“The Cleopatra Emerald is one of the most famous gems in the world,” the anchorwoman was saying. “Famous for its size, its tragic legend, and—more recently—the drama that has followed it into the courts of the world. The private woman behind one of the most public court battles of recent years joins us tonight for her very first interview. Constance Miller, thank you for being here.”
And that was when Kat stopped. The world around her seemed to freeze as she stood, listening to the story of how Constance Miller’s father and mother and not Oliver Kelly the First had found that stone among the sands of Egypt. She’d heard the story before, of course. Once in legend, and once from a woman in the back of a diner in the rain. And now she heard it again, from a woman with a tweed jacket and a British accent.
From a woman whom Kat had never seen before.
It wasn’t really an earthquake, Kat was certain. And yet it felt as if the buildings were shaking. She stood stock-still in the flow of the sidewalk. People washed over her like the tide, and yet she didn’t move.
“Excuse me,” someone said, brushing against her, but Kat didn’t register the words. She didn’t feel a thing. Her mind was still hearing the same story from two faces, knowing at least one of them was a lie. A con.
Her phone rang, but the sound was coming from the other side of the world. Kat felt like she was moving in slow motion when she put her hand into her pocket and found the simple white card with the plain black letters that spelled the name Visily Romani.
With one touch, Kat knew it was different from the card she and Gabrielle had seen in the Millers’ hotel room. The paper was softer, the lettering thicker. And there was no doubt in Kat’s mind that this card was real. Despite her training—her blood—Katarina Bishop couldn’t help but shiver as she turned the card over to read the handwritten words: Get it back.
CHAPTER 13
Standing at the threshold of the Brooklyn brownstone, Kat watched the light from the street drifting down the long narrow hall that led from the front stoop to the ancient kitchen. She knew what she’d find inside: the old staircase and office, the sitting room and a powder bath. Kat saw it all with her thief’s eyes. She knew which floorboards moaned and which door hinges squeaked, and yet she stood for a long time, staring into her great-uncle’s home as if it were the one place on earth she no longer had the right to tread. It felt as if a laser grid lay inside. A minefield. But also, answers.
And what Kat really needed was answers.
“Uncle Eddie!” she called into the dark house. The card was in her pocket and her heart was in her throat, pounding. She swallowed hard and tried again. “Uncle Eddie!”
She crept past the sitting room, where no one ever sat, and down the hall, but the kitchen was empty and the stove was off and Kat knew without looking any farther that her uncle wasn’t there. She felt alone in the big house, trying to decide what to do. If Uncle Eddie had been there, he could have told her to sit or run, to eat or to cry. She wanted someone to do her thinking for her because she didn’t trust her own mind anymore. So she stood in the hallway, her thoughts on a constant loop, thinking…
I got conned.
I got conned.
I got…
“Kat?”
Kat jumped. The lights flickered on, and Kat spun to take in the boy behind her.
“Jeez, Simon, you nearly scared me half to—”
She stopped and studied him—he had on blue pajamas and his feet were bare. His black hair stood up at odd angles, and he didn’t look like a computer genius right then. No, he looked like a fire truck.
“Did you get some sun, Simon?” she asked.
Simon nodded. “Don’t ever set up an observation post on a water tower.”
“Okay,” Kat said softly. She wanted to reach out and pat his back, but she didn’t know how far the burn went, and—more than that—she couldn’t quite forget that she was the one who needed comforting.
“Where’s Uncle Eddie?” Kat heard her voice break. She sounded and felt like a little girl when she told him, “I need Uncle Eddie.”
“He’s gone,” Simon said. “Left a couple of hours ago.
Uncle Felix was trying to run a Groundhog with a Black-eyed Susan and…well…”
“Gas lines?” Kat guessed.
Simon nodded. “Gas lines. Eddie left for Paraguay as soon as he heard.” He glanced up and down the empty hall. “Where’s Hale?”
There was an emptiness in Kat’s gut, a dizzy feeling in the back of her mind. Uncle Eddie had left. Hale was gone. Constance Miller—whoever she really was—was a whole different type of missing, and suddenly, Kat couldn’t take it. She had to do something, find something, be something other than the mark, so she pushed past Simon and into the office that she had seen used once or maybe twice in her entire life.
There was only one small window in that tiny room, and the light from the street barely broke through the heavy blinds, so Kat reached for the switch. Filing cabinets lined one side, topped with boxes and old envelopes, half-finished crossword puzzles and magazines from decades long since past. Behind the desk sat a wall of bookshelves filled with papers and tools, and dusty maps of the sewer system under the Louvre.
“What are you doing?” Simon asked while Kat pulled open the top drawer of the filing cabinet closest to the door. The drawer was rusty and squeaked, but Uncle Eddie was a continent away, so she pulled harder, pushed through the files faster.