“I haven’t been able to find out what he has exactly, but whatever it is, it’s acting fast.”
She touched the laptop and the picture changed to one of a much heavier, much healthier man. Kat would have assumed the photo was at least ten years old, but Gabrielle said, “This was taken last year.”
“Wow,” Hale said.
“Yeah.” Gabrielle leaned back in her chair and crossed one long leg over the other. “I can’t find anyone who knows what’s wrong. Or no one who will talk, at any rate. I was hoping to get into his medical records, but Simon’s busy.”
“He is?” Kat asked. “I was hoping we could get him. I think we’re going to need him.”
“We could try,” Gabrielle said, but he’s doing a—”
The sound of Bobby clearing his throat cut her off. He cut a warning glance in Agent Bennett’s direction.
Slowly, Gabrielle continued. “Semester at MIT,” she said and practically rolled her eyes at her uncle. She seemed insulted that Bobby wouldn’t trust her, but she finished anyway. “He has finals.”
Part of Kat wanted to laugh at the exchange. And a part of her wanted to cry with the knowledge that there are normal kids in the world who go to normal schools and do normal things like take finals. The kids in Kat’s family had the kinds of tests that come with potential prison sentences if you failed. She was proud of Simon for stealing just a little piece of normal for himself.
Agent Bennett, however, did not sound convinced. “Simon is sixteen years old.”
“Yes,” Kat said. “He’s a sixteen-year-old genius. Trust me. If Simon’s there, then the average IQ at MIT is up this semester.” She turned her attention back to Gabrielle. “What else?”
“Not much on the earl. We haven’t been able to hack any hospital records. Or, at least, we haven’t. If Interpol were to…”
“Interpol is not yet involved in this…operation,” Amelia Bennett said. “Which is why none of you are in handcuffs.”
“Oh, Agent Bennett, you say the sweetest things,” Bobby said, and Gabrielle talked on.
“The earl is sick. That’s the moral of the story. And he’s broke. And…” As Gabrielle stretched the moment out, Kat could tell that she was building to something: that this was her big scene. She looked around the group until, finally, her gaze came to rest on the charity’s director. “The Egg of the Magi is very heavily insured.”
Something clicked inside of Kat, like the final tumbler of a lock falling into place. Suddenly, the world made sense.
“Of course it is,” Hale said.
Only Elizabeth seemed to breathe easier with this know-ledge.
“Oh, thank goodness,” she said. She seemed ten years younger and a thousand pounds lighter, as if the weight of this terrible mistake had finally been taken from her shoulders. “Finally, some good news, I’d say. Now we just have to admit to the earl what happened and then…” She seemed to finally see the faces that were looking back at her, to feel that the temperature in the room was not changing for the better.
“What is it? What aren’t you telling me?”
Gabrielle shifted, then looked at Agent Bennett and cocked an eyebrow. “Do you want to take this one or should I?” Gabrielle asked, and Amelia Bennett nodded.
“Oh, by all means, continue. I’m learning so much.”
Gabrielle flashed her best smile at the Interpol agent, then turned to her friend.
“The insurance policy on the egg is solid,” Gabrielle said. “Old. The earl took it out almost forty years ago, right after he acquired the egg for Countess Number One—there have been four, by the way. Countesses. Not eggs. The policy is pretty typical. It covers the cost of the egg if it should be stolen or destroyed by an act of God—fire, accident, building collapse…I don’t know. The usuals. But here’s where it gets interesting. Back in the day, the earl used to loan the egg out a lot to museums, universities, that kind of stuff. And somehow he got someone to give him a policy that paid double if the egg were ever stolen or destroyed on someone else’s watch.”
Kat’s voice was cold. “Of course he did.”
Amelia looked at her friend. “Did the earl sign the egg over to the charity before you picked it up?”
“No.” Elizabeth seemed numb as she slowly shook her head. “There were complicated tax laws, but for some reason the earl’s man of business insisted that the egg stay in the earl’s name until the auction.”
Kat could feel Hale beside her, his anger beating and pounding like a pulse. But his voice was like ice when he said, “So if it’s stolen, the earl gets paid twice what the egg is worth and the Magi Miracle Network gets a bad rep and not a single dime.”
Gabrielle nodded slowly. “So long, bankrupt estate. Hello, big fat insurance check.”
But Elizabeth still seemed a little lost. “How big and fat?” she asked.
This time, Agent Bennett answered the question. “My sources say it will be something north of twenty-five million.”
“Pounds?” Elizabeth exclaimed. Her friend nodded.
“The good news, Ms. Evans, is I think we now know who wanted the egg to be stolen,” Kat said. “And we know why.”
But the woman was shaking her head. Kat knew that look, that reaction. It was like someone had just told her that magic was real, that vampires were everywhere, that a whole other world lived beneath the streets of London; Elizabeth Evans had just gone through the portal and the looking glass and she was never going to be the same again.