Perfect Scoundrels

Of all the people who knew about the big house in the middle of Wyndham Woods, very few had ever been inside. For over a century, the owners had been importing their chefs from France, their butlers from England. Occasionally, someone from town would be summoned through the tall gates and down the winding lane to repair a pipe or deliver supplies; but for the most part, the house was like a dragon in the hills, a sleeping legend that barely touched anything beyond its line of trees.

But that never stopped the stories.

The ceilings are forty feet high, some people would say. The bathroom faucets are made of solid gold. Every so often, one teenager would dare another to climb the fence and wander through the grounds to get a look at the house, and the trespasser would show up at school the following day with tales of armed guards, Doberman pinschers, and a narrow escape through a tunnel lined with barbed wire.

(The one-way ride in the back of a squad car and the stern call to their parents, however, always went unmentioned.)

But more than anything, people talked about the painting. Sure, most of the town gossips knew only the most basic facts about Claude Monet. For them, it was enough just to imagine what a hundred million dollars might look like, hanging on a wall in the middle of the woods.

And yet no one ever saw it. In truth, no outsider even came close until the night a teenage girl with a long black ponytail and bright blue eyes drove through the town and down the narrow, two-lane blacktop.

No one saw her park the Vespa she had “borrowed” from her uncle Calvin. Not a soul was there to witness how easily she scaled the tall iron fence and landed softly on the damp ground on the other side.

She was not the first teenager to find the narrow path through the woods, but she was the first to stop when she reached the clearing that surrounded the house. She didn’t move an inch until the cameras were blind and the guards were distracted, and then all she had to do was stroll to the ivy-covered trellis at the rear of the house. And climb.

At the top of the trellis, the girl wasted no time in pulling a pair of pliers from her belt and clipping the wires that ran, almost undetectable, around the window. A moment later, she was sliding open the glass and crawling inside, as quick and nimble and quiet as a cat.

The girl dropped lightly onto the hardwood floor, but stayed perfectly still for a long while, waiting for a creak that never came. Even as she crept along the hall and down the stairs, there were no noises of any kind. Not the ticking of a clock. There were no crackling fires or rushing winds. The house was utterly silent, abandoned; and so she dared to walk a little faster, move a little easier, until she reached the big double doors at the back of the house.

There was an ornate desk that had once belonged to a king of England (one of the Georges, rumor said) and a grandfather clock that had been made in Switzerland, a Fabergé egg, and a Hemingway first edition that had been autographed by the author himself. But those things paled in comparison to the painting that hung in the gentle light over the mantel of the fireplace in the back of the room.

For a moment, the girl simply marveled at the painting. She might have been a student in a gallery, a buyer at an auction. It seemed almost enough just to see it—to be so close to something so beautiful. So she stood alone, waiting, until a voice said, “I see you found the Monet.”

She startled when the lights flicked on, but she didn’t yell or run. She just looked at the boy who stood behind her in a T-shirt with a frayed collar and a bright blue pair of Superman pajama bottoms.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” the girl said.

“Funny, I was going to say the same thing about you.” He smiled like his night had just gotten significantly more interesting.

“You don’t seem afraid,” the girl said.

“Well, that makes two of us.”

Spotlights shone down, and the boy studied her in the manner of someone who is used to looking at rare, beautiful things. Then he jerked his head at the painting and said, “Okay. Go ahead, take it.”

He started to leave, but stopped when the girl said, “Yeah, I can have this one. It’s a fake.”

“Oh now, that hurts.” He brought a hand to his chest like he’d been stabbed. “Not that it’s any of your business, but the Hale family happens to have the largest collection of Monets in the United States.”

“Technically, it’s the largest private collection. And this isn’t one of them. This”—she shined a small flashlight onto the delicate brushstrokes—“is a slightly better-than-average forgery.”

When the boy eased closer to the painting, it was like he was seeing it for the first time. “No. That can’t be right.”

“Sorry to break it to you.”

He shook his head slowly. “But my grandmother said…”

“She lied,” the girl told him.

The boy smiled again and whispered something that sounded like “Hazel is awesome,” but the girl wasn’t quite sure.

