Home > The Grift of the Magi (Heist Society #3.5)

The Grift of the Magi (Heist Society #3.5)
Author: Ally Carter

Two Weeks Before Christmas

Brooklyn, New York

When one is trying to break into the home of perhaps the world’s greatest thief, it’s always a good idea for one to be careful.

Katarina Bishop knew this. Just as she knew that her Uncle Eddie often grew tired of New York in December and had decided to relocate to Italy’s Amalfi Coast. Snow is for suckers, Uncle Eddie always said.

Of course, this was about the time that a long-lost Italian count was sighted near the town of Maiori and a priceless Cartier tiara was stolen from a yacht moored not far from Maiori’s rocky shore.

That was all that Kat needed to hear to know that her uncle was probably having too much fun to bother coming home for Christmas.

Back in Brooklyn, the wind was sharp and the streets were slick and Kat just really wished her Uncle Eddie believed in leaving a key under the mat instead of maintaining his strict stance that anyone who could not break into his Brooklyn brownstone had absolutely no business staying there without him.

“Is there a problem, Kitty Kat?” a voice said from over Kat’s shoulder. Kat’s fingers were frozen and her breath fogged, and she’d had a far too upbeat rendition of “White Christmas” stuck in her head on a perpetual loop for the past eight hours. So, yes, there was a problem. But Kat would never, ever admit it.

“I’m fine, Gabrielle,” she told her cousin.

“Really?” Gab asked. “Because if you can’t handle Uncle Eddie’s lock then someone is going to get a lump of coal in her stocking again this Christmas.”

“It wasn’t coal,” Kat shot back. “It was a very rare mineral from a condemned mine in South Africa, and it was a very thoughtful gift.”

Gabrielle made a sound best described as an audible shrug just as Kat heard a click and said, “We’re in.”

The lights were off and a chill filled the air. It was the closest thing to a home that the two girls had ever known, but as they crept inside, they felt like strangers. There was no fire in the fireplace, no smell of boiling cabbage coming from the kitchen, almost as if Uncle Eddie’s brownstone, like the man himself, had flown south for the winter.

Wordlessly, they moved down the long hall that ran from the front room to the beating heart of their world. But Uncle Eddie’s kitchen was dim. His oven was cold and…

Someone was sitting at the kitchen table.

“Hello, girls,” the woman said. “I’m glad you’re back.” At their shocked expressions, the woman cocked an eyebrow. “What’s the matter? Never come home to an Interpol agent in Uncle Eddie’s kitchen before?”

Gabrielle looked at Kat, a quick glance that seemed to say should we kill her? We could always kill her, but Kat was almost too dumbfounded to speak.

Because of all the things she had witnessed in that kitchen, from the sight of six Welsh Corgi puppies that Uncle Felix was ransoming to the queen to the time the Bagshaw brothers decided they could melt down the Crown Jewels of Austria in one of her uncle’s sturdier pots, the most unexpected sight was that of Amelia Bennett rising from Uncle Eddie’s kitchen table and walking to her uncle’s stove.

One of Uncle Eddie’s favorite Dutch ovens was simmering with a thick red sauce. Agent Bennett raised a wooden spoon to her lips and sipped.

“Needs salt,” she said and reached for a dish and a tiny spoon that Uncle Eddie kept on the counter.

“What are you doing here?” Gabrielle asked, flipping on the overhead lights.

“Cooking,” the woman said with a wry, don’t be silly kind of smile. She uncovered another pot, this one full of boiling water.

“But…”

Under normal circumstances, Kat might have relished the sight of her cousin speechless. These circumstances, however, were anything but normal.

So Kat had to ask, “Why are you cooking here?”

“Well, I considered waiting in total darkness, maybe with a harsh light behind me so that I would have been a mysterious silhouette when you came in, but I was hungry. And I thought you might be too.”

Her British accent was soft and cultured, and she might have easily been the host of a well-loved cooking show, making its US debut. But Kat knew better. She knew that Amelia Bennett was smart and hard working and had the fighting instincts of a pit bull. Once Interpol’s Agent Bennett got a hold of a case she would never, ever let it go.

The timer chose that moment to ding, and Kat realized that the stove had not been cold after all when Agent Bennett pulled a loaf of crusty French bread from Eddie’s ancient oven.

“I know at least twenty different people who might kill you and make it look like an accident for using Uncle Eddie’s stove without permission. That stove is pretty much sacred to three-quarters of the world’s best bad guys,” Gabrielle warned.

Agent Bennett smiled, but something about it gave Kat a very uneasy feeling.

“Get the dishes, Gabrielle,” Agent Bennett said, and in that moment Kat couldn’t help but remember that Amelia Bennett wasn’t just the smartest, hardest-working, and decidedly-most-female agent in the upper ranks of Interpol’s European sector. She was also a mother.

Suddenly, a new kind of worry filled Kat’s gut.

“Is Nick okay?” she blurted.

But Agent Bennett simply gestured to the table, and said, “Have a seat, girls. We should eat it while it’s hot.”

Kat watched the woman move around Uncle Eddie’s kitchen with an eerie, comfortable ease.

   
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