Heist Society (14 page)

Amelia Bennett had not been the youngest person in Interpol’s Art Crime division to achieve the rank of detective. She was not the only woman. And yet, in an agency that was in every way a part of the Old Boy network, it was impossible for anyone to look at her without first registering that she was neither old nor boy. This was only part of the mystery that surrounded her when she’d moved from London to the Paris branch. The thing that
most
mystified the professional mystery solvers of the small branch of Interpol’s main European office was that Amelia Bennett was so lucky.

And this morning, of course, was no exception.

No sooner had she walked into the cramped, unglamorous office, than one of her Old Boy colleagues met her at the door.

“You’ve got a witness to your gallery robbery,” he said in English, and Detective Bennett did not seem the least bit surprised that her cold case was warm again. “An American girl,” the man continued. “A tourist. She was down the street the night of the break-in. She says she saw a man in the area, acting suspiciously.”

At this, Detective Bennett raised her eyebrows. “Is he anyone we know?”

The man smiled and led her into the room where the young girl sat waiting.

“Thank you so much for coming in. I’m Detective Bennett,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. I don’t believe I got your name?”

“O’Hara,” the petite girl said. “Melanie O’Hara.”

“The Henley?”

Kat heard her father’s voice. Through the small binoculars she always carried, she saw him walking through the crowd of the familiar square, his phone held to his ear, oblivious to the fact that his only daughter was standing in the bell tower of the church, watching everything.

“That’s a nice way to greet your daughter. No ‘Hi, honey, how’s school?’” she teased.

Her father kept his left hand shoved in his pocket, deep inside his cashmere coat, and Kat couldn’t help thinking that it had gotten a lot colder in the past week.

“The Henley?” he asked again. “You know, someone said that my daughter was going to”—he stopped and surveyed the crowd while lowering his voice—“
rob the Henley
, but that can’t be. My daughter is at the Colgan School.”

“Dad, I—”

“Leave the Henley alone, Kat,” he blurted. “Take a test. Go to a pep rally or—”

“A pep rally?”

“Kat, kiddo, you do not want to do this.”

“Of course I don’t
want
to, Dad,” she said, too aware of how true and deep the sentiment ran. “We
have
to.”

“
We?
Who exactly is
we?
”

“Hale,” Kat said. Even from a block away she saw her father grimace. “Simon. Gabrielle.” Kat wanted to keep her voice even, steady. “Hamish and Angus—”

“The Bagshaws?” he said, not hiding his disapproval.

“They didn’t know she was a nun!”

A cold wind blew through the tower and down onto the square where her father stood.

“So that’s it, huh?” her father asked. “You’ve got your own little heist society and now you’re gonna rob the Henley.” He turned and started moving down the busy street. “Call Uncle Eddie, Kat. Tell him it’s over. You’re out.”

“You think Uncle Eddie is putting me up to this?” She watched the words wash over him. “You think he hasn’t already gotten on a plane and told me to let
him
handle it?”

“Then
let him
handle it.”

“Yeah.” Kat fought back a laugh. “Because Uncle Eddie always has
your
best interest in mind.”

“Kat . . .” Her father’s voice was softer. “You stay away from Arturo Taccone. He’s—”

“Coming for you.”

“I’m fine, Kat.”

“
Now
, Dad. You’re fine now. You can get coffee and read newspapers and put on a show for whoever Interpol has following you that day. But if Taccone doesn’t get his paintings back, five days from now there’s going to be a moment when Interpol isn’t watching and you’re not thinking, and then Arturo Taccone’s gonna be here and you will be
anything
but fine.”

He shook his head. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” Kat turned away, leaned against the cold, rough stone of the tower wall as she spoke softly into the phone. “I do know, because he told me.”

Kat turned back to the square in time to see the shock sweep over her father, followed quickly by fear. “You stay out of this, Kat. You stay away from—”

“It’s too late, Daddy.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

When the sirens first broke through the damp chilly air that surrounded them, Bobby Bishop didn’t even seem surprised. He had made his peace long before, but his daughter’s conscience wasn’t so clean. She shivered.

“It means you taught me well.”

“Robert Bishop?” Kat heard Amelia Bennett’s voice come clearly through the phone. She watched her father study the woman who was walking toward him, with her chic haircut and designer coat, and Kat knew that if it hadn’t been for the badge in the woman’s hand, her father would have never guessed she was a police officer. Or, more specifically, Interpol.

“Hang up the phone and put your hands behind your back, sir,” a uniformed officer said, appearing at her father’s side. But her father didn’t move. Instead he yelled, “Don’t do it, Kat.”

She watched the officer reach for the phone, heard her father call out one last time, “Go back to school, Kat.”

And then nothing. The scene in the square was like a movie with no sound as Kat said, “Dad,” but no one heard her. The crowd parted. Sirens wailed. And high above the chaos, Kat whispered, “I’m sorry.”

