“You’re a good thief, Bobby. But you’re a bad person.”
For a moment, Kat watched the words wash over her father. But then he shook his head slowly. “That hurts.” He cut his eyes in Kat’s direction. “He’s a cruel, cruel boy, sweetheart. Are you sure you can’t do better? I personally think you could do better.”
But Hale wasn’t in the mood to tease. Not to taunt or to joke or to even banter. Hale had traveled to the far side of the world for one reason and one reason only.
“You’re going to give us the egg, Bobby. And then you’re going to get very lost for a very long time.”
Bobby took a step away. Kat could feel him shifting, leaving.
She looked back at Hale, wanting to say something. But there was no con she could run, no lie she could tell to make either of them forget this.
“Or else?” Bobby asked.
“You’re not the only bad person I know.”
For a second, a look flashed across Bobby’s face. Something that wasn’t quite pride and not quite regret. It was like he couldn’t tell whether or not to be proud to call W. W. Hale V his protégé in that moment.
“I think that was a threat,” he said to Kat who wanted to roll her eyes.
“Will you two stop it?”
“We’re at the Imperial Hotel,” Hale said. “You can bring the egg to suite—”
“You’re in suite 792, yeah,” Bobby said, but Hale didn’t pause to be impressed or wonder about Bobby’s seemingly omniscient font of knowledge.
“You’re going to bring the egg there tonight, and I’m not going to see you for a while,” Hale finished, and Kat heard a touch of sadness in his voice, but she knew better than to argue. The line was in the sand now, and neither of the two most important men in her life was the type to cross it. So she just stood there, one foot firmly planted on either side.
Then Hale turned.
He started to walk away.
“Kat,” he called back to her, “are you coming?”
But he didn’t wait to hear her response. It seemed too easy for Hale to turn his back on her and her father and slip on his dark glasses.
The sun was bright overhead and Hale walked through the specks of light that filtered through the trees, a motley collage of color, like the boy himself. Neither sunny nor shady, but constantly in between.
“It was a fake!” Bobby yelled at last and Hale’s steps finally faltered.
For a moment, Kat feared he wouldn’t stop, wouldn’t turn. And when he finally did, there was no way to read the gaze that lived behind his dark glasses.
“Stop trying to con—”
But then an object went hurtling through the air. It took Kat a moment to notice the messenger bag that Bobby had slung across his body, and a moment more for her to register the movement of his arm as he flung something straight at Hale, who, instinctively, reached up to catch it.
For a few seconds, everyone stood silent, staring. Kat’s heart began to pound and even Hale seemed at a loss for words as he looked down at the small, brightly colored item in his hands. It caught the bits of sunlight, but didn’t shine. Didn’t glow.
Still, Kat couldn’t help but shout, “Dad, are you crazy?”
Hale still held the egg as if afraid to grip it too tightly, afraid he might crush it in his too-strong hands.
“You’re a lunatic,” Hale said. He looked at Kat like maybe it might be genetic.
But Bobby threw up his hands.
“It’s a fake!” He sounded like maybe he was ashamed of both of them, like maybe he had failed as a father and a mentor after all.
“Dad, you can’t—”
“He’s right,” Hale said, cutting her off. He held the egg to the stray bits of sunlight and studied the gems that weren’t quite as brilliant as they should be.
He looked up at Bobby, his anger suddenly gone.
“Uncle Charlie?” he asked, and Bobby laughed once, then grew deadly serious.
“I’m going to do you a favor and never tell Charlie you confused that with any forgery he’d make.”
Kat was being drawn toward the egg like a magnet. Like a mystery.
It was a decent fake, but by no means a masterpiece. Someone like Elizabeth Evans would have never been the wiser, but anyone from their world should have known it in a heartbeat.
“Did the earl think he had a real Fabergé?” she had to ask.
“I don’t know what the earl thought,” Bobby said in the manner of someone who’d had some time to consider it. “Or the earl’s people. All I know is that last week I got a call from an old friend saying that one of the Eggs of the Magi would be easy pickings. There was a picture.”
Hale grew bitter again. “And you just couldn’t resist.”
“No,” Bobby bit back. “I could resist. But what I couldn’t do was figure out why someone was begging me to steal that. Even in the picture it was an obvious forgery. Then I found out it was one of your charities that was putting it up for auction, and I knew I couldn’t let them try to pass that thing off as the real egg.”
“So you stole it,” Hale said.
“Yes. I stole it.”
“You couldn’t give me a call. I could have told Ms. Evans…”
“Listen, kid.” Bobby took a step forward. “Your family’s charity is auctioning this thing and I get the call? I don’t trust that. And neither would you if you’d been around as long as I have. So, yes, I stole it.” He looked guilty as he glanced at Kat, then shrugged and admitted, “Besides, if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.”