“But wouldn’t that be a favor from Kaskov?”

He wasn’t getting through to her, he thought in exasperation. “That shouldn’t count. I’m willing to bet that Kaskov needs to chalk up quite a few favors on the good side to balance against his murky past.”

“I see.” She nodded solemnly. “Then you think I should write a thank-you card to Kaskov for my piano?”

“Not until I manage to—” He stopped. “You’re joking. You set me up.” He added softly, “Where did that come from?”

She smiled faintly. “You were treating me as if I were a half-wit child. How could I resist?”

“Evidently you couldn’t. I didn’t expect a sense of humor.”

“But even when you were trying to be kind, you were still trying to control who I am and how I should behave.” She was gazing thoughtfully at him. “Maybe I shouldn’t blame you. Mallory didn’t try to control me, but he said something about Kaskov not letting either of you go into this blind. Which probably meant that Kaskov knew all about the Trials and told you about them.” She added wearily, “I didn’t think that he did, but I shouldn’t be surprised. Even though he didn’t visit my father’s or Volkov’s compounds very often, I could tell they were intimidated by him. Maybe they even let him into the gambling.” Her smile was suddenly reckless. “And perhaps the reason you showed up in that forest was that he had some twisted idea how he could cheat both of them and win the bet. You did kill Razov.”

“Yes, I did. But he wouldn’t have done that,” Tanner said firmly. “Kaskov’s not one of my favorite people, but I’d bet that wasn’t why he hired me to get you out of Russia.”

“You’d bet?” she repeated bitterly. “But that’s always what it’s about, isn’t it? With my father, with Volkov, with all those gorillas who’d lay their bets on whether or not I’d fail. I did fail sometimes, you know.”

“I know you did,” he said quietly. “But I would have liked to have been there to see those failures.”

She frowned. “What?”

“Because I believe that there would have been more to learn from them than from anyone else’s successes.”

She blinked. “I wasn’t expecting you to know that,” she said slowly. “When I first started with the Trials, most of the time I had to teach myself how to do them. It was so hard. They deliberately chose things I knew nothing about. But then I realized that it was like playing a new piece on the piano. I had to just keep on and learn from every mistake until I had it perfect.” She moistened her lips. “How did you know?”

“I could see the progression as you moved from Trial to Trial, and what you brought to them from what you’d learned in the past. I have a talent for that kind of thing.”

She frowned. “I don’t know if I like that.”