“What was that?” she asked, but the boy just laughed.

“Nothing.”

“You’re a strange kid,” she told him.

“Yet another thing we have in common.”

This time the girl blushed. It seemed like a compliment, and the way he looked up at the painting told her that the forgery was more precious to him than any old master could possibly be. The girl, however, didn’t share that opinion.

Hurriedly, she put her tools away and turned, heading for her window and the path through the woods. But the boy rushed after her.

“Where are you going?”

“Oh”—the girl laughed—“it’s probably best if I don’t tell you that.”

The boy raced ahead and blocked her way onto the landing. “Tell me anyway.”

“Why?”

“So I can go with you.”

The girl pushed past and started back the way she’d come. “No thanks.”

“I could help.”

“I’m sure you’d try.” She reached for the window, but his hand landed on top of her own, and right then the glass beneath her palm felt too cold. His skin was too warm. And the girl felt her face flush even against the chill.

He raised an eyebrow. “Of course, I could yell.”

She tried to sense whether or not he was bluffing. He had tousled hair and sleepy eyes, and even though he couldn’t have been more than fourteen, there was a weariness about him. He seemed thin and pale, and she wondered for a moment if he were seriously ill, like in an old movie where the rich boy is kept locked away from the world at large for his own good.

“No dice.” The girl started to open the window. “A Monet I’m willing to steal, sure. But the heir apparent to the Hale empire? No thank you.”

“They won’t miss me.”

“Oh.” She laughed again. “I bet they would.”

“You don’t want to make that bet.”

“Why?” the girl asked.

In the moonlight, a shadow seemed to cross his face as he whispered, “You’d lose.” Then he moved the hand that had been on top of hers, held it toward her. “I’m W. W. Hale the Fifth, by the way. It’s nice to meet you.”

He looked serious. He sounded serious. But the girl just eyed the outstretched hand as if it might come with a hidden switch or sensor, and making contact would trigger some silent alarm.

“What do the W’s stand for?” she asked.

“Take me with you and maybe you’ll find out.” He stared down into her eyes and whispered, “I go or I scream. You look like a smart girl. It’s your call.”

She was a smart girl, or so everyone always said. Her whole life she had been taught to be cautious, wise, and most of all, decisive. And yet she stood there in the cold air of the drafty window, completely uncertain what to do. After all, she’d stolen a lot of things in her short life, but she’d never, ever stolen someone.

But then again, the girl thought, there is a first time for everything.

So she pushed open the window and climbed out onto the trellis. A moment later, the boy followed; and in the morning, all that the security footage showed was two shadows disappearing into the deep black of the night.

There are few things quite as lovely as autumn in Argentina, Bobby Bishop had often said. And Bobby Bishop was in the business of beautiful things. That was why he had taught his daughter, Kat, how to spot a forgery and scale a fence. It was his voice that was in her ear every time she had to find the blind spots of a surveillance camera or squeeze into a dumbwaiter while reminding herself that claustrophobia is for sissies.

So it was almost impossible for Kat not to see the world through her father’s eyes. Where would he go? What would he do? And, as the case may be, where would he eat?

“Are you sure your dad’s not here?” Hale asked as they stepped into the elevator and he pushed the button for the eighty-seventh floor.

“I’m sure,” Kat said.

“Because going to a romantic restaurant with my girlfriend is going to be seriously awkward if her dad is here.”

“First, my father isn’t here—he’s in Bulgaria. I think.” Kat furrowed her brow and pondered for a moment before her mind returned to more pressing matters. “Secondly…” she started, then seemed to think better of it.

In the past six weeks, she had spent a lot of time editing her thoughts, carefully choosing her words. Laser grids, Kat could handle. But there was a special sort of danger that could lie inside a word like girlfriend, so Kat looked at their reflection on the wall of the glossy elevator compartment and tried to steady her voice.

“Secondly, I’m hungry.”

Kat hadn’t been nervous at all during the planning stages of that particular evening—not when they’d chosen the restaurant or even when her cousin, Gabrielle, had carefully selected Kat’s dress and shoes. But as soon as the elevator doors slid open, she heard the music—sultry and low, accordions and violins—and suddenly, Kat was terrified.

