Perfect Scoundrels (19 page)

T
he Superior Bank of Manhattan was not the largest bank in the city. It wasn’t the most famous. What the Superior Bank of Manhattan was was
infamous
, so Kat couldn’t quite steady her nerves as she walked through the front doors, even with her father by her side.

“So this is what you do now?” Bobby asked, but Kat just made a mental note of the position of the cameras.

“I’m pretty sure it’s what I’ve
always
done.”

“Yeah, but before you had parental supervision.” Kat gave her father a questioning look, so he shrugged. “Parental proximity,” he conceded. “Anyway, this is nice.” He slipped an arm around her shoulders. “Almost like old times.” He gave a squeeze, and Kat realized how much she’d missed him.

She sank into the hug, rested her head against his shoulder, and said, “Dad…”

“What is it, sweetie?”

Kat felt especially young that day, walking through the massive lobby, her father at her side. But she couldn’t bring herself to say so, so she glanced at the security cameras and asked her father, “Are those the nine-sixties?”

“You know perfectly well they are,” he told her. “Now, what is it?”

She didn’t have a lie that would work, so she settled on the truth. “This job is different.”

“I know.”

“I don’t think we can do it. And I’m not sure we should.”

Kat felt the lobby around her beating like a pulse. Employees hustled from desk to desk. People stood in line at the teller windows. A few VIPs were escorted to and from private offices in the back. And, through it all, armed guards stood at every entrance.

Hale Industries sat on the bank’s east side, a police station on the west, and beneath it all, a custom-designed bank vault that had never before been cracked. Inside that, there were one thousand safety deposit boxes, any one of which could have held the prototype and plans.

Simon was the genius, but even Kat knew enough not to like that math.

“So what are you thinking, Kat?”

“I’m thinking it’s impossible.”

“Now, that’s not the daughter I raised. Nothing is impossible.”

“No.” Kat shook her head. “No. It is.”

“What about the Fiddler on the Roof?” her father asked. “We could always—”

“What, Dad? What could we possibly do that’s going to make this right?” She looked slowly around the building, her mind racing with the things she didn’t have to say.

Uncle Felix was reaching out to a source he had in the bank fraud division of the FBI, and the Bagshaws were convinced there was a way to tunnel in from an old subway station that hadn’t been used since World War II, but in her heart, Kat knew it was all useless.

“He’s a step ahead of us,” Kat told him. She could feel it in her bones, and she hated it. “He has been from the beginning, and now…”

“You know what you do when something’s in your way?” Bobby asked, testing her.

“Go around,” Kat said with a roll of her eyes.

“Exactly.” Bobby flashed a wide, bright grin.

He made it sound so easy. He always did. But it wasn’t easy, and Kat knew it. “It’s just…”

“What?” Bobby asked with a jerk of his head, as if trying to pull the question out.

“What if I can’t do it this time?” Kat admitted.

“The whole family’s working on it, kiddo. You’re not in this one alone.”

“What if it’s too late? I mean, the wrong plans are on file at the patent office. Even if we get the prototype, Hale Industries can’t use it without—”

“One job at a time, kiddo. One job at a time.”

Her father was right, and Kat knew it. But she was also a little mad that he’d broken off a perfectly good pity party with logic. Kat didn’t want a way to rob the Superior Bank of Manhattan. She wanted a way for it to be over. All of it. She just didn’t have a clue what that way might be.

Then she heard her name echo through the lobby.

“Kat!” Natalie called. “Oh my gosh. Fancy seeing you here.”

“Yeah,” Kat said, her mind whirling. “Fancy that. What are you doing here?”

“Funny.” Nat gave her a smile. “I was about to ask you the same thing.” Then she shifted her attention onto Bobby. “Who’s your friend?”

“Robert Bishop.” Bobby extended his hand. “I’m Kat’s father.”

“Natalie Garrett,” Natalie told him, then gave the slight swoon that Kat had become accustomed to women giving in her father’s presence. Natalie eyed his dark suit and power tie and said, “What kind of business are you in, Mr. Bishop? If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Acquisitions,” Bobby said.

“How fascinating,” Natalie said with a bat of her eyes.

“It has its moments,” Bobby said. “Okay, girls, I’ll leave the two of you alone.”

“You’re leaving?” Kat asked.

“Yeah, sweetheart. I really should get back to work.”

“But…”

“I’m going to go find a way around,” he told her, then planted a kiss on her cheek. “Love you,” he said and walked toward the doors without a single glance back.

“So, your dad’s hot.”

