“And you know this because…” Silas prompted.
“I have hobbies,” Kat told him. “Seriously, Silas, someone who knew what they were doing was in here.”
“Well, at least I was robbed by a professional.” Silas dropped onto a stool almost as if his body couldn’t support the weight of his disappointment.
“Can’t you make another prototype?” Hale asked.
“Eventually. Maybe. But it wouldn’t do you or the company any good, Mr. Hale. That’s why I came to plead with Garrett. If the faulty prototype is unveiled at the gala, then I’m afraid of what will happen. To the company.” He leveled Hale with a look. “To all of us.”
“I’ll get you whatever you need, Silas. Just make me another prototype.”
“It’s not going to be that simple. After tonight I’ll no longer have a lab.”
“I’ll get you a lab.”
“And the plans are supposed to be stored on the company server, but they’ve been tampered with. My personal backup drives have been erased. Someone wants Genesis to disappear, Mr. Hale. And me with it.”
“What if we can recover the plans?” Kat asked. Silas raised his eyebrows, doubtful. So Kat shrugged and added, “We know a computer guy.”
“Oh, you do, do you?”
“Yes,” Kat said. She got the feeling that Silas was a man who saw right through her and actually liked what he was seeing.
“Your computer guy is welcome to try,” Silas said. “But it’s gone. Everything is gone.”
Hale said nothing. Kat saw that he was studying the whiteboards. She wondered for a moment if he was reading the math and the formulas, trying to fix a problem she didn’t even understand. But then he pointed to a list in the corner of one of the boards.
“That’s my grandmother’s handwriting,” Hale said, staring at the words.
Silas nodded. “It is.”
“She wanted this to work, didn’t she?”
“Very much,” Silas said.
“Okay,” Hale said. “He can fire you, but I can rehire you. Don’t worry, Silas. First thing tomorrow I’ll—”
“You’ll what?” Silas cut Hale off. “With all due respect, Scooter, Garrett is still the trustee and you’re still a minor. You’re a bright boy. Your grandmother loved you, so I love you, but until you come of age, I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do.”
Silas thought it was over. Kat could see it in his eyes. His shoulders were slumped and his hands trembled. And Kat thought he was probably going to stay at that desk until morning and the guards came to carry him away. He was making his last stand in the only way he knew how.
Fortunately, Kat and Hale knew another way.
“We can get your prototype back,” Kat said, coming to stand next to Hale.
“And how are you going to do that?” the old man asked.
Hale smiled. “That’s easy, Silas. We can steal it.”
The sun was not yet up over New York City when the owner of Hale Industries emerged from the building’s side entrance, a shorter-than-average teenage girl at his side.
A chill had settled into the air overnight, and as they walked, he removed his jacket and placed it around her thin shoulders. And there, in the middle of the city, the two of them were almost alone. Two kids who were out far too late or far too early, walking down a cracked and vacant sidewalk like they owned it.
“It was Marcus, wasn’t it?” Hale asked. “Who hired you?”
“Don’t be mad at him. He was just—”
Hale cut her off with a shake of his head. “He was right. You were right. These aren’t Hazel’s wishes.”
He stopped and looked up at the towering building that bore his name. The faintest hint of sunlight was creeping over the horizon, and with it, the whole building seemed to glow.
“We almost got caught, didn’t we?”
“Yeah.” Kat laughed a little. “But we didn’t.”
“You had a good point in there. Breaking in like that was stupid. I was stupid.”
“Hale, stop it.” Kat reached out and grabbed his arm. “You are many things, but stupid isn’t one of them.”
“I’m too close.”
“You don’t get it, do you? Being close is good. Caring is good. I love that you’re emotional and passionate and can’t turn these things off.”
“It makes me a bad thief.”
“It makes you a good person.”
Of all the things Hale had been told in his life, Kat wondered if anyone had ever told him that.
He gave her his trademark grin. “So, what do you say, Miss Bishop? Want to steal a prototype?”
“Re-steal,” Kat corrected. “These days I only re-steal. Besides, I’m not entirely sure you can afford me.”
“Oh, I bet we can work something out.”
“And there is the matter of—”
But then Kat couldn’t finish because Hale’s lips had found hers. When they parted, he grew serious.
“You will steal it, won’t you?”
“We will.” She looked down the street. “Just as soon as we find it.”
In a city of eight million people, it is easy enough to go unseen. Anonymity is perhaps the island of Manhattan’s greatest asset, and it came even easier for Garrett than for most.
The residents of the high-rise apartment building on the Upper East Side knew only that he rose early and lived alone. He received no packages and, aside from a daughter, had no guests, and on the rare occasion that one of his neighbors might share the elevator with him either early in the morning or late at night, he would simply nod and study the newspaper that seemed perpetually tucked under one arm.
He neither made nor complained of noise, did not decorate for any holidays, and the children of his building didn’t even bother knocking at Halloween.
What Garrett did, it seemed, was work, and in New York City, this made him not the least bit special.
The people at his coffee shop expected him at seven-fifteen; he bought his morning bagel promptly at half past.
To all of these people (and then some), he was simply known as The Man in the Hat as he walked to and from the Hale Industries office in a gray felt fedora, rain or shine, in every month except July (during which time he wore no hat at all).
The people at the coffee shop thought The Man in the Hat was some kind of throwback, an extra from a TV show, perhaps. But on this particular Friday morning, there was at least one person on the streets who knew better.
Kat was quietly sitting in the shadows of a café window when Garrett’s doorman greeted him, but she didn’t bother to cross and follow. Gabrielle was in place at the corner, and besides, they already knew the route. What they needed to know was the man.
When he cut through the park, Gabrielle was a safe distance behind, and Kat was left alone to pull his trash from the dumpster and pick the lock on his mailbox. And when, twelve hours later, the man was still not home, even Kat had to admit that the day had basically come to nothing.
He cleaned his own apartment, collected his own dry cleaning, and his bills and financial records were done exclusively online. He neither drank nor smoked, didn’t date or socialize. According to the building’s official records, the Garrett apartment had no safe and no storage lockers. What it did have was a state-of-the-art security system and a nosy neighbor who kept her hearing aids turned up as high as they would go.
The one thing Kat knew was that she had to get into that apartment. Exactly how, however, was an entirely different story.
So that’s why Kat was standing in the shadows of the building across the street, thinking, scheming, when a voice caught her completely off guard.
“Kat?”
She pivoted on the sidewalk, knowing exactly who she was going to find.
“Hey,” Natalie said with a smile. “I thought that was you.”
“Natalie, hi,” Kat told her. “What are you doing here?”
“I live there.” Natalie pointed to the building Kat had been staring at for most of the day.
“Wow,” Kat said. “Small world. I was just on my way…” But Kat didn’t bother to finish, because Nat was already crossing the street.
“You wanna come up?” she asked.