“Hold on,” Hale told Kat, and unlocked the door. “Marcus?”
Hale’s valet wore his usual dark gray suit. His posture, as always, was perfect, but there was something decidedly different about the man who stood on the other side of the ladies’ room door. He stepped carefully inside and looked at Hale. “Excuse me, sir. If I could have a moment…”
“Sure, Marcus,” Kat said, still dangling, swaying more than eighty stories in the air. “Take your time.”
Hale walked to where Marcus stood, and listened while the butler whispered. Kat couldn’t read his lips, but there was no mistaking the look on Hale’s face as he turned toward her.
“I gotta go.”
“Go?” Kat yelled. She tried to wiggle free of her harness, but the cable was too high and Hale was already reaching for her arms, holding her steady as he kissed her forehead.
“Where are you going?”
“I’ll call you in a few days and…” He trailed off as if he had no idea what was supposed to come next. “I’ll call you.”
“You said that already! Hale. Hale!” Kat tried to grab him, but he was out of reach, Marcus at his side, disappearing behind the closing door.
And through it all, Kat’s heart kept pounding. The clock kept ticking. So Kat pushed away from the window, zooming into the night.
Chapter 3
The old brownstone in Brooklyn was not, technically, Katarina Bishop’s home, but Kat was a girl for whom technicalities rarely—if ever—applied. The building itself belonged to a corporation that was a part of a conglomerate that was purchased by a shell company in 1972, and won in a poker game in ’73 by Kat’s uncle Eddie.
And yet his name did not appear on any titles or tax rolls. Utilities were listed in the names of a half dozen different aliases and paid in full on the fifteenth of every month. As far as the city of New York was concerned, the building was the property of a ghost, a figment, a very prompt and responsible illusion. But Kat knew better. Kat knew the building belonged to a legend.
When she pushed open the back door and stepped into the kitchen, Kat was certain what she was going to find. The lights were on and the stove was hot. A pair of ancient Dutch ovens sat over low heat, but for the moment, she and Gabrielle were alone as they carried in the small crate that they’d brought from Buenos Aires.
Rich, sweet smells washed over Kat, so she sank onto a chair and put the crate on the table. They’d gone all the way to Argentina for the painting that lay inside, but Kat felt no sense of accomplishment or relief. The couriers would come for it tomorrow, and in the meantime, Kat was tired and drained and happy to be at least temporarily finished.
“Okay, Kitty Kat, spill it.” Gabrielle walked to the old refrigerator, threw open the door, and studied the food inside. “I’ve been beside you for five thousand miles, and, trust me…you’re in something of a mood.”
Kat thought about her cousin’s words, but she didn’t try to deny them. Changing the subject would be futile, and as tired as she was, there was no use in trying to run. So Kat rested her arms on the crate and her chin on her arms, and thought about all the things she didn’t like in that moment.
Her head hurt.
Her back hurt.
Her hands hurt (but that was her own fault for doing zip-line work with no gloves).
They were the typical aches and pains of any thief a day off the job, and none of them, Kat realized, could possibly compare to the pain inside her heart, so she took a deep breath and whispered, “Hale left me.”
“He didn’t leave you, leave you,” Gabrielle said. “He just made a rapid and ill-timed departure.”
“He left,” Kat snapped.
“He had a sudden change of plans.”
“Do I have to remind you, Gabrielle, that he left me hanging? Literally. Are you seriously not furious right now?”
“Oh, I’m mad at him,” Gabrielle said. She stirred the contents of the largest pot. “I’m just a little surprised that you’re mad at him.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, dear cousin, that I wouldn’t expect you to be angry. I would expect you to wonder why.…”
Kat had spent twenty-four hours and a very long plane ride across most of two continents fuming at Hale for running off without a moment of thought or a word of explanation. But Gabrielle was right.
Why would he leave so suddenly?