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She set off in the direction he’d been going, and was about to call his name, when, on instinct, she stopped and turned around There, in the center of the square, she saw hiuide as lecturing at the fountain’s edge

Her father didn’t seeh the hordes of tourists and scavenging pigeons There were no hugs or cries of hello when she stepped up beside him

"I hope that’s for aze never left the roup in rapid Russian

Kat didn’t knohether to feel annoyed or i date, and he’d been expecting her all along

She handed him his coffee, watched hiloves?" she asked

He smiled and sipped "Not on my day off"

Thieves aren’t supposed to want too much--which is ironic, but true Never live anyplace you can’t walk away fro you can’t leave behind These were the laws of Kat’s life--of Kat’s world As she watched her father sip hot coffee and sneak smiles at her over the top of the cup, she knew that, strictly speaking, no thief is ever supposed to love anything as much as she loved him

"Hi, Daddy"

Nearby, church bells started to ring Pigeons scattered And her father glanced at her froan School is good, honey, but Paris see way to come for a field trip"

"Yeah, I know, but it’s fall break" Kat didn’t want to knohy lying to her father was far easier than telling her head"

Another sip Another smile But this time he didn’t meet her eyes "You wanted to see if the rumors were true," he said, and Kat felt her face burn in the cold wind "So, who told?" her father asked "Uncle Eddie? Hale?" He shook his head and spoke through gritted teeth "I’onna kill that kid"

"It wasn’t his fault"

"Like Barcelona wasn’t his fault?"

"Yeah, well" Kat heard herself repeating Hale’s words: "We all agreed that that monkey seemed perfectly well trained at the time"

Her father scoffed

"Dad--"

"Sweetheart, would you believe me if I said I didn’t pull any jobs in Italy last week?" The bells stopped, and the guide resulanced around the square and lowered his voice "If I said I had an airtight alibi?"

"You have an alibi?" Kat asked "You swear?"

Her father’s eyes glowed "On a Gutenberg Bible"

"You can prove it?"

"Well," he hesitated "It’s a little more complicated than" But then he trailed off and the crowd shifted, revealing a newsstand--headlines calling out in black and white: Nouveaux Pistes Dans le Vol de Galerie: La Police Dit Que les Arrestations Sont en Vue

"Dad," Kat said slowly, "you don’t happen to know anything about that gallery that was robbed last week, do you?" His smile was part pride, part le word "So you didn’t do a big job in Italy last week because on the night in question you were doing a little job in Paris?"

He blew on the steaood alibi" He took a small sip "Of course the asn’t quite up to my usual standards--you know my best assistant left erated breath "Good help is so hard to find"

One of the Russian ladies hissed, warning them to be quiet, and Kat started to feel claustrophobic She wanted someplace private She wanted someplace she could yell Then suddenly Kat found herself wondering

"Dad, if the job was last week, why are you still in Paris?"

As he paused mid-sip, Kat couldn’t help but think that the thief had been caught, busted The father, on the other hand, just seeirl

"Sweetie, let’s just say possession is nine tenths of the law, so right now I’ht like to be"

"Dad" She stared up at her father, not quite sure she wanted to know the answer to her next question: "Where’d you stash them?"

"It," he corrected, "is someplace safe"

"Someplace lonely?"

"No" Her father chuckled "Unfortunately, at the moment, it has plenty of friends"

He continued to s around the square made Kat worry