Heist Society 2 - Uncommon Criminals

by Ally Cater

  Kat’s voice was different when she said, “I know.”

  “We do not steal the Cleopatra, Katarina. It is…” Eddie trailed off, struggling for words.

  “Cursed,” Kat offered.

  Eddie turned to her. He shook his head. “Forbidden.”

  On the stove, grease was popping, and smoke was rising from the skillet, filling the room. It was the first time in Kat’s life that she had ever seen her uncle burn the bacon, so she stayed quiet, thinking of all the things she could not say.

  “If you don’t want to be like the rest of us, Katarina, then you should go back to school. You should leave this world—really leave us all behind. Don’t let this old man stand in your way.”

  Kat wasn’t going to cry. Her voice wasn’t going to crack. “I came back, Uncle Eddie. Last year, after the Henley, I could have gone to any school in the world—I could have done anything, but I came back.”

  “You ran away, Katarina.”

  “And now I’m back.”

  It should have been an easy thing to prove, a fact to verify. She wanted him to say, Good work, nice job—to tell her that he was proud to have her at his kitchen table—but instead he turned back to the bacon and the stove.

  “You’re still running.”

  The kitchen was too hot—the big house suddenly too small. Her uncle’s words were too loud, ringing in her ears, and Kat knew she couldn’t stay there. Outside, the early morning air would be cool and fresh, so she didn’t even stop for her jacket; she didn’t look for her purse. She just moved down the long hall to the door without another thought or worry or fear. Outside. She’d be able to think outside.

  “He’s right, you know.”

  Kat stopped at the sound of the voice. Her hand was on the doorknob, freedom just inches away, but it was like she’d forgotten how to unlock a door when she turned and saw Hale sitting alone at the top of the stairs.

  “I thought—after the Henley—you were back with us.” He looked down at his hands. “With me. But now—”

  “I don’t need another lecture, Hale.” Kat’s hands were shaking. Her lips were trembling. It was as if her own body were against her. “I don’t need someone else telling me what to do.”

  “Oh, no one tells you what to do, Kat. You’re the girl who robbed the Henley.”

  “Yeah,” Kat told him. “And I—”

  “But you didn’t do it alone.” He stood and started slowly down the stairs.

  “I know that.”

  “Do you?” Hale laughed. “Do you really? Because it seems to me like you’ve forgotten a lot of things.”

  It was the eve of the biggest job of her life, and Kat didn’t have time to doubt or room to think. Gabrielle was right, Kat realized: boys are a lot less trouble when they’re on the other side of the world.

  “I’m sorry, Hale. I’m sorry I didn’t take you to Moscow. Or Rio. I’m sorry I don’t have time to hold your hand and stroke your ego. But I don’t. And if you don’t like it, here’s the door.”

  “You’re right. Maybe I should leave.” He stepped toward her, backing her slowly into the shadows of the corner. “But maybe you should leave too—just walk away. Forget the Cleopatra and disappear.”

  It felt to Kat as if, all at once, the world was moving way too fast. Her mind raced, and Hale eased closer.

  “We don’t have to do this,” he told her. “Just say the word and I can have a jet here in an hour. We can go anywhere.” His warm hands wrapped around her fingers, so that they melted like ice. “We can do anything. We don’t have to do this.”

  Charlie’s stone felt heavy in Kat’s pocket, pressing into her skin. She thought of Romani and Mr. Stein, of sand and sun and the thieves like Oliver Kelly the First—the worst kinds of criminals, the ones who steal fortunes and respectability, both, somewhere along the way.

  “Just say the word, Kat. Say any word.”

  Kat took a deep breath and pushed away. She didn’t let herself look back as she opened the door and said the word “Romani.”

  CHAPTER 11

  It stands to reason that, through the years, the people in the New York office of the Oliver Kelly Corporation for Auctions and Antiquities had become more or less immune to pretty things.

  The back room held a scepter that had been part of the crown jewels of Austria. Every day at four p.m., the director of antiquities sipped tea from a service that had once belonged to Queen Victoria herself. So to presume that incredible beauty was incredibly rare would be incorrect indeed. But on that Friday morning, no one would have known it.

