No one would ever know how much blame should be placed on the curse, and what, if any, should lie firmly on the shoulders of the Bagshaws. All Kat knew for certain was that Angus had broken into a run and was throwing his arms around Gabrielle, lifting her off her feet and squeezing her tightly.
Through the comms unit in her ear, Kat heard LaFont saying, “Thank you very much, young man, but I’m afraid I have a pressing appointment with Maggie now.”
She watched Hale’s eyes go wide as he finally saw the way Gabrielle’s long legs dangled inches from the floor as first Angus and then Hamish took turns spinning her around.
Kat listened to the crash as the cell phone fell from Gabrielle’s hand and onto the polished floor, sliding, skidding across the marble.
She held her breath as it zoomed underneath a bellman’s rolling cart, barely missing the wheels. Kat could have sworn her heart stopped beating as a businessman stepped over it, completely unaware that it was there. It seemed to take forever for the phone to come to rest beneath the cloth that covered a long table not ten feet from where LaFont and Hale stood.
“Why, is that Hale I see over—” Hamish started to yell in Hale’s direction, but Gabrielle’s foot jabbed into his shin, cutting him off midsentence.
A hotel employee stood right beside the table where the phone had disappeared, and Kat ran to him. “Oh my gosh!” she exclaimed. “Are those two boys attacking that pretty girl?” she cried, pointing to where Hamish was rubbing his shin and Angus was still hugging Gabrielle, sweeping her long legs back and forth across the floor.
“You there!” the employee cried without a second glance at the young woman who had already dropped to her knees and reached under the cloth.
“Where is it?” Kat said to no one but herself. The floor was hard on her knees. It was cool against her hands. And still Kat crawled, looking, searching. Praying.
“Where is it?” she said again as she crawled, shrouded in the shadows, closer to the phone, but also to LaFont and Hale.…
And the big brassy voice that yelled, “LaFont, you rascal!”
Kat picked up the hem of the cloth and peered outside just in time to see Hale disappear out the front door and Pierre turn and say, “Bonjour, Madame Maggie.”
Kat didn’t let herself panic. The dread she was feeling was too great, the worry too strong, and it was entirely too useless a thing to do. She did allow herself to think What else can go wrong?—which, of course, was exactly when the elevator doors opened and an attendant ushered LaFont and Maggie inside.…
And the phone began to ring.
Kat lunged for it, tried to muffle the sound, but the harm was done, and LaFont was already stopping, patting his pockets. Searching.
“You wouldn’t keep a lady waiting, would you, Pierre?” Maggie asked in her thick Texas drawl.
“My apologies, Madame. I just can’t seem to find my phone.”
With the words, a faint crack appeared in Maggie’s smooth façade. “Your phone is missing?”
“Well…not missing. I hear the thing, you see.”
In the next moment, Kat was out from under the table and the phone was in her hand. She could see them moving into the elevators. She felt the seconds passing.
The seconds.
Always a matter of seconds.
And that was how long it took for Kat to call out, “Hello, Maggie.”
CHAPTER 22
Kat should have been terrified, but she wasn’t. She should have turned and run, but she didn’t. All she could really do was look down at the phone that had suddenly stopped ringing and keep her steady pace across the lobby floor.
“Oh, Maggie,” she cried one more time for good measure. “Wait for me!”
Even the voices in her ear were quiet, her crew silent as she walked to the elevator and stepped inside as if she rode to penthouses on the Riviera every day (which hadn’t been true, strictly speaking, since the summer she’d turned thirteen).
Sometimes a con has to run. Sometimes a thief needs to hide. But as she gripped LaFont’s now-silent cell phone in her left fist and took her place in the elevator at Maggie’s side, Kat took a deep breath and told herself that a thief’s greatest skill is the ability to adapt.
She turned to the woman beside her and said, “Hello, Maggie.”
Kat felt LaFont watching her, so she turned. “Hi. I’m Kat.”