“Thanks. He was that way when I met him, so I can’t really take credit.”

“That’s too bad.” Natalie popped a piece of chewing gum into her mouth, offered the pack to Kat, and said, “So is he the one who stuck you in Knightsbury?”

Over Natalie’s shoulder, the service entrance opened and two guards came out, changing shifts. Kat noted the time: four-fifteen.

“Hello,” Natalie said, annoyed. “Earth to Kat.”

“Colgan,” Kat said, distracted. “First, I went to Colgan.”

“So you met Scooter there?”

“Uh…no,” Kat said. “He was already gone before I showed up. And got kicked out.”

Natalie laughed. “No! Really?
You
got kicked out of Colgan?”

“Sure did.”

“Cool,” Natalie said, finally impressed. She blew a big bubble then popped it with her finger. “Oh, I’m sorry. Was there something you needed to do?”

“No. I just came in for some cash,” Kat said, pointing at the ATM.

“Oh. Cool.”

Walking with Natalie, out the front doors of the bank and onto the busy sidewalk, Kat felt especially alone.

“Well, I guess I’ll see you around, Kat.”

“Yeah, Nat,” Kat told her. “See you around.”

Hale said they weren’t supposed to use her—that she had no place in what they had to do. And maybe he was right. Maybe it was a coincidence, seeing her in the very place Garrett had stashed the prototype—the bank that Kat and her crew needed to rob. But Kat had learned at a very young age not to believe in coincidences. She watched Nat walk away, gave a little wave when the girl glanced back.

She was still staring after her when a dark shadow fell over Kat’s shoulder, and she felt Hamish and Angus beside her.

“Don’t let her out of your sight,” she told them.

“Yes, ma’am,” they said, and together they started down the sidewalk, dissolving into the crowds.

F
or the rest of the day, Kat couldn’t stop pacing. She bit her nails and twisted her hair, anything to keep moving, thinking, breathing in and out. Anything to fight the feeling that something was wrong.

“Kat, you’re going to wear a hole in the floor,” Simon told her. “And I really like this lab.”

Silas was still at work on the prototype, but Simon’s office had morphed into a not-exactly-to-scale replica of the bank, and Kat totally didn’t like what she saw. Lasers and cameras and guards, a vault door that would require a nuclear bomb to blast through, and a maze of safety deposit boxes in a deep, dark room, any one of which could have been the box they needed.

“Don’t worry, Kat.” Simon must have read her mind, because he placed a hand awkwardly on her back and patted. “It’ll work out.”

But Kat didn’t feel so sure.

Something felt off about the job or the day or maybe both. She couldn’t quite name it, and the not-knowing was the worst feeling of all.

“How was the scouting trip?” Simon asked.

“Weird,” Kat said.

“Was it the motion detectors? Because I think I have a way around—”

“Natalie.” The word was a whisper, and yet it made Simon stop cold.

“What about her?”

“She was there.”

“Why?” Simon asked.

Kat bit her nails. “That’s what I really want to know. The Bagshaws are tailing her now. There’s just something about that girl I don’t trust. Gab would say I’m acting jealous, but—”

“Are you?” Simon asked.

Kat shrugged. “Maybe. But I still don’t like it. She’s always around and a little too accommodating. She reminds me of…me.”

“Then clearly she can’t be trusted.”

“Exactly!”

“Kat!” Angus’s voice boomed through the lab. “Simon, I’m home.”

“I thought you said they were tailing Natalie?” Simon asked.

“I thought they were.”

A moment later, Angus came pushing through the office door.

“Never to worry, love,” he said before Kat could scold him for abandoning his post. “She’s just popped into Daddy’s office. Hamish is waiting for her outside, but I thought
I’d—”

“Simon, call up the feed to Garrett’s office.”

“He’s not doing anything interesting. He never does anything interesting. Except for that one meeting, the office bug hasn’t given us—”

“Just call it up. I want to see what the two of them are talking about.”

Simon didn’t have to be asked again. Soon, a familiar image filled the screen, but something about it was off.

“Where’s Natalie?” Kat asked.

“I dunno,” Angus said. “Maybe she’s already gone.”

Kat reached for a phone and dialed. “Hey, Hamish, what’s Natalie’s location?”

“She’s in the Hale Building,” Hamish’s scratchy voice answered through the speakerphone. “Probably talking to her dad.”

“No.” Kat kept her eyes glued to the screen, at where Nat’s father sat stoically at his desk, talking to no one. “She’s not.”

