“When did your great-uncle die?” Kat asked.
“Maybe fifty years ago. Like I said, I never knew him. No one ever talked about him. It was like the whole family thought he was cursed or something.”
“No more curses.” Gabrielle’s whole body shivered. “Please no more curses.”
“It wasn’t that kind of curse, Gabs,” Hale told her. “He was just…I don’t know…super eccentric or something. He wanted to be famous, but famous in a way that had nothing to do with being a Hale. So he was always doing stuff like climbing K2 or flying solo to the North Pole. He disappeared floating down the Amazon or climbing the Andes or something. It was this big, tragic family secret no one ever talked about.”
“So he just disappeared? They never found a body?” Kat said.
“No. Why?”
The train kept racing, but to Kat, everything was growing slow and still. She felt it in the crew around her, all gazes, all thoughts settling on her as she breathed against the chilly glass and whispered, “Anastasia.”
Chapter 27
For an odd sort of girl, Kat was used to odd sorts of meetings, but there was something especially strange about walking into Uncle Eddie’s parlor and looking out over the people who sat straight-backed on the dusty, faded chairs.
“Hi.” She shifted a little more nervously than someone of her pedigree ever should, and then she risked a glance at Hale, who stood beside her. “Thanks for coming, everybody. Have you all met?”
She looked from Marcus, Marianne, and Silas to the Bagshaws, Simon, and Gabrielle. Uncle Eddie stood by the fireplace, firmly in the center, and Kat had to wonder how she had ended up there, with these people for clients and crew.
“So everyone doing okay?” she asked. No one answered. “Okay.”
“Did you find the will?” Marianne asked.
Kat smiled sadly. “No. I’m sorry, Marianne. We think any trace of Hazel’s real will has probably been destroyed. But”—she hurried to add the good news—“if we can prove that Garrett stole from the company, we may be able to petition the courts to name a new trustee.”
“I’ll take care of you, Marianne,” Hale told her. “I will always take care of you.”
Marianne smiled and dabbed at a tear in her eye.
“Thanks to Silas,” Kat went on, “we finally know what’s going on. It looks like Garrett has stolen the Genesis prototype and its plans and is trying to sell them to one of Hale Industries’ competitors. That’s the bad news.”
“Does that mean there’s good news?” Silas asked.
“Sort of.” Kat drew a deep breath. “We know where they are. Garrett has a safety deposit box at the Superior Bank of Manhattan, and we’re pretty sure the prototype and plans are in there.”
Kat saw her uncle tense, but he didn’t speak. She could read his eyes: That is hardly good news.
“It is an extremely difficult target. No one has ever robbed it. Ever. And we can’t do a job like that in time for the launch. We may never be able to do it, and so that’s why, Silas, we need you working to duplicate the prototype. Can you do that?”
“I can try,” Silas said. “But without access to my lab and—”
“I’ll get you whatever you need,” Hale said.
“Good,” Kat told him. “Simon can help you try to recover the original schematics from the Hale Industries server.”
“That’s very nice,” Silas said with a smile. “But I’ve been working with that system since before he was born, and I haven’t—”
“I think you’ll find that Simon’s skill set is slightly more…specific,” Kat said.
“I steal things,” Simon told him.
Silas arched an eyebrow. “I see,” he said, then crossed his arms and grinned in the manner of a man who can’t wait to get to work.
“Great. So while Silas is trying to duplicate the prototype, we’ll try to retrieve the original.”
“Retrieve?” Marianne asked.