Kat used to love Paris, but as she walked away from her father that afternoon, the sidewalks seemed too crowded and foreign and cold. She wanted to go home. Wherever that was.

She felt someone bump against her as she waited on a street corner for the light to change. She heard a soft “Sorry,” but didn’t turn to acknowledge whoever had spoken her native language on that foreign street.

Of course, in the weeks that followed, Kat would look back on this decision from time to time and allow herself to feel at least a little bit stupid. She’d had a lot on her mind at that moment, it was true. She’d been worried about her father. Worried that the cops might realize that Melanie O’Hara and Katarina Bishop were one and the same, and that the eyewitness account of the former was good enough to hold the latter’s father and keep him from Taccone, but not quite good enough to keep him in jail.

She’d worried what Uncle Eddie would say when he found out that she’d broken the thief’s (much less the daughter’s) ultimate code.

Given her current mindset, it was understandable that it was instinct alone that made Kat brush against the boy who, two seconds before, had brushed against her.

Or maybe, Kat wondered later, it was fate.

“Did she find you, sir?” the bellman said as he passed the boy on the hotel stairs.

The boy stopped. “I’m sorry?”

“The young lady, sir. She said she was your cousin.” The bellman paused, concern growing on his face. “She said she had a key, sir. She knew your name and room number.”

The bellman didn’t notice the worry that briefly flashed in the boy’s eyes.

“Oh good. She made it,” the boy said calmly, as he processed the news that was anything but good.

The bellman saw the boy turn and walk casually down the hall. But he didn’t see the look of shock on the boy’s face when the door to room 157 swung open freely, unlocked.

The bellman certainly didn’t see the girl who sat with her legs thrown over the side of a wingback chair as she cocked an eyebrow and said, “Welcome home.”

The element of surprise is one of the greatest weapons at a thief’s disposal, or so Kat had to think when she saw the boy’s face. He stood framed in the doorway of his own hotel room, staring at her, shocked.

“What?” Kat asked, feigning ignorance. “No ‘Hello’? No ‘Honey, I’m home’?”

“You.” He turned his head and looked down the narrow, empty hallway, as if she had just rushed inside and that was how she’d gotten into his room.

“I don’t believe we were properly introduced on the street.” Kat swung her legs off the silk-upholstered arm. “I’m Katarina Bishop. But you already know that if you looked in the wallet you’ve got in the inside left pocket of that coat you’re wearing.” He touched his pocket as if checking to see whether or not she was correct. She was.

“My friends call me Kat.” She looked the boy up and down. “I’m not sure what you should call me.”

At the end of the hall, a television blared. Kat heard a French anchorwoman announcing the arrest of a suspect in the robbery of a local gallery where a valuable statue had been stolen. She flinched and hoped the boy didn’t notice.

“How’d you get in here?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You can pick pockets.” Kat watched his hand fly to his back pocket. “I can pick locks. Looking for this?” she asked, holding up his wallet. “Oops. Maybe I can pick pockets too.”

She held his wallet toward him. “Care to trade?” Then she opened it and looked at the I.D. “Nicholas Smith. Sixteen. British citizen.” She glanced between the I.D. and the boy in front of her. “Not very photogenic.”

She hopped from her chair and plucked her own wallet from his limp hands. She tossed his onto the hotel bed.

“How . . .” he started, but Kat’s look stopped him.

“You’re telegraphing your cover,” she said matter-of-factly.

Kat was prepared for an argument and lies—anything but the sight of the boy smiling, the sound of him saying, “Wow. Talented
and
cute. It’s very nice to meet you, Katarina.” The boy dropped onto the corner of the bed and pulled off one shoe. “How old are you, anyway?” Kat didn’t answer.

She turned instead and fingered the fresh flowers on the table, eyed the silk window coverings blocking the view. “This is a nice place. You pay for it working short cons?”

The boy looked up at her. He had short dark hair and bright blue eyes and the kind of smile that made you forget what you’d been thinking. “Among other things.”

“And you’ve been practicing for”—Kat eyed him again— “two years?” she guessed. The pleased look on his face was answer enough. “Where did you learn?”

“Around.” He shrugged. “You pick up things. You practice.”

Kat had been picking things up since her third birthday, when Hamish and Angus’s father took them all to the circus because he needed to “borrow” an elephant.

“You ever get caught?” she asked, and he shrugged again.

“Not by the police.”

“Do you have a record?” He shook his head. “Do you have a crew?” she asked.

“I work alone.”

Kat wondered whether or not the boy who had bumped into her on a Paris street was as good as she thought he might be. And whether or not he knew it.

She studied him, wondering if the missing piece of her plan might have strolled into her life. “Do you want to keep it that way?”