“Birds.” Kat thought of the note in the man’s apartment. “Garrett is going to see the birds.”
That was as far as Hale could go, Gabrielle said, and Kat couldn’t argue with the logic. There was a reason clients never went on jobs, so Gabrielle waited outside with Hale, and Kat followed Garrett into the aviary alone.
As Kat walked down the winding paths, the sound was overwhelming. Birds chirped and sang, filling the air. Kat couldn’t hear anything over their cries. Not the crunch of the gravel beneath her feet or even the sound of Hale arguing with Gabrielle in her ear.
She was utterly alone in that huge faux forest until the trees parted, and she saw Garrett. He gripped the wooden railing of a footbridge, staring up at the skyline that peeked through the canopy of trees.
“Okay, guys,” Kat said into her comms, “I found him. Looks like he’s waiting for something or…” She paused as another man stepped onto the bridge. “Someone.”
The man greeted Garrett with a bow. He wore a dark suit and dark glasses, but their words were lost to Kat beneath the cries of the birds around them.
A smaller path branched away from the main walkway, twisting through the trees and passing beneath the footbridge overhead, so Kat crept toward it. The birds squawked above. A brightly colored pair flew away when she approached their perch, but the men didn’t seem to notice, because they talked on, and eventually Kat could make out the words.
“You have the device?” the other man asked.
“I do.”
“May I see it, please?”
Garrett huffed. “I don’t have it on me, of course. But it’s someplace I can access very easily when the time comes.”
“And it’s secure there?” the man asked. “The Hales are powerful people. If they suspect what you’ve done, they will try to retrieve it, will they not?”
Garrett leaned against the railing and stared out through the net at the skyscrapers that loomed not far away and laughed. It was a cold, dry sound. “Oh, I assure you, the Hales have never bothered with the business before. I see no reason for them to start now. And, besides…I have placed the prototype in a place where nothing has been stolen. Ever. So, yes, it is safe.”
“And you can get it?”
“Sir, it is right under my nose. So close that it could be yours as soon as you pay my asking price.”
“And have the Hales reveal their prototype at the gala next week?” Now it was the buyer’s turn to laugh. “I don’t think so.”
“The Hales won’t be a problem,” Garrett told him.
“Perhaps. But a wise man is a cautious man. I will wait to see what becomes of the Hales and their prototype. As soon as the world knows they have not mastered the Genesis technology, then—and only then—you and I will have a deal.”
Garrett didn’t argue. He just said his good-byes, and when he finally left the aviary, Kat didn’t bother to follow. She had seen and heard all she needed to know. So she stumbled out of the park alone. She closed her eyes and thought about the view out of Hale’s office window, the sprawling streets below. It must have been like working in a cloud. A celestial view.
Then she thought about her trip to Garrett’s apartment, the carefully organized shelves and perfectly straight pictures—not a thing out of place except for the pile of mail that lay discarded on the table. It had seemed strange, Kat had thought at the time. Something about the sight had stayed with her—the one little bit of disorder in his otherwise perfect world.
But that wasn’t it. She knew it then. So she closed her eyes and thought about the letters and bills and the bank statement addressed to the man who did all of his banking online.
“Hale,” Kat said cautiously through the comms, “there’s a bank next door to your building, right?”
“Yeah.” Hale sounded nervous. “Why?”
“Which one?”
“Superior Bank of Manhattan,” he told her, and Kat’s heart sank. She’d known that would be the answer. A part of her had feared it from the moment she saw the bank statement lying on Garrett’s coffee table, as soon as she’d heard his words on the bridge.
“Earth to Kitty,” Gabrielle said. “Are you going to tell us what’s wrong?”
“Kat?” Hale yelled.
And Kat took a deep breath. “This is bad. This is very, very bad.”
Chapter 26
The train car wasn’t quite large enough, but no one seemed to mind. It was secluded and safe, and there was something about the lull of a locomotive, the gentle rock and sway and the blur of countryside, that had always been conducive to thinking, in Katarina Bishop’s humble opinion. So she sat with her legs curled up beneath her and let Hale take the lead, standing at the front of the car.