Perfect Scoundrels (20 page)

K
at had run away once. And even though she could have gone anywhere—done anything—she had chosen the Colgan School, with its manicured lawns and ivy-covered towers. She had run to Hale’s world. And Hale had run to hers. Perhaps they were destined to meet somewhere, at some time along the way. And maybe they were both destined to someday return to the worlds that had made them.

She would have traded everything she knew for one glimpse at where he might have run to on that night, but it wasn’t possible, so she didn’t try. All she could do was send the rest of her crew out looking, dispersing into the city, trying to chase the boy that, if Kat knew him at all, wouldn’t be caught until he was good and ready.

So Kat walked through the streets of Brooklyn alone, all the way to a familiar stoop and a wooden door, and the smells of the Old Country drifting from the kitchen.

But something else, too. Voices. Deeper, darker, and older than the ones she had grown accustomed to hearing.

“Casper the Friendly Ghost?” somebody said as Kat crept slowly closer.

“Doesn’t get us past the cameras,” Uncle Sal said. “What about the Rumpelstiltskin?”

“No good.” Uncle Felix threw his hands in the air. “My hypnotist moved to Phoenix. Emphysema.”

They all shook their heads and muttered, “Poor Madame Zelda.”

“Have a seat, sweetie.” Uncle Ezra seemed to be the only one who noticed Kat’s presence. He pulled out a chair and gestured for her to take it. “We’re trying to solve your problem. Any word on the kid?”

Kat rested her hands on the table, felt the smooth wood beneath her palms. “Angus and Hamish and Gabrielle are out looking for him. I thought he might come here, so…”

“He’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Ezra patted her hand. “Where’s your pop?”

“Gone,” Kat said.

“Already?” Felix seemed shocked, but then shrugged as if to say that he wasn’t one to judge.

“They’re on to us,” Kat said. She felt embarrassed, ashamed. “We’re made. They’ve known what Hale’s been up to for months. Years, maybe. And now they know we’re casing the bank, so…we can’t hit the bank.”

“We heard already,” Uncle Felix said, with a shake of his head. “Tough break, sweetheart, but don’t worry. We’re on it.”

“They’re going to tip the FBI to watch the bank.
We
can’t hit the bank
.” Kat was repeating herself but she didn’t know how to stop. She couldn’t have run this con if her life depended on it. And in a way, Kat knew, it did.

Uncle Eddie stood by his stove. He said nothing and heard everything, and not for the first time in Kat’s life, she would have given anything to know what he was thinking. But he just ladled soup into a bowl and pulled off a chunk of fresh bread and placed the meal before her.

She felt six years old again, safe and warm, sitting at the grown-ups’ table with the men who had raised her. Family. Kat was among her family, and Hale was out in the cold. When Felix reached to butter her bread, Kat felt her eyes go moist, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She pushed out of her chair and stepped toward the door.

“Hey, kiddo,” Uncle Sal said. “Where ya going?”

Kat had to stop and look at them all. They were older, wiser. Crankier. At some point in the past dozen or so years, the hairlines had become a little thinner and the middles a little thicker. Her whole life, the men at that table had been teaching, guiding, protecting her at every step along the way. They were there to do it again, no matter what the consequences. It was time, Kat felt, to return the favor.

“I’m going to end it.”

No one asked what she was doing. Not a soul told her not to go. It was her job, her con, her call. So the next step, they all knew, was hers.

“Katarina.” Uncle Eddie’s voice stopped her at the door. “I’ll be here when you get back.”

W
hen Kat walked out of the subway station, it was just starting to rain. The cold wind stung her skin. Fat drops clung to her lashes, water running down her cheeks with every blink until she had no idea whether or not she might be crying. She walked on, instinct and intuition guiding her steps until she found the building and went inside, as if there were never any doubt that she belonged.

The lock was easy enough to handle. The security code she already knew. So the hard part, as always, was the waiting. She sat silently in the dark, the Manhattan shadows looming all around her. And when the door began to open, she wasn’t even a little bit afraid. After all, she was perfectly accustomed to being inside a man’s world and in way over her head.

