by Ally Cater
“It was nothing. Just…for a second I thought—”
“You knew her?” Gabrielle guessed.
Kat thought about the moment in the park—the look in the woman’s eyes when she’d called to Kat and said thank you.
“No. It was more like she knew me. Like she was appraising me and the job. Like she knew better than some little old lady from Loxley, and so I should have known better.” Kat felt herself trying to find the right words. “She looked at me like Uncle Eddie looks at me.”
“The female Uncle Eddie.” Gabrielle’s voice was full of awe and fear in equal measure, like the woman was a cross between a dragon and a unicorn—just as mythical and twice as deadly.
There was a TV on in the background, and the anchors talked of moving weather fronts and falling stock prices, as if those were the things in the world that really mattered.
“Uh…guys,” Simon said, but Kat had turned back to the window.
“Why con us into stealing the Cleopatra Emerald?” she said quietly, repeating the question that was sending them across the ocean and back again. It was the question, Kat knew, that could haunt her for the rest of her life.
“Guys…” Simon said again, voice rising, but Kat was lost in thought, staring at the glass.
“Why con us?” she whispered.
“Maybe because of…” Simon seemed to lose his voice before choking out, “That?”
Kat spun back in time to see him raise a finger and point at the TV and the picture of the woman that Kat had come to know as Constance Miller. For a second, she thought Simon had found her somewhere among Interpol’s files—until she realized the picture was live, and the woman was standing under the glare of what seemed like a thousand flashing bulbs, holding the Cleopatra Emerald out for all to see.
Simon cleared his throat. “Okay, is it just me, or does this make her the worst thief ever?”
CHAPTER 18
Although the plane was state of the art, the pilots perfectly trained, Kat couldn’t shake the feeling that they were falling, plummeting out of the sky. That was the only thing that could explain the knot in her stomach as Simon turned up the volume on the TV and she read the words at the bottom of the screen. Live News Conference: Monaco.
“Did they find the fake?” Hale said, leaning closer to the screen. “Is it an arrest?”
“No.” Kat’s voice was flat and even, as if she were watching it all from outside her body. She had the kind of distance—the perspective—that would make even her great-uncle proud. “It’s a con.”
Together they watched as a balding man in a nice suit stepped behind the podium. “Mesdames et messieurs, members of the press, I am Pierre LaFont of the LaFont Auction House here in Monaco. On behalf of Mrs. Brooks and myself, I thank you for coming today.”
He spoke English with a heavy French accent. He didn’t look up again until he’d finished.
“I will read a brief statement and then Mrs. Brooks has agreed to take questions.” He slipped on a pair of bifocals and studied a piece of paper, but the room stayed silent, transfixed.
“Three days ago, Mrs. Margaret Brooks was examining a collection of antiques procured by her late husband and recently shipped to her winter home near Nice, France. One of the pieces—an urn—broke in transit. It was then that Mrs. Brooks found a large emerald that presumably had been hidden inside. The stone is ninety-seven karats and of the highest quality. A team of experts is now en route to Monaco, where detailed appraisals, examinations, and verifications will take place. In the meantime, it is my expert opinion that—due to the size, quality, and cut of the emerald in question—what Mrs. Margaret Brooks has found is most likely the Antony Emerald.”
The man took a deep breath, as if he’d just dived off a cliff. “And now Mrs. Brooks will take questions.”
If the members of the press looked dumbfounded, their reaction was nothing compared to that of the four teenagers who sat watching it all unfold from thirty thousand feet. On the other side of the cabin, Simon’s slide show was still playing. Photos of every con woman that Interpol had ever known were flashing through the cabin, but none of them could hold a candle to the woman on the television then.
The matronly clothes and wig were gone, and when the woman spoke, her accent was big and brash and Southern. “First, don’t be like Pierre here. Y’all call me Maggie.”
“Maggie! Maggie!” the reporters yelled, vying for her attention.