“Maybe she went to see someone else? It is a big building,” Simon guessed, but another thought had occurred to Kat. She saw the way Garrett sat at his desk—so still. No sudden movements.

“The bug Gabrielle put on his watch at the gala. Is that still active?”

“I don’t know,” Simon said. “Probably.”

“Turn it on. Now.”

As soon as Simon punched the keys, the image on the screen stayed the same, but the voices were new.

“Hello, Father. Nice of you to see me. It’s not so nice to keep me waiting.”

“What do you want, Natalie?”

“We have trouble.”

“I’m busy.”

“Well, I’ve been busy too. Trying to lose the doofus Kat Bishop had following me, for starters.”

“Clearly that girl is talking about Hamish,” Angus said, but Kat didn’t have time for bruised egos. She was too busy studying the picture that absolutely did not match the sound.

“And the highlight of my afternoon was a trip to the bank.” Natalie talked on, but she was still nowhere to be seen. It was almost like the video they were watching had been faked. Staged.

“They looped our feed.” Kat’s voice was full of disbelief. “We’ve been looped.”

It was exactly what Kat would have done—what she
had
done on a number of occasions—and she felt the sting that comes from knowing that turnabout is absolutely not fair
play.

“They must have found the cameras.” Simon looked like someone had just killed his puppy, but Kat closed her eyes, absorbed by every word.

“What are you talking about?” Garrett asked his daughter.

“I just met Bobby Bishop. He’s more handsome than he looks in his mug shot. Charming, too.”

“Natalie, I don’t have time for this,” Garrett said, but there was a slamming sound, like a hand on the desk.

“They’re going to rob the bank.”
Natalie enunciated each word so clearly there could be no mistaking what she’d said.

“Don’t be silly. We chose that bank because it has never been robbed,” her father said.

“No.
I
chose that bank. And I was the one watching it this afternoon. And I am telling you that Scooter and his merry band of thieves are casing the joint. My guess is we have a day or two at the most.”

“That’s ridiculous. They’re kids.”

“News flash, Dad.
I’m
a kid! Do not underestimate them.” Her voice broke, and Kat thought she could just as easily have been saying
Do not underestimate me
.

“If you think Scooter and his friends are just kids, Dad, you’re delusional. Besides, the girl’s father isn’t a kid. Neither is her uncle. I’m telling you, we’ve got to move up the meeting with the buyer.”

“We don’t
have
to do anything,” Garrett shot back.

“Listen to me.”

“No, you listen! You’re not in charge here. I am. I’m the one who’s taking all the risks. I’m the one who changed the old woman’s will. The family would still be huddled around Hazel’s bedside if it weren’t for me, so don’t get high and mighty,” he huffed.

“What do you mean?”

“I’m the one who forged the Do Not Resuscitate order,” he said. “So don’t act all innocent. This was your idea, as you love to point out.”

“Are we recording this?” Kat asked.

“Not that feed,” Simon said, eyes wide, and Kat felt her heart plummet.

“I never said anything about a DNR.” Natalie’s voice cracked. “I never said…I never wanted…Hazel was good to me.”

“Hazel was a Hale. You don’t know them like I do.” Kat could hear him shoving papers around, tidying up for the night. “She was dying, Natalie. I just made sure it happened before she could fire me and ruin everything.”

“You killed her.”

“I did her a favor!”

It was like it wasn’t really happening—like Kat was listening to an old-time radio show about deceit and betrayal, and she sat waiting for the scene to end.

“Don’t worry, Natalie. I’ll leave an anonymous tip with the FBI. No one is going to rob that bank this week.” The door opened. “Are you coming?” he asked as if they had never fought at all.

The silence that came next was the longest Kat had ever heard. No one moved. No one breathed. No one did a thing until a voice came from the back of the room, asking, “That was Natalie?”

Kat didn’t know when Hale had come in or how much he’d heard, but the look in his eyes said that it was enough.

“It was Natalie’s idea?” he asked, then swallowed hard. “And Hazel…she didn’t have a DNR?” He nodded slowly, as if taking it all in. “That makes sense. She would have wanted to fight. She would have hung on for as long as she could. Yeah,” he said, sounding resolved. “That makes sense.”

“Hale…” Kat was up and walking toward him.

“You know what, Kat, I don’t really feel like working today.” He was moving, backing away. “I’ll talk to you
later.”

“Hale!” Kat yelled, but he was already through the lab and out the door.

She ran after him, but by the time she reached the parking lot, there was nothing left but tire tracks and a cloud of dust.