Kat flipped on the light and watched the man throw his hands up to shield his eyes as she said, “Did I scare you? Oh, I hope I didn’t scare you.…”

Garrett didn’t say anything, but the rise and fall of his chest was more than answer enough.

“Mr. Garrett!” A burly man appeared in the doorway behind him, and in a flash was moving in Kat’s direction. “Hands up,” he told her.

“Easy, big guy,” Kat said. “Mr. Garrett and I are old friends, isn’t that right?”

“Do you know her?” the goon asked, and Kat watched Garrett consider the question. Did he know her? Did anyone, really?

Then he waved the goon away and said, “She’s okay. I think. But you might want to…check her or something.”

“Hands up,” the goon told her again.

“Really, you’re going to need to buy me dinner first,” Kat said, but she went ahead and raised her hands and let the goon pat her down.

“She’s clean,” the man told his boss, then stepped back and stood at attention.

Garrett nodded, comfortable with the power that comes from hired muscle and an underage target. Kat knew just how powerless she was supposed to be in that moment. She felt it in every one of her underaged, undersized bones. But she couldn’t bring herself to tremble. She knew too well what she had to do.

“You hired a bodyguard, Mr. Garrett.” She threw her hands to her chest and sounded especially girlie when she told him, “All for little ol’ me. I’m flattered.”

“Come, Kat. Surely you know that a man in my position requires some additional…insurance,” he said, then studied her. “Why are you smiling?”

“No reason.” Kat shrugged. “Your type of bad never really understands how to protect yourself against my type of bad. That’s all.”

“You are a talented girl,” he said.

“You’re not the first man to tell me that.” She looked the attorney up and down. “The other guy was scarier. But at least he didn’t pretend he wasn’t a killer.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, I think you do. You didn’t pull a trigger, but Hazel is dead because of you, and I know it. And I’m not the only one.”

“So…” Garrett walked into the small kitchen, opened a bottle, and poured himself a drink. “You’re here to…what? Warn me? Make a deal? Ask for a cut?”

“No, thank you.”

“I have no problem with you or your family, Miss Bishop. This was never about
your
family.”

“Hale is my family.”

Garrett gave a sickly sweet smile and put the cap back on the bottle. “That’s nice. But as I was saying, it’s not about you. Your father and your uncle and…whoever those other people are…they aren’t a part of this. I have nothing against you and yours. The good people at Interpol, however—I can’t speak for them.”

He took an intimidating step closer to Kat, looming over her as he said, “But if you continue to stand between me and my affairs, I will make a phone call, and you won’t like the results.”

He shifted, waiting for the threat to land, and when it didn’t, he narrowed his eyes and snapped, “What?”

“You’re missing the point,” Kat told him. “You know who I am. Good job, by the way. But I also know who you are.
And
I know what you did
.”

“Are you going to say that makes us even?”

Kat glared.
“Not even close.”

She couldn’t stand the sight of him, so she turned to the windows. “As we speak, copies of Hazel Hale’s DNR are circulating to the best handwriting experts in the world—one of whom happens to be my uncle Charlie. That part is already in motion—there’s nothing you can do about it now.” She looked back at him, leveled him with her stare. “There are just two options for what happens next.”

“And they are…” he asked, humoring her.

“Maybe those reports make their way to any number of people who can make your life difficult.”

“I will soon be a very wealthy man. I don’t care about difficult.”

“You will if it means you can’t sell the prototype. You see, Mr. Garrett, I can call the authorities, too.”

“You have no proof.”

“Oh, Garrett”—Kat made a
tsk tsk tsk
sound—“I can
make
proof. Or I can steal it. In any case, you don’t want me as an enemy.”

“And the second option?”

“You give me ten million dollars and this all goes away.”

He couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “Ten million? That’s all? That won’t support your boyfriend’s lifestyle for a year.”

“It’s not for me, and it’s not for Hale.”

“Then who is it for?”

“Marianne.” Kat laughed a little at his naiveté. They had come all this way and still he didn’t see the truth. “It was always for Marianne.”

“The maid?”

“The person you wrote out of the will. That was a stupid move, by the way. If you’d left her in, none of this would have happened.”