  The women wore their highest heels, the men their most expensive ties. As Oliver Kelly the Third walked down the gleaming, polished halls, the entire building pulsed as if Cleopatra herself were about to pay a visit.

  “Well, there’s the man of the hour.”

  Kelly turned at the voice. “Oh. Hello, Mr.…”

  “Knightsbury,” Hale said, gripping Kelly’s hand. “It’s nice to see you again. Big day. Big day.”

  “Indeed,” Kelly said with an impatient look at his watch. “I presume Mr. Jones is here to…oversee the transfer?”

  “Oh, no, sir,” Hale said. “Mr. Jones was so impressed with your security that he sent me along with one of our junior associates. This is Ms. Melanie McDonald. Ms. McDonald has just joined the team. Since company policy dictates that two employees must witness—”

  “Hello.” That’s when it became utterly obvious that even though Oliver Kelly the Third was accustomed to great beauty, tea sets and scepters were no match for Gabrielle. “It’s so nice to meet you, Ms. McDonald,” he said.

  “Call me Melanie.” Gabrielle extended one delicate hand. “It’s so very nice to meet you, too.”

  There were at least a dozen people crowded in the halls. Gemologists and Egyptologists in white coats and tweed jackets; lawyers and very large men with very large guns strapped into shoulder holsters beneath the blazers of subpar suits.

  Hale looked at the crowd, but not Kelly. Kelly simply looked at Gabrielle.

  “Well, shall we go?”

  Of all the pristine places inside the Kelly Corporation that day, Hale couldn’t help but think that the room they saw next would make most hospitals jealous.

  A stainless-steel table sat beneath bright lights. Assorted tools lay across cotton towels. There were microscopes and lasers, goggles and gloves. Every single person in the very crowded room stood in total silence as the doors opened and four uniformed guards entered, surrounding a man with a red bow tie and the thickest glasses Hale had ever seen. The wooden box he carried was small, and yet when he placed it in the center of the steel table, he sighed as if it held the weight of the world itself.

  “Have you met my cousin Pandora?” Gabrielle whispered to Hale. She gestured to the center of the room. “That is her box.”

  People should have noticed, but no one heard anything beyond the squeak of the rusty hinges. And not a soul—not the appraisers or the guards—not even Oliver Kelly the Third himself could do anything but watch as the director of antiquities, in his crisp bow tie and white cotton gloves, reached into the box.…

  And retrieved the most valuable green stone that the world had ever known.

  Hale had seen pictures, of course. He was a well-traveled young man, an educated child of means. A thief. Everyone who was at least one of those three things had seen pictures. But pictures did not capture the essence that comes with ninety-seven karats of pure, flawless green the color of Ireland in springtime.

  Curse or no curse, the man was right to hold the stone gently as he moved it to the table. The experts rotated around the emerald like planets circling the sun, scanning, measuring, and weighing—working wordlessly. It was almost like a dance, Hale thought. Like a con.

  Beyond the hushed questions and answers of the experts, no one spoke until ninety minutes later, when a short woman—the leading gemologist in the world, flown in from India for the occasion—stepped away from the stone and wiped her brow,
and Oliver Kelly said, “Well?”

  The whole room waited, watched as the woman cleaned her glasses and said, “Congratulations, Mr. Kelly, this is the new home of the Cleopatra Emerald.”

  She held the stone toward its owner and motioned to the velvet-covered pillow on which it was supposed to sit. “Would you like to do the honors?”

  If anyone expected Kelly to rush to take it, they were disappointed. Instead, he stood staring at the massive piece of green as if he had been secretly hoping it was a forgery.

  A fake Cleopatra Emerald, after all, had never hurt anyone.

  “Mr. Kelly?” the woman asked again.

  “Oh, it’s beautiful,” Gabrielle spoke at Kelly’s side. “I can’t imagine holding such a thing.”

  Kelly laughed. “Well, now’s your chance…” He motioned for her to go ahead and take the emerald—to take history, quite literally, in the palm of her hand.

