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"We don’t need a computer, Simon," Kat said "We just need them"

To any casual observer, she was probably pointing at the herd of schoolchildren that alking down the promenade and toward the ered at the far end of the hall, and the Bagshaere walking in her direction, a tall, steaus’s hands

"Attention Henley guests," a woman’s voice announced over the loudspeakers, "we have reached our close of business Please make your way to the doors, and reain at nine a the Henley, and have a lovely evening"

The schoolchildren walked a little faster The docents gestured the croard the doors And, quietly, Kat said, "Now"

Though the ement of the Henley would never say so aloud, no one was really certain what had happened that afternoon Of the two dozen school groups that had been scheduled to visit, not a single teacher seeot the iteh the Henley’s halls A staffer had handed theone wrong, others assumed

But the truth reh the Henley at the close of business on that particular day, approxi helium-filled balloons in a variety of colors The other half had ss, the kind depicted in a sculpture by a neiss artist of much acclaim

And absolutely no one knew exactly hohy the doors at either end of the long hallway opened at the sah the Henley

The san to spin Wild splashes of color and flashes of light filled the corridor Balloons flew free of their owners’ hands, blinding the cahts overhead The noise lass, because the sensors in the control roohly expert surveillance videos, could see nothing beyond the glare

They didn’t even notice when a very tall, very hot cup of coffee went flying over the velvet ropes and landed on the leather-covered desktop that had once belonged to the Hale family’s London estate

And when the chaos finally ended, all that remained were broken balloons and a stained desk, and the security experts who agreed that things could have been far, far worse

Workmen appeared

Dollies were ordered

But no one noticed that the desk was heavier than it had been when they’d moved it onto the exhibit floor only a few days before

They never even looked in the sh co for dear life

Chapter 16

Kat was beginning to think that Si blind But true to her name, her eyes adjusted to the black as she stayed perfectly still in her hiding spot beneath the desk

If Nick and his blueprints were accurate, there was one room where there were no cameras In the center of the basement, with no exterior access of any kind, there was one place where no guards would ever have to patrol So Kat stayed hidden, and when the desk stopped , she listened as the sound of work boots on concrete faded in the distance And once certain she was alone, she dropped to the floor, rolled out from under the desk, and surveyed the dim and empty room

There were tall shelves with jars of varnish and paint in every shade, long tables lined with tools and brushes It was a place where meticulous people didi the works in progress There was a pair of portraits by Matisse, a sculpture by Rodin The piece of DNA she shared with Uncle Eddie tugged at her, and her ies and all the ways that one ht carry a twelve-hundred-pound Greek relic out of the fifth- in Britain But then the beaht shone across the ornate desk, and Kat knehat she had to do

There, without the velvet rope, Kat was free to feel the intricate carvings She ran her fingers over acorns and trees, bows and arrows Kat examined every inch It was exquisite But there was one part that see On each of the desk’s four corners there were s, like needles of a co direction

"Well, hello there," Kat said "What do you do?"

As soon as Kat turned the arrow, she heard the tiniest of clicks

"I got it," she whispered "Did I get it?" she asked, then looked to see a narrow piece of the baseboard that had popped free from the rest of the desk She sank to her knees and shined her light inside, stuck a hand into the dusty space until she felt a single piece of paper

But wait It wasn’t paper Not really Kat held it against the light It was carbon paper, black with faint white letters--the kind offices used to make duplicates of important documents in the days before computers and even copy machines The carbon had probably been in the desk for years And it was only one page--

"It’s not here," Kat said, defeated She crumbled the carbon and put it into her pocket

"Wait, Kat" Simon’s voice was in her ear "Petrovich didn’t put just one compartment in his pieces There would be two or three at least Keep on looking"

"It’s okay, Kat," Nick said "You have all the time you need"

So Kat went back to work She opened drawers and felt inside shelves She ran her delicate fingers beneath the lip of the desktop and along all four legs There was a nick on the top right-hand corner, but it was just a flaw, Kat realized--not a clue

She had all night, Kat had to re, she could slip outside and into the crowds that filled the Henley All she had to do was think and feel and see