Perfect Scoundrels (8 page)

T
he good news, Kat couldn’t help but think, was that the Petrovich exhibit was far from the most impressive thing among the Henley’s always impressive collection. Sitting as it was, in the center of the grand promenade, it was easy for the guards and the docents and even the visitors themselves to overlook it, to treat the dozen prominent pieces less like valuable works of art and more like…well…furniture.

Desks and bookcases and even chests of drawers filled the center of the corridor with only red velvet ropes standing between the precious works and the sticky hands of sweaty tourists.

The crowds were heavy and the winds outside were brisk, so even Kat had to concede that the conditions were as perfect as they could be, given the circumstances. But the circumstances, any decent thief would know, were far from good.

It was still the Henley, and Kat and her crew were still the kids who’d robbed it, and so it was with more than a little trepidation that she followed Gabrielle (who had been forced to abandon her short skirts and tall heels for the occasion, lest any of the guards recollected seeing her legs on that fateful day last December).

The past was the past, and the people at the Henley seemed to go about their business as if nothing at all had changed.

Kat, on the other hand, knew better.

The guards were on a different rotation. The cameras had been upgraded no more than a month before. The security system was running on an entirely different feed, and this time Kat could see Simon out of the corner of her eye, lingering by the doors to the North Garden. His hands were shaking as he paced back and forth, looking like he was going to burst through the doors and run screaming from the Henley at any moment. But he didn’t.

“I don’t like this. I feel naked. I feel…blind,” Simon said through the comms unit.

“Then push your wig back,” Gabrielle told him from her place by the windows.

But that wasn’t the problem, and Kat knew it.

“It’s no fair,” Simon said. “They get to have computers. And cameras. With facial-recognition software. Have I mentioned I am
not
a fan of facial-recognition software?”

“Yeah,” Gabrielle told him. “You might have mentioned it when you were shopping for fake noses.”

Simon defended his honor. Gabrielle insulted his nose. But the words were just a distant humming in Kat’s ears as she walked down the long main corridor filled with desks and cabinets, a bookcase from the library of a very famous university that had been transplanted there piece by piece, including the very secret compartment behind it.

Kat moved slowly, taking it all in.

And then she saw it—the desk in the middle of the exhibit—twenty yards from the entrance to the Imperial China room, directly opposite the portrait of Veronica Henley herself. Kat thought of another fine old lady as she inched closer to the velvet ropes.

It wasn’t the most ornate of the pieces, but it was Kat’s favorite—the very one she would have chosen if she could have picked any Petrovich for herself. The drawers were intricately carved. The pass-through underneath had a swinging door. The top was soft leather with small brass studs. It was masculine, Kat thought; not the place for an old woman’s thank-you notes and diaries. No. It was a desk made for business, and Kat imagined Hazel there, filling her husband’s seat quite literally as she carried both the family and the company into a new era.

“I still wish I had a computer,” Simon said from his place by the doors.

Kat pulled her thoughts and her gaze away from Hazel’s desk and studied the long corridor.

“We don’t need a computer, Simon,” Kat said. “We just need them.”

To any casual observer, she was probably pointing at the herd of schoolchildren that was walking down the promenade and toward the main doors. It was easy to miss Nick, who lingered at the far end of the hall, and the Bagshaws, who were walking in her direction, a tall, steaming cup of coffee in Angus’s hands.

“Attention Henley guests,” a woman’s voice announced over the loudspeakers, “we have reached our close of business. Please make your way to the doors, and remember, the museum will open again at nine a.m. tomorrow morning. Thank you for visiting the Henley, and have a lovely evening.”

The schoolchildren walked a little faster. The docents gestured the crowd toward the doors. And, quietly, Kat said, “Now.”

Though the management of the Henley would never say so aloud, no one was really certain what had happened that afternoon. Of the two dozen school groups that had been scheduled to visit, not a single teacher seemed to know where the children got the items they eventually carried through the Henley’s halls. A staffer had handed them out, somebody said. It was some kind of free promotion gone wrong, others assumed.

But the truth remained that of the hundred children who walked through the Henley at the close of business on that particular day, approximately half of them were carrying helium-filled balloons in a variety of colors. The other half had small whirligigs, the kind depicted in a sculpture by a new Swiss artist of much acclaim.

And absolutely no one knew exactly how or why the doors at either end of the long hallway opened at the same time, sending a massive gush of wind rushing through the Henley.

The small toys began to spin. Wild splashes of color and flashes of light filled the corridor. Balloons flew free of their owners’ hands, blinding the cameras and popping against the hot lights overhead. The noise must have been in the same frequency as breaking glass, because the sensors in the control room went haywire. And even the Henley guards, with their highly expert surveillance videos, could see nothing beyond the glare.

They didn’t even notice when a very tall, very hot cup of coffee went flying over the velvet ropes and landed on the leather-covered desktop that had once belonged to the Hale family’s London estate.

