7 Days Until Deadline

London, England

The first thing Hale did after landing in London was take a nice, long, hot shower.

The second thing he did was order four first-class plane tickets with the starting locations of Miami, Paris, and Ulaan Baatar (Hale idly wondered what awful chaos Bagshaw brothers were creating in Ulaan Baatar, but decided he didn't really want to know). The final destination for all four tickets was the same: London.

Then he and Kat set off for the Henley. It was smaller than he expected, but he wouldn't know if it lived up to its name of being a world-class art museum. He and Kat were there for one exhibition only.

"He was here," Kat said when they finally made it inside. Hale wondered if he detected a bit of veneration in her voice.

"Yeah, except he didn't take anything."

"He was there." She pointed to the five paintings that hung along the gallery's far wall. Two days before, Visily Romani had left his card tucked inside the frame of the center painting.

"Why break in and not take anything?"

"Why break in and leave something?"

Kat closed her eyes. Hale knew she was putting herself in the Visily Romani's shoes, searching for answers to their questions.

Hale's mind drifted off. While Kat was trying to piece together Visily Romani's mind, Hale was still struggling to figure out Kat.

There had been a time when he thought he knew her—but then she slipped off to Colgan, leaving him wondering whether he knew Kat Bishop at all. She was a thief, Uncle Eddie's niece—but when Hale replayed the conversation between Kat and Abiram Stein, he saw a deeper part of her. The Colgan con wasn't just a con. It wasn't just an act of rebellion against her family.

Just as something clicked in Hale's mind, it seemed like Kat had made a revelation too. Her voice rang clear in his mind, scattering his thoughts. "What if that card wasn't all he left?"

Hale started. "What?" He refocused on the mission at hand. One thief mastermind. Five stolen paintings. He stared at the gallery wall. Five remaining paintings. One clever fifteen-year-old girl AKA criminal mastermind.

"No," Hale breathed. He stared at the paintings, and then Kat. "Why would someone break into the Henley to leave five priceless paintings…behind five different paintings?"

It wasn't the who anymore. It wasn't the what, when, or even the where. It was the why. Why was Visily Romani doing this? What was his plan? "Why would someone do that?"

Kat looked like she was tired of always being one step behind. "I don't know, Hale."

"But why would—"

"I…I don't know." Kat's face was hard. She suddenly turned, leaving the exhibit hall and starting down the Henley's grand promenade.

"Somebody's playing games," she hissed when Hale finally caught up to her. Her voice grew higher, louder. "Somebody's having fun! And he doesn't care that other people are going to get hurt because of it."

Hale placed his arm around her shoulder, moving her so that she faced him. Her eyes were shining with angry, unshed tears. Suddenly he knew why Kat had wanted to leave the family business behind. She had foreseen this, had sensed that there was a world apart from the funny costumes and exciting adventures, where there were real consequences and unscrupulous characters and shady dealings. My parents' world, Hale thought bitterly. Taccone's world. The world I had tried to escape from.

And the one Kat had tried to leave too.

"I know," he tells Kat in a low voice. "But maybe it's a good thing."

"Maybe it's what? Taccone's after my dad, Hale. Taccone—"

"Maybe it means we've found them. And if they can be found…"

Kat blinked. This time, her eyes shined with a different kind of light. "They can be stolen."


"This is nuts. Stealing from this Visily Romani guy—whoever he is—that's one thing. But stealing"—Kat stopped, glanced at the back of Marcus's head, and lowered her voice—"from the Henley?"

When the car stopped, Kat and Hale got out. "I mean, even if we did," Kat continued, "it's the Henley."

"Yeah."

"No one has ever stolen a painting from the Henley."

"Yeah." Hale hid his smirk. Kat had been quiet during the entire car ride, probably trying to think of other options. But she didn't seem to have had any luck, judging from how she was trying to talk him (and herself) out of his idea of robbing the Henley.

"We'd be stealing five."

"Well, technically, we'd be re-stealing them," Hale corrected. "It's kind of like a double negative."

"Assuming we could do it, it'd take a big crew."

"Yeah, and no one really likes you."

The corners of Kat's mouth twitched. "We'd need gear—the good stuff. The really expensive stuff."

"Too bad I'm only good for my looks. And my better-than-average singing voice."

Kat rolled her eyes. "Seven days, Hale."

This time he had no response, no solution. But he saw the resigned look in Kat's eyes that admitted they had no other option.

"Mr. Stein—"

"Don't think about it," he cut her off.

"They aren't Taccone's paintings, Hale," Kat said quietly. And Hale knew that was the real reason behind her reluctance.

"First, we save your dad, Kat." He stared into her clear blue eyes, daring her to protest. "First, we rob the Henley." When she nodded silently, he put his arm around her and led her to his family's country house. Inside, he wondered why he wasn't as affected by the morality of what they were doing as Kat. Was it because he wasn't as good of a person? Or was it because like Abiram Stein, he had realized the line between right and wrong was blurred? Don't think about it, Hale advised himself like he had advised Kat. Focus on the mission.

"We're gonna need people," Kat was saying as Marcus opened the big double doors. "People we can trust."

Hale nodded, hiding a smile.


"I had a hunch," Hale said simply, helping himself to one of Marcus's famous finger sandwiches. The look on Kat's face had been priceless when she saw the Bagshaw brothers, Simon, and Gabrielle waiting for them in the library.

Hale sat back as Kat took the role of the leader and explained what they had been up to. He waited as she dropped the first three bombshells: 1) They would be doing this without Uncle Eddie's permission 2) They were up against Visily Romani 3)There was no compensation for finding the paintings.

Nevertheless, Hale was not surprised when all four declared they were in. And despite Kat's doubts, he would confidently bet all the money in his bank account that they would still stay after Kat dropped the final bombshell (they were robbing the Henley).

Really, Hale just wished they could start already.


I know, this is a short chapter. And it's centered around morality, which is always a sappy topic. But Ally Carter never tells us directly why Kat left her family for the Colgan School, and I wanted to write a bit about it.