. “She said she had a key, sir. She knew your name and room number.”

The bellman didn’t notice the worry that briefly flashed in the boy’s eyes.

“Oh good. She made it,” the boy said calmly, as he processed the news that was anything but good.

The bellman saw the boy turn and walk casually down the hall. But he didn’t see the look of shock on the boy’s face when the door to room 157 swung open freely, unlocked.