And when the chaos finally ended, all that remained were broken balloons and a stained desk, and the security experts who agreed that things could have been far, far worse.

Workmen appeared.

Dollies were ordered.

But no one noticed that the desk was heavier than it had been when they’d moved it onto the exhibit floor only a few days before.

They never even looked in the small pass-through compartment, where Katarina Bishop hid, clinging for dear life.

K
at was beginning to think that Simon was right:
it was absolutely no fun being blind. But true to her name,
her eyes adjusted to the black as she stayed perfectly still in her hiding spot beneath the desk.

If Nick and his blueprints were accurate, there was one room where there were no cameras. In the center of the basement, with no exterior access of any kind, there was one place where no guards would ever have to patrol. So Kat stayed hidden, and when the desk stopped moving, she listened as the sound of work boots on concrete faded in the distance. And once certain she was alone, she dropped to the floor, rolled out from under the desk, and surveyed the dim and empty
room.

There were tall shelves with jars of varnish and paint in every shade, long tables lined with tools and brushes. It was a place where meticulous people did meticulous work, and part of Kat couldn’t help being impressed.

She stepped around the room, studying the works in progress. There was a pair of portraits by Matisse, a sculpture by Rodin. The piece of DNA she shared with Uncle Eddie tugged at her, and her mind flashed with exit strategies and all the ways that one might carry a twelve-hundred-pound Greek relic out of the fifth-most secure building in Britain. But then the beam of her favorite flashlight shone across the ornate desk, and Kat knew what she had to do.

There, without the velvet rope, Kat was free to feel the intricate carvings. She ran her fingers over acorns and trees, bows and arrows. Kat examined every inch. It was exquisite. But there was one part that seemed wrong. On each of the desk’s four corners there were markings, like needles of a compass, and one of them pointed in the wrong direction.

“Well, hello there,” Kat said. “What do you do?”

As soon as Kat turned the arrow, she heard the tiniest of clicks.

“I got it,” she whispered. “Did I get it?” she asked, then looked to see a narrow piece of the baseboard that had popped free from the rest of the desk. She sank to her knees and shined her light inside, stuck a hand into the dusty space until she felt a single piece of paper.

But wait. It wasn’t paper. Not really. Kat held it against the light. It was carbon paper, black with faint white letters—the kind offices used to make duplicates of important documents in the days before computers and even copy machines. The carbon had probably been in the desk for years. And it was only one page—

“It’s not here,” Kat said, defeated. She crumbled the carbon and put it into her pocket.

“Wait, Kat.” Simon’s voice was in her ear. “Petrovich didn’t put just one compartment in his pieces. There would be two or three at least. Keep on looking.”

“It’s okay, Kat,” Nick said. “You have all the time you need.”

So Kat went back to work. She opened drawers and felt inside shelves. She ran her delicate fingers beneath the lip of the desktop and along all four legs. There was a nick on the top right-hand corner, but it was just a flaw, Kat realized—not a clue.

She had all night, Kat had to remind herself. Come morning, she could slip outside and into the crowds that filled the Henley. All she had to do was think and feel and see.

So Kat stepped away from the desk, walked to the far corner of the room, and studied not the carvings but the desk as a whole. It was gorgeous. At least three different kinds of wood had been used, and they blended together beautifully. Seamlessly. Alternating one with the next. It was almost like…

“A chessboard,” she whispered, the words only for herself.

Carefully, Kat circled the desk, eyeing it from every angle.

“Uh…” Hamish said through the comms unit. “You know how no one was supposed to realize who spilled the drink?”

“Yeah?” Gabrielle sounded worried, but Kat kept her gaze locked on the desk, walking around and around.

“I think they figured it out!” Angus yelled. “Run!”

Somewhere on the grounds of the Henley, the Bagshaws were making a break for it, but Kat never took her eyes off the desk.

There were so many intricate pieces. They had to fit together somehow, Kat was certain. She walked to the front of the desk again, pushed against one of the panels, but nothing moved. She repeated the gesture on every square, but they were all firm and solid. She was about to give up when her fingers traced over something that felt different.

Kat leaned down and shined her light onto the small square. The difference in the coloring was so minuscule, she doubted anyone would ever notice; but the feel was off, somehow. Kat took her fingernail and scraped against the priceless desk, and a small amount of a very soft substance rubbed away. Restorer’s putty, Kat knew. Something was there—some blemish or flaw that had been covered over within the past week.

Kat found that place, pressed again, twisted; and from somewhere deep inside the desk, she heard a tiny click.

“Hamish, don’t go down the alley!” Gabrielle yelled through her comms unit, but that wasn’t the reason Kat’s pulse was racing as she walked to the back of the desk, looking for any other moving pieces.

