“Oh, I don’t know.” Kat looked at the art-lined hallway as if she were seeing it for the first time. “I’m just . . . looking, I guess.”
“You go ahead and look all you want. But don’t touch.” The guard chuckled.
And as Kat stepped into the Romani Room, she smiled and thought, Oh, I wouldn’t dare.
Sometime in the past week, the Henley’s least impressive collection had become Katarina Bishop’s favorite. Maybe it was the simple brushstrokes, the subdued use of light. Or maybe Kat was simply drawn to the other paintings that hung in that room—the ones the tourists couldn’t see.
Collectively, Arturo Taccone’s paintings were worth more than half a billion dollars . . . and her father’s life.
“How are we doing, Simon?” she whispered into the small microphone in her collar.
“Just about . . .” Simon started slowly. And then he stopped. “Wow.”
“What?” she asked, panic in her voice.
“Nothing,” he said too quickly.
“What?” she asked again.
“Well . . . it’s just that . . . your boobs look even bigger on TV.”
Kat took that opportunity to turn and glare at the nearest security camera. In his bathroom stall thirty feet away, Simon nearly fell off the toilet.
Kat wanted to look at her watch, but she didn’t dare. It was really happening, and there was nothing she could do to reverse it.
The crowd at the mouth of the Romani Room was already parting. Girls were turning to stare at the young billionaire entering the room. And in front of him—in a wheelchair—was Marcus.
“You see him?” Simon said in Kat’s ear, and she started to nod, but in that instant, Hale caught Kat’s eyes across the room.
They weren’t supposed to know each other.
There wasn’t supposed to be a look. A word. Not even the smallest glance.
And yet Hale was staring right at her, a desperate look in his eyes.
“Slow down!” Marcus snapped, and Kat wasn’t sure whether he was in character or not. He was supposed to be a cantankerous old man, but it was also true that Hale was proceeding far too quickly in her direction. “Let me out of this contraption!” Marcus shouted.
This seemed to remind Hale that there was a larger game at play. He stopped the wheelchair, and Marcus gripped the handrails as if attempting to push himself up.
“Now, Uncle,” Hale started, leaning down toward the man who was no more his blood relative than Uncle Eddie, “you know the doctors said—”
“Doctors!” Marcus snapped. It was the single-loudest thing Kat had ever heard him say. The word echoed in the long room. More people were turning to stare. Kat worried that Marcus might be enjoying his moment a bit too much, but there was nothing she could do about it.
“Don’t just stand there!” he snapped at Hale in the manner of someone who had several years’ worth of snaps bottled up inside of him and was very much enjoying this opportunity to let them out. “Help me up.”
He tried to push himself upright, but again Hale was there to discourage him.
“But, Uncle, wouldn’t you enjoy the collection more from the comfort of—”
“If you expect me to look at art from that angle, you’re as stupid as you are insolent.”
A look of complete satisfaction gleamed in Marcus’s eyes, and Kat didn’t know if he was speaking as Hale’s butler or his “Uncle” right then, but it was almost worth the price of everything to see Hale forced to take Marcus’s elbow and help him to stand.
“You know, I met Picasso once.” Marcus nodded toward a painting. “He was a pompous old—”
“Come this way, Uncle,” Hale said, still holding Marcus’s arm, but forgetting about the wheelchair and the crowds, the ticking clock and the job. Instead, he seemed to have one purpose as he crossed the room, staring at the girl in the corner.
Stick to the plan, Kat tried to tell him with her eyes.