And Kat was listening to a deep voice say, “Hello, Katarina.”
Kat had heard of the presidential suite at Das Palace Hotel in Vienna, of course. Every self-respecting thief was aware that this room was traditionally used for hosting kings and princes, presidents and CEOs. But for all its history, the most intimidating thing about the room right then was the sight of Uncle Eddie, standing beside a roaring fire.
“Welcome to Vienna.”
When Uncle Eddie held out his arms, Gabrielle rushed into them, gushing at him in rapid Russian. No one translated for Hale, but he understood the exchange. Four days ago, Kat had walked back into her uncle’s home and his graces, but anyone could see that Gabrielle, who had spent the last six months using cleavage and quick hands to pick some of the plusher pockets on the Riviera, had never really left the family kitchen.
“Your mother?” Uncle Eddie asked, holding Gabrielle at arm’s length.
“Engaged,” Gabrielle said with a sigh.
Uncle Eddie nodded as if he’d heard it all before. “He has art?”
“Jewels,” Gabrielle said. “Family stuff. He’s a count.”
“Or a duke,” Hale chimed in.
“I get them confused,” Gabrielle confessed.
“Who doesn’t?” Uncle Eddie admitted with a shrug, still holding her and beaming. “It’s good to see you, little one.” He scanned her short skirt. “I only wish I were not seeing quite so much of you.”
Gabrielle didn’t even register the insult. “It’s good to see you too. But how did you—”
Uncle Eddie shook his head. The question wasn’t how her uncle had gotten there. The question, Kat knew, was what had he come to tell them? What had he learned that he couldn’t share over the phone? And what was she going to have to do about it?
He settled into the chair closest to the fire and looked up at Kat. “You have been to see Signor Mariano?”
Kat was faintly aware of the smell of good coffee, and noticed that at some point a china cup had appeared in Uncle Eddie’s hand. But her attention, like Hale’s and Gabrielle’s, was entirely absorbed by Uncle Eddie.
“Visily Romani.” He was speaking to them all, but Kat felt her uncle’s gaze settle upon her. “This name is not unfamiliar to you?”
“Is it an alias?” Kat asked.
“Of course.” He smiled as if enjoying the notion that she might still be, in part, a little girl.
“And the shipping address here in Austria?” Hale asked.
“You have indeed been busy.” Uncle Eddie chuckled but quickly grew serious. “I only wish it were not for nothing.”
“Who is he?” Kat asked.
“He is no one.” Uncle Eddie’s eyes passed to Gabrielle. “He is everyone.”
Uncle Eddie was not a man of riddles, and so Kat knew the words must matter, but she couldn’t fathom how.
“I . . . I don’t understand,” she said with a shake of her head.
“It’s a Chelovek Pseudonima, Katarina,” her uncle said, and Gabrielle drew a quick breath. Kat blinked against the fire’s glare. Outside, the snow fell softly, and yet it felt to Kat as if all of Austria were standing still—as if nothing could ever break the trance until—
“What’s a Chelovek Pseudonima?”
Kat looked at Hale and blinked, somehow managed to remember that despite being fluent in the language of the thief, he would never be a native speaker. A member of the family.
“What?” Hale’s voice rose in frustration. “What’s wrong? What is a Chelovek Pseudo—”
“Alias Man,” Gabrielle whispered. “A Chelovek Pseudonima is an Alias Man.”
But the literal translation was lost on Hale. Kat read it in his eyes, saw it in his impatient hands.
“The old families . . .” Kat said, staring at him. “They had names—aliases—that they only used when they were doing things that were too big, too dangerous—things they had to keep hidden . . . even from each other. They were secret names, Hale. Sacred names.”
Kat looked at her uncle. She guessed that in all of his years he had rarely seen a Pseudonima used. If Kat had asked to hear the stories, her uncle might have told her that Visily Romani had once stolen some highly incriminating documents from a czar, and a diamond from a queen. He’d smuggled Nazi war plans out of Germany and done a fair amount of work behind the Iron Curtain. But Uncle Eddie offered no such details.
Instead, he looked at the next generation and smiled with the irony of it as he explained, “If Visily Romani were real, he would be four hundred years old and the greatest thief who’d ever lived.”
Hale looked at each one of them in turn. “I still don’t understand.”
“It is an alias that is not used lightly, young man,” Uncle Eddie answered. Kat knew the words were really for her. “It is a name that is not used by simply anyone.”
Uncle Eddie rose from his chair. “This is finished, Katarina.” He walked toward the door as if there were something on his stove that needed stirring. “I will tell your father. I will try to make amends with Mr. Taccone.”
“But—” Gabrielle was on her feet.
“A Pseudonima is a sacred thing!” Her uncle whirled. “Any job done in the name of Visily Romani will not be undone by children!”
