Perfect Scoundrels

by Ally Carter

  Text copyright © 2013 by Ally Carter

  All rights reserved. Published by Disney • Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher. For information address Disney • Hyperion Books, 114 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10011-5690.

  ISBN 978-1-4231-7975-7

  Visit www.un-requiredreading.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also by Ally Carter

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Acknowledgements

  BOOKS BY ALLY CARTER

  THE GALLAGHER GIRLS SERIES

  I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You

  Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy

  Don’t Judge a Girl by Her Cover

  Only the Good Spy Young

  Out of Sight, Out of Time

  THE HEIST SOCIETY SERIES

  Heist Society

  Uncommon Criminals

  Perfect Scoundrels

  Double Crossed: A Spies and Thieves Story (an eBook original)

  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 bui
lding 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.