“You guys don’t get it,” Kat snapped. “We can’t con her.
She knows all the old cons. She probably invented half of them.”
“So we think of some new ones.” Gabrielle rose.
“She knows us.” Kat looked at Hale.
“So we don’t rely on us,” Hale countered.
“She knows Uncle Eddie. I’d bet money she knows everyone we know.”
Hale moved closer. “So we find someone she doesn’t know.”
The ship was moving, slipping farther and farther from the shore, and yet it felt as if the whole world was watching. The kitchen was too crowded. Kat’s stomach turned, and so she kept her gaze on Hale, as if he were a solid point on the horizon that she was going to focus on until she could no longer feel the yacht rock or sway.
“We’re going to find someone she doesn’t know,” Hale said again.
Right then, Kat swore she wouldn’t look away for anything, but that was before she heard the footsteps, saw the shadow in the doorway, and heard the voice that asked, “You mean someone like me?”
CHAPTER 24
The first time Kat had seen the boy who stood framed in the doorway, they’d both been standing on a street corner in Paris. Their first conversation had been over a picked lock and a picked pocket, and Kat had had a sneaking suspicion that she was in the room with someone with a great deal of natural talent and the subsequent disrespect for laws and truth. But those weren’t the moments that came to Kat’s mind as the whole room stood staring, waiting to see what other surprises might be lurking on the other side of that door.
“What?” Nick asked, looking at the awestruck teens. “You can’t recognize me when you aren’t leaving me in a locked gallery for the police to find?”
“Oh, don’t be silly, Nicholas,” Gabrielle said, casually inspecting her nails. “We knew museum security would find you long before the cops did.”
“Sweet as always, Gabrielle.” Nick nodded at the girl, then turned to Simon and the Bagshaws. “Fellas…sorry to barge in.”
“I think the technical term is stow away,” Hale said.
Nick snapped his fingers. “I think you’re right.”
“What?” Hale looked him up and down. “No wet suit?”
“Didn’t want to mess up my hair,” Nick said with a smile.
And through it all, Kat sat speechless.
“Boys, boys,” Gabrielle said, leaning against the counter like a jazz singer from the thirties. “Play nice.”
“I am nice,” Hale said, but his voice was made of glass. “I was just about to ask our old friend Nick how Paris is these days.”
“Lyon,” Nick corrected. “My mom’s at Interpol headquarters now.” His gaze slid sideways to Kat. “Or didn’t you know?”
He sounded perfectly straight when he said it, and that was when Kat realized two very important things: the first was that Nick was going to keep her secret. The second was that Nick…was good. She wasn’t sure which she wanted to think about, so instead she just said, “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.”
“And exactly why are you here?” Kat asked. “The last time you offered your services, I seem to remember you secretly planning to catch us all red-handed and turn us over to Interpol. Or are you out of your family business?”
Kat saw her reflection in the windows. There was nothing beyond the glass but an empty expanse of black.
“Maybe I switched sides.” Nick ran a hand along the granite island. “Maybe I came all this way to help you steal the Antony Emerald.”
“It’s not the Antony,” Hale corrected.
“Interpol sent a team to help authenticate it,” Nick told them. “It’s real, Kat.”