In a way, every thief Kat knew was a child at heart, and she merely had the body that matched—a body that could be utilized in very effective ways if the air ducts were small or the guards were naive. But she’d never been spoken to like she was a little girl.
Her uncle stopped at the door. Marcus was there, waiting silently with his coat.
“You may go back to school if you wish, Katarina.” Uncle Eddie put on his hat as the butler reached for the door. “I’m afraid this is beyond even you now.”
Chapter 13
Kat didn’t watch her uncle go. She stayed seated on the couch, vaguely aware of Gabrielle saying something about spending the winter working the ski chalets in Switzerland. She realized at some point that Hale had sent Marcus out for food. She was wondering briefly how he could eat at a time like this, when he turned to her and said, “Well?”
Kat thought she heard Gabrielle talking on the phone in one of the bedrooms, explaining that she might be arriving in town and “Oh, Sven, you are a flirt. . . .”
But Uncle Eddie’s voice was still echoing in Kat’s ears— It is beyond even you now—resounding with the things he did not say.
Someone very, very good had gone after Taccone’s paintings.
Someone very, very connected had known enough to call into play one of the oldest rules of their world.
Someone very, very greedy had allowed her father to stay alone in Taccone’s spotlight.
Only someone very, very foolish would disobey Uncle Eddie and try to do something about it now.
That is, if there was anything left to do.
“You know we could always . . .” Hale started, but Kat was already up, already moving toward the door.
“I’ll be back. . . .” She stopped and studied Hale. The look in his eyes told her that if her father’s safety were something he could have purchased, he would have written her a check, sold his Monet, his Bentley, his soul. She wanted to thank him, to ask why someone like him would choose to be halfway around the world with someone like her.
But all she choked out was a pitiful, “I’ll be back soon.” And then she walked away, into the cold.
Kat wasn’t sure how long she’d been gone, or where she was going. Hours passed. The surveillance video Arturo Taccone had given her played in a constant loop in her mind until, finally, she found herself in the doorway of a bakery. She savored the smell of bread and realized that she was hungry. Then, just as suddenly, she realized she wasn’t alone.
“If you die of pneumonia, I’m pretty sure there are at least a dozen guys who’ll try to kill me and make it look like an accident.”
Kat studied Hale’s reflection in the bakery window. He didn’t smile. He didn’t scold. He simply handed her a cup of hot chocolate and draped his heavy coat around her shoulders.
All around them, the snow was falling harder, covering the streets like a blanket—a fresh start. But Kat was an excellent thief; she knew not even an Austrian winter could help them hide their tracks.
She turned and looked up and down the street. A trolley car ran silently across a cobblestone square. Snowcapped mountains and ornate eighteenth century buildings stretched out in every direction, and Kat felt extraordinarily small in the shadows of the Alps. Especially young in a place so old.
“What do we do now, Hale?” Kat didn’t want to cry. She willed her voice not to crack. “What do we do now?”
“Uncle Eddie said not to do anything.” He placed his arm around her and steered her down the sidewalk. For a second, Kat felt that perhaps her legs had frozen; she’d forgotten how to move. “Do you trust Uncle Eddie?” he asked.
“Of course. He’d do anything for me.”
Hale stopped. His breath was a foggy, fine mist. “What would he do for your dad ?”
Sometimes it takes an outsider, someone with fresh eyes to see the truth. Standing there, Kat knew that was the question she should have been asking all along. She thought of Uncle Eddie’s order and Arturo Taccone’s cold eyes.
Arturo Taccone wasn’t going to get his paintings back.
Arturo Taccone was never going to see his paintings again.
She brought the cocoa to her lips, but it was too hot. She stared into the swirls of chocolate as the snow fell into her cup, and, in her mind, the video kept playing.
“We’re crazy,” Hale said, shivering without his coat. He took her arm, tried to lead her into the shelter of a nearby café. But Kat stood staring at the snow as fat flakes melted into her steaming cocoa. Suddenly, she remembered a red door. She recalled playing among stacks of books and sitting quietly on her mother’s lap.
“What is it?” Hale asked, stepping closer.
Kat closed her eyes and tried to pretend she was back at Colgan, taking a test. The answer was in a book she’d read, a lecture she’d heard—all she had to do was go into the vault of her mind and steal the truth that lay inside.
“Kat.” Hale tried to break through her concentration. “I said—”
“Why doesn’t Taccone go to the police?” she blurted.
Hale held his hands out as if the answer should be obvious. And it was. “He doesn’t like the police. And he doesn’t want them getting their nasty fingerprints all over his pretty pictures.”
“But what if it’s more than that?” she prompted. “Why keep them hidden under the moat? Why not have them insured? What if . . .”
“They aren’t really his?”
Around them, shops were closing for the night. She looked at the darkened windows, still looking for the red door that was hundreds of miles away.
“Kat—”
“Warsaw.” Church bells began to chime. “We need to go to Warsaw.”