Page 82 of Cruel Demands

I turn the page.

Her grades from the United States are similarly strong. Scholarships. Academic awards. Letters from professors describing her as independent, diligent, and occasionally resistant to authority. That, I could have told them without an investigation.

Her financial records are less impressive. No significant savings. No property. No trust. No family wealth concealed behind modest clothing and a badly maintained apartment. Her tuition is funded through scholarships, a federal loan, and a small private loan co-signed by her mother. She sends money home irregularly, usually after receiving her fellowship stipend. The amounts are not large, but they are too large for someone in her position.

Two hundred dollars three weeks ago.

Her own account balance dropped below the equivalent of fifty dollars twice.

My jaw tightens. “She’s sending money home.”

Arkady lifts one shoulder. “Yes.”

“When she barely has enough herself.”

“Yes.”

I stare at the number again.

Three weeks. Long enough that Taylor has stopped moving through my office like a temporary visitor. Long enough that she knows the routines, the staff, the elevators that close too quickly and the copier that jams if someone looks at it incorrectly. Long enough that she has begun to belong there.

Long enough that I should have become accustomed to her.

I have not.

The report was supposed to answer a simple question: Is Taylor a threat?

Not necessarily a deliberate one. Threats are not always men carrying weapons. Sometimes they are women with foreign passports and access to private schedules. Sometimes they are careless roommates, desperate relatives, compromised accounts, jealous lovers, old debts.

People can be used.

The more someone loves, the easier they are to use.

I know this better than most.

The next section is social. Known friends. Professors. Coworkers from temporary university jobs. Photographs taken from publicly available accounts. Taylor at a student café. Taylor standing in Red Square with Anya. Taylor wearing a winter hat so large it nearly covers her eyes.

There is one photograph of her with a man.

I stop.

He is young, perhaps twenty-two, with dark blond hair and glasses, sitting beside Taylor outside some university building. She’s holding a coffee in both hands while he leans toward her to show her something on his phone.

“Who is this?”

Arkady glances back. “Maksim Voronin. Graduate student. Russian literature. They have two classes in the same building and appear to share friends.”

“Are they involved?”

“No.”

“How do you know?”

“He has a boyfriend.”

I look at Arkady. He looks serenely forward again.

I turn the page.