But Hale was Hale. Blue eyes. Big smile. And that very special kind of charisma that could make a person want to believe anything and everything he said.
“Please, Elizabeth,” Amelia’s voice seemed to break the tie inside of her friend. “I think we should hear them out.”
The director pulled away from Hale, shaking slightly, but she stayed in the room.
“The egg that you were given—the one my father stole—it was a fake. And someone wanted it stolen,” Kat said, but Elizabeth just looked doubtful.
“How obliging of you,” she told Bobby, who shrugged, and Elizabeth grew colder.
“How do we know he didn’t steal the real egg and exchange it for a fake?” she asked Amelia, who raised an eyebrow as if to say it was a very good question.
“Oh, Red. Don’t you trust me?” Bobby asked.
“No!” she shouted. “I don’t.” As if from instinct, she glanced at Hale.
“I don’t trust him either,” Hale said and Bobby eased into one of the chairs, pulled off a piece of Agent Bennett’s croissant and popped it into his mouth.
“He has reason not to trust me,” Bobby admitted.
The director’s face was almost as red as her hair. “Then I have reason to kill you.”
“It was a fake,” Kat moved to cut the woman off. “I’ve seen the pictures you were given. As soon as a real appraiser came in it would have been obvious. Someone wanted that egg stolen. And they wanted the job done before you knew what you had. Or, more specifically, what you didn’t have. That’s why someone called my father and told him where to find it. That’s why someone called one of the best thieves in the world.”
Something about that made the woman recoil and turn away. When she turned back, her face was ghostly white as if some terrible fact was sinking in.
“Someone has to notify the earl,” she said. “When we lost it—when I lost it—I told myself that the end result wouldn’t impact him: he gave the egg away. But now… If we never had the real egg, then… Someone has to notify the earl and figure out where the real egg is.” She turned to Amelia. “Do you think it was stolen in transit? Or maybe… What? What is it?”
Elizabeth Evans was a good person. An honest person. And Kat kind of envied her. She also kind of pitied her. Because she was the only one of them who still had any innocence left. Which meant she still had some left to lose.
“What?” Elizabeth said. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“You’re assuming the earl doesn’t already know exactly what you were given,” Hale said.
A shocked expression crossed her face. “No. You don’t think the Earl of Greymore, one of the peers of the realm, actually wanted to give a fake egg to charity?”
She looked from at the three hardened criminals, then at the woman who may or may not have been her friend.
“Amelia, do you think the earl intended to donate a forgery?”
Amelia had to shrug. “Right now, I’m afraid there is more that we don’t know than there is that we do. Perhaps the earl is simply mad or confused, as the rumors suggest. Perhaps he has been the victim of foul play himself; as you said, the egg could have been swapped in transit or at any time while in the earl’s custody. I highly doubt he would have had it authenticated after so many years in his possession. Or maybe it is all a colossal misunderstanding. But the fact remains: that is not a genuine Egg of the Magi.”
She gestured toward the egg that Hale had placed upon the table.
Elizabeth moved away, like it might be a viper, coiling and preparing to strike.
“So where is the real egg?” she asked after a moment.
Kat smiled.
“That’s exactly what we intend to find out.”
Surely Elizabeth Evans had come to expect the unexpected, but she still seemed mildly surprised when a curtain was pulled back and a very tall, very gorgeous teenage girl appeared in the back of the coffee shop, a laptop under one arm.
“Ms. Evans, please allow me to introduce my cousin, Gabrielle. She’s been doing some…research on this matter for us,” Kat said.
“What kind of research?” Elizabeth asked.
“The kind that says the earl is in debt.”
It seemed to take a moment for the words to sink in, but even then they didn’t make sense. Elizabeth shook her head. “That can’t be. The Earldom of Greymore is one of the oldest titles in the realm. It dates back to Henry the Eighth. It’s rumored the first earl was one of Henry’s illegitimate sons. The estate is massive. It’s… That can’t be.”
“Oh, the title is old,” Gabrielle told her. “And at one time it was prosperous, but the past three earls have had very good pedigrees and very bad sense. That’s led to a series of extremely bad investments and just outright mismanagement. Like a lot of men who had an empire handed to them, the current earl proved to be a financial moron,” Gabrielle said, then slid her gaze onto Hale. “No offense.”
Hale smirked. “None taken.”
“So, in short,” Gabrielle went on. “The estate is all-but-broke which is actually fine with the old earl because he’s dying anyway.”
“What’s wrong with him?” Kat asked.
When Gabrielle opened the laptop and turned it to the group they saw a picture of an old man with a cane across his lap, sitting in a wheelchair. A heavy plaid rested around his shoulders, and his face was gaunt, his color pallid.