“But—” he started, and Kat cut him off.
“They closed that back door before they plastered over the nail the Angel hung on. No one is ever going to use that again.”
Simon hung his head, mourning the fact that a most excellent security breach had had to die for their last mission to live.
The silence stretched out, wrapping around them like the city skyline on the other side of the glass. It felt for a moment like they were floating, suspended, flying down the Thames. Kat prepared herself to feel the crash.
“’Course, we could do this the easy way.” Angus sounded like he’d been waiting hours for someone—anyone—to state the obvious.
“An easy way?” Kat said. “To rob the Henley?”
“An easy way to get into the Hale desk in the Henley.” Hamish was up and walking purposefully across the room. “If only we knew someone. Someone named…”
“Hale?” his brother guessed.
“Precisely,” Hamish said.
“No,” Kat told them with a quick shake of her head.
“I know ol’ Hale is busy, Kitty Kat,” Angus talked on, “but he’d come if you called him.”
“No,” Kat said, walking toward the coffeepot in the kitchen. She was tired of being cold. “I won’t call him.”
“Fine, then,” Angus said, following. “I’ll call him. I bet even the Hale of Hale Industries would be glad to jump on that corporate jet and…what’s the word?”
“Jet,” his brother supplied.
“Yes, jet over to help. He’d be—”
“No!” Kat snapped, then drew a deep breath. Her hands began to shake, so she set the coffeepot down. “Hale can’t help, okay? He just can’t.”
“And why would that be?” Simon asked.
“Because, technically, Hale doesn’t know we’re here,” Gabrielle said.
Kat felt the truth of it wash around the room until, finally, Angus had to ask, “Then who does know?”
“Marcus,” Kat said. “And Marcus’s sister.”
“And Uncle Eddie,” Gabrielle added, defiant. “This time, Uncle Eddie totally knows. And approves.”
Angus eased forward. “What’s going on, Kitty?”
“It’s complicated.”
“Try us,” Hamish said.
Kat couldn’t help herself. She risked a glance at Gabrielle, who nodded. “It’s just…” Kat spoke slowly. She had to build up the courage and momentum to say, “It’s just that Hale might not be the real heir. Okay? It might all be a con.”
“A con?” Simon asked. “Like a Prodigal Son?”
“No.” Kat shook her head. “Well, not exactly. We think there may be a different will. A real will that gives the company to someone else. And it may be in that desk.”
The words washed over them all, the truth settling down around them. It seemed to take forever for Angus to say, “Call me heartless, but isn’t the current will…you know, the one that gives our friend Hale about a billion dollars…a good will as far as we’re concerned?”
It wasn’t an easy question, so Kat wasn’t in a hurry to answer. She sank onto the sofa and thought about Marcus and Marianne and finally the look in Hale’s eyes when he’d told her that the only member of his family he’d truly loved had trusted her most precious possession to him and him alone.
“I don’t know, Angus. I really don’t. I just know I need to find out the truth.”
“Then we find the truth,” Simon said. The Bagshaws nodded.
“How much time do you think you’ll need with the desk, Kitty?” Hamish asked.
Kat placed her elbows on her knees and thought. “I honestly have no idea.”
“The world record for cracking a Petrovich is two minutes fourteen seconds,” Simon said. When the others gaped at him, he shrugged and added, “There are tournaments. I’m a fan.”
“So the low end is two minutes,” Gabrielle said.
“Not counting the exit,” Simon filled in.
“Not counting the exit,” Gabrielle agreed with a nod.
“Okay,” Hamish said, “if that’s the low end, what would the high end be, do you think?”
The question hung over them like a cloud, but all eyes turned toward Simon, who admitted, “Some have never been cracked.”
“Well, if Hazel used the secret compartment, that means she found the secret compartment,” Kat said, reassuring everyone, but mostly herself. “And if Hazel found it, I’m willing to bet I can too. I just hope it doesn’t take too long.”
“I’ll rig you up with a button cam,” Simon told her. “We’ll all be able to see what you’re seeing, and help if we can.”
“Good,” Kat said. She was under the distinct impression that she was going to need all the help she could get.
“Are you sure Marianne doesn’t know how it works?” Gabrielle asked.
“She swears she doesn’t,” Kat said. “So that means…”
“It might take all night,” Simon finished.
“So all night you shall have!” Angus said with a slap of his thigh. Then he scooted close to Simon and whispered, “How do we get her all night?”
Sweat was beading on Simon’s brow. “I don’t know. No one’s ever done the Basil E. Frankweiler at the Henley.”
“It’ll have to be someplace the guards won’t check and the cameras won’t see,” Gabrielle said. “Simon, can you arrange that?”
“No go,” Simon said with a shake of his head.
“You were able to loop the video feeds before,” Gabrielle said.
“Yes, but before, the Henley had a chink in their armor. They’ve fixed it.”
Angus opened his mouth to protest, but Simon cut him off.
“Look, we can blind some of the cameras, but it will have to be manual. And temporary. There’s no way I can access their system again. Well, no way to easily access their system on this kind of time frame. We’re definitely going to need a blind spot.”
“So we just have to find a place with no guards and no cameras for eight to twelve hours in the most heavily monitored museum in the world.” Kat took a deep breath. “Okay. How hard can that be?”
No one answered, and Kat was glad for the silence. It was times like this when she was supposed to be able to ask her father for advice, her uncle. Her mother. But the truth of the matter was, it was the Henley; and she was the only person she knew who had ever been in and out…clean.
Well, almost the only person, Kat realized as another thought occurred to her. “I know what we need.”
“What?” Angus asked.
Gabrielle met her cousin’s eyes, and finished. “Help.”
In a continent of beautiful places, there was always something Kat liked about Brussels. The Royal Palace. The river Senne. Cathedrals and ancient buildings as far as the eye could see. So she sat on a bench and sipped her coffee, waiting until the church bells chimed three o’clock.
Kat could imagine those big gears turning, moving the hands of the clock and then setting off a chain reaction down the street and across the city, all the way to the halls of St. Christopher’s Academy. By the time the bells had finished, the big double doors were swinging open and a tide of blue blazers and book bags emerged. But Kat stayed on her bench, watching, waiting, until one boy appeared among the masses.
He walked with more purpose than his classmates, stood a little straighter. And when he saw her, he didn’t even break stride.
“Why do I get the feeling you didn’t come all the way to Belgium for an education?” Nick pulled the straps of his backpack over his shoulders and squinted against the sun that reflected off the gold buttons on his private-school blazer.
“Oh, I’m definitely here to learn.” Kat couldn’t help but smirk as she stood and sidled closer.
“I’m sure you are.” Nick gave a wry laugh. “Do I have to ask how you found me?”
“This is the best international school in Brussels—all the European Union bigwigs send their kids here. Congratulations on your mom’s promotion, by the way. Interpol Liaison to the EU, very fancy.”
“Thanks,” he said. “Of course she hates it. Too desk-job-y.”
“I’ll tell my dad. I’m sure he’ll send his condolences.”