In the restaurant, tangoing couples circled past, and the look in Hale’s eyes was especially mischievous when he told her, “Oh, I see. You brought me here so you can have your way with me on the dance floor.”

“No.” Kat pointed past the dancing couples to the solid wall of windows that wrapped around the room. “I brought you here for the view.”

Over fifteen million people live in Buenos Aires, and there, on the top floor of the city’s tallest building, Kat felt like she could see them all. The restaurant sat on a platform that was built to revolve, slowly moving clockwise past lights and skyscrapers, old historic buildings and illuminated squares. Kat knew it would take exactly one hour for the restaurant to make a full revolution. An hour to talk. An hour to eat. An hour (much to Kat’s chagrin) to dance.

“Come on,” Hale said, pulling her close. “Humor me.”

All around them, couples danced so closely it was as if they were stuck together with Velcro, each absorbed in their own little world, moving like they didn’t share the dance floor with a dozen other people.

They were beautiful, and when Kat and Hale joined them, she too forgot that the other dancers existed. Hale was with her. Just the two of them. And Kat actually stopped thinking. She forgot about the jobs they had to do, the things she had to steal. When Hale pulled to a sudden stop, Kat thought he might kiss her. Dip her. Spin her. She was bracing herself, mentally preparing for it all, and she was ready—she really was—for anything but his pulling her close and whispering, “Kat, it’s time.”

“Right. I…” Kat jerked upright and stumbled over the words. “I have to go to the bathroom.”

And then she was gone, pushing past waiters carrying trays and women slipping lipsticks into handbags as they returned to their partners. Kat rushed into the ladies’ room and stood there gripping the sink and staring into the mirror, trying to catch her breath.

“Kat?” Hale yelled through the door. “Kat! I’m coming in.” But he didn’t wait for her to answer.

A woman came out of one of the stalls just as Hale burst through the door. She gasped but didn’t scream, and Hale gave her a very Hale-ish grin, so the woman hurriedly rinsed her hands and left without a word.

“Are you okay?” he asked as soon as they were alone. Kat felt her breathing start to rev again. She heard a sound—a bang, bang, bang—beating like the telltale heart.

“Kat?” Hale asked.

Slowly, he brought a hand to her face and pushed a stray hair away from her eyes. “Thanks for the dance,” he said just as—bang—the noise came again.

Kat shuddered and looked out the window. The apartment building she had seen when they’d first arrived was coming into view as the restaurant continued its rotation, so Kat took a deep breath and reached for the glass.

“Are we ready?” Gabrielle asked, sliding into the room, a crossbow, black backpack, and fifty feet of military-grade cable in tow.

Kat nodded. “Let’s go.”

“You look freaked,” Gabrielle whispered while she unpacked their gear and Kat stripped off her dress to reveal the black catsuit she wore beneath it.

Hale was busy at the window, so Kat whispered back, “There was tango,” which was answer enough for Gabrielle.

“We’re coming into position,” Hale said, then handed the crossbow to Gabrielle, who took aim at the building that was slowly moving into direct line with the bathroom window.

“We only have fifteen minutes,” he reminded them.

“I know,” Kat said.

A knock came on the door just as Gabrielle shot an arrow, sending the cable spiraling across the street to lodge in the mortar above the apartment’s window. She clipped a strap from the belt around her waist onto the outstretched line.

“See you on the other side, Kitty Kat,” Gabrielle said with a smile, and a moment later she was zooming into the black.

Kat climbed onto the ledge as soon as Gabrielle was clear, but Hale had to help her reach up to grab the cable and attach it to the belt at her waist. She was still dangling there when the knock came again.

“Sir,” a familiar voice said from the other side of the door. “Sir, are you in there?”

“Hold on,” Hale told Kat, and unlocked the door. “Marcus?”

Hale’s valet wore his usual dark gray suit. His posture, as always, was perfect, but there was something decidedly different about the man who stood on the other side of the ladies’ room door. He stepped carefully inside and looked at Hale. “Excuse me, sir. If I could have a moment…”

“Sure, Marcus,” Kat said, still dangling, swaying more than eighty stories in the air. “Take your time.”

