Heist Society (22 page)

Twenty-four hours after the robbery at the Henley, it was raining in Paris. Arturo Taccone’s French driver pulled his limo (a classic Mercedes, this time in dark blue) to the side of the road and allowed the man to stare out at the narrow street lined with small shops. He was not prepared for the tap on the foggy window or the sight of a girl who was too small and too tired for her age crawling into the backseat beside him.

She shook her short hair slightly, and water splashed across the tan leather seats, but Arturo Taccone did not mind. He had too many other emotions right then, and the largest of which— he scarcely dared to admit—was regret that it was over.

“I have heard that cats don’t like the rain,” he said, gesturing to her frizzy hair and drenched raincoat. “I can see that it is so.”

“I’ve been in worse,” she said, and somehow he didn’t doubt it.

“I’m very glad to see you, Katarina. Alive and well.”

“Because you were afraid I had been burned alive at the Henley, or because you were afraid I might get caught and use our arrangement as a bargaining chip?”

“Both,” the man conceded.

“Or were you most concerned that I might take your paintings and disappear myself? That they might go underground for another half century or so?”

He studied her anew. It was rare to find someone who was both so young and so wise, both so fresh and so jaded. “I admit I have been hoping that you might have brought me, shall we say, a bonus? I would pay handsomely for the
Angel
. She would fit in my collection very nicely.”

“I didn’t take the da Vinci,” she said flatly. Taccone laughed.

“And your father did not take my paintings,” he said, indulging her, still unwilling to believe. “You do, indeed, have a most interesting family. And you, Katarina, are a most exceptional girl.”

She felt it was her turn to return the compliment, but there were some lies that even Uncle Eddie’s great-niece couldn’t tell. So instead she just asked, “My father?”

Taccone shrugged. “His debt to me is forgiven. It has been most”—he considered his words—“enjoyable. Perhaps he will steal something from me again sometime.”

“He didn’t—” Kat started, but then thought better of it.

Taccone nodded. “Yes, Katarina, let us not leave things with a lie.”

Kat looked at him as if to measure what amount of truth might lie in the soul of a man like Arturo Taccone, if any soul at all remained.

“The paintings are in pristine condition. Not even a fleck of paint is out of order.”

Taccone adjusted his leather gloves. “I expected nothing less of you.”

“They are ready to go home.” Her voice cracked, and Taccone knew somehow that she wasn’t lying—there was a sincere longing in her words. “They’re across the street,” she told him. “An abandoned apartment.” She pointed through the foggy windows. “There,” she said. “The one next to that gallery.”

Taccone followed her gaze. “I see.”

“We’re finished,” she reminded him.

He studied her. “We don’t have to be. As I said before, a man in my position could make a young woman like yourself richer than her wildest dreams.”

Kat eased toward the door. “I know rich, Mr. Taccone. I think I’ll just aim for happy.”

He chuckled and watched her go. She was already out of the car when he said, “Good-bye, Katarina. Until we meet again.”

Kat stood beneath the awning of a shop and watched him leave the car and cross the street. The driver did not go with him. He walked through the apartment door alone.

Although she was not there to see it, she knew exactly what he found. Five priceless pieces of art.

Four paintings: one of Degas’s dancers and Raphael’s prodigal son; Renoir’s two boys;
The Philosopher
by Vermeer. And something else he hadn’t been expecting: a statue that had recently been stolen from the gallery next door.

Kat often wondered what he must have thought as he looked through the dusty, abandoned apartment at the paintings that he loved and then at a small statue that he had never seen before.

She wondered if he turned and watched the door. Perhaps he heard the Interpol officers as they rushed down the wet street and stood poised outside the apartment windows.

Did Arturo Taccone know what was going to happen? Kat would never know. It was enough for her to stand in the damp air and watch the uniformed officials swarm into the place where she had put Taccone’s paintings, and her father had stashed his stolen sculpture.

