by Ally Carter
"The men who took Dancer Waiting in the Wings from the Schulhoffs' dining room wall were evil, my dear. The men those
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men gave it to were evil. These paintings were traded for terrible favors in terrible times." Mr. Stein took a deep breath. "No one good could have that group of paintings, Katarina." Kat nodded. "So wherever you have to go"--he stood--"whatever you have to do--"
He reached out his hand. And when Kat's small hand was wrapped in his own, he looked into her eyes and said, "Be careful."
Standing on Abiram Stein's front steps, facing the street, Kat felt very different from when she'd stood in that same spot forty minutes earlier, facing the door. Suspicions were facts. Fears were real. And ghosts were alive as she stood where her mother had once stood, unsure how to follow in her footsteps.
"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."
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7 DAYS UNTIL DEADLINE
LONDON, ENGLAND
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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?"
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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
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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."
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"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.
The floors in the Renaissance room always glowed a little brighter, and the frames hung a little straighter, and the painting at the center of it--Leonardo da Vinci's Angel Returning to Heaven --always attracted more awestruck visitors than any other thing inside the Henley's walls. But on that morning, it felt very much as if the museum's crown jewel had somehow lost its shine.
Today, the Renaissance room stood empty as long lines moved down the marble halls, all heading for the exact same place.
"This is it."
Kat didn't have to read the sign on the entrance to know they'd reached the right collection. All she had to do was see the
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crowds and hear the whisper on the air: Visily Romani.
Tourists and scholars alike stood shoulder to shoulder, heel to toe, gawking, waiting to see the place where a card had mysteriously appeared in the middle of the night in one of the most secure buildings in all of London.
Kat and Hale didn't talk while they waited to enter the packed room. They didn't comment on the angles of the cameras or the positions of the guards. They were tourists too, in a way. Curious. Eager to know the truth about the very strange thing that had happened, but needing to know for entirely different reasons.
"He was
here," Kat said when she finally made it inside. Most people looked for only a few seconds, then moved on. But Kat lingered. She and Hale were like the center of a wheel, barely moving while the rest of the crowd circled past.
"Yeah, except he didn't take anything," Hale said.
"He was there." Kat felt her hand raise. She saw her finger point. Five paintings hung along the gallery's far wall. Two days before, Visily Romani had left his card tucked inside the frame of the center painting.
A business card, the rumors said. White cardstock and black letters spelling out a name that, until then, had only been whispered in the darkest corners of the darkest rooms.
A calling card, left by a ghost, saying simply, Visily Romani was here.
Kat thought about that card, and something in her heart-- or maybe just her blood--told her that of all the people who filled the Henley that day, the world's greatest thief was speaking directly to her.
"Why break in and not take anything?" Hale asked, but Kat shook her head.
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She asked a better question: "Why break in and leave something?"
Kat stepped closer to the painting at the center of it all. Flowers on a Cool Spring Day, it was called. It was a lovely little still life. The artist had been reasonably well-known. But there was nothing remarkable about it besides the fact that this was the place where Visily Romani had chosen to leave his card.
Kat stayed back, staring at the other five paintings in the room, trying to guess what Romani had been thinking.
She closed her eyes and remembered the stories she'd heard her whole life--legends of the greatest thief who never lived:
A man walked into the Kremlin and walked out with a Faberge egg under his top hat.
A corrupt German art dealer sold a fake Rembrandt to an Englishman, not aware that stolen Nazi plans were hidden inside.
Now five paintings were missing. Kat stared at the gallery wall. Five paintings remained.
She made a slow rotation, scrutinizing each of the paintings, studying their dimensions. She felt her heart start to race.
"What if that card wasn't all he left?"
"What?" Hale asked, turning to look at her, but Kat was already walking forward, examining the ornate frames around the priceless works.
"Miss," one of the docents said as Kat leaned forward. "Miss, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to step back." The man eased between Kat and the painting, but not before the idea had already taken root in Hale's mind.
"No," Hale started, and then he looked from the paintings and back to Kat again. "Why would someone break into
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the Henley to leave five priceless paintings. ..." He looked at the walls. Counted. "Behind 'five different paintings?" He didn't even try to hide the awe in his voice.
Because he's done things like this before, Kat wanted to say. Because using the name Romani means you always have a plan--a reason. Because Psuedonima jobs aren't ordinary jobs. Because Visily Romani isn't an ordinary thief.
"But why would someone do that?"
"I don't know, Hale."
"But why would--"
"I... I don't know."
She suddenly felt the need to be free of the crowds and the noise and the history that hung on every wall, taunting her.
"Somebody's playing games!" Kat said angrily as she left the exhibit hall and started down the Henley's grand promenade. She walked faster, Hale beside her, trying to keep up. "Somebody's having fun! And he doesn't care that other people are going to get hurt because of it."
People were starting to stare, so Hale placed his arm around her shoulder and tried to stop her--to calm her.
"I know," he whispered. "But maybe it's a good thing."
"Maybe it's what? Taccone's after my dad, Hale.
Taccone--
"Maybe it means we've found them. And if they can be found ..."
