Heist Society

“Yeah, well—” Kat sighed. “Neither are you.”

Katarina Bishop was a criminal. But she’d never held a gun. She’d never thrown a punch. Until that moment she didn’t really know how it felt to hurt someone, and as soon as she saw the look on Hale’s face, she wanted to take the words back.

And she wished she could make them hurt more.

Both. So she went inside, unable to do either.

Chapter 24

Gregory Reginald Wainwright was still relatively new to the Henley. Oh, nine months had been more than enough time for his personal effects to find their way out of boxes and onto shelves. In that time, he’d managed to learn the names of almost all of the guards and docents who worked between the hours of ten and six. But the honeymoon period, as they say, was almost over for the Henley’s new director. It would not be long until the board of directors started asking to see his quarterly reports, questioning him about donation levels, budget overages, and, of course, about the man named Visily Romani.

These were the worries that filled his mind, pulling his concentration away from his newspaper that Friday morning. Perhaps that was why he didn’t mind the distraction when the intercom on his desk began to buzz.

“Mr. Wainwright,” his assistant said, “there’s a young man here who would like a few moments of your time.”

He groaned. The Henley was always filled with young men. Young women, too. Which was nothing more than a polite way of saying children. They spilled soft drinks in the café and left fingerprints on the glass in the atrium. They filled his museum by the busload every day of the school year, crowding the exhibits, talking too loudly, and driving the Henley’s director to the sanctuary of his office with his tea and his paper.

“Mr. Wainwright?” The assistant’s voice seemed more urgent now. “Shall I show the young man in? He doesn’t have an appointment, but he was hoping you might take a moment for him.”

Gregory Wainwright was searching for an answer—an excuse—but before he could claim to be expecting an urgent visitor or about to make an important call, his secretary added, “His name is W. W. Hale the Fifth.”

“Is he good?” Nick’s breath was warm against Kat’s ear. They were standing too close, she thought, as they looked through the halls of the Henley toward an unmarked door where two corridors came to a T-shaped intersection. Someone will notice, Kat worried. Someone might think something. And still he stood behind her, watching, as the door to the director’s private office opened, and a slightly balding, slightly paunchy, slightly awkward man emerged with a boy who was his opposite in almost every way.

Kat watched Hale make a show of holding the door open for the older man to walk through. She doubted that anyone but a seasoned professional would notice the small piece of tape he’d left on the latch, the quick glance he’d sent in her direction.

And then she exhaled and said, “Yeah. He’s good.” But what she thought was, He’s still angry.

The director removed a small card from the inside pocket of his suit jacket, then swiped it through an electronic reader. The Henley has state-of-the-art security, the gesture said. The Henley’s art is the safest art in the world, no matter what you might have read in the paper.

But, of course, he didn’t know about Hale and his duct tape.

As the man returned the card to his jacket, Kat turned to Nick.

“You got it?” she asked. He nodded.

“Inside left pocket.” Nick slouched forward and grinned a sloppy grin. “Lucky I’m left-handed.”

“Luck, my friend, has absolutely nothing to do with it.” Gabrielle’s voice was even as she passed. There was no flirt, no ditz. She was all business as she teetered to the end of the corridor and called, “If you’ll follow me, please.” Instantly the small speaker in Kat’s ear was alive with noise. It sounded like a flock of birds was nesting in her head—cawing and screeching—as one hundred and fifty chattering school children gathered behind Gabrielle and followed her back down the small corridor.

The noise was deafening. Kat and Nick pushed themselves against the wall, out of the way of the kids in their neatly pressed slacks and navy blazers.

“We’re sorry for the inconvenience,” Gabrielle was yelling to the teachers at the front of the mob. “Today we’re starting all tours in the sculpture garden.”

Through her earpiece, over the roar of the children, Kat heard Hale chattering to the director about London. About rain. About his unyielding search for the perfect fish and chips. The guards at the end of the hall were pressing themselves to the wall, their duties forgotten in the chaos that flowed in Gabrielle’s wake.

“Angus, Simon, you’re clear,” Kat whispered.

The guards didn’t see the unmarked door push easily open. The kids in the pack didn’t notice when the two boys no one had ever seen before suddenly disappeared from their midst.

“We’re in,” Angus said into Kat’s ear a second later. The kids kept walking, moving through the Henley’s halls like a tide, but when Kat turned to leave, she walked in the opposite direction. She wasn’t an ordinary kid, after all.

Katarina Bishop followed no one.

“The way I hear it, there was a Visily Romani once.”

“Just watch the door, Hamish,” Kat warned.

“I’m on it, Kitty, don’t you worry. But as I was saying, this Romani bloke was the best thief in the land, he was. Until he fell off a guard tower—”

“I heard he drowned.” Angus’s voice filled Kat’s ear, cutting off his brother.