It was very much enough to stand there and watch as Arturo Taccone’s driver sped away, which was just as well. Interpol was more than willing to give his boss a ride.

“Are they in there?”

Kat shouldn’t have been surprised to hear the voice, and yet she couldn’t fight the shock in seeing the boy.

“What do you think?” she asked.

Nick smiled. “I’m not in prison, by the way,” he told her. “Just in case you were wondering.”

“I wasn’t.” For a moment he looked almost hurt, so Kat added, “No one arrests a cop’s kid for being in a room where nothing was stolen.”

But something
was
stolen at the Henley. They stood there for a long time, not talking, until Nick finally said, “He used us . . . or, I guess . . . you. This Romani guy used you for a diversion, didn’t he?” Kat didn’t answer. She didn’t have to. Nick stepped closer. “A con within a con.” He looked at her. “Are you mad?”

Kat thought about the
Angel
of the Henley, who was, at that moment, probably winging her way back to her rightful home, and she couldn’t help herself. She shook her head. “No.”

And still nothing could have surprised her more than when Nick smiled and said, “Me neither.”

“Are you flirting with me?” Kat blurted.

Kat thought it a valid, scientific question until Nick inched closer and said, “Yes.”

She stepped away from him—from the flirting. “Why’d you do it, Nick? And why don’t you tell me the truth this time?”

“I thought you’d help me catch your dad at first.”

“And then . . .” Kat prompted.

Nick shrugged and kicked at a pebble on the sidewalk. It skidded into a puddle, but she didn’t hear the splash. “I wanted to impress my mom. And then . . .”

“Yes?”

“And then I thought I could catch you—stop a robbery of the Henley, be a hero. But . . .”

Kat stared into the rainy street. She shivered. “I don’t take things that don’t belong to me.”

Nick gestured across the street to the pair of officers who were leading Arturo Taccone from the apartment in handcuffs. “You took from him.”

She thought of Mr. Stein. “They don’t belong to him either.”

A moment later another car pulled through the crowd that was quickly growing across the street. A beautiful black-haired woman stepped from the backseat. If she saw her son beneath the awning, she did not wave or smile or question why he’d ignored her instructions not to leave their hotel without permission.

“You really are good, Kat,” he told her.

“Do you mean good as in skilled or just . . . good?”

He smiled. “You know what I mean.”

Kat watched Nick walk away, until the police car carrying Arturo Taccone pulled out into the street, blocking her view. As far as she knew, Nick never looked back. Which wasn’t fair, Kat thought. Because, from that point on, she was going to be looking over her shoulder for the rest of her life.

Kat sensed more than saw the black limo that pulled slowly to the curb beside her. She heard a smooth whirling sound as the dark glass of the back window disappeared and a young man leaned out.

“So that fella there is the one who robbed that nice gallery?” Hale asked, his eyes wide as he pointed to the disappearing police car.

“It appears so,” Kat said. “I heard he actually slid the statue through a hole in the wall and into that vacant apartment.”

“Genius,” Hale said with a tad too much enthusiasm.

Kat laughed as Hale opened the door, and she slid inside. “Yes,” she said slowly. “In theory. Except robbing a gallery tends to make the police spend a lot of time
at
the gallery. . . .”

“And then how does a guy get his statue?”

Kat knew it was her turn—her line. But she was tired of playing games. And maybe Hale was too. Maybe.

He glanced down the street where Nick had disappeared. “You’re not leaving with your boyfriend?”

Kat eased her head back onto the soft leather. “Maybe.” She closed her eyes and thought that perhaps this flirting thing wasn’t so difficult after all. “Maybe not . . . Wyndham?”

She heard Hale laugh softly then call, “Marcus, take us home.”

As they eased into traffic, she let the warmth of the car wash over her. She didn’t protest as Hale slid his arm around her and pulled her to rest against his chest. It was somehow softer there than she remembered.