“Well, y’all sure are going to a lot of fuss for one little ol’ rock.” She scanned the crowd, savoring the spotlight, before settling on one especially handsome international correspondent. “Sweetheart, what I can do for you?”
The entire crowd laughed as if on cue.
The man smirked. “Do you believe in the curse, Maggie?”
Again, Maggie eyed the younger man up and down. “Maybe I believe in fate. What’s your name, cutie?” she asked, but didn’t really wait for an answer. “Folks,” she said instead, leaning closer to the crowd and growing serious. “I’m from Texas. I’ve been hunting, shooting, and riding since I could walk. I’ve married and buried four men, each richer than the last—God rest their souls,” she added quickly, almost as if from habit. “So one little ol’ rock doesn’t scare me.”
“Why not keep it, Maggie?” another reporter yelled.
“I’m rich,” she snapped. “And I’m old. Now, they tell me that emerald can’t make me younger, but it can make me richer So one week from today, I’m gonna sell this thing to the highest bidder. And I’m betting someone’s gonna bid pretty high.” She made a move as if to leave.
“The Cold Shoulder,” Kat and Hale said together. It was a classic move. Simple. And very, very effective because the crowd yelled louder, “Maggie!”
“Yes.” She stopped and looked at them as if they were little kids and she couldn’t quite believe they hadn’t run away to play.
“How did it feel knowing your movers had broken a two-thousand-year-old urn?” yelled a reporter near the back of the crowd.
This time it was Maggie’s turn to laugh. “Like maybe I ought to let ’em break everything I own!”
“Do you think the emerald’s real?” one of the reporters yelled.
“Well, I didn’t imagine it.”
When the crowd chuckled again, Kat recognized the sound. It was the laugh of the mark—the sign that they adored you, they believed you, and they would hand you their grandmother’s pearls, the key to the vault. Anything. Everything. Because right then, they…were in love.
Maggie’s Southern accent might have been a fake (then again, maybe it wasn’t), but she was the belle of the ball and not a soul would dare deny it.
“Let ’em run their little tests, boys. I think we all know what they’re gonna find.”
Even after the press conference was over, the four teens sat perfectly still for a long time, trying to understand what they’d just seen.
“People think she’s going to sell the Antony,” Gabrielle said, her voice a mixture of dismay and admiration.
“In seven days,” Simon added.
“In Monaco,” Kat said, turning her gaze to Hale, both of them knowing exactly what they had to do.
“Marcus,” Hale said, pressing a button and calling to the cockpit. “We’re gonna need to turn the plane around.”
CHAPTER 19
The fact that no one had ever heard of Margaret Covington Godfrey Brooks before then was something that, in the days that followed, was never mentioned.
The matriarchs of Atlanta suddenly recalled lunching with her during the years when she and her late second husband had supposedly kept a home in Buckhead. The alumni board of Texas A&M University was not surprised to find a backlog of canceled checks and generous donations even though, until then, the name had not been familiar to a single soul beyond its appearance on an old student roster dating back to the 1950s. The residents of East Hampton seemed to recall a series of grand parties on Maggie’s third husband’s summer estate. And at le
ast two former U.S. presidents were rumored to have been hunting buddies with Maggie herself on eighty thousand acres in the panhandle east of Lubbock (they also said that Maggie was the best shot any of their party had ever seen).
These weren’t lies, Kat knew. They were merely the fruits of the seeds that only a great con artist could have planted and an all-powerful con could have grown.
Within twenty-four hours after the news of the Antony’s recovery, Maggie’s name and photo had been beamed around the world, and so it stood to reason that the woman who had not, technically, existed a mere week before had become a personality of international proportions.
Celebrity, after all, is nothing but a matter of perception.
And perception, Kat knew, was the true heart of the con.
So no one thought to verify the name or the bank accounts or any of the facts that appeared along with the woman with the emerald.
Because when there’s a ninety-seven-karat emerald involved, the woman holding it is easily lost in the spotlight.
Even a woman like Maggie.
“There she is.”
