Kat sat quietly as Gabrielle parked a tiny European car on the side of a winding country road. There were no headlights, no sounds. As Kat opened the door and stepped outside, she felt a cool damp breeze, and looked up at a dark starless sky. A thief couldn’t ask for anything more.
“Tell me again why I had to ride in the backseat.” Hale stretched and stared down at her.
“The billionaire always rides in the back, big guy.” She reached to pat him on the chest, but before she could pull away, he caught her wrist and held her gloved hand against his pounding heart.
“Are you sure this is a good idea?” he asked.
There were a million lies Kat could have told, but none more powerful than the truth. “This is our only idea.”
While Gabrielle popped the hood and disabled the engine so that no roaming guards or passing busybodies would stop to ask questions, Kat kept her gaze locked with Hale’s. In that moment, he looked a lot like the boy in the Superman pajamas. Scared but determined, and maybe just a little bit heroic.
“Kat, I—”
“Coming?” Gabrielle’s whisper sliced through the night, cutting off whatever Hale was about to say. Kat was left with no choice but to turn and start up the steep embankment, shrouded in inky darkness, fallen branches sounding like firecrackers as they snapped underfoot.
“Oops,” Kat said ten minutes later, stumbling for what felt like the millionth time. She didn’t know what was worse, that Hale had had to steady her, or that Gabrielle was witnessing her clumsiness.
She kept waiting for her cousin to say Kat’s out of practice. She was sure Hale was about to joke that the Colgan School’s physical education curriculum was sorely lacking in practical application. But no one said a word as they made their way to the top of a tall hill, climbing steadily until Gabrielle came to a sudden stop. Kat almost collided with her cousin as she pointed and said, “That’s it.”
Even at night, even from this distance, anyone could see that Arturo Taccone’s home was really a palace made of stone and wood, surrounded by vineyards and olive trees. A postcard paradise. But what Kat noticed were the guards and the towers, the walls and the gates. It was no paradise—it was more like a prison.
The grass was damp against their stomachs as the three of them lay at the top of the hill, looking down on the villa below. Kat hated to admit it, but Gabrielle was absolutely right: you did have to see it to believe it. The day before, when they had spread out the blueprints for Simon to study, Kat had thought Arturo Taccone’s home was one of the hardest targets she’d ever seen. But when the dark clouds parted for a moment, and the moon shone like a spotlight on the moat, Kat realized that only a fool would approach those walls.
“Groundhog?” Hale asked.
“No time,” Kat replied. “The tunneling alone would take days, and Taccone wouldn’t leave these woods unpatrolled for that long.”
“Fallen Angel?”
“Maybe,” Kat answered, looking to the sky. “But even on a night with no moon, that inner courtyard is awfully small to risk someone seeing you or your parachute. And no one builds guard towers if they aren’t going to fill them with guards.”
“With guns,” Gabrielle added.
Kat watched her cousin turn onto her back, rest her head on her arms, and stare up at the black clouds that filled the sky. She might as well have been lying on a beach or in her own bed for all the ease she exhibited. But Kat’s feet ached from the run through the woods. Her black ski cap was too tight and itchy. Kat was wondering what exactly it was that Hale smelled like, and whether or not she liked it.
Kat didn’t know how to rob Arturo Taccone.
So Kat didn’t know how anyone could have robbed Arturo Taccone.
And that was what she hated most of all.
“So someone either Trojan Horsed or Avon Ladied or . . .” Hale was going on, still listing options, but Kat was through speculating; she didn’t dare to guess. Instead, she was recalling the words Hale had said to Simon: It’s not an ordinary job. Kat was realizing that maybe it couldn’t be done by an ordinary thief.
It was as if some invisible hand had taken hold of Kat in that moment—was pulling her up by the back of her black jacket, bringing her to her feet.
“Get down!” Gabrielle snapped, reaching for her cousin, but Kat was already moving to the edge of the ridge.
“Where are you going?” Hale asked as she walked purposefully toward the drawbridge, trying to shut down the part of her mind that asked Drawbridge?
“Kat!” Gabrielle hissed. “You’re going to get caught.”
The smile Kat flashed over her shoulder was almost wicked. “I know.”
The gates loomed taller as Kat approached. Lights shone strategically around the perimeter, highlighting the drops of rain that were starting to slice through the black sky. Still, Kat walked slowly, deliberately, across the fields and toward the villa walls. She felt the stare of the security cameras. She sensed the movement of the guards. To keep her mind occupied, she tried to guess the age of the villa, the names of the original owners, the history of the lake. She tried to focus on the falling rain, her frizzing hair.
But mostly she tried to look calm as she strolled to the small metal box on the side of the road. She prayed her voice wouldn’t betray her as she stared into the small camera and announced into the speaker, “My name is Katarina Bishop.” Lightning struck behind her. “I’m here to see Arturo Taccone.”