  It wasn’t an act, Hale knew, when Gabrielle reached carefully for the stone and looked as if she’d been waiting for that moment her entire life.

  It almost broke his heart to have to say, “Again, Mr. Kelly, I must remind you that the Cleopatra Emerald is a high-profile target.”

  “I know that,” Kelly snapped.

  “And we at Chamberlain and King would hate to see you take unnecessary chances with a stone of such…unique…cultural significance. Its propensity for…shall we say…coinciding with unfortunate events and—”

  “It’s not cursed!” the man insisted one final time with entirely too much force. He swung his right arm, gesturing wildly, completely unaware of Gabrielle, who was walking past, hands outstretched, with the Cleopatra Emerald resting gently on her palms.

  When Kelly’s arm crashed into her, she stumbled onto the polished floor and watched the emerald tumble out of her hands. Shame and terror filled her face as she lunged after the stone, sliding, calling, “I’ll get it! I’ll—”

  But her hand struck the stone again, sending it skidding toward a small vent that no one in the history of the Kelly Corporation had probably ever seen. But by then it was too late, and Oliver Kelly the Third, the director of antiquities, and the authentication department—not to mention the greatest experts in the world—had no choice but to watch as the most precious emerald in history disappeared.

  Only Hale and Gabrielle seemed to be capable of moving. Together they rushed to the small vent that opened into a larger shaft that ran to the roof.

  Hale leaned down. “I think I can reach it,” he said, rolling up his sleeve, but Gabrielle was already on the floor beside him, her long thin arm reaching easily into the tiny space and grappling in the darkness for what felt like an eternity.

  The lights still shone brightly in the pristine room, but it was as if a shadow covered them all as they thought about how emeralds can be easily scratched or chipped.

  As they thought about curses.

  But then the girl moved, and smiled, and pulled her hand from the grate—a gorgeous green stone clutched tightly in her grasp. It was covered with dust and cobwebs, but it was uncracked and unharmed.

  And, of course, completely fake.

  * * *

  There was a lot that the people of the Kelly Corporation would never know about the Cleopatra Emerald. Like how it had truly come to Oliver Kelly so many years ago. Most likely, very few could comprehend the humiliation and pain that it had brought to the thieves of the world ever since.

  And on the day of the Cleopatra’s grand public return, no one would ever know about its very private exit through a dirty air vent, via a very thin cable and a dark-haired girl who kept the stone clutched tightly in her small hand, as she rose steadily toward the roof and the light.

  CHAPTER 12

  There are several lessons every thief learns early on. Or dies.

  Never turn your back on an angry guard dog (no matter how nice he seemed on your scouting trip). Don’t leave home without a spare set of batteries (regardless of the guarantee you got from the guy at the store). And never, ever get attached to anything more valuable than you are.

  Katarina Bishop was an excellent thief, and she had learned these lessons well, but riding through Midtown Manhattan in the back of a long black limousine, she couldn’t stop thinking that the people who had made that last rule had never touched the Cleopatra Emerald.

  “Do you want to hold it?” she asked, dangling the padded envelope in front of Hale with two fingers.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to touch it and kiss it and wear it around your neck?”

  “Don’t be silly,” he told her. “Everyone knows green isn’t my color.”

  Gabrielle had been right, Kat realized. There is a rush—a thrill—that comes after a hard job, and Kat couldn’t help herself. She’d held that green stone with her bare hands, and now she was drunk on adrenaline, high on life.

  “You”—she scooted close—“were fabulous.” She placed her head on Hale’s chest and stared into the distance. “I see great potential in you…Wyatt?” He should have laughed; he should have teased, and when he didn’t, she bolted upright. “Is that it? Is your name Wyatt?”

  He gripped her arms and held her there, staring into her eyes as he said, “No.”

  Then Kat laughed and tossed back her head. “We did it, Hale.”

  Suddenly, she couldn’t stay still. She wanted to stick her head out of the sunroof and scream, roll down the center divider and tell Marcus to drive and drive and drive—she didn’t care where. They could go anywhere—do anything—and for the first time in a long time, Katarina Bishop stopped thinking. And maybe that was why she found herself climbing onto her knees.

