Free Uncommon Criminals by Ally Carter

covered with dust and cobwebs, but it was uncracked and unharmed.
    And, of course, completely fake.
    * * *
    There was a lot that the people of the Kelly Corporation would never know about the Cleopatra Emerald. Like how it had truly come to Oliver Kelly so many years ago. Most likely, very few could comprehend the humiliation and pain that it had brought to the thieves of the world ever since.
    And on the day of the Cleopatra’s grand public return, no one would ever know about its very private exit through a dirty air vent, via a very thin cable and a dark-haired girl who kept the stone clutched tightly in her small hand, as she rose steadily toward the roof and the light.

CHAPTER 12
    T here are several lessons every thief learns early on. Or dies.
    Never turn your back on an angry guard dog (no matter how nice he seemed on your scouting trip). Don’t leave home without a spare set of batteries (regardless of the guarantee you got from the guy at the store). And never, ever get attached to anything more valuable than you are.
    Katarina Bishop was an excellent thief, and she had learned these lessons well, but riding through Midtown Manhattan in the back of a long black limousine, she couldn’t stop thinking that the people who had made that last rule had never touched the Cleopatra Emerald.
    “Do you want to hold it?” she asked, dangling the padded envelope in front of Hale with two fingers.
    “No.”
    “Do you want to touch it and kiss it and wear it around your neck?”
    “Don’t be silly,” he told her. “Everyone knows green isn’t my color.”
    Gabrielle had been right, Kat realized. There is a rush—a thrill—that comes after a hard job, and Kat couldn’t help herself. She’d held that green stone with her bare hands, and now she was drunk on adrenaline, high on life.
    “You”—she scooted close—“were fabulous.” She placed her head on Hale’s chest and stared into the distance. “I see great potential in you…Wyatt?” He should have laughed; he should have teased, and when he didn’t, she bolted upright. “Is that it? Is your name Wyatt?”
    He gripped her arms and held her there, staring into her eyes as he said, “No.”
    Then Kat laughed and tossed back her head. “We did it, Hale.”
    Suddenly, she couldn’t stay still. She wanted to stick her head out of the sunroof and scream, roll down the center divider and tell Marcus to drive and drive and drive—she didn’t care where. They could go anywhere—do anything—and for the first time in a long time, Katarina Bishop stopped thinking. And maybe that was why she found herself climbing onto her knees.
    “We. Did. It!” she screamed, and when the car jolted to a stop, Kat didn’t care that she was falling, landing across Hale’s lap. She didn’t think twice about the way her arms fell around his neck. When her lips found his, she didn’t pull back, she just pressed against him, sinking into the kiss and the moment until…
    The high was over. Kat jerked back, two thoughts pounding in her mind, screaming, I kissed Hale .
    But it was the second thought that made her panic: Hale didn’t kiss me back .
    “Sorry. I…” She sat up straight, and when she moved, she kicked something on the floorboard, looked down, and saw the bag that sat at his feet.
    “What’s that?”
    “Paraguay.”
    She felt her heart sink. It was harder than it should have been to say, “It’s smaller than I thought it would be.”
    She waited for Hale to laugh and tell her that it wasn’t a very good joke. She wanted him to do anything but reach for the bag and pull it easily onto the seat beside him.
    “Eddie says they need all the help they can get. I’m gonna head down there now that we’re finished.” He stopped. He didn’t look at her when he asked, “ Are we finished?”
    Kat knew there was more to the question—that there was something else she was supposed to say. But Kat had always been good at telling lies. The truth, she realized,