Perfect Scoundrels

“I don’t miss those sweaters,” she said, remembering the way the wool itched against her skin during the three months that she had run from her world to Hale’s.

Hale took the photo from her, placed it facedown on the desk. “I don’t miss anything from Colgan. Now, if you don’t mind, I have a small window and a lot to do.”

“What, Hale? What are you going to…” But Kat trailed off when she saw what had been in the backpack. Cable and harnesses, a small device used to open windows. Kat’s heart began to race.

“Hale, when you said you had work to do, did you mean your kind of work or our kind of work?”

“What’s the matter, Kat?” Hale ran the cable through its harness and secured the other end to a load-bearing beam in the corner of the room. “Don’t you like being out of the loop? I know I did.”

“Hale, don’t—”

“Look at this place, Kat. Look at it!” He reached for a file drawer, threw it open. “Empty,” he snapped and moved on to the next one, which was just as hollow. “Nothing. I’m the CEO without any files, the grandson without a clue, and the boyfriend without the whole story.”

He moved around the desk until there was nothing between the two of them but secrets and disappointment, and Kat was tired of their weight.

“No one tells me anything. Remember? I’m the guy everyone keeps out of the loop.”

“That’s not fair, Hale,” Kat said. “I tried to talk to you about the will.”

“When? When did you try?” Hale shouted in frustration. “For crying out loud, Kat. This is my family.”

“Exactly!” Kat said. “It is your family. And that changes everything. You lose perspective and…you can’t think straight. When it’s personal, Hale, it’s dangerous. Trust me.”

Kat didn’t know what he was doing, she just knew she had to stop him. Or help him. She couldn’t let him go alone, even when he opened the office window and climbed onto the ledge. Sloping steel descended beneath him like an icy cliff.

Then Hale hooked the harness around his waist and said, “Look, Kat, you can leave. Or you can help. It makes no difference to me.”

And then he spread out his arms. And jumped.

Chapter 22

“Whose office is this?” Kat asked the moment she was inside.

“Guess,” Hale said, but she didn’t really have to. There was a photo of Garrett and Natalie on the corner of the desk, but even without it, Kat would have known.

“Hale, I don’t think this is a good idea.”

“Really? Because I think it’s my only idea,” he snapped, then softened. “You’re right, okay? I’ll say it. Something is wrong. Now, let’s find out what.”

“Then why don’t we come back later—get Simon and Gabrielle and… Hale, let’s just think about this.”

“I’m through thinking, Kat. Garrett is at the launch for now. So the way I see it, we’ve got fifteen—maybe twenty minutes to do this. You can help, or—”

“What do you want me to do?”

The to-do list was simple enough. They’d spent enough time with Simon to know how to bypass the man’s password and access his computer. They could plant their video cameras in the heating vents, and after a few minutes with the phone system, they would be able to overhear every call he made or received on the company line. The fax number could be cloned and the Internet piggybacked. It all should have been easy enough, but Kat could feel Hale’s presence, hear his breath. He was still the boy who had stormed off in London, and even in that tiny office, it was like there was an ocean between them.

Hale neither moved nor spoke for a long time, until finally he asked, “What does he want?”

Kat took a fresh look at the room around her. It was far smaller than she would have expected. The desk. The shelves. Even the view seemed less impressive than the one just a story above.

“He’s not decorating like a man who wants to be top dog,” Kat said.

“No.” Hale reached for the painting behind the desk, slid it aside to reveal the wall-mounted safe hidden behind it. “He’s decorating like a man with things to hide.”

Three minutes later, Kat was still working on the lock.

“Come on, Kat,” Hale said. “Can you get it, or—”

“Got it,” Kat said, standing back and letting the safe door swing open. She reached into the safe and pulled out a stack of accordion-style folders.

“Bingo.” She tossed the folders onto the desk. “Oh, Garrett, you have been a bad, bad boy.”

“Not him,” Hale said, staring into a folder. “Us.”

Kat couldn’t help herself. She reached gingerly for another one, saw the name Elizabeth written on it in big black letters.

“What is it?” she asked.

“There’s a folder here for every member of Hazel’s family,” Hale said. He reached into one, pulled out a black-and-white photograph, and tilted his head. “That’s my uncle Joe,” Hale said. “And that is not my aunt Olivia.”

Kat picked up the folder labeled Senior. “What are these, bank records?” She did a double take, looking at Hale. “Did your dad really pay two million dollars to the campaign to elect Ross Perot?”

“I…” Hale said, stumbling for words and thumbing through another file. “Wow. Well, I guess my cousin Charlotte isn’t actually my cousin.”

“Don’t worry,” Kat said. “It looks like there might be a kid in Queens who is.”

