“Oh, it’s a real emerald, all right,” Gabrielle said, then smiled smugly. “It’s just not the Antony.”
“No,” Nick said. “Can’t be. The only other emerald that size is…”
“Oh yeah. It’s the Cleopatra,” Gabrielle told him.
“How do you know?” Nick asked.
“We know,” Kat said slowly, “because we’re the ones who stole it.”
Lying awake in the king-size bed she shared with Gabrielle, Kat stared up at the chandelier that hung overhead, watched it sway like a pendulum with the waves.
When she tossed and turned, she tried to blame the sea. When sleep didn’t come, she wanted to think it was because of Gabrielle’s snoring. But when Gabrielle began to kick, Kat knew there was no use in fighting. A fully conscious Gabrielle was a force to be reckoned with. A sleeping (and possibly cursed) Gabrielle was a whole other level of dangerous, so Kat slipped from the bed and quietly toward the door.
The phone was right where she’d left it. The number was one she knew by heart. And as she stepped out onto the deck, she realized it was early evening in Paraguay. Or was it Uruguay? It didn’t really matter, Kat thought as she stood, waiting to be able to say, “Hi, Daddy.”
“What’s wrong?” he asked, and Kat laughed.
“Nothing. I just—”
“Kat, what is wrong?”
“I missed you. Is missing you not allowed?”
“No, it is allowed. In fact, it’s my preference. But you don’t exactly have a track record of preferential behavior.”
Kat leaned against the railing and whispered, “I miss you.”
“You said that already,” her father told her from the other side of the world.
“Yeah, but this time I really mean it.”
“So, word on the street is that your cousin has conned you into something with a count.”
“A duke,” Kat corrected. “We’re—”
“So what are you really doing?”
“Scoping the caves around Zurich, looking for a Degas no one’s seen in sixty years.”
She could almost imagine the smile on her father’s face when he said, “That’s my girl.”
It was too cold on the deck, and Kat wished she’d brought a jacket, wished she’d waited for the sun. She imagined her father, tanned and tired and happy. She thought of Maggie, and for a second, considered begging for forgiveness or pleading for help, but Kat couldn’t do either. She had too much of her uncle’s pride, too little of her father’s charm. Kat was just…Kat—chasing after the past, and doing it, for better or worse, all on her own.
After she had said good-bye to her father, Kat stayed outside for a long time, staring at the water.
“Don’t fall in.”
Kat jumped at the sound of Hale’s voice, then slowly turned to face him.
“Don’t say that. With the way our luck is going, at least one of us is bound to end up overboard before this thing is through.”
She felt him come to stand beside her, taking his place at the rail.
“So what are you doing out here in the middle of the night?”
“Thinking.”
“See.” Hale pointed at her. “Right there. That is your problem.”