“Enthusiastic is one word for dragging someone into a car with a knife at their throat.”
“An unfortunate necessity.” He strolled along the displays, hands clasped behind his back. “I’ve been trying to arrange a civilized conversation for over a week. Your protection detail made approaching you difficult.”
“Civilized conversation? You had your attack dog stalk me at my work, try to steal the egg from my purse, and threaten to kill me.”
Completely ignoring my words, he moved to one of the display cases.
Richter nudged me in that direction. When I channeled Garrett and glowered at him, he whispered, “Should I get the knife out again?”
Fine.
I crossed the room to stand next to Werner.
Inside the case was a collection of formal portraits in ornate frames, a family gathered on a set of wide stone steps and a woman in an elaborate high-necked gown. “My great-grandmother, Olga Andreyevna. She was born in Saint Petersburg in 1889 and became a lady-in-waiting to the Tsarina after her first husband died, leaving her with a daughter. Later, she married Nikolai Petrovich Romanin, who was a cousin of the Tsar, and he adopted my grandmother.”
I looked at the photographs. They could have been anyone.
He opened the case and pulled out a smaller frame tucked behind the larger ones, of a girl with her hair tied in ribbons. She might have been eight or nine, sitting on the same set of stone steps.
“This was my grandmother.” His accent eased a fraction, as though whatever performance he was giving had slipped. “She was the one who told me. All of it. The palace, the carriages, the names of the horses in the royal stables. She remembered them the way other children recalled bedtime stories.”
He repositioned the small frame inside the case.
“When I was a boy, she would sit me on the floor beside her chair and—” He caught himself. His accent firmed up again; its polished angles returned. “Her memory was extraordinary.”
Didi had sat me on a kitchen stool with a jar of homemade jam and a bowl full of hard cream, teaching me to prepare scones properly. She hadn’t needed me to know the names of anyone’s horses. She’d needed me to know that jam went on first and clotted cream went on top, because that was the right way, and people who did it backward simply didn’t know any better and let their cream melt.
Kessler’s grandmother had given him a story about who he was.
Mine had given me herself.
“The Bolsheviks took everything from my family. Our property, our heritage, our place in history.” He closed the case with the portraits and moved to the next one. “I’ve spent forty years reassembling what was stolen. Every piece in this room is part of my family’s legacy, returned to where it belongs.”
The hunger in his voice was almost physical. This wasn’t a hobby or even an obsession—it was his identity. Every artifact in these cases was designed to act as proof that Werner Kessler was who he claimed to be. Without them, he was just a wealthy man with a story about a grandmother nobody could verify.
But did that mean anything? If I had my phone and searched the Internet for these people, did they really exist? Was there any real tie to the Romanov family? Morganna had done her research and said there wasn’t; if she was as talented as the men seemed to think she was, didn’t that prove he was making it all up?
“The egg is a Russian Imperial treasure,” he said, turning back toward the centerpiece case. “It belongs with the rest of my Imperial collection.”
“It belongs to Henri Dubois’s family,” I said. “His grandfather gave it to my grandmother to hold onto. And I mean to return it.”
“Yes, I am familiar with Mr. Dubois. And I know his great-grandfather stole many things from the Kremlin Armory during the Revolution.” His voice hardened. “Your grandmother, however noble her intentions, was safeguarding stolen property for a thief’s family.”
“Thief? You’re the one whose man stole the egg. And stole me, on top of it all!”
“I want to make this simple.” He gestured toward the writing desk where Caulfield stood waiting. “I want you to sell the egg to me. In return, I’ll wire forty million US dollars into any account you name.”
Forty million dollars?
I coughed into my hand. Forty million?
Forty million would pay for The Velvet Bean a thousand times over. It would mean never having to worry about payroll, prices, or the table Mr. Kendrick occupied for hours every morning. Never lying awake doing math on the ceiling at two in the morning. It would mean my dad could stop grading papers, he and my mom could travel like they’d always wanted… it would mean my children would have everything they could ever hope for.
It’s not yours to sell, Grace. Remember?
But it offered me so many options. So many good things for the people I loved.
Dr. Caulfield lifted a pen and held it out for me.