It seemed to Katarina Bishop as if all the moments in her family's very long, very dubious past had been preparing her to say, "They can be stolen."
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CHAPTER 16
As Kat watched the city roll by from the back of a long black car, she was acutely aware of the fact that she had three-- maybe four--options.
Option one: she could call Arturo Taccone and tell him to meet her at the Henley. How he got the paintings off the wall and out the door was his problem. This, of course, was the option that made the most sense, incurred the least amount of risk, and, given what Mr. Stein had told them, was most likely to get her thrown into Arturo Taccone's moat. Therefore, it was an option she didn't consider for long.
If they had been any other kind of paintings--or if Arturo Taccone had been any other kind of man--then option number two would have been the clear winner. All it required was a five minute phone call to the Henley's director and the
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suggestion that a business card might not have been all visily Romani left behind. But there was no way Kat could be certain that Taccone's hold over the paintings was legal enough to see them returned, or illegal enough to see him arrested. The only thing Kat knew for certain was that if she caused Taccone to lose the things he loved, then eventually, he would return the favor.
The third option was still forming vaguely in the back of her mind, but she knew it would almost certainly involve a lecture from her father and a general call to arms of every lock man, pyro geek, wheeler, and/or inside player in the business. Given recent events, it would probably also involve a lot of Kat being looked at and talked to like someone's daughter and niece. It would most certainly include the very real risk that Arturo Taccone's paintings would not be the only ones liberated from the Henley collection. That is, if Uncle Eddie said so.
But Uncle Eddie had said it was over. Uncle Eddie had said it was sacred, and if he didn't think Kat could (or should) undo what Visily Romani had done, then there was no thief in the world who would attempt it. Still, Kat's mind kept coming back to option three.
Maybe because that was the best of the options. Or maybe, she feared, because it was the option that was in her blood.
"We don't have a lot of time," Hale was saying. "For a target the size of the Henley, we'll have to--"
"This is nuts." Kat blurted more for her own benefit than for Hale's. "Stealing from this Visily Romani guy--whoever he is--that's one thing. But stealing"--she stopped, glanced at the back of Marcus's head, and lowered her voice--"from THE HENLEY!"
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When the car stopped, Kat and Hale got out. Kat walked quickly, crunching gravel beneath her feet, and ran her hand through her hair--the very gesture she'd seen her father make a thousand times. . . .
Right before he agreed to do something stupid.
"I mean, even if we did," she said, glancing up at Hale as he kept pace beside her, "it's the Henley."
"Yeah," Hale said, his voice cool.
"No one has ever stolen a painting from the Henley."
"Yeah," Hale said again, his excitement rising.
Kat stopped. "We'd be stealing five."
"Well, technically, we'd be re-stealing them," he said dryly. "It's kind of like a double negative."
She turned from him again and started across a wide stretch of grass, going nowhere in particular. Just going. "Assuming we could do it, it'd take a big crew."
"Yeah, and no one really likes you," Hale added. He didn't smile.
The wind was cold beneath the gray sky. Leaves blew across the ground at their feet. "We'd need gear--the good stuff. The really expensive stuff."
"Too bad I'm only good for my looks," Hale said. "And my better-than-average singing voice."
Kat rolled her eyes. "Seven days, Hale."
This time he had no response, no solution. If there was one thing Kat learned from losing her mother, it was that even the best thief in the world can't steal time.
Kat looked over the rolling hills, the stone fences that crisscrossed the horizon. London felt a million miles away. "Where are we?"
&nbs
p; Hale pointed behind her. "Country house," he said, but of
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course, by house, he meant mansion.
Kat turned to see a perfectly planned garden spread out along one side of a massive estate. Smoke spiraled from at least three chimneys. She imagined that somewhere in that grand old building, Marcus would soon be preparing soup and tea.
She missed Uncle Eddie.
They started for the great stone house, the weight of what they had to do settling down on them.
"Mr. Stein--" Kat started, but Hale cut her off.
"Don't think about it."
"They aren't Taccone's paintings, Hale."
He stopped her. Her arms felt especially small in his hands as he held her there, staring into her eyes. "First, we save your dad, Kat." There was an urgency in his voice that made Kat forget to fight as Hale narrowed her options down to one. "First, we rob the Henley."
He put his arm around her and led her toward the house where W. W. Hale the First had been born.
"We're gonna need people," Kat said as Marcus opened the big double doors. "People we can trust," she added.
Hale nodded and walked her down the ornate hall, pausing before a pair of sliding doors. He pushed them aside, revealing a two-story library, a warm fire, and the familiar faces of the Bagshaw brothers, Simon, and Gabrielle.
"You mean, like them?"
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CHAPTER 17
The assembly of a crew is a monumental event in a young thief's life. There are meetings and phone calls. Plans, and occasionally, a celebratory cake. Normal families have graduations. Thief families have this. Kat should have felt a little cheated that she'd missed out on all the fun. But she didn't.
She looked at Hale. He shrugged. "I had a hunch." And then he helped himself to one of the finger sandwiches that Marcus was circulating around the room, popping it whole into his mouth, barely taking time to chew before reaching for the tray again.