“How did her brother, Alex, respond to the information?”

“He flipped. At first he just asked her what kind of brainwashing they did on her while she was over there. Then, when she wouldn’t back down, he said she was talking like a madwoman. She needed psychological counseling. I agreed with him, by the way.

“Alex said, ‘So Krilov was just using you.’ I think that upset her a little, like he wouldn’t have gone for her otherwise, but she did agree. She said she broke with him when she found out Sergey wanted her to get in with some people he knew, not because they could do good for Russia, but because they could make money with her as a figurehead, or even just as a backer. That it was greed, not the power to do good, that motivated him and his group.

“Meanwhile, Alex had been thinking. He told her that if she went public, their family would be humiliated, meaning him, I guess, since she didn’t seem to care. He said that without proof she was putting herself in harm’s way for nothing, that everyone in the world would hear about it and if they weren’t laughing too loud, they might feel threatened by her, thinking she was making a power grab. She would put herself and Alex in danger for a ludicrous pipe dream.

“She said it was a power grab, in a sense. She had dreams of a better Russia, a new regime. They argued. He said that Constantin never claimed to be anything but a page. She said the people who took their papa out of Russia swore in an affidavit-that Krilov showed it to her-that Constantin was, in fact, really the young tsarevitch, son of Nicholas the Second.

“Then she asked, ‘What about what I told you-how when I was young, Papa showed me a little blue egg.’”

Another giggle from the jury box came from someone who found all this silly. Nina, trying to catch with both hands the information flowing out of Gabe fast as mucky rainwater down a gutter spout, couldn’t look around. “An egg, you say,” she repeated, feeling as idiotic as she sounded.

“A jeweled egg. Blue. She described it, saying she remembered it and had found a picture of it on the Web. She called it the tsarevitch egg.” He looked apologetic, recognizing how preposterous it all sounded. “Said Fabergé made it especially, when the tsarevitch was very young.

“Alex said where the hell was this mystical egg, then, and she told him that their papa must have lost it or sold it or something.

“He told her she had a sick attachment to the fantasies of their father, and then begged her not to talk about any of this until they did some tests. He said, ‘We’ll get the bones analyzed. Constantin’s bones. We’ll compare his DNA to the Romanovs, but you have to promise me you’ll dump the crazy scheming if there’s no match.’

“She didn’t want to do it, but eventually agreed. He said he’d make the arrangements.”

“They agreed to dig up Constantin Zhukovsky’s bones?” Nina asked.

“Kind of. Alex said he wouldn’t do it himself, but yeah, in essence.”

“They would get the bones to prove Christina was a member of the Romanov family?”

“She was a stubborn fanatic. Alex hoped the result would shut her up.”

“Objection,” Jaime said.

“That last statement is stricken as speculation,” the judge said. “The jury will disregard it.”

“But here’s the thing I should tell you,” Gabe said.

“Go on, Mr. Wyatt,” Nina said, watching for a reaction from Salas, who gave her only his attention.

“I looked into the whole thing, you know, whether she could be the heir? Well, she wasn’t.”

The audience in the courtroom, already agog, backed off like a low tide. So, the story really was a fantasy. What a relief to return to reality, and how sad that reality always turned out to be so mundane.

“Why do you say that?”

“I looked into the history. The tsarevitch had hemophilia. People born with hemophilia back then never lived into adulthood. Christina really was whacked-out crazy.”

“Move to strike the opinion,” Jaime said, although he clearly agreed with it. The judge ordered it done.

Nina said, “This conference, this attack on Christina, and the conversation with Alex took place when?”

“In April, about a week before she died.”

Friday night, April 11, before it was dark, Gabe had arrived at Christina’s door, a fresh business card in hand, curiosity eating away at him. She answered after he knocked twice. “Uh-huh?” she said. She appeared tired and careworn. The cotton shirt she wore looked slept in. In the space behind her, he could see slick mirrors, views all the way to the ocean, neatness.

“I’m in an awful business,” he said.

“What?” She seemed a little more alert.

He thrust a card at her, then stepped back. “I can see this is a bad time,” he said. In Gabe’s experience, women liked his hesitation. It instantly defused their very natural caution, and insulted them just a little.

“Not at all,” she said defensively. She took the card and read it. “A home-security business? I’ve seen you before, haven’t I?”

“I picked up your card at the Russian conference. I was there talking to a couple of clients and, you know, networking. We install a system called The Bodyguard because it’s so effective. Nobody’s really safe these days. You read the paper.”

She nodded. “Well, it’s not a bad idea. I’ll think about it.”

“Sure.” He let his shoulders fall, and put on his disappointed face. “But this is a one-time offer, a hundred bucks for four hours, top to bottom. Not just some useless analysis of your security needs. No, I’ll install our foolproof system.”

He could see that although she had a cautionary air, she liked his eagerness. A gratifying light appeared in her eyes. “I should probably think.” She started to close the door.

“I don’t blame you for being afraid of me,” he said quickly.

The door cracked wider. “But I’m not.”

“I’m a stranger. Why should you trust me?”

“Good point,” she said, but she was smiling.

Within a few more minutes, he had an appointment.

He showed up the next day with a plan of action for her apartment, which mainly consisted of a few motion detectors and a cheap alarm that was supposed to blow if anyone fiddled with the frontdoor lock. He had fun fiddling with wires, looking experienced. She stayed around while he talked. She listened, growing progressively more paranoid as he fed her stories, some real, some made up, of break-ins, attacks, and other unsavory local activities.

“Best thing,” he said, screwing a white box into the ceiling of a small hallway that wouldn’t do much, but had an official look about it and was supposed to blip in certain unlikely events, “is to defend yourself aggressively, not be passive and sit back and let them take you down.”

“Yeah,” she said. She wore blue jeans and a blue sweater. While he worked she swiped a mop around on the kitchen floor. “That’s my plan.”

He took a second to admire the apartment and to consider that this woman, who lived in this very elegant penthouse apartment, was his half-sister. Again, he couldn’t see much family resemblance, but then, they were only half-siblings. Was it really possible, this story about their father?

He had been reading his Russian history. He knew that most of the last tsar’s family had been found, but that the young tsarevitch’s body had never been recovered. So intriguing. And there had to be millions buried behind that story somewhere, in the jewels they tried to take with them when they escaped, or in money smuggled out before the revolution. How much had the tsarevitch made off with? Had their father managed to hide some away? How much did she have, anyway?

“Women need to be able to protect themselves because men won’t anymore. I believe in bearing arms,” he said.

“Me, too,” she said.

And then the conversation got around to what kind of gun, and what she would carry, given a choice. They groaned about the difficulty perfectly honest people had getting guns for their own protection.