“Welcome back, Kat,” he told her as she drifted off to sleep. “Welcome back.”

They did not go to Cannes for Christmas. Uncle Eddie claimed he was too old to travel—too set in his ways to be persuaded to change. So Kat and her father joined the throng that descended upon the old brownstone.

Inside it was stuffy, as it always was in winter, with a fire blazing in every room and Uncle Eddie’s old stove burning in the kitchen. So when Kat stepped out onto the stoop, she didn’t mind the chill.

“I thought I might find you here, Katarina.”

For a brief second she panicked, then realized the voice wasn’t Taccone’s. It was too gentle. Too kind. Too happy.

“Happy holidays, Mr. Stein.”

“Happy holidays, Katarina,” he said, tipping his hat.

She gestured toward the door. “Would you like to come inside?”

He quickly waved her away. “Oh no, Katarina. I have found the person I was searching for.” He took a step back. “Would you mind accompanying an old man for a short stroll?”

It was an easy question to answer—one of the few she’d heard in a very long time.

“You’ve made an enemy, my dear.”

Kat turned up her collar against the icy wind. “I could have given them back and stolen them later, but—”

“Your father’s unfortunate incarceration?” he guessed.

Kat shrugged. “My way seemed more efficient at the time.”

The first time she had met Abiram Stein, she had seen him cry. There was something beautiful, Kat thought, about watching him laugh.

“I read a nice article about you,” she told him.

“The
Times
?”

“No, the London
Telegraph
.”

He sighed. “There have been so many. Evidently I am something of an—what is the phrase—overnight sensation?”

She laughed. “Don’t let it go to your head.”

They strolled together on the quiet street, with only the few stray snowflakes that fell as company. “I feel as if I should thank you, Katarina. But that”—he stopped and placed his hands in his pockets—“that is far too small a thing to do.”

“Are they . . .” Kat hesitated, her voice breaking, “home?”

“Some,” he assured her. “There are a few families— survivors—that my colleagues and I have located. You have read their stories, yes?” Kat nodded. “But for the others, Katarina, I’m afraid their homes”—he struggled for words— “are gone.”

The snow picked up, falling more heavily as he continued, “But the
paintings
live. People know their stories now. A new generation will hear their tales. And they will hang in the great museums of the world and not in a prison.” He stepped closer. His hands gripped her arms as he kissed her once on each cheek then whispered, “You have set them free.”

She looked down at the wet sidewalk.

“One was missing.” She hadn’t said a word about the fifth painting—the empty frame—but somehow she knew Abiram Stein would understand. “There were only four. I tried, but—”

“Yes, Katarina,” he said, nodding. “I know this painting.”

“I’ll find it. I’ll get it back, too.”

There was a growing sense of urgency coursing through her, but Mr. Stein was calm as he spoke. “Did your mother ever mention why she came to me, Katarina? Did you know that your great-great-grandmother was a very fine painter in her own right?”

Kat nodded. She did know. Who else could have forged the
Mona Lisa
that hung in the Louvre?

“And did you know that one of her great friends was a young artist named Claude Monet?”

There were many rumors among a family of thieves, and this particular tale was one that Kat had never believed . . . until now.

“He painted her once, your great-great-grandmother. And he gave her the canvas as a gift. It was her pride and joy—her most prized possession. Until 1936, when a young Nazi officer took it from her wall.”

“But—” Kat started.

“Your great-great-grandmother wasn’t Jewish?” Abiram Stein guessed. Then he smiled. “The Nazis could be very equal-opportunity with their greed, my dear.”

“So my mom was looking for her great-grandmother’s painting?” Kat said, understanding her a little better.

“The one thing she couldn’t steal.” Abiram smiled. “I would not worry yourself about the last painting, Katarina. These things have a way of finding their way home.”

“And the
Angel
?” Kat asked.

“Oh, I think our friend Mr. Romani will see to her return himself.”