“Do I want to know why Garrett has a news clipping from a hit-and-run on New Year’s Eve 2001?” Hale asked a moment later.

“I don’t get it,” Kat said. “How does he know all this? Some of these go back decades.”

“His dad,” Hale said softly. “Cleaning up Hale family messes has been the Garrett family business for fifty years. He knows everything.”

When Kat finally reached the bottom of the stack, she stood for a long time, staring at the final folder, the one labeled Scooter.

“Well, let’s see what skeletons I have in my closet,” Hale said, and Kat prepared herself for anything. Nothing at all would have surprised her except for the sight of Hale holding the file upside down. “Empty.”

It shouldn’t have scared her, but it did. Not that Hale had a file, but that Garrett had seen fit to empty it at some point in time. And as Kat replaced the files in the safe and tidied up the desk, she couldn’t help but wonder what other secrets might lie out there, waiting like a trap that was set to spring.

“You know what this means, Hale,” Kat warned as she took one last look around the office to make sure their tracks were clean. “You know we have to be careful.”

“I don’t want to be careful.”

“There!” Kat snapped. “That’s why I didn’t tell you what was going on. That’s—”

But a voice came seeping through the door, cutting Kat off, saying, “Hello, Mr. Garrett.”

The small light on the panel next to the door flashed green. The door began to open. And Kat knew that they had been caught.

“Oh, Mr. Garrett,” said another voice from outside, and the door stopped. “We need to talk about the launch.”

Kat glanced around the room. Paneling hid a pocket door and, behind that, a tiny closet.

“In here,” she said, pulling open the closet door and pushing Hale inside. They stood squeezed together, but there wasn’t room to shift, much less slip away.

“What can I do for you, Foster?” Garrett asked.

It’s Silas, Kat realized, but she couldn’t move or think or breathe. The office door opened, and there was the sound of footsteps entering.

“The gala is next week.…”

“I know,” Garrett said.

“I came to ask you…to beg you…to put it off.”

Garrett laughed. “Why would we do that?”

There was a long pause. Kat could imagine the look on Silas’s face as he said, “Well, Mr. Garrett, we’re supposed to unveil Genesis to the public that night. And the prototype didn’t work.”

“No, Silas,” Garrett said. “It didn’t. But if we delay, Hale Industries’ stock will drop another twenty points.”

“Show up with a faulty prototype and twenty points will be a drop in the bucket. If we just push the gala back a few months or—”

“Months? Are you insane? This launch has been in the works since before Mrs. Hale passed, and in Mrs. Hale’s honor, we will—”

“Don’t do this.” Silas’s voice was hard. “Don’t pretend you’re doing this for Hazel. Give me time to fix the prototype. Give me time to make this right.”

“You’ve had time. You’ve had years. And now we have to go on as planned.”

“Listen to me!” There was a loud slap, as if Silas had banged his hand against the desk. “Something is wrong. I’m begging you. Give us time to fix it.”

“The prototype looks fine, Silas,” Garrett said. “It will be fine.”

“Hazel never would have done this.” There was a new edge to Silas’s voice. “She never would have compromised the future of this company out of pride.”

“Yes. But, unfortunately, Hazel is dead.” Kat could have sworn she felt Hale’s heart beat faster. “Now, you do have a point,” Garrett went on. “The prototype doesn’t work, and that does have to change things.”

“Of course it does,” Silas said.

“So I think I should probably let the man responsible go.”

“Excuse me?”

“Clean out your desk, Silas. It’s time for you to retire.”

“The board—”

“The board acts in an advisory capacity. And given what they’ve just seen, I’m certain they would advise me to show you the door. So there it is.”

“If you want to fire me, Mr. Garrett, I suppose I can’t stop you, but this is a mistake.”

“You’re right about one thing. You can’t stop me.”

A door slammed, and a moment later, Kat heard Garrett say, “Louise?”

“Yes, Mr. Garrett?” The assistant’s voice boomed through the office on speakerphone.

“Please let Human Resources know that Mr. Foster is no longer with Hale Industries. And call security. Tell them to be on the lookout. We don’t need any uninvited guests walking around.”

Kat tensed.

“Very well,” the woman said. “I have some forms that need your signature. Shall I bring them in?”

“No. I’ll come out there.”

The door opened and closed, and for a few seconds they were alone. Hale’s breath was warm on Kat’s skin. She could feel the rise and fall of his chest, and she wanted to kiss him, hold him, breathe him in. She wanted to go back to Argentina. For a split second, he looked down at her, and she knew he was feeling that way too. Anger and grief pounded together. There were too many emotions for such a small space, and the result was electric.