Hale walked to where Marcus stood, and listened while the butler whispered. Kat couldn’t read his lips, but there was no mistaking the look on Hale’s face as he turned toward her.

“I gotta go.”

“Go?” Kat yelled. She tried to wiggle free of her harness, but the cable was too high and Hale was already reaching for her arms, holding her steady as he kissed her forehead.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ll call you in a few days and…” He trailed off as if he had no idea what was supposed to come next. “I’ll call you.”

“You said that already! Hale. Hale!” Kat tried to grab him, but he was out of reach, Marcus at his side, disappearing behind the closing door.

And through it all, Kat’s heart kept pounding. The clock kept ticking. So Kat pushed away from the window, zooming into the night.

The old brownstone in Brooklyn was not, technically, Katarina Bishop’s home, but Kat was a girl for whom technicalities rarely—if ever—applied. The building itself belonged to a corporation that was a part of a conglomerate that was purchased by a shell company in 1972, and won in a poker game in ’73 by Kat’s uncle Eddie.

And yet his name did not appear on any titles or tax rolls. Utilities were listed in the names of a half dozen different aliases and paid in full on the fifteenth of every month. As far as the city of New York was concerned, the building was the property of a ghost, a figment, a very prompt and responsible illusion. But Kat knew better. Kat knew the building belonged to a legend.

When she pushed open the back door and stepped into the kitchen, Kat was certain what she was going to find. The lights were on and the stove was hot. A pair of ancient Dutch ovens sat over low heat, but for the moment, she and Gabrielle were alone as they carried in the small crate that they’d brought from Buenos Aires.

Rich, sweet smells washed over Kat, so she sank onto a chair and put the crate on the table. They’d gone all the way to Argentina for the painting that lay inside, but Kat felt no sense of accomplishment or relief. The couriers would come for it tomorrow, and in the meantime, Kat was tired and drained and happy to be at least temporarily finished.

“Okay, Kitty Kat, spill it.” Gabrielle walked to the old refrigerator, threw open the door, and studied the food inside. “I’ve been beside you for five thousand miles, and, trust me…you’re in something of a mood.”

Kat thought about her cousin’s words, but she didn’t try to deny them. Changing the subject would be futile, and as tired as she was, there was no use in trying to run. So Kat rested her arms on the crate and her chin on her arms, and thought about all the things she didn’t like in that moment.

Her head hurt.

Her back hurt.

Her hands hurt (but that was her own fault for doing zip-line work with no gloves).

They were the typical aches and pains of any thief a day off the job, and none of them, Kat realized, could possibly compare to the pain inside her heart, so she took a deep breath and whispered, “Hale left me.”

“He didn’t leave you, leave you,” Gabrielle said. “He just made a rapid and ill-timed departure.”

“He left,” Kat snapped.

“He had a sudden change of plans.”

“Do I have to remind you, Gabrielle, that he left me hanging? Literally. Are you seriously not furious right now?”

“Oh, I’m mad at him,” Gabrielle said. She stirred the contents of the largest pot. “I’m just a little surprised that you’re mad at him.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means, dear cousin, that I wouldn’t expect you to be angry. I would expect you to wonder why.…”

Kat had spent twenty-four hours and a very long plane ride across most of two continents fuming at Hale for running off without a moment of thought or a word of explanation. But Gabrielle was right.

Why would he leave so suddenly?

Why would he jeopardize her safety and their job?

Why would Hale, the boy who had been willing to do almost anything to be a part of her world for over two years, suddenly flee without a single clue as to where he might be going?

Somewhere in the house, a door slammed. The floor creaked. On the stove, the contents of the Dutch ovens began to boil. And Kat’s cousin raised an eyebrow.

“Are you going to tell him?” Gabrielle asked. “Or should I?”

“Tell me what?” the old man said, but he didn’t really stop for an answer. “Do not stir my goulash, Gabrielle.”

He moved to the stove slowly, like he’d been dozing in his easy chair and his legs weren’t quite working yet. But even with his gray hair and ratty, moth-eaten cardigan, there was something in Kat’s great-uncle’s eyes—a gravity that could make even a great thief tremble.