They stopped at the end of the block, and Kat watched while he hailed a cab. “A wise woman once told me that someone like you could be of great use to someone like me. Would you agree?” But something in his expression told Kat that he already had his answer.

He stepped toward the waiting cab. “Good-bye, Katarina.” There was a new twinkle in his eye as he crawled inside and started to close the door. “I feel quite sure we’ll meet again.”

Kat would have liked to believe that she’d known which twists were coming—that she’d seen all of Romani’s pieces and predicted where he might make his next play. But as she walked back toward the brownstone, she knew that wasn’t true. She was not a master thief. She wasn’t as good as Romani or Uncle Eddie. She would never be her father or her mother. But she wasn’t the girl who had fled to—or from—Colgan either.

As she stepped inside, she noticed that, for the first time she could remember, her uncle’s brownstone didn’t feel too warm. The kitchen, she thought, was just right.

Uncle Eddie stood by his stove, stirring a stew and waiting for his bread to rise. Her father sat with Simon, looking at the Henley plans, swearing, of course, that his interest was purely academic and that the museum would have completely overhauled their security by now, so there was no risk in sharing what they’d learned.

Only Hale looked up as Kat came in. He motioned to one of the mismatched chairs beside him, and she took her place at the table without a second thought.

Outside, the snow was still falling. In the other room, Uncle Vinnie was singing an old Russian song, to which Kat had never learned the words.

“What about you, Uncle Eddie?” Gabrielle asked from the end of the table. “Who do you think Romani really is?”

Kat remembered Uncle Eddie’s words:
He is no one; he is everyone
. And still she held her breath as her uncle slowly turned.

“I think there are two people in this world who have ever successfully planned a job at the Henley, Gabrielle.” Kat felt the room grow quiet, her uncle’s gaze settle upon only her. “Visily Romani—whoever he is—is the other one.”

Hale reached beneath the table, his warm hand grabbing hold of hers. And just as she leaned closer, relaxing against him, the back door flew open and the Bagshaws burst in, ushering the cold air along with them.

“It’s freezing out there.” Hamish walked toward the stove and took a bowl from Uncle Eddie without asking, proving with that single gesture that Angus and Hamish had been officially forgiven for the nun incident and brought back into the fold with open arms. Conquering heroes. The boys who had blown up the Henley.

“What’s that?” Hale asked, and for the first time, Kat noticed the small parcel wrapped in plain brown paper that Angus carried under his arm.

“Don’t know,” the elder Bagshaw said. “Found it outside. Note says it’s for Kat.”

Her first thought was Mr. Stein. Her second—however brief—was of Nick. But as Kat took the package, pulled back the paper, and stared down at the small canvas in her hands, she knew both guesses were wrong.

A girl. She saw a girl with straight dark hair and a heart-shaped face, with a petite frame and a devout posture as she kneeled, praying to Nicholas, the patron saint of thieves.

From the other room, Uncle Vinnie’s singing grew louder. Uncle Eddie returned to his cooking. Simon and her dad studied their plans.

It felt to Kat as if she and Hale and Gabrielle were very much alone as she heard her cousin ask, “Is that what I think it is?”

Kat nodded, speechless, as a plain white card fell from the package and landed, at last, on Uncle Eddie’s table.

Dearest Katarina,


Rest assured, the Angel is safe and she is happy. The enclosed belongs to you. It is time that it, too, returned to its family.


Welcome home,


Visily Romani


Kat glanced up and saw Hale’s concerned face huddled close beside Gabrielle’s. She smiled reassuringly at them both. For a moment, her mind drifted to Hale’s confession—Kat’s ticket back into Colgan—that lay at the bottom of her suitcase: unopened and unused.

But when Kat’s gaze fell back on the priceless canvas in her lap, she thought of the girl who prayed to the patron saint of thieves. Katarina Bishop was indeed certain that she was no Visily Romani. And yet . . .

She smiled.

And yet, she knew she could be.