She looked at him for a moment. “Not much. It’s difficult to access information when a person doesn’t want his background known. Your public persona is evidently as inscrutable as your personality. I found out about your time in the service, but nothing about you being an extractor. You now own at least three casinos, perhaps more. But if you do, they’re not in the name of Tanner. I checked on this plane and it once belonged to a Claude Starbarth, a billionaire corporate giant, but it’s now registered in the name of Tanner Industries.” She smiled. “That’s as far as I got today.”

“Pretty good. I’m impressed. You’d probably have done even better if you’d had more sophisticated equipment. That computer looks fairly basic.”

“Anything else would have been too expensive, and Anton wasn’t going to buy it for me.” Her lips tightened. “But I couldn’t do without a computer, so I ‘persuaded’ him to buy the first one years ago. I’ve been homeschooling Lara all her life, which means I’ve been teaching myself, too. I taught myself all kinds of skills to get ready for the time when I’d find us a way to escape.” She reached out and touched the computer. “We’ve gone through a lot of computers in that time. But I had to make sure they all looked the same so Anton wouldn’t realize that Lara would occasionally bring home a new one when they sent her out on one of those damn Trials.”

“She stole them?”

Maria stiffened. “How do you think she’d get them? And you should be impressed. You have no idea how difficult it was for her to figure out a way to get a computer I needed when she was in the middle of concentrating on a Trial.”

“Or how you hated to ask her to do it?” He held up his hand. “I wasn’t criticizing. I’m lost in admiration for both of you.”

“Sarcasm?”

“No way.” He added simply, “Truth.” He got to his feet. “And now I think I’ll go back and watch Lara play for a while. I’ve always liked to see the passion of an artist, as well as hear it. Why don’t you go back to your computer and discover more about me? I’ll let you know if you’re right before we get off the plane in Connecticut.”

“I might do that.” She gazed at him consideringly. “See the passion of an artist you admire? Or is that only an excuse? Never mind, maybe you don’t know yet.” She paused. “But since I did so well, I think I deserve you to answer one question for me.”

“Ask it.”