“So,” he asked again, “tell me what?”

“It’s good to see you too, Edward,” Gabrielle said in her uncle’s native tongue. Then she pulled a noodle out of one of the pots, plopped it into her mouth, and took her seat at the table.

“So, Katarina, what is wrong?” Uncle Eddie sprinkled some oregano into a pot and stirred, but didn’t look back. “Was it the access? High-rises can be tricky.”

“Access was fine, Uncle Eddie,” Kat said.

“The exit, then,” he said.

“The exit wasn’t a problem.” Kat ran her fingers along the rough pine of the crate, and didn’t bother asking how her uncle had known the details of the job in Buenos Aires. Uncle Eddie knew everything.

He eyed the crate on the table. Kat could see him calculating the value of the painting that lay inside when he asked, “And so you bring me a box I cannot have, and a problem I cannot solve, is that it?”

“The job was fine, Uncle Eddie,” Kat said. “It’s just that—”

“Hale ran off in the middle of it.”

“Gabrielle,” Kat snapped.

“What?” Gabrielle said. “It’s the truth. I’m sure Uncle Eddie won’t kill him. He’ll probably just maim him a little.”

“No,” Eddie said. “I won’t.”

“Okay,” Gabrielle said. “So he’ll maim him a lot. But Hale can take it. I’m sure between Eddie and your dad, Hale’s just looking at a few broken—”

“No, Gabrielle.” Eddie’s voice was stern. “I will do nothing of the kind.”

“But…” Gabrielle gave her uncle a confused glance.

“I value a young man who values family.”

“We are Hale’s family,” Gabrielle said.

“No.” Eddie picked up the newspaper that lay beside the stove and tossed it onto the kitchen table. “We’re not.”

Kat didn’t reach for it. She didn’t have to. The headline was big and bold and looming in black and white: WORLD’S SIXTH WEALTHIEST WOMAN COMATOSE IN MANHATTAN HOME.

“Is this…?” Kat couldn’t pull her eyes away from the photo that accompanied the words. The woman wore her white hair in an elegant updo, a diamond broach at the base of her neck, as she sat beneath a Monet that, if Kat were to guess, was most definitely the real one.

“That, my dear, is Hazel Hale,” Uncle Eddie said. “She is your young man’s grandmother.”

“She’s in a coma?” Gabrielle asked, turning the paper to get a better view.

“She was,” Eddie said. “At six o’clock this morning she died.”

Kat craned her neck and looked straight up at the building, utterly uncertain what to do. The height would not be a problem, of course, but there was something about the penthouse apartment that loomed over the east side of Central Park that left Kat feeling exposed and fragile. So she shivered, staring up, completely unsure how to find her way inside.

Oh, it would have been easy enough to purchase a bouquet of flowers, throw on an apron, and disappear into the parade of florists and caterers that had been filing in and out of the service elevators all morning. A window washer had left his rig on the third floor, easily within Kat’s reach. There were at least a half dozen ways for Kat to access the penthouse, but even Katarina Bishop knew there were some rooms she shouldn’t con or break her way into.

Besides, it was the only Hale family residence into which Kat had never been invited. Like a vampire, she felt that it would be almost impossible to enter. So she stayed on the corner, watching, staring at her phone.

“Hey, Hale,” she told the recording that answered when she tried his number, “it’s me. Again. Like I said in my last message, I’m back in the city and I heard about your grandmother. Hale, I’m so sorry.” Kat ended the call without another word.

Maybe he was busy.

Maybe he was sad.

Maybe he was grounded.

Maybe he was still in Argentina, lying in a roadside ditch and calling out her name.

Or maybe he was…

“Hale?” Kat said when she saw a pack of men emerge through the building’s glistening doors. They all wore dark suits and darker expressions, and they were so uniform in appearance that Kat almost missed the boy among their midst. She stared for a moment, uncertain at first that it was him. She’d seen him in so many situations—playing so many different roles—but Kat couldn’t help but realize that the boy who stood before her was someone she had never seen before.

The men were almost at the limo that sat idling at the curb, so she spoke louder. “Hale!”