“Listen to me.”
“No, you listen! You’re not in charge here. I am. I’m the one who’s taking all the risks. I’m the one who changed the old woman’s will. The family would still be huddled around Hazel’s bedside if it weren’t for me, so don’t get high and mighty,” he huffed.
“What do you mean?”
“I’m the one who forged the Do Not Resuscitate order,” he said. “So don’t act all innocent. This was your idea, as you love to point out.”
“Are we recording this?” Kat asked.
“Not that feed,” Simon said, eyes wide, and Kat felt her heart plummet.
“I never said anything about a DNR.” Natalie’s voice cracked. “I never said…I never wanted…Hazel was good to me.”
“Hazel was a Hale. You don’t know them like I do.” Kat could hear him shoving papers around, tidying up for the night. “She was dying, Natalie. I just made sure it happened before she could fire me and ruin everything.”
“You killed her.”
“I did her a favor!”
It was like it wasn’t really happening—like Kat was listening to an old-time radio show about deceit and betrayal, and she sat waiting for the scene to end.
“Don’t worry, Natalie. I’ll leave an anonymous tip with the FBI. No one is going to rob that bank this week.” The door opened. “Are you coming?” he asked as if they had never fought at all.
The silence that came next was the longest Kat had ever heard. No one moved. No one breathed. No one did a thing until a voice came from the back of the room, asking, “That was Natalie?”
Kat didn’t know when Hale had come in or how much he’d heard, but the look in his eyes said that it was enough.
“It was Natalie’s idea?” he asked, then swallowed hard. “And Hazel…she didn’t have a DNR?” He nodded slowly, as if taking it all in. “That makes sense. She would have wanted to fight. She would have hung on for as long as she could. Yeah,” he said, sounding resolved. “That makes sense.”
“Hale…” Kat was up and walking toward him.
“You know what, Kat, I don’t really feel like working today.” He was moving, backing away. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Hale!” Kat yelled, but he was already through the lab and out the door.
She ran after him, but by the time she reached the parking lot, there was nothing left but tire tracks and a cloud of dust.
Kat had run away once. And even though she could have gone anywhere—done anything—she had chosen the Colgan School, with its manicured lawns and ivy-covered towers. She had run to Hale’s world. And Hale had run to hers. Perhaps they were destined to meet somewhere, at some time along the way. And maybe they were both destined to someday return to the worlds that had made them.
She would have traded everything she knew for one glimpse at where he might have run to on that night, but it wasn’t possible, so she didn’t try. All she could do was send the rest of her crew out looking, dispersing into the city, trying to chase the boy that, if Kat knew him at all, wouldn’t be caught until he was good and ready.
So Kat walked through the streets of Brooklyn alone, all the way to a familiar stoop and a wooden door, and the smells of the Old Country drifting from the kitchen.
But something else, too. Voices. Deeper, darker, and older than the ones she had grown accustomed to hearing.
“Casper the Friendly Ghost?” somebody said as Kat crept slowly closer.
“Doesn’t get us past the cameras,” Uncle Sal said. “What about the Rumpelstiltskin?”
“No good.” Uncle Felix threw his hands in the air. “My hypnotist moved to Phoenix. Emphysema.”
They all shook their heads and muttered, “Poor Madame Zelda.”
“Have a seat, sweetie.” Uncle Ezra seemed to be the only one who noticed Kat’s presence. He pulled out a chair and gestured for her to take it. “We’re trying to solve your problem. Any word on the kid?”
Kat rested her hands on the table, felt the smooth wood beneath her palms. “Angus and Hamish and Gabrielle are out looking for him. I thought he might come here, so…”
“He’ll be okay, sweetheart.” Ezra patted her hand. “Where’s your pop?”
“Gone,” Kat said.
“Already?” Felix seemed shocked, but then shrugged as if to say that he wasn’t one to judge.
“They’re on to us,” Kat said. She felt embarrassed, ashamed. “We’re made. They’ve known what Hale’s been up to for months. Years, maybe. And now they know we’re casing the bank, so…we can’t hit the bank.”
“We heard already,” Uncle Felix said, with a shake of his head. “Tough break, sweetheart, but don’t worry. We’re on it.”
“They’re going to tip the FBI to watch the bank. We can’t hit the bank.” Kat was repeating herself but she didn’t know how to stop. She couldn’t have run this con if her life depended on it. And in a way, Kat knew, it did.
Uncle Eddie stood by his stove. He said nothing and heard everything, and not for the first time in Kat’s life, she would have given anything to know what he was thinking. But he just ladled soup into a bowl and pulled off a chunk of fresh bread and placed the meal before her.
She felt six years old again, safe and warm, sitting at the grown-ups’ table with the men who had raised her. Family. Kat was among her family, and Hale was out in the cold. When Felix reached to butter her bread, Kat felt her eyes go moist, and she couldn’t take it anymore. She pushed out of her chair and stepped toward the door.
“Hey, kiddo,” Uncle Sal said. “Where ya going?”
Kat had to stop and look at them all. They were older, wiser. Crankier. At some point in the past dozen or so years, the hairlines had become a little thinner and the middles a little thicker. Her whole life, the men at that table had been teaching, guiding, protecting her at every step along the way. They were there to do it again, no matter what the consequences. It was time, Kat felt, to return the favor.
“I’m going to end it.”
No one asked what she was doing. Not a soul told her not to go. It was her job, her con, her call. So the next step, they all knew, was hers.
“Katarina.” Uncle Eddie’s voice stopped her at the door. “I’ll be here when you get back.”
When Kat walked out of the subway station, it was just starting to rain. The cold wind stung her skin. Fat drops clung to her lashes, water running down her cheeks with every blink until she had no idea whether or not she might be crying. She walked on, instinct and intuition guiding her steps until she found the building and went inside, as if there were never any doubt that she belonged.
The lock was easy enough to handle. The security code she already knew. So the hard part, as always, was the waiting. She sat silently in the dark, the Manhattan shadows looming all around her. And when the door began to open, she wasn’t even a little bit afraid. After all, she was perfectly accustomed to being inside a man’s world and in way over her head.
Kat flipped on the light and watched the man throw his hands up to shield his eyes as she said, “Did I scare you? Oh, I hope I didn’t scare you.…”
Garrett didn’t say anything, but the rise and fall of his chest was more than answer enough.
“Mr. Garrett!” A burly man appeared in the doorway behind him, and in a flash was moving in Kat’s direction. “Hands up,” he told her.
“Easy, big guy,” Kat said. “Mr. Garrett and I are old friends, isn’t that right?”
“Do you know her?” the goon asked, and Kat watched Garrett consider the question. Did he know her? Did anyone, really?
Then he waved the goon away and said, “She’s okay. I think. But you might want to…check her or something.”
“Hands up,” the goon told her again.
“Really, you’re going to need to buy me dinner first,” Kat said, but she went ahead and raised her hands and let the goon pat her down.