Only hours before, Kat had started to fear that the woman on the other side of the street was a figment of her imagination—a nightmare, a ghost. Of course, technically, Margaret Brooks didn’t exist, but Kat had only to watch the woman, hear her big brass voice, and know that she was no phantom. Kat thought of what Constance…or Maggie…had dared to do, and a part of her couldn’t help but think that Maggie…was legend.
She certainly couldn’t ignore the irony that after chasing Maggie halfway around the world, fearing that she had disappeared like smoke, they had found her within twenty minutes of landing at the small private airstrip just outside of Nice.
Of course, it helped that the country of Monaco was no larger than a village, less than one square mile of rocky coastlines and pricey hotels. But the real reason they had found her so easily, Kat had to admit, was that Maggie was making absolutely no effort to hide.
Photographers snapped and passersby shouted, and Maggie waved to them all with gusto as she walked from elegant shop to elegant shop, dining at the best restaurants, taking tea with only the best people.
Kat hated her. And Kat envied her. But mostly, she tried to imagine what it would be like to be her—to be that good, that smart, that sure. Thief years were like dog years, her father had always said, so by that count, Kat felt much older than fifteen; but standing on the street that night, staring through the windows of the five-star hotel that Maggie was temporarily calling home, Kat couldn’t help feeling naive and inexperienced and…young. And she didn’t exactly like it.
When her phone began to ring and she looked down to see it was her father calling, she felt young for entirely different reasons.
“You’re going to have to talk to him eventually, you know.”
She turned to see Hale standing behind her, jacket thrown over his shoulder, looking like he’d just stepped out of a movie.
Kat took one last glance at the phone, then slipped it back into her pocket. “As soon as he hears my voice, he’ll know something’s wrong.”
“And that’s a bad thing because…”
“He can’t do this for me, Hale. This is my mess. I’ve got to clean it up.” The sun had set, and as they walked toward the beach, Kat could see the moon rising over the Mediterranean. It was quiet there. Still and peaceful, as good a place as any to say, “And that’s why I’ve been thinking…you should go.”
Kat stopped suddenly. She felt Hale almost slam into her, saw the way Gabrielle and Simon watched from five feet away. Everyone was looking. Everyone was waiting. She felt like the most conspicuous thief in the world when she told the boy beside her, “You were right, Hale. It was a bad job. It was a bad call. You were right to leave.”
“Kat…” Hale tried to reach for her, but even in the sand, Kat was quick and sure on her feet, and she moved nimbly away, leaving Hale with nothing but a fistful of salty air.
“Thanks for coming back and helping me find her and all, but…” She looked at Gabrielle, who stood leaning against Simon, still bruised and almost broken. “I think I’ve got to take it from here.”
Kat didn’t know where the stone was or how to steal it. She didn’t know if she could best Maggie or how. All she knew for certain was that no one else was getting hurt because of her. She was sure right up until the point when Hale said, “No.”
“What?” Kat said, spinning on him.
“I said no.”
“What do you think’s going to happen when you and Simon and Gabrielle don’t show up in Uruguay?”
“Paraguay,” the three of them corrected in unison.
“The whole family’s supposed to be there.” She turned to Simon. “Do you think your dad won’t notice when you don’t come back?” She looked at her cousin. “You think your mom and Uncle Eddie won’t send out a search party looking for you?”
The three of them stood silent, suddenly unable to answer, so Kat smiled at Hale and Gabrielle. “Both of you knew stealing the Cleopatra was a bad call, so it wasn’t your mistake.
Simon, you weren’t even in the country, which means this isn’t your problem. None of you. So you should all go. You can cover for me and—”
“No,” Hale said again, just as flat and twice as certain.
“You don’t get it, Hale. They’re not gonna leave the Antony Emerald just lying around—even if it isn’t the real one.”
“And we’re really only good at the ‘lying around’ jobs,” he countered.
“She’s already got the auction set. The clock is ticking.”
Hale inched closer. “Timing is everything.”