Chapter 9
If the Taccone villa was a place that typically did not receive guests, it did not show it.
The man who opened the door reminded Kat oddly of Marcus, the way he wordlessly took her wet coat and softly asked her to follow. There were marble floors and chandeliers, fresh flowers, and fires burning in two of the four rooms she passed. But there were no stacks of mail lying on tables, no coats or scarves hung carelessly on the backs of chairs. It was a place that valued beauty and order in equal measure, Kat knew. So she stayed quiet, following her guide toward a set of double doors more intimidating than the drawbridge. She stood silent, waiting for an audience with Arturo Taccone.
He was sitting behind an antique desk when the doors opened, near another roaring fire in a room much like the study of the Hale family’s upstate home. There were books and decanters, tall windows and a grand piano that Kat guessed he frequently played. Though the house was at least twenty thousand square feet, Kat had an inkling that this was the room where the man of the house really lived.
“Leave us,” he ordered Kat’s guide. She heard the double doors close behind her and knew that it was at least a little bit foolish not to tremble at being left alone with him. And yet her hands stayed steady. Her pulse didn’t race.
“I should welcome you to my home, Katarina,” he told her, tipping his head slightly. “I must say, this is a surprise. And I like to consider myself someone who is not easily surprised.”
“Well,” Kat said slowly, “I was in the mood for spaghetti.”
Taccone smiled. “And you’ve come here alone,” he said, but it was really a question.
“Now, I could say yes, and have you think I’m lying.” She took a step forward, ran her hand across the baby-soft leather of a wingback chair. “Or I could say no, and have you think I’m bluffing. So maybe I’ll just say . . . no comment.”
He pushed back from his desk as he studied her. “So you have—as you Americans say—backup?”
“Not really.”
“But you’re not afraid, are you?”
She was in Arturo Taccone’s favorite room, but in every way that really mattered, Kat was back on her home turf. “No. I guess I’m not.”
He stared at her. After an excruciating pause, he asked, “Perhaps you don’t think I’d hurt a little girl?”
For reasons Taccone would never understand, Kat was surprised at the words. It was strange to hear herself referred to in such a way. Little, she supposed she couldn’t deny. But girl was odd. Woman or lady wouldn’t have been any better. She had simply been so long inside boys’ clubs that she forgot sometimes that, anatomically at least, she was not a younger, smaller version of the men who sat around Uncle Eddie’s kitchen table. That she was, from a biological standpoint, very much like Gabrielle.
“That’s a lovely piece,” Kat said, pointing at a Louis XV armoire near the fireplace.
The man raised his eyebrows. “Did you come to steal it?”
“Darn it,” Kat said with a snap of her fingers. “I knew I should have brought my big purse.”
Scary men do scary things, but for Kat, nothing was as terrifying as the sound of Arturo Taccone laughing. “It’s a shame we didn’t meet under different circumstances, Katarina. I think I would have enjoyed knowing you. But we did not.” He stood and walked to a cabinet, poured himself a glass of something that looked very old and expensive. “I take it that you do not have my paintings.”
“That’s kind of been my story all along.”
“If you’ve come here to ask for more time, then—”
“Like I told your boys in Vegas, I’m working on it.” She glared at Goon 2, who had slipped inside and was standing like a statue by the door. “Or didn’t you get the message?”
“Yes, yes.” He took a seat on the leather sofa in the center of the room. “You have indeed been making some interesting inquiries. Your great-uncle’s home in New York . . . that, I could understand. Your uncle is the sort of man who should be consulted. But the trip to Las Vegas”—he leaned back and took a sip—“that came as a surprise. And then I learned that we had visitors this evening. Well, you can understand if I’m perplexed.”
“I told you everything in Paris,” Kat explained, her voice steady. “My father didn’t steal your paintings. With a little time and a little help, I may be able to tell you who did. I may even be able to arrange for them to be returned—”
His smile widened. “Now that is an interesting proposition.”
“But first . . .”
“Help?” the man guessed.
She nodded. “You say my father did this.”
“I know he did this.”
“How?”
“Oh, Katarina, surely any half-decent thief would know that I have taken . . . precautions . . . to protect myself and my belongings.” Arturo Taccone raised a hand, waved at the opulent surroundings.
“The Stig 360,” she said with a smile. “Nice. Personally, I prefer the cameras in the 340 models. They’re clunkier, but they have more range.”
Outside the villa, the rain was falling in torrents, but inside, Taccone’s voice was as dry as kindling. “I had hoped you would take my word that your father has done this terrible thing, Katarina. But if—”
“Look.” Kat’s voice was sharper than she’d thought possible as she stepped closer to the man at the center of the room. Goon 2 made a move toward her, but Taccone stopped him with a wave. “It’s not a pride thing. Or a trust thing. It’s an information thing. You’re a man who makes careful decisions based on the best information possible, are you not, Signor Taccone?”