Double Crossed(2)
“I seem to be at a disadvantage,” she told him.
“Don’t feel bad.” He grinned. “Most people are.”
“I mean…” she said pointedly, “what’s your name?”
“You’d be surprised how many times I get asked that question,” he said; then he looked at Macey anew. “My friends call me Hale.”
“Hale? As in…a Hale?” she asked, but he only smiled in response. “Why are you stealing cell phones? Doesn’t Hale Industries own a cell phone company?”
“Only a little one,” Hale said, exasperated, then added to himself, “Why are girls always getting that wrong?”
“How disappointing,” Macey said. “I was starting to think you were some high-society thief, determined to pilfer our pearls and steal our Rolexes. The party just got boring again.”
“I could be a thief.” He sounded almost insulted.
“The grandson of one of the wealthiest women in the world?” Macey asked. “Somehow I doubt it.”
“Would it make you feel any better if I told you that serial numbers make Rolexes almost impossible to fence? But pearls, on the other hand…” He leaned a little closer, studied her a little harder. But then, just that quickly, the sparkle faded. He seemed almost serious when he said, “I’m sorry if I’m not flirting with you. I’m kind of spoken for.”
“I’m sorry if I’m not disappointed. I kind of don’t care.”
“A year ago your father was running for vice president. That’s how I knew your name.”
“I was America’s sweetheart,” Macey said, a little too much saccharin in her voice.
He gave her a smile. “America could do worse.”
The music was louder than Macey remembered when she walked with Hale back to the ball. And for one brief moment, he looked like a code she really wanted to break, a language she couldn’t quite understand.
“I suppose I could try to pull some high-class heist,” he told her. “You know…just to spice up your evening.”
“Really? Well, I’m pretty sure Lady Darlington was wearing emerald earrings when she got here.”
The boy looked impressed. “Yes. But Her Ladyship put her earrings in her handbag ten minutes ago.” He shrugged. “Besides, I have a bad history with emeralds.”
“What about canaries?” Macey scanned the crowd and pointed to the one jewel that stood out from all the others as it dangled around the neck of the woman of the hour.
“The Calloway Canary? Oh, very tempting…” He looked longingly at the necklace that seemed to catch every bit of light in the room. “Twenty carats if the rumors are true. A perfect canary diamond surrounded by flawless white stones…Nope. Sorry.” Hale shook his head and pulled another shrimp from a passing tray. “Besides, it’s a fake,” he told her with his mouth full.
“No, it’s not,” Macey said. “I assure you, old lady Calloway is rich enough to buy any diamond she wants. There’s no reason for her to have a fake.”
“Oh, I’m sure the Calloway Canary is very real,” Hale told her. He grabbed another shrimp and pointed with it across the room. “I’m just saying that’s not it.”
Was he lying? Maybe. But then again, Macey realized, maybe not.
“So are you the Hale who was institutionalized or the one who burned down the planetarium at Colgan?”
The boy shrugged and smiled, looked at her with that thousand-watt grin. “Who says they can’t be one and the same?”
“Seriously.” Macey felt herself growing impatient. “Where do you go to school?”
“Knightsbury. Why? Where do you go?”
“It’s a girls’ school,” Macey told him.
“So? I know lots of girls.”
“Not like these,” Macey said with a shake of her head. “Why don’t I know you?”
“Does anyone ever really know someone else?”
“You think you’re cute,” she told him.
“You think you’re gorgeous. But I’m the one guy here who knows better.”
“So I’m not gorgeous?” Macey challenged.
“Of course you are.” He started away, turned back at the last minute. “But I’m the guy who figured out that’s not all you are.”
FROM THAT POINT FORWARD, W. W. Hale V knew two things for certain. First, the party was far more interesting than he’d been expecting. But the second (and more important) thing was that he should not talk to Macey again. Since the day a little over two years before when he had crawled out his window and out of his world, Hale had lived with the fear that someday someone in his old life might find out about his new one, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that Macey was very much up to the challenge.