“Yeah.” Kat looked up at him, eyes wide. “It is! And…” The words were gone, her mind suddenly blank, and Kat realized that she could no longer think, much less plan or theorize, plot or scheme. “And I’m not leading you guys into almost certain chaos.” She shook her head. “Not again.”
Hale shrugged. “I for one like chaos. Chaos looks good on me.”
“You should get away from me. You should save yourselves before I make you pass out or catch the measles or spontaneously combust or something.” She looked at Hale for a long time, then shook her head. “I can’t make you do this. Any of you. I can’t—”
“Hey!” Hale crossed the small space between them in a flash. “No one makes me do anything. Not my family. Not your family…not even you.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“If I wanted to go, I’d go. But if I’m here, then I’m here. All of me.” Kat felt his free hand brush her hair away from her face. “So what’s it gonna be, Kat?”
It’s a great curse of the con that you can look at anything and see a dozen angles. There are always loopholes, wormholes, cracks that you can slip through if only you know how to see them. And Kat was the kind of girl who had to see them. But right then, with Hale so close and the moon so bright, her mind was filled with nothing but fog.
“I think better when I’m alone, Hale. I’m better alone.”
“No.” Hale shook his head. “You really aren’t.”
“No one else is going to get hurt because of me!” Kat gave an involuntary glance at Gabrielle, who hobbled forward.
“You think sending me away is going to keep me from getting hurt?” her cousin asked. “Ha! I’m cursed, Kitty Kat. And the way I see it, my best bet at getting uncursed is to put that rock back where it belongs. So, sorry. You’re stuck with me.”
Kat looked at Simon, who took his place beside Gabrielle. “I’m not going back to those mosquitoes.”
She turned to Hale, who didn’t say a thing. He just pulled her phone from her pocket and handed it to Gabrielle. “Make the call.”
Kat watched her cousin dial, heard her say, “Hey, Mom. Yeah, I don’t think I can make it to Paraguay. See, I met this duke…”
A few moments later, the phone was passed to Simon, who left a message for his father about a lecture he just had to hea
r at MIT.
Kat knew the argument was over. The job, however, was only just beginning, so she turned to Hale and asked, “Where’s the hotel?”
“Well, see, I thought hotel was really more of a suggestion and…” He turned and pointed to a long pier, a bobbing motorboat, and Marcus, who stood at attention, waiting.
“What’s that?” Kat asked.
“That’s our ride.”
CHAPTER 20
Katarina Bishop did not always land on her feet. She’d had a lot of identities, it was true, but she didn’t have nine lives. So it was with great amusement the next morning that Simon and Hale sat on the beautifully appointed deck furniture, staring at the clear blue water of the Mediterranean, and Simon said, “What do you mean, Kat’s afraid of water?”
“Terrified.” Hale sounded like someone who desperately wanted to be serious. But couldn’t.
Kat tried to protest, but that would have required stepping out onto the deck. And the deck had the rail. And if the rail failed, the deck also had a long drop to water and a longer swim to shore; so Kat was quite happy listening from inside, thank you very much.
Simon turned and yelled through the open sliding doors to where Kat stood, regretting that she’d ever gotten onto that boat or out of bed.
“Are you really that afraid of water?”
“I’m not afraid of water, Simon,” Kat yelled. “I’m afraid of drowning. There’s a difference.”
“I thought you knew how to swim,” Gabrielle said, stretching out on one of the chaise longues, handing Simon a bottle of suntan lotion, and rolling onto her stomach in the universal signal for Do my back.
“Of course I can swim. I can also remember a very unfortunate incident involving Uncle Louie, the Bagshaws, and a cruise ship off the coast of Belize.”
“You’re fine, Kitty Kat.” Gabrielle slipped on a pair of dark sunglasses and the largest, floppiest hat that Kat had ever seen, and it occurred to her for one brief second how spoiled she really was. After all, there are worse things than spending the end of February on a private yacht in the middle of the Mediterranean with friends and family (especially, let’s face it, with friends who look like Hale).