  “We. Did. It!” she screamed, and when the car jolted to a stop, Kat didn’t care that she was falling, landing across Hale’s lap. She didn’t think twice about the way her arms fell around his neck. When her lips found his, she didn’t pull back, she just pressed against him, sinking into the kiss and the moment until…

  The high was over. Kat jerked back, two thoughts pounding in her mind, screaming, I kissed Hale.

  But it was the second thought that made her panic: Hale didn’t kiss me back.

  “Sorry. I…” She sat up straight, and when she moved, she kicked something on the floorboard, looked down, and saw the bag that sat at his feet.

  “What’s that?”

  “Paraguay.”

  She felt her heart sink. It was harder than it should have been to say, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.”

  She waited for Hale to laugh and tell her that it wasn’t a very good joke. She wanted him to do anything but reach for the bag and pull it easily onto the seat beside him.

  “Eddie says they need all the help they can get. I’m gonna head down there now that we’re finished.” He stopped. He didn’t look at her when he asked, “Are we finished?”

  Kat knew there was more to the question—that there was something else she was supposed to say. But Kat had always been good at telling lies. The truth, she realized, was a much harder thing to part with.

  “You were right, Kat.” There was a weight to Hale’s voice. A gravity. “I should go.”

  Don’t go.

  “I know you still have to deliver the package, but…it’s not like you need me.”

  But maybe I want you.

  His hand was resting on the door handle. He took a deep breath and moved.

  “Hale—”

  “You could come,” he said, spinning toward her.

  The rush she’d felt before turned to panic, and Kat was frozen, no clue what to do or say.

  “Your dad’s already there. Gabrielle says Irina is coming. I mean, I know it’s no Cleopatra job, but you could come. You could come if you wanted to.”

  “I want to, but I don’t…steal…anymore, Hale.”

  His voice was part whisper, part sigh, as he turned to the window and said, “You could have fooled me.”

  Before Kat could protest, Hale was reaching for a button on
the limo door and saying, “Marcus.” The car slowed and the center partition slid down. “Take her wherever she wants to go.”

  “Hale, wait!” She reached for him, but the car stopped, and he was already opening the door, stepping out onto the busy sidewalk.

  “You be careful out there.” He pulled the large duffel onto his shoulder as if it weighed nothing at all. “I mean it, Kat. Take care.”

  Her hand was in his, resting gently. “Hale…”

  “Good-bye, Kat.” His voice was almost lost against the sound of honking cars and distant sirens. And just that quickly, he was gone. Out onto the street, coat collar turned up, disappearing into the traffic and the crowds.

  It did not look like a clandestine rendezvous, not with the old woman and young man on the park bench and the teenage girl walking toward them, looking as if she’d just lost her very best friend.

  “Is it true?” the woman asked.

  The first time Kat had seen her, she’d guessed her age at somewhere over eighty, but that day Constance Miller looked younger by at least ten years. Maybe twenty. Her face was full of something. Kat breathed out, watched her breath fog in the chilly air, and knew that something was hope.

  “Do you have it?” Constance Miller asked. “Is that why you called?”

  “No, Grandmother. A theft like that would have been on the television.” The man reached awkwardly for the old woman’s hand.

  “TV is overrated,” Kat said, pulling the envelope from her pocket and tossing it onto the man’s lap.

  He stared down as if it were a tiny bomb and might explode. Only the woman dared to reach for it—carefully, tentatively.

  “Is it really…”

  “You can look,” Kat said, glancing at the two uniformed police officers who stood twenty feet away, sipping coffee. “But I wouldn’t touch.”

  “Oh, I believe you,” the woman said, grabbing up the package and holding it tightly against her chest. “It’s in here. I know it. I can feel it,” she said, and Kat knew she wasn’t talking about the weight or shape of the heavy stone in the padded envelope. She hadn’t felt it with her fingers—she could feel it in her soul. Kat knew that sensation. She’d found it once on a school bus in London with four priceless paintings. She had seen it in Mr. Stein’s eyes every time she returned one of the missing Holocaust pieces to him so he could take it on the final leg of its journey home.