“No.”
“He’s from the Baroque era,” the guy added.
“Okay, I’m not an art major, I’m freezing my ass off, and you’re speaking a foreign language,” I said. “Please get on with it and tell me what painting to look for.”
The guy searched for something on his phone and showed it to me. It was a painting of people around a baby who lay on the ground. It was titled Nativity with St. Francis and St. Lawrence.
“What do I do once I have it?”
“Pray you survive long enough to get it to us,” Logan said.
My eyes widened on his, his tone dead serious. I wiped my forehead, unsure if it was the water dripping from my hair or sweat forming.
“Just so I know what the stakes are here—who am I stealing this from and why is this painting so important?”
“The red cloaks,” Nolan said. “Don’t worry, they’ve stolen shit from us in the past. At this point, it’s a game we play. Think of them as the stepchild we don’t want but have to keep around.”
“It’s important because it was painted in sixteen hundred and after being in Sicily for that long, it suddenly vanished. Poof. They say the Sicilian Mob carried out the theft. We know for a fact it’s hidden in the tower,” the third guy said.
“If it’s there, how has nobody noticed? They do tours in there all the time.”
“How do you think we know about it?” The guy said, raising an eyebrow. “The tour guide happens to be my girlfriend. I saw it when I was helping her clean the chimes before the tour one day.”
“So she knows it’s there?”
“I didn’t call attention to it when I was in there. That thing has to be worth at least fifty million.”
“Do I get a cut if I steal it?”
“We’d have to split it between all of us,” Nolan said. “But yeah, you’ll get a cut at the end of the year.”
“Meaning, us right here or the entire society?” I asked. “I’m assuming there’s some kind of alumni association that delegates where the money goes.”
“Good question.” Nolan raised an eyebrow. “And smart fucking girl.”
“Obviously.” My teeth were chattering. “Can we just go and get this over with? I’m going to catch a cold or worse.”
We walked out the front door. They went ahead, Logan idled behind them with me.
“I can’t believe walking around knives wasn’t enough for you idiots.”
“Believe it.”
I lifted my leg up and pointed to the cut I had over my ankle. The blood had already dried, but it still hurt.
“What’s left after this?”
Nolan piped up again. “After what you just did, and what you’ll do next, it’ll be easy. You fall back and let Fitz catch you.”
I blinked. “What are we, in church?”
“Basically.”
“God, this is so stupid.” I brought my hands to cover my face and dragged them down.
I probably looked like utter shit right now, wet hair and wet face. I’d just survived walking around sharp knives and the only thought running through my mind was thank God I’m not wearing mascara.
“Do we take turns? I catch him and he catches me and then we sing kumbaya?”
“You think you can catch me?” Logan’s lips twitched. Not a smile but close to it.
“Are you willing to fall back and let me try?”
“Sure, why not?” He eyed me up and down.
“You’re insane.”
“So I’ve heard.” His lips spread into a wolfish grin that set my insides ablaze. He turned his attention to the rest of the guys. “Amelia has a point. She gave us enough of her trust out there and if she’s willing to risk her life stealing that painting, I don’t think a fall backward is going to change that.”
“So, we skip it.” They all exchanged looks and shrugged. “Let’s go to the tower and call it a night. We’ll link up at The Lab tomorrow for the initiation.”
I froze at his words. The Lab. That was what my brother told me with his Morse code. He wanted me to find these people. For what though? I looked at the three of them. They were my brother’s friends, his brothers at one point, before whatever happened had ruined it, yet they all went to his mass. They all went to show respect. I pushed the thought aside for now. I had another mission to get through today, and that was exactly how I was thinking about them—as missions, like in a Mission Impossible movie or 007. The tower was right by us. Thankfully, the rain stopped completely. Not that it did anything to help with the cold. If I didn’t die trying to steal this thing, I would die from hypothermia. All for $50,000 and loyalty I wasn’t even sure I wanted. I did want to find out the truth about what happened to my brother though, and Lana, if they even knew that much. What if they didn’t know anything at all and this was all a ploy? I closed my eyes briefly, please don’t let this be a ploy.
“The lights are off, that means they’re not there,” Nolan said.
“Good,” the other guy said.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Marcus.”
“Marcus.” I nodded. “I like to know who’s fault it’s going to be when I die.”
They laughed. I didn’t.
“You’ll go up the winding stairs where the organ is. You’ll see a small door in front of it, it’s so small, you can miss it, so pay attention and use your flashlight. In there, you’ll see the painting. Roll it up and bring it out.”
The adrenaline must have still been coursing through me because none of this seemed difficult and I was still one-hundred-percent game for it. I’d go in there, go up the stairs, steal the painting, and get out. I could do this. Totally.
“How will I get in? Do you have a key?”
“Let me worry about that,” Logan said.
“You’re coming with me?”
“Everywhere you go, I go.”
I would’ve found it sexy, if he didn’t look like he wanted to rip my head off. I ignored it because I didn’t want to go in there by myself. Nolan held his finger up for us to wait and ran somewhere. When he came back, two seconds later, he threw each of us a big black T-shirt. I thanked him, put mine over my head, and slipped the wet one through one of the sleeves. Logan peeled his wet T-shirt off, tossed it at Marcus, and put the dry one over himself. The luxury of being a boy.
We made our way over to the tower, walking nonchalantly, as if we were just walking through campus.
“I can’t believe you lied to me about the secret society,” I said as we walked.
“I didn’t lie.”
“You didn’t say anything when you clearly knew that the flower and card I’d received was about this.”
“That doesn’t mean I lied.”
“Whatever. For the record, I think all of this is dumb. I’m only doing it because . . . ” I hesitated, peering up at him. He was busy looking around and didn’t seem like he was paying much attention to me at all.
“Because?” he asked, or rather said, in a stern tone.
“I want answers.” I shrugged.
“About Lincoln.”