“The Romani Room isn’t the top of the list?” Kat guessed.
Simon shook his head. “Not even close. So if the Henley is vulnerable anywhere, this is it.”
Kat had spent hours wondering why that room of that museum. She knew it hadn’t been random. There was a reason a thief like Romani would pick that exhibit over the Renaissance room or any of the Henley’s other crown jewels, and this was it. She smiled. Somehow the world was starting to make sense again.
“And the bad news?” Hale asked.
Simon shrugged. “It’s still the Henley.”
It took a moment for the words to sink in—for everyone to realize the magnitude of what had to be done. Success in Kat’s world depended so much on details that the big pictures were frequently lost. But Kat knew what they were doing. And as the moment stretched out, everyone else seemed to remember too.
“It’s totally a closed-circuit feed,” Simon went on, a moment later. “There’s no way we’re hacking in from the outside. But we knew that already.”
“Why don’t you skip to the parts we don’t know?” Hale said impatiently.
“Right,” Simon said, pointing at Hale as if that were a brilliant idea. “They’ve already updated all the wiring in the whole building. Really state-of-the-art stuff. I mean, it’s awesome—”
“Simon,” Hale snapped.
“Well . . . that’s the bad news,” Simon finished. “There’s no hacking it. Even if I could tie into the mainframe, I couldn’t override their system.”
“I’m really hoping there’s good news,” Hamish added.
Simon smiled. “Remodeling old buildings like the Henley is . . . awkward,” he said, his eyes shining.
“And . . .” Hale prompted.
“And so sometimes when they put new systems in . . .”
Simon started, but Kat was already nodding.
“They leave the old systems right where they are,” she finished. She looked at Hale, and together they said, “Like the Dubai job.”
Simon nodded. “I’m not saying I can get it up and running, but if I can get into a high-security room for fifteen minutes, and if I’m right . . . that’s our way into the Henley’s inner sanctums.”
“Do it,” Hale said, then stopped. He looked at Kat and waved, an after you gesture.
Kat turned to her cousin. “So, Gabrielle, what did we learn?”
Gabrielle glared at her. “We learned that the next time you want to find out what kind of frontline defense mechanisms someone has in place, you can . . .” but she trailed off as she fell back on the pillow. “What was I saying?”
Kat looked at the brothers.
“Exhibit hall grates fell one point two seconds after contact,” Angus told her.
“The main hall was locked down less than five seconds after that,” Hamish added, crossing his leg. “We won’t be doing anything that requires a hasty break for the nearest exit, I can tell you that.”
“Yeah,” Angus agreed. “Those Henley guards didn’t look like the sort who would let us walk out the front door with five paintings under our arms in the middle of the day.”
“Even if they aren’t their paintings,” his brother said.
“Great,” Gabrielle said from the couch. “I ruined my nails for nothing.”
“Not for nothing,” Kat said. “Thanks to you, Gabs, we just figured out a half dozen ways not to rob the Henley.”
* * *
“Mary Poppins?” Hale suggested four hours later.