“And so we had to get new living room furniture, which, unfortunately, does not go with the Monet.”
Kat stood for a moment, staring into that small window of the world where someone would tire of a Monet simply because it clashed with the couch.
But perhaps the strangest part was that, to Gregory Wainwright, and indeed to Hale himself, the story didn’t ring strange at all. Kat thought about Hale’s mother’s empty room and empty house—all the valuable things in her life that the woman never thought to miss.
“He is good.” Nick looked at Kat, who couldn’t help but smile. “How long have you two been together?” Nick asked, and just that quickly, Kat wasn’t smiling anymore.
“We’re not together,” Kat blurted. Instantly, she wished she’d said something different. Something coy. Something clever. But it was too late, and she was stuck sounding like a silly girl and a very bad liar—two things she had never been before.
“I meant, how long have you been working together?” he corrected. Then he smiled his slightly goofy smile. “But that’s good to know, too.”
Before she could even ponder that statement, footsteps began to echo in the hallway that led to the director’s private office.
“Simon?” Kat questioned, but before the boy had even finished his “Just one more minute!” something happened that Kat had never experienced on any job of any kind.
The director and Hale were fast approaching, and to Kat’s surprise, so was Nick.
“Stall,” she whispered, starting to turn, to think, to work.
But just as quickly, Nick was grasping her arm, pulling him back to her with a quiet, “Okay.” And before a single diversionary tactic could come to mind, she was in Nick’s arms, and he was kissing her right there in the middle of the Henley’s hallway.
Right there in front of Gregory Wainwright and Hale.
She was aware, faintly, of the two of them skidding to a stop before they could turn the corner—and catch Simon in the act. She was certain she heard the director mutter something that sounded a great deal like “Children kissing in my halls . . .”
Through her earpiece, she heard Angus say, “We’re clear.” But the voice Kat most wanted to hear was Hale’s.
She pulled away from Nick right as Hale said, perfectly casual, completely unfazed, “To tell you the truth, Mr. Wainwright, before I can promise you anything, I would really like to hear from you that there’s nothing to fear from this man”—he snapped his fingers as if trying to remember the name—“Visily Romani.”
Chapter 25
Despite rumors to the contrary, Mrs. W. W. Hale III had not added a large solarium to the Hale family’s English estate because it was fashionable at the time, or to keep up with Mrs. Winthrop Covington II, who had built a similar addition to her manor house three miles away. No, Hale’s grandmother had ordered the construction of that particular room for two primary reasons: One, she hated to be cold. And two, she dearly loved the Henley’s massive glass-covered foyer.
As Kat sat with her crew in the glass-enclosed space that evening, eating soup and sandwiches, discussing all they’d learned, Kat wondered if anyone besides her was impressed with the irony. Probably not, she decided.
“How’s it coming, Simon?” Gabrielle asked.
Simon, completely enthralled by the small electronic gizmos and wires that covered the table, took a moment to answer.
“We have eyes.” He turned the computer around, and there, in living color and from a quite unflattering angle, was Gregory Wainwright.
“Mr. Wainwright?” a high, female voice cut through the air. Simon beamed.
“And ears.”
“Nice work, Simon,” Gabrielle said with a kiss on his cheek.
“I helped,” Hamish reminded her, moving his cheek in her direction, but Gabrielle wasn’t feeling quite that liberal with her affection.
“Mr. Wainwright?” The secretary’s voice came through the intercom, and the man on the screen moved. Lurched, really.
“He’s napping,” Gabrielle said with a laugh.
“So what do we need to know about him, Hale?” Kat said. “Besides the fact that he likes to doze off in his office.”
“He’s a suit. He’s concerned with typical suit stuff,” Hale said, clearly an expert on the subject. “Donations, revenue streams”—Hale paused, and even the Bagshaw boys stopped to listen—“publicity.”
Glass surrounded them on three sides. Perfectly tended plants sprawled throughout the space, and Kat felt the high that comes from too much oxygen and possibility.
“Our friend Romani has made life for Mr. Wainwright very, very difficult,” Hale said with a smile. He leaned back in a wrought-iron chair, which Kat guessed was as old as the glass dome around them. “The official party line is what we’ve already heard—a prank, a mistake by the janitorial staff—the usual stuff.”
“But unofficially?” Angus asked.
Hale nodded. “The Henley is spooked.”
On the screen, the secretary was entering the office. She held a small pad of paper in her hands, was rattling off something about a black-tie fund-raiser, a faulty furnace, a new record for attendance, and the annual evaluation of the building’s fire codes. And through it all, Gregory Wainwright kept nodding impatiently, desperate to return to his nap.
“Scared . . .” Kat started. She stood. It felt very good to stretch, and as she walked, she asked herself how her father would rob the Henley. And then Uncle Eddie. And then, finally, her mother. But there was only one thief who had ever done what she was trying to undo, so in the end Kat tried to think like Visily Romani.
“We’re making it too hard,” Kat said, more for her own benefit than anyone else’s. “We’re not stealing from the Hen-ley. We’re stealing at the Henley.” She began to pace in long strides.