“It does if I was their first target and they meant to kill me, but couldn’t get at me directly: it was a contingency plan, to set up a blood feud between us.” Briefly, she told him about the open staircase, and her instructions to lock and bolt all the doors on the inside. “I don’t feel safe there, I really don’t.”

“Hmm.” He took a mouthful of wine. “I don’t know.” He looked thoughtful rather than shocked. “I can eliminate some suspects, but not everybody.” He glanced up at her, worry writ large across his face. “First, it’s not official. It’s family, not Clan business. If it was the Clan, they’d have sent soldiers. You’ve seen what we’ve got over here.” She nodded. “Our enforcement teams—you don’t bother resisting. They’re better armed, better trained, and better paid than the FBI’s own specialist counterterrorism units.”

“Well, I guessed that much,” she said.

“Yes. Anyway, for seconds it’s too damned blatant—and that’s worrying. Whoever did it is out of control. Oliver Hjorth might dislike you and feel threatened, but he wouldn’t try to kill you in his own house. Not offering you a guard of honor is another matter, but to be implicated—no.” He shook his head. “As for Olga, that’s very disturbing. It sounds as if someone set her up to kill you or cause a scandal that would isolate you—one or the other. And you are probably right about being the intruder’s first target. That means it’s an insider—and that’s the frightening part. Someone who knows that you don’t know the families well, that you can be cut apart from the pack and isolated, that you are unguarded. Someone like that, who is acting like they’re out of control. A rogue, in other words.”

“Well, no shit, Sherlock.” She drained her glass and refilled it. “Y’know something? One of these days we may eventually make an investigative journalist out of you.”

“In your dreams—I’m a development economist.” He frowned at the floor in front of her feet, as if it concealed an answer. “Let’s start from where we are. You’ve told Olga about us. That means if we’re lucky she doesn’t tell Angbard. If she does, if Olga tells him about us, he could—do you have any idea what he could do?”