Perfect Scoundrels (Heist Society #3)(42)

“Does that mean there’s good news?” Silas asked.

“Sort of.” Kat drew a deep breath. “We know where they are. Garrett has a safety deposit box at the Superior Bank of Manhattan, and we’re pretty sure the prototype and plans are in there.”

Kat saw her uncle tense, but he didn’t speak. She could read his eyes: That is hardly good news.

“It is an extremely difficult target. No one has ever robbed it. Ever. And we can’t do a job like that in time for the launch. We may never be able to do it, and so that’s why, Silas, we need you working to duplicate the prototype. Can you do that?”

“I can try,” Silas said. “But without access to my lab and—”

“I’ll get you whatever you need,” Hale said.

“Good,” Kat told him. “Simon can help you try to recover the original schematics from the Hale Industries server.”

“That’s very nice,” Silas said with a smile. “But I’ve been working with that system since before he was born, and I haven’t—”

“I think you’ll find that Simon’s skill set is slightly more…specific,” Kat said.

“I steal things,” Simon told him.

Silas arched an eyebrow. “I see,” he said, then crossed his arms and grinned in the manner of a man who can’t wait to get to work.

“Great. So while Silas is trying to duplicate the prototype, we’ll try to retrieve the original.”

“Retrieve?” Marianne asked.

“Steal,” Gabrielle and the Bagshaws said in unison.

“Oh.” Marianne gave a sigh that said this day was getting more scandalous—and interesting—by the second.

“Now, forgive me for pointing out the obvious,” Silas shifted in his chair and leaned closer to Kat, “but retrieving the original isn’t going to do us any good after Garrett rolls out the fake at the gala two nights from now.”

“That’s why we’re going to disrupt the launch,” she said.

“You know,” Angus said, “I’ve got a little C-four that I’ve been saving for a rainy—”

“We’re not blowing up my company, Angus,” Hale said.

“Righto. Carry on, Kitty.”

“Like I was saying, we’re going to have to disrupt the launch, hopefully in a way that will keep it from being rescheduled any time soon. Also, we need to keep Garrett…distracted.”

The older generation sat looking at the younger, and Kat wondered exactly when and how the baton had been passed. She wanted to know if it was too late to give it back.

“And that’s why”—she took a deep breath—“we’re going to run a con. It hasn’t been done in a long time, but that’s okay, because we have the talent to pull it off.” She felt her hands shake, so she gripped one in the other. “Have you ever heard the story of the Grand Duchess Anastasia?”

“Well, of course,” Marcus said. “She was Russian royalty, killed in the uprising. Now, some people said that she had survived, but that was a conspiracy. A…”

“Con,” Hale filled in.

Silas was shaking his head. “But what does this have to do with—”

“Reginald.” Marianne’s voice was solid and sure. “It is because of Reginald, isn’t it? But…how? Who could possibly…” She let the words trail off, and Kat felt the room shift, all eyes turning to Uncle Eddie.

“No.” Eddie was starting toward the kitchen. “No,” he said again, once Kat had caught up to him. He was trying to act normal—like he wasn’t upset—but he went to his stove and began moving pots from burner to burner, and Kat thought that, for one of the world’s greatest bluffers, it was a shame for him to have such an obvious tell.

“You’re the only one who can do it, Uncle Eddie.”

“No, Katarina,” he said. “No man alive can do it.”

“We have to try. It doesn’t have to be the full Anastasia, just enough to delay a few days. All we need to do is keep Garrett too busy to prove that the Hales have a fake, and appease his buyer. We do that and then—”

“It cannot be done.” It was more proclamation than statement, the lord high grifter telling all who could hear that the Anastasia was dead.

“Yes, it can be. You can do it.”

“I could have,” he admitted. “Maybe. If it were thirty years ago and I were ten years younger. But the Anastasia is not an easy thing, Katarina. It is a dead con.”

“So no one will be expecting it.”

“I’m saying it is impossible!”

His fist banged against the counter. The pots shook. All Kat could think was that she had never heard her uncle yell before. Not at her. Not in that room. He was the sort of man for whom a whisper carried far more force than a shout.

Then he took a deep breath and steadied his nerves. “With science—DNA—it cannot succeed.”

“We don’t need it to succeed. We just need it to buy us a little time.”

“There is never going to be enough time to rob the Superior Bank of Manhattan.”

Kat knew he was right, but she didn’t dare say so. “So we’ll buy enough time to find some other way. You can do this, Uncle Eddie.” She eased closer, placed her hand on top of his. “Please.”