“Oh, I know.” He took a sip of his drink and rolled his eyes. “But Hazel wanted her to be the trustee, and I couldn’t have that, could I? She always was annoyingly honest.”

“Good people have a tendency to be that way. Makes me glad I don’t know that many.”

“Okay. The maid gets ten million. And that’s it?” He looked at Kat as if she were some rare species of human being. “You’re not going to try to save your boyfriend’s family business?”

“No, Mr. Garrett.” Kat slipped on her jacket and crossed the room. “I’m trying to save my boyfriend.”

Walking to the door, Kat knew she should have felt at ease. It was over. Almost. But something tugged at her, a lingering doubt she couldn’t silence, a steady whisper in her ear.

“Just one more thing.” Kat suddenly stopped. “Hale never sees you—or your daughter—again.”

A condescending smile spread across Garrett’s face.

“Anything else?”

“Do we have a deal, Mr. Garrett?”

He nodded. “Deal.”

“Tomorrow at noon. Grand Central Station. I’ll expect you there in person.”

“And have you show up with the authorities? I don’t think so.”

“Fine,” Kat conceded. “We’ll do it in…Niagara Falls. On the Canadian side. Far out of New York jurisdiction. How does that sound?”

“I didn’t peg you for a tourist.”

“Let’s just say I’m a girl who appreciates a crowd. There’s a scenic overlook a mile past the border. Bring ten million in untraceable bonds and don’t be late. If you are, I will personally make sure every member of my family knows there’s a price on your head. You’d be surprised how many of them are good at stealing people.”

The man smiled and held out his hand. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you.”

“Forgive me if I can’t say the same.”

I
t didn’t matter how close Kat sat to the fire in Uncle Eddie’s drawing room; she still couldn’t get warm. She kept seeing Garrett’s cold smile, his black eyes. And she kept wondering if Hale would ever forgive her, knowing he was the one person whom she could never, ever con into forgetting her mistakes.

“Out of the frying pan…” she said to herself, unable to shake the feeling that it was just a matter of time until she got burned.

“You didn’t eat.” Uncle Eddie’s voice was gruff and sleepy as he came into the room. “Come, Katarina. I’ll make you something.”

“I’m not hungry,” she told him, and the old man shrugged.

“That’s a pity.” He dropped into a chair not far away. “My hands.” He looked down, held them against the light of the fire. “I don’t know what to do with them. It would have been nice to have a task.”

“Sorry. I wish I could be more help.”

He gave a shrug as if to say he’d grown used to disappointment, then propped a foot up on the coffee table, which was covered with photos and albums, the prep materials that nobody really needed anymore.

“I wish I’d known her.” Kat picked up the album that showed an image of Hale’s grandmother on her wedding day, standing between Reginald and her new husband.

“Have the boys found him?” Eddie asked, and Kat shook her head. The old man drew a deep breath then leaned back in his chair. “Your young man will be fine, Katarina.”

“I know,” Kat said.

“All young men must find their way. Yours is just a little off course at the moment.”

“He misses Hazel.”

Eddie nodded slowly. “I’m sure he does.”

And then Eddie struggled to his feet. Kat hated those moments—the seconds, really, where his hands would shake or his knees subtly refused to bear his weight. There was nothing as painful to Katarina Bishop as the gentle reminders that she was not the only member of her family who was growing older, that someday she too would be left with nothing but a book full of pictures and memories.

“If I lost you…” Kat’s voice broke. She couldn’t meet his eyes, so she stared down at the flames.

“You’re not going to lose me, Katarina.”

“Promise?”

Eddie gave her shoulder a squeeze. “Would I lie?”

She wanted to believe him, to know that it was true. But there were some things even the great Uncle Eddie couldn’t stop—and fate, as it turned out, was one of them.

“Go to sleep, Katarina. This thing we do tomorrow…it is not an easy thing.”

“Is it the right thing?” she asked.

He nodded. “It is the
best
thing. And that is all any grifter can hope for.”

She heard him shuffle down the hall. A moment later, a door opened and closed, and Kat was left alone with her thoughts and the fire and the spinning earth that was slowly making its way toward tomorrow.