“Kat,” Simon said, but Kat barely heard him. She might have been looking at a desk, but what she saw were patterns and pictures, a map through the maze.

“Kat!” Simon shouted in her ear. She was about to lash out that she was busy when he whispered, “Hide.”

Before Kat could ask what he meant, there was a slice of light across the concrete, and Kat’s mouth went wide with shock. She darted from the desk, crouching low and diving behind the tall shelves that filled the center of the room. She felt her flashlight slip from her hand and go skidding across the concrete floor, but she couldn’t chase it. She could do nothing but stay low, hidden in the shadows, while three men walked toward her.

“There’s a light switch around here.… Yes. There,” a man said, and a moment later the overhead fluorescents flickered to life.

It took all of Kat’s willpower not to gasp when she heard a familiar voice saying, “Now, perhaps you can tell us what you meant—the Hale desk was involved in an accident?”

“Yes, Mr. Garrett. As I was trying to tell you earlier, it’s nothing, really. Our restoration department is the finest in the world, more than capable of mopping up a little spill. I assure you, Mr. Hale, you have nothing to worry about.”

Mr. Hale
.

Kat peeked through the crack in the shelves, and what she saw was broad shoulders and a charismatic smile. But there was something infinitely sad about the boy in the very nice suit who stood with two men, staring down at the desk.

“I guarantee you…sir,” the stranger said, “your late grandfather’s desk is—”

“Grandmother’s.”

“Pardon?” the director asked.

“My great-great-great-grandfather purchased this desk, but it was my late grandmother who truly owned it.”

“I see,” the man said with a solemn nod.

“Where’s that artist, Duncan?” Garrett asked, and the director began to squirm.

“I’m sure she’ll be right along.”

“You’re the director of this facility. Go find her,” Garrett snapped.

“Of course, sir. Right away.”

Kat watched in silence as the man from the museum scurried through the swinging doors, leaving Hale and Garrett alone among the paint and the brushes.

“Why are we here?” Hale sounded like he was mid-con and playing a bored and elusive billionaire. Then Kat had to remind herself he wasn’t playing.

“I told you, Scooter. Hale Industries has a significant presence in Europe. It’s important for you to at least put in an appearance at the London headquarters.”

“No.” Hale took a deep breath. “Why are we
here
?” He held out his arms and gestured at the walls and shelves covered with priceless paintings and delicate sculptures. He sat on a workbench as the man looked down on him and gave a condescending smile.

“Well, it’s the finest museum in the world.”

“I know.”

“Oh, I know you do,” Garrett said, and for a split second, Kat wondered exactly what he was saying. She watched Hale, but the words didn’t seem to register with him.

“You’re an important man now, Scooter. You have responsibilities.”

“Isn’t that why I have you?”

“Well, yes.” Garrett laughed a little. “I guess it is.”

Hale stood and reached for the desk, ran his hand along the small section that Kat had been examining only moments before.

“What is it?” Garrett asked.

“I did that,” Hale said, pointing to the flaw that had been filled with putty.

“You carved into an original Petrovich?”

“Hazel told me to,” Hale countered. “I was…I don’t know…six or seven and she gave me a knife—told me that that was where
H
would mark the spot.”

For a moment, Hale’s trustee was quiet. Then he jerked his head toward the door. “Why don’t you go check on Duncan, Scooter? Make sure he brings that woman back. This is your grandmother’s desk. We can’t have it damaged further.”

When Hale left, Kat felt frozen, watching as Garrett walked around the desk, studying the ornate carvings. She couldn’t breathe as the man turned the piece of the desk where Hale had pointed. A small hidden drawer opened with an ominous pop. To Kat, it sounded like a bubble bursting as a narrow piece of molding slid away from the rest of the desk, and the man reached inside and pulled out a pile of papers held together by a single clip. Quickly, he slipped them into an interior pocket of his suit coat.

“He’s got it,” Kat said.

“What?” Gabrielle asked. “No, Angus, you need to get out of the garden! I’m sorry, Kat. What were you—”

“He’s got it. Garrett has the will.” The words were almost for herself, because, in that moment, the girl who always had a plan had absolutely no idea what to do. Options and alternatives swirled in her mind, but before she could do a single thing, Director Duncan appeared at the doorway, Hale at
his side.

“She’s on her way, Mr. Garrett,” the director said, but Garrett no longer seemed interested.

Instead, he spoke directly to the boy. “Come, Scooter, we’ve seen enough. We’ll get out of your way, Mr. Duncan.”

“But…” The director seemed befuddled.

“You’re a busy man, and we’re jet-lagged. Come on, Scooter, let’s go.”

Two guards appeared and asked the director a question, so Kat kept herself pressed against the wall and whispered as loudly as she dared, “Gabrielle, Simon?”

“I’m here, Kat.” The voice was Nick’s.

“Garrett’s leaving with the real will